| MatC
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| 160312. Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:14 am |
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| I agree with egg - though I suppose Flash's cause and effect argument makes sense, too. But it does sound like good propaganda: "Fear not, your leader never sleeps: he guards over you always." |
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| eggshaped
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| 160313. Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:17 am |
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I reckon that Thatcher probably didn't sleep very much just before elections etc, when under pressure with a lot of work to do. We all do that.
Then I didn't work for her, so I'd probably trust your friend over my skepticism. |
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| MatC
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| 160316. Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:21 am |
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| Flash wrote: | That's great. For the notes; that article lists Napoleon, Edison and Churchill amongst people who supposedly needed very little sleep. Thatcher is often mentioned in this connection also, and I think I've seen somewhere that Mussolini left the lights on in his office to give the impression to passers-by that he was working late at night (which might be true for all I know, though it sounds to me like black propaganda).
Who else? |
Link to Elephants at post 159615 |
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| Flash
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| 160321. Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:29 am |
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| Very good - just to put it up in lights (because we're looking for ways to get elephants in everywhere), Mat's referring to the fact that elephants also have a 3-hour-a-night sleep thing going on. |
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| MatC
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| 160323. Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:30 am |
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Not that I'm obsessed or anything. |
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| MatC
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| 172529. Mon May 07, 2007 9:35 am |
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| Quote: | Scientists have discovered how to promote deep sleep in way that may mean that a siesta replaces a full eight hours' sleep a night.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found [a way] to stimulate the slow waves typical of deep sleep at the flick of a switch which sends the harmless magnetic pulse through the skulls of sleeping volunteers, they report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
- DailyTelegraph
O brave new world ... |
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| dr.bob
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| 172619. Tue May 08, 2007 3:34 am |
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Judge Dredd has been using sleep machines for years to get eight hours' sleep in a few minutes.
s: my collection of 2000ADs
(I can't believe the Telegraph didn't mention that in their article!) |
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| MatC
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| 172630. Tue May 08, 2007 4:29 am |
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| I'll bet that's where the University of FortyWincs got the idea, though. |
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| MatC
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| 323725. Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:42 am |
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| Flash wrote: | | s: So Far, So Near by ... Mat Coward. |
Now available as an e-book, apparently, from Fictionwise. Has anyone ever read an e-book? |
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| suze
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| 323902. Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:03 am |
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Any number, but not ones which were also readily available in the conventional form.
Since husband makes a small part of his income from selling the things (mainly obscure sports statistics which just don't sell enough to be viable in printed form), I'd best not knock them ... |
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| MatC
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| 324064. Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:53 pm |
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What do they look like, suze? I mean, do the pages on the screen look like pages from a book? Do you read them on your computer, or do you use a ... I don't know, a wrist-mounted microwave orbital sensor unit?
About a quarter of a century after I first encountered the idea of e-books, suddenly - in the past two months - they have become of a small importance to me, and I am having to dig out old contracts to check my e-rights. It seems as if they are undergoing some sort of surge. Has there been a technological development, or something? |
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| suze
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| 324091. Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:29 pm |
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If one reads an e-book on a computer - which is certainly the most common way to read them - they look much like reading a PDF. Which is unsurprising, since a lot of them are PDFs (including all the ones husband does).
Others are laid out as plain text files (the format used by Project Gutenberg), in the style of a webpage, or in the style of a word processed document. Ultimately there aren't really that many ways to present pages of text, and the only obvious difference between formats like PDF and those such as Microsoft's .lit format is that the latter can include annoying things like Digital Rights Management features. (This book will self destruct after you have read it three times, that sort of thing.)
As for reading them, well there are purpose built readers which look something like ...
Few people use them though - the majority of e-books are either read at the computer or printed out onto A4 paper. (Depending on the size of the print run and the length of the book, this can have a lower cost of ownership than buying a printed book.) |
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| MatC
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| 324284. Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:38 am |
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Thanks, suze. I can certainly see the benefit of these things if you were going on a cycling holiday round Australia - dozens of books, one book-sized piece of luggage - but other than that, I suppose I'm just the wrong generation. I do know some young people who seem much more comfortable reading anything from a screen rather than paper; it's their natural environment.
I shall be very interested to see if, as a writer, I actually cop anything from all this technology ...! |
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| Flash
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| 324297. Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:59 am |
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| You might be able to get a gig writing the manuals for e-book machines. I mean, work's work, you know? |
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| MatC
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| 324454. Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:27 am |
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| And it's only fair that I should share my expertise with the world. |
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