Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I have not been doing anything too exciting this morning. I took a few minutes to look at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online for business management book titles. I read some more of The Future of the Internet.

I read a little bit of the documentation for Opera. I also looked at Entrecard for a little bit. It has been a slow but steady morning. I even took a short walk around the neighborhood and bought a cup of coffee from the local deli. The coffee woke me up quite nicely.

Because everything is pretty quiet today, I went through and made sure all my links in my sidebar are still working. It is good to do this occassionally. Websites and blogs have a tendency to evaporate unexplicably. No dead links here if possible.

I also checked my Sitemeter to see where my web traffic was coming from. Most of it is coming from Google Blogsearch and Entrecard. There is a smattering of hits from Twitter, Yahoo, and Fuelmyblog, as well as a few individual websites.

I am doing housecleaning for the blog. If you want to, feel free to make any suggestions you think might help to improve this blog.

Morning Thoughts, A Word Quiz

O is for Opera, the browsing software.

Morning Thoughts

I am quite happy to say, my car passed inspection so I don't have to worry about this for another year.  I tried to drive over to the Queens main library, but there was a giant street fair and all the parking was taken.  I ended up driving for a little while, then heading home.

I am finding the Opera browser to be most satisfying.  It is even faster than I thought.  Browsing and loading websites happens very quickly.  It makes Entrecard dropping go fast.  I still haven't looked through all the features but I like it better than Internet Explorer.

I read a bit more of The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It.  I am up to page 88.  At this point in the book, the author is talking about innovation.  It is much harder for large companies to innovate because it requires them to focus on things which are not necessarily their major selling points.  There is also a bit on how customers create innovations with existing products.  For example, 20% of mountain bikers are likely to modify their bikes to make them easier to ride.   The author uses many general ideas in this work as well as ideas on the internet.

Just as an aside.  I've noticed that there are not as many Star Trek books as used to be put out.  I guess this is because the show is no longer on television.  In fact, I see no star trek books as part of the Locus bestsller list.  Star Wars seems to be a lot more prominent lately.  Dark Horse comics has been producing a lot of Star Wars comics, and Pocket Books has been producing a lot of Star Wars paperbacks.  There are a few series which I have not ordered a lot of which seem to be at a lot of libraries.  These are Warhammer 40K and Forgotten Realms.  Maybe, I like to have my science fiction paperbacks to have original stories.  I might order a few of these just to show we have them.  Also Halo is another popular series that is being put out as paperback books.

A Word Quiz

This was a nice little entertaining quiz which I found while looking at the Oxford University Press Blog. http://www.oup-concisequiz.co.uk/  

Graphic Novels and Opera, Random Thoughts

Brunnhilde The Valkyrie by Arthur Rackham

There is a relation between comic books and opera. This is not discussed that much. I hear it in passing at many comic book shops. The superhero dresses in a cape and tights, so does the opera hero. Opera heros and villains are larger than life and exaggerated. Batman and Superman couldn't be more exaggerated in presentation. Batman's parents die after a night watching Faust. The opera is as full of dramatic flourishes as the comic book.

P. Craig Russell is the comic artist who is best known for translating operas into comic books. His best known translation is the Ring of the Nibelungen. It is very beautiful full color work. He has also translated Bluebeard, Salome, the Magic Flute, Parsifal, and many other operas into comic book form. The illustrations are very beautiful to look at. He has a series of books called the P. Craig Russell Library of Opera Adapatations which is a multivolume set.

Another recent graphic novel which draws heavily from the opera is V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. There are many parallels between this graphic novel and The Phantom of the Opera. The costume of the hero includes a Guy Fawkes mask, cape, and hat. The hero is also prone to dramatic presentation.

This is just a thought for the moment to discuss. I am trying to find academic references to these parallels but they are not there. It should be looked at more closely. Please comment on this.