Orientation

Orientation of the windows in rooms I've had for the past 13 years.

Happy Home - South and East Windows
Mosers - East
House in Nang Lae - South and West Windows
House in Bandu - South
Isaksons - West
Dorm Room 1 - North
Dorm Room 2 - Northeast
Basement at Zach's - North
Wallingford - West
Queen Anne 1 - South
Oxford - South
Queen Anne 2 - West
Capitol Hill - East

East: 3.5
West: 4
North: 2.5
South: 5

East is the ideal direction, for sunrise. But I would take any orientation of window, or any size of room, for a room that wasn't ground level or basement.

My window at the Bandu house caught a lot of the afternoon sun, and a lot of my books were subsequently damaged.

fashion

 

'Last Stand' Canvas Mocassins - $70
'White Flight' Single-Source Cotton Socks - $25
'Emergency' Topless Jumpsuit - $180 (belt loops available by special order)
Pinstripe Rayon/Polyester Shirt with Pre-Popped Collar - $120
'Blu-nibrow' Indoor Shades - $65

21st Century Scientists Have it So Easy

After several years of collecting specimens and keeping journals in the Amazon, AR Wallace was on his way back to England when his ship caught fire and sank. He ended up spending 10 days on an open boat before being picked up by another ship. He notes in the November, 1852 issue of Zoologist that "The only things which I saved were my watch, my drawings of fishes, and a portion of my notes and journals. Most of my journals, notes on the habits of animals, and drawings of the transformations of insects, were lost."

A few pages down, I started reading about another naturalist named Julian Deby. The account is that "suddenly he was himself seized with the malignant fever of the country, and had his whole body covered with tumours. He was for six weeks completely laid up, and nearly all the time unconscious; when he came to himself, his first thought was for his collections: alas! his Indian servant had forgotten to fill up with tar the plates laid under the bench which supported his boxes, and the ants (a small red species) had devoured every specimen in his collection."

I love that whoever wrote up that second report paused to specify what type of servant failed to protect the research, and what type of ant ate Deby's collection. A true scientist.

markets

In the Malay Archipelago, written in the 1860s, AR Wallace comments on the state of Timor. He notes that it is more trouble than profit to the Dutch and Portuguese rulers, proposes a few changes, then finishes with this:

Under such a system the natives would soon perceive that European government was advantageous to them. They would begin to save money, and property being rendered secure they would rapidly acquire new wants and new tastes, and become large consumers of European goods. This would be a far surer source of profit to their rulers than imposts and extortion...

While Wallace didn't anticipate the end of colonial rule, isn't this more or less what has happened? The formation of new desires and new markets?