Posts Tagged ‘criticism’
Dan Brown parody
Dan Brown is a hilariously bad writer. The Da Vinci Code was an outrageously successful book.
So it was only inevitable that in addition to all the delicious criticism of Dan Brown’s writing,1 there would also be a number of parodies of his books published, and indeed there have been several.2 While looking for something in the library, I found The Da Vinci Cod: A Fishy Parody by “Don Brine” (real name Adam Roberts) and quickly proceeded to borrow it and read it. It was a good two hours spent, which is more than can be said for Dan Brown’s books themselves. Although the author is a professor of literature at London University, the book manages to remain true to the awful writing and plot of the original. I heartily recommend reading the book if you come across it; for a taste of what it’s like, some excerpts follow. You can also see parts of the book at Google Books.
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Reviews
Dumping ground for reviews of books, movies, etc. that I find:
Examples of bad design
Here is a poster for Gattaca:
Maybe they have some notion of who the more popular actor is, but would it really hurt that much to swap the names around? This is ridiculous.
Lauri Apple calls it “Twittarded”, and says
After using Twitter, I want to make a Website that consists of a plain white screen. The site does not allow you to do or communicate anything — all you can do is just look at it and develop an overwhelming feeling of boredom that will hopefully inspire you to get up and express yourself in the three-dimensional world.
She also links to this dull blog. That blog is incredible. The number of comments on each post even more so.
String Theory
Between this and this and my reading of Feynman’s Rainbow today, I must say that my opinion of String Theory isn’t really… :-)
Update: Also (noting it down because I’m too busy/lazy to read the entire thing now): A Slashdot review of Smolin’s book mentioned above.
Another update: A reply by Joe Polchinski
PHD comics on astrophysics, largely the same.
And until I file this away in the proper place (along with Murphy’s laws, etc.), here is Tumbling toast, Murphy’s Law and the fundamental constants (not available), and the misanthropic principle.
The Lumber Room 