In Paris in 1924, Hector is part of the Lost Generation. He spends time writing in bars or meeting Ernest Hemingway and others there or at salons at Gertrude Stein's place. A string of murders of literary magazine editors occurs. Stein has decided to have the mystery writers gathering at her salons discover who is committing the murders especially since one murder occurred at one of her salons. Who did it? Who finds the murderer?

I enjoyed this book. It started slow for me since it is part of a series and was not the first story so I had to do a little catch up. It picked up a lot as the story started going with the murders and the Nada movement getting involved. I liked how Hector started following clues and how he checked with Hemingway on his (Hector's) love life. That was a bit messy. Hector's train of thought was interesting to follow as he was putting the clues together as to who was guilty. He looked at everyone. The police followed his line of thinking as well as Simon, the detective, who consulted with him.

I liked the mixture of real people with fictional ones. I liked Hector and Brinke. Molly was a little aloof. Hemingway and Stein gave flavor to the story as Hector and Brinke were very involved with them. As the story concluded, I did not figure out who did all the murders until most of it was explained to me. With the last scene of the book, I wonder what happened with Hector. Did he fulfill his promises?

MG Hector has toppled the SUV market in India. In the month of July 2019, 1500 units of Hector were delivered. However, the British branded SUV kept the sales momentum strong and delivred another 2018 units in August 2019.

MG has officially rolled out 5000 units of the Hector from its Halol plant in Gujarat. Till last month the facility was manufacturing about 2000 units of Hector per month and now the production capacity has been increased to 3000 units to meet the order backlog. There are about 28,000 bookings of Hector already lined up with about 11,000 bookings in the waitlist.

Commenting on the sales numbers, Gaurav Gupta, Chief Commercial Officer, Mg hector car, said. “We are extremely overwhelmed with the response that the MG HECTOR has received. We remain strongly focused on fulfilling the 28,000 bookings, as part of our commitment to ensure customer satisfaction.

Since the inception of Hector, the sales of Tata Harrier, Jeep Compass, as well as Mahindra XUV 500, has declined by a huge margin. This is all because Hector comes with a strong value for money proposition which is certainly for offered by others. The most talked-about features of Hector is its 4G LTE enabled connectivity features. This can also be considered as the main sales driver.

In my opinion, MG should increase the production capacity to about 5000 units per month to clear the bookings backlog as early as possible. Because at present, some latest bookings of the Hector will have to wait for 8 to 9 months before getting delivered.

“Its is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.”

S. I. Hayakawa, quoted by Hector J. Levesque In "Common Sense, the Turing Test, and the Quest for Real AI"

The problem here is in the frequent ambiguity of the English language caused by its excessively simplistic grammar, made so by the collision between Germanic and Romance that produced the English language of today, essentially a creole construction. It would not arise in a language that is less mixed and more precise, e.g., German (my favourite language for rigorous thoughts and statements). Yet, it should be easy enough to fix, by making the parser look up idiomatic expressions and test them against the context of the conversation. The devices of gender and declension, present in German, allow for quite precise associations.

If you're into stuff like this, read on.

"Soyez tranquille, mon capitaine, dit Ben-Zouf. Il vivra, j’en réponds. Ces petits hommes-là, c’est tout nerfs ! J’en ai vu de plus secs que lui, et qui étaient revenus de plus loin !
– Et d’où étaient-ils revenus, Ben-Zouf ?
– D’Égypte, mon capitaine, dans une belle boîte peinturlurée !
– C’étaient des momies, imbécile !
– Comme vous dites, mon capitaine !"

"En finirons-nous ? demanda le professeur. Le volume d’une sphère…
– Est égal au produit de la surface… répondit Hector Servadac en tâtonnant, multiplié…
– Par le tiers du rayon, monsieur ! s’écria Palmyrin Rosette. Par le tiers du rayon ! Est-ce fini ?
– À peu près ! Le tiers du rayon de Gallia étant de cent vingt-trois, trois, trois, trois, trois, trois…
– Trois, trois, trois, trois… répéta Ben-Zouf, en parcourant la gamme des sons.
– Silence ! cria le professeur, sérieusement irrité. Contentez-vous des deux premières décimales, et négligez les autres.
– Je néglige, répondit Hector Servadac.

Un jour, le 12 octobre, Ben-Zouf, qui rôdait autour de la grande salle de Nina-Ruche, dans laquelle le professeur se trouvait en ce moment, l’entendit pousser un cri retentissant.
Ben-Zouf courut à lui.
"Vous vous êtes fait mal, sans doute ? lui demanda-t-il du ton dont il aurait dit : Comment vous portez-vous ?
– Eurêka ! te dis-je, eurêka !" répondit Palmyrin Rosette, qui trépignait comme un fou. Il y avait dans son transport à la fois du contentement et de la rage.
"Eurêka ? redit Ben-Zouf.
– Oui, eurêka ! Sais-tu ce que cela veut dire ?
– Non.
– Eh bien, va-t’en au diable !"
"Heureusement, pensa l’ordonnance, que lorsqu’il ne veut pas répondre, M. Rosette y met au moins des formes !"
Et il s’en alla, non au diable, mais trouver Hector Servadac.
"Mon capitaine, dit-il, il y a du nouveau.
– Qu’est-ce donc ?
– Le savant… eh bien ! il a « eurêké…".
– Il a trouvé !… s’écria le capitaine Servadac. Mais qu’a-t-il trouvé ?
– Cela, je ne le sais pas.
– Eh ! c’est ce qu’il faudrait précisément savoir !"

There's a point of intersection between what you love, waht you are good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for and that's Ikigai, and I'm still not sure what mine is. It's something I really should think about rather than yearning for something more in my life, and maybe it's in my hobbies rather than in my job but I really should try to find something in my life that feeds my soul.

Comes across as a bit pat and simplistic but interesting and food for thought