stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

On Cars

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:38:00 GMT

ISBN: 9781856131001
LibraryThing

Jeremy Clarkson isn't one of those people you can read hundreds of pages of at once. That's probably why he writes articles instead of books. This book is a collection of these articles, and it is an interesting and entertaining read. However, I couldn't read it front to back. Instead I read it over a series of take offs and landings during a trip, and that worked well. Apart from Jeremy's sense of humour, and the fact that he's mostly right, the other interesting aspect of this book is that you get to see his writing style develop over time. It helps explain how we ended up with Top Gear.

Tags for this post: book() Jeremy_Clarkson()

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Books read in October 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:25:00 GMT

Tags for this post: book() read()

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Python effective TLD library update

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:45:00 GMT

The effective TLD library is now being used for a couple of projects of mine, but I've had some troubles with it being almost unusable slow. I ended up waking up this morning with the revelation that the problem is that I use regexps to match domain names, but the failure of a match occurs at the end of a string. That means that the FSA has to scan the entire string before it gets to decide that it isn't a match. That's expensive.

I ran some tests on tweaks to try and fix this. Without any changes, scanning 1,000 semi-random domain names took 6.941666 seconds. I then tweaked the implementation to reverse the strings it was scanning, and that halved the run time of the test to 3.212203 seconds. That's a big improvement, but still way too slow. The next thing I tried was then adding buckets of rules on top of those reverse matches.... In other words, the code now assumes that anything after the last dot is some for of TLD approximation, and only executes rules which also have that string after the last dot. This was a massive improvement, with 1,000 domains taking only 0.026120 seconds.

I've updated the code at http://www.stillhq.com/python/etld/etld.py.

Tags for this post: python() etld()

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INVOL RER DUE TO OVERSOLD LX40

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:10:00 GMT

I'm not sure where to start this story. I could tell you how I've been flying around the world on a business trip, or I could tell you what I think about Swiss Air business class. Instead I'm left thinking I should mention carbon. You see, I was sitting in first class on a Swiss Air flight to New York City yesterday, and I was surrounded by tree. Big centimeter thick panels of it are all over the place. When other airlines are doing things like using lighter foam for seat cushions or asking passengers to go potty before boarding to reduce the weight of their aircraft (and therefore carbon emissions), Swiss has chosen to find a forest and cut it down to put in their brand new plane. This forest will be flying around for a couple of decades I would think.

Sure, its only in first class (business class gets veneer), and I'm a bastard for being in first class at all. There's a story to that too though. I booked an ultra cheap around the world business ticket through Swiss Air. It was in fact cheaper than the same flights in economy with Qantas. This is despite the fact that two of the business class segments are in fact on Qantas. That's how I ended up in first class -- I was going between London Heathrow and San Francisco, but Swiss had oversold the Zurich to LA flight. So, I'm bumped to first class via NYC, which added about six hours to my total travel time yesterday.

Being bumped wasn't all bad. I've never been in first class before, and it was very nice. I might have chocolate poisoning of some form. I also got to "experience" American Airlines business class from New York to LA, in a plane which is possibly older than me. In fact, its entirely possible this plane predates flight. The seat pitch was nice, except that my chair kept involuntarily reclining. I didn't mind too much, as I hadn't slept in about 24 hours at that point, so I nodded off. Before I nodded off, I was also forced to decide that it was in fact the chick from Gilmore Girls (the one who plays Lorelai) two rows in front of me. She dropped her bag at one point in the airport, and I am excited to report that she watched a DVD during the flight. Citizen journalism at its finest.

I wouldn't normally mention the actress in the front of the plane, especially after TechCrunch taught me that no one gives a crap about what's happening to me (or in fact you) in real time. However, this being a stream of consciousness blog post written at 8am in LA airport while killing time for yet another flight, I think I am justified. Oh, and I also don't care if you give a crap.

I have more to complain about. Take for example the Swiss Air business class flight that I've just taken from Narita near Tokyo to Heathrow, via Zurich. Its clear why the ticket was cheap. Swiss business class simply isn't up to the standard of Qantas'. The seats don't lie flat (when you try to sleep you slide down to the end of the footrest in a little mound), the on demand entertainment system works, but appears to have some sort of image resizing error (everything is pixelated), and the cabin service is terribly slow. Lunch has just taken about two hours to serve. It took two hours in first class as well, but that's because they were trying to shove five courses into me.

The cabin fit out on that business class flight was the same standard as Qantas had before they went to their new lie flat configuration. To put that in perspective, that conversion was done at least ten years ago. I think the standard of the equipment being used might also explain why only half of the seats are taken in business class, where Qantas would be running at capacity. This was clearly one of the older Swiss aircraft, but even the brand new one with the forest in it had a business class which wasn't up to the same standard as Qantas.

I can't complain too much though -- it still beats the pants of Qantas economy, and the flight did give me a chance to discover what I believe might be the most boring television program ever made. Its called "Swiss Railway Journeys", and I heartily don't recommend it. Unless you deeply care about the age of each wheel on the train.

One last thing. While the Swiss Air staff were all much older than I am used to on other airlines, I think that's because of the vagaries of the youth of today. Each of these staff could speak four languages fluently, and would begin the conversation when you first boarded with a little protocol handshake where they said hello in all four languages and waited to see which one you replied in. Once they had you figured out, they would use the correct language from then on. Modern youth are too busy twittering to learn one language, let alone every language ever used. Oh, and if you know four words of German, don't use them at the start of a Swiss flight. You'll be stuck for the rest of the journey conveying your desires through interpretive dance.

Tags for this post: travel()

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Triplanetary

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:22:00 GMT

ISBN: 0425053830
LibraryThing

This is the first book in the EE Doc Smith Lensman series, a series which sweeps from pre-modern Atlantis all the way well into the future. Its pretty old, so some of the science is dangerously dated, but that's not its biggest flaw. This book suffers from uncontrolled hyperbole, which I guess isn't that unexpected for a space opera. I guess it was also more common at the time, before science fiction started taking itself seriously. The plot is also a little hard to believe, with both sides at one point murdering entire cities. They then of course forgive each other because "its logical".

However, I have an emotional attachment to this book, because it is the one which interested me in reading as a young child. Despite its flaws in both science and plot, it is still an ok book. I enjoyed reading it, and it was entertaining.

Tags for this post: book() EE_Doc_Smith()

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Python effective TLD library

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:42:00 GMT

I had a need recently for a library which would take a host name and return the domain-specific portion of the name, and the effective TLD being used. "Effective TLD" is a term coined by the Mozilla project for something which acts like a TLD. For example, .com is a TLD and has domains allocated under it. However, .au is a TLD with no domains under it. The effective TLDs for the .au domain are things like .com.au and .edu.au. Whilst there are libraries for other languages, I couldn't find anything for python.

I therefore wrote one. Its very simple, and not optimal. For example, I could do most of the processing with a single regexp if python supported more than 100 match groups in a regexp, but it doesn't. I'm sure I'll end up revisiting this code sometime in the future. Additionally, the code ended up being much easier to write than I expected, mainly because the Mozilla project has gone to the trouble of building a list of rules to determine the effective TLD of a host name. This is awesome, because it saved me heaps and heaps of work.

The code is at http://www.stillhq.com/python/etld/etld.py if you're interested.

Tags for this post: python() etld()

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Nerilka's Story

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:05:00 GMT

ISBN: 0345339495
Del Rey (1987), Mass Market Paperback, 208 pages
LibraryThing

This book takes place over almost exactly the same period as Moreta. However, its not a rehash of those events, as it is written from a different person's perspective. There are enough points where the two story lines meet for the books to make sense as a pair, and I'd recommend reading them back to back. This book is an incredibly fast read (I knocked it over in a few hours on a flight), and its a bit more positive than Moreta, which has a pretty sad ending. However, this book isn't the happiest book ever written either. I've seen commentary that says this book is mostly about how unattractive Nerilka is physically. I dispute that though -- the book is about how the human spirit is more important than breeding or good looks, and how Nerilka's efforts to do the right thing in a time of crisis have a lasting impact. I enjoyed this book.

Tags for this post: book() Anne_McCaffrey()

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Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:01:00 GMT

ISBN: 034529873X
Del Rey (1984), Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
LibraryThing

Moreta is a book about a pandemic, and its hard to make those fun... If you've bothered to find out anything about the book in advance (or read the preceding Pern books, where it is referred to), you know that its not going to be a fun ride. On the other hand, the book is an interesting read, and its educational to find out how much knowledge has been lost in the Pern universe between Moreta and Lessa. For example, its clear in Moreta that everyone knows they moved from the Southern continent, whereas that is much less clear in the books set in Lessa's time. Its hard to say that a book about thousands of people dying is enjoyable. However, the story is a gripping one, and I'm glad I read it.

Tags for this post: book() Anne_McCaffrey()

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Starship Troopers

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:59:00 GMT

ISBN: 0441783589
Ace (1987), Edition: Reissue, Paperback, 272 pages
LibraryThing

I saw the movie a few years ago, and so I read this book on a whim. Its very different to the movie. The book is interesting, although it does have a tendency to slide into rants about the moral responsibilities which come with having an electoral franchise. The book is also very pro military in its stance, although that's fair enough (an author without an opinion would be a boring author).

Overall, I thought this book was an enjoyable read.

Tags for this post: book() Robert_A_Heinlein()

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Better Than Life

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:12:00 GMT

ISBN: 0451452313
Roc (1993), Paperback, 304 pages
LibraryThing

This is the second novelized book from the guys who wrote Red Dwarf. The first book of course shares its name with the name of the TV series. This book deviates from the plot line used in the TV series, and at some points feels more like a summary of the series than a novelization. Then again there are also times where they explore things that would be way to expensive to do in a TV show for the BBC, so that's fun.

Tags for this post: book() Grant_Naylor()

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Red Dwarf

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:45:00 GMT

ISBN: 0451452011
Roc (1992), Paperback, 304 pages
LibraryThing

This book was exciting because its the first book I have read on the spur of the moment after perusing my book shelves -- for the first time in many years I have my entire collection out of boxes on on shelves, which makes it much easier to just grab something to read. This book is a classic, and I love the TV series (which I discovered before the books), and this book. The book is different from the TV series, and feels more like a summary of the series than anything else, but its an engaging read.

Tags for this post: book() Grant_Naylor()

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The King's Buccaneer

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:47:00 GMT

ISBN: 0553563734
Spectra (1994), Paperback, 560 pages
LibraryThing

I really liked this book, as I do most of Feist's work, although he does have a talent for writing books which are long. This book continues the story line from the Magician (Apprentice and Master), Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon. I like that, and have felt for a while that Prince of the Blood was a bit of a tangent from the main thrust of the series -- although characters which are used in later stories are introduced through that book.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

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Books read in September 2009

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:16:00 GMT

Tags for this post: book() read()

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Deadly Exposure

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:11:00 GMT

ISBN: 0451408721
Signet (2000), Paperback, 416 pages
LibraryThing

This book isn't very good. I read it because my six year old son really liked the front cover art, and wanted me to read it. He wanted me to read it so much in fact that he bought two copies to give me.

The book starts off with something which feels like its lifted straight out of the Andromeda Strain, you know, government agency / possible alien infection / we need a crack team of scientists! The book then moves on to introduce a selection of surprisingly one sided characters -- the fat self obsessed scientist, the thin young lady obsessed with getting it on, et cetera. The story jumps around, with sometimes implausible outcomes... For example, people are mid argument, and just magically stop when something happens nearby. Do you know people who stop arguing because the lights flicker?

The book does pick up a little at the end, and I assume all the weird personification we're subjected to is an attempt to convey that the characters are losing their grip on sanity. Overall, I thought this book was quite rough, which is surprising from an author who apparently has had four other books published.

I have revenge on my six year old planned -- I am going to make him read this book when he is older.

Tags for this post: book() Leonard_Goldberg()

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Incorrect channel numbers in MythTV

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:55:00 GMT

We've had a HDHomeRun for a while now, and I'm very happy with it. One wart however was that Catherine was complaining that tuning for Go! didn't work (an extra Win TV channel we get in this area). It was odd -- it appeared in the channel guide, but recordings would end up recording ABC1 instead, and we couldn't tune to the channel in the live TV interface either.

I fired up the channel editor in mythtv-setup, and the problem was actually pretty easy to solve... The channel scan had assigned channel number 2 to Go!, which is the same channel number as ABC1. It had also gotten the channel number for Win TV wrong, but we hadn't noticed that because that wasn't overlapping with another channel. The channel numbers seem arbitrary, given the database is also storing frequency and demultiplexing information, so the fix was as simple as just giving the various WIN channels the correct numbers (or I suspect any number that was unique) in mythtv-setup.

Tags for this post: mythtv() hdhomerun()

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Bolo Brigade

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:02:00 GMT

ISBN: 067187781x
LibraryThing

There seems to be a formula for bolo books -- an obsolete bolo or two, and alien invader, a solitary bolo commander, and preferably a management chain which either doesn't trust bolos, the officer, or preferably both. Its even better if the chain of command is also grossly incompetent. This book has all of those, and I am left feeling that it didn't really add much to the overall bolo universe. Other books have explored some new aspect of the bolo psyche, or expanded on the history of the concordiat universe in some way, whereas this book didn't feel like it did any of that.

However, this was an entertaining book, and is reasonably well written. It just wasn't as ambitious as I'd hoped it would be.

Tags for this post: book() Keith_Laumer()

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The Stars Must Wait

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:19:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671698591
Baen (1990), Paperback, 283 pages
LibraryThing

This book is a novelization of "Night of the Trolls", which I have already read as part of The Compleat Bolo and Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. I'm pretty fond of the short story, and this book version didn't start out strongly -- there is a prelude to explain some background, and then the book launches into what feels like the exact text of the short story. You can tell it hasn't been edited much, because there are minor continuity errors between this first chapter and the prelude. There are other continuity errors as well -- the blurb on the back says that the main character goes into stasis in 2002, but his wife dies in 1992 which is meant to be after the main character goes into stasis, and the map that he uses once out of stasis is copyright 2011 (even though the main character claims to have bought it just before going into stasis). Note that these dates are different to those used in the short story. These errors are distracting although the underlying story is still a good one.

However, the good bits of the story are all contained in the short story. This feels like a poorly edited and heavily padded version of that short story, and I think we would have been better off without it. There is in fact a whole heap of seemingly pointless dialogue in the center of the book, where I think what we're meant to be learning is that post-apocalyptic life isn't much fun. I think we could have worked that out, and perhaps saved 50 or so pages. Worst of all, Laumer has changed the ending to a much less satisfying one.

I recommend just sticking with the short story.

Tags for this post: book() Keith_Laumer()

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Days of Blood and Fire

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:18:00 GMT

ISBN: 0553290126
Spectra (1994), Paperback, 528 pages
LibraryThing

This is book seven of the extended Deverry series (preceeded by Daggerspell, Darkspell, Dawnspell, The Dragon Revenant, A Time of Exile, and A Time of Omens). The blurb on the back cover of this book implies that it should be safe for a new reader to enter the series here, and I can understand why publishers would want to do such a thing for such a long series. By contrast, Asimov's Extended Foundation Series has many entry points, with most stories being free standing. I think Kerr did a reasonable job of introducing the characters without being overly annoying about it. I've seen reviews from others that say that there is a lot of annoying ground to recover, such as the Etheric travel sequences. I disagree however -- these are just as long winded as in other books in the series, and we're talking about a couple of paragraphs, not hundreds of pages.

The only part of this book which didn't sit well with me was Rori picking up a girlfriend with basically now warning. Perhaps I'm dense, but I didn't see it coming at all, and thought it was rather abrupt. I'm also not sure it did much to further the overall story. On the other had, Jadho is an interesting character, and I'd like to see him explored more.

This book ends mid plot line, so I guess they're expecting me to read the next book soon. That would have been a lot more annoying if I was reading this book fresh off the presses and had to wait for Kerr to write the next one before I could read it.

Tags for this post: book() Katharine_Kerr()

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Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:19:00 GMT

Boing Boing put me onto this online short story. Its really very good, and it distracted me from the book I am meant to be reading by not only being clever, but also by using jargon in a manner that not only furthered the story, but (and here's the rare bit) didn't make me immediately cringe. The story is also chock full of quotable quotes, of which I will supply you with one:

I can't stop squirming. If fidgets were Wikipedia edits, I would have completely revamped the entry on guilt by now, and translated it into six new languages.

An excellent short story of our modern times.

Tags for this post: book() Robin_Sloan()

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Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Maverick

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:16:00 GMT

ISBN: 0441731317
Ace (1990), Paperback
LibraryThing

Bruce did an ok job with this book, although I think overall he was suffering from not having a lot to work with. The book is quite readable, which isn't true of some of the others, and has some nice details such as an attempt to sound technically feasible by the liberal sprinkling of unix jargon through the book. I'm not sure if the unix jargon is successful however. Its interesting that this is also the first of these books to not have an introduction from Asimov himself.

Tags for this post: book() Bruce_Bethke()

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