(Sat, Sep 10, 2011)
Despite the tropical storm of controversy swirling around the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in DC (and honestly, how can you paraphrase a man renowned for his oration?; and seriously, how can you order such a thing from China the way Wal-Mart orders pallets of underpants?), it is quite impressive to behold. I suspect the most common remark upon seeing it is "Wow! That is larger than I suspected!".
The monument describes the culmination of a great struggle, wresting towers of stone from mountains; the figure of the man emerges from the mountain itself and takes a human shape. Some consider such sculptures imperialistic: Mt. Rushmore gouged brazenly into the face of a native tribe's holy mountain. And perhaps there are some parallels there if you look hard enough: the native tribe becomes the pre civil rights American establishment, the holy mountain their social order. But to me it suggests the action of man imposing himself upon the face of nature and seizing immortality from it.
The monument describes the culmination of a great struggle, wresting towers of stone from mountains; the figure of the man emerges from the mountain itself and takes a human shape. Some consider such sculptures imperialistic: Mt. Rushmore gouged brazenly into the face of a native tribe's holy mountain. And perhaps there are some parallels there if you look hard enough: the native tribe becomes the pre civil rights American establishment, the holy mountain their social order. But to me it suggests the action of man imposing himself upon the face of nature and seizing immortality from it.
(Wed, Sep 14, 2011)
I've gone back. I tried the new Ubuntu Unity desktop for a couple months before I decided I couldn't take it anymore. This was unusual for me: typically if I dislike something I will get rid of it right away, especially if I have to deal with it on a constant basis (like a computer or a car or a wife or those horrible children she gave me, eeegh), but with Unity I managed to endure for quite a while. It was not *terrible*, just not as good as GNOME 2. So I switched back to GNOME 2 using Ubuntu 11.04's "Classic Ubuntu" login option, but then I started having video, sound, and performance issues that I didn't have before I upgraded. So yesterday I wiped everything out and reinstalled Ubuntu 10.10, which was -- and is -- perfect for my hardware. I guess I will be sticking with it for the next year or three.
(Mon, Sep 19, 2011)
I spent the weekend with my eyes bolted to my Kindle reading Ernest Cline's first novel, Ready Player One. This book is fiercely dedicated to raising gigantic smiles on my face. It's about (briefly) a contest in a virtual reality world created by a billionaire obsessed with 1980s pop culture, which as a geek who grew up in the 1980s seems specifically designed for me to enjoy. While it fell down on the verisimilitude on occasion, and was sometimes predictable, this is one of those rare and priceless books that makes you want to do nothing but read it. So friggin' read it.