Awesome news for literarists: the British Library has digitized old manuscripts like Beowulf and others. While not every net reader will flock to add this to their Kindle, having that text available may spur interest in learning to read olde English.
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There is now an interactive app for the iPad with detailed maps and information of Ankh-Morpork. At $13.99 it’s a fair bargain, considering print maps sold for around that price.
Received Tim Powers latest book, a novella called Salvage and Demolition. Read it almost in one sitting. All too brief, so brilliant and memorable. Not sure of Powers’ latest novel project, but years usually pass between his novels, and he just released one late last year. Hopefully we’ll get some stories more often.
Maybe there is hope, when finally a large paper like the L.A. Times starts to wonder about the drone war. How sad and tragic:
It is certainly not what he hoped or intended, but one of President Obama’s biggest legacies in foreign affairs may prove to be the proliferation of drones as tools of war, assassination and terror.
Meanwhile, nary a peep from the so-called anti-war left who protested the previous regime. Unlike those of us who oppose war from both left and right as the health of the state, some “liberals” remain silent because it’s their president. All of a sudden we must obey because he’s the boss, the dad, the commander in chief. He has now launched six times the number of drones as the previous occupant in the White House. And how long before those drones come back to haunt us, as the times presciently observes?
A wise president would also anticipate the day when this technologically marvelous weapon is turned against us. A decade ago, the United States had a near monopoly on drones; now they are in the hands of dozens of countries. It is likely that some enterprising terrorist is, even now, thinking there is no reason to pack a bomb in the underpants of some aspiring martyr when it would be simpler to get hold of a cheap hobbyist’s drone, wire it up with explosives and send it on a short flight to the nearest airport.
A few years ago (1993) Neal Stephenson wrote a long article for Wired magazine on the undersea cables that power phone and internet, called “Mother Earth, Mother Board”. This article appeared in his 2012 collection, Some Remarks, which I reviewed for reason magazine. Now you can view these cables in a nice infographic, showing just our worldwide communications web is bound to the earth.
Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing covers the release of Peter Bagge’s new graphic novel, Reset. That reminds me I need to look for Bagge’s issues of Apocalypse Nerd that I once bought, as I think I missed out on a few. While Bagge’s art isn’t as graceful as some comics, his biting wit and weird characters are fairly unique and compelling in a strange sort of way.
Stunning news that US newspapers knew of a secret US drone base and said nothing, because the current administration asked them and they agreed. Whatever happened to the press being a watchdog? Is the worm finally turning on the killer drone methodology? What does it take, when only recently can a (British) paper write that a current nominee has
brought into focus the quasi-official lethal drone programme, which has killed an estimated 3,000 militants and civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
A very dark and brooding, slow and non-electronic song from Depeche Mode, “Heaven”, out this week. Video linked at Stereogum. I think the video actually enhances the song, which doesn’t often happen.
Clip from Norwegian duo Röyksopp covering Depeche Mode’s “Ice Machine” with Susanne Sundfør on Norwegian TV show, Lydverket ( Soundworks). Strange how a song from the early 1980s sounds as fresh today, but likely this is due to the packaging via new instruments.
Speaking of Röyksopp and Susanne Sundfør, at the same Lydverket show they played an original track, “Running to the Sea”. Quite a moving song.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AMlJ78-7rZ4#!
