Kindle vs iPad vs "real" books

My Kindle arrived yesterday. It's good. Unlike most people who have commented on it, I bought it after getting an iPad. I was so impressed by how easy it was to read with an electronic device that I decided to buy something dedicated to it. It works exactly as expected.

Good things about ePaper devices (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) compared with a tablet:

• Smaller and lighter
• Battery lasts longer
• Can read outdoors
• Better quality screen

Goods things about the iPad, for reading:

• Big screen, colour and zoom (i.e., I wouldn't use an ePaper device for PDFs)
  
• Self lit (good for reading at night without a light)

One stupid thing that both types of devices don't really understand yet is that they're not paper books. e.g., the software is happy to end a page half-way through a sentence. For what purpose? To force me to keep reading? What it should do is end on the last complete sentence that fits on the page. A very minor complaint, however.

It's a new age for books. What will happen:

• Individual prices will plummet (they're already zero for books out of copyright)
• You can have any number of books and they take up the same space as one. Actually, the idea of book having/ownership is now completely absurd.
  
• Nothing will ever go out of print
• Quality will replace availability (many, many times I have wanted a book and bought something that wasn't as good because I couldn't find the one I wanted)
• People will fetishise "physical" books like they do LPs/CDs, DVDs and everything else that becomes immaterial. What they don't understand is that it's not the form that's important, it's particular instances. i.e., The Secret is a shit book no matter how it's read.

Is ePaper the coming communist revolution? Unfortunately, no. It's just nice to be able to stop collecting another type of thing.

How To Act Like An Aldryami

I've been searching for a new role-playing game ever since D&D 4th edition came out. I never really loved 3rd edition all that much. I compared 3rd edition to 2nd edition and it was a good improvement. However, nowadays I've decided that D&D has to go. It's got stupidly complex rules, was designed for power-gaming, and is full of contradictions (resulting in arguments). It's a fun killer.

Traveller appears to be the sci-fi game out there. However, I've always liked my role-playing games to be fantasy based. I'm currently considering RuneQuest. Reading through one of the books, I came across the section below, describing how to play an elf. I really love it. I can't remember reading anything similar in a role-playing book. It's a great example of how and why role-playing games don't need to be anything like board-games or computer games.

How To Act Like An Aldryami:

• Unfocus your eyes; look off into the distance, past the person you are talking to.
• Talk so quietly others must strain to listen.
• Bring a few dried leaves to the game session in a plastic bag; occasionally take them out and rustle them.
• Speak in plant metaphors.
  
• Tremble with quiet fury when the woods are threatened.
  
• Have your character detour to forests. Once there, it lingers, listening to the song of Seyotel. Require sustained prompting from other Adventurers before you move or pay attention to pressing matters at hand.

Traveller character

Neil Calderon (UPP 589AA2)

Str 5
Dex 8
End 9
Int 10
Edu 10
Soc 2

Age: 34

Skills

Astrogation 0
Athletics (Endurance) 0
Carouse 0
Comms 0
Compuers 0
Diplomat 1
Engineer 0
Investigate 0
Medic 0
Navigation 0
Pilot 1
Science (Phsyical) 0
Streetwise 1
Trade 0
Recon 2
Vacc Suit 1

Credits: 87,500

Homeworld: High population and Industrialised

Terms served

• Scholar (Field Researcher) (yrs 18-22)
• Scout (Survey) (yrs 22-26)
• Scout (Exploration) x2 (yrs 26-34)

Career events

Neil Calderon started life on a highly populated and industrialise world. His family was poor and marginalised. Much of his youth was spent on the streets, talking and carousing. Ambition, however, was to grasp him in his later teenage years as his studies demonstrated a high aptitude for scholarly research.

At 18, Calderon enrolled as a researcher and undertook offworld research in lesser known systems. Unfortunately, two years into his contract, one of Calderon's expeditions went dreadfully wrong. He spent 9 months stranded on an unknown and desolate planet, struggling for survival. Eventually, a scout ship that was surveying the area, picked up Calderon and the remaining survivors. On his return, Calderon learnt that his position had been discontinued and he was forced to look for another career.

At 22, Calderon enrolled in the Scouts. Initially he worked in surveying, applying skills from his previous career to his new position. Eventually, however, the experiences of the isolation and necessity for resourcefulness, acquired when marooned a few years earlier, became an obsession. By the time he was 26, Calderon shifted from surveying work to exploration.

Through the course of Calderon's second term as a scout, he met Salwa, a merchant broker. They met by chance on a sparsely inhabited starport. Within a short period of time they had developed a close relationship, organising rendezvous whenever possible.

During Calderon's last term as an explorer, he was involved in a rescue mission of a transport ship. Hastily applying his inexperienced medical skills, he set to work aiding whoever he could. The rescue mission resulted in a disaster. Six crewmen died and two suffered lifelong injuries. One of the remaining crew swore an oath of revenge upon Calderon after seeing the crew die due to incompetence.

Calderon left the Scout service with the rank of Senior Scout after many years of dedicated service. For services rendered, the Scouts have loaded Calderon a Scout vessel to further contribute to exploration and discovery.

Learning a new (programming) language

I'm attempting to learn a new programming language. The main issue here is that F# isn't just a new language, it's a new type of language. There are three main (i.e. popular) paradigms of programming languages: imperative (the one you learn at school), object-orientated (the one most programmers use), and functional (the one I'm trying to learn). Object-orientated is really just an extension of imperative programming, so for me, learning F# is about learning how to re-think how to do things.

I thought I'd try to do the Euler problems like Andrew is doing at a misdirected effort.

My solution for problem 1 in F#:

let multiple x = if x % 3 = 0 || x % 5 = 0 then x else 0

let sequenceOfNumbers n = [1 .. n]

let euler1 numbers =
numbers
|> Seq.map multiple
|> Seq.sum

printf "Result = %i" (euler1 (sequenceOfNumbers 999))

The way I'd do it in C#, however, is:

static int Euler1(int maxValue)
{
 var sum = 0;
 for (var i = 1; i <= maxValue; i++
  if (i % 3 == 0 || i % 5 == 0)
   sum += i;

 return sum;
}

Is there really all that much difference? Could I have expressed it in F# in a more functional way? I don't know. Hopefully I can change the way I think about functional programming as I move through the problems.

WPF, TextBox and currency

Getting data to look right in WPF can be a bit tricky. I wanted integers to appear as currency, but without any decimal points. After a bit of stuffing around I went from:

<TextBox Text="StringFormat=C}" />

to

<TextBox Text="StringFormat=\{0:$###\,##0\}}" />

Metaheuristic

I was trying to explain the sorts of algorithms I use at work to a friend the other night. In general, they're called metaheuristics (in particular, I have experience with simulated annealing and genetic algorithms.) I used an analogy of an ordinary heuristic like one that tries to find the shortest path between to points.

Shortest path: Imagine you want to find X marks the spot on a map. However, there are all these barriers in the way and you can't really be sure if the route you're taking will 1) get you there; or 2) get you there with the least steps. However, so long as there is someone/something telling you how far away you are from the X, you should always be able to find the shortest route - if there is one. That's A*.

To describe when to use a metaheuristic, however, I said "well, imagine you don't actually know where X marks the spot is." But it's much worse than that. Imagine you don't really know where it is and no matter which direction you take you don't necessarily or reliably get any closer to X. For example, you start a long way from X; you go ten metres north and you're close; then go twenty metres south and you're just as close. But, actually, the closest you could ever get to X might be five metres east from the start! It just doesn't make any sense. Like someone calling out "hotter" or "colder" seemingly at random when you're trying to find something. They aren't lying to you, it's just really hard to find. If you have a situation like that, use a metaheuristic, or punch them.

WorkChoices and Fair Work Australia

Being a little ignorant of IR policy differences between the ALP and the Liberals, I thought I'd dot-point the similarities and differences they had/have.

Similarities:

• Can only strike during a bargaining period;
• Industry-wide (pattern) bargaining is banned;
• Secret ballot required before industrial action;
• A single, national industrial relations system;

Differences:

• Focus on enterprise bargaining rather than individual contracts (this wouldn't matter except the Libs removed the "No Disadvantage Test");
• Unfair dismissal legislation is sort-of back with the ALP (so long as you've worked for 6 months in the business; 12 months if less than 15 people in the business);
• With the Liberals, laws prevented union right of entry into the workplace;

There are more differences - even less significant - however, all the differences are minor compared with the similarities.