Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Two things regarding books.

May 27th, 06 / 2 Comments

I’m an avid reader of books. I am kind of an Amazon.com addict that way too. Unfortunately, 95% of the books I read are of the geek variety – some sort of alphabet soup of technologies that I’m constantly chasing in order to stay on top of the web development industry.

In the past couple of days, I’ve seen two very “web 2.0-ey” things pop up on my radar screen that are of particular interest to bookworms.

Flickr for bookworms

First off is LibraryThing. This site is for those that like to put all their books in alphabetical order and categorized in their bookshelf, for people who spend too much time and money on Amazon.com, and for your basic, garden variety readers that like to find out what others are reading. LibraryThing is social networking applied to books. I love it, I have to admit, because when I put in my most recent reads, it helped me map out my next set of books by showing me what others that read like me have in their shelves.

The Decline of Western Civilization

Or: Anyone with a Xanaga or MySpace blog can publish the entirety of their mindless drivel as a book in a few simple steps.

Since the invention of the written word, there have been systems in place to keep people from publishing that should really have no business doing so. Usually it was funds, or access, or education, or censorship. But over time, things have gotten in the way of all that. First to come along was moveable type. Industrial printing processes made the cost continually cheaper and cheaper to publish content. Then came mimeograph and photocopy machines, which helped in a low budget way to get stuff out there in a pinch. Desktop publishing was made feasable and popular with the advent of the Macintosh in 1984, and electronic media made it simpler to move and present that content. But once the web came along and any yahoo with a modem could post pictures of their cats, and pr0n, it was a sleigh ride straight to hell ever since. And it’s picking up speed right as you read this.

To cap that process off, we have Blurb.com. All you have to do is write your book and lay out your content in an easy to use framework, and they take care of the rest. And you know what comes next?

My Cat Whiskers, by I.M. Sad.

Or worse…

Seriously though – this is a wildly cool idea, to allow any aspiring author to test the waters of publishing. This reminds me of how Mac iApps strive to lower the barriers for getting things done, but somewhere along the lines these new web applications have started to catch up and pass what is possible on desktop software, at least in terms of convenience and usability. I think we’re really seeing the practical results of the web diminishing the importance of the operating system with this kind of stuff. Many of the web apps I’m seeing built today have more functionality and more usability than equivalents you can find on the desktop.

The Zen of Book Binding

May 24th, 06 / 2 Comments

The Zen of CSS DesignI found a funny thing when reading my copy of The Zen of CSS Design by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag. When I got to page 83, the page facing it to it’s right was page 113. This continued on for about 20 pages or so, then another page 83, and then it skipped again to leave out another couple of chapters later. Cool – a fluke!

I mean, I’m bummed I don’t have all the chapters right here anyway, but this is cooler. (I have plenty of friends with copies I can borrow…) Besides, Molly signed my copy, so that makes it an extra-valuable fluke.

I wasn’t going to see this before, but…

May 16th, 06 / Comments Off

I wasn’t going to go see The Da Vinci Code before, but now I’m gonna!

CNN.com – ‘Da Vinci’ provokes widespread protests – May 16, 2006

Now that’s a movie I’d like to see!

It amazes me that wingnut factions worldwide will call more attention to an issue that they hate by kicking up a fuss than if they had just kept their mouths shut in the first place. This is precisely what any book, movie, person, company, or whatever wants, is some loudmouth zealots shouting about how bad/evil/anti-christian they are, on the crest of a little popularity. This movie will skyrocket, as did the book, because of the free press and the buzz they help to create.

A little Rubaiyat

Mar 6th, 06 / 1 Comment

Just a little fragment of verse for this evening:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Happy New Year

Dec 31st, 05 / Comments Off

I can’t believe it is just hours away from 2006 already. Looking back, 2005 was one of the best. I spent my first year at my dream job, moved into my dream home, practiced a respectable amount of music, completed some study on CSS and PHP, and watched my kids grow up. Dylan began walking and talking, and is hitting his terrible twos a tad early, while Max has been progressing very well and enjoying his preschool activities. Yingwen is fully booked for piano teaching for 2006, and she has a waiting list. Not bad.

One of my long-term goals, and I’m talking decades at this point, was to get the notes for the G minor Violin Sonata by Bach under my fingers on the guitar (transcribed for the instrument in A minor). I found a Bach folio of lute works while browsing bins of old sheet music at Lark in the Morning in Mendocino, California (or were they in Fort Bragg then?) way back sometime in the mid-1980s. I never really got serious about playing classical guitar though until exactly one year ago when I finally went and purchased an instrument. After one year of having the guitar and practicing regularly, I have that piece memorized, as well as most of the Lute Suite No.1 in E minor learned.

I didn’t practice the double bass with as much consistency as I would have liked, although I did practice way more guitar than I expected, and to be fair I did practice the bass a lot in spurts. It is a less resistant path to pick up a guitar and start working on something while the baby sleeps, as opposed to picking up the bass and getting everything set with the music, bow, rosin, metronome, etc. So one goal for 2006 is to spend a little more practice time on the bass – If I can get in a consistent bass practice session in each night then I’ll be very happy. On top of that, I need to find some venues for performance. I have been playing a lot of music “in the lab”, relearning my instruments after a long break, and it’s time to take some of the theory to the real world. Public solo performance is a skill in itself.

Another 2006 goal is to continue the exercise thing that I started back in November, but again with more consistency. I have a treadmill now in my office, and it’s really easy to prop up my PowerBook on a music stand and start watching DVDs during the workout.

One goal that is a bit newer this year is to start with some serious composition and arranging. I’m about halfway done with the first movement of the Bottessini Concerto No.2 arrangement for guitar accompaniment, and have sketches going for a prelude for piano and a string quintet. My aim is to complete the above three items for 2006, and re-orchestrate the variations on a theme by Grieg that I did back in 1986 that won me the Dave Brubeck scholarship award.

Book-wise, I have on my stand three PHP books and one inspirational book written by an old friend (more on that one later.) I’m just about to finish one of the PHP books on security, and the other two are on more advanced concepts. Let’s call this goal “always have a book open”. I also want to try to read more non-geek material for a change. In ten years, I think I read only one book that wasn’t about code or computers, but I used to read tons of novels back in the day. That’s the thing with being an obsessive personality in a technology career: You always feel like you have to stay on top of the trends, and any new book on something interesting winds up in the queue on my nightstand. My thinking the past several years has been: “If it’s not going to help me with my career, then I don’t have time right now.” But now I think it’s time to introduce a little balance in my reading curriculum.

I think that should do it. A bit of playing music, some exercise, and four compositions. Let’s see how we do…

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