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Surprise Me!
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 6
Bored, with no-good-reason, every (or most) human being's existential life crisis, food, covered, housing, covered, money: well, that's a little longer term than I'm thinking, the internet is failing to deliver and there's no relief in sight...
Chat GPT to the rescue:
All right, Rod. Here's one I think you'll enjoy.
A Library That Doesn't Exist — But Should
Imagine a hidden library whose books are not books mentioned in literature, but books that ought to have existed inside the fictional worlds of literature.
I give you seven volumes from its shelves:
1. The Book of Lost Roads
Author: An unnamed Roman surveyor, c. 117 AD
Known from: A passing reference in a manuscript supposedly found among the papers of Jorge Luis Borges.
Contents: Every road that was built, abandoned, forgotten, and eventually rediscovered—plus roads that lead only to places that no longer exist.
Warning: Reading the chapter corresponding to your own town causes you to remember streets that were never there.
2. A Treatise Upon the Proper Disposal of Dragons
Author: St. George, revised edition
Contents: Not how to kill dragons, but what to do with one afterward.
Includes chapters on scales, teeth, volatile organs, treasure-hoards, smoke damage, and the surprisingly difficult question of dragon inheritance.
The final chapter is missing.
3. The Catalogue of Unfortunate Gods
Author: Anonymous
Contents: 10,003 minor gods who were worshipped by exactly one person.
Among them:
The God of Things Almost Remembered
The God of Keys That Fit No Lock
The God of Rain That Falls Only on Empty Houses
The God of People Who Wave Back at Strangers
The final entry is simply:
10,003. You.
4. The Natural History of Impossible Animals
Author: Charles Fort
Contents: Meticulously documented creatures that cannot possibly exist.
The illustrations are extraordinarily convincing.
Several have been photographed since the book was published.
5. The Complete Correspondence Between Death and the Devil
Edited by: M. Bulgakov
A collection of letters concerning their longstanding professional disagreement.
Death argues that the Devil gets too much credit.
The Devil argues that Death gets too much business.
Neither will admit that they occasionally substitute for one another.
6. The Manual of Things That Must Not Be Named
Author: Unknown
The entire book consists of blank pages.
Except for the index.
The index contains one word.
There is no agreement among scholars what the word means.
7. The Book You Are Reading Now
Author: Unknown
Publication date: Not yet determined.
The remarkable thing about this final book is that every copy contains a slightly different story.
In yours, the story begins with a man in British Columbia who spends an afternoon wondering whether there might be a lost book somewhere in the world containing the answer to a question he hasn't thought to ask yet.
He goes looking for it.
And somewhere, apparently, the book is looking for him too.
And since you previously asked me for imaginary books in literature, here's the rabbit hole I'd take this down next:
I could construct an entire "Bibliotheca Impossibilia"—perhaps 100 imaginary books, divided into books actually mentioned in real literature, books invented by fictional characters, books that exist only as fragments, cursed books, nonexistent scholarly works, books that contain themselves, and books that were supposedly destroyed.
That could get wonderfully Borgesian.
***
Actually, Chat GPT delivered on this one. Still bored but I have the solution in hand..
Cellphones & The Internet
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 8
This, in reaction to a CBC no-brainer radio show a few weeks ago in which they discussed the damages of Cellphone on young minds, specifically (although not stated) the reduction in basic and rudimentary skills - especially language and math.
Now, instead of making this the "discussion" - because it's been discussed countless times before and always to the same end - cellphone and internet use for the most part make all people stupider, not just the children, children are due to their age and development more vulnerable than adults. And this "pause" the internet occupies in their development seems to be a critical period that the internet preys upon with it's flood of easy dopamine ensuring they forever remain addicts. While there are arguments about how this is by design and shows a criminal intent on behalf of News & Social Media that is a different post with different solutions.
More of interest is the solution to this, which I would propose as thus:
Internet use is a privilege, not a right. Much like driving it should be regulated as such.
Now a brief rant about driving: Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. You need to pass a license and hold it in good standing - meaning without demerits or tickets - and perhaps, if you've been irresponsible, take additional courses. The reality of driving does not reflect this in the least. You see weekly cases of people committing heinous acts behind the wheel of the car - whether it be being impaired, driving recklessly or at great speed, road rage, etc., and these transgressions being trivially punished with 30, 90 day suspensions or in the worst of cases, involving impairment, the loss of human life, maybe a year or 5 suspension.
Rarely do you see an "appropriate" sentence - which, often as not, would involve a lifetime ban on the operation of a motor vehicle paired with substantial prison time. So - while I'm comparing the internet to driving I'm comparing the ideal, not the reality.
In an ideal world (and we make the world, so lets start there...) the Internet would be available only to adults that had passed a licensing exam. That licensing exam would involve a substantial amount of critical thinking and the ability to use the internet to collate multiple sources to find the Correct Answers about things. There would also be a caution about the addictive nature of the internet - but - I've addressed that below as well. I say adults, meaning that children should not have access. Not restricted access, no access whatsoever, and parents allowing their children online should be punished similarly to parents buying their toddlers crack cocaine, liquor and cigarettes.
Internet use as well should be limited. For everyone, period. Nobody needs 24/7 access to the internet. It should be capped at - say - an hour a day for licensees. This global easy-access 24/7 to unlimited information has not in any way improved the world.
The internet - as such, has reached it's logical endpoint. It has monetized everything, and in so doing has taken to inventing things - facts, stories, etc., that have no basis in reality but can hijack search results with more inanity and further ads. This is something that could use reinventing - a "fact" based internet - not necessarily Wikipedia - but someplace where "alternate" thought is critically examined and either flagged as being "not provable/yet proven" or "garbage" or "Facts, inconveniently arranged" or "Facts, curated by the author". The internet, far from being the curious space it started out as, has degenerated by and largely into junk. But, again I digress and this is irrelevant to my point and should be pursued in a separate post.
Off the heroin...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 6
I run into ****, the Mother-in-laws brother (from the old restaurant) on the street. He's been off the heroin now for years, gets his methadone prescription from the pharmacy. Briefly stop to chat and catch up but he's in no condition, he allows me to take a picture:
Apparently he's found a new hobby. It's none of my business, but I'm not thinking it's any better than the old hobby...
Sanxingdui
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 19
An interesting read on a lost civilization from China, the Sanxingdui.
Article via the Wall Street Journal - and Internet Archive (otherwise paywall).
Link: https://archive.is/nCYDv
and the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanxingdui
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