notes on I, Reader
"If you want to know if robots have a soul, look to their reading habits; I could say the same of people." John Meidema Oct 1, 2009
I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.
--William Blake
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Reading is a conspiracy of minds toward satisfactory answers to the big questions within a single lifetime." John Miedema Oct. 12, 2009
"This is reading with a fire the belly. It is cocaine. But it is also narcissism, a self-indulgence, ultimately failing. No space is truly free of others. We grow up internalizing the judgements of others. And self-sufficiency is lonely. Bliss, then perhaps hell. Reluctantly, we look for other stories, turn to other books to see what is new in the world. These people go into the world equipped with interiority, and it shows. People who lack interiority are creepy." John Miedema Oct 21, 2009
"A library is a clear example of an information ecology. A library involves many systems; a changes to one part affects other parts. A library tends to be diverse, offering niches of service that evolve depending on patron needs. A library has keystone species, without which the ecology would collapse. They suggest the keystone species is librarians. Agreed. As I see it, another keystone species is print books. Take those away, and what is left? A server room? A computer lab? A community centre? A video store?" John Miedema Oct 27 2009
"It is a good expression of what I have (pompously) called the Uncertainty Principle of Library Science. In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle refers to the fact that observing one physical property, e.g., position, changes the condition of another physical property, e.g., momentum, such that both cannot be measured at once. My proposed principle has to do with the quantity and quality of books. As long as a book goes unselected, or judged worthy, there is a still a possibility of selecting the best possible next book. But to select one is leave a lifetime’s books unconsidered. One cannot be sure of best quality." John Miedema Nov 3
Wikipedia. “Hackers follow a spirit of creative playfulness and anti-authoritarianism, and sometimes use this term to refer to people applying the same attitude to other fields.” Hacker (programmer subculture)
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