The US Air Force X-37B Space Drone is A War Machine (National Interest) 29 July 2019

Boeing built at least two X-37Bs for the Air Force in the mid-2000s reportedly at a cost of around a billion dollars apiece. While it looks like a miniature version of NASA’s Space Shuttle, which retired from service in 2011, the X-37B essentially is a small, reusable and maneuverable satellite with a shorter per-mission endurance compared to single-use satellites.

by David Axe Follow @daxe on Twitter L

The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of Russian territory for the first time.

A Dutch skywatcher achieved a rare feat in late June and early July 2019. Using a 10-inch-diameter telescope fitted with a camera, Ralf Vandebergh photographed the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane in mid-mission 210 miles over Earth’s surface.

“We can recognize a bit of the nose, payload bay and tail of this mini-shuttle, with even a sign of some smaller detail,” Vandebergh told Space.com.

Vandebergh had been hunting for the robotic spacecraft for months and finally managed to track it down in May 2019, according to Space.com reporter Leonard David. But it took a few more weeks to actually photograph the roughly 29-feet-long robotic shuttle.

“When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn’t meet the predicted time and path,” Vandebergh told David. “It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers’ network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2, [2019].”

Boeing built at least two X-37Bs for the Air Force in the mid-2000s reportedly at a cost of around a billion dollars apiece. While it looks like a miniature version of NASA’s Space Shuttle, which retired from service in 2011, the X-37B essentially is a small, reusable and maneuverable satellite with a shorter per-mission endurance compared to single-use satellites.

The Air Force describes the X-37B as an “orbital test vehicle,” or OTV.

The X-37B blasted off for its first mission on a United Launch Alliance Atlas rocket in April 2010. Where many satellites can function for up to a decade in orbit, the X-37B’s longest mission as of early 2018 was its fourth, beginning in May 2015. It lasted 717 days.

The X-37B that Vandebergh photographed launched atop a SpaceX Falcon rocket in September 2017. Each X-37B mission reportedly costs around $200 million.

The current mission is the X-37B’s fifth. The X-37B Vandebergh spotted is carrying a so-called Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader built by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

According to the Air Force, the spreader will help to “test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipe technologies in the long-duration space environment.” The X-37B itself, with its longer and longer missions, is driving demand in the United States for spacecraft components that can survive for years at a time in orbit.

“The fifth OTV mission continues to advance the X-37B’s performance and flexibility as a space technology demonstrator and host platform for experimental payloads,” the Air Force stated.

As the Air Force continues to refine the X-37B’s operations, it’s possible the current mission could set a new record for the type. “It sips power and fuel like a Prius,” in the words of one government space insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In the past, the Air Force was cagey about exactly which payloads the X-37B carried into orbit—and that encouraged wide-ranging speculation by space experts. “You can put sensors in there, satellites in there,” Eric Sterner, from the George C. Marshall Institute in Virginia, said of the X-37B. “You could stick munitions in there, provided they exist.”

The Air Force denies that the X-37B has ever carried weapons. Overtly arming a spacecraft would be a violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

In pushing for a separate military branch for space operations and promising a new generation of orbital systems including missile-defenses, the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump could begin to challenge the decades-old ban on space-based weaponry.

But it would be perfectly legal, and unsurprising, for the X-37B to function as a kind of reusable spy satellite—and it could do so without necessarily jeopardizing its other, scientific missions.

Indeed, the Air Force acknowledged that testing the heat-spreader isn’t the X-37B’s only current task. The reusable spacecraft is also pioneering new orbital pathways for the type.

“The fifth OTV mission will also be launched into, and landed from, a higher inclination orbit than prior missions to further expand the X-37B’s orbital envelope,” the Air Force explained.

A spacecraft’s orbital inclination is equal to the highest north-south latitude it passes over. The X-37B previously flew between 37 and 43 degrees, according to Brian Weeden, a space expert with the Secure World Foundation in Colorado.

Extending the X-37B’s inclination expands “what it can collect information on, assuming that’s its mission,” Weeden told The Daily Beast. It’s worth noting that almost all of Russia lies north of the X-37B’s previous inclination range.

The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of Russian territory for the first time.

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Update – I wondered again about getting a model – 23 Oct 2020

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004O8PRE8/?coliid=I335VJJ7QU9JK4&colid=I8P3HDWKWZEH&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

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Archive

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

How much is your library card worth?

 Introduction:

If someone would pay me to read literature I would never have to work another day in my life.  I love reading.  Some people have bumper stickers that say, “I’d rather be golfing/hunting/knitting/fishing/etc.”  Guess what mine would say??

My old behemoth of a bookcase used to be filled with all the books I ever read from high-school on.  I’m a pretty big minimalist, but I always wanted to hold on to my books.  They were a big part of who I was, and I liked the idea of having them on display as an identity signifier in my future home (and also maybe to re-read, but that never seemed to happen).

Maybe I matured enough to realize that I didn’t need that external identity validation or maybe my minimalist instincts simply won out in the end.  Either way, I eventually donated all my books to Goodwill and took a tax write-off.  The tax write-off was pretty nice but nowhere near as large as the original face value of the purchased books.

Fast forward to today… I get my books from the local library for free (or as hand-me-downs from friends), I maintain a digital book shelf at Goodreads, and I don’t have any traumatic scarring from the hasty Goodwill book donation of yore.

The numbers:

So how much is this new lifestyle worth (borrowing from the library vs. buying books)?  It all depends on how you frame the situation, but going to the library versus buying new books is worth about $800 dollars over ten years.  I’ll get into more details below.

• 10-Year NPV: $773
• 10-Year ROI: 94%
• 10-Year Payback: 0.6 years

 

These numbers aren’t that impressive, unfortunately, but there are a few things going on here.  First off, average people don’t read a ton; therefore they don’t spend a lot of money on books in the first place.  The median adult reads 8 books a year according to a 2011 PEW study.  If an average new book costs $16, then this person is only spending $128 per year on books.

Secondly, I’m assuming that the average book buyer is going to buy from Amazon, which means free delivery and no wasted travel time to and from the bookstore.  Versus the library scenario, where someone has to physically walk or ride a bike to both pickup and drop off their borrowed books.

Each situation is unique, but my personal library time costs are a lot lower because I borrow and download ebooks directly from my home computer. Removing the time/labor costs of library trips essentially doubles the value of borrowing books versus buying them, meaning that my free library card is actually worth about $160 every year, or $1,600 after 10 years.

But, working against the library ROI is the fact that I actually bought my books used in the past, at prices well below the suggested retail value.  Assuming no library trips are needed, the library still wins out versus buying used books; however, if library trips are required, the scenario is much more of a toss-up.

And then there is even another variable that I didn’t want to model… driving costs.  If someone is driving to the library versus walking, biking, and/or not even having to go at all, the value proposition becomes even more difficult.

As usual, it all depends on the details of the situation, but on the whole it appears that borrowing from the library is usually a smarter decision.  Seventy bucks a year isn’t something to retire on, but it is definitely a marginal improvement.  Think about it this way; multiplied by three people, this is about 1.2% of a $25,000 family budget.  And of course, the savings are higher for people that read more than 8 books a year.

Assumptions:

1. Buy 8 new books a year (PEW)
2. New books cost average of $16 (School Library Journal)
3. Library trips don’t involve cars and take 30 minutes each way
4. Your time is worth $10.00 per hour
5. $2.00 in late fees every year from library (building in some wiggle room for when your running behind on finishing Infinite Jest)

More thoughts on reading:

Reading might not make us better, more ethical human beings, but there is some evidence that it improves social skills, empathy, and emotional intelligence.  If I had to guess, I would say it probably also helps with language skills and keeps the brain a little sharper.  Some people even argue that readers are the best people to fall in love with.  But I’m not in this for the icing, like Jay-Z, I’m after the cake (cake, cake, cake, cake) (aka the reading experience itself).

There isn’t anything like getting lost in a great novel (or literary non-fiction book).  For me, the main pleasures of reading come from well-developed characters and new ways of seeing the world.  I don’t have a source, but I came across an article that said people’s brains react to reading fiction in much the same way they do to socializing with actual people.  It is well-known that socializing with friends and family is one of the most important determinants of happiness, and based on how pleasurable reading can be, the findings aren’t all that surprising.

To top it off, in the context of how long a book might take to read, the value per dollar of reading for pleasure is hard to beat elsewhere.  You might not be producing or earning money, but you definitely aren’t throwing it away either.

So with that being said, here are, in my humble opinion, some books that will really stretch your dollar per unit of reading pleasure:

• Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Schteyngart
• Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
• Underworld by Don DeLillo
• Bangkok 8 (series) by John Burdett
• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
• Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
• The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

You can find most of these books at your library I would guess.  I have a longer list here too.  And if you want to be really systematic about it, I have an old awards-based ranking here (and below), although the sizing leaves much to be desired.

I also really like the n+1 and Paris Review literary magazines if you’re into that kind of thing (I’m really enjoying the work Kristin Dombek is putting out at both of these magazines lately, particularly her essay, “How to Quit” in n+1, although “Letter from Williamsburg” is great too.)  And finally, from a more conservative side of the spectrum, I thought this Marilynne Robinson meditation on beauty was really solid.

What about you?  Do you have a penchant for reading fiction or non-fiction, or for certain books or authors?  I’m always looking for new recommendations and more generally just curious to hear more about what you’re enjoying these days.  Let me know what’s good and thanks for stopping by!

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*UPDATE: I forgot to mention how much I like the New Yorker Fiction Podcast.  Check it out here.

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How Much Is Your Library Card Worth?

The surprising benefits of journaling for 15 minutes a day—and 7 prompts to get you started – 25 July 2019

If you’re like most people, you’ll only write down what you absolutely need to, like to-do lists, meeting notes and reminders. But writing in your journal as a way to release and express your thoughts, feelings and emotions can be a life-changing habit.

Daily writing can be a challenge if you’re new to it. Much like meditating, it requires patience and commitment. But if you stick to it, it can improve your life in significant ways.

The surprising benefits of journaling

1. It can help you clarify your thoughts and feelings

Keeping a journal allows you to track patterns, trends and improvements over time. When current circumstances appear insurmountable, you can look back on previous dilemmas that you have since resolved and learn from them.

You might also encounter moments where you feel confused and uncertain about your feelings. By writing them down, you’re able to tap into your internal world and better make sense of things.

Anne Nelson, an acclaimed journalist and author of the forthcoming book, “Shadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” says she’s often asked whether she suffers when writing on fraught subjects. Her answer is always no.

“What I feel is a deep satisfaction when I get it right,” she said. “It’s the feeling when I’ve explained something in writing that I couldn’t explain to myself before I started.”

2. It can help your injuries heal faster

It may sound a little crazy, but a 2013 study found that 76% of adults who spend 50 to 20 minutes writing about their thoughts and feelings for three consecutive days two weeks before a medically necessary biopsy were fully healed 11 days after. Meanwhile, 58% of the control group had not fully recovered.

“We think writing about distressing events helped participants make sense of the events and reduce distress, thus helping the body to heal faster,” Elizabeth Broadbent, professor of medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and co-author of the study, said in an interview with Scientific American.

3. It can improve your problem-solving skills

When you encounter a difficult problem, removing the situation from your mind and putting it down on paper encourages you to look at things from different angles and brainstorm several solutions in a more organized manner.

A classic 1985 study from the School Science and Mathematics Association, for example, found that students who wrote about their math problems in a journal (e.g., describing the problem and writing about how they came up with the answer) had significantly improved test scores over time.

4. It can help you recover from traumatic experiences

There are no rules as to how or what you must write about. Creative writing, such as fiction or poetry, can also be a form of journaling — and it can help you move past traumatic experiences.

Writing creatively allows you to craft a coherent narrative and shifting perspective, according to Jessica Lourey, a tenured writing professor, sociologist and author of 15 books, including “Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction.”

What I feel is a deep satisfaction when I get it right. It’s the feeling when I’ve explained something in writing that I couldn’t explain to myself before I started.

After the loss of her husband, Lourey, Anne Nelson said she couldn’t survive reliving the pain of the tragedy by writing down her thoughts and emotions. “I needed to convert it, package it and ship it off,” she wrote in a column for Psychology Today. Rewriting her life to fit a fictional narrative helped her heal faster because it allowed her to become “a spectator to life’s roughest seas.”

Journalist and novelist Leila Cobo agrees. Writing fiction has helped her so much that it’s now become a daily routine. “It allows me to say anything in any way that I wish. It’s the most amazing feeling,” she said. “I write either early in the morning or late at night. And once I’m in, I’m in.”

How to get started

While some can write for hours at a time, researchers say that journaling for at least 15 minutes a day three to five times a week can significantly improve your physical and mental health.

If you’re new to journaling, the easiest way to begin is to find a time and place where you won’t be disturbed and just start writing. (Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; you’re writing for yourself and no one else.)

If you don’t know what to write about, here are some ideas:

1. Write about something (or someone) extremely important to you.
2. Write about three things you’re grateful for today — and why.
3. Write about what advice you’d give to your younger self.
4. Write about a current challenge you’re struggling with and possible solutions.
5. Write about 10 things you wish people knew about you.
6. Write about one thing you did this year that you’re proud of.
7. Write about 10 things you’d say yes to and 10 things you’d say no to

Goodbye, Alan Moore: the king of comic books bows out – by Sam Thielman (Guardian) 18 July 2019

The pioneer of serious superheroes – who is retiring – has transformed the genre over 40 years of rebellious invention

Deconstruction of the superhero myth … Alan Moore.

One of the most significant fiction writers in English is retiring, to the greatest fanfare of his singular and titanically influential career. Alan Moore has promised that the (extremely late) final issue of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will be his last comic, and his final contribution to an art form he utterly transformed, sometimes to his chagrin. His work in the 1980s on Miracleman, a deconstruction of the superhero myth, inspired so many imitators to darken formerly kid-friendly heroes that Moore has apologised more than once for it.

A brainy pop writer whose style veers between Stephen King and John le Carré, Moore’s influence can be felt everywhere – in our literature, on our screens, in our politics. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, quoted Watchmen’s Rorschach on Twitter, in response to reports that she was agitating the Democrats. (“I’m not locked up in here with YOU. You’re locked up in here with ME.”) Writers as diverse as China Miéville and Ta-Nehisi Coates have cited him as inspiration. HBO’s great post-Game of Thrones hope is yet another adaptation of Moore’s most popular book, Watchmen, which (co-authored with illustrator Dave Gibbons) has sold millions of copies since it was first published in 1987. He’s played himself on The Simpsons, seen his work adapted into a number of films – none very good – and even inspired an activist collective: the Anonymous group wear Guy Fawkes masks as a tribute to V, the anarchist hero of Moore’s and illustrator David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta.

Moore draws very rarely, instead he writes comics scripts, and at punishing length. Those can run to hundreds of pages, describing every layer of background and every tertiary character. The scripts themselves, occasionally enclosed in deluxe editions of his work, are as detailed as David Foster Wallace novels. Describing Batman’s home city to artist Brian Bolland in the script for The Killing Joke, Moore wrote: “The lower and seedier levels of Gotham are more inclined towards a territory somewhere between David Lynch and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, all patches of rust and mould and hissing steam and damp, glistening alleyways. I imagine this strip as having an oppressively dark film noir feel to it, with a lot of unpleasantly tangible textures, such as you habitually render so delightfully, to give the whole thing a really intense feeling of palpable unease and craziness.” And Moore’s collaborators have always risen to his challenges, turning this overwriting into eye-popping set pieces.

Before Moore, and the likes of Frank Miller, Dave Sim and the Hernandez brothers, the idea that serialised comics could amount to literature was laughable, and that adults could enjoy them without irony creepy. But Moore has had a preternatural grasp of the intricacies of a genre – superheroes – widely considered to be devoid of them.

He asked troubling questions of superheroes, who had always appeared in stories that retroactively rewrote themselves and seemed to go on forever. Where was the end of these stories? Had we fully understood their beginnings? Was heroism even possible? The fates of silly costumed heroes became urgent in his hands: Krypto the Super-Dog, the shambling bog-monster Swamp Thing, a kid flying ace named Jetlad – each of these characters has moved me to tears.

Moore can be tiresome – his digressions into the minutiae of Kabbalah in his Wonder Woman-style fantasy comic Promethea are insufferable – but he could also be delightful. Top 10, his affectionate send-up of cop shows, was a riot of sight gags, rendered by artists Gene Ha and Zander Cannon. Parody and melodrama keep close company in his work, especially in what is arguably his masterpiece: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, created with the brilliant artist Kevin O’Neill. One character murders another with his magic penis at one point. It’s quite moving.

This lurid streak can make Moore a tough sell. One Swamp Thing features an issue-length sex scene in which one participant is a plant; yet the books’ central relationship hinges on the idea that Swamp Thing is the best man a woman could hope for, despite – or perhaps because of – his plant-ness.

Moore as the saviour of superheroes is ironic in many ways. For one, his work suggests that they are at best feckless and at worst possibly fascis. For another, the process of working with DC Comics, which published his work during his two great fertile periods in the mid-80s and late 90s, so embittered him to the industry that he has often repudiated his own work on corporate superheroes, just as it acquired pop cultural success: video games, action figures, spin-offs. Recently asked about the real-world political influence of V for Vendetta, he was characteristically blunt: “From my position, if I have had one of my ideas stolen from me and turned into yet another cash-generator for some abhuman corporation, then if it has at least escaped into the wild sufficiently to be of some symbolic use to today’s protest movements, that makes me feel a lot better about having written it in the first place.”

At the heart of this antipathy is DC’s hold on the legal rights to his co-creations Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Moore and Gibbons were promised that all rights would return to them when Watchmen went out of print, but it never did. Gibbons accidentally predicted what would happen in this arrangement back in 1986. “What would be horrendous, and DC could legally do it, would be to have Rorschach crossing over with Batman or something like that, but I’ve got enough faith in them that I don’t think they’d do that,” he told Neil Gaiman in a public interview preserved by the Comics Journal.

Moore never got his rights back and DC has spent many years revisiting Watchmen with lucrative anniversary editions, prequels, a movie, the forthcoming TV series and indeed Watchmen II, called Doomsday Clock, a work in progress with script and art by a different creative team. This will merge the fictional world Gibbons and Moore created with the universe shared by Wonder Woman, Superman and Green Lantern.

Moore’s efforts outside superheroics, such as From Hell, Lost Girls and A Small Killing, are often cited as proof of his literary worth. But his greatest contribution to English letters isn’t found in his additions to the growing canon of respectable graphic novels – a term Moore has said was invented to allow adults to “validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal”. It’s in his dazzling, quixotic overwriting, applied to trashy genre fiction with an ironic, but never cynical quality. This worked wonders on uncomplicated planet-tossers like Superman and Captain Marvel. And when he leaves behind the superhero hijinks, a lot of the fun leaves the writing along with them. Don’t get me wrong, the highbrow books are still brilliant; they’re simply not as enjoyable as the pulpy stuff.

Many fans have been left in the awkward position of liking Moore’s superhero comics a good deal more than he does himself. When Miracleman delivers his baby girl and turns his face toward the reader, his eyes abrim with tears, and his internal monologue proclaims, “These are the moments when we are real”, I have always agreed, despite the narrator’s being clad in a blue leotard.

Moore would be the first to tell you that seriousness isn’t always a virtue, but his was thoroughly transformative. And for many readers, myself among them, it was a great relief to be taken seriously as a reader of something supposedly sub-literate and stupid, to be treated with intelligence and care, and to be introduced to Moore’s rebellious brand of morality: his passionate feminism, his suspicion of authority and wealth, his love of normal people and veneration of togetherness, especially in the face of the hopelessness of the real world. His gifts for cruelty and horror inspired undistinguished competitors to enter the field, but his unexpected gentleness was what kept readers coming back to him.

https://archive.is/IfLH5

22 Books That Expand Minds and Change The Way People Live – by Darius Foroux

Archive

22 Books That Expand Your Mind and Change The Way You Live

From books on history and philosophy to novels and biographies.

For the past few years, I’ve formed a habit of asking everyone for book recommendations. It’s one of the habits that has truly changed my life.

Reading is my favorite way to develop my mind because it’s the most effective way to learn something. But not every book changes the way you think. Francis Bacon said it best:

To me, expanding your mind means that a book had an impact on the way I look at the world.

And after serious thought, I came up with the following 22 books that caused a real shift in the way I think. I hope they expand your mind too.

1. Man’s Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl

I still think about this book almost daily, years after I first read it. What happened to millions of Jews 70 years ago, is truly horrific. We forget that it was only a few decades ago. Not centuries. And Victor Frankl’s account of his experience in concentration camps is almost superhuman. His philosophy and perspective on life should be cherished and passed on forever. Read this book.

2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau started my ‘thinking about life’ journey ten years ago. I remember how I discovered his writings — through the movie Into The Wild. The movie (released in 2007) was based on a Jon Krakauer book with the same title about Christopher McCandless, a young and naïve idealist who wanted to live a simple life. McCandless’s story is sad. But his biggest inspiration was Thoreau. And since Thoreau isn’t recommended reading in school in The Netherlands, I decided to pick it up by myself (and the Jon Krakauer book too). I haven’t stopped thinking, reflecting, and living more consciously ever since.

3. The Art Of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

We make a lot of decisions in our life. How many of those decisions are rational? If you ask Dobelli, very little. This book is an excellent collection of 99 thinking errors — from cognitive biases to social distortions. This is the most practical book I’ve read on decision making.

4. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

This book lives up to its hype. You will change the way you think after reading Kahneman’s book. It’s a summary of his most important findings ever since he started as a cognitive psychologist in 1961. I think it’s one of the most important books that’s published in recent years.

5. The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal

Self-control is the number one skill that helped me through my college years. And this practical book inspired me to bring my willpower to the next level. McGonigal writes in a down-to-earth manner that inspires you to take action.

6. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Your ability to enjoy your work not only determines work satisfaction, but it also impacts how good you become at something. Flow is one of those books I think about every day. Getting in a flow state is something that actually changes the way you work and experience life.

7. The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman

Who knew that knowledge about human evolution could change the way you live? At least, that’s what happened to me. To truly understand your body, you have to know how it evolved. You’ll appreciate it more after reading this book — I can tell you that.

8. Spark by John Ratey

I’m a big believer in daily exercise. To me, it’s as important as breathing. John Ratey’s book inspired me to include daily exercise into my life. And I can’t tell you enough how significant the impact has been on my productivity, confidence, health, happiness, and overall enjoyment of life.

9. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

I don’t agree with all the hype of this book being the best book of all time. It is, however, a great summary of human history and evolutionary psychology. And, most importantly, it reads beautifully.

10. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A novel about a young, nameless black man, as he moves through life invisible, “‘simply because people refuse to see me.” Is the book fact or fiction? Doesn’t matter because it paints the picture from one person’s perspective on race—that’s what matters. The book is published in 1952 but still seems current after all those years. Life is about understanding others. This book will help you do that.

11. Influence by Robert B. Cialdini

This classic book teaches you the science of persuasion. And it’s full of research and anecdotes that will change the way you look at life, relationships, business, and people’s intentions.

12. Quiet by Susan Cain

Most introverts don’t even know they are introverts. Quiet is a book about knowing yourself. And that simple skill can change the outcome of your life. It comes down to this: Don’t try to be something you’re not.

13. When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub

One of the most entertaining life stories I’ve read. Weintraub is a Hollywood legend. He’s someone who genuinely thought different from the rest of his industry. And this book inspires you to be more practical, hard-nosed, and persuasive.

14. The Greatest Salesman In The World by Og Mandino

If you’re looking for a hardcore self-help book, look no further. If you read this book the way Og Mandino instructs, it will change your life.

15. Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

Making decisions is one of the most mentally draining things you have to do daily. This book changed the way I look at options: Less is better.

16. The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Forming new habits is a practical skill that immediately impacts the quality of your life. Want to lose weight? Be more productive? Exercise regularly? Build successful companies? One thing is sure: Without habits, those things will be extremely difficult to pull off.

17. Daily rituals by Mason Currey

A unique insight into the habits and rituals of the world’s most renown figures. You’ll be surprised how simple their lives were.

18. Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher

Most people are afraid of negotiation. That’s an entirely unjust feeling. It’s actually fun to negotiate. And you should do it more often. Who doesn’t want to pay less and earn more?

19. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told To Alex Haley

To me, Malcolm X is the real symbol of a self-made man. It has nothing to do with money or fame. You make yourself by expanding your mind. That’s what Malcolm X did in prison. Hands down, the best biography I’ve ever read.

20. The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

You can’t put human behavior into perspective without knowing more about our evolution. It’s a little depressing. But so is life. Study it, instead of getting sad by it. As a result, you’ll be more understanding towards people and yourself.

21. Mastery by Robert Greene

The ultimate guide to becoming good at what you do. This book is not only a playbook for mastery, but it’s also a collection of biographies of great historical figures.

22. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Multiple readers recommended this book to me. Bird by Bird is about more than writing. If it doesn’t make you a better writer (which I doubt), it will make you a better person.

Like I’ve said before, I hope you pick up one of these books and that they will change the way you think. And don’t let the money hold you back.

One of my friends recently told me that he had bought a 4K television. But when I told him a year ago to read a few of the books listed above, he answered: “Books are way too expensive.”

This reminded me of something my mentor once said when I complained about the cost of education:

“Ignorance costs you more than you’ll ever know.”

Essential Reading for Young Adventurers – by Brian Kevin

From dog-eared classics to under-the-radar picks, this is our list of 15 books that will awaken the adolescent Outsider.

 

Here are 15 of the best kids’ adventure stories ever written. Photo by Paul Edmondson/Stocksy.

 

You remember the book that did it for you, the book you found on a library field trip that—pow!—suddenly put you right freaking there at that storm-battered base camp or on that threadbare raft as it was pummeled by waves. For me, it was The Sign of the Beaver. I was nine years old and otherwise devoted to my Nintendo. But after a few chapters of Elizabeth George Speare’s young-adult survival saga, I was suddenly spearfishing and fending off rampaging black bears in the woods of 18th-century Maine. I wrote the author my first-ever fan letter and grabbed my Scholastic Book Club catalog, jonesing for another fix.

These 15 books elicit that level of enthusiasm. We think they’re the best kids’ adventure stories ever written—and every single one deserves a place on the shelf of adventurers-in-training.

Andrea Davis Pinkney

15. ‘Peggony-Po: A Whale of a Tale’

By Andrea Davis Pinkney; illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Grades K–3

The tall tale of Peggony-Po—a fearless boy carved from driftwood who crews aboard an 18th-century whaling ship—draws inevitable comparisons to Pinocchio and Moby-Dick. But Ahab never harnessed his white whale and rode it around the world, like Peggony-Po does with the monster who took his father’s leg. And Geppetto had nothing on Peggony-Po’s dad, Galleon Keene, a tough black whaler from an era when Americans of all races served side by side at sea. Spoiler alert: this one’s not for PETA types, as the leviathan antagonist eventually becomes whale steaks and scrimshaw.

Mary Pop Osborne

14. ‘Magic Tree House: High Tide in Hawaii’

By Mary Pope Osborne

Grades 3–5

Arthurian wizardess Morgan Le Fay sends a bookish bro and sis on a (really long—55 books and counting) series of time-traveling quests. The entire series is almost required binge reading for youngsters, but a fun start is #28, which lands them in precontact Hawaii. The siblings get up on alaia boards, practice the hula, and escape a tsunami. Osborne fudges some details about Hawaiian culture, but in stressing the strength of friendships formed outdoors, she nails the aloha spirit.

HarperCollins

13. ‘Little House in the Big Woods’

By Laura Ingalls Wilder

Grades 6–8

This is the first and best of the Little House books that introduced generations of kids to pioneer life. Laura and her family carve out a life in the woods of western Wisconsin, while occasionally fending off bears, panthers, and wolves. Laura goes on to be quite the backwoods badass, but the real hero of book one is Charles “Pa” Ingalls. An expert hunter, woodcarver, fiddle player, and storyteller, he’s been setting the bar impossibly high for dads since Big Woods hit shelves in 1932.

Scott O’Dell

12. ‘Island of the Blue Dolphins’

By Scott O’Dell

Grades 4–7

A survival tale with a truly epic sweep, Island of the Blue Dolphins was inspired by the tale of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, the last surviving member of the Nicoleño tribe who lived for nearly two decades on one of California’s Channel Islands before being discovered in 1853. O’Dell’s story of Karana—who becomes a resourceful hunter, forager, and tamer of feral dogs—reads as fresh as it did when it won a Newbery Medal in 1961. The prolific O’Dell also wrote The Black Pearl (1967), a moral fable of a young pearl diver, which would find a spot on a longer version of this list.

Tanglewood

11. ‘Yes, Let’s’

By Galen Goodwin Longstreth; illustrated by Maris Wicks

Grades K–3

Get up early. Grab boots and backpacks. Drive to the nearest trailhead and spend the day goofing off with your kids, preferably near water. Get milkshakes on the way home. This underrated illustrated ode to the day hike is an easy read for elementary school kids or a read-along for the younger set—but it’s also a weekend instructional for moms and dads. Bonus: If you dig the art, graduate to Primates, a comic biography of primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas that’s a collaboration between illustrator Wicks and fellow science-obsessed graphic novelist Jim Ottaviani.

Random House

10. ‘The Lorax’

By Dr. Seuss

Grades K–Adult

Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss himself, once told a biographer that The Lorax was his favorite work. The explicitly environmental parable finds a wizened, Wilford Brimley–looking wood sprite squaring off against a greedy developer. As Seuss’s characteristically colorful and fuzzy truffula forest gets trashed to make cheapy apparel called thneeds, grown-ups wearing microfiber-shedding fleece laugh nervously.

Mariner Books

9. ‘The Little Prince’

By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Grades 6–12

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s poetic saga of a stranded aviator and his adolescent extraterrestrial pal is the nearest thing to a 20th-century fairy-tale masterpiece. On the surface, it’s a desert survival story with space exploration interludes. But then it hits with insights like this: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The book is actually a series of unfolding parables about adulthood and human relationships—lessons young readers will unpack years after reading.

Elizabeth George Speare

8. ‘The Sign of the Beaver’

By Elizabeth George Speare

Grades 3–5

When his father is delayed on a trip to the colonies, the adolescent son of white settlers is left to fend for himself in the woods of 18th-century Maine. He gets by with the help and generosity of nearby members of the Penobscot tribe, gradually befriending a capable boy his own age—and trying to win respect as he learns their ways. The Penobscot characters’ pidgin English is cringeworthy, like old Hollywood portrayals of Native Americans—and the word “squaw” pops up more than it should—but the overall message is one of cross-cultural empathy and respect.

Scholastic Books

7. ‘Paint the Wind’

By Pam Muñoz Ryan

Grades 3–7

An orphaned girl trades upper-crust Los Angeles for the high, wild Wyoming ranch country where her mother was raised. The book trades perspectives between 11-year-old Maya and Artemisia, the now wild horse Maya’s mother once rode. Things get harrowing when an earthquake strands the duo in the backcountry. It’s more than just a fish-out-of-water tale—throughout, Muñoz asks the question: What does it mean to be tamed, wild, or free?

HarperCollins

6. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’

By Maurice Sendak

Grades pre K–4

Who, after a hard day, hasn’t wanted to sail away to a jungle island, don a costume and crown, and enjoy a few days of bacchanalian ruckus? Maurice Sendak’s lusciously illustrated classic is often invoked among the best picture books of all time, thanks to his rendering of the animalistic wild things (which are simultaneously cute and menacing) and his suggestion that sometimes an adventure’s best course leads back home. Some schools and libraries pulled the book off shelves after its 1964 publication, fearing Max’s feral rebellion among the wild things was too subversive for kids. We’re all for it.

Puffin Books

5. ‘My Side of the Mountain’

By Jean Craighead George

Grades 3–5

This book could also be called I Was a Teenage Hermit! Fed up with his claustrophobic life in 1950s New York City, Sam Gribley ditches his parents’ apartment and bugs out for an old family plot in the Catskills. Sam’s detailed account of self-taught homesteading makes it sound easy (read a library book on falconry, steal a chick, and suddenly you have the coolest pet an off-the-grid teen could ask for). But his internal monologue about the benefits of companionship and culture versus solitude and self-sufficiency make this book a classic. Be warned: two sequels, published 31 and 40 years later, respectively, do not hold up to the original.

Amulet Books

4. ‘Heart of a Samurai’

By Margi Preus

Grades 5–8

It starts with the desert-island shipwreck of a Japanese fishing vessel. Then the action moves to an American whaling ship. Then the California gold rush. Followed by a mutiny at sea. Margi Preus adapts the real-life story of Nakahama Manjirō, one of the few 19th-century Japanese citizens to visit the West, into a Newbery Honor–winning adventure tale that’s a hymn to the spirit of exploration.

Harcourt

3. ‘Peak’

By Roland Smith

Grades 6–9

Fourteen-year-old Peak is a New York City hood-rat graffiti artist with a knack for scaling buildings. His estranged dad is a climbing bum (hence his son’s name) who’d like to see Peak become the youngest person to summit Everest—and who’d also like the publicity and profits the stunt would bring his guide company. Smith’s characters are complex and relatable, he gets Everest Base Camp culture mostly right, and Peak’s eventual epiphany about the value of a summit bid is worth his 29,000 feet of effort. As Peak’s Sherpa pal warns him, “You can never tell who the mountain will allow and who it will not.”

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

2. ‘The Hobbit’

By J.R.R. Tolkien

Grades 6–12

Long before Hollywood cashed in with an overblown blockbuster trilogy—and years before J.R.R. Tolkien fleshed out Middle Earth to epic proportions in The Lord of the Rings—there was The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, a winding, mythic, impossibly charming adventure yarn starring one of YA lit’s best-ever protagonists. Likable homebody Bilbo Baggins shares anxieties about his limitations with many of his young readers. Like them, he’ll discover his capacity for courage, curiosity, and friendship only when he shoulders his pack and heads into the mountains and woods.

Simon & Schuster

1. ‘Hatchet’

By Gary Paulsen

Grades 5–8

A 1987 Newbery Honor winner and bestseller, Gary Paulsen’s quintessential young-adult survival novel finds somber 13-year-old Brian Robeson surviving a plane crash and hacking out a living for two months in the Canadian bush. His only tool? A hatchet he’s never wielded. The trick of any survival story—never mind one written for kids—is to render failure and slow progress in a way that feels authentic but not dull. Paulsen’s terse sentences and Brian’s pensive inner monologue (on top of it all, he knows his mom is having an affair) keep things moving. From Brian’s fantasies about food to his mantra-like repetition of his survival strategies to the abruptness of his rescue, Hatchet simply rings true. Lest we forget these words to live by: “You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that. You are the best thing you have.”

Listen up: why some people can’t get enough of audiobooks – by Steven Poole (Guardian) 13 July 2019

Note: Many public domain works offered as free audio books to listen to online, or download Librivox – https://librivox.org/pages/about-librivox/

Youtube has many free audiobooks to access.

……………………………

In this time-poor, podcast-friendly world, audiobooks are booming. So what is the science behind them – and do they change our relationship with the written word?

 

 

Are audiobooks the new… books? It was recently revealed that audiobook sales rocketed by 43% in 2018, while those of print books declined (by 5%) for the first time in five years. Can people no longer be bothered to read for themselves? Is this, rather than the ebook, the harbinger of the slow death of print, about which we have been warned for so long? And if so, what does that mean for literary culture? Let us first retain some historical perspective by noting that Homer’s Iliad was essentially an audiobook before it was ever written down. Oral literary culture long precedes the book and there are many reasons for its rising popularity. Some people I spoke to use audiobooks to send them to sleep after a stressful professional day; others listen while walking, or looking after a baby, or as an alternative to TV. Parents say they are great for keeping children occupied in the car, and commuters use them on their journeys. The time-pressed listen at 1.5x or 2x normal speed, or use websites such as Blinkist, which boil down non-fiction books to their “key takeaways” in 15 minutes. One writer told me that he gets audiobooks “for research into stuff that I fear my pleasure-seeking brain would give up on if I had to read with my eyes”.

It may be that an actor’s voice can provide musical information that helps longer-term recall, just as the visual information of a book can

But is there really a measurable difference between reading with the eyes and “reading” with the ears? According to an oft-cited 2016 study (Beth A Rogowsky et al), 91 subjects were found to display no significant difference in either comprehension or recall after two weeks whether they had read a non‑fiction passage or listened to it, or done both simultaneously. However, this investigation used ebooks for the reading part, and other studies have suggested that reading comprehension and recall is lower for reading on screens versus print. Since the 1980s, cognitive psychology has consistently established that recall is indeed better after reading (printed) text instead of listening to it, a conclusion bolstered by a 2010 study (David B Daniel and William Douglas Woody), which found that students did worse on a test if they had listened to a podcast of a scientific article on child cognition rather than reading it.

Books have the advantage that you can rapidly re‑scan a sentence visually if you didn’t take it in the first time; and you can mark passages in pencil or turn down page corners to mark specific places to return to. Audiobooks, by contrast, exploit our “echoic memory”, which is the process by which sound information is stored for up to four seconds while we wait for the next sounds to make sense of the whole. Nor can audiobooks reproduce one of the most thrilling features of print, which is its creative ambiguity: the line of poetry, or the sentence, that is exquisitely balanced between two possible meanings. The actor in the studio has to choose just one, and that is the one that is forced on the reader. In their favour, it might be that the particular cadences and timbre of an actor’s voice in audiobooks provide musical information that helps longer-term recall, just as the visual and tactile information of where a passage lies in a printed book can.

That voice is everything, says Jennifer Howard, founding director of the boutique audio studio Sound Understanding, whose recent productions include Samuel West reading astronomer royal Martin Rees’s On the Future for Princeton University Press. “Casting the right voice is crucial,” she says. “Get it wrong and you can really turn the listener off.” And non-fiction is even more demanding than fiction. “In a non-fiction book, the reader must understand and be interested in what they are reading, because comprehension can’t be disguised with vocal tricks and the light and shade of characterisation. So in addition to actors, we work with a lot of broadcasters. They understand complex political or socio-economic subjects and instinctively know when, where, and how much stress to place on a particular point.”

Pinterest

The Golden Compass, the 2007 film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights. Pullman has written a 32-minute short story for Audible. Photograph: Snap Stills/Rex

The UK’s leading audiobook retailer, Audible, whose customers downloaded more than 3bn hours of material last year, is getting into the “original audiobook” game, having commissioned the likes of Michael Lewis and Jon Ronson to write exclusive direct-to-audiobook stories or “shortform books”. One of their earliest signings was Philip Pullman, who in 2015 wrote a 32-minute short story set in the universe of His Dark Materials, “The Collectors”, saying that he was attracted by “the idea of writing for a voice” instead of a reader. (Audible itself explained that the idea was “not only a way to please current members, but also to bring in new listeners”.) But if an “audiobook” was never a book in the first place, can it really be called a book? Surely it is just a rebadged radio drama, documentary, or podcast, even if it goes on to be bookified. (Pullman’s “The Collectors” subsequently came out as a Kindle Single.) Indeed, the surge in audiobook sales seems very likely to be a halo effect of the huge popularity of podcasts, especially the single-theme longform series such as NPR’s breakout Serial, first released in October 2014, or ABC’s 2019 The Dropout, a jaw-dropping investigation into the story of Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-testing tech company Theranos.

If audiobooks are now gaining ground on print, does that indicate we are trying to do more in less time? Although the data suggests that we do not actually feel any more rushed or hurried than a few decades ago, the increasingly fragmented nature of our media consumption, and the perceived mountain of tasks ahead of us in any given day, might be driving people to try to cram in more nutritious brain-fare by multitasking: “reading” an audiobook while doing something else. “The pessimist in me says that in our ‘always on’ world, the disinclination to read is not due to lack of desire, but lack of time,” Howard says. Unfortunately, the science is quite clear that, apart perhaps for a small minority of people, we simply can’t “multitask” at all: when we think we are multitasking, we are really just switching attention from one thing to another in short bursts, a process that is in itself exhausting. And educational psychologists are firm that attempting to multitask harms learning. So listening to an audiobook while driving, or gardening, might be a very enjoyable experience, but we won’t absorb as much. Yet that is still better than absorbing nothing at all. “The optimist in me,” Howard adds, “says that human beings will always seek out new stories and ideas and we should celebrate the fact that there are now so many ways to access them.”

We’re seeing audiobooks really register with people who may not have the time or inclination to pick up a print book

Drummond Moir, publisher at Ebury

A more peculiar problem of audiobooks is that a user whose library of such material is locked into, say, Audible’s proprietary format – which cannot legally be converted into something more accessible such as MP3 – might face unwelcome surprises in the future. Earlier this year, Microsoft closed down its ebook store and informed previous purchasers that all the books they had bought in its own proprietary format would henceforth stop working. This is certainly a kind of innovation: when you buy an actual book, you are not dependent on the benevolence – or even just the survival – of a single corporation in order to continue being able to read it whenever you want. Audible, which has been criticised for practices around charging after its free subscription trials, and the unexpected expiration of book credits, declined to provide any comment for this article. But we do know that the biggest audiobook producer and retailer is part of Amazon, the rapacious 500lb gorilla of the book trade. It would not take a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracist to suppose that its primary goals lay somewhere other than the championing of literature and storytelling for its own sake.

The mood in publishing seems to be that audiobooks are not cannibalising print sales to any large degree yet; more likely they are competing with podcasts, music and television as a more passive but still semi-highbrow entertainment experience. Drummond Moir, a publisher at Ebury Press, says of the audio challenge: “I think we can and should be sanguine about it. Just as publishers harnessed ebooks as yet another format alongside hardbacks and paperbacks, audiobooks can be thought of as yet another way of connecting readers and authors. In non-fiction, especially, we’re seeing audiobooks really register with people who may not have the time or inclination to pick up a print book, but devour audiobooks because they are hungry for new ideas, narratives and experiences. If it helps more people experience an author’s work, it’s something to celebrate.” To which even the grouchiest prosophile writer can only respond: hear, hear.

https://archive.is/F1qQr

Putin’s Passport Found At European Space Agency Offices – Europe’s Satellite Navigation Offline – 15 July 2019

A major technical error has caused Europe’s satellite navigation system to be fully offline since Friday, with most satellites powering the Galileo system broken, the EU’s space agency has said.

Europe’s Galileo system was built to replace the US’ GPS system but, since the outage, users are automatically being switched back to the US positioning system. The Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GNSS) said in a statement on Sunday that “a technical incident related to its ground infrastructure” had caused the problem. 

The incident led to the “temporary interruption” of the Galileo services since Friday, with the exception of the Search and Rescue (SAR) service, which locates people in distress situations at sea or on mountains, GNSS said.

The agency said its experts are working to restore operations “as soon as possible” and that an ‘Anomaly Review Board’ has been set up to analyze the “exact root cause and to implement recovery actions.”

Galileo began providing its services in December 2016 as an alternative to the US system and was expected to be fully deployed by 2020. A status page on the agency’s website shows 22 satellites in the Galileo constellation listed as “not usable” due to “service outage.”

Galileo is owned by the EU and operated by the European Space Agency. A report in industry publication Inside GNSS on Saturday claimed that a Precise Timing Facility based in Italy was to blame for the outage.

Drawing on the street in chalk – Waiting for the recycle truck to take my art away – 11 July 2019

I’m drowning in pieces of paper with squiggles and words and line drawings.  Some day a stack of drawings will fall over on top of me.  Poetic justice.  I put a piece of a poem in the street before a recycle truck came to haul my words away.

The paper is gone, but the words remain.  But, what story?

我把她留在了纽约街头 – 书 – 好地球

 

当我徘徊在漫长的大道上思考我用言语创造的麻烦时，我遇到了一组书。当我穿过一条多风的街道时，我看到四个书堆在一个杂物箱上。就像胸部高度的平台一样，我检查了四卷。詹姆斯乔伊斯’尤利西斯’的精装本与我在家里的版本相同。现在坐在我客厅沙发上的同一版本。没有完全消化。

我一直在考虑Turgenev的“猎人笔记本草图”与我的单词问题有关。这本书就在我面前。

我忘记了第四本书是什么。

我的房子里到处都是书，因为我无法抗拒一个故事中页面上文字的拉力和重力。但是，我带着背包和旅行灯步行到纽约。我决定只能拿“猎人笔记本的草图”。

我不情愿地看着赛珍珠的“大地”的亮黄色封面。

我在大学读过这本书，被1930年代中国的世界迷住了。像马萨诸塞州波士顿的另一个星球。或者我去大学的康涅狄格州。

在高中和大学里，我读了很多东亚历史，喜欢在中国读小说。最终我看到了由赛珍珠的书中制作的电影。

这部完整的电影在Youtube上以2.99美元的价格提供。这是一个场景。

Youtube有英文有声读物。

当我徘徊在漫长的大道上思考我用言语创造的麻烦时，我遇到了一组书。当我穿过一条多风的街道时，我看到四个书堆在一个杂物箱上。就像胸部高度的平台一样，我检查了四卷。詹姆斯乔伊斯’尤利西斯’的精装本与我在家里的版本相同。现在坐在我客厅沙发上的同一版本。没有完全消化。

我一直在考虑Turgenev的“猎人笔记本草图”与我的单词问题有关。这本书就在我面前。

我忘记了第四本书是什么。

我的房子里到处都是书，因为我无法抗拒一个故事中页面上文字的拉力和重力。但是，我带着背包和旅行灯步行到纽约。我决定只能拿“猎人笔记本的草图”。

我不情愿地看着赛珍珠的“大地”的亮黄色封面。

我在大学读过这本书，被1930年代中国的世界迷住了。像马萨诸塞州波士顿的另一个星球。或者我去大学的康涅狄格州。

在高中和大学里，我读了很多东亚历史，喜欢在中国读小说。最终我看到了由赛珍珠的书中制作的电影。

这部完整的电影可在Youtube上购买 – 仅需2.99美元。这是一个场景。

Youtube也有音频书。

老实说，我不知道中国人会怎么想这本书。赛珍珠是中国基督教传教士的美国女儿。她可能写过一本敏感，准确的书。但我不是那个判断。我知道“好地球”是一个带有一些基本人类真理的好故事。

所以我很高兴再次免费找到这本书。当我走到大厅的“拿书 – 留书”架子时，我在当地的社区学校。我去年夏天在那里留了几本书，并且拿了几本。

引起我注意的第一卷是珍珠赛克的“大地”，与我在纽约市留下的黄色版本相同。我犹豫了。我家里有足够的书。我家里的书太多了。但我的父亲说，“你永远不会有太多书。”把书放回书架上。我以为我的公寓变得简约。我拿起书，看着那个爽快的黄色封面。还有一本书可以造成什么危害？当我走到外面时，我随身带着这本书。我想，我总是可以把这本书拿回来再捐一遍。

所以我手里拿着这本书，用手机拍了一张照片，然后通过电子邮件发给我自己。

I Left Her On the Street in New York – Pearl S. Buck Book

While I was wandering down long broad avenues thinking of troubles that I had created with words I came upon a group of books.  As I crossed a windy street I saw four books piled on a utility box.  Like a platform at chest height I examined the four volumes.  A hardcover copy of James Joyce ‘Ulysses’ the same edition I had at home.   The same edition that is sitting on my parlor  couch right now.  Not completely digested.

I had been thinking of Turgenev’s ‘Sketches From a Hunter’s Notebook’ in relation to my word problems.  The book was there in front of me.  

I forget what the fourth book was.

My house is full of books because I can not resist the pull and gravity of the words on the page in a story bound together.  But, I was in New York on foot with a backpack and traveling light.  I decided I could only take ‘The Sketches From a Hunter’s Notebook.’ 

I reluctantly looked at the bright yellow cover of Pearl S. Buck’s ‘The Good Earth.’ 

I read the book in college and was enchanted by the world of the 1930’s China.  Like another planet for me in Boston, Massachusetts.  Or Connecticut where I went to college. 

In high school and college I read a lot of East Asia history and loved reading novels set in China.  Eventually I saw the movie made from Pearl S. Buck’s book.

The full movie is available on Youtube – for $2.99.  Here is a scene.

Youtube also has the audio book.

Honestly, I don’t know what a Chinese person would think of the book.  Pearl S. Buck was the American daughter of a Christian missionary in China.  She may have written a perceptive, accurate book.  But I am no judge of that.  I knew ‘The Good Earth’ was a good story with some basic human truths. 

So I was pleased to find the book again for free.  I was at the local community school when I stepped over to the ‘Take a Book – Leave a Book’ shelf in the lobby.  I had left a few books there last summer and had picked up a few.

The first volume that caught my eye was Pearl S. Buck’s ‘The Good Earth’ in the same yellow edition I had left behind in New York City.  I hesitated.  I have enough books in my house.  I have too many books in my house.  But my father said, “You can never have too many books.”  Put the book back on the shelf.  I thought of my apartment becoming minimalist.  I picked the book up and looked at the cheery yellow cover.  What harm could one more book do?  I took the book with me as I walked outside.  I could always bring the book back and donate it again, I thought. 

So I had the book in my hands and took a picture with my phone and emailed a copy to myself.

 

‘Walled-In Pond’ by Henry David Thoreau – Two Months in The Bushes

‘Walled-In Pond’ by Henry David Thoreau (1:48 min) Audio Mp3

With the permission of a wealthy friend Henry David Thoreau began an experiment living in the woods of Boson, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1851. Thoreau used and ax to clear some land and get scrub wood to construct a lean-to shelter. He drew water from near by Candle Holder Pond and went fishing at Handle Colder Pond over the hill. He said he wanted to simplify his life and get away from the incessant chatter of the large houses of the towns and villages. He especially wanted to ‘get away from the endless chatter of women about laundry and baking bread and cleaning the house.’

Thoreau had had enough.

He went to live in the woods.

Critics and readers find ‘Walled-In Pond’ a little more slapstick that Thoreau’s more mature works. The ‘Stubbed My Toe’ chapter where Thoreau almost hacks his foot off while chopping wood with a dull axe is a favorite of many. When he is chased up a tree by two hunting dogs and a neighboring farmer readers get an explanation of why Thoreau was against some forms of private property rights enforcement. But, no one gets hurt and the reader gets a chuckle while learning about land claims in Boson, Massachusetts in 1851.

But, sadly, he only stayed in the Boson woods and scrub land for two months. He said he missed the bread after he got tired of a steady diet of fresh water fish. He also needed to get his laundry done. Thoreau wrote up and article about how liberating it was for an upper class man of letters to get back to nature. The work was so well received that Thoreau repeated the ‘experiment’ at Walden Pond in Lexington, Massachusetts, the following year. He was planning to create a whole ‘universe’ of Living In The Woods books by going to different states and living in the wild for a while – but his life was cut short by tuberculosis which he did not catch out in the woods with the squirrels but probably in one of the big townhouses he hated so much.

White Wall Graffiti – and Pink and Beige Against the Machine

I thought of the opposite of graffiti that is too colorful and too busy to figure out what was going on.  The opposite of that chaos would be… a white wall.  I pictured a crew of contrary spray paint artists leaving a blank canvas as their calling card.  Make of it what you will.

So I got a dozen or so of white walls through an image search on Startpage.  Then I made a short video without sound.  I put the video on Youtube and used one of the copyright free musical tracks Youtube provides.

The finale is visually fun.

After that I thought of the phrase ‘beige against the machine’ a play on the rebellious leftist band ‘Rage Against the Machine.’  So, I looked up some beige wall pictures, and made another short video with Youtube surprise musical track.

Then I thought of a Feminist Fightback Pink Wall Graffiti.

What do these three video slide shows say?  What do all these images mean?