{"id":63,"date":"2009-10-18T23:55:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/2009\/10\/18\/the-great-dan-brown-experiment\/"},"modified":"2013-11-16T21:00:42","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T13:00:42","slug":"the-great-dan-brown-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/2009\/10\/the-great-dan-brown-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Dan Brown Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/2009\/10\/18\/the-great-dan-brown-experiment\/zen-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-280\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 308px;\" src=\"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/zen-300x261.jpg\" alt=\"zen\" title=\"zen\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-280\" \/><\/a>We interrupt our regular scheduled blogging for two important announcements.<\/p>\n<p>First, Dance With Sunflowers will soon migrate to a new location, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/\">entropy2.com<\/a>.  The process of starting up the new website and switching over will take another month or two, and in the meantime I will continue posting here.  The new site will include several new blogs and other exciting endeavors I will tell you about later.  Be on the look out.<\/p>\n<p>Second, as part of the new website, I will be conducting my first live blogging event.  I will be reading Dan Brown&#8217;s new novel, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Lost Symbol<\/span>, over the course of 24 hours, with a running journal of my reactions.  Join me as I experience the best selling book (2 million copies sold in the first week) for the first time, with immediate feedback on what will surely go down as a modern classic.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, being <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">invested<\/span> in the novel might influence my impartiality.  So I am looking for someone who will loan it to me in the next few weeks.  Please do not buy it with the specific intention of giving it to me, as that will defeat the purpose. But if you already have it, I will be happy to take it off your hands.<\/p>\n<p>When I have a date for the Live Blogging session, as well as the debut of the new website, I will let everyone know.<\/p>\n<p>To whet your appetite, here are some facts about Dan Brown&#8217;s previous novel, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Da Vinci Code<\/span>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_best-selling_books\">Wikipedia<\/a>, it has sold more than 80 million copies to date.<\/li>\n<li>80 MILLION!  That equals <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Catcher In The Rye<\/span>, and easily surpasses <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Charlotte&#8217;s Web<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">To Kill A Mockingbird<\/span>, or <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Merriam-Webster&#8217;s Collegiate Dictionary<\/span><\/li>\n<li>That&#8217;s right, more than the dictionary<\/li>\n<li>In fact, the only novels to have sold more books in the history of humankind are: <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Le Petit<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Prince<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">She<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dream Of Red Chambers<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Hobbit<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">And Then There Were None<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Lord Of The Rings<\/span>, and <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">A Tale Of Two Cities<\/span>.  That&#8217;s it.  The entire list.  The <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Da Vinci Code<\/span> is already the 8th best selling novel of all time<\/li>\n<li>It is almost entirely based on the Umberto Eco novel, <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault%27s_Pendulum\">Foucault&#8217;s Pendulum<\/a>, which predates it by more than a decade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We interrupt our regular scheduled blogging for two important announcements. First, Dance With Sunflowers will soon migrate to a new location, at entropy2.com. The process of starting up the new website and switching over will take another month or two, and in the meantime I will continue posting here. The new site will include several [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[423,424,422,425,421,426],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entropy2","category-writing","tag-dan-brown","tag-foucaults-pendulum","tag-the-catcher-in-the-rye","tag-the-da-vinci-code","tag-the-lost-symbol","tag-umberto-eco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entropy2.com\/chaosfactory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}