They deserve it

These guys deserve the prize for figuring out how to made blue light come out of a semiconductor. Excerpt:

When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.

They succeeded where everyone else had failed. Akasaki worked together with Amano at the University of Nagoya, while Nakamura was employed at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Tokushima. Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.

Bonus points for relegating the twisty-bulb to the ash heap of history.

On the Dante Trail trail: Groundhog Day

Basically, yesterday's offering with different postcard pics: Anthony Bourdain and Rick Steves do Ravenna in a day, glowing.

Our tote update (no selfies, one food pic together with one of the building in which it was consumed):

Total pics: 13 - 100%

Selfies: 7 - 21% of total

Things Rod Ate: 3 - 18% of total

I probably shouldn't be prematurely dismissive. There are things to be gleaned from today's adventure that surely shed some light on what the Dante-book-to-be will contain, such as this megachurch mailer boilerplate:

A short film I saw at the Dante Museum next to his tomb speculated on how the mosaics the poet saw in Ravenna, where he lived the final years of his life and where he wrote Paradiso, may have given him visual ideas. It’s a lovely thought, and there might be something to it. They certainly give me thoughts — Dantean ones about God’s glory, and how everything in this world is a reflection of the world beyond it. And how all things can be made to work in harmony for God’s glory.

If only they could make potato chips this diaphanous and one-dimensional.

And for those of you holding on to hope that Rod will one day return to the Catholic Church, this follows:

Casella says I’m still culturally Catholic, and he’s right to a significant extent, but this trip has made me realize how deeply Orthodox the Divine Liturgy has made me over these last eight years. I felt at home in S. Vitale in a way that I did not in any of the Catholic churches we entered, except for the Baptistery in Florence — but its ceiling is covered with dazzling mosaics. The way we pray really is the way we believe. Anyway, Casella and I pray for the reunion of our churches.

Who doesn't pray for such things simple good and true if they do? Anyway, the best way to follow Rod's theological fan dance is to ensure that he keeps on writing about it, and right now the very best way to ensure that he keeps on writing about it is to make your generous tax-deductible contribution to TAC today. Just thought I'd connect those implicit dots for any takers out there.

So...today's Dante Trail trail takeaway. To me so far this pilgrimage doesn't remotely read like any sort of serious book research trip (mainly because so much time and energy has been spent food and travel blogging), and because I'm not the sort of person given to painting pants on emperors not wearing any, this leads me to think one or both of two possible things explain what I see.

First and foremost, that Rod is almost certainly doing this on his own very thin dime - if this is Wednesday, this must be Ravenna - I can almost see Mrs. Dreher counting the budget out of the cookie jar herself - and if it's his money, well by golly it's going to get spent primarily on what he wants to do most (eat; then eat some more).

Second, yep: he's going to try to wing the Dante book with just the sort of filler I first quoted above. After all, the central focus of the book is how Dante saved - whose? That's right, not yours: Rod's life.

So what you will end up getting, potential Rod's Dante book buyer, will be something much like our meta-derivative Dante Trail trail itself: a richly Dante-flavored Rod-centric soy product giving you (at hardback prices) that elusive hope that somehow reading about how Rod claims reading Dante saved him from a murky bouillabaisse of something - mono? depression? impacted colon? middle age? being loathed into deblogging by his home town? - that for the sake of economy he'll shorthand as "his life".

Because he wasn't really contemplating suicide, was he? Because that would be a sin. Remember that, you already fated to have read the Dante book some time from now.

Mr. Moonbones on Gargoyles

I used to think a gargoyle was a certain type of goyle, as opposed to a boy. But that silliness is only one of the many misconceptions about gargoyles. Oengus Moonbones instructs the ignorant among us with regard to these strange—but eminently good—creatures in an installment of his serial Caspar and Lonnie. Excerpt:

The best way, I suppose, to describe the appearance of a gargoyle would be to say, as a first approximation, that it is like a monstrous blend of monkey, lizard, toad, and octopus. Now gargoyles stand upright, usually, and are bipedal, mostly, and have binocular vision, if you don't take into account their auxiliary receptors. Gargoyles have very strong prehensile tails, which can be used as an extra leg. Their hands and feet are more reptilian-like with long, razor sharp nails and claws, which are retractable like in cats. The arms and legs are long and slender but surprising for their strength and agility. As for their skin, it appears more toad-like than anything, and it is covered with many protuberances, or bumps, the overall coloration ranging between a dark greyish green to a deep bluish purple. Gargoyles are odorless. Their large primary eyes are a deep red in color, with pupils resembling what you see in cats. Their heads sport multiple horns, sprouting at least six or more, which curve to sharp points. Their noses are bulbous, with a keen sense of smell, and the large mouths contain long fangs. The ears are large, and floppy, and acutely sensitive over a wide frequency range. A Gargoyle's tongues is split at the end, the tips being capable of moving independently. A gargoyle's voice is clear, well articulated and gentle sounding. If ever you have heard a very mellow, late night FM radio disk jockey, that is close to what a gargoyle sounds like when it talks.

I mentioned "auxiliary receptors". What I mean each of the protuberances on the skin houses a tentacle which can be extended or retracted, and these tentacles have visual receptors as well. And by extending its tentacles, a gargoyle has the ability to view its surroundings in many different directions simultaneously. Besides being able to see, the tentacles are also very strong and can grasp hold of objects. Now some species of octopi are famous for their ability to instantly mimic or blend into their surroundings. Gargoyles have the same ability, only carried to a much higher degree. This is how gargoyles can make themselves virtually invisible. You could have a gargoyle clinging up on the ceiling just a few feet above you, watching you, but you would never be able to see it. That is how well they can blend into their surroundings.

Read the whole thing. It's getting good.

"Morning, Noon and Night... ALL RIGHT"

The Cramps at the Napa Mental Hospital. Yes, it really happened. 1978. From MindHacks:

During a 1978 tour, psychobilly punk band The Cramps created one of the strangest moments in the history of both rock n’ roll and psychiatry when they played a gig inside Napa State Mental Hospital.

It’s hard to believe it actually happened. The story sounds more like an exaggerated rock legend than an account of a real concert, but no suspension of disbelief is needed. Someone filmed the gig.

We can only guess how the band got permission to play inside one of California’s biggest mental institutions, but play they did, to a few supporters and a fired-up crowd of psychiatric inpatients.

Everyone needs some live rock and roll every once in awhile, baby.



As a punk friend of mind quipped "There's no way anyone would let a band do this nowadays." Frickin' lawyers.

Here's the full video, if you are into this kind of thing. (Like I am.)

My Upcoming Decision

I wanted to highlight an extended comment made recently by commenter Art Deco.

The American Conservative and the dispositions and remarks of its editor, Daniel McCarthy, are the purest source of all that renders the 'alt-right' project problematic. The ongoing conceit is that they represent something true and authentic and sublime in contrast to the vulgarities of 'movement conservatives'. Really? 

There's nothing that's published in Chronicles by anyone not named Fleming, Rockwell, or Francis that might not find a home in some other publication. (As for the stuff published by these men, do you really want recycled copy from the Radovan Karadzic press agency or the White Citizens' Council?). The v Mises Institute is a collecting pool for purveyors of fringe (read crank) social theory and research ("Austrian" economics and neo-confederate historiography). The Rockford Institute is a remnant, just a corporate shell for Chronicles, the "National Humanities Institute" has two salaried employees (Claes Ryn and one other) and issues an absolutely soporific annual. The Unz Review is issued by amateurs whose big idea is that social research is reducible to psychology and anthropology which is reducible in turn to biology and that Science demonstrates this but ideologically driven social researches are dedicated to Not Noticing things. They collect as their acolytes a mess of disagreeable people who are obsessed with blacks and Jews and despise both. (Who also seem to enjoy Steve Sailer's gig as volunteer press secretary for Vladimir Putin and his minions). Their idea of a popular movement is Ron Paul - a conceited goof who trades in historical fabulism (and goldbuggery).

And Daniel McCarthy is a fine example of a type that Samuel Francis and Stephen Tonsor took to task, the 'career conservative'. Except, in his case, he presides over a publication that's always been a cesspool of idiosyncracies: Philip Giraldi's hatred of Jews, Andrew Bacevich's resentments of his former employer and military officers more accomplished than he (Petraeus in particular), Steve Sailer's obsession with a tests-and-measurements psychology that he never studied in an academic setting, Conor Friedersdorf's Miss Manners campaign, and Scott McConnell's sundry aperçus (and contempt for Jews). The whole thing was a train wreck from the get go, and yet they persist in this illusion that they are the 'legitimate' heirs to Robert Taft (who manifested a dispensation in the Republican Party that was non-existent from 1959 to 1990 and has only Russell Kirk as a thin filament of genealogy between then and now).

Then Mr. Deco ends with "rant off". Which caught me by surprise. I think that it's probably a feature of someone who is conservative but not an alt-conservative that they are sensitive to ranting. Antithetically, many alt-con pundits don't realize they are ranting as a normal course of their alt-con punditry. That can be problematic for your argument and your readership numbers. I mused long ago that Dan Larison was king of the exclamation point, and although he has settled down over the years, he still blurts multiple invectives (insane, deranged, ridiculous, absurd, etc.) whenever dealing with mainstream conservatives in his writing when they espouse the slightest hints of hawkishness. And, of course, the Ted Cruz kerfuffle is a great recent example of an alt-con hive-mind rant.

I rather thought the characterizations in his comment were commonsensical and to the point. They were meant to be summaries, obviously. Ron Paul is a historical fabulist; the lily needs no more paint. The von Mises institute is fringy and cranky, and related to that, the word "Austrian" belongs in scare-quotes when modifying economics. Steve Sailer is so obsessed with, well, what he is obsessed with that they should change the saying to "one-note Stevie". (No doubt he would then immediately respond with a long article about why George Shearing wasn't as famous as this blind guy since he had a higher IQ.)

I like summaries when they save me time. I've got a lot of stuff to get done. They might also save me money. Explanation: I was toying with the idea of subscribing to Chronicles Magazine which, as far as I can tell, is much more sensible than TAC and is $45 for a year, 75% of TAC's subscription price. This idea came to me while talking to one of the editors at the Chesterton event I went to last Sunday. He is a pretty good friend of a pretty good friend, and I've appreciated his blog posts in the past.

So maybe Mr. Deco can further weigh in on the proposed decision. It seems that he respects the publication more than TAC from the comments in his "rant". Someone recently reminded me that Aristotle said "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." So although I'm more of a Weekly Standard type of conservative, I think it might be good to imbibe some sensible material from other perspectives. Thomas Meehan is welcome to weigh in also, or any of the regular commenters.

"Yes I'm calling out"

Taking a break here.

Obama-Ebola Image Files

Here are a few in different formats. Click for full size.

PNG

JPG

GIF

Ohhhh.... you're welcome.

Paul Ryan: "I may get audited for approving this message"

Love it.



Hey, man, 2016: Run, Paul, run!