Q&amp;A with Martin Amis
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One of the world's greatest living novelists talks about the author's ego, what we don't say about 9/11, and why the English hate writers
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Ilan Stavans (Sam Masinter) Ilan Stavans's books include "On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language" and "The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories." What are you working on? Iâm working on a number of projects: * My book "CÃ©sar ChÃ¡vez: An Organizerâs Tale" (Penguin), made of the labor organizerâs speeches, will be out in April. It will appear almost [...].
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Back with his own look at the php/db|works conference is Cal Evans wrapping up Day Two:   Day Two at php|works started off with a bang. Rasums presented his "Getting Rich with PHP" as the opening keynote. If you've never seen this presentation, the OSCON version is described here with links to a video of it as well as the slides. It's an interesting presentation. I missed the first section of it at OSCON where he slaps around both IE and FLASH pointing out some serious security holes. Again, it's a great presentation and worth the time to listen to.   Cal talks about...well...the talks and about the interviews he started (like with Chris Hartjes, Ilia Alshanetsky, Chris Shiflett, and Sebastian Bergmann).
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Wrapping up our chat with author Michael Lewis.
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Reader Suchet Bal sends us his experiences.
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Tycho: It's available almost everywhere, actually, but we have it on our own store now if you do not already posess it. I've seen a few out there in The Retail Book Fortresses, so should you desire a copy of Epic Legends Of The Magic Sword Kings, the process will be very straightforward. I think it turned out really well, but I wrote all of it, and I get paid when you buy it. So I might not be the person to ask.  Trivia: The third book is called The Warsun Prophecies, which we already announced. The fourth book is called "Birds Are Weird."(CW)TB
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The loud Atom evangelist Tim Bray talks about everything from Ruby to simplified equal opportunity.
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Amitabh Bachchan on his films and Hollywood.
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Tycho: The whole reason I wrote that other post was to link the new article about it at 1up, and I didn't even manage to do that - here you go. In a way, I'm glad I didn't link it before - in the intervening period, a new episode of the 1up show has dropped that has a ton of interview and video material for every part of Episode 2 - including TF2 and Portal. It's the top video on this page. Unbelievably delicious.(CW)TB
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James Sanders, an architect, author and filmmaker based in New York City, is taking questions from City Room readers this week.
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Gabe: I know we don't talk about our game much. We really don't want to beat you guys over the head with it. Honestly we handle most of our big projects that way. We try to make coming here "easy" and I don't want you guys to feel like you're constantly being pitched something. Balancing that against the fact that if we don't tell you about things like new shirts and books you are less likely to purchase them is tricky. another reason for the lack of coverage is that we really weren't sure the game was going to be any good. We're doing a lot of the art and all the writing but the reality is that this was a collaboration with the Hothead guys and until very recently I wasn't convinced making the game was a good idea.Tycho said it best in a couple interviews "games look like shit until they look awesome." it's really more than that though because they also play like shit until they are fun. I remember getting the first build months ago and telling Tycho we should scrap the entire thing. The builds kept coming though and they kept getting better and better. I understand now that that's just how game development works. It wasn't until the most recent build that I finally saw something genuinely fun. The Hothead guys obviously knew what they were making but for me it was like looking at a sketch and not understanding how it could ever be a finished painting. I've played through it multiple times now and I can tell you truthfully that it's funny and it's fun to play. If you like PA I believe you will enjoy it. If you don't know about PA I think you will still laugh and If you hate us you'll hate our game. The game just hit beta and Hothead is polishing it more and more every day. I can tell you that what I see right now I'm honestly proud of. Tycho has written some of his best stuff for this game. Like me, he hates himself and hates the things he makes so he would never link you to this, but I feel like he deserves it. A while back Tycho spent a week at the Hothead studio writing non stop for the game. Ron Gilbert was up there as well and he posted this on his blog shortly after."Jerry from PA is up here as well doing the writing and it's a thrill to see him work.He's a top-shelf writer, right up there with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman."I'm sure when Tycho sees I linked that he'll go right for his wrists, but it's true. An early build of the game recently made its way through the media digestive system. The result is that you will see coverage of it popping up at many of your favorite game news sites. Everything I've seen so far has been very positive but I guess that's the way it is with previews. I think the best place to go is Gametrailers as they simply post high quality video of the game being played. You can make your own decisions based on what you see. If you want more you can watch the 1up show where a narcoleptic Jedi will tell you that the game is "like not really like PA but also like totally like PA." Maybe that's helpful to someone? The Gamelife blog over at Wired also has a very complete write up of the game if you want more than just raw footage. It's funny, before the game I never would have thought twice about calling someone a narcoleptic Jedi. After I had typed it out though I paused. Am I Derek Smart now? Will this effect our PR persons relationship with 1Up and other media outlets? Will they savage us in their review and will that hurt sales? Should I not talk about the coverage at all?Even if all of that is true should I care?Obviously the answer is no. -Gabe out
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Microsoft has some serious questions to answer....
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Tycho:  I've been au Canada at Hothead since Monday, making a final pass on the entire script and writing new stuff for things we managed to fit into the first ep.  After two days of this process, I feel as though my brain has been dragging a plough through a stubborn field.  Like every other part of this adventure, it's been profoundly educational.  I enjoy it, but there is a constant electrical hum in my skull that I assume is the byproduct of creating a universe in real time.
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Here's a video, released today, of his much-discussed talk at Gnomedex in August.
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Tycho: There are two things I must mention.First, Gabriel liked the cover for book four (entitled "Birds Are Weird") so much that he wanted to make a poster of it, and it's not worth arguing with him when he gets like that so we let him do it. It is, even now, awailable!Also: PAX preregistration opens today, and since we've had a couple of these now you probably know if it's something you'd like to attend. You save ten dollars over the door price, which is, like, ten bucks. This is money you could put toward some other purpose!(CW)TB
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Tycho: Some of you have probably already heard it, since I put it up yesterday - but we're trying new hosting for the podcast, and I wanted to make sure everything made sense before I dropped it on the front page. The podcast is for Wednesday's strip, "The Ungift, Part Two." You can download it here, or subscribe to the feed here. The levels are a little crazy in a couple spots, for which I apologize. I think we've got those ironed out, now. (CW)TB
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By Tom Angleberger   tomangleberger@yahoo.com