Monthly Archives: July 2007

Book Review: Geek Love: A Novel by Katherine Dunn

Katherine Dunn’s book Geek Love is a captivating tale of the brutal sibling warfare that is part and parcel of any large family. What makes her book unique is the setting that allows her to explore the far fringes of these battles while informing us about our own reality. In some ways it me reminds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon used the implausibility of horrible monsters to explore common themes in teenage lives from alienation to sex. In Geek Love, Katherine Dunn uses the extreme universe of the circus freak to explore the hell hole that is family.

In her book, the siblings are a collection of circus freaks and the parents the circus masters. The freaks are not some accidental genetic mutation but the explicit creation of the pater familia. He and his wife to create their mutant freaks, consume vast quantities of drugs that are designed to create mutations. And although we are meant to recoil from this form of parenting, how different is it, really, from any father who tries and to make his children into whatever image he has of them?

Starting from this extreme point in space, we then begin a descent into the mad, mad world that is Binewski family, a tale that is recounted to us by Olympia the last surving member of the clan. We learn about Arturo, Aqua Boy, the siamese twins and chick.

There are three basic threads that emerge. The first is the story of how Arturo slowly claims ownership of the circus, usurping his father’s power. The second thread is the tale of how Arturo rather than admit he is abnormal uses the power of his voice and show to convince normal people that because they are not like him they are abnormal. The third tale is the tale of stunted lust between Olympia, the twins and Arturo.

Interspersed within these threads we learn about the day-to-day life of being a freak, being in a circus, and being a member of this very unique family.

This is a good book. Disturbing, but a good book. I suspect it is disturbing because it forces us all to look at the freaks and wonder are we really that different from them?

OPML Editor

I am having way, way, way too much fun right now. The OPML editor is fundamentally changing how I look at blogging.

The real pain with wordpress is the interactive experience of connecting to the text editor in my web browser.

The OPML editor has no lag between the moment you want to say something and the moment you are actually saying it.

Not sure if that’s a disadvantage.

The lag means you blog less, but your blogs are more thoughtful.

Nope.

As someone who is time constrained, the notion that I can write a note whenever I want and have it appear in my blog is compelling. I hate the time it takes to bring up my web browser and connect to some web site. Why should I have to wait to express myself?

I believe this is going to change how I think about blogging. It’s no longer about crafting a long and involved post about something. This is going to be more about saying whatever I want, whenever I want.

Yipee!

Maybe I’ll stop now…

MS Word and blogging

So it turns out that 2003 does not support integration with blogs, however, 2007 does.

And if you go through the MS 2007 set of demos you’ll discover that a lot of their products support tighter integration with the web-o-sphere.

I believe that thick clients deliver an interactive experience that is fundamentally superior to the web experience. However, the web-experience provides a way to seemlessly publish information on the internet.

The only vendor who would be capable of delivering the integration of the two is Microsoft, which they appear to have done.

I really can’t wait to try Office 2007.

Jott

So I recenlty discovered http://www.jott.com

This is a fascinating service that may actually be a fundamentally different approach to the phone.

Jott lets me send email by calling a number and entering a message in voice that gets transcribed into a text and email message.

I don’t think the folks who did Jott will transform the mobile phone industry. However, if one of the major players were to provide such a service this could be game changing. It might eliminate some of the need for a smart phone. Interesting.

Where did these people come from.

One thing that has been bugging me of late are the comments on my blog about the iphone.

I can’t imagine that there are so many people out there who read my blog. I have to believe there is some serivce that scans blogs and directs folks to topics they are interested.

I know that I push my blog to technorati, so maybe that’s where they get their information.

Can I add pictures?

I added a link. I wonder what this will do. And I defintely wonder what I will get out of this.

okay, let’s post this

Alright adding a link somehow didn’t work.

Still doesn’t!

Hmm..

Maybe now?

yes!

It worked!

Awesome!

I am starting to love my OPML editor.

MS Word

It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful MS products continue to be. Office 2003 was an order of magnitude better than the previous version. 2007 is an order of magnitude better than 2003.

I am in love all over again.

And after having spent 10 minutes in the Google Doc universe, I am never going back to that primitive universe.

Do technology journalists even use the programs they tout?

 

Thoughts …

Hype is like cancer that spreads until it obliterates all facts in their wake.

Currently the Google word processor is being hyped as the alternative to using MS Word.

About two years ago I tried to use Open Office. MS Word was going to cost me an arm and a leg and I had every incentive. A month of painful struggle and irritation at what was an inferior and ultimately unusable product as compared to MS Word, I shelled out the big bucks.

Google Docs is an impressive piece of web software, and certainly superior to wordpress’ text editor widget. However, I am pretty sure, that I prefer using MS Word if I ever have to write any document.

Nonetheless, this document was written using google doc.

My next task is to see if I can get MS Word to publish directly to my blog….

And for the record, Open Office was far more usable.