This review is written in markdown in WordPerfect 8 within a Linux terminal. This is not taking place due to a sense of nostalgia so much as it is appropriate to the review in focus.
Many of us, including the reviewer, have used WordPerfect at one point or another. Markdown, is, in many ways, the answer to what was lost when Microsoft Word began to replace WordPerfect. WordPerfect has something that modern word processors lack–a user can push a button marked “Reveal Codes” and once this is done begin to understand what “hidden formatting” is present in the document that might be causing formatting issues.
The book “Almost Perfect,” by W.E. Pete Peterson, tells the tale of how WordPerfect rose and eventually fell on its own sword. What makes the tale especially interesting is that it traces the narrative through a time when business was just beginning to migrate from traditional goods, in Peterson’s case, a family-owned drapery business, to ‘adoptive families’ via technology companies. The old models of making money were beginning to become difficult to maintain, and the new models were in the digital frontiers and had better profit margins.
Peterson, though, tries to maintain what he considers to be a “fair” balance between running the company, and having friends while earning outrageous amounts of profit. He was, quite literally, following his dreams and would eventually have more than enough money to gather if only he had enough hands to help him gain it.
Within the company, the predictable story of the original founders, not really understanding what they are doing and quickly discovering an entire world of money and logistics and personality conflicts, comes into view and to deal with this issue Peterson builds a scaffolding that proves to be his legal undoing later when the company decides it wants to remove him to head into some “new direction.” Peterson, instead of being viewed as a conservative is relegated to being a wet-blanket, and the company no longer wants him there. They hire him on as a consultant, but he later deduces they do not want his information, only his silence. It is a hard blow to Peterson, who feels guilty in the work for leaving his family for extended times. He even states, at one point, that the technology business became like a drug of which he could not get enough. As his focus begins to shift to his family in the work, his removal seems to be not far behind.
Between times, he is working hard to fend off Microsoft that has an inferior product. (and still does to this day) Microsoft eventually, however, breaks into the GUI market and begins its steady assent to where it is today. (the beginning of its twilight years)
There are many stops along the way, and the management style that Peterson suggests is the best, even with all of the problems concomitant with its application he experiences, is to allow employees to govern themselves, and to learn to subdivide job responsibilities quickly and effectively as the organization grows.
The book is a great read for anyone that wants to understand the early technology field and what the decisions looked like that formed the terrain we are experiencing today. Indeed, the 2020 US elections concerned much by way of technology and how its use influenced the outcome. Peterson lets us know that the competition even in the early time was brutal and is himself a decidedly rich casualty. Since you can read the book for free, there is nothing preventing you from doing so except taking the time to do it.
Richard A. Cohen endeavors, in this 2010 work, to tell the reader all about the sun. The only issue is, Richard A. Cohen does not sufficiently get out of the way enough to tell us about the sun. Rather, he tells us what he thinks about the sun. It is still an interesting read, but it is not as scientific as it would like to be.
Many reviewers discuss this work and how it tends to be Western culture dominant. There is certainly a smattering of that present in the text. The first section of the book discusses eclipses in no small way, and presents evidence that the cultural fear of them ingrained in other native beliefs appears to evidently hold some weight. Certain people die. Unnatural births occur. Then, Cohen goes on to state that these beliefs are superstition and baseless and that modern science clearly is superior. It is a very strange kind of tension and one that seems to want to validate the older meanings of what an eclipse entails while at the same time trying to appease modern rationalists and thereby refuting those earlier assertions.
The next pieces of the book go on to discuss artists, sun tans, and more than a few adventures to speak with people concerning solar power and climate change. Again, many reviewers have noted that this work “dismisses climate change.” This was not evident from reading it. Rather, the cause of climate change is debated and the uncertainty of what drives it is analyzed. Apparently, the same scientific modern rationalist crowd that Cohen seems to be trying to please is off-put because the conclusions do not support categorically the main narrative that climate change is man-made only and the reason for atmospheric change.
The stronger parts of the book speak about the solar cycles concerning the sun spots and what they are and how they work. This, mixed in with some tantalizing clues about how certain kinds of ancient literature might have been tellings concerning the movement of the ancient night sky are the tidbits that make the read worthwhile. The crumbs like these, although invaluable diamonds, though, are a bit too scarcely scattered among fields of debris. While it is interesting to learn about say, Louis the Sun King and Cohen’s ascent up Mt. Fuji to see the sunrise, it is less titillating to read about how great science is. The narrative is evocative of a jigsaw puzzle, and one sometimes gets the impression that Cohen was running out of things to talk about concerning the sun and so simply decided to discuss aesthetics around the sun instead or modern rationalism. Of course, it could also have been some ploy to sell books to a wider audience since artistic sorts are not usually science-y sorts. The net effect, however, is to alienate the voice of the narrative from being what feels like what would make it authentic. Who cares why people get sun tans? Tell us more about your own adventures to India. One of these facts can be deduced from Wikipedia, the other requires us to probably purchase the work of the author. Guess which one is worth more of the price of admission?
In the scientific landscape of the sun post 2010, there have been many new assertions and discoveries. Cohen’s book might best be read as a kind of cultural monument to what we thought we knew about the sun up to about 2010 if the reader is looking for the scientific reason for taking the time to comb its pages. For the mythologist, take a pass on this book. For those looking for a basic adventure concerning the author and the sun, well, there are some worthwhile points in his experience–just do not get too hungry for this kind of narrative. There are crumbs, but little by way of red meat.
Adams still can’t stay away from plotlines that parallel the Bible in one way or another in this former-Dr.-Who-script-turned-into-a-book. Of course, where they do parallel Biblical narratives, the Biblical stories are treated routinely as deserving of scorn. This proves annoying. However, once one gets beyond the annoyance of “Boy, the Bible sure is dumb!”, this book tells a story that stands up to the test of time better than The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It stands to reason that since this book was written well after The Guide that there was time for Adams to mature as a writer. In this book, he tackles matters that are not, as a matter of fact, rational. Ghosts are here. Ideas concerning parts being connected to the whole are here. Even Quantum Physics makes some appearances. The point of the book appears to be that nothing much rational is present and so one must begin to lean on those things which are not inherently rational to understand and solve the highly irrational cases that the protagonist, Dirk Gently, solves.
Possession and hypnotism play major roles in the story, although the way by which they do is not beyond the believability of how such mechanisms might work. The discussion of fractal music appears here too, which was well ahead of the curve. The technological acumen of Adams is distinct and in-depth in the work which makes sense as he would have been moving in the kinds of crowds positioned at the technological forefronts. It is somewhat amusing, though, to note that aliens and ghosts appear to be, at least in the written style of Adams, more rational and less subject to scorn than Biblical stories like Revelation.
The plot device of the Electric Monk whose entire job is to believe whatever is put in front of him and finds a door called “The Way” is, it seems, supposed to be a poke at those who maintain faith. The caricature is that they are an unthinking lot who never have to concern themselves with either consequence or logic. Indeed, this is mitigated one supposes somewhat by the idea that the monk was created to be this way, and so Adams gets some distance on the subject instead of stating “religion is dumb and especially monks are dumb” in a glaring way.
A time machine that concerns a pot made in Greece at an earlier date and a salt shaker which finds itself embedded in the pot in an impossible way also make appearances, which has a distinctly “last supper somebody needs to fix some mistake they made” sci-fi twist. The reader again discovers that the time machine is still a better bet in that it is not ridiculed as much as all the other bits and pieces which are written to be interpreted as religious nonsense.
The other troubling concern in the book is the fixation on pizza. The meal features in the plotline oddly and unnecessarily. One wonders if Adams was not trying to signal something with all the anti-religion pro-pizza rhetoric. The reliance on the poem Kubla Kahn is also telling. Certainly the allusion is clever as it was written allegedly during an opium high or shortly after one and was interrupted which features as a later plot device via the aforementioned time travel. There are also heavy doses of murder present in the plot which stands to reason as it is, after all, a detective novel.
Yet, despite all these things, the plot is well-executed, and one is forced to wonder about certain questions concerning humanity and where it features. Maybe Adams was a kind of “elite” of his time and it serves as a snapshot of where a lot of Sci-Fi writers who got their start in the 70’s began to tarry. Certainly, he died early, unexpectedly, and tragically just after having an asteroid named after a main character from his previous work. If the fruit for being a famous author that scorned religion was to die early due to high blood pressure and heart problems, maybe there are additional layers of cautionary tales this work presents. While Gordon Way frets about his last words appearing on an answering machine seem to come true in the sense that they are his last words to appear on an answering machine, eventually the British Telecom people fix the phone for Professor Chronotis which breaks his time machine. Adams would die a short six years later, from a heart attack resting after his workout after his Doctor warned him about having high blood pressure. Three months later, September 11th would take place. Sometimes, one supposes the end is closer than we might like to believe. For Adams, he really did not want to believe at all and yet, there the end was anyway. Dirk Gently then might just be the author grappling with what he cannot explain against the madness of the end of the 20th century. If for no other reason, the work shines for this.
ISBN: 978-0788199912
