text:
Brian Micklethwait's Blog
In which I continue to seek part time employment as the ruler of the world.Home
Recent Comments
michael fallon on Russia unleashes tiger on China
Alastair on Santa's tired helpers
dodgy geezer on Matt Ridley on how technology leads science and how that means that the state need not fund science
michael fallon on Halloween buckets
Michael Hiteshew on Sign blocked by surveillance camera
Michael on Matt Ridley on how technology leads science and how that means that the state need not fund science
Simon Gibbs on My digital photos on his TV
Simon Gibbs on On the rights and wrongs of me posting bits from books (plus a bit about Rule Utilarianism)
Mark Rousell on Hot dog shadow selfie
Michael Jennings on On the rights and wrongs of me posting bits from books (plus a bit about Rule Utilarianism)
Monthly Archives
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
Most recent entries
- To Covent Garden (2): Rough roofs – smooth roof
- Christmas tree with scaffolding
- Santa's tired helpers
- To Covent Garden (1): The twisty footbridge
- Trousers keyboard
- Cameras photoing the Wheel (in 2007)
- Was Guy's Tower a key building in the architectural history of London?
- Photo-drone wars to come
- A link and a photo of a photographer
- Matt Ridley on how technology leads science and how that means that the state need not fund science
- Sign blocked by surveillance camera
- My digital photos on his TV
- ASI Christmas Party photos
- Photoing at the ASI party
- Quota roof clutter
Other Blogs I write for
Brian Micklethwait's Education Blog
CNE Competition
CNE Intellectual Property
Transport Blog
2 Blowhards
6000 Miles from Civilisation
A Decent Muesli
Adventures in Capitalism
Alan Little
Albion's Seedling
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
Alex Singleton
Another Food Blog
Antoine Clarke
Antoine Clarke's Election Watch
Armed and Dangerous
Art Of The State Blog
Biased BBC
Bishop Hill
Bloggers Blog
Blognor Regis
Blowing Smoke
Boatang & Demetriou
Boing Boing
Boris Johnson
Brazen Careerist
Bryan Appleyard
Burning Our Money
Cafe Hayek
Charlie's Diary
Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry
Chicago Boyz
China Law Blog
Cicero's Songs
City Comforts
Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
Clay Shirky
Climate Resistance
Climate Skeptic
Coffee & Complexity
Coffee House
Communities Dominate Brands
Confused of Calcutta
Conservative Party Reptile
Contra Niche
Contrary Brin
Counting Cats in Zanzibar
Скрипучая беседка
Dave Barry
Davids Medienkritik
David Thompson
Deleted by tomorrow
diamond geezer
Dizzy Thinks
Don't Hold Your Breath
Douglas Carswell Blog
Dr Robert Lefever
Dr. Weevil
Englands Freedome, Souldiers Rights
English Cut
English Russia
EU Referendum
Ezra Levant
Everything I Say is Right
Fat Man on a Keyboard
Ferraris for all
Flickr blog
Freeborn John
Freedom and Whisky
From The Barrel of a Gun
Fugitive Ink
Future Perfect
Gaping Void
Gates of Vienna
Global Warming Politics
Greg Mankiw's Blog
Guido Fawkes' blog
Here Comes Everybody
Hit & Run
House of Dumb
Iain Dale's Diary
Idiot Toys
India Uncut
Jackie Danicki
James Delingpole
James Fallows
Jeffrey Archer's Official Blog
Jessica Duchen's classical music blog
Jihad Watch
Joanne Jacobs
Johan Norberg
John Redwood
Jonathan's Photoblog
Kristine Lowe
Laissez Faire Books
Last of the Few
Lessig Blog
Libertarian Alliance: Blog
Liberty Alone
Liberty Dad - a World Without Dictators
Lib on the United Kingdom
Little Man, What Now?
listen missy
Loic Le Meur Blog
L'Ombre de l'Olivier
London Daily Photo
Mad Housewife
Mangan's Miscellany
Marginal Revolution
Mark Wadsworth
Media Influencer
Melanie Phillips
Metamagician and the Hellfire Club
Michael Jennings
Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal
Mick Hartley
More Than Mind Games
mr eugenides
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
My Boyfriend Is A Twat
My Other Stuff
Natalie Solent
Nation of Shopkeepers
Never Trust a Hippy
NO2ID NewsBlog
Non Diet Weight Loss
Nurses for Reform blog
Obnoxio The Clown
Oddity Central
Oliver Kamm
On an Overgrown Path
One Man & His Blog
Owlthoughts of a peripatetic pedant
Oxford Libertarian Society /blog
Patri's Peripatetic Peregrinations
Picking Losers
Pigeon Blog
Police Inspector Blog
Power Line
Private Sector Development blog
Public Interest.co.uk
Publius Pundit
Rachel Lucas
Remember I'm the Bloody Architect
Rob's Blog
Setting The World To Rights
Shane Greer
SimonHewittJones.com The Violin Blog
Sinclair's Musings
Slipped Disc
Sky Watching My World
Social Affairs Unit
Squander Two Blog
Stephen Fry
Stuff White People Like
Stumbling and Mumbling
Style Bubble
Sunset Gun
Survival Arts
Susan Hill
Technology Liberation Front
The Adam Smith Institute Blog
The Agitator
The AntRant
The Becker-Posner Blog
The Belgravia Dispatch
The Belmont Club
The Big Blog Company
The Big Picture
the blog of dave cole
The Corridor of Uncertainty (a Cricket blog)
The Croydonian
The Daily Ablution
The Devil's Advocate
The Devil's Kitchen
The Dissident Frogman
The Distributed Republic
The Early Days of a Better Nation
The Examined Life
The Filter^
The Fly Bottle
The Freeway to Serfdom
The Future of Music
The Futurist
The Happiness Project
The Jarndyce Blog
The London Fog
The Long Tail
The Lumber Room
The Online Photographer
The Only Winning Move
The Policeman's Blog
The Road to Surfdom
The Sharpener
The Speculist
The Surfer
The Wedding Photography Blog
The Welfare State We're In
things magazine
Tim Blair
Tim Harford
Tim Worstall
Transterrestrial Musings
UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog
UK Libertarian Party
Unqualified Offerings
Violins and Starships
Virginia Postrel
we make money not art
What Do I Know?
What's Up With That?
Where the grass is greener
White Sun of the Desert
Why Evolution Is True
Your Freedom and Ours
Arts & Letters Daily
Arts Journal
Bjørn Stærk's homepage
Brussels Journal
Butterflies and Wheels
Cato Institute
City Journal
Comment Central
Daniel Barenboim
Dark Roasted Blend
Digital Photography Review
Ghana Centre for Democratic Reform
Global Warming and the Climate
History According to Bob
Institut économique Molinari
Institute of Economic Affairs
Lebrecht Weekly
Libertarian Alliance
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Mark Steyn
Oxford Libertarian Society
Pajamas Media
Paul Graham
Sean Gabb
Soundstage Communications
Stockholm Network
Syed Kamall
Technology Review
The Christopher Hitchens Web
The Inquirer
The Register
The Space Review
The TaxPayers' Alliance
This is Local London
Toccata Classics
UK Libertarian Party
Victor Davis Hanson
WSJ.com Opinion Journal
YaleGlobal Online
Mainstream Media
The Sun
This is London
Billion Monkeys
Bits from books
Bloggers and blogging
Brian Micklethwait podcasts
Career counselling
Cats and kittens
Civil liberties
Classical music
Computer graphics
Current events
Digital photographers
Emmanuel Todd
Expression Engine
Food and drink
How the mind works
Intellectual property
Kevin Dowd
Latin America
Media and journalism
Middle East and Islam
My blog ruins
My photographs
Open Source
Pop music
Quote unquote
Roof clutter
Science fiction
Signs and notices
Social Media
South America
The internet
The Micklethwait Clock
This and that
This blog
Category archive: Books
From time to time I like to stick bits from books up here, usually quite short, but sometimes quite long.
With the short bits, there is no legal or moral problem. Fair use, etc. But with the longer bits, there might be a problem. Here's how I operate. I put up whatever bit it is that I think deserves to be made much of, on the clear understanding that it might disappear at any moment. Because, if anyone associated with the book I have got my chosen bit from complains and says please remove it, I will do so, immediately.
Many might think that such persons would be being rather silly. I mean, what better way could there be to reach potential readers of the entire book in question than for readers of a blog, and a blog written by someone who already likes the book, to get to read a relatively small chunk of it? Win-win, surely. Because of course, I only put up big chunks of writing if I approve of what the chunks say.
But what if a publisher is trying to insist on the principle, that copyright damn well means what it says? Such a publisher might want to proclaim, and to be seen to proclaim, a no-tolerance attitude to the copying of bigger than small bits of any its books. Even if that particular book might be assisted by this particular recycled chunk being here, the larger principle might feel far more significant to the publisher. That principle being: If we allow this, where will it then stop?
And I get that. As I say, if any publisher or author did complain, for these kinds of reasons or for any other, then I would get it, and the bit from the book in question would at once vanish from this blog. So far, I've had no such complaints. Which could just be because they reckon this blog to be too insignificant to be worth risking a fight with. They wouldn't have a fight, but they might have a rule about letting sleeping puppies, like this one, lie.
Whatever. All I am saying here is that if I put up a big bit of a book, and anyone connected to that big bit cries foul, then the big bit will immediately vanish from here, with no grumbling, or worse, self-righteous campaigning, attempts to mobilise other bloggers, etc. etc.
Think of all this as an example of Rule Utilitarianism. And I am myself a Rule Utilitarian. My libertarian beliefs are not the absurd claim that libertarianism is inscribed into the very physical fabric of the universe, an inherent fact of life itself, which we humans either recognise or fail to recognise, but which are there anyway. Tell that to the spider I just squashed into the pavement on my way home to write this. No, I like libertarianism because it works. Libertarianism is a set of basically fairly simply rules which all we humans either choose to live by or choose not to live by. If we choose to live by these rules, life is good, happy, comfortable and it gets better and better. If we don't live by such rules, life goes to shit and stays there.
And here comes the Rule Utilitarian bit. Even if this particular bit of thieving, by the government or just by some bod like you or me, is very insignificant, and even if what the government or the bod like you or me wants to spend its or his or her ill-gotten gains on is wonderful, absolutely wonderful, my rule says: No. Not allowed. Don't get into complicated discussions about just how little thieving is too little to be bothering about, or just how noble a noble project has to be for it to be noble enough to be financed by a spot of thieving, because that way lies the slippery slope we are now on, where the government gobbles up at least half of everything, to very little benefit for anyone other than itself. Stick to the rule. No thieving, no matter how petty its scale or how noble its supposed object.
So, I get Rule Utilitarianism. And if any publisher decides to inflict his Rule Utilitarianism, in the manner described above, upon me, I would get that, and act accordingly.
What got me wanting to spell all this out is that I have recently been reading Dominic Frisby's excellent Bitcoin book, and I find myself wanting to put bits of it up here, quite longish bits. And in general, having just followed the link at the top of this and read some of them, I feel that postings of this sort are among the better things that I do here, and I want to do more of them. But, to all of the bits from books that will follow, I want to attach the above mentioned caveat about how the verbiage that follows may vanish without warning, and a link to this posting is the way to summarise what is going on in my head without me banging on for however many paragraphs there are here.
Yesterday I took this photo, in the remainder shop on the other side of the intersection from the Old Vic. I thought I was photoing that book about procrastination. My immediate thought was that I should buy it, read its contents carefully and apply those lessons straight away to my hitherto hideously postponed life. But then I thought: I'll get it later.
But look on the right there. A cat book. I didn't even see that when I took the photo. They're everywhere, I tell you.
And as if determined to prove my point, today is also a Feline Friday at the Daily Mirror:
I'm talking about the front page on the right. The story, of which I can make neither head nor tail, can be read here.
The catification of the mainstream media continues. Make way tasered cannibals. Flesh eating zombies, your days dominating the front pages are also numbered.
Did the junk mail phenomenon always exist? Or is it relatively new? What I have in mind is the way that an entire category of communication becomes broken because it is overused by semi or total crooks shouting rubbish at you, thus overwhelming the actual human persons sending you individually useful messages. Even real messages just sound like arseholes yelling at you. The signal-to-noise ratio becomes so stupid that eventually, no genuine signals get through.
A few days ago, I received an email from something called Macmillan Distribution (MDL). A package was due. There were various buttons for me to press so that I could track the package, or tell them where else to deliver it, or some such thing. I immediately assumed that this was an industrialised garbage message, the purpose of which was for me to tell crooks about myself by pressing one of the buttons. Having received many junk messages just like this in the recent past, I assumed that this one was similarly fraudulent.
I noted that they had my name and address, and this might have supplied me with the clue that this was actually a genuine message about a genuine delivery, from a genuine enterprise, with buttons for me to press which actually did what they said they would do. But instead, I merely thought: oh dear, now the international conglomeration of bastard junk emailer fraudsters knows my name and address. Oh well, more crap to delete.
But this morning, the package actually arrived, at a time that the emails had been referring to. The emails from Macmillan Distribution (MDL) (there were three emails in total) had all been genuine. It was a book that I had already paid for and wanted to read. So, good.
The actual delivery was a mess. Some arsehole just smacked the door of my flat (sounding like when the cleaners vacuum the landings and bang their machines into our doors), and then just stuffed the package through my mail flap (which very luckily was big enough). No electronic buzzing from outside and downstairs, to get my attention while I slumbered, like a proper delivery. And how the hell did this arsehole contrive to get through the downstairs front door in the first place? (We've had robberies from people claiming to be delivering things, but actually hoovering up the deliveries of others from our (unlocked and wide open) cubby holes.) So, very unsatisfactory, as home deliveries so often are. But, the thing itself did arrive, which means the delivery scored one out of one on the one measure that really counts.
And, as I say, those emails were all for real.
No doubt there are various twenty first century, social media like methods that I could have used to track this parcel and its delivery, methods which screen out junk and preserve a benign signal-to-noise ratio. Maybe, any decade now, I will have to get with the twenty first century and dump email completely.
I vividly recall when having email first became a necessity, when you suddenly started getting dirty looks at parties if you didn't have it. And when fax numbers ceased mattering. (Remember those?)
As of now, regular twenty first century people half my age still seem to do email, or so it says on those little cards they give me. But how long will this last?
More about package delivering from 6k, here. "Wumdrop" sounds sort of like Uber, only for things.
Spent the whole day fretting about not enough people coming to my Last Friday of the Month meeting this evening. Richard Carey would, I knew, be fine, but would the number of listeners be insultingly small? Happily, two people showed up who hadn't emailed that they were coming, and the room was, if not full, at least not embarrassingly empty.
Better yet, I also fixed my speaker for next month, which I had also been fretting about. Priya Dutta, who attended this evening, will be speaking about Education, libertarianism and similar things. The Gove reforms, the various attempts to set up cheap new free enterprise schools of various sorts, that kind of thing. She is a teacher, so this is bound to be good. I'll say more as I learn more.
Too tired to expand on what Richard said (about English Republicanism and its influence in the American colonies and later the USA), other than that in the brackets is what it was about and that it was very interesting. But since this is Friday, here is news of Cats on Kickstarters, and of Catstarter , which I think is a book, or maybe a blog. Also cat related: Ceiling Netanyahu is watching you tunnel.
I've started reading Virginia Postrel's The Future and Its Enemies, years after everyone else who has read it. I haven't got very far yet, but I am delighted to discover that one of the Enemies that Postrel takes several cracks at is John Gray, that being a link to a crack that I took at Gray at Samizdata a while back.
And I see that Postrel, like me, does not confine herself to analysing and criticising Gray's arguments, but notes also the cheapness of the tricks that Gray often uses to present his arguments.
What disguises the trickery, at least in the eyes of Gray and his followers, is the air of profundity that is regarded as being attached to the process of foreseeing doom and disaster. In truth, incoherent pessimism is no more profound than incoherent optimism, which is to say, not profound at all.
Says Postrel (p. 9):
Although they represent a minority position, reactionary ideas have tremendous cultural vitality. Reactionaries speak directly to the most salient aspects of contemporary life: technological change, commercial fluidity, biological transformation, changing social roles, cultural mixing, international trade, and instant communication. They see these changes as critically important, and, as the old Natinoal Review motto had it, they are determined to "stand athwart history, yelling, 'Stop!'" Merely by acknowledging the dynamism of contemporary life, reactionaries win points for insight. And in the eyes of more conventional thinkers, denouncing change makes them seem wise.
Seem. Amen. I'm still proud of this in my piece about Gray, which makes that same point about the seeming wisdom of being a grump rather than a booster:
He trades relentlessly on that shallowest of aesthetic clichés, that misery is more artistic than happiness, that any old rubbish with a sad ending is artistically superior to anything with a happy ending no matter how brilliantly done, that music in a minor key is automatically more significant than anything in C major.
There are plenty more Gray references in Postrel's book, if the Index is anything to go by and it surely is. My immediate future is bright.
Overheard in a TV advert for sweeties:
You can't trust atoms. They make up everything.
Talking of which, I am now reading Lee Smolin's book about String Theory. Basic message: It's a cult. I haven't yet read him using that actual word, but that's what he is saying.
I am, of course, not qualified to judge if Smolin is right, but you don't have to be qualified to express a judgement, and I judge that Smolin is right. And the way I like to learn about new stuff is by reading arguments about it, starting with the argument that says I am right about it. Smolin is basically telling me that my ignorant prejudice that String Theory is one of the current world's epicentres of the Higher Bollocks is right, although he is careful not to express himself as crudely as I just did, for fear of upsetting his physicist friends, and because, unlike me, he sees some merit in String Theory.
I have known that String Theory was in trouble for some time, because Big Bang Theory's resident String Theorist, Dr Sheldon Cooper, has been having doubts about it. He wanted to switch to something else, but they said: We hired you as a String Theorist and a String Theorist you will remain.
The above link is to a blog I had not heard of before, entitled Not Even Wrong. Not Even Wrong is the title of another book I have recently obtained with has a go at String Theory. I have not yet started reading this.
It's true. You can't trust atoms. And grabbing both ends of one and stretching it out into a string doesn't change that. It makes it worse.
Mick Hartley writes about England's loss to Italy last night in their opening World Cup game:
Much football punditry has always seemed to me to be an effort to provide a plausible post-hoc storyline for what was to a considerable extent a matter of chance. … as though the whole enterprise must be made sense of by virtue of the winning team being the team that deserved to win.
Very true. (I'm guessing that, with luck (ho ho), this book will have a lot more to say about this tendency.) Actually, much of the appeal of football (to those to whom it appeals) is that the "best" team on the day often doesn't win. This means that the supporters of bad teams can live in constant hope of upsets.
This also explains why, at the early stages of a season, surprising teams are often at the top of the table. Later, the law of averages asserts itself inexorably, and the best teams arrange themselves in logical order at the top, and the surprise early leaders sink back into the pack where they belong.
All of which makes something like the World Cup quite good fun. All you have to do to win it is win five or six of your first six games. All the best teams have to do not to win is lose one or two of their first six games. One of the great moments of all World Cups is the one when a Much Fancied Team gets on its Early Plane Home.
What the pundits seem to have been saying about England is that, because the "expectation level" is low, they might do quite well. The expectation level is low so it's high, in other words. My take on England is that they are a fairly bad team, who played fairly well against Italy, and lost, and that they will probably do fairly badly, but you never know, because there are only half a dozen games for each team to play. I will video-record all of England's games, such as they are, just in case. I live in hope of a small series of upsets.
I also video-recorded the Spain Netherlands game, by far the most remarkable one so far. Will Spain be this time around's Much Fancied Team early departure home?
And I also videoed the first game, between Brazil and Croatia, with its truly dire opening ceremony. This was a real collector's item of awfulness. What is it about these terrible opening ceremonies, with their meaningless costumes and absurd dance moves? Witnessing them is like listening to someone talking in a language has only recently been invented - for aliens to speak in a movie, for instance - which consists of no actual words, only meaningless sounds.
The opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics in London contained many things I disagreed with, and I continue to disagree with the entire principle of me and all other anti-Olympickers having to pay for the damn thing for the next thousand years. But at least that ceremony contained stuff that meant something. Although come to think of it, maybe the only people who understood it was us Brits, and for countless mllions elsewhere, that was also the gibbering of aliens.
Incoming from 6k, alerting me to a New Statesman piece by Ed Smith, about how, after a small digger has dug out a deep hole under a posh London house to make the house bigger, it makes more sense to leave the digger in the hole than go to the bother of extricating it. Makes sense. What a great story.
So, many of the squares of the capital's super-prime real estate, from Belgravia and Chelsea to Mayfair and Notting Hill, have been reconfigured house by house. Given that London's strict planning rules restrict building upwards, digging downwards has been the solution for owners who want to expand their property's square-footage.
So, enter the digger, and dig dig dig. But then:
The difficulty is in getting the digger out again. To construct a no-expense-spared new basement, the digger has to go so deep into the London earth that it is unable to drive out again. What could be done?
Initially, the developers would often use a large crane to scoop up the digger, which was by now nestled almost out of sight at the bottom of a deep hole. Then they began to calculate the cost-benefit equation of this procedure. First, a crane would have to be hired; second, the entire street would need to be closed for a day while the crane was manoeuvred into place. Both of these stages were very expensive, not to mention unpopular among the distinguished local residents.
A new solution emerged: simply bury the digger in its own hole. Given the exceptional profits of London property development, why bother with the expense and hassle of retrieving a used digger – worth only £5,000 or £6,000 – from the back of a house that would soon be sold for several million? The time and money expended on rescuing a digger were better spent moving on to the next big deal.
Today being a Friday, I was delighted to learn that there is a feline aspect to this, in the form of Ed Smith's final speculations. This man is clearly learning fast how to get noticed on the Internet!
In centuries to come, says Smith:
… they will surely decipher a correlation between London's richest corners and the presence of these buried diggers. The atrium of the British Museum, around 5000AD, will feature a digger prominently as the central icon of elite, 21st-century living.
What will the explanatory caption say? "Situated immediately adjacent to the heated underground swimming pool and cinema at the back of the house, no superior London address was complete without one of these highly desirable icons, sometimes nicknamed 'the Compact Cat'. This metallic icon was a special sacrificial gesture, a symbol of deep thanks to the most discussed, revered and pre-eminent god of the age, worshipped around the world: London Property."
Ed Smith is a former first class (and occasional test) cricketer, and now occasional cricket commentator. As well as a writer of books. Writing this posting also got me ordering a copy of his latest.
The majority of postings at Dezeen are of very little interest to me, but occasionally something of extreme interest to me appears there.
Like this write up of a new book called Building as Ornament.
My guess is that what the book is describing is a part of the story of how architects have for some time now been making more of an effort to please the wider public with their big set-piece buildings then was the case with the first full-scale assault upon the world by the Modern Movement in Architecture, following the evolution of the architectural modernity in America around 1900, and following all the earlier skirmishes there had been before WW2. (The Modern Movement, you might say, was evolved architectural modernity, but militarised and uglified.) Well, the conquered population fought back, and now architects are far more ready to make buildings that look cool and even beautiful, to mere punters, as opposed merely to making buildings that seem "important" to other architects. Big new Things have to look distinctive rather than anonymous, different rather than the same old same old, if people are to become fond of them. (London's Gherkin would not have been nearly so well liked if there had already been another identical shaped building elsewhere.) Having a Big Thing shaped like a big capital letter is one way to accomplish such distinctiveness.
On the other hand, you probably wouldn't want your own little suburban house to be shaped like a letter of the alphabet, instead of like all the other houses in the road. But that's because houses are for living in, not to be "iconic".
The disdain with which old school modernist architecture critics feel towards the the new Wow! style of architecture is well captured in this quote, from Charles Jencks:
"Ninety-five percent of iconic buildings are failures, because we lack an iconography and an iconology, and the artistic conviction to carry metaphors through," says architectural theorist Charles Jencks in another of the interviews.
When Jencks says "failures", you just know that what he means is that he doesn't like them. I don't think he is talking box office success here, the sort based on people generally liking whatever it is. Or, the horror the horror ... the mere clients actually getting something that they like! But, I haven't read this book yet, and what "you just know" could be wrong.
Another point worth making is that any big building that actually gets built is a very big success right there. "Iconography" is as much about getting the Big Thing built, as it is about it looking good when it is built. Discuss.
Regulars here, or for that matter there, will know that I have for many years now been at enthusiastic fan of the French historian and social scientist Emmanuel Todd. In recent years, this enthusiasm has at last started to become a bit more widespread.
Two of the world's most important Todd-enthusiasts are now James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus. Quite a while ago now, they sent me an email flagging up a piece they had contributed to Hungarian Review, which contains some interesting biography about Todd, and about how his own particular family history contributed towards making him into the historian of the world that he later became.
Todd developed this grand theory, about how literacy triggers particular sorts of political upheavals in particular places, depending on Family Structure, and then when the political dust has settled fuels economic development, But what got Todd thinking about all this?
According to Bennett and Lotus, the starting point was: How Come The French Communists Are Doing So Badly And Never Seem To Do Any Better No Matter What They Try?
He was the product of an extended family of French Communist Party activists and journalists, and grew up hearing his father and relatives arguing around the kitchen table. Anglo-Americans had tended to regard the French Communist Party of that era as formidable, successful, and continually on the verge of seizing power. From the inside, Todd grew up hearing his family lament the eternal failure and futility of the Party. (He left the orthodox Communist movement quite early, and in fact was one of the first scholars to predict, in 1976, the coming collapse of the Soviet system.) For some reason, the Party was well established in certain regions, and completely without support in most others. The Socialists were dominant in others, and it was noticed that the same social classes would tend to support either Socialists or Communists, depending on the region, but never split between the two, and when they failed to support the one, would not switch to the other, preferring alternative parties. In other parts of France, neither party had a foothold, and the same social classes that supported either Socialists or Communists in their stronghold regions supported entirely different, and not particularly Marxist, parties. The reason for this split was constantly debated in Todd's family circle, but no possible explanation seemed to hold water. It was a great mystery.
Once Todd began studies at Cambridge, and encountered what we are calling the Continuity School, he began developing a social analysis that perfectly predicted the voting patterns that had been such a mystery in his family's kitchen debates. France is far from homogenous, and in fact is a patchwork of quite different cultures and family systems. When Todd saw the distribution of the various family systems of France, as established by inheritance rules and customs, he saw at once that both the Communist and Socialist electoral strongholds corresponded to the areas dominated by two distinct family systems. Where other systems prevailed, neither the Communists nor the Socialists could gain any real foothold.
You can see how Todd was perfectly primed to generalise the principle from France, and then England, to the entire world.
In the course of my Todd readings and meanderings, I probably was told (perhaps by Todd himself in his book about French politics (which I have long possessed (and which I see you can now get second hand for £2.81 (in English)))) that Todd had been raised by baffled and frustrated Communists. But I had not really taken it in.
Incoming from Simon Rose, entitled "End of the World not happening tomorrow".
What this means is that the End of the World CLUB MEETING is not happening tomorrow, because of a double booking mix-up of some sort. But for a moment there, I was wondering what mad prophecy Simon was taking it upon himself to contradict.
The End of the World Club is an up-market version of my Last Friday meetings. Despite its rather grumpy old man title, these meetings are very good, with excellent speakers. For instance there was that fascinating talk by someone who had lived through the Zimbabwe inflation.
And, I first came across Dominic Frisby when he addressed the EotW Club, about this book. Ever since Frisby spoke at my home, about his next book I have been hearing his voice on television, what with me being fond of TV documentaries. Here (click on that only if you want to hear noise at once) is what he sounds like. More Frisby audio info here.
Email me if you want to know more about these EotW meetings, and I'll put you in touch with Simon Rose.
If the world ever does end, I want Frisby doing the voice overing for it.
I will, I am now sure (although I actually promise nothing), be writing more in connection with the talk that Christian Michel has just given at my home, but as of right now, I am too tired to do it anything like justice. All I will say about it now is that it was superb. (Read his sales pitch for the talk in this earlier posting here.)
But two bits of trivia about the evening occur to me to mention, both so trivial that I don't have to have all my wits about me to mention them.
First, I made a particular resolution not just to provide satisfactory snacks to my guests but to actually open the packets of the snacks and putting the snacks in plates. In the past, I have found myself burdened, once my guests have departed, with unopened packets of party food. My surmise is that this is not because nobody wanted to eat any of these snacks. No, the problem is that people don't like to open food packets, because that feels, and worse, may appear greedy. It's like they want to eat all of them. Or maybe, that they are reluctant to open a new packet when they only want one of them. But, faced with a plate of biscuits or a big bowl of crisps, they will not hesitate to partake, if so inclined. It's a little thing, but this worked well, I think.
And second, as usual, the exactly right number of people showed up. How do they know to do this? Last time around I was afraid that there would be too many. This time, for various reasons involving several semi-regulars happening to have other things on such as wedding anniversaries, I feared there might be too few. In the event, the number of attenders, both last time and this time was pretty much identical and just right. It always is. A Samizdata commenter, commenting on something I wrote there about this odd phenomenon, said that there is an explanation of it in this book, which I'm pretty sure I already possess. I must track it down. With luck, this posting will remind me to do this instead of forgetting about it.
I have plenty more to say about Alex's PR Masterclass, and may even get around to saying it, Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, here is my favourite snap that I snapped at the launch of the book last night, at the office of Adam Smith Institute:
If you hold a book launch for a book called "PR Masterclass", that launch had better be packed out, or you look like a prune.
It was. He didn't.
As my talk deadline (tomorrow evening) approaches, further insights keep rearranging themselves in my brain.
Not long ago, I read Alex Singleton's new book (he will be speaking at my home on Friday 31st of this month) about how to do P(ublic) R(elations). (Not so long before reading that book, I read another book in which PR meant, throughout, P(hoto) R(econnaissance). How the world keeps changing (see below).)
I don't recall any of the facts in this book of Alex's about how to do PR being any sort of shattering revelation. Rather was the book a relentless drip-drip-drip of what is called "commonsense", that is, of facts which might well be true, which would make sense if true, and which are, in the opinion of one who knows, actually true, as opposed to some other equally commonsensical notions about these or those circumstances, which, in the opinion of the same expert, are not true. Yet Alex telling me all the things he knows about how to do PR hardly begins to turn me into a PR expert, even though I am now at least passingly acquainted with every important principle, or even fact, that he has gathered up during his PR-ing over the last few years, and furthermore now know (or think I know) where to look to reacquaint myself with all these facts.
What distinguishes Alex from me as a PR-er is that he not only has his facts right, but that he also has them, as the saying goes, "at his fingertips". That is, he knows how to deploy the pertinent fact at the pertinent time, again and again. He makes connections between his facts, and knows, from experience, which fact matters at which particular moment. He has his facts properly arranged and cross-referenced, inside his head. He knows his way around his facts. All I have is an ill-remembered list of facts.
Trying to "make sense" (as I now am) of digital photography is like that. I already know everything about digital photography that I need to know, pretty much, as (I'm guessing) do you. The problem is making sense of what I know, of putting it all together and relating this fact to that fact, in a way that is slightly interesting and surprising, yet also true.
I now find myself thinking about digital photography as part of that wider historical change known by labels like: the Information Revolution. The Information Revolution kicked off, I would say, on May 11th 1844, when the first message between two different cities (Washington and Baltimore) was sent by electric telegraph. It is intrinsic to digital photography that it is photography that can be communicated.
The effect of the Information Revolution has been to unleash a succession of changes in the texture of everyday life, with each successive decade being defined by whatever stage the Information Revolution happened to have arrived at at that particular passing moment. Photography is both an example of such a change, and the means of recording and remembering and celebrating such changes. Photography remembers things like tablets and iPhones, just as in earlier times it remembered and still remembers big mobile phones, antique microphones, dance crazes, the social structure of successive pop combos, fashions in costume and make-up, and so forth and so on. (Photography also remembers successive iterations of the Industrial Revolution, like trains, cars, airplanes and wars.)
Photography remembers, among many other things, itself. Digital photography remembers, among even more other things, itself.
I'm reading Boris Johnson's book about London. It's good fun. I don't know how much Boris is to be trusted about things like historical facts, but I doubt it is that bad, even though he is a politician.
The thing is, for years I've been looking for a brief history of London, but all the others seem to be too long, and too solemn, or worse, they exude literary pretension. I think I own this book, but have never been inclined to read it.
I've just finished the Chaucer chapter. I hadn't realised quite what a swell Chaucer was. Him writing in English was a rather generous - or maybe rather patronising - gesture from a man whose first language was Norman French. It was during his lifetime that English supplanted French as England's language. Johnson mentions the Black Death, of course, but not one of my pet theories about the Black Death, which is that the Black Death actually helped to cause English to take over, by killing half the royal administrators, who then had all to be replaced, because clearly the bureaucracy couldn't get any smaller. That would be against the laws of everything. So, what remained of the teaching profession was sucked into the bureaucracy. At which point the English turned to home education. Guess in which language. But I digress.
I am greatly looking forward to reading about the time of the English Civil War, and then the stuff about John Wilkes, who is someone I keep hearing about but have never really got to grips with. I anticipate a good, quick, potted biography. I am expecting the arguments swirling around Wilkes to be a bit like those that now rage around the figure of Edward Snowden.
The book passes my basic test, which is that having started it, I find that I want to finish it. I am reading the book, despite merely needing to read other books.
In the shop (a remainder shop), I read the beginnings of the chapter on Shakespeare, and bought it on the strength of that. You can buy it for £2.82.


text:
Hi, I'm looking for a new scope for my 5.62 lower with a 7.62 upper and am coming up short...I'm hoping to spend $600 max. Any suggestions?
Join FirearmsTalk.com Today - It's Free!
Are you a firearms enthusiast? Then we hope you will join the community. You will gain access to post, create threads, private message, upload images, join groups and more.
Firearms Talk is owned and operated by fellow firearms enthusiasts. We strive to offer a non-commercial community to learn and share information.
Join FirearmsTalk.com Today! - Click Here
What's a 5.62 lower?
Oh dern....
Revelation 19:11
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
Mixed #'s...I drank a lot. 5.26
and what is a 5.26?
5.56, still nursing!
Doesn't really matter what the lower is. What kind of shooting do you want to do? Distances? Targets or game animals, if so, what type of game? Terrain, thick woods, open plains, swamps, or hills with clearcuts? Hunting from a stand or stalking?
Mostly distance and targets...vermin is always on the hit list tho!
For that money, you can get a Leupold 1-4, 1.5-5 or 2-7. Nikon scopes are also superb, but make sure you get the top end and not the economy model.
However, with A 7.62X39, you might be better served with an EOTech Holosight or an Aimpoint Red Dot.www.swfa.comwww.opticsplanet.com
War is the continuation of politics by other means. Carl von Clausewitz
VThe best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.Winston Churchill

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power
Lay off the Freedom Loving Punch (504 comments)
The last time I looked, the flip side to a regulated utility was a deregulated utility. Deregulated utilities end up as monopolies.
The other last time I looked, business interests of all kinds turn to governments to maintain their profits, and raise barriers to competition. And spare me the "The problem is bad regulation." That's not the problem.


text:
Magic Magic (2013)
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
No Top Critics Tomatometer score yet...
Movie Info
A vacationing insomniac loses the ability to distinguish dreams from reality while traveling the Chilean countryside with a group of adventurers that includes her best friend and an enigmatic American in this downbeat saga. Though it came to the U.S. billed as a thriller or a horror picture, Chilean director Sebastian Silva's Magic Magic is more aptly described as a dark psychological drama with tense overtones. Juno Temple stars as Alicia - an emotionally fragile young woman in her early 20s with a murky history. She joins her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning), Sarah's boyfriend Agust�n (Agust�n Silva), the couple's eccentric friend Brink (Michael Cera) and Agust�n's sister Barbara (Catalina Sandina Moreno) for a retreat in the countryside, but from the beginning, things don't go as planned. In the days that follow, more tension erupts between Alicia and the other members of the group, particularly Brink, who displays extreme anti-social tendencies and grows fond of malevolently pushing the girl's buttons. After Sarah returns, all hell threatens to break loose: Alicia is accosted by a local dog that attempts to copulate with her leg; Brink and Agust�n play a dangerous game that threatens to cause Alicia grave physical harm, and it becomes increasingly apparent, throughout, that Alicia is now teetering on the brink of a full-scale mental breakdown, which terrifies the others. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi … More
- Rating:
- R (for language, some sexual content and nudity)
- Genre:
- Drama , Horror , Mystery & Suspense
- Directed By:
- Sebasti�n Silva , Sebastiansilva
- Written By:
- Sebasti�n Silva , Sebastiansilva
- On DVD:
- Aug 6, 2013
- Runtime:
|Buy $9.99
|Buy $13.99 Rent $3.99
|Buy $13.99
|Buy $9.99 Rent $3.99
|Add to Queue
Juno Temple
as Alicia
Michael Cera
as Brink
Catalina Sandino Mor...
as Barbara
Emily Browning
as Sarah
Agust�n Silva
as Agust�n
Friend Ratings
No Friends? Inconceivable! Log in to see what your friends have to say.Login
Critic Reviews for Magic Magic
All Critics (37) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (12)
The first half of Magic Magic is greatly enjoyable: the performances are strong, the photography is crisp and immersive, and the mood is ripe and ominous.
Meticulously acted, gorgeously shot and hilariously insightful about the strange, inarticulable ways people can get on one another's nerves, this psychological thriller takes its premise to surprising, darkly comic extremes ...
It's refreshing to see something with a dramatic heart beating beneath its discomfiting exterior.
It's a big load of much-ado-about-nothing dressed up in writer- director Sebastian Silva's arty movements.
Magic Magic's odd denouement is a dramatic curveball that smacks the viewer square in the face.
Silva, like all good film-makers, is a magician. But thanks to the last-minute fumbling, we're left with a broken spell.
Magic Magic is skewered on the horns of a dilemma, uncertain whether it's a horror film or a psychological drama -- and it doesn't work especially well as either.
Juno Temple is sensational in this assured psychological thriller from Sebasti�n Silva.
With some haunting imagery and an unusual, throbbing sense of dread throughout, this is a trippy twist on the horror trope about sadists and innocents.
Sebasti�n Silva's troubling psychological thriller largely eschews cabin-in-the-woods convention, and cements Juno Temple as one of the most compelling young actresses working today.
It ebbs away at the climax, but there's 45 minutes where it sings loud and strange.
The by-the-numbers plotting is a little clunky but there's fun to be had in the cast's easy chemistry.
If you're like me and enjoy horror films that make you feel odd, unsettled and generally unpleasant, then this is one of the best feel-bad experiences you could have.
A disturbing, Polanski-esque psychological horror with stunning sound design and a pair of terrific performances from Juno Temple and Michael Cera.
Plenty of creepy atmosphere and counter-cliche left turns don't quite make up for the odd, slightly unsatisfying finale, but it's certainly an unusual ride.
Silva's skill is allowing us to experience everything through the point of view of his protagonist, although things become tedious in the final reel
Silva takes us by the hand and drags us into the madness as well, and it's an experience that is wholly uncomfortable.
Audience Reviews for Magic Magic
Super Reviewer
A shy and emotionally fragile American girl is trapped with four strangers in a vacation home in Chile when her friend ditches her to deal with personal issues. Well acted, with a decent atmosphere of subtle paranoia; unfortunately, the script is missing the narrative hooks to draw you into its REPULSION-lite scenario.More
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
If you've seen the trailer for "Magic Magic", then you've successfully been duped. Not to say "Magic Magic" isn't an exceptional thriller with fine performances, but anyone expecting a sinister, psychological thriller where everyone is out to get the leading lady will be sadly mistaken. Juno Temple plays lead Alicia, vacationing from the States to Chile to visit her cousin Sarah (the lovely Emily Browning) and her strange group of friends, which includes a wonderfully dark comedic turn from the talented Michael Cera. Upon arrival, Sarah has to ditch Alicia for school, sending her off, alone, with her friends. Highly relatable, the audience can almost certainly relate with the awkwardness of being left alone with a group of people you barely know and in Alicia's case of being somewhat socially awkward to begin with, the tensions are high. Here's where the bait and switch happens. [And spoiler alert for anyone wanting to be completely surprised]. Instead of Sarah's friends actually being sadists like the trailer leads you to believe, Alicia is actually the afflicted one. Off her meds and insanely paranoid, the film's darkness comes from its lead, rather then the surrounding characters, which is honestly a nice change of pace. The thrilling nature of the film is brought on by Alicia's paranoia as she struggles to be alone with this group of people while they hunt birds as a game and hypnotize one another. However, without the director clearly developing a point-of-view to trust or follow, the audience is left flailing through most of the film, wondering where it is going and how we got there when it does arrive. And with a strange and anti-climatic ending to which only the close watcher is privy to, "Magic Magic" is anything but. That being said, I admire both Juno Temple and Michael Cera for carrying the film as well as director Sebasti�n Silva, who does establish a very eerie tone to the film, despite being fragmented and unsure of itself.More
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
Discuss Magic Magic on our Movie forum!


text:
I know I've posted a few journals about things before, but this account is still getting flooding with link backs, comments, group requests and watchers.
so I think I need be clearer still.
my main account is Fluffomaru
this base account is no longer active.
I only get on it every great once in awhile to clear the messages, why? don't really know just do.
because it is no longer active, linking back, asking me things, or watching me is useless.
I will not reply, I will not favorite, and I will not post any new bases.
if that is ever to change I will post another journal here saying so.
if you absolutely need to contact me you can here Fluffomaru
Stop linking your edits back.
I know it says to in my rules, and I appreciate those of you who still follow them but those rules were put in place before the mentions system and before I left this account.
so there is no need to link back.
simple credit as always and you're good.
and yes I ask that you still credit, as a good chunk of these bases I drew myself so I should get the credit.
you can credit my main account if you would prefer. (though honestly I just hate the bases on here. they're old and remind me of shit I went through on this account, so for the most part I'm not thrilled to see them. sometimes though)
Now, this may go without saying, but if you have blocked me on my main account Fluffomaru then you are not allowed to use my bases anymore.
why would you get to use my art when you block me after all.
this only goes for the bases I drew however.
ones traced from screenshots or other artist's work you can use(unless of course said artist doesn't want you to)
to clarify, if you have blocked me you can't use the bases here: crappybases.deviantart.com/gal…
OR HERE: fluffomaru.deviantart.com/favo…
any others you can use, I don't care.
just follow the rules.
and, if you have any interest in new bases from my own work you can only get them here: fluffomaru.deviantart.com/jour…
and they are pay to use only.
sorry, but when you've been walked on constantly by base users you tighten up.
blame assholes.
but all new original bases will be posted there and pay to use only.


text:
Fargo Trucks
Fargo was a brand of truck manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation. Fargo trucks were a rebadging of Dodge trucks.
The first Fargo trucks were built in Chicago by the Fargo Motor Car Company from 1913 until 1922. In 1928 Chrysler bought the business and created their own line of Fargo trucks.[1] Shortly after its creation, Chrysler also bought the Dodge Brothers Company, adding Dodge and Graham Brothers badged trucks to its product line.
From then on, Fargo trucks were almost identical to the Dodge ones, save for trim and name, and were sold by Chrysler-Plymouth dealers. Production began in the late 1920s.[1]
U.S. sales were discontinued in the 1930s, but the name Fargo was used until 1972 for Canada, and lived longer for other countries around the world under the Chrysler Corporation's badge engineering marketing approach. Most of the Fargo trucks and bus chassis sold in Argentina,[2] Finland, Australia, India, and other countries in Europe and Asia were made in Chrysler's Kew (UK) plant. Most were sold also under the Dodge, Commer or DeSoto names.
Theories on why Chrysler used the name Fargo include the imagery of open range of the American west, symbolized by the city of Fargo and the Wells-Fargo stage lines, while another theory assumes there was a play on the words "Far" and "Go", denoting durability.
Fargo trucks today[edit]
The Fargo brand still exists in Turkey, where Fargo and DeSoto trucks are currently made by Turkish manufacturer Askam, with no technical or business connection with Chrysler.[3]However Askam itself is the descendant of Chrysler Kamyon Montaj Fabrikası founded in 1964 at Istanbul.
- ^ a b "Fargo trucks". allpar.com. Retrieved Sep 17, 2012.
- ^ "Carmiones Fargo (brochure)" [Fargo trucks]. 1950. Retrieved Sep 17, 2012.
- ^ "Askam Kamyon Imalat" [Askam Truck Manufacturing]. Retrieved Sep 17, 2012.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fargo vehicles.
|This truck-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
|This article about an automotive industry corporation or company is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.


text:
You must log in to access this feature. Sign in with Twellow or Facebook to get started.
By signing in to Twellow, you indicate your agreement to our terms of service.
Simply connect with Facebook and kiss those password blues away,
or go here to reset your password.
IT and Public Relations consultant interested in Public Affairs, Capacity Building and Interfaith Relations


text:
Give the Gift of John Steinbeck!
Buying a gift membership for your friend, relative or favorite Steinbeck lover is simple! Review our membership levels, pick the one best for your occasion and then contact Phillip Saldana at firstname.lastname@example.com or at 831.775.4726.
Thank you for helping us grow our membership so that we can continue to provide resources that enrich the lives of children, families and adults of all ages.
From all of us at the National Steinbeck Center, thank you for your loyal support!


text:
Whew! … I'm coming up for some air to post this recently revamped & rebranded weekday lunch planner.
Wow, so many of you have been requesting (and even begging) for me to bring this useful freebie back from our old site :) So here it is … get ready to plan out some lunches!
Perfect for: stay-at-home mommies, homeschoolers, in-home daycares and kids (or adults) who take their lunch to school (or work) every day.
This lunch planner was designed to print on standard U.S. letterhead (8.5 x 11 paper). Just print and write in your details! You can also laminate it and write on it with a dry erase marker.
My kids won't eat the cafeteria lunch, so we pack lunches every single weekday. It can be a huge chore, so having it planned out definitely helps ;)
Ok, I'm going off the grid again (those 2014 premium calendars aren't going to design & format themselves ya'll!) … "heigh-ho, heigh-ho" …


text:
|Thread Tools
starting issues...battery or starter?
OK, just got my rebuild running, and its running great!
But, after I shut it off, after its break-in, I immediately tried to start it, and it just kind of "chugs", like there isnt enough power to turn it over faster.
I noticed this while oil-priming it as well. The battery is only about 2 years old and takes a charge well, and the starter is brand new. If the battery reads 12.79 or close to it, it doesn't seem to want to start, but if the battery sits on the trickle charger for a few days, and I try to start the vehicle when the battery read around 14-14.5 it turns over just fine.
So, I thought 12.7x volts should be enough to turn this over, do I need a higher voltage battery or will this ruin my other electronics?
The compression of the engine is around 9.8-10:1 and I thought a stocl Delco_Remy should handle this ok..
Any advice?
Load test the battery. Any battery can have a bad cell whether it's 4 months or 4 yrs old.
Judging by your handle, you have a454..... Big block Chevs are nitorious for starter problems, especially if you are using headers. The heat really effects the starter.
Another thing is, that you may have the engine too far advanced. Turn the timing back a touch and see if it wil start.
On my 70 LS6 Chevelle (11.1 compression), I used to have a switch on the coil. I would switch it off, get the engine cranking, hit the switch to give the coil power and it would start.
You can also buy a hi-output starter, which will crank over anything.
Ontario Rodders
You could do like poncho suggested and try playing with the timing. If it is a problem related to high compression chevy big blocks you may have to work out some things. Aside from load testing the battery with an actual load tester to rule it out you could disconnect the coil and crank her over with a voltmeter on the battery. While cranking the battery should stay above 9.8 volts approx. You could also try switching to the highest CCA rated battery you can fit in her.
another thing to look into is your grounds, My sbc ate up 8 starters before I solved the problem. I added a 4 guage wire from the frame to the block, from the block to the battery, the battery to the fender, and another 10 gauge wire from the frame to the firewall, from the fire wall to the intake. this solved all my electrical problems, the lights don`t go dim at idle anymore, the voltage gauge don`t dance around anymore, and I haven`t ate anymore starters, one of the header tubes rest on my starter and I have no heat sheild, winter or summer, still fires up easily.
Well, I had the battery tested, and it checked out OK on all accounts...
The starter works great when enough juice is supplied to it, leading me to think that the issue is with the compression and difficulty of turning over the engine..
Is this true:
If the battery has 14.00 volts when I turn the engine over, then the starter will work harder, as it is being supplied more power?
If that is true, it would seem to indicate that the compression or difficulty of turning the engine over seems to be the problem area..
If I were to get a "high-torque" starter, should that turn this engine over, with the standard 12.7 volts fine?
I am going to get a heat shield for the starter, but thats not the problem with this issue...
Thanks for all the suggestions and help
The timing was too advanced, turned it back a bit, and it fires up just fine now. thanks guys!
|Recent Engine posts with photos
|Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|Thread Tools


text:
For All That Think Vince McMahon & His Corporation Are Evil, This Will Change Your Mind
75,000 People Filled the Superdome in New Orleans for Wrestlemania
Who's the Next Big WWE Superstar? Look No Further Than Emma
Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart Isn't Looking So Great These Days
Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart was part of the Legends of Wrestling celebration hosted by the Miami Marlins last week. Here's video of The Anvil twitching and juking his way through an interview alongside his fo
Watch Shocking Video of WWE Fan Attacking Randy Orton in the Ring
Roddy Piper Comments on Ric Flair's Recent Arrest Warrant
'Rowdy' Roddy Piper, never a man to mince words or not speak his mind, was a recent guest on WODZ to promote an upcoming 2CW Wrestling show and Piper's Pit in Utica, NY.
20 Professional Wrestler Mugshots You've Probably Never Seen
Reid Flair, Son of Ric Flair, Passes Away at 24
Reid Flair, son of wrestling legend Ric Flair, passed away today at the age of 24. Reid Flair was found this morning in Charlotte, North Carolina and had just returned from working for All Japan. Few details are known at the time of this writing.


text:
One of my favorite dishes to eat ever is a good macaroni and cheese. I like it creamy and full of flavor. My personal recipe (not shared) is inspired by Chef Delilah Winder's 7-cheese macaroni (which Oprah dubbed the Best Macaroni & Cheese in the WORLD). When I met Chef Delilah and tried this dish– I had to agree.
The woman knows what she's doing. And she has no problems sharing how it is done. I swear it is easy-peesy! You basically dump the ingredients into a large mixing bowl (with the exception of the eggs) and mix is as best you can. Chef Delilah puts on gloves and mixes it by hand– she doesn't believe that a spoon can do it justice.
Anyway, I've shared her recipe below. But just know that you can substitute these for your faves and even use less options. I only use 3 to five cheeses when I make it, and I add a little ground mustard seed. Once I perfect a written recipe (with measurements I mean), I'll post it as a Part II (Maybe for Christmas). And once you get it all down, you'll be able to add ingredients like sausage, crab, lobster, etc.
Click below for Chef Delilah Winder's Macaroni recipe courtesy of the food network.


text:
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The Philippine peso fell to an eight- month low on concern Europe's worsening debt crisis will encourage overseas investors to pull out more funds.
The country is seeing a "partial reversal" of capital inflows, central bank Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said in a mobile-phone text message today. The central bank is closely monitoring "global risk appetite" to ensure that capital flows are orderly, Governor Amando Tetangco said in an e-mail today. The government will report September inflation numbers tomorrow, a week after two typhoons hit the nation.
"Overall, the theme is risk aversion," said Radhika Rao, an economist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. "There's upward pressure on inflation because of the weaker peso and the series of storms."
The currency dropped 0.2 percent to 44.075 per dollar as of the 4 p.m. close of trading in Manila, adding to a 1.2 percent loss in the last three days, according to Tullett Prebon Plc. It earlier touched 44.215, the weakest level since Feb. 1. The peso slumped 3.3 percent in September, the worst month since May 2010.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lowered its three-month forecast for the peso to 43 from 42, according to a research report. The currency will probably end the year around 43 to 43.30 and will be supported by remittances from overseas Filipinos, Rao said.
Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with a 4.7 percent increase in August, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Government bonds fell ahead of the inflation report. The yield on the 6.5 percent April 2021 notes rose 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, to 6.32 percent, based on midday fixing prices at Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.
The Philippines plans to sell 10- and 15-year bonds to individuals this month, Deputy Treasurer Eduardo Mendiola said yesterday. The government hired 10 banks to manage the offering, and pricing may take place on Oct. 10, he said.
--With assistance from Michael Munoz in Hong Kong. Editors: Simon Harvey
To contact the reporter on this story: Clarissa Batino in Manila at email@example.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sandy Hendry at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Too Faced Endless Summer 16+ Hour Long-Wear Bronzer
- 1 reviews See the Breakdown
- Product Info | Add Your Review
Too Faced Endless Summer 16+ Hour Long-Wear Bronzer Reviews
Summer glowPlain and simple: this stuff lasts no where near 16 hours. I've had it for around a week, and even on days when I did jack-all it simply faded away. So my advice is to ignore the long-wear guarantee, if that's why you were interested in this product. However, it is a pretty nice bronzer. It gives you a subtle (some might say it's too sheer) summery look, with a little shimmer for a healthy glow. I...read more think this'll still look great in the winter months, though! It came with no brushes or pads, though, so make sure before buying that you have a good bronzing brush. — 1 year, 5 months agoErsine | 3 reviews
This review is: Helpful | Not helpful | Inappropriate | 1 of 2 people said helpful
to top
My Reasons for Reporting This


text:
They are very beautiful and look nice in my living room.
The curtains are beautiful. I received them just as they were described.
The panels remind me of my mother. Every window had lace curtains. I love these curtains, the flower design provides some privacy and they are beautiful at the window. I was also able to hang them right out of the package! My bedroom is so cozy..love them, love them, love them!
I bought these curtains in ivory for the front windows of my Victorian home - I love them. I get a wonderful feeling when the sun shines thru these curtains. They are beautiful.
I have been shopping for the perfect lace curtains for a few years and these are the most beautiful. I love these!


text: Super Cute...Super SadThese shoes are so super cute! If I could ever coerce them onto my foot, I'd give all the other girls a severe case of shoe envy. Alas, I am stuck with foot envy for those whose feet aren't nearly as wide as mine. And it appears that going up a size won't increase the width, just the length. The material is a bit visually deceptive in that it seems the leather would be a bit more supple and help ease the foot in. However, it doesn't really give and I sadly will be shipping them back. P.S. The blue color is perfect to rock with denim or to pair with a sun dress if you wanna add a funky kick to your look.miztravels would recommend this product to a friend.Reviewed by miztravelsAtlanta, GAReviewed on 30th November -0001


text:
Frustration Followed By Anger Becomes Depression
I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. The indicators were all there. It begins with the clumsiness, and lack of coordination. I began to drop things: pens, books, and the plastic container of Pellegrino mixed with pomegranate and grape juice. The bottle top wasn't screwed on properly and the sticky mixture spilled all over the floor. When I leaned down to wipe it up, my pens fell out of my shirt pocket (I had forgotten to slip them in with their holders) and into the spill. I became upset. When I rose I banged my head on the kitchen counter. I cursed loudly to no one. Later I had to go to an appointment. As I opened the front door with too much force, it bounced off my right foot and cracked me hard on the side of my head. For minutes I was stunned and stumbled to my vehicle. Late for my appointment, I raced across town yelling at all the stupid drivers, who got in my way.
The following day still unbalanced. I tried to make some new business cards using Microsoft Word and a template. The attempted was a total disaster. Nothing would work. I couldn't get the type where I wanted it to be, nor could I print my efforts. Calls to the Avery Company who make the business card printable sheets began with being cut off in mid-conversation because cell phones do that all the time. My second call provided assistance, which only half worked. My psychic temperature was escalating fast.


text:
eutherianLine breaks: eu¦ther|ian
Pronunciation: /juːˈθɪərɪən /
Definition of eutherian in English:
A mammal of the major group Eutheria, which excludes the marsupials and monotremes.
Example sentences
- Attempts to resolve the relationships of Xenarthra and Pholidota to other eutherian mammals have not yet been exhausted.
- Hypertrophied upper canines which occur in the paratype, have never previously been recorded in kangaroos and represent an example of evolutionary convergence between these herbivorous marsupials and ungulate eutherians.
- Using stem-based definitions (and the respective terms Metatheria and Eutheria), generally-accepted eutherians are now known from the late Early Cretaceous of both Asia and North America.
adjectiveBack to top
Relating to or denoting eutherians.
Example sentences
- Several explanations have been proposed for the acquisition of genomic imprinting in eutherian mammals.
- To conclude, obtaining more data for mammalian groups has given the major gain in understanding eutherian evolution.
- Phylogenetic trees depicting relationships among 16 eutherian orders are presented.
Definition of eutherian in:
- US English dictionary
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
Get more from Oxford Dictionaries
Subscribe to remove adverts and access premium resources
Most popular
Most popular in the US
Most popular in the UK
Most popular in Canada
Most popular in Australia
Most popular in Spain
Most popular in Malaysia
Most popular in Pakistan
= trending
Most popular inAustralia Canada India Malaysia Pakistan Spain United Kingdom United States All
Word of the day resilient
Pronunciation: rɪˈzɪlɪənt
able to recoil or spring back into shape…