Continuing the search for Galen's De Temperamentis in English, i saw that Cambridge University Press published the first book in the Cambridge Galen Translations series, Volume 1, in April, 2014. Indeed, Amazon has it listed as being published on April 7, 2014.

Amazon has it at $134 and free shipping. Cambridge Press has the list price is $140 and $6.50 shipping, but their Academic Alerts offers 20% off the first online purchase. 140 * .8 = 112, which is also the price of the eBook. Add shipping, 112 + 6.5 = 118.5, and it comes in less than Amazon's price. Good thing i checked.

The question is, does this include De Temperamentis? Whereas the listing includes the Table of Contents, De Temperamentis is the Latin title, not the Greek one. So, i emailed the press [Note: only excerpts of the actual email are quotes here.]:

ISBN: 9780521765176
Galen: Psychological Writings

Does this book contain a translation of De Temperamentis?

The reply came pretty quickly:

Thank you for your enquiry. Unfortunately ISBN: 9780521765176 Galen: Psychological Writings does not include a translation of De Temperamentis (the table of contents is below). I have checked our catalogue and none of our other Galen books include a translation of De Temperamentis so I'm afraid you will need to look elsewhere.

Luckily, i responded (and somehow refrained from referring to the original Klingon):

It seem that "Galen: Psychological Writings" is part of the "Cambridge Galen Translations" series, of which it currently is the only book. Is De Temperamentis (or its source in Greek) scheduled to be translated as part of this series?

To which her reply was the disappointing:

We have another book due to be published in this series but it doesn't contain De Temperamentis either. I'm not aware that De Temperamentis is due to be translated as part of the series.

I thought my search was over, but, in the background, someone else asked a couple others, including Professor Philip van der Eijk

Is this work represented by the Mixtures work included in Vol. 1? If not, is it due to be included in a later volume?

To which the professor responded:

Mixtures will be included in volume 2, "Works on Human Nature", which we hope to finalise for publication this autumn.

It is quite exciting that he responded (though he never responded to my email on Sept 9, 2013) I was sent the message along with the following:

Apologies; it appears that this text will be available in "Works on Human Nature" (as explained below). Please note that when Dr van der Eijk says that they are "due to finalise for publication" the volume this autumn, he means that it will be submitted to the Press this autumn. Actual publication will only take place around 9 months after submission.

So, it looks like it will be done, but i'll have to wait about another year for it.

I love checking google for definitions, word comparisons, and phraseology. Just now, i was reviewing my own unfinished essay when i came up to the term "It is interesting to note". So, i searched google for the phrase and sure enough, the firs link was "It is interesting to note that ..." there is a bee in the editorial bonnet. It is a short and perhaps amusing read.

One paragraph says it best, and reminds me of Strunk and White's Elements of Style (PDF):

The words "It is interesting to note that" are to all intents and purposes banned from JIPLP since they generally add nothing but length. If the text which follows those words is interesting, they are redundant; if it is not interesting, it shouldn't be there in the first place. And if your reader is reading what you've written, he's going to note it whether you tell him that it is interesting to do so or not.

Wow! (Also, note he used if and a comma without then .)

But, i'm still wondering if i should keep the phrase.

The essay analyses a work in an attempt to show that it is talking about an idea later stated as a theory. This includes many quotes shown to be akin to this point or that. By one particular point there is clearly no proof, but it works really well. So, after explaining how it obviously is not a proof, "nonetheless, it is interesting to note that he." The phrase is meant to concede that there is no proof, per se, but that it is still notable, and therefore the rest of the paragraph will continue along the theory. I think the phrase should stay, though perhaps changed to "Nonetheless, it is noteworthy", much like the author in the blog offered to change his submission, also for a reason.

I'm too close to my own material to decide, so it's in for now. But, i feel i ought to garner opinions from others.

--

Is an unproven statement said to be in a state of nonproofiness?

I installed Firefox some time ago, before i fully appreciated it. Eventually, i realized what it and the addons were, and started having a wonderful experience. I can hardly imagine browsing without NoScript, Cookie Monster, or AddBlock (Edge). Not to mention Lazarus (?), Mouseless Browsing, and a bunch of other useful tools.

When FF3 came out, it was okay, except that ridiculous Awesome Bar which was remedied with Old Location Bar. FF4, removed the status bar, remedied by Status-4-Evar. FF5 or 6, was just too much for me. They didn't fix their changes, they added auto updates (which could not be turned off), removed the menubar (in some version), and started spamming versions for no good reason. Major-number.Minor-Number.Revision no longer meant anything, but Chrome had to be copied. So, i reverted to FF3 and was back to my erstwhile bliss.

Eventually, HTML5 became a problem for me. FF3 did not support it. As more sites used it, functionality was diminished. But, FF decided to allow us to turn off auto-updates, and i upgraded. Issues with the url bar and tabs moving to copy Chrome were fixed with about:mozilla options or by rearranging the bars, and i even upgraded now and then. For the menubar, i had switched to the Mac which forces applications to have a normal menubar. At some point i realized that the menu bar can be shown, so i use it on Windows as well. I am not sure if that option was always there or if it was added at a later date.

FF29 brought the epithet ChromeFox to the fore, as the UI copies Chrome. To assuage users that preferred the old UI, they recommended an addon. I am suspicious, though. If it really was (and is intended to be) optional, why not make the new UI an addon? OK, they want it to be the default. So leave both in the browser. I wonder if the design group uses Chrome as their main browser.

Today, i wondered again why escape doesn't stop anything until i found out they removed that functionality in FF20. Until now i just expect FF not to work as intended, and search for fixes when things bother me enough. Well, today i found SuperStop which implements the classic stop functionality under [shift]-[esc].

I ask myself why i stay with FF at all. The answer is the plugins. NewsFox is my favorite RSS reader, looking similar to Agent which was my newsreader of choice back when i actually followed some. I eventually got used to ForecastFox Weather (hesitating because it reminded me of some other spammy program), and like nifty little thigns like Show Anchors 2 which helps when pasting a URL somewhere. There are others, and then there's Greasemonkey which itself includes others. Addons are what make FireFox good.

I must give Mozilla a pat on the back. Besides saving passwords from early on, which ranks high in awesomeness, FireFox Sync is a close second. I now use FF at different locations and don't have to reinstall plugins or passwords again. Kudos to them for a job well done.

Regardless, i often feel that i have had it with Firefox and wish there was a fork maintained by different people. That is, people who focus on backward compatibility, standard version numbers, and want FF to be FF, not just whatever happens to be popular right now.

The Spring 2014 issue of the Knight Letter arrived just as i was finishing Collected Works Book 11, and so got right to it.

There's a lot of light humor in the magazine, but one thing in particular made me laugh (links mine):

A chainsaw carving of a hookah-smoking caterpillar has been beheaded by vandals in Ripon, England. The statue had been commissioned by the local council to commemorate Lewis Carrol's visits to the down during his father's residency at Ripon Cathedral. Chainsaw artist Mick Burns (known localy as "Chainsaw Mick") was philosophical about the vandalism. "It's not the first time it's happened with my sculptures, it comes with the territory," he said.

Searching on Amazon for Oxiclean and reading the comments made the point of how expensive it was. Searching Google for homemade oxiclean returned a number of results such as this one.

After buying washing soda and hydrogen peroxide at Walmart, a big red cup (until one of its lines, estimating it was at least 12 ounces (1.5 cups)) was used to put equal amounts washing soda and peroxide in a 5 gallon bucket. After filling the bucket a little over halfway with hot water in the bathtub, in went some white shirts, towels, and a sheet that never seems to get clean at one end. A half-hour later, the now dirty water was was dumped and washed the items with other clothes went into the washer. It indeed get's everything white, what bleach alone did not do. Of course this time i did a pre-soak, which apparently makes all the difference.

Another page thinks this is still too expensive and recommends something at the dollar store. Kudos to her for the math.

On a side note, i started using Amazon Smile and chose a favored charity. The font came up small for me but i just increased the size. Seemingly, i only need it at checkout and Amazon reminds me sometimes about it. On a side side note, Amazon slows down FF terribly at times. I wonder if it is due to the plugins.

Read the whole thing.
I know there are some on here who like to equate this oligarchy with "conservative" politics, though I disagree with that entirely.
Past all that, though, what matters is what we're going to DO about it.
If Mississippi teaches us anything, I submit that http://conventionofstates.com/ is the way to go. Forget DC, and its Progressive overlords.

A better model of the human condition:

Anybody who buys the con that "government" == "virtue" is a fool.

After searching for an MP3 player on the car i bought a cheap player and a harness. After finding a howto video onYoutube i went ahead and installed the radio.

I lost two screws during the installation. The previous radio had a piece of metal that attached to the radio and to the car, each side with two screws. I lost one of each. How? I'm glad you asked. The attach-to-the-car screws were too hard to unscrew with the Phillips screwdriver, so i used another screwdriver that i got at Dollar Tree to go around the sides of the screw. That worked. The first came out nicely. The second did too, except (for some unknown reason) i stopped in the middle and continued by hand, which ended in a lost screw.

The attach-to-the-radio screws were simple. I had this great idea to attach the piece to the new radio. There was only space for one screw, but who cares, one is better than none. So, i tried installing the radio with dangling metal piece in the car. Wondering why i could not find the piece from under the dash, it hit me that the radio, being half the length, would not reach the bar. Duh! Seriously. I knew it was half the size, i even took pictures of it being half the size. But it still didn't dawn on me that half as long meant it would not reach to the same distance. Anyway, upon removal of the radio the screw fell. I now have two screws loose in the car. During the installation, when taking one of the panels off, a Canadian nickel fell out of a drawer which i dutifully put back. Too bad it wasn't a dollar. Had it been a dollar you could say there's a loony in my car with a couple of screws loose. Come to think of it, you can say that now anyway. Hmm... if i listen to music, we could work tune-ey into that pun. And yes, the former was probably the main impetus of writing this JE. I admit it.

The USB worked. Well, i thought it worked until it started playing the same mp3 over and over again. So, i re-downloaded LoTR, this time including The Silmarillion by another reader. Once at it, i downloaded The Hobbit by the same reader, in preparation for an upcoming trip. On a side note, i realized these are actually for sale at audible:

• The Hobbit
• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King

Unfortunately, those are expensive. LoTR itself would be over $100. Being i liked the recording so much, and now i now it is still for sale, i would think of paying for it. But not at that price! I would rather not have listened to it at all for that, or just use some cheaper. So, what will i do for The Hobbit? But, i digress.

I tried listening to the mp3s. Previously, i deleted all mp3s except the appendix, which is what i am up to. The player played the first one over and over again never advancing to the next file. So, last night, not finding LoTR on my computer, i downloaded LoTR (including the Silmarillion) and The Hobbit, and put them on the USB (i deleted the earlier files forgetting they now existed in .Trashes) as there is no reason to split the mp3s anymore. On the way to office it played the introduction to the appendix over and over. Using next or the +/-10 didn't help. Random did, but only while random was selected. Deselecting it made it repeat what file it was on (unless it was the appendix that it played). Perhaps this is due to having more than one level of sub-folders.

I really need to leave hidden files showing on my mac. Now to delete .fseventsd, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, ._.Trashes, ._.DS_Store and .DS_Store from the usb key. Done. The next test will be on the ride home.

I guess that the rest of the paper is actually good, past the layer of scum on the front page. Nevertheless Walmart's fisking of the NYT is good fun, (hat tip Instapundit).