Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

Alexandar Diego Soli

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And so I learned this strange theology of Alexandar Diego Soli: It was known that the first Lord Cantor, the great Georg Cantor, with an ingenious proof array had demonstrated that the infinity of integers — what he called aleph null — is embedded within the higher infinity of real numbers. And he had proved that that infinity is embedded within the infinites of the higher alephs, a whole hierarchy of infinities, an infinity of infinities. The Simoom cantors believed that as it is with numbers, so it is with the hierarchies of the gods. Truly, as Alexandar had taught his son, Leopold, if a god existed, who or what had created him (or her)? If there is a higher god, call him god^2^, there must be a god^3^ and a god^4^, and so on. There is an aleph million and an aleph centillion, but there is no final, no highest infinity, and therefore there is no God. No, there could be no true God, and so there could be no true creation. The logic was as harsh and merciless as Alexandar of Simoom himself: If there is no true creation then there is no true reality. If nothing is real, then man is not real; man in some fundamental sense does not exist. Reality is all a dream, and worse, it is less than a dream because even a dream must have a dreamer to dream it. To assert otherwise is nonsense. And so to assert the existence of the self is therefore a sin, the worst of sins; therefore it is better to cut out one’s tongue than to speak the word “I.”

— Mallory, in Neverness, by David Zindell

Book recommendation: Cheaper By the Dozen

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This post on BoingBoing reminded me of a book I haven’t read in years, but that I loved when I was a kid, and can highly recommend: Cheaper by the Dozen.

It’s the story of the Gilbreth family — dad, mom, and their twelve redheaded children — set in the early 1900’s. Mr. Gilbreth was an “efficiency expert”, obsessed with finding the most efficient ways to do everything in life, down to timing with a stopwatch whether buttoning a shirt was faster from the top down or the bottom up. I’ve just added the book to my Amazon wishlist, and will pick it up in a while, it’s long past time to re-read it.

Today's vocabulary

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If I do manage to escape the angel, I’m not going to be able to make my living as a professional mourner, not if you people don’t have the courtesy to die. Just as well, I suppose, I’d have to learn all new dirges. I’ve tried to get the angel to watch MTV so I can learn the vocabulary of your music, but even with the gift of tongues, I’m having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must bust a cap in someone’s ass? Is “ho” always feminine, and “muthafucka” always masculine, while “bitch” can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to be all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be “stupid”? I’ll not be singing over any dead mothers until I understand.

— Levi, who is called Biff, in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore

Destinations

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I’ve implemented a new mini-feature that I’ve been bouncing around in my head for a few days.

It’s not uncommon for me to stumble across something on the ‘net that catches my eye, but that I don’t create a full entry for. Sometimes I want to come back to it with a full entry later, other times it’s just a “ooh, neat!” moment. In order to track these, there is a new sidebar section called “Destinations” — little one-line links. Sometimes I may come back to these for full posts, other times that may be all that appears. It’s worth experimenting with for a bit, at least.

Inspiration for this was derived in part from Jason Kottke‘s ‘Remaindered Links’ and Christine‘s ‘Cookie Crumbs’.

Terminators of Endearment

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This is wonderful — a few people in the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup have hit upon the idea of a cross between the Terminator sci-fi series and the writings of Jane Austin…

“Indeed,” said the man (whom Patience could not help but think of as made of clockwork, though he manifestly was something far stranger), “I speak of these things not merely because of the way that I am made, though indeed a machine should do that which it is made to do, but because I have found that I have developed, through our many conversations, a feeling of that which is proper, both within the bounds of your society and without; and being that I am, here, a gentleman, I find that I am also bound to behave as a gentleman would, and indeed, Lady Patience, I must warn you that this Mr. Connor is a man of less than sterling character.”

(via BoingBoing)

Zeno's Paradox

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Ever since I read Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, I’ve had the paradox postulated by Zeno of Elea (c. 450 B.C.) bouncing around in my head. To summarize the paradox:

Zeno’s Paradox may be rephrased as follows. Suppose I wish to cross the room. First, of course, I must cover half the distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then I must cover half the remaining distance…and so on forever. The consequence is that I can never get to the other side of the room.

What this actually does is to make all motion impossible, for before I can cover half the distance I must cover half of half the distance, and before I can do that I must cover half of half of half of the distance, and so on, so that in reality I can never move any distance at all, because doing so involves moving an infinite number of small intermediate distances first.

I knew there must be a solution, as we all do manage to move around quite handily, I just never knew what it was. Luckily enough, I managed to stumble across an explanation of the paradox and its solution today. Nifty!

(Via Jason Kottke)

So many books, so little time

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In a fortuitous bit of serendipity, I just re-discovered a website I’d found a few months ago, but forgotten to bookmark — All Consuming, which scans recently updated weblogs for Amazon book links, and uses that data to track what books are currently popular in the weblog world. Nifty stuff to explore!

Amusingly enough, there’s a feature in the top right that lists the first line of a book for you to attempt to guess the source, which reminded me of a bookstore up on Broadway on Capitol Hill that does the same with a readerboard on the sidewalk. As it turns out, that very bookstore is where All Consuming’s webmaster got the idea! Small world, I tell ya.

Incidentally, though, I’ve never run across a first line up at the bookstore that I knew. Hm. Guess I just haven’t read enough yet!

Laughter is good

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However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than perhaps you think for.

— Ishmael, in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

Parable of the Talents

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I’m not sure where or when I picked Parable of the Talents up, but I found it while digging through my book box at one point, and finally got around to reading it. Neat stuff — though apparently it’s the second book in a series (the first being Parable of the Sower), so now I’ll need to go search that book out to get more details on the first part of the story.

PotT is the story of Lauren Olamina, a woman with a mission to spread the word of Earthseed, a religion with the destiny of bringing mankind to the stars in a post-apocalyptic (though not nuclear) near-future America. America has fallen from its status of world protector into nearly third-world status, torn apart by wars with Canada and the newly-seceeded nation of Alaska, and run by a ultra-conservative religous fanatic as President.

Told as a memoir of Olamina’s life though the difficult years of the growth and destruction of her first Earthseed community as written after her death by her estranged daughter, a fascinating portrait of a woman driven to a purpose, no matter what the costs, is painted. Using excerpts from Olamina’s journals to present her side of her cause, and ruminations by her daughter to give an alternate view gives a wonderful portrait of a very intense and controversial woman at a very trying time.

Hopefully there’s more coming…and I’ll definitely need to flesh out the story with the first part sometime soon.