DSK wrote in news:4aDGg.695$T8.50
@bignews3.bellsouth.net:

I don't like farting around with the computer that much, not
my idea of fun. There's a REAL world out there! It can be
scary but it's a helluva ride!

Thanks again
Doug King




Over on alt.binaries.ebook.technical, today, there is a series of books
whos subject begins with OSPREY-Elite sailors will find fascinating. For
the last couple of hours, I've had my monster widescreen monitor in
portrait mode vertically so Acrobat makes the big 21" screen a full page of
the documents.

"Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605" and "Queen Victoria's Commanders" are most
fascinating. WW1 and WW2 are also very well covered, mostly from a British
perspective.



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Stephen Trapani wrote:
The main value of "the real world" is human beings

To some extent, yeah. But the seas & rivers & forests &
mountains & animals & sky are pretty cool too.

.... not their arms or
their hair or even their faces, it's their ideas.

"Trouble not the scholar in his dusty attic, for to you the
great empires of this age are mighty but to him they are to
be overturned with the flick of a finger." - quote from a
Renaissance philosopher whose name I can't recall....

... The amazing thing
about computers and the internet is that computers actually concentrate
and organize human ideas in such a way as to make them phenomenally more
available and accessible than they've ever been. This is a good thing.


I agree totally... shucks, that's why I'm here! OTOH a trend
that must be fought tooth and nail is the tendency to sit
around and Think Big Thinks, make yak-yak, and fiddle with
the computer as if it is important in itself.

My company has hired six engineers in the past decade, and
every last one of them thinks "work" consists of sitting on
their butt in front of a computer. Only one or two have a
vague idea of how to get on their feet and get things doen
in the real world... otoh I shouldn't complain about this
since it is my greatest job security.

To be a bit more on-topic, a lesson to be drawn from many in
this newsgroup is that buying a boat, fixing up a boat,
talking about boats & sailing & cruising, are all fine
things... but they're not the same as GOING CRUISING!!






Larry wrote:
Over on alt.binaries.ebook.technical, today, there is a series of books
whos subject begins with OSPREY-Elite sailors will find fascinating.....

"Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605" and "Queen Victoria's Commanders" are most
fascinating. WW1 and WW2 are also very well covered, mostly from a British
perspective.

Oh yes, I noticed those, but I'm still busy downloading 150
engineering texts. In fact really useful stuff on composite
structures keeps showing up faster than I can download it.

As yet another example of what I'm trying to point out
above, if I had found out about this last year I'd still be
studying how to build my dinghy instead of 90% done building
it... which reminds me, I gotta get off my butt and go to work!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

DSK wrote in news:ARXGg.313$C6.176
@bignews1.bellsouth.net:

Oh yes, I noticed those, but I'm still busy downloading 150
engineering texts. In fact really useful stuff on composite
structures keeps showing up faster than I can download it.


The size of the boat library you can take on a long, mostly boring voyage,
on a single DVD would sink a 70' motor yacht.

I loved the quotation. I forget which English economics professor said it,
but back in the late 1700's he said something like:

A democracy can only exist until the electorate discovers that they can
vote themselves an income from the public treasury.....something to that
effect. America's gone past that line many year ago....

Larry wrote:
The size of the boat library you can take on a long, mostly boring voyage,
on a single DVD would sink a 70' motor yacht.


True.
But there's something really really nice about having a
book, so far no computer or little electronic gizmo has
replaced it. Another nice thing is the book exchange shelf
at marinas & sailing clubs. I have often found very
interesting things that I would not normally have sat down
to read.

I loved the quotation. I forget which English economics professor said it,
but back in the late 1700's he said something like:

A democracy can only exist until the electorate discovers that they can
vote themselves an income from the public treasury.....something to that
effect. America's gone past that line many year ago....


There weren't very many English economists in the 1700s, so
it's a rather small field

Anyway, a Roman named Seneca made an oft-quoted similar
statement, employing the key phrase "bread and circuses."
Rome was a republic for several hundred years and retained
elements of democracy under the early & middle empire... the
senators had a lot of power and universally manipulated the
gov't and the military to make more money for themselves.
Sort of like Halliburton only without the faudulent billing

Seneca: "Democracy is the greatest form of government, but
destined to be short-lived because the masses will always
vote for bread & circuses for themselves." Of course he said
it in Latin so this phrased many different ways in English.

DSK