Yesterday, we took a walk around the lake to look at Christmas lights. Thinking back, it seems like a tragedy that I cannot remember once looking up at the night sky and enjoying the stars and constellations. Contact is reminding me how much less wonder and awe I have in my life now than I used to. It is a story of a precocious scientist (Ellie) who, from her birth, exhibited an interest in science and wonder and an aptitude for electronics. She gets into radio astronomy and eventually discovers an encrypted message from extraterrestrial life (I'm assuming because I haven't gotten that far in the book yet) .
Many years ago, I watched the movie 'Entrapment'. It came out prior to the new millenium, and took place in the future, on the eve of the new year and millenium. I can remember thinking as I walked out of the theater the wonder that the events in the movie hadn't happened yet. A few weeks/months later, I don't recall how long, I can recall thinking back on the movie and realized that the time period had passed. Through no fault of its own, the entire perspective of the movie had shifted and made it into a fictional history instead of a future potentiality.
Contact was written in 1985 to take place in 1999, and I read it now in 2012. A book written in the past about a future that is now also in the past. I read it now as past history that never happened, a fiction, a tragedy of the real world coalescing into one reality that isn't represented by the story. I wish it had been true (Keep in mind, I am only ten chapters in out of twenty-four, so this opinion may be subject to change). It is true that humans need awe, and such events would have been awing. At the same time, some of the future brought about by the Message did actually occur, without the Message intervention. The book was written at the end of the cold war, and predicted a world where the Message would force the nations of the world to work together even pushing aside the bitter rivalry between the Russians and Americans. The book is written from the perspective of a scientist who cares less about the political background of her fellow scientists than their abilities, but it also reasonably accurately portrays a more modern sense of the tentative acceptance we have of the Russian place in modern society rather than a more contemporary (for that time at least) deprecation of everything that was against the US in the cold war.
Chapter ten contains a discussion about the relationship between science and religion, including a sermon by a rabble-rouser exhorting people to not believe the lies fed to the populace by scientists and an exchange between Ellie and two prominent fundamentalist preachers of slightly different flavors. Either the relationship between fundamentalist religion and science has not changed at all in the last 30 years or Sagan very accurately predicted what relations would be in the future. I suspect the former. Although the discussion is set up to be an even-handed discussion of science and religion, it turns into (was from the start) a defense of science from the religious. I feel that this is an inevitable result of a discussion between two sides where one side is sure they are always right, and the other side is sure that they are never quite right but definitely getting closer. You cannot have an open discussion when one half of the conversation is closed-minded. Mind you, there are plenty of scientists who dogmatically defend the principles of science without necessarily believing in them, or even recognizing the hypocrisy of some of their positions. Too often we have scientists who create a hypothesis then create an experiment to prove it. In this book at least we do not have deal with that right now. Ellie is the ideal scientist - open to questioning her own beliefs, even about science. It is a little bit alien to me - human nature, including mine, is to find and see patterns whether they exist or not.
Contact touches on the gendered-ness of the scientific community. As a female with a brain, Ellie has to fight to be recognized by the majority of her male colleagues, even as she is better at what she does many of them. It is not so overt now, graduating in 2010, as it was then. It is still not gone. In college I wore clothes that didn't flatter my figure, for the double reason of a) it wasn't worth the cost, bother, and annoying attention that the clothes won me for my body, and b) the people who did notice me noticed me for what I could do. At the same time, I personally am biased against my own sex. It took about the same amount of time for me to convince myself that a female professor knew what she was doing as it did for me to convince myself that a male professor didn't know what he was doing. The initial hypothesis is in a different direction, depending on the gender. In addition, in my memory, I lump all the female pre-med BME's into one non-engineering group, while I remember specific pre-med males as being non-engineers. This might be a consequence of the fact that while all the female pre-meds where memorization machines, there were at least two male pre-meds that were incredibly good engineers, and in my opinion will be truly wasted in a medical field.
On a personal note, this book is reminding me why I wanted to go into research in the first place - the awe and splendor, the serendipity of discovery. Probably fortunately, I remember also that I do not find myself particularly suited to the tedium of research with no reason to hope for success other than that what I'm looking for hasn't been disproven yet. Several years in the lab have decisively pointed to a different direction as much more suitable, and as awesome as it is to dream of the next big discovery, I think I'm much happier where I am. Maybe a few more Sagan books will get me back into a lab.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Shakespeare: King Lear
I've been on a bit of a Shakespeare kick, after buying a Complete Works edition. This is encompassed in two ways - reading the play, and watching various versions of it in movie/recordings.
To start off, if you are unfamiliar with Shakespearean English, my recommendation is to begin with a movie that will give you both the plot and the English, rather than trying to read it. I typically read first, but I have also spent a significant amount of time reading works from Beowulf/Chaucer on up, so at this point I do have enough experience with it. A lot of the language is still reminiscent of 2nd or 3rd meanings of words today, but many people I've talked to have trouble with this because we aren't exposed to those meanings nearly as much nowadays. For me, the social traditions are where I need more assistance from commentary.
I will start with King Lear, so that I don't have to end with it. It is a bleak, bleak tragedy. Don't read it unless you're in the mood to feel depressed. An aging King Lear has three daughters and no heir, and wants to test his daughters' love for him. His favorite is the youngest, Cordelia. In a scene reminiscent of the fairy tale 'Water and Salt', the youngest daughter is construed to not love her father and thrown into exile in France.The King attempts to retire and stay with his two remaining daughters, but finds that he has lost all respect and is expected to become a nobody. He starts to go mad and his two elder daughters take over the kingdom, while his youngest daughter and the French king to come rescue him from the two eldest. The armies meet, and I won't tell you precisely what happens but this is one of Shakespeare's tragedies. A bleak one.
One of the themes this play explores is family ties and the effect of age. In that day and age, when you became too old to be productive you had no choice but to hope that someone of your kin would be kind enough to support you, knowing full well that they would be in the same position some day and hope that their own children would support them. Lear had a high enough opinion of his position that he felt it would be degrading to downsize his court, and his elder daughters thought him a fool of no worth and would not support his court. Once they had their inheritance, they cared nothing for the man who gave it to them. In this case, it is interesting also that Lear's retirement woes come about from the way he decided to retire. It is his own fault that he finds himself in that situation, which heightens the tragedy.
It is worth noting that this piece was written in England, a decisively western culture. In modern times, there appears to be a huge dichotomy between Eastern and Western cultures as regards aging and support. Western tradition views it as the government's responsibility to ensure that the aging parents are taken care of, through Welfare, Social Security, or whichever program is in place in any given country. Culturally, children are not required to take care of their parents, and it is viewed as a failure of the aging if they do not have enough money to live on without being parasites. In Tussian culture, there is [was?] no such expectation of government, in that the children know they will take care of their parents when the time comes. Lenora Greenbaum Ucko: Perceptions of Aging East and West: Soviet Refugees see two worlds. http://www.storieswork.org/aging_east_and_west.pdf. Something to add to my reading list is "Aging in East and West: Families, States, and the Elderly" by Bengtson, Kim, Myers, Eun.
There are two movie versions of this that I have seen. The first portrays Laurence Olivier as King Lear; the second James Earl Jones. Laurence Olivier is a master. There is nothing to say beyond that. I was incredibly depressed by his performance, which means that he carried it off and had precisely the desired effect. To see King Lear as a doddering old man, running mad from misuse and memories of past grandeur, abused and finally dying in delusion, serve to strip away any remaining gloss from the perception of human character. He is a tragedy by himself, a frail old man who is dying but refuses to see it. The second, with James Earl Jones, is less bleak than stark. Where Olivier's version has a gritty reality, Jones' version has more contrasting sets, with lighting/black/white contrast serve to show how desolate this madness really is. Olivier's Lear is more subtle, Jones' more overtly emtional. It's still a depressing play.
To start off, if you are unfamiliar with Shakespearean English, my recommendation is to begin with a movie that will give you both the plot and the English, rather than trying to read it. I typically read first, but I have also spent a significant amount of time reading works from Beowulf/Chaucer on up, so at this point I do have enough experience with it. A lot of the language is still reminiscent of 2nd or 3rd meanings of words today, but many people I've talked to have trouble with this because we aren't exposed to those meanings nearly as much nowadays. For me, the social traditions are where I need more assistance from commentary.
I will start with King Lear, so that I don't have to end with it. It is a bleak, bleak tragedy. Don't read it unless you're in the mood to feel depressed. An aging King Lear has three daughters and no heir, and wants to test his daughters' love for him. His favorite is the youngest, Cordelia. In a scene reminiscent of the fairy tale 'Water and Salt', the youngest daughter is construed to not love her father and thrown into exile in France.The King attempts to retire and stay with his two remaining daughters, but finds that he has lost all respect and is expected to become a nobody. He starts to go mad and his two elder daughters take over the kingdom, while his youngest daughter and the French king to come rescue him from the two eldest. The armies meet, and I won't tell you precisely what happens but this is one of Shakespeare's tragedies. A bleak one.
One of the themes this play explores is family ties and the effect of age. In that day and age, when you became too old to be productive you had no choice but to hope that someone of your kin would be kind enough to support you, knowing full well that they would be in the same position some day and hope that their own children would support them. Lear had a high enough opinion of his position that he felt it would be degrading to downsize his court, and his elder daughters thought him a fool of no worth and would not support his court. Once they had their inheritance, they cared nothing for the man who gave it to them. In this case, it is interesting also that Lear's retirement woes come about from the way he decided to retire. It is his own fault that he finds himself in that situation, which heightens the tragedy.
It is worth noting that this piece was written in England, a decisively western culture. In modern times, there appears to be a huge dichotomy between Eastern and Western cultures as regards aging and support. Western tradition views it as the government's responsibility to ensure that the aging parents are taken care of, through Welfare, Social Security, or whichever program is in place in any given country. Culturally, children are not required to take care of their parents, and it is viewed as a failure of the aging if they do not have enough money to live on without being parasites. In Tussian culture, there is [was?] no such expectation of government, in that the children know they will take care of their parents when the time comes. Lenora Greenbaum Ucko: Perceptions of Aging East and West: Soviet Refugees see two worlds. http://www.storieswork.org/aging_east_and_west.pdf. Something to add to my reading list is "Aging in East and West: Families, States, and the Elderly" by Bengtson, Kim, Myers, Eun.
There are two movie versions of this that I have seen. The first portrays Laurence Olivier as King Lear; the second James Earl Jones. Laurence Olivier is a master. There is nothing to say beyond that. I was incredibly depressed by his performance, which means that he carried it off and had precisely the desired effect. To see King Lear as a doddering old man, running mad from misuse and memories of past grandeur, abused and finally dying in delusion, serve to strip away any remaining gloss from the perception of human character. He is a tragedy by himself, a frail old man who is dying but refuses to see it. The second, with James Earl Jones, is less bleak than stark. Where Olivier's version has a gritty reality, Jones' version has more contrasting sets, with lighting/black/white contrast serve to show how desolate this madness really is. Olivier's Lear is more subtle, Jones' more overtly emtional. It's still a depressing play.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
John Donne - Assorted poetry
One of the things I've been slowly working through is the Norton Anthology of English Literature. I made it to John Donne's poetry before slowing down, which is not bad, but then I took a two-year hiatus. I am now returning.
One of the most interesting aspects of reading a survey of English literature in chronological order is that you can see the development of the language. A lot of the material included in Norton is in verse, and you can see the shifts in pronunciation over time. A long time ago, everything that ended in -ies rhymed. Not so nowadays - as one example, compare the pronunciation of "lies" and "duties".
On the poetry of John Donne specifically - he is an amazingly gifted poet. He is also a very dirty one. The amount of punning or double meanings in his poetry is obscene, as is the punning itself often. I learned something new today - in the year 1600, "to die" was also slang for having an orgasm. "To Have" contained the same slang connotation as it does today. There are also many double-meanings including such language as 'pregnant' or 'barren'. At some point I will go ahead and augment this post with actual samples. In the meantime, go read, "To His Mistress" and "The Flea".
One of the most interesting aspects of reading a survey of English literature in chronological order is that you can see the development of the language. A lot of the material included in Norton is in verse, and you can see the shifts in pronunciation over time. A long time ago, everything that ended in -ies rhymed. Not so nowadays - as one example, compare the pronunciation of "lies" and "duties".
On the poetry of John Donne specifically - he is an amazingly gifted poet. He is also a very dirty one. The amount of punning or double meanings in his poetry is obscene, as is the punning itself often. I learned something new today - in the year 1600, "to die" was also slang for having an orgasm. "To Have" contained the same slang connotation as it does today. There are also many double-meanings including such language as 'pregnant' or 'barren'. At some point I will go ahead and augment this post with actual samples. In the meantime, go read, "To His Mistress" and "The Flea".
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Short Stories: "The Storm" and "Robbed"
I happened upon a radio station that had story time, and heard these two colorful pieces. The first is "The Storm" by Jules Verne, and the second is "Robbed" by Ellen Currie. Fair warning that there is plot information throughout this post. Maybe you should go dig up a copy and read it first. Then write your own untainted review. Then come back and read and compare with mine.
The conclusion I've reached from short stories is that they are little bits of spice to life - quick vignettes that give color, perspective, and humor. They don't take a massive time commitment to read, they can force you to think about life. All in all, worth seeking out and reading.
Typically, Jules Verne is scientific. Think "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Around the World in 80 Days". It is a unique style, but definitely scientific. While still stylistically Jules Verne, "The Storm" could otherwise have been written by Edgar Allen Poe; delving into the realms of the mysterious and unexplainable. It is also reminiscent of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, insofar as the main character is an old crotchety man who has not yet learnt to care for other people.
Here, the main character is a doctor who charges up front for care, and won't help unless he is paid, even if someone is dying. In the middle of a storm, a dying man's daughter, wife, and mother in succession come to knock on his door, and eventually they sell the house to have enough money to tempt him to come. When he eventually begrudgingly arrives, he discovers the house is his own, and he himself is the patient. Try as he might, he waited too long and cannot save himself. The townsfolk discover him dead the next morning. The proverbial takeaways here are that money isn't everything and that you should do what you can to help your fellow man.
'Robbed' was a fun story. It looks at the mental aspects of two people put into an unusual situation, and how they react differently. A jewelry store owner is being held up, and a regular customer of hers walks in. Everything we find out about the customer we find out through the store owner having a conversation with the robber. Apparently the customer always loses her wedding ring, and has to get a new one custom-engraved with "X and Y" forever. The irony of this appears to be lost on the woman, whose marriage seems to be a bit tumultuous and whose rings are definitely not for forever. The author lampoons the customer by having her try to act macho. When that doesn't work the stereotypical 'damsel in distress' only to have all of her acts shot down by the store owner.
The store owner takes the whole affair quite calmly and has an amusing outlook on life, considering that, with the robbery, she comes out ahead in multiple ways. She didn't lose as much money as she would have lost in insurance, she doesn't have to deal with the obnoxious woman anymore. She knows someone will eventually come in and find them, so she doesn't bother with the cliches like screaming that probably won't help but will definitely make the situation more odious. Aside from her willingness to insult someone (at least she does it to her face), we should all take things in stride like that.
The conclusion I've reached from short stories is that they are little bits of spice to life - quick vignettes that give color, perspective, and humor. They don't take a massive time commitment to read, they can force you to think about life. All in all, worth seeking out and reading.
Typically, Jules Verne is scientific. Think "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Around the World in 80 Days". It is a unique style, but definitely scientific. While still stylistically Jules Verne, "The Storm" could otherwise have been written by Edgar Allen Poe; delving into the realms of the mysterious and unexplainable. It is also reminiscent of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, insofar as the main character is an old crotchety man who has not yet learnt to care for other people.
Here, the main character is a doctor who charges up front for care, and won't help unless he is paid, even if someone is dying. In the middle of a storm, a dying man's daughter, wife, and mother in succession come to knock on his door, and eventually they sell the house to have enough money to tempt him to come. When he eventually begrudgingly arrives, he discovers the house is his own, and he himself is the patient. Try as he might, he waited too long and cannot save himself. The townsfolk discover him dead the next morning. The proverbial takeaways here are that money isn't everything and that you should do what you can to help your fellow man.
'Robbed' was a fun story. It looks at the mental aspects of two people put into an unusual situation, and how they react differently. A jewelry store owner is being held up, and a regular customer of hers walks in. Everything we find out about the customer we find out through the store owner having a conversation with the robber. Apparently the customer always loses her wedding ring, and has to get a new one custom-engraved with "X and Y" forever. The irony of this appears to be lost on the woman, whose marriage seems to be a bit tumultuous and whose rings are definitely not for forever. The author lampoons the customer by having her try to act macho. When that doesn't work the stereotypical 'damsel in distress' only to have all of her acts shot down by the store owner.
The store owner takes the whole affair quite calmly and has an amusing outlook on life, considering that, with the robbery, she comes out ahead in multiple ways. She didn't lose as much money as she would have lost in insurance, she doesn't have to deal with the obnoxious woman anymore. She knows someone will eventually come in and find them, so she doesn't bother with the cliches like screaming that probably won't help but will definitely make the situation more odious. Aside from her willingness to insult someone (at least she does it to her face), we should all take things in stride like that.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Part 1)
I am attempting that Mount Everest of literature – Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. I am at no stopping point; I have merely reached a point where it is necessary to jot down some thoughts and empty my head before the reading may continue. My apologies for the grandiloquence of style – I have nothing to plead but that Melville is infectious.
A massive stylistic difference stands out to me between this book and more modern literature. We as modern readers have come to expect an action-based plot – where the actions that we are reading about are interesting for their uniqueness and that pertinence to the story which makes that story unique. So far, this has been the narrative of a rather ordinary sea voyage. Melville implies that the colorfulness of the characters are not atypical of the time and the sailing ships – the religiously unbending Quakers who nevertheless reconcile their zeal for the next world with the practicality required to live in this one; the three barbaric harpooners who are genteel and a good sort of fellow (barbarism only implies that they are not Christian, not that they are ‘barbaric’ in the sense of the word as we use it today.) The other sailors seem no more nor less noteworthy than any of their unmentioned counterparts ought to be, and the hiring Captains on shore implied that Harpooners were usually an odd lot. The weather was extremely cold in New England before the ship left port – who ever heard of such a thing? Oh, everyone? Nevermind, I guess that’s normal too. In short, almost a third of the way through the book, and it has been a narrative of entirely mundane events. No wonder many modern readers have trouble getting through this story – if you are not alive to learning more about the mundanities of whaling and cetology than you maybe thought possible, you’re going to close the book and leave it off well before ‘anything happens’ by your definition of the word.
Another stylistic difference is the use of allusions and epithets to color the narrative. He has shown me truly how badly versed in history, mythology, folklore, and pretty much everything else I truly am. This is another turnoff for many modern readers – we have lost so many of our classical and historical allusions that the reading is either incomprehensible or ceaselessly bogged down in searching for references. What would in the past have been a one or two-word descriptor that allows the author to paint a vivid picture is now a colorful liability. How many people trying to read the story now outside of England know who Nelson was, and why he might have a statue in Trafalgar square, and how that might be relevant to a sea-faring novel? How many of you know Trafalgar square? Removing the rhetoricity from this question for a moment, did you as a reader of this discussion know it? If not, have you looked it up yet? Are you going to be incredibly lazy and wait for me to tell you that he was an Admiral of the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars known for brilliant tactics and strategy, and that he was fatally shot during his victory at the battle of Trafalgar? If you don’t know what the battle of Trafalgar is and won’t look that up either, I despair for you.
It is of note that a great many highly religious people in these United States would do well to read Moby Dick. We are one-hundred-sixty years after it is published, yet Melville is able to more clearly write about religious tolerance than many people who profess to have learnt something in the intervening years.
A massive stylistic difference stands out to me between this book and more modern literature. We as modern readers have come to expect an action-based plot – where the actions that we are reading about are interesting for their uniqueness and that pertinence to the story which makes that story unique. So far, this has been the narrative of a rather ordinary sea voyage. Melville implies that the colorfulness of the characters are not atypical of the time and the sailing ships – the religiously unbending Quakers who nevertheless reconcile their zeal for the next world with the practicality required to live in this one; the three barbaric harpooners who are genteel and a good sort of fellow (barbarism only implies that they are not Christian, not that they are ‘barbaric’ in the sense of the word as we use it today.) The other sailors seem no more nor less noteworthy than any of their unmentioned counterparts ought to be, and the hiring Captains on shore implied that Harpooners were usually an odd lot. The weather was extremely cold in New England before the ship left port – who ever heard of such a thing? Oh, everyone? Nevermind, I guess that’s normal too. In short, almost a third of the way through the book, and it has been a narrative of entirely mundane events. No wonder many modern readers have trouble getting through this story – if you are not alive to learning more about the mundanities of whaling and cetology than you maybe thought possible, you’re going to close the book and leave it off well before ‘anything happens’ by your definition of the word.
Another stylistic difference is the use of allusions and epithets to color the narrative. He has shown me truly how badly versed in history, mythology, folklore, and pretty much everything else I truly am. This is another turnoff for many modern readers – we have lost so many of our classical and historical allusions that the reading is either incomprehensible or ceaselessly bogged down in searching for references. What would in the past have been a one or two-word descriptor that allows the author to paint a vivid picture is now a colorful liability. How many people trying to read the story now outside of England know who Nelson was, and why he might have a statue in Trafalgar square, and how that might be relevant to a sea-faring novel? How many of you know Trafalgar square? Removing the rhetoricity from this question for a moment, did you as a reader of this discussion know it? If not, have you looked it up yet? Are you going to be incredibly lazy and wait for me to tell you that he was an Admiral of the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars known for brilliant tactics and strategy, and that he was fatally shot during his victory at the battle of Trafalgar? If you don’t know what the battle of Trafalgar is and won’t look that up either, I despair for you.
It is of note that a great many highly religious people in these United States would do well to read Moby Dick. We are one-hundred-sixty years after it is published, yet Melville is able to more clearly write about religious tolerance than many people who profess to have learnt something in the intervening years.
The Cat Who Said Cheese
The long radio silence was due to the fact that I have started a new job and was in the process of moving. If you’re actually reading and following I apologize. If you’re coming in from the future then it doesn’t matter; you’ll get to see them all at once anyway.
As a second side note: I brutally abuse commas. My apologies to the commas. I hereby promise to attempt to curb the desire to use them when I should not. Please bear with me as I attempt to break habits and improve my writing. Any comments to that effect are appreciated.
The Cat Who Said Cheese - Lillian Jackson Braun (1996)
I ended up getting this book from my grandmother, who had been given it as some different reading material by my mother, who inherited it from her aunt, who probably was the one who originally bought it. There were about fifteen or so originally; I’m not sure how many there are total in the series. This one was selected randomly from the series; it is neither the first nor the last.
Some background: This is very squarely a detective story. The main character, James Qwilleran (Qwill), is a journalist from the big city who inherited significant riches in a small back-country town. He sets up a trust fund with the money to revitalize the area without ruining the local charm of the place and contributes to the small-town paper in the area. He lives with his two Siamese cats, Yum-Yum and Koko. At the beginning of the story, the town is being dragged into the future with the opening of several new shops during a celebration called the ‘Great Food Explo’. Shortly before this planned event is to take place, the major news story is a mysterious woman staying in the local hotel. Her room is bombed while she is out, and she takes off immediately for the airport without talking to anyone or returning for her bags. The story revolves around solving the mystery of the bombing and related subsequent events.
This story is a part of a series revolving around the same main characters - Qwill and his cats. It is strongly implied that Koko at least has a sixth sense which allows him to know what is happening and why. He changes his actions to try to communicate with James about what is going on, by knocking certain books off the table, actions, and meowing at certain times. Based on both the name of the book and the writing, the cats are the linking factor between the books, and the author’s attempt to set her detective stories apart from all the generic other detective stories out there. To some extent it worked. They made colorful characters, and in several places did move the plot ahead. The image of cats tearing through a black-tie gala with several gentlemen in their best suits in hot pursuit is definitely an amusing image, enhanced by the idea of clouds of gray fur being thrown up onto everyone’s best clothes.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in a detective story should be relevant, and I will give the cats the benefit of the doubt because they did know what was going on before the main character did and they also moved the plot forward by demanding certain things from Qwill. Unfortunately, they do begin in a position of doubt, due to two points – the explanation of how the cats actions related to the plot only came after the final reveal, so it didn’t have a direct bearing on the plot. In addition, most of the times they forwarded the plot could have occurred without the interference of the cats. If Qwill has a random cabin that sits unused, he can go out and check it out on a regular schedule, and does not need the cats to tell him they want to go. In addition, if he was given a turkey following a class in which he learns to dress a turkey, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to try out his new skills and cook the turkey. There is no need for the cats to demand that he cooks the turkey. There really wasn’t any particular rush at that point in the story, if I recall. At that point most of the plot had already occurred and they were in a latent period of trying to figure out the how’s and the why’s of everything that had already happened.
That is one point of the story which I found interesting and a bit different – the events of the story happened, and then they were figured out. The plot was completed in the first part, and then the detection begins. This stands in significant contrast to many other detective stories, where the unraveling of the events is a direct catalyst for further action. It worked well for this story, and I did not feel the lack of action at all. The plot was unique enough, as were the characters.
At one point the main character writes a column about nobodies – unique characters who don’t ever sit in the spotlight of fame. This seems to be the author speaking through the main character – the book is a collection of nobodies that are a lot of fun to read about. There is the police chief who plays bagpipes, the ever woman recovering from heart surgery, the cantankerous hotel owner, the hotel owner’s shy-but-talkative-to-friends handyman (and hobbyist beekeeper). The characters were unique and enjoyable, and decidedly human with human failings and foibles. If I had to select one true strength about the story, it was the writing about the people inhabiting the town and the town itself.
I had a little bit of trouble with the way the main character was written. At times the writing felt almost pretentious. I’m not sure I can give any specific examples right now since I left it at home with my mom, but there were times when it felt like I just wanted the main character to get over himself and get a real job. There was no real detective work in the story. It was more a story about a mystery unfolding than a story about someone doing anything to actually solve something. The story had enough plot points that it was sufficiently obvious after you find out what actually happened and go back to the beginning to start again, but even during the first time through there were points were my thoughts were, “A-hah, that speech felt like it was written specifically so she could drop that tidbit of information!” I really can’t go into more details than that without entirely (or at least mostly) ruining the story, so I won’t. However, I can tell you that the moments jumped out at me several times. There were also times that felt like the author was writing just to put in red herrings. If you come across any such feeling while reading this book, trust your instinct; you’re probably right. Maybe they
Overall, this was a light, fun read. It is a respectable stab at a respectable detective story with some interesting and unique characters. The series feels like a hotel read – go ahead and read one if you come across one. You won’t regret it, but not something to go out of your way for. It is possible that other books in the series are more compelling, since my great aunt went ahead and bought fifteen or so, but this randomly-selected one is decent.
Half of this was written with my eyes closed, while falling asleep on the train. This is fun. Also, I’m listening to Pride and Prejudice as an audiobook while working on the train. If there are any randomly misplaced words, I attribute it to either spell-check getting the wrong word or my brain substituting something from what its hearing.
As a second side note: I brutally abuse commas. My apologies to the commas. I hereby promise to attempt to curb the desire to use them when I should not. Please bear with me as I attempt to break habits and improve my writing. Any comments to that effect are appreciated.
The Cat Who Said Cheese - Lillian Jackson Braun (1996)
I ended up getting this book from my grandmother, who had been given it as some different reading material by my mother, who inherited it from her aunt, who probably was the one who originally bought it. There were about fifteen or so originally; I’m not sure how many there are total in the series. This one was selected randomly from the series; it is neither the first nor the last.
Some background: This is very squarely a detective story. The main character, James Qwilleran (Qwill), is a journalist from the big city who inherited significant riches in a small back-country town. He sets up a trust fund with the money to revitalize the area without ruining the local charm of the place and contributes to the small-town paper in the area. He lives with his two Siamese cats, Yum-Yum and Koko. At the beginning of the story, the town is being dragged into the future with the opening of several new shops during a celebration called the ‘Great Food Explo’. Shortly before this planned event is to take place, the major news story is a mysterious woman staying in the local hotel. Her room is bombed while she is out, and she takes off immediately for the airport without talking to anyone or returning for her bags. The story revolves around solving the mystery of the bombing and related subsequent events.
This story is a part of a series revolving around the same main characters - Qwill and his cats. It is strongly implied that Koko at least has a sixth sense which allows him to know what is happening and why. He changes his actions to try to communicate with James about what is going on, by knocking certain books off the table, actions, and meowing at certain times. Based on both the name of the book and the writing, the cats are the linking factor between the books, and the author’s attempt to set her detective stories apart from all the generic other detective stories out there. To some extent it worked. They made colorful characters, and in several places did move the plot ahead. The image of cats tearing through a black-tie gala with several gentlemen in their best suits in hot pursuit is definitely an amusing image, enhanced by the idea of clouds of gray fur being thrown up onto everyone’s best clothes.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in a detective story should be relevant, and I will give the cats the benefit of the doubt because they did know what was going on before the main character did and they also moved the plot forward by demanding certain things from Qwill. Unfortunately, they do begin in a position of doubt, due to two points – the explanation of how the cats actions related to the plot only came after the final reveal, so it didn’t have a direct bearing on the plot. In addition, most of the times they forwarded the plot could have occurred without the interference of the cats. If Qwill has a random cabin that sits unused, he can go out and check it out on a regular schedule, and does not need the cats to tell him they want to go. In addition, if he was given a turkey following a class in which he learns to dress a turkey, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to try out his new skills and cook the turkey. There is no need for the cats to demand that he cooks the turkey. There really wasn’t any particular rush at that point in the story, if I recall. At that point most of the plot had already occurred and they were in a latent period of trying to figure out the how’s and the why’s of everything that had already happened.
That is one point of the story which I found interesting and a bit different – the events of the story happened, and then they were figured out. The plot was completed in the first part, and then the detection begins. This stands in significant contrast to many other detective stories, where the unraveling of the events is a direct catalyst for further action. It worked well for this story, and I did not feel the lack of action at all. The plot was unique enough, as were the characters.
At one point the main character writes a column about nobodies – unique characters who don’t ever sit in the spotlight of fame. This seems to be the author speaking through the main character – the book is a collection of nobodies that are a lot of fun to read about. There is the police chief who plays bagpipes, the ever woman recovering from heart surgery, the cantankerous hotel owner, the hotel owner’s shy-but-talkative-to-friends handyman (and hobbyist beekeeper). The characters were unique and enjoyable, and decidedly human with human failings and foibles. If I had to select one true strength about the story, it was the writing about the people inhabiting the town and the town itself.
I had a little bit of trouble with the way the main character was written. At times the writing felt almost pretentious. I’m not sure I can give any specific examples right now since I left it at home with my mom, but there were times when it felt like I just wanted the main character to get over himself and get a real job. There was no real detective work in the story. It was more a story about a mystery unfolding than a story about someone doing anything to actually solve something. The story had enough plot points that it was sufficiently obvious after you find out what actually happened and go back to the beginning to start again, but even during the first time through there were points were my thoughts were, “A-hah, that speech felt like it was written specifically so she could drop that tidbit of information!” I really can’t go into more details than that without entirely (or at least mostly) ruining the story, so I won’t. However, I can tell you that the moments jumped out at me several times. There were also times that felt like the author was writing just to put in red herrings. If you come across any such feeling while reading this book, trust your instinct; you’re probably right. Maybe they
Overall, this was a light, fun read. It is a respectable stab at a respectable detective story with some interesting and unique characters. The series feels like a hotel read – go ahead and read one if you come across one. You won’t regret it, but not something to go out of your way for. It is possible that other books in the series are more compelling, since my great aunt went ahead and bought fifteen or so, but this randomly-selected one is decent.
Half of this was written with my eyes closed, while falling asleep on the train. This is fun. Also, I’m listening to Pride and Prejudice as an audiobook while working on the train. If there are any randomly misplaced words, I attribute it to either spell-check getting the wrong word or my brain substituting something from what its hearing.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
Been a while. My new work laptop isn't compatible with Blogger. Needless to say, its working now.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
This is a book review that is long overdue. This is one of my favorite books of all time as evidenced by the abuse it has endured after countless times ending up as my pillow.
Sunshine is best classed as a dark fairytale/fantasy. Robin McKinley has made a name for herself rewriting and expanding fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, some original fairy tales, and several versions of Beauty and the Beast. She excels in creating fully-realized worlds and expanding out motivations behind the inevitable fairytale events. In addition she is often able to introduce unpredictable twists despite re-writing a predictable fairytale.
I should interject here to say that a fully realized world allows me to slip into the world and accept a suspension of disbelief. There are rules governing actions even in this real world – someone in the habit of gossiping is not going to refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip for no reason whatsoever. Likewise, within the framework of a story, a gossip will not refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip just because the plot requires the main character to remain in ignorance. If the plot depends on characters breaking character for no reason beyond continuing the plot, then it is badly written. Likewise, if someone thing the world appears to exist despite the accepted universe, it annoys me badly. There have been very few moments that have sent me into as much of a height of fury as seeing fireworks in the bows-and-arrows forest technology of the Prince Caspian’s Narnia.
Robin McKinley is a master of creating coherent universes and characters which behave according to the accepted structure of that universe. Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, in which humans exist side-by-side with non-human known as demons. Humans and demons (and all the crosses thereof) live in stark opposition to vampires. McKinley’s vampires are horror creatures – faster than humans, stronger than humans, and antithetical to everything that means being human (also, thank you Ms. McKinley for your wonderful vocabulary. I learned that word from Sunshine). It is rumoured that vampires have better technology than humans, and the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is the minor fact that the sizzle in the sunlight. There is no magic in the world that has been discovered that allows a vampire to walk in sunlight.
The story is unique among McKinley’s works in that it is told in first-person narration. The narrator is Sunshine, a book-loving coffeehouse baker with a latent magic talent based on sunlight. The story opens with her explaining to the reader why on earth she went out to a secluded lake one night, where she was subsequently captured by vampires. The entire story is based on explaining to the reader why she is still alive. Nobody escapes from vampires.
The world is disclosed to the reader in asides and tangents by Sunshine. She’s an eccentric character and the story is told in a way that truly reflects her mind and the shape of her thinking. It’s the narration of someone who is vividly remembers some aspects and doesn’t remember others as well.. She tells things in a very human and un-rehearsed way, with asides as she realizes the reader may not have enough relevant information to understand what she’s talking about, tangents as she follows her thought processes out to their completion, and sometimes forgetting to put minor facts into the story in chronological order and going back to flesh out the detail. It comes across as thought through by someone who has had to process this entire story mentally, but a bit disorganized as you would expect from her personality. The narrative style truly brings Sunshine to life.
That said, I suspect the narrative style will cause people to either love or hate this story. I love it because all the asides and only semi-relevant information truly fleshes out the world, but it creates a lot of exposition for those people who don’t mentally build the world as they are reading. There is action, but there is a lot of discussion too. The story is not a neatly wrapped package with all the loose ends tied up. Sunshine isn’t the kind of person to tie bows – she needs to get the job done and a knot will work so she ties a knot, loose ends be damned. One of the reasons I love this story is because it ends right after a major piece of action but before all the fallout of the action becomes known. You do not find out how all the characters react, and you know that there are still fireworks to come. One of the best parts of this book is that the world and characters are so fully fleshed out that it is possible to speculate on what happens next. If the author never writes a second part, I will hunt her down in whatever life comes next and demand to know what happens next, simply so that I can see how close my mental images of the aftermath mesh with what actually happened. This story was made for fanfiction. Someday I will look some up, or write some if it fails to exist (I can’t imagine that it would fail to exist though). It would certainly be interesting to chronicle here some of the best fanfiction which manages to follow the rules of the universe.
Sunshine: Robin McKinley
This is a book review that is long overdue. This is one of my favorite books of all time as evidenced by the abuse it has endured after countless times ending up as my pillow.
Sunshine is best classed as a dark fairytale/fantasy. Robin McKinley has made a name for herself rewriting and expanding fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, some original fairy tales, and several versions of Beauty and the Beast. She excels in creating fully-realized worlds and expanding out motivations behind the inevitable fairytale events. In addition she is often able to introduce unpredictable twists despite re-writing a predictable fairytale.
I should interject here to say that a fully realized world allows me to slip into the world and accept a suspension of disbelief. There are rules governing actions even in this real world – someone in the habit of gossiping is not going to refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip for no reason whatsoever. Likewise, within the framework of a story, a gossip will not refrain from passing on a juicy bit of gossip just because the plot requires the main character to remain in ignorance. If the plot depends on characters breaking character for no reason beyond continuing the plot, then it is badly written. Likewise, if someone thing the world appears to exist despite the accepted universe, it annoys me badly. There have been very few moments that have sent me into as much of a height of fury as seeing fireworks in the bows-and-arrows forest technology of the Prince Caspian’s Narnia.
Robin McKinley is a master of creating coherent universes and characters which behave according to the accepted structure of that universe. Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, in which humans exist side-by-side with non-human known as demons. Humans and demons (and all the crosses thereof) live in stark opposition to vampires. McKinley’s vampires are horror creatures – faster than humans, stronger than humans, and antithetical to everything that means being human (also, thank you Ms. McKinley for your wonderful vocabulary. I learned that word from Sunshine). It is rumoured that vampires have better technology than humans, and the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is the minor fact that the sizzle in the sunlight. There is no magic in the world that has been discovered that allows a vampire to walk in sunlight.
The story is unique among McKinley’s works in that it is told in first-person narration. The narrator is Sunshine, a book-loving coffeehouse baker with a latent magic talent based on sunlight. The story opens with her explaining to the reader why on earth she went out to a secluded lake one night, where she was subsequently captured by vampires. The entire story is based on explaining to the reader why she is still alive. Nobody escapes from vampires.
The world is disclosed to the reader in asides and tangents by Sunshine. She’s an eccentric character and the story is told in a way that truly reflects her mind and the shape of her thinking. It’s the narration of someone who is vividly remembers some aspects and doesn’t remember others as well.. She tells things in a very human and un-rehearsed way, with asides as she realizes the reader may not have enough relevant information to understand what she’s talking about, tangents as she follows her thought processes out to their completion, and sometimes forgetting to put minor facts into the story in chronological order and going back to flesh out the detail. It comes across as thought through by someone who has had to process this entire story mentally, but a bit disorganized as you would expect from her personality. The narrative style truly brings Sunshine to life.
That said, I suspect the narrative style will cause people to either love or hate this story. I love it because all the asides and only semi-relevant information truly fleshes out the world, but it creates a lot of exposition for those people who don’t mentally build the world as they are reading. There is action, but there is a lot of discussion too. The story is not a neatly wrapped package with all the loose ends tied up. Sunshine isn’t the kind of person to tie bows – she needs to get the job done and a knot will work so she ties a knot, loose ends be damned. One of the reasons I love this story is because it ends right after a major piece of action but before all the fallout of the action becomes known. You do not find out how all the characters react, and you know that there are still fireworks to come. One of the best parts of this book is that the world and characters are so fully fleshed out that it is possible to speculate on what happens next. If the author never writes a second part, I will hunt her down in whatever life comes next and demand to know what happens next, simply so that I can see how close my mental images of the aftermath mesh with what actually happened. This story was made for fanfiction. Someday I will look some up, or write some if it fails to exist (I can’t imagine that it would fail to exist though). It would certainly be interesting to chronicle here some of the best fanfiction which manages to follow the rules of the universe.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Solving picture puzzles algorithmically
A different course today: algorithmically solving puzzles. The reading is here: http://chenlab.ece.cornell.edu/people/Andy/publications/Andy_files/Gallagher_cvpr2012_puzzleAssembly.pdf
Some of the proposed applications include piecing together shredded evidence or archeological artifacts. I'm not sure those applications are of particular interest to me, but the fundamental problem is still interesting.
The proposed solutions here are to determine a gradient across the edges of pieces, rather than the absolute color as former solutions had. It presents a greedy solution, which means that it optimizes the local areas rather than optimizing the whole puzzle, in the interest of processing power.
The conclusion I have reached from this paper is that: I need to learn a heck of a lot more about this. Check back in a few days; I'll be going through some of the references and trying to determine what the models actually are. It's an interesting read anyway even if you don't know all the nitty-gritty details of how they solve these things, and I do recommend it.
My first thought (with admittedly very little knowledge of how these things actually get solved) is: is there a way to organize the puzzle first so that you don't have to locally optimize as much, and would that be worth the extra processing power? I expect that with a large enough puzzle it could eventually be. What I'm thinking is assign a gradient value based on the pixels, inserted into a binary tree, or something of that nature. Not sure. I'll follow up here when I've got a clearer mental idea.
Some of the proposed applications include piecing together shredded evidence or archeological artifacts. I'm not sure those applications are of particular interest to me, but the fundamental problem is still interesting.
The proposed solutions here are to determine a gradient across the edges of pieces, rather than the absolute color as former solutions had. It presents a greedy solution, which means that it optimizes the local areas rather than optimizing the whole puzzle, in the interest of processing power.
The conclusion I have reached from this paper is that: I need to learn a heck of a lot more about this. Check back in a few days; I'll be going through some of the references and trying to determine what the models actually are. It's an interesting read anyway even if you don't know all the nitty-gritty details of how they solve these things, and I do recommend it.
My first thought (with admittedly very little knowledge of how these things actually get solved) is: is there a way to organize the puzzle first so that you don't have to locally optimize as much, and would that be worth the extra processing power? I expect that with a large enough puzzle it could eventually be. What I'm thinking is assign a gradient value based on the pixels, inserted into a binary tree, or something of that nature. Not sure. I'll follow up here when I've got a clearer mental idea.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Russia (Martin Sixsmith) The final.
This morning I finished the history of Russia. Definitely an engrossing read, especially for someone who has really only ever had Russia mentioned in history class in relation to US history. It was published in 2012 and deals with events right up to present day. It was a fun read. The author mixes events, commentary, and anecdotes well, and gives a good coloring of culture and technology in addition to the political aspects. It paints a portrait of a culture that is constructing itself as a blend of eastern and western cultures, with its own uniquely Russian base. It is able to paint a vivid enough picture as to convince me to travel there if possible.
The book is a history of Russia, but it is a history constructed to answer the question "Can/should Russia transform itself into a western-style democracy?" From the beginning the book is peppered with comments indicating that such-and-such an event was another missed chance for western-style democracy. In the end he arrives at the conclusion that 'It is a beguiling thought [that incorporating into the modern international trade system would force Russia to westernize], but it is not supported by the facts." Furthermore, "International trade links seemed not to have persuaded russia to act like a European country, but to have convinced her that she can act as she likes." The book successfully argues this case, and I do not have enough background from other sources to judge whether that is off base or not.
I was listening to Tchaikovsky's 5th and 6th symphonies as I finished this; it felt appropriate. There is one part in the 5th symphony that sounds as though it was the inspiration for part of the rhapsody in August Rush. I'll go back and try to figure out the exact point.
The book is a history of Russia, but it is a history constructed to answer the question "Can/should Russia transform itself into a western-style democracy?" From the beginning the book is peppered with comments indicating that such-and-such an event was another missed chance for western-style democracy. In the end he arrives at the conclusion that 'It is a beguiling thought [that incorporating into the modern international trade system would force Russia to westernize], but it is not supported by the facts." Furthermore, "International trade links seemed not to have persuaded russia to act like a European country, but to have convinced her that she can act as she likes." The book successfully argues this case, and I do not have enough background from other sources to judge whether that is off base or not.
I was listening to Tchaikovsky's 5th and 6th symphonies as I finished this; it felt appropriate. There is one part in the 5th symphony that sounds as though it was the inspiration for part of the rhapsody in August Rush. I'll go back and try to figure out the exact point.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Russia (Martin Sixsmith) Continued some more. Yes, it's a long book.
Reading a history while the rain is pouring outside, sipping a cup of tea. I feel almost civilized. Then I go to the computer to write down my reflections and remember that that is not the case.
One of the things I like about this book is that it does not just spend time on politics and wars, but also science, technology, and arts.
Having made it through the horrifyingly depressing catalogue of crimes committed by Stalin, it is easy to see how parts of Russian history brought about the worst in people. It is a necessary reminder to see how it can bring out the best also. This conversation occurred between the noted cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov and a KGB official shortly before a lift-off:
Komarov did die in the flight; the systems failed shortly into the flight and the mission was aborted. The team was unable to regain control. The deputy premier and Komarov's wife spoke to him on video call; they had about two hours before the ship smashed into the ground at 400 miles per hour.
It is true that winners re-write the history. The author and I come at this story from a very western point of view, and at first it seems like a barefaced tragedy that Stalin could so successfully brainwash generations that they would still have trouble throwing off his yoke years after he was dead. In thinking about it further, however, are not the western powers are having that exact problem now with the idea of perfect free markets? It is a symmetry offset by several generations, but a symmetry nonetheless. In confronting our political-economic crisis of a government owned by the largest players of capitalism, it is as difficult for us to take a step back and see the solutions as it is/was for Russia. We also have the people who will defend the system of pure capitalism to their death, despite the fact that much of the stability we enjoy can be attributed to a government with some social programs.
This isn't to say that if we had remained an industry-baron nation we would not have been strong enough to defend our borders or created a cultural renaissance. In fact, one of the things that jumps out is that the industry fortunes made life better entire cities. I visited Pittsburgh and Delaware recently, and the impact of Andrew Carnegie and Alfred DuPont is probably incalculable . Libraries, museums, schools, hospitals, infrastructure. However, the tendency of capitalism as it has been practiced is for those with wealth to accumulate more wealth more quickly, and with that wealth a concentration of power. The thing keeping capitalists in check is a government interested in enough socialism to keep society from falling over and rebuilding from scratch. If the mass of people working got sufficiently fed up, it is not unthinkable that the federal government could go the way of the Tsars. Pity the fool so quick to judge others that they fail to judge themselves?
I thought the rain was pouring before. I was wrong. It is torrentially pouring now.
One of the things I like about this book is that it does not just spend time on politics and wars, but also science, technology, and arts.
Having made it through the horrifyingly depressing catalogue of crimes committed by Stalin, it is easy to see how parts of Russian history brought about the worst in people. It is a necessary reminder to see how it can bring out the best also. This conversation occurred between the noted cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov and a KGB official shortly before a lift-off:
As [Komarov] was seeing us off, he said straight out, 'I'm not going to make it back from this flight.' I asked him, 'If you're convinced you're going to die, why don't you refuse the mission?' He answered, 'Because if I don't make the flight, they'll send Yura [Gagarin], and he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him.'
Komarov did die in the flight; the systems failed shortly into the flight and the mission was aborted. The team was unable to regain control. The deputy premier and Komarov's wife spoke to him on video call; they had about two hours before the ship smashed into the ground at 400 miles per hour.
It is true that winners re-write the history. The author and I come at this story from a very western point of view, and at first it seems like a barefaced tragedy that Stalin could so successfully brainwash generations that they would still have trouble throwing off his yoke years after he was dead. In thinking about it further, however, are not the western powers are having that exact problem now with the idea of perfect free markets? It is a symmetry offset by several generations, but a symmetry nonetheless. In confronting our political-economic crisis of a government owned by the largest players of capitalism, it is as difficult for us to take a step back and see the solutions as it is/was for Russia. We also have the people who will defend the system of pure capitalism to their death, despite the fact that much of the stability we enjoy can be attributed to a government with some social programs.
This isn't to say that if we had remained an industry-baron nation we would not have been strong enough to defend our borders or created a cultural renaissance. In fact, one of the things that jumps out is that the industry fortunes made life better entire cities. I visited Pittsburgh and Delaware recently, and the impact of Andrew Carnegie and Alfred DuPont is probably incalculable . Libraries, museums, schools, hospitals, infrastructure. However, the tendency of capitalism as it has been practiced is for those with wealth to accumulate more wealth more quickly, and with that wealth a concentration of power. The thing keeping capitalists in check is a government interested in enough socialism to keep society from falling over and rebuilding from scratch. If the mass of people working got sufficiently fed up, it is not unthinkable that the federal government could go the way of the Tsars. Pity the fool so quick to judge others that they fail to judge themselves?
I thought the rain was pouring before. I was wrong. It is torrentially pouring now.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Russia (Martin Sixsmith) continued a third
Moving on to Stalinism:
Timeline:
1927 Dec: Announce the collectivization and move on to the next grand stage of Communism
1929: Two million ton shortfall in grain.
Guys! It's not working because we haven't gone far enough! On to greater glory! Collectivize it all!
(cough Fed printing money cough austerity measures cough tax breaks cough). I know its said that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, but given the average knowledge of history in the USA and the fact that we're not obviously doubling down on things that haven't worked yet because we haven't taken them far enough, that saying is a blatant lie. Blatant.
I just stumbled across this quote, which is utterly wonderful. Made my night. It pertains to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the secret police (and officially responsible for the Russian Terror) and his successor, Lavrenty Beria. It is particularly relevant here that the Russian word 'yezh' can be translated to 'hedgehog'. A year after he resigned from his post, Yezhov was arrested for crimes against the regime and killed. Regarding the official reaction to his death,
Timeline:
1927 Dec: Announce the collectivization and move on to the next grand stage of Communism
1929: Two million ton shortfall in grain.
Guys! It's not working because we haven't gone far enough! On to greater glory! Collectivize it all!
(cough Fed printing money cough austerity measures cough tax breaks cough). I know its said that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, but given the average knowledge of history in the USA and the fact that we're not obviously doubling down on things that haven't worked yet because we haven't taken them far enough, that saying is a blatant lie. Blatant.
I just stumbled across this quote, which is utterly wonderful. Made my night. It pertains to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the secret police (and officially responsible for the Russian Terror) and his successor, Lavrenty Beria. It is particularly relevant here that the Russian word 'yezh' can be translated to 'hedgehog'. A year after he resigned from his post, Yezhov was arrested for crimes against the regime and killed. Regarding the official reaction to his death,
"As had happened with the Old Bolsheviks [party leaders who had been part of the revolution and therefore could make some claim to being Lenin's successor], his image was removed from official photographs, and the pages of his entry in The Great Soviet Encylopaedia, which had celebrated him as the protector of the revolution, were ripped out. To fill the gap, a very long article was inserted on the subject of hedghogs.*
*The same thing would happen in 1953 when Yezhov's successor as head of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria, fell from grace. In his case, readers of The Great Soviet Encylopaedia would find themselves very well informed about the Bering Strait."
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Russia (Martin Sixsmith), continued
Several observations on the Russian revolution:
- If you can incite a man to kill another due to perceived agreements, then someone else can too. You then know what kind of man you are dealing with.
- When you are dealing with someone who deliberately attempts to suppress his emotions and cultivate more sociopathic tendencies than he was inherently born with, you probably shouldn't run the other way. That tends to leave your back as a nice target for rifle fire.
- Terror only works to the point where everyone knows that they're going to be mercilessly tortured for no better reason than that they need to be to keep the rest of the masses terrified. At that point, they have nothing left to lose, and will rise.
- The enemy of those with plans are those people who come to believe whole-heartedly in those plans. When the people who have the plans change something, in response to crises or needs, the people who whole-heartedly believe in those original plans won't switch. You have to get people-worship for that. (Taken from the discussion of the New Economic Policy (NEP), and it seems to apply reasonably well to the US Tea Party origins vs current construction).
I would like to point out an observation of the author. He is discussing the similarities between the NEP and Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. The passage in the footnote on page 245 reads, "I believe that Gorbachev, like Lenin, saw economic liberalization as a means to preserve and strengthen socialism, but - unlike Lenin - he failed to impose the political tightening that would stop change spiraling out of control and ultimately destroying the system is was designed to save." I don't have enough background on the perestroika reforms to see if this is an accurate comparison, and I'm sure from the bias of the author that the way it is presented here will portray it as an accurate comparison, but the entirety of the footnote give an interesting idea on how political parties can maintain power. More interesting is trying to figure out at what point the reforms have progressed so far that the reforms themselves start getting pushback. I'm a product of a capitalist society and I have trouble seeing that such reforms on this society would go too far, but then I look at the push for more bank regulation and realize that that is exactly what we're seeing. I wonder where the balance point is and how the initial outlook of the reforming society affects the balance point.
"...the Russian people's worst misfortune was Lenin's birth; their next worst, his death.' -Winston Churchill. How do different generations of Russians view/react to this statement?
The final and only true conclusion I can arrive at from reading these passages:
I sincerely pray to whatever may be listening that I never forget that people are, in fact, people.
- If you can incite a man to kill another due to perceived agreements, then someone else can too. You then know what kind of man you are dealing with.
- When you are dealing with someone who deliberately attempts to suppress his emotions and cultivate more sociopathic tendencies than he was inherently born with, you probably shouldn't run the other way. That tends to leave your back as a nice target for rifle fire.
- Terror only works to the point where everyone knows that they're going to be mercilessly tortured for no better reason than that they need to be to keep the rest of the masses terrified. At that point, they have nothing left to lose, and will rise.
- The enemy of those with plans are those people who come to believe whole-heartedly in those plans. When the people who have the plans change something, in response to crises or needs, the people who whole-heartedly believe in those original plans won't switch. You have to get people-worship for that. (Taken from the discussion of the New Economic Policy (NEP), and it seems to apply reasonably well to the US Tea Party origins vs current construction).
I would like to point out an observation of the author. He is discussing the similarities between the NEP and Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. The passage in the footnote on page 245 reads, "I believe that Gorbachev, like Lenin, saw economic liberalization as a means to preserve and strengthen socialism, but - unlike Lenin - he failed to impose the political tightening that would stop change spiraling out of control and ultimately destroying the system is was designed to save." I don't have enough background on the perestroika reforms to see if this is an accurate comparison, and I'm sure from the bias of the author that the way it is presented here will portray it as an accurate comparison, but the entirety of the footnote give an interesting idea on how political parties can maintain power. More interesting is trying to figure out at what point the reforms have progressed so far that the reforms themselves start getting pushback. I'm a product of a capitalist society and I have trouble seeing that such reforms on this society would go too far, but then I look at the push for more bank regulation and realize that that is exactly what we're seeing. I wonder where the balance point is and how the initial outlook of the reforming society affects the balance point.
"...the Russian people's worst misfortune was Lenin's birth; their next worst, his death.' -Winston Churchill. How do different generations of Russians view/react to this statement?
The final and only true conclusion I can arrive at from reading these passages:
I sincerely pray to whatever may be listening that I never forget that people are, in fact, people.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Russia: A 1000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East (Martin Sixsmith)
This is a book I have been reading for a while, and with my impending move out of Miami, am obliged to finally finish and return to the library. It is a history of Russia. My motive in choosing it was that, while I had a lot of US history, a fair amount of European history, a bit of Chinese and Japanese (especially as they pertained to the west), and a few other bits here and there, I did not truly have any idea of Russian history. On seeing this book on the new-books shelf, I figured it would be an interesting choice.
A caveat: I am 182 pages in out of 530; the death of Rasputin, about to start the roller-coaster ride of the revolution. The beginning opens explaining a bit about the author - he is not Russian, but a European with a love of Russia and a significant research background into it. The style of the book is a mixture of historical facts, cultural examinations, and personal anecdotes of exploring the areas where key events occurred.
The first overriding theme that struck me was this: the author had incorrectly subtitled the work. Rather than "A 1000 year chronicle of the Wild East," it would better have been named "All the times Russia missed its chance for a constitutional monarchy, from a European point of view." The author is quick to point out every time Russia could have become a more western style democracy but didn't. There is not really any discussion about whether/how this would have worked for Russia. He does discuss how the overriding cultural feelings of the time were summed up in the belief that centralized autocratic power was the only way to protect Russia's borders, and how this feeling came about from several centuries of invasions followed by several centuries of occupation by the golden horde. Frankly, based on the descriptions of the book, I'm amazed the distinct culture that is now Russia didn't get more absorbed by the Huns than it did. Perhaps that's me as a citizen of these United States, in which the usurpation of power by the federal government has been so slow and gradual, and a function of the power which we permitted to the government (rather than hostile takeover, for the most part), that the correct word to use now is 'The' instead of 'These'. It is interesting to note how the different paths seem to be leading us to similar places. I digress.
I'm not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing that the author refrains from discussing the implications of creating a constitutional monarchy. On the one hand, the pace of the book is good and portraying the events without boring by analysis is a wonderful quality in the book. On the other hand, I'm definitely intrigued as to why he feels that it is the correct solution. You can either say that its development is similar to Europe's, in little states bonding together for protection or being overrun and absorbed, or you can say that it is the opposite, in that once a centralized power gained an advantage over neighboring states it was mostly outward conquest. If you approach it from the former point of view it lends itself to the possibility of a constitutional monarchy. The latter point of view requires more centralized power and the ability to make quick decisions for tactical purposes.
More later.
A caveat: I am 182 pages in out of 530; the death of Rasputin, about to start the roller-coaster ride of the revolution. The beginning opens explaining a bit about the author - he is not Russian, but a European with a love of Russia and a significant research background into it. The style of the book is a mixture of historical facts, cultural examinations, and personal anecdotes of exploring the areas where key events occurred.
The first overriding theme that struck me was this: the author had incorrectly subtitled the work. Rather than "A 1000 year chronicle of the Wild East," it would better have been named "All the times Russia missed its chance for a constitutional monarchy, from a European point of view." The author is quick to point out every time Russia could have become a more western style democracy but didn't. There is not really any discussion about whether/how this would have worked for Russia. He does discuss how the overriding cultural feelings of the time were summed up in the belief that centralized autocratic power was the only way to protect Russia's borders, and how this feeling came about from several centuries of invasions followed by several centuries of occupation by the golden horde. Frankly, based on the descriptions of the book, I'm amazed the distinct culture that is now Russia didn't get more absorbed by the Huns than it did. Perhaps that's me as a citizen of these United States, in which the usurpation of power by the federal government has been so slow and gradual, and a function of the power which we permitted to the government (rather than hostile takeover, for the most part), that the correct word to use now is 'The' instead of 'These'. It is interesting to note how the different paths seem to be leading us to similar places. I digress.
I'm not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing that the author refrains from discussing the implications of creating a constitutional monarchy. On the one hand, the pace of the book is good and portraying the events without boring by analysis is a wonderful quality in the book. On the other hand, I'm definitely intrigued as to why he feels that it is the correct solution. You can either say that its development is similar to Europe's, in little states bonding together for protection or being overrun and absorbed, or you can say that it is the opposite, in that once a centralized power gained an advantage over neighboring states it was mostly outward conquest. If you approach it from the former point of view it lends itself to the possibility of a constitutional monarchy. The latter point of view requires more centralized power and the ability to make quick decisions for tactical purposes.
More later.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The Will of the Empress - Tamora Pierce
I probably should have stated earlier, but I will state it now: I will reference plot details, possibly spoilers, quotes, and other things in the course of the discussion.The first paragraph will usually be safe to read as they will typically contain background information to orient the reader in both the background of the story and my particular background that may be relevant. The last paragraph should also be safe; I will make an effort to make sure it only includes a synopsis of what I think of the work. In other areas, I'll try to give little enough context that you won't understand precisely what I mean unless you've read the book, but it may give you some premonitions about what's going to happen, and I do reserve the right to do a full plot synopsis.
The Will of the Empress: Tamora Pierce
This book is a re-read, albeit one that I haven't reread in a while. It is a fantasy novel; effectively the third installment in the Circle of Magic series. The other two installments came out in four books each, one book for each of the four types of magic wielded by the main characters. The first set deals with how they became the circle of magic in the first place; the second set deals with each individual mage while they are off traveling without the others, and this book fittingly brings them all back together again.
While this is better constructed than some of her other middling works, it sometimes feels as though the author is self-conscious. "I am an author and I have to figure out something to write." I feel like there were times that the author struggled with how her characters should act given the way she created the rules of the universe - if it was as well-known as was implied that the palace was a safe-haven for kidnap attempts, then Fin was absolutely insane to do it there. If it was common knowledge, "Everyone knows...", then when he eventually had to reveal himself as the perpetrator a year down the line or so, the Empress would be forced to act against him even if she wanted to keep Sandry in Namorn, so that the other parents would be willing to keep their daughters at courts. They try to explain this away as a lapse in judgement on Fin's part, but you shouldn't be relying on a lapse in judgement by someone who is extremely savvy to power shifts at court as a means of driving your plot forward. Particularly when you really accomplished nothing exceptional by having this attempted at court. Primarily, it seemed to be a plot device calculated to infuriate Sandry enough to make her leave Namorn.This could have been done with any almost-successful kidnapping attempt at any place, and didn't have to flout the social rules to happen in the palace.
There are other things that just looked a little bit shoddy. Spelling errors are never forgiveable. The word is 'now', not 'know', get it write! One of the characters from prior novels developed a sudden preference for women over men, which looked like it was dropped in the middle possibly as a political/social statement. It reminded me of the Inheritancetrilogy however-many-books-they've-got, where the main character suddenly develops a need to be vegetarian. Fine, I can deal with it, just don't drop in the "I'm an author making social commentary and this makes sense" comments. They really just annoy me, like little gnats. If you want to throw something in there like that, at least throw it in on the character that hasn't shown any sexual interest towards anyone yet. You spent the entire last book implying there was an attraction between this character and one of the other [guy] main characters. Sure it never went anywhere due to minor issues like people being insane, but whatever!
I like most of what Tamora Pierce writes, but if I had to recommend something, I'd recommend some of her earlier work. It is more innocent, more written for the sake of being a story than for the sake of having written something. I'll have to go back through some of the first/second set of books in this to see if I'm picking up stuff that I missed the first time around, but I don't expect it. It's a fine book to read if you're looking for something that is a children's book and doesn't try to go too seriously into character development. The magic is an interesting concept, but you got more of that from the first two sets of books. This book was more about the characters.
The Will of the Empress: Tamora Pierce
This book is a re-read, albeit one that I haven't reread in a while. It is a fantasy novel; effectively the third installment in the Circle of Magic series. The other two installments came out in four books each, one book for each of the four types of magic wielded by the main characters. The first set deals with how they became the circle of magic in the first place; the second set deals with each individual mage while they are off traveling without the others, and this book fittingly brings them all back together again.
While this is better constructed than some of her other middling works, it sometimes feels as though the author is self-conscious. "I am an author and I have to figure out something to write." I feel like there were times that the author struggled with how her characters should act given the way she created the rules of the universe - if it was as well-known as was implied that the palace was a safe-haven for kidnap attempts, then Fin was absolutely insane to do it there. If it was common knowledge, "Everyone knows...", then when he eventually had to reveal himself as the perpetrator a year down the line or so, the Empress would be forced to act against him even if she wanted to keep Sandry in Namorn, so that the other parents would be willing to keep their daughters at courts. They try to explain this away as a lapse in judgement on Fin's part, but you shouldn't be relying on a lapse in judgement by someone who is extremely savvy to power shifts at court as a means of driving your plot forward. Particularly when you really accomplished nothing exceptional by having this attempted at court. Primarily, it seemed to be a plot device calculated to infuriate Sandry enough to make her leave Namorn.This could have been done with any almost-successful kidnapping attempt at any place, and didn't have to flout the social rules to happen in the palace.
There are other things that just looked a little bit shoddy. Spelling errors are never forgiveable. The word is 'now', not 'know', get it write! One of the characters from prior novels developed a sudden preference for women over men, which looked like it was dropped in the middle possibly as a political/social statement. It reminded me of the Inheritance
I like most of what Tamora Pierce writes, but if I had to recommend something, I'd recommend some of her earlier work. It is more innocent, more written for the sake of being a story than for the sake of having written something. I'll have to go back through some of the first/second set of books in this to see if I'm picking up stuff that I missed the first time around, but I don't expect it. It's a fine book to read if you're looking for something that is a children's book and doesn't try to go too seriously into character development. The magic is an interesting concept, but you got more of that from the first two sets of books. This book was more about the characters.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
More than Human (Ramez Naam): Part 3
Finished the book. It is well worth reading, as a "This is where technology is right now and here are some ideas of where it could go, as our knowledge of how things work and precision increases." As most of this knowledge is going to arrive owing to solving diseases, it is a very small step from there to applying it to enhancements. If the state of drugs are any indication, once a thing is possible, it will happen even if it must happen at first by illicit means and it is better to accept that and prepare for it than to deny it. The author does not address moral questions in this book beyond that point. At some point, some of the authors of books decrying enhancements' moral depravity will stop focusing on why we shouldn't move forward and start focusing on ways we can mitigate negative effects/magnify positive effects. In the meantime, science is slowly chugging along.
As a parting comment, a rather odd video by one of the researchers who is cited in the book on the technology and its implications:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgmoz4f8LA4
As a parting comment, a rather odd video by one of the researchers who is cited in the book on the technology and its implications:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgmoz4f8LA4
More Than Human (Ramez Naam) - continued
Interjecting this at the top so it doesn't get lost: The author puts forward the best argument I have ever heard regarding morality of reproductive cloning in theory: Identical twins are reproductive clones of one another. They are regarded as distinct people with distinct souls in most cultures. A clone of you would simply have the same set of genes, and be far more different than any identical twin, due to the difference in cultures of when you both grew up.
More on the subject of looking back at the author looking forward:
Regarding the technology of sequencing the human genome, the author references two companies - US Genome and Affymetrix. US Genome's most recent patent is 2005, although they claim to still be developing methods. While the author focuses on its potential applications to sequencing the human genome quickly and efficiently particularly in regards to embryonic modifications, it appears to have branched into more currently profitable pursuits such as pathogenesis analysis. On the other hand, Affymetrix has improved its human genome detection kits from 100,000 sequence points to 629,000 base pair points (prices not available online, so I can't compare those, but probably similar or cheaper than in 2005).
To date, we are not really any farther along in embryonic testing. We can test for more genetic diseases as we find the associated genes, but the technology itself has not changed significantly. The Recombinant Advisory Commission (RAC) ruled in 1999 that in-utero gene therapy could affect reproductive cells and be passed on to subsequent generations. I was astonished that the author did not point out that in the future, this could be one of the advantages of the gene therapy [note: he does imply something similar later]. He does state that amniocentesis testing can help screen for down syndrome and other genetic factors, but stops short of suggesting that we could use gene therapy to eliminate unwanted genes from the gene pool while still carrying the child. As an example, a non-color-blind girl (gen2) born to a color-blind father (gen1) will necessarily carry a recessive gene for color-blindness. As it is, any male descendants (gen3) of the girl will carry a 50-50 chance of being color-blind. We could use gene therapy to correct the recessive color-blind gene at generation 2 and remove those genes from the pool. Any color-blindness that results after that is the result of spontaneous mutations, not inherited factors.
As a side note to the chapter above, the RAC stated in 1999 that the technology was not specific enough to consider in-utero genetic therapy as safe. They have not yet changed their stance, but they indicated at that time that given advancements in technology, such therapy could be reconsidered.
Link: http://oba.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/racinutero.pdf
General link to RAC documents: http://oba.od.nih.gov/rdna/rdna_resources.html
More on the subject of looking back at the author looking forward:
Regarding the technology of sequencing the human genome, the author references two companies - US Genome and Affymetrix. US Genome's most recent patent is 2005, although they claim to still be developing methods. While the author focuses on its potential applications to sequencing the human genome quickly and efficiently particularly in regards to embryonic modifications, it appears to have branched into more currently profitable pursuits such as pathogenesis analysis. On the other hand, Affymetrix has improved its human genome detection kits from 100,000 sequence points to 629,000 base pair points (prices not available online, so I can't compare those, but probably similar or cheaper than in 2005).
To date, we are not really any farther along in embryonic testing. We can test for more genetic diseases as we find the associated genes, but the technology itself has not changed significantly. The Recombinant Advisory Commission (RAC) ruled in 1999 that in-utero gene therapy could affect reproductive cells and be passed on to subsequent generations. I was astonished that the author did not point out that in the future, this could be one of the advantages of the gene therapy [note: he does imply something similar later]. He does state that amniocentesis testing can help screen for down syndrome and other genetic factors, but stops short of suggesting that we could use gene therapy to eliminate unwanted genes from the gene pool while still carrying the child. As an example, a non-color-blind girl (gen2) born to a color-blind father (gen1) will necessarily carry a recessive gene for color-blindness. As it is, any male descendants (gen3) of the girl will carry a 50-50 chance of being color-blind. We could use gene therapy to correct the recessive color-blind gene at generation 2 and remove those genes from the pool. Any color-blindness that results after that is the result of spontaneous mutations, not inherited factors.
As a side note to the chapter above, the RAC stated in 1999 that the technology was not specific enough to consider in-utero genetic therapy as safe. They have not yet changed their stance, but they indicated at that time that given advancements in technology, such therapy could be reconsidered.
Link: http://oba.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/racinutero.pdf
General link to RAC documents: http://oba.od.nih.gov/rdna/rdna_resources.html
Welcome to life!
The goal here is to keep track of various and sundry new things, including but not limited to new media (reading, movies, recipes, etc... Anything and everything).
To start - My current reading list. I will also be adding discussions on books that I've read in the past, as I feel like re-reading or discussing them.
- More than Human (Ramez Naam)
- Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (Martin Sixsmith)
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
- Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
More Than Human has an interesting perspective. It's an explanation of how human enhancements (genetic, lifestyle, medication-based, whichever) could work and improve our lives, not just cure diseases. It is a pro-enhancement stance, meant to offset some of the more negative works out there. As such, it focuses on the positives. It does typically mention the negatives in passing, but effectively assumes that at some point in the future, technology will overcome those problems.
One of the interesting aspects of this book is the fact that it was published in 2005, and cites many contemporary research projects in enhancements. As such, we are now able to go back and look at how some of research that was on-going or about to start turned out. Of the two studies looking at IGF1 and its ability to treat ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), one showed positive results and the other showed no significant data. IGF has to date not been approved for use in treating the disease. As regards studies on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) uses for anti-aging, we are effectively at the same place as when the book was written - it is toxic to humans in medium doses, has shown promise in low doses in mice, and we haven't been able to move forward with it in other ways yet. Other mimetics on the market have not been proven to help with anything, and your best bet still remains a glass of red wine. It is, however, just a bet still. (That said, moderate alcohol intake has been shown repeatedly to improve your cardiovascular outlook far more effectively than a lot of the blood-pressure-lowering-liver-or-kidney-killing medications out there, so why not?)
As an interesting side note, at one point in the book the author talks about Caloric Restriction diets. That amuses me greatly, because a CR diet is one in which the person eats significantly fewer calories, 'on the point of starvation', with the goal of living a longer life. Although he doesn't get into numbers, a little bit of research into these diets show people going at about 1500 calories per day, carefully calculated to have a balance of nutrients. Interestingly, that's about how much I consume in a normal day when I'm cooking for myself. I wouldn't consider that anywhere near starvation, and I wouldn't consider it something where you need to be especially careful to get all your nutrients, as long as you're eating well and paying attention to what your body wants you to eat.
I'm about halfway through the book, so I will post more thoughts as I go through it.
The goal here is to keep track of various and sundry new things, including but not limited to new media (reading, movies, recipes, etc... Anything and everything).
To start - My current reading list. I will also be adding discussions on books that I've read in the past, as I feel like re-reading or discussing them.
- More than Human (Ramez Naam)
- Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (Martin Sixsmith)
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
- Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
More Than Human has an interesting perspective. It's an explanation of how human enhancements (genetic, lifestyle, medication-based, whichever) could work and improve our lives, not just cure diseases. It is a pro-enhancement stance, meant to offset some of the more negative works out there. As such, it focuses on the positives. It does typically mention the negatives in passing, but effectively assumes that at some point in the future, technology will overcome those problems.
One of the interesting aspects of this book is the fact that it was published in 2005, and cites many contemporary research projects in enhancements. As such, we are now able to go back and look at how some of research that was on-going or about to start turned out. Of the two studies looking at IGF1 and its ability to treat ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), one showed positive results and the other showed no significant data. IGF has to date not been approved for use in treating the disease. As regards studies on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) uses for anti-aging, we are effectively at the same place as when the book was written - it is toxic to humans in medium doses, has shown promise in low doses in mice, and we haven't been able to move forward with it in other ways yet. Other mimetics on the market have not been proven to help with anything, and your best bet still remains a glass of red wine. It is, however, just a bet still. (That said, moderate alcohol intake has been shown repeatedly to improve your cardiovascular outlook far more effectively than a lot of the blood-pressure-lowering-liver-or-kidney-killing medications out there, so why not?)
As an interesting side note, at one point in the book the author talks about Caloric Restriction diets. That amuses me greatly, because a CR diet is one in which the person eats significantly fewer calories, 'on the point of starvation', with the goal of living a longer life. Although he doesn't get into numbers, a little bit of research into these diets show people going at about 1500 calories per day, carefully calculated to have a balance of nutrients. Interestingly, that's about how much I consume in a normal day when I'm cooking for myself. I wouldn't consider that anywhere near starvation, and I wouldn't consider it something where you need to be especially careful to get all your nutrients, as long as you're eating well and paying attention to what your body wants you to eat.
I'm about halfway through the book, so I will post more thoughts as I go through it.
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