the art of writing is discovering what you believe
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.”
Or as we have it in my family, a person who never made a mistake never made anything [the link has some variations on that, attributed to GB Shaw and Einstein].
This took some of the past 2-3 days, as I got an itch to make some superwide pictures but wasn’t satisfied with the earlier cigarbox cam I had made.
This incorporates several improvements (and points out several more, of course). I hope to get out with it this weekend. This morning was clear and bright, with stunning views: this afternoon, not so much.
And I just loaded up all seven of my film-holders, to eliminate any excuses not to get out and use the thing.
Duckworks Boatbuilders Supply:
Origami is a small, easy to build and inexpensive folding dinghy. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a good folding dinghy needs to be complicated and expensive. Most often, simple is best. Origami is full of character, yet is surprisingly capable for such a tiny craft. Its square shape gives immense stability and good interior volume. It folds up and away in just a couple of minutes. Its light weight (about 26 pounds) means that it’s child’s play to launch and to retrieve. Even stowing is easy – just lay it on a bunk down below or lash it to the rails on deck.
[video]
On Saturday the Met will present the first of its live simulcasts, transmitting The Magic Flute in high-definition images and surround sound to some sixty theaters around the country. I’m not sure how the locations were selected, but it’s a remarkably even cross-section of red- and blue-state America, including Warrington, PA, Fort Myers, FL, Olathe, KS, Chamblee, GA, Fresno, CA, and Phoenix, AZ. Singer-blogger Campbell Vertesi, on seeing this list, complained that the Met was throwing away its resources on “communities that could give a rat’s ass about opera,” but, as it happens, many shows have already sold out, including those in the places named above. For more on the Met’s initiative, read David Patrick Stearns.
As seen on BoingBoing, you might find Synchronicity Squad: Minneapolis Teapot Exploration interesting. It made me dig up a volume of Jung to re-read the relevant passages, and relating some similar yarns scared one of my children and amazed the other.
I got a copy of the venerable book this year as a gift, and found an article that would have made a younger man’s hair curl: a “consultant” (who lives the Sunbelt, natch) claims that global warming is all upside. Herewith an excerpt I found online:
Believe it or not, the news about global warming isn’t all bad. Keep an open mind as The 2007 Old Farmer’s Almanac lists some of the possible benefits warmer weather will have on our environment.
Melting glaciers, rising oceans, increasing storms: The future, with global warming, looks bleak. There certainly are severe problems associated with the present warming trend, but there are also some significant benefits. Here are a few.
Warmer weather is healthier. Statistics show that warmer weather is healthier for people. Some of Great Britain’s leading medical experts have calculated that a rise in the average temperature by 3.6 degrees F over the next 50 years would increase yearly heat-related deaths in Britain by about 2,000 – but would reduce cold-related deaths by about 20,000. A similar study by American doctors estimated that a warming of 4.5 degrees F would lower the annual death rate in the United States by 40,000, while reducing medical costs by almost $20 billion per year.
Warmer temperatures save energy. U.S. Department of Energy studies show that a warmer climate would reduce heating bills more than it would boost outlays on air-conditioning. If energy prices remained constant and we currently enjoyed the weather predicted for the 21st century, expenditures for heating and cooling would be cut by at least $12.2 billion annually. If energy prices go up, the savings will be greater.
Water is more abundant. Warmer air holds more moisture. Global warming will mean more condensation and more evaporation, producing more and /or heavier rains. With warmer world temperatures, we will see more moisture, which will be carried farther inland before it cools enough to precipitate out as rain or snow.
Plants thrive in heat and CO2. The magazine Science found that the climate changes that occurred between 1980 and 2000, a time of dramatic warming, had resulted in 6 percent more plant growth globally. The Amazon jungle, an area that had been dwindling, accounted for 42 percent of the increased plant growth.
Arctic shipping routes will save time and energy. As the ice melts, new waterways are being freed up, saving time, energy, and freight costs.
The preceding excerpt is from The 2007 Old Farmer’s Almanac.
I don’t how something could be so wrong so many ways. For one thing, anyone who is engaged in this discussion knows it’s called “climate change” not global warming. The consensus among scientists is that some places will get warmer, other cooler, but I haven’t heard anyone claim an upside to it all.
Tell the folks in the Maldives about lower shipping costs or better health outcomes for Americans: I’m sure they’ll be pleased.
The prognosis for Western Europe is not all that cheerful: research shows that the Gulf Stream, responsible for the mild climates in Western Europe’s maritime areas, is not delivering as much warm water as in prior times, perhaps forecasting a mini Ice Age. But hey, the North Polar Route will be ice-free, the better to ship stuff no one will want or be able to buy. The assumption that there will be a supply or demand for oil to ship into Churchill is a bet I would be reluctant to take. If China and India continue to grow as they have been and their oil requirements keep pace, the routes will not over the Pole but overland or through the Indian Ocean: ice has rarely been an issue there.
I think this guy has it about right: mankind shows why he is actually stupider than apes.
When I was fifteen my favourite authors were probably Samuel R. Delany, Mervyn Peake, Will Eisner, Michael Moorcock and Ursula K. LeGuin. My favourite book that year, mm. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I think.
I think I need to try that last one: I seem to remember it crossing my path before but not sure why I didn’t grab it.
Does anyone think that the record industry’s tactic of repackaging albums with newly-added material signals anything other than short-sighted desperation? Perhaps the idea will come into sharper focus if we peer into an executive’s imagination: “Let’s see, some consumers still reliably buy their recordings on physical media, despite all the drawbacks attendant upon that mode of production and transmission. If fewer and fewer people still buy our product, what shall we do? I know! Render physical-album releases obsolescent even faster! That’ll build the market, increase consumer goodwill, and stave off the digital media revolution!”
Nate and I have talked before about the demise of the “album” as an intelligible unit of artistic expression; doesn’t this development underline and accelerate that decline? What sense does it make for The Artist to say, “Tasty Dog Biscuits belongs together as an integrated song cycle, reflecting our lyrical expression of the superiority of liberal democracy over planned economies,” when six months later the record label rereleases Biscuits with six other tracks, a supplementary video, and two mash-ups and remixes of The Artist’s big hit [single] from the album? Where did the integrated artistic whole go?
The album as we know knew it is dead, dead, dead. People want single tracks, or if they want more than one, are unlikely to care about the artificial package of the The Album. Consider that a vinyl record generally held 40 minutes of music, while a CD holds closer to an hour’s worth, maybe a bit more. Are the combined playing-times of all the tracks on a current release closer to 40 or 60 minutes? The industry still thinks of vinyl records, right down to the amount of material. The CD has been on the market for more than 20 years. According to this, stereo recordings where first released in 1958: this gives the vinyl record a 25 year lifetime until the CD and digital recordings came along — about 1982. So here we are, almost 25 years after the re-invention of music packaging and distribution and the industry still thinks we’re either idiots or criminals.
Apparently, I’ve grumbled about this before: I was looking to see if a quote I remember from (I think Rolling Stone [I remember when it was a music magazine <sigh>]) where the Undertones rant about their contract requiring them to make albums, when all they wanted to make — all they and their friends bought — were singles. My guess is, with the advent of the iTunes store and, before that, Napster at al, single tracks have been what people have been looking for the past few years.
I can see another motive in the album strategy: if you have $20 to spend on music, do I, as a greedy record executive, want you to buy 10 $2 selections from a variety of artists, even if some of them will be on my label, or do I want you to buy the “album” with it’s higher markup and the attendant PR and marketing value of a high chart position? Think about it: does a CD single or EP cost more to make than a full-length? No, I expect it costs the same. But it will sell for less[*], at the same manufacturing/shipping/distribution cost, maybe enough less to eat seriously into the blow and/or hair-product expense account. So why even offer them?
* EPs seem to sell for around half the price of a CD, based on a cursory look at Amazon.com.
