The Aptly Named, Sam’s Blog

I like reading, but unfortunately, I don't get much time to read for pleasure these days. Adding to that sorry state of affairs is the fact that I'm a slow reader. When I do read nowadays, it is more of non-fiction. On those rare occasions that I do read fiction, I love a good short story.

Apart from being concise, short stories stay focused and leave a lot to the imagination. They appeal to the minimalist in me. They build around a key idea or theme and my favorite kind have a twist or climax at the very end. An extreme and wonderful example is Ernest Hemmingway's six word story: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never used".

Here are some short stories that I came across on the internet in recent times. I think they are marvelous and recommend them to you, my imaginary readers. One for each of you three

• The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
• Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

If you have a short story recommendation, leave a comment!

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“The Search” by John Battelle is about the impact that search technology is having and will have on our culture. “Search” is defined quite broadly and includes the coming realm of ubiquitous computing. Google is a major focus of the book, and its influence and growth surely warrant that focus.

What motivated me to read this book was the concept of the “Database of Intentions”. It refers to the ability of an ubiquitous search technology to extract the intention of one or more of its users by analyzing their interactions with a plethora of devices. That is absolutely fascinating and will be quite something when it is realized. Needless to say, it will be the Oracle of the information age. It is an update on the idea of the Memex described by Vannevar Bush in “As We May Think”, which is cited in the book. A meta-Memex.

A good portion of the book, however, is devoted to the history of search technology and industry. That is quite interesting in and of itself as I like to read about such things. There are several anecdotes about the people and companies that played a part in these nascent times. I found it to be too detailed in some places, but the book is written such that one could easily skip those parts if one finds them too dull. I didn’t.

The epilogue highlights that we remember people from history because they became immortal through records. In the future, everyone will be immortal because everything will be recorded. This blog is being recorded. All of it will add to the noise and one will have to shout or be referenced a lot to be seen clearly. Will you shout? What will you say? I think you should write a book while they are still in vogue

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I recently read “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins. The book is about the author’s efforts to understand the human brain’s mechanism for intelligence and to apply it to machines. He presents a model of intelligence called the memory-prediction framework.

This was perhaps the first time I had read a somewhat detailed analysis of the possible mechanism that drives human intelligence. Some concepts that I found especially interesting were that of invariant and hierarchical memory. Also, the idea that the brain predicts all actions before they are executed was fascinating. If the subject interests you, I highly recommend it. It is quite readable.

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