first dog on the moon

I saw these books sitting in a shop window the other day and the first thing I did was laugh. Why? Well, seeing the four lined up like this seemed like a list of clichés.

Germaine Greer On Rage? Well, yes, she does get more than a little grumpy, wink wink, eh? (Although as someone asked me, “Greer on Rage? What would she guest program?”) David Malouf On Experience? Yeah, he’s getting a bit long in the tooth, sure… and need I mention the probable subject of Blanche d’Alpuget’s longing in On Longing?

Yeah, time for another nudge-nudge wink-wink there too.

Now Mark Pesce tells me that Greer’s book is written in the context of the NT Intervention — something worth getting angry about. “A cogent book about rage,” he says. “Perhaps an important one. Time will tell.”

Sure, he’s a fan. Greer is an important public intellectual, though, and today’s First Dog on the Moon cartoon explains very well why everyone hates Germaine Greer. But for me the line-up of little pastel covers and the gift-set option tells me this is for people who want to look like they’re intellectuals.

If Greer’s book is indeed important, then it needs to be more than a fetish for someone’s mantlepiece, along with that unread (and unreadable) hardback of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. And maybe that means more descriptive covers?

[This article was first published in Crikey yesterday. As I write this, the affected MobileMe customers are still without email.]

As the hype surrounding the god-like iPhone slowly, oh so slowly fades, a problem emerges from the shadows…

Apple’s subscription email service .Mac was rebranded MobileMe to coincide with the iPhone 3G launch. Existing customers have been moved to the new platform, but for some (Apple claims 1%) it’s a disaster. They’ve been unable to use email for five days — not from their Macs, not from their iPhones, not via the web. And that’s not the only problem. As .Mac user Ed Dale said, “Not pleasant to log in and see four years of mail gone.”

Crikey’s First Dog on the Moon, also a MobileMe-er, says “it’s been crap”.

Read the rest of this entry »

I think I might make this a regular feature? Should I just use some automated social bookmarking tool to generate the page?

• Over at New Matilda, Ben Eltham has written a fine summary of The Super Seasprites Saga. He links to an explanation of the sunk cost fallacy which probably contributed to this monumental fuck-up.
• Laurel Papworth’s piece 2020 Summit: Objective Journalists vs Passionate Blogging, which I’m planning to respond to at length some time this weekend.
• A piece from The New Yorker, Scents and Sensibility: What the nose knows, which ponders, amongst other things, why one molecule smells of spearmint when its exact mirror image smells of caraway. (Hat-tip to 3 Quarks Daily.)
• And for a change of pace, try the selection of First Dog on the Moon cartoons which were published in Crikey through January and February.

Four pieces feels about right for today.