found_drama

• The Musts and Myths of Organic and Locally Grown

  via aspiringlibrarian

  (tags: health food organic)

In December, John gave me a homework assignment: “You want to include some sort of ‘mystery’ element in your stories?  You better get familiar with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.”  It seemed like a simple enough request.  Get down with the classic, defining bodies of pulp noir.  Sam Spade?  Philip Marlowe?  You better know these bastards inside and out.

I cruised through most of Hammett’s work back in January¹ and it took until now to get back to the assignment and jam through a couple of Chandler’s novels.

Having gotten through these now², I can see why John recommended them as “homework assignments”.  These are definitely classic pieces of American literature worthy of a second or even first tier position in the pantheon.  Looking back on these two collections now, I should have dove into Chandler’s work first.  John commented on some parallels between Chandler and William Gibson (one of my perennial favorites), citing the former as a major and obvious influence on the latter.  I enjoyed Hammett’s work but I also found it a bit gruff and fragmented — but fragmented in that random way and not fragmented in that serendipitous way.  On the other hand, I found Chandler to be elegantly staccato, gritty and yet dirt-on-the-knees proud.  I agree with John that Chandler’s influence on Gibson is apparent though I think they are going after far different goals as writers: Case is the illegitimate son of the illegitimate son of Philip Marlowe and though they’re living in the same neighborhood, headed in opposite directions on the same street.

Or maybe it makes more sense to compare Marlowe with Hammett’s Sam Spade?  Marlowe as the teeth-clenched pragmatist to Sam Spade’s hopeless romantic?  Or maybe that’s just Marlowe’s LA to Spade’s San Francisco?  In any case…

I have never been much in to mysteries as a genre before.  Noir has no surprises; when you expect a twist, it’s just the grateful realization of your expectation.  And while this has not really changed my mind so much on mysteries, it was certainly nice to branch out a bit.  And finish my homework.

1. Three of five; had to get it back to the library. [↩]
2. Again, 3 of 5 for Hammett, 2 of 3 for Chandler. [↩]

1. unbelievably worn out (seriously folks, breaking points)
2. Stoli is still at the vet; the plan is for him to come home tomorrow morning (assuming of course that he is better)
3. GoodReads still has a bad UI but it’s oddly addictive
4. I should start The High Window now that I’ve finished Farewell, My Lovely but part of me would rather move on to the next item on my list
5. meanwhile: I’ll edit that last draft of that last short story I wrote
6. also: we shall eat soon

• Securing Communications with SSL/TLS: A High-Level Overview

  via TidBITS (via DF)

  (tags: cryptography network security SSH todo)

Almost as if in response to something I said about him, the little bastard goes and gets sick. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that the vet says that they can’t find anything wrong with him. Nothing on the x-ray, nothing in blood work, nothing alarming in the urinalysis… It is the weirdest thing.

Get better, little tough guy.

Pretty well:

• Sp3w

  Fogus’ tumblelog

  (tags: friend)

I forget where I came across GoodReads.com the first time around but I had basically just removed the link from my del.icio.us “todo” set when Sarah pops up and tells Wranglers to get on board.  So, several Wranglers later, I cave and join up as well.  Short versions of immediate impressions:

• The concept is neat but the UI is terrible.  It’s hard to find the correct action links and there is not much consistency from screen to screen.  And what’s up with not allowing whitespace characters in the names of my shelves?
• So much focus on each book and not a lot of focus on the users.  Hard to describe…  Just seems like when you land at a given book, you don’t see how it ties in with your social network or your interests.  Seems difficult to explore (thus far).
• The system seems demanding.  Sure you can just rate a book (having it automatically added to your “read” list) but the UI seems like it’s trying to bully you into making recommendations and reviews on top of your ratings.

• UK Gov boots intelligent design back into ‘religious’ margins

  via The Register (via /.): “ID” has no place in the UK’s science curriculum. Because it is not (you know) science.

  (tags: politics science news)

Smug little bastard.

Until about one month ago, this damned cat of ours did not meow.  I do not know why.  Perhaps he thought it was undignified.  Perhaps he had short vocal chords that hurt when he used them.  Perhaps an earlier life on the streets taught him the value of keeping his mouth shut.  No matter the explanation, he seldom let loose his little cry.

And then — as if out of the blue — he figured out that it gets our attention.  This would be fine if he was using it when I arrived home from work.  Or during the day on a Saturday.  But he seems to only use this meow of his between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m.  He starts by jumping up on the dresser and finding some loose item that he can swat to the floor.  Then he jumps to the bed and begins to cry over and over again until someone attends to him.   I assume he wants food.  Food seems to end the crying jag for a couple of hours.  Usually.

It’s unfortunate (for us) however that we are rewarding this behavior.  It seems that the principles of operant conditioning are pretty clear on this subject.  It would seem that the smart thing to do would be to lock him out of the room.  But this only seems to address the part where he gets in my face to meow; the hollow-core door offers little protection against hallway cries.

Little bastard.  If you’re reading this: CUT IT OUT!