(325) Für Ben Jonson repräsentiere der Kreis Perfektion und Harmonie. In seinen Texten versuche er die Kreisfragmente seiner Gegenwart wieder "rund" zu machen. (326) Der Kreis bringt gleichzeitig künstlerische Autonomie zum Ausdruck.

In Jonson, the associations of the circle-as metaphysical, political, and moral ideal, as proportion and equilibrium, as cosmos, realm, society, estate, marriage, harmonious soul-are doubled by the associations of a center-governor, participant, house, inner self, identity, or, when the outer circle is broken, as lonely critic and selfreliant solitary. Center and circle be come symbols, not only of harmony and completeness but of stability, repose, fixation, duration, and the incompleted circle, uncentered and misshapen, comes to symbolize a flux or a mobility, grotesquely or dazzlingly fluid.

Kreis und Mittelpunkt, so Greene, stehen für Stabilität, Dauer oder Standfestigkeit, während die Fragmente eines Kreises den Fluss und nie endend wollende Bewegung repräsentieren. Viele Figuren seiner Theatertexte können hinsichtlich ihrer Kreisbewegung beschrieben werden. Entweder beziehen sie sich kontinuierlich auf einen Mittelpunkt oder sie bewegen sich frei und abrupt. Diese Opposition scheint absoluten moralischen Positionen zu entsprechen, nach denen die freie Bewegung als Ausdruck des Lasters erscheint. (328 ) Als Ideal der Perfektion steht der Kreis für ein inneres Gleichgewicht, das durch Leidenschaften und Humours nicht berührt wird. (329) In Epigrammen, Satiren etc. von Ben Jonson kommt dieses Ideal weniger selbstbewusst zum Ausdruck. Der Kreis erscheint als gefährdetes Ideal. Der Umkreis wird durch die vier Wände des eigenen Heimes repräsentiert. Lobgedichte heben positiv hervor, wenn der Angesprochene zu Hause blieb und nicht in die Fremde aufbrach. Die Selbstautonomie kann nur in Abgrenzung zur Welt behauptet werden. (326, 331) Die Masks von Ben Jonsons bringen dagegen die Einstellung zum Ausdruck, dass der Hof, das aktive Leben, Zentrum der Perfektion sein könne. Aus dieser gesamtgesellschaftlichen Vision wird in den Gedichten eine individuelle Perspektive. (333) Die Vorstellung des zentrierten Selbst findet sich ebenso in den Discoveries, die der Urteilskraft eine dominante Stellung einräumen. Der Imagination wird eine periphäre Rolle zugewiesen. Ihr fehlt es an Beständigkeit. (343) Greene überführt seine Ergebnisse in eine von der historischen Anthropologie geprägten Perspektive. Die kontinentale Renaissance hätte zwei Konzepte von Mobilität formuliert. Einerseits wird versprochen, dass jeder Rollen selbst auswählen kann und es möglich ist selbstbestimmt Erfahrungen zu sammeln. Andererseits wird insbesondere im Renaissanceplatonismus die Möglichkeit betont, dass eine Überschreitung der menschlichen Existenz möglich ist. Die letztere Form wird in der englischen Rezeption stark abgelehnt. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist, so Greene, die Figur "Volpone" für Ben Jonson eher problematisch, weil sie von dem Wunsch aufzusteigen geprägt ist.

When the house burns one forgets even lunch. Yes, but one eats it later in the ashes.

What does this mean? That everyone always has to eat lunch? That seems... less than profound, compared to the monster/abyss thing.

And some are just plain misogynistic:

Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.

I'm pretty sure these are jokes since throughout the book Nietzsche sort of has a sense of humor, but they're still sort of baffling. A lot of them remind me of the lesser wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: "For every pound of sand you eat, another shilling's yours to keep." Or maybe Nietzsche not only invented existentialism, but dadism too.

I guess this is why I should stay away from philosophy and stick to fiction.

Also, any post on Nietzsche would be remiss if it didn't mention the Nietzsche Family Circus.

benny

Wysoko duch mój mierzył, ale szybko

Miłość i ból zaczęły go w dół ściągać

Tak życie zatoczyło łuk i oto

Wracam do punktu, z którego wyszedłem

Bieg życia nie jest więc według Poety ani skończoną drogą, z początkiem i końcem, nie jest prostą, bez początku i końca, nie jest również półprostą, z początkiem, acz bez końca. Bieg życia nie jest też Wiecznym Powrotem, jak chciał Nietzsche i inni Mistrzowie Wschodu. Życie nasze jest napiętą cięciwą łuku, która drży naciągana przez ponadczasowe siły. Miłość i Ból, grając ze sobą w nierozstrzygalną grę, raz to wprowadzają ją w drżenie, raz to sprowadzają spokój. Życie jest drżeniem łuku na wszystkich jego fragmentach, przechodzącym z góry na dół, nie dającym spokoju i jednocześnie zachłannie pochłanianym. Metafora życia jako łuku jest bardzo "pociągająca".

Finally a worthy competitor for the monopolistic operating system market seems to be emerging. Most consumers only know of Microsoft Windows and many happen to think that this is the sole program which desktop computers run to interface the user with the hardware and manage resources. However now with the introduction of the sub £300 computers it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to drive down price, when Windows Vista costs around £58 for the most basic version. This is almost 30% of the total cost of the final machine, hence the growth of Linux.

Many will be surprised to hear that Linux has been around since 1991 when it was first developed by a Finnish software engineer, Linus Torvalds. It is an open source program which means it is free to use and install, also advanced users can adapt the source code so the program is better matched to their needs. There are additionally many different ‘flavours’ of Linux that have been developed by different users over time which have been distributed to allow others to use these customised versions. However, some of these do charge a fee, these are generally the versions developed by companies such as Red Hat and provide high levels of customer support.

The main reason that Linux doesn’t dominate the market with sales currently at around 1.7% of the total market, is due to its previously poor support for many hardware drivers (software that allows the use of certain physical components such as printers or monitors). This is a fairly circular problem as many companies will only develop drivers when a large number of people require them. Linux not having a large enough user base could not previously attract this. This has changed though and companies have now realised that to improve sales they will have to include drivers for Linux.

The other benefits to using Linux over Windows Vista include improved stability and performance even when using lots of applications and data. It also works well on systems with low hardware specifications making it ideal for getting the maximum performance from cheap machines. There are also fewer viruses distributed through Linux systems making them more secure and prompting use by many companies for secure networks such as bank ATMs. A variant is also in use in the Playstation 2 and 3 consoles.

Currently only Apple’s Mac OS is seen as the major rival to the Windows brand, however, Mac OS has a paltry 2.5% market share which is barely more than Linux. With $204 million of venture capital being invested in open source in the first quarter of 2008, more than double for the same period in 2007 it can easily be seen that Linux and open source software are a rapidly growing market. They are however, hampered slightly by the fact that the code is spread so widely between variants and there is not one version containing every open source development. If you feel like testing it out I would recommend the Ubuntu version as it has plenty of help files and guides and is one of the quickest to install and setup.

Anyway here is the first one, The Death of HD DVD

19^th February 2008 was a dark day for the DVD Forum; Toshiba finally announced the withdrawal of its HD-DVD standard from sale. It was supposed to be the successor to the conventional DVD, boasting a storage capacity more than three times that of a standard DVD, making it viable to produce a better quality of film without having to use multiple discs to store them. The technology was developed by a Japanese engineer, Shuji Nakamura and involved the usage of blue laser diodes, hence where the name for the competing standard Blu-ray originated. Both formats used the same new technology to enable the storage of more data on a standard sized disc, although Blu-ray was developed by Sony and HD-DVD by the DVD Forum (a group of technology companies working together, primarily Toshiba and NEC). Consumer confusion was blamed for the poor sales figures of both formats and in early 2008 the major content manufacturers, those companies producing DVD films for sale such as Warner Bros, announced they would stop supporting the HD-DVD format.

To play either of these new formats requires a special DVD player that supports them and with these costing upwards of £300 on release, most consumers were reluctant to purchase as they knew little about the benefits. It is only now, 2 years after they were first released that major retailers have started to stock these new High Definition films. The reason many manufacturers have chosen Blu-ray over HD-DVD is that it can hold more data, having a capacity of over 5 times that of a standard DVD. Also, the decision by Sony to fit a Blu-ray drive as standard on the Playstation 3 was seen by many as the turning point, with Sony’s better marketing credited with the demise of HD-DVDs. Wal-Mart and Woolworths both announced the removal of HD discs from their shelves, with both Universal and Paramount studios moving over to the sole production of Blu-ray discs. This meant that none of the major Hollywood studios now produced the format and further increased the pressure on Toshiba to remove the format from future use.

Customers that already have HD-DVD players will still be able to use their machines and can use them to play DVDs, CDs and any of the currently-released HD-DVDs of which there are around 400 currently on the market. There will be no future releases and HD films will soon become scarce in retail outlets; however Toshiba will stock parts for any broken players until 2016 allowing consumers to wait until the Blu-ray format has taken hold before switching. DVD is still the predominantly used format due to current low demand for High Definition content. This is however mainly due to the high price of the media and players which, as interest grows and production techniques improve, will steadily decrease, like VHS in the past beating off the competition of Betamax. Blu-ray now seems destined for a bright future whilst HD-DVD players have been resigned to the bargain bins.

“Nggak… yang ini serius. Sumpah! Berani dikutuk jadi Menteri…!”

“Jadi menteri kok kutukan?,” Kris geleng-geleng kepala. Keningnya berkernyit menatap gerak-gerik gelisan Adun. Lalu kembali mengamati koran. Kebetulan di koran itu terpampang berita tabrakan kereta api. Adun membaca sekilas.

“Bayangkan saja, tiap ada kereta tabrakan, yang disalahkan menteri. ”

“Memang.. Menhub dianggap masinis atau kepala stasiun kereta. Ha ha.. Eh yang untung sih Menteri Pendidikan, biarpun kualitas pendidikan negeri ini makin menurun dan generasi muda bangsa ini lebih bodoh, dia tidak pernah disalahkan orang..”

“Ya…yang disalahkan selalu guru dan cara mengajar.”

Inilah perkenalan saya dengan hasil karya Jamal. Padahal semula karena pandangan pertama mula aku berjumpa karena cover Rig Pengeboran Lepas Pantai. Sebuah novel yang “ambisius dan berbahaya” sebab biasanya pembacanya bakalan tersegmentasi kelompok tertentu diantara menjamurnya novel checklit.

Kebetulan ada novel yang sudah terbuka pembungkus plastiknya, dan eng..ing eng.. pas tiba di ayat 33, maksud saya halaman 33 sihir Jamal mulai mempengaruhi syaraf.

Kok pas bener dengan kondisi kita sekarang, diantara rangkaian kecelakaan dua pesawat Adam Air, Kapal Motor Lavina 1, yang menggiring orang menuntut Menhub mundur.

Segera saya raih buku tersebut dan berharap keras pengarangnya Jamal, bercerita tentang kehidupan orang lepas pantai. Satu dari 10 pekerjaan berbahaya di dunia.

Dua tokoh yang diceritakan dalam episode ini. Kristunov dan Nara memang mengajak kita menikmati wisata keluar negeri, Boston, Spanyol, termasuk alam Norwegia sekalipun saya menjadi murung karena kehidupan rig pengeboran hanya diserempet sedikit sekali.

Kang Jamal penulis memang menyihir kita sehingga tidak bisa membedakan antara realitas dan dongeng karena keduanya sering saling memperkuat.

Kalaupun yang perlu diacungkan jari sekali lagi adalah “bebodoran” plesetan ciri khas orang Sunda dan Mahasiswa yang mengalir cerdas dan cerdas.

Cerita Mahasiswa dengan latar belakang perjuangan selalu memukau, banyolan Sunda – umumnya berdasarkan pemikiran mendalam. Mungkin inilah yang dimaksud epigram (dua cerita yang bermuara sama). Dan saya amat menikmatinya. Padahal cerita ini merupakan romatika duka, tangis panjang luka anak manusia. Namun diceritakan dengan tegar.

Seperti kata komentator lainnya, Jamal adalah pengarang berbahaya. Maksudnya ia bisa menulis novel serius tapi kalau diperlukan bisa melakukan diversifikasi menulis buku lucu.

Judul : Epigram
Penulis : Jamal
Editor : Indah S. Pratidina
Penerbit : Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Tebal : 384 hlm ; 20 cm

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