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Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" Due In September
Alexander Rose writes "Neal Stephenson's new novel, ANATHEM, germinated in 01999 when Danny Hillis asked him and several other contributors to sketch out their ideas of what the Millennium Clock might look like. Stephenson tossed off a quick sketch and promptly forgot about it. Five years later however, when he was between projects, the idea came back to him, and he began to explore the possibility of building a novel around it. ANATHEM is the result, and will be released on September 9th, 02008." Read Rose's complete posting for more information about the release of the book, which he describes as set "in a genre bending alt-future-retro world where mechani-punk technology meets space opera in a blend of the best of Snow Crash and the Baroque Cycle."
Why would we? We don't prefix years before 1000 A.D. with a 0.
WHOOOOOSH! Oh shit, and there we go again! Now I'm going to have to explain a dozen times again how I was being sarcastic.
You just got troll'd!
1) Nobody talked about Y2K. It was all in your head.
2) *sigh* whoosh..
You just got troll'd!
Amen, brother. I can't figure out if Stephenson thinks it artistic or something to end his books like that. For me, it's just a sign of bad writing. There are all sorts of stuff you think are artsy until you improve your craft--and then you realize you were just excusing crap work under a label of "artistic."
For once, I'd like a Stephenson book with a decent ending. I think the only quasi-ending he has ever written might be the ending of the Baroque Cycle. But is that an ending or beating a subject matter to death so thoroughly that there is nothing left to say? ;-)
I say this all as a big fan. For me, his books are great right up until the end, where I am promised a very dissatisfying, unresolved end to the book. And for no good reason as near as I can tell. Doesn't stop me from reading them--but it also doesn't stop me from complaining either :-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Alas, I didn't win one.
While you're there, sign up for a lifetime membership, or, if you're cheap or broke, a free membership. It's only fair, since my posting this might cause all their bandwidth to be eaten up.
But this problem has already been solved in a backwards-compatible way.
See RFC 2550 - Y10K and Beyond.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
In Star Trek they in fact did use the Gregorian Calendar, as well as stardates
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I'll always admire T.S. Elliot for saying, "I'd have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have time."
This is the first time that I have seen this quote attributed to T. S. Elliot. Usually I see it attributed to Mark Twain, who did in fact use it. However, it comes from before him. It has been attributed to Samuel Johnson as well, but it is not his either. Instead, it comes from Blaise Pascal's "Lettres Provinciales", Letter XVI in 1657:
Mes Reverends Peres, mes lettres n'avaient pas accoutume de se suivre de si pres, ni d'etre si etendues. Le peu de temps que j'ai eu a ete cause de l'un et de l'autre. Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Provinciales_-_Seizi%C3%A8me_lettre_aux_r%C3%A9v%C3%A9rends_p%C3%A8res_j%C3%A9suites
My Reverend Fathers, my letters are not accustomed to follow so closely, nor to be so extensive. The limited time that I had was because of one thing and another. I made it longer because I have not had the opportunity to make it shorter.
Please forgive my poor translation.
http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/454-why-most-copywriting-on-the-web-sucks
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TimeToMakeItShort
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v05/0444.html