Re: Wilkins' philosophical language in the news

Christophe Grandsire wrote at 2003-06-30 12:13:53 (+0200)
 > En réponse à Tim May :
 >
 >
 > >(As the URL suggests, it's a Flash animation, so you may want to skip
 > >it.)  Inside the site, there's a letter from Stephenson which talks in
 > >part about the message, and how and why it was written.
 > >
 > >http://www.baroquecycle.com/letter1.htm
 > >
 > >There's a link from that page to one by Todd Garrison, who was the
 > >first person on the web to decipher the message. (There's a still
 > >image on that page, if you skipped the flash but wanted to look at
 > >it.)
 >
 > Well, all this is very interesting! :) I didn't know this author. Has
 > anybody already read his other books? For what I've read on that webpage,
 > he seems to have the writing style and inspiration of an American Umberto
 > Eco. But I may be wrong, having never heard of this guy before.
 >
Stephenson?  He's alright.  I think I may have read all his books
now.  Mostly science fiction.  His last one, _Cryptonomicon_, seems to
be related to the new one - some of the characters seem to have the
same names, but _Cryptonomicon_ was set in WWII and the present day.
He's known for not being much good at writing endings.  I don't know
that I'd compare him to Eco, but then I've only read _Foucalt's
Pendulum_.

He wrote a few things that're online, e.g.

A very long article, and entertaining, article for _Wired_ on
submarine cables:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

_In the Beginning was the Command Line_, a meditation on operating
systems and modern life:
http://bang.dhs.org/be/beginning.html

 > >[1]  Well, _relatively_ famous.  Borges wrote an essay about it, and
 > >it's been mentioned here more than once.
 >
 > Well, I knew the Caractéristique Universelle of Leibniz, which is
 > based on equivalent principles, but this one I don't remember
 > hearing about it.
 >
There's a translation of Borges's essay here:
http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html

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