Michael Flynn's Blog, page 25

The Mean Streets of Old Alexandria - Redux

By sundry means was TOF made aware of this article on Hypatia of Alexandria posted on something called RationalWiki [sic].  As with all things internettingly wiki, the sourcing is rather scattergun with a marked preference for tertiary sources.  Previously here there was a multi-part series on the life and context of Hypatia, beginning here.

[sic] rational ∩ wiki = Ø by the nature of wikish procedure.  The results of desultory serial committee overrulings is not prima facie "rational." At best, it may be group-think. 
But let us see what counts for reference among the rationals.
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Shipwrecks of Time - Again

Next to last excerpt. 

   When the time came to leave for Europe, Professor Henkle drove Frank to Chicago, where he could catch Pan Am’s Flight 58 to Frankfurt.  Flying was expensive.  The leg from Chicago to New York alone had set the Institute back seventy-five dollars, a full day’s wages for most people, so there was no reason to add a puddle-jumper out of Billy Mitchell Field.

     After getting through the construction mess in Milwaukee, the ride down the new “interstate” highway was smooth.  Dr. Henkle worried the whole way.

Continued on the PREVIEW page.

Natural Genetic Engineering

Shapiro, looking excited

We live in exciting times, when we are finally beginning to understand the workings of evolution.

One of the things Aristotle said about living beings is that they contain within themselves the principles of their own movement.  The more we learn about genetics, the more this seems true, down to the deepest levels.   In  his latest blog on natural genetic engineering, James Shapiro has some interesting things to say.  It is worth quoting the entry extensively.

First caution.  By "natural genetic engineering" (NGE) Shapiro does not mean an explanatory principle, but rather all the biochemical mechanisms cells possess to "cut, splice, copy, polymerize and otherwise manipulate the structure of internal DNA molecules, transport DNA from one cell to another, or acquire DNA from the environment. Totally novel sequences can result from de novo untemplated polymerization or reverse transcription of processed RNA molecules."

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On the Razor's Edge

A book description appears on Amazon, which I share with you:

The secret war among the Shadows of the Name is escalating, and there are hints that it is not so secret as the Shadows had thought. The scarred man, Donovan buigh, half honored guest and half prisoner, is carried deeper into the Confederation, all the way to Holy Terra herself, to help plan the rebel assault on the Secret City. If he does not soon remember the key information locked inside his fractured mind, his rebel friends may resort to torture to pull it from his subconscious.
Meanwhile, Bridget ban has organized a posse—a pack of Hounds—to go in pursuit of her kidnapped daughter, despite knowing that Ravn Olafsdottr kidnapped the harper precisely to lure Bridget ban in her wake. The Hound, the harper, and the scarred man wind deeper into a web of deceit and treachery certain of only one thing: nothing, absolutely nothing, is what it seems to be.







Banners of the Shadows

The Shipwrecks of Time - Excerpt

Okay, there'll be two more after this one.  I think.  I can't put the whole thing up here, guys, and I'm skipping some of the kool stuff regarding Ogier the Dane, Gregory of Tour's History of the Franks, and the Res gestae arturi britanni.  Not to mention what Frank will find early next year at the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe.

    Frank wore a blue blazer over dark slacks and, as a concession against the snow, big rubber galoshes with metal clasps.  He shed these and the overcoat, muffler, and fur-lined cap at the coat-check and followed Nelson into the Stone Toad.  As instructed, he rubbed the Toad on the head before circling the fountain into the night club.

     “Let’s see what’s on display tonight,” Nelson called into his ear.  

See what's on display here:

Inanity or Insanity? You Decide!

The science blog at the Guardian contains this fascinating gem:

The RSC's Shakes Sphere talks are designed to explore Shakespeare's world, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council provides funding for research. It occurred to me that comparing fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the brain of an actor with those of an astronomer might yield some clues to Galileo and Shakespeare's drives.

Why would such a bizarre notion occur to the writer?  Galileo and Shakespeare are both as dead as Francisco Franco and their brains are unavailable for scanning.  So we get this:
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This Way Lies Madness

h/t Mark Shea

Two New Posts at the TOFSpot

The Shipwrecks of Time - excerptThis may be the next-to-last excerpt.
    Wilma decided that Jonathan Henkle could be remarkably dense.  He absolutely could not understand why she had gone ape-shit over Delacorte’s assignment.  “This is my third year at the Institute,” she told him when she confronted him in his office, “and I’ve never been sent to Europe for so much as a demitasse!” 

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Boskone 50Back from Boskone.  Boston was snowed up, but not impenetrably so.  I am told that a week earlier was a different story, but that is ever a risk for a con in mid-February in Boston.  On the waterfront.  The Westin was its usual self, with the additional twist that its main restaurant no longer served dinner.  Well, it was pricey-plus.  But the "pub" is not large enough to handle the dinner crowd.  Fortunately, I didn't care, since I was staying in a different hotel entirely.

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Ash Wednesday

This is the first day of the Season of Doing Without.  The Christian Ramadan, as some have put it, perhaps confused a bit over which came first.  

One of the thing the Late Modern mind has difficulty grasping is allowing an appetite to go unslaked.  If it feels good, DO IT!  What do we want?  You name it.  When do we want it?  NOW! 

The ancient hedonists never confused pleasure with the good.  The indulgence of the senses results in a flabby mind and body; and modern neuroscience tells us that habituating such neural patterns interferes with the formation of neural patters originating in the neocortex.  Or in the older formulation: "Sin makes you stupid." 

continued here

The Slow Burn of Wilma Masterson

A new excerpt from The Shipwrecks of Time has been put on the  BOOK & STORY PREVIEWS page.&nbsp

nbsp;   The ceiling of the Institute library was an elaborate Victorian affair comprised of hammered copper panels bearing geometric designs, a legacy of the building’s original designer.  But strategically placed among the sunbursts and scrollwork were small mirrors that granted Stacy Petros unobtrusive surveillance of the Stacks.  A few years before Wilma’s arrival, Stacy had once told her, a grad student from one of the universities had tried to smuggle out an original Boccaccio easily worth five thousand dollars.  When Wilma arrived to return Fichtenau’s The Carolingian Empire and Knowles’ The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Stacy was watching a young grad student, tugging volumes from the shelves and putting them back. 
     “It’s when they hunt around,” Stacy said without turning her head, “that my agita kicks in.”

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