A random perusal of ObWi’s bloglists is starting to suggest that possibly we’re all really, really focused on politics right now: findiing less wonkish stuff isn’t as easy as I thought. However, Short Hope Unfiltered has very nicely reminded me that Book Two of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle is coming out next month. I dunno if he gets anything for having the Amazon links up, but far be it from me to interfere with it if he does; it’s only an extra clickthrough.
I don’t know if I ever mentioned it, but I loved Quicksilver. This one passage (page 686) –
Daniel now had to locate a chair; all the blood in his legs seemed to be rushing into his brain.
“If that is true,” he said, “then everything you proved before about point objects – for example that they move along conic section trajectories – “
“Applies without alteration to spherical bodies.”
“To real things.” Daniel had a queer vision just then of a shattered Temple reconstituting itself: fallen columns rising up from the rubble, and the rubble re-aggregating itself into cherubim and seraphim, a fire sparking on the central altar. “You’ve done it, then… created the System of the World.”
– I’m a liberal arts major; Math is Hard. But Stephenson was still able to get me to understand Just How Cool This Was, which amazes me.
I split my blog in twain; all the non-wonkish stuff is at the other site. You link to all partisanship, all the time.
Ah. Thank you for letting me know that: it’ll give me something else to read. 🙂
“…possibly we’re all really, really focused on politics right now….”
We are?
I missed the memo. Damn.
Actually, my more picky question is this use of “wonkish” as if it means “talking about politics.”
The most common association of “wonk” is in “policy wonk,” and all the other uses of “wonk” I’ve ever seen have been uses of it as, essentially, “geekish expert in” as a noun, or if “wonkish” as an adjective, again a description of being into fine details only someone with a major interest would care about. Fill in the noun it modifies.
I’ve yet to see someone refer to a “politics wonk,” though it would flow from standard use. “Wonkette” has been the first use of a related term coming up, in my single-person experience, in a politics, rather than policy or other context.
Conclusion: I find the use of “wonkish” as a substitute for “political” to be jarring and confusing. One noodle-lash.
http://followyourfish.livejournal.com — specifically designed to not piss off people with different political beliefs (read: my family, who disturbingly have caught on to this blogging thing). If you have a vehement loathing for Macs, though — you’re out of luck. As a designer who’s been using them straight since I was 9, it’s where my true partisanship shows.
“As a designer who’s been using them straight since I was 9, it’s where my true partisanship shows.”
Where did I put my walker?
Signed,
there were only mainframes when I was 9