2008-11-19: Slowly creeping
I had no energy today. Absolutely none. As a result, I got essentially
nothing done, which puts a serious crimp in my intention to build up a bit
of extra time in advance of having company so that I'll feel like I'm
moving various projects along adequately. Instead, I just vaguely poked
at things, got some reading done, got a bit of half-assed coding done, and
mostly felt frustrated at myself.
I think this is from getting much too little sleep the first two nights of
the week. I slept in a couple of hours today; since I can't do that
tomorrow with a meeting, I'm going to bed early instead.
No walking again tonight, and I didn't write either of the two pending
reviews I want to write. It was that sort of a day.
Hopefully tomorrow will pick up a bit; a nice, productive push before
company arriving Friday would be just what I need.
2008-11-19: Review: Rule of Evidence
Review: Rule of Evidence, by John G. Hemry
| Series |
Paul Sinclair #3 |
| Publisher |
Ace |
| Copyright |
March 2005 |
| ISBN |
0-441-01262-0 |
| Format |
Mass market |
| Pages |
276 |
This is the third book in the Paul Sinclair series, following his career
as a space naval officer with secondary duties as ship's legal officer.
While it has references to the previous books in the series and some of
the relationships were established there, each book in this series is
faily independent and it can probably be read in any order.
Lieutenant JG Sinclair still professes to dislike making a career of the
legal system, but as Rule of Evidence opens with the normal routine
naval operations in a near-future national space navy, readers of the
series know that it's almost certain to follow the predictable pattern.
Some sort of accident or catastrophe will happen, Sinclair will get sucked
in somehow, and the book will end on a trial scene. It's that sort of
series, as structurally standardized as a series television drama. It's
important to know that going in. It lets you appreciate the series for
what it is and pick something else if you want something less predictable.
Within that framework, Hemry again tells an engrossing, page-turning
story, using a combination of excellent pacing, the inherent drama of a
courtroom, and a ton of realistic-feeling military detail that structures
the story and constantly gives Sinclair something that he has to be doing.
The opening section is, as in the previous books, a bit weak, as Hemry
re-establishes the background and characters. I always find his dialogue
a bit off and forced at the start of the book. But once things heat up
and the plot gets started, it improves considerably (either that, or I
become so engrossed I don't care any more).
It's the third book and there's no in-story reason for why Sinclair should
keep getting tangled up in this many high-profile cases, so suspension of
disbelief does get a bit strained. Hemry goes very personal for the plot
driver this time, which is emotionally effective but seems like a
far-fetched coincidence. It's also a bit heavy-handed on the drama and
personal angst, and I'm not sure I like that. There were plenty of moral
quandries in the previous books without cranking the emotional knob up to
eleven.
That said, ladling on that much emotion can be justified if the author
does interesting things with it, and Hemry dodges around many of the
standard angst patterns to take a hard look at survivor's guilt, the
difficult angles of support and responsibility in relationships, and the
impact of the legal system on an accused person. I was impressed. It
more than makes up for a fairly predictable basic plot structure (the
cause of the main problem of the book was obvious from very early on).
Characters take damage and don't react like saints, hard choices don't
always get easy answers, and there are pieces left to pick up even after
success. It's deeper characterization than I'd expect from what's
admittedly a rather formulaic series.
If you've read the earlier books, you probably know whether you'd like
this one. They're all about the same, although this one adds more moral
questions around emotion at the cost of legal procedure. It's the weakest
book so far structurally, including a deus ex machina ending, but
I thought it was the strongest in emotional character development.
Followed by Against All Enemies.
Rating: 8 out of 10
2008-11-18: Leaf
Today turned out to be a day to work on virtualization, and I made quite a
bit of progress. Perhaps tomorrow will be time to finish up my
repackaging of runtests. I have been working on moving over the test
libraries, though; now I just need to write some tests for it.
2008-11-18: Review: Dzur
Review: Dzur, by Steven Brust
| Series |
Vlad Taltos #10 |
| Publisher |
Tor |
| Copyright |
August 2006 |
| Printing |
November 2007 |
| ISBN |
0-7653-4154-9 |
| Format |
Mass market |
| Pages |
285 |
This is the tenth book of the Vlad Taltos series, and unlike many of them,
really can't be read out of order. Vlad's first-person narration tries to
set the scene sufficiently, but Dzur opens immediately after the
end of Issola and directly continues the
main plot arc of the series, started in Teckla. You want to read this section of the series in order.
Vlad has finally returned to Adrilankha, still hunted but a bit more
secure after the conclusion of Issola, and has decided that what he
wants more than anything else is a dinner at Valabar's. He's joined there
by a Dzur, a young and rather naive apprentice to Sethra Lavode. Their
dinner conversation, mixed with a detailed and loving description of each
course of the meal, forms the chapter introductions of the book. It's one
of the best descriptions of food I've seen in fiction, all the more since
Vlad uses it as a jumping-off point for philosophy and analysis of the
mindset of a Dzur.
The House of Dzur is the branch of Dragaerans who love battle,
particularly against overwhelming odds. That characterizes Vlad's ongoing
situation here, although the events of Issola have changed the
balance a bit. There is some further exploration of that balance shift,
and it's just as good as the end of Issola, but there aren't any
major discoveries. Instead, the plot centers around Vlad back to doing
investigative and negotiation work for the first time since
Orca. The topic isn't quite as much
fun, but it's great to see a return to this sort of plot, with Vlad
calling on his varied friends and dealing with overwhelming odds in his
own, non-Dzur way (as much as he's tempted otherwise). My favorite parts
of the book were his exchanges with Sethra, in which Vlad entertains
himself with his own inimitable brand of needling. I'm enjoying watching
Vlad's friendships change and grow over the course of the series as he
finds ways of testing them and ways of strengthening them (generally
without admitting what he's doing even to himself).
I think one of the reasons why Brust has been able to keep this series
going for as long as he has is that he tells a lot of stories in great
detail without advancing the overall plot by that much. The same is alas
true here: we end the book in mostly the same holding pattern we were in
when we started it. But the story is great fun: not quite at the level of
Orca but my favorite Vlad novel since then.
Definitely recommended to those who have been following the series. Brust
is maintaining a consistent tone while still varying matters enough
between books to keep me interested.
Followed by Jhegaala.
Rating: 8 out of 10
2008-11-17: Oak and water
I did have a better picture of Garry Oak, just from another day.
I'm working on coding infrastructure right now. I've cleaned up a bunch
of compiler warnings in lbcd and now I'm
putting together a separate package for my runtests test driver so that I
can more easily share the code between different packages. This mostly
involves writing documentation and test cases for it and the associated
libraries. It's fun and feels productive, and I can fill the time while
I'm waiting to get unblocked on the virtualization stuff I'm working on.
Not much more than three days now before company!
2008-11-17: Review: The Paths of the Dead
Review: The Paths of the Dead, by Steven Brust
| Series |
Khaavren Romances #3 |
| Publisher |
Tor |
| Copyright |
December 2002 |
| Printing |
August 2003 |
| ISBN |
0-8125-3417-4 |
| Format |
Mass market |
| Pages |
397 |
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to Various Personages of Note, Who Then
Take Multiple Journeys, Pausing from Time to Time to Discuss the Fate of
Empires and Have Conversations of an Introductory Nature, But Resolving
Little of Note Apart from Preparing the Reader for the Next Book.
This is the third book in the Khaavren Romances, set in the same universe
as the Vlad Taltos series but taking place considerably earlier (at least
as compared to Vlad's lifespan). It's useful but not necessary to have
read the predecessor books, The Phoenix
Guards and Five Hundred Years After.
They introduce many of the major characters and provide background for the
Interregnum, but they're not immediately relevant to the plot. What is
perhaps more useful is having read a substantial chunk of the Vlad Taltos
series, not because it's directly linked, but because this book is much
more interesting if you've already worked up some curiosity about the
Interregnum and some of its major events.
It's now another couple hundred years after Five Hundred Years
After, and Brust is gathering more of the Dragaerans who later appear in
Vlad's stories (Morrolan and Teldra, for example). The Paths of the
Dead is the first book of a trilogy dealing with the Interregnum, and
unfortunately Paarfi (the fictional narrator, a historian writing from
around Vlad's time) uses this to expand his already loquacious style. Be
prepared, despite a fairly quick and interesting start, for extended bits
in which little of compelling interest happens (although partially
redeemed by Paarfi's style, if you enjoy it).
One problem is that Brust introduces a new set of characters, of the next
generation after Khaavren, who appear to be the heroes of this story. But
those characters don't cover enough ground, so he also introduces Morrolan
and Teldra, brings back all the characters of the previous books, adds
several new related characters, and brings in yet more long-lived
characters who also appear in Vlad's time. The result is quite a lot of
characters, enough that they're hard to keep track of (particularly the
younger generation) and even harder at times to care about.
Lest I sound too negative, I still enjoyed this book. The bits of
Dragaeran history that it fills in continue to fascinate me (and I'm
looking forward to finishing the series so that I can trawl fan
encyclopedias for all the bits that I missed). And there are various
encounters, some good conversations with Sethra and Verra, and a nice,
solid action sequence at the end of the book. But despite dealing with
more dramatic events than The Phoenix Guards, The Paths of
the Dead was a bit of a let-down.
The characters of Khaavren's generation, in the course of the previous two
books, got rather solid characterizations. Even with the distancing
effect of Paarfi's narrative style, Brust got in a lot of their internal
monologues and emotional impressions, and I felt like I knew them well.
Switching casts was a bit frustrating, and the new characters don't
interest me as much. Piro feels like more of an empty hole in the story
than Khaavren does, Kytraan is remarkably forgettable, and neither get the
same depth of interior monologue and detailed description that the
previous four compatriots received. I found myself looking forward to the
scenes with the older characters (particularly Tazendra), even if they're
side story, because the characters are more interesting.
The set I'll call the Vlad characters (Morrolan, Teldra, the Sethras, and
a few others introduced here) are much better, in large part because I'm
already familiar with them from reading multiple Vlad stories. I already
know them well and care about them, so their scenes pack additional
emotional weight. This is lucky, since they show up more here than in
Five Hundred Years After, but they suffer from the other major
problem of this book: they rarely get to do anything concrete.
This is very much a setup story, giving us a background at great length
and then shuffling the characters about to get them ready for the next
section. The only bit of solid and conclusive action happens at the end
of the book, and while it's both interesting and worthwhile, it features
the new character who's more of a cipher than any of the others. I had a
great deal of difficulty caring about her, in part because she undergoes a
significant off-camera character development and then gets a new
personality by fiat (not that she had much screen time before then). That
sadly undermines the end of the book.
The best parts of The Paths of the Dead are the mythology and, of
course, Paarfi's writing style, which if you're reading the whole series
you probably either love or hate by this point. Either way, there's not
much more to say about it; it continues in the same style as the previous
books. I will note, though, that the prelude and appendix, which further
play into the faux-historical narration of the book, are written by Emma
Bull and Teresa Nielsen Hayden respectively and are highly entertaining.
Recommended if you liked the previous two Khaavren books, but alas not as
strongly.
Followed by The Lord of Castle Black.
Rating: 6 out of 10
2008-11-16: Munch, munch
I also added another flowering
currant picture.
Today started quite late, since I slept in past 11am (partly because I was
up late reading Jo Walton's Half a Crown, which is brilliant). But
I still managed to do the grocery shopping and the laundry.
I'm getting a bit behind on writing reviews since I finished several
things yesterday, but I'm hoping to finish one this evening after I
exercise.
One more week of work and then I have company and lots and lots of video
games.
2008-11-16: Review: Burden of Proof
Review: Burden of Proof, by John G. Hemry
| Series |
Paul Sinclair #2 |
| Publisher |
Ace |
| Copyright |
March 2004 |
| ISBN |
0-441-01147-0 |
| Format |
Mass market |
| Pages |
293 |
This is the second book in the series following the career of Paul
Sinclair and his duties as ship legal officer in a near-future space
navy. There are multiple references to the events of
A Just Determination, but the plot is
independent. Burden of Proof would be quite readable on its own.
If you have read A Just Determination, this is more of the same,
with about the same strengths and weaknesses. It's essentially a navy
legal procedural, set in the near-future without interstellar drives,
on-board ships of a US Navy that patrols sectors of space the way that the
Navy patrols the oceans. I find the premise of this sort of navy a bit
questionable, but since it plays essentially no role in the events of the
story, it's easily ignorable.
Lieutenant JG Paul Sinclair's primary duty is in the Combat Information
Center, but he was assigned secondary duties as ship legal officer when he
first started his tour. JAG (the navy legal branch) isn't his career
goal, but legal problems are still his problems when they come up. After
a long scene-setting introduction of various characters, a problem
unsurprisingly comes up, and Sinclair ends up involved in both the
investigation and another court scene.
This series is a bit odd for military SF in that there's very little
need for the science fiction setting. Setting it on a space ship instead
of a water ship adds a bit of flavor and background, but nothing in the
plot depends on that part of the setting. With some fiddling, it could
have just as easily been told without the SF. I don't know enough about
the current navy to say for certain how close Hemry's space navy is, but
it would surprise me if he diverges far. Don't turn to this one expecting
interesting SFnal ideas or much in the way of future speculation.
What one gets from Burden of Proof instead is a tightly-paced and
surprisingly fascinating procedural. It starts a bit slow, with some
bumpy dialogue in the earlier sections and rough edges around everything
other than military procedure. Once the story starts, though, it's almost
impossible to put down, even though in retrospect the plot is not
particularly complex and most of its twists are well-telegraphed. Hemry's
pacing is excellent, and while his characterization suffers a bit in
depth, it's pitch-perfect for the sort of story he's telling. Sinclair is
young, a bit uncertain, and fallible enough that he doesn't feel too
perfect, but he doesn't make stupid mistakes. Hemry never falls into the
trap of advancing the plot by having the characters do things the reader
is screaming at them not to do. There is a refreshing lack of stupidity
in this book, which I think is often overlooked and harder to pull off
than it sounds.
Burden of Proof is all investigation and trial mixed with daily
operations and navy jargon; it's not the book to pick up when looking for
deep characterization or complex plot. But it's a great procedural,
taking full advantage of the fact that courtroom trials are inherently
dramatic and simply relating them with a competent cast provides plenty of
tension. The surfeit of navy procedure, paperwork, and tight chain of
command and responsibility makes this series feel like one of the more
realistic military SF stories. If for some reason countries had space
navies, I have no difficulty believing they'd be a lot like Hemry's
portrayal.
If you like legal procedurals and realistic peacetime military life, hunt
up this series. It's unfortunately out of print, probably because it's
not what the typical military SF reader is looking for, but it's
surprisingly good (even despite the brief cheap shot at a Greenpeace straw
man at the start).
Followed by Rule of Evidence.
Rating: 8 out of 10
2008-11-15: Review: Five Hundred Years After
Review: Five Hundred Years After, by Steven Brust
| Series |
Khaavren Romances #2 |
| Publisher |
Tor |
| Copyright |
April 1994 |
| Printing |
March 1995 |
| ISBN |
0-8125-1522-6 |
| Format |
Mass market |
| Pages |
553 |
This is the second book of the Khaavren Romances, following the same
characters as The Phoenix Guards.
However, it takes place, as the title indicates, five hundred years after
the previous book; while you'd miss something by not being previously
familiar with the characters, it is readable by itself. More useful for
full enjoyment is to have already read the Vlad Taltos series, or part of
it at least, so that you've been teased with mentions of world history and
hence can enjoy the satisfaction of more finally being revealed.
At the start of Five Hundred Years After, Khaavren is still in the
Imperial Guard and even has the same rank, but he's grown steady and
laconic in his years of service. He seems like a different character at
first, far more serious and adult, but when he starts his internal
monologues one can see the core of the Khaavren from The Phoenix
Guards. The story opens with the current troubles of the Empire and a
string of mysterious assassinations, and from there turns into a story of
conspiracy, investigation, and political conflict slowly spinning out of
control. The four heroes from The Phoenix Guards are, of course,
gathered before long so that they can meet the new challenge together.
Brust here moves the Khaavren Romances more into the center of the history
of his universe. In The Phoenix Guards, there were only a few
characters connected to the Vlad Taltos books, and those were almost all
mentioned in passing. Adron himself was the only major connection.
Five Hundred Years After tells a much less minor episode of
history, however, and several of Vlad's later acquaintances take center
stage. Sethra Lavode and Aliera, in particular, get quite a bit of time
on stage (and have a wonderful dynamic). We also find out, much to the
curiosity and satisfaction of long-time Vlad readers, how Mario got his
start.
Despite the appearance of such legendary figures, Five Hundred Years
After is in tone and style very similar to The Phoenix Guards.
It's a light-hearted adventure most of the way, spiced with resonance with
the rest of the Dragaeran universe and with serious Imperial consequences,
but pursued in the manner of daring adventure. The four companions (and
their close compatriots) are more mature, but largely conduct themselves
the same as they did in the previous book. Paarfi's loquacious and
intrusive narrative style produces an interesting distancing effect,
making the reader constantly aware of the story as a story and providing a
running commentary on how stories are told, which tends to reduce suspense
and smooth sharp emotional tugs in exchange for a strong feel for the
narrator and an occasional grin at a particularly sharp bit of commentary.
In this book, however, there are a few moments where something deeper and
more powerful shines through the storytelling and digressive commentary.
The most memorable moment of the book for me was the conversation between
Tazendra and Sethra Lavode about the nature of the Dzur and about
sword-sharpening. It's now the defining character moment for Sethra for
me, and I think one of the best bits of writing Brust has done. That's
the most serious of such moments, but there are a few others, such as
Sethra's baiting of Aliera, or a few of Mario's later moments in the book.
Paarfi, as narrator, also pulls off a surprisingly good climax given the
difficulty of what's being described.
As with The Phoenix Guards, the framing is a good bit of the fun.
The mock-interview between Brust and Paarfi isn't as interesting as the
writer bios of the previous book, but it's still occasionally amusing.
Better is the preface, which is a great bit of analysis of historical
fiction, all the better for being set in an entirely fictional academic
environment.
This series still doesn't grab me quite as much as the best of the Vlad
books do, in part due to the distancing effect of the narration, but the
style is strangely addictive and the history is becoming more interesting.
Five Hundred Years After is getting closer to what I was expecting
of this series: an opportunity to fill in the history that's mentioned so
maddeningly allusively in the Vlad novels. This is a slightly better book
than The Phoenix Guards, with the same fun tone but more depth and
a few more memorable moments. If you liked the previous book, definitely
read this one as well.
Followed by The Paths of the Dead.
Rating: 7 out of 10
2008-11-15: Paths
I started a new gallery of pictures of paths, with both this picture and
one other.
I'm still creating lots of galleries that as yet only have a small handful
of pictures in them, but I have a ton of pictures yet to post that will
flesh out all of these galleries. But I like taking my time and posting a
few at a time. It's fun every evening to look through my pictures and
find the next ones that I like well enough to post.
I spent today going through old picture shoots and annotating the pictures
so that I can remember what they're about. That was a good project for a
lazy day to let my brain recover, since I didn't feel like being
productive today.
2008-11-15: The Teaching Company
John Goerzen recently wrote in his blog about the
value of a
broad, classical education. I wholeheartedly agree, and this gives me
the opportunity to plug a gem of a company that makes a product you may
not realize you're interested in (I didn't until I heard about it).
I love to learn about random parts of the world and random bits of history
and culture, even if I have no practical use for the knowledge. I do a
lot of that by reading, but reading requires certain conditions and a
level of attention, and I can never read as much as I want to. I also
often want something more in-depth than a popularization can provide, but
not as technical and focused as academic writings in the subject.
A college course is just about right, but I don't really want to take
courses. Apart from the possible expense (although I could audit classes
for free) and hassle of having to be somewhere at a particular time,
courses are often also based around more reading and around homework and
grades, none of which I'm interested in. I get completely irrational
about grades and push myself out of proportion to their significance,
which meant I had an excellent GPA in college and I still have nightmares
about missing tests.
Enter The Teaching Company. What they do
is find high-rated college professors, generally those who have won
teaching awards, and have them record a course within their field of
expertise but without the homework and grades. They then sell those
courses on DVD, CD, or MP3 download (some visual-heavy courses are only
available on DVD). Some of them are as long as a full college course and
some of them are a bit shorter, but they're all meaty enough to really dig
into a topic. A typical course is about 18 hours of material; some can be
twice that length. And they're exceptional, better than just taking
courses at a local college since they draw on the best teachers from all
over the United States (I haven't seen any non-US teachers yet, although
it wouldn't surprise me if there were some).
I listen to these while I'm exercising, on long car trips, while I'm
walking back and forth to work, even while I'm grocery shopping
— basically, all the places you'd listen to a book on tape.
I've listened to several twice, since I wasn't always paying attention the
first time. So far, I've gone through a course on Greek mythology, a
literature survey covering plays, poetry and novels, a course on modern
economics, two history courses (Vikings and China), and I'm currently
listening to a course on opera mostly because I knew I didn't know
anything about it.
The courses are a bit spendy (always buy them on sale — they
have a weird pricing structure where courses go on sale on a rolling
basis, and the non-sale price is ridiculously higher), but you can get a
shorter one for around US$50 and from that get an idea of whether you're
interested. (And while that's a lot to spend at once, it's actually a
great deal for the length of material you get.) They have a very solid
guarantee system, they'll replace lost or worn-out or broken CDs from CD
sets for life, they have a reasonable on-line ordering system, and I've
had nothing but positive experiences with them as a company. And as soon
as you start buying courses, they tend to give you discounts and special
deals and so forth.
Highly recommended. It's filled a gap I've felt for a long time but never
had the time to read enough to fill normally.
2008-11-14: Color and calm
I got myself worked up this evening thinking about politics again and
needed to look at a bit of calm.
I let time tracking and status reports slip for work and need to catch up
from the past two days before I go to sleep tonight, but otherwise I'm
done with work for the week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do this
weekend yet, but it's going to involve not making plans. (Although I do
need to do some grocery shopping.)
2008-11-14: Review: As I Please (1943 - 1945)
Review: As I Please (1943 - 1945), by George Orwell
| Series |
Collected Writing #3 |
| Editor |
Sonia Orwell |
| Editor |
Ian Angus |
| Publisher |
Nonpariel |
| Copyright |
1968 |
| Printing |
2005 |
| ISBN |
1-56792-135-3 |
| Format |
Trade paperback |
| Pages |
411 |
This is the third volume of Orwell's collected non-fiction writing,
covering the period from the middle of World War II to its end. Just
before the start of this volume, Orwell had resigned from the BBC and took
a position as the literary editor of the Tribune, a left-wing
weekly. Among other duties as editor, Orwell wrote a weekly column in
which he was given almost completely free rein by the editorial staff,
even to contradict the editorial position of the weekly's political
section. Those columns, entitled "As I Please," form the bulk of the
material of this volume.
Contrasted with the somewhat depressing and repetitious political material
of the previous volume, the material included here is more wide-ranging
and therefore often more interesting. Orwell continues to write about the
war, of course, but the momentum had shifted and the eventual outcome
quickly became clear (if not the timing; Orwell interestingly expected the
Japanese war to go on for at least two years longer than it did, leading
me to wonder how common that belief was at the time). The constant focus
on left-wing reactions to Russia, domestic fascism and socialism, and the
conduct of the war dominate this volume much less, and even the political
writing diverges into fascinating discussions of the nature of nationalism
and loyalty to a particular political division, Russian policy in Eastern
Europe, some discussion of Allied intervention in Greece, and analyses of
antisemitism, some other issues of race relations, and anti-American
feeling in Britain.
The "As I Please" columns read like old-fashioned editorials, where the
editor talks about whatever comes to mind that week from the political to
the mundane. In one column, for example, Orwell muses about the tedium
involved in washing dishes, the lack of scientific progress in that area,
the horrible layout of many English kitchens, and the possibility of a
dishwashing service similar to diaper service. (This column postdates the
invention of the electric dishwasher, but predates its widespread
availability outside of commercial installations.) A column is rarely
more than four or five book pages, and Orwell frequently covers two or
three separate topics in a single column. Some of the most interesting
are responses to reader letters, particularly about political
controversies of the time, but memorably once a debunking of a service
that sold a supposedly scientific method for manufacturing story plots.
This volume, similar to the first volume of Orwell's non-fiction but to an
even greater degree, shows the breadth of Orwell's ability to comment on
life. Politics is always his first interest and continues to form the
bulk of the material, but commentary on aesthetics (not only in
literature) also forms a substantial portion. His writing is always
clear, concise, and thought-provoking, even when I disagree with him
sharply (such as over the desirability of increasing the birth rate). I
think the short "As I Please" columns are a forum well-suited for his
approach to analysis and discussion. Orwell is an exceptional essayist
and comes up with much material best discussed at short length.
Two long pieces in this volume are worth special mention. The first opens
the volume: The English People is a summary of the general opinions
and attitudes of the general English population (as opposed to the
politicians or the literary establishment) from Orwell's perspective.
This was a commissioned booklet for the series Britain in Pictures
and is the longest single item in this volume, running about 35 pages. I
found it as intriguing for what it tells us of Orwell's priorities and
opinions as what it tells us about Britain at the time. He shows some of
the exasperation that I think is common to every progressive or reformer,
but his appreciation of his countrymen and his opinions about England's
strengths also come through quite clearly. In some cases, they're rooted
in largely the same traits: the English respect for the law both
exasperates him when the laws are unjust and gives him hope for a peaceful
evolution of society and avoidance of internal violence even in extreme
circumstances. The essay in this volume is followed by several short
pieces on English cooking which are almost as interesting, suffering for
me only from my unwillingness to go find an encyclopedia and research the
dishes with which I'm unfamiliar.
The other piece worth special mention is the essay "Notes on Nationalism,"
in which Orwell uses a somewhat peculiar definition of nationalism as
allegiance to any particular faction or "side" (not necessarily a country)
and then breaks down the blindnesses of thinking and poor intellectual
habits to which we're all prone. Reading this collection now in an era
where it's common to bemoan the loss of civility in political discourse
and the sharp division of US politics into sides that care only about
defeating each other, it's eerie the extent to which Orwell's observations
are directly applicable. He at the time is talking about the factions of
WW2 English politics (Tory, Labor, Communist, Socialist, Trotskyist, and
so forth), but the analysis is just as relevant. The essay is also
remarkable in that it broadens its focus beyond particular groups, which
are mainly used as an example, and identifies patterns of thinking found
in everyone. Orwell contends that nearly everyone is nationalist about
something, and exhibits towards that side many of the pathologies of
thinking he identifies: obsession, instability, and indifference to
objective truth. His analysis of people's ability to ignore facts that
don't fit their world-view is particularly cogent. Rather than arguing
that people should simply not do this, as is so often said, Orwell instead
argues that the path of intellectual honesty is to know and openly admit
one's own biases, be aware of them, and attempt to correct for them rather
than correcting them.
This essay is not the only place in which Orwell touches on these topics.
In one of his letters for Partisan Review, he looks back on his
previous letters for them (all published in the previous volume) and talks
about the badly incorrect predictions he made about the war, with special
attention to his belief at the time that England would necessarily have to
become socialist in order to win the war. He analyzes why he made such
errors and what biases and patterns of thinking lead people to make such
errors of prediction, arriving at some similar conclusions about selective
attention to facts. Orwell's ability to criticize himself and admit
mistakes struck me in several of the essays here; indeed, it's a somewhat
common pattern for him to begin a correspondance of sharp disagreement,
either publicly or privately, and eventually continue to correspond to his
adversary and reach a place of mutual admiration.
An Age Like This, the first volume of
Orwell's non-fiction, has much to recommend it, particularly since poverty
and the Great Depression are somewhat more compelling topics these days
than the details of World War II. However, even with the strength of some
of the long material in that volume, As I Please has become my
favorite volume of this series to date (with one more to read). Orwell
has become a sharper and stronger writer over time (the increase in
quality in the non-diary material from the previous volume is particularly
noticable), and the breadth of subject material here is satisfying. I
haven't even mentioned some of the memorable topics, such as multiple
essays on the English language and on badly-used cliched phrases.
I'll continue to recommend reading all four volumes of this set, but if
you want to pick up only one, this is not a bad one to grab.
Followed by In Front of Your Nose.
Rating: 9 out of 10
2008-11-14: remctl 2.13
This release has been in preparation for a while, and finally today with a
lot of help from Jeffrey Hutzelman I finished some final fixes and testing
and got it out the door.
The main improvement in this version are new PHP and Python client library
bindings contributed by Andrew Mortensen and Thomas Kula respectively.
There is also new, more general ACL scheme support in the server
contributed by Jeffrey Hutzelman, which currently only supports a reject
ACL and the CMU GPUT system beyond what was previously supported but which
provides a framework on which to build.
Other fixes include substantial fixes to the Java client and server build
system (it previously didn't work at all), fixes to the Windows port,
improved portability to Solaris, and various other build and configure
fixes. The server also now, when including configuration files from a
directory, ignores more files with odd characters, fixing a reported
Debian bug.
The new packages have been uploaded to Debian experimental rather than
unstable to not interfere with the lenny release, since they won't make
that. They'll be in the release afterwards. I expect it will take a
little while to clear NEW.
You can get the latest version from the remctl distribution page.
2008-11-13: Faces of olive
Have more olive trees.
Today was a nicely productive day, although I didn't finish convincing
lbcd to compile without warnings and I probably have another day of work
to put into the next release. But further progress on virtualization is
awaiting some software installation, so I have the time at the moment.
I expect to make a remctl release tomorrow.
Late night tonight because I spent the evening talking with friends, which
was a nice social break in a week that has mostly been about concentration
and re-establishing of schedule. I thought about skipping walking today
since my heel is a bit sore (still getting used to new shoes), but I think
I've convinced myself to go exercise, particularly since it's not as late
as I feared.
I thought I'd talked myself into what I was doing about getting a new
flat-panel television, but now I need to go investigate cheaper ways of
getting rid of my existing one. I should probably just Freecycle it, but
it's extremely heavy, I do not want to help carry it, and I'd feel weird
about some random person showing up to take it and refusing to help. if I
were paying someone to take it away, I'd feel a lot more comfortable about
that. Maybe Goodwill will want it. Paying a premium to get a TV from a
store that will haul away my old one probably isn't worth it. This is
currently keeping me from getting a new TV and probably an Xbox, which is
mildly annoying; on the other hand, it's not like waiting longer to spend
money is going to hurt me.
Mostly I just want it done because I don't want to think about it and
don't want to do the necessary research, but feel an obligation to do so.
Yeah, I know, it's such a first-world problem. Ten people have starved to
death in Africa while I've been pondering how to spend $1000 on a new TV.
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eaglespath