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I have 52 subscribers: it’s a start.
Author: paul
book ideas
I was reading over The Battle Cry of Freedom and was struck by the illustrations — pencil drawings, paintings, and photographs — and how they were commissioned and used by Harper’s Magazine, in the case of the pencil drawings.
…The idea of a book on that topic was more fully-formed earlier today, with other examples, but I seem to have lost them.
Two ideas for books I would read:
- A History of Printed Communications, from moveable type to MovableType (or from Gutenberg to the Internet). The obvious pseudonym is Etaion Shrdlu. I was reading over The Battle Cry of Freedom and was struck by the illustrations — pencil drawings, paintings, and photographs — and how they were commissioned and used by Harper’s Magazine, in the case of the pencil drawings. This is the artist — Alfred Waud — captured by another great of the time, Timothy O’Sullivan.
What was the process of getting those images into print? I have worked with everything from cold type to these evanescent pixels, with hot wax and tape along the way. But even that span of technological history doesn’t quite cover it. What were the lags in time? How current were they when published and delivered? - Another title would be a history of social mobility. Again inspised by that great Civil War book, but by others as well (I am currently reading Ghost Map). The end of Battle Cry mentions the tanner’s son from Ohio — Grant — dictating the terms of surrender to Lee, a descendant of the First Families of Virginia. The idea of a book on that topic was more fully-formed earlier today, with other examples, but I seem to have lost them. Something to do with the democratization or flattening of society, an end of hereditary hierarchies, it seems to me.
Of course, the thought occurs to me that maybe I should write them (ha!). The first is more interesting, from that standpoint.
this is handy
(We understand that there has been some confusion about this in the past, but to settle it once and for all, you can indeed receive mail at all the variations with dots.)
For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank.
Here’s something I just learned about. I know lots of people do the +modifier stuff with email, but this is effort-free.
I recently discovered some little-known ways to use your Gmail address that can give you greater control over your inbox and save you some time and headache.
When you choose a Gmail address, you actually get more than just “yourusername@gmail.com.” Here are two different ways you can modify your Gmail address and still get your mail:
- Append a plus (“+”) sign and any combination of words or numbers after your email address. For example, if your name was hikingfan@gmail.com, you could send mail to hikingfan+friends@gmail.com or hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com.
- Insert one or several dots (“.”) anywhere in your email address. Gmail doesn’t recognize periods as characters in addresses — we just ignore them. For example, you could tell people your address was hikingfan@gmail.com, hiking.fan@gmail.com or hi.kin.g.fan@gmail.com. (We understand that there has been some confusion about this in the past, but to settle it once and for all, you can indeed receive mail at all the variations with dots.)
For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank. You can also use this when you register for a service and think they might share your information. For example, I added “+donation” when I gave money to a political organization once, and now when I see emails from other groups to that address, I know how they got it. Solution: filtered to auto-delete.
[From Official Gmail Blog: 2 hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address]
the truth will set you free
It’s by no means clear that emancipation would have happened, as Lincoln seems to have been persuaded to use it as a lever as the war dragged on. He did come to see it as the only honorable and moral thing to do but that took more time to arrive at than the political strength of the move.
…I’m not sure those who deny that the unwillingness to do away with chattel slavery and who refuse to understand that secession was an appallingly bad idea (that would cost uncounted lives (600,000 uniformed men on both sides and who knows how many civilians) and enormous devastation to land and property) are living in the same reality.
I finished reading a great book last night, and this morning, for Read Across America day, we had a local theater company present Minty, from a book about the young Harriet Tubman. 
It was pretty hard to take in, as raw as I felt after reading the history of the most revised period in American history.
I had just assumed or understood that slavery was at the heart of the rebellion, not realizing how open and honest the people of the time were about it. The code words “state’s rights” are really a modern phenomenon. That phrase was used at the time, yes, but getting a Southerner to admit that slavery was what was meant was by no means difficult. Today, it’s not so easy. But a review of the events of the 1840s through 1861 makes it clear that the irrevocable enshrinement of human bondage into law was the issue, no ifs, ands, or buts.
<via>
borrowed quote of the day
“Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.”
“Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.” [From The collected controversies of William F. Buckley]
Does this not sum up modern conservatism?
links for 2008-03-03
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I think American self-confidence more than innovation: not sure how many consumer products will emerge from America’s workshops, but being able to fix the ones we have will be a good thing.
links for 2008-03-02
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Salmon in the classroom (or the hallway, so more people can see ’em), an annual event where kids get see salmon go from eggs to releasable fish during the school year.
bonus quote of the day
Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher?… Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS?
From John Sidney McCain II’s latest endorser:
Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.” [From Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With Fleas]
farming vs growing
[A] farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future.
…Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price for this — whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge to absorb the government’s fines, or in the form of less access to the kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.
A friend sent this along.
[A] farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)
In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 — for one season alone! And this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that only one of the government’s three crop-support programs was in effect; the total bill might be much worse in the future.
[…]
Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.
Who pays the price for this senselessness? Certainly I do, as a Midwestern vegetable farmer. But anyone trying to do what I do on, say, wheat acreage in the Dakotas, or rice acreage in Arkansas would face the same penalties. Local and regional fruit and vegetable production will languish anywhere that the commodity program has influence.
Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price for this — whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge to absorb the government’s fines, or in the form of less access to the kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for. Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers need more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables to meet increasing demand from local markets — without the federal government actively discouraging them.
The author signs himself “a farmer” as a opposed “a grower” which usually refers to industrial food production — monocultures and chemically fueled farming.
quote of the day
Or as a comic store employee explained to me back then, the problem with Sandman was that people bought it to read, and they couldn’t be persuaded to just buy lots of copies as investment items. [From little bit of politics ] <scratches head> People really do that?
Or as a comic store employee explained to me back then, the problem with Sandman was that people bought it to read, and they couldn’t be persuaded to just buy lots of copies as investment items. [From little bit of politics]
<scratches head> People really do that?