Cyril's Gleans

some books to go with movie list

2012-04-05T16:01:07-04:00

Thriller (genre) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres.

A Toast to Tomorrow – Manning Coles.
Ashenden: Or the British Agent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crossfire - by J C Pollock
Journey into Fear (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kim (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Man on Fire (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sanders of the River - Edgar Wallace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Six Days of the Condor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Adventures of Hiram Holliday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bourne trilogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Brave Cowboy ~ Abbey
The Man Who Would Be King ~ Kipling novella
The Great Impersonation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hunt for Red October and Red Star Rising -Tom Clancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Key to Rebecca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Originals ~ Baker
The Richard Hannay series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Riddle of the Sands ~ Childers
The Saint series - Leslie Charteris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Secret Agent ~ Conrad
The Travis McGee novels ~ MacDonald

And see: Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game by Peter Hopkirk (Paperback - Oct. 7, 1999)

Also: The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe) by Peter Hopkirk (Paperback - May 15, 1992)

Some movie thrillers

2012-04-03T20:14:47-04:00

Agent Cody Banks (2003)
Cloak & Dagger (1984)
Eraser (1996)
Four Bournes (1988 (TV), 2002, 2004, 2007)
Get Smart, Again! (1989)
Journey Into Fear (1943)
Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Knight and Day (2010)
Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
RED (2010)
Red Dawn (1984)
Red Dawn (remake 2012)
Spies Like Us (1985)
Target (1985)
The Great Impersonation (1935)
The Man Who Knew too Little (1997)
The Tourist (2010)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
True Lies (1994)
War Games (1983)

Bob's very short old day and new day computer history overview

2012-02-27T15:12:31-05:00

This is the result of reading a review of George Dyson's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dyson_(science_historian) , son of Freeman Dyson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson , new book in the U.K. "Guardian" http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/26/first-computers-john-von-neumann?INTCMP=SRCH (Bob has not read the book itself).

This whole thing has been hashed and rehashed for years, and Bob was surprised at what the review said Dyson said re John von Neumann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann .

von Neumann was certainly a key player - but not the key player: he is generally given too much credit for what in effect was group think - he published without giving proper credit to the group.

There was much work done prior to and during WWII that few knew about, primarily in the U.K. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing) but also in the U.S. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon) and Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse).

Some of those few did non-classified work after WWII that was as significant, perhaps more so, as what von Neumann published. Perhaps first among these were http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mauchly , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.PresperEckert , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Calland_Williams , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Kilburn .

One "key figure" with whom Bob has chatted on several occasions was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes - you might like to read his book "Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer". Another such was Perry Crawford - a good friend who introduced Bob to gin martinis - a key figure on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlwind_(computer) . Perry was a great admirer of Shannon whom he knew at MIT prior to WWII (Bob's good friend Frank Corr was not a Shannon fan - most likely because of Shannon's eccentricities).

Guess can't leave this without mentioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff and the famous patent case http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blatanasoff_berry.htm .

NB - von Neumann was a great mathematician - and interesting from another standpoint - he was a Hungarian Jew who converted to Rome on his deathbed in Washington, D.C. (Bob hearsay)

Coda

The birth of today's computing can be attributed largely to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) :

Founded in 1970 as a division of Xerox Corporation, PARC has been responsible for such well known and important developments as laser printing, Ethernet, the modern personal computer, graphical user interface (GUI), object-oriented programming, ubiquitous computing, amorphous silicon (a-Si) applications, and advancing very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) for semiconductors.

Some spy flics Bob likes

2012-02-24T09:50:33-05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_into_Fear_(1943_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourne_(film_series)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tourist_(2010_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_and_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RED_(2010_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Too_Much_(1956_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Too_Little

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_39_Steps_(1959_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Impersonation_(1942_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spies_Like_Us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Lies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Cody_Banks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._%26_Mrs._Smith_(2005_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Smart_(film)

Bob's brief bio

2012-02-11T12:00:24-05:00

Bob was born in 1934 and led a busy life until circa 2007: spent a lot of time in airports and on airplanes (so, well-read) - lived in 27 locations on three continents (traveled on three more). Had one wife (died 1987) and have three sons, three granddaughters, and one grandson. Did a lot of different things including infantry rifleman (Korea draftee), Fulbright Scholar (University of Melbourne – B.Ed. – 1960), computer programmer (IBM – 1960-1987 - mainly attended meetings and wrote reports), teacher (Central Texas College – 1987-1992 – data processing).

Favorite books include most PGW, Quiller-Couch’s “The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1918”, Ricks’ “The Oxford Book of English Verse”, McGann’s “The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse”, Harington’s “Orlando Furioso” (also Slavit’s abridged translation), the Norton “The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850”), Putnam’s “Don Quixote” (also Montgomery’s), Dewey’s “The Quest for Certainty”, Stallings’ “The Nature of Things”, and Hudson’s “Far Away and Long Ago”.

Favorite movies include: 1959 "On the Beach" featuring me (as the Planesman) and Fred Astaire, 1998 “The Parent Trap”, 2003 “Secondhand Lions”.

Favorite philosophers include Hume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume), Dewey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey), Toulmin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Toulmin)

Favorite quotes include: "Not only is the universe stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can know." (variously worded, variously attributed - mainly to J. B. S. Haldane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B.S.Haldane )

Favorite songs include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onefor_My_Baby_(and_One_More_for_the_Road) - Fred Astaire: One for My Baby (dance & song) - YouTube and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanie_with_the_Light_Brown_Hair

Favorite songsmiths include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter

Summary:

Bob was born amid alien corn
and marched only to syncopated drumming
he met lots of strange people
dropped beautiful petals down soundless wells
lived over long good times gone

Rules:
Be the best you can be.
Do unto others as you would be done unto.
Pay to those who follow the debts you owe to those who went before.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Smell the roses.

Faith:
Atheist by temperament; agnostic by intellect; high church by tradition; transactional epistemologist by choice

olden but golden

2012-02-04T23:09:03-05:00

Cyril's Gnomes as of 08/18/09

Three is the magic number: beyond three recursions or three indices lies madness
A symmetric interface has built-in lock conditions
The shorter the feedback loop, the less stable the system
Free Trade is the work of the Devil
Eschew the quant: in a society without appropriate concepts of honor, dignity and manners, life is nasty, brutish, and short
Believe in free will: there is no choice
Pay to those who follow what you owe to those who went before
Do unto others as you would be done unto: but mind to keep your asshole covered
Six days shalt thou be Apollonian, on the seventh, Dionysian
Moderation in all things: including moderation
A rose by any other name does not have to follow the standard(s) for roses
The Categorical Imperative is generally a good rule
Ninety percent of all problems are people problems
He who does not know history does not get to make new mistakes
Any word can be verbed
An easy to use system is not secure - a totally secure system cannot be used
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist is sure of it
A belief in the infinite entails a belief in God(s)
How sweet are the voices of children – as long as they are far enough away that what they are saying is not distinguishable
A wise man uses cost accounting selectively

Cyril gives Obama a helping hand

2012-01-30T15:58:30-05:00

Putin has posed a challenge. What should Obama do?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/vladimir-putin-book-russian-canon

Cyril’s suggested Obama pump priming (most old hat – and a fair amount of duplication – but any port in a storm):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/25/complete-poems-philip-larkin-review

http://www.cyrilsgleans.com/a_high_country_canon.html

http://www.cyrilsgleans.com/american-lit-books.html

http://www.cyrilsgleans.com/2011/week13/index.html

What one retired techie (CosmicBob) does

2012-01-09T13:16:35-05:00

My wife got me a fancy android tablet for Xmas... A Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1... I am loving it. This is in addition to my iPad and my 7 inch Archos Froyo tablet.

I recently found a quite amazing thing I can do with it.

I have always loved Nintendo games. Nes, Snes, N64, Wii. I've had PC emulators and played many of the best games from these systems on the PC..

I have been running a N64 emulator on my Galaxy Tab...N64OID... It works quite nicely but the on screen touch controls are much harder than a real keyboard or a gamepad controller. So today I discovered some guy wrote a bluetooth program that captures the input for the WiiMote... The wireless controller for the Wii.

Wii has an additional controller called the Classic Controller that plugs into the WiiMote controller... I can capture the input from this controller and send it to the SNES and N64 emulators on the Galaxy Tab..

What this means ......In simple english....

I can use my Wii wireless controllers to control Mario while playing Super Mario 64 running on the N64 emulator on my Galaxy tablet...Full audio, video, and control.

This is pretty wild. It plays as good as Nintendo 64 hooked up to a TV... but I can play it anywhere with no electric power plugs and true nintendo controllers..

LIFE IS GOOD... ( but very weird)

Who would have ever "thunk" it ?

New Year 2012

2012-01-01T11:01:39-05:00

At the Entering of the New Year
by Thomas Hardy

I
(OLD STYLE)

Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,
Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements
On to the white highway,
Where nighted farers paused and muttered,
"Keep it up well, do they!"

The contrabasso's measured booming
Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,
To shepherds at their midnight lambings,
To stealthy poachers on their rounds;
And everybody caught full duly
The notes of our delight,
As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise
Hailed by our sanguine sight.

II
(NEW STYLE)

We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,
As if to give ear to the muffled peal,
Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim;
But our truest heed is to words that steal
From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,
And seems, so far as our sense can see,
To feature bereaved Humanity,
As it sighs to the imminent year its say:—

"O stay without, O stay without,
Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;
Though stars irradiate thee about
Thy entrance here is undesired.
Open the gate not, mystic one;
Must we avow what we would close confine?
With thee, good friend, we would have converse none,
Albeit the fault may not be thine."

December 31. During the War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

Senior Texting - thanks to Comrade LordB

2011-12-29T10:06:57-05:00

This is an interesting forward from a 70+ friend of mine:
Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar (still in his pre-teens)

Subject: Senior texting.

Teens have theirs (LOL OMG e.g.), now seniors have their own texting codes.
I thought the following listing was appropriate:

* ATD - At the Doctor's
* BFF - Best Friend's Funeral
* BTW - Bring the Wheelchair
* BYOT - Bring Your Own Teeth
* CBM - Covered by Medicare
* CUATSC - See You at the Senior Centre
* DWI - Driving While Incontinent
* FWBB - Friend with Beta Blockers
* FWIW - Forgot Where I Was
* FYI - Found Your Insulin
* GGPBL - Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low
* GHA - Got Heartburn Again
* HGBM - Had Good Bowel Movement
* IMHO - Is My Hearing-Aid On?
* LMDO - Laughing My Dentures Out
* LOL - Living on Lipitor
* LWO – Lawrence Welk's On
* OMMR - On My Massage Recliner
* OMSG - Oh My! Sorry, Gas
* ROFL..CGU - Rolling on the Floor Laughing...Can't get Up!
* TOT - Texting on Toilet
* TTYL - Talk to You Louder
* WAITT - Who Am I Talking To?
* WTFA - Wet the Furniture Again
* WTP - Where're the Prunes
* WWNO – Walker Wheels Need Oil

Hope these help. GGLKI (Gotta go, laxative kicking in)