Hood

One of the things that I had heard a lot was that the audiobook version is awesome. And I agree with that. I highly recommend getting the audiobook of The Gentlemen Bastard series. Michael Page is the narrator, and he is AWESOME. Seriously, it is one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to. My favourite part is the interlude where he mentions Jean Tannen's training. Some people get distracted by the many interludes. But I didn't find that to be the case. Personally, it made the book even more enjoyable. These interludes are placed at their proper positions. They are every bit entertaining (like when they get a job by their mentor) and quotable (the most quoted line of the author is from the last interlude). Next, people say that the quality of books decrease as their numbers increase. It is so, but not that significant, to be honest. Book 2 is slightly inferior in comparison to book 1. But that is because book 1 is just so amazing. Like Brandon (or Wit) said in the last part of Words of Radiance, by then the expectation of people have risen so much, that the better art is in their heads. In regards to book 3, it is not upto that mark (tho it is certainly very good) because the author had been dealing with various personal issues. I think that is also the reason why book 4 is being delayed so much.

These are the ones that I like: 1. The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgewood - It is a good book. The audiobook is even better. One of my favourite historical books. 2. Symposium by Plato - Okay, it isn't a book, but a dialog. A short one too. But I like it all the more. I liked Pausania's speech the most (even though it was all flowery, with little content ). The entry by Alcibiades is nice. Overall, there is somewhat melancholic atmosphere in the sense that, you know these 'friends' won't be together after this party, and will separate from each other. Some will even die, like Alcibiades, and ofc Socrates. 3. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert - She is a fantastic writer. This book is really good. It is one of the first science themed books I've read.

It is the second least favourite book in the series (after book 9) for me. Tho, the ending. That is amazing. This is my favourite quote: “The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.”

My favourite has always been The Farseer Trilogy book 2 'The Royal Assassin'. I found book 3 okay-ish. It had a LOT of travelling. Tbh, I am just waiting for Scott Lynch to give an update regarding Book 4 of Gentleman Bastards. He was expected to give one at the end of February.

I recently re-read The Lies of Locke Lamora. It is a definite 10/10 in my list. Tbh, I like all Gentleman Bastards books. Is there any book with a similar level of sarcasm (it was the best part, I just love Chains) and invective ? I don't mind F-bombs. In fact, I find it strangely amusing that some complain of that in this book. I mean, it is a about a society which hangs children for petty crimes (tho finds gentling humans too offensive for their tastes) and gory murders. And out of all these things, the complainants found only the F-bombs offensive !

I watched Haikyuu (all 3 seasons) this week. It was an amazing anime.Definitely recommended. Now, I'm just waiting for the fourth season. Meanwhile, funimation released the dubbed version of Hyouka. I have seen first 11 episodes. In my opinion, the dubbed version is comparable to the sub one. Hyouka is my favourite anime, and with dubbed version, it is like a dream come true. I am just waiting for the last bunch of episodes (after the Kanya Festival arc).

I recently entered the realm of Korean Dramas. I saw Coffee Prince. It was good. Really good. Now I am currently watching Goblin. This one is nice too. I like the main actresses in this one, but she kinda overdoes her part.

Wow! Just 2 Hindus here. The second one being yours truly. Anyway, who is the first one ?

Is this thing being shown on popular news channels (esp. conservative ones like Fox) ? Because, I have a friend who (unfortunately) thinks Breitbart and The Rebel are valid news sources. For some time, she didn't even consider net neutrality to be worth consideration. I told her that if TV news doesn't cover it, then you've USA Today, NY Times, reporting about it. But she is against those, and questioned their validity. I said, that reddit is all over it today, but she says that reddit is extremely liberal (I agree with that one, except that extremely part ) My point is this: Is there any way for me to maker her understand the importance of this issue ? P.S. I am not an American, so I am ignorant about how an average american feels about these issues.

We did this by making Venn diagrams. You can find that easily on YouTube.

Thank you.

Graduated. Now I am officially an Electrical Engineer.

Bachelors of Engineering (Electrical) with standard core electrical courses (power system, machines, power electronics etc.) and some optional subjects.

I'm (or am about to be in the following month) an electrical engineer. I used to convert coordinates from cartesian system to spherical one at 3 am, then I upgraded and solved power system equations using Newton Raphson Method (God! That was 9 pages long ), finally I decided I should design a transformer which was plug and chug.(someone teach me autoCAD, I would love to show some graphics). Now, I think I shall be going to a computer company writing codes in Java or Python (that's the job I got last November).It is the fate of most of non-CS engineers here. Here (in my hometown) when I say I am an electrical engineer, people assume either of the two things: i) I am an electrician with a bachelor's degree. ii) I am one of those utility section people who spend their days lying in substation control rooms (which have switchgear protection and control mechanism regarding transformers, and general supply you are receiving) and come out of their slumber only when some fault occurs. I don't mind the second, to be honest, I even like it. But the first one irritates me. Electrical engineering is just so much more than what a local electrician does. Yes, he can repair your motors and fans, but even they don't know the principles behind their work. We know why each component is there in the place.

I am one of those few who liked all books of 'The Gentleman Bastards'. Tho, like everyone else, the rating for each book fell successively as its number increased (TLoLL was 10/10, Red seas was 8/10, and third one was 6/10). Still, I am desperately hoping for The Thorn of Emberlain. I suspect it won't have those flashbacks (loved them in the first book). The second book is 'Name of The Wind' 10th anniversary edition. Pat said that there will be some illustrations in his live talk after his worldbuilders (saw that when the time here was 4 am). And, well, Robin Hobb has already delivered hers.

It has its strong parts: the tragedies, and the epic convergences, and sometimes even Erikson's philosophy rambling. Its complexity is both its strength and weakness. It is a weakness for a beginner (the magic system, the warrens, book 1). But for a reread, there are very few books like this one. There's a lot of poetry too, but except a bare few, I don't like them anyway. Ultimately, it is upon how you like Books 1 and 2. And yes, after reading Erikson, you may get some disease (at least it was for my case). For some time, you won't like any other fantasy novel, because they are just too simple. WoT book 5 felt so simple and plain in comparison to Malazan, that I got bored by it. It may happen with you, it may not.

I have recently installed Mint on my PC. I like it, but it is also a mess. I don't know how big \home directory should be (mine is like 70 GB), how big root directory should be, what about the other ones. As a newbie, it took me hours to install my first program, I think it was TeXmaker (Mint has LyX I think), and even then there were new problems, like texmaker saying log file not found. In windows there was a solution available, but for linux I didn't even know where to begin. I tried making a bootable Win 7 usb there, and again problem, UNetBootin won't recognise my USB (it was mounted btw). My mom has her own problems. Being a big Candy Crush player, she couldn't do it on Linux, somehow there's some Adobe Flash problem with it. I tried to install Chrome, but mine is 32-bit OS. In windows you can copy paste a file anywhere, but in Mint, I tried one drive (not the root one), but the option wasn't available. It automatically locks down when left idle (which is obvious), but when typing correct username and password, there was no change. It took me a good solid hour to work around this. And worst of all is the support system on the net. You have a problem, you look on mint forums, and they give you some codes for terminal, which work like black magic. I have sudo app install command pasted on my monitor. I think almost all of my problems are because of my inexperience (never used linux before), and some tinkering with it won't hurt much. But some book or reference will definitely be helpful. For starters, I have the official mint one with me.

Even written medium is of no use when talking to a girl. There was a girl on whom I had a huge crush (I just don't like this word, there must be some better word for this). She had different ways of typing 'yes' based upon her mood. Same for saying 'bye'. There was a whole world of difference between saying 'Bye', saying 'Byee', saying 'Byeee', and saying 'bye' in her language. The last one was the most precious one, and often denoted a hint of affection.

I loved Mass Effect 2. Probably because of Miranda Lawson. She's a horse in that sheepfold.

Does anyone here know Latin? I am reading The Name of The Rose, and many parts just don't make sense. The monks just start speaking Latin in their sentences all that 'lorem ipsum etc'. I just assume that they mean whatever is written after them in English.

I've never seen Hoid killing anyone. But...well that's enough by me.

I liked all parts of WMF except the training part. Previously this position went to the Felurian part, but once I listened to them...I suddenly found them amazing. They are written in some sort of meter.

I watched a few pieces of Twin Peaks. Didn't like it much. The best part was the ominous music in the background. The main character is fine ( my fav. moment is when he compliments the coffee), but others felt like they're overreacting.

The Traveller is an interesting character, just keep him in the back of your mind. The sword's name is cool, isn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMwwJMkcRA Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get us ! I had heard about Sufjan, but I never knew he is this amazing.