First of all, there is a video on the OGM site that shows Christopher Hitchens at a speaking engagement. It was painful. I anticipated a good Q&A session, but you couldn't hear the questions unless you turn the volume way up, and most of the questioners simply wanted to hear themselves speak. Hitchens was ready for some serious questions, but it soon turned into a gaggle, with a theist's attempt at ridicule, to the last person that simply admitted she had no question.

I was feeling uncharacteristically generous though, and sent via Paypal some money to the blogger at OGM. They sift through everything and come up with some good shit, which takes time. I read most everything on the site, so I figured I owed them something for their troubles.

On another note, I am in the middle of still working with the new computer, learning how everything works and trying to figure out exactly how I will use it in school. toward that aim, I am converting a book into the One Note program format, which I have found out takes quite a bit of time. I downloaded Plato's Republic, of which I have a printed copy as well, and want to make notes on the e-text version which One Note will allow me to do. It took me two days, off and on, to figure out how to get documents into One Note, the computer came with the program, but that feature wasn't installed, and I have no idea why. MS Journal has the same feature, and it was installed. It may be interesting to see if a conversion to Journal will take the same amount of time. Anyway, so while that was working, I decided to post.

Which brings me to another point, that of comparing the Gutenberg copy of Republic to the printed copy. I will probably never finish the comparison, but I have started, and already I notice huge differences. There are two versions on Gutenberg, both by the same translator, with a considerably lengthy introduction, longer than the actual book I think. The comparison is interesting though because of the obvious disparity between the e-text and printed copy. In the very short intro to the printed copy I have, the translator claims to have taken great pains for a fluid literal translation, whereas some translators in the past have opted for paraphrasing to get the idea across.

That being said, in the beginning there is a dialog, and Socrates says that men who have acquired money by their own efforts are twice as fond of it as other men. I have read no further, and I am hoping Plato is trying to make a point to the contrary, because I disagree that it is so simple. The conversion is done however, time to get back to what I was doing....