The unloved

As we contemplate moving again (it's been a blissful five years sans haulage), I find myself thinking 'Oh, I should get rid of some of the hundreds of books I've acquired' -- but how?

How would I choose? Should I get rid of the ones I've never finished reading? Well, not reading a book all the way through is normal, if you are an academic. You milk them, like little buttercups, for the goodness in them.

What about the ones everyone has? The classics, especially classic paperbacks -- they're in every library, I can get them anytime (except late at night or when I am running for the train). Hm.

The old school books? Well actually, many of those are gone, and what remains represents those subjects I'm most interested in. If learning makes you who you are, then these are a part of me. Might as well lop off a toe, or a small digit.

Not the battered and beaten up old ones, they are battered for a reason: I've probably read each of them fifty-two times. Not the ones I was given but haven't read yet.

I know. I'll cut down my bookload. I'll stop going to the library, for at least a week.

Whew, glad we sorted that one out, then....

Bev

Wordism's 'iCodex'

From the Wordisms blog...

Introducing the iCodex

Today, St. Stephen of Jobs announced the newest creation from the monks at Abbey Apple: the iCodex, which he believes will revolutionize the way people work and play.

“This is a fabulous new product, really great for the modern traveling clergyman,” said St. Stephen, the man famous for transforming the liturgical world with the Christendom-wide success of the iChant. “The iCodex is portable but also contains a great deal of easily accessible features.”

With the iCodex, people can now store multiple items in one, easy-to-use package. A user could, for example, enjoy both cooking recipes and psalms, or mappa mundi and instructions on marital relations. Since the iCodex's pages are bound together in an easy-to-turn format, things stored at the end of an iCodex are as easy to access as the beginning. ...

Brilliant. Read on here.

Mediaeval Helpdesk

You can't get the monks...

It's not as good as a scroll, you know...



I think the Norwegian sort of adds something.

Original taken from the show Øystein og jeg (familiar to us all I'm sure) on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) in 2001.