(no subject)

I gave up on "The Shallows" yesterday. I was rolling my eyes towards the end of chapter 3 and wanted to know how many more chapters.... yoiks, lots. I skipped to "The Juggling Brain" and listened to a long metaphor about how short term memory is a thimble, long term is a ocean, and reading allowed us to carefully dump the thimble into the ocean, but the internet has too many faucets all running too fast.

I find myself irritated on so many levels. One: is the western tradition of linear thought epitomized by the monograph the pinnacle? Or could networked and chaotic experience help us to understand better the dynamics of many bodied systems? And what about other cultural frames? (At least he noted the mental schemas concept before the thimble metaphor.)

My final judgement: yes the author has done plenty of research and can construct and tell a good story, but the book itself seems shallow to me it's narrow cultural outlook.

I should pick up Lakoff's _Where Mathematics Comes From_ and read some real cognitive science.

Meanwhile, Mountain View public library's choices for audiobooks seemed limited, and something happened to the library card i got in Foster City this spring: it's marked expired as of 15 April.

Working a fairly intense east coast day today. Off for a 6am ...sigh ... video conference.