moon traveller herald

Writer James Burke has studied how technologies gain traction. His bellwether 1978 TV show (and book), " Connections ," takes one on a fantastic voyage that connects such diverse events as the birth of the Jacquard loom and the computer punch card. Here are some of Burke's rules of innovation. Innovation occurs as the result of deliberate attempts to develop it. The attempt to find one thing leads to the discovery of another. Unrelated developments have a decisive effect on the main event Motives, such as war and religion, may also act as major stimulant to innovation. Accident and unforeseen circumstances play a role innovation Physical and climate conditions play their part. [To that we add economic conditions.] Pasted from < https://web.archive.org/web/20060302165700/http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7021 >

Looking back - In 2002 it was clear that GUIs had issues. It seemed to open the way for alternatives that took as premise that 'the HTML client is not good enough.' They tended to cache more info on the client and find novel ways to render screens. Companies pursuing the problem included Curl, Droplet, Macromedia, Spotfire and others. What happened? An army of JavaScript developers came up with a plethora of scripts, and frameworks, and created Agile development, REST, and  disrupted the monolithic app server hegemony. https://adtmag.com/articles/2002/11/29/emerging-technology-rich-gui-clients.aspx

Will come to this again. The Eternal Note of Sadness. Matthew Arnold pegged it, listening to the Ocean. Willie Nelson too – he said, Listen to what the blues are saying. It is in a lot of Medieval lyricism too. It's there on my book shelf in The Modern Library’s An Anthology of Medieval Lyrics. Edited by Angel Flores.* But let's get to the poem - from the north of France, in the 14th or 15th century, a girl is versifying. Take it away, Christine de Pisan. =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= =~>+*<~= If I’m in church more often now By Christine de Pisan If I’m in church more often now It’s just that I can see her there Fresh as new-opened roses are. Why gossip of it, why endow It with such consequence? Why stare If I’m in church more often now? Where I may go – or when – or how It is to come more near to her. Fools call me fool! It’s whose affair If I’m in church more often now? =~>+*<~= ...

Looking at the book shelf today, I am going to pull one from earlier in the Moon Traveller transit. Bob Watt has a special place in my space. When Robert Steffens read his poetry at a St Cathernines H.S. guest lecture, it connected what Dylan was doing with what we were living in (Wisconsin). And things began to open up from there. I'd say the poems are best when read, and they arent unlike a droll comedian's monologue. The important thing about his poetry was that, like a 3-chord Velvet Underground song, it beckoned you to try it yourself. He called himself of the school of Inferior Poetry. Kind of like Punk Rock. I did a write up on Bob's passing (we'd kind of gotten to know him enough to say 'hi' on the street later in Milwaukee, and Madison), and that tribute is located here . To emphasize the Everyman Angle of Watt - Jeff De Mark tells the story of working as a substitute English teacher at Eureka high in the early 90s the teacher once gave me a week to...

It’s not possible to quickly and simply convey a whole culture’s poetry, and I wont try. But in China of yore, poetry was the premier art form, and it evolved into an incredible subtle opus, that was heavy on a note you might call the blues note. Here I look into this.  The poem is Amusing Myself by Li Bai, who wrote during the Tang Dynasty -- in my youth was more often known as Li Po in the West. Let's say Tu Fu was the Willie Mays of the time and era - that would make Li Bai the Mickey Mantle. It’s a shapshot view of Chinese poetry, including drinking, concise strange scenes and the music of regret. Drinking, I was unaware of nightfall. Fallen flowers Filled my robe. Drunk, I arose And walked by the stream In the moonlight. The birds had all gone, Men also were few.                       -Li Bai A review of a review of Chinese art show at the Met in 2007 drew some words that struck me on this...

The Weather Experiment from petermoore on Vimeo . There have been through the years a fair number of books that take some bit of arcana and build it into a novel history - often with a dollop of whimsy. They discuss the roots of Longitude, the historical search for ideal Actuarial Tables, surprising links between a Fish and commerce, and so on. To me, they tend to owe a debt to Connections, James Burke’s 1970s BBC/PBS series -- the one in which his deft narratives moved from the Jacquard Loom to the Hollerith Census machine to the 360 mainframe. Made you think about differently about the world in transit before you. Connections’ descendant books include surprising cul de sacs, curious associations - like one might find talking with an odd but interesting academic sauced at a dreary cocktail party. While there is much to learn in The Weather Experiment by Peter Moore, it truly hails from the genre, and, tho it stands as a well-researched exposition on the journey to better unde...