2007-08-10
13/30 - I did it!
Published an app I assembled from a lot of other parts that I actually use on my server. Neat-o! I want to improve it a little and then inflict it on the world.
12/30 - International News
I see the Russians have resumed incursion flights against NATO and US territories. That whole peace dividend thing was fun while it lasted.
If the Russians want to make an issue out of world domination again, this time they have the oil and we have...well, not really anyone. Maybe the British, though they are likely to think about it long and hard before picking up the lance and joining a battle on our side again.
If the Russians want to make an issue out of world domination again, this time they have the oil and we have...well, not really anyone. Maybe the British, though they are likely to think about it long and hard before picking up the lance and joining a battle on our side again.
2007-08-09
11/30 Trouble on the HAN
I am trying to get my home network to be more cooperative about sharing files and printers. When I connect my work laptop via VPN to my corporate network, I lose connnectivity to my home printer.
I have tried activating the secondary network cards in the two machines and I get link lights but they won't talk to each other using the secondary interfaces. I've tried
but this either does not work or takes out my ability to connect to the internet on the wireless NIC. No, I am not typing A.0 but I am paranoid and don't want to post my network specifics here too much. Secretive and technically stumped - the recipe for late nights at the keyboard.
Been reading a few posts about being a better IT person and I think networking might be something I should learn more about. At least so I can print.
I have tried activating the secondary network cards in the two machines and I get link lights but they won't talk to each other using the secondary interfaces. I've tried
route add 192.168.A.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.A.1 metric 1 IF 2
but this either does not work or takes out my ability to connect to the internet on the wireless NIC. No, I am not typing A.0 but I am paranoid and don't want to post my network specifics here too much. Secretive and technically stumped - the recipe for late nights at the keyboard.
Been reading a few posts about being a better IT person and I think networking might be something I should learn more about. At least so I can print.
2007-08-07
10/30 Review - The Road, Cormac McCarthy and some post-apocalyptic fiction picks
Just read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy tonight. Got it on reserve at the library this evening, read some of it while getting my hair cut and the rest of it just now.
Summary: moving book, powerful in its simplicity of prose and theme. I understand why it received a Pulitzer. McCarthy is of course an enigmatic and sought-after writer so that enhances the mystique of the book.
The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions... is all that's provided for context. A cataclysm has happened some years before (the boy in the story was born just after the event but is now grade-school age), apocalyptic in its outcome but not the smoking cinder fate of bad sci-fi, more a slow bleeding out of all of the marvels of nature as the world slowly winds down and dies.
The description is congruent with the scientific models of the onset of nuclear winter and failure of the oxygen cycle following a mass nuclear exchange, but the result could have come from a comet/asteroid strike, a volcanic eruption or something else. The mechanism is not that important. Whatever it was has ruined many large cities, permanently darkened the skies and killed all plant and animal life, which means food has run out permanently. Only humans remain, feeding on what they can find, including each other. Days without sun and nights without stars blend together and a permanent winter is settling upon the world. Most importantly, hopelessness has settled as well, and much of humanity has fallen to savagery and cannibalism (Within a year there were fires on the ridge and deranged chanting. The screams of the murdered...he thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.)
Against this backdrop a man and his son struggle through the blasted landscape. They have been journeying for years, wandering, hiding, but the winters at their latitude have become too severe and they must move south to have a chance of survival. The man repeats that there may be hope at the coast, but deep down he seems to know that it's just a goal because without some kind of a goal they would be truly lost.
His wife, who delivered the boy just days after the cataclysm occurred (They sat at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight...and watched distant cities burn...A few nights later she gave birth in their bed), has recently taken her own life (I don't care, it's meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I've taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot. she says, speaking of Death).
The boy takes her suicide fatalistically, as he does most of the things they come upon with the exception of a basement full of human cattle being harvested by the cannibal tribes that roam the land feeding on the one renewable foodstuff - human beings. He is the new. He does not know anything else, and to him the skies have always been gray, and people are to be avoided. His father has tried to teach him, but the skills of reading and writing are not nearly as useful as being able to find water or hide quickly and well.
The man is the center of the story - he is the bridge between the old and the new. He has adapted well to the harsh new land but his dreams call him back to the former life, and he sees his father and father's father before him, watching and judging him.
They struggle through the land, and sometimes fortune smiles on them and sometimes it does not. They eventually reach the coast, and part company and the boy goes on his own was as the father always knew he would have to.
It's thinly hidden that this is an allegory about parenting, not just of one's own children but of the precious things that surround us - things we don't appreciate or even notice until they are threatened or destroyed. Once again we see the sentiment of the ennobling powers of parenthood The one thing I can tell you is that you won't survive for yourself. she tells the man during their final, brutal, truthful conversation when she is quitting, and he is not, and she hates him for it but nevertheless cannot continue.
McCarthy writes this novel as a love song in the form of a dirge, not just for his boy but about his own love for the boy. In a deeper sense - and this is what made the novel sing to me, since I don't have that kind of love in my own life - he's writing about fidelity and hope, two essential components of not just parenting but of holding back all of the more subtle forms of destruction constantly encroaching upon the world.
The Road is a deep and moving book, well-written in its simplicity (no names except for the generic "Rock City", though the Wikipedia entry seems to believe the man and his son are moving through Tennessee to the Alabama coast). His words and sentences are short, his character speeches are plaintive and although the man's internal dialogues go on and repeat themselves I find it completely believeable given his horrific situation.
I also find the milieu believeable - if the end comes in this way it won't be A Boy and His Dog or crummy Sci-Fi Channel movies with heavily armed people throwing bad attitudes. It's going to be like this, or most likely Testament; a flash of light, everything goes dead, the food stops coming and then people start to die. That's how it's probably really going down, and with over 10,000 nuclear weapons still on front-line status the dice are still pretty loaded.
Good writing is colorful. Great writing is simple. Less words leave more space for the mind to fill in with imagination, and the experience of imagination well-used is the secret hope of every fiction reader.
I think I will try reading another one of those author's books - if his prose is always this lean and muscular I would really enjoy seeing more of his work. I've previously said that the muse fades with age, as settling down silences the angst that fuels most artistic work. McCarthy is 74 years old and if he can still make time to conjure the muse it gives me some hope.
If you enjoy this genre, here are some books/movies which I have found especially moving:
Summary: moving book, powerful in its simplicity of prose and theme. I understand why it received a Pulitzer. McCarthy is of course an enigmatic and sought-after writer so that enhances the mystique of the book.
The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions... is all that's provided for context. A cataclysm has happened some years before (the boy in the story was born just after the event but is now grade-school age), apocalyptic in its outcome but not the smoking cinder fate of bad sci-fi, more a slow bleeding out of all of the marvels of nature as the world slowly winds down and dies.
The description is congruent with the scientific models of the onset of nuclear winter and failure of the oxygen cycle following a mass nuclear exchange, but the result could have come from a comet/asteroid strike, a volcanic eruption or something else. The mechanism is not that important. Whatever it was has ruined many large cities, permanently darkened the skies and killed all plant and animal life, which means food has run out permanently. Only humans remain, feeding on what they can find, including each other. Days without sun and nights without stars blend together and a permanent winter is settling upon the world. Most importantly, hopelessness has settled as well, and much of humanity has fallen to savagery and cannibalism (Within a year there were fires on the ridge and deranged chanting. The screams of the murdered...he thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.)
Against this backdrop a man and his son struggle through the blasted landscape. They have been journeying for years, wandering, hiding, but the winters at their latitude have become too severe and they must move south to have a chance of survival. The man repeats that there may be hope at the coast, but deep down he seems to know that it's just a goal because without some kind of a goal they would be truly lost.
His wife, who delivered the boy just days after the cataclysm occurred (They sat at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight...and watched distant cities burn...A few nights later she gave birth in their bed), has recently taken her own life (I don't care, it's meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I've taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot. she says, speaking of Death).
The boy takes her suicide fatalistically, as he does most of the things they come upon with the exception of a basement full of human cattle being harvested by the cannibal tribes that roam the land feeding on the one renewable foodstuff - human beings. He is the new. He does not know anything else, and to him the skies have always been gray, and people are to be avoided. His father has tried to teach him, but the skills of reading and writing are not nearly as useful as being able to find water or hide quickly and well.
The man is the center of the story - he is the bridge between the old and the new. He has adapted well to the harsh new land but his dreams call him back to the former life, and he sees his father and father's father before him, watching and judging him.
They struggle through the land, and sometimes fortune smiles on them and sometimes it does not. They eventually reach the coast, and part company and the boy goes on his own was as the father always knew he would have to.
It's thinly hidden that this is an allegory about parenting, not just of one's own children but of the precious things that surround us - things we don't appreciate or even notice until they are threatened or destroyed. Once again we see the sentiment of the ennobling powers of parenthood The one thing I can tell you is that you won't survive for yourself. she tells the man during their final, brutal, truthful conversation when she is quitting, and he is not, and she hates him for it but nevertheless cannot continue.
McCarthy writes this novel as a love song in the form of a dirge, not just for his boy but about his own love for the boy. In a deeper sense - and this is what made the novel sing to me, since I don't have that kind of love in my own life - he's writing about fidelity and hope, two essential components of not just parenting but of holding back all of the more subtle forms of destruction constantly encroaching upon the world.
The Road is a deep and moving book, well-written in its simplicity (no names except for the generic "Rock City", though the Wikipedia entry seems to believe the man and his son are moving through Tennessee to the Alabama coast). His words and sentences are short, his character speeches are plaintive and although the man's internal dialogues go on and repeat themselves I find it completely believeable given his horrific situation.
I also find the milieu believeable - if the end comes in this way it won't be A Boy and His Dog or crummy Sci-Fi Channel movies with heavily armed people throwing bad attitudes. It's going to be like this, or most likely Testament; a flash of light, everything goes dead, the food stops coming and then people start to die. That's how it's probably really going down, and with over 10,000 nuclear weapons still on front-line status the dice are still pretty loaded.
Good writing is colorful. Great writing is simple. Less words leave more space for the mind to fill in with imagination, and the experience of imagination well-used is the secret hope of every fiction reader.
I think I will try reading another one of those author's books - if his prose is always this lean and muscular I would really enjoy seeing more of his work. I've previously said that the muse fades with age, as settling down silences the angst that fuels most artistic work. McCarthy is 74 years old and if he can still make time to conjure the muse it gives me some hope.
If you enjoy this genre, here are some books/movies which I have found especially moving:
- Testament - to me the definitive story of this genre.
- The Trigger Effect (all parts without Dermot Mulroney) - removing the craptacular soap-opera scenes, the premise and execution of this movie seem to me like the perfect update to the post-apocalyptic genre.
- The Day After - the original mega-event, but thought-out and resonant even today (although the 1983 effects have lost some of their specialness, Jason Robards and Amy Madigan do some of their best work),
- Miracle Mile - "Oh my god, is this 213?"
- Earth Abides, George R. Stewart - also moving in its simplicity, albeit with a more hopeful message. Compelling in its attention to the small details of life without us (I have not read the more recent book with that title)
- Lucifer's Hammer, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - Old-school hard sci-fi big-time wrath-of-God type stuff. You can hear Irwin Allen screaming at his secretary to get him the option. Larry and Jerry are the OGs of hard sci-fi and I couldn't consider anything I'd ever be able to add to their genre.
- The Survivalist, Jerry Ahern - campy crap but if you ever want to know what to bring to the apocalypse this is like a product catalog. I devoured these books in high school dreaming of the day when I could afford a pair of Detonics .45s in their Alessi shoulder rigs to go with my Sting Ia black chrome boot knife. I hope Jerry got some bucks for product placement, I used to subscribe to Gun Digest and it never even had that much detail.
2007-08-05
09/30 What I'm doing to get organized
So I have made a couple of posts about this goals thing, right? I've had an urge to make sense out of my scurrying and align my goals/objectives/projects/tasks myself. Maybe it's the need for a higher purpose, or to find room in my life for more important pursuits. I am not sure.
But, future self, without further ado here's what younger self has been doing as of late to organize things - I keep an outline using Natara Bonsai. I like it because it uses a PDA (which I carry with me) and the desktop, and keeps the two in synch so I can both update on my PDA but have more functionality on the desktop to edit, export, save, etc.
I used to organize my PDA by date and had a whole calendar breakdown of the year by action item. The problem with that was when I would get behind (and get behind I did, often) I would tend to wind up with this big moving train of projects I had to drag to the next day every day. It didn't work for me very well when things came up that had to go to the top of the stack (and things always come up).
So I have in the last couple of weeks reorganized things a little bit. I now have an outline with the following nodes:
Some issues I have are:
But, future self, without further ado here's what younger self has been doing as of late to organize things - I keep an outline using Natara Bonsai. I like it because it uses a PDA (which I carry with me) and the desktop, and keeps the two in synch so I can both update on my PDA but have more functionality on the desktop to edit, export, save, etc.
I used to organize my PDA by date and had a whole calendar breakdown of the year by action item. The problem with that was when I would get behind (and get behind I did, often) I would tend to wind up with this big moving train of projects I had to drag to the next day every day. It didn't work for me very well when things came up that had to go to the top of the stack (and things always come up).
So I have in the last couple of weeks reorganized things a little bit. I now have an outline with the following nodes:
- Goals
- Current tasks
- Something I can accomplish without any outside intervention
- Something with a due date
- Active projects.
- Pending projects.
- Unplanned projects.
- Completed projects.
How I want to feel, what I need to accomplish in order to feel that way.
Specific action items I need to complete. I try to keep this at no more than 20 but sometimes things pop on. For instance, I have to renew my car's license tabs, and I need to move forward on getting some contractor estimates so those got inserted at the top of the list. There's also production support stuff for work, but I created a sublist for that so I don't wind up getting mixed up about what's a change and what's a broken-you-gotta-fix-it-now item.
The rules for tasks are:
After reading a few of the entries at Lifehacker and 37Signals, I am trying to keep every task in the form:
Verb the noun with the action by date.
I manage the due date using Bonsai and its interlink capability with Outlook. This is not always perfect but it's workable...so far.
Projects I'm working on right now, that have a definite due date. The idea is that I ONLY work on these projects and not any of the other categories. This is tough, to be honest, but it's also the reason why I started this system in the first place.
Projects which are ready to start but are waiting for room on the active list. Again, they're more or less planned in terms of what needs to happen but I am trying to keep them on the back burner so I can focus on the active projects.
Catch-all; ideas, things I need to do but I have not worked out how to due them yet. I add steps, etc, and then when I feel like they're ready to start I put them into pending.
Obviously, completed projects. When I mark something done I drag it into here, and periodically archive the contents into DayNotez.
Some issues I have are:
- Recurring/ongoing stuff.
- Maintaining focus on active projects and aggressively blocking non-active projects from my attention.
Every month I try to complete a list of maintenance tasks for the house - give the dogs their heartworm meds, check the water softener, change the furnace filter, etc. It's kind of a PITA to recreate this list every month, but I don't want to create an ongoing node because that will turn into a junk drawer.
I have a really hard time saying no to requests and not jumping in to help when something goes wrong. That's just me, but it's not a positive trait because then there's other stuff that goes without attention. This is why I have started using this system, but the struggle is still there for me. Also, of course this is the real world and sometimes you have to drop what you're doing to work on something else.
2007-08-03
08/30 Stone wall and some block-busters
Well, seven days in and I am hitting the wall. Nothing seems worth writing about.
Some ideas for block-busters:
Tomorrow I am walking in my 1st 5K since 2002, when I took 90 minutes to complete the course. I measured myself on a at-home 5K route last night and did it in 53:00 - we'll see if the inspiration of fellow walkers pumps me up or brings me down.
Followup 08/04/2007: I did not walk in the 5K. A late departure and bad weather pushed me off the activity wagon. I did, however, have a lovely day with my SO going to art fairs and farmer's markets, which was just as good (and better company). I will walk in a 5K this year, at least it's my goal to do so.
Some ideas for block-busters:
- Randomizer. I have an idea for a tool that would cough out the core of a blog post for you, and you could just add in and fill in the blanks. Far from being a mechanical way to churn out posts I'd think it would be tremendously freeing and remove the drudgery and allow your writer to wander. Of course, I have to actually create the stupid thing.
- Backlog of stories. Like make-ahead soup - write them in batches and use the stock to fill in gaps. Haven't enough of a backlog yet, unfortunately. I can probably do this with the LIFE stories if I think about it hard enough. I also have ideas for entries but they require tons of research and I am just not blessed with that kind of focus.
- Pick a random object in your sight-line. This is Writer Camp 101. Just pick something, something you can see, and free write about it. The idea is not what you're writing, it's that you're writing.
Tomorrow I am walking in my 1st 5K since 2002, when I took 90 minutes to complete the course. I measured myself on a at-home 5K route last night and did it in 53:00 - we'll see if the inspiration of fellow walkers pumps me up or brings me down.
Followup 08/04/2007: I did not walk in the 5K. A late departure and bad weather pushed me off the activity wagon. I did, however, have a lovely day with my SO going to art fairs and farmer's markets, which was just as good (and better company). I will walk in a 5K this year, at least it's my goal to do so.
2007-08-01
07/30 Minneapolis bridge collapse
Tonight at 6 PM the 35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River at the end of rush hour. Estimates are about 50 cars were on the bridge - everyone who came out above the rubble has been rescued but everyone below the rubble is believed to be (although emergency management is putting a nice face on it, they have changed terminology from "rescue" to "recovery" operation) lost.
My SO travels in the area and after the event I tried to reach them repeatedly with no result. Usually they call me immediately on big news as so as time went by and I both couldn't reach them and didn't hear back I got more and more worried. I was finally preparing to head downtown to find the Red Cross family center when they called and explained what had happened.
It's funny what runs through your head in times like that - I think I was not dealing with my worry by thinking about the issues that would come from bereavement. I didn't want to take time off, sitting home climbing the walls and thinking of them would be the worst thing I could think of, but coming right back to work cheapens what they meant to you. Maybe I am too detached.
Watching the non-stop reports on TV, I went back to a phrase I'd heard from the Bible. It seems inappropriate but something is nagging me about this so I will post it:
King James Bible
Book of Luke, Chapter 13
Addendum
From a Strib editorial. I was getting ready for work yesterday morning watching Matt Lauer do some cupcake piece and thinking "Yep, dog days, nothing going on, no real news to report". The editors at the Strib administered the following richly deserved karmic bitch slap to me with tomorrow's editorial on the disaster:
6 down, 24 to go.
My SO travels in the area and after the event I tried to reach them repeatedly with no result. Usually they call me immediately on big news as so as time went by and I both couldn't reach them and didn't hear back I got more and more worried. I was finally preparing to head downtown to find the Red Cross family center when they called and explained what had happened.
It's funny what runs through your head in times like that - I think I was not dealing with my worry by thinking about the issues that would come from bereavement. I didn't want to take time off, sitting home climbing the walls and thinking of them would be the worst thing I could think of, but coming right back to work cheapens what they meant to you. Maybe I am too detached.
Watching the non-stop reports on TV, I went back to a phrase I'd heard from the Bible. It seems inappropriate but something is nagging me about this so I will post it:
King James Bible
Book of Luke, Chapter 13
- There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
- And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
- I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
- Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
- I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Addendum
From a Strib editorial. I was getting ready for work yesterday morning watching Matt Lauer do some cupcake piece and thinking "Yep, dog days, nothing going on, no real news to report". The editors at the Strib administered the following richly deserved karmic bitch slap to me with tomorrow's editorial on the disaster:
There will be more for everyone to do. For now, none of us can know with certainty that we did not lose friends yesterday. To those who are mourning a loss, the community will show support and solidarity.
Some in the news business had been complaining lately about the lack of news. They spoke of the dog days. Yesterday we learned once more that everything can change in an instant, and that to lament a slow news day is a sin.
6 down, 24 to go.
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