Posts by Stephen Judd
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You need Electric Koha attached to the files ...
Just two letters away.
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Hmm I'll see your At Swim Two Birds and raise you The Third Policeman, so I will.
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Oh, how could I forget that geek sacred text: Hofstadter's "Goedel Escher Bach -- an eternal golder braid"?
Turned me on to computer science in a big way. Definitely life changing.
And I've been a hard-nosed skeptic ever since I read Martin Gardner's "Fads and Fallacies".
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Everything illustrated by Maurice Sendak which I read as a child -- Max in the Night Kitchen, Where the Wild Things Are, the Nutshell Library -- has infected my speech patterns, and given me a lasting love of illustration and whimsy.
As an adult, Russell Hoban's books, particularly Kleinzeit and Pilgermann, have always grabbed me. Reality, death, futility, human vanity, fun, all in a neat little package.
But the one that really, practically changed my life the Larousse Gastronomique my parents had. They had all the classic cookbooks (Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, ...) and I've been a foodie ever since.
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noizyboy: I think that's exactly right. In the short term most musicians will be no worse off than they are now, and in the longer term, the more talented will benefit from the publicity of filesharing.
I would love to know how many musicians in New Zealand earn a living (or even a substantial proportion of their income) from royalties. I bet you could fit them all in one pub.
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You know what really killed the music business for musicians?
Records. And then radio.
Seriously. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, musicians had regular gigs in dancehalls, theatre, opera, and so on. If you wanted to hear a good musician, you had to pay for a ticket. And it was a viable career.
Once gramophones became cheap and accessible, and the radios even more so, most professional musicians had to hang up their instruments because they couldn't make a living any more. And from that day to this, life for real musicians hasn't changed much. Most people who can play never work at all - they are so pleased to be asked to play that they will play for free. 99% of the small minority who do play for money barely make a living from it, or more likely have a day job. And the tiniest, most unusual group are those who can live off royalties.
The difference between the plight of the 1930s dance band musician and the modern recording industry is that sheer concentrated money means the recording companies have lobbying power. Well screw them. My musical ancestors got hit by the technology train, and now it's their turn.
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"You mean they aren't? Could've fooled me!"
Well if you're going for the plague-on-both-your-houses approach, count me in.
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"if the illiberal and aggressive "variants" of Islam are Sunni and Shi'a,"
They aren't. That's kind of like saying that the illiberal and aggressive variants of Christianity are Catholicism and Protestantism. ObWikiLink
My fundamental issue is that by charging all these evils to Islam the world religion, rather than the minorities within Islam who actually deserve it, you turn every Muslim into your potential enemy. This is neither just nor smart. And paradoxically, it is just what people like Osama Ben Laden would like you to do. I think that is the insanity Che is referring to.
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Salon article on the Sierra episode and online misogyny.
"Ever since Salon automated its letters, it's been hard to ignore that the criticisms of women writers are much more brutal and vicious than those about men -- sometimes nakedly sexist, sometimes less obviously so; sometimes sexually and/or personally degrading. But I've never admitted the toll our letters can sometimes take on women writers at Salon, myself included, because admitting it would be giving misogynist losers -- and these are the posters I'm talking about -- power. Still, I've come to think that denying it gives them another kind of power, and I'm trying to sort that out by thinking about the Kathy Sierra mess in all its complexity."
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Certainly you don't need to misunderstand a difficult philosopher in order to come up with the strategy of distracting people with one thing while you do another -- that's my beef with the Strauss thing. ZOMG Strauss was a Jew! And the neocons are Jews! And they have a secret doctrine of fooling the public while they take over the world! Or not.