Alf P. Steinbach´s personal homepage

I´m a fan of the original kind of Science Fiction, where Science Fiction means literally Science Fiction; Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Van Vogt, Niven/Pournelle, Brin, etc.  Not modern "fantasy", which is for children only (two exceptions: Tolkien´s Lord of the Rings trilogy and Orson Scott Card´s Xenocide and Homecoming series).   Although I do enjoy works on the borderline to ordinary fiction, where the science aspect is just mild spice, most of my reading and of the book reviews here is of books by authors like those mentioned.

Programming is my main interest, both professionally and as a hobby.   My interest here is wide-ranging: esoteric programming languages (like, for example, Lucid), component technologies, communication, user interface design, artificial intelligence, agent technology (especially as applied to user interfaces), assembly language tricks, etc.  I have no favorite programming language (if somebody insists, then I usually answer Delphi, which I admire but don´t use), but I definitely have an aversion to Cobol.

Most of philosophy is completely meaningless.  Most of philosophy is based on unclear definitions, appeals to morality codes, subtly disguised religion, and so on.  I don´t find that kind of philosophy interesting (e.g.,"the meaning of life" kind).  But there are some topics where one can find interesting insights, or at least, points of view, by reasoning on a purely conceptual level.  Metaphysics is one such topic, including the applicability and consequences of special relativity, the consequences of a closed universe, the Big Bang hypothesis, the wave-function collapse problem of quantum physics, and so on.