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Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: George MacDonald Fraser: 1925 - 2008

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: George MacDonald Fraser: 1925 - 2008

http://www.theguardian.com/tone/blog

Software is hard One way to look at Salon co-founder Scott Rosenberg‘s new book, “Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software,” is as an attempt to tell the story of a specific software development project — the effort by industry legend Mitch Kapor and a band of ace programmers to create Chandler, a kind of turbo-powered personal information management program that would dazzle users with its ability to enhance their productivity. On that level alone, the book is successful, even though Chandler’s development process has been bumpy, and some four years after the project began, it’s still not finished. Like an anthropologist recounting the behavior of some hitherto unknown tribe, Rosenberg brings us inside the world of this particular group of software developers and documents their quest with detail and insight.

Man of the Century When TIME Magazine tried to wrap up the millennium in 2000 with a series of special issues, they decided to name the most significant figure of each century. Only one artist rose to that stature—Giotto, who died January 8, 1337.[*] Writing of TIME’s Man of the 14th Century, Johanna McGeary said, “We who are jaded by the unnatural deconstructions of 20th century art cannot easily imagine the electric impact Giotto made by painting natural human figures that reached out of their frames to communicate directly with the observer. This was not simply a marvel in a superstitious age but also the artistic birth of the Renaissance. tonygoodson: Seven Types of Plot/Joke I was thinking some more about how limited Hollywood movies can be in terms of plot and what happens. But then I remembered, there are only 7 basic plots! 1 - [wo]man vs. nature 2 - [wo]man vs. man 3 - [wo]man vs. the environment 4 - [wo]man vs. machines/technology 5 - [wo]man vs. the supernatural 6 - [wo]man vs. self 7 - [wo]man vs. god/religion That's not strictly true, because what about all those crappy Disney B grade films following a dog/cat/bear/pony/kangaroo getting back to its owner!

LRB · Jonathan Raban: Planes, Trains and SUVs James Meek’s last, bestselling novel, The People’s Act of Love, published in 2005 to great critical acclaim, was set in 1919, in ‘that part of Siberia lying between Omsk and Krasnoyarsk’. Anglophone readers who can locate ‘that’ part of Siberia without a good atlas deserve spot prizes. The historical date and exotic location gave Meek a fictional and cultural space in which extraordinary events and people could seem believable, when placed inside a landscape rendered in exact and first-hand detail.

Fallacies Dr. Michael C. Labossiere, the author of a Macintosh tutorial named Fallacy Tutorial Pro 3.0, has kindly agreed to allow the text of his work to appear on the Nizkor site, as a Nizkor Feature. Climate Change anthology, Feeling the pressure book, British Council Switzerland We build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people worldwide. By working with government, civil society and the science community we help to advance debate, knowledge and skills, and want to create a wider mutual appreciation of the UK and Switzerland as valued partners. Our Work in Society

Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegradoes (New Autonomy): Peter Lamborn Wilson Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes by Peter Lamborn Wilson is a wonderful combination of piratology, history, and Islamic/political studies. The book weaves together fact, fiction and speculation into what is the most documentative research to date on the topic of the renegadoes and -- what Mr. Wilson labels on the back cover of the book -- the "insurrectionary communities" that they (and other non-Muslim pirates) formed in Africa in the 16th through 19th centuries. The renegadoes were European Christian pirates whom for various reasons embraced Islam. These reasons can only be speculated upon, but the sheer numbers (Mr. Wilson puts the number somewhere in the thousands) of conversions makes this book a much-welcomed and relevant historical study.

Neal Stephenson, "Anathem" A telling moment comes early in “Anathem,” Neal Stephenson’s latest mind-bogglingly ambitious epic saga. On the planet Arbre, mathematicians and philosophers have been segregated from the rest of humanity for a very, very long time. They live in “concents” — an intentional conflation of the words “concentration camp” and “convent.” As the story begins to unfold, our hero, Fraa Erasmus, is giving an outsider a tour of the concent’s main attraction, a magnificent clock that depends on the sun for daily synchronization. In practiced tour guide patter, Erasmus casually observes: “But even during a nuclear winter, when it can be cloudy for a hundred years, the clock doesn’t get too far out of whack.”

Foster Wallace is a huge loss Beyond postmodernism ... David Foster Wallace. Photograph: Steve Liss/Getty/Time Life David Foster Wallace's death, at the age of 46, is a grotesque shock. He was still young, and still brilliant; his gargantuan novel, Infinite Jest, and his remarkable short stories, displayed a startling originality in an age of increasingly predictable literary gestures. Remembering David Foster Wallace He talked about how difficult it was to be a novelist in a world seething with advertisements and entertainment and knee-jerk knowingness and facile irony. He wrote about the maddening impossibility of scrutinizing yourself without also scrutinizing yourself scrutinizing yourself and so on, ad infinitum, a vertiginous spiral of narcissism — because not even the most merciless self- examination can ignore the probability that you are simultaneously congratulating yourself for your soul-searching, that you are posing. He tried so hard to be sincere and to attend to the world around him because he was excruciatingly aware of how often we are merely “sincere” and “attentive” and all too willing to leave it at that. He spoke of the discipline and of the abrading, daily labor such efforts require because the one imperative that runs throughout all of his work is the intimate connection between humility and wisdom. Perhaps in the end, that’s what he thought, but he was wrong.

Pullman defiant over US protests against Northern Lights 'Glee' ... Philip Pullman. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe Philip Pullman has revealed he was delighted to discover his novel Northern Lights was one of the most "challenged" titles of the year in America, with numerous calls made to have it removed from libraries. John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman: Amazon.co.uk: Robert Skidelsky The book is a very enjoyable, and deatiled account of Maynard Keynes' life. At times touching, exciting, or fascinating, it maintains a light touch even when wading through the economic or political ideas that involved 'the master' in his remarkable life. There are good pieces of personal information collated by Skidelsky when researching the book, and has been updated in light of modern research.

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