houseboatonstyx

the green-haired water nix

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 07:10:42 GMT

I'm trying to find a poem that went something like this:

... we crossed two sticks
Against the green haired water-nix
....
....
... mental woods grown dark and eerie
Not even sticks of ash to carry.

From the 50s, Cold War; maybe I saw it in a high school English book.

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Please tell me about G+ ? -- Thanks!

Sun, 20 Apr 2014 08:59:27 GMT

Squeee flashback. Suddenly I'm thrilled all over again that I'm on a ... er, world wide web. Because here in the US it's midnight, not a good time to ask my USian sources -- but my friends on the other side of the world are in daylight hours and awake, probably.

So -- what about G+ ? I've been avoiding it, but now Google seems to require me to join or they won't let me login to my Gmail account! When I enter gmail.google.com, instead of just asking me for my email password, they say

One account. All of Google.

Sign in to continue to Gmail

I'm worried about my pseudonyms. I have several, each with its own Gmail address. And I do not want to give out my real name, location, etc.

Any clues?

ETA: Well, I'm logged into Gmail again, apparently having done something like what Oursin suggested in her comment. Whether accidentally or precognatively I do not know.

Apparently having Gmail, had given me a "Google Account" already -- of a different sort than G+. So their screen's One Password to Rule Them All was not an assimilation into G+ or anything like that.

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Attn: Anti-dystopians (Sartorias? Rachelmanija?)

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 20:40:59 GMT

Stolen from http://eska.livejournal.com/1672418.html Can anyone translate?

The picture on the left is what I saw months ago and tried to describe in a thread about YA dystopias. I think the others in the thread were Sartorias, Rachelmanija....

Here the good picture has been narrowed, perhpas cropped. It looked much better alone.

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Le Guin on genre

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 21:46:50 GMT

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6253/the-art-of-fiction-no-221-ursula-k-le-guin
It’s like working in any form—in poetry, for example. When you work in form, be it a sonnet or villanelle or whatever, the form is there and you have to fill it. And you have to find how to make that form say what you want to say. But what you find, always—I think any poet who’s worked in form will agree with me—is that the form leads you to what you want to say. It is wonderful and mysterious. I think something similar happens in fiction. A genre is a form, in a sense, and that can lead you to ideas that you would not have just thought up if you were working in an undefined field. It must have something to do with the way our minds are constructed.

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What can I say!

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 02:32:27 GMT

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Now, name the genre....

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 01:56:31 GMT

Riffing off a post at http://www.arghink.com/2013/12/04/a-short-rant-about-set-ups/

Yanno, you could market that as a template:

It all started the year the _______ changed the _____.

_____ never really trusted the man from ____________, with his promises of _________ if ______ moved the _____ to ________ and _________ gave up ____ for ____ this year.

But it wasn’t until ______ fought over whether to __________ that everything really began to go horribly terribly wrong.

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US Thanksgiving -- working toward tl;dr for Dreamwidth

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 09:25:40 GMT

There really was a party where Pilgrims and Indians celebrated the harvest in 1621. They really did thank the Indians who really had shown them how to plant corn with fish.. They ate stuffed fowls (turkeys were abundant) and corn and cornbread, and probably pumpkin and grapes and maybe cranberries. This friendship produced a peace treaty among all the tribes of the area with each other and with the English, which lasted for 50 years.

This was in Plymouth Colony. It was the 53 Pilgrims from the ship Mayflower and 90 Wapanoug Indians. The Pilgrims shot the fowls and the Indians brought venison (and maybe some cranberries). The Indians had a good reason to be so kind to the Pilgrims all year; they wanted the English to help them get the treaty with the rival tribes.*

Fifty years is a long time for such a treaty to last. Imagine if we had had no wars since WWII.

* For the Indians' motive, see a summary at my LJ of the account in Mann's book 1491.

---------------

Yeah, it needs work. Sources are at http://houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com/227227.html and later LJ entries.

The original 'Thanksgiving story' is below the cut. It's a letter written in 1621 by the head of the colony, Edward Winslow.

Although I received no letter from you by this ship,

<lj-cut> -- dunno how to do this in Rich Text

Although I received no letter from you by this ship, yet forasmuch as I know you expect the performance of my promise, which was, to write unto you truly and faithfully of all things, I have therefore at this time sent unto you accordingly, referring you for further satisfaction to our more large relations.

You shall understand that in this little time a few of us have been here, we have built seven dwelling-houses and four for the use of the plantation, and have made preparation for divers others. We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas; and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings, or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed; but the sun parched them in the blossom.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us, very loving, and ready to pleasure us. We often go to them, and they come to us. Some of us have been fifty miles by land in the country with them, the occasions and relations whereof you shall understand by our general and more full declaration of such things as are worth the noting. Yea, it has pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us and love unto us, that not only the greatest king among them, called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have either made suit unto us, or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us; so that seven of them at once have sent their messengers to us to that end. Yea, an isle at sea, which we never saw, hath also, together with the former, yielded willingly to be under the protection and subject to our sovereign lord King James. So that there is now great peace amongst the Indians themselves, which was not formerly, neither would have been but for us; [ Surprisingly, this is TRUE; see Mann's book 1491 ] we, for our parts, walk as peaceably and safely in the wood as in the highways in England. We entertain them familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us. They are a people without any religion or knowledge of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted, just.
[....]
All the spring-time the earth sends forth naturally very good salad herbs. Here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc.; plums of three sorts, white, black, and red, being almost as good as a damson; abundance of roses, white, red and damask; single, but very sweet indeed.
[....]
Our Indian corn, even the coarsest, makes as pleasant meat as rice; therefore spare that, unless to spend by the way. Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows, with cotton yarn for your lamps. Let your shot be most for big fowls, and bring store of powder and shot. I forbear further to write for the present, hoping to see you by the next return. So I take my leave, commending you to the Lord for a safe conduct unto us, resting in him,

Your loving friend,

E. W.

-- Plymouth Colony leader Edward Winslow, 1621

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Thankful for General Semantics

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:54:32 GMT

Any fans of General Semantics around? I'm rusty on the terms.

The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing.

The thing now is people now eating turkey etc in late November, many having pictures of Pilgrims and Indians etc.
The thing in 1621 was Pilgrims and Indians eating turkey etc in late November.

Neither our parties nor the 1621 party had much actual giving of thanks to God. Quakers don't actually quake. Methodists aren't actually very methodical -- these terms are REFERENTIAL. They are just labels for pointing to something, not a description of what Quakers and Methodists -- and 'Thanksgiving guests -- actually do now.
.

'Thanksgiving_1863' is not 'Thanksgiving_2013'

'Thanksgiving' is a word, a label. Politicians some decades ago started applying it to people eating turkey etc in late November, relating this occasion to thanking God. (The Pilgrims did not use the term for their party. When they thanked God, they did it differently, with solemn ceremonies they did call 'thanksgiving'.)

Because the term now refers to our party, and our party is very similar to the 1621 party, we use the term to refer to the 1621 party as 'the first Thanksgiving'.

A would-be editor at Wikipedia has these facts but makes the wrong language conclusions. He needs a course in General Semantics. (So do I, obviously.)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thanksgiving_(United_States) scroll down to "First Thanksgiving was 1863".

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We ARE doing what the Pilgrims did

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 06:22:28 GMT

So our current US 'Thanksgiving Day' (aka 'Turkey Day') isn't spent much on religion and is mainly spent on food and sports. It also sort of re-plays the party that 53 Pilgrims and 90 Indians had in November of 1621 in Plymouth Colony. The interesting thing is, food and sports was what the 1621 party was about too.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms [guns], many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted....
-- From a letter from Plymouth Colony leader Edward Winslow, 1621

The LABEL 'Thanksgiving' was added -- by politicians -- after many years of people in various parts of the country having similar autumn celebrations, with the same main foods (turkey or fowl, corn and cornbread, pumpkin, grapes and oher fruit, and maybe cranberries). When the Pilgrims as a group thanked God for something, they made a special solemn religious occasion set aside for it: no distracting feast or games.

This article sorts it out. http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/the-father-of-thanksgiving-how-william-bradford-started-an-american-tradition-17152/

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So, why did those Indians help those Pilgrims? (Plymouth 1621)

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 21:48:15 GMT

So, why did those Indians help those Pilgrims? (Plymouth 1621)

The Indians' leader, Massasoit, may have had calculated political motives.

For that whole first winter, Wampanoag Indians watched [the English settlers], trying to figure out if they were a threat or an opportunity. But, to keep their options open, Massasoit of the Wampanoags assigned Tisquantum to work with them, to analyze them, to keep them alive if he could. [....]

[Disease and devastation] had left a huge gap in the Wapanoag Confederation. Other tribes were already feeling out for weakness -- and now a new power had just . . . dropped in. An entirely new piece of the equation. These folks were ignorant and, left to their own devices, would just die off -- but if that happened, the whole Patuxet region would be open, and SOMEONE would take it over.

If Massasoit could keep these Pilgrims alive, they could be enough of a power to keep other tribes away. Long-term, it'd be adding another factor to the political calculus of the region, but Europeans were already a reality and were clearly going to be a factor from now on -- Massasoit had an opportunity to introduce Europeans that were, in some sense, under his control, or at least, influence. They would be dependent upon him, through Tisquantum, which would give him both ethical and pragmatic influence -- they'd be grateful to him, and dependent on him.

The whole northern border of the Confederation was empty. And there were lots of other people -- Indian and European -- who'd be perfectly happy to take over prime land like the abandoned Patuxet village. There was decent farmland, great fishing, and good hunting right there. SOMEONE was going to move in there. From Massasoit's position, the best possible choice was a village of incompetent Europeans who were dependent on him. He could leverage their connection to the British Empire if he needed it, yet they weren't likely to be as big a threat, at least immediately, as a group of settlers who actually knew what they were doing.

So Tisquantum saved them. He helped them break into his village's storehouses, he taught them planting techniques that he'd learned from other Patuxet, like co-planting beans, squash, and maize, and also planting techniques that he'd learned in England, like fertilizing plants with fish guts and otherwise inedible fish. (There's no evidence that any Wampanoag Confederacy tribes did that -- only Tisquantum. And he'd spent a bunch of time in parts of England where they DID do that.)

Tisquantum was never completely trusted by Massasoit, especially as he became more connected to the Pilgrims. Nonetheless, Massasoit's expert political manipulation maintained peace in the region for at least fifty years.

Quoted by permission from http://xiphias.livejournal.com/544757.html?style=mine#cutid1
ETA: xiphias got his information from the book 1491, and "some names and dates and so forth, and a few other details, from Wikipedia."

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PS about Turkey Day - some inaccuracies in traditional pageants

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 19:31:41 GMT

The facts of the 1621 celebration are in my last post. Here's a few things the school pageants etc get wrong.

1. The pageants don't have enough Indians. Actually it was 53 Pilgrims entertaining 90 Indians.

2. Turkey wasn't the only meat. There was an assortment of fowl -- and the Indians brought venisons.

3. Costumes may be more iconic than authentic. Critics please tell me, what DID they all wear, and what is your evidence?

4. School programs sometimes use modern fully-popped popcorn rather than authentic half-popped corn. And they use modern formica tables instead of wood tables hewn with axes. (Not enough trees in the school yards, maybe, especially not on repeated years.)

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Facts of ‘Turkey Day’ -- 1621

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 16:28:28 GMT

Facts of ‘Turkey Day’ -- 1621

The traditional US Thanksgiving pageant and meals honor a party in 1621 when the Mayflower Pilgrims “entertained and feasted” the neighboring Indians who had helped them with their first crops and brought them venison and other food during the year.

So, here is what those same Pilgrims wrote about it.

INDIAN GUESTS

At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor.... [1]

We entertain [ the Indians ] familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us. [1]

CORN, CORNBREAD

We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas; and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings.... [1]

(These colonists often made cornbread, too.)

TURKEY

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. [1]

They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. [1]

great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many. [2]

great flocks of turkey, quails, pigeons and partridges [3]

FRUITS in the colony

Here [when in season] are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc.; plums.... [1]

walnuts, chestnuts, small nuts and plums..... gooseberrries and strawberries.... Better grain cannot be than the Indian corn, [3]

CRANBERRIES, PUMPKINS, GRAPES AND NUTS, SWEET POTATO, etc

These also grew in the area at that time, or were added to the menu later because they were found in the American Continents.

GIVING THANKS

These Pilgrims on this occasion seemed to be most interested in thanking the neighboring Indians for all their help. Customarily, when Pilgrims planned to thank God, they made a formal religious occasion. Still, Winslow’s letter has eight grateful mentions of God, so perhaps God was not entirely ignored in this event.

God be praised ... by the goodness of God ... it has pleased God ... on our behalf give God thanks ... God provided better for us ... by the blessing of God ... when it pleased God ... by the blessing of God

[1] Letter from Plymouth Colony leader Edward Winslow, 1621 (read in my LJ)

[2] Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647 [written 1640-1651]. Bradford was the Governor of the colony at the time of the celebration.

[3] Letter from William Henton in November 1621, who arrived just after the famous celebration. He describes the food that grew wild in that area.

Here are many other primary sources (that is, first hand accounts ) about that colony.

http://mayflowerhistory.com/primary-sources-and-books/

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Krishnananda on kumbhaka

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 06:29:48 GMT

In my experience, he's got it backwards. ;-) Looking at a flower while pausing the breath with the lungs full, is like taking a picture of the flower, it gets impressed in my memory. The flower makes the impact on me.

Kumbhaka also helps when floating in water. (And when flying in dreams.)

http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/patanjali/raja_78.html

The object, or the ideal before oneself, is united with the meditating consciousness in a fast embrace, as it were, when the prana is withheld, and it is made to stick to one’s consciousness inseparably. It becomes one with one’s own self, and there is a sudden impact felt upon the object on account of the kumbhaka that we practise.
( Read more... )

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writing process

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 01:04:05 GMT

ETA: This isn't an 'outline before beginning' thing, but an 'organize all the text already written into some sort of order and see what gaps if any still need to be filled' thing.

( Read more... )

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And a happy un-birthday to you, too!

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 00:59:09 GMT

As a non-Christian, I love it when someone wishes me a happy whatever from some other religion. It makes me feel like they'd just invited me to their party and given me a cookie.

ETA: Woops, tried to edit the image to remove negative stuff -- and lost it all! Serves me right, I guess.

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found haiku ingredients

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:41:34 GMT

Not the formal requirements, but almost the content of a haiku:

Back home after a long afternoon/evening of meetings:
tablets/wifi/thermostats/laptops/printers.
Now back to the keyboard...

nicked fm sbisson

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How did my brain manage that?

Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:05:52 GMT

It's a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson; it follows several hamsters over multiple incarnations across almost a thousand years.

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Book Talk Meme

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 07:26:10 GMT

Via donnaimmaculata

Book Talk Meme

1. Spend no more than ten minutes writing down the names of books that have been especially significant to you in some way. (Entries other than literary fiction welcome! You might think of your own criteria: books you'd bring to a desert island? Books that you associate with turning points or periods in your life? The most worn items on your bookshelf? Anything between two covers counts.)

Don't think, just brainstorm! Ten minutes only.

2. Type up this list with numbers. At this point, you can reorder the list (if you want), add authors' names, edit, etc.

3. Readers are invited ask about a particular number.

I don't promise to answer, though!

----------------------------------

Books in the order I thought of them just now.
The numbers are my age when I read them.

12 Lewis, MIRACLES
17 Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED
25 James, PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY (yes, all of it, I think)
26 Roberts, SETH SPEAKS
33 Muktananda, PLAY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
10 Kipling - stuff about India, mostly
11 ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES
39 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS stuff
14 Aiken, MODERN AMERiCAN POETS (1922)
33 Leary, Bateson, et al
7 Old ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA, entry on Jainism
9 Charles Williams, all
10 MacDonald, LILITH
14 Macaulay, TOLD BY AN IDIOT

ETA: http://books.google.com/books?id=xKETrdJdz6IC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=korzybski+%22C.+S.+Lewis%22&source=bl&ots=ncJ5DDEDis&sig=4HEovkimQ_NQAr5tp5bGzYFQJPs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GJx9UsvbFceZiAKUhIDoCA&ved=0CCsQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=korzybski%20%22C.%20S.%20Lewis%22&f=false

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From dailyrumi.livejournal.com

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:13:02 GMT

You, ignorant of the marrow, deceived by the skin,
be aware. The Beloved is at the center of your soul.
The essence of the body is sensation
and the essence of the senses is the soul.
When you transcend body, senses, and soul, all is He.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Divan-s Shams-e Tabrizi: Quatrain 322
Translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski
http://dailyrumi.livejournal.com/317279.html

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Ender's Game

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 06:24:55 GMT

*I'm* not going to watch it, ever. But for people who are undecided -- how about waiting for the DVD?

Making it a box office flop, just requires staying home right now. Waiting till it has been out a while on DVD, means your purchase or rental will be way under the media radar. As for some fraction of money going to OSC, maybe there will be a good pirate version.

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"The Cold Equations" -- who gets sued?

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 05:07:14 GMT

(Another comment at Kalimac's entry on "The Cold Equations", which grew to independent size.)

In our legal system, everybody would try to sue everybody. In one legal system that might be inferred from the distinction in the preface ("a frontier is not always easy to recognize. It may lie on the other side of a simple door marked ‘No admittance’ "), it might sort out something like this:

1) EDS ship designers - subject to 'Frontier Law'
2) EDS regulation writers - subject to 'Frontier Law'
3) EDS pilot - subject to 'Frontier Law'
4) Big ship carrying passengers - subject to laws more like ours

Under such a system, the big ship's owners or managers could be successfully sued by both the girl's family and EDS, for lack of a good security barrier between passenger area and EDS area.

The pilot could complain to the regulation writers, who could complain to the designers. All three EDS parties would be protected by Frontier Law, as doing the best they could for emergency missions with limited resources: not enough time to spare for precautions against such a fluke event.

ETA: I think probabilitly and risk/benefit may be the key difference here. Whoever chose to have that big ship carrying both tourists and critical EDS equipment, had a one-time responsibility of making an effective barrier* to keep the tourists out of the danger area -- for many reasons. Otherwise, there's a high probability that some tourists would eventually wander in, causing various problems.

Otoh, the specific problem of an innocent stowaway in some small EDS craft had a much lower probability; thus it would not have made sense for EDS to engineer the whole fleet to accomodate stowaways.

As for the pilot 'scanning' for stowaways who might have snuck in after the normal pre-flight inventory -- presumably scanning by opening all the closets and looking under the bunk, if any -- again that's a very unlikely danger to spend time on.

ETA 2. *Actually, as with us, passengers would normally be confined to a safe area -- not allowed to get into the engine rooms or any other utilitarian areas.

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"The Cold Equations" -- context

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:46:06 GMT

My comment at Kalimac's got so long I'm putting it here too.
http://kalimac.livejournal.com/692801.html?style=mine&nc=5#comments

I've seen a good, semi-scholarly page on TCE which I'm too lazy to search for again, and some other good views of it, ditto. I admire it as brilliant in context and wish people would stop falling so deeply into its text. Dudes, it's just a STORY.

As to a concocted scenario, well, yes. The author kept submitting versions where they found a solution and everyone was saved. Upbeat puzzle stories of that kind were popular at that time -- and ALL such puzzles ended upbeat. It was John Campbell who kept shooting down the author's solutions, plugging those loopholes, and insisting on the ending that eventually got published. The patches and re-writes show. So yes, contrived.

In context of those traditional upbeat puzzle stories -- this was a brilliant reply to them, a breaking of the mold. An amazing shock. (Like the first detective story where the narrator done it.) That was one of Campbell's purposes.

More specifically, according to Campbell's preface for it, the purpose was showing that:
“The Frontier is a strange place – and a frontier is not always easy to recognize. It may lie on the other side of a simple door marked ‘No admittance’ – but it is always deadly dangerous.”

I've seen this following a sensible discussion about the difference between a frontier and a ... tenderfoot-safe area. It's not that the frontier is full of outlaws. It's that the frontier is jury-rigged. Things just barely work, because someone made them up in a hurry out in a windstorm with bailing wire and the wrong tools and just for one purpose at a time. Everything was quick and dirty code. There was no time to annotate and re-label and add error-trapping. You had to do work-arounds, if you knew how. Nobody was there to tell you anything. If someone had bothered to put up a 'Danger' sign, it must have been an extreme danger -- because every surviving frontiersman already knew that EVERYTHING is dangerous.

The successive patches to the story are just what you'd expect in a frontier. Nobody had time to re-design the craft for the safety of stowaways. They barely had time to issue a blaster, and put an errata sheet in the regulations.

The craft was contrived. The FRONTIER is contrived.

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Signal Boosting for Editrx's bookstore

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 08:24:45 GMT

From http://editrx.livejournal.com/276527.html

Go go gadget Indiegogo! editrx

october 31st, 2:10
I had braced myself for a slow first day of contributions and set a personal goal of $100-200 in funds received.

By 10pm ET, I'd received just a little over $1,000, and as of this writing the campaign stands at $1,125.

This is exciting stuff, folks! Just $7,000 more to go, and I'll reach my minimum goal to underwrite buying the store. From there, anything over that will go to some VERY necessary things, such as a modernized point-of-sale system, an inventory system & doing the inventory itself, promotional items new books that need purchasing, advertising (sorely needed!), and money to bring in authors and other events.

So please keep the word going on the campaign and encourage people to donate as much as possible, as I'll need to exceed the minimum goal to really have a chance at succeeding at the bookstore relaunch.

A little over $1,000 the first day. Wow, guys. You all amaze me!

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/star-cat-books-acquisition-fundraiser/x/5223287?c=activity

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Note to self: read the reviews, then decide...

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 17:15:45 GMT

... whether it deserves signal boosting.

IE, is it REALLY good old Star Trek (yay!)? Or the reboot (boo!).

Note of something: my fingers typed 'Or the robot'.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125377036/star-trek-continues-webseries

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Columbus in context

Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:12:52 GMT

Remember GKC's young man who was disinherited for Socialism because of a lecture he gave against that economic system?

Here's the full text of a letter where Columbus complains that others are doing scandalous things with slaves. It gets quoted as if he were doing those things himself.

http://ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php?type=explorersection&id=65

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