The world's gone stupid........

silverbear said:
The nice thing about words is that they're free and can be conjured at will. And when you want to make something out of them, there's no waiting for the parts to come by mail.
SB
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You think so? The number of people I've met who regard language as a fearful and dangerous thing, to be avoided, and used in the manner of an unclean toilet. As distantly and infrequently as possible.
 
I hate to say it, but I don't have many books at my home......not that I don't read, because I do. However, I come from a very small town that managed to open a library when I was in middle school. I even helped to renovate the old house where it began. Being a small town, funds are limited. Therefore, I always donate to the this library the 'first run' books after I read them. A win for everyone involved.

"Cathedral of the written word." Now that is elegance at it's simplistic best --- it's a masterpiece picture written with only 5 words!
 
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Treys' a show-off...

When I moved to this town in 94ish, I went to the library on my way to dmv- priorities ;)
My old job kept me away alot, and when I returned, they had built a really fine new library. The librarian was shocked that I had an old card because they had confiscated all of them and issued fancy new ones years before. She called out the boss, and I got questioned as to how I still had such a thing. After I explained, and they looked me up on their computers, they re-jiggered it somehow, and I now officially have the oldest library card in the city of Bozeman.
I always knew I'd be famous.



xseler- I think my county sends books to other libraries that don't have alot. I'd be willing to check it out if you think it'd help.
 
I still go to the library now and then. But I see now what I'm doing, and am no longer fooled by my nefarious plot. I'm test-driving the next few books I'm going to buy later. Oh, I tell myself I'll just read it all the way through and move on, and that line used to fool me. But not anymore.
So now, in my little mobile home (nicknamed "The Bookmobile") I have 6 six-foot-high by four-foot-wide bookcases, 7 three-footers, 2 four-footers, books on shelves of the computer desk, books on shelves of the entertainment stand, books in the closet because we need another bookcase, and books in a drawer of my wardrobe. Call me nuts (many do) but I'm happy this way. I've read nearly all of them (some are my wife's) and re-read most.
Hard drives die eventually; CDs degrade after some time; even flash drives don't last all that long. But I have held, in my gloved hands back when I lived up in Cleveland, a copy of Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe! I still get chills. And I have seen but not touched a Gütenburg Bible! Books last. They don't need to be charged. They don't need to load or boot up. They provide me with a pleasing tactile sensation. They can store knowledge for as long as the material they are made of lasts. Books are one of my most favorite things. That's why I have thousands.
 
Ludwig II said:
You think so? The number of people I've met who regard language as a fearful and dangerous thing, to be avoided, and used in the manner of an unclean toilet. As distantly and infrequently as possible.
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Yes, far too many people have no have no appreciation of language and seem to think that there's something actually wrong with being literate beyond the level of a 12 year old. (It's sad and it's frightening)

But that doesn't make what he said untrue. It is perfectly true for those who aspire to converse in something better than the bleating of sheep or the barking of dogs.

"....to be avoided, and used in the manner of an unclean toilet. As distantly and infrequently as possible." That's not a bad turn of phrase, by the way.
 
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Spell check on these infernal machines will be the downfall 'of modern civilization.

"Stupid is as stupid does...."

I'm beginning to realize that the movie 'Idiocracy' is becoming fact at an accelerating pace.
 
And "autocorrect", on these "smart" phones, is too often anything but. It has turned out not to be quite the saving grace that so many poor spellers were hoping for. That said, I must concede that some of the stuff that autocorrect "fixed" is just stomach-wrenchingly hilarious. I have my autocorrect turned off on my own phone, both because I can bite the bullet and accept my errors and because I would rather my phone NOT turn "mastery" into "masturbate". That function can make a fool of you in the blink of an eye.
There's no substitute for knowing how to spell. Even autocorrect doesn't come all that close.
 
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Not a spell checker, but worse, cell phone with speech recognition to make texting and email easier..... it just makes a things just well like you said! Then even if I fix some wrong speech to text, then spell makes an entrance to mess it up still. Turn off spell cheek;)
 
xseler said:
Geoffrey, I presume....
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The same. "Canturbury Tales". Him. That book was SOOOOOO OLD! *Whew* It was a real geek-gasm moment! Only white cotton gloves between my hands and a 13th century author's work.
Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe is still one of the most complete and definitive works regarding the making and use of Astrolabes. I was in a middle-ages reenactment group at that time. I own an astrolabe. And I wanted to learn aspects of its use. So I went to the library.
Just try to find books about how to make or use an astrolabe! The Cleveland library at the time had five that referred to them. And one that told all about them. And it was Chaucer's and it was in the Rare Books Department/Section (or whatever they called it at the time; they were renovating at the time and moving things around). To better persuade the librarian in charge, I brought my astrolabe along. Got to see the book and take notes. It was a very cool thing.
 
The astrolabe? No, bronze I believe. I had a pewter one also but that got lost in a move and I've been upset about it ever since. It was a precise little thing. But with the bronze one, I etched a plate for the mater that's specific to my latitude, so I guess the bronze one would now be the more accurate one.
I'm a sucker for ancient technology. I own the astrolabe, a few sundials, a nocturnal, a quadrant, and a sextant, as well a a Galileo thermometer, and a weather-glass barometer. I would dearly love to work up a decent gear-cutting jig so I can build a replica of the Antikythera Mechanism. That would just be too cool.
 
Allen_Wrench said:
The astrolabe? No, bronze I believe. I had a pewter one also but that got lost in a move and I've been upset about it ever since. It was a precise little thing. But with the bronze one, I etched a plate for the mater that's specific to my latitude, so I guess the bronze one would now be the more accurate one.
I'm a sucker for ancient technology. I own the astrolabe, a few sundials, a nocturnal, a quadrant, and a sextant, as well a a Galileo thermometer, and a weather-glass barometer. I would dearly love to work up a decent gear-cutting jig so I can build a replica of the Antikythera Mechanism. That would just be too cool.
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Now that would be a very cool project indeed Allen :)
 
Thing is: getting hold of that much brass sheet is not going to be cheap. If I recall, the thing has more than 30 gears. That's why this project has been on a back burner for so long.
 
Ludwig II said:
Does it have to be brass? Why not a working copy in steel or plated steel?
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Hmmm...that's a good question. See, I know my scroll saw will cut brass with little to no problem. And it's very similar to the bronze that the original was made of. And I can solder/braze brass easily; been doing it a long time, whereas I only recently have been taking up welding. But steel is cheap; I can't argue that. I'll have to see what the thickest steel sheet would be that the scroll saw can manage.
 
Steel can be soldered as well, and there are soft grades as well as the hard ones. Once a gear has been cut, it can be case hardened with that powder stuff.
 
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