out of the blue

This seemed like a worthy meme thingy. So, I think I'll do it. (My requirements for doing these things is that they're either funny or insightful or awesome, and I'm in the mood for them.)

Name five [5] things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make your list, post it in your journal, then tag five [5] new people and ask them to post it to theirs:

1. Getting so lost in a book that when I think back on it later, I can't remember scanning the pages, but only the imagery in my head.
2. Reading about programming, and experimenting with cool new stuff.
3. Having a sketch or a painting turn out well.
4. Writing poetry.
5. Going alone into the wilderness and absorbing the peace and beauty.

I tag:
Anyone who feels like it.

Last week, on Friday, an occurance occurred that hasn't often occured before. I had been garage saling (at the same place Big Chris was on Saturday), after taking a shower. I rode my bike, and was putting my helmet on and taking it off with some regularity. Add to that the fact that it was raining off and on, and you've got an interesting hair situation. The strange part of this relates to the fact that when I got back, my hair was in tangles. That doesn't often happen. I ran my fingers through it to straigten it a tiny bit, and they got stuck. So, I did the unthinkable. I found my comb, and began running the strange apparatus through my hair. Perhaps it went unnoticed by the hordes of newspeople who are on the lookout for human-interest stories, but it certainly caused a stir in my house!

Mother: You're coming your hair?
Me: Yeah
Mother: You're combing your hair?
Me: Uh, yes.
Mother: You're coming your hair?
Me: Well, it was tangled…
Mother: You're combing your hair?

If this is something you don't do often, here's a quick step-by-step guide.

HOW TO COMB ONE'S HAIR

There are two major tools for straightening one's hair. The first, the hairbrush, can be found under the related how-to, "Brushing One's Hair" (p. 274). The second tool is the comb, which is covered in the following article.

Many people do not understand the ancient art of hair-combing. Some people may not have been exposed to it at all, living in cultures where combs do not exist or are in infrequent use, or living outside of culture entirely (see Tarzan, p. 877). Alternatively, some people have not seen hide nor tail of a comb ever since their mother stopped performing the menial task for them around age 17. Whatever the reason, some people do not know anything about the various strategies of combmanship. Since this is a basic manual, we will only cover the basics.

Holding the Comb
Although the most common use of the Comb is to make kazoos, it is not uncommon to straighten one's hair with them. An important point to stress is that one should not grasp the comb in the same manner as when playing music on it. Instead of grasping the ends, one should grab it in a sort of fist with the fingers along the top and the thumb in line with it. The spines should point towards the head, and the back of the hand should point away from it. The line of the comb should be parallel to the surface of the head.

Moving It through the Hair
The comb should be moved in a direction parallel to the strands of hair. A light pressure should be given so that the points brush against the scalp, and all the hairs are combed. (It should be noted that this is a general situation, and that more advanced combing techniques may involve artistic breaking of this rule. Before one breaks the rules, one should be sure to know them.) When the hair falls below the scalp, it may be necessary to pretend (see p. 680) that there is still scalp behind the hair in order that one will not forget to keep pressure on it to keep the spines in contact with the hair.

Dealing with Tangles
Sometimes, strands of hair will become worked into "tangles" (or, in layman's terms, "knots"). When this happens, combing may be painful, and not produce the desired results. Gentle combing may be in order, or the consultation of a professional (see Learning More). This phenomenon is beyond the scope of this guide.

Alternatives to Hair-Combing
Sometimes combing one's hair is necessary, but one really doesn't have the time required to learn a new skill. Alternatives may have unwanted side effects. Shaving it all off may give an unfortunate first impression. Wigs can be expensive, unconvincing, and also require combing, unless one is affluent enough to afford a new one on a regular basis. One advantage of wigs is that they can be hung up when not in use, thereby avoiding the condition known as "Bedheadedness." Hiring a personal hair stylist may also be out of one's price range, but is an acceptible alternative to billionaires, movie stars, or children of such persons.

Learning More
Some people consider it worth it to invest their valuable time in the study of the art of haircombing. Having a rudimnetary knowledge of the basics can be useful, but some people have professions what make it worth it, or are simply fascinated by the subject. If you want to know more, some of the following types of people may prove useful.

• Movie Stars*
• Reporters*
• Pansies
• Girls*
• Mothers
• Hair Stylists
• Barbers

* Beware of these people. They have a tendancy to think that people are stalking them, or may find such questioning insulting. Only refer to them if desperate.

I'm going to Everett with a few friends to visit Soren, Nathan and Becky. Should be very fun. See you guys when I get back! (Unless you're one of them, in which case I'll see you tonight!)

PHP is bloody useful to know. I found a short script somewhere that would list the contents of a directory. I modified it a bit, and made it link to every file in a directory. That way, I have a way to upload files to a directory and automatically generate a links page. I also made one that displays images. (Of course, you can't put anything in the directory besides images, or it screws up.) The image gallery generator strips the last four characters from the string to display a title for the picture, but (of course) still links to the actual image in the img tag.

The Magical Gallery Generator

Unfortunately, the sorting is a bit whacky. So, my next step is to learn how to manipulate arrays. I'm going to try blackmail, and if that doesn't work, I'll give them bribes until they give in.

PHP is fun. :)

That was wonderful. After being a bit irrational and stressed about making things work to go to Everett, I took a break from thinking, and just enjoyed myself. I brought a book into the family room and made a fresh strawberry milkshake (my second today). That wasn't nearly enough to satisfy, so after making a nice long playlist of a bunch of awesome songs (about two and a half hours). After polishing off my drink, I made some tea to contrast the milkshake, and curled up in a blanket on a large soft chair in the family room. Sitting there was close to perfection, with the music playing, every once in a while catching my attention and pulling me gently out of the story-world to smile at a familiar melody, my every emotion heightened by the delightful mixture of pleasures. The sounds of the music mixed with the words, overlaying, and pulling my attention this way and that. Eventually, my tea dwindled to a couple drinks in the bottom, and still later the last of the stragglers on my playlist wandered away. Just as the strains of Rocket Man faded from the room I reached the end of a chapter and closed the book slowly, realizing that it was the last song. The timing was perfect. It's now time for a shower, and then sleep. This just makes my day.

I wish there was one browser that had everything. Every feature that I'd ever need, perfect compliance with w3 web standards, etc. If there were, I would pay for it. As it is, there isn't. This isn't too surprising, because there's rarely something that outshines all competition in every way, but it's a sad state of affairs.

Internet Explorer: Frankly, Internet Explorer sucks. It doesn't follow recommendations, doesn't have frequent updates, doesn't do anything I want it to. It is the target for a billion different malicious sites out there, and it's also the most vulnerable to them. I'm not going to support a browser that is the bane of every web developer in the world. No thanks.

Safari: I don't know anything about Safari. It's only for Macs, so I don't use it. It looks pretty good, though.

Lynx: Lynx is a text-only browser. It is extremely fast, but isn't what I'm looking for. (No css, javascript, tables, images, etc.) It's great for the user it's designed for, but not for me.

Opera: Opera seems to offer the best standards support of any browser out there. It is faster** on windows and has better security than pretty much any of the alternatives.

Firefox: Firefox is open source, and has pretty good support for W3 web standards. It's not quite as fast as Opera. It's actually not as fast as Mozilla*, apparently. But, the one place where Firefox is brilliant is it's extensions. The open-source community is constantly coming out with excellent ways of improving the browser. Greasemonkey lets you customize sites through javascript. Adblock lets you define sites to block images from, or particular parts of sites to block images from. Web Developer adds some functionality for people who work with site design. Extensions are the reason I stick with Firefox.

Obviously this is all personal preference. If a browser works better for you than another, use it. Perhaps you don't need images or css or any of that silly stuff. In that case, use Lynx. Perhaps you don't care about extensions, and are happy with the basic features of a browser. In that case, use the free version of Opera (or buy it at the student discount). It all comes down to what you need from your browser. However, I want to encourage you not to use Internet Explorer. If you don't, web developers will love you, because when enough people spurn IE, they won't have to use all sorts of tricks to make things work with that devil of a browser. Things will be easier on everyone. So, if you love other people, and love yourself, don't use IE. Go download Firefox, or Opera.

* Mozilla is the old version of the browser. It includes an e-mail program, a html editor, and a browser. It's still being developed. Firefox is the new, slimmed-down version, without a bundled e-mail program or html editor.

** I used this page as a source for speed comparisons.

Please forgive the abstract ramblings of this journal. It covers a lot of what I've been thinking over the last few months. Even though its primary focus is on literature, I still expand the scope dramatically at the end, and throw in a bunch of random thoughts.

You know what? Good literature is, and always has been, relative. In the 5th century B.C., Sophocles was being all daring, and breaking every conventional rule of drama by adding a controversial third player into his works, allowing such brilliant dramatic situations as someone overhearing a conversation between two other players! Unheard of! Absurd!

"So what? Today, we almost never have plays with such a small number of players. We have advanced interactions between hundreds of people at a time, allowing for…." Don't be stupid.

We have the tendency of looking back and seeing those early plays as so much rubbish. This is because, frankly, they don't live up to modern standards. Sure they address issues that we still deal with today, in such a way as to still be meaningful, but they can be sadly lacking in other ways.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them.

People who say that old stuff isn't worth reading for these reasons are being just as silly as someone saying that modern literature isn't worth reading because newfangled innovations are just a glossy coat over the institutions developed hundreds of years ago. The mark of true literary appreciation is being able to enjoy BOTH of them for their respective qualities. Try putting yourself in your parents' shoes when they watched Star Wars for the first time, rather than when (as a disillusioned youth) you saw it in the setting of today's amazing computer generated special effects. Try putting yourself in your children's shoes when, just as you might see ancient silent films, they scoff at your two-dimensional masterpieces such as The Matrix, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (which is, even now, moving into the "ancient" category of literature). "How can you watch that stuff, Pops?" "Mum, why didn't they use holographic imagery in Moulin Rouge?"

Recently, I've read Robert Heinlein, and E.E. "Doc" Smith, and compared the two. I've also read, in the past few years, numerous space operas that were very good, such as Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga and David Weber's Honor Harrington novels. Frankly, Doc Smith's Lensman series is often not nearly as well organized, and far less believable than Bujold's or Weber's. But he was writing in an entirely different climate, where some innovations hadn't been developed, and he was setting standards for the next generation of science fiction (then an emerging genre). In fact, his ideas were so innovative (and based in reality, to some extent) that his projections for future technology sometimes became self-fulfilling prophesies. The most direct (and proven) example is the "tank" (in the novels) and the "Combat Information Centers" (in the Navy). It was copied by the U.S. Navy.

Writers throughout the ages have built on existing literature, and expanded it to advance the art even further. This is true of the visual arts, the kinetic arts (dancing, etc) and even of philosophy. The inclusion of new lines of thought, such as eastern philosophy, added new ideas to Western philosophy. The renaissance philosophers built on the ancients, and are in turn built on by the modern philosophers. Thinkers such as Socrates are obviously not lampooned for not understanding the innovations in philosophy by later philosophers like Immanuel Kant. Political theoreticians such as James Madison should not be criticised for holding slaves. After all, one person cannot, however brilliant, overcome ALL the unfortunate trappings of the current misconceptions of their time. I'm sure that, if you become a brilliant philosopher who makes great advances in the science (or art), you won't appreciate all the future critics who discount your works just because you happened to not notice a problem that seems obvious to them at their later date.

The moral of the story? When judging people's accomplishments, try to incorporate their setting into your opinions. Don't assume that if you know something, that they necessarily should know it also. If you work from this assumption, your arguments will go over better, and your criticism will be more fair.

I was impressed by one of the Daily Deviations on deviantART today. It is mind-boggling. It is a beautiful composition, it fits the title perfectly, and is such an amazing capture that I thought it must have taken a hundred shots or more to get just right. However, according to the photographer…

"I held the feather with my hand, focused on it, then lowered the cam a bit and as I dropped the feather I pressed the release. Believe if or not I only took 4 shots before I got this one ;) Pure luck."

Insane.

Elements: Air

In other news, the madness of the American education system, where one school can spend tons of money on expensive technology, whereas other elementary schools have trouble supplying their students with art supplies for their kindergarden projects. These boards would be wonderfully useful things, if everything else were taken care of in our school systems. Wouldn't it be better to have a higher student-to-teacher ratio and just use regular chalkboards, rather than use a ton of money on crazy interactive whiteboards?

A more impressive, and quite awesome, use of technology can be seen on Upper street in Islington, where the city has set up a free mile-long wireless network. Get a login from the city, sign on to the network, and you have internet access from anywhere on the street. No charge. That's what I call good use of technology!

The sun was low in the sky and the world had taken on that magical evening-time glow when the sun strikes steep surfaces straight on and things are lit in a completely different manner than any other time of day, making you look at the world differently. I looked up from my hamburger, out the dining-room window, and was strangely enticed. While I couldn't actually see any of the beauty that had unfolded in the heavens above me, I was drawn to go outside. It held far more allure than the view accounted for. Perhaps there was something reflected in the sunlight that lit spectacularly the tree-covered hill above our house. Perhaps I could simply feel the changes brewing in the world, as the animas sense somehow the glorious storm coming. At any rate, I went outside. I walked out, and the skies spread out above me. I felt what I've only read about–somehow, in this hilly region of Oregon, I had the same powerful feeling of being overwhelmed that people experience when they first step out onto the endless plains of the midwest. There were houses, and trees, and even hills blocking a good portion of the sky, yet somehow it still dominated the space. It was the only thing of importance. The clouds hung low enough to pluck from the skies, and they glowed enticingly enough to make you want to, and let their juice dribble down your chin like the juice of a perfectly ripe peach. The sky was a work of art.

Never before have I had such a strong feeling that an artist had spread out his canvas and created a masterpiece just for me to see. It was a brief exposition, but it must have reached hundreds of people, all awe-struck as they gazed up at the skyscape so masterfully-crafted. The hues were just right. The contrast spoke volumes. The subtle differences in color and texture of the clouds combined with a wonderful shifting movement, clearly adequate for inspiring even the most unartistic members of the human race. Some clouds low enough to almost touch moved quickly across the sky, and changed as the light hit them at different angles. The dark, vibrant blues of the horizon served to set off their brilliant golds. A sea of clouds engulfed the far-off hills on the horizon, and became a new horizon-line. They seemed bolder, and taller, and more powerful than had the hills that stood there just this afternoon. They exclaimed to the world that they were changing things, and did so in such a bold powerful stroke as to be noted by the gathered powers of the nations, if only they had the eyes to see it.

The light, ethereal clouds shone among the billowing giants, and in places the blue veil shone through that ever so lightly covers the black void of space and the brilliance of stars. It was magnificent.

You should have been there.

Saving the Earth

If you're at all interested in saving the Earth, and making sure it doesn't end up a gigantic junkyard of discarded glory, you might also be interested in this site:

The Aichi Prefecture in Japan won the honor of hosting the 2005 World Exposition. One of the noble focuses of this Expo is their goal of "offering to the people of the world an opportunity to come together and discuss the many global issues that face humankind." Of being "a place to bring together the world's talent to create a model community for the future where humans can live in harmony with nature" You can find a lot more information about the expo and it's goals at the Expo Facts Page. Don't forget to explore the contextual menu to the left. The best part of this is that the site will "exist as an integral part of the domestic woodlands", and their statement that "the living relationships between humans and nature will be explored through various exhibits and events that focus on a renewed interest and devotion to creating sustainable lifestyles for future generations."
Nature Still Owns Us

Luke Wroblewski, at Functioning Form writes about a similar topic in his post "Designed By Nature". (Actually this is the starting point for a series of links that eventually got me to the Expo 2005 web site.) He links to a page about Janine Benyus, a biologist writing about "biomimicry." The article sums up her book with the following statement:

I thought this was fascinating. If you want to learn more about Biomimicry, Functioning Form also linked to this article.

The basic idea is that nature has spent billions of years going through successive refinements to its systems, and by now it's so far past what we can do with our meager technological ability, that we should be learning what we can from nature. Professor Greg Parker sums it up very nicely, saying, "If we're lucky enough to find something close to what we require in nature, then it's very likely to have been highly optimized, and we're unlikely to do much better."