Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Norma Gosnell 1933-2023

 Norma Gosnell 1933-2023


 

Norma Louise (“Lee”) Gosnell, 90, of Upper Arlington, passed away in hospice Sunday, July 16, 2023, after a long illness and a short one. She was preceded in death by her parents, Roger and Edna Hall, her husband, William (“Bill”) Gosnell, and her brother, Donald (“Bo”) Hall, as well as in-laws Bill Pinkerton, Mariana Gosnell and Margaret Rudy.

Lee is survived by her son, Scott Gosnell, sister, Irma Pinkerton and brothers Bill (Gayle) and Jack (Sophie) Hall. She was a devoted aunt to her nephews and nieces: Kelly (Pat), Karen (Mike), Steve (Lannie), Kathy, Danielle (Chad) and Kim (Charles); Doug (Debbie), Steve (Linda), and Kathy (Phil); and great-aunt to her many grand nephews and nieces. She was also a kind interim mom to all those, younger and older, who were in need of it.

Lee was a 1952 graduate of Linden-McKinley High School. After graduation, she worked for the State of Ohio before opening her own business, the Lee Hall School of Dance, where she taught ballet, tap and jazz.

Lee met her husband Bill when both became members of the recently opened Swim and Racquet Tennis Club; they would go on to become club champions in mixed doubles, to remain lifelong partners in tennis and in life, to celebrate the birth of their son, Scott, and to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. She enjoyed working in her garden, which received an award from the City of Upper Arlington, and particularly loved the daylilies, irises, roses and hostas which Bill gave her at every anniversary.

She believed that one day was too short for most holidays and would celebrate birthdays for a week, Halloween and the Fourth of July for five days apiece, and Christmas for as long as possible on either side of Christmas Day itself. She liked to eat dessert last and open her Christmas presents last, to her son’s great annoyance, because she preferred the pleasure of watching other people’s joy. She was tremendously humble and would rather have been the source of attention rather than its object; that extended to her funeral, where being the center of attention seemed like the worst thing about it, even more so than the dying part.

She was a fifty-seven-year member of First Community Church in Marble Cliff, where the memorial service will be held on August 4th, 2023 at 1PM in Burkhardt Chapel.  We miss her very much.

In lieu of sending flowers, please plant a flower or tree in your own garden, play a set of tennis, dance, or be kind to a nearby child in memory of her.

Wednesday, November 09, 2022

The Decline and Fall of Twitter

Elon Musk was forced to buy Twitter with the Chancery Court of Delaware held to his head, and he's taking it out on the employees and users. Every day brings new layoffs, resignations, and firings.


Somewhere, down in the bowels of Twitter, according to former engineers there, there are dozens of those little sticks holding the whole thing up, and one of them is going to snap soon.

So, in between wandering though there, glass of wine in hand like a Roman Senator as the first flakes of ash fall in Pompeii, I'm going to wake up this blog. Hope to see some of you back here.


Saturday, May 21, 2022

EP 045 Kevin Kelly on Vanishing Asia



Today, we welcome back Kevin Kelly, WIRED Magazine Senior Maverick, writer, and world traveler. Kevin's latest project is Vanishing Asia, a massive three part photo book containing a record of fifty years of travel in and through the world's largest continent. Originally recorded in Fall of 2021. 


We previously spoke with Kevin in Episode 23 about his book, The Inevitable: Understanding The 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

For more information, visit Kevin at www.kk.org. Vanishing Asia's Kickstarter home is at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kk-org/vanishing-asia . For more on the Startup Geometry podcast, go to bottlerocketscience.net/podcast

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 044 Greg Kaminsky on Pico and Preliminaries

Hello and welcome back to the Startup Geometry Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Windcastle Press, where a new pair of hardbacks of my translation of Giordano Bruno's On The Shadows Of Ideas will soon be available. 

We're back after a long break to talk to Greg Kaminsky, host of the Occult of Personality Podcast, and author of two new books: Pronaos, dealing with the ngondro or preliminary practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, and Celestial Intelligences, dealing with the esoteric writings of Renaissance philosopher and magus Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, best known for his manifesto Oration on the Dignity of Man.




Download the episode here, or find us on your favorite podcatcher.

Pick up Pronaos on Amazon.

Pick up Celestial Intelligences in three handsome editions from Anathema Publishing.

Monday, September 13, 2021

On The Shadows Of Ideas now available through Kickstarter

 

When I first started out working on Giordano Bruno's works on the Art of Memory, it was a bootstrap affair, and even then, the translations barely found their way into press. But On The Shadows Of Ideas has been a consistently popular title among Renaissance scholars, memory artists, those with an occult interest, and others who have come to visit with Bruno through their own doors.

Because of this interest, I'm now able to release this title in a form that makes no compromises. The new hardback Scholar's Edition and deluxe King's Edition are both made with the finest of archival-quality materials by master printers and bookbinders. We live in a time of great small specialty presses, and I wanted to make the most beautiful and well-made version of the book that it is possible to imagine.

From now until October 14th, 2021, the book will be available as part of a Kickstarter campaign

You can help bring this book into being today. Thank you.

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Announcing Windcastle Press

UPCOMING PROJECT: I am opening the reservation lists for hardback and deluxe editions of De Umbris Idearum: On the Shadows of Ideas, the first book of the Collected Works of Giordano Bruno.

The paperback and eBook versions have been selling steadily since they were first released in 2013. I've received a number of requests over the years for the hardback and deluxe from collectors and academic buyers. If you want one, then I highly recommend signing up for the reservation list, as I will be scaling the size of the print run based on the size of this list, and based on the number who actually pre-purchase either edition, and all indications are that both editions will sell quickly.
The current plan is to publish a matched/coordinated edition of all seven books in the series, provided there is adequate demand for each book. If this reservation/publication model works well, then additional publications will be made, both classic and new works. For example, Trithemius's Steganographia is undergoing translation right now, and could be made ready later this year. I have requests for three more Bruno works, another by Trithemius, and several others in the queue.

Sign up to reserve your copy and to receive further information here.



Monday, May 24, 2021

Links for Later, May 24, 2021

  1. Neutrality with regard to the distribution of income necessitates a Social Welfare Function that is inversely proportional to each individual's marginal utility of wealth - Brad DeLong, a Non-Sokratic Dialog
  2. https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46 -Cory Doctorow, The Memex Method
  3. Deleted Scene from Maggie Stiefvater's Mr. Impossible, from the POV of Adam Parrish https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eEFBlh3JU7S9M40FqlZZZtNJRT_mDP3e/view
  4. Fourier neural network for solving partial differential equations such as Navier-Stokes. AI has cracked a key mathematical puzzle for understanding our world | MIT Technology Review