Month: November 2010
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Achieving 450 ppm requires that US peak in GHG by 2015
Two weeks ago I listened to a great lecture by John Holdren about planning our energy future in the light of climate change. Holdren is the White House director of the Office of Science and Technology. It was broken down into 6 parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.…
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November Literary Linkdump 1
(I’m sorry; these links are on random topics, not just literary ones!). What if there were a wiki for time travelers? (Read this ingenious short story). Here’s the greatest sci fi story ever written (honestly!) It’s also short and fun. Lovethelibrary website contains random questions which patrons ask reference librarians. One of the funniest things…
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November Video Linkdump #1
Music Vids Basketball Jones song. I totally love this song. It appears nonsensically in the classic movie Being There even though it was originally a Cheech and Chong video that a lot of stars got involved on. George Harrison on guitar! Carole King on piano. Billy Preston on organ. Eddie Fisher. I’ll Hold you in…
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What CNN Headline News looks like before the election
Here’s an amazing comment on a Washington Monthly thread about cable TV news. I am reprinting it in full: On Nov. 1, the day before the election, I spent an hour watch Headline News and making a record of how much time they spent on each story. Here is what I came up with: Commercials…
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Waltz with Bashir: Do perpetrators tell better stories than victims?
Waltz with Bashir is a serious animated film which tells the autobiographical story of an Israeli soldier during the Israel attack on Lebanon. This was a serious film tackling important questions in an innovative way. At the same time, I was uncomfortable with how it dramatized political events. It raises an interesting ethical and aesthetic…
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Green Linkdump #1 November Edition (and it’s massive!)
Long overdue and probably an overlong post. I’m dumping from Facebook and other places. To describe the predicament of climate deniers, Naomi Oreskes invokes the metaphor of the waiter: “Imagine a gigantic, colossal banquet. Hundreds of millions of people come to eat. They eat and drink to their hearts’ content, eating food that is better…
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Ebook/Epub/Docbook Braindump
(July 21 Update: For some reason wordpress is very flaky about handling lots of xml code, so I am no longer updating this post. I should add that 1)I am currently using the epub3 XSL now instead of db2epub.py or ant. Basically I am generating the xhtml files, manually copying over the images, css and…