Update to "Ruby on Rails Tutorial 2nd Edition"

Ah ha!
Had a nice email conversation with Michael Hartl about his book.

He has confirmed that EPub and Mobi upgrades are available from his site.

The exact news article covering the details is:

New EPUB and Mobi versions of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial

So you can go do your thing!

There's no information at this stage about a second printing with the fixes for the code samples at this stage, but I will be sure to update when I have more news.

Excellent work should be rewarded, and that's my 2c!

Don't buy "Ruby on Rails Tutorial 2nd Edition" YET

Michael Hartl has had problems with Addison Wesley.
I love the tutorial and wanted to give something back to Michael for all his damn fine work.

So I pre-ordered the book as a quiet thank you.
Ages ago.

And received it a couple of days ago.
Opened it to do a quick scan and...

WTF?

Every single one of the code samples are completely scrambled.
Missing quotes, extra spaces, underscores, missing chevrons.
You name it it's seriously screwed up.

So I went to the site to see if there was any info and Michael has got a note about it on his site dated August 9th:

http://news.railstutorial.org/do-not-buy-the-print-version-of-the-ruby-on-r

Curiously that's my birthday.
Go figure.

Just so you know.
I'll be watching via twitter and what not to see when it's safe to get the 2nd Edition.
So be warned.

In the mean time, use the web site itself and avoid the pain and cost.

Keep up the good work Michael!

I am getting seriously sick of historical romances.

Reading this book.
Historical romance.
Name is "Desperate Duchess" by Eloisa James.
Set in the late 1700's.
Recommended reading by a certain group of lovely ladies whom I will not embarrass by mentioning.
Supposed to be a fantastic read.

Bollocks.

I'm half way through and thinking of stabbing myself in the face with forks.
And other spiked implements.

It's like being whacked in the face with a copy of vogue every page.
And a book on chess.
Who the hell cares what trimming her petticoat has?
Endless detail about some frickin' ribbon some dude has in his hair.
And I know that chess is an integral part of the story but why, in the name of Zeus, does it have to be described on every frickin' page?
Then there is the droning on and on about this gown and that gown and the layout of the table...
Even down to the stitching on some dudes stockings.
Endless twittering clever banter for pages and pages and.. Please kill me now... Please...

Where's the smut?
Where's the ninja pirate robot monkeys?
Oh. 1700's. So maybe not so much of the latter.
And bugger all of the former.
And so much frickin' fashion and banter that you completely lose track of the actual characters!
Roberta who? Wait. Who's this dude again? Oh who the f**k cares? Oh look. We're back to waxing lyrical about the petticoats...

If I had to describe this book I'd say it's like a single episode of Blackadder.
Stretched to 8 hours.
With no jokes.
It even has those guys from that episode about "The Scottish Play" making poses and thrusting their hips out.
But not as funny.

I. Must. Finish. This. Damn. Book.
Why?
Because I have to finish it so I can do a massive "rip" on it.
If I give up at this stage, it will only be a an "ri" which has little or no impact.

I soooo need that "p" so I can say "Damn you. Damn you all to hell!"
And ride off into the sunset.

Book Review: "Dark Seduction" by Brenda Joyce (2007)

Oh my laird!
Well. Think I've found my libido.
It was waiting in this book.
Rates 12 out of 10 on my twitcherific scale.

Massive, muscular, mind-reading, virile Scottish demon hunters in the 14th century.
Young 20th century book seller with an interest in history.
Time travel.

Oh and the smut? Just gorgeous.
If you read this book, you'll need a fire blanket.
And you won't need batteries.

Definitely going to see about getting others in the Warriors of Time series.

Book Review: "Silken Promises" 1994

Fan-blo**dy-tastic. The cover is absolutely not a reflection of the contents btw.
This book should be made into a movie.

Set in 1885 Victorian/Americana with a feisty Irish girl working with a hard boiled marshall to crack a counterfeiting ring and accidentally drawn into a confrontation with a 1885 version of the Star Chamber. Twists, turns, explosions, prison breakouts, poker and train hijacking. With a sprinkling of "Darby. I am your father" stuff tossed in for good measure.

It has *everything*.
Well... No... Ok. It doesn't have ninja pirate robot monkeys.
But if I had to describe it, I'd suggest it is a mix of Cat Ballou, A Big Hand for the Little Lady, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick and The Wild Wild West.
Also Arsenic and Old Lace.
Seriously. You'll wet yourself at the antics of the 72 year old sisters explaining why they just wanted to "bend a bit of track" when in fact they are covered in soot having blown up most of the train. And the very last page will have you laugh out loud.

But I seem to have strayed from smut.
There isn't that much, much to my chagrin.
But the two major scenes I found "twitchy" to say the least.

Excellent. Seriously needs to be made into a movie.

No point in putting in an amazon link as they don't have the cover and are seriously wanting 78 quid for a new version!

Book Review: "Tart Noir" 2002

Wow. Very cool. Finished this wonderful book on Sunday afternoon. Brilliant. Fun. Engaging. 

Sort of like the sci-fi anthologies I used to read in the late 60's early 70's. Short stories exploring odd juxtapositions. For example, one story involves Medea, Phaedra and Lady MacBeth on a morning chat show baring all. Another involves forbidden love... Er... With a dolphin... Whoah there me hearties! Cool.

The stories where tight and well written and had twists and turns that made it impossible to put down. Some where downright fall about laughing. The case of the girl from the Marooned! TV reality show had me in stitches. My only beef was there wasn't enough smut. :-)

This is a definite must read.


Here is the amazon page: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tart-Noir-Stella-Duffy/dp/0425186431/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343707570&sr=8-2

Book Review: "Advanced Quantum Mechanics" by Freeman Dyson

Well.
Do I feel dumb, stupid and uneducated or what.

This is a reprint of Freeman Dysons lecture notes from 1951.

My God It's Full Of Equations.

Hundreds and hundreds of equations some of which were a page long.

I loved it even though I felt like a complete idiot 90% of the time.
Each time I thought I might catch up, I was dumbstruck by the sheer enormity of the maths.

I seriously need to get a handle on the mathematical basics first because the use of the word "Advanced" in the title should have warned me I would be out of my depth very quickly.

Book Review: "The Cosmic Code" by Heinz R. Pagels

I bought this book because it was yet another pop-sci theoretical physics book released in 2012.
It is actually a reprint of the original from 1982.
I felt disappointed as I felt that it was unlikely that I would learn anything new from a 40 year old book on such a dynamic subject.

I was wrong.
Very wrong.

The book is broken down into 3 parts.

Part I is the obligatory historical basics of Quantum theory.
Part II covers the detail of the specifics of the heart of the matter (if you will oblige me).
Part III is a personal take at the end of which I wept at the sheer beauty of it all.

No massive formulas. Just plain talk.

For example, he devotes chapters to Quarks, Leptons, Gluons, Fields, Vacuum Invariances as well as my favorite: Gauge Field Theory. Each has a plain talk explanation without the breathless enthusiasm of Greene. Each shows details and data which had my mind stand up and go "Woah! I didn't know that."

The explanation of the reasoning behind the dispute over EPR and Bells Theorem are cases in point. The invisible cross-correlation that is rooted in the fact that the defining factor that makes human human, is not opposable thumbs, but massively effective (and sometimes faulty) pattern matching and (sometimes faulty) abstract reasoning.

His discussion of Gauge Field Theory and his general discussion about fields in general cleared up several nagging issues I had. Nice.

I was sad to find out he died in 1988 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Pagels) in a climbing accident at the age of 49. Given the last words of this book this fact has me in tears right now. But there is a certain joy in me because of the very last line of the very last paragraph of the very last chapter:

"As I continued to fall into the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness."

Thoroughly recommended.

I go weep now.

Book Review: "EVE" by Tony Gonzales

This is one sprawling space opera.

Multiple space civilisations on the other side of some long dead Terran star-gate. Dozens of characters, masses of politics, pirates, commerce and war. Frickin space battles the like of which haven't been seen since the days of E.E. "Doc" Smith.

Makes Babylon 5 look simple.

I read it in just a few sittings despite it's 520 page length and I have to admit I kept getting lost. I had to keep going back and re-reading sections to try to figure out who the frick this new character was and why they seemed to be so important. I kept seeing details and had many "Who where with the what now?" moments because it seemed that this little paragraph I was currently reading was dripping with meaning and I just couldn't figure out why I wasn't seeing it. Gallenteen? Are they the "Federation?" Oh. I remember reading them referred together about 50 pages ago.

Wait. What? Vitoc? Oh yes. That's the slave drug. I vaguely remember reading about that a 100 pages ago.

It was only on the exact last page I figured out why I was getting lost in the supremely massive wealth of detail that seemed irrelevant and why so many terms were used as if you were supposed to just 'know' what was being spoken about.

EVE.

EVE online.

I should have realised, but I'm a bit dim sometimes. Or maybe it's because of recent events that had shattered my concentration.

Doh! It's a book set in the MMORPG. I've never played it. Never seen it. Never so much as looked it up on wikipedia.

Despite that, it's a darn good story and if you love politics, massive space battles, space pirates and chicanery, have played the game and want ideas, then go out and read it.

Book Review: "American Gridlock" by H. Woody Brock

Sorry. I can't help it. It was difficult to buy this book because of the juxtaposition of the authors name and the title of the book. I did, of course, mainly because of the sub-title:

"Why the left and right are both wrong - commonsense 101 solutions to the economic crises"

Ok. Let me state from the start. This guy is no dummy or just some hot head op-ed columnist. He's got a serious number of letters after his name. And given the number of endorsements (3 pages of them) worth taking seriously.

The book is written from the standpoint of a highly trained, articulate economist who "can't take it anymore" and instead of ranting and spluttering, presents bi-partisan solutions to the most pressing problems besetting the American political scene. For example here is the list of chapter headings:

1. Dialogue of the Deaf
2. Must There Be a Lost Decade?
3. Resolving the Entitlements Spending Crisis
4. Preventing Perfect Financial Storms
5. Bargaining Theory 101
6. Beyond Democratic Capitalism

One would be tempted to view this as a laundry list of "well, what I think we should do is..." but it isn't. Each chapter used rigorous deductive logic, theorems and proofs (Provided in detail in the appendix!) to show why simply shouting at each other across the aisle or letting media know-it-alls-who-know-nothing shout their opinions simply must stop.

By taking a purely deductive approach and using Nash, Marsinya, Arrow, Kurz, Mordecai et al theories (most of whom won Nobel Prizes for their work) he clearly articulates that the suggested solutions have been systematically and repeatedly ignored and *proves* (as in axiomatic) that they would work.

This doesn't seem to have the faintest whiff of Randism or Friedmanism to it btw.

I particularly like the use of the dialectic written as an imaginary conversation between himself and the President. The President repeatedly brings out real world objections, altruistic concerns, party politics, lobbyists, special interest group objections and so on. Each gets explained in an easy to understand way.

I do love his suggestions on using social media to gamify "Gotcha!" by trapping media talking-heads, phony liberals, policy wonks and op-eds in their insane and frustrating logical fallacies. I also love his suggestion for creating an "Idiocy Index" to be applied to White House economists and state dept nutters who let China Alpha-Foxtrot*1 the US for so long.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that even if you only pick this book up at a bookstore (if they're any left in your area), simply read the conclusion. It's only 3 pages and will have you optimistic, laughing and wanting more.

This is a remarkable book and well worth time reading. Especially *THIS YEAR* if you're American.

*1. Think about it. Like Charlie-Foxtrot can be applied to the GFC.

Book Review: "Free Will" by Sam Harris

Book? Well. Maybe. More like lecture notes or those pamphlets they used to write in the 19th century.
(Should do more of those. Authors take note please.)

In any case. I suggest you get it and read it.
A well reasoned if somewhat stream of consciousness discussion of what actually constitutes free will.

Summing up: Mental weather.

Valium might help. It did in my case... :-)

But having said that this is a well reasoned discussion of the illusion we all have about free will.

And having read it and examined my personal illusion of free will and the upbeat nature of the conclusion...
I can honestly say that I retract my initial thought that:

"If we are all mental weather machines, then it is just an easy jump for others to add the word 'just' to justify unspeakable horrors on the world."

I take it back. Sam Harris has addressed my concerns admirably.

Buy it.

Read it.

Let your mental weather take you where it wills.

Book Review: "Higgs Force" by Nicholas Mee

Not as advertised.

Having said that I enjoyed the book.

The first third of the book was a ho-hum of "how we got here" starting from Greece to the "Revolution of 1974." Nothing new. History familiar for anyone with a passing interest in HEP.

The middle of the book was very interesting providing elucidation and graphics describing Feynman diagrams, QED and QCD.

Learnt a lot here, but curiously kept noticing the use of the phrase "time represented vertically" with respect to Feynman diagrams where obviously certain particles where traveling "south" so to speak.

No discussion or mention of that. Time? Who ordered that? (in-joke. sorry)

No detail regarding exactly how force carriers mediate "force" either. Except in a nucleus where gluon interactions are described very well. But I felt Brian Cox did it better describing standing waves.

Then. Then! THEN! Peter Higgs is mentioned. On page 230. In a 300 page book.

Then dropped.

Only re-appearing around page 278 when a breathlessly exciting description of the ATLAS detector is provided.

Seriously. CERN has a website. If I wanted to know the internals of that specific detector I didn't need to read 20 pages of excitable description and pictures. I've been to the site. Multiple times. 20 pages?

Page 279. "The Signature of the Higgs" Page 279? Seriously?

Having said all that, it was an enjoyable read. But seriously. Higgs Force mentioned only briefly at the end of the book. And a thin description it is I might add. Could be summed up as "treacle that imparts mass." Wait. What?

If you want to know what the Higgs particle (was, might be, is), or what the field is, don't bother. If you want to have a fascinating account of the lead-up to the most fantastic, most stupendously complex machine ever built on this planet, then read it.

Book Review: "Climate Wars" by Harald Welzer

That was the most depressing book I've read in a long while. It's a quite scholarly dissertation about why we've always been killing each other, still are and will again but for different reasons. This book is very, very well written. Understated, logical, historical, scientific with a huge dig at social and political science.

About my only beef is the phraseology. I'm guessing that some of this comes from the Author being German. So you do get some tortuously long and convoluted sentences. I was reminded of the incident when General Alexander Haig rushed into a press conference when Reagan was shot and said this:

"This is definitely not a situation I haven't been in before."

Which left the Journos speechless while they struggled to understand what he actually meant.

Basically the author is saying something like this:

Humans have always been slaughtering each other. The western nations have been enjoying a peace and prosperity bubble since WWII. It's nearly over. Our sliding baselines make us think that wars like Darfur, Somalia and even Bosnia are aberrations. But they're not. They're the norm and have been for millennia.  

And climate refugees will start pouring into southern Europe, across the US and Canadian borders and in rickety boats heading to Australia quite soon and in overwhelming numbers. And western countries are using more and more technological and political violence to make this invisible to their citizens. They are creating ever larger trans-national forces to "deter" refugees outside of the borders of their own countries and without media coverage.

What is considered shocking today, such as dropping failed asylum seekers off in the deserts of Algeria as is done now, will pale in comparison to what will come. And because it will happen in increments you'll come to think of it as normal. So in just a few years you'll watch unmanned drones bomb asylum seekers in boats off shore in their thousands and you'll be thinking "well at least I won't have to pay tax for the detention centre."

Yoikes. Stern stuff.

Book Review: "The 4% Universe" by Richard Panek

Now. Interesting. Came as a shock to find that I was 9 years of age before the universe existed.

I don't mean the theoretical universe. The Big Bang. But rather the experimental proof that a) there was a relic from the big bang called the CMB and b) that we live in a single galaxy amongst billions of galaxies in just our bubble of visible universe.

It was 1965. I was 9. Living in Wiltshire I think - bit hazy on that long ago. Countryside. Not the smoke filled cities of the midlands that I had in earlier times. Sitting alone next to ponds and hedgerows marvelling at the sheer fecundity of life. The smallness of it and the sheer frickin' scope of it. Ooo! Look! A tiny lizard. 1/2 inch long. England 1960's Imperial measures - get over it. Jesus F**kin Christ it was tiny, but it had ribs, lungs, a liver and kidneys and was an apex predator.

1965. Only 40 years after Quantum Mechanics came into being. Hubble had only died 12 years previously. COBE was 24 years in the future. My school bus went past a MOD site which posted the state of nuclear emergency. We were all going to die. Horribly.

1965. 4 years before the moon landing. LBJ just sworn in. Funeral of Winston Churchill. First American combat troops arrive in Vietnam. First nuclear power plant goes into orbit. Yes. Really. SNAP-10A.

1965. Australia announces it will send combat troops to Vietnam and then sends the poor sods. Oh. And Liverpool wins the FA Cup Final, beating Leeds Utd 2–1. (I was into football back then)

1965. Mariner 4 arrives at Mars. Cigarette advertising is banned on BBC. Watts - need I say more? Auschwitz trial sentences 66 ex-SS personnel. Tom & Jerry debuts on US TV. The Pillsbury Doughboy is created.

1965. World population. 3 billion. Half what it is today.

1965. The universe is proved to exist.

Anyway, I digress. This book is a wonderful historical romp through the politics, machinations, hatreds, lives and loves of a handful of scientists trying to turn cosmology from metaphysics into physics. From Penzias and Wilson to Perlmutter, Turner and Vera Rubin to Smoot and all the others. Nobel prizes, Gruber prizes, antarctic expeditions, Hubble Space Telescope intrigue, Deep Field and what not. I *remember* 1987a for f**ks sake, and was excited.

Love it.

So. Where are we now? Dunno. And neither do these guys, but it's a start. What a frickin' wonderful path we've travelled. What great things we've uncovered. Frickin' hell. I love this stuff.

Book Review: "Ayn Rand Nation" by Gary Weiss

I have to confess that I stumbled on Atlas Shrugged when I was a cab driver in the mid 70's and after reading it went out and got all the other books. She did speak to me, but mainly because of the fairly rigorous process of logical steps leading to her philosophy. For a while I became a bit rabid, but then after thinking through the inevitable outcomes of adopting the approach became less than enthusiastic.

I saw this book and since I hadn't read any of the Ayn Rand books for 30 years (I still have them all) decided to see how on earth she was relevant in todays world. I was horrified to see how deeply embedded her works are in the American psyche.

The author interviews some of the original 'cult' members, including the Brandens, and a raft of people who claim to have had Ayn Rand affect their lives. Many are active members in the Tea Party. Horrors abound.

As the interviews progress, it seems he is left more and more stunned by how little people know about Objectivism and how blind they are to the negative effects of following through on their beliefs.

I vaguely remembered that Alan Greenspan was one of the original 'cult', but had no idea how deeply intertwined his life was with Objectivism. In hindsight his handling of the Fed's response to various financial events makes it obvious.

Just so people understand what Objectivism means here is the quote from wikipedia:

Objectivism is a philosophy created by Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Objectivism's central tenets are that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic, that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (or rational self-interest), that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez faire capitalism, and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.

Seems harmless eh? The individual rules! It also means government and all regulations (not laws) be damned. Which is why so many people get hooked on it. So the horror unfolds when, for example, a nurse joins the Tea Party, waves a John Galt banner demanding the government get out of the health business without the slightest understanding that she will:

- either lose her job or have to work longer hours for less pay

- walk home because there is no public transport

- on sidewalks that gradually deteriorate because there are no one to fix them

- through piles of garbage because there's no one to take it away

- buy food that could make her sick because there are no regulatory bodies

- knowing that since there are no public schools, her kids will likely grow up un-educated

- and get their first job at 10c an hour because there are no minimum wage laws

- die in poverty because she could never save enough to take care of herself in old age

- and you can see my point

Reality bites. And it bit Rand too. Her hatred for Medicare didn't stop her rationalising away her decision to sign up when she was broke, in her 80's and she couldn't care for her dying husband.

While I detest special interest groups getting special treatment from the government and the waste of the bureaucracy of it all, I would rather have governments and the regulations than not. I appreciate the taking away of garbage, clean streets, clean water, being able to buy food that I know can be trusted 99.9% of the time (given the recent KFC issue), traffic lights, cross-walks, road rules and all the other myriad ways that having governments and regulations creates a safe environment for me and you and your kids.

It could be done better, but to not have it at all? No thanks.

Book Review: "12 Essential Skills for Software Architects" by Dave Hendricksen

First up I should say that the title is mis-leading. It shouldn't be 'architects' but rather 'people' (or 'personnel').

This is a damn fine book and should be read by every person involved with IT.

The author is an architect for Reuters and has a solid grasp of the 'soft' skills required to deal with the entire scope of IT personnel, projects and the executives they have to engage with.

The book is broken down into 3 main sections: Relationship Skills, Personal Skills and Business Skills. Each section has a set of chapters devoted to the requirements for being successful in that scope.

What the book boils down to is a way to understand yourself, be yourself, be gracious, communicate effectively, negotiate effectively, lead, deal with politics, be transparent, have passion and understand the business needs.

As a software engineer with 34 years of experience I found it startling to see what I was doing that was holding my projects back. I honestly thought what I was doing *was* effective. I can now see a little more clearly what I'm doing on a day to day basis that is causing grief and I can also see the things that I'm doing right and, more importantly, why. I will change my bad habits and see what happens.

Although the primary focus is on working in a large company, I think it equally applies to small teams and startups.

All in all an excellent read and IMHO should be part of Information Technology 101.

Book Review: "Prologue to Super Quantum Mechanics" by Victor Vaguine

Wow.

What a frickin' entertaining, elucidating and illuminating rant about Quantum Mechanics and the Copenhagen Interpretation.

I frickin' loved this. This book is a 'prologue' to two more books "Conceptual and Philosophical Foundations of Super Quantum Mechanics" and "Ontology of ConsReality." Hmm. Must see if I can find out more about those. Not out yet. If this book is anything to go by, they'll be a good read.

Basically he's re-stating Aristotle and William of Occam. A is A and use the fewest assumptions to provide the simplest explanation. He covers non local realism specifically and is quite... er... "forthright" in his views about Quantum Positivism and Local Realism.

So... If I could paraphrase him in my words...

"If all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. Every mathematical edifice built on the Copenhagen interpretation is tainted. It leads to giant theories that describes things, but doesn't explain them. So you have exceedingly clever people wasting years on rubbish. And to say anything against Copenhagen is heresy.

Multiverse? Crap. Bohr? Arrogant, opinionated, brainwashing obsessive who has retarded physics for 80 years. String theory? Interesting use of Mathematics with little bearing on reality and zero predictive power. A is A. They're not zero-size structure-less points. They're obviously very real little bl**dy things. Just use a Scanning Tunnel Electron Microscope. They're frickin' there. And they have spin. And magnetic moment. And they have those properties regardless of whether you're looking at them."

In any case, the author seems to be able to capture the essence of the insanity of Quantum Mechanics and the way it has been inculcated into every nook and cranny of modern physics. He also is obviously in awe of Einstein for which I have no complaint.

I did some digging on this guy and encountered some weird yet fascinating stuff about his life. Like this one:

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY; A Soviet Defector's Mission

LEAD: Helped by a fistfight between K.G.B. and C.I.A. agents, Victor A. Vaguine, a Soviet nuclear physicist, defected with his wife and two children to the United States 16 years ago in Switzerland.

December 2, 1987

Strangely enough a wikipedia search showed nothing. Nada. Nil. Odd. He appears to live in Dallas, TX. Three companies, "Vitel", "JMV" and "consreality" which seem to fit into the books details. The ConsReality company is at "9914 Hickory Xing" in Dallas btw. There's a press release here: http://consreality.com/press/news-release.html and is apparently a publishing company. Seems legit.

Supposedly he escaped the Soviet Union in 1966, has a PhD (written in French) and has 22 US patents. Think I found them. Here's the list to prove he may not be making stuff up:

1.  Vaguine Victor A: Method and apparatus for controlling and optimizing the heating pattern for a hyperthermia system. Clini-Therm Aug, 9 1983: US 4397314 (92 citation)
2.  Vaguine Victor A: Multiple microwave applicator system and method for microwave hyperthermia treatment. Clini-Therm Aug, 9 1983: US 4397313 (34 citation)
3.  Vaguine Victor A: Microwave applicator with discoupled input coupling and frequency tuning functions. Clini-Therm May, 8 1984: US 4446874 (29 citation)
4.  Vaguine Victor A: Microwave hyperthermia applicator with variable radiation pattern. Varian Associates May, 20 1986: US 4589424 (19 citation)
5.  Tanabe Eiji, Vaguine Victor A: Variable energy standing wave linear accelerator structure. Varian Associates Aug, 25 1981: US 4286192 (13 citation)
6.  Vaguine Victor A: Standing-wave linear accelerator. Varian Associates May, 17 1977: US 4024426 (12 citation)
7.  Meddaugh Gard, Tanabe Eiji, Vaguine Victor: Variable field coupled cavity resonator circuit. Varian Associates May, 3 1983: US 4382208 (10 citation)
8.  Vaguine Victor A, Giebeler Jr Robert H, McEuen Albert H: Hyperthermia applicator for treatment with microwave energy and ultrasonic wave energy. Varian Associates Dec, 3 1985: US 4556070 (8 citation)
9.  Turner Paul F, Vaguine Victor A: Applicator array and positioning system for hyperthermia. BSD Medical Dec, 4 1990: US 4974587 (8 citation)
10.  Vaguine Victor A, Nichols Dennis R: Bonding of ferrite to metal for high-power microwave applications. Varian Associates Mar, 25 1975: US 3873944 (8 citation)
11.  McEuen Albert H, Vaguine Victor A: Standing wave linear accelerator and slotted waveguide hybrid junction input coupler. Varian Associates Mar, 27 1979: US 4146817 (7 citation)
12.  Vaguine Victor Aleksey: Variable energy highly efficient linear accelerator. Varian Associates Oct, 3 1978: US 4118653 (4 citation)
13.  Vaguine Victor A: Linear accelerator having a side cavity coupled to two different diameter cavities. Varian Associates Oct, 3 1978: US 4118652 (4 citation)
14.  Vaguine Victor A, Nichols Dennis R: Metallized gyromagnetic ferrite. Varian Associates Jul, 13 1976: US 3969086 (4 citation)
15.  Vaguine Victor A, Nichols Dennis R: Bonding of ferrite to metal for high-power microwave applications. Varian Associates Feb, 24 1976: US 3940051 (4 citation)
16.  Vaguine Victor A: Standing wave linear accelerator and input coupling. Varian Associates Oct, 24 1978: US 4122373 (3 citation)
17.  Tanabe Eiji, Vaguine Victor Aleksey: Accelerateur lineaire a onde stationnaire et a energie variable. Varian Associates Apr, 17 1981: FR2467526 (1 citation)
18.  Vaguine Victor A, Nichols Dennis R: Ferrite to metal bond for high-power microwave applications. Varian Associates Jun, 1 1976: US 3960512 (1 citation)
19.  Meddaugh Gard Edson, Tanabe Eiji, Vaguine Victor Aleksey: Variable field coupled cavity resonator circuit for a linear accelerator. Varian Associates Jan, 29 1982: FR2487627
20.  Tanabe Eiji, Vaguine Victor A: Variable energy standing wave linear acceleration structure. / Structure d'acceleration lineaire a ondes stationnaires et a energie variable. Varian Medical Systems Jun, 21 1983: CA 1148657
21.  Mceuen Albert H, Vaguine Victor A: Standing wave linear accelerator and slotted input coupler. / Accelerateur lineaire a ondes stationnaires et coupleur d'entree a fente. Varian Associates Oct, 7 1980: CA 1087310
22.  Vaguine Victor A: Standing-wave linear accelerator. / Accelerateur lineaire a ondes stationnaires. Varian Associates Nov, 14 1978: CA 1042552

A thoroughly good read. If you are interested in the subject or a student go out and buy this book and hold the ideas in your heart. They might not turn out to be right, but you have to know that there is dissent.

Book Review: "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman

Hmm. I still have my battered copy I bought in 1974.
At the time I read it completely and believed every word.

Personal Viewpoint ON!

Right now I'm pretty much in agreement, but have noticed that age or experience has enabled me to read between the lines and see the things that get ignored or glossed over. When I started reading it I had in mind that I would have 1 word, really a number, that would sum up my feelings:

2008

But it appears that is not really the case. Most academics and economists mainly put the blame for the process on NOT following what Friedman professes. In fact Bernanke was a follower of Friedman and it appears he did nothing at the time when the Fed could have done the things Friedman proposed to ameliorate the crisis.

And when I finished the book I had this uncanny feeling I'd read all this before. So I dug around in my 'old books' boxes and found "Planning for Freedom" by Ludwig von Mises written in 1952. The same subjects. The same suggested solutions. Virtually the same words. Interesting. Must see if I can get a copy of that Hayek book and see if the same was true in the late 1800's.

Now. Could we do some of the things suggested such as Education Vouchers, scrapping masses of legislation, scrapping the lunatic programs that work at cross-purposes, and all the other things today? I am pretty sure we could have in 1974. I'm not so sure now despite some attempts in the US.

My reasoning can best be summed up by Friedman himself when he discusses Hong Kong. When the colony received an influx of refugees after Mao came to power, they were energetic, determined and believed in the value of the individual. Later came the second wave of refugees who had lived under the communist regime for decades. And they were lethargic, rigid, unwilling to take risks and needed to be told what to do in detail.

The parallels to today are, to my eyes, identical. In 1974 there was still a sense that you could just get on with business, not be bugged by endless reams of rules and paperwork and you had the self-interest and responsibility to take the hits with the goals. Today... Not so sure. People have been living in a bureaucratic, mixed economy their whole lives. I could point to the London riots as the result of that kind of living. Take away the rules, let people run free and some will riot and some will build the kind of financial edifices that crashed the world in 2008.

The key seems to be self responsibility and rational self interest that appears to be lacking in todays society. And I would go further and suggest that it would take generations of education and patient stripping of powers from government before the new generations regain what we had when we were young. Who would have the patience, the lawyers and the sheer bloody-mindedness to do it? I tend to feel that's unlikely to happen soon. Rats.

Now one thing is interesting. I recently watched the documentary "Inside Job." Not much different from the documentary "The Men who Crashed the World," but I noticed the details about the aftermath. Almost all the players are still present. All the financial processes are still there. In fact the only thing that's changed is that they're again getting bolder. So we may see another GFC in the next few years. And that's a good thing.

Maybe it'll rattle enough cages to get people to change things. Maybe they'll demand that their bank actually hold their mortgage instead of selling it on to end up in a anonymous CDO. Maybe they'll start telling their governments to get their sticky fingers out of our business. Maybe they'll start demanding that special interest groups be limited to a total federal budget.

To use Ludwig von Mises own words:

"What is needed is not to throw dust in the eyes of the workers, but to convince them. They themselves must realize that the traditional [union] methods do not serve their interests. They themselves must abandon of their own accord policies that harm both them and all other people."

Maybe. We'll see.

Book Review: "Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell

I always think it is a good idea to go back and re-read books you bought and read in your youth.
This is one of those times.

I picked up my copy in 1982 and loved it then and find no reason to change my mind.

Just to be clear... This is a series of essays by the great man over many decades that cover a range of topics and not just the title. The last chapter covers the un-frickin-believable court case surrounding his potential appointment to a college in New York.

In any case, here is a list of the essays to show the scope of the discussions:

Why I am not a Christian (1927)
Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilisation? (1930)
What I believe (1925)
Do we survive death? (1936)
Seems, Madam? Nay, it is (1899)
On Catholic and Protestant Sceptics (1928)
Life in the Middle Ages (1925)
The Fate of Thomas Paine (1934)
Nice People (1931)
The New Generation (1930)
Our Sexual Ethics (1936)
Freedom and the Colleges (1940)
The Existence of God (1948)
Can Religion Cure Our Troubles? (1954)
Religion and Morals (1952)

My favourite was, and still is, "Nice People." A fantastically funny, biting and sarcastic rant about what we would today call "Moral Busybodies." Peppered with quotes that make you laugh out loud. When you think that it was written in 1931 it is startling to note that it is just as applicable today as then. Thus showing the timelessness of his writings.

RIP 1970. For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_russell

Also don't forget that a *small* selection of his work is available on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/r#a355

Book Review: "A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence M. Kraus

Meh.
Despite praise by Sir Martin Rees.
Liked the Afterword by Richard Dawkins though.
Would have loved to read the foreword by Christopher Hitchens, but he died before finishing it. A real shame.

Anyway, this is another popular book on cosmology and the quantum world. If you're a lay person then it would indeed be "A thrilling introduction to the current state of cosmology" and would fairly deserve the praise. For me, it was very introductory and quite un-thrilling. Sheesh I'm getting old. And jaded.

Nothing I haven't read before and Nothing is better described in Brian Cox's or Brian Greene's books. His visualization of an expanding, possibly quilted, universe is useful, but I preferred Greene's swiss cheese approach better.

Still looking for the book that details how magnetic flux works for real. Like Cox's book illuminated the physical 'HOW' that makes electrons more probable in atomic shells.

Re-reading "Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell. Old as I am and still as good.