A friend of mine sends out occasional "A cornucopia of links" emails. Below are a few.
Not everything will interest all readers, but most will probably find something of interest in many.
28th June 2024 |
The author of this blog, my friend James, has sadly died. This blog is therefore closed. |
8th April 2023 A Cornucopia of Links - Spring 2023. |
I just got an alert from my bank that "You have no alerts this month!". I am confused.... Happy first day of Spring... the old poem WHICH I THOUGH WAS BY (I was wrong!!!!!) Spike Milligan always comes to mind... meanwhile...... while wokery comes to mind... here. Part Two here. Part three here. Part Four here. Part Five here. Spring is sprung So... let us have this instead! Here. Cornucopia Quote: "What happens to you after you die?... A lot of things! They just do not involve you..."
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8th January 2022 Volume 64.(original authoring date unknown) |
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8th January 2022 Volume 62.(original authoring date unknown) |
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10th January 2022 Volume 61.(original authoring date unknown) |
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23rd January 2022 Volume 60 - Conspiracy and Paranoia(original authoring date unknown) |
Before I start: Take control of your data. If you are reading this you are definitely being tracked by one or more pieces of software which is harvesting information about you. What can you do about this? Mozilla and the Tactical Technology Collective have created a popup storefront in lower Manhattan called The Glass Room: Looking Into Your Online Life. Situated somewhere along the education—art spectrum, The Glass Room provides "a place to consider how you use technology and how those behind technology use you". Resources include a variety of workshops about technology and privacy, along with a book of leaked passwords and other art installations. One of the most useful pages on the site covers Tips and Resources to protect your privacy... here. In particular, the five simple steps you can take to increase your privacy... here.
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15th September 2019 Dune Special. |
For many, myself included, THE most significant science fiction book has to be Dune and the subsequent other five related novels - his son has written other books (many) which quite simply are not even in the same league in my (and others) opinion. There is an official site here. I will not even attempt to summarise / summarize the plot but simply refer you to the Wikipedia entry/ies about Frank Herbert's legacy. All I will say is that it has many real life associations and parallels, is totally absorbing, and is well worth the time needed to read them (I have a khanjali hanging to my left as I type). The main Wikipedia entry is here. Additional and far reaching links are here. In addition to the Dune books, Frank Herbert wrote several other noteworthy stories. My personal favourites being; 'The Dragon In the Sea', 'The Santaroga Barrier', and 'The Green Brain'. Further, is the book 'The Sabres of Paradise' written by Lesley Blanch covering the history of the 'holy war' fought in the Caucasus region (mainly what is now Georgia and going up into the Western Caucasus into the Sea of Azov). This is strongly believed to be the main source for Frank Herbert's writing. I have traveled to Georgia and it is one of my all time favourite/favorite countries which I plan to revisit soon. Stunningly beautiful with a rich heritage, awesome food - I have been the 'victim' of a 'supra' or Keipi on several occasions and the guest at a Georgian wedding made memorable by sitting at the same table as the Georgian Male Choir (LOUD!) and the family of the bride's family from the Tusheti mountains some of the best wine I have ever drunk (and been drunk from). Conquered by Russia (here) the people are incredibly resilient and truly know how to party and generally have fun... There is a three part mini-series produced for the Sci-Fi channel which I have not see but which won numerous awards. Info here. Apparently it is worth it and is on DVD / online somewhere but I have not found it (yet). There was a (bad, truly, truly, bad to the extent of do not waste your precious life on it bad) movie of the novel made in 1984 including Sting among the cast... here. Scheduled for release in December 2020 is a remake here. I am leaving my opinions open on this as I am not sure how well a few hours of cinema can possibly encompass the far reaching concept, depth, and scope of the novels. Coincidentally the board game has just been re-released... here. Plus there were several computer games directly related here and the early Command and Conquer series was originally based upon this (until the developers got 'tired of sand'). For those of you familiar with the novels and thirsting for more (beyond the seriously crappy follow-up books, cashing in on a franchise, books written by his son and a co-author Anderson) there is also the Dune Encyclopedia (all 708 PDF pages of it) written by Frank Herbert himself... here. FOOTNOTE: VERY close behind these tales in terms of 'The Best!' have to be the Foundation Series and the Robot Series from Isaac Asimov, along with the Rama books (I have the audio series of this and I continually go back to it despite some of the latter parts being weak and slightly far fetched/stretching things a bit) by Arthur C. Clarke?? who was an incredibly prolific writer here. |
11th May 2017 |
1. The Woobie Is The Greatest Military Invention Ever... here. 2. Let's Have A Kiki. Contains sweary words and music... wonderment here. Non-sweary word version here. 3. 2nd November, 2017. Battle for Birthday Mountain (video) A lot of Norwegians want to give Finland a mountain to celebrate 100 years of Finnish independence, moving the national boundary 31 feet. Right now the highest point of Finland is on the side of the mountain-- this would give them the summit as well. Is it legal? Maybe not! But now there's a touching film about it. 4. Eighteen year old Ewan Cunningham covers Pink Floyd's Echoes by playing every instrument. His video pays homage to Pink Floyd's famous Live at Pompeii version of the 25-minute long masterpiece. Link to the Ewan Cunningham YouTube channel. Meanwhile... here's an acoustic version with David Gilmour. And the 'real' version here. 5. A few reasons why fonts are important... here. 6. 100 recommended books by Arab women contains some interesting reading. Here. 7. Detective Skip Toby in... The Scales Of Justice... here. Wonderful. 8. But is he a 'good' teacher? Here. NOTE: Auto-playing video. And it continues annoyingly onto the next one... 9. Art Deco Marvels of a Lost 1920s Copacabana Magazine. Stunning but a tad racist in parts... here. 10. Pictures of Telescopes by Telescopes... nice... here. 11. Paul Zerdin. THE Best/Funniest Ventriloquist I have ever seen. The Howie dancing piece is wonderful... here. 12. Moon versus Mars... here. 13. You may remember I linked to this here and here previously. Well the organisers/organizers got it together and there was "24-07-16 Rockin'1000 That's Live - Orogel Stadium - Cesena IT". Smells like Teen Spirit here. It is being dubbed the 'Woodstock' of Europe. Incidentally, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock and there are rumours/rumors that there will be an anniversary concert there to mark the occasion... 14. On Love... here. Dark times deserve deep thoughts. 15. The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. "The Warburg Institute is the premier institute in the world for the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture. It is cross-disciplinary and global. It is concerned with the histories of art and science, and their relationship with superstition, magic, and popular beliefs. Its researches are historical, philological and anthropological. It is dedicated to the study of the survival and transmission of cultural forms – whether in literature, art, music or science – across borders and from the earliest times to the present." Additional article in The New Yorker here. |