User talk:Mirwin/Task Directives and Responses and Results and Status

1830 today + 1 ... Appointment to play freerails with my nephew Mirwin 06:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Read "A Diamond Age" by Neil Stephensen as per committments documented below:Hi Mirwin,

Do you like to start a reading club with me? I was thinking about a social sciences related topic, but it can be something else as well if you are interested.--Daanschr 11:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Daanschr, sorry to take so long to respond to your invitation. I am not big on Social Sciences but if something were proposed related to social dynamics of small isolated groups I could participate at this time.  Mirwin 23:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That is a topic, which relates to anthropology or sociology, i guess. Something in which i am not familiar with as well. But, that makes as equals. I will look in the databases of the libraries that i'm a member of, to see if they have something of this topic. I presume that you are referring to Wikiversity and the reading clubs as small isolated groups? In that case, we could read some marketing, networking and communication books as well.--Daanschr 09:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Daanschr, an update, I found an excellent prospect for a book for our reading project.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age  I am going to look for proper places to add it into your reading club directory now.  Then I have to figure out how to purchase it.  I am still buoycotting Amazon.com over their silly one push button patent so I will probably stop by a local bookseller next week and order it.  Probably take a few weeks before I can start reading but I think it is important to help local merchants survive.  I live in an economically depressed rural area and we keeping losing our new and used bookstores.  Mirwin 01:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I will take a look at the book.
 * Interesting to hear about a backward rural area. I live in a country, which can be seen as one big city. But here the bookstores are also dissapearing. A famous Dutch biologist said that the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam used to have several bookstores in the 1960s. Nowadays these bookstores are all replaced by shops dedicaded to clothing and looks. Small shops are often replaced by major warehouses and the last ones are rapidly following eachother up. The streets in my city, Leiden used to have shops that had lasted for decades, even centuries. And now the average shop hold out for an average two years. I guess it has a lot to do with immigration. Dutch shopkeepers are replaced by many muslim immigrants, but also Greeks. And now we got the Polish invasion of immigrants, who will probably start shops of their own as well. Most homeless people are now Polish in Leiden.
 * Outside Holland their are also initiatives to keep local merchandise. Germany has many regional coins, which replaces the euro for payment, this to introduce a local autarkic economy of small farmers and local shopkeepers.Daanschr 09:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The book seems very interesting. I have never heard of it. I would like to know more about the difference between victorian and confucian thinking. I know a lot about victorian thinking, but hardly anything on confucianism.--Daanschr 09:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I have the book from the library. Already started to read some pages in the train.--Daanschr 20:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I am reading Thucydides with Erkan Yilmaz. We try to structure our book reading by setting a date for discussing certain literature. Perhaps we could do the same. Since the book is a novel, i think it would be best to read the entire book first and discuss about it later. What do you think?

I have paid for the book and it is antipated by mail a week from this friday .. that would be ... today is tuesday 22Nov07 so plus wednesday,thursday,friday would be 25 and 7 for 32 December 07. Eureka! Holiday no delivery till Jan 2 earliest ... if that is on saturday ... mail will be running on monday so .... I expected arrival on the 4 Jan 2008 plus or minus a couple of days according to aggreement with local bookcycler (she is my supplier of used books as well and buyback profitable or remarketable used books). Same delay as for weekend so expected delivery is still Fourth Jan, 2008. I agree with you lets each enjoy the book in our own way entirely first and then we can discuss our thought regarding the author's efforts and how they impacted our previous understanding with the living universe all around us. So unless I hear back I figure we got an agreed approach in will I should be able to meet my committment to start reading by 4 Jan 2008 and I am usually quick reader when interested. Been long time since I have been in a book reading club ... in fact I think it was literature classes in College about two decades ago so I should have no longer generating motivation to get finished within two weeks. I intend to be done and substantially closed out with this book reading adventure by NLT Feb, 2008. Those are my mile stones that I intend to keep to myself. If you choose to set your some specific metrics I would be happy to hear about them and work together so we both accomplish all of our individual and mutual overlapping intentions to the extent feasible given unavoidable external influences. Thanks! Mirwin 23:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)