Archive for August 2010
I don’t know about Atlas, but *I* shrugged…
Few authors have inspired such passion in their readers as the Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum– better known by her pen name, Ayn Rand.
Rand’s philosophy, “Objectivism” (rational self-interest) has guided followers as various as Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, Brad Pitt, and Oliver Stone. While she distanced herself from Libertarianism (“too soft”), she’s been embraced by Libertarians and by the Right at large. Glenn Beck , Rush Limbaugh, Ron Paul, and Clarence Thomas have all affirmed their admiration. South Carolina Governor (and noted hiker) Mark Sanford wrote a 2009 review for Newsweek in which he recalled being “blown away” after first reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. And “going Galt” (emulating John Galt, the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged, commandeering the airwaves to preach the evils of collectivism and of the Christian notion of collective guilt and sin… thus by extension seemingly, of collective responsibility and care) has become a catch phrase of the Tea Party movement.
So perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised by the length to which Rand devotee Nick Newcomen went to promote his idol’s works– over 12,000 miles. As The Guardian reports, Newcomen spent…
… a month driving more than 12,000 miles to inscribe his message – “Read Ayn Rand” – on a vast swath of US land.
Using a GPS tracking device as a “pen”, Newcomen took about 10 days to complete each word, turning on his GPS logger when he wanted to write and turning it off between letters, videoing himself at landmarks along the route for documentation. He drove 12,328 miles in total, across 30 American states, inputting the data once he was finished into Google Earth to create the world’s largest book advertisement.
Read the full story here.
As we toss a couple of pennies into The Fountainhead, we might raise a contemplative glass to St. Caesarius of Arles, whose Feast Day today is. The leading ecclesiastic in early Sixth Century Gaul, Caesarius had a somewhat different perspective than did Ms. Rand…
Do the proud and wicked souls who commit serious sins seem happy to you because they do not suffer evil in this world?… They are not scourged at all in this world, because they are reserved for eternal punishment due to the excessive number of their sins. They cannot be punished in this short time, for they require endless torture.
– Sermon 5.3
Rotten Tomatoes: the Epistemological Edition…
Special cinematic bonus from Doug and Savage Chicken: All of Chewbacca’s dialogue from Star Wars on a large Post-It Note.
As we remark to ourselves that it’s all just so real, we might recall that it was on this date in 1498 that Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was commissioned to carve a statue for the funeral monument of French cardinal Jean de Billheres, a representative in Rome. We know the result, which was completed in 1499, as the Renaissance masterpiece “La Pietà.”
Pencil it in…
“I’m known as the pencil guy,” laughed Dalton Ghetti, 49. “I don’t mind that at all.”
The Bridgeport artist creates impossibly detailed miniature sculptures on the tip of a pencil.
He shuns a magnifying glass and uses simple tools like razor blades and needles to create delicate little figures – from a tiny, jagged handsaw to a minibust of Elvis in shades…
Readers can find the full, photo-laced story in The NY Daily News (and more in The [U.K.] Daily Mail); and readers in the Northeast can see the Brazilian-born carver’s work at the New Britain Museum of American Art, as part of its “Meticulous Masterpieces” exhibit, through this Sunday.
(Many thanks to reader PL.)
As we ponder altogether new meanings for “sharpen my pencil,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1940, at the New York World’s Fair, that the world’ first Parachute Wedding was conducted. Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward, were married on the Parachute Jump, a 26-story high ride created for the World’s Fair (though now working on Coney Island). The entire wedding party– minister, bride, groom, best man, maid of honor & four musicians– was suspended aloft until the newlyweds completed their vows.
When I’m good…
Your correspondent imagines that readers have envied, as he has, the rakish sashes worn by Boy and Girl Scouts the world over– and more, the little round “emblems of competence,” the Merit Badges, with which they are bedecked. How satisfying it would be be to advertise one’s accomplishments as one walked about! And how gratifying to do it so much specifically than can a fancy watch or a ridiculously-expensive handbag!
Well, Dear Readers, our time has come. Thanks to the good folks at Merit Badger, one can advertise skills and achievements in such arenas as:
Learning From Mistakes
Patience
Having No Outstanding Library Fines
Readers can visit Merit Badger to outfit themselves.
As we try to remember over which shoulder we wear the thing, we might recall that it was on this date in 1982 that arbitrageur Ivan Boesky offered Martin Siegel, a mergers-and-acquisitions executive at Kidder, Peabody & Co., a job. Siegel declined, and Boesky then suggested that if Siegel would supply him with early inside information on upcoming mergers there would be something in it for him.
Boesky turned Siegel’s tips into profits (one example: he made over $28 million trading Carnation stock on insider info) until 1986, when the Feds arrested dozens on Wall Street for insider and related trading violations. Boesky was convicted and sentenced to 3 years– a lighter punishment than Michael Milken’s 10 years, but still much more than Siegel’s: as one of the few cooperating witnesses, and the only one who showed any remorse, Siegel was allowed simply to repay the $9 million he’d received from Boesky.
The 1986 case(s) were the largest stock manipulation scheme prosecuted at the time… and may still be, though the full dimensions of the pending Galleon case are not yet known.
Envy
Lying
Odds are that your bank balance is…
From Technology Review:
A computer chip that performs calculations using probabilities, instead of binary logic, could accelerate everything from online banking systems to the flash memory in smart phones and other gadgets.
Rewriting some fundamental features of computer chips, Lyric Semiconductor has unveiled its first “probability processor,” a silicon chip that computes with electrical signals that represent chances, not digital 1s and 0s.
“We’ve essentially started from scratch,” says Ben Vigoda, CEO and founder of the Boston-based startup. Vigoda’s PhD thesis underpins the company’s technology. Starting from scratch makes it possible to implement statistical calculations in a simpler, more power efficient way, he says…
Read the full story here.
As we remind ourselves that dealing with our banks was already a crap-shoot, we might recall that it was on this date in 79 CE, the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, that Mount Vesuvius began to stir– in preparation for the eruption that, two days later, destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Fresco of Bacchus and Agathodaemon with Mount Vesuvius, as seen in Pompeii’s House of the Centenary (source)
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