2016 — 24 August: Wednesday

It's amazing what you can forget in all the onrush of incoming flurries of Internet goodies1 these days. I was delighted to receive an email...

1998 film logo

... pointing me to some reminders of ancient (in web years) technology predictions. (Click the pic, unless, of course, your mouse pointer is pointing the wrong way!) I seem to recall Arthur C Clarke having something to say about eminent people making profound predictions.

One good turn...

I have precisely one book by Witold Rybczyski — "One good turn" (the natural history of the screw and its driver). Reading this extract from his new book ("Now I sit me down") has been making me wriggle in my chair. Source and snippet:

The British psychologist Paul Branton described the seated body as "not merely an inert bag of bones, dumped for a time in a seat, but a live organism in a dynamic state of continuous activity." We don't sit still — we fidget, we shift our weight, even if ever so slightly, crossing our legs and arms, moving our cramped muscles. We interact with our chairs: we sit on them, lean back and lean forward, and often perch on the edge of our seats. We wrap our leg around our chair's leg; we sling one arm across its back, or a leg across its arm.

Witold Rybczyski in Paris Review


Horribly true.

At the back of Christa's chemical Lab...

... of household cleansing products (neglected by me, not her) is a dusty cardboard carton (from Boots) of "Domestic Borax". It's quite old: the quantity of fine white powder originally contained therein, in a plastic bag, is labelled "908 gram 2 lb". Since there's no hint of the chemical composition — and I'm woefully ignorant — I thought before I use it perhaps I should just check with Mr Wikipedia about it. Turns out to be quite fascinating stuff, and with a venerable human history going back about ten centuries. I particularly liked this snippet from the American Cyclopaedia of 1879:

It is found native in some Alpine lakes, in the snowy mountains of 
India, China, and Persia, in Ceylon, and especially in the lake of 
Teshu-Lumbu in Great Thibet. This lake is distant 15 days' journey 
from a town of the same name, and it formerly furnished large 
quantities of borax.

Although its uses include "cleaning the brain cavity of a skull for mounting" I must admit my own purpose is a bit more mundane than that. I'm just trying a series of measures to regain the missing sparkle of my second glass mug.

This two-day heatwave...

... is leaving me perfectly content to hide from the sun and enjoy my books and music. Current music? The superb soundtrack compilation to some TV stuff called "Peaky Blinders". And main reading? Last Friday's SF novel "Touch", having already enjoyed the graphic novel "For the love of God, Marie!"

Pondering...

... David Runciman's review of "Homo Deus" reminds me that the now-late Antony Jay got there in 1972 with his "Corporation Man":

Harari thinks the modern belief that individuals are in charge of their fate was never much more than a leap of faith. Real power always resided with networks. Individual human beings are relatively powerless creatures, no match for lions or bears. It's what they can do as groups that has enabled them to take over the planet. These groupings — corporations, religions, states — are now part of a vast network of interconnected information flows. Finding points of resistance, where smaller units can stand up to the waves of information washing around the globe, is becoming harder all the time.

David Runciman in Grauniad


Fate? Don't make me laugh!

I remarked just yesterday in my latest email to a recently-widowed friend:

The landscape you now traverse is actually unchanged. By which I mean it's 
still just as bleak or just as cheerful as you choose to make it, or regard 
it, I guess. As it is for us all. 

I admit it took a (long) while for me to realise and understand this. I had 
changed; not the rest of the world! There's a telling line from "Bones" (one 
of my secret TV pleasures): "We all of us have our own sad stories, Dr Brennan."

So much for Borax

Now let's try hot black coffee! [Pause] If I didn't know better, I'd say it was trying to rain. The living room temperature has plummeted to a mere 27.2C and it's approaching time for some evening food, I guess.


Footnote

1  Or do I mean goodness?