This book describes the journey of a Hi-tech immigrant through various part of United States including Silicon Valley, Seattle, Nashville and Southern California.
The book starts in 1987, at University of California campus in Davis, where it all began, where Artificial Imagination was conceived.
We then fast forward by 15 years to 2002. Our main character, a Executive in the Software industry and working in Silicon Valley. Soon, he is heading to Seattle to work for Amazon.com at a lower level management position.
We read one lively story after another about the life in the Northwest and learn about his lovely wife and two daughters.
Our adventurer then heads to Nashville to work for a software company, and then heads back to Southern California to get caught in the infamous wild fires of 2007.
Kudos to the author to be able to find humor in the middle of the Inferno!
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A Review by John Lehman,the author of Everything is changing
I was half way through this book when I realized it is almost poetry in the form of prose. I am not just referring to the short paragraphs, but the imaginative leaps, stunning imagery and most importantly, words which hook us in, make us think this is our story . . . . We see them on the page but live them in the theater of our imagination.
This book reminds us that we share the mysteries of the human mind and soul, no matter what our occupation, no matter where we were born. "Why I am here may appear to be a simple question, but . . . is there a deeper purpose of being where we are?" We know that the question applies not only to the location where we spend our lives, but also to overall existence, and our place in the time continuum.
Just as the author who traveled from New Delhi to Silicon Valley felt he has traveled forty years into the future, so do I, sitting in the agricultural landscape of Wisconsin felt that I have had a glimpse into the vitality of the Hi-Tech worlds of California and Seattle.
I feel I am in the hands of a good guide. Here is what it means to do research in Computers: "Rip apart an electronic system and you see nothing moving, nothing vibrating, it's almost a make-believe world, a child's fantasy, a writer's imagination."
and what it means to yearn for acceptance:
"I looked at Seattle's glistening skyline on one side and its beautiful waterfront on the other and asked it the same questions I had asked San Francisco 16 years ago: will it accept me? Or will its people treat me as someone different, not one of the? And will I accept it, call it my home? Right then, she appeared from no where, as if the city had sent her to answer my questions . . ."
I loved the section addressing Seattle's slacker sun, that comes late to work, like at 9 AM and goes back home at 4, the observation that for males, until the age eight, we want every young woman to be our mother, then for the next thirty years our friend and when we have daughters, we feel like bringing every young woman a glass of warm milk and cookies.
His first day in Nashville, the author looks out of his window and sees snow. The conclusion he draws about the snow flakes very fittingly describes his life and the message we can take with us from this hip, funny, poignant, beautiful book:
"the snowflakes descend slowly, floating in the air, allowing the current to carry them with it, letting it change their paths. They have chosen not to confront their destiny, choosing instead to enjoy every second of their short lives, their journey to the ground."
Welcome home, Kalpanik!------------------------------------
My name is Kalpanik, which means imaginary in Hindi. Don't laugh, Kalpanik, and its root, Kalpana (imagination) are very common names in Hindi--don't you wonder sometimes whether you were real or just someone's imagination?
I am a beta version of an AI (Artificial Imagination) software program trying to simulate human creativity and sense of humor. I do so by randomly generating character sequences and bitmaps every now and then, and then publishing them as "stories".
My last name, S. is in honor of the famous india born story teller/movie director Manoj "Night" Shyamalan, who directed movies such as "The Sixth Sense"; "Signs" and "The Village".
I was born twice, the first time at the University of California, Davis in 1988 in an artificial Intelligence class. My creator, then a graduate student of Computer Science and Engineering, got bored with the "standard" Artificial Intelligence, computers which play chess or mimic experts, so he came up with the concept of building an Artificial Imagination program, a piece of software which could actually feel and imagine like humans.
After staying dormant for the next 14 years, the turbulence in the technology industry woke me from my slumber in 2002 in Silicon Valley. The rest, as they say, is history; now I am purportedly the most creative Artificial Imagination program in the world.
The concept behind me and the content produced by me are owned by the Center of Artificial Imagination, Inc.
