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Art lie, now with more science fiction

Neal Stephenson calls 300--now get this--Classics-based sci-fi and that behind critical complaints lies politics and not aesthetics or history. 300 came out of the Rotten Tomatoes starting gates strong but has since fallen to 60%/51% where its defenders revel in its action-fluff and its detractors see merely fluffy-action. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon sets the tone for most of the complaints:

A recent, characteristically beard-stroking New York Times article pondered the way reporters at an international press junket for the computer-generated extravaganza "300" zealously attempted to read the movie as a metaphor for George W. Bush's war on Iraq. ... The bigger question to ask about "300" is why, for a supposedly rousing tale of heroism, it's so curiously unaffecting.

And I baffle at Stephenson's sucking up to his readership by turning 300 into some sort of a techie history that it is not. I guess he'd consider A Knight's Tale to be included in this new form of sci-fi with its heavy metal soundtrack and Hollywood-based history.

I wonder if the TMNT adaptation will have as many fervent defenders?

1 year

My first official post was one year ago today--a rambling review of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. I was hoping to have a redesign by now (I've got a lot of self-loathing with the layout and CSS), but well ... it was a busy weekend. I need to clean up the layout and clarify the organization so I can find stuff a little easier. I had a few phases of redesign early on as I got comfortable with CSS and MovableType and am finally getting in the mood to dive in again. It's one of those spring-cleaning things: you're happy when it's done, but it eats up too much time to do it.

So, I made it a year and now I can stop with these silly anniversaries.

More Chariots of the Gods?

Bletchly Park [Wikipedia], center for British codebreaking in WWII and central within Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, has gathered solutions to the Shugborough code mystery [Wikipedia]. The monument, created between 1748 and 1758, contains an as-yet undeciphered enscryption that many felt pointed to the location of the holy grail!! Representatives from Bletchly Park have narrowed the most likely solutions down to either an acronym for a dedication to the deceased or--more likely--a reference to a secret order popular at the time called the Priory of Sion [Wikipedia].

However, according to Wikipedia, the Priory of Sion only goes back to 1956, and any older history was concocted to give them greater credibility. Is Wikipedia wrong? Or is the Bletchly Park announcement a hoax?

[ via BoingBoing -> Bletchly Park ]

What? No Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?

I'm always tempted to go back to sci-fi in my reading list. The closest I've gotten is a couple of the recent William Gibson [Wikipedia] novels a year ago--Idoru and Pattern Recognition [Amazon]--both were pretty good (and oddly similar). Also the Neal Stephenson novels Quicksilver [Amazon] and (currently) Cryptonomicon [Amazon]. Also good. But I've been tempted to branch out.

Maybe with Kim Stanley Robinson. His Mars Trilogy [Amazon] has been favorably blogged by both BoingBoing and just recently Musical Perceptions.

And what's a better book recommendation than random chance?

Today's reading list

I'm not sure if I like these reading lists. They bundle many entries under one, giant entry at the expense of categorization. This may be a short-lived experiment.

• Authenticity blues
• Climate Change Melts Arctic Ice
• Climate change is here, now, say scientists
• Winning and losing the compliment game
• A Mobile Web That Knows All About You
• Riemann zeta function
• Data haven

Today's reading list

• J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly
• Cavite province, Philippines
• Spyware: Sneaky, annoying threat
• Home PCs Plagued With Problems
• Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on Halliburton
• The Facts on Halliburton

Cryptonomicon; Stephenson, Neal

I had no clean segue from Fermat and the OED, so I decided just to go back to fiction. It will probably have some heady math-stuffs in it to tie it in with Fermat--and it'll be a good way to start my sabbatical (one week to go!).

Review: Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson (4/5)

I (finally) finished Quicksilver last week. Here's a review, and some additional links for reference:

• Metaweb (Wiki on Quicksilver)
• Quicksilver at Amazon
• Neal Stephenson's Web Page