Storyline (from NYtimes)
Clay Jannon, an unemployed Web designer, takes a job working the graveyard shift at a 24-hour bookstore, owned by the strange Mr. Penumbra. The store is just as inscrutable, with two kinds of customers — random passers-by who stop in so rarely Clay wonders how the store is able to stay open and a furtive “community of people who orbit the store like strange moons. . . . They arrive with algorithmic regularity. They never browse. They come wide-awake, completely sober and vibrating with need.” These customers borrow from a mysterious set of books, which Clay has been warned not to read. He surrenders to his curiosity and discovers that the books are written in code. With the help of his roommate, a special effects artist; his best friend, a successful creator of “boob-simulation software”; and his romantic interest, Kat Potente, who works for Google in data visualization, our likable hero goes on a quest. He solves the Founder’s Puzzle, the origins of which are never clearly explained, using data visualization and distributed computing and stumbles upon an even bigger mystery: Mr. Penumbra has disappeared. Clay tracks him to New York, and in the city, the friends locate the Unbroken Spine, headquarters of a secret society.
They match wits with the Unbroken Spine as both groups try to decipher a text; the secret society using old, rigorous research methods, while Clay and his friends harness the power of current technology. In the end, both are right and wrong. Working together is the only way they will find a solution.
This book is love letter for books, bibliophiles, but also technology. It combines the wonderful world of stories (typography, printing press, hidden messages/codes in stories), manual crafting (props for movies) and technology (smartphones, e-book readers, Mac, data visualization, GOOGLE! , programming) and creates a fascinating adventure out of all these. One of the character, Clay's housemate, is an prop maker for ILM. Don't know what is ILM ? It is Industrial Light & Magic, an award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas = Star Wars!
It mentions :
Ruby - a real open source programming language with a focus of simplicity and productivity, which has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write. ~ pg41
XKCD - a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language. ~ pg69
XKCD - a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language. ~ pg69
Hadoop - a software that breaks a big job into lots of tiny pieces and spreads them out to lots of different computers at the same time. ~ pg92
Grumble - a secretive programmer who operates at the intersection of literature and code, and who come out with the cool portable book scanner made of cardboards, GrumbleGear 3000. Its pieces can be harvested from old boxes; run them through a laser cutter to carve slots and tabs all the right angles. Lock the pieces together to make a frame, then break them down flat when done. There are two slots for camera. It all fits into a messenger bag. ~pg156
(Cool! How I wish this scanner does exist.)
Most of all, it introduces a font named Gerritszoon. We are told Gerritszoon is included on the Mac. The iphone comes loaded with Gerritszoon. Every new Microsoft Word document defaults to Gerritszoon. The Guardian sets headlines in Gerritszoon. The Encyclopaedia Britannica used to be set in Gerritszoon; Wikipedia just switched last month......
Of course, you wont find this font anywhere. So what typeface is Gerritszoon supposed to be?
According to ThoughtStreams :
Griffo Gerrtiszoon is almost certainly a merger of Francesco Griffo (the designer of typefaces at the Aldine Press) and Gerrit Gerritszoon (aka Desiderius Erasmus, who worked for the Aldine Press as a Greek scholar).
There is one typeface inspired by Francesco Griffo that has long been included on the Mac: Hermann Zapf's Palatino.
Interestingly Zapf considered Palatino a display typeface and designed a book weight complement for Palatino called ...... Aldus.
As such one could argue Zapf's Aldus is really Gerritszoon and Palatino is Gerritszoon Display. Though there is a believe that Palatino is most likely the typeface Sloan intended Gerritszoon to portrait.
However, confirmed by the author himself, the actual font used on the book cover is Monotype Poliphilus, which is based on the work of Francesco Griffo. Nice.
The book also has such a realistic and detailed description of the Googleplex - the corporate headquarters complex of Google, Inc. Ah yes, the book scanner. If I have the opportunity to see it and touch it.
I don't want to be a spoiler, but couldn't help to reveal that the codes are actually those tiny notches in the edge of the Gerritszoon metal punches. All one has to do is count the notches, the kind of code one learns in a comic book : one number corresponds to one letter, It's a simple substitution, and can use it to decode Manutius's codex vitae in no time.
Only thing is that it does not elaborate more in details how exactly these codes are applied in order to reveal the secret messages.
All in all, I like books and technology. They surely can coexist peacefully.
Grumble - a secretive programmer who operates at the intersection of literature and code, and who come out with the cool portable book scanner made of cardboards, GrumbleGear 3000. Its pieces can be harvested from old boxes; run them through a laser cutter to carve slots and tabs all the right angles. Lock the pieces together to make a frame, then break them down flat when done. There are two slots for camera. It all fits into a messenger bag. ~pg156
(Cool! How I wish this scanner does exist.)
Most of all, it introduces a font named Gerritszoon. We are told Gerritszoon is included on the Mac. The iphone comes loaded with Gerritszoon. Every new Microsoft Word document defaults to Gerritszoon. The Guardian sets headlines in Gerritszoon. The Encyclopaedia Britannica used to be set in Gerritszoon; Wikipedia just switched last month......
Of course, you wont find this font anywhere. So what typeface is Gerritszoon supposed to be?
According to ThoughtStreams :
Griffo Gerrtiszoon is almost certainly a merger of Francesco Griffo (the designer of typefaces at the Aldine Press) and Gerrit Gerritszoon (aka Desiderius Erasmus, who worked for the Aldine Press as a Greek scholar).
There is one typeface inspired by Francesco Griffo that has long been included on the Mac: Hermann Zapf's Palatino.
Interestingly Zapf considered Palatino a display typeface and designed a book weight complement for Palatino called ...... Aldus.
As such one could argue Zapf's Aldus is really Gerritszoon and Palatino is Gerritszoon Display. Though there is a believe that Palatino is most likely the typeface Sloan intended Gerritszoon to portrait.
However, confirmed by the author himself, the actual font used on the book cover is Monotype Poliphilus, which is based on the work of Francesco Griffo. Nice.
Poliphilus
Only thing is that it does not elaborate more in details how exactly these codes are applied in order to reveal the secret messages.
All in all, I like books and technology. They surely can coexist peacefully.
Great post. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThe book was interesting. The post here cleared my
ReplyDeletedoubt about GZ font. Thanks