Manny Rayner's book reviews

I do research in spoken language technology, building software that people can talk to. Right now, our main project is an app that lets beginning language students practice their speaking skills; if you're interested, you can find out more here. We have been working on it for about three and half years, and so far we don't really know if it's a good idea or not. We get mixed messages from the people who have tried it out. Some of them are enthusiastic and say it's really improved their French or Japanese. Others complain about this and that: not fast enough, speech recognition isn't sufficiently reliable, doesn't let you practice enough different things. We continue with it, because we believe in the basic concept, but it's quite possible we're just going down a dead end.

I read this book about 25 years ago, when I was starting out in this field, and it's a frightening parable for anyone who works with new technology. Ally Fox is a gifted engineer who completely lacks any kind of common sense. He conceives an insane plan to move his family to Honduras and set up house in the jungle. He will build an enormous refrigerator and make large quantities of ice. The near-savage inhabitants of the area have never seen ice. For no particular reason, Fox is convinced that they will be amazed and thrilled by it.

They locate a good spot to pitch camp, they build their house and their monster refrigerator, but no one comes asking for ice. Fox decides he has to go to the clients. He wraps up some big blocks of ice, insulating them as well as he can, and sets off to find his user base.

If you're in the tech innovation business yourself, you will probably find this book fascinating. But be warned that it could also give you nightmares.