Haven’t done a reading update in a while. But I’ve been reading. This weeks, reading update is very technologically involved. Keeping track of how much I’m reading is part of my New Years resolution (and reading more by-proxy) so this post falls into that vein.

I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War in ebook last week. I’m not typically a Scalzi fanboy, and I think I became fully aware of him for the first time in the last year, as a result of listening to something PNH said somewhere. Sorry for the vague details. I really enjoyed the book, in any case, and I’ll probably read the next few soon. I’ve always been sort of ambivalent about Scalzi’s online persona, not quite sure why; the fiction is pretty damn good.

I’ve also opened, but not really gotten into Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain, soon.

More interestingly, I think, I’ve been working through a backlog of Strange Horizon’s stories that I bookmarked a while ago on my iPod Touch (part of my recent computer upgrade) which is great for reading whilst eating or whatever. I really look forward to the next release of the software update in a few weeks, offline readers, better syncing and what not seems like a pretty good deal.

Anyway, I’m reading a series of short stories about fantastic cities by Benjamin Rosenbaum, whose work I’m quite fond of. These stories, are quite short--I’d be inclined to call them flash fiction--and they remind me of a more serious Alien’s You Will Meet. They’re both second person, they’re both short, they’re both cataloging an imaginary and an open-ended collection of objects. I’m on the fourth, I think, and I have to say that I really like the way that it melds the sort of alternate history/divided united states genre with a series of stories that at least appears to catalogue something that doesn’t exist--and thus explores a sense of wonder in the utterly banal. I had a roommate (Hi H.! I hope I described that well enough!) who was interested in something that, felt from where I was sitting pretty similar. And cool.

What are you reading?

As I continue to adjust to the new computer, I’m realizing that there’s something I want to be doing my computer that I don’t quite have the tools and/or cognitive capacity for.

I’ve sometimes joked that I have no business having such a powerful computer because the truth is that 80% or more of my digital work is a dealing with text files, plain text files that are technologically the same as text files from 30 years ago. For this we don’t need a dual core processors, or 250 gigabyte hard drives.

But this is a digression. Probably the second biggest (in terms of import) collection of stuff I have on this computer is data and texts of one form or another. Lots of PDFs of academic articles and resources, lots of notes of my own creation, that sort of thing.

While I’ve tried almost all of the “personal database” managers over the past few years, I settled on using an interesting solution. That is programs like DEVONthink Pro, Mori, EagleFiler, that attempt to provide an additional layer of database management to all of the “things” in your digital life. They’re good programs, but the truth is that they all provide a common set of very OS X-y tools, and they’re all closed source, and they tend to obscure the organization of the data.¹

I use BibDesk to index all of the published documents that I have on my computer, BibDesk is a great program for managing citations and frankly I use it for a lot less then its capable.

Anyway so there are a bunch of programs that do this kind of thing, and I used Devon Think at one point in the past, and I like it, but the database is proprietary and it’s having a problem with a file extension I use².

In any case here are a list of features that I consider important for such a program and the task that I hope to accomplish with said features:

• Web Cliping when I run across something on the internet that is important to a project I’m working on, I want to be able to capture it to the database for later reference. The clip should capture key bibliographic data (URL, time, title, etc.) and keep this exposed to me so I can easily incorporate the information into what I’m working on without needing to either have a connection to the internet or trace down the source for a second time.
• Mange multiple formats, including PDF, HTML, and plain text.
• Needs to rely on external editing/viewing programs. I really like the programs I use to edit files, and don’t really want to use some special wrapper on top of TextEdit.
• Needs to keep the data/files exposed to the directory structure, and keep synchronized with this. If I change a file name/title in the database it needs to propagate down the line. DTP will almost do this, if you index files, but it means keeping a finder open window.
• Something not Kludgey. As I’ve been writing this, I managed to hack together a shell script that does like eighty percent of what I need (in concert with ikiwiki, which I already use), but it’s ugly, and doesn’t do a very good job of capturing the citation information automatically. If someone knows how to get a url for the top most safari window into the shell as a variable, this will obviously be a lot easier, as it is, I think I can hack it.

Is there some solution that people are using for this sort of task? Do you have recommendations? I’d love to hear them.

So I’ve not been talking very much about my knitting very much. While I have had a general malaise with my knitting in the past few weeks, I think I’m starting to get through it. I’m doing better managing the new work rhythm under control, the writing under control, I’m not dancing as much, and in light of this, I’ve been able to pick up the knitting again.

In this spirit, I’ve written the next stage of the instructions for the sweater project

I’m making slow progress on the Latvian Dreaming sweater, and despite much encouragement and temptation to start something new, I’m beginning to regain enthusiasm. This is an effect of sweater knitting that I think those of you who are knitting this sweater right now, or in the future from my perspective will likely realize. There’s a point in the middle of the body (that is the section of the sweater from the bottom hem to the underarms) that’s either a quarter or a third of that length (so 3-6 inches, or there aborts) that takes forever to knit, completely out of proportion with any other progress you may make on the sweater. This seems to be always the case.

Anyway, once you have the pattern established--and there are instructions that come along with the chart--you have to knit the body. If you’re going to make a drop shouldered sweater using the conventional gansey construction style (that is with underarm gussets) you’ll want to stop this “long plow” 3 inches short of the underarm point. If you want to set in the sleeves (either with a set in/modified dropped shoulder, or some sort of seamless yoke shaping) continue to the underarm point uninterrupted.

I’m going to make my sweater 15-16 inches long at the underarms (with the gusset) so I’m going to start increasing for the gusset after 12-13 inches. I have a fairly long torso, and I wear my sweaters pretty long over my hips. Measure existing sweaters for a pointer in this dimension.

To begin a gusset, increase one stitch on either side of the first stitch on each side of the sweater (so a two stitches on either side of stitch “0” on the chart for a total of 4 stitches every round.) Do this every third round. For three inches.

This is one of those points in knitting where: 1) the number of stitches doesn’t matter and, 2) the color pattern doesn’t really matter. Just do something regular and you’ll be safe. Knit the stitches in stripes, or alternating stripes, or alternating stitches, or really anything. I would outline the gusset in black stitches, but anything beyond that, it purely up to you. It doesn’t mater, and frankly people aren’t going to see this part of the sweater. I sometimes improvise patterns in this space, but that’s purely for my own amusement. Feel free to do the same.

What happens after the three inches comes in the next installment…

Ok, no new video’s today, you can rest easy.

The kittens are doing well. I didn’t write about this as it was happening, but the grey cat--that we’ve taken to calling “Merlin,” had some trouble adjusting to life in our house. So we had a very harried vet visit last friday. He might have gotten a little infection and what not, but he was having some trouble staying hydrated and nourished. We think that he was probably still nursing, and was getting a lot of his liquid from that, and so with that removed it was like he didn’t think to drink on his own.

So we got a syringe and was feeding/dribbling water a few times a day for a few days, and made some watered wet-food as a way of getting him to drink and eat. I think on the whole he’s starting to figure it out for himself.

Finn didn’t work as a name in retrospect, it was too similar to Kip, and we kept getting it mixed up, and he’s not very sheepish/sheep-like. So we’ve moved on to calling him Merlin. It’s a good name, and I think it works better.

Other than that, they’re doing well, and they’re very fun. We’ve been slowly introducing them to the other cats in the household, and the kittens are clearly not afraid. The other cats while not friendly, are starting to adjust, or run away in fear. It’s quite a sight to see a 16 pound cat run away from a 9 week old kitten, but I think this is better than the big cat charging the little cat.

I should take some real pictures of the cats, but you know how good I am at taking pictures on demand. Soon, I promise. Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted!

So I got a new computer last Monday, and I haven’t reflected upon this very much, and I think it’s worth reflecting on. So here goes.

My first reaction is to say: this was incredibly worth it, and I made the right decision. Both in terms of timing, and in terms of economy. While my old computer worked, in a certain sense, it had a number of limitations which this computer doesn’t have. The battery was basically shot, the operating system needed upgrading, the computer was dead. Getting all that up to snuff would have been 25% of the cost of the upgrade. And all of the main components which would be prone to sudden failure (screen, hard drive, internals) would have still been 3 years old.

And there are some great perks to having a new computer. Its lighter, which is easier on the back. Its thiner which is easier on my wrists, it has a much larger hard drive which means I can keep my music collection onboard, at least for the next year or so, which solves my space problem. It can crunch through data faster. The camera lets me make stupid youtube videos of the cats.

The truth is, that 80% of what I do with my computer deals with a bunch of pretty small text files and a command line. I made a joke in a meeting this week defending my choice of ruby for a few scripts that I wrote a year ago on the grounds that while it’s a bit slower than the alternatives,¹ I didn’t have a great need to load-ballance my laptop, and that really hasn’t changed.

The upgrade was really smooth, I ran the migration assistant, and so in some ways, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get more of a chance to install programs with better practices², as the migration seemed to take care of this for me, but I think its testament to Apple that it feels like I’ve had this computer for much longer than just a week at this point.

Also, because Leopard, OS X 10.5, is a year old now, and I’m just really using it for the first time I have a few responses/reactions. First of all, I’m liking it. It’s not a ground breaking change, of course, but the updates to core programs like Mail.app, iCal, and preview are quite nice. Quite nice: useful I also really like the tabbed interface in Terminal. Terminal is basically where iTerm was for 10.4 except that the method of switching between tabs is a bit more asinine. But I’ll get over it.

The biggest change is spaces, the multi-desktop ability in Leopard. Linuxes have had this for years, and there was even an add on for 10.4 that would let you do this. I must admit that every previous attempt at using more than one desktop space has ended in failure. I just can’t seem to grok it, and at least this time around I’m more prone to just pile most things into one “space” and then use expose, (OS X’s little trick to get a birds eye view of all your windows at a glance. I’m really good at letting expose allow me to feel comfortable with 15+ open windows. Though, these days, I rarely get more than 10 open.

Expose + Spaces is sort of cool, and I think I would probably be able to grok it better if spaces would have come out before expose. As it is, I’m not really using it, though when I start doing more (scientific) literature reviewing/perusing I can imagine how spaces would come in handy.

And I think this is the lesson that I take from thinking about technology: more half the battle is getting your brain around the solution, the rest is just making the computer act as a suitable substrate for your activities. While there’s a little give and take, of course, the human interaction bit is crucial.

Over and out.

I so am not a meme person, but I had a few moments and, you know, why not. I reserve the right to not play exactly by the rules

“_The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer._”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

   I was, being an awkward pre-teen. Getting ready for a year in school, which I am convinced no one really enjoys, and I was no exception. This is one of the side effects of being so young: questions like these are embarrassing. Though, I’ve realized that there are a number of things that I still do that I’ve been doing for almost ten years. Like dancing is getting close, blogging is getting close.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

   • Finish writing an episode of Station Keeping.
   • Knit.
   • Play with kittens.
   • Read fiction.
   • Work.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

   • These awesome peanut filled pretzel’s from Trader Joes.
   • Graham Crackers.
   • Feta Cheese. Other Cheeses.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

   • Create endowments for a bunch of communities and institutions that I appreciate and enjoy in the world. Like the local folk music club, the queer youth group, etc.
   • Start an independent science fiction book press.

5. Places I have lived (in no order at all):

   • Nashville, TN.
   • Southern Wisconsin.
   • St. Louis, MO.
   • Kansas City, KS Area

6. Peeps I want to know more about:

   • Zach
   • Dave (Ok, so I know you pretty well, play long)
   • Chris (Ditto 2x)
   • Ted and Keith
   • Ken

I’m totally breaking the rules and not going through the elaborate rituatual of telling people to play along. I think most of those people read the blog, and they’re all people who I really like and consider my “blogging friends,” but they’re people who don’t typically comment here. So I think you should read their sites if you don’t already.

So here’s another cat video:

This is the problem with having both new technology and new cuteness in my life.

And just as if I wasn’t being stereotypical enough, I have a meme to post later today. Hah.

I recognize that this isn’t very interesting, but deal with it.

A real post is forthcoming.