One of the things I said when I closed TealArt for the first time, and that I’m reafirming now that I’ve closed it for real, was that I would spend more time contributing to other blogs. Because, other group blogs are important to support, and I think in this way, it becomes easier to support all of my various very niche interests, without letting tychoish become overly burdened with any one kind of rambling.

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve done a little bit of blogging for the feminist science fiction blog which is a great deal of fun, I’m planning out and writing a post for that this morning, which I’m sure that you’ll see in due time.

The development worth noting in a blog post is the fact that finally coerced asked a friend of mine to add me to a blog he started a bit ago called Theory Schmucks which is sort of a pop culture meets undergrad cultural studies classes meets political blogging. I’m not sure that I quite fit the mold for this blog, but the co-bloggers are friends, and if there was ever a place to stir up shit, that’s it. And it could hardly be less successful/exciting than my last attempt at theory blogging.

I’ll post notes about new posts as I get them up, just announcing them by way of saying “here’s what I’m working on.”

I’m also a semi-regular on the Zimmermania blot, but I generally only post big project reports over there.

Onward and Upward!

So, folks, in an effort to provide a service to the community rather than simply nattering on about my neuroses, I thought that I would provide a list vim resources that you might all find helpful on your own journeys with vim.

Just a refresher: VIM is a super old school, super powerful text editor that I’m in a battle to learn. For people who live and breath text, this is sort of the ergonomic “leather man tool” to end all such tools.

These are just documentation sources, not GUI layers and what not, which I also recommend you look into if you’re going to be a serious VIM user. VIM works pretty well in a command line (its native environment) but the GUI is most helpful in letting VIM interact with your other applications, as it almost certainly will need to. Cream for VIM works great for linux, I’ve not tested it for windows (but I suspect that it’s pretty good), and its downright sucky for Mac. MacVim is remarkably good, but needs some performance enhancing before I think it’s really viable, particularly on older machines. The issue with this is that the more official gvim package is written in an outdated environment for OS X, but is generally acceptable for windows and linux, so it’s fine. Anyway. onto the resource.

• dotfiles - Dotfiles is a collection of users' unix preferences and setting files. It’s really useful if you’re getting into seriously using the shell (.bashrc/.bash_profile, .zshrc, etc.) or other unix-ish tools like Mutt and vim to see what most people are doing to customize the program. Most of these programs seem painfully difficult only because everyone who uses them has customized them to within an inch of their lives.
• vim tips - A great wikia wiki (the private/for profit wiki hosting project by the people who do wikipedia.) It collects little bits of nagging “how on earth do you do x” and usually there’s an answer.
• vi editor 101 - This is the website guide that has all of the vim answers. All of them. It’s not cleverly or usefully organized so you have to grep through it, but other wise it’s quite useful.
• Editing in vim - This is the cheat sheet/guide that I find myself turning to more than any other when I forget how to do something that I should know reflexively. And the page is well designed and well laid out.
• vim for textmate fans
• If you, like me, have experience with the amazing TextMate editor, and want some help making the vim transition this is a good place to start, and even if your not there are a couple of vim tips that I think many will enjoy.

Contrary to your first impressions, this post is generally not about computers. Ok, a little bit.

I went to the computer store this afternoon. I got a computer from a friend who had upgraded and moved away and claimed that this old box was too old and slow to be of much use.

Well it turns out that this computer is actually about as powerful as my current machine, and I figured that I could get linux or some such working on it with minimal fuss, and it would be good to have a machine around that could manage torrents while I was away with the laptop, and host more regular backups, and so forth. In short order I got Ubuntu, but quickly realized that I would need a monitor¹, a wireless card, a bit more ram, and so forth.

So after a bit of hemming and hawing I finally went into the computer store today. There’s this local independent computer store in town that has used gear and what not, which is great if you’re in the market for something specific and don’t need the fuss of comp USA or some such. We’ve been going there for years and years and it seemed like the ideal place for this kind of task.

I got there and this very young looking (I wonder at what point we start identifying the people who help us in stores as “young looking”) guy came up to help me. Short. Thin. Emo. Obviously knew what he was doing. And so I let myself be the customer for once. “Yeah, I need this,” and he was able to do it, pretty much without a hitch.

I told him what I needed, he got the wireless card (last one) told me that flat panel monitors where in high demand and didn’t last long on the shelf, but quoted me an acceptable price. I looked at the CRT monitors, but didn’t get one. He husseled about trying to look for the right kind of ram, but didn’t find any.

It was at this point that I realized that this fellow was me. Sort of. I mean, I have a better fashion sense (gawd, the emo.) and taste in operating systems (he was using vista!), but other than that, here I was. It also struck me, that at this precise moment I was very not queer. Geeks are already a bit off of norm, and in casual interaction, it doesn’t come up/make itself apparent. Which is all together an odd feeling.

Anyway, so I brought the computer in, he put in the card and took out the modem, which was convenient, and then I left. We made small talk about operating systems, I was like, 10.4 it’s good stuff. He said something about the Air, I shrugged, and then left.

I didn’t get the wireless to work off the bat, and I’m currently reinstalling the OS (last time when I installed, I was able to disabuse it of the notion that I had a turkish keyboard, which complicated the login process.) With luck, I’ll be able to get the wireless to work after this is done. There seems to be confirmation of this wireless card working with Ubuntu, but we shall see.

Anyway, I’m going to tinker more, and knit some this afternoon. I’ve not been doing enough knitting, or writing for that matter.

Onward and Upward!

Ok, you all have spoken and I’ve changed the tagline to “now without a net,” which I like because of the “stunt/sport”¹ reference/tone. So we’ll see how long this one lasts.

Though I’m about to provide a quick status update on the state of the tycho, I’m thinking bout imposing a limit here: I’ll try and keep the “what’s going on with me,” journal entries down to one or two a week, unless something big happens. Creative constraint and all that.

Also, you all seem to like when I post about things that aren’t me.

Here’s the update:

Days on the Waitlist: 20

I have committed to a job for the summer, which will be good particularly if I get in off this wait list. If I don’t, I’m going to still have the summer job, but I’ll be working to get a job elsewhere as well, and I’m still looking around, of course.

On to the real topic of the post: my knitting.

I’m working on the body of the sweater. The batteries are charged so it’s not inconceivable that I’ll take some pictures this afternoon. There’s not a lot of progress. It’s now 7 inches, which is way behind where I’d like to be, but it does mean that I’m almost half way to the under arm point on this sweater. Ho-Hum.

This is why I think I’m such a bad knitting blogger, in the end, I work on long projects and get really excited if I get more than an inch done a day. Though I have to say that Joe is doing really good blogging job, despite the fact that he’s been working on the same lace tea cloth for weeks. I clearly have much left to learn.

I sent the pi shawl pattern to Zach for review and commentary, and I did some tweaking of my basic toe-up sock pattern/instruction handout. It’s a really in-depth narrative-ish description of how to knit socks thats intended as a pedagogical device, rather than a “design,” per se. I’m planning to release it under a pretty permissive creative commons licensee so that teachers and shop owners can use/distribute the pattern (with attribution) for free.²

If anyone wants to look at either of these (particularly the pi shawl,) I’m not looking for test knitters, just eyeballs, that would be great.

Ok, I’m off. I’m going to a used computer store with this referb computer that I’m working on, to see if I can get additional ram, a wireless card, and maybe a less sucky monitor, and other stuff.

I’ll be in touch.

Onward and Upward!

This post is mostly about things I’ve read/am reading, but I have a few administrative issues to get out of the way first.

I’m still up in the air about the new name or tagline for tychoish. I learned that I was misremembering the “early days of a better nation quote,” which make it difficult to serve as a new blog title. “Work as if you were living--” is kinda dumb, even if you modify it to “think” or “write.” And I think “innovated, bordering on the avate garde,” is perhaps a smidge to close to pornography for my tastes. Regarding the use of the pen name/pseudonym, I realized in a comment exchange on LiveJournal¹ that the reason I was a bit angsty about this is that knitting is something that I already do “as [given name],” and because of this and because there is--as far as I know--not a huge precedent of knitters using pen names I got bit tetchy about it. Now that I’ve realized these things I feel fine about the situation.

But anyway, that said…

Back to reading:

In a fit of insomnia, I finished reading Samuel Delany’s “Empire Star,” the novella that’s related to Babel-17, that I read last year (Bable-17 is the closest thing there is to the “Science Fiction of Lingustics” and is quite amazing²). I’ve seen this novella anthologized a number of times in “new space opera” and “SF classics” collections, and it’s absolutely amazing.

The plot is very complex and circularly, and perfectly simple all at the same time. The use of the narrator is risky as hell from my perspective, but it works perfectly. It’s also, not surprisingly, an incredibly self-aware text. It predicts when the story is going to become interesting and turn, it’s self-referential, and the responses to “Empire Star” in Babel-17 are perfect.

Good stuff.

I’m not sure what my next novel to read is going to be. I have Delany’s Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand on the shelf, and I’d like to read that at some point, but I think giving my brain a while to rest might be good. I’m also considering reading Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, because I write telepath stories, am interested/entertained by procedurals, and because I haven’t, but I don’t know how that’s going to go over.

I also got the Left-Hand of Darkness, which I’ve always wanted to read (and even started a few times,) but something always manages to come up, so maybe I should dive in to this.

I feel somewhat guilty by the fact that I’m not really getting into the Tiptree (The Stary Rift,) but I think it’s no use to guilt myself into what is ostensibly pleasure reading.

I’m also beginning to listen to James Patrick Kelly’s reading of Look into The Sun,³ on his podcast “Free Reads"⁴, which proves to be interesting and fun. It’s nice to knit while listening to podcasts, and I’ve been behind on my knitting of late.

Anyway, that’s all I have on that. I’ll be in touch.

Onward and Upward!

Here’s the running list of things I’m thinking about for tag lines. I’ve changed it to “tychoish, think as if you lived--” but this is only temporary, unless people like it.

I really like the comma in this one, really like the comma.

I’m even going to put them in the right font/size.

I hope you don’t mind the visual oddity.

the life and times of tycho garen

the old one, for typographical comparison.

tychoish, think as if you live----------------------------------

(with an explanation of the “early days of a better nation”) -- in the /about/ page.

tychoish, the history of a future diaspora

a bit long, a bit too oblique, but franklin has shown that niche bloggers can have totally random blog titles drawn from the academic ethos, without causing much harm.

tycho garen on multiplexity

(minor reference to Empire Star, which I just finished reading.)

tychoish, a log of the future past

tychoish, a log of the present future

(variations on a common theme) I like using “log,” though my gut wants it to say “history”

tychoish: from another time and place

(reference to a dave van ronk song that Judy played on the radio this morning).

tychoish, now without a net

Judy wrote a post today about identity and how we change ourselves to fit what we’re doing at any particular moment. I’ve been thinking about something reasonably similar for a few days and I’ve meant to write about it more extensively and clearly here. So I’m going to now. At the moment my interest is pretty specifically focused on how the act of naming serves to concretize identity and meaning, basically “what’s in a name,” to be overly trite.

By giving something a name, we make it seem comprehensible as something unique, and there’s an expectation that people can understand what something is going to be based on the name. If I give you the title of this blog (and your familiar with the site) you’re probably going to know what the posts are going to be like--and mostly you’d be right. Just as, if I told you that a site is a “blog” you know (or think you know) something about it’s organization and layout.

I think the theorists would say that “naming is performative,” but I think the invocation of J.L. Austen is totally unnecessary, and probably pretty confusing in the long run. Basically this means that the act of attaching a name to something is as a result of its utterance, meaningful. At the same time, a little sign-posting doesn’t seem uncalled for.

On some level, that’s what the term “queer” is about (trying to establish a different way of thinking about sexual and gendered difference) and because of this and because of the importance of performativity to “queer” that I consider naming to be a queer issue.

So why am I writing this, you wonder? In part because I feel like this blog needs a new name, and in part because I’m considering my pen name more thoroughly as I embark more seriously upon a knitting career.

First, the blog: The current name “the life and opinions of tycho garen,” is a bit stale, and I think provokes a style of blogging that’s more like a journal, a style that I’ve been fully complicit in enacting. And while I do take pleasure in the allusion to Lawrence Stern’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, I’m not sure that my karma needs that kind of spiritual connection at the moment. I’d also like to push this site back in the direction of the blog over the journal.

I used names for TealArt (r.i.p.) that were reminiscent of newspaper titles (e.g. “The Times of TealArt”), but I think I need something different. This blog/site will still be called tychoish, but I think some better title is much needed and I’m looking for suggestions.

Maybe I should see if I could cycle through a list of titles (for up at the top), there are a number that I think might work well. Maybe what I’m looking for is more of a tag line. Things that have been floating through my mind:

• innovative bordering on the avante garde (from torchwood, Ianto’s reference to Jack’s sexual prowess.)
• awkward, but endearingly colloquial (An actual comment a prof. wrote on a paper, a long running joke, and I used it on TealArt for a long time. perhaps too journal-ish)
• tychoish from the past future (I like phrases that mash up “future” and “past” because they create a sense of history.)
• work and live as if-- (the less famous first half of the Alisdar Gray quote that ends “--you live in the early days of a better nation,” which Ken MacLeod has already used for a blog title)

That’s all I have for right now, suggestions are welcome.

Now on to the more serious part: the name.

To which I guess I don’t have a lot to say, except that I’m not sure. Here’s some pro/con analysis, but I hope you give suggestions.

Pros to using pen name *tycho garen*:

• The name is entirely my own. I chose it, I have shaped it myself, without connection or reliance on other people. There is no “garen family” tradition, nothing. Just me.
• It’s what this blog has always and will continue to be authored under (even if TealArt was originally authored by my given name). There’s a marketing advantage here.
• Pseudonyms paradoxically draw attention to the identity and role of the author, in a way that is rather cool.
• It’s more difficult to mispronounce than my given last name. The silent H is a bit of a blip, but I have an 8 letter last name that’s typographically complex (-nm- letter pair,) and an english spelling anomaly (-ei- sequence.)
• “garen,” is a loose homage to my maternal grandfather (his first name began with G, and in the tradition of jewish naming, that and intention are enough), which feels nice.
• I feel more comfortable being a non-capitalizer with a pseudonym
• It allows me to isolate my professional (academic or otherwise) production from everything else, and offer some differentiation for the purpose of google.

Cons to using pen name *tycho garen*:

• I think it would be difficult to change later if I had second thoughts.
• Might be more difficult to use it to do business.
• In this vein it might cause confusion, which is bad from a marketing perspective.
• Many people know me by the given name, as they should, particularly in the context of knitting (knitting camp, various other things.)
• It is hard to mix it up, to do some things with one name and some things with other names.
• I debate weather it’s the same or different as writing under a modified version of their given names: JMS goes by Joe but is credited J. Michael Strazinsky, J. C. “Chris” Hutchins and so forth.
• tycho is less (potentially) ambiguously gendered than “Sam,” and significantly less common, though Sam is a pretty uncommon for men in my generation.

I’m thinking I’m going to go with it for the publishing (to the fam, I don’t want to change my name or anything, just a pen name, to be clear), but I don’t know. I suspect I’ll get it sorted out.

Any feedback you can offer with regards to either the name of the blog or the pen name debacle, I’d love to hear from you a lot.

Cheers, tycho

(ps. Onward and Upward!)

As I promised earlier, here is the draft of the “terms” that I want to include as part of my pattern for the shawl. It seems reasonable, and it seems to reflect my interests in both promoting freedom and the open exchange of ideas, but more importantly in making it completely clear that I’m not writing this pattern out of philanthropy.

The truth is that by refusing to restrict downloads giving away copies of this pattern means that more and more people will be able to see the pattern and this blog (which is, in the long term, good for me and my pocketbook). The basic idea is that, only a certain percentage of people are going to pay anyway, and with luck by unrestricting the download, more people will see the pattern, and therefore a great number of people will pay. I think/hope the economics work out, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

In any case, below the fold, you’ll see a copy of the draft of the statement of this idea. Please give feedback and commentary either in the comments or via email. I look forward to hearing form you.

The rights to this pattern are entirely the property of the author; except in the instance of this copy, in which you the knitter hold (quite literally.) Very likely, you downloaded this pattern after paying for it, in which case I thank you. But it’s also possible that you have the pattern downloaded the pattern from free from my own website, or after receiving a copy from a friend or acquaintance.

This is alright. I don’t think it’s fair to expect that you buy patterns sight unseen, and I think that spreading copies of this pattern to your friends and fellow knitters is without question a good thing for this pattern and my design career: tell people about this pattern.

At the same time, this pattern is not free. If you decide to knit this pattern or value it’s contribution to the knitting community, I request that you pay for the pattern, and you can find instructions for this at http://tychoish.com/knitting/. If the price is a barrier to you, or would like to contribute more to support future designs, there are options at http://tychoish.com/knitting/ and you should feel free to contact me by email at garen@tychoish.com.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

This means that under no condition should you derive profit from the sale of this pattern or take credit for the pattern. I would also ask that if you share the pattern that you only distribute this pattern in full, including all charts and instruction. I would, however, be delighted if you, after (buying) and knitting this pattern decided to design your own eclectic pi shawl.

Note: This will appear as a PDF file that I expect people to print out, hence the literal display of URLs. And by the time this launches, the tychoish.com/knitting/ page will, of course, be configured to contain links to pages that discuss donations and the store.

Onward and Upward!