Sean’s Mental Walkabout

When this is the first thing you hear in your car on the way to work:

Cote: the first rule of knife fighting is you are going to get cut
Charles: yeh, it's true
Cote: I don't know what it means Charles, but it sounds profound
Charles: well... not if you use the top of a trash can as a shield

That’s right, I’m now up to Drunk and Retired Episode 81: Persistence Layer Knife Fighting, We Want Java Properties, Comic Books, Strange Bezos Obsession, on my belated count down to gravitas.

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The greatest value of vacation is it snaps you out of your normal routine. In the absence of the standard trappings of the 21st (as we were in rural Wisconsin and Minnesota for the entire trip), I brought a stack of books. The two books that actually got some attention were “Serious Creativity” by Edward De Bono, and “The Language Instinct” by Steven Pinker. Both are non fiction.

Serious Creativity is a book that sums up all the Lateral Thinking methodology that I learned last year in my leadership classes. The book largely overlaps with what we learned in the class, concept fan, provocations, random word, etc. While the book is great, I’m honestly not sure how much sense it would make to someone who didn’t also do 2 days of training on the techniques. There were a few new interesting bits in the book though, like the introduction of the 6 thinking hats (a much more interesting way to run meetings), and some comparisons of western and japanese biases around putting products into the field (which helps explain why there are so many cool new things coming out of japan all the time).

The first semester of my junior year of college was my death semester. I took the following 4 classes:

• Advanced Quantum Mechanics. Yes, it was as hard as it sounds. This class was by far the most challenging, and rewarding class that I took. The class often produced up to 40 hours of homework a week, and the 24 hr take home final (which was 6 questions) took me 18 hours to complete (21 hours walk clock time, as I slept for 3 hours in the ITS Helpdesk before going back to complete problem 4).
• Radiation and Optics. This was the 3rd and final Electricity and Magnetism class in the Wesleyan Physics Dept E&M sequence. While not nearly as challenging as Quantum, R&O was taught by my favorite instructor at Wesleyan, and was a hefty chunk of work by itself (6 - 8 hours a week).
• 3rd Semester Ancient Greek. A 3 person class (which meant there were some occasions where it was a 1 person class) in which we translated 3 of Plato’s works. This represented the end of my ancient greek studies as I didn’t put in the work required to really get to the next level (due to Quantum swallowing most of my time).
• My blow off class, Chomsky Linguistic Theory. Learning rules of transformational syntax, applying them to arbitrary English. The optional book for this class was Steven Pinker’s Language Instinct, which I bought. However, you may understand why I never actually opened the book while at school.

I had tried digging into the book a few years ago, and gotten about 50 pages in, before it went back on the shelf, though I still can recall much of the discussion on how pidgin languages are formed. I decided to start where my bookmark was an journey on from there. It turned out to be a great idea.

I’m about 3/4 through the book, hoping to finish in the next week or so. Pinker sets out in this book to explain why language can’t be a fully learned skill, i.e. there must be some innate structures / skills that let us acquire language. There are a few things that are a bit dated, as he goes to explain why audio transcribing software of the time (1995) fails miserably, however the bulk of the book holds up very well a decade later. It many ways it lays out some pretty reasonable explanations of where the hardware / software boundary of our brains lies, which parts are field programmable when it comes to language, and which parts aren’t. I love books like this, as they generate a lot of new random neuron firings, and make you think about all kinds of things in different ways. It’s like mountain biking for your brain.

It’s funny to think that such a fun and interesting book has been staring at me for 10 years, and it takes a week away to actually pick it up. But that’s what vacation is for, to break you out of your routine.

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I was attempting to find a useful podcast tool on Linux so that I can get This American Life as a podcast, instead of my normal method of timeshifting our local NPR station. After a few attempts I found Castpodder, which had the best interface of any of the pieces of software that I could just package install off the network. And off I was to start setting up podcasts.

Castpodder had the benefit of prepopulating the tool with a couple of podcasts, one of which was LUG Radio, a regular podcast by a bunch of Linux Users in the UK. While there are parts of it where I think they could get their facts a bit better, overall it is a pretty amusing show, and it has definitely let me know about a few things I wouldn’t have otherwise.

One of them was Redmonk, an open source analyst firm. These guys do analysis of open source software and communities from a business perspective, and post all their content online. From their charter:

RedMonk is the first analyst firm built on open source. We’re dedicated to providing high quality research at no cost, and believe that the dialog that follows is beneficial to us, our community and our clients.

They also have a podcast, though I haven’t started listening to it yet as I’m getting through some of the LUG Radio backlog right now. However, as we start looking more at Linux in schools, it’s good to get some information on best bractices in Open Source beyond just my own personal experience. Redmonk looks like a reasonable place to gather some of that information.

The last thing I learned is that C# doesn’t kill puppies, at least not that many of them. I’ve been looking at it a bit recently, and basically it’s Java with all the rough edges scrubbed off. The fact that there is an actual open implementation that works, and that it comes with nearly every distro now.

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Check jwz’s blog for both the BC ads out there now. They are awesome.

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Last night Susan, Chris, and I headed up to Bard for a lecture / interview / show and tell with David Javerbaum, the head writer and supervising producer for The Daily Show. We did cast the net wider, trying to get other people to join us. No one else was responding to IM during the day, so to all you lamers (you know who you are), it was pretty cool.

The evening was done Inside the Actors Studio style, with one of the Bard faculty that knew David asking the questions. It started off with a lot of questions about how he came to work at The Daily Show, and the process of writing and producing the show in general, and the specifics of what goes into making an episode. They then started playing clips from various parts of the show, and talking about both that act in general, and the specific instances shown. Just about all the clips were from the last 2 weeks.

The moments when David couldn’t keep from busting out laughing were great. As was his discussion of the various cast members, and what it’s like writing for them. The Daily Show has seen a lot of turnover in cast as all the reporters are seen for their comic ability, and end up in bigger gigs in Hollywood. David personally writes the toss between John and Steven at the end of the Daily Show, which he did say was the best part of his day, as it’s something small, focused, and he can do anything he wants with it as long as it keeps everyone in character.

Some of the comparisons between The Daily Show, and the Colbert Report at the end were quite interesting. David put it best as:

John comments on the irony; Steven is the irony.

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Our weekly Scifi Night continued last night with episode 3 of Torchwood, plus episodes 5 & 6 of Babylon 5.

Torchwood… is not doing so well. There didn’t seem to be really a point to the episode last night, it just went around in circles, with an eventual “whadda twist!” at the end. It definitely seemed forced, and there was little that was really keeping any of us interested. Please just start digging into Jack’s background (from the episode guides online now, I know they get there eventually), the rest is pretty uninteresting at this point.

Babylon 5 is starting to pick up steam, which is good, as Mike and I did sell B5 as really awesome, and I had forgotten how uneven the first couple episodes are. I guess it helped that I first started seeing B5 consistently somewhere in Season 2. Favorite quotes of the the night by the room were clearly:

"Do you know what the last Xon said just before he died? [Clutches heart]
 *AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!*”
	– Londo in Babylon 5:”The Parliament of Dreams”

“With luck, they may never find you, but if they do, you will know pain..”
“..and you will know fear..”
“..and then you will die. Have a pleasant flight.”
	– G’Kar & Na’Toth to Tu’Pari in Babylon 5:”The Parliament of Dreams”

I also hadn’t realized that Na’toth and Lenir were both introduced in Parliament of Dreams (it’s been a long time). Bestor, of course, is introduced in Mind War.

I had also forgotten that Mind War threw in the idea of truly old creatures wandering the galaxy that have no awareness of us. Sakai’s acting through all of that could be better, but B5’s strength in acting was never the reason to watch it, it was always about the story and the writing. As of Parliament of dreams, both Londo and G’Kar’s characters really fleshed out, the actors are definitely comfortable in those roles, and are currently carrying some of the weaker actors through the force of their personalities.

All in all, I think B5 is going over quite well, which makes me quite happy.

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We begun watching Babylon 5 from the beginning on Sci-Fi night at my place, which I’m quite excited about. It’s been 8 years since B5 went off the air, and I really can’t wait to get through the entire story arc again. After watching the pilot, and episode 1, I went out looking for B5 quote lists again, and figured I’d share a few from season 1. As some of the folks watching B5 for the first time read this, I’ve kept everything pretty spoiler free.

"Now, landing thrusters.. landing thrusters, hmm. Now if I were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?"

	-- Londo in Babylon 5:"A Voice in the Wilderness #2"

"And Vir!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Don't give away the homeworld."

	-- Londo and Vir in Babylon 5:"Born to the Purple"

If we end up watching 2 eps a week (skipping thanksgiving for obvious reasons), we’ll get to “Signs and Portents” on Dec 20th. I can’t wait.

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I just happened to notice G4 TV listing Star Trek 2.0 on their schedule, with Mirror Mirror as the episode. As this is one of the better Star Trek episodes ever, I decided, hey, I’ll flip over.

I am instantly assaulted by the episode at taking up
Dear G4,

Please take some riddlin, and get a freaking clue.

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The latest book on my audio book list, is The Salmon of Doubt, by Douglas Adams. I’m about 1/2 way through after listening to it mostly on the plane back and forth to Madison this past weekend.

While I’ve always been a fan of Douglas Adams for the Hitch Hikers books, and I was missing his comic brilliance last year when listening to the original radio dramas, I never fully realize how much of a man of science Douglas was. The Salmon of Doubt isn’t really a book, it is a collection of writings found on Douglas’s hard drive after his death, which included the beginning of a new book (though I’ve not even gotten that far yet). But the writings are awesome. His exposition on the 4 ages of sand, and the posit of an Artificial God are just brilliant, and deeply amusing all at the same time.

Jewel quotes include the following (during his exposition on the 4 ages of sand)

. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

It is really a shame there won’t be any more work by Adams, but at least we’ve got this one last bit that gives a very good window into the man that he was. Any fans of science, or comic writing, should check it out.

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I was just watching How I Met Your Mother, and as the paramedics ran in for the first scene, I realized one of them looked freakily familiar.

… Damn, that’s Carter! and, wait, the other one is Craig!

Granted it is their show, but none the less, it was cool regardless.

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