Tag Archive for 'scratches'

Darker Than the Deepest Sea

The average reader of Darker Than the Deepest Sea is not someone who bought it choosing at random in a bookshop, knowing nothing about the life and the work of Nick Drake: their involvement ranges from mild fanatism to strong obsession… even though reading a book requires at least to be able to move eyes and hands, so they aren’t in the deepest sea (and you know what I mean).

I enjoyed this book and the first words that came to my mind to describe it were: sober, calm, clear… very English (its rhythm increases just from Part 3). It provides many details and a deep analysis but author’s opinions are never exaggerated or naive: Trevor Dann is a former Head of BBC Music Entertainment and his professional skills are showed clearly.

An evident example of the deep work he has done is on page 69, where he describes the letter that Rodney Drake wrote to the tutor of Nick in Cambridge; Dann noticed that

There is a change in the shade of ink in the final paragraphs which suggest that they were added later (…)

I suppose that finding this old letter was not easy and observing “a change in the shade of ink” shows great attention and a very sharp eye.

As I’ve just written, the prose of Mr. Dann is calm and placid but here and there you can find some fun: the most unbelievable and amusing story he reports is the adventure in Morocco (beginning at page 124) that worths alone the price of the book! :)

On page 243, Dann proves once again his professionalism with a bad assessment for the song “Sunday”: a book about Drake is not a good reason to avoid negative notes.

Funnily, on page 258 he remembers to us that

bootlegs (…) illegally distributed

but just a few lines following, on the very next page, he starts to describe one by one most of the songs you can find on them. :)

My last note is that the website La Luna Rosa is written in Spanish: it’s not Italian as stated, although “La Luna Rosa” (”The pink moon” in English) is a valid name with the same meaning in both Spanish and Italian.

I didn’t write everything, of course: the book contains many interesting things I didn’t mention here. I suggest to buy the book and express your acknowledgement to Trevor Dann.

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Aurelio Peccei

In some way, a century after his birth, Aurelio Peccei is still standing.

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Local maximus of Oil extraction

Passing peak oil, skeptical people would say:

Soon or later, we’ll reach again the past peak… it’s just a question of time.

Strictly speaking, it’s not possible to negate this statement but, thinking about it, I’ve started to wonder about another question:

What is the longest period in history between a local peak and its next greater or equal value?

To find the answer to my question, I’ve used:

As you notice, I wasn’t able to find data for the 1959-1964 period but fortunately it’s not a problem because the answer - according to the available data, of course - is: 14 years (therefore it’s more than the missing years). This period of 14 years is placed between 1979 and 1993.

That would’nt be enough for the incorrigible sceptic but it might be of some interest for anyone else. :)

You can download here the computed data:

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Astonishing result

“very” and “unsound” are two common words but, using a search engine, I’ve just discovered that, not including “Fruit Tree”, their combined use is quite rare.

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Let’s fall together

Marco (extending the game to a common “business as usual” friend) has restricted an old meme of mine to a single point… the old one was about our worst predictions: that’s a good choice because trying to guess when Crude Oil would be exchanged at around 150 USD/barrel is both sad and hard. It’s sad because it’s like predicting when you will stop breathing while being hanged (!) and it’s hard as well because even Prof. Ugo Bardi (Italian text) showed his surprise about the rate at which the price is increasing.
And? I don’t know, really… but a meme is just a game so let’s play it! :)
After a twenty seconds thought, my bet is: it would reach that price around the second half of next July… but please, don’t give me a prize because there is not a final winner here.

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Waves of desolation

I didn’t find the reference but it seems that Plutarch once wrote that the main difference between boys and men is the deep desolation a man feels immediately after a moment of ecstasy. It’s ages since I was a boy and being aware of it doesn’t help anyhow.

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Given you meaning

Listening to “Clothes of sand” once again, I started to think about its sentence

Given you meaning but taken my place

How many times have I bartered my own nature for knowledge? I don’t see myself and I won’t anymore.

Clothes of sand have covered your face

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A versatile engineer :)

According to an EETimes article, the OCSE thinks that

Engineers’ personality traits make them excellent (…) on-the-ground terrorists

After the mafia computer expert (the contemporary age version of the mafia bookkeeper) now we have the terrorist engineer.
Well… what can I say? Being a computer engineer, I have two chances and due to this financial crisis, that’s like an ace in the hole! :)

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A nauseating shame

Tibetan flags banned today in the streets of Paris. That story has come too far: as an ex-torch-bearer, I’m enormously disgusted.

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Iceware

Software is like an iceberg: what people see is just one-tenth of it.

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