Expressions – Bhagwad Jal Park

This is a sequel to “The Curse of Chalion” – though calling it a sequel is a bit off since the events in the book, though they take place with some of the same characters, are largely disassociated from those in the first. The main protagonist is a woman called “Ista” who was only a minor character in the first book. In Paladin of Souls, she takes off with her own story line and in my opinion, makes the story even more interesting than the first.

There’s a good bit of demon sorcery involved in “Paladin of Souls” – and some of the scenes remind me a bit of The Exorcist, which is probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Just as in the first book, the five Gods are at the center point of the plot and provide the driving force behind the events. Especially the God called “The Bastard.”

Paladin of Souls

Once again, the book is very different from standard fantasy fare and is unusually, told entirely through the eyes of a single person, just like the first book. This leads to a complete coherent storyline, whereas in works by other authors, the point of view can switch suddenly just in the middle of a juicy plot and really piss you off. And I really appreciate the way the author has given the Gods great powers, but has limited them dramatically at the same time. In many ways, the story deals with concepts of free will and whether or not a person wishes to be a “vessel” for the Gods.

The demonic system is an integral part of the book with detailed insights into how a demon can co-exist with the original soul of the body and who controls whom. In the book, there is a large influx of demons into the world, and “The Bastard” is pretty anxious to get them back into his domain, thereby trying to enlist the help of Ista.

From what I’ve heard, the third book in the series called “The Hallowed Hunt” doesn’t have the same characters as the first two books, and so I don’t think I’ll be reading it. Don’t want to get acquainted with another set of characters – can get rather tiring. So this is the last book I’ll be reading in the Chalion series and it’s been an interesting fantasy set. I highly recommend it to those who’re tired of usual fantasy fiction and are looking for something different.

Similar Posts:

• Book Review – The Runelords (Earth King Series) by David Farland – October 14, 2009
• The Gathering Storm (Full) – Book Review – November 4, 2009
• Book Review: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold – February 13, 2010
• Wizard’s First Rule – Sword of Truth Series Book Review – December 2, 2009
• Book Review: Wheel of Time Series – August 25, 2009

Jump straight to the Extension!

Yesterday, I wrote my first Google Chrome extension. The feature that was really keeping me on Firefox all this while was the Ubiquity add on, and though it still works, Mozilla has decided to put a hold on Ubiquity’s development.

Without Ubiquity to hold me back, I succumbed to Google Chrome’s seductive minimalistic interface, blistering speed and overall smoothness. And since the Chrome Extension gallery didn’t have an extension to count the words and characters in a selection, I decided to write one myself since it’s absolutely essential to me as a writer.

This is the first time I’m writing an extension for a browser (I don’t count Ubiquity commands as extensions as such), and the results are pretty neat. It took me well over a day to figure out exactly what the architecture of an extension is and I almost lost my head trying to implement things like message passing, but I finally came through with the goods

This is what the extension I wrote looks like – Word and Character Count:

Google Chrome Extension - Word and Character Count

I’m not much of a designer, so the logo for my extension is just a big blue “W” and the output simply gives the number of words and characters – good enough for my needs. Initially it was just a word count extension and then two people were kind enough to use it and suggest that I include a character counter too – which I did promptly.

So if you’re a writer using Google Chrome, be sure to install my humble contribution to the Google Chrome universe

Similar Posts:

• Firefox Ubiquity – Character Count Command – July 21, 2009
• Ubiquity Commands updated for Ubiquity 0.5 – July 10, 2009
• Number of Google search results – Ubiquity Firefox extension – April 6, 2009
• Ubiquity Torrent Search – MiniNova, IsoHunt, PirateBay, btjunkie – April 5, 2009
• Check PageRank with Ubiquity Extension: page-rank – April 3, 2009

For a while, I’ve wanted to read a fantasy book that’s different from all the rest. I’ve noticed that all fantasy novels I’ve read till now (barring His Dark Materials) have some elements that really become cheesy after a while. Among other things, they are:

1. Novels are always set in medieval times
2. Plots revolve around main people getting separated
3. Inordinate focus on swords
4. People spend time traveling on horseback
5. There’s some terrible fate lying over the world

Curse of Chalion Book Review

So I picked up The Curse of Chalion because I had read that it was something different from the usual. And it was. For a change, I saw a hero who didn’t have any super duper powers or potential to be a superman, but was just a well meaning sort of fellow. The Gods however, play a huge role in the book and one of the best aspects was that there was no “Satanic god” or “Dark one” or anything like that. Even the God called “The Bastard” is a benevolent, well meaning chap.

I also really enjoyed the single narrative line of the book. Unlike The Wheel of Time series, the entire book is told through the perspective of one person – the hero (if you want to call him that) Cazaril. There are no swords, no doom threatening the world and only a little bit of separation of the main characters. Instead of focusing on the people, the book focuses on the plot more than anything else and the end result is a very well told story.

A goodish part of the book focuses on Cazaril using his wit and experience of court life to keep his young royal charge safe. He himself is delightfully unassuming and the last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself. The book also espouses the fact that being touched by the Gods isn’t a blessing that it’s made out to be, but rather a burden.

So there’s no great glory for doing the work of God in this world. In fact, you undergo just the slightest touch of madness.

I’ll be reading the sequel next called Paladin of Souls next, and I expect it to be as good as the first. In any case, I’ll write a review on it when I finish it!

Similar Posts:

• Book Review: “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman – September 27, 2009
• Book Review – The Runelords (Earth King Series) by David Farland – October 14, 2009
• Book Review: The Stars like Dust by Isaac Asimov – March 8, 2010
• Book Review: Paladin of Souls by Luis McMaster Bujold – February 25, 2010
• Wizard’s First Rule – Sword of Truth Series Book Review – December 2, 2009

My wife and I have always strongly preferred to not have children. Ever. And this belief is reinforced time and again in various instances. Each time we set foot in an airplane and there are babies crying uncontrollably, we look at each other in horror and praise our luck. Whenever we hear about the travails of parents trying to get their kids into nursery, school, or college, we congratulate each other on our good fortune. When we watch movies like “The Good Son” or “The Bad Seed”, we thank the stars for our fortuitous escape.

Also, we’re ****ing up the earth so badly that I’ve lost hope and I don’t want my children to curse me for bringing them into a doomed world. They’ll look at me and say “What right did you have? I never asked to be born – it’s your fault that I’m choking in this putrid air!” Thoroughly sound reasons to keep my progeny off the earth I say.

But here’s the rub. The theory of evolution says that a successful organism manages to pass on its genes. Logically this means that:

Successful => Kids

And the Contra-Positive is:

No Kids => Unsuccessful

Am I dooming my genes?

So by definition, my wife and I are evolutionary failures. To make matters worse, my brother and his wife have decided not to have kids either. This makes both of them evolutionary failures too. And here’s the nub – my brother and I are the only two children of our parents. If the both of us are failures, then my parents are failures too! In essence an entire branch of the “Park” family is about to be pruned from the evolutionary tree – a dead end. A cul de sac.

This makes me wonder. My wife and I as well as my brother and his wife are not having kids because in our estimation, it’s logical to not have them. In developed countries, more and more people are reasoning out the same thing (thereby lowering the population). Ergo it seems that intelligent people are being wiped off the face of the earth! Those individuals whose logic dictates that they must not procreate are evolutionary failures whose genes are squished out of the gene pool – leaving only…well those without that particular brand of intelligence shall we say

My wife and I have given this some thought, and I’m fairly keen on having my genes survive in this world – I mean I think they’re pretty good after all! But how to do that without the attendant consequences? And then I hit on an idea, and my wife agrees. I’m going to go to a sperm bank! The one in Apollo hospital in Chennai seems to be just the thing. Propagation of my genes without having to take care of the resultant blighters. . Something like the Koel strategy I say, but with no deception involved. And to seal the deal, I might as well donate to several banks to maximize the chance of my genes getting along fine.

Now if I can just motivate myself to get off my lazy ass and implement my master plant – ha ha ha ha (Evil grin)

What do you think of sperm bank donation for people who don’t want to take care of their kids? (Two answers allowed)

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Similar Posts:

• American audiences can’t face Evolution! – September 21, 2009
• The fallacy of ‘Success’ – October 17, 2006
• The Importance of Man (Any Life) – October 1, 2006
• Are plants really alive? – November 8, 2009
• Being Lazy is Good – April 1, 2008

I’ve decided to read all of Isaac Asimov’s books, and having read the first one I, Robot, I’m very glad I did so. This is his first book in his “Foundation Series” and is a set of short stories narrated by a “Robopsychologist” called Susan Calvin.

Just for the record, the book has nothing to do with the movie I, Robot starring Will Smith. The movie is an interesting take on the interpretation of the three laws, but there’s absolutely no similarity with the book, since the book is composed of a number of short stories.

I Robot by Isaac Asimov

It’s here we’re first introduced to the famous three laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Each short story examines various facets of the interaction between humans and robots through an interesting storyline. I don’t mind admitting that the reason I’m reading Asimov is because of his reputation for not having any “literary style.” In other words, he comes straight to the point and doesn’t bother himself with too much “artiness.” This is reflected in the short stories in I, Robot, each of which is riveting and the reader never gets bored for a moment.

Some of the stories such as “Reason”, where a robot refuses to believe it was created by humans and “Robbie” which is a touching story about a little girl’s attachment to her robot are simply splendid. Some of them really move you and expose you to new situations. With this book, I’m beginning to see why Isaac Asimov is such a great writer!

Moving on to the other books in the foundations series now!

Similar Posts:

• Book Review – The Runelords (Earth King Series) by David Farland – October 14, 2009
• Book Review: The Stars like Dust by Isaac Asimov – March 8, 2010
• Isaac Asimov’s “Pebble in the Sky” – Book Review – March 8, 2010
• Book Review: Paladin of Souls by Luis McMaster Bujold – February 25, 2010
• Wizard’s First Rule – Sword of Truth Series Book Review – December 2, 2009

I use Paypal to receive payments for my freelancing work from my clients all over the world. Today however, I got a shock on receiving the following mail from Paypal:

Hello Bhagwad Park,

Thank you,

Paypal

To be sure, they’ve given a workaround – they want my buyers to pretend they’re buying “goods” instead of services. There are several problems with this. For one, some of my largest clients are corporates whose payment system is automatic. They don’t “click” anything or “select” anything. The payments just goes from their systems. For me to ask them to change the way they do business is impossible.

Secondly, Paypal is asking me to encourage my buyers to lie! I don’t provide any goods and it’s quite possible that my buyers will refuse to falsify their accounts just because the almighty Paypal says they must.

Mind you, this is only for Indian Paypal accounts. Why has this happened? Paypal refuses to divulge more details on this issue and who knows how long this will last? There are very few reliable options to transfer money from abroad into India and Paypal is like a gateway. It’s tragic that there’s no real alternative to Paypal – most of my buyers know Paypal and will use it and if I tell them I can’t receive payments in Paypal, I don’t know how they’ll pay me.

Fortunately a lot depends on this and some corporations (like oDesk – the organization where I get part of my work from) and unless they find a way to resolve this, all their Indian providers will be unable to withdraw and hence work. And since they get large portions of their revenue from places like India, they simply have to find a viable workaround. Also, all web hosting payments to and from India will be canceled creating mass chaos – so I’m really a smaller fish

Crossing my fingers and hoping this goes away soon…

Similar Posts:

• Saving for Retirement – I’m almost done! – September 28, 2009
• Why buyers should pay freelancers even if they dont’ like the work – September 18, 2008
• Settling Down – September 10, 2008
• Why Freelancers can’t take Vacations – October 5, 2008
• Using Moneybookers to send money to India – Paypal alternative – March 1, 2010