Tropic of Cancer

"How few the days are that hold the mind in place; like a tapestry hanging on four or five hooks. Especially the day you stop becoming; the day you merely are. I suppose it's when the principles dissolve, and instead of the general gray of what ought to be, you begin to see what is. Even the bench by the park seems alive, having held so many actual men. The word NOW is like a bmb thrown through a window, and it ticks." -Henry Miller

Sorry for the book descriptions and author's quotes. I will get back to developing real posts again shortly.

uncanny valley

What I have been reading recently:

"Mortal Engines" by Stanislaw Lem.

Bits & pieces from the introduction:

"Artificial men have traditionally been monsters, in our literature and in our imagination."

"Possibly in the Romantic horror of the artificial man there also lay the submerged feeling that man himself was a being in whom great evil slept, evil which could be controlled only by a soul; without the soul, this evil would run rampant."

"As the 19th century wore on, the concept of natural man became more objectified; man was considered less a being of spirit and soul, more a material thing and subject to the Laws of Nature (Darwin, Marx); and some writers began to look upon the growing ascendancy of Science as a potential threat to man's humanity."

"The anti-rationalist narrator in Dostoevksy's Notes from the Underground sees the scientifically defined man as a soulless mechanism, a creature devoid of individuality and independence. Dostoevsky's idea that the eventual scientific analysis and definition of men would turn man into a machine was taken up in the early 20th century by two opposing groups of writers; those for and those against - often termed the Utopians and the anti-Utopians."

Yet another lovely short-story collection by Lem revolving around artificiality. His works remind me of an updated, sci-fi/scientific version of Rabelais. The most difficult concepts incorporated into flawless writing (even despite the translations) with appropriate comedic effects mixed in.

Also reading a book on hand therapy:

Little book I picked up while wandering around Philadelphia's Chinatown a few hours prior to playing. Appropriate timing because just the weekend prior, I was wondering how to diagnose potential future health issues with the use of pain felt in the hand. Still looking into that whenever I get a free moment, which unfortunately isn't often enough, but I have been referring to this nice little diagram:

time canvas track info

1 minute of happiness
2 minutes of war
3 minutes of birds
4 minutes running
5 minutes on solaris
6 minutes in a japanese tea garden
7 minutes of shiva chanting
8 minutes of possibilities
9 minutes in the dreamtime
10 minutes on earth