Reviews and links for October 2010
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
5/5
Stonking. It tells the tale of a Dutch clerk (de Zoet) at a trading post with the xenophobic Japan of 1799. It has the swashbuckling panache and anal research of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle with just a dash of 'Big Trouble in Little China'. I hoped it was going to end with a 'to be continued...' but alas, Mitchell managed to wrap it up. Loved it.
Links
- David Mitchell: You can't blame the rich for paying as little tax as possible. I do the same from Global: David Mitchell | guardian.co.uk (Brilliant - on 38 degrees, and on eviscerating the BBC.).
- Natural genes can't be patented says U.S. government from Boing Boing (Good decision :)).
- Everest climbers get 3G network from BBC News - Home (Coming soon: escalators).
- Dream recording device 'is possible' from BBC News - Home (Life channels 'Until the End of the World').
- Pope urges migrants to integrate from BBC News - Home (How about getting priests to respect the laws of host countries and then start worrying about immigrants.).
- R2D2, the bathing-suit edition from Boing Boing (Excellent.).
- How Google understands language like a 10-year-old from San Francisco Bay Area News — — SFGate (Statistical analysis is Searle's Chineese Room, not AI.).
- The world according to San Francisco from Boing Boing (:)).
- Malcolm Gladwell is wrong about the revolution from All Salon (He's completely right. I joined a group to help the monks in Burma and they're still totally screwed.).
- Man used hosepipe to punish son from BBC News - Home (That's not what I was expecting the hosepipe to be used for. I think the son got off lightly and the father is lucky not to be facing a hosepipe ban related death sentence.).
Add Comment
All comments are moderated. Your email address is used to display a Gravatar and optionally for notification of new comments and to sign up for the newsletter.