There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Artful presentation

I came across this post comparing the presentation styles of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates here. While you can't usually say much about a presentation from a few shots, these pictures of Jobs' are very much the exception. And is it just me, or has Jobs even gone so far as to dress to suit his presentation?

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Currently Reading: Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

Blurb and info:
Earth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rules their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons. Lord of Light.

Published: 1967
Awards: Hugo (1968)
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Alrighty, here's my 2c. Zelazny delivers a brilliant concept, as always, but I found the narrative rather tedious and occasionally obscure. But since that's the Zelazny we've come to know and love, who cares. Zelazny does the time switch thing again, where he moves forward and backward along the timeline of the narrative telling different parts of the story in each chapter. To be continued...

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Full circle

My last post, almost exactly a year ago was about Neil Gaiman - well, more or less. It's odd, because it's Neil Gaiman's work which has prompted me (compelled, rather) to come back and write some more. I finished Neil Gaiman's Sandman two days ago. Right to the last issue. I'd started on it a long time ago - a year, maybe two, possibly three, I don't know for certain. I stopped shortly after hitting issue #20 because the distro I had was damaged and I'd tired of all the missing pages.
A colleague re-introduced me to one the pivotal comics of the mid-eighties recently - The Watchmen - which I concluded I didn't quite like though I was impressed. The Sandman was another such, so I went and got the entire Sandman+spin-offs. And I sat and read, like in the old days. At work, during the lunch break. At home, until four in the morning. In the loo. And all I can say is: Mr. Gaiman, I salute you. The dreaming and all it's cast - Morpheus, Death and the other endless, Cain, Abel, Lucien, Merv, Thessaly, Hazel, Fox and all the others; they made me imagine. I forgotten what that was like, to live in my imagination, to feel it was more real than anything else. In the last year or two I've gone all prosaic, the magic gone from my days and nights. Just the occasional moment snatched from reality when it wasn't looking.
I stopped writing here because I concluded that this was useless, that it didn't accomplish anything. Who on earth is going to read this shite anyways? Better a technical blog where I can share the stuff I do everyday, stuff others may find useful. Well, no more. There is that, but I need this for me. It is good that I titled this blog 'What dreams may come'; now I dedicate this to the dreaming and what it brought back to me.
I've always said reality is for other people; I'd rather settle for a dream or thirty instead.