Wednesday, May 09, 2007


Spaghetti Aural

I am deep into Cloud Atlas. There is no link from here so you can avoid the spoilers that might crop up in any reviews though I am not sure that knowing the structure would harm your enjoyment of this book. I cannot describe my feelings about it without revealing this structure, other than to say that they are positive. Thanks to the netty-type person who persuaded me to have another go at it after I noted that is was in the top ten of most-bought-least-read books. As well it does seem to have some of the elements of the push-pop story in Godel, Escher, Bach though I hope that the final story of Cloud Atlas is not omitted to make the point that Douglas Hofstadter did. It also reminds me a tiny bit of Thinks but I am not sure why.

Now a complaint. You know those stock photos that you see in presentations or used to illustrate brochures? They show a tidy office, all shiny, clean desks and the appearance of calm busyness. The people are all occupied, their attention taken by atmospherically lit computer screens, the very epitome of what non-office monkeys used to think offices were like before offices began to filter into the reality television shows and sitcoms. Well that is the image! The sound however is the aural equivalent of Yellow Submarine. Mobile phones! That’s what this rant is about – that and the alert sounds on IM. The professional ambience is routinely shattered by nursery-style jingles and tinny approximations to chart music which has no hook or worse, some supposedly humorous sound, such as the cartoon noises of birds or a comedy splash. I think I may even have once heard a
Wilhelm Scream. I would like all phones to go back to a simple ringing noise but the argument against that is How would we know whose phone was demanding to be answered? Maybe we should have the voice of HAL calling out the name of the phones owner but that might be creepy I suppose. Some phones use the generic US phone ring which makes me think someone has started watching an episode of The Rockford Files.

I did have something I wanted to say about test plans but it has been lost.

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