some reading material

Courtesy of The New Yorker, an exclusive excerpt from Barack Obama's soon-to-be-released presidential memoir, A Promised Land: "A President Looks Back on His Toughest Fight"

stephens

After several months of reading just a little bit at a time, I finally finished the remarkable work by John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, which was originally published in 1841. Stephens journeyed to Central America, exploring and documenting ancient Mayan ruins. The copy I have is split into two books, Volume I and Volume II; the book can also be found online at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Incidents_of_Travel_in_Central_America,_Chiapas_and_Yucatan.

Stephens, of course, is considered to have been a pivotal figure in the rediscovery of Maya civilization. Besides the detailed descriptions of the Mayan ruins, his work provides the reader with a fascinating snapshot of life and conditions in that part of the world at about the middle of the 19th century.

After his first trip (1939-40), Stephens returned to the region in 1841 and wrote about that visit in Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, originally published in 1843 (I have yet to read this book).

reading right now...

Here's the book I'm reading now: Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas & Yucatan, Vol 1 by John Lloyd Stephens. Originally published in 1841.

Found this book at a thrift store. I didn't realize until later that there's a Volume 2. Here's a little bit about the book at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1812997.Incidents_of_Travel_in_Central_America_Chiapas_Yucatan_Vol_1

I do want to read the 2nd volume as well, eventually, so I just now placed an order for it. These works by Stephens have been digitalized; I found both volumes online, in a few different formats. I've also downloaded the pdf. But I like "real books" that I can hold in my hands -- that's just me -- and I know from past experience that I won't read a book like that in digital form.

Anyway, fascinating stuff. I've finished the first 5 chapters of the 1st volume, taking me to the part where Stephens first saw the ruins at a place called Copán.

Fast-forward to the present day, the "Copán" article at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop%C3%A1n

 From that article:

The first post-Spanish conquest mention of Copán was in an early colonial period letter dated 8 March 1576. The letter was written by Diego García de Palacio, a member of the Royal Audience of Guatemala, to king Philip II of Spain. French explorer Jean-Frédéric Waldeck visited the site in the early 19th century and spent a month there drawing the ruins. Colonel Juan Galindo led an expedition to the ruins in 1834 on behalf of the government of Guatemala and wrote articles about the site for English, French and North American publications. John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood visited Copán and included a description, map and detailed drawings in Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, published in 1841.

on books

Here's a link to an article about one of my favorite authors: "In Praise of Samuel R. Delany"

I've read his books Dhalgren and Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand a couple of times now.

And, here's a very good book that I just finished: Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus by Robert D. Kaplan, first published in November, 2000. More info here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33687.Eastward_to_Tartary

excellent anthology

A few weeks ago, I finished reading The Multicultural Southwest: A Reader (Editors: A. Gabriel Melendez, M. Jane Young, Patricia Moore, and Patrick Pynes). Fascinating compilation of works, and one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Here's the blurb from the book's back cover:

As Americans debate what it means to be a multicultural society, one need only turn for lessons to the Southwest, where distinct peoples have coexisted over centuries. Here difference has not only survived but thrived in a melting pot of races and customs.

This book presents a montage of differing perspectives demonstrating that there is no single, definitive description of the Southwest. It brings together a host of writers, from early travelers and historians to contemporary commentators, who explore a region diverse in its people and ecology and show it to be not just a segment of the nation, but rather a border contact zone.

The editors have assembled an interdisciplinary composite, drawing on history, sociology, anthropology, and geography. Fiction, essays, poetry, newspaper articles, and interviews with local inhabitants add a colorful dimension to the coverage. All of the contributions reveal the tremendous impact that everyday occurrences can have and show how life in the Southwest is affected by the interweaving of social, cultural, and ecological forces.

For more, see: https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-multicultural-southwest

future system

A background I found today. I thought it fit nicely with Openbox, in Arch Linux.

The concept behind this "planetary system" may have roots in the sci-fi classic Ringworld, by Larry Niven (1970); the novel opens in the year 2850 AD.

"Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld

reading kissinger

Just finished reading On China by Henry Kissinger, which was published back in 2011 and details Sino-American relations over the past 50 years or so. I quite enjoyed the book. Check out this New York Times review of it: "Henry Kissinger on China"

I'll try to get a copy of Kissinger's 2014 work, World Order (see: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/books/in-world-order-henry-kissinger-sums-up-his-philosophy.html?_r=0)

great read

Check out Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's magnificent work, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. I'm about halfway through this book. Very interesting, whether looked at from an historical, a cultural, or a medical perspective.

Martha Moore Ballard lived in the Kennebec River region of Maine, working in and around the town of Hallowell. More about her can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Ballard

This treasure of a book, originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York) in 1990, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. As noted at Wikipedia, "In 1997, the PBS series The American Experience aired A Midwife's Tale. This documentary film was based upon Ulrich’s book, and Ulrich served as a consultant, script collaborator, and narrator for the film." I have not yet seen the film. See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/midwife/filmmore/index.html

little free libraries

A couple of the "Little Free Library" boxes I'm finding around Albuquerque.

great tutorial

You'll want to bookmark this one: Steve's Bourne/Bash Shell Scripting Tutorial, by Steve Parker. You can also purchase the 72-page PDF or the eBook. In addition, there's Parker's book Shell Scripting: Expert Recipes for Linux, Bash, and More. Excellent work!

moment of nostalgia

I recently picked up the latest release of Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel J. Barrett. It's a newer edition of my first Linux book, which I had acquired a little over nine years ago. I had given it away a few years back because I figured I didn't need it anymore.

I don't know how much I'll use it, if at all. I just wanted to have it here again.

I think that the book was originally more geared towards Red Hat/Fedora, but it looks like more of a general Linux reference guide now. However, the "Installing Software" section includes info about yum, rpm, and aptitude commands, and tar.gz and tar.bz2 files, but apt-get commands are not covered; nor are other things like pacman and other package management tools. Synaptic and Ubuntu's update manager are mentioned in one sentence about graphical package managers.

I used to take Linux Pocket Guide with me everywhere, poring over it at bus stops and on the city bus, and during my lunch breaks at work. I didn't know at the time that I'd turn out to be more of a Debian guy than anything else! It was a good intro to the Linux world, though.

debian administrator's handbook for wheezy

Posted today by Raphaël Hertzog:

We’re pleased to announce the availability of “The Debian Administrator’s Handbook, Debian Wheezy from Discovery to Mastery”. This is the first major update of the book since the first edition (in May 2012).

Here's a link to the Debian Administrator's Handbook website: http://debian-handbook.info/

Folks can purchase the book as paperback or eBook. The eBook is also available for free download, and there's also an online version.

debian books

A web page containing a nice list of books for Debian users: http://www.debian.org/doc/books

I've already mentioned The Debian Administrator's Handbook (see "handbook"). Checking out
GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide right now.

you don't want to read it

You don't want to read this book, you don't want to hear it, and you don't want to know about it. You just want it to be forgotten.

But even though it's something that's been mostly kept quiet, the story needed to be told.

So, Douglas A. Blackmon told it.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

If you won't read the book, maybe you'll see the PBS documentary. I haven't watched it myself, though.

found some good ones

Just completed this one:

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. I enjoyed the story, but didn't like that it's part of a trilogy, so I don't think I'll read the other two books. I might check out the movie, though.


Still working on these:

Journal of a Mountain Man, James Clyman (edited by Linda M. Hasselstrom). I stumbled upon this one at a thrift store; the writings of James Clyman, describing his travels and adventures on the plains and in the mountains of the North American West in the 1800s.

Telling New Mexico: A New History, edited by Marta Weigle. This one was in the stacks at the Albuquerque Public Library, downtown. Here's what it says on the back cover:

This extensive volume presents New Mexico history from its prehistoric beginnings to the present in essays by forty-five prominent scholars and writers representing diverse disciplines including anthropology, Native American and Chicano studies, history and geography.

12.04 manual

Getting Started with Ubuntu 12.04 is called a "comprehensive beginners guide for the Ubuntu operating system," but may also be "suitable for all levels of experience" -- looking through it, I've already picked up a few tidbits that I didn't know before.

The manual includes installation instructions, tips on using "the Ubuntu desktop" (Unity), info on software management and troubleshooting, a "Ubuntu for advanced users" section, and more. You can download it in .pdf form from the Ubuntu Manual Project site, and either save it for future reference or view it in your web browser.

handbook

A fantastic resource for Debian users, The Debian Administrator's Handbook is available for purchase, but is also freely available for viewing online or for downloading as an ebook. The book is written for Debian 6.0 (Squeeze), which is the current Debian Stable. If you're interested in installing Debian, have a look!

The project's home page: http://debian-handbook.info/

linux command line ebook

If you're serious about learning to use the Linux command line, you might want to check out this eBook (in .pdf format): The Linux Command Line, by William E. Schotts, Jr. Thanks to PCLinuxOS forums member "menotu" for posting about this; here's the April 2, 2012 Linuxaria article about the eBook:


eBook "The Linux Command Line", a complete guide to using the command line

William E. Shotts, Jr., published a few years ago a useful ebook entitled “The Linux Command Line”, a guide to learn and know more about the Command Line Interface (CLI) on GNU / Linux. The ebook is still available for download and is released under a Creative Commons license.

Although most distributions have graphical environments and interfaces for applications, the command line continues to be a useful tool to do various tasks while using the system. Even the combination of GUI and command line interface, well used, can help you to perform the tasks that you need quickly and accurately.

The ebook “The Linux Command Line” is a comprehensive guide on the command line. Starting from the basics, the most common commands are presented and later Chapters offers increasingly more advanced information, so that makes it suitable for both new users of the Linux system, and for the skilled users.

“The Linux Command Line” is divided into 5 chapters

1. Introduction. The reason the book and that of its usefulness.

2. Learning the Shell. Start exploring the basic language of the command line including things like the structure of commands, file system navigation, editing in the command line and find the help and documentation for commands.

3. The configuration and environment. Covers editing configuration files that control the operation of the computer from the command line.

4. Common tasks and essential tools. Explore many of the common tasks that are performed from the command line. Unix-like systems such as Linux, containing many ‘classics’ command line programs  that are used to perform effective operations.

5. Writing Shell Scripts. Enter the shell programming, a technique certainly rudimentary, but easy to learn, to automate many common computing tasks. Learning the shell programming will become familiar with the concepts can be applied to many other programming languages​​.

The ebook is available to download for free in PDF format, in English: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxcommand/files/latest/download

looking it up

Does anyone use an actual dictionary anymore? I opened one up about a week ago, only because I didn't have access to the internet at that moment.

If you want to look up a word these days, you can simply open up Google (or you favorite web browser) and type define: followed by the word you want to look up. With Google, you'll get something like this:

Couldn't be easier.

I can't imagine not having a nice dictionary in the home. That would seem like... almost a sin. But, do we really need them anymore? I don't know.

While there's something comforting to me about having a nice dictionary sitting on my bookshelf, these days that's about all it's doing -- sitting there.

There are tons of online dictionaries out there. Some popular ones:

- Mirriam-Webster
- Dictionary.com
- The Free Dictionary
- Cambridge Dictionaries Online
- Oxford Dictionaries

Wictionary looks like an interesting one. From Wikipedia:

Wiktionary (from the words wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages. Unlike standard dictionaries, it is written collaboratively by volunteers, dubbed "Wiktionarians", using wiki software, allowing articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the website.

Like its sister project Wikipedia, Wiktionary is run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary's language editions provide definitions and translations of words from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in thesauri and lexicons. Additionally, the English Wiktionary includes Wikisaurus, a category that serves as a thesaurus, including lists of slang words, and the Simple English Wiktionary, compiled using the Basic English subset of the English language.

The goal of Wiktionary is to eventually define "all words in all languages."

Some other interesting web sites and pages:

- A list of common abbreviations at aresearchguide.com: http://www.aresearchguide.com/comabb.html
- The Urban Dictionary
- Logos


Cool stuff. Everything's there at our fingertips these days -- all anyone needs is an internet connection. Makes me wonder how all of this is affecting print dictionaries. Found this Telegraph article: Oxford English Dictionary 'will not be printed again':

The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the world’s most definitive work on the language, will never be printed because of the impact of the internet on book sales.

Sales of the third edition of the vast tome have fallen due to the increasing popularity of online alternatives, according to its publisher...

OUP [Oxford University Press] said it would continue to print the more familiar Oxford Dictionary of English, the single-volume version sold in bookshops...

Oh, well. Welcome to the Internet Age.

trees

I'm reading a very interesting book: The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston. It's about the redwood trees on the West Coast, and the folks who climb them. Those trees are said to be the oldest living things on the planet.

The folks who climb them are driven by wanting to find the tallest one (they're difficult to measure), by studying the life in the canopies in the redwood forests, and by their love for these majestic trees.

Turns out there's a lot of stuff living up there, like in the canopies of rain forests. Plants, trees, etc., growing right out of the redwood trees' branches, way up high. Bizarre. There are areas up there between trunks growing out of the trees where soil has somehow collected, and stuff grows up there. The trees growing up there in those redwoods are mostly bonzai-type trees -- stunted, but living. At the time the book was written (it was published in 2007), it was like an unexplored world. Also, there are creatures up there that spend their entire lifetimes up there.

Some parts of the book are sad, because climbing big trees is dangerous, and folks fall. Talking about a fall of over 300 feet.

There used to be redwood forests throughout of the world, but most of 'em are gone; the remnants in California and Oregon are all that's left, and even those were hit hard by the logging industry.

The oldest ones are over two thousand years old. Before the time of Jesus Christ. The oldest Sequoia Redwood tree is said to be 3500 years old. In other words, as old as recorded human history; apparently, the earliest significant writing by humans dates from around that time.

I saw something saying that the tallest tree is "Hyperion," in California, at about 379 feet. But trees, of course, grow, and I'm not sure that people know which is the tallest at any given time. And it seems that climate change may be accelerating the growth, but hopefully pollution won't kill them.

This book is an example of how much we really don't know about the natural world. It's only been a short number of years since the ecosystems in those redwood canopies were discovered, and much of them is still not understood. And even though over 90% of the redwood forest are gone, some parts of the tiny remnants left along the West Coast are so vast and hard to reach that large portions remained undiscovered and not studied as recently as the date this book was published.

Another great book found at the thrift store. :)