The Library

[Frybabe]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

*Suggestion Box for Future Discussions
*SeniorLearn's Archives 

Steph, I should mention that the leading (think pioneering) authority on AR and ASR technology, R. David G. Pyne, is right there in Gainesville, FL. His business is ASR-Systems. http://www.asrforum.com/

[BarbStAubrey]

Frybabe - fabulous - I am learning so much just from your posts - the links are wonderful - now I wonder if the LCRA has a similar mockup of their operation - I still do not even know yet who has jurisdiction or water rights from the Edward's Aquifer that runs through the west side of town and is the major supply of water to San Antonio along with San Antonio buying water from the LCRA.

It sounds like you were interested in water filters - years ago - in the very late 80s I was selling some sort of water filtration system to get iron out of well water in this area -

You are so much more knowledgeable about this I am in awe - were you living in Pa. when you were with Rodale - not sure how the filtration works with the devise I see online from Millipore -

I had not thought yet of how pumping oil affects the water supply - here in Austin we never had any oil or gas but south of us only about 80 miles in Gonzales where the 'honey dippers' have been at it with new permits and leases available - I do not know where they get their water - a whole new vein to look into.

Frybabe the more I read and learn I just know I will be filled with questions - I am so glad you post with us and are willing to share some of your knowledge and experience - I bet there are few of us that really understand what is behind every glass of water we drink and how we use the resources under our feet - for most, all it is is land to build on a house or plant a garden -

Reading about how China does not make huge national loans as we do with all the strings to change the borrowing nations economic life but rather China invests without political strings and with that attitude they had invested in South America but because of their financial decline have had to pull back this last decade but China is still strong in Africa and they invest in so many resources under the ground - that and meeting a gal who is a Financial Analyst for Water Districts opened my eyes to the loose thread that is world economics - however, this water thing really was so much more involved than I ever dreamed.

I also found a list of jobs right here in Austin for a financial analyst in Oil and Gas - just reading this job description has me drooling - http://oil-and-gas.jobs.net/j/sr-financial-analyst_J3G79761HVBMVWL8MNB.aspx

Golly I wish I had another life - although I must say over the years I would not have been very happy working behind a desk - but reading the body language of folks is getting old after 35 years and my own body is not what it was so that satisfying my curiosities and putting them to math formulas would be a dream.

But most of all for now I want to understand the bigger picture of where our water comes from and who has what kind of jurisdiction over the water rights and what groups lay out what restrictions for its use and now with what you have posted to understand how the extraction of other minerals, oil and gas and it appears there are dumps now that all affect ground water. We read about these issues as a quick buzz without any understanding of what is going on and if the profit margin for some commercial enterprises can push this world to the brink and now over the edge to climate change my thoughts and concern is what is going on in the ground.

Frybabe any books you can suggest or web sites that are instructive to understanding how we use ground water as well as surface water and how oil and gas extraction as well as pipe lines actually affect water I would be grateful for the guidance. This is when speed reading would be an asset...     

[Frybabe]

Oh Barb, yes, you are in Austin. I did hang out on the Edward's Aquifer pages too. http://www.edwardsaquifer.net/ The lower end is home to lots of Artesin wells.

I was wondering about how removing the oil affects land subsidence. The salt brine plumes that Wichita is dealing with are from old, no longer used oil wells. Brine water was used to help push oil out. If I remember correctly, the brine is mostly from old catch basins that leaked into the groundwater. Wichita also has higher levels of arsenic in their groundwater than normal.

The only book I read was Alex Prud'homme's The Ripple Effect. There is a lot of info and tales of water rights fights, etc., but I think the info stats used may be a little dated by now. Aside from the EPA's excellent information on AR's, and ASR's, their info on the Clean Water Act is also excellent. http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act Somewhere in there, not necessarily easy to find are the regs that govern water being put back into the aquifers. It is worth it to note that some states have control over their injection well regs and inspections, others do not. (PA, last I looked, does not). A state that wants the responsibility to regulate and monitor their water sources must file an application with the EPA and their regs must be at least good as the Fed regs.  Oh, and not to forget the USGS website, also with lots of maps (of course) and info. http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/ If you click on the Groundwater Data and Information, be aware that it may take a few to bring up the lovely, detailed maps.

[Frybabe]

These look interesting:

Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping And The Fate Of America's Fresh Waters 1st Edition by Robert Glennon
Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon
Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource by David Sedlak. This one is new this year.
Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind by Brian Fagan.

[BarbStAubrey]

Frybabe - thank you so much - you outdid yourself - the USGS website was wonderful although the moving map of wells was confusing to me - according to the dates those maps were generated only a day apart from each other and the difference in well levels was like night and day.

I have lots to catch up on now - I wonder if anyone else among us has been curious about water and water municipalities and water districts and where the pockets of ground water exist etc etc etc.

My thoughts now go to surface water - what lakes, rivers and streams are wild and just affecting the land nearby and which are used as a water supply for cities and towns along the way - well first things first - I am reading Porter's book and then onward to the many websites you shared and the books you shared - found the Ripple Effect - hahaha looks like a popular book title for other ripples in life... this is great - just great - thanks ever so much...

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow - had no idea - looks like this may be more than a passing issue - this is from the Amazon review of Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water

In this “chilling, in-depth examination of a rapidly emerging global crisis” (In These Times), Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, two of the most active opponents to the privatization of water show how, contrary to received wisdom, water mainly flows uphill to the wealthy. Our most basic resource may one day be limited: our consumption doubles every twenty years—twice the rate of population increase. At the same time, increasingly transnational corporations are plotting to control the world’s dwindling water supply. In England and France, where water has already been privatized, rates have soared, and water shortages have been severe. The major bottled-water producers—Perrier, Evian, Naya, and now Coca-Cola and PepsiCo—are part of one of the fastest-growing and least-regulated industries, buying up freshwater rights and drying up crucial supplies.

A truly shocking exposé that is a call to arms to people around the world, Blue Gold shows in frightening detail why, as the vice president of the World Bank has pronounced, “The wars of the next century will be about water.”

[Steph]

T I=hus far the pipelines are clean and profitable. I try to keep a reasonably close eye on them.. I got so furious with Bank of America nonsense, that I sold it off last year. I was just tired of the "Oops school of thought from them" My financial advisor and I keep close track of things. Am doing some Real Estate Investment ( commercial) which are interesting.

[BarbStAubrey]

Found this - love it...

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a r azor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

[ginny]

That's priceless, Barbara.    Another "selfish old person" stands up for themselves!


I'm going to copy and save that one.

I had a very nice somewhat haughty young woman at the checkout counter explain to me in the grocery store  a week or so ago when I bought organic apples, and she had not charged enough for it ....and I questioned it.....shows you how stupid I am ......she explained to the daft old woman that  oh no "everything is organic."    "Organic means comes from the earth."   As if she were talking to a child.    So she continued to leave the wrong price on it .   


Alllll rightie then. 

[Steph]

if at first you don't succeed. All of  a sudden yesterday I have huge print, maybe 75% of the page is being shown. I have tried a variety of things including the help thing here. What is happening?/ Is this a windows 10 bug?? or a senior learn problem?? either way, I cannot access anything that will permit me to change the print size.

[BarbStAubrey]

I think what happens is the large quotes are not affected by our use of Control+ and so I went back in and made the font larger - hope that helps.

[ginny]

I don't have any change here yesterday, Steph. Was that when you installed Windows 10? I see you asked in the problems area and I'm sure somebody there can be of help.

[PatH]

That's nice and large.  Love the quote.

[Tomereader1]

On my computer, now that I have Win 10, the print is gigantic, and it doesn't bother me here on SeniorLearn, but when I pull up articles, about half of them don't show, and I haven't figured out how to fix that, since those kind don't show a little "scroll bar" on the right side of the screen.

[ginny]

Tome, Jane has put a video on how to change the font size in Windows 10 in the Technophobe Reader.

[Dana]

Why should I get windows 10?  Whatever I have now seems to be fine.  Fortunately the company I do some work for will do an upgrade if it thinks it ought, and then provide help if necessary, thank goodness for that.....

Re the smartass young person, we must try to like being old and tattoos are not all bad, or piercings, just strange when they take up too much body space......

[mabel1015j]

My suggestion on Windows 10 is to wait a few months until they work out any kinks.

[Steph]

yes,my computer guru said the same thing, but somehow even though I did wait.. it downloaded. I have mostly fixed it everywhere else, but not here yet.

[ginny]

Well I  sure hope it doesn't download automatically for me. Something from Microsoft downloaded on my Windows 7 laptop which is new but which offered Windows 7 instead of Windows 8, so I chose  7,  and it messed up my drive for the DVD player and the system, so that I had to take it in for repair.

I'm with you, Dana, why should we do it? I hear everybody who has it really likes it, tho.  If I want pretty boxes of windows I'll use my Apple products.

They SAY it's the last. It's the last version ever. There will be no Windows 11 and so on. That has a familiar ring, to me, have we heard that before?

Anyway, I don't want it. I'm sorry some of you are having a problem with it. One just gets used to doing things one way and BANGO one has to learn a new way of doing it. I'm all FOR learning, don't get me wrong, but this is a utility which I use TO learn,  and I don't want to have to re-figure it every 5 minutes.

That's why we did the site migration and the new software here.... (we have no choice on the new iteration of SMF software)..... long before (we thought)  the classes started in the middle of September. What a horror that would be. So it's done and it works thanks to the endless work of Marcie and Jane, and we're set to go.

Dana, on the piercings, I can't imagine how anybody blows their nose with one of those nose rings. Sometimes I try to figure it out.  I can't believe that's healthy for anybody.

And I hate to say this and I know that I'll get jumped on but SOME ladies with their heavy earrings are pulling their ear lobes to the point that they are beginning to look unfortunate, and it's unattractive.   Especially as they age.  I guess that, too, can be corrected by plastic surgery?

Mabel, way back there you mentioned the Word of the Day.

I get the one from Dictionary.com, ever since they used saxum in a word. I thought it might be useful, etymology wise.

Today's word is  psephology,

You can tell from looking at it it's Greek in origin.

It means the study of elections.

We've got  a lot of that going on, don't we? Or at least of Presidential Candidates Debates.

The etymology is super:

Origin


Psephology comes from the Greek word for "pebble," psêphos; Athenian custom was to cast votes by means of pebbles. Psephology entered English in the mid-1900s.

And lastly, if you have not seen the video on the BBC of the 95 year old man who just set a world record for running 200 meters, do watch it, he's about the most inspiring thing I ever saw. He says, no matter your age you can learn new things. I love his attitude.  I love his thoughts about what's so great about aging.  Here's one of the many videos on it  from the BBC:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-rSVds38VI

[Dana]

That guy puts a smile on one's face, and I do so agree with him.  Especially I liked the bit where he said he took up running because he was always a hopeless runner.  I've got this plan to take up mathematics in a year or two because I was always  hopeless at math..that's why I took up piano two years ago...said to be tone deaf, kicked out of the choir, but I love and its not beyond me.  It seems a shame to part this life without trying everything possible that appeals. 

On our parks trip (which was FANTASTIC) recently we saw many guys and some gals with one arm tattooed from wrist to shoulder.  Kind of weird, but I could see the appeal.  Some were very tasteful.  Only problem, permanency.

[Tomereader1]

Tattoo from wrist to shoulder is called (logically, I might add) a "sleeve".  Gee.

[marjifay]

The green generation was great, Barb.  I sent it to my elderly wasteful friends!

Marj

[BarbStAubrey]

Last call for you to share how you found SeniorLearn and what book you started discussing with us, as a friend of SeniorLearn - tonight is the last - going, going, gone of this set of memory minders as we build our legacy page of who we were and who we are in 2015

So like Ratty and Mole, pull up your chair and post your memories - tomorrow, Wednesday, August 12 we have another set of questions to help us build our history using your individual experiences.

[Steph]

finally. print back to normal.. hurray.

[BarbStAubrey]

[salan]

I just finished Harper Lee's book, Go set a Watchman.  I was very disappointed.  Have any of you read it?  What did you think?  I also finished the new Kent Haruf book, Our Souls at Night.  It was very good, but ended on a most disappointing note.  Sigh......
Sally

[BarbStAubrey]

I have it to read but have a couple of others I MUST read first - I understand Marypage read it and enjoyed it suggesting it was as it was for educated white southerners at the time of the Civil Rights Marches. I am thinking that it probably shows the nuanced white lawyer from the south who believes in justice but was not the firebrand liberal many assumed after reading Mockingbird.

[BarbStAubrey]

Read this today - oh my...

Earth Overshoot Day, falls on Thursday and marks the point in the year when "humanity’s annual demand for the goods and services that our land and seas can provide -- fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon dioxide absorption -- exceeds what Earth’s ecosystems can renew in a year,"

Here is a worthwhile link - http://www.overshootday.org/

[Steph]

Kent died , I think last year. This was his last book. Have not read it, but loved his earlier ones.

[PatH]

Earth overshoot day--it's interesting that someone has actually calculated it.  I'm surprised we get all the way to August before using upour year's allowance.

[Steph]

Am reading Pick Up by Nadine Gordimer for my f2f book club. What an odd book thus far. I am strugging, but enjoying. Has anyone else read this?? Very different than her other stuff.

[ginny]

I've heard of it, Steph, but have not read it. Let us know what you think. How do they pick their book choices?

I see in the BBC APP that a 15 hour reading of the Iliad has just been  completed in the UK. We were just talking of it over in the Our Wild Days discussion. [/cp;pr]

Ancient Greece has been brought to life at the British Museum thanks to a marathon reading of one the Iliad by some of Britain’s most acclaimed actors.

Whether Homer would have approved of the Elgin Marbles being housed in Bloomsbury we will never know, but thousands flocked to the London institution to hear more than 60 artists take part in reading his epic poem among the historic treasures housed there.

Rupert Goold, artistic director of the Almeida Theatre, said putting on the event was “overwhelming” and jokingly compared it to organising Live Aid. “You don’t know who’s turning up or what it’ll be like,” he said. Academic Simon Goldhill, professor in Greek literature and culture at King’s College, Cambridge, introduced the work in front of an image of Homer, and read a passage of the text in its original language.


The first actor to take the stage was Simon Russell Beale, who last year starred as King Lear at the National Theatre, and he read for 30 minutes to a rapt audience.  No one moved from the benches, where there was seating for 100 spectators, for several hours and hundreds more gathered around to watch as the day went on – including some of the actors themselves while they were waiting for their turn to participate.

Tim Piggott-Smith was the last reader.

For more:  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/iliad-live-homers-epic-brought-to-life-in-marathon-reading-at-the-british-museum-10456475.html

Wow, isn't that something? I'd go to see Tim Piggott- Smith read anything after seeing him in the Jewel in the Crown.

____________________________

The Wall  Street Journal yesterday had a huge article on Beach Books we Haven't Read and how the trend has changed from reading that great tome you always intended to read, enriching yourself by its cadences at last, to a different sort of Beach  Book,  and how we don't finish those old classics,  and they hold over till next summer. And the next.


It made me think of all the famous "Great Books" I haven't read. Most of mine seem to be things like Narnia.  What would you say the most famous book of all time is you have not read? 

It also has an interesting article on the favorite books of author Alice Hoffman and I couldn't help notice that one of hers  was Gone Girl. The topic was Love Gone  Wrong, and here are her favorite books on the subject:

Heartburn  by Nora Ephron (1983)

The Photograph  by Penelope Lively (2003)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)

You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz (2014)

Euphoria by Lily King (2014)

Here's the article:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/alice-hoffman-1439565240?mg=id-wsj

I like Penelope Lively, and missed that one. I'll look it up.

[ginny]

I must admit my own taste in beach books type reading has changed, too. I tend to read trash and the wilder the better. For instance this summer I reread Reliquary. Love that book.  NYC this summer was offering a tour of abandoned subway stations. I wonder how popular it was. I'd love to see one. There IS one you can see from a train today, actually.  And am still reading the Mantel Cromwell series (again), 2nd time on Bring up the Bodies.

Guilty Pleasures, in the Preston and Childs books. Just absolutely love them. Escapism at its finest.  I have their new one right here: The Kraken Project.

(You know who's another super Guilty Pleasures Author? Peter Benchley, if you can get any of his.)   He was the son of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of Algonquin Round Table founder Robert Benchley.

You know one of his:   Jaws. He's gone now but he was seriously interested in the sea.  You'd be amazed how well he writes in his ocean books. I haven't read the others, the pirate books, etc.  The one on the giant squid (Beast)  was fantastic. Before his time with that one. People said, oh he's writing Sci Fi. And then they found a real one. Then another.  He didn't live to see that vindication.  They just found a giant pod in the ocean of squid eggs or something, unbelievable. Man was way before his time. Super good read.

What's YOUR guilty pleasure that you love reading? Any particular author?

[Frybabe]

Ginny, I zero in on everything Jack Campbell and Jack McDevitt, both are SciFi writers.

[PatH]

Me too, Frybabe, I'll fight my way across the galaxy and back with Campbell any time.

John Scalzi too (also sci-fi).

[BarbStAubrey]

I guess it would be called Beach reading but if I need a break I want something light that I can read in one sitting or two the most - usually it is something written by Carolyn Brown or Fannie Flagg or the lastest Agatha Raisin by M. C. Beaton - there are others but that is the tone.

I read Jonas Jonasson, a Swedish author, "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared"
great fun read and based on that I picked up "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden" - He is coming out with another this September however no date yet on the English version.

[BarbStAubrey]

OK if you have not joined us yet in Our Wild Days: Creating the Good Life on Senior Learn there is still plenty of time - all the focus questions are at the bottom of the heading so that any of your memories, books you have enjoyed  and ways of reading with us can easily be shared.

So far we have some wonderful memories shared - and so many books that some of us forgot about being shared. Help us make this a complete archive of who we are and what we are saying about books and Seniorlearn 20 years into this phenomenon of discussing books online - at times with the author - and meeting each other at various events.

Here are the focus questions for the next two days, Monday and Tuesday...

Monday & Tuesday   1.   Do you track the books you have read or the books you plan to read?
       - Do you have a stack of books TBR?
       - While reading do you underline passages or slip a marker to note certain phrases?
       - If you keep your books do you ever go back to find some passage half remembered?
       - Is there one book in your collection above all others with the most saved passages?
 
Aug. 17 ~ Aug. 18   2.   Are there any discussions that you did not join and now regret you did not read the book with the group?
       - Which book is it that you regret not joining?
       - Have you since read it or, is it still in your TBR pile?
 
Aug. 17 ~ Aug. 18    3.   Have you read a book on your own and then turned to our archived discussion after or while reading the book?
       - Did that help or open your eyes to new and different aspects of the story?
 
Aug. 17 ~ Aug. 18    4.   Had you seen the movie of a book we were discussing before the discussion and if so, did it make a difference how you understood the story and the characters?
       - Most movies reduce the number of subplots to one overall issue raised in the story. Did you notice this in any movie you saw before or after we discussed the book?
       - Did the movie focus the narrative for you or did you feel the story was changed or incomplete?

[Steph]

Finished Pickup and can hardly wait until Wednesday when the bookclub meets. I could see the turning, but it was still amazing.She is such a good author. The book club.. meets every other Wednesday from 1:30-3;30. People volunteer for facilitator.. I am new, so keep mouth firmly shut on the volunteer stuff.. They have been meeting for 4-5 years and have read an enormous amount of books.. Two weeks from now, it is Edward Abbey and the non fiction he did on a posting as a ranger in the desert.

[BarbStAubrey]

Our next focus on Our Wild Days: Creating the Good Life on Senior Learn

THREE Days for these Questions
Wed. Thur. Fri.   OK we need some lists – Remember High School when we made lists of our favorite things from colors to cookies to movie stars  - Well we need Lists - Lists in units of 10 would be great.

Aug. 19~20~21     – 10 of your favorite Books
  – 10 of your favorite books read and discussed on SeniorNet/Learn
  – 10 of your favorite Authors
  – 10 of your favorite Characters
 
Aug. 19~20~21      – 10 of your favorite movies that were books
  – 10 of your favorite phrases from the books we have read
  – 10 new bits of information you learned from our in-depth book discussions.
  – 10 of your favorite or most remembered discussions here on SeniorLearn.

[Steph]

not I said the little red hen. Lists are not my thing unless they are my to do ones.