Electronic text on the PalmPilot

Horatius
  (Thomas Babbington Macaulay)

Best known, perhaps, for his five-volume History of England, Thomas Babbington Macaulay was a historian, essayist, orator, and politician with a clear and concise writing style that powerfully influenced English journalism for half a century. Among his works was a collection of poems titled Lays of Ancient Rome, published in 1842. This collection contains a ballad popularly titled Horatius at the Bridge (.pdb file, 12 KB), the story of which is based on an ancient Roman tale of heroism.

The Law
  (Frederic Bastiat)

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before - and immediately following - the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into something much worse. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic.

The Law (.pdb file, 60 KB) is a fairly short book, yet it is one of the finest descriptions of the purpose and proper role of law and government that one could imagine, at least from a libertarian perspective. This work was first published as a pamphlet in June 1850, and Bastiat's views are still timely and form the basis of modern libertarian thought.

That Which Is Seen, And That Which Is Not Seen
  (Frederic Bastiat)

An interesting, eye-opening series of essays that illustrate how and explain why state intervention in the economy often causes the opposite of what was intended.

1. The Broken Window (.pdb file, 4 KB)
2. The Disbanding of Troops (.pdb file, 3 KB)
3. Taxes (.pdb file, 4 KB)
4. Theatres and Fine Arts (.pdb file, 7 KB)

7. Restrictions (.pdb file, 6 KB)
8. Machinery (.pdb file, 6 KB)
9. Credit (.pdb file, 4 KB)

11. Frugality and Luxury (.pdb file, 7 KB)
12. He Who Has A Right To Work, Has A Right To Profit (.pdb file, 3 KB)

The Strenuous Life. Essays and Addresses
  (Theodore Roosevelt)

I recently ran across the following series of essays and speeches by Theodore Roosevelt from almost exactly 100 years ago. Some of what TR has to say is uplifting and inspirational, some sounds like hot air; most of it is vigorous, all of it is thought-provoking. (Ready-to-download as .pdb files, too!)

1. The Strenuous Life The source of Roosevelt's widely quoted "Far better it is to dare mighty things..." that you see occasionally tacked up on cubicle walls. (14 KB)
2. Expansion and Peace (10KB)
3. Latitude and Longitude among Reformers (16 KB)
4. Fellow-feeling as a Political Factor (17 KB)
5. Civic Helpfulness (14 KB)
6. Character and Success (7 KB)
7. The Eighth and Ninth Commandments in Politics (4 KB)
8. The Best and the Good (4 KB)
9. Promise and Performance (6 KB)
10. The American Boy (7 KB)
11. Military Preparedness and Unpreparedness (14 KB)
12. Admiral Dewey (12 KB)
13. Grant (14 KB)

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
  (Thomas Carlyle)

1. The Hero As Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology (.pdb file, 50 KB)
2. The Hero As Prophet. Mahomet: Islam (.pdb file, 44 KB)
3. The Hero As Poet. Dante: Shakespeare (.pdb file, 45 KB)
4. The Hero As Priest. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism (.pdb file, 47 KB)
5. The Hero As Man Of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns (.pdb file, 51 KB)
6. The Hero As King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism (.pdb file, 60 KB)

Poems by Rudyard Kipling

• The "Mary Gloster" (8 KB)
• In the Neolithic Age (2 KB)
• Sestina of the Tramp-Royal (2 KB)
• The Female of the Species (2 KB)
• If (2 KB)

American Notes
  (Rudyard Kipling)

Kipling engaging in sarcasm at Mach 3. When these "Notes" were first published in 1891, they aroused much protest and severe criticism. These chapters are an interesting read, yielding interesting insight into a century-old mindset.

1. At the Golden Gate (.pdb file, 20 KB)
2. American Politics (.pdb file, 15 KB)
3. American Salmon (.pdb file, 12 KB)
4. The Yellowstone (.pdb file, 12 KB)
5. Chicago (.pdb file, 13 KB)
6. The American Army (.pdb file, 6 KB)
7. America's Defenseless Coasts (.pdb file, 13 KB)

Poems by Robert W. Service

From "The Spell of the Yukon" (in .pdb format):

• The Spell of the Yukon (2 KB)
• The Shooting of Dan McGrew (3 KB)
• The Cremation of Sam McGee (3 KB)

If you have the requisite setup and are looking for some (light) reading, you might want to check out the following:

Fables, as well as folk & fairy tales

• Fables by Ivan Andreevich Krylov. Krylov took many old tales of Aesop and the French writer La Fontaine, filed off the serial numbers by giving them his own personal twist, and gave them new life as he satirized human weaknesses and social customs.
• Царевна-лягушка ("The Frog Princess"). Retold by A. Tolstoy (.pdb file, 8 KB).
• Гуси-лебеди ("The Flock"). Retold by A. Tolstoy (.pdb file, 3 KB).
• Сказка о серебряном блюдечке и наливном яблочке ("The Story of the Silver Plate and Ripe Apple"). Retold by A. Tolstoy (.pdb file, 5 KB).

Alexander Pushkin

• Несколько стихотворений. A smattering of verse by perhaps the most famous literary figure in Russian history, Alexander Pushkin (.pdb file, 8 KB).
• Евгений Онегин (Роман в стихах) ("Evgenii Onegin"). A novel in verse by Pushkin, and one of his best-known works (.pdb file, 137 KB).
• Выстрел ("The Shot"). A well-known short story by Pushkin (.pdb file, 18 KB).
• Сказка о попе и о работнике его Балде ("The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda"). The first of Pushkin's fairy tales in verse (.pdb file, 5 KB).
• Сказка о царе Салтане ("The Tale of Tsar Saltan"). Jealousy...treachery...it doesn't get much better than this! (.pdb file, 18 KB).

Nikolai Gogol

• Невский проспект ("Nevsky Prospekt"). A glimpse along the main street of old St. Petersburg, through an unusual set of eyes, those of Nikolai Gogol (.pdb file, 55 KB).
• Шинель ("The Overcoat"). One of Gogol's best short tales (.pdb file, 48 KB).

Ilya Il'f and Evgeniy Petrov

• Золотой теленок ("The Golden Calf", .zip file containing chapters as .pdb files, 435 KB) One of two literary works that, I am reliably told, provide remarkable insight into modern Russian life and cultural literacy.

Contemporary writing

• Святочный киберпанк или "рождественская ночь-117.DIR" ("Christmas Cyberpunk, or 'Christmas Eve-117.DIR'"), by Viktor Pelevin (.pdb file, 21 KB).
• Краткая история пэйнтбола в Москве ("A Short History of Paintball in Moscow"), by Viktor Pelevin (.pdb file, 26 KB).

Humor (in Russian)

• Stirlitz jokes. Subtle humor that pokes fun at a Soviet (cult)ural icon. Many puns will require more than a passing comprehension of Russian! (.pdb file, 18 KB)
• New Russian Jokes. Not Russian jokes you've never heard before, but jokes about so-called "new Russians," a whole new breed of cat on the Russian landscape! (.pdb file, 27 KB)
• Chukcha jokes. Ethnic jokes aimed at the indigenous inhabitants of far eastern Siberia, and others. (.pdb file, 13 KB)
• Parachuting jokes! Don't skydive without these! (.pdb file, 4 KB)

Short stories by Mikhail Uspensky:

• Дурной глаз ("The Evil Eye") (ZIP file, 3 KB)
• Красные помидоры ("Red Tomatoes") (ZIP file, 3 KB)

Short stories by the Strugatsky brothers:

• В наше интересное время ("In Our Interesting Time") (ZIP file, 7 KB)
• Чрезвычайное происшествие ("The Incident") (ZIP file, 14 KB)
• Бедные злые люди ("Poor Mean People") (ZIP file, 5 KB)

The above list will be updated from time to time. Suggestions are welcome.

FORTH notes

FORTH is a programming language that's been around for a while and one that lends itself to elegant solutions to programming problems. Neal Bridges is the author of PilotFORTH, which runs on the PalmPilot, taking up a paltry 10K of RAM.

My serious FORTH programming occurred in the mid-80s, so I needed a tiny reference to help me remember and relearn the CORE words. I found what I believe to be a good short reference on J. Kevin McFadden's Forth pages, and have taken the liberty of converting that file into Doc format, available as FORTH Reference (words) (.pdb file, 18 KB, updated 26 Apr 98).

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PiLoc

The software for models prior to the Palm III lets you switch between the standard English-language Pilot and one where everything (prompts, Graffiti, labels, etc.) is in Russian. International characters are replaced by Cyrillic characters. If you prefer to use the popup keyboard on your unit, you'll notice the keyboard conforms to the so-called "standard" Cyrillic layout. The character mapping corresponds to the so-called "Windows 1251" mapping, and that is the mapping used in the descriptions below and in the documents available from this page.

The only major reproducible bug I've found (and that was for the PalmPilot Professional) is that, in "Russian" mode, the auto-shutoff function appears to stop working for some reason after a while (switching back to "English" mode restores the auto-shutoff function). I also experienced a couple of hard lockups while in Russian mode and using the TaskList (v.1.12) application (which came as part of the Franklin package), but can not reliably reproduce the behavior, which is fixed with a soft reset. Of course, as always, YMMV.

August 1998. The latest news for Palm III owners (including those who, like me, upgraded to Palm III functionality) is that the PiLoc version for the Palm III is currently available in two stores in Moscow at a price of $45. The version for the Palm III is as yet incomplete, offering only the basic character set and capability to use Graffiti (and Graffiti help), but that's really all that I require.

CyrHack

(Note that although CyrHack uses the same Graffiti strokes as PiLoc, it does not modify the Graffiti help to show how Cyrillic characters are formed, as does PiLoc. This, of course, ceases to be an issue once you learn the strokes!)

Cyrus

Other Links of Interest...