Survival Arts

Quote of the Day

We are born, so to speak, provisionally, it doesn't matter where; it is only gradually that we compose, within ourselves, our true place of origin, so that we may be born there retrospectively.

Rilke, as quoted by Coetzee, as quoted by Donald Ritchie, as collected in "The Japan Journals", as editted by Leza Lowitz
p441

"Engines of Creation" online has a new home

K. Eric Drexler informs me that his book "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology" has a new home on his website (migrated from its previous hosting at the Foresight Institute).

Check out the attribution on the entry page... I did the work 10 years ago, but I deeply appreciate the continuing credit.

Quote of the Day

William Faulkner, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, called upon writers of the future to not write merely "for the glands." Of course, at that moment, Faulkner was being rewarded for being the best writer for the glands this country has ever known. Incest, serial killing, insanity, race war, castration, burial of the dead, biblical flood, hunting bear, rape with a corn cob - Faulkner did it all. The guy played our genome like a xylophone. Faulkner, in a suddenly noble moment, called upon writers... to transcend the endocrinological. He didn't set the best example.

Joe Quirk
Sperm Are from Men, Eggs Are from Women, p118

Another interesting cover from my pulp collection: 1984

Here's another from my collection, a 1960 Signet Books edition of the 1949 classic of George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four:

Testing my OCR (OmniPage SE) on this back cover text:

"Which One
will YOU be in the Year
1984

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY"

Oh, yes, another War Department language guide, this one Japanese-English

Yesterday, I scanned the cover of a pocket WWII English-Chinese dictionary published by the U.S. War Department in 1943, at the height of the war. Today, I've scanned the cover of another from my collection, published shortly after V-J Day, in September 1945: TM 30-481, "The Supplementary Japanese-English Dictionary", this one a very large hardcover which I just barely fit on my scanner's flatbed:

This dictionary of 43,000 terms is supplementary to the following six standard Japanese-English dictionaries with which it forms a complete set of seven:

• a technical manual of about 100,000 terms which was in "final editorial stage" at the time;
  
• another technical manual of about 4,000 terms which was claimed in a similar state;
  
• Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Harvard Univ. Press;
  
• Kato's Medical dictionary, 1944, German language edition (!);
  
• "Ozaki's Sea Terms";
  
• "Creswell's Military [Dictionary];
  

I'd love to see a copy of the 100,000 word technical manual... anyone know if this was ever actually published?

More old school: "New Worlds of Modern Science"

In preparing yesterday's "Little Red Book" post, I discovered that my US $99 Canon all-in-one scanner/printer/copier is an excellent proxy for a macro lens on an expensive camera (I have an Olympus E-1 but don't yet have that lens.) Here's another old school example from the many I have in my personal book collection, this one from 1956, "New Worlds of Modern Science":

A "Little Red Book" of another kind

A few hours ago, I went on a somewhat controlled shopping binge at one of my favorite used book shops, one in Sunnyvale, California. I found this little gem, TM-633, "Chinese Phrase Book" published by the U.S. War Department in 1943:

"I want to send you money" for Accelerando...

...the digital (PDF) version I'm reading now, but Charlie Stross tells his readers not to do so. I will, however, be buying several copies from Amazon as gifts to friends. Damn it's good!

"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything"

I recently did some driving through Nevada and California, working remotely from a number of hotels. I loaded up my iPod (which I connect to a Pioneer black box installed behind the dash, itself interfaced with the sound system's head unit) with music, podcasts, and audio books (almost all of it purchased on iTunes,) including an unabridged copy of:

"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 6 hours of sometimes humorous, often surprising and counterintuitive anecdote. I highly recommend it: I do enjoy economic storytelling, from Braudel to Postrel to Friedman Jr. and now these guys.

Anyone else encountered this book or its audio equivalent?

I will add the qualification here that the work does gloss over the correlation between concealed carry laws and violent crime, primarily since the authors took John R. Lott as the authority on the matter... which is a double shame, since there's much there to explore, and since Lott seems to have screwed the pooch with respect to the issue of academic integrity.

Curt Howland has pointed me to a relevant blog entry hosted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Bill of Rights Press

A new online bookseller recommended by a member of my extropians mailing list: "Bill of Rights Press," for those hard-to-find titles that Laissez-Faire Books won't carry.

Wangfujing Bookstore in Beijing

In the heart of Beijing is the huge, well-stocked Wangfujing Bookstore. If you need maps, there are thousands of them available on the first (ground) floor, just inside the main doors. English-language books can be found on the 3rd floor. Here's a pic I snapped with my Treo 650 cameraphone:

"The Costs of Training with the Best"

Speaking of good martial arts training, which I just mentioned I undertook last weekend with Don Angier (and the weekend before with great teachers from my own art), I just stumbled across this Jan 2005 article by Peter Boylan, "The Costs of Training with the Best" author of "Angry White Pyjamas: A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons From The Tokyo Riot Police" (which I've read and recommend).

Boylan has some good points to make, and some sad observations to share.

"The Anglosphere Challenge" by Jim Bennett

This just in from my distant friend James Bennett: his announcement today of the website supporting his new book "The Anglosphere Challenge." This seems like a very enticing book, and I plan to read it during winter school break.

Quote of the Day (via Perry)

The enemy was repelled. But victory was not won. The war dragged on for a year and there was no decision. Gold grew scarce, and again the Government was in despair.

"I easily relieved them. 'Write,' I said, 'promises on paper to be repaid in gold.' They did as I advised, paying me (at my request) a trifle of half a million for the advice. I handled the affair on a merely nominal profit. I punctually met for another year every note that was paid in. But too many were presented, for the war seemed unending and entered a third year."

"Then did I conceive yet another stupendous thing. 'Bid them,' said I to the Sultan, 'take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not 'I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold,' but, 'this is a piece of gold.'"

"He did as I told him. The next day the Vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written 'This is a camel.'"

"'Cut off his head!' said I."

"It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded."

Hilaire Belloc
The Mercy of Allah, 1922

The mundane things we don't appreciate

A few days ago, I finished reading Henry Petroski's "The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are," a breezy exposition on the origins of things most people take for granted, usually considered not worth wondering about. In a similar vein, and coincidentally well-timed, Curt Howland forwarded me yesterday a pointer to an essay lauding one artifact in particular, "In Praise of the Oh-So-Dependable Cardboard Box," by Russell Roberts.

I'm reminded of an essay I read in the summer of 1990, a copy of which was given me by its author, Phil Salin, at a house party in Palo Alto, before leaving for my 1st work assignment in Europe. The essay, "The Ecology of Decisions, or 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Kitchens,'" opened my eyes to what Petroski often refers to as the "artifactual intelligence" encoded in the seemingly mundane, the things we don't consider.

Phil's work, by the way, is maintained on the web by friends who deeply care about him: he succumbed to stomach cancer sometime around 1993, and is presently in cryostasis at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. I didn't have the chance to personally thank Phil for his strong influence on my thinking, but I hope to have that chance someday.

Prakash Chandrashekhar reviews "The Probability Broach"

Prakash Chandrashekhar, a libertarian blogger in India, recommends L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach" on AnarCapLib.

A quick comment on "I, Robot"

I'd mentioned yesterday I'd be seeing this film, and I did. I also mentioned in a short comment followup that I'd seen a few old friends leaving the cinema, who confirmed my suspicions that the film was very loosely based on Asimov's work of the same name, so I went into the cinema not expecting a film realization of the original story.

There were tips of the hat all over the film to Asimov's original work, mostly in the naming of characters (Sonny, Dr. Susan Calvin) and in partial buzzword compliance (e.g. "positronic"), but as the credits honestly acknowledged, it's "based on a work of" Isaac Asimov. With that in mind, I determined to enjoy the film on its own merits, and was not disappointed. I was particularly impressed with Alan Tudyk's portrayal of Sonny (as an aside, I hope whatever name recognition this earns him - as a greenscreen actor - helps in the success of the forthcoming Firefly movie "Serenity".)

It's interesting to see that the movie treated Asimov's 3 Laws as sacrosanct, considering that Asimov himself later saw flaws in that approach to robot safety, working in a hack he called the "Zeroth Law." See this interesting commentary for a summary of the Laws... which might have prevented the disaster dramatized in the movie (that's the closest I'll come to a spoiler), or might not, given the rationalizations employed by the villain, which were the same as almost every tinpot dictator of the 20th century or before.

Here's a related amusement: the Singularity Institute apparently saw fit to ride the wave of the movie's popularity by launching a website called "3 Laws Unsafe".

While we're being twisted here

Ted Maitlin on "The Truth About Ayn Rand and Gay Porn Stars."

Name Reactions, by Jie Jack Li

A big thanks to James and Steph for their gift of the Springer title Name Reactions by Jie Jack Li, a compact atlas of 331 reactions in organic chemistry, from "Abnormal Claisen rearrangement" to "Zenin benzine rearrangement." This should be truly useful from the fall term onwards; thanks guys!

"A World Without Jews" by Karl Marx

A few days ago, I found a copy of the 1959 translation (published by Philosophical Library) of Karl Marx's "A World Without Jews," which should be a profoundly embarrassing tract to modern leftists. Contained within are little "gems" such as this "The law of the Jew, lacking all solid foundation, is only a religious caricature of morality and of law in general, but it provides the formal rites in which the world of property clothes its transactions."

ANARQUÍA: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War

Anders Monsen informs us of the publication by Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings of "ANARQUÍA: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War," which sounds like a great deal of fun in the vein of L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach." I'm a fan of Linaweaver's work, such as his excellent "Moon of Ice," which comes to market far too rarely.

"Letters of Ayn Rand"

A few days ago I picked up a pristine copy of the book "Letters of Ayn Rand" which is a fascinating comilation of Rand's personal and business correspondance over a span of decades. The book seems to be selling everywhere at remainder prices, about US $6.

Quote of the Day

When the war finally came to an end, I was at a loss as to what to do... I took stock of my qualifications. A not-very-good degree, redeemed somewhat by my achievements at the Admiralty. A knowledge of certain restricted parts of magnetism and hydrodynamics, neither of them subjects for which I felt the least bit of enthusiasm. No published papers at all... Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things... Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice...

Francis Crick
What Mad Pursuit, Basic Books, New York, 1988, pp 15-16.

Where is John Galt Boulevard?

Huh... Peggy just got physical mail advertising the products of:

Omaha Steaks, Inc.
10909 John Galt Blvd.
Omaha, Nebraska

Barbara Branden, author of "The Passion of Ayn Rand"

I had the pleasure of first meeting Barbara Branden very briefly at the November 1987 Future of Freedom Conference (FoFCon) in Culver City, California, but didn't engage her in conversation, since she was on her way to a talk at that convention centered around "The Passion of Ayn Rand," her biography of novelist Ayn Rand, with whom she had been associated professionally and personally for a number of decades. Her book had been published the year before, and I'd bought my own copy as soon as it hit the bookstores (this was the pre-Amazon era).

At the end of March this year, a few weeks ago, I finally got the chance to chat with Barbara in a comfortable venue where she was wasn't being shuttled around to talks, in the course of other business: her apartment in southern California. What a lovely, intelligent, funny and benevolent lady she is! I must once again thank my friend Glenn Cripe, who had business to conduct with her that afternoon, for allowing me to tag along with his crew, and of course to Barbara for her warm hospitality... and for autographing that book I bought 18 years ago.

Quote of the Day

I imagine respirocytes as minuscule objects consisting of roughly 18 billion atoms arranged in small balls about a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. Each respirocyte is a tiny pressurized gas tank equipped with small pumps. Respirocytes are nanobots that move with the blood. In the body's periphery, they release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. In the lungs, they do the opposite, recharging themselves with oxygen. The exchange of gases is regulated by minute sensors. Though the respirocytes are modeled on red blood corpuscles, they transport oxygen two hundred times more efficiently than the natural item. A small syringe-full of respirocytes could carry as much oxygen as your entire bloodstream.

Robert A. Freitas Jr
28 July 2000

Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan

Michael Reed strongly recommends to me in email Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan as "an absolutely knock-out sci-fi novel", so I've put it in my queue. I've not read it yet, so I'd welcome opinions.

I don't generally read science fiction nowadays, having gotten increasingly picky as time goes by (and science fact often holds more fascination for me the better educated I become). I did however take a weekend recently to relax with Ken Macleod's Dark Light and Engine City, which were a mixture of disappointment and amusement for me. I've read all his work so far, and will continue to do so, but the man seems to be afflicted recently with the problem Heinlein had during the late period of his life when he was stricken with a cerebral arterial blockage: at some point near the end of each story, he seems to simply get tired, and tries to wrap up the story abruptly.

My bedside reading the last couple of days: Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded, a fantastic book I very highly recommend.

A couple of excellent chemistry textbooks

On Friday during his office hours, my chem prof was deeply surprised to find that I didn't yet own a copy of Zumdahl's "Chemistry", which is not our school's official text... so he gave me one of his, a new copy, the Instructor's Annotated Edition (5th)! He had an extra, so it became mine... a good, good man, and deeply flattering.

A couple of people in a chemistry forum I frequent had recommended Linus Pauling's "General Chemistry". I saw a copy in my local Border's - the 1989 Dover reprint of the 3rd edition (the last, 1971) - and flipped through it. I was impressed, so I took note of its ISBN. The shelf price was $20, but I found a pristine copy on Amazon Marketplace for half that price and ordered it. Can't wait to get it.

A caveat, by the way - and this is no hit on the book, given its age - if you're going to study coordination compounds of metals, you'll need to supplement your reading with Zumdahl, or another modern source. Although Pauling mentions the work of Alfred Werner in a sidebar of a couple of pages on the matter, he (quite understandably) doesn't mention crystal field theory & d-shell splitting (of course he wouldn't). Very highly recommended.

Quote of the Day

Competitive systems can operate to check each other's excesses. Consider the codes governing the relations between U.S. corporations and their shareholders. The fifty states compete to offer standard corporation codes; companies can either use these default terms or tailor specific provisions in their corporate charters. (A company does not have to be physically headquartered in a state to claim it as the corporation's legal domicile.) Agreeable state rules, backed by well-established case law, can significantly cut the cost of doing business. The competition among states for incorporations and the taxes they bring makes legislatures responsive to new ideas and changing business conditions.

Equally important, company managers can't get away with adopting just any code that makes their lives easy. These rules govern a two-way agreement—between the business (essentially, its managers) and the shareholders. Opportunistic managers who try to use state laws to help themselves at the stockholders' expense are checked by another source of competition: the financial markets. So, for instance, when Pennsylvania passed a law designed to make hostile takeovers difficult, protecting managers but making stock less valuable, pressures from falling stock prices pushed most of the state's publicly traded companies to opt out of the law's provisions. Few other states adopted the same law, lest they lose incorporations.

The legal scholar Roberta Romano, who calls this federalist system of competing rules "the genius of American corporate law," writes: "As the Pennsylvania experience illustrates, the federal system provides a safety net against the consequences of harmful state laws. Some jurisdictions will have no or only mild takeover regulation, and this constrains how much other jurisdictions can act in this area and how much firms can take advantage of value-decreasing laws, especially when major commercial states such as Delaware and California have less onerous laws." Having many sources of competing rules, rather than a single, national standard, makes finding good rules—and eliminating or limiting bad ones—more likely.

Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, p145 (from Chapter 5, "The Bonds of Life")

Quote of the Day

I do not know what you mean when you say you do not agree with me on the VN war. Are you referring to opinions expressed by Oscar of GLORY ROAD? If so, be assured that my fictional characters speak for themselves, not for me--and, in any case, that book was written six years ago. My private opinion of the situation in 1968 I have never expressed publicly.

Robert A. Heinlein in a personal communication (letter)

Quote of the Day

The textures of life that so fascinate dynamists are full of such historical surprises. Consider a strange fact about doughnut shops in California: More than 80 percent are owned by Cambodian immigrants. Doughnuts are not a Cambodian food; indeed, Cambodians don't even like them that much. But when Ted Ngoy fled to southern California in the 1970s and got a job in a doughnut store, he realized the possibilities. Here was a niche that matched his skills (or lack thereof) and had potential to grow. The business required hard work but little start-up capital and little English. Ngoy soon owned several doughnut shops. He hired and trained many other refugees, who then started their own stores, hiring and training still more immigrants. Over time, the community developed special expertise and suppliers, making it much easier for a Cambodian immigrant to California to get started in the doughnut business than in other ventures. By 1995, Cambodians ran almost 2,500 of the doughnut stores in California. They also expanded the market, giving Los Angeles one doughnut shop for every 7,000 residents—ten times the concentration in Phoenix.

The doughnut story is surprising, but not a random accident. It represents a complex order of selection and feedback: A perceptive entrepreneur discovers an opportunity. His knowledge spreads through communal networks, which develop specialized product, labor, and capital sources. More and more Cambodians learn how to make doughnuts, and how to make them well. Competition among shops improves doughnut quality, and the mere presence of so many stores reminds potential buyers of their product, leading to more sales. This legacy, an example of what economists call "path dependence," does not keep non-Cambodians from owning doughnut stores or block Cambodian immigrants from other businesses. It was not predetermined, nor does it guarantee any particular future. But it makes some choices more likely than others.

Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, pp49-50

Quote of the Day

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.

Daniel Dennett
Consciousness Explained

Quote of the Day (thanks Steve)

Big-game hunting could indeed be dangerous, but generally for the professional, not the client. It was the white hunter who went into the long grass and finished the job. Losing a client was unheard of, even injuries were rare. It was the code of the Alpine guide: if only one man comes down the mountain, it must be the client. The best client did not just pay his bills, however. He was the one who hunted cleanly, understood the ethic, respected the Africans, was courageous but not foolish, and slept with the right woman.

Bartle Bull
Safari, 1988

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged: next printings in Russian

My friend Glenn Cripe today informed me that he and his Russian business partner Dmitri Kostygin have good news to share: "The next printing of Atlas and Fountainhead in Russian is due out next week!" In his mail he also send copies of the cover proofs for the 3 volumes of Atlas; here's a copy of the cover for volume 1:

Glenn notes:

We are also looking for sponsors. For $500, you get your name in all future editions of the books, a few free copies for your own use, a tax deduction, our undying gratitude, plus the chance to participate in changing the course of history! Inquiries should be sent to randinrussia@yahoo.com

It's worth noting that copies of Rand's works have found themselves into some interesting places in Russian society, such as the lending library of Vladimir Putin's chief economic adviser, a strong advocate of Rand's economic philosophy.

Quote of the Day

J. Neil Schulman's two nonfiction books on Second Amendment matters cover the territory [a reader] describe(s) pretty well. For what it's worth, you're wrong, too, about the 18th century meaning of "regulated". Back then, it meant "adequately provided for" and even later, regulation meant "facilitation", not "interference" as it does today.

He makes an even more important point by consulting two well-thought-of grammarians. The phrase containing the words "regulated" and "militia" do not condition the rest of the article in any way. In fact, as you'll read, it actually works the other way. This may be the best argument ever, as people like Madison (who wrote the amendment) and Jefferson (for whom, essentially, it was written) were very careful with their words.

There were two types of militia back then: a government-sponsored "organized" militia into which men were often conscripted - the 15,000 troops that marched on Pittsburgh in 1794 were of this sort - and volunteer "unorganized" militia. Unfortunately, the general incompetence of the former has rubbed off historically to some extent on the latter, which actually had an excellent record. The best source on this is Jeffrey Rogers Hummell.

L. Neil Smith

Quote of the Day

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Robert A. Heinlein
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Cato Institute conferences in Moscow and St. Petersburg

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of a long lunch with Glenn Cripe and Dr. Chris Tame, at Harris Ranch in central California. Chris is an old and trusted friend from London, head of the U.K. Libertarian Alliance, who was in California on business. Glenn is a recently made friend of Chris, and now a new friend of mine. Glenn and Dmitry Kostygin were responsible for getting Ayn Rand's 4 novels (and one other book) translated, ironically, back into her native Russian, and published and distributed there.

Glenn has sent me a pointer to what he says is (and I agree) "an incredible event" in Russia: "A Liberal Agenda For the New Century: A Global Perspective". Note, if don't already know, that the word "Liberal" has a different meaning outside the U.S.: free markets and limited government. Speakers include Vladamir Putin and Andrei Illarionov, the latter of whom I have on good authority is a Randian free marketeer who's had some influence on Putin. Russia may still be a basket case, but it's in some ways an improving basketcase, as evidenced for example by the recent elimination of a progressive income tax in favor of a sweeping lower flat tax.

As an aside, I find it amusing to see that Dmitri's Ayn Rand website is supported by advertising from a Russian mail order bride service.

Friday at the range with Alan and Genghis

I've been slightly busier than usual the past few days. I did manage to meet up with friends Mark Quon ("Genghis Khan") and Alan Weiss on Friday before Alan's departure for Austin, for lunch and for some indoor shooting at the excellent Reed's Indoor Range in Santa Clara, California. Here's Alan with his EAA Witness in .45 ACP with Wonderfinish coating (he favors the isosceles stance):

Mark Quon aka "Genghis Khan" shooting his Kimber in .45 ACP (Mark favors a variant of the Weaver stance):

Movie adaptation of "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" in the works

Thanks to Anarchist on the smith2004-discuss list for passing on SciFi.com's report today that Tim Minear is working on a screen adaptation of Heinlein's libertarian classic novel:

Genre TV producer Tim Minear (Angel, Wonderfalls) told SCI FI Wire that he has been hired to write a screenplay adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's 1966 SF novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The novel deals with a 2076 rebellion on a former penal colony on the moon and has been read as an allegory about libertarianism and its costs.

Quote of the Day

Being elected President and taking my cues from Alexander Hope. L. Neil Smith would be my Secretary of State ("go fuck yourselves, fellas -- TANSTAAFL!"). Russell Whitaker would be my John Pondero ("don't even THINK of reaching for it, sucker.") Genghis Khan [Mark Quon] would be my Secretary of Defense. Tom Knapp would be in charge of destroying every other Cabinet level department. ALL of you would be free to take whatever jobs you wanted, with the goal of putting yourselves OUT of a job in 60 days or less.

Alan Weiss

John Ross has a website!

Speaking of content on the AnCap Wiki, Terry Egan just posted a pointer to John Ross, author of "Unintended Consequences," pointing out that Ross does have a personal website.

Quote of the Day

It is a sign of intelligence to make generalizations. Frequently, after observing a property to hold in a large number of cases, you may guess that it holds in all cases. You may, however, run into difficulty when you try to prove your guess. Perhaps you just have not figured out the key to the proof. But perhaps your guess is false. Consequently, when you are having serious difficulty proving a general statement, you should interrupt your efforts to look for a counterexample. Analyzing the kinds of problems you are encountering in your proof efforts may help the search. It may even happen that if you find a counterexample and therefore prove the statement false, your understanding may be sufficiently clarified that you can formulate a more limited but true version of the statement.

Susanna S. Epp
Discrete Mathematics with Applications, 2nd edition, p123

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary

[This is a book recommendation I originally published April 10, 2003 on my other blog. I no longer maintain that blog, so I've decided to move most of the substantial articles to this blog to consolidate the materials - Russell]

I'd meant several weeks ago to post this recommendation of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary", but am only now getting around to doing it. I can claim a good excuse for not having done so, however: for those weeks, I've been busy heavily using this dictionary in Japanese classes.

You can check out the detailed recommendations of the book on Amazon.com; I won't echo them here. I will say, however, that I wish I'd had something like this - because there is nothing else like this available from another source - when I started studying Japanese 10 years ago. This book is truly useful... and an outstanding example of the publisher's art. Everyone to whom I've shown this book, including native Japanese speakers with whom I do regular language exchange, has expressed admiration and astonishment.

I have a goal in the medium-term future: take and pass the 1-kyu level Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken (the Japan Foundation's Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Every step along the way, I plan to have this dictionary at hand. Assuming the book survives the journey, I'll keep it in my bag for a long time thereafter.

Quote of the Day

Sometimes people lump together the ideas of validity and truth. If an argument seems valid, they accept the conclusion as true. And if an argument seems fishy (really a slang expression for invalid), they think the conclusion must be false.

This is not correct. Validity is a property of argument forms: If an argument is valid, then so is every other argument that has the same form. Similarly, if an argument is invalid, then so is every other argument that has the same form. What characterizes a valid argument is that no argument whose form is valid can have all true premises and a false conclusion. For each valid argument, there are arguments of that form with all true premises and a true conclusion, at least one false premise and a true conclusion, and at least one false premise and a false conclusion. On the other hand, for each invalid argument, there are arguments of that form with every combination of truth values for the premises and conclusion, including all true premises and a false conclusion.

Susanna S. Epp
Discrete Mathematics with Applications, 2nd edition, p37

A book recommendation for Ricky Roberson

About a year ago, I recommended Victor Koman's "Kings of the High Frontier" to my readership. I just re-read this by Ricky Roberson in his memorium of Kerry Pearson:

I learned about a few other things besides Firefly from him on his [Kerry's] website, such as some insights into political anarchy as a philosophy that I don't personally agree with but still have to acknowledge more than a few grains of truth in...

Quote of the Day

Enamored of their vaunted "uniqueness," the Japanese have been as eager as anybody to promote the illusion that their language is vague and mysterious. Not all of them buy into the myth, of course. Take the linguist Okutsu Keiichiro, for example. "Japanese is often said to be vague," he notes, "partly because subjects and other nouns are often deleted, but if the speaker and listener are both aware of the verbal or nonverbal context in which the utterance takes place, all that is really happening is that they don't have to go on endlessly about matters they both understand perfectly well. Japanese is an extremely rational, economical language of the context-dependent type."

Jay Rubin
Gone Fishin': New Angles on Perennial Problems (Power Japanese), pp25-26

Quote of the Day

Now if you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason-responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to play. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith seriously as a way of getting to the truth, and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with your defense of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side. You are sightseeing with a loved one in a foreign land, and your loved one is brutally murdered in front of your eyes. At the trial it turns out that in this land friends of the accused may be called as witnesses for the defense, testifying about their faith in his innocence. You watch the parade of his moist-eyed friends, obviously sincere, proudly proclaiming their undying faith in the innocence of the man you saw commit the terrible deed. The judge listens intently and respectfully, obviously more moved by this outpouring than by all the evidence presented by the prosecution. Is this not a nightmare? Would you be willing to live in such a land? Or would you be willing to be operated on by a surgeon who tells you that whenever a little voice in him tells him to disregard his medical training, he listens to the little voice? I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways, and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign arrangement. But we're seriously trying to get at the truth here, and if you think that this common but unspoken understanding about faith is anything better than socially useful obfuscation to avoid mutual embarrassment and loss of face, you have either seen much more deeply into this issue than any philosopher ever has (for none has ever come up with a good defense of this) or you are kidding yourself.

Daniel C. Dennett
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
pp154-155

Quote of the Day

Novelist Victor Koman was dead right, when he said (in his great work, Kings of the High Frontier) that the actual mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — its not-so-hidden agenda, having nothing to do with the development of space travel and exploration — is to keep scum like you and me from ever getting into space.

At the same time (as Victor also points out), NASA mouthpieces have been telling the public since the 1960s that our being able to visit space, perhaps even vacationing on the Moon, or in zero gravity at a space station, was "only about thirty years away". That's what they said in the 60s, that's what they said in the 70s, that's what they said in the 80s, that's what they said in the 90s, and that's what they're still saying today. It's always just about thirty years away.

L. Neil Smith

Quote of the Day

Inside every alienated hacker who thinks he stands for the "good things that don't ultimately matter to most businesses" there is a tycoon struggling to get out. It's not the system that he hates. His gripe is with the price the system initially offers him to collaborate.

Michael Lewis
Next, p136

China launches its first man in space... in secrecy, of course

Almost 10 months ago to the day, I wrote a short blurb on this blog about Shenzhou V, which was supposed to have carried 2 taikonauts. That launch happened today, in the same type of communist secrecy which surrounded Yuri Gagarin's launch so long ago, and featured only one taikonaut, Yang Liwei. CNN reports:

Quoted by Chinese media just before he blasted off into space, Yang said he would "gain honor for the People's Liberation Army and for the Chinese nation."

All hail the "motherland": another ersatz superpower dedicated to making space its military summit. Yet another incident which compels me to recommend Victor Koman's Kings of the High Frontier.

Quote of the Day

As for Christianity's alleged concern with truth, Christian faith is to free inquiry what the Mafia is to free enterprise. Christianity may be represented as a competitor in the realm of ideas to be considered on the basis of its merits, but this is mere disguise. Like the Mafia, if Christianity fails to defeat its competition by legitimate means (which is a forgone conclusion), it resorts to strong-arm tactics. Have faith or be damned -- this biblical doctrine alone is enough to exclude Christianity from the domain of reason.

George H. Smith
Atheism: The Case Against God, p169

"Chemistry of Winemaking", 1973, on sulfites in wine

Yesterday, I published an article by John Sebastian on the amusing topic of homemade wines done on the cheap. John made some assertions about "sulfates" (actually "sulfites") which generated some informative response from James Rogers in refutation. As a chemistry student with a burgeoning personal library on the science and some of its applications, I happened to have a copy of the proceedings of the 12-13 April 1973 "symposium sponsored by the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 165th Meeting of the American Chemical Society" held in Dallas, Texas: "Chemistry of Winemaking", A. Dinsmoor Webb, editor (published 1974 by the ACS, Advances in Chemistry Series #137).

I've scanned in several pages of this out-of-print book, pp280-285, from the Webb article "Home Winemaking", which mention sulfite production and supplementation. I've included the section entitled "The Course of Fermentation" below simply because my OCR program flawlessly reproduced it... why waste the material by not including it? I have reproduced "Table I" manually with the published values, and placed it inline, after the first reference to it in the original text.

Those with a chemistry background will also note that this was written 30 years ago, before IUPAC nomenclature standarization.

- Russell

Excerpt follows:

Addition of Sulfur Dioxide

Certain fruits and some of the white varieties of vinifera have a tendency to brown during crushing and other early processing operations because of oxidation. This oxidation may be promoted by enzymes in the fruit, or it may be a direct reaction between phenolic material of the fruit and oxygen from air. Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is a strong enough reducing agent that it is oxidized in preference to the phenolics of the fruit juice. Sulfur dioxide may also function by denaturing the oxidizing enzymes. Therefore, to prevent browning, add 25-200 ppm SO₂ to the fruit immediately after crushing. The quantity of SO₂ is governed by the ease of browning of the particular Juice being vinified. SO₂ in addition to preventing oxidative browning in juices, inhibits growth of bacteria and wild yeasts. Thus it provides a more nearly sterile field for the action of the desirable yeast starter added by the enologist. The quantity of SO₂ to be added to the juice is varied according to the condition of the fruit-clear, cool, sound fruit fresh from the vineyard requires very little while fruit that is in poor condition and warm needs more. The amounts of SO₂ to be added to a juice can be estimated from Table I.

SO₂ is a pungent and unpleasant smelling, dense gas at normal temperature and pressure. Under moderate pressure it condenses to a liquid which can be stored in steel cylinders. The large winery usually adds SO₂ to the crushed grapes by carefully metering a small stream of the liquid from a cylinder to the inlet line of the pump that transfers the must from the crusher to the fermenting tanks; this ensures that SO₂ is uniformly mixed into the mass of crushed fruit. For the small winery and the home winegrower, however, the relatively small amounts of SO₂ required are difficult to measure and transfer as liquid, so either water saturated with SO₂ or a SO₂-liberating salt is used.

Water saturated with SO₂ gas at room temperature contains 5-6 wt % SO₂ depending on the temperature. While the SO₂-saturated water solution is still very pungent and unpleasant smelling, it does not present the handling and measurement problems of pure liquid SO₂.

The sodium and potassium salts of SO₂ are simpler and more pleasant to use as they do not have the odor of the pure liquid or the 5% water solution. They are rapidly soluble in must [Editor's Note: this is the original wording] where they react with a small portion of the natural acid present to liberate SO₂. There are two sodium salts of SO₂ available, Na₂SO₃ (neutral sodium sulfite) and NaHSO₃ (sodium acid sulfite). The latter compound introduces less sodium into the wine and removes less acid from the wine for an equivalent amount of SO₂ liberated. Potassium acid sulfite and potassium pyrosulfite (potassium metabisulfite) are the two salts of potassium with SO₂ that are readily available, soluble in grape juice, and capable of yielding SO₂ upon reaction with the acid of the juice. Potassium salt is recommended when it is desired to keep the wine low in sodium ion content for diet reasons. The salts should be edible or food product grade, that is, free of heavy metals and other toxic impurities. They must be stored in tightly closed containers or they will react with the water vapor and carbon dioxide of the air to yield sodium or potassium carbonate and SO₂-thus losing their effectiveness as sources of SO₂ when added to the grape juice.

The required dose of SO₂ should be estimated conservatively and measured precisely because excessive amounts of SO₂ destroy the aroma and taste of the wine and can delay the onset of fermentation. Also SO₂ in excess interferes with the natural development of bouquet in red table wines and diminishes the intensity of the red color. One should always use only the minimum amount of SO₂ required to inhibit bacterial growth and counter oxidation-more definitely is not better.

Yeasts and Bacteria

One of the purposes of adding SO₂ is to inactivate bacteria and wild yeast so that the fermentation may be conducted with a chosen desirable strain of yeasts. Fortunately the wild yeast and the bacteria on grape berries (frequently confused in the older literature with the wax-like bloom which is naturally present on some berries) are susceptible to inactivation by relatively low doses of SO₂. A clear field is thus available to the large inoculum of SO₂-tolerant pure culture yeast added by the enologist.

It is true that wines were made for thousands of years before it was known that yeast was responsible for the fermentation. It is also true that in certain regions of the world wines are still made without SO₂ and pure yeast starters. These latter regions are generally those in which the yeast-containing sediments and press residues from the winery are returned to the vineyards and worked into the soil. Over many years it is likely that this procedure has resulted in the natural selection and stabilization of a mixed culture of yeasts which is carried from the vineyard to the winery and back and that the particular mixture contains enough of the desirable types to produce good wines in most years. It is also true that in years of cold summers and rainy harvest seasons many of the wineries normally relying on spontaneous fermentations use SO₂ and pure-culture starters. Today nearly all standard quality wine (vin ordinaire) and probably the majority of fine wines of the world are vinified using SO₂ and pure-culture yeast starters.

The bacteria which are found on sound grapes as they come from the vineyards are few in types and normally no problem in wine production as the acid, tannin, and alcohol of the wine stop their growth. The wild yeasts cannot be trusted to produce a good fermentation, however. In comparison with selected strains of SO₂-adapted yeasts, defects of wild yeasts are the inability to multiply rapidly in the relatively concentrated sugar solution of grape juice, a sensitivity to alcohol which prevents completion of the fermentation, a tendency to form excessive amounts of odoriferous esters or other non-alcohols, and the characteristic of remaining dispersed throughout the wine rather than aggregating and falling to the bottom of the container. The advantages to the home winegrower to be derived from the use of a selected yeast are obvious.

About 3 vol % of actively fermenting pure-culture yeast starter is required. A clean juice which has had a low dose of SO₂ will start and ferment satisfactorily with a lower inoculum, but the 3% level usually results in a quicker starting fermentation. For the home winegrower the simplest way to get the gallon or so of starter required is from a nearby winery. One has no choice of yeast strain and no guarantee of purity by this method, however. Winery supply agencies can usually furnish some strains of desirable wine yeasts such as Montrachet and Champagne in lyophyllized or freeze-dried form. These can be added directly to the SO₂-treated juice and probably represent the optimum solution to the starter problem for the home winemaker. If it is desired to use a yeast strain that is not readily available in either of the above-mentioned forms, a small pure culture of the desired strain will have to be obtained from a biological laboratory supply house or research laboratory maintaining a yeast collection. The small culture next must be multiplied until enough cells are present to inoculate the grape juice in the large fermenting tank. Sterile medium is required for the multiplication. Juice from a white grape variety of low flavor, such as Thompson Seedless, heated 30 min at 15 Ibs per square inch pressure (2 atmospheres) in a pressure canner, serves very well. The small culture is transferred from the original tube to about one pint of the cooled, aerated, sterilized juice contained in a sterilized quart jar or bottle. Avoid contamination from the hands or the surroundings. The sterile jar should be covered or plugged so that air can penetrate but dust and cells of undesirable organisms cannot-a plug of sterile absorbent cotton works well. The jar should be placed in a room or cupboard at 70°-80°F, and it should be shaken gently at intervals. Within a day or two, growth and fermentation should be evident. The juice will foam and bubble, particularly when the jar is shaken. When the culture is actively fermenting, it is transferred into 1-2 gallons of sterile juice containing 100 ppm SO₂ which after a day or two will be actively fermenting and constitutes enough starter for 25-50 gallons of Treated-treated juice. Successive fermentations can be inoculated from large batches that have fermented without difficulty although there is always the possibility of some contamination of the pure culture.

Yeasts, along with the algae, lichens, and other fungi, are known as thallophytes, a term which means they are undifferentiated plants or ones which do not have separate roots, stems, and leaves. Wine yeasts, along with most brewer's, distiller's, and baker's yeasts, are classed in the genus Saccharomyces or sugar fungus. The classification of yeasts is based on microscopic observation of their shape and forms, the way they divide during growth, and the way they respond when subjected to different test solutions of sugars or other chemicals. As scientists develop newer tools, such as the electron microscope, and as they study and classify more and more types of yeasts, it is desirable to develop further and to modify the older classification systems. Most of the wine yeasts are today put into the species cerevisiae with several strains being recognized by enologists. Many of these were formerly known as strains of S. cerevisiae var. ellipsoideus. It is quite likely that further study of the many species, varieties, and strains of wine yeasts will result in further refinements of the classifications.

Conversion of Sugar to Alcohol

Winemaking is basically concerned with the fermentation of the sugar in fruit Juice solutions by yeasts. Some understanding of the chemistry involved in the conversion of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide is significant not only because it engenders an appreciation of the beauty of natural processes but because it also lets us understand and control certain factors affecting the quality of the wine.

The suspension of yeast cells will be added to the must a few hours after adding sulfur dioxide-a time long enough to permit most of the SO₂ to react with juice constituents or to volatilize. The low level of SO₂ and the aeration during the mixing in of the yeast starter permit the cells to start their action in an oxygenated environment, a condition which favors their conversion of some of the sugar to carbon dioxide and water with a high yield of energy for building many new yeast cells. The yeast population increases rapidly from the inoculation level of about one million cells per milliliter to about one hundred to two hundred million cells per milliliter, one to two days after inoculation. Then, nearly all of the oxygen will have been taken from the juice by the yeast cells, cell multiplication will slow dramatically, and conversion of sugar to carbon dioxide and ethanol becomes the main chemical reaction.

Fruit juices, depending on the type of fruit, contain one or more of the three sugars, sucrose, glucose, and fructose, in relatively high concentrations. Other sugars are present in trace to small amounts. Most yeasts have an invertase enzyme on the outer layer of their cell walls which rapidly converts the sucrose to glucose and fructose. These simpler sugars are carried rapidly through the cell wall by active transport. This is not understood fully, but it is known that glucose and fructose get into the cell interior faster than they should by simple diffusion.

Inside the yeast cell the hexoses are converted principally to ethanol, carbon dioxide, and adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) with the liberation of waste heat. The ATP is an energy source in cell metabolism; the ethanol and carbon dioxide diffuse across the cell wall to the exterior where the ethanol dissolves in the juice and the carbon dioxide bubbles to the surface. Excess heat must be removed to prevent the self-pasteurization of the wine, as most yeasts cease fermentation at 40°-45°C. Minor amounts of numerous other compounds are formed as by-products.

In addition to the carbon and nitrogen which are necessary to yeast for building enzymes, a few elements such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, manganese, and possibly traces of others, and a few vitamins are required for growth and fermentation. Normally, grape or other fruit juice will contain all substances necessary for yeast growth and fermentation. In preparing certain special flavored wines where the main component of the mixture for fermentation may be pure sucrose, it is necessary to add a yeast food-usually a mixture of ammonium acid phosphate with some autolyzed yeast-as a source of materials required for growth and fermentation.

The Course of Fermentation

The fermentation can be followed, in a rough way, by the bubbling in the fermentation tank since carbon dioxide is a product of the reaction. However, this doesn't indicate the extent or degree of completion of fermentation. Under some conditions, fermentation will stop before all the sugar is transformed, leaving the new wine subject to bacterial spoilage; therefore it is desirable to have a simple way to follow the loss of sugar. Water solutions of sugars are more dense than pure water while water solutions of alcohol are less dense than pure water. Density determinations performed daily thus provide one measure of fermentation.

Normally a stem or hydrometer is used to determine density. Hydrometers may be scaled in many different units. In the United States, grape juice and wine densities are usually measured in Brix or Balling degrees which are density units reflecting the weight per cent of sucrose in sucrose-water solutions.

As densities vary with temperature, and as hydrometers are calibrated to be accurate at different temperatures, the fermenting solution should be warmed or cooled to near the calibration temperature for the particular hydrometer used; for precise determinations, the actual temperature should be measured and the measured density should be corrected.

In theory the fermentation could be followed equally satisfactorily by measuring the alcohol content of the solution. In fact, however, alcohol determinations are much slower and more complicated than density determinations, so they are seldom, if ever, used. It is possible for the fermentation to stop-successive density determinations showing the same value-while there is some sugar left in the solution, although this is not normal behavior for fermentations. It is good practice to analyze for low levels of sugars in all wines when they have apparently completed their fermentations.

Quote of the Day

You cannot truly appreciate Atlas Shrugged until you have read it in the original Klingon.

Sea Wasp

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson

I've not yet read this book, but when I have some time off from my studies, I plan to. My friend Perry Metzger has given me permission to reprint this recommendation he sent a few minutes ago to a mailing list I own:

So I finally finished the book. My verdict is still not in - the book is very obviously just 1/3 of the overall story. However, I'll say that I rather enjoyed the first 1000 pages of the story that Quicksilver represents. It isn't quite at the level of my favorite Neal Stephenson books ("The Diamond Age" is at the top of my list), but it is a very interesting read.

It also has the interesting feature, which a history book would not, of giving you a much wider view of what was going on in the 17th century than you could otherwise get. Usually history is taught or read in narrow vertical slices - you learn about Louis XIV, but not that Robert Hooke was off in London discovering that all living things are made up of cells at the same time, and that all that while the Turks were attacking Vienna. The irony is, in spite of being a work of fiction, it gives you a wider and better lens on the birth of the modern age than a non-fiction book would have...

Looks like I'll be ordering my copy soon.

Voltaire's Candide & the Plucked Chicken

I should have done this years ago, but I've only just now gotten around to reading Voltaire's Candide. I finished it in a few hours. It's pretty short: the actual text of the story embedded in the Daniel Gordon translation I have is 79 pages, surrounded by commentary and historiography. I'm going back through my marked-up copy of the text and looking into some of the parts I found most interesting. Near the end of Chapter 3 is this little gem:

A man who had never been baptized, a good Anabaptist named Jacques, saw the cruel and ignominious treatment inflicted on one of his fellows, a two-legged creature without feathers and with a soul [emphasis mine].

Does anyone else find this as funny as I do? One of my longstanding interests is philosophy, so I immediately recognized the reference. Here's one short account of the dispute between Plato and Diogenes on the nature of man:

Plato once defined man as a "featherless biped". When the philosopher Diogenes heard about Plato's definition, he presented his rival with a plucked chicken. "Here," he then declared, "is Plato's man!" [Plato then added "having broad nails" to his original definition.]

Priceless.

Quote of the Day

The case against agriculture's being a natural cultural advance began to gather momentum with the surprising discovery that hunting and gathering isn't such a bad way to make a living. The !Kung San, Richard Lee found in the 196os, work just a few hours a day - hunting, digging roots, harvesting mongongo trees - and then it's Miller time. In 1972, the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (a former cultural evolutionist turned skeptic of cultural evolutionism) dubbed hunter-gatherers "the original affluent society" on grounds that "all the people's material wants are easily satisfied."

And the problem isn't just that primitive agriculture may have been a regression in terms of sheer efficiency. The more populous villages that farming ushered in would presumably foment disease; and the low-protein, high-starch content of some staple crops might be unhealthy. Studying the bones of early farmers, some archaeologists have concluded that they had shorter lives, and more rotten teeth, than hunter-gatherers.

Robert Wright
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
pp66-67

Quote of the day

The proposition here is that the human brain is, in large part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others that its owner is in the right—and thus a machine for convincing its owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.

Robert Wright
The Moral Animal, p280

Quote of the Day

"...only at Katsura [Detached Palace] does there exist that overwhelming freedom of intellect which does not subordinate any element of the structure or the garden to some rigid system. At Nikko, as in many architectural attractions of the world, the effect is gained by quantity - about in the same way that an army of two hundred thousand is larger than one of twenty thousand. At Katsura, on the contrary, each element remains a free individual, much like a member of a good society in which harmony arises from the absence of coercion so that everyone may express himself according to his individual nature. Thus the Katsura Palace is a completely isolated miracle in the civilized world."

Bruno Taut, in a speech given 1936 to the Society for International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkoukai) in Tokyo
as quoted in Japanese Culture by Paul Varley, 4th edition, 2000, pp325-326

Quote of the day

"It is said that heaven does not create one man above or below another man. This means that when men are born from heaven they are all equal. There is no innate distinction between high and low. It means that men can freely and independently use the myriad things of the world to satisfy their daily needs through the labors of their own bodies and minds, and that, as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others, may pass their days in happiness."

Fukuzawa Yukichi
Gakamon no Susume (An Encouragement of Learning), 1876
as quoted in Japanese Culture by Paul Varley, 4th edition, 2000, p243

Quote of the day

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

Sherlock Holmes, from "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"
Arthur Conan Doyle

Quote of the day

I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

Herman Melville
Moby Dick, Ch. 17, The Ramadan

Quote of the day

So long as a man remains a gregarious and sociable being, he cannot cut himself off from the gratification of the instinct of imparting what he is learning, of propagating through others the ideas and impressions seething in his own brain, without stunting and atrophying his moral nature and drying up the surest sources of his future intellectual replenishment.

James Joseph Sylvester
(1814 - 1897)

Quote of the day

As I looked at my two young sons, each with his gun, and considered how much the safety of the party depended on these little fellows, I felt grateful to you, dear husband, for having acquainted them in childhood with the use of firearms.

Elizabeth Robinson
The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss
Unabridged version

Quote of the day

In real life, however, even in our worst circumstances we have always been a relatively minor interest of the vast microbial world. Pathogenicity is not the rule. Indeed, it occurs so infrequently and involves such a relatively small number of species, considering the huge population of bacteria on the earth, that it has a freakish aspect. Disease usually results from inconclusive negotiations for symbiosys, an overstepping of the line by one side or the other, a biologic misinterpretation of borders.

Lewis Thomas
The Lives of a Cell, Germs, p76

Quote of the day

As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of "self-defense." In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
Chapter II, Black Power, p55

Quote of the day

The uniformity of earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.

Lewis Thomas
The Lives of a Cell

Quote of the day

The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H. Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.

Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough for Love