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If you ever find yourself in New Bedford, I cannot recommend the whaling museum highly enough.

Fun fact: Clifford Ashley of Ashley's Book of Knots (ABOK) was also a painter. The museum has some of his work in their collection.

Also: if you have any interest in whaling and haven't read Moby Dick, you really ought to. People will complain that it's principally a book about whaling with a bit of story mixed in. That's true, but it turns out whaling is fascinating.

Imagine a world without whales. If JK Rowling had written a book about people sailing to the far side of the world to hunt sea creatures whose heads are full of substance that looks suspiciously like semen, nobody would have published it because it would be too unrealistic.




I produced a nice PD edition of Moby Dick for Standard Ebooks if you’re looking for a copy: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herman-melville/moby-dick

It also lead to one of my geekier deep-dive commits: https://github.com/standardebooks/herman-melville_moby-dick/...


I’m currently reading your standard ebook! Very nice.

I have to admit, “very nice” here just means I haven’t noticed your work because it sits in the background and lets me enjoy the book. Lol. Such is the fate of a good front end developer as well.


I also enjoyed the recent whaling documentary that takes up the middle hour of Avatar 2.

I'd recommend cutting that middle out if you just want to watch Avatar2. And then at a later date watch that hour as a in-world whaling doc.


You can tell how much James Cameron cares about the sea just by the fact how much time he spent on it for Avatar 2.

The analogies are NOT subtle, but the CGI is so good we don't care.


BBC presents: Avatar 2 Narrated by: David Attenborough


I love your last observation. Reminds me of:

> It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. (Moby Dick)

Melville's meditations on the anatomy of the whale are absolutely stunning, especially when you add layers of meaning to what "the whale" may represent (God, justice or injustice, morality, nature, etc etc...)


Great tip. I hadn't heard of that museum and will have to check it out. If anyone else is interested in whaling, particularly Nantucket's past sperm whale industry, "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" is a great read.


I was going to write the same comment. That’s a great book!




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