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Saturday, November 16, 2002
divine day-dreams ... ... And yet a little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while Clarissa [Harlow] lies upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of Robinson read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and with entire delight, read Robinson. but I suggest death for dropping it on the sidewalk ... Found in Tim Blair:THE BENEFITS of free trade just keep on coming:Singapore may lift its ban on chewing gum as part of a free trade agreement with the United States.Chew the sweet gum of liberty, brothers! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Posted
9:00 AM
Thursday, November 14, 2002
misc from Bricklin Interesting thought from Dan Bricklin:...That moment with the cell phone brought up another image I saw earlier in the day: A woman getting out of the driver's seat in her car and opening up the back door to take her small child out of a car seat while still clutching an object in her hand that she obviously felt was important -- her cell phone. I remember thinking: More and more I see people clutching their cell phones as a major source of comfort or something. It's like they are holding onto a railing when they walk down stairs: The cell phone gives them some sense of security. I feel that it represents a lifeline to the rest of our circle of important people, and we treat it as such. It's a space warp that connects us to others we need as we go through life. In today's complicated world, we can juggle our disconnected lives and make them connected by using technology like cell phones, email, IM, and digital cameras...I know the feeling. If I lose my phone, my children will immediately be stuck by St Vitus Dance, and I won't be able to summon help.... Also: ...In my recording industry essay, I also point out how the huge increases in use of cell phones may explain some of the drop in music sales -- increasingly you see people walking or standing with cell phones pressed to their ears instead of wearing earphones from personal music systems...  AND, kids now play games on their phones. I was waiting for an event at a High School today and saw 5 or 6 kids hunched over their phones, beep beep beep. Who needs music?
And here's something even more interesting: Tuesday, October 15, 2002. This morning Trellix Corporation (of whom I am founder and CTO) announced that EarthLink will be using Trellix's technology to provide web site building and weblogging to its subscribers. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ my heart's been broken before, but ... ... could it be that the glaciers are starting to melt? Is this a premonitory sign that the Ice Age is not going to last forever?Bush to Allow Private Sector BidsWhat makes this morsel all the more flavorfull is that Bush has been reaching out to unions (or cozying-up to them, depending on who you ask) and all he got for it was a slap in the face. You had your chance, suckers. Now go ask Nancy for help... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ken fiddles while ... Another good snippet from the Victor Hanson interview......The rise of big government, big corporations, and anonymous suburbs have created a sort of transience and unaccountability, enhanced by enormous wealth and materialism. The Clintons on the Left and the Enron people on the Right are good examples--the lifestyles of each, the similar improper financial deals, the abuse of language, the sense of entitlement, all that is the same. Bill Clinton is the Ken Lay of politics--pampered, insincere, duplicitious, felonious, smug, and star-struck. Both are reflections of the corruptions of the time; the one mouths concern for the poor, the other for free markets, but they both like Aspen, peddle influence, and share the same values... Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Good Article on Karl Rove ...For all the differences between Rove and Bush, their similarities bound them from the start. They bonded over their shared disdain for the snobbery of East Coast élites and the culture of permissiveness of the 1960s. They both share a faith in their own instincts: Bush boasts about trusting his gut and the clear simple wisdom of the West Texas oil patch. Rove, the college dropout turned academic, cultivates an intellectual version of the same, considering himself a Natural—a self-taught big brain who devours histories and political tomes and applies what he learns to the art of winning races._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Citizen Response There's a great Glenn Reynolds TCS column on citizen response to terrorist attacks.San Francisco is way ahead on that one. We're accustomed to calamity, and have a strong program called NERTS (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team.) One important thing they emphasize is HAM Radio. (Those radios, by the way, have shrunk like all other electronics; you can put them in your pocket) My son took a HAM class once, and when I was around I kept overhearing people saying "the nerds are doing this," or "the nerds do that." Finally I realized they were talking about NERTS! Their website is here, with a manual you can download. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Posted
7:00 AM
we're still waiting ... Year after introduction, Segway continues to stir the imagination — Dean Kamen’s Segway scooter was unveiled nearly a year ago, with a promise it would change transportation. Most people still are walking, but the device has been tested all over the country, more than half the states have rewritten laws to allow them on sidewalks as the machine attracts cheers and some jeers.It's gonna be great ... someday. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Happy Blirgday to Me Now I've been blogging for one year. Not bad, considering I was worried that I would run out of things to say in a few weeks. How did I get started?After 9/11 we were madly hungry for information; and to hear resolute and honorable voices (well, in San Francisco we are always hungry for those, but right then the need was acute.) We rarely missed Best of the Web, and that led us to Glenn Reynolds. We've read the InstaPundit daily ever since, but it never occurred to me to try to emulate him. Still, there was the morning I called Charlene at the office to tell her she was in InstaPundit! She had sent Glenn an e-mail and mentioned that the people who stole the obscene sculptures from the Boulder Public Library were "guerilla deconstructionist art critics." (We still meet people who remember reading that.) Then I got to call her again because her remark was picked up by Best of the Web! Amazin'. As you will imagine, that sort of thing that can be quite intoxicating. Then, one day, Glenn linked to this post, Harry Potter and the Libertarian Subtext: The Natalie Solent philosophical analysis hit-squad has come up with the following observations indicating a not-so-secret libertarian agenda in the recently released film.I was enchanted; this was light and witty, but also thought provoking. (Almost a new art form) I felt like I'd encountered a neighborhood I could conceivably move into. The author was Natalie Solent. So I started... A war begins. It's like rolling over a rotting log, the sun suddenly shines on a miriad of things both beautiful and creepy. We suddenly have a lot to say.There was another guy new to blogging at that same time, Dawson. We would exchange e-mails, trying to puzzle out how to make these cranky blogs work. "Where do you get them counter things??" Dawson is warmhearted and impulsive, and I felt right away like he was an old pal. He was always falling in love with smart+beautiful+conservative women like Ann Coulter and Claire Berlinski ... and they seem to go for him! Admirable, admirable. We both blogged on the joys of feasting on crabs, and someday we'll do it together..."They ought to have reflected . . . that as there is nothing more desirable, or advantageous than peace, when founded in justice and honour, so there is nothing more shameful and at the same time more pernicious when attained by bad measures, and purchased at the price of liberty." And then there was the first Fisking I ever encountered, by Moira Breen, thrashing some goop in the Guardian: Monday's New York plane crash - and the Bush administration's desperate wish to brand it as naturalPerfect...Ohhh, to be able to come up with a line like that ... Later, my homespun economics led to making a friend who was a real economist, and he and his pals began publishing as the Krugman Truth Squad. An honor. Well, I haven't done too badly, at least by my own lights. My weblog will never be very popular. The truth is, I find my fellow humans fairly mysterious, and really haven't a clue how to be popular and appeal to them. But that takes a lot of the pressure off; I can write things I like, and if only a handful of folks read them, well, you are the happy few. Thank you. If I find time I'll add some links to my own favorite RJ posts... Monday, November 11, 2002
return of the prodigal ... Good news, Doctor Frank is back from a vacation from blogging, exacerbated by a rock tour in Japan. I've met him, he's a regular guy, and you would never guess he's a high-voltage punk-rocker.'Course, lots of people are probably like that. When the Bishop takes off his mitre and settles in front of TV with a snack, he probably seems charmingly un-episcopal. (Or maybe not; perhaps he pops peanuts into his mouth with gestures of the utmost unctuous orotundity...) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Poets (a species once common, but now likely extinct) The Spires of Oxford _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ don't forget ... don't forget ... don't forget In Flanders fields the poppies blow _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Bill fiddles while ... I loved this bit from an interview with Victor Hanson ...John Hawkins: There have been frequent comparisons of late between the United States and the Roman Empire. How valid do you think those comparisons are? Why so? Sunday, November 10, 2002
Way to go! TEL AVIV — Israel has assassinated a Palestinian regarded as the leading planner of Islamic suicide bombers in what the military proclaimed an intelligence victory. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ David Frum writes READING BUSH'S LIPSI think some people are so steeped in the spirit of the Clinton era, that openness and candor are assumed to be plots more deep and inscrutable than any that have come before. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ but where should we draw the line? Australian John Ray discusses the possibility of School Vouchers in the US....“but where should we draw the line?” Some of my US correspondents have even asked me that. Should the US taxpayer support wacko schools that (for instance) teach Muslim fundamentalism? One is inclined to say “No” but if we do say “no” the danger is that we will give the green light for Leftist bureaucrats to set up another vast layer of bureaucracy that will end up withold funding for schools that the Leftists disapprove of: Which will effectively give them the last laugh. So the only safe rule is: “Draw no lines”. Fund the lot. It’s a pity that we cannot be more selective but ANY selectivity would be sure to have even worse results than giving open slather. If some fanatical parents use the chance to indoctrinate their kids into some wacko religion, the kids will probably just end up rebelling sometime in their teenage years anyway and modelling themselves on Homer Simpson instead. And as Clayton Cramer points out, the schools are ALREADY heavily politicized (in a Leftist direction) so we really have nothing to lose.I suggest that the only regulation needed is to require openness. Schools should be required to make available test-scores and curricula, and to provide reasonable access for private-sector companies that publish guides for choosing schools. I asked John about a certain curious expression: Yes. "open slather" is a common expression here. I am rather embarrassed to have inadvertently used an expression that will not be familiar internationally. I try to avoid that. But I guess the context makes its meaning clear. We have a very vigorous and vivid slang here so it is hard to avoid using it at times.-- I love it. Let stalk Strine...
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