Everything dies. We all know it: whether it be the sickly sweet smell of something small somewhere under the bushes in the front yard, or the more leisurely and somehow more dramatic deaths of institutions, houses, entire countries. Baghdad has been where it is for a few thousand years and once was renowned for its greenery; no doubt it rests on the bones of itself, in ongoing self-renewal.
As you might guess, this here is a grim little poem. 🙂 The original draft dates back to 1990.
I am way way overdue for a books read post. I have such a backlog to comment on that here I am with seven paperbacks and 8 hardbacks, not counting a few business books and a bunch of graphics novels. So with no further ado, here we go on the paperbacks. Let’s get the fluffiest one out of the way first.
The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. This was one of those impulse purchases in an airport. It’s also yet another of those “historian/archaeologist/Dan Brown clone finds earth-shattering secret from early Christianity and is pursed by the Catholic Church” books. I am hesitant to say it’s a clone of The DaVinci Code because it’s not like that book invented the genre. But… OK, it’s a clone of The DaVinci Code.
The McGuffin this time is, as the book says, a secret held by the “last Templar” — who isn’t actually the last Templar (since those get exterminated quite a while later), but rather is a random Templar who hides a chest containing something of immense value. Most specifically, it’s material that would disprove the divinity of Jesus. So of course, in the modern day we have the scientist whose faith is challenged, and the one who is in it just for the science, and the priest who seems to have forgotten everything he learned about Jesus’ teachings, and so on. The mystery is barely present — there’s none of that rich historical fakery going on that is in the better clones, making you want to go read up on the history of paintings or places — but the action is lively, with the book opening with the siege of Acre and moving immediately to the present day where four robbers in Templar outfits decapitate a museum guard on live TV and ride their horses into the Met to steal stuff.
Bottom line: yeah, it’s an airport book.
Look at this, a person from the web world schooling all us community relations wannabes in how to do it right: Creating Passionate Users: User Community and ROI. Just an excellent excellent post. 🙂
I am an information junkie. I admit it. I have 75 RSS feeds set up in my reader as a sidebar in my browser (Sage in Firefox). I have, after much much pruning, reduced my bookmark set to only 35 sites here at work (at home, it is maybe 5 times bigger than that). If I am honest with myself, they turned into RSS feeds, mostly. Worse, every day I visit at least four message forums and scan through recent posts.
I am also on IM and email. I hit the news sites, like CNN or BBC, usually three or four times a day. I get both Time and Entertainment Weekly delivered at home, and actually read them cover to cover (usually on a two week delay). Plus, I get two or three other magazines that were given as gifts.
It’s easy to get into information overload mode.
The first Ludium was one of my favorite conferences ever: a conference about virtual worlds that was literally structured as a game. Now here’s the second one. Continue reading »
