Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France’s Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.
The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles – founded by Caesar.
Pere Goirot
To be honest, the only reason I’m doing a review of Pere Goriot
But honestly I feel completely apathetic about the book. I bought it, years ago, after seeing the move Balzac: A Life of Passion starring Gérard Depardieu. Depardieu is a pretty amazing actor and he brought the writer to life in a way that I found fascinating, so I ran out and bought one of his books. And it sat on the shelf for years.
And now I’ve read it and wow, did it not live up to that level of anticipation. The tale is a simple one, of a young man newly come to Paris to seek his fortune. He is staying in a shabby little boarding house and that is where he meets Goirot, a retired vermicelli maker who has essentially squandered his fortune trying to keep his two spoiled daughters well-regarded in polite society. The young man, naturally, falls in love with one of the daughters, and she in her turn finds him young and handsome enough to make for an admirable affair.
I enjoy reading ‘classic’ books because they give us such a fascinating window on the times when they were written, and that’s where I feel most disappointed. Pere Goirot feels very modern when being read; that is perhaps due to it being a translation? Sure, we’re seeing events in 19th Century Paris, in a chaotic time when the class system is breaking down. And Balzac references other contemporary plays and books (which the translation team has admirably footnoted) so you get a feel of what was and was not popular, but the language itself just felt too modern to me. And Balzac himself is awfully, awfully wordy. There are a few scenes that go on for pages when a few paragraphs would easily have done.
Not a favorite of mine, and I’m not sure I’ll be reading any more Balzac.
Bartle on games and politicians
Here’s a quote for you. Richard Bartle speaking out against the “self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists” who “beat on computer games”:
Call them [gamers] social inadequates if you like, but when they have more friends in World of Warcraft than you have in your entire sad little booze-oriented culture of a real life…
Richard Bartle: Gamers have won the battle against the censors | guardian.co.uk
It’s a fun rant, but really nothing you don’t already know if you’re a gamer.
Food for thought, doggie style
I started reading this post and thought it was pretty cute and funny. Then I kept reading and thought it was pretty darned wise.
You might see a bit of yourself in it.
Personal Development, Canine-Style – Lifehack.org
Me, I’m going to go chew on my foot for a while.
Dumb Little Man turns words into crack
A blog post worth reading, and yeah, I tried to use his advice in that silly post title:
how do you compete for attention in the much scarier and larger world of emails, blogs, company memos, webcopy, sales copy, etc.? The answer, my friend is spin.
Gone Fishin’: How to Hook Your Readers With Textual Crack
Technorati Tags: writing
Anyone using andLinux?
I read a piece at Linux.com (Run Windows and Linux without virtualization) about andLinux.org today. It’s an Ubuntu system that is supposed to run alongside of Windows. I’m intrigued, but frankly don’t want to mess with my Windows Vista system (used primarily for gaming) any further than installing programs on it. andLinux *seems* to be non-intrusive, but I’d love to hear from someone with firsthand experience with it.
I’m Gonna Git You Spamma!
Mahalo Daily outdoes itself with this spoof.
She don’t take no jive on her hard drive. Waa-oo-waa-oo-waaaaa!
An Engineer’s Guide to Cats
A note to all web journalists
Warning, incoming rant.
I was reading an article at an online magazine today and noticed a glaring and really embarrassing typo where one of the editors had just (inadvertently) dissed his own product. So being a nice guy, I figured I’d point that out to them. Turns out contacting the editors of this “magazine” isn’t easy.
Here’s how my thought process went:
1) I’ll leave my feedback as a comment
- I have to register or sign in to comment? Annoying
- Oh, they support openid, I’ll use that!
- Wait, they post my openid as my name if I use openid? That’s insane. Skip that.
2) I’ll email the author then. Click on his name.
- OK here’s a profile, what’s his email address? Not listed. Yes, I know it’ll get you spam but you’re setting yourselves up as journalists. Being contactable is part of that process.
- OK click on Contacts
- OK here’s a contact email address. I’ll click that.
- Oops, it isn’t a link. Highlight and copy it then
- Nope, they used an image so I can’t cut and paste the email address
So finally I type out the email address and send them an email, but not to tell them about the typo. Rather, to tell them how this process was so frustrating that I’m unsubscribing from their RSS feed and won’t give them my eyeballs again.
We’re talking about a site with advertising on it, so my page views = revenue for them. If you want to put on your journalist suit and collect an income from my visits, then you damned well better treat me, the reader, as a customer. Yes, I understand spam is a huge problem. But its part of the cost of doing business if you’re going to set yourself up as a business, which the ads tell me these people are (that opinion is bolstered by the name and format of the site).
OK, end of rant. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about such things but, well, I do. And I can’t be the only one!
A counter to over-protective parents
This lady is my new hero:
Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone | The New York Sun
My friends and I often spend time talking about what life was like when we were kids; how we’d run around unsupervised and how none of us died, y’know? We didn’t have “play dates,” we just shouted “I’m going over to Billy’s!” as we tore out the door. These days I just wonder when kids have a chance to be kids? Henry Jenkins has suggested that kids are so drawn to video games these days because those are the only places they can go to, y’know, get away from the parental units and be themselves, so to speak. That makes sense to me.
Now I should state that I have no kids, so to a certain extent, talk is cheap for me.
Anyway, Lenore Skenazy, the author of the article above, has started a blog called FreeRange Kids. How about that for a blog title!!? I love it.