the art of writing is discovering what you believe
I can’t use it all the time and since Chimera is not exactly terrible, I’ll use it. They’ll both get better, so where’s the harm?
Where Safari fails me is in posting to my weblog, something I do regularly enough to expect reliability. For whatever reason, the javascript magic doesn’t happen.
Of course, the lack of tabbed browsing is a nuisance as well.
I was part of a conversation today on the notion of open access municipal broadband, and what it would take to make it work?
It’s the usual deal: suppliers, ie tech types, see it as easy and the “Right Thing to Do” but utility providers want to see a compelling reason to build it. “If you build it, they will come” is not good enough.
Even as an early adopter, I can’t see a compelling reason to have 100 MBit networking to my house: I’m not missing anything at 384 Kbits, so far. The talk is all about video, interactive or otherwise, but we’ve had the internet’s interactive capabilities in wide use for 7-8 years now, and I think content programmers have learned that people don’t want to interact. They may play games — there’s lots of that — but that’s a different thing altogether.
And we know the content companies are resistant to video on demand: they don’t even like TiVo, so I have a hard time imagining a world of movies or other programming on my schedule. It’s still appointment television, “must see TV” and looks to stay that way for a while.
Continue reading “Killer app: what will make fiber to the home happen?”
Rains All the Time: A Connoisseur’s…
A slim but enjoyable book. It details the impressions and facts of the weather in Oregon and Washington, from the days of Captains Drake, Cook, and Vancouver to the modern day. There is a lot of good information about weather forecasting and why it never seems to tell us what we want to know. In all fairness, we do get warnings of big storms — the likes of the Columbus Day storm of 1962 will likely not surprise anyone again — but the day in/day-out questions about whether it will rain and how much are still beyond the grasp of the weathermen.
No, it’s not Hawaii, nor is it the humid sweltering east coast, either. Been there, done that.
This was a fascinating read. The author takes four well-known and reasonably widely-used plants and examines how they have evolved to appeal to humans for their — the plant’s — own benefit.
Continue reading “coevolution”
The Seattle Times: The Rowling myth and the missing Potter book
Where have you gone, Harry Potter? The nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Make that the world.
Interesting article about the even-further-delayed HP book. Hope JK Rowling doesn’t burn up all her karma on this one: delays on the last two could make fans angry.
Spoiler alert: these could be the plots of the last 3 books.
On my list of recent/current reads are some of the Swallows and Amazons series, by Arthur Ransome. I have been reading these with my five year old and enjoy them so much, I’m getting them for myself now.
The books have a few core values or themes, like self-reliance, courage, resourcefulness, and looking out for each other. The central characters are the Walker children, John, Susan, Titty, and Roger. They will be joined later by Bridget who at this, the seventh book, is still too young to take part in their adventures. They are joined by Nancy and Peggy Blackett, the Amazon Pirates, who live in a house on the short of Coniston Water in the English Lake District which serves as a kind of hub for the series.
The children grow with each book in the series, but so far only Roger’s age has been mentioned: he is seven in the first book. I assume the others are spaced two years apart.
I like the stories for the simplicity of the lives everyone leads. In the 1930s schoolage children would travel unaccompanied by train, or camp in the moors or on an island with no adults. The adults in general are a useful device to provide food and carry messages, but they are rarely needed for the action. I like the children’s skill and determination at solving the problems they are beset with, from weathering false accusations to making a blast furnace, from a launching late night rescue to recover their comrades feared lost in a blizzard to being carried off to sea in a gale when their anchor drags.
The Walker children have the skills and discipline they learned from their father, a Commander in the Royal Navy, and the even temper and unflappability of their mother, born on an Australian sheep station and now mother to these fearless five while their father is on duty. In fact, his return to England is part of the story in the seventh book: so far, I haven’t seen him. The Blackett girls, raised by a sensible but overmatched mother and their indulgent uncle, are another matter. They lack the skills but make up for it in spirit and are often relied on to plan the adventures that John and Susan’s abilities will make real.
The Walkers are the most clearly defined. John is the captain of their ship, the Swallow, and commander of the expeditions. Susan is the mate and takes the mother role with the younger ones, enforcing bedtimes, arranging provisions, and building fireplaces. Titty hasn’t the same duties as her older siblings, so she finds other outlets. She is a bit of a mystic, fashioning a voodoo image in one book to help rid the Amazons of their overbearing great-aunt, and successfully dowsing for water in the midst of a drought in another book. Roger, as ship’s boy in the early books, is a boy through and through. He finds the gold mine in one book, he spends the night in a charcoal-burners’ wigwam after spraining his ankle in another: he has his own adventures that parallel the group’s.
If you’re interested, you can read up on the books and their author at the links Google will return.
The English: A Portrait of a People
This is an interesting read, partly because the author felt it necessary to write it. But recent history and current politics — the devolution of Britain, as Scotland and Wales exercise their autonomy, and the general malaise about the future — make the notion of England and the English a basis for discussion.
Recommended for Anglophiles as well as the English and British. I’ve not finished it yet, but have enjoyed it so far, debunkings and all.
Amazon.com: buying info: Gloriana, or the Unfulfill’d Queen
I just wrote a review of this book. I pasted the text below (see MORE). It only got 2 stars.
Continue reading “Amazon review”