Feed"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that expands upon an article by the author in the New Yorker published in 1996. It seeks to explore how ideas, products, messages and behaviours "tip over" and suddenly spread through or recede from society, just like pathological epidemics through a population. These are termed "social epidemics" by the author. Understanding such phenomena can help us effect a desired change in society (e.g. market a product or spread a message).
News Archive for 2010
[2010-09-01] "The Tipping Point"
[2010-08-30] Web-Site Source-Code Now Available
I am sharing the source-code for this web-site as a Mercurial repository hosted on BitBucket. The repository can be found at bitbucket.org/rmathew/website. The source-code uses the m4 macro processor for generating the content. It also uses make and a few helper scripts for managing dependencies. It heavily depends on the availability of a UNIX-like environment, as provided by Linux for example.
[2010-08-06] "Train to Pakistan"
"Train to Pakistan" is a short and deeply moving novel by Khushwant Singh. It shows the effect of the partition of India, as the British left the country, on the simple folks of Mano Majra, a small Indian village on the banks of the river Sutlej near the border of India and Pakistan. The Sikhs and Muslims of the village, living happily together for centuries without any animosity towards each other, get caught up in forces beyond their control with the Muslims forced to flee to Pakistan and the Sikhs getting ready to kill unknown strangers who just happen to be Muslims.
[2010-07-30] "Above Average"
"Above Average" by Amitabha Bagchi is a novel about a smart boy with a middle-class background and his life before, during and after his stay at IIT Delhi. It is the story of friendships forged and lost, love blossoming and withering. It is a coming-of-age novel that has also been termed a "campus book" because of the many recent Indian novels based on life at the IITs and the IIMs. However it is certainly one of the better-written novels of the lot.
[2010-07-12] "Head First Statistics"
I have come to believe that statistics is one of those important subjects that most of us know woefully little about even as we increasingly rely on the results of various studies to drive our lifestyle choices or on data visualisation to take decisions at our workplace. That said, I have been procrastinating on my resolution to study this subject in greater depth than what was afforded by an introductory course I took in college ages ago. The first step towards that goal has now been precipitated due to the nature of my current work. Unfortunately for me, most of the books on this subject looked too dull or intimidating to serve as a useful review of the basic concepts. "Head First Statistics" by Dawn Griffiths presented a welcome contrast with its pages full of informal text and fun pictures, though I was sceptical at first of its utility. I am happy to report that my scepticism was entirely misplaced.
[2010-04-15] "Distributed Systems"
"Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design" by George Coulouris, Jean Dollimore and Tim Kindberg is an introductory text-book on distributed computing. It provides a broad overview of the basic principles as well as the major issues in building such systems. Since I happened to have the second edition around, I decided to read that instead of going for the currently-available fourth edition (a fifth edition is in the works), as the two editions didn't seem to differ significantly. This turned out to be not that bad a decision.
[2010-03-22] "Introduction to Algorithms"
I put off reading Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest and Clifford Stein (popularly known as "CLRS") for quite some time because I was somewhat intimidated by its bulk. The recent release of the third edition of this tome finally made me get a copy and give it a dekko. This compendium of a number of algorithms and data structures for computer programming is bulkier than its predecessors, but it does not disappoint. It should serve as a good reference for this field, though not quite as an introductory text for beginners. A serious professional will have a copy handy at all times. Somewhat surprisingly, it does manage to leave out some commonly-encountered data structures and algorithms, so it is not as comprehensive and up-to-date as I would have liked.
[2010-03-03] "Programming Pearls"
Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley is a book based on a collection of articles written by the author for the eponymous column in Communications of the ACM. True to its name, the book presents several pearls of programming wisdom based on the hard-won experience of a brilliant computer programmer who was also lucky enough to be associated with some of the brightest minds in computer programming (the group at Bell Labs). The icing on the cake is the clarity and brevity of the book. I have read the book at least three times over the years and I continue to learn new things from it - no wonder this book is considered a classic in computer programming.
[2010-02-24] "Code Complete"
Books filled with good practical advice about constructing software are rare. Code Complete by Steve McConnell is a well-written rarity in this field and has a well-deserved reputation as a classic. It is one of those books that every computer programmer ought to have read. I had read the first edition, published in 1993, as a budding programmer and the book left a lasting impression on me. With the benefit of several years of experience, I find myself agreeing almost entirely with the updated second edition, published in 2004. When someone asks me "How do I write good code?", I point them to this book without hesitation.
[2010-01-23] "The Practice of Programming"
In their book The Practice of Programming, Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike aim to advise computer programmers on things like testing, debugging, style, performance, design, portability, etc. that they are not usually taught in computer science classes or programming courses. This is what they call the "practice" of programming. Many pick these up over the course of their careers with some trial and error; many simply don't. This is the kind of book that has lessons for both rookie and seasoned programmers and that deserves multiple readings over the course of one's career.
[2010-01-10] "Economics: Private and Public Choice"
If you are looking for a comprehensive and accessible introduction to economics, "Economics: Private and Public Choice" by James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, Russell S. Sobel and David Macpherson is the book for you. It covers both microeconomics and macroeconomics in addition to the core principles of economics. Though it is a textbook meant for an undergraduate course in economics, it is also suitable as a gentle introduction to the dismal science for the lay person. I read the tenth edition of this book that was published in 2003.
