Topic: Posts

I saw a meme, I from lesboprof, that listed 25 authors that were influential to her. It was fun for me to read, because there was some overlap with what my list would be and because she’s (presumably) a feminist-studies type as well. I thought I’d give it a stab, though in typical tychoish fashion, this is going to be really eclectic. Also, because it’s a meme, please feel free to comment and join in.

1. Samuel R. Delany - Delany was probably the single most cited author during my college career, and was my root back into science fiction after college. Good stuff, because it combines feminist/queer/race theory interests with science fiction.

2. Kim Stanley Robinson - My “intro to college” class was built around Robinson’s “Mars Trilogy.” While I put the books out of mind for many years, I’ve recently come back to them, and am surprised how much my own “Mars stories” draw on Robinson’s influence to varying degrees. His work is Masterful and I quite enjoy it.

3. Gayle S. Rubin - Rubin’s essay “Thinking Sex,” really defined my interest in queer studies and queer theory, and remains terribly important to my world view.

4. Melissa Scott - I read the “Silence Leigh” trillogy when I was in high school (twice!), and it rocked my world, seriously rocked my world. I’ve read two of her other books more recently, and was similarly influenced by them. Good stuff.

5. Anne Lamott - Contemporary/mainstream fiction isn’t often my thing, nor are (particularly) memoirs; however, I find Anne Lamont’s fiction (and non-fiction) quite powerful. Someone got me Bird by Bird as a gift, and I ate it up (again, during high school). I’ve since read more of her work, and I’m particularly fond of All New People.

6. Issac Asimov - I read the Foundation series twice in high school and it was amazing. There’s so much more Asimov out there, and while I’m not on a huge project to “read the SF canon,” every time I come across an Asimov story it often succeeds at being really awesome.

7. Robert Heinlein - In high school I took a class where I had to read Like 12 books in 4 months (sophomore year.) It was intense and I swear the only book I finished reading for that class was Stranger in a Strange Land. It’s good. I’m not a particular Heinlein fanboy, and a lot of his material creeps me out, but

8. Cherie Moraga - I have a copy of Cherrie Moraga’s Loving in the War Years next to my desk and it’s a book that I find incredibly powerful. Many, I think remember and cite Moraga’s work with Gloria Anzaldúa (This Bridge Called My Back) which is indeed powerful stuff, but her creative work hit me a couple of times during college, and I think I’m better for it

9. Elizabeth Zimmerman - I knit the way I do because of Elizabeth, and I think about my knitting seriously because of Elizabeth.

10. Meg Swansen - See above only more so.

11. Paul Connerton - I read this little book called How Societies Remember, in this nifty seminar I took durring my last semester on historiography, which was one of the very few classes I took in college “just cause I wanted to,” and it was a great thing indeed. This book was a collecting point for a lot of the cultural identity, cultural memory ideas that guided my thinking durring the first two attempts at graduate school (long story), and much to my surprise continue to affect my thoughts

12. Orson Scott Card - I listened to an interview with OSC last week and he said that he recomended the “Speaker for the Dead” (post-Ender’s Game trillogy) for people over age 18. I was certianly much younger than that when I plowed through all of the (at the time) existing Ender Books. I think I was 14 or so when I read all of them. In any case, big effect.

13. James Tiptree, Jr. - I named my cat (Kip) after a character in Brightness falls from the Air. I don’t think I need to say much more than that.

14. Cory Doctorow - A huge force in contemporary science fiction, and despite the fact that I think our politics are at least mildly divergent (and as a result I find a lot of his more political fiction frustrating), he’s a great influence.

15. Barbara Kingsolver - I’ve not read the complete bibliography, for sure, but I read a couple of her books in high school, and do quite enjoy her writing on a stylistic level.

16. Nancy Kress - Amazing. Kress was on my radar before college, but I’ve really started to read her work since my return to SF. I quite enjoy her blog, and I learn something about writing short fiction every time I read one of her stories.

17. Arthur C. Clarke - I worried about picking too many canon names. It’d be like a theatre type saying “I’m really into Anouilh, Shakespeare and Johnson.” Frankly, however, I think it’s true that a lot of the--particularly science fiction--that really influenced me on this list were things that I read when I was in high school. I think it’s something more to do with “that stage,” but Clarke’s good stuff.

18. Armisted Maupin - The Tales of the City books are an amazing thing. I spent a week one summer, sitting in a chair, where I’d get a bottle of water, some crackers, and I’d just read book after book.

19. Irving Yalom - I have of course mentioned on this site that I majored in psychology in college. Throughout most of this period, I wasn’t particularly interested in clinical work, despite the fact that all of my classmates were. In any case, the last semester I took a class on a clinical/treatment topic, and while all of my classmates who so wanted to help other people gave reports on depression, and anxiety, and personality disorders; I gave a report on Death, Dying, and Grief, through which I discovered Yalom, and I think as a result gave one of the more uplifting reports in the class. Changed my world.

20. Judith Butler - Not much to say, except I spent a lot of time with Butler’s work in college, and like so much of the feminist and queer stuff that I read then, has really shaped my thinking. Butter, had a great impact for better or for worse on a lot of people, an I’m one of them.

21. David Eddings - I seem to have a thing for “books I read in high school,” particularly long series. I read one of Edding’s major sagas and it was delightful. I also enjoyed one of his non-fantasy books as well, somewhat later. I’m not a big fantasy lover, and but I do like saga’s and Eddings tells a damn good story.

22. Ken Macleod - If I’m only half as cool as Ken Macleod when I grow up, I’ll be one happy camper.

23. F. Scott Fitzgerald - Ok, I must confess, I read The Great Gatsby once in high school, and I’m convinced that this is the Great American Novel.

24. Theodor Holm Nelson - He wrote a book on hypertext that you probably haven’t heard about called Literary Machines, but it’s hugely inspiring in both it’s scope and vision.

25. Lionel Bacon - He collected dance notes and music for Morris dancing. While it’s not the kind of thing that you read, it is the kind of thing that my team has at every practice just in case we need some sort of arbiter.

No secret, I’ve been stressed. Readers of the blog who are friends with my parents (Hi Angie!) have even told them “wow, [tycho] looks stressed.” One of the things I’ve been doing for a few weeks now, in part to manage this is to begin some sort of exercise regimen. There’s a park not far from where I live, and I’ve taken to going out for an hour in the late afternoon, when my brain is tired and I can’t really write anyway.

Amazingly, it’s been a great thing. Exercise helps the mood, I had enough psychology to know that to be true, and one thing that I’ve lamented, since I stopped commuting, is that I haven’t really listened to podcasts in any concerted way. I’m incredibly behind as a result, and the walks, including doing good things for my mood and stamina, have been a good excuse to spend some item consuming media that I find very refreshing and informing.

Exercise is a tough things, I’m a skinny, reasonably active guy, but I tend towards short bursts, rather than concerted activity. Which is fine, but dance weekends are really tough on me, as I wear out too quickly. One really needs to be in shape in order to dance well, but I’ve found that it’s hard to get in shape only by dancing. So making a point of going out is a good thing indeed, and I feel better. So there.

“blah blah tycho says he’s not a programmer, blah blah.” I say stuff like this (more or less) quite a bit, right? But I know a lot about how computers work, a lot about how programs are constructed (at least in the abstract,) and while I’ve not (really) written code of any note I do read a bunch of code, and can almost always figure out how things work. So I suppose I should confess that I’m… working on learning how to program (in my copious free time).

I, of course, will keep you posted about this as it progresses, but for now I’ll settle to just explain the origin of this development: I started using emacs a few months ago, and I found the lisp-dialect that serves as emacs' extension language to be quite understandable. Maybe it’s something about how emacs programs are written to be hacked on, and even poorly documented emacs-lisp is rather well documented. I read the beginning of an introduction to haskell, and I think it has something to do with the functional aspects of the language. In any case, something clicked, and so here I am.

I mentioned the other day that I was looking to build a fact file, but that I wanted to follow up on this in a bit more length. As you know and/or have probably guessed, I’m a writer, and I consume a lot of information in the pursuit of this practice. That’s par for the course. The problem is figuring out a way to store collected information so that it’s useful later. Here’s a story:

I have a story that imagines a future where there are colonies and outposts throughout our solar system (among other things). I found myself a few days ago plotting out some details and I realized that I might be imagining a future with not only far flug outposts but also a substantially different system of orbital mechanics. I know about Hohmann transfers and enough about gravity assists, that getting between planets in the solar system is complex. My hope is that by knowing a bit about these things, I can avoid rank absurdity. In any case, I found myself looking up the length orbits of Jupiter and Saturn around the sun.

Now mostly this was just to get a sense of the distance, because unless I also posit free, lightweight, super-powerful propulsion systems, a trip between Jupiter and Saturn is going to take a number of years (say, 5-15; and even with posted amazing-drive, we’re probably still talking several years,) and no matter how fast/what kind of propulsion system you use, there are going to be a very limited “windows” for transport. If you miss the buss from Jupiter to Saturn, it could be 10 or 20 years before you could get off world. Not to mention the huge impact this would have on the course of cultural development on these colonies.

But having said that, this detail about the orbital lengths (though burned into my memory at this point), isn’t the kind of thing that I track very well, and what about the next time I have a question like this? Or what about a news story that I come across, or the abstract of a scientific paper that catches my interest? This detail about orbits of the outer planets was really just the straw that broke the camels back.

It was clear that I needed a system for storing information, facts, notes for later retrieval. I wasn’t sure what that system would look like, or what I would need from it, but I was sure that something was better than the “read and hope” method I’ve been using.

I did some brainstorming and came up with some basic requirements. I needed something pretty unstructured so that “records,” which were just links and a few words would be just as complete as records that had lengthy notes. I needed built in meta-data functionality to store categories, tags, and citation information (links, date, identifiers). Easy capture and editing is a must, and while I was, and am, willing to consider functionality outside of emacs, but emacs is preferred, and it would take a lot for me to want something that couldn’t be stored in plain text files.

When other people (individuals) come to me with similar problems I almost always recommend private instances of Wordpress where people can post notes. This often is just the right thing. Conceptually it works like a notebook or journal in the physical world, but it has good meta-data support (categories, tags, dates), you can use it from anywhere (the web, the API), and it’s a mature system. This works great for a lot of people, but I’m not incredibly happy with the web-interface, and I’d need to rely on search more than I think I’d like.

I put out a call on identi.ca for help on this problem. There were suggestions of PlannerMode and various systems based on org-mode (which is what I’m inclined to use at this point.) I then had this “moment” issue about not wanting my “fact file” to be built on some sort of to-do list. Todo lists are great, I love todo-lists (perhaps too much?) Having my information management software be built around “tasks” and “projects” provides too much of the wrong kind of structure.

I was frustrated, as you might imagine. After all I just wanted some sort of index-able note-card system, that I could use to store some basic information without fuss. I’ve settled down a bit and I’m using a format using a skeleton/org-remember template to store my fact file in an org-mode text file (data.org). The entries look something like this:

* The title                    :a:list:of:tags:
  :PROPERTIES:
  :date: <2009-03-14 Sat>
  :cite-key: a-u/uid
  :link: http://tychoish.com
  :END:

And then finally some notes text

And the input is just an prompt-tab interface. I can also add more details to the properties, section. If that makes sense at a later date. So the creation of these records is pretty quick. I’ll get come code up when I have something a bit more clear. In the mean time, I’d like to continue to have a bit of a discussion about this information management problem. It’s a domain that is clearly very suited to technological enhancement, but at the same time there aren’t a lot of solutions on the ground. I suppose that’s where I come in, but feedback is most appreciated on interface questions, on alternate use cases and applications. I look forward to hearing from you…

One of the things that I find a lot when I’m seraching the internet for emacs things (or, in the case of my google alert, when emacs stuff on the web finds me.) Are people writing blog posts that are along the lines of, “so I was playing around with emacs weblogger mode…” Which is pretty much what this is.

I’ve been toying with the idea of switching to a git-based blogging platform/site generator, that would be much more slim than my current tool, which (though I love it, and recomend it to other people regularly) doesn’t seem to fit my workflow particularly well. Since leaving the (wonderful) TextMate blogging bundle behind, I’ve been in search of a blogging tool… and, well, I’m still looking.

When I find it, I assure you that you’ll be the first to know.

A few months ago I got a Happy Hacking Keyboard because, hey, I’m a writer and a GNU/Linux guy, and I use almost entirely keyboard driven software/desktop environment a good keyboard seems like a reasonable investment..

So after a few months, what do I think? The keyboard is great. I don’t miss the keys, I like having everything in reach, I like being able to have my tea close and not have to move as far for the mouse when I need it. Additionally, and you wouldn’t believe how true this is, but the keys feel so nice to type on. It’s nosier, the response is good (not buckling springs good, but quite nice), and I defiantly feel the difference between it and other computers (let alone laptops; I tried to type on a MacBook the other day, and it was quite nearly painful.) If anyone is looking for a new keyboard, this is defiantly one to consider, and if size is an issue, then I (probably) wouldn’t consider anything else.

Keep on typing!

I’ve been tweaking the site for a few weeks off and on. Busy schedule and what not. A while back I made a list of things that needed to change: updated links, clearer sidebar, better system for the “mini blog” (coda), and different interior page designs, and every few weeks I’ve gone through and changed something, until now, when I think I’ve done enough to warrant a small post about these changes.

In the right column I took all the menus and put them in little “JavaScript” toggles, so that they take up much less room, but when you click on one of the links in the “menu box” above the menus expand for your viewing pleasure. I also did some cleaning up of the links list, and have expanded the list of sites that I’m linking to. I like giving the “real content,” a lot more attention, while still keeping all the “sidebar” content accessible when possible.

The second big part of this revamp was to create a more customized “home page” for the site that displayed content productively and clearly, without and endless overload of content that word-press can provide if you’re a) wordy like me; b) not careful. Basically I now have a bunch of custom “loops/queries” to pull the right kind of content onto the home page, and I can append “recent articles” lists, to provide access to the content without displaying all of it. On the essays, I even use a toggle script for a couple of entries for some added punch.

The final piece--this last weekends work--has been to change the “interior” page so that when you go to see a specific article the page is much less cluttered. I’ve also started using disqus for comments, and with some CSS magic I’ve gotten pretty satisfied with how this works. I really like having unique interior pages.

If something doesn’t work on your browser, or you have additional suggestions, I’m all ears. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I’m working on a longer post on the topic, but the past few days have seen me spend a bit of extra attention trying to develop some way of doing a “fact file” inside of emacs. Basically what I need is some way of storing information (links, quotes, text) along with bibliogrpahic information (where I got it, when I accessed it) and some sort of meta-data (tags, categories, search index) so that I can find things again. Largely, this data isn’t for any specific project, but it is a way to record general notes on the information that I consume in an effort to make that data more useable in the future.

As I firm up the solution, I’ll write more about it, but I’ve discovered something about the software targeted at this domain (generally, “personal information management,") that’s worth sharing: there are a lot of notebooks and databases around, but they’re all very much alike: anything that’s structured as a database is generally desgined to store addresses, contact information and other “CRM” data, which is nice, but not what I’m going for at all. There are also a lot of notebook applications that are modeled on wikis (too unstructured) or outliners (ok, but hierarchical). Interestingly, it seems every kind of personal information management package that isn’t an address book (for emacs, but I think this is to some degree generalizable) has grown to a point where it can manage and extrapolate todo-lists from your notes.

Once upon a time, emacs itself was critiqued (and still is) because it has the ability to send and recieve email, and that this feature (email sending) was a sign of “feature bloat,” becasue after all, sending email with a text editor. That’s a bit a field. I’ll let you decide how history has dealt with the email issue. I in the mean time am going to write, and figure out some way of doing a better job with this information.