Bloggle

A decade of coffee, commentary & inscrutable icons.

tree-fall

September 20, 2011
by deCadmus
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It’s Science!

I find this news — a waypoint in the progression of our environment — more than a little poignant:

Researchers at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon have spent the past two years documenting the park’s natural sound. Often, microphones will pick up the sound of falling trees, elks snacking and coyotes howling.

In even the most remote parts of the park, however, researchers are also hearing airplane noise 15 percent of the time.

Setting up temporary recording stations in 20 different locations, technicians say that there’s virtually no place left in America that’s untouched by ambient human noise — and that this may be stressful to wildlife.1

Seems to me this is something that’s happened in my lifetime. I can clearly remember stomping around the woods of Missouri in my youth, undisturbed by anything remotely like trains or planes or automobiles. Whether or not the inescapable sound of human technology is stressful to wildlife, I’ve little doubt it’s stressful to people. Sometimes you just wanna get away, right?

And, briefly noted:

Notes and Links

  1. Emphasis mine. ↩
sugar-maple-leag

September 13, 2011
by deCadmus
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A Visit from the Tree Guy

The single sugar maple tree in my back yard — for some weeks clearly stressed — is a lost cause, says the tree guy, and is soon to be a pile of wood for autumn bonfires.

Acer S., the tree guy notes… Acer saccharum.

We have other maples… Red maples (Acer rubrum) and black (Acer nigrum). We have a massive ash tree (Fraxinus) and a picturesque stand of birches (Betula). We have cedar and spruce and hemlock trees (Juniperus, Picea, Tsuga) but only the single sugar maple. I’d planned to tap that tree to try my hand at backyard sugaring, but hadn’t gotten around to it, and in retrospect I’m awfully pleased I didn’t; I’m sure I’d worry it was me what killed that tree.

Maybe it was lonely.

I think I’ll replant another sugar maple when all is said and done. Not a single sugar maple, but two. Just in case.

September 11, 2011
by deCadmus
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All the anger in me has been bled. So too the jingoistic rush, the fierce urgency of nationalism that the events of ten years ago engendered. All that remains today is sorrow. Sorrow for our loss of innocents, and the loss of our innocence. Sorrow for the further losses of our young men and women who volunteered in the pure white heat of anger to take our response to their shores… whoever they were, and wherever that might lead them.

Ten years ago today I was glued to my television, witness to history and the awful, unfolding events of the day. Today… I’m tuning out. I might wish today’s commemorations would do more than mourn our losses, individual and collective. I might hope we could search for wisdom in the rubble of our ruins, rather than sow anger and fear anew. But that’s not good television, is it?

terry-brooks

September 10, 2011
by deCadmus
0 comments

Terry Brooks at Flying Pig Bookstore Sunday

Just a quick note to remind folks that epic fantasy author Terry Brooks1 will be making a stop at Flying Pig Bookstore in bucolic Shelburne, Vermont on Sunday. Which is tomorrow.

As Terry’s likely to turn out a crowd, the folks at Flying Pig are kindly requesting you let them know you’re coming — RSVP by phone at 802-985-3999 or by email at [email protected] — so they’ll know if they need to have overflow space for you and that towering stack of books you want signed.2

Notes and Links

  1. Up to you whether you wish to read that as “epic author” or author of “epic fantasy” as frankly both are apt and suitably applied. ↩
  2. If you don’t still have your very dog-eared and spine-weary copy of The Sword of Shannara, or any of the other 23 New York Times best-selling books he’s written, I’m quite certain that Josie and Elizabeth and the gang will be happy to sell you a new one. ↩
michael-s-hart

September 9, 2011
by deCadmus
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Raise a Glass to Michael S. Hart, Founder of Project Gutenberg

This week Project Gutenberg announced that its founder, Michael S. Hart, had died at the age of 64. You may not know the name… but you are probably familiar with Michael’s work, particularly if you’ve ever read an eBook. Michael believed that the great written works of the world should be freely available, and freely accessible, regardless of device. Project Gutenberg — founded on his philosophy – this week published his obituary:

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart’s life’s work, spanning over 40 years.

Hart was an ardent technologist and futurist. A lifetime tinkerer, he acquired hands-on expertise with the technologies of the day: radio, hi-fi stereo, video equipment, and of course computers. He constantly looked into the future, to anticipate technological advances. One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable mobile devices, such as cell phones.

It wasn’t technology alone that brought about Hart’s vision, of course, but his own passion. He should be remembered for his work in the cause of literacy and the protections of the public domain. And for a vast, free and freely accessible library.

pistachios

September 6, 2011
by deCadmus
0 comments

Idled by Cancer Cure, Researchers Grope for Purpose

I guess I missed the news. Surely there’s been a spate of headlines about the discovery of a cure for cancer? For Autism? Alzheimer’s? For male pattern baldness? No? Then for goodness sake, why are researchers working to suss out whether pistachio nuts might provide a decaffeinated alternative to coffee? Indeed, having learned nothing from prior efforts to substitute roasted coffee with acorns, beetroot, chicory, malted barley, cottonseeds, dandelion root, figs, potato peels, and toast scrapings – no, I’m not making this up – researchers now claim that:

” …carefully roasted, the fruit of the Pistacia terebinthus tree, which is much smaller than normal pistachios, could offer all the flavour of coffee, with none of the kick – as well as being significantly cheaper.

“It might seem an unlikely boast, as the special type of pistachio nut is from a tree better known as having sap which is a source of turpentine.”

Turpentine, yum.

Let’s be clear: there are countless maladies in want of a cure. We have climate problems. Food source problems.1  Economic problems aplenty. And for cryin’ out loud, we’re desperately close to losing Terry Pratchett to Alzheimer’s — can we please try to focus on what’s important?

Notes and Links

  1. That’s food — as in something that provides nourishment, not some fool substitute for product that’s just terrific already, thanks. ↩

September 5, 2011
by deCadmus
0 comments

“All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other.”

— Abraham Lincoln