(Wed, Jun 01, 2011)
Since it is June, the logs must flow, as the great Missouri divides the plains, and keeps the boatless people apart. The hapless boatless people! They will sacrifice chickens to their gods and then eat the chickens barbecue and teriyaki style, and pretend it makes them devout.
Today, as is usual for a weekday, I awoke at 5am, roused the computers, inspired the coffee, frowned at the incessantly chirping birds outside. I must coax my VPN connection into my office PC (located some 100 miles away in a modern office barn) to puzzle briefly over corporate email notifications, turn the radio feed on, let the dwarfs out of their cages and give them their morning frisbees.
Breakfast is Cheerios.
Lunch is some kind of chicken wrap. It makes me devout.
Dinner is pot roast, potatoes, beans. Mmmmm.
The weather is hot. It is unpleasant outside.
The day's entertainment is a baseball game. Also there is reading: John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids about the hapless blind people!
Today, as is usual for a weekday, I awoke at 5am, roused the computers, inspired the coffee, frowned at the incessantly chirping birds outside. I must coax my VPN connection into my office PC (located some 100 miles away in a modern office barn) to puzzle briefly over corporate email notifications, turn the radio feed on, let the dwarfs out of their cages and give them their morning frisbees.
Breakfast is Cheerios.
Lunch is some kind of chicken wrap. It makes me devout.
Dinner is pot roast, potatoes, beans. Mmmmm.
The weather is hot. It is unpleasant outside.
The day's entertainment is a baseball game. Also there is reading: John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids about the hapless blind people!
(Thu, Jun 02, 2011)
Today I awoke disgruntled and directed that campaign through the morning, slamming right into a lunch of barbecued chicken and Doritos. Now is the weekend though, and peace. The weather has improved. I retired to the balcony and indulged in a cigar, some carbonated water, and some Triffids.
I think I recall that the Triffids in the movie adaptation were eventually shown to be vulnerable to salt water (catastrophically vulnerable from the Triffid point of view: "We're melting...!"). I suspect Mr. Wyndham's Triffids will not be thwarted so easily; it would kind of wreck the metaphor for one thing.
Dinner was a manly salad.
I think I recall that the Triffids in the movie adaptation were eventually shown to be vulnerable to salt water (catastrophically vulnerable from the Triffid point of view: "We're melting...!"). I suspect Mr. Wyndham's Triffids will not be thwarted so easily; it would kind of wreck the metaphor for one thing.
Dinner was a manly salad.
(Sat, Jun 04, 2011)
Fine weather today, no work. Got a haircut. Ran errands. Sat on the balcony overlooking the pond where big rafts of scum floated around, enjoyed a nice four year old Monte #2, drank iced white tea (white iced tea? I forget that stupid order), read Wyndham, read some stuff about counterfeiting US currency. Decided I probably couldn't pull it off.
(Sat, Jun 04, 2011)
Weekend. I rode the couch, watched some Rifftrax and some Outer Space Astronauts (I love this show; why did everyone else hate it?), then commanded the balcony with the rest of Wyndham.
Day of the Triffids is a nice, albeit slightly absurd book. I see in it an early prototype for the modern zombie apocalypse story. He even invents a plot device -- a man wakes up in a hospital bed to learn that civilization has collapsed -- that was reused by Boyle and Garland in 28 Days Later, and by Robert Kirkman in his Walking Dead comic. The biggest difference between Triffids and a zombie story is that with zombies the victims and the monsters are the same, and because the monsters are so menacing and unavoidable the victims become less visible. In Day of the Triffids the victims are all too obvious, and this forms the soul of the story: the helplessness and disloyalty the characters feel when they are forced to accept that they cannot help all of them, and maybe not any of them. As for the monsters, the triffids themselves provide a nice thought experiment: how would human society evolve in a world overrun by dangerous and semi-intelligent predators? But in the end, of course, as usual, the real monster is man.
Incidentally, my decision to read Triffids was formed by this article listing the favorite SF books of several authors in the field. When somebody claims a certain book is their favorite, or the best of a given genre, how can another body resist reading it? I think I may take a look at the Clarke novel next; it's one I have not read, and recommended by one of my favorite SF authors, Alastair Reynolds.
Day of the Triffids is a nice, albeit slightly absurd book. I see in it an early prototype for the modern zombie apocalypse story. He even invents a plot device -- a man wakes up in a hospital bed to learn that civilization has collapsed -- that was reused by Boyle and Garland in 28 Days Later, and by Robert Kirkman in his Walking Dead comic. The biggest difference between Triffids and a zombie story is that with zombies the victims and the monsters are the same, and because the monsters are so menacing and unavoidable the victims become less visible. In Day of the Triffids the victims are all too obvious, and this forms the soul of the story: the helplessness and disloyalty the characters feel when they are forced to accept that they cannot help all of them, and maybe not any of them. As for the monsters, the triffids themselves provide a nice thought experiment: how would human society evolve in a world overrun by dangerous and semi-intelligent predators? But in the end, of course, as usual, the real monster is man.
Incidentally, my decision to read Triffids was formed by this article listing the favorite SF books of several authors in the field. When somebody claims a certain book is their favorite, or the best of a given genre, how can another body resist reading it? I think I may take a look at the Clarke novel next; it's one I have not read, and recommended by one of my favorite SF authors, Alastair Reynolds.
(Tue, Jun 07, 2011)
The week has made demands upon my time. I must brave the fields and collect poisonous berries for my employer, Iucounu the Laughing Magician. These trials are burdensome, and I long to return to the peaceful days I spent working for Kruger Industrial Smoothing. Ah the peaceful days!
I've spent my small allotment of free time enjoying Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars, which is notable mainly for its obvious influence on later writers. It is probably impossible to read anything by Clarke and not find dozens (or hundreds) of inventions that turn up again elsewhere; his contribution to the field is impossible to exaggerate. This particular book is quite philosophical and somehow very familiar, as if I read it long ago and then forgot that I read it (which has happened to me before).
Now to the balcony to fight wasps, blow smoke, and ponder the vastness of the vastness.
With the oil of Aphrodite, and the dust of the Grand Wazoo, He said you might not believe this little fella, But it'll cure your asthma too....
I've spent my small allotment of free time enjoying Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars, which is notable mainly for its obvious influence on later writers. It is probably impossible to read anything by Clarke and not find dozens (or hundreds) of inventions that turn up again elsewhere; his contribution to the field is impossible to exaggerate. This particular book is quite philosophical and somehow very familiar, as if I read it long ago and then forgot that I read it (which has happened to me before).
Now to the balcony to fight wasps, blow smoke, and ponder the vastness of the vastness.
With the oil of Aphrodite, and the dust of the Grand Wazoo, He said you might not believe this little fella, But it'll cure your asthma too....
(Mon, Jun 13, 2011)
This June log thing obviously isn't working. How about you just go look at some "Awesome People Hanging Out Together". Which subjects are having the smartest conversation? Which the dumbest? Which have the most contempt for one another?
(Mon, Jun 13, 2011)
The sensors-detect utility tells me I need the max6650 driver to read my CPU sensors. This is wrong! The correct driver is coretemp. max6650 my ass! Here's a list of drivers.