Saturday, 27 February 2016

Early modern text messages, painfully transmitted




The vanity of dogmatizing, or, Confidence in opinions manifested in a discourse of the shortness and uncertainty of our knowledge, and its causes: with some reflexions on peripateticism, and an apology for philosophy / by Jos. Glanvill (1661)

It’s a learned work in which our learned author displays his learning by listing all the processes and phenomena for which the learned world provides no explanation: “we are as much non-plust by the most contemptible Worm, and Plant, we tread on. How is a drop of Dew organiz'd into an Insect, or a lump of Clay into animal Perfections? How are the Glories of the Field spun, and by what Pencil are they limn'd in their unaffected bravery?” 

Such learned disquisitions on our ignorance are of course sceptical in stance. Richard Popkin, in his History of Scepticism, is kinder to Glanvill (I think) than the author of the ODNB life, taking him seriously. In his time, Glanvill was answered by Thomas White, An exclusion of scepticks from all title to dispute being an answer to The vanity of dogmatizing (1665), who rather over-anxiously sets off to warn the young wits of both universities against such a potentially debilitating scepticism: “the studious of truth may understand it alike dangerous to think every thing and nothing is demonstrated.



In Glanville’s book, knowledge has not been lost culturally in a decline from the days of the ancients. He attacks Aristotle vigorously: “That the Heavens are void of corruption, is Aristotles supposal: But the Tube hath betray’d their impurity; and Neoterick Astronomy hath found spots in the Sun.” Knowledge, rather, has been lost from its high point in unfallen Eden. The normal human condition is, for Glanvill, to be “naturally amorous of, and impatient for Truth, and yet averse to, and almost incapacitated for, that diligent and painful search, which is necessary to its discovery.” In Glanvill’s account, Adam is a fantasy figure, a hero with superpowers of knowledge, a thought experiment about what a human being could know at an undiminished, pre-lapsarian full capacity.

The very first sentence rumbles with that particular 17thcentury plangency: “Our misery is not of yesterday, but as antient as the first Criminal, and the ignorance we are involved in, almost coaeval with the humane nature; not that we were made so by our God, but our selves; we were his creatures, sin and misery were ours.”

But for all that relish of the gloom into which we have fallen, there’s an excited sense that there are new heroes in thought (Descartes, Gassendi, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Henry More and, ominously enough, Sir Kenelm Digby), and that new technologies can lift our perceptions up to the levels enjoyed by Adam:

Adam needed no Spectacles. The acuteness of his natural Opticks (if conjecture may have credit) shew’d him much of the Coelestial magnificence and bravery without a Galilaeo’s tube: And 'tis most probable that his naked eyes could reach near as much of the upper World, as we with all the advantages of art.”

What seems to me interesting about this is that Adam is not a static figure of perfection, but enables Glanvill to think about what super-sensory powers might exist. His Adam, we would say, is able to perceive much further along the electro-magnetic spectrum. Glanvil’s Adam, able to perceive so much more, understands invisible forces: the magnet, gravity, and (important for Glanvill) coherencies in the nature of things, connections, all the 'sympathies' he thought Kenelm Digby was helping discover: “Sympathies and Antipathies were to him no occult qualities” … “it appears to be most reasonable, that the circumference of our Protoplast’s senses, should be the same with that of nature’s activity”



So Glanvill pivots between a fantasy of the perfect knowledge of Adam in paradise, and the present, in which new ideas may restore former states of insight and understanding. Glanvill is aware of surmises about where long-hidden knowledge can be re-found: “Modern Ingenuity expects Wonders from Magnetick discoveries”.

He comes up with an intelligent list of desiderata:
"It may be some Ages hence, a voyage to the Southern unknown Tracts, yea possibly the Moon, will not be more strange then one to America. To them, that come after us, it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into remotest Regions; as now a pair of Boots to ride a Journey. And to conferr at the distance of the Indies by Sympathetick conveyances, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a litterary correspondence. The restauration of gray hairs to Iuvenility, and renewing the exhausted marrow, may at length be effected without a miracle: And the turning of the now comparatively desert world into a Paradise, may not improbably be expected from late Agriculture."

There’s the recurrent early modern fantasy of instant communication over distance, here, not by using spirits, but by “Sympathetick conveyances”. Glanvill does not at this point expound a view that Adam could have done this: that would raise too many problems of its own. A telepathic Adam could have forestalled the Fall. Instead, he tells, famously, the tale of the Scholar Gypsy, an early modern Darren Brown who exerts mental control at distance over the conversation of his old friends.



What Glanvill comes up with next is not a story for a distinguished nineteenth century poem. It’s another tale of remote connection, and details both the potential and the drawbacks to having ‘sympathized hands’ (and, as they say, ‘Don’t try this at home’):

"That some have conferr’d at distance by sympathized hands, and in a moment have thus transmitted their thoughts to each other, there are late specious relations do attest it: which say, that the hands of two friends being sympathized by a transferring of flesh from one into the other, and the place of the letters mutually agreed on; the least prick in the hand of one, the other will be sensible of, and that in the same part of his own. And thus the distant friend by a new kind of Chiromancy may read in his own hand what his correspondent had set down in his. For instance, would I in London acquaint my intimate in Paris, that I am well: I would then prick that part where I had appointed the letter [I:] and doing so in another place to signifie that word was done, proceed to [A,] thence to [M] and so on, till I had finisht what I intended to make known. Now that there have been some such practices, I have had a considerable relation, which I hold not impertinent to insert. A Gentleman comes to a Chirurgeon to have his arm cut off: The Surgeon perceiving nothing that it ailed, was much startled at the motion; thinking him either in jest, or besides himself. But by a more deliberate recollection, perceiving that he was both sober, and in earnest; entreats him to know the reason of so strange a desire, since his arm to him seem’d perfectly sound: to which the Gentleman replyes, that his hand was sympathiz’d, and his friend was dead, so that if not prevented by amputation, he said, it would rot away, as did that of his deceased Correspondent. Nor was this an unreasonable surmise; but, if there be any such way of manual Sympathizing, a very probable conjecture. For, that which was so sensibly affected with so inconsiderable a touch, in all likelyhood would be more immuted, by those greater alterations which are in Cadaverous Solutions."

One can, I think, feel reasonably certain that that never happened (which is a relief). Glanvill is eager to announce a breakthrough: these rather painful early modern text messages have been sent and received (but there was a snag). His language is interesting: “there are late specious relations do attest it”. Now, the OED actually cites this very work for the first use of ‘specious’ in its current sense: that is, sense d. Of falsehood, bad qualities, etc.
1661   J. Glanvill Vanity of Dogmatizing, xii. 108  “Such an Infinite of uncertain opinions, bare probabilities, specious falshoods.”
Yet here, the batty anecdote he retails is a ‘specious relation’ with ‘specious’ in older senses: pleasing, plausible. Glanvill also uses ‘speciousness’ in this work: “Self-designers are seldom disappointed, for want of the speciousness of a cause to warrrant them” – what he means here is that we always find reasons plausible to us to support our preconceptions. We are supposed to deduce which precise meaning of a word is intended from the context in which a word is used by an author, but Glanvill’s ‘specious relation’ seems to me to say ‘specious falshood’ even before the anecdote is produced, the sceptic in Glanvill discounting the newly uncovered way to use 'sympathies' even before he's told us about it. 



Tuesday, 23 February 2016

A votive painting to the witchcraft cult?




A rather pleasing witchcraft image, from the Prado’s online collection: ‘Anonymous’ and ‘17th century’, ‘oil on board’ is all they have to say about it.

As you see, we have a variant, unique as far as I know, on the type of composition that puts an elaborate garland of flowers round a devotional image. Somebody like Jan Brueghel would do the flowers, and in the centre, the virgin and child. The figures might be work (sometimes) of a different hand. Rubens worked with Brueghel on this type of decorative/devotional art.



By the model of divided labour, ‘anonymous’ here could well have been an anonymous two. The painting in the middle, a witch at her cauldron, might be by Daniel Teniers: it certainly collects witchcraft motifs from Teniers paintings. Elements from the left and right side of this 'witches' kitchen' scene have been moved outdoors:



So we have the hag with her hair blown forwards, at a cauldron mounted on a tripod over a fire. She stirs the cauldron, while she consults the book of spells in her other hand, earnest as a cook tackling a difficult recipe. At her feet, a skull, ointment pot, and perhaps,  her athame. Music is provided by a zoomorphic attendant wearing  a peculiar hat, who is playing a nose flute, another zoomorph stands and holds a dim taper, while a crouching small demon blows the fire. Other weird faces gaze from the gloom at the scene, toad-like, bat-like, fishy or reptilian. The moon, banded by clouds, is high in the night sky.



The charm and novelty lies in the surrounding cartouche and swags of foliage. A carved lugubrious face of a dog stares from the top. Mushrooms are tied in bunches with coarse string. They seem to be ordinary boletes, rather than any poisonous type of fungus. The foliage is yew (at the top), ivy (of course), wild hops, acorns and a cherry oak gall. Spiky plants are accumulated: briars and thistles.
Notes of subdued colour are provided by a single bluebell, a buttercup, a clover head, a sow-thistle and a larkspur. The artist has not gone for melodramatic flora: it isn’t deadly nightshade, henbane, hemlock, monkshood, but just a set of ordinary enough plants. Seasons have not been observed, for we have a bluebell and ripening blackberries.



The insect life is also mundane, consisting of large and small flies on the upper volutes, balanced by a grasshopper and a wasp on the shelf or plinth below, like miniature armorial bearers. A meadow brown butterfly perches on one thistle head, a wasp or bee on another, then there is a caterpillar on a mushroom, with a shiny beetle adjacent to it. No scorpions, no great big hairy spiders, no devil’s coach men.




Who commissioned or bought this painting? It was obviously created as an object of curiosity. In itself, a fantastic world of impossible beings is surrounded by a thick border of unremarkable things: the type of plants you might ignore or tread upon, annoying little creatures you’d swat away. As a parody of the floral-devotional image, it has a sly mischief to it, prompting  a double-take from the onlooker, who might have taken it for one of those paintings that make a tribute of flowers to a divine figure that had got darkened by smoke or discoloured varnish. Instead of Mary with a verge of vibrant flowers, a composition that pushes towards us with colour and a reminder of faith, this image recedes away past mundane things into a haunted night. A familiar form of cult object is wittily - or daringly - turned into an object apparently venerating another cult.




Sunday, 21 February 2016

Series Covers

Hello!
So as I have mentioned before End of the Line 2 is currently with an editor and I will be doing the cover revealing soon. However, the cover that I have does not exactly match/go with the cover of the first one. I could redo the cover of the first one, but I do not know if it is something that will throw people off if they do not match. Does having matching/similar covers in a series help make it a series? I would appreciate any input :)
Should series have matching covers?
Yes
No
Personality

Saturday, 20 February 2016

Cover Reveal ~ Twisted Mind by Mia Hoddell

Good Morning!
Today I am lucky enough to be helping Mia Hoddell reveal the cover of her latest book. I love the emotion in their faces and the font!


——— COVER REVEAL ———

"Not all mind games stay on the track."


TWISTED MIND by Mia Hoddell
Chequered Flag Series #2
Release Date: March 8, 2016
Publisher: Limitless Publishing
——— SYNOPSIS ———
GP2 race car driver Dustin Coates has been made irrelevant… 

For the past year, Dustin helped his best friend, Raine Wilkins. It was a good diversion from his twisted life. Now she’s settling down with his brother, and without the distraction from his own toxic relationship, Dustin is rapidly spiralling out of control. 

Everyone warned him to leave his girlfriend, Elora, yet they knew nothing about the baby… 

It’s up to Dustin to protect the innocent life hanging in the balance, and to do that he must endure Elora’s twisted games of manipulation and violence. However, when she does the unthinkable, Dustin finally snaps. Leaving her, the light-hearted jokester people have come to love is replaced with a grief-stricken man intent on one thing—earning a Formula One contract. 

Everything changes when Tazia Nixon moves in next door… 

Dustin clings to the Latin beauty who soothes his aching heart and helps him forget. But beneath her eternal optimism is a distressing past she refuses to share. Dustin must decide if he can risk his fragile heart a second time. She might ease his pain, but she could also break him like no one else. 

Will Dustin be able to overlook the deceit to find his forever with Tazia, or will he see nothing more than a Twisted Mind?


——— ADD TO GOODREADS ———

——— COVER DESIGNER ———
TOJ Publishing Services

——— CHEQUERED FLAG SERIES ———
BOOK ONE: CHAMELEON SOUL is .99¢ for a limited time!
Available on #KindleUnlimited!


——— ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MIA HODDELL ———
#1 Amazon bestselling author Mia Hoddell lives in the UK with her family and two cats. She spends most of her time writing or reading, loves anything romantic, and has an overactive imagination that keeps her up until the early hours of the morning.

Mia has written over ten titles including her Seasons of Change series, the Chequered Flag series, the Elemental Killers series, and her standalone novels False Finder and Not Enough.

Her favourite genres are contemporary romance or romantic suspense, and with an ever growing list of ideas she is trying to keep up with the speed at which her imagination generates them. She also designs book covers on her website M Designs.

Limitless Publishing: http://bit.ly/1LmthNo

Friday, 19 February 2016

Li-Fi: Connect to the Internet using an LED bulb

Imagine an LED bulb doubling up as an access point for connecting to the internet and ordinary light being used as a medium to carry data.

A whole new world wherein a bulb would not only give us light but also help us access the web might not be too far way, if a new technology called Li-Fi (or Light-Fidelity) goes mainstream.

Prof Harald Haas of the University of Edinburgh, who coined the term Li-Fi in 2011, demonstrated the new technology to a packed auditorium at the Wipro’s Electronics City campus on Wednesday. He streamed a video from the internet on a laptop using light from an LED bulb to access the web.

Prof Haas said Li-Fi is a disruptive technology that could transform business models, create new opportunities, and is poised to be a $113 billion industry by 2022.

He said that the RF (radio frequency) spectrum will not be enough considering the rate of growth of wireless data communication. The visible light spectrum is much larger. The use of the light spectrum for Li-Fi overcomes the issues in traditional wireless communication, like the shortage of spectrum and network disruption because of interference.

In Li-Fi, anyone who has access to light can access the internet. The system also allows users to move from one light source to another without losing their network connection. What about connecting to the internet in the night? The stream of photos can be reduced to a minimal level that won’t produce visible light but enough to carry data.

Prof Haas said though Li-Fi was poised to compete with Wi-Fi, it is not meant to replace it. “We are not looking at an either-or situation.”

Though the inability of light rays to pass through walls and similar structures is seen as a major drawback of this technology, Prof Haas has a totally different view. He said it’s an advantage since restriction by walls provides more security to the network and eliminates the risk of the signal leakage to eavesdropping.

The Li-Flame, described as the world's first true Li-Fi system, was displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March last year. The third generation of products have now been developed and will be on display at the MWC later this month.

WHAT IS LI-FI

Light-Fidelity is a new technology that uses light waves, instead of radio frequency waves, as a medium to carry data. An improvised LED bulb functions as a router

HOW DOES LI-FI WORK

  • An ordinary off-the-shelf LED bulb connected to an device, which in turn is connected to the internet.
  • Internet data flows in via the device into the bulb, and is carried by light waves.
  • At the other end, light waves carrying internet data falls on a receiver or a dongle which is connected to the computer.

BENEFITS OF Li-Fi
  • Visible light spectrum is available in plenty, unlicensed and free to use.
  • Double benefit of a bulb giving us light as well as internet access
  • Low interference leads to very high data speed
  • Li-Fi works under water as well
  • Not harmful, unlike RF that can interfere with electronic circuitry
  • Light won’t pass through walls, making eavesdropping nearly impossible
  • LED illumination is already efficient and data transmission needs very little additional power.
  • It can achieve about 1,000 times data density of Wi-Fi, since light can be contained in an area

PROGRESS CARD
  • July 2011: Prof Harald Haas coins Li-Fi at TEDGlobal
  • Jan 2012: PureLifi founded
  • Sept 2013: Launch of first product Li-1st
  • Dec 2014: Second product Li-Flame developed
  • Nov 2015: Prof Haas demonstrates Li-Fi using solar cells at TEDGlobal
  • Dec 2015: Latest product LiFi-X developed

Tuesday, 16 February 2016

Valentine's Day winners

Hello!
I am enjoying the end of day two of my snow days. The winners of this big giveaway have been picked. To those who are new to following me. Thank you and I appreciate the new followers :) to those who have been following me before hand, thank you too! Here are the two winners and the prizes will be shipped out this week :)

CONGRATS!
Kindle Fire HD: Leniah James
Amazon GC $50: Jane Anders

Monday, 15 February 2016

Snow Day

Hello!
Today is a snow day in my district. I am getting used to what a snow day in the south looks like compared to New Jersey. We'll see what tomorrow brings! I was able to get my homework mostly done for the week (well at least one out of two classes done!). I was able to clean the whole house including vacuuming and mopping. This doesn't happen as much as it should especially since my boyfriend is allergic to both of our dogs. At least they are sweet and cuddly right? I also have brownies in the oven, but I accidentally bought unsweetened instead of semi sweet so this should be really interesting!

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I am not really a biggie for Valentine's Day because I think if you really care about someone you should tell them more than once a year, on the same day as everyone else. However, I celebrated with the boyfriend because he is sweet. He gave me a mug with a little puppy in it that Leo wants to steal, a flower, and one of those big cards. Plus, we saw Deadpool, which I highly suggest if you are old enough to see R-rated movies and are into superheros, because it was AMAZING! I loved the action and quick wit. Of course Ryan Reynolds wasn't a minus either ;) It might be a little bad though that I was thinking he looked like Riley, with a mixture of Abby's and Aaron's tongue, a R-rated version though. Oh well.

Have a good day!

Saturday, 13 February 2016

Book Review - 101 Amazing US Presidential Facts

101 Amazing Presidential Facts: Fun trivia about every American President from Washington to Obama! (American Presidents Series)
This is the Presidential election season in the United States, and that's one reason I picked up this small book of trivia. Good fun reading lots of interesting things about all the US Presidents, right from George Washington to Barack Obama. This can be a good resource for people who are interested in quizzing. It talks of:

  • The first President to actually live in the White House.
  • Presidents who have died on Independence Day.
  • The President who died within one month of being sworn in.
  • The first President to wear a blue jeans to the Oval Office
  • The President who got a speeding ticket because he drove the horse too fast
  • The first President to use a telephone in the White House
  • The first President to ride in an automobile. But more interesting is what was special about that journey
  • The President who is related to 11 other presidents by blood or by marriage
  • The first President to run a full marathon.
  • The President who gets hair cut every week

And so and so forth...

101 Amazing Presidential Facts: Fun trivia about every American President from Washington to Obama! by Children's History Press
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Friday, 12 February 2016

Valentine's Day Sale

Hello!
This weekend is Valentine's Day weekend, for me it has never been that big of a deal if you go through my old posts you can see that. The giveaway is still on until tomorrow, so try to get your last entries here. For this weekend I am having Beneath the Scars and Project US ebooks on sale. So instead of their usual price of $2.99 they are $.99!

So does anyone have any fun plans? I think I am going to be going to see Deadpool tomorrow so I am pretty excited about that!




Beneath the Scars
Corporal Riley Nolan is back home and out of the hospital after sustaining severe injuries in a skirmish overseas. His physical injuries may be healed, though he is left with horrible scars all over his body. His mind is still healing, and he has almost no contact with the world outside his small dark apartment.

After the death of her parents and being forced to sell their house and move into an apartment in a new town, Eponine is left picking up the pieces while trying to maintain a normal life for her little sister, Genevieve.

Can these new neighbors help each other heal, finding the light and laughter in the world again? Most importantly, can Eponine help Riley see he's not the monster he believes himself to be beneath the scars?





Project Us
Rachel is used to being in control of her emotions, never letting anyone get close to the real her. Nick is exactly the kind of guy Rachel has been trying to avoid getting involved with. Yet, when their school arranges a mysterious project that puts them together, they soon become trapped in a marriage that turns out to be real and legally binding, and they aren’t the only ones.

While their parents try to get four hundred students out of these marriages with legal help, the teenagers must live in a compound with their respective spouses for the duration of the project. Being trapped together leaves no room for denials. As Nick begins to fall for Rachel, she does everything in her power to avoid his charms and protect her heart. All she wants is to get out of the marriage, but does she truly want out, or is she only lying to herself?

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Book Review - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me
I received an Amazon gift coupon for Rs 200 recently, and I began looking for a book to buy. I zeroed in on 'Between the World and Me' by Ta-Nehisi Coates for a few reasons.

One, the book deals with a subject (race) that is at the heart of contemporary social fabric of the US. We wish the country has moved on, but regularly we get to hear of issues and events that only point to the contrary.

Two, the author is a well-known journalist. He works for The Atlantic.

Three, this book, his second, is a very recent one, and the news of its publication is fresh in memory.

The book is in the form of a letter to his 14-year old son, about what it means to be black in the US. Apparently, the book came about after Coates asked his editor why no one wrote like James Baldwin (whose The Fire Next Time, is in the form of a letter), and the editor told him to give it a try.

Drawing a lot from his childhood in Baltimore and many other personal experiences, Coates brilliantly paints a haunting picture of violence. References to brutality are powerful enough to linger in our minds for long. He constantly refers to the body that is always under the threat of being harmed, his feelings of being in a country that has been built by whites with the labour of blacks.

I haven't been in the US long enough to know first hand how race relations play out in everyday lives. I have heard both versions: one, that the country has moved far, far ahead from where it was once; and two, there is still lot of racial ill-will among the whites for the Afro-Americans. Segregation may not legally exist, but in reality it does still, if not so much on the ground, definitely in the mind.

The book paints a very pessimistic picture: almost tells you there is just no hope of anything getting better. I got a feeling that he was going on and on. The bleak tenor was off-putting. One shouldn't be taking so much pains to explain and convince why something will not improve; it should be for the contrary, why there is still reason for hope.

Nevertheless, Coates's autobiographical accounts and his arguments on why he doesn't see much hope, is a good read, giving us a frame of reference to understand the complex topic of race relations in the US.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Interesting US presidential poll season ahead

So it's Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders who are hogging limelight after the Iowa caucuses yesterday.

On the Republican side, while I can understand the sentiments that are bringing in the numbers for Donald Trump, his radical thoughts are unnerving. Between the two, Cruz is preferable.

On the Democratic side, my choice is Hillary, mainly because of her overall career record and experience. Bernie Sanders isn't appealing. He is talking of a policy line that is far too Leftist that one can imagine would work in the US. Barack Obama's policies themselves weren't going down well.

This US presidential poll is promising to be very exciting.

Monday, 1 February 2016

Valentine's Day Giveaway

Hello!
Starting today and lasts for thirteen days there is a giveaway for a new Kindle Fire and a $50 Amazon gift card! there are twenty-eight authors that are part of the giveaway! Check it out while it is still available.



a Rafflecopter giveaway