I'll Keep Trying · Sep 17, 10:58 PM
Last books read:
- Old Filth: a very, very English novel; quite perfect in its Englishness. Nine thumbs up.
- Who Controls the Internet: I don’t know if this was exceptionally well written for a popularization of technology and policy issues by a pair of legal academics1 and far beyond the normal in pure reasonableness, but it certainly seemed so.
Old friend Alex Gilly writes to forward the following email from a friend of his:
A curious sort of group, I know, but this is mildly extraordinary. Background-wise: In 1665, a group of natural philosophers in England got together and decided to publish what is arguably the first scientific journal: the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
It’s still going strong today; and for the next couple of months, the Royal Society is making the entire archive all the way back to 1665 available for free2.
BTW It was apparently Coleridge who, in 1833, told his mentor, one William Whewell, to think up a term for natural philosopher-types that didn’t include the term philosopher (no messing on STC’s patch) – Will came up with Scientist.
1 Certainly it must be high in the category.
2 It wasn’t immediately obvious to me how to get into the archives without a subscription. And why isn’t it always free? Only libraries and rich eccentrics get access. And if you’re a student at a university, you can have access too, but the minute you graduate it’s US$10k or nothing at all. Tsk.
- Tell me more about Old Filth. In other news, your feed appears to break in the latest Firefox.
— Theo Sep 19, 11:55 AM #
- Theo!!
Hi.
I bet the Amazon pages with related reviews, blurbs, etc., can paint a better picture of it than I can. “Filth” is an acronym for Failed in London, Try Hongkong.
I thought it was so English because both the dialog and the descriptions were maximally concise; couldn’ta been more perspicuous.
— Stewart Sep 20, 03:21 PM #
Things the Internet Couldn't Help me Find Today Text transcripts of spoken interviews are always funny (even when there is a translator involved)