by Doctor Science
I read no books this past week and precious little fanfic. Memorial Day Weekend for me was dominated by driving Sprog the Younger back up to New England for her summer jobs. This takes 3 days: one day to get to my parents’ house, one day to get Sprog where she needs to go and then back to my folks’, and then a day to drive back.
I last did this trip only two weeks ago, picking Sprog up at the end of the semester, but I’m much less worn out than I used to get. The difference is that I’ve figured out how to use the Adaptive Cruise Control on my Subaru Legacy. This is a new-fangled system combining the speed-regulating functions of standard cruise control with a radar-based sensor to keep you at a steady distance behind the car ahead of you, so you can use it in much heavier traffic than traditional cruise control.
ACC makes long drives much less stressful for me — I spend my time steering and looking out for other vehicles, but not worrying about speed. My right leg doesn’t cramp up the way it used to. Most impressively, I get a solid and important boost in gas mileage: with ACC I can go from central NJ to Boston and back on a single 18-gal tank of gas, even though I’m not going the absolutely shortest way: it’s about 580 miles round-trip. When I did the trip without ACC, I always needed more gas in northern Jersey, coming back.
The last time I did this trip I listened to the radio during the parts where I was alone in the car, which means a lot of channel-switching (we don’t want to pay for Sirius). This time I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I stopped at a Barnes & Noble to pick up Hamilton on CD. The trouble was, I couldn’t find the music section — I wandered all over and finally asked a worker where it was. He asked what I was looking for, then went to this little rack and took out Hamilton. But that was it: all the music CDs they had fit on one small rack. There was a larger and better-marked display for *vinyl* than for music CDs! I hadn’t realized how dominant downloading has become as a way to get music. Meanwhile, I’ve become more suspicious about whether I can truly be said to “own” music I DL from Amazon or Apple, even if they’re not deliberately deleting music from my hard disk. When I have a CD, I really do own that copy of the music: I can play it at home or in the car, and lend it if I want. I might feel differently if I had a smartphone, but mine is pretty dumb.
Sprog prefers to get CDs, too, because of the “own the music” thing, but then she has to rip the CD to her laptop, put it into iTunes and get it onto her iPhone — “with struggles,” she reports: “there are so many things to click and none of them do what you think they will.” I kind of hate Apple.
But I continue to love “Hamilton”. My big dilemma of the moment: do I go to the show at scalpers’ prices, for my s*xt*eth birthday and so the librarian who’s a huge Hamilton fan won’t have to go by herself? Or is that horribly self-indulgent?
I rip music from purchased CD to put them in my iTunes collection, but I’m also sure to burn anything purchased and downloaded from iTunes onto a CD. IT IS MINE!
No, of course not.
Enjoy yourself, & happy birthday in advance.
On your question: Definitely indulge yourself by seeing the show.
Totally off topic (since it’s an Open Thread): Microsoft has moved from hassling me with pop-ups to a new approach. I now get a pop-up informing me that my unwanted “upgrade” to Windows 10 has been scheduled.
Way to go Microsoft! You’ve made the move from user-unfriendly to actively user-hostile. And motivated me to go out and find some software which will stop this Windows 10 garbage in its tracks. (I don’t know if Never10 is the optimum answer. But as long as it gets the job done….)
And, btw…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/06/02/lin_manuel_miranda_has_announced_his_final_performance_date_as_the_star.html
I kind of hate Apple.
I’ve always used Macs, but Apple’s applications drive me nuts.
Their philosophy seems to be that they have figured out the ideal way to do something, and that’s the way you are going to do it.
Too much of the support on their web site is devoted to the glorious capabilities of the software, rather than explanation. This latter flaw is hardly restricted to Apple, though. It’s one of my pet technology peeves, along with carefully hidden serial numbers inscribed in microscopic type.
Their philosophy seems to be that they have figured out the ideal way to do something, and that’s the way you are going to do it.
That drives me nuts, especially as it concerns getting into the file structure (or, more accurately, not getting into the file structure). I only have an iPad (and a really old iPod, which actually does whatever I need it to, for what it is), but I’m guessing their other stuff is the same way. You don’t get to put things where you want them, you don’t get to give them names, and it just happens the way it happens.
Essentially what you are saying is that Apple gives you a black box. You can take the output of the box or not. But you can’t open up the box, or change anything about it. On or Off — no other options.
Have I got that straight?
Books I’ve read recently:
The Boy Who Drew Monsters, Keith Donohue – a decent quick read. I had kind of figured it out at the end but still a little surprise.
Pretty Girls, Karin Slaughter – a good story but the underlying violence will probably put a lot of people off.
Loving Learning: How Progressive Education Can Save America’s Schools, Katherine Ellison and Tom Little – made me wonder why we educate children in any other way. Quick read and eye opening. Although I may be biased because my older son’s school is listed in the book (although not discussed).
Iron House, John Hart – not nearly as good as his “The Last Child,” which was truly compelling to me. Still an okay read.
Have I got that straight?
Sort of. What HSH says is accurate. You just never know what is really going on.
When I upgraded the OS at one point I found that I had been given a mailbox called “Archive,” which contained lots of messages. I found very little explanation of this, or why deleted messages wouldn’t go away. I’ve slowly figured it all out, I think. But why?
A friend had similar experiences with Photos, which sort of replaced, arbitrarily, iPhoto and Aperture.
wj,
I have been on Windows 10 since beta. It is both more secure and more user friendly than any version of windows I have ever used. Which is all of them, literally. I don’t understand the hostility toward it?
Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t let me stream Netflix videos.
I switched back to Windows 7.
For me, the issue with Windows10 is simple: I have no guarantee that my Solidworks software (older versions especially) won’t get screwed up in some way by the change.
Since installing Never10, I have not seen any of those pesky Microsoft pleas or appointments to “upgrade”, and I hope things stay that way. But I have got used to the fact that our computers and our smart-ass phones do things behind our backs all the time, so who knows how long “never” is?
–TP
Apple, and particularly apple FANS, seem far too reminiscent of a cult.
“No, I’m not really interested in being assimilated by the Borg, and your mouse doesn’t have enough buttons also, too”
And I’m with Tony on Win10: about the only thing that can persuade me to deal with Windows is high-quality (high price) CAD applications, which you really don’t want MS randomly breaking.
My preferred version of Windows is “Windows? Nein!”
Marty, in my observation (and I have been dealing with Windows a long time, if not quite as extensively as you) Microsoft operating systems have two characteristics:
1) Every second OS release is terrible. Alternate releases (of which Windows 10 is due to be one, as were XP and 7) are OK. Eventually.
2) Even the good ones take a while to shake down and get most of the major bugs resolved. Not to mention the major security holes plugged.
Will I have to go to Windows 10 eventually? Probably. But I have no desire to be part of what, realistically, is still a mass beta.
Where is Cleek? Has anyone heard from him since he took a break from us? He is missed….
GftNC — here he is:
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/
His wife had surgery, nothing serious I believe, but he’s attending to important stuff.
His new house is nearly done.
I think I may have found him. If it’s our Cleek, he seems to have been doing a lot of construction work on the house, and looking after a wife newly recovering from an operation. If he’s reading this at any stage, best wishes Cleek and hope everything goes well.
Thanks Count, I guess we cross-posted.
Read recently or still reading:
John Le Carre The Night Manager: Re-read after excellent recent TV series of same (with JLC as one of producers) – the book is not only set 20 years earlier (bad guys are drug cartel, not terrorists, etc.), but is much much darker. I can see why they may have thought you couldn’t get much of an audience televising it like that. But JLC can really write – my son quoted someone who says he’s the great horror writer of the 20th C, in the sense of true existential horror: you see what’s wrong and can’t stop or fix it.
Roy Blount Jr., several books, most notably Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips,…. Anyone who likes words – and even letters! – should station it in the bathroom where it can be picked up and read in short segments, which is probably best.
Christine L. Corton, London Fog: The Biography. Everything you ever wanted to know, and a lot more, about traditional London fog – actually more “smog” than fog of the natural (e.g. San Francisco) kind – as reflected in obscure Victorian novels (as well as Dickens, Doyle, Stevenson), journals of foreign travelers, Parliamentary Papers, and magazine cartoons, the last perhaps the best and most memorable contribution. Exhaustive, in every sense of that term.
windows 10 is great, and you can make it look like old school windows with classic shell
I don’t know about 3d and CAD apps but fwiw I’ve been running AVID on it for half a year now without a hitch – the only thing you have to look into is automatic updating of graphics card drivers which may cause problems, but there are several ways to disable automatic updates, just google it
I have finished Volume 2 of Knausgaard’s “My Struggle” and it truly deserves all the accolades it has received – it’s amazing!
this is a good take on Knausgaard:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/knausgaards-selflessness
People are welcome to have their opinions on them, but if you haven’t read the Elena Ferrante novels, you’ll have a hard time calling yourself a feminist. Do it now.
And I’m talking about the Neapolitan novels. I know there are more, but read them, please.
sapient:
if you haven’t read the Elena Ferrante novels, you’ll have a hard time calling yourself a feminist
*eyebrow raise* Do they include either dragons or space ships? I generally find litfic to be a crushing bore, and not a defining measure of feminism (or otherwise).
I mean, it’s *probably* possible to be a feminist who really like Jonathan Franzen. It’s a big world …
Also, as those aren’t originally in English, you need to be giving props to the translator. Literary translation is an undervalued art, but a real one; e.g. Stanisław Lem’s influence in English is largely attributable to the excellent work of Michael Kandel in reproducing not just Lem’s meanings but also his voice. If you write a masterpiece and hand it off to an uncreative translator, your work in the second language will like as not be a muddled mess.
Since it’s an open thread:
R.I.P. Muhammed Ali
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/how-the-beatles-took-america-photos-of-the-historic-1964-invasion-20140128/the-beatles-and-muhammad-ali-0514189
Those five amazing human beings, besides their gigantic talents and cultural influence, leavened my youth and those parlous times with uncannily spot-on senses of humor.
My first awareness of all of them was like the moment in the “The Wizard of Oz” when drab black and white reality turned into riotous color.
We could use them now to shoot their mouths off and puncture the enormous bullsh*t bubble we have allowed ourselves to become.
Vivid, outsized personalities.
A report in the New York Times quotes Jim Murray of The Los Angeles Times on Ali’s talents, “He didn’t have fights, he gave recitals.”
I attended the Thrilla in Manila. Cheap seats in the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City at 10:00 in the morning or thereabouts.
Not many know that Ali fought two fights there, one at the Thrilla and one in his Manila hotel room:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrilla_in_Manila
Frazier was the easy one. Ali couldn’t rope-a-dope the other opponent.
If you get a chance, visit the Ali Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
Hey, I’ve been saving this:
http://www.theonion.com/article/scientists-slowly-reintroducing-small-group-normal-52632
And since the Trumpublican Party, and I mean every last one of them, can make any fool statement a true fact merely by vomiting it out of their mouths, I say this experiment and everything else in the Onion is true too.
Hope lives.
Gotta read Knausgaard.
Thank you for the reminder.
Windows may be even worse than Apple at trying to force to to conform to their filing system. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was always the same but it changes from time to time
translated works are always tough for me. there seems to be a generic “translator’s voice” that always comes through, regardless of the original language. and i don’t like that voice.