tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50121982009-07-08T23:13:09.358+02:00A Commonplace BookA commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.) To email me, send to DeaconBlue1103-blog@yahoo.com. Other blog: http://everythingrum.blogspot.comGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comBlogger263125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-33589394408429547862009-07-08T23:11:00.000+02:002009-07-08T23:13:09.367+02:00And I think it's gonna be a long long timeTill touch down brings me round again to findI'm not the man they think I am at homeOh no no no, I'm a rocket manRocket man burning out his fuse up here aloneAnd I think it's gonna be a long long time...Elton John, Rocket ManGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-69925641591477327102009-06-02T04:37:00.001+02:002009-06-02T04:40:07.820+02:00The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-RelianceGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-60561351079803676442009-05-30T07:38:00.002+02:002009-05-30T07:43:09.275+02:00I do not want this world. I do not like this world. I do not need this world. I do not need to feel sympathetic for this world or its inhabitants. If only they did not need me...A fictional agent of the UN Security Council in Singularity Sky by Charles StrossGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-53727799752201662002009-05-23T11:29:00.002+02:002009-05-23T11:32:34.391+02:00The God of Small Things....If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.Arundhati Roy, The God of Small ThingsGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47708188190449085192009-05-20T00:42:00.001+02:002009-05-20T00:46:48.433+02:00No beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. No beast can match its range and power.Arundhati Roy, The God of Small ThingsGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-89312868914069204592009-05-13T14:11:00.000+02:002009-05-13T14:13:28.925+02:00The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed.William GibsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-45247274275099480882009-05-10T11:47:00.000+02:002009-05-10T11:50:31.789+02:00It's just another day in paradiseAs you stumble to your bedYou'd give anything to silenceThose voices ringing in your headYou thought you could find happinessJust over that green hillYou thought you would be satisfiedBut you never will-Learn to be stillWe are like sheep without a shepherdWe don't know how to be aloneSo we wander 'round this desertAnd wind up following the wrong gods homeBut the Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-13792596073541432452009-04-16T06:14:00.001+02:002009-04-16T06:15:36.062+02:00You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye. CSN&Y, Teach Your ChildrenGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-73768891377476948262009-04-09T06:09:00.002+02:002009-04-09T06:13:29.170+02:00The latest findings highlight once again the extent to which obesity is a consequence of Homo sapiens carrying into an era of abundance, leisure and warmth the physiology that humans evolved in a world marked by barely enough food, constant physical activity and dangerous cold. From a Washington Post article on brown fat.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-80447484560143132312009-03-09T09:39:00.000+01:002009-03-09T09:41:08.007+01:00In short, the key to the salvation of the West was the Persian defeat by the Greeks, which required a victory at Salamis, which in turn could not have occurred without the repeated efforts—all against opposition—of a single Athenian statesman. Had he wavered, had he been killed, or had he lacked the moral and intellectual force to press home his arguments, it is likely that Greece would have Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47185478378491586352009-01-05T04:36:00.000+01:002009-01-05T04:37:52.758+01:00Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.Practice is when everything works but nobody knows why.UnknownGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-9758880432841178252008-11-30T22:29:00.003+01:002008-11-30T22:32:30.364+01:00A man so often only finishes a house by turning it into a tomb.G.K.Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-74947886697058004732008-10-23T13:46:00.001+02:002008-10-23T13:48:24.817+02:00Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.Bishop Joseph ButlerGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-50135903953150013902008-08-27T11:10:00.002+02:002008-08-27T11:13:25.671+02:00When you are happy, it's surprising how much you can drink.From a friend from North Mitrovica -- soon to get married -- over coffee at DV.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-4718556237641958892008-08-26T12:30:00.001+02:002008-08-26T12:33:29.257+02:00There are times that we cannot seem to find our center. We have to find someplace to stand at the edges of ourselves. This seems the only place for us to exist and get through day-to-day. We cannot do this for so long but if we had a choice, we'd probably try to get closer in where it is more comfortable.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-4187493793549787712008-06-21T19:57:00.000+02:002008-06-21T19:58:45.723+02:00Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.Salman Rushdie, “The Shelter of the World,” The New Yorker of Feb. 25,2008Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-64122719743494328092008-06-09T14:05:00.001+02:002008-06-09T14:06:51.187+02:00Human purpose may be a long-evolved consequence of the thermodynamic tendency to come to equilibrium....the process of life -- complexity building in the area of gradients, and energy flow -- is a natural phenomenon....life's natural purpose.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-54732637352413750962008-06-04T13:32:00.001+02:002008-06-04T13:33:42.699+02:00In most systems diversity begets stability.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-81001654845137879722008-05-27T12:10:00.000+02:002008-05-27T12:11:53.966+02:00When the energy available for the formation of complex systems is taken away, these systems revert to a more primitive level of function.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-88614826133296271122008-05-20T09:14:00.000+02:002008-05-20T09:16:06.299+02:00The sensing selves of the biosphere were brought into being, and are maintained, by thermodynamic potential and the molecular informational complexity necessary to tap it....Organisms may be seen as connectable nodes that transform the environment as they mediate energetic flows....Quickly growing systems -- ones that through evolution, technology, or both. tap into previously unrecognized or Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-5834935071566240552008-05-16T12:25:00.002+02:002008-05-16T12:28:08.828+02:00What we call life is neither a thing apart from matter, nor merely "living matter," but an informational and energetic process...Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and Life Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-62327262304779535512008-05-13T16:55:00.002+02:002008-05-13T16:58:16.438+02:00Whenever a gradient is applied to a system, insofar as constraints allow, the gradient is spontaneously degraded as completely as possible. Constraints, of course, are not trivial. In life they entail extremely complex feedback loops as energy is channeled through chemical kinetics….Constraints regulate dynamic processes, but they don’t cause them. Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-75064701011972690882008-05-06T09:16:00.000+02:002008-05-06T09:17:20.916+02:00Far-from-equilibrium systems pay for their reduced entropy by exporting a concomitant increase in entropy into the surrounding environment….All organisms, not just human technological ones, produce waste. Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-74607638696120630802008-04-24T15:02:00.002+02:002008-04-24T15:08:43.693+02:00The real purpose of a [cell] phone, as everyone knows, is texting. Only techno-tards make actual phone calls -- unless they need to lie.Patricia Marx, The New Yorker of March 10, 2008.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-40900707616165405382008-04-15T10:51:00.001+02:002008-04-15T10:53:15.192+02:00 …the very origins of life can be traced to the energy flows of an energetic universe…Deep in the chemical cycles of present-day bacteria are metabolic pathways, chemical traces repeating, with variation, the steps by which matter came to life…paints a picture of energy-rich matter maintaining and making more of itself before genes evolved….The bodies and selves we consider living derive from Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873deaconblue1103-blog@yahoo.com