Book-Reviews on YKM's Corner on the Web

Book Review: The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer by Steve Hamm

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Thinkpad is arguably the one of the most iconic and consistently long-running laptop brand in the world today. Back in 2008, Lenovo released the Thinkpad X300 to critical acclaim. Being released shortly after the first Apple Macbook Air, plenty of comparisons were made between both machines as both were extremely slim machines at that time.

I first heard of this book online entirely by chance when I was reading about the history of prior Thinkpad models. This book covers the backstory of how the engineering marvel Thinkpad X300 came to be. Although the X300 has long gone out of production, the design language of the X300 lives on today as a foundation to subsequent models in the Thinkpad line such as the X1 Carbon.

Book Review: Air-conditioned Nation Revisited by Cherian George (Part 3 of 3)

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is the last of the 3-part book-review series on the Air-conditioned Nation series of books written by the academic Cherian George (CG).

Singapore: The Air-conditioned Nation Revisited (2020)

I’m departing from the usual style of writing book reviews by putting my conclusion and summary at the top as some context I feel is in order.

This book is different from the earlier books in that it republishes many of the essays written in the previous 2 books. This book is just 3 years away from the previous version hence it’s understandable that there isn’t much additional content unlike the 17-year gap between the first and second book.

For someone like myself who just completed this series in quick succession, it actually wasn’t much of a “revisit” to me. For a new reader who is short of time, reading this latest book is sufficient instead of the entire series. CG has selectively chosen the best of the previous essays that are still relevant today with some more recent additions.

As a consequence to that, I’ll only focus more deeply on the additional content which are actually only just 3 chapters. 3 chapters which are targeted at modern times given the recency of this book.

Book Review: Air-conditioned Nation series: Singapore Incomplete by Cherian George (Part 2 of 3)

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second of a 3-part book-review series on the Air-conditioned Nation series of books written by the academic Cherian George (CG).

Like the first book, this book contains non-linear essays written by him but slightly updated to the times 17 years after he wrote his first book. I shall pick out certain points of selected chapters which I felt impacted me the most.

Book Review: Air-conditioned Nation series by Cherian George (Part 1 of 3)

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have heard of this term “air-conditioned nation” for more than a decade but I never actually read the book where this term originated from. Now, I finally did.

The “Singapore: The Air Conditioned Nation” book was initially published in 2000 by the academic Cherian George (CG). Over the span of 20 years, he published 3 books.

Each of these books hold a collection of none-linear essays written by CG.

Given the length of all 3 books and some reviews have already been published by much more qualified people, I shall selectively pick out certain points which I felt impacted me the most.

This is the review of the first book with the subsequent books to follow in more posts.

Singapore: The Air-conditioned Nation (2000)

Book Review: Neither Civil Nor Servant (The Philip Yeo Story)

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“life sciences graduates are only fit to wash test tubes” this statement I heard more than a decade ago was the first time I knew of this guy called Philip Yeo. Then chairman of Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), it caused quite a ruckus I believe in Singapore at the time where there was a strong push by the government into the bio-medical field.

That line partly factored in my decision against taking up a triple-science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) subject combination in secondary school. I opted for Physics and Chemistry only.

When I recently heard from online sources of this biography of the man himself “Neither Civil Nor Servant”, I was intrigued. I admit I did not know much of this supposedly very “notorious” Singaporean civil servant. So when existence of this book came to me, I decided I had to read it.

So here is my take of reviewing this book!

Book Review: Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium by Sim Wong Hoo

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I have heard of the acronym NUTS some years back coined by the famous Singaporean technopreneur Sim Wong Hoo (SWH). For the unaware, SWH is the founder of Creative Technologies (CT), the maker of the Sound Blaster sound cards that used to be the industry standard for computer audio and very popular up to a decade ago. As I encountered this phrase quite recently again, I decided to further explore its origins.

It turns out this phrase was originated from his Dec 1999 book “Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium”. Since then, this phrase has been bandied around several times by our political leaders and prominent people. It was also at this time when the Dot-Com bubble had yet to burst and CT was still at its heights.

Fringe Intro + Book Review: Fringe: September's Notebook + Ending Trivia

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I initially started with the idea of doing a review on this book “Fringe: September’s Notebook”. Then I realised, doing a pure review will put off many people who know nothing about Fringe. Therefore, I decided to include a brief introduction of this amazing TV series that many should watch. Before you think this is a low-end TV series, it has won Saturn awards for best TV series in 2010 and 2011. The lead actress Anna Torv won 4 consecutive awards for Best Actress 2009-2012. Definitely no push-over.

So what is Fringe? (I will mark out the spoilers)

The Wikipedia article on this series is a little long-winded so I shall do my own summary.

Fringe is an American science-fiction TV series that lasted 5 seasons from September 2008 to January 2013. It mainly follows the encounters of FBI agent Olivia Dunham, her partner Peter Bishop, his “mad” scientist father Walter Bishop and their assistant Astrid Farnsworth. They work under the fictional secretive section of the FBI known as Fringe Division. The name comes from the term Fringe Science meaning science which is non-mainstream. Intuitively, they investigates cases on strange phenomena associated with Fringe Science. If you have seen and loved X-Files, you will be happy to know that Fringe is a spiritual successor to that series as well although it exhibits its own individuality.

This is not another CSI or X-Files if you are wondering. There is an overarching mythology that is emphasised right from the first episode of Season 1. As the characters put it, Fringe cases include but are not limited to “Mind Control, Teleportation, Astral Projection, Invisibility, Genetic Mutation and Reanimation, Psychokinesis, Precognition, Artificial Intelligence, Transmogrification, Dark Matter and Nanotechnology”. As the seasons progress, there is less and less emphasis on the cases and more on the inter-universe war and battle across time.

Since a picture speaks a thousand words, a video should convey more, hence I shall let the videos do the talking.

Trailer for the pilot of the first Season. Fringe has progressed alot since then. A fine piece of nostalgia depicting how things all started. “science and technology have advanced at such an exponential rate for so long… it may be well beyond our ability to regulate and control them” Nina Sharp.

A fan-made video. It shows the interesting Fringe cases.

So how did I first encounter this series? I have to give that credit to Channel 5 for televising the first season way back in 2009/10 I think. After that, I was an avid follower of the series. I remembered asking my Dad to record this series every Monday night so I can watch when I booked out from the army camp for the weekend.

So here is when the introduction ends. If you want to be hit by spoilers, then continue reading.