Small.Island.in.World.Three

The story was very well told. I was pulled into the world enough to look around it and feel that it was lived in. However, I didn't like Holden. I realize that in the abstract, it isn't important that a reader like a main character. Sometimes that might work very much against the point of a work. Maybe that is the case with this work. But I read in various places that plenty of people do like Holden... well, actually I guess I read that plenty of people can feel some identification with Holden. Not the same. But few seem to mention the sort of dislike that I feel for him.

When I say that I dislike him, I don't just mean that in an abstract way. Heck in the abstract frame I know that he is a character meant to be a sort of sounding-board/case-study of a particular mental disposition with which we readers can gage our own position and mental framework. I mean that I disliked him in a visceral way. I found living in his head with his thoughts to be uncomfortable to say the least, and repugnant to say the worst (which is a bit further than the actual truth, it may have been close to repugnant at times, I don't know that it ever crossed the line). All of that is to say that a dislike feeling was the results of my measuring myself against the abstraction of Holden. That the feeling was so clear and held steady for so long while reading is a testament to the craft work of the book, it is a very well constructed piece of literature. I don't want my personal distaste for the main character to give the impression that I think anything otherwise.

I think I was a bit put off by an unfulfilled expectation that I had while reading up until maybe the last few scenes. I was under the mistaken impression that something was going to... well, to happen. There would be a plot. Silly me, I know. I guess I was too thick to realize that I wasn't reading that kind of book. That it was the psychological sounding-board/case-study kind of book instead. So I really can't fault the book for my mistaken expectation and how it gave me something of a letdown again and again as my hopes waxed and waned. By the time I really gave up the hope, I was reconciled to, and more than happy with, the actual book I was reading, so that final letdown was really kind of a lift-up.

Overall, my opinion is that The Catcher in the Rye deserves it's reputation as a "must read" book. Do read it. Don't expect or try to pretend you like everything about it or the characters (I wouldn't fully believe anyone that said they do about Holden). But you can expect a compelling view into a world and mind. I know it has led me to look around a bit more sometimes, for the "fuck you" left behind by the phonies that have come before me.

Guess I should write one of these. Now that I've had net access at home again for a while, my excuse for not doing so is long since gone gone.

Life these days is the typical sort of week cycle that we adult humans have in this culture. Two days are "class days" for me which involve morning class, afternoon homework/study/grad-BS. (The grad-BS seems to have a minimum of like 1 hrs in which I have to go by a mailbox, talk to someone about something, turn a form in, etc.) The other three days are hidec work, theoretically... they don't all happen that the work to do is down there or that down there has something useful that could be done. Weekends are weekends. A cycle of social engagements with a steady small stream of semi-random other ones. Productive time, hobby time, happy time spent with wonderful gal J.S. (for whom my love grows monotonically). The wheels spin, the sands fall, large bodies in space revolve.

I considered doing a quick timeline of what has been going on since my last posting. Major events, persons seen, new facts, scandalous revelations, key plot points to elucidate my character's inner motivations, etc. Not going to. You'll cope.

Which might lead one to wonder just what I will talk about. So I'll get on with posting my first ever book review.

I turn 30yrs old at around 9:15pm or 9:45pm tonight, don't recall which. I'm not really prepared for that, but the movement of the masses in space goes on anyway.

Got a iPod nano from my wonderful gal. After some kernel fun (which turned out totally unneeded, habits die hard), I've got a couple of gigs of tunes on it, via wallace (my gentoo machine). Thanks, baby. My early product review on this one is that it has a good solid feel, good sound. It does take more attention to start/stop than my previous (tiny capacity) player, so I don't know if the previous solution (player under shirt on lanyard, operate it through the fabric) is going to work (I hope it does since I want to wear it, not carry it). Right now I have it attached to my phone as they seem to share about the same "work-function" to use.

Extra friends in town. That should be nice.

This product is not nothing. For that price, it probably even has about 1ATM of air in it. Nothing? Ridiculous! Air has like 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules per cubic cm! ref

Heck, even out in the midst of the voids there is still quite a bit of stuff around. Interstellar space has about 1 atom per cubic cm. Intergalactic, perhaps a few times less. So this sphere probably has at least half a dozen atoms in it. And even if they closed it up without any, the plastic would out-gas some over time. I see no rating for how long this cheap little sphere is expected to hold its nothing at various temperatures, or any of the other specifications I would expect to see from something actually containing nothing. And all this is putting aside the various photons (the darn thing is transparent!) and neutrinos (way transparent to those) and maybe some dark mater (depending on what that turns out to be).

Having spent more than a few hours considering the age old question of why there is something rather than nothing, I find this little gag-gift a bit insulting. As such, I recommend not buying this product.

Yep, done. Did it take too long? Sure. Did I procrastinate a lot? Yeah. Did I obsess over details that didn't matter? Oh yeah. Do I care? Nope.... well, maybe some. I really should get better at such things.

Anyway, just a few revisions (next week) and turning in, and the master's chapter draws to a close. The PhD chapter begins. The little storm clears to reveal a larger, more foreboding one on the horizon. It is still a ways off.

Sorry, dear reader, I had to put blogging on the back-burner. Now I can resume my frantic once-a-month updates!

Gee, what has been going on? My gal and I are doing great, thanks for asking. She has been a wonderful source of compassion and caring and support and calming and motivation and inspiration these long months. Thank you, baby.

I've frittered away much of the time that an old friend has been in town. It has been great having J.B. around.

I've put off any large changes to Darwin, my computer, lest I screw it up during my writing. Time to dust off the plans (something about ubuntu/gentoo dual boot, bigger hdd, beagle, virtualized windows, and some other things), make some sense of them, and tear this functional system apart.

Oh, my brother and his wife are expecting a child. That is cool. I've got being a crazy uncle to look forward to.

I am, of course, leaving out the hundreds upon thousands of everyday events that make up the tapestry of a life, and have altered me from he who lived months ago, into he who writes now. One that I will mention, Kurt Vonnegut dying. It has got me thinking/saying "If this isn't good, then I don't know what is." a lot lately. I read that his uncle lamented that people don't realize that sentiment enough, and thus Kurt's mental echos of that are now ringing in this head. Maybe I'll pass along this meme when I become the uncle. Kurt, you were a great guy, but now you don't move anymore (which creaps the rest of us out a bit) so you've been placed in the ground. So it goes.

That event also got me wanting to read some non-science book or two in the near future. One of Vonnegut's more recent would be nice. Or perhaps The Time Traveler's Wife. But also a classic or two.

Anyway, another thought for the day. There is some nothing to be done.

I usually don't make it to a radio in time to listen to Morning Edition(Sedition). And I got tired of going to the website and clicking the "Listen" button each morning. So I kept track of the url for a few days and put this together. I named it listentoMorningEdition, but I'll likely alias it MorningEdition because that would need two fewer keystrokes for tab completion to resolve.

#!/bin/sh
##################################################
# config options
playerchoice="realplay"
quitchoice="-q "        #set this to "" if you want the player to continue running 
                        #after playing through the show
# initializaion
test="0"
option="1"
##################################################
while [ "$option" = "1" ] ;
do
  option="0"
  if [ "$1" = "-t" ] ; then
    option="1"
    test="1"
    shift
  fi
  if [ "$1" = "-h" ] ; then
    echo "This puts the right date in the url for listening to morning edition,"
    echo "   and plays it in realplay."
    echo ""
    echo "Usage: listentoMorningEdition [-h] [-t]"
    echo "   -h gets this help"
    echo "   -t is a test, shows the command that will be run"
    shift
    exit 1
  fi
done

#need to test the day so as to properly set the prgCode in the url
daytest=`date +%a`
programCode="ME"
if [ "$daytest" = "Sat" ] ; then
        programCode="WESAT"
fi
if [ "$daytest" = "Sun" ] ; then
        programCode="WESUN"
fi

#all the details can now be put into a command string which includes the url
commandstring="$playerchoice $quitchoice\"http://www.npr.org/templates\
/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode="$programCode"&showDate="`date +%d`"-"`date +%b`"\
-"`date +%Y`"&segNum=&NPRMediaPref=RM&getAd=1\" &"

if [ "$test" = "1" ] ; then
  echo "The command string that would be executed:"
  echo $commandstring
  exit 1
fi
##do the job
eval $commandstring

Gotta post quick, before the month name changes and I get another one-post-month.

Didn't make a rather unlikely schedule for thesis defense. Despite it not being really feasible once it was made, it would have been feasible had I been ahead of my previous goals. Or something. Short version, I feel guilty, and very likely should, but not for failing at something that wasn't possible when it was finally decided that it was the goal. That wasn't short.... whatever.

Life + time with my gal = good.

Might have wished the local Schlotzsky's back open after it not being so (if the universe works that way, which I don't think). Had I only known the power I had at the moment I was speaking the wish, I would have chosen different words.

Got a new usb thumb-drive device. Went overboard for the 4G model. Don't want to have to re-resolve this issue of pocketable bits in the next couple years. This prompted me to figure out that I should have been using vfat instead of msdos as the fstype when mounting such things lo these many years (so as to get those long names). Big self-head-bonk on that one. Now if someone would explain, in 30sec or less how to setup fstab so I can mount such drives to specific points, I would be very happy and grateful. That is, get my computer to remember which drive is which and be ready to put them with my name for them. Maybe I should just start reading the relevant pages and howtos > 5 min from sleeping-time so I get through them, but I'd rather just have the 30 second version.

Got another cheese-wire. Yet to open it. Someday I'll get to finishing my review of the ones that I wish to warn you, dear reader, away from. But not today.

Well, this is the last set of paragraph markers I yyp'ed when I started, so this post is at an end. Be sure to tune in for the next, same bat-channel, some bat-time.

A helpful friend and I put this together. It is a little script to access wikipedia from the command line (inspired by dict). I have it saved as "wikip". It is nice and minimal, I usually use -p, but that requires you get the name of a page just right (which can be annoying if someone made the wikipedia page with odd capitalization.

#!/bin/sh
##################################################
# configuration

# set to default browser
browser="lynx -nopause"
##################################################

search="0"
text="0"
extra=""

if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
  echo "What wikipedia entry do you want?"
  echo "Usage: wikip [-s] [-t] [-f] [-o] [-l]  terms..." 1>&2
  echo "   -s search" 1>&2
  echo "   -t dump as text, no interface" 1>&2
  echo "   -f use firefox, not default browser ($browser)" 1>&2
  echo "   -o use opera, not default browser ($browser)" 1>&2
  echo "   -l use lynx, not default browser ($browser)" 1>&2
  echo "   -p use less to paginate, forces dump as text, i.e. no browser" 1>&2
  exit 1
fi

option="1"
while [ "$option" = "1" ] ;
do
  option="0"
  if [ "$1" = "-l" ] ; then
    browser="lynx -nopause"
    option="1"
    shift
  elif [ "$1" = "-s" ] ; then
    search="1"
    option="1"
    shift
  elif [ "$1" = "-t" ] ; then
    text="1"
    option="1"
    shift
  elif [ "$1" = "-o" ] ; then
    browser="opera -newpage"
    option="1"
    shift
  elif [ "$1" = "-f" ] ; then
    browser="firefox"
    option="1"
    shift
  elif [ "$1" = "-p" ] ; then
    extra=" | less"
    text="1"
    option="1"
    shift
  fi
done

term=`echo $*|sed 's/\ /_/g'`

if [ "$search" = "1" ] ; then
  URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/$term"
else
  URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$term"
fi

if [ "$text" = "1" ] ; then
  eval lynx -nopause -nolist -dump \"$URL\" $extra
else
  $browser "$URL" 
fi

Yeah. We all make them. I greatly regret a recent one. But when we are lucky, we are forgiven; we get the chance to learn. Learn to watch more diligently for the wrong choice.

One mistake I won't make, and I hope you, dear reader, don't either... is to vote using an electronic voting machine that doesn't include a secondary paper record of each vote as they are made. Diebold voting machines freaking suck. Don't use them. Cast a provisional ballot or absentee ballot or something if your voting district uses Diebold's horrifically unsecure machines.

Had a really nice weekend away from town. Sometimes life gives me these little vacations from things, and I often don't really know what I've done to "deserve them." But "gift horses", you know. Which is a really old, archaic saying, come to think of it.

Things and experiences relating to my wonderful girl continue in myriad fantastic ways. (Speaking of things I don't know how I deserve.) Can't wait to see some of her words in published print. Publicly done congrats on that, baby.

Need to buckle down on some thesis related stuff, but not in that overly hurried way of recent memory. Just some focused dedication. Speaking of which, I've come to believe that the simple models of effort & reward that we humans often seem to far towards in our thinking --those assuming some sort of linear relationship-- are just plain hopelessly naive. Life is more messy than that, and so is this sub-phase-space of life. The idea of working a little bit harder each day so as to get a little bit more reward/productivity each day... I just see no reason why that should even be close to the top of the list of preferred models of how things are. Much higher up the list should be the more complex idea of needing to time-shift priorities (sometimes even neglecting potential increases in process efficiency), shift entire segments of one's daily routine, and run closer to burn-out effort to get past the "divergence-point wall" into the next attractor basin of reward returns.

A simple defeater of the linear effort/return theory serves to make my point. Consider how telling those around you that you are "on a deadline" can change things. Those around you will make allowances for you, help you eliminate (or postpone) obligations, and even help you accomplish things. All these far beyond what they would if you were simply "trying harder to be productive." This non-linearity alone seems, to me, like more than enough to defeat the simple models.

So, by "focused dedication", I don't quite yet know what I mean. But it isn't simply "a bit more effort".

Anyway, more explanation now could meet the description of "me procrastinating." So later.