|
Archives
Books. Let's talk about books. There are a couple of music pieces that are fermenting in my mind but books want to come out *now*. First, an amazing couple of pieces about books. With all the talk about censorship of late, Ray Bradbury's wonderful book, Fahrenheit 451 has been on my mind. For those of you who haven't read it, Bradbury posits a society in which people surround themselves with walls of empty, contentless media which keep them from ever having to think or feel. Any books that are found are burned. But booklovers cannot be discouraged that easily. They keep books alive by each committing one or more books to memory in entirety. So long as they live, no society is powerful enough to destroy the books that live inside them. It raises an impossible question, doesn't it? If you lived in such a society, which book or books would you choose to become? Our memories being the shallow, limited things they are, we each could only save at best a few. And how would you decide? Having told you last week what books I would save were I in the world of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, I invited you to tell me what books you would save. And I've got to tell you, if you and I were in charge of the canon of books the educated person should know, it would be very different from the current one. I am pleased to report that Henry James did not make the cut, possibly because anyone whose sentences routinely contain four dependent clauses is absolutely unrecitable. Books that are to be memorized and told aloud have to have rhythm, movement, recognizable human speech patterns. As my friend Craig said, memorably, "I would choose a book that invites recitation around the campfires outside the caves of the resistance movement. Dickens, Twain, Poe, something for the human voice." Twain's writing, especially Huckleberry Finn, was a frequent choice, partly because, as Bill said "it survives narration--it's true to genuine human speech." both thanks to BookNotes Recently I saw a review of a biography of the first modern biographer - Boswell. The book, Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson, sounds interesting and I've added it to my evergrowing Amazon wish list. (Come on people. I can't afford to buy all the stuff I'm adding to the wish list. I need help! Be warned, it does take a while to download. Sorry, sometimes I can't control myself.) Well, I haven't read Boswell's Life of Dr Johnson so I started looking in Amazon for it. I found it. You know how Amazon teases you with like-minded books? They stick them on the side of the page. So there it is. A book I haven't heard of since college, maybe high school (if you added up how many 39th birthdays I've had, ask Craig if your not sure, you would know it has been a *long* time): Samuel Pepys : A Life. This looks like an interesting book too. But if I add Johnson and Pepys to my wish list it will do nothing but take up a little more Amazon server space since I don't have the money to buy them right now. What to do? Then I remembered. All of the above is a lead in to: The premise on which Michael Hart based Project Gutenberg was: anything that can be entered into a computer can be reproduced indefinitely. . .what Michael termed "Replicator Technology" The concept of Replicator Technology is simple; once a book or any other item (including pictures, sounds, and even 3-D items can be stored in a computer), then any number of copies can and will be available. Everyone in the world, or even not in this world (given satellite transmission) can have a copy of a book that has been entered into a computer. This philosophical premise has created several offshoots: 1.Electronic Texts (Etexts) created by Project Gutenberg are to be made available in the simplest, easiest to use forms available. 2.Suggestions to make them less readily available are not to be treated lightly. Therefore, Project Gutenberg Etexts are made available in what has become known as "Plain Vanilla ASCII," meaning the low set of the American Standard Code for Information Interchange: ie the same kind of character you read on a normal printed page-- italics, underlines, and bolds have been capitalized. The reason for this is that 99% of the hardware and software a person is likely to run into can read and search these files. Books free for the download! Everything from Alighieri (Dante) to Zane (Grey). Dickens is there. Twain is there. Poe is there. Of course the books must be public domain which is a moving target. But there are over 3,500 titles and more are being added as we blog. Load them into Word. Load them into a text editor. Read them. I downloaded Boswell's Johnson and Samuel Pepys' Diary. And while I was there I downloaded The Book of Tea, by Kakuzo Okakura, Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, Essays Before a Sonata, by Charles Ives, The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman, Jr., The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, and four Anne of Green Gables books. Go to Project Gutenberg. See what they have. What Michael Hart, and his many volunteers, have done, is the antitheses of what our dear corporations are trying to do to books today.
By the way, The Diary of Samuel Pepys is incredible!
Robby and Jenny called this morning from Germany to wish me a happy birthday. Robyn said happy birthday too. Robby was dissapointed to find out that Zoe was the first to wish me a happy birthday. She called this morning just after midnight. Zoe showed up late morning with a present of a wonderful book on Islamic art and architecture. 639 pages worth. Absolutely beautiful. Then we went down to the Smilin' Dog Coffe House for a late breakfast. The sun was out and we ate outside. A beautiful day! Came home and called up my mom and sang Happy Labor Day (to the tune of Happy Birthday) to her. After all, she did all the work.
Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly® It's also possible to make some general observations about the properties. The railroads are excellent investments, particularly when owned together, although in absolute income terms they don't keep up with heavily built on properties later in the game. The best return on investment to be found is from putting a third house on New York Avenue. In fact, the third house has the fastest payoff of any building on almost all of the properties. The square most landed on other than Jail is Illinois Avenue, and in fact a hotel there will bring the most income other than a hotel on Boardwalk. By far the worst individual investment is to buy Medeterranean Avenue without first owning Baltic. That's not to say that you shouldn't buy it, but it's not going to make you much money without quite a bit of construction. The properties between the Jail square and the Go To Jail square are landed on the most, because of the jump caused by landing on Go To Jail. The Orange ones have the biggest bang for the buck as far as building goes. I knew this all along! thanks to weblog wannabe
I celebrate my 18th 39th birthday today. Thanks to all those who made it possible.
The World Game Institute's Earth Operation Center and WorldometersTM give you a real-time view of Spaceship Earth. These meters and gauges monitor the status of the ship and the crew--from fuel, food and air supply to the readiness of the crew. They will alert you to an emergency, changing conditions or direction, potential problems and current status. They will not tell you what to do, or how to do it, just what is happening. These meters are the dashboard of Spaceship Earth.
thanks to Hober Thinking Radio
We need standards in trade pacts The larger point in the truck debate is that it demonstrates the importance of including standards in trade agreements. Of course we don't want most Mexican trucks on our roads _ who would? But if it's a safe Mexican truck with a well-trained driver, why not? See? Standards. And if you can include standards for trucks, you can include standards for people and the planet, too. You can include labor and environmental standards in free trade agreements. That's what all the screaming in Genoa, Italy, was about a few weeks ago, despite the American media affectation of pretending that the demonstrators' goals are incomprehensible.
The False Promise of Free Trade At bottom, there is no such thing as free trade. There is only protectionism, in its most literal sense. Everyone looks out for themselves, and protects what is theirs. NAFTA and the WTO have "institutionalized the accumulated advantage of the North," in the words of activist Walden Bello, and they deny poor countries the very tools used to create that advantage in the first place--tariffs, public investment, laws that help develop competitive industry. "Free trade" may create wealth, but creating wealth has very little to do with alleviating poverty. The Third World is already wealthy. It owns the vast majority of the world's resources, an awesome repository of oil, diamonds, fuel and precious minerals. What it lacks is an infrastructure that allows those resources to benefit its sprawling underclass. Free trade agreements benefit the elite of Third World nations, who act as middlemen and grow rich by moving these resources to the North. thanks to wood s lot
The Toughest Decision: Should My Loved One Be Placed In An Assisted Computing Facility?
For family members, it is often the most difficult and painful decision they will face: to accept that a loved one — a parent, a spouse, perhaps a sibling — is technologically impaired and should no longer be allowed to live independently, or come near a computer or electronic device without direct supervision. The time has come to place that loved one into the care of an Assisted Computing Facility. But you have questions. So many questions. We at Silicon Pines want to help.
Market enforcers (GM - Genetically Modified) The new opium wars are being waged in the fields of North America, where many farmers are beginning to shy away from engineered seed. GM crops, they have found, are harder to sell. There is evidence that some varieties yield less while requiring more herbicide. But farmers are swiftly coming to see that the costs of not planting GM seed can greatly outweigh the costs of planting it. Last month, lawyers warned a farming family in Indiana that the only way they could avoid being sued by the biotech company Monsanto was to sow their entire farm with the company's seeds. Two years ago, the Roushes planted just over a quarter of their fields with the company's herbicide-resistant soya. Though they recorded precisely what they planted where, and though an independent crop scientist has confirmed their account, Monsanto refuses to accept that the Roushes did not deploy its crops more widely. It is now demanding punitive damages for the use of seeds they swear they never sowed. The Roushes maintain that they are, in effect, being sued for not buying the company's products. So next year, like hundreds of other frightened farmers, they will plant their fields only with Monsanto's GM seeds. Like the opium forced upon a reluctant China by British gunboats, once you've started using GM, you're stuck with it. thanks to also not found in nature
It's been a beautiful summer in Puget Sound. Lots of sun but not to hot. While a couple of weeks in August usually constitute summer around here, this year June and July were Summery too. There have been some overcast days but I can't remember that last time I had to wear my rain gear while riding my bike. I usually ride every day since I don't own a car. I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the skylights. Not the usual drizzle rain we have around here but a good soaking rain. (Not to be confused with the deluge rain common to the Midwest.) Welcome back rain!
Well, no TestingTesting tonight. Beverly Graham, tonight's special guest is sick so we are having to cancel the show. We could have done a House Band Show but Steve and Joanne are on vacation so we are down to Barton and Derek. Not enough to put on a good show on short notice. I think that this may be the first show we have had to cancel which is a pretty good record. Beverly was going to try and make it but Zoe talked her out of it. We feel that it is very important for the TT special guest to have a good time. Sometimes they get sick. We've been lucky. Beverly will be back. And it will be a good show when she returns.
Because people have a need to glue things to other things. This site is actually useful. What a concept! thanks to Hober Thinking Radio
George Bush's Amazon wish list What a great idea! Someone created an Amazon wish list as a political statement. Cool! I hope Amazon leaves it up. thanks to wood s lot
But the corporate form that emerged from the 19th century is essentially an engine of appetite. It takes the romantic individualism of that era and transplants it into an institutional machinery geared exclusively to self-enhancement, without regard to implications for the context in which it grows. That is a definition of a cancer; and while it didn't seem to matter much in the 19th century -- so much space to conquer, so many resources to tap -- today that is no longer the case. On a larger scale, the implications of genetic engineering, global warming and the rest push the boundaries of human life itself. In conventional economic terms, the externalities of corporate enterprise are starting to outweigh the internalities -- the negative side effects of production and consumption are becoming larger than the presumed benefits to the parties immediately involved. Yet the corporation has evolved to maximize such externalities; when it shifts costs onto the social structure or the environment, then its own bottom line increases. thanks to also not found in nature
Cave art, autism, and the evolution of the human mind
'Man is a great miracle', the art historian Gombrich was moved to say, when writing about the newly discovered paintings at the Chauvet and Cosquer caves (Gombrich 1996, 8). The paintings of Chauvet, especially, dating to about 30,000 years ago, have prompted many people to marvel at this early flowering of the modern human mind. Here, it has seemed, is clear evidence of a new kind of mind at work: a mind that, after so long a childhood in the old stone-age, had grown up as the mature, cognitively fluid, mind we know today. The paintings and engravings must surely strike anyone as wondrous. Still, I draw attention here to evidence that suggests that the miracle they represent may not be at all of the kind most people think. Indeed this evidence suggests the very opposite: that the makers of these works of art may actually have had distinctly pre-modern minds, have been little given to symbolic thought, have had no great interest in communication and have been essentially self-taught and untrained. Cave art, so far from being the sign of a new order of mentality, may perhaps better be thought the swan-song of the old.
thanks to wood s lot
This cartoon short does what no Flash film on the Internet has done before. It recreates the Episode IV - A New Hope story in just under 5 minutes. It just makes you wonder why Goerge Lucas went to all the trouble. But then he didn't have Flash. thanks to Hober Thinking Radio
Yesterday we were off to the 2001 edition of the Island County Fair. The fair is one of those annual rituals. We go to it every year, eat the same food, see the same exhibits, and get upset when the move an exhibit or anything changes. Sometimes they even have good music. Not this year. It also means we are coming to the end of summer. This year I joined Zoe, Katie, and Mike. Of course the first stop was eating the corn. Myself on the left and Katie on the right.
 Zoe and Katie at the cow barn
 And the cats.
 Lots of animals and exhibits. Ate food that is bad for us. Chili dogs and elephant ears. Katie came home with a Mexican blanket. My favorite was the flying Jerry Garcia from Indonesia.
 We went on the rides. We took Mike on his first ride - the merry-go-round. Unfortunately the memory card from the camera seems to have died and I lost the pictures. Bummer. Katie went on a ride and Zoe and I finished up on the Scrambler. We survived.
|
|