Just bought a Sony Reader and have downloaded lots of free ebooks from Google Books - great to have store of reading for next trip abroad!!!
The Reader uses the epub format which I have decoded as being a fancy zip file with xml/xhtml contents.
After much trial and effort I finally discovered Smashwords which will publish your book for free and in all formats including epub. I have epublished "About Time" on Smashwords.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Publishing Record?
I have just e-published three novels all at the same time.
To access them go to my e-store:
www.lulu.com/desatclaregreenedotcom
Sorry about the long script but that's how it worked out.
Hope you appreciate and enjoy the works.
To access them go to my e-store:
www.lulu.com/desatclaregreenedotcom
Sorry about the long script but that's how it worked out.
Hope you appreciate and enjoy the works.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Dawkins Interview
I have not seen the Late Late Show for years. I guess I have an allergic reaction to the parochial nature of the interviews. Against my better judgement I let the channel changer linger on RTE last night and if it were not for the recognition of the face of Richard Dawkins I would have as usual swiftly moved on. Yet curiousity held back my trigger happy finger on the the remote.
Now Mr. Dawkins is an intellectual voice that I have great respect for. He has single-handedly taken on the God paradigm that most of the world's intellectals while agreeing with his views are slow to upset the cosy consensus of traditional religion. His greater contribution to human knowledge and understanding cmes from the domain of biological evolution of which he has been an unfettered champion. Well not not quite so unfettered - he has his critics both within and without his profession.
Within his own profession he has caused dissent by his strong advocacy of the idea of the selfish gene as the driver of all biological change. The arguments are mostly of an academic nature and do not hold the interest of the general public. What holds the interest of the general public is his struggle with the ideas of conservative societies mainly those of creationism. He has had gladitorial battles of many fronts in combatting the naievety of religious orthodoxy.
Dawkins found himself in such an arena of conservatism on the Late Late. I didn't get the full interview but I cringed at the level of questioning that was put to him. It reminded me of some of the people who when on first hearing that I professed no religious belief wondered how I could live at all. Their worldview was so enclosed that the narrow windows of their prison gave only the barest view of greater hugely diverse external world.
Mr Dawkins was gracious and accepted each question politely and seriously giving his best considered reply. Why he should have to answer questions about his own eventual demise remains a mystery but such was the level of discourse.
Admittedly my own admiration for this champion of evolution is not unbounded. Evolution is a theory and a good theory having had good evidential support. Yet like Newtonian dynamics it may yet be seen to be but a special theory that operates satisfactorily within its basis domain - bio-evolution. The grander theory may be based in the world of the quantum wherein the laws of physics and chemistry have their origin. Ironically I am criticising Mr Dawkins for being himself too parochial and conservative in maintaining a world view that stays within the confines of the living.
I have theorised elsewhere that it is memory and not genes that the cosmos strives to maintain. Biological evolution is a form of memory growth that has occurred in this infinitesimal part of our galaxy which is in turn infinitesimal compared to the group of galaxies of which it is a part least of all the entire cosmos. To really get to understand evolution we must travel in space and time and maybe in dimensions and in multiverses.
Now Mr. Dawkins is an intellectual voice that I have great respect for. He has single-handedly taken on the God paradigm that most of the world's intellectals while agreeing with his views are slow to upset the cosy consensus of traditional religion. His greater contribution to human knowledge and understanding cmes from the domain of biological evolution of which he has been an unfettered champion. Well not not quite so unfettered - he has his critics both within and without his profession.
Within his own profession he has caused dissent by his strong advocacy of the idea of the selfish gene as the driver of all biological change. The arguments are mostly of an academic nature and do not hold the interest of the general public. What holds the interest of the general public is his struggle with the ideas of conservative societies mainly those of creationism. He has had gladitorial battles of many fronts in combatting the naievety of religious orthodoxy.
Dawkins found himself in such an arena of conservatism on the Late Late. I didn't get the full interview but I cringed at the level of questioning that was put to him. It reminded me of some of the people who when on first hearing that I professed no religious belief wondered how I could live at all. Their worldview was so enclosed that the narrow windows of their prison gave only the barest view of greater hugely diverse external world.
Mr Dawkins was gracious and accepted each question politely and seriously giving his best considered reply. Why he should have to answer questions about his own eventual demise remains a mystery but such was the level of discourse.
Admittedly my own admiration for this champion of evolution is not unbounded. Evolution is a theory and a good theory having had good evidential support. Yet like Newtonian dynamics it may yet be seen to be but a special theory that operates satisfactorily within its basis domain - bio-evolution. The grander theory may be based in the world of the quantum wherein the laws of physics and chemistry have their origin. Ironically I am criticising Mr Dawkins for being himself too parochial and conservative in maintaining a world view that stays within the confines of the living.
I have theorised elsewhere that it is memory and not genes that the cosmos strives to maintain. Biological evolution is a form of memory growth that has occurred in this infinitesimal part of our galaxy which is in turn infinitesimal compared to the group of galaxies of which it is a part least of all the entire cosmos. To really get to understand evolution we must travel in space and time and maybe in dimensions and in multiverses.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Enter Nama!!
We now know someting of the infamous Nama proposals.€54 billion is to be coughed up by the unfortunate taxpayer for the most unwanted bits of real estate and property in the world.This is by far and away the greatest single investment ever made by any sovereign government relative to economic size. It is a reckless punt into the unknown made on our behalf by politicians who were the very people who underpinned the whole fiasco in the first place.
If the downside of the deal prevails then the cost to the taxpayer may be as much as €20 billion. Each of us is donatig some tens of thousands of euro to a dead duck which will give us nothing in return.
Is it too late to pull back from the brink of such economic madness?
If the downside of the deal prevails then the cost to the taxpayer may be as much as €20 billion. Each of us is donatig some tens of thousands of euro to a dead duck which will give us nothing in return.
Is it too late to pull back from the brink of such economic madness?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
New four letter word in Irish -Nama
The National Assets Management Agency or Nama is becoming the latest word to rival those vulgar expletives that must be deleted from more gentle texts. It denotes a paradigm of non-ethical behaviours that creep through the political and financial worlds to emerge unscathed wearing the benign g. low of the poor taxpayers bail-out.
Never in the history of the known world has such a strange set of circumstances prevailed. A mere handful of individuals - some in the realm of land speculation and development, others their greasy bankers ogling large and excessive annual bonuses - will be the lucky recipients of the charity of the millions of taxpayers of a beleagured country. That paupered isle will endure decades of penury for the sake of this few.
Someone should cry halt. "Halt!!!"
The money involved is measured in billions. Billions are not the type of number that the average person is readily acquainted with. Figures as large as this are usually used in the realms of cosmology where one measures the distances and times of the scales of the universe. If the government on behalf of the taxpayer provides a €60 billion Nama bailout it is equivalent of €4 for every year that the universe has been in existence! The mind boggles at this excess.
If for instance we surmise that between developers and bankers there are some 2000 individuals who are centre stage in this sordid affair then the cost per individual is a cool €30 million! As many of these individuals have amassed large private wealth over the 'good times' why not just take all their private wealth and see what the residual balance is. I hear shouts of protest. What about constitutional rights of the individual and his or her property? To those I say what of the constitutional rights of the millions of taxpayers who are being penalised for corrupt behaviours on the part of developers and their backing banking institutions. It is clear where the balance lies.
The logical route out of this mire is to take ownership of the non-functioning banking system. This will allow determination of the true extent of the quagmire. All non-performing loans should be called in. The defaulting developers exit stage left without a penny. A real 'Nama' manages the defaulted projects to maximise the long term potential of the toxic assets. A separate healthy state bank provides real banking services to business and the public to be sold off at a later stage when economic conditions dictate. At the end of this sorry tale the impact on the poor taxpayer will be minimised, a new highly regulated banking sector will have been formed (minus highly paid and over-bonused executives) and a new regulated property market will slowly emerge.
Never in the history of the known world has such a strange set of circumstances prevailed. A mere handful of individuals - some in the realm of land speculation and development, others their greasy bankers ogling large and excessive annual bonuses - will be the lucky recipients of the charity of the millions of taxpayers of a beleagured country. That paupered isle will endure decades of penury for the sake of this few.
Someone should cry halt. "Halt!!!"
The money involved is measured in billions. Billions are not the type of number that the average person is readily acquainted with. Figures as large as this are usually used in the realms of cosmology where one measures the distances and times of the scales of the universe. If the government on behalf of the taxpayer provides a €60 billion Nama bailout it is equivalent of €4 for every year that the universe has been in existence! The mind boggles at this excess.
If for instance we surmise that between developers and bankers there are some 2000 individuals who are centre stage in this sordid affair then the cost per individual is a cool €30 million! As many of these individuals have amassed large private wealth over the 'good times' why not just take all their private wealth and see what the residual balance is. I hear shouts of protest. What about constitutional rights of the individual and his or her property? To those I say what of the constitutional rights of the millions of taxpayers who are being penalised for corrupt behaviours on the part of developers and their backing banking institutions. It is clear where the balance lies.
The logical route out of this mire is to take ownership of the non-functioning banking system. This will allow determination of the true extent of the quagmire. All non-performing loans should be called in. The defaulting developers exit stage left without a penny. A real 'Nama' manages the defaulted projects to maximise the long term potential of the toxic assets. A separate healthy state bank provides real banking services to business and the public to be sold off at a later stage when economic conditions dictate. At the end of this sorry tale the impact on the poor taxpayer will be minimised, a new highly regulated banking sector will have been formed (minus highly paid and over-bonused executives) and a new regulated property market will slowly emerge.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Readily Accepted Theories (Big Bangers)
One the theories that has come to almost accepted as true is the 'Big Bang' theory. The evidence for it relies heavily on the discovery of residual cosmic background microwave radiation permeating all of space. This radiation with the precise equilibrium profile of black body radiation suggesting that it emanated from deep within a gigantic hot fireball posited to be the original Big Bang has certainly been well studied and characterised. Other evidence for the Big Bang theory relates to the precise coincidence of amounts of helium in the universe and the value emerging from theoretical calculations. Super-computer modeling of galaxy cluster formation also mirrors the universe as we currently see it.
Powerful as these evidences are they are a long way from definitive proof. This is why I am bemused at the lack of critique of the theory. Is this scientific laziness? Or is the scientific community smug about its cleverness at coming up with such a good theory given the scant evidence.
Fred Hoyle, who inadvertantly gave the theory its name, would not be satisfied with the lack of critique. There are many grey areas in the theory - inflation, galaxy formation, so called dark matter and energy. The greatest grey area of all is the singularity at the pont of zero time.
Powerful as these evidences are they are a long way from definitive proof. This is why I am bemused at the lack of critique of the theory. Is this scientific laziness? Or is the scientific community smug about its cleverness at coming up with such a good theory given the scant evidence.
Fred Hoyle, who inadvertantly gave the theory its name, would not be satisfied with the lack of critique. There are many grey areas in the theory - inflation, galaxy formation, so called dark matter and energy. The greatest grey area of all is the singularity at the pont of zero time.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Is Northern Ireland for real?
Did anyone notice that the DUP MEP elected in recent elections refused to shake hands with the Sinn Fein MEP as they encountered each other on the winner's podium?
Not once did the local BBC take up on this sectarian/racist behaviour.Their subsequent interviews with DUP representatives were eerily silent about behaviour that had it occurred in any other European country would be headline news with demands for the party involved to resign.
Not once did the local BBC take up on this sectarian/racist behaviour.Their subsequent interviews with DUP representatives were eerily silent about behaviour that had it occurred in any other European country would be headline news with demands for the party involved to resign.
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