1. The question applies perfectly well to all you otherworldly heathens, if you don't give a shit the correct answer is "Imperceptible."

2. The vast majority of Americans (which is what we are called, if you have some pedantic stick up your butt about there being all sorts of American countries you ask a Canadian if they are an American and see if they appreciate the subtle nuance, we are the Americans in this world, get over it) don't vote for Republicans. About half of them rarely vote at all, closer to two thirds in mid-term elections. The rest of us, it's about half, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, vote for Republicans. Of those who do, a fair number have a clue, they are voting in their own clear if narrow and selfish self-interest (see estate tax, capital gains tax, etc.) Clueless voters-for-Republicans are a clear minority in the U.S.A.

Which isn't to say we aren't idiots, but I'd think an erudite denizen of the international community could take the trouble to understand precisely what kind of idiots we actually are.

It would be fairly asinine if it couldn't support microsoft exchange e-mail since both the ipod touch and the iphone can.

But... when I bought my iMac G4 Steve Jobs told me it was a supercomputer!

Good thing CCP is headquartered in Iceland then.

Stephenson's last 5 books have all made the NY Times best-seller list - Anathem hit their hardcover fiction list at number 1. While I don't agree with your criticisms of Cryptonomicon, I think not tackling the Baroque Cycle is absolutely the right decision - for you. You wouldn't like it and you wouldn't like Anathem.

I doubt Stephenson is under any illusion that the directions he's taken has lost him some fans of the early works, but the idea that it has put him some kind of financially unsustainable position just isn't true. And while you represent one pole of reaction, I represent another one - I find the direction his writing has gone from Cryptonomicon so satisfying that I have bought everything since that book new, first edition hardcover - something that isn't true of any but a tiny handful of authors for me.

One thing that's clear from recent talks, interviews etc. is that Stephenson is doing exactly what he is aiming to. People hoping for some "return" to the Snow Crash era of his writing need to just give it up and move on to other authors. He doesn't want to go back there and he's not going to.

While I don't think the review author really got inside this material, I think in one essential respect his review is quite accurate: if you didn't like the direction Stephenson was going from Cryptonomicon on through the Baroque Cycle, you're probably going to like Anathem even less. If you like the Baroque Cycle you're certainly not going to listen to the review of someone who gave up on it after the first book. Of course, if you came out of that several thousand page investment with a smile on your face chances are, like me and everyone else defending Stephenson's recent career in here, you finished Anathem long ago anyway.

So the only person the review is really potentially misleading to is people who haven't read Stephenson, and honestly they probably shouldn't start with anything later than Cryptonomicon as the introduction to his work.

Which is not to say this review doesn't suck, because it definitely does.

"(Something else, descrbed below)?!" No. In a Slashdot poll you get a little lecture about not complaining if you don't like the available choices. You don't the option of a damn write-in vote. Oh, Slashdot, you truly have lost your way. Also the correct final option was "Cowboy Blocks."