A New Old Thought

A thought came to mind the other morning while I was preparing to go out. This seems to be happening more of late than ever before. Perhaps because of my blogging. I get these concepts in my head and then an urge to expand on them so I do.

In any event, the concept was about re-reading books. I realized that I rarely re-read books but that, when I did, I got something different, something new, from them. I have decided that our perspective changes as we grow older and different aspects of a story, or theory, or concept, become important.

I actually first noticed this when I was re-reading some Frederik Pohl novels; the Gateway series, to be exact. The series is about man's discovery of an ancient race called the Heechee (not their real name but what humans called them). And they only discovered artifacts, not the Heechee themselves. That was to come later, much later. I don't want to re-tell the tale, even in summary, but the first time I read it, it was a tale of adventure and space travel mixed with a man's guilt and angst. The second time I read it, I discovered a whole subtext about immortality and what constitutes the "self" or perhaps the soul.

Another take: Souls in Silicon

Well, that popped into my head when the thought of re-reading of books emerged. And, just now, I have related this to my Snippet of Life posts in my mind. I am "re-reading" my life through writing them. And seeing new aspects of it.

The Robots Are Coming

Robots are coming to a theater near you. Well, not near you... yet. But in Japan, robots are acting on stage in a 20 minute play "Hataraku Watashi" (I, Worker)

Which, to me, evokes "I, Robot", the classical collection of robot short stories by Isaac Asimov. Forget the distorted movie version, read the collection. The Japanese seem to have a fascination for the concept of robots becoming the helpmates of man, the robot actors portray house servants. And that begs the question: would they be the Perfect Slaves? No sense of personal liberty, no desire to be free, no true independent thought. That was the underlying theme of Asimov's series, are these man-made creatures actually sentient beings?

My Last Meme

My thanks to The Jules for laying this on me. He noted that there was no number 10 so I added it because I am a mild OCD type and needed the symmetry. I am not sure what the answers say about me and I am pretty sure I don't want to know...

(appended: This is a "one word" meme)

1. Where is your cell phone? Bureau
2. Where is your significant other? Heart
3. Your hair color? Graying
4. Your mother? Spirit
5. Your father? Memory
6. Your favorite thing? Time
7. Your dream last night? Unfinished
8. Your dream/goal? Nirvana
9. The room you’re in? Parlor
10. Your definition of ugliness? Roadkill
11. Your fear? Irrelevance
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Alive
13. Where were you last night? Abed
14. What you’re not? Incurious
15. One of your wish-list items? Omnipotence
16. Where you grew up? Incomplete
17. The last thing you did? Blog
18. What are you wearing? Shorts
19. Your TV? Flat
20. Your pet? Dead
21. Your computer? Which?
22. Your mood? Cyn-Opti-mistic
23. Missing someone? Yes
24. Your car? Fine
25. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes
26. Favorite store? None
27. Your summer? Sweaty
28. Love someone? Completely
29. Your favorite color? Teal
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? *

I am supposed to inflict this on 5 others. Since I think these things should be completely voluntary, I am going to allow you to pick yourselves. Or, better yet, ask your readers to select you.

* The night I had to authorize the removal of my father from the ventilator machine. It cannot be put in one word.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Each year, on the last Thursday of November, the people of the United States celebrate Thanksgiving. This holiday was derived from stories of the Pilgrims giving thanks for surviving a couple of harsh winters and reaping a bountiful harvest that promised that the colony would survive and flourish. There are many conflicting histories of the First Thanksgiving and some like to revel in the many misconceptions and misunderstandings of those early events. I don't. I try to look behind the mythology to the meaning, you might say "soul", of the ritual.

Thanksgiving is about gathering family and friends, it is about appreciating the blessings you have received even in years where perhaps you have also suffered problems, setbacks, or sorrow. It is a time to look in wonder at that silver lining we tend to ignore. It is a time to forgive the slights you've felt from those who should be close to you. It is a time to reach out to family and friends to let them know they are important to you.




And, finally, it is the time to be truly thankful that you are not a turkey.


(image credit: *AngELofREbellion)

Typos or The Keyboard Konspiracy

I hate and love typos. I hate them when I commit them and love them when others do. The internet is rife with them. I blame the keyboards, of course. It cannot be that we are all so klutzy that we just stumble them out. No, can't be that. Nor can it be that we are simply poor typists. It must be a conspiracy on the part of the Keyboards. I say that because certain typos are found all across the internet.

Certain typos are extremely common. I give you "teh", a typo so prevalent that it ought to become a legitimate spelling of "the". Its cousin is any word beginning with "th" at the start of a sentence. As in "THe quick red fox...etc." I notice, ironically, that I never typo the latter as "TEh quick red fox... etc." (I would add "ect" as a common typo but I think some people believe that is the correct abbreviation for "et cetera".)

Typos should not be confused with common misspellings. Typos are the result of minds operating faster than fingers. Misspellings are the result of minds not working. Or dyslexia. But I can't believe that every person who misspells words on a regular basis is dyslexic. No, there are people who are just too lazy to look it up or too arrogant to believe they cannot spell.

Some misspellings bug me greatly. Especially when they violate an easily remembered rule: "i before e except after c, or when sounding like a as in neighbor or weigh." (That would be "neighbour" for those of you in Canada, Australia, and the U.K.) The most common mangling of that seems to be "receive"; a word that is all too often written/typed as "recieve". I am reminded of a large type (as in font) instruction sticker on a printer in my office at work back in the late 70s. It had a line on it which stated:

Set the printer to RECIEVE

This sticker was on every printer hooked up to a phone line in our office. It was likely on every printer hooked up to a phone in offices all over California and parts of Nevada. They were certainly in Pacific Telephone offices throughout the region. yet it seemed I was the only one to notice.

Jsut had to get that off my chest.