Joe Bernstein

In between domain names that incorporate "these-survive" in them, here's a set of links to what I can now offer. Note that at this time I do not have access to a copy of the software with which I intend to build the These Survive database, and until that's corrected, the database is unlikely to progress; for more information on it, you can see my old home page.

WARNING TO MAKERS OF LINKS

As noted above and in the page's title, this is an interim home page. If I ever again have something resembling a normal income, I expect to own a domain name again. If you link to one of my pages, be prepared for it to move again.

Anyway, here's what I've got:

• The beginning of "A Short History of Life on Land". This would have been my second book, but now probably won't be; at any rate, I've decided to make this much accessible for what it's worth.
• The news.groups Survival Guide, by me and Rebecca G. McQuitty. Note that this is a profoundly outdated version, essentially of 1997 vintage and thus of largely historical interest. However, at least one major site still links to it, so I'm keeping it on the web. As I write in late 2003, there appears to be little interest in pulling together and completing the revisions attempted, mostly by me, in 2000 and 2001, but those revisions are fully documented, at Google; the last full drafts are in two parts, Part 1 and Part 2a. There were suggestions when I posted those drafts that I intended to incorporate, so it may be worth your while to read the threads that resulted; but note please that any comments by "jc" or "librarian" (two names for the same person) are relatively unlikely to be interesting and relatively likely to be offensive, and read at your own risk.
• "Half of Asia, for a Thousand Years". This is chapter 2 of the book I'm working on, a book which, in turn, is the motivating force behind These Survive itself. In this context, however, it is in its own right meant to be a bibliographic guide to the history between 475 BC and AD 525 of a set of regions whose history, in that period, is widely neglected.
• The language, polity, and region databases. These are collections of documents, not true databases, representing my attempts to grapple with some of the difficulties of researching ancient literatures and history. They are, in effect, between them, the third leg of my research effort, beyond These Survive and the book itself. They cover the period up to AD 700, from the beginning of documentation; at this time I don't know whether I'll bring that date forward to AD 1000 to match These Survive's boundaries, although neither project will be carried past that date. You'll probably find that the regions directory is the most full of these three; I always felt less interested in the polity database and less qualified to work on the language one, and my interest in regional history intensified strongly while researching the chapter 2 that is webbed as "Half of Asia". Among the few documents already available, that on Morocco is probably the best single starting point for the anglophone interested in that area's ancient history; the rest offer much less and, by and large, need updates which I may or may not get to in future.
• The beginnings of a charter archive for the Usenet humanities.* hierarchy. I've long been interested in a charter archive for those groups in general whose creation is discussed in the Survival Guide, and humanities.* was one of a succession of starting points over the years; I don't know whether any of the ones done by other people are still webbed. You'll find what little is available by starting from here. If I resume this project, it'll probably be as a database, using the methods I'll learn by doing These Survive.
• I've begun a project on the history of Usenet newsgroups, or anyway their chronology. An archive of data and results is available; by and large, my results only extend to 1994, and the data available in that archive only to 1987, at this time. I am unlikely to make the data more comprehensively available until I can figure out what to do about the bandwidth costs; certain spiders seem to be obsessed with the large files the data are in.
• The next thing I'm supposed to do, besides the heaps of work the regions (etc.) databases need, is revive my John Crowley website, but be aware that whenever I end up doing this it will, in any event, be only subsidiary to a much better site now run by someone else.

Please note that at this time I have no home net access. Thus my ability to answer e-mail, update web pages, etc., depends on the kindness of libraries and friends, and the availability of connections for hire. Please don't expect rapid replies to e-mail, and please be patient about updates to this admittedly pathetic website.

Created November 1, 2003, based on an earlier page created November 1, 1999, oddly enough. Last modified May 21, 2004. Copyright 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Joe Bernstein <joe@sfbooks.com>; electronic transfer permitted.