Alpha Beta Zero to Zillion Word Codes for Numbers

Name: Alpha Beta Zero to Zillion Word Codes for Numbers
Author: Godwin Lekwuwa
ISBN: 978-1-5049-9509-2

by Godwin Lekwuwa ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 28, 2015

A number-remembering system that works, although mastering it may take some practice.

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Debut author Lekwuwa delivers a guidebook about a system for remembering numbers.

Welcome to the Alpha Beta Zero to Zillion word-code system, a method that the author says “can be used to convert any given number to word code equivalents.” His book provides consonant abbreviations that can be used to denote numbers zero through nine; for example, the number 5 can be represented by either “L” or “V.” The idea is to then create a word that will encompass the number (or numbers) that one wants to remember. Vowels have no values in the system, so consonants may be joined with any vowel that’s convenient. As the author explains, “The consonants act as bricks in which numbers are inscribed. The vowels act as mortar which bond the bricks together.” For instance, one could represent the number 456 with the word “Files” (four is “F,” “I” is neutral, five is “L,” “E” is neutral, six is “S”) or, as the author suggests, “False” or “Flies.” Lekwuwa devotes the bulk of the book to similar suggestions (for example, 6063 may be remembered as “Sarasota” and 8634 as “Justify”), and once readers learn the basics, they could feasibly memorize all sorts of other numbers using words. Although the book’s initial premise of associating, say, the number five with the letter “L” isn’t necessarily intuitive, one need only learn a few rules to open up a world of numbered possibilities. The method may perhaps be clumsy for smaller numbers; wouldn’t it be easier to simply remember “456” than the word “Files” and a decoding system? However, the beauty of such a process comes from encoding and decoding larger numbers. Also, the encoder has great leeway in making words of their own choosing, which allows for a degree of elegance. The author is keen to point out that although he provides many suggestions, “users are entitled to use alternative words which are more appealing to them.” Those who are willing to learn the system’s foundation will have more than their share of bricks and mortar at their disposal.

A number-remembering system that works, although mastering it may take some practice.

Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9509-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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EDUCATION

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COLD WAR EXILE

THE UNCLOSED CASE OF MAURICE HALPERIN

by Don S. Kirschner ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 1995

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An unusual biography cum investigation of an academic caught up in a Cold War controversy. Kirschner (History/Simon Fraser Univ., British Columbia; The Paradox of Professionalism, not reviewed) initially aimed to help his older colleague Halperin (19061995) write his memoirs. But this story of a McCarthy-era political refugee grew, and the author not only incorporates Halperin's memories but applies his own skeptical sleuthing. Though lucidly written, the book's biographical depth may slow readers mainly curious about whether Halperin did spy for Soviets during WW II. Kirschner sketches Halperin's youth in Boston, the son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, his undergraduate years at Harvard, and teaching stint at the University of Oklahoma, where he became a scholar of Latin America and an ``issue-oriented'' fellow traveler. Halperin was recruited in 1941 as a researcher on Latin America for the federal agency that preceded the OSS and CIA. He went to Boston University in 1949, but in 1953 the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee subpoenaed him, citing testimony by a Soviet courier that he had spied for the Soviets during the war. Halperin took the Fifth Amendment but also denied committing espionage. The author offers intriguing accounts of Halperin's self-imposed exile: five years in Mexico within the community of American expatriate radicals; a three-year stint in the Soviet Union, which soured him on the promise of Communism; a subsequent move to Cuba, where he also concluded that socialism had failed; and his final relocation to Canada—ironically, to a campus seething with socialist slogans. In a final chapter, Kirschner conducts a near-exhaustive lineup of evidence on both sides; he concludes that Halperin was more of an ideologue than he let on and that it ``seems improbable'' that his accuser perjured herself. A minor tale of the Cold War, but well told.

Pub Date: May 10, 1995

ISBN: 0-8262-0989-0

Page Count: 344

Publisher: Univ. of Missouri

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995

Categories:

EDUCATION

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MODERN JAPANESE DIARIES

THE JAPANESE AT HOME AND ABROAD AS REVEALED THROUGH THEIR DIARIES

by Donald Keene ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1995

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Westerners have long complained about the enigmas of Japanese culture. Now comes proof that the puzzlement cuts both ways. Noted Japanologist Keene (On Familiar Terms, 1993, etc.) here interprets 30 Japanese diaries dating from 1860 to 1920, around the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when for the first time in over two centuries the West affected Japanese society on a large scale. At that time, he writes, ``it was as natural for those people to keep diaries as it is for Japanese today to take group photographs as souvenirs of an occasion,'' and from these rich accounts Keene shows that Japanese attitudes toward Western culture ranged from intense curiosity and excitement to complete disdain. Some early travelers found foreign lands to be utterly perplexing, even inscrutable. Complaining of his English hosts' constant attempts to convert him to Christianity, Natsume Sseki writes: ``I wonder who could have invented such a straitlaced society.'' (Keene notes that the Japanese who were most successful abroad were those who had already converted or who did so later.) Provincial governor Muragaki Norimasa, traveling aboard the American warship Powhattan on a goodwill tour of the United States, confesses his hatred for sea chanties and is appalled at the sight of plebeian-looking President James Buchanan: ``He wears no decoration whatsoever...not even a sword.'' Other Japanese found that they hardly recognized their own country after the Meiji Restoration. Keene excavates the plaintive diary of a bedridden young man named Masaoka Shiki, who yearns to see wonderful things that he has only read about in the newspapers: ``lions and ostriches in the zoo'' and ``automatic telephones and red postboxes.'' The diary of Higuchi Ichiy, a learned woman, reveals sadness that in the face of such changes, the women of the upper class still expect her ``to pretend to rejoice over things that do not please me.'' These are the luminous details—not curiosities, thanks to Keene's careful analysis, but real finds—of which the best histories are made.