Stephen Burt, from the London Review of Books has written a great analysis of the late Phillip K. Dick’s work. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of Phillip’s books, including Ubik, A Scanner Darkly and The Man in the High Castle. The first two were great books, the latter I didn’t understand at all - something I was quite dissapointed about given the high regard in which it is held.
If you haven’t read any of his books, this is a great introduction to what you can expect. Read it here.
I’ve had the opportunity over the past week to assess Apple’s flagship presentation software, Keynote. My conclusion is that Keynote is great, but has some major shortfalls.
My big gripe is with its charting capabilities. Keynote can present fantastic graphs and charts. You can see this at the Macworld Keynotes. They look professional - especially in comparison to the clunky Powerpoint ones. What lets it down is the lousy integration with Microsoft Excel.
Why can’t I drag and drop a pivot table, or even an ordinary table into Keynote and easily turn it into a graph? Why can’t I drag and drop a chart from Excel and have Keynote turn it into a native graph instead of displaying it as an image? Why is the data entry dialog which pops up when creating a chart, always populated with data which you have to delete? (that one is just plain silly). You can’t even order the data in the chart data dialog unless you move the data around manually. I found all this extremely time consuming and counter intuitive. Not what I expect from an Apple product.
After my presentation, many people commented on how slick and professional it was. This is a testament to Keynote’s abilities rather than mine. I’ll continue to use Keynote for presentations but i’ll be watching its evolution with keen interest.
I’ve just finished reading the Reality Dysfuntion by Peter F. Hamilton. Peter is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors and i’ve read quite a few of Peter’s books.
The Reality Dysfunction is the first part of the three part Night’s Dawn trilogy. Complicated plots with many characters are a trademark of Peter’s writing style. This can make the books quite difficult to get into, but he’s a master at bringing the strands together into a coherent whole.
This book is fairly short in comparison to some of the authors other works, but it’s no lightweight at 588 pages. The book sets out a vision of the human race of the future, where humans have split into two separate sub-species - the Adamists and the Edenists. The political and ideological struggle between the two is one of the main themes running through the story. The human race has evolved beyond natural boundaries. The development of genetic engineering has eradicated disease, risen intelligence and enhanced physical abilities.
The universe that he creates is heavy in technology - featuring space combat, trade and travel. The planets that he creates are realistic, gritty and heavy in detail, forming part of a larger commonwealth of hundreds of planets. Some of these are havens of advanced technology, others simple outposts where the inhabitants have escaped the daily grind of advanced society to become self-sufficient. Or die trying.
My one complaint about the book is that it felt like the first half of a book, rather than the first part of a trilogy. I enjoyed it though and will definitely be reading the rest.
Dubai continues to lead the world in building futuristic, jaw dropping, fantastical architecture.
The latest creation comes from Italian architect, David Fisher, who seems to be relatively unknown. His design, a 1,378 foot skyscraper, generates its own power via huge wind turbines sandwiched between the floors. The floors themselves individually rotate around a central column, creating a design that the architect says will ‘never look the same, not once in a lifetime’. Probably a wee bit of an exaggeration, but impressive nonetheless.
If you get saving now, you might just be able to afford one of the $3.7 million apartments by the time it is completed in 2010. Link to the BBC article. Other impressive designs.
Boston.com’s ‘The Big Picture’ has done it again. Fabulous, high quality images, in a large format which really brings the subject home.
Ethiopia in Food Crisis Once More