The Further Misadventures of Me

Hey,

Because my last paycheck was auto-deposited to my account I went online to do some banking.

Huh, I seem to have less money in my account than I thought.

Hey, why did I spend $360 at Walmart.com?

Perhaps because I didn't and my debit card's been jacked?

*sigh*

Luckily a trip to the bank has pretty much put everything right -- the money should be returned within a week or so, a new card is coming out to me and I've got a temp card to cover things for now.

Still...
Tom

The Further Misadventures of Me

Hey,

Because my last paycheck was auto-deposited to my account I went online to do some banking.

Huh, I seem to have less money in my account than I thought.

Hey, why did I spend $360 at Walmart.com?

Perhaps because I didn't and my debit card's been jacked?

*sigh*

Luckily a trip to the bank has pretty much put everything right -- the money should be returned within a week or so, a new card is coming out to me and I've got a temp card to cover things for now.

Still...
Tom

Two New Reviews

Hey,

So I've been working on a couple of books. One was a real brick, the other was about a rich elephant in a purple dressing gown.

So let's start with the brick. That would be The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. McGilchrist is a psychiatrist working out of the UK who's been involved with neuroimaging studies. In this book, he argues that the left and right hemispheres of the brain each conceive of and think about the world in fundamentally different ways. The right hemisphere is concerned with a holistic view where individual elements are placed in relation to one another. The left hemisphere takes on a more analytical view where individual elements are categorized and abstracted. He goes on to argue that Western civilization has gone through periods where one type of hemispheric thinking dominates at the expense of the other. Finally, he argues that although left hemisphere thinking has continually expanded its dominance, scientific study (itself a process rooted strongly in the left hemisphere), shows that it's the right hemisphere that formulates much of our experience and makes us "human".

It's a dense, dense book. It covers neurology, psychiatry, psychology history and philosophy in a heady mix. I probably don't have enough grounding to make accurate assessments of all the arguments (although I know of a few friends who will jazz on it). The main problem is that although McGilchrist takes pains to say that any mental process will require participation from both hemispheres and warns against pop-psych interpretations of "left-brained" or "right-brained", he comes out strongly in favor of the right hemisphere. Again, he doesn't discount the many valuable things we've gained from left hemisphere thinking, but he does feel that a world expressed and understood solely through the left hemisphere is ultimately less human than one in which the right hemisphere is given its due.

It's an interesting book, but not light reading by any stretch.

The other book is Uncle by J.P. Martin. I remember reading this book or one of the other in the series when I was a kid and I'd always been fascinated by it. It's been out of print for years but a couple of volumes have recently seen reprints so I got this one from the library.

Uncle is a wealthy elephant who wears a purple dressing gown and lives in Homeward, a massive collection of fantastic towers connected by stairs, elevators, trains, bouncing platforms and rising high into the air and going deep underground. It's an imaginary world of playful exploration and most of the book is Uncle and his assistant Old Monkey traveling about his uncharted domain and meeting the various strange people there. Uncle also has some unpleasant neighbors living in a squalid mockery of Homeward called Badfort. These neighbors are lead by the thoroughly unpleasant Beaver Hateman and his crew.

So it's s silly nonsense book not much happens besides explorations and odd characters and presents handed about and grumpy schemers foiled, but it's a treat to read. I want to make some sort of arty RPG out of the thing. Players just bumble around and come up with new things to see and do and you give presents to everyone. I'll probably call in the second book that's been reprinted.

later
Tom

Two New Reviews

Hey,

So I've been working on a couple of books. One was a real brick, the other was about a rich elephant in a purple dressing gown.

So let's start with the brick. That would be The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. McGilchrist is a psychiatrist working out of the UK who's been involved with neuroimaging studies. In this book, he argues that the left and right hemispheres of the brain each conceive of and think about the world in fundamentally different ways. The right hemisphere is concerned with a holistic view where individual elements are placed in relation to one another. The left hemisphere takes on a more analytical view where individual elements are categorized and abstracted. He goes on to argue that Western civilization has gone through periods where one type of hemispheric thinking dominates at the expense of the other. Finally, he argues that although left hemisphere thinking has continually expanded its dominance, scientific study (itself a process rooted strongly in the left hemisphere), shows that it's the right hemisphere that formulates much of our experience and makes us "human".

It's a dense, dense book. It covers neurology, psychiatry, psychology history and philosophy in a heady mix. I probably don't have enough grounding to make accurate assessments of all the arguments (although I know of a few friends who will jazz on it). The main problem is that although McGilchrist takes pains to say that any mental process will require participation from both hemispheres and warns against pop-psych interpretations of "left-brained" or "right-brained", he comes out strongly in favor of the right hemisphere. Again, he doesn't discount the many valuable things we've gained from left hemisphere thinking, but he does feel that a world expressed and understood solely through the left hemisphere is ultimately less human than one in which the right hemisphere is given its due.

It's an interesting book, but not light reading by any stretch.

The other book is Uncle by J.P. Martin. I remember reading this book or one of the other in the series when I was a kid and I'd always been fascinated by it. It's been out of print for years but a couple of volumes have recently seen reprints so I got this one from the library.

Uncle is a wealthy elephant who wears a purple dressing gown and lives in Homeward, a massive collection of fantastic towers connected by stairs, elevators, trains, bouncing platforms and rising high into the air and going deep underground. It's an imaginary world of playful exploration and most of the book is Uncle and his assistant Old Monkey traveling about his uncharted domain and meeting the various strange people there. Uncle also has some unpleasant neighbors living in a squalid mockery of Homeward called Badfort. These neighbors are lead by the thoroughly unpleasant Beaver Hateman and his crew.

So it's s silly nonsense book not much happens besides explorations and odd characters and presents handed about and grumpy schemers foiled, but it's a treat to read. I want to make some sort of arty RPG out of the thing. Players just bumble around and come up with new things to see and do and you give presents to everyone. I'll probably call in the second book that's been reprinted.

later
Tom