I haven’t written much about him, but I have always admired Abraham Lincoln. And not just for the usual sixth-grade Civics reasons. In early adulthood I explored the man’s personal history – his personal story – and ever since I have tried to keep up with at least some of the current scholarship about him.
Why? Well, because he was smart in how he handled himself. And furthermore, because he learned how to be even smarter as he went through life, even when he knew that he was faced with impossible situations. Here’s one example of this, which I had forgotten until a recent comment on a MeFi thread jogged my memory. Lincoln had been involved in a public argument with another Illinois politician, and had pushed the man too far – to the point where he was challenged to a duel. Here’s the full story, but I want to concentrate on this passage:
Due to the fact that Lincoln was the one who had been challenged to the duel, tradition gave him the privilege of choosing the time and location of the duel, as well as the weapons that were to be used. Being a man of humor and wit, and having no desire to kill Shields, or allow himself to be killed; Lincoln put together the most ridiculous set of circumstances that he could think of regarding the logistics of the upcoming duel.
* * *
Lincoln stated that the weapons he wished to use would be “Cavalry Broadswords of the largest size”. He figured that he could easily disarm Shields using the swords, whereas pistols would most likely lead to one of their deaths, if not both. He also added that he wanted the duel to be carried out in a pit 10 feet wide by 12 feet deep with a large wooden plank dividing the square in which no man was allowed to step foot over.
These “conditions” were designed not only to be ridiculous; but also to give Lincoln, who at 6’ 4” had longer legs and arms and towered over the much smaller Shields, a decided advantage. Lincoln hoped that these unorthodox conditions that gave him an almost unbeatable advantage would persuade Shields to withdraw the challenge and settle things in a more gentlemanly fashion.
Broadswords in a pit.
Think about that. Fuckin’ broadswords in a fuckin’ pit. Mad Max couldn’t have come up with anything better.
But then there’s this bit, about the day of the duel:
At the last minute, Lincoln demonstrated his obvious physical advantage by hacking away at some of the branches of a nearby Willow tree. The branches were high off the ground and Shields could not hope to reach them; while Lincoln, with his long arms holding a long broadsword, could reach them with ease. This final display was enough to drive home the precarious situation that he was now in, and Shields agreed to settle their differences in a more peaceful way.
And they went on to be life-long friends and political allies. No, seriously.
That, my friends, is how you use intimidation intelligently.
But Lincoln also learned from this experience (he was in his early 30s at the time) that it is possible to push people too far. He had entered into the argument with Shields in order to further his own political career, but was too clever by half in doing so. And once the duel was set in motion, Lincoln had to deal with the potentially deadly situation that he had created. Yes, he set up the conditions of the duel to maximize his intimidation of the other man, but he also knew that there was a mechanism in place (a written apology negotiated by their respective ‘seconds’) to allow the duel to be called off in a manner which would save face for both men. He didn’t seek to destroy his oppenent – he gave his opponent an out, and pushed him that direction, good and hard.
I’m not enough of a Civil War scholar to say that you can see this same approach in Lincoln’s conduct of the war. Maybe I’ll turn my attention to that in the future. But for now I feel comfortable citing the closing from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address as evidence that he understood the necessity of doing more than simply triumphing over an opponent:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Babylon 5, Gardening, Habanero, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, MetaFilter, NASA, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Survival, Writing stuff
I first noticed the change on the way to Pittsburgh almost two weeks ago. Here and there, a blush of color amongst the green. A slight touch of yellow, a bit of red creeping in on the edges. Just accents.
On the way back almost a week later, there was more. Oh, it was still summer. But there was just a hint of the fall to come.
* * * * * * *
On my walk with the dog this morning, I ran into some old friends who were visiting family a block over. She’s now an L-2, made Law Review this year. Made the Dean’s List both semesters last year. A former employee, who decided on going to law school after being out of school for some years.
“We should get together.”
“Well, you’re busy with school right now.”
“Yeah, but I’m trying not to lose contact with all my friends. My personal life has to have some priority.”
I smiled. “It’s OK. Your friends understand the whole delayed-gratification thing. Do what’s important now, secure your future – there’ll be time for us to socialize later.”
* * * * * * *
It’s an old argument. I remember having it some 35 years ago – and it had been going on for almost 20 years then: “Wouldn’t it be better to address the problems we have here on Earth like poverty, war, and pollution rather than wasting money on sending people into space?”
Here’s a good response:
I find it depressing that the moment anyone brings up the space program, someone (or several someones) out there trot out the old “we have other problems to solve” canard.As though the Department of Defense doesn’t spend the entire NASA annual budget approximately every three days. As though the economic payoff for the manned AND unmanned space program has not been many times its cost in investment.As though there isn’t a space telescope out there right now that will tell us in less than 5 years just how frequent Earth-like planets are in the galaxy.
As though the entire 20th Century is insufficient proof that science, engineering, and technology can achieve things that were not only previously considered impossible, but were previously never imagined.
“Oh we’ll never get a toehold outside of Earth because the stars are too far away and the solar system is too inhospitable” sounds an awful lot like “Heavier than air powered flight? you’re loony.”
The failure of imagination I find even at a highly educated and imaginative place like Metafilter depresses and distresses me. Because it means even here, where I’ve found the most rational, creative and intelligent people as you can probably find on the entire internet, the possibilities are just too many or too hard to grasp for some very influential members.
posted by chimaera at 11:43 AM on September 12 [32 favorites]
* * * * * * *
It was a wet and cool spring and summer. Good for the air conditioning bills. Not a good year for growing my favored hot peppers. At most, I’ll have a few dozen – enough to last me through the year as dried flakes/powder, but not enough to replenish the hot sauces I made during that great harvest two years ago.
And until mid-to-late August, it had looked like a poor year for tomatoes. That changed, of course, and this past week I’ve harvested about 200 pounds – enough to make sauce and canned diced tomatoes to last until next summer, as well as share fresh tomatoes with all my friends who don’t garden.
My wife was teasing me about the excess amount of tomatoes, saying that it was my own fault for planting so much. Yeah, true enough. But last year I planted almost as many plants, and the weather was even worse, meaning we didn’t have enough to last us through the year. You just can’t tell, sometimes.
* * * * * * *
“So, a publisher is interested in Communion of Dreams.”
“Wow – that’s great!”
“Yeah, I’ve been working to trim it down. Should be done in another month or so.”
“So they’ll publish it?”
“There’s no contract. But the publisher is very interested, and is waiting to see how the revisions go. We’ll see.”
* * * * * * *
JMS had a good bit about the “why go into space?” question in the first season of Babylon 5:
Sinclair: “Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics – and you’ll get ten different answers. But there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us, it’ll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes – all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars.”
* * * * * * *
And now I see the evidence of fall here, about a month earlier than usual: a number of the trees around town have started to change, there are leaves raining down whenever there’s a gust of wind. The temperature is about normal for mid September, but it somehow feels cooler.
I have more tomatoes to harvest. While I can.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Flu, MetaFilter, Pandemic, Predictions, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
Remember that? It’s from the first page of Communion of Dreams, the sound that indicates that the main character has an incoming phone call on his embedded bone-conduction phone. Well, guess what:
New Bone Anchored Hearing System by Oticon Medical is Approved by the FDA
A bone anchored hearing system is a type of hearing aid that is anchored by the bones in the ear rather than a hearing aid which is worn behind the ear. There are three types of hearing loss. A bone anchored system is used for conductive hearing loss and mixed hearing loss. Oticon Medical has received FDA clearance to market their Ponto bone anchored hearing system. The Ponto system features a computer fitting platform which facilitates a better match between the patient and the sound processor.
Oh, and there’s this, in a related development pertaining to the book:
Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens
A new generation of contact lenses built with very small circuits and LEDs promises bionic eyesight
* * *
These visions (if I may) might seem far-fetched, but a contact lens with simple built-in electronics is already within reach; in fact, my students and I are already producing such devices in small numbers in my laboratory at the University of Washington, in Seattle [see sidebar, “A Twinkle in the Eye“]. These lenses don’t give us the vision of an eagle or the benefit of running subtitles on our surroundings yet. But we have built a lens with one LED, which we’ve powered wirelessly with RF. What we’ve done so far barely hints at what will soon be possible with this technology.
Conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in specific shapes to correct faulty vision. To turn such a lens into a functional system, we integrate control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas into the lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs. Much of the hardware is semitransparent so that wearers can navigate their surroundings without crashing into them or becoming disoriented. In all likelihood, a separate, portable device will relay displayable information to the lens’s control circuit, which will operate the optoelectronics in the lens.
That should also sound familiar – it’s the exact tech that I stipulate as ‘normal’ for the book. As usual, it looks like if anything I was a bit pessimistic about how quickly the technology would advance, even allowing for the delays caused by the advent of a pandemic flu that kills off about 2/3 of the world’s population.
OK, so I’m back from my wanderings. Just spent the morning harvesting about 100 pounds of tomatoes from my garden. While I planned to do other things today, it looks like I am going to be preoccupied with dealing with those.
But because a number of people have asked, the editing work on CoD was going very well before I went on vacation: I’ve trimmed 9,903 words from the first six chapters, putting me right on target for what I was wanting to accomplish.
More in a day or two – I have some fun things to share from our trip.
Jim Downey
Links to the AR stuff via MeFi. The tomatoes are my own damn fault.
. . . Barstal’s magic bat
Came down upon its head.
Bang! Bang! Barstal’s magic bat
Made sure that it was dead.*
Interesting web comic: Bang Barstal.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi. *Apologies to Sir Paul.)
. . . you could certainly do worse than a clockpunk mechanism such as the Antikythera calculator, if you were a time-traveler who was stranded in ancient Greece. Here’s a delightful new animation of how the calculator worked:
The inner workings of the Antikythera mechanism
An animation produced by Mogi Vicentini shows how the world’s oldest computer helped the Ancient Greeks simulate planetary motions and predict lunar eclipses.
Damned impressive. The level of complexity is remarkable, and once again is a reminder that the skill of those who came before us is all too often grossly unappreciated.
Jim Downey
Via MeFi.
Filed under: Book Conservation, Emergency, Flu, Government, Health, MetaFilter, Pandemic, Predictions, Publishing, Writing stuff
A nice, fun little thing about how a pandemic flu could kill millions? Well, here ya go: The Great Flu.
Yes, I am still alive and kicking. And getting a lot done. Have trimmed 5,788 words so far from the Communion of Dreams text, from just the first three chapters. Have also made some major headway on the care-giving book. Am not as far along as I would like with the (literal) piles of conservation work waiting for me.
So I should get back to it . . .
Jim Downey
(Game link via MeFi.)
Via MeFi, a link to the site of a used/rare book seller who posts “forgotten bookmarks” s/he has found. Surprisingly compelling stuff. From the site description:
I work at a used and rare bookstore, and I buy books from people everyday. These are the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things I find in those books.
Indeed. I have run into a lot of the same sorts of things over the years, though in my case I always transfer the items to an envelope and return them to the client when they come to pick up their book. Oftentimes it is stuff which the client has never seen before, because they have been unwilling to risk damaging a fragile book prior to my work on it. When they do see the items, it invariably brings about deep emotional response for the ones they recognize, oftentimes accompanied with short stories or explanations.
Just thought I would pass that along.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Brave New World, DARPA, Government, Humor, MetaFilter, Predictions, Science, tech, Violence
Cyclone Power Technologies Responds to Rumors about “Flesh Eating” Military Robot
POMPANO BEACH, FL, July 16, 2009. In response to rumors circulating the internet on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a “flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. (Pink Sheets: CYPW) and Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI) would like to set the record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian.
On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling.
RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.
Welcome to the future, boys & girls.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi.)
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Earthquake, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, MetaFilter, Pandemic, Predictions, Society, Survival
In the 1970s I used to love to go high into the mountains of Colorado, looking for Ghost Towns. In fact, most of one whole summer during college me and a couple of buddies poked around in my old Scout II, using a well worn copy of Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns and a complete set of good topo maps for the state. We traveled slowly, camped, hitting a state park every few days to get a shower and stopping in towns long enough for food, beer, and more gas. It was an amazing summer.
So, you might say I have a thing for ghost towns.
I just love the melancholy nature of abandoned places. Fits my personality, I suppose. Somehow, I have always felt more “at home” in a place which seemed to be empty. Post war. Post pandemic. Post natural disaster. Post human.
Sorta explains Communion of Dreams, doesn’t it?
Anyway, this is just background explanation to say that I really enjoyed this post, which contains a lot of really great pictures:
Abandoned Places In The World
When starting on this post for some reason I was thinking that there are not many abandoned places in the world, at least the cities. I knew there are many villages, farms and just lonely houses all around the world but when thousands of people leave, leaving the whole city dead that’s a real tragedy. There are mainly two reasons why people suddenly or little by little leave the place where they used to live for years or even generations: that’s the danger and economic factors. The biggest number of abandoned villages and farms can be found in Unites States and the countries of the former USSR.
Visiting abandoned places is getting more and more popular these days and many tourist agencies offer special tours where people can meet the ghost cities and villages face to face. I have never been to any of these and frankly speaking I don’t want to. I thinks we should leave the ghosts in peace, especially in the places like Pripyat where the horrible tragedy took place.
Still hobbies differ and surfing online we can find photographer’s websites fully devoted to abandoned places like this one www.abandoned-places.com or Lost America photo stream.
Have fun. You know, in a melancholy sort of way.
Jim Downey
Via Mefi.
When I was a kid, I used to love to build little siege engines. I think that this is part of what got me interested in the SCA. But even though I have friends who have built respectable scale models of such things, for the most part my interests in life have gone in other directions.
But now anyone can have fun flinging rocks: Crush the Castle. Simple, twisted, but surprisingly fun. (Or did I just reveal too much about myself? Hmm…)
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi.)
Communion Of Dreams 