Without mystery, hero, handsome prince or fairy godmother — Goodnight Moon has now lulled millions of children to sleep, in more than two dozen languages, for 75 years.

“Eloquent. Extraordinary. Timeless. Paradigm-shifting. Classic. Half a century after it first appeared, Leonard Read’s ‘I, Pencil’ still evokes such adjectives of praise. Rightfully so, for this little essay opens eyes and minds among people of all ages. Many first-time readers never see the world quite the same again.” ~ Lawrence W. Reed

Hundreds of thousands of Americans of all ages continue to enjoy this simple and beautiful explanation of the miracle of the “invisible hand” by following the production of an ordinary pencil. Read shows that none of us knows enough to plan the creative actions and decisions of others.

Cory Doctorow's book, Radicalized, is up for a CBC award. To celebrate, here's an excerpt.
by Cory Doctorow - Jan 22, 2020 9:05am EST //

entropy_winsArs Scholae Palatinaeet Subscriptorreply3 years agoreportignore user
RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRachael wrote:
I'm not Canadian and I knew what CBC was! :)

Somehow, the movie, Brazil, lends more hindsight in having a character that DeNiro played, showing up to perform an unauthorized repair on the furnace. Eluding the IoT Enforcement Squad...

+1 for the Gilliam movie reference.

We live in a world that has become the embodiment of the imagined absurdity of the past... //

MisterManoArs Praetorianreply3 years agoreportignore user
To think there are many, many powers pushing so we reach exactly that kind of dystopic IoT crapshow because biznizz and money. A great read that leaves me even more worried about the future. //

CuriouslySaneArs Praefectuset Subscriptorreply3 years agoReader Favreportignore user
AusPeter wrote:
I saw the headline and thought "Hmm .. yep jailbreaking IoT devices is a thing now". Then I realized that it was a fictional story.

Cory's writing has a distressing habit of not staying fictional. //

I can't think of anything else with the acronym "CBC".

complete blood count

(Does not apply to Canadians as their 'blood' is actually a mixture of maple syrup and double-double)

The “Green Ember” stories are called “classic,” and “vintage.” How do you breathe new life into “old” tales and why did this become important to you as a writer?

These are new stories with an old soul. A friend described them as holding classic virtues that feel old-fashioned and like museum pieces—trapped in amber—because they are so strongly associated with the past in classic literature. But these books have modern pacing and are out “in the wild,” so families are having a kind of Jurassic Park-like experience. Something they thought belonged only to the past is rampaging through their imaginations and it’s exhilarating. In an age that is often grotesquely inhospitable to children, they feel almost transgressive. I’ve been delighted to find so many other families who share my own family’s love for these kinds of stories.

limate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics Paperback – April 19, 2022

Over the past half-century, politicians, pundits, and academics have been making wildly incorrect claims about the causes and consequences of climate change, confusing and misleading millions of people around the world. Students and their teachers are not immune to these problems. In fact, in many ways, they've been the biggest victims of climate change misinformation. In Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics, authors Anthony Watts and James Taylor use cold, hard facts and well-established data to debunk some of the most prominent climate myths. This easy-to-read book is perfect for teachers and students interested in learning the truth about climate change and its impacts.

PDF Version: http://heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/Books/CaaG-2022.pdf

"Slide deck" summarizing the primary data: http://heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/Books/CAAG-SlideDeck-2022.pdf

COSMIC VIEW - THE UNIVERSE IN 40 JUMPS
by KEES BOEKE

Downloadable PDF, MOBI, EPUB

Published in 1957, John Day Company, New York

COSMIC VIEW
The Universe in 40 Jumps
Kees Boeke

This is a copy of Kees Boeke's book, COSMIC VIEW: The Universe in 40 Jumps (1957).

Kees Boeke's Cosmic View is a classic on learning about the scale of things. It is similar to the Morrison's Powers of Ten, but aimed at a younger audience. Its legacy includes Charles Eames's film Powers of Ten, the resulting book by Philip and Phylis Morrison, and several similar books which followed. Unfortunately, the problems Kees hoped to address, including peoples' understanding being fragmented by scale, remain as pressing today as they were in 1957. I place it online in the hope of encouraging awareness and activity in this area. Comments welcome - Mitchell Charity.

If you enjoy this book, you might also like my A View from the Back of the Envelope. http://www.vendian.org/envelope/

A note on copyright. I have placed this book online without permission. It has been 4 decades since Cosmic View was written, 3 since Kees Boeke died, and perhaps 2 since the last printing. Out of print, difficult to find, and largely forgotten. My hope is this noncommercial posting will further Kees's goal that every child and grownup develop a "cosmic view". If the current copyright holder, whomever that now is, should ever raise objection, the attached pages may go away.

Whether you're in the mood for a gritty suspense novel, a lighthearted rom-com, or thoughtful literary fiction, there are fiction books for you releasing in the first half of 2022.

The film, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words was released in 2020, and offered a unique glimpse into Justice Clarence Thomas’ life and judicial philosophy. Since his 1991 confirmation hearings, the legacy media has delighted in poisoning the well with lies, smears, and racist tropes about the Justice. With the assistance of documentary filmmaker Michael Pack, Mark Paoletta decided to dig a new well, one that allowed people to draw their conclusions from Justice Thomas’ own life, words, and writings.

Pack spent 25 hours filming Justice Thomas, and six additional hours with his wife Ginni — a voluminous amount of discourse that was reduced to a two-hour documentary. Sadly, this left a prodigious amount of information on who the Justice is as a person, as well as his writings and viewpoints, unexplored. So, Paoletta decided that a book of the same name was in order. //

I sat down with Paoletta for an hour, and he stated that he is making it his life’s mission to present a true, candid, and unadorned portrait of this consequential jurist.

It’s a fascinating conversation that gives a glimpse not only into Clarence Thomas the United States Supreme Court Justice, but into Clarence Thomas the man and the humanitarian.

At HamiltonBook.com, you save up to 80% on a large selection of in-stock titles in a wide variety of subject areas. You can buy with confidence because your satisfaction is guaranteed.

HamiltonBook.com LLC is a separate company that obtains its inventory from Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company. You can place orders online at HamiltonBook.com using MasterCard, VISA, or Paypal, however, you may still use this site to order by mail from Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company by choosing “Print & Mail - Check” in the shopping cart and mailing your order along with a check or money order.

2021 INDIES Winner
Bronze, Ecology & Environment (Adult Nonfiction)

DEAD SERIOUS
WILD HOPE AMID THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
Eli J. Knapp
Torrey House Press (Sep 21, 2021)

Clever prose and gifted storytelling enliven Eli J. Knapp’s Dead Serious, a weighty book about how species are being steamrolled toward extinction that nonetheless argues that a better future is possible.

Knapp, a self-branded “nature snoop” who always has his binoculars on hand, organizes his stories around the eighteen extinction factors outlined in an influential 1983 essay by Michael Soulé. His diverting descriptions of flora and fauna lead into captivating lessons about biological principles, all of which are embellished with humor and personal anecdotes. A dramatic account of seeking scenic beauty, and ending up camping near the hibernation site of timber rattlesnakes, is used to discuss rarity and species’ habitats, for example.

Thomas Jefferson is the most enigmatic of the American Founding Fathers. The author of the Declaration of Independence, he is sometimes called the “Author of America.” As a son of the Enlightenment and the American founding, he is claimed by many sides.

And as Thomas Kidd reminds us in his splendid new biography, we still haven’t quite got Thomas Jefferson right, especially in his religious and philosophic views. What Kidd reveals is that Jefferson was, and remains, America’s chief political theologian articulating a theology of liberty. //

Jefferson the thinker, and “sect unto himself,” was a man who combined elements of “Christianity, Epicureanism, the Enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and universal rights, and the republican values of virtue, limited government, and political liberty.” The problem with discerning Jefferson’s moral universe and commitments from our standpoint comes from the fact that we live in an age of dogmatic ideology.

We impose a dogmatic reading of Jefferson, whereas Jefferson lived in age of intellectual experimentation that usually left contradictory and incompatible philosophies contesting, without seeking to resolve them. Jefferson’s mishmash of views was only possible to weave together because of the intellectual excitement and relative openness the Enlightenment afforded.

Dogmatists of the secularist post-Enlightenment want an only secular and rationalist Jefferson and misleadingly (ignorantly or otherwise) present the third president in that light. Dogmatists of the new Christian right present a misleading portrait of what Kidd describes as a “brilliant but troubled person,” as they selectively cobble together some of Jefferson’s positive comments about the relationship of Christianity and public virtue with contemporary anti-statist politics. //

Jefferson’s moral universe, a universe undergirded by a God of justice, a moral order knowable through rational inquiry, and an individual soul seeking the felicity of tranquility in all relations, becomes the spirit and flesh that comes to govern — however imperfectly, and imperfect it was — Jefferson’s life.

Jefferson’s life seeking union with the moral universe that he conceived in his mind became, in soft cultural form, the moral universe of the United States and its people, even if we don’t always realize it. We too want a God of justice, a moral order to conform to by the dictates of reason, and a tranquil soul and community where liberty abounds within that harmony under God’s justice and moral rationalism. In sum, we are still Jefferson’s children. Jefferson’s political theology has become our own. //

Because Jefferson’s moral imagination and universe drew upon many worlds, Jefferson remains an enigma for narrow-minded dogmatists who want an equally narrow Jefferson contrary to who Jefferson actually was. But, as Kidd shows in this splendid biography, we benefit by entering Jefferson’s worlds on his terms, not ours. We do ourselves, and Jefferson, a gross abuse by trying to impose our ideological presuppositions on him rather than becoming better humans by learning from the life and intellect of the Sage of Monticello. And Jefferson’s moral universe was one in which God, liberty, and man were meant to be united

Analyzing Linux kernel crash dumps with crash - The one tutorial that has it all
Updated: June 14, 2010

This article is a part of my Linux Kernel Crash Book. It is available for free download in PDF format!
Finally, the big moment has come. Reading the information displayed by the crash utility, understanding what those curious lines mean and hacking your way through the problem to the other side.

What happens when a world-renowned computer scientist applies scientific methodology to studying the Bible, writes about his findings, and has some of the world's best calligraphers illustrate the work? The result is 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, a treasure of profound biblical insight and enchanting calligraphy that will enlighten your mind, your eyes, and your spirit. Donald E. Knuth so loved the Bible that he dedicated five years of his life to creating this masterpiece. With it, you will learn about each 3:16 verse of the Bible, how it came to be written, and how it contributes to the wholeness of the Bible.

According to Tolkien, fantasy requires a deep imagination known as "sub-creation." And the genre reflects a fundamental truth of being human. //

Why Tolkien loved fantasy

Books of all sorts are escapist. Fictional narratives and made-up characters define a novel. Yet, no genres are quite so escapist as science fiction or fantasy. In that, lies their value. When we imagine a school of wizards, dragon-riders, or humble villagers becoming heroes, we leave the world behind. We enter a world which bears just enough connection to this world to make sense, while being alien enough to be exciting, vibrant, and hugely readable.

As Tolkien put it, “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

The ability we have to read books, imagine worlds, and play make-believe is one of the greatest balms we have. Fantasy takes us on an incredible journey, but it gives us all the heroes and villains we need to make sense of the world.

Know-nothing pundits and politicians have been communicating to Americans that inflation is, like the weather, a mystery they can’t control. That’s simply not true, write three economic commentators in a soon-published book, “Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, And How to Fix It.” On the contrary: inflation is a direct result of governments cheating their people, and solving it is pretty simple, if politically difficult.

In the book, businessman Steve Forbes, economist Nathan Lewis, and business journalist Elizabeth Ames give laypeople a concise, readable introduction to monetary policy. They also lay out easy-to-understand policy and personal prescriptions for responding to an inflationary economy such as today’s. The book is short and immensely useful for those of us who are not economic experts or finance minds and just want politicians to stop stealing our hard-earned money and endangering our nation’s security. //

In an inflationary economy, the winners are the rich, the well-connected, and the corrupt. The losers are the poor, the middle-class, and those who work hard and play by the rules. Thus, an inflationary economy is inherently an unjust system. This is the top reason it should be combatted.

Not surprisingly, then, the rich and powerful often insist some inflation is a good thing. Maintaining a consistent level of inflation is in fact the Federal Reserve’s open policy goal. But even a “low” level of inflation such as The Fed’s (often wildly missed) target of 2 percent a year effectively steals significant income from especially the working and middle class. For someone earning $50,000 a year, 2 percent annual inflation is a $1,000 pay cut every year. That can be the difference between saving and not saving.

Making it harder to put money aside essentially forces middle and working-class people to depend on welfare rather than their own industry. Inflation thus erodes the middle class that is the bulwark of all free societies. So when it increases, societies tend to experience chaos. More people stop working and creating, and start trying to steal from others, either through government or through crime.

It should go without saying that an unstable society and economic chaos are threats to national security. These invite aggression from foreign enemies and hinders a nation’s ability to respond. This should make policymakers take inflation seriously, but like usual, so far politicians are mostly playing the blame game instead of solving the problem. //

Today, the Federal Reserve essentially passes on federal debts and deficit spending to American consumers by creating more money without also creating new value. It is now one of many Western central banks that “effectively financ[es] their [government] deficits by buying their debt.”

In very simple terms, inflation is the result of governments spending far more than they can openly tax from citizens, then attempting to hide their shenanigans with financial gimmicks. So it is absolutely fair to think of inflation as a tax, and as the direct fault of shady government behavior: “Moderate inflation results from short-term ‘stimulus;’ hyperinflation comes from regular money printing to pay the government’s bills…The United States has not begun directly financing itself with large-scale money printing. Unfortunately, that may already be changing.”

Suppose someone claimed that we are not running out of petroleum? Or that life on Earth began below the surface of our planet? Or that oil and gas are not "fossil fuels"? Or that if we find extraterrestrial life it is likely to be within, not on, other planets? You might expect to hear statements like these from an author of science fiction. But what if they came from a renowned physicist, an indisputably brilliant scientist who has been called "one of the world's most original minds"? In the The Deep Hot Biosphere, Thomas Gold sets forth truly controversial and astonishing theories about where oil and gas come from, and how they acquire their organic "signatures." The conclusions he reaches in this book might be at first difficult to believe, but they are supported by a growing body of evidence, and by the indisputabel stature and seriousness Gold brings to any scientific enterprise. In this book we see a brilliant and boldly orginal thinker, increasingly a rarity in modern science, as he developes a revolutionary new view about the fundamental workings of our planet. Thomas Gold is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an Emertius Professor at Cornell University. Regarded as one of the most creative and wide-ranging scientists of his generation, he has taughtat Cambridge University and Harvard, and for 20 years was the Director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.

In his new book, “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism,” Matthew Continetti applies what scholars of all persuasions should do with American conservatism, treating it as a complex, contradictory movement, often at war between its populists and its intellectual elite wings. He pithily captures the liberal mindset with its refusal to treat conservatism as a serious intellectual force. //

“The Left sees conservatism as a long-running, berserk refusal to submit to the ministrations of liberal rule,” he writes.

He focuses less on what held the right together — the unifying issue of Cold War anti-communism until the Soviets imploded in 1991 — than on what tears them apart. Like any historian or pundit, he examines the past through the lens of the present. The election of Donald Trump with his “protectionism, immigration restrictionism, religiosity, and antipathy to foreign entanglements” was simply the latest skirmish between right-wing populism and intellectual conservatism. //

Continetti effectively documents this tug between conservative elites and conservative populists but does not really provide a way for them to come together. Without the “elites,” you don’t have articulated positions and “sweeping narratives” that inspire voters. Without the populists, you don’t have the true energy behind winning campaigns.

Until conservatives can reconcile the two the road ahead, even the fight against lightweights like Joe Biden will be rough.

South! tells one of the most thrilling tales of exploration and survival against the odds which has ever been written. It details the experiences of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition which set off in 1914 to make an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent.

Under the direction of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition comprised two components: one party sailing on the Endurance into the Weddell Sea, which was to attempt the actual crossing; and another party on board the Aurora, under the direction of Aeneas Mackintosh, sailing into the Ross Sea on the other side of the continent and tasked with establishing depots of stores as far south as possible for the use of the party attempting the crossing.