2015 — 5 January: Monday
The new year isn't even a week old and exciting things are already happening here.1 It's not even 09:00 yet.
Just what...
... the world needs most: a list of "influential economists" in rank (a good adjective) order produced, if you please, by the highly-scientific new method of tracking "how much attention was paid2 to their utterances in the mainstream media, the blogosphere and in social media over a 90-day period". I've not even heard of 10 of the "top" 15 and regard Alan Greenspan as ludicrously over-rated. (Dismal link.)
See why I cancelled my subscription to the "Economist" magazine (many years ago, now)?
Or, for that matter, why I did the same with the "Grauniad" after Christa died?
I gather lèse-majesté is no longer 'active' on the statute books. Probably just as well, I've been a staunch non-supporter of the monarchy for the last 50-plus years. But isn't it lovely to see the revered name "Maxwell" back in the public arena? (I seem to recall Papa M named his luxury yacht after this particular daughter.) I last read his name in chapter 10 of that fascinating book on security engineering I mentioned last month. Though funnily enough I actually mentioned him in the ¬blog on this day seven years ago.
Breakfast beckons.
To adapt...
... an old saying: build a (slightly) better polygraph, and the world's police will beat your door down. (Link.)
Well, I'm listening...
... to the world premiere of a piano concerto that promised (according to its composer, Philip Hammond) not to be "plink, plink" as he avowed he was more of a "tuney" person. I'm still waiting to hear anything more than scales, basically, though at least it will be followed by Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Still, it's amiable enough as background music while I scan this afternoon's two arrivals — the DVD from Canada, and the BD from Germany:
I had "Unsichtbaren" on NTSC LaserDisc, but clearly missed its "window of availability" on DVD as (when I checked) I could only find used copies at outrageous asking prices. This German BD was remastered in 2012 and is much more affordable. As a lad, I quite enjoyed the HG Wells original, but I was blown away by how good HF Saint's 1987 novel was:
According to the clipping that fell out of my copy — Charles Shaar Murray's review from "Q" magazine — the author cleared $2,500,000 in book-club and movie rights even before this first novel was published.
Ansible strikes again
I am, as ever, indebted to Mr Langford, this time for a link to "Taxation" magazine, and a lovely piece by Wendy Bradley examining the thorny issue of the correct taxation of the undead.
Not to mention the issue of time travellers!
Could you avoid tax altogether by coming back (or forward) multiple times to the same point so sharing your income among enough instances of yourself that none of them reached a taxable earnings level?
It never ceases...
... to amaze me what people are prepared to believe in and/or pay for. Happily (as I tend to ignore all instantiations of Ariana what's-her-face and the Huffington Post) the concept of "mindfulness"3 has largely passed me by. To hear that it's infiltrating the military rather takes the biscuit.
My long-standing set of focused enthusiasms (or, as dear Mama saw it, my "butterfly" mind) has successfully repelled the concept. And I stopped reading Zen-related material in the mid-1970s. It no doubt makes me a shallow person, but I preferred programming and writing. It may not be what we were put on the planet to do, but I'm not sure sitting quietly in a corner with a goofy grin on my face is inherently more valuable.
If IMDB can be...
... believed, screenwriter William "Princess Bride" Goldman (who worked on the script of "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" above) was paid $1,000,000 for his work on "Last Action Hero" while not even being credited for it. That's what I call script-doctoring.