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![]() ![]() Monday, November 02, 2009 – Permalink – Emperer of Scent, TheBy Chandler BurrISBN 0-375-50797-3 Random House 2002 About the Author Has contributed to The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, and the Washington Post among others. Book Description A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. Luca Turin proposes a new theory of smell. Vision is perceived by light vibrations; Sound as well. Turin proposes that the same is true of Smell. The science gets a little deep, but the human story is compelling. Whether he is right or not has not been universally decided. The fights between branchs of science are like civet fights. Quote One scientist, Richard Doty, says "You may have noticed that if you breath through your nose, you tend to breathe through only one side of it for a while, then for a while through the other. . . When you smell information on the right side, you send it to the left side of the brain and vice versa, and you find a statistically significant increase in verbal scores when you breathe through the left side of your nose." October, 2004 "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year goes to two Americans who have puzzled out the sense of smell. Richard Axel and Linda Buck will split $1.4 million for discovering how chemicals in the air trigger thousands of recognizably different odors." National Public Radio Also: Olfaction "Doty's comment is incorrect. Actually, it might be from Chandler Burr's book, that was unclear. The olfactory receptor sites do not switch recognition to the opposite brain hemisphere. What is breathed in through the right nostril goes directly to the right side of the brain, the left to the left." Anonymous [Edited entry from 10/19/2006] See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 3:46 AM
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Saturday, August 29, 2009 – Permalink – In Search of StupidityBy Merrill R. ChapmanISBN 1-59059-104-6 APress 2003 About the Author Rick Chapman has worked for them all; from Ashton-Tate to Ziff-Davis. Also see: InSearchofStupidity.com Book Description "... how did Microsoft get that monopoly? Quote: the following quote was added just for the neat statistic. "In 1993, Microsoft Excel 5.0 took up about $36.00 worth of hard drive space. In 2000, Microsoft Excel 2000 takes up about $1.03 in hard drive space. All adjusted for inflation." [Edited entry from 7/30/2006] See all Topics <Doug Klippert@ 3:23 AM
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009 – Permalink – The Grand ComplicationBy Allen KurzweilISBN 0-7868-6603-9 Hyperion August 2001 About the Author The Library of Congress has a reading by Kurzweil Book Description "Narrated by Alexander Short, a stylish young reference librarian of arcane interests, The Grand Complication propels the reader through a card catalog of desperation and delight, of intrigue and theft. It's a novel of suspense that comes full circle, with a clock-maker's precision and a storyteller's surprise, on page 360." Quote "THE SEARCH BEGAN with a library call slip and the gracious query of an elegant man. A watch that shows the phases of the moon, for instance, is said to have one complication. A watch with five of these extra actions is said to be a grand complication. [Edited entry from 3/26/2006] See all Topics <Doug Klippert@ 3:52 AM
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Thursday, March 05, 2009 – Permalink – The Big YearA Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl ObsessionBy Mark Obmascik ISBN 0743245458 Free Press; (February 4, 2004) About the Author Mark Obmascik was the winner of the 2003 National Press Club Award for environmental journalism. He has a story tellers ability to, not only describe the setting, but to draw the reader into the adventure. Book Description 2.4 million people keep what is called a "life list" of birds they have seen. In the USA, some 50 million people lay claim to being bird-watchers or 'birders,' spending billions of dollars on birding-related travel and membership fees every year. A few compete in one of the world's quirkiest contests — the race to spot the most species in North America in a single year. And 1998 wasn't just a big year. It was to become the greatest birding year of all time. Quote "Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year — a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching.
Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 3:46 AM
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009 – Permalink – An Obsession with ButterfliesQuote"Architecture is a plant's first defense. Once a caterpillar begins to eat, compounds in its saliva can be recognized by the leaf as a form of attack. Whang, whang, whang. The entire plant goes on alert. A hormonal burst starts a second defense system, a counter attack that may include rushing newly produced toxins to the damaged leaf, as well as compounds that slow a caterpillar's ability to digest the plant as food."
From the beastly horned caterpillar, whose blood helps it count time, to the peacock butterfly, with wings that hiss like a snake, Russell traces the butterflies through their life cycles, exploring the creatures' own obsessions with eating, mating, and migrating. In this way, she reveals the logic behind our endless fascination with butterflies as well as the driving passion of such legendary collectors as the tragic Eleanor Glanville, whose children declared her mad because of her compulsive butterfly collecting, and the brilliant Henry Walter Bates, whose collections from the Amazon in 1858 helped develop his theory of mimicry in nature. Russell also takes us inside some of the world's most prestigious natural history museums, where scientists painstakingly catalogue and categorize new species of Lepidoptera, hoping to shed light on insect genetics and evolution.
The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) AmazingButterflies.com: Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 3:32 AM
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008 – Permalink – Freddy the PigPre-Orwell PorcineBy Walter R. Brooks As a kid I used to devour (read a lot of) Freddy the Pig books. One of the remembered disappointments was when I found that I had read all 26 of the books and that there would not be any more. Freddy came before "Animal Farm" and had much more satisfying adventures. ![]() The New York Times: ..." loyalists have claimed Freddy as the ancestor of more famous literary pigs such as those in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" (1945). In fact, in "Freddy the Politician" (first published in 1939 as "Wiggins for President" ), the animals foil a crafty gang of woodpeckers who try to seize control of the Bean Farm by making extravagant promises - a revolving door for the henhouses, cat-proof apartments for the rats and so on. In his book "Fairy Tales and After," the critic Roger Sale pointed out that :Freddy the Politician: "not only preceded Orwell's work but is a good deal more careful with its materials and, for that matter, shrewder about its politics... The actions emerge much less mechanically than do Orwell's."
<Doug Klippert@ 6:01 AM
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Thursday, September 18, 2008 – Permalink – Excel Charts for DummiesGraph-ologyYou don't have to be spreadsheet challenged to read this book. Many people become quite adept at using Worksheet functions and even VBA, but have little experience with charting. This book has some great cartoons, and, by page 361, the reader will be exposed to step by step instructions covering both simple charts and some quite sophisticated graphing. "Excel Charts For Dummies will show readers how to professionally display data in presentation-quality charts. How to create attractive charts and why to use specific charts in particular circumstances. Lots of real-world examples with step-by-step tutorials. How to embed graphics and pictures into charts; then use them in impressive PowerPoint presentations or Microsoft Word documents. The book features a 16-page full-color insert of the best Excel charts 'works of art.'" Ken Bluttman is also the author of Excel Formulas and Functions for Dummies, Access Hacks, and Developing Microsoft Office Solutions. By Ken Bluttman ISBN 0-7645-8473-1 Wiley Publishing, Inc. 2005 Technical editor Doug Klippert See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 6:33 AM
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Thursday, May 08, 2008 – Permalink – Population: 485By Michael PerryISBN 0-06-095807-3 Perennial 2002 About the Author Michael Perry was raised on a small dairy farm near New Auburn, Wisconsin, and put himself through nursing school working as a cowboy in Wyoming. As of this writing, he is the only member of the New Auburn (nee Cartwright Mills) Area Fire Department to have missed the monthly meeting because of a poetry reading. See: SneezingCow.com Book Description A collection of stories about life in a small Wisconsin town. What it's like to be in the volunteer fire department with your brothers and your mother. Unable to polka or repair his own pickup, his farm-boy hands gone soft after years of writing, Mike figures the best way to regain his credibility is to join the volunteer fire department. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, he tells a frequently comic tale leavened with moments of heartbreaking delicacy and searing tragedy. Quote "... The village board sent someone around to recite nuisance ordinances chapter and verse, but beyond rearranging the bikes and aligning the camper with the speedboat - feng shui primitif - nothing has changed. You take what you can get in this life. Someone calls you white trash, you go with it, and fight like hell to keep your trash. You understand it is a matter of distinctions: yuppies with their shiny trash, church ladies with their hand-stitched trash, solid citizens with their secret trash. In a yard just outside town, a spray-painted piece of frayed plywood leans against a tree. It reads Trans Ams: 2 for $2000. It has been there for two years." ![]() New Auburn, Wisconsin, 54757 [Edited entry from 4/23/2006] See all Topics <Doug Klippert@ 5:48 AM
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Monday, April 07, 2008 – Permalink – Cheerios Stops ItchingAnd other stuffJoey Green has written a book about other uses for everyday products like:
Wacky Uses See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 6:33 AM
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008 – Permalink – Beyond Bullet PointsBy Cliff AtkinsonISBN 0-7356-2052-0 Microsoft Press 2005 About the Author
"But what might not be evident in the simplicity of this slide is what happens when the audience experiences it along with your verbal explanation. Because the slide design is simple, the audience can quickly scan the headline and visual and understand the idea. Then their attention turns to the place you want it. — to you, the words you're saying, and the way the information relates to them. Instead of making everything explicit and obvious on the slides, you can leave the slides open to interpretation so the audience is dependent on you, and you on them. Here's the latest edition: [Edited entry from 3/1/2005] See all Topics Labels: Addendum, Books, PowerPoint <Doug Klippert@ 5:32 AM
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008 – Permalink – Windows Vista Inside OutUnder the coversMicrosoft Press; Deluxe edition (May 10, 2008) Ed Bott, Carl Siechert, and Craig Stinson. ISBN: 0735625247 The First edition of this book came out January of 2007. The latest version will be breaking your mailbox in May. This edition has advanced information. You get 300+ new pages in this update. New topics include advanced networking, security, and corporate deployment issues as well as advanced features such as speech recognition, Tablet PC support, and Windows Vista certification. Ed Bott is a Microsoft Guru. If you can hold off until its release, you'll be well rewarded. If not, pick up the earlier edition. See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 6:58 AM
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Saturday, September 08, 2007 – Permalink – Noodling for FlatheadsBy Burkhard BilgerISBN 0-684-85010-9 Scribner 2000 About the Author Has written for all the usual suspects: The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and the New York Times. Book Description
Quote "tick tick tick To "noodle" is to dangle your arm in the water until a catfish swallows your hand. The fish record catch includes one at 111 pounds. "When clamped on your arm, catfish also have an unfortunate tendency to bear down and spin , like a sharpener on a pencil."
Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 7:39 AM
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Saturday, June 09, 2007 – Permalink – Tuva or Bust!Richard Feynman's Last JourneyBy Ralph Leighton ISBN 0-393-32069-3 W.W.Norton & Company, Inc. 2000, 1991 There has been a lot made of the PowerPoint contribution to the failure of the Challenger shuttle (see Edward Tufte.) Before that was the Columbia disaster. Richard Feynman found the problem with the "O" rings, He too complained about PowerPoint like presentations: "Then we learned about bullets — little black circles in front of phrases that were supposed to summarize things. There was one after another of these little goddamn bullets in our briefing books and on the slides." This book however is about something altogether different. As a stamp-collecting boy always fascinated by remote places, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was particularly taken by the diamond-shaped stamps from a place called Tannu Tuva. He hoped, someday, to travel there. In 1977, Feynman and his sidekick — fellow drummer and geography enthusiast Ralph Leighton — set out to make arrangements to visit Tuva, doing noble and hilarious battle with Soviet red tape, befriending quite a few Tuvans, and discovering the wonders of Tuvan throat-singing. Their Byzantine attempts to reach Tannu Tuva would span a decade, interrupted by Feynman's appointment to the committee investigating the Challenger disaster, and his tragic struggle with the cancer that finally killed him. Tuva or Bust! chronicles the deepening friendship of two zany, brilliant strategists whose love of the absurd will delight and instruct. It is Richard Feynman's last, best adventure. Quote "Sure enough, occupying a notch northwest of Mongolia was a territory that could well once have had the name Tannu Tuva.
" Paul Pena is a blind San Francisco blues singer who has played with the likes of John Lee Hooker and Jerry Garcia (he also penned "Jet Airliner," which Steve Miller covered). One night while listening to his shortwave radio, he picked up a Radio Moscow broadcast and heard the mesmerizing, gutteral sound of throat singing, which is peculiar to Tuva's region of upper Mongolian. Enthralled, he became a master of this obscure art form. Enter Friends of Tuva, a curious group that included Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who likewise had become fascinated with Tuva. In 1993 they sponsored a San Francisco appearance by Tuvan singers. Pena was in the audience and met with the singers afterward. Pena so impressed the Tuvans that he was encouraged to come to Tuva and participate in its annual festival competition. Genghis Blues chronicles this incredible journey." [Edited entry from 8/12/2004] See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 6:47 AM
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Sunday, May 06, 2007 – Permalink – STIFFThe Curious Lives of Human CadaversBy Mary Roach ISBN 0-393-05093-9 W.W. Norton 2003 About the Author Has written for Salon, Discover, New York Times Magazine Book Description
"Anthropologists will tell you that the reason people never dined regularly on other people is economics. While there existed, I am told, cultures in Central America that actually ranched humans -- kept enemy soldiers captive for awhile to fatten them up -- it was not practical to do so, because you had to give up more food to feed them than you'd gain in the end by eating them. Carnivores and omnivores, in other words, make lousy livestock." [Edited entry from 7/16/2004] See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 7:39 AM
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Sunday, February 11, 2007 – Permalink – The Non-Designer's Type BookBy Robin WilliamsISBN 0-201-35367-9 Peachpit Press 1998 About the Author Williams teaches electronic typography and has written some excellent books on digital design. Anyone who has witnessed the horrific use of type on many personal web sites knows how badly these books are needed. Clear explanations and good illustrations are the hallmarks of both volumes. Also author of The PC is not a typewriter. Book Description Each short chapter explores a different type secret including use of evocative typography, tailoring typeface to project, working with spacing, punctuation marks, special characters, fonts, justification, and much more. It is written in the lively, engaging style that has made Williams one of the most popular computer authors today. It uses numerous examples to illustrate the subtle details that make the difference between good and sophisticated use of type. The non-platform specific, non-software specific approach to the book makes this a must-have for any designer's bookshelf - from type novices to more experienced graphic designers and typesetters. Quote "Most packages also have a discretionary hyphen, affectionately called a "dischy." If you type Ctrl+- (Control Hypen on a PC), the word will hyphenate at that point, that hyphen will disappear when the word moves to another location. [Edited entry from 6/11/2004] See all Topics Labels: Books <Doug Klippert@ 7:50 AM
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