What Vise Do You Use

On 8/12/05 10:02 AM, in article
, "Scott Seidman"
wrote:

"Wolfgang" wrote in
:


"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...
"Wolfgang" wrote in
:

Having just read fifteen pages of the most powerful and humbling
prose I have ever set eyes on, ...


Are you rereading "Jaws" then? That book makes me tear up, too.

Nah, nothing as quotidian as that. "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."

It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples
of a
gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water. and
the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a
crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of
food. It was another busy day beginning....

Wolfgang
bach rocks.



The epigraph of my dissertation is from Moby Dick

"The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he
hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom
are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand
voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material
factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles;
those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the
opened casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal!
then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy
subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar."

Did you get marked down for that? I mean, that's all about hearing and
listening and speaking, not torsional eye movement!

:-)

B

ps. You still planning a trip down here this fall? Should I enquire with
our TU if we can have you come give your talk?

"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...

The epigraph of my dissertation is from Moby Dick

"The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he
hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom
are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand
voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material
factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles;
those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the
opened casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal!
then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy
subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar."

A fascinating metaphor.....for a number of reasons. First, of course, is
the fact that it works brilliantly. Then there is the historical
significance; power looms were on the cutting edge of mid-19th century
technology.....as the computer is in our own day. Makes one wonder if, a
hundred and fifty years from now, the gee-whiz boxes on our desks will be as
quaint (and largely ignored or forgotten by most of the world) as the still
vibrant weaving industry is today. Interestingly, such metaphors had pretty
much the same power to illustrate and bolster a simplistic mechanistic view
of the universe then as they do to this day.....witness the brain as
computer and DNA as code models. Even more delicious, the computer as we
know it is a more or less lineal descendant of those fabulous (if somewhat
more boisterous) engineering marvels. Various schemes and devices for
controlling complex patterns in the making of textiles were important
precursors in the development of mechanical computation machines which in
turn were instrumental in the genesis of their electronic descendants.

And then there is the applicability of that final cautionary sentence.


Wolfgang

William Claspy wrote in news:BF2228DB.A694%
:

Did you get marked down for that? I mean, that's all about hearing and
listening and speaking, not torsional eye movement!

:-)

B

ps. You still planning a trip down here this fall? Should I enquire with
our TU if we can have you come give your talk?



Tell me you didn't run down the hall and pull the dissertation off the
shelf!!

Let me see if I can wangle a fall talk w/ BME, and I'll get back to you

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

"Wolfgang" wrote in
:

"The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that
he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on
the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the
thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all
material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the
flying spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the
walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villainies
been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din
of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard
afar."

A fascinating metaphor.....for a number of reasons.

Each time I read it, I get more out of it.

The weaver-god likens to the concept of the Great Engineer type god
brought about through Cartesian philosophy. It took Darwin to really
start putting an end to more mystic philosophies. Melville comes along
and starts writing about the weaver god about 15 years after the Beagle
(another ship on a different quest), but a tad before the Origin of
Species. One wonders if Darwinism was leaking out already, and if it
influenced Melville. Of course, the industrial rev is driving this as
well.

The next interesting part is that this weaver god is deafened by his own
devine actions. God might be great, but he doesn't have the wherewithal
to hear our pitiful whinings far below the pitch of his more celestial
mechinations.

When we "look upon the loom", we, too, are deafened. Very interesting,
on its own, that we suffer from the same problem as the Divine. But what
is "looking on the loom"? I've always thought of it as man's quest for
understanding (which is why I thought this appropriate for an epigraph),
but there's likely thousands of ways to interpret this. How, then, can
one escape from the loom to hear the voices? Is this possible? Is it
like the uncertainty princple-- by looking at it, do we change it?

Apparently, the voices can be freed by tearing down the walls. Again,
interesting in its own right, but also telling that Melville tells us how
we mortals can hear the voices (can you see the fnords??), but doesn't
tell us whether the weaver-god will ever hear the voices, or what he
needs to do to hear the voices. Also, what happens once the voices are
freed? Do things become better? Do we know or understand more?
Well--"villianies are detected"! Is this a good thing? Are
"villianies" underlying everything that is? Are we better off not even
trying to look at what's on or beyond or underneath the loom, and just
accept whatever the weaver-god weaves for us (or around us)?

As far as the fishing literature goes, Moby Dick is at the top of my
list.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

On 8/12/05 11:26 AM, in article
, "Scott Seidman"
wrote:

William Claspy wrote in news:BF2228DB.A694%
:

Did you get marked down for that? I mean, that's all about hearing and
listening and speaking, not torsional eye movement!

:-)

B

ps. You still planning a trip down here this fall? Should I enquire with
our TU if we can have you come give your talk?



Tell me you didn't run down the hall and pull the dissertation off the
shelf!!

We got 'em all (well, not *all* of them, but a lot of them...) digitized, so
it was a mere click-click-click. Didn't even have to get off my lazy bum
and go downstairs! :-)

And actually, it is of course cataloged, so anyone could have gone to our
OPAC and done an author search for Seidman, Scott and boom, there it is. Or
to be more accurate, there they are- your masters thesis is in the catalog
as well (though not, apparently, important enough to be digitized ;-)

Let me see if I can wangle a fall talk w/ BME, and I'll get back to you

Great!
Bill

William Claspy wrote in
:

We got 'em all (well, not *all* of them, but a lot of them...)
digitized, so it was a mere click-click-click. Didn't even have to
get off my lazy bum and go downstairs! :-)

Those *******s, going digital. That was the time that laserprinters with
the type of access you needed to print out a dissertation were a big deal,
and getting the damn thing copied for archiving costed an arm and a leg.

Well, at least I didn't need to type the damn thing. I swear, I know
people who I suspect got married just so they could have someone to type
their dissertion for free.


--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

"Frank Reid" wrote in message
...
I know, this should be over on the tying group, but this group is a bit
more
active.
What tying vise do you use?
If you could buy a new one tomorrow, what would it be?

I'll start:
Use the Danvise (original Danica, not Orvis)
Want to buy a Norvise.


I own a Renzetti Presentation......I want nothing more. Avoid the NorVise
like the plague.........
Tom
--
Frank Reid
Euthanize to respond

"Thomas Littleton" wrote in
news:XiuLe.1050$MH1.800@trndny01:


"Frank Reid" wrote in message
I'll start:
Use the Danvise (original Danica, not Orvis)
Want to buy a Norvise.


I own a Renzetti Presentation......I want nothing more. Avoid the
NorVise like the plague......... Tom


....and I own a Renzetti Traveler with cam, ditto on want nothing more.

Frank Sr.
....well maybe a Shania Twain blow up doll. :-))

...and I own a Renzetti Traveler with cam, ditto on want nothing more.

Frank Sr.
...well maybe a Shania Twain blow up doll. :-))


that speaks to a vice more than a vise.......
Tom

George Cleveland wrote:

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005 13:38:55 -0400, "Frank Reid"
wrote:


I know, this should be over on the tying group, but this group is a bit more
active.
What tying vise do you use?
If you could buy a new one tomorrow, what would it be?

I'll start:
Use the Danvise (original Danica, not Orvis)
Want to buy a Norvise.



Griffin 2A. Cheap and works for me.


g.c.


Ditto for me too, George. Had mine for ages, and I've gotten rid of my
other vise.

Any word on what the Montana Rotary is like?

MB//