Below is a long excerpt from Neal Stephenson’s marvelous book The System Of The World. I put it here because it contains as its theme, pie, a central obsession of this blog and also because it’s marvelously fun to read. I’ve been rereading the Baroque Cycle in recent weeks and, although the whole clocks in at almost 3,000 pages it mattered not to me since the work was enjoyable throughout on each level: sentence, paragraph and plot. »
“First, it is high treason to “compass or imagine the death of our Lord the King, of our Lady his Queen, or of their eldest son and heir.” The terms “compass or imagine” indicate the premeditation of a murder; it would not be high treason accidentally to kill the Sovereign or any other member of the Royal Family. However it has also been held to include rebelling against or trying to overthrow the monarch, as experience has shown that this normally involves the monarch’s death. »
So I finished Oblivion, well, mostly finished. They keep trying to sell me new bits of it, and yes I’ll probably buy the Knights of the Nine. But there’s just one thing left, the most annoying fetch quest in the game, the one that breaks mens souls, Seeking Your Roots. Imagine that you had to collect about 100⁄150 of 307 identical items hidden within the Greater London area. They could be anywhere, within peoples homes, underground. »
Let me tell you about some things before I go off and make pretty explosions. Do you like the opening shots of movies? Do you like Punch Drunk Love? Then you’ll love this story about the opening shot of Punch Drunk Love. My cat is sitting on my lap as I type this, it basically stops me being snarky in any way, if I were you I would exploit this knowledge. »
The new rugby season starts in earnest this saturday. The anticipation is building. »
A marvelous article in Foreign Affairs on the three main strands of protestantism (fundementalist, liberal and evangelical), particularly as seen from the US and how they influence US foreign policy. This should be required reading for anyone who lazily uses ‘fundementalist’ too often when describing US christianity. It also quite rightly points out some of the good stuff that religiously motivated policies have contributed to the US over the past few years, particualrly in aid. »
My old university has found that tea is nothing but good for you. This is yaysome. »
Bobby climbed doiwn behind him into the unmistakable signature smell of the sprawl, a rich amalgam of stale subway exhalations, ancient soot, and the carcinogenic tang of fresh plastics, all of it shot through with the carbon edge of illicit fossil fuels. William Gibson, Count Zero p163 in my 1995 paperback edition. »
I know you, you’re a sly fox. What with wanting to actually use the monitor you bought at the right resolution under Linux. But, you’re on a deadline and you haven’t got much time, not much time at all, so you hit a bit of google to pimp up those pixels and this is what you find. Edit your xorg.conf to display similar things to the content below: Section “Monitor” Identifier “Acer AL1916W” HorizSync 30-82 Vertrefresh 56-76 Modeline “1440×900″ 106. »
Dad went to Brazil with work and bought me a football shirt from the Maracana. As you would if you valued your son or daughter. I took a photo of me wearing this shirt and put it on flickr. A little while later a nice chap named Karl dropped me a line asking if he could use my photo in some work he was doing. That work was part of the boxart for a (rather good) DVD boxed set on brazillian football which he dropped in the post and which arrived today. »