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@karabaic@mastodon.social cover
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karabaic

@[email protected]

John Karabaic's account. he/him. BLM.

NYC MIT WPAFB CIN PDX, kinda in that order

Virtual plumber to https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Breakfast on the Bridges volunteer https://social.ridetrans.it/@bonbpdx

Working for tech companies since they made hardware.

The gurney is the reward, as my NeXT colleagues put it.

Expect book and media reviews, comments on science and technology policy, frequent #NoirAlley #TCMParty posts.

Banner from Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts

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karabaic , to bookstodon
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Amor Towles's Lincoln Highway is off to a great start. Loving what appears to
be a countdown/ticking clock in the section titles. 📚💙 @bookstodon

karabaic , to bookstodon
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Just finished A Gentleman in Moscow and it is lovely and satisfying and completely steeped in midcentury culture. I can't wait to watch the adaptation; I hope it lives up to the text but has its own things to say, just as this book was inspired by Tolstoy and Chekhov and so many others. 💙📚 @bookstodon

karabaic , to bookstodon
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The song Sonya Alone from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is lovely, simple, and devastating.

If you know this part of War & Peace (Book 2, Part 5, Chapter 15), where Sonya confronts Natasha over Anatole's letter & then stands guard by her door, please listen.

https://youtu.be/3HzGp1I2Qqg?si=V4WPQtp_F38XbhRN

@bookstodon

karabaic , to bookstodon
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My frustration with Sinnreich & Gilbert's The Secret Life of Data continues. How can scholars who came up with this great layered definition of data, information, & knowledge then make the statement, "Democracy is...enacted through algorithms?"

Algorithms operate on data, not the other layers.

💙📚 @bookstodon

Democracy is, and has always been, enacted through algorithms. We don't mean computer programs, obviously, but rather algorichms in the broader sense of the word: clear operating guidelines based on quantifable and reproducible protocols and procedures.

18+ karabaic , to bookstodon
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This will be a long thread about what may be an anachronism in War & Peace.

CW: self-harm, suicide

We read:

Natásha was very ill, having, as Márya Dmítrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she woke Sónya and told her what she had done. /1

@bookstodon

18+ karabaic OP ,
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....The necessary antidotes had been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so the countess had been sent for. (Maud translation)

I became curious about this because arsenic is a very serious poison, but, having read books like the Aubrey/Maturin series, I know that there wasn't much known about it and its action at the time. /2

18+ karabaic OP ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

And I don't think there was an antidote widely known at this point in the novel's timeline, 1811. If any of you could assist me in determining what Sonya might have administered as an antidote, I'd be grateful.

Arsenic was widely available as rat poison after the mass production of arsenic oxides as a byproduct of smelting in the late 1700's. Through Google Scholar, I've found one reference to recommended "treatments" in 1806: /3

18+ karabaic OP ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

"Coxe (1806) discussed applying milk, white eggs, water and opium in treating arsenic poisoned cases"[1][2] (footnotes at end of thread)

I've also found the book Poisoned Lives[3] which indicates that the reaction to arsenic varies depending on whether it was diluted with water. If the arsenic was ingested in large grains, it's likely much of it would pass through the digestive system unabsorbed. /4

18+ karabaic OP ,
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So, there's a chance that Natasha recovered despite any "antidotes" administered!

But there was no "antidote" known until Bunsen discovered iron oxide hydrate would act as a kind of chelating agent in 1833.[4]

Arsenic was front of mind around the time Tolstoy came of age and was writing W&P. Marsh had invented his method of detecting arsenic in the body in 1841[5]. The English Parliament passed the Arsenic Act in 1851 and ... /5

18+ karabaic OP ,
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...both Flaubert's Madam Bovary (1856) and Nicolai Leskov's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1865) featured arsenic.

My thinking at this point is that Tolstoy didn't know the science or the history of arsenic and just cribbed something that was in the air, mistakenly thinking there was an antidote in 1811. But I'd like more certainty.

Footnotes follow... /6

18+ karabaic OP ,
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[1] Afshari R. The Chronicle of Arsenic Poisoning in the 19th Century. Asia Pac J Med Toxicol 2016;5:36-41.

[2] Redman Coxe J. On the mode of detecting Arsenic in those poisoned thereby &c. &c: 'Remedies to save, if possible the life of a person who has taken Arsenic. Balck's Element of Chemistry. Phila Med Museum 1806;2:347.

/7

18+ karabaic OP ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

[3] Watson, Katherine. Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims. United Kingdom, Bloomsbury Academic, 2006. Pages 6-7 are relevant, but Google Books doesn't provide access to page 7.

4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bunsen

[5] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61472-5/fulltext

/FIN

18+ karabaic OP ,
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If you were following this longish thread on a possible anachronism in War and Peace a couple weeks back, I wrote my final findings up. Spoilers for Book 5, Part 5, Chapter 21. Discussion of suicide & poisoning. 📚💙 @bookstodon

Natasha, The Dragon, and the Great Anachronism of 1811
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Xagze-xWWNb9_9Jh3x-Up7PnBqkSbjmtTaY0ozWhqM/edit

karabaic , to bookstodon
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I have just started Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow because it complements my War & Peace slow read and the first chapter is lovely. I can easily imagine Count Alexander is a descendant of Count Ilya. 📚💙 @bookstodon

karabaic OP ,
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@bookstodon A Gentleman in Moscow continues to surprise and delight. Just finished Part 1. 📚💙

ergative , to bookstodon
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Hey, friends, I wrote a review of Foundation (the book--the OG!) for Nerds of a Feather.

(Don't click through if you love this book. I didn't much care for it.)

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/05/first-contact-foundation-by-isaac-asimov.html

@bookstodon

karabaic ,
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@jpaskaruk @peachfront @ergative @bookstodon Its conceit is "what if Marxist historical determinism were real", but it calls Marxism, "psychohistory". But it's like weather forecasting, not weather control, though, so there's no Marxist dogma for running things.

karabaic , to bookstodon
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Le Guin’s “The Wave of the Mind” is a good complement to Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer" and James Wood's "How Fiction Works". She emphasizes rhythm over word choice, says the rhythm picks the word, which is a different viewpoint than Francine Prose but somehow fits.

@bookstodon

karabaic , to bookstodon
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chapter 8 of is one of the finest chapters of American English-language fiction ever written.

@bookstodon

karabaic OP ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

@leapingwoman @bookstodon

It is an astounding work. Maybe it wasn't the right time for you to read it? I encourage you to try it again.

karabaic OP ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

@bookstodon

In particular, I plan to take some of the exercises in Le Guin's "The Wave in the Mind" and apply them to chapter 8 so I can understand exactly what McBride did there. The rhythms and words that establish them are awe-inspiring.

Each chapter is different tonally, the rhythms and words adapted to the character it highlights.

karabaic , to bookstodon
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Oh, my friends, I know this is a review from 2 years ago, but if you have not read 's and 's cold intellectual rage transformed into ironically dry humor of the highest sort, you need to read their review of 's

@bookstodon

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/04/21/why-biology-is-not-destiny-genetic-lottery-kathryn-harden/

And then read the reply from the author, letters to the editor, and the author's just absolutely perfect replies.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/06/09/why-biology-is-not-destiny-an-exchange/

karabaic , to bookstodon
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The Sociology Book, one in the DK "Big Ideas" series, does a good job of explaining the core ideas in Sociology, and is an excellent complement to targeted reading & classes (such as Harvey Molotch's NYU class on Youtube).

I wish the index were better. I have a sneaking feeling a human indexer was not used, and a textbook is not a place to cut that corner.

@bookstodon

karabaic , to bookstodon
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repost from BlueSky for @bookstodon

Soon, The Language of the Night will be available once again! Ursula's 1979 collection of essays will be reissued by Scribner on May 14th, with a new introduction from author Ken Liu.

https://bsky.app/profile/ursulakleguin.bsky.social/post/3kib7af7hon2u

More details: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Language-of-the-Night/Ursula-K-Le-Guin/9781668034903

Jtmoriartywriter , to bookstodon
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Dear friends,

@bookstodon etc. Here is my Tentative reading list for 2024. I am for 12 novels a year, but life, writing, my family, it can all get in the way. For '23 I read 12 things, but they weren't all novels, so thats a half pass. The list:

Any sequels I'm up to (3 trilogies in this case), lotr i read recently but I loved it so much I'm thinking of doing it again. Dispossessed was on 23s list.

Have you read any of these, what's your take? Any suggestions or definite 'don't read that!'

Cat tax, Elspeth hiding behind a Christmas tree. A naughty torti up to no good.

karabaic ,
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@Jtmoriartywriter @JonSparks @bookstodon

My local PDX SF book club is doing a 13-month The Dispossessed slow read, one chapter per month.

karabaic ,
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@Jtmoriartywriter @JonSparks @bookstodon Nah, we just get together & drink & talk

Narayoni , to bookstodon
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Now that's exactly what I have always believed... My moral code in a nutshell, simple and to the point,with religion having nothing to do with it:
"What have I always believed?
That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right."
by @bookstodon

karabaic ,
@karabaic@mastodon.social avatar

@PeteZ @Narayoni @bookstodon I’ve always thought this swept all the chips from the table in the rigged game of Pascal’s Wager.

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