Saturday, January 07, 2006 | 6:33 AM

Something is wrong with my left index finger!! Whenever I bend it, sharp pain keeps shooting through the knuckle! And it is really scarily painful. :( I remembered that I injured it during the sch hols while playing bball. But while the pain has been there all the time, it was just a smal in intensity. This is like bone-splitting pain, and I cant even like lift it a little to point at something while not moving my wrist. T_T

Anyway, snuck in some reading time after the CIP thing. Popped into Amk lib on my own. It was bliss to be able to sit down and read the day away! I found this book on speed reading which I decided to read in comparision to the another one I once read and this is way better.

Apart from simply teachig you how to move your eyes across the paper quickly, ( F.Y.I just imagine a vertical line cutting through the prose and scan your eyes left and right, while trying to take in around two lines of info at the same time, or using a guider eg. your finger and move through the text, also aiming for more than 2 lines.. You know the drill..) actual effective speed reading actually requires reading for comprehension and recall. The steps actually require you to read ceratin parts of the books eg, foreword, glossary, first para to get an idea of how the author writes (so as to know where the key points are), his style and sentence structure. All these skills enable you to speed read prose to get the information you need quickly. So we will need to know what are we looking for.

And apparently, a human's reading speed can actually go up to be 400 words per minute!! And that it was the Air Force which first introduced the concept of training speed reading. Except that it is in a slightly different context. The pilots had to undergo a training during which images of fighter planes were flashed onto a screen at increasing speed. And it then evolved into flashing increasing number of words onto a screen while the duration is kept constant. The trainess are then reported to have increased reading speeds and informatoin processing skills. That is so cool!

I also came across a another book on Applied Mathematics in social sciences, econs and business but I didnt get a chance to read it in depth. Skimming through the contents page, I discovered something shocking. I saw that Maxima and minima were used to help cities construct buildings. I have no idea how is it being used, but I am gona find out if I go back to the lib.

I also came across this. It is written by the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams. I had really liked his creations and this time round, I am surprised by his new work. It really is food for thought. It is in fiction, yet it challenges our perceptions of God. Here's his introduction:

"This is not a Dilbert book. It contains no humor. I call it a 132-page thought experiment wrapped in a fictional story. I’ll explain the thought experiment part later. God’s Debris doesn’t fit into normal publishing cubbyholes. There is even disagreement about whether the material
is fiction or nonfiction. I contend that it is fiction because the characters don’t exist. Some people contend that it is nonfiction because the opinions and philosophies of the characters
might have lasting impact on the reader. The story contains no violence, no sexual content, and
no offensive language. But the ideas expressed by the characters are inappropriate for young minds. People under the age of fourteen should not read it. The target audience for God’s Debris is people who enjoy having their brains spun around inside their skulls."

(http://images.ucomics.com/images/pdfs/sadams/godsdebris.pdf)

You might want to check it out. Pesonally, I find this deviation from his usual works some sort of a breakthrough. Had you read his intros to his comics before, or even seen his creations, I think you would have realised that he is a very observant person whi manages to distill aspects of working life, and reality into funny situations which seem unreal. I have always thought that he is a little bit of a cynic. Hmm..

I am impressed by how the scenarios are thought out and presented. And it is always an experience to look at things differently. I am not done reading it yet. Some of the stuff mentioned created a resonance in me because that was what I had wondered about before. It is becoming something which has gripped me, and in the sadistic manner warned by Adams, I think I may just enjoy my brains being fried this time.

Do take his disclaimers and intro seriously though.

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