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I received a spam email from Microsoft today, regarding their bCentral site manager service. The opening paragraph contains unsubscribe instructions — a good thing — but the opt-out URL they give doesn’t work!
SHELL> lynx -head -source http://redir.cq0.net/r/default.asp HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 16:33:49 GMT Content-Type: text/html Cache-control: private
The back cover says this: Funny. Hip. Compelling. Book. I agree completely — this book is authentically Californian, or at least authentically Santa-Cruzian, and very very clever.
The worst thing about this book is the photo on the cover. I hate when publishers try to depict characters; there’s no way the dorky guy in this photo could be as smart as the main character in the book.
It’s a sort of love story, with some political machinations, some Native American history, and a big old car. Smart people learn new things. Attractive people have sex. And everybody has wonderous, glib conversations that are laugh-out-loud funny.
Here’s the main character’s recollection of a job interview.
Law Firm Flunky: What would you say is your greatest weakness?
Ronnie: I respond with hostility to stupid questions.
Heh. I really enjoyed this book. Except for the damn photo on the cover.
Patronize these links, man:
I resisted reading this book for years because I’m not a fan of Microsoft, the company or the products, and I’d read enough about the book to know that it is about Microsoft employees… ugh.
But finally I’d heard enough positive reviews that I had to find out for myself, and now I know I’d made a mistake — this is a great story.
The characters are weird and arty, and best of all they all quit their jobs at Microsoft. The book ends up being more about geek culture and startup companies, and Coupland gets it more right than anyone else I can think of, save Po Bronson. The scenes in this book were not written by an outsider who doesn’t really grok hackers. It’s not so much that the microserfs characters are authentic… they’re actually more pure than most of the hackers I know. What Coupland gets right, what he really understands, is the ideal, even though most of the folks who comprise this subculture can only strive to be as weird (hackish) as Coupland’s cast of misfits.
If you like Legos, The Fan Man, The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest, or Linux, you should read this book.
Even if you’d sooner set fire to your hair than use any of the Windows family of products, you should read this book.
Patronize these links, man:
This is the best book I’ve read since Ender’s Game. The basic plot is the same, but the story is told from the perspective of a different character.
My initial reaction to this concept was negative; I felt that Card was simply milking his award-winning novel for another edition. But then I remembered how much I liked that novel. And then I read this and was drawn in immediately. Now I’m impatient to reread Ender’s Game to compare Bean’s perceptions to Ender’s, for all their shared scenes. Card so effectively puts us inside his characters’ heads that Shadow is wholly fascinating because it shares a plot with another book.
Do read Ender’s Game first; this book will make more sense that way.
Amazon.com has a nice summary of the book; see links below.
Patronize these links, man:
I’d forgotten what a great storyteller Michael Crichton is. I’m not particularly interested in French history, and yet I enjoyed this story, which tells of a band of scientists who are sent back in time. Much of the story takes place in France in 1400, so if you enjoy medieval history, you’ll like this. I was more interested in the modern-day aspect of the story, and the science it involves, but like many of Crichton’s books this kept me turning pages.
Amazon.com has a nice summary of the story in its “editorial reviews” section; see links below.
Patronize these links, man:
