Amusing Kottke post about people who have bookmarked del.icio.us, and the people who have bookmarked those people… and so on ad infinitum. Worth mentioning that this goes on and on, I went on for about half a dozen more then got bored…
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Although published as three distinct volumes, The Baroque Cycle should really be considered one epic (2500+ page) novel, which has then been split (just to keep you awake) into eight “books”. It is for this reason I am commenting on the series as a whole, rather than attempting to look separately at the three volumes, Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System Of The World.
The Baroque Cycle is intelligent, heavy going, and compelling. It is based on the history of the period between about 1660-1714, and features (household name) real people from that era as characters. Very often it’s laugh-out-loud funny, and is consistently engaging - the characters (that is to say, the entirely fictional ones), are believable, the plots and situations are atmospheric, but it’s also extremely thought provoking and educational. Anyone with any interest in the history of science, English etymology or politics should seriously consider these books for their educational purpose, let alone the tale contained.
Stephenson brings us great gifts with this release - he is surely among the best writers in the world today.
Tags: books, Neal Stephenson
Are we real? Or are we all just part of some kind of enormous simulation? Reassuringly, the article concludes that it really doesn’t matter: “Even if we’re not real, we perceive our world to be real.”
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I was stunned by this novel. Not sure I’m qualified to comment on it… this book has jumped from me being only vaguely aware of it to being one of my all-time favourites, it’s incredible.
Tags: books, Milan Kundera
Dammit! I’d been going to do some work tonight, but instead I got distracted playing Kingdom of Loathing. This is an online PHP game, with a humourous style, highly recommended.
I’m especially interested in this as I’ve had ideas in my head for some time about creating a similar game - but lacked the resources - or, frankly inclination and material to get started.
It didn’t take long: this slashdot post links to two sites with articles on taking apart the Nintendo Wii. See also Smash my Wii.
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A how-to style guide on how to make candles out of old candles. Might have to try this sometime.
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AJAX-y Timeline of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Acquisitions - very nice interface. Hopefully the author will keep this updated, it makes keeping track of things very simple.
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I picked up this paperback for (I think) 50p, in a pile in a supermarket. I only bought it because the author’s name seemed so familiar - it turns out to be the actress who played Mrs. Doyle in Father Tedw. I very nearly stopped reading after the first chapter or so (the writing style is really quite jarring), but decided to persevere. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this book, it’s just underwhelming. The story is engaging enough, if somewhat lacking in action, and the characters are well fleshed out (the narrator and protagonist in particular is well realised), but nothing here piques ones emotions or curiosity even slightly.
Tags: books, Pauline McLynn
A javascript version of the Big Spanish Castle Illusion. I love these sorts of optical illusions, and this one is so effective.
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This is a temporary name for a project I’ve been working on - it’s an implementation of John Conway’s Game of Life, in Mono. I hope to use this as the first project which I conduct properly, managing the code and it’s development rather than just making the whole thing up as I go along as I normally would. Additionally, I will be learning, C#, Mono, Gtk#, and (possibly), Subversion or similar.
Anyway, the first release is here, along with the full source code. Behold Version 0.0.1!
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An 8-track EP, though it features both the singles released from Through the Windowpane (”Trains to Brazil” and “Made-Up Lovesong #43″), the Guillemots debut (and current) album.
Catchy, bright music - not necessarily the sort of thing you’ll be humming for weeks after the first listen*, but that’s shouldn’t detract from the enjoyment, the songs are extremely attention-grabbing - and seem to have the ability to make you smile. This is possibly due to them being markedly different from most music out there today, From The Cliffs is tough to classify, and stands apart from almost everything.
* well, I wasn’t anyway
Tags: music
Slashdot Posting Bug Infuriates Haggard Admins
Haha. When Slashdot passed the 2^24 (16,777,216) comments threshold, the size was larger than the index of their MySQL table, so now there’s no threading for the next couple of hours. As a post on the site itself says, “It’s true that… ‘Anyone could have made the mistake’. But it’s so much funnier when that anyone is not you.”
These geeks… have no life. Video of people waiting in line to pay $600 for a pre-order of a PS3. I want to find this funny, but it’s actually more pathetic than anything.
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A triumph of imagination and imagery - Niven’s depiction of the vast scale of the locations encountered in the story is humbling, the perfect background setting for a far-future space adventure!
I was less thrilled with the human (maybe that’s not an appropriate word, only two of the four lead characters are human - let’s say corporeal) aspects of the story… if once they seemed fantastical, to me they just felt secondary to the yarn itself and to the graphical descriptions.
Tags: books, Larry Niven, scifi
While reading notes for the Will Wright link (below), I found that Sim City 5 is in the works. Not earth shattering news, but it’s good to know that the series is still under development. I stopped playing the 4th edition when my laptop was stolen over a year a ago, as it had my only remaining Windows installation. Since the game does not run to my satisfaction on Linux, I haven’t much played it since.
I see that Sim City 2000 (which I have a copy of somewhere - at my parents house maybe?) runs nicely under Wine. I shall test this when next I get the chance.
Will Wright must be one of the most interesting individuals alive today - his body of work speaks for itself. Kottke.org has posted an extensive bibliography, detailing many of the works which have inspired Wright. I think it will be interesting to go through much of this list. Great amounts of it are not strictly technical or scientific, which is curious; though having said that, much of the material is drawn from the New Yorker, so maybe not.
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Interesting project which aims to “document experiences — both good and bad — presented by the millions of EULAs (End User Licensing Agreements) as they are both designed and encountered, knowingly or otherwise”. Seems like a good and noble idea as a more permanent site/volunteer group* - as it is the project will last 8 weeks or so as an academic endeavor [sic]. [via]
* a la Groklaw perhaps.
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