|
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
PS: Since the Shakespeare exhibits are closed tomorrow, I may have a little time to kill before the 1:30 pm matinee at the Kennedy Center.
Offhand, I'm thinking the Washington Monument or one of the Smithsonian museums.
Any suggestions?
DC Day One...
Whew...
I just got back to the hotel, after a day spent on the southeast side of the capitol.
Tonight's play, Edward 3, starts at 8pm, but is general admisson, so I want to arrive no later than 7:30. And the front desk suggests 20 minutes for a taxi, so I've got about a half-hour in which to write this. Otherwise, I'll shelve it until after the show.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last night's flight was delayed by about 90 minutes, so I missed getting a lift from cousins. [Seeing cousins was more important, in my book, than the ride from the airport.]
I was a bit sloth getting out of the hotel this morning, but eventually figured out the farecard system and got into Capitol South.
Detoured slightly down D street to see the Congressional Animal House. Those are shower curtains in the windows!
Then, over the the Madison building to get my reader ID card for the Library of Congress. Woo-hoo. I now have cards at both the LoC and British Library!
From there, I went down to the Folger Shakespeare Library to see their exhibit on Shakespeare in American Life.
A few items on display which caught my eye:
- R.W. Criswell's 1882 burlesque The New Shakespeare & Other Travesties, which begins:
Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend me your ears;
I will return them next Saturday. I come
To bury Caesar, because the times are hard
And his folks can't afford to hire an undertaker...
- They have a John Adams autograph copy of a passage from Julius Caesar, beginning "Tis a common proof..."
No idea why he felt it necessary to copy out those lines.
- A 1912 Yiddish translation of Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, open to Merchant
- A 1977 piece by Ray Bradbury, titled "Why Space... Why Shakespeare?"
- An 1898 pamphlet I want to find and read: "How to Organize a Shakespeare Club"
- Cole Porter's notes for Kiss Me Kate, including a page of rhymes:
snake rake
scum bum...
Most fascinating of all, both the Folger and the miniscule LoC exhibit for the festival had some early notes by Leonard Bernstein regarding his planned version of Romeo and Juliet.
In his original concept, the rival gangs were to be Italian and Jewish and it was going to be set in the week between Passover and Easter.
Given that was often a time of heightened antisemitism, it could've been very interesting.
It looks like the Capulets were going to be Jews, as one of his outlines references "Juliet and her Tante"
But, we got West Side Story instead of East Side Story. I wonder what changed his mind...
Once I finished at the Folger, I headed over to the Library of Congress
I took the 1:30 tour, and... well, I didn't catch the docent's name, but he was good!
Let's put it this way, our "half-hour to forty-five minute tour" ran until 2:50.
But it was so worth it. Gained a whole new appreciation for the building, which I'll probably talk Ian's ear off about later, but won't bore you guys with.
Spent a little time in the reading rooms after the tour ended, but didn't see anything in the catalog that grabbed me enough to request -- I just wandered among the books and admired the atmosphere.
Late afternoon, they were setting out tables in one of the halls. When I asked what the event was, a guard said somebody was filming a movie. Anybody have more details?
Finally, I wandered thru the gift shop and picked up a couple things for me and a gift for Ian.
Then I grabbed dinner at a little Mexican place on Pennsylvania Ave, and caught the Metro back to the hotel room.
I should probably get changed into a nicer outfit and head down to the lobby to catch a cab.
Hope you're all doing well...
Come on now, DC!
Nobody offered the slightest guess...
The titles for this week's pre-trip entries on Washington came from the 1965 Disney movie That Darn! Cat starring Halley Mills.
For those unfamiliar with the story, D.C. is the titular applehead Siamese, owned by Halley Mills.
When DC wanders into the hideout of a pair of bank-robbers, their hostage manages to slip her wristwatch over DC's collar.
Dean Jones plays the FBI agent assigned to the case, and... well... hijinks ensue.
Other well-known names in the cast include: Richard Deacon, Frank Gorshin, Roddy McDowall, and Ed Wynn.
The movie's one of my personal favorites, along with two of Halley Mills' other Disney flicks: Pollyanna (1960) and The Parent Trap (1961).
[Don't even mention the remakes Disney attempted in the last decade...]
Any other fans of this film?
Phoning it in: an honest puck
Phoning it in from DC
Me @ the LoC.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Google Maps Gripes
Last night, I blogged:
For some reason, when I used the Google "My Maps" feature, none of the placemarks would print. I could only get the placemarks and icons to print by (a) exporting it to KML, (b) uploading it to my webserver, and (c) using standard KML access from Google Maps. And it still won't print the placemark labels, so I'll have to write those on the map...
Actually, I just noticed that my older KML-based Google Maps have also stopped including the index. Bug?
Well, I finally tried to print those pages, rather than just looking at the previews, and discovered another problem.
I could ignore the lack of a legend (which Google Maps did include with KML files as recently as the start of the year) if the placemark icons printed.
Fine, I could just annotate the map by hand and indicate which  represented which show.
But the placemark icons don't print at all!
It's fine in print preview, only the actual output is the problem. And I sent it both to a physical printer and a PDF writer (which is where I captured the image), so I know it's not the driver.
See for yourself:
| Onscreen | Output |
|---|
| 
| | click to enlarge | I don't want to print from Google Earth, because I want maps rather than a satellite photo.
Grumble...
Thursday, April 12, 2007
In other words...
BTW, Ian's written a short-short story today (633 words).
It's rather rough and totally unbetaed, but I like it.
Not fanfic, for anyone who tries to avoid that kind of thing.
Read it and leave him a comment...
I have no mouth and Imus scream, Part Deux
First of all, I find it hard to believe I'm the first person to write "I have no mouth and Imus scream," but searching various engines on the phrase turned up no other instances but mine.
More importantly, though, there was more I wanted to write this morning, but time and then changing events nearly derailed it.
But now Digby gives me the perfect springboard, writing:
As the media elite and various political insiders continue to behave as if they've just been hit over the head with a cudgel on this Imus matter, perhaps they should wake up and recognize that there have been people out there noticing the raw hypocrisy among this Imus Elite for years.
It seems to be human nature that people give their friends more leeway than they'd give strangers.
Ian reminded me of the last time I ever called David Brudnoy's show.
It was nearly a decade ago, during a program about Mike Barnicle's plagiarism.
Brudnoy was defending Barnicle, trying to diminish the severity of his offenses.
After braving the busy signals and waiting a huge time on hold, I asked Brudnoy, then a journalism professor, how he would respond if one of his students acted in the same manner as Barnicle:
If a student turned in a plagiarized paper. When confronted, the student first claimed ignorance of the source material. Then, when it was shown the student had previously recommended the source to otheres, the student claimed that he still hadn't read it.
I wanted to know how Professor Brudnoy would handle that situation in one of his students, and whether a paid professional should be treated more leniently than a student?
In response, David Brudnoy hung up on me.
I lost a lot of respect for Brudnoy after that encounter.
But I'm seeing something similar in the defenses made of Imus. Friends defending friends because they're friends.
Sigh...
Between this and the Scooter Libby trial, maybe we can finally expose the seamy underside of the cozy clubbiness between powerbrokers media and political, returning to a more adversarial relationship.
DC, pull yourself together
A few notes for myself as preparation for this weekend's trip:
Google Maps:
• All expected destinations (with closest Metro stops) for my visit Aside: For some reason, when I used the Google "My Maps" feature, none of the placemarks would print. I could only get the placemarks and icons to print by (a) exporting it to KML, (b) uploading it to my webserver, and (c) using standard KML access from Google Maps. And it still won't print the placemark labels, so I'll have to write those on the map...
Actually, I just noticed that my older KML-based Google Maps have also stopped including the index. Bug?
Regular Metro fare appears to be $1.85 per trip. I can purchase a One Day Pass for $6.50, but it's only worthwhile if I expect to make more than one roundtrip. If (as I expect) I just head into town in the morning and back to the hotel again after the shows, it's not necessary. [Are any of the neighborhoods I might be walking through considered particularly unsafe?]
• The National Gallery exhibit is closed weekends. :(
• Folger Shakespeare Library, 10am - 4pm on Saturday
• Library of Congress:
- Reader Registration: 8:30 am - 4:30 pm Saturday (Room LM 140, on the first floor of the Madison Building near the Independence Avenue entrance)
- Public Tours: Saturday at 10:30, 11:30, 1:30, and 2:30. [Tours begin in the Ground Floor Visitors Center of the Thomas Jefferson Building.]
- Madison and Adams Buildings open @ 8:30 am; Jefferson Building 10 am - 5:30 pm (exhibitions only until 5pm)
Monday April 16 at 8pm, Barbara Mowat lecturing at Folger, followed by reception, if I'm free...
PS: The title of this entry is related to the title of yesterday's post on my schedule. Any guesses what they have in common?
I have no mouth and Imus scream
By the way, for those who think the outrage against Imus is over-the-top, a little more information:
Joan Walsh provides context for those three words:
Let's be clear. He didn't slip one day, for instance, and use the n-word, and then immediately apologize. This was an ongoing shtick. In the segment that got him in hot water, he and McGuirk really enjoyed themselves, one-upping one another with sexist cracks the way sexist losers do: The Rutgers women went from Imus' "rough girls" to McGuirk's "hardcore hos" to Imus' "nappy-headed hos!" Then they reprised Spike Lee's "School Daze," casting the Rutgers vs. Tennessee teams as "the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes," with the Rutgers women, of course, in the role of the dark-skinned Jigaboos. That wasn't enough, though. The Rutgers women, they said, really looked like an NBA team -- the Raptors, no, the Grizzlies. Big, scary, ugly black men -- got it? Or was it big, scary, ugly black animals? Hard to say.
And over on Slate, Timothy Noah provides a litany of other offensive remarks, demonstrating this is far from an isolated incident.
Capisce?
Guilty Stupid Pleasure
I can't remember where I discovered this site, but I really enjoy:
I Can Has Cheezburger
Okay, I don't really get/care for the walrus/bucket jokes, but I just can't resist the cute kittens with leetspeak slogans, like:
Hee.
Speaking of silly cats (or silly cat owners and the cats who tolerate them)...
Last September, John Scalzi taped bacon to his cat, causing a brief Internet sensation.
Well, for Easter, Elizabeth Bear put ham on her cat -- and the cat was smart enough to make a meal of it. She's since posted photos.
Any other links along these lines?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Tally ho!
Oh, and after this weekend's shows, the only Shakespeare plays that I won't have seen in any format will be:
- Antony and Cleopatra: this summer by Shakespeare & Co.
- Cymbeline
- Henry IV, part 1: this summer by Industrial Theatre
- Henry IV, part 2
- Henry VI, part 1
- Henry VI, part 2
- Henry VI, part 3
- Henry VIII
- Macbeth: this fall by Actors' Shakespeare Project
- The Merchant of Venice
- Othello
- Timon of Athens
- Troilus and Cressida
- Two Gentlemen of Verona
We're stopping in London for three days on our way to Italy. While we're there, Shakespeare's Globe will be showing Merchant of Venice and Othello.
Both make the claim that:
“The production will employ Renaissance staging, costume and music.”
The leads have already been announced for Othello -- with a black actor in the title role. So much for that level of authenticity...
Is it wrong to confess that I'd rather see Merchant go all out with the orange wig and false nose, rather than witness further attempts to sugarcoat or sweep away the antisemitism?
Face it; Shakespeare was a man of his times, and better to just acknowledge that and view this as a period piece than try to make him sympathetic (and thus -- instead of making Shylock an unrepentant villain like Aaron the Moor -- suggest that if sufficiently wronged, all Jews could perpetrate such evils)
But I suspect that won't happen.
Seeing both plays is probably prohibitive, partly cost but more in terms of the limited time we have in London.
Haven't made up my mind yet -- I may wait until some more information emerges.
BTW, in their Othello, Iago will be played by Tim McInnerny -- probably best known as Lord Percy and Captain Darling in Blackadder.
If DC wasn't bad enough before...
This weekend I'm going to Washington.
For work, I'll be attending Computers in Libraries 2007 Conference (aka CIL2007). But first, I'm taking advantage of the weekend to indulge in the Shakespeare in Washington Festival.
Here are my rough plans:
| Friday, April 13 |
|---|
| 19:00 |
Flying down to DC (arrive ~8:45 pm) |
| Saturday, April 14 |
|---|
| day |
One or more of the following:
• Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare in American Life
• Library of Congress exhibits
• National Building Museum: Reinventing the Globe
• National Gallery Of Art: Sources for Shakespeare's Plays
|
| 20:00 |
Edward III by the Washington Shakespeare Company |
| Sunday, April 15 |
|---|
| 13:30 |
Coriolanus by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Kennedy Center |
| 19:30 |
Titus Andronicus by the Shakespeare Theatre Company |
| Monday, April 16 |
|---|
| Time | Planned panel | Backup choices |
|---|
| 9:00 |
Keynote: Web 2.0 & the Internet World |
| 10:15 |
Alternative & Customized Search Engines (SEs) |
| 11:15 |
undecided |
Student's World: Photo Diary Study |
Building Collaboration, Communication, & Community Online |
| 13:15 |
Mobile Search |
Mashups, Remixing Info, & Making Data Browsable |
| 14:15 |
Millennials & the Library |
Engines for Multimedia Search |
Building Community |
| 15:15 |
Information Design for the New Web |
Using Google & SEs to Expose Digital Collections |
Gaming & Libraries: Engaging Strategies |
| 16:15 |
Social Bookmarking & Folksonomies |
| 17:00 |
Grand Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall |
| Tuesday, April 17 |
|---|
| Time | Planned panel | Backup choices |
|---|
| 9:00 |
Keynote: Gaming, Learning, & the Information World |
| 10:30 |
What's a Mashup & Why Would I Want One? |
| 11:30 |
Comments in the Catalog: Community Interaction |
| 13:30 |
Search Tools Using Controlled Vocabularies |
| 15:15 |
What's Hot with RSS! |
| 16:15 |
Giving People What They Want |
Gaming & Learning |
| 17:00 |
Reception in the Exhibit Hall |
| Wednesday, April 18 |
|---|
| Time | Planned panel | Backup choices |
|---|
| 9:00 |
Keynote: World Digital Libraries |
| 10:30 |
Trends in Mobile Tools & Applications for Libraries |
| 11:30 |
Keeping One Click Ahead: Best of ResourceShelf |
Catalogs/OPACs for the Future |
| 13:30 |
Improving Content with Customer Conversations |
Searching, Finding, and the Information Professional |
| 15:15 |
Federated Search: State of the Art |
The Library of the Future |
| 16:15 |
Production to Portal: Info Delivery Channels |
Book Search Engines Update |
Disturbingly enough, it's been tough trying to narrow down panel choices at CIL, because they all sound so interesting...
At any rate, that's what I'll be doing the next several days.
I'll blog as much of it as I can.
Oh, and a bonus brownie point for anyone who can identify/explain the title of this entry...
Why me? Why now?
I've got so much to do before I leave for DC Friday night... Why did an irresistable plot bunny have to bite me this morning, demanding to be written? No, it's not really one I can share or hand off...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Why papers?
Why are white papers called white papers?
[Beyond the obvious]
Where did the terminology originate? "White" papers as opposed to... what? Notes taken on yellow steno pads?
Monday, April 09, 2007
Lei capisce l'italiano?
As I told several people this weekend, the Boston Public Library makes Rosetta Stone language lessons available to anyone with a BPL library card (which anyone in Massachusetts can qualify for -- they even offer temporary ecards if you can't get to the library in person).
Go to the BPL homepage and choose Electronic Resources. From there, select World Languages.
Choose Rosetta Stone: Online Language Learning Center, and at that point you'll need to enter your library card number.
They offer Rosetta Stone lessons in
- English (UK)
- English (US)
- French
- German
- Greek
- Italian
- Russian
- Spanish (Lat. Am.)
- Spanish (Spain)
Considering that Rosetta Stone sells their software for several hundred dollars, this is a terrific deal.
I'm still working through the Pimsleur Italian Short Course, in fits and starts.
However, that's strictly oral language, and I want to understand written Italian as well.
Travel tip
Today's New York Times has an article on new websites for finding travel deals.
I've got a tip they don't mention.
Over the weekend, we booked our flights to Italy through 1800FlyEurope.com, the same outfit I used for my tickets to London a few years ago.
Now, part of their shtick is that they won't identify the airline until after you've made your purchase.
But this is easy to circumvent, if you crosscheck against another travel site (I've grown to like Kayak and SideStep).
1800FlyEurope was about $200 per person cheaper than the best fare I could find on the other sites.
And that's pure antihistimine -- nothing to sneeze at.
Also, before making seat assignments, be sure to check SeatGuru.com which shows airplane configurations with recommendations regarding the best and worst seats...
Were You There?
Carp! Blogger ate this morning's entry beyond even the capabilities of its Recover post function. Here's my attempted reconstruction:
Via TNH:
Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971. Part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of Nick DeWolf. Originally labeled "'71 Boston Parade", set includes a variety of subjects, documenting the events taking place in and around Boston, 1971.
Yo, parents-in-law! Are you guys in any of these pictures? Do you recognize anybody?
These are just one reel of photos taken over 1971 and other years.
Additional context would only enrich the images, so spread the word.
Scary story du jour
Making the rounds, but well worth reading; posted by Mark Gruber; emphasis mine:
I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.
"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."
"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."
"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said."
"After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they=re going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical."
"I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could. Further, that an administration headed by two men who had "had other priorities" than to risk their own lives when their turn to fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous. Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. ..."
"I have a personal stake here, but so do all Americans who take their political system seriously. Thus I hope you and your colleagues will take some positive action to bring the Administration's conduct to the attention of a far larger, and more influential, audience than I could hope to reach."
Mark Kleiman suggests this could and should be grounds for hearings and even proposes a partial agenda:
If I were running a Congressional investigation, I'd start with the case of Prof. Murphy, and work out from there. Find out who was working that airport that day for TSA, and verify the story. Then take the good Professor's — oops, that's "Col. Murphy's" — testimony (in uniform, if it still fits) along with that of the airport-level official if you can find him.
Having established a basis, then subpoena the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Administrator of TSA. How did Col. Murphy's name get on the list?
Let them explain that the process is classified. OK, here's a non-classified question: is there any reference in your files to Prof. Murphy's lecture? No, Mr. Secretary, I'll be damned if I understand how a yes-or-no answer to that question could convey dangerous information to our enemies. Answer the question, please. Yes, or no? How about you, Mr. Hawley? Will you answer the question? Yes or no? Privacy? Horsepuckey! Col. Murphy has given us a written waiver for the disclosure of any private information. Will you answer the question?. Yes or no?
Then work out from there. Have committee staff (suitably cleared, of course) paw through the files, looking for outrages. There will be plenty.
Played right, this is absolutely no-lose for the Democrats. Everyone who flies hates the TSA. Lots of people have heard about Teddy Kennedy's being on the No-Fly list. Combine rudeness and incompetence with gross civil-liberties violations, and you have yourself a nice set of hearings.
Welcome to another Monday.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Got eggs; knows how to use them...
According to the official Cadbury Creme Egg fact sheet:
Why has the size of the egg changed?
It hasn't - you've just grown up!
Now watch the Conan O'Brien exposé:
Wikipedia has more, including product specifications:
1.2 oz (34 g) eggs - made in England but licensed to The Hershey Company - are now appearing on shelves in the United States. That means the original weight of 1.4 oz (40 g) has been reduced by two tenths of an ounce, or six grams. That is a 15% reduction.
The Wikipedia page also directly addresses the size controversy: "Cadbury failed to change their website when they changed the size of the egg."
Of course, after researching all this, now I want Cadbury eggs, but can't because it's Pesach...
Share and enjoy?
Some interesting comments on intellectual property I've seen and wanted to share:
First, (via Mark Thoma) The New York Times looks at intellectual property and the fashion industry:
At one time, the fashion industry did have a self-imposed system of intellectual property protection. In the 1930s, the Fashion Originators' Guild prohibited copying among its members and urged retailers not to sell items from those who copied other designs. The guild was reasonably successful in these efforts. But in 1941, the Supreme Court held that its practices violated antitrust laws, and since then the fashion industry in the United States has had no intellectual property protection for designs.
A result has been that "piracy" of designs is common in the fashion industry. Designers constantly experiment with new shapes and colors. If a particular style catches on, it is quickly copied.... [Law professors] Mr. Raustiala and Mr. Sprigman argue that the lack of intellectual property protection actually promotes the functioning of the industry. If the extension of copyright to fashion prevented clothes manufacturers from copying each other, the industry would be ceding a major role to the lawyers and become much less creative. We'd see the same thing year after year. In other words, women's fashion would look much more like men's fashions -- boring, boring, boring.
Charlie Stross on why the commercial ebook market is broken:
The short answer is DRM, but he has some quite persuasive arguments.
In the pre-internet dark age, there was a subculture of folks who would get their hands on books and pass them around and encourage people to read them for free, rather than buying their own copies. Much like today's ebook pirates, in terms of the what they did (with one or two minor differences). There was a closely-related subculture who would actually sell copies of books without paying the authors a penny in royalties, too. We have a technical term for such people: we call them "librarians" and "second-hand bookstore owners". Library lending was tolerated by authors and publishers because it was widely accepted that in the long run, people who borrowed our books from libraries were more likely to read them than people who had no access whatsoever. And having read, they were more likely to become regular readers and to eventually buy — if not the books they'd already read, then the next one on. Library users were often poor, or casual readers, or young. I remember latching on to the local public library when I was five or six years old. I read my way through most of Andre Norton's childrens range before I was eight, and I certainly didn't pay for them. I couldn't pay for them; I didn't have enough pocket money to make a habit of buying books at anything approaching the rate I could read them until I was in my teens, and even then, I was mostly limited to second-hand paperbacks. So, in the dark pre-digital age of the 1970s, I was an avid supporter of that period's equivalent of your demonic ebook pirates. And y'know what? I defy anyone to tell me I was wrong to do so. Or even to assert that it hasn't, overall, been a good thing for the SF field, because it got me into the habit of reading, and these days, with a disposable income, my biggest problem is finding bookcases to stick all the new hardbacks I've bought over the years since my teens.
Regarding his comments on "pirate" ebooks, I'll come forward.
I have pirated ebook copies of the existing Harry Potter novels.
I also own two hardcover copies of each book -- the American and British editions, so the publishers have already made their money off me. [In fact, I actually bought extra copies of two of the books to donate to libraries, so the publishers have nothing to complain about as far as my custom is concerned.]
But the computerized versions -- poor-quality OCR -- serve a useful purpose. Like most computer files, they're searchable. If I'm trying to locate a particular scene or reference, it's much easier to Ctrl+F than try to recall or flip through the printed editions.
And the online text can come with me to places where I can't easily bring six tomes.
Have I done so wrong?
Kits, cats, sacks, wives
Earlier this week, Boing Boing provided some startling information about toxoplasmosis:
In 2000, scientists revealed T. gondii could modify the brains of rats to make them attracted to cat urine instead of afraid of it. Researchers suspect the germ does so to make it easier for it to jump into cats to begin the sexual part of its life cycle.
I've read elsewhere that it can affect humans by (among other changes) making women more warm-hearted.
At various times, Ian and I have speculated on how humans first domesticated cats, but maybe it was toxoplasmosis that domesticated us?
Particularly if they're also affecting the rodents, since the usual theories involve pest control around the granaries...
Ave Maria, gee it's good to see ya
From a discussion Ian and I had this morning on the way to his grandparents:
There's some irony in the fact that Easter always falls during Pesach, because Jesus is chametz.
After all, they say Christ is risen.
Of course, transsubstantiation makes the whole accusations of blood libel truly ironic, since they believe their own wafers are made of Jewish blood.
And, because this entry is so short, I'll close with an old joke:
What are the 4 theological proofs that Jesus was Jewish?
- He lived at home until he was 30.
- He went into his father's business.
- He believed his mother was still a virgin.
- His mother thought he was God.
Saxon violence
The Bayeaux Tapestry, animated and annotated:
Speaking of Peeps
The Washington Post held a Peeps Diorama Contest, and today announced the winners.
View the photo gallery
I'm particularly taken by semifinalists #7, 9, and 17.
Passover Peeps?
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories provides step-by-step instructions on making saffron meringue chicks, which look just like the classic Easter treat.
I'm tempted to make them for my next seder.
Also: Tiramatzah...
|
Copyright © 2002 - 2009 Elisabeth Riba,
All Rights Reserved
|
LiveJournal
