Writing and Sign Language

The Celtic people live in our culture and minds very romantically. I see them as big, brave, red-bearded folk who could eat and drink and party and beat up Roman's in their spare time. People who weren't afraid of death, who weren't afraid of life, generally rambunctious. The music we have that we call "Celtic" is some of my favorite music. The spiraling art featured in the Book of Kells is magnificent. I think, perhaps, that these iron-mining people are our cultural reference for Dwarves in a post-Tolkienian fantasy sense.

I've been reading about them recently. They are no less remarkable the more I learn. One great thing I admire about the Celts were slow to adopt written language. Consequently, they were awesomely eloquent. Champions of rhetoric. They had stupendous memory, being less dependent on writing down the things that came into their heads to remember later, they simply remembered it.

According to legend, anyway.

In our modern world, we have an incredible reverence (therefore dependence...) upon the written word. We teach it in our schools as if it is the most important thing in all the world. I am not immune to these symptoms. I like writing more than speaking, really, if I was forced to choose, but I am slow to say that this is an advantage for me. I would also say I admire speakers more, and I believe that this is fairly common. I respect speaking more for the simple reason that it is more social; I find more and more places in our world where society is eroding in favor of distance. Writing could have been the first step toward this. Why talk directly when you can just send a letter. Call instead. Send an email, just text... Devolving all the way down to a Facebook poke. Also, if the Celts could attribute their magnificent memories on their lack of literacy, then I might attribute my poor memory on my own dependence and reverence. Understanding that this is not a thing to boast about, rather a thing to fix. To work on. Right now, it is my reality and I am moderately comfortable with it. I really love writing. I am not so strong a speaker, I am not a quick thinker, I am a fond writer. I like being able to revise. I went to what was easier for me.

But is it better?

I think it's more vague than we often treat it. Writing is important, but not intrinsically. It in only so important because we have made it thus. And now, that we have deemed it indispensable, we cannot dispense with it. It is here to stay.

Sign Language doesn't really have a standard written language.

Not that people haven't been trying. There are at least two systems being heralded onto the stage. I think the results are mixed right now. There is SignWriting, which is a very computer-graphic system. It is pretty quick to understand, but does not look friendly to the pen. All of the graphics look like they were made on an Commodore 64. It has the support of Wikipedia behind it, however. They wish to transpose the encyclopedia into the language. Then there is the ASLwrite Dictionary done in "si5s". Which is something I could actually imagine writing old-school. I am excited about this one, and would like to learn it, thinking that it will help my real signing as well. (I am unsure how the creators expect it to be the vehicle they want it to be when the information isn't available: it is all proprietary and for sale. If it is to be the "official" writing system, it needs to be learn-able. Money may be needed, but the message must be out, too...)

But is digressing down this road really wise? I got to thinking about this as I started constructing my own writing system for ASL. For my own amusement, really. It wasn't very good and was never very complete. I din't know that anyone had already made one. I just wondered how I could do it at first. But soon I got to thinking about the extenuating effects. A written language could be divisive. For a people who are a minority, creating one less incentive for learning the language of the macro-culture could be inhibiting for individuals. It can also be internally divisive: direct communication is less necessary. Just send a letter. And there are all of those incredible mental strengths which come from being illiterate. Independence from paper.

But, on the other hand, and it is a strong hand, writing will go a long way toward preserving this endangered language. With advances in medical science, deafness is not what it once was. We can construct more and more precise artificial ears. When they eclipse the quality of our God-given ears, we might give 'em to everyone. And, like so many other things, a culture, the culture of the Deaf, may be quietly crushed. Along with the beautiful, immediate, and expressive language that is ASL and BSL and et cetera.

It is a discussion worth having. Since it is here, I will probably be learning si5s. ... Sigh.

Two Cent: Guns

Alright. I feel compelled. I'll add to the media barrage.

Armaments. Let's take a quick and logical look at it.

If arming good people was the best thing we could do to thwart the armed bad people, if that would make us safer, than the frontier of the Wild West must have been really safe -- Everyone had guns.

Let's ignore that for the moment. Because it's too complicated.

If arming good people was the best thing we could do to thwart the armed bad people, how do we make sure we can at once arm those good people, and not make arms all the more accessible to the bad people.

Or is a fire-fight between two heavily armed sides what is safer?

World War II must have been really, really safe.

How do we make arms accessible to "good people" and not to "bad people"? Background checks? Psychological profiles? A system as complicated as car-insurance algorithms which make sure that everyone is charged as much as they will likely cost?

Should we abstain from all weapons? ...outside hunting of course... We've tried abstinence with drugs, and it's worked smashingly.

That is to say: not at all. Many people use this as an argument that we should not abstain from firearms.

But most drugs can be grown in a house-pot and under a florescent light.

Making a gun means mining minerals. And smelting ore. And precision. And technique. And gunpowder... Really, quite a degree of skill and material. I wouldn't know where to start.

Not that I actually care all that much about this issue. Cars piss me off more. Weapons just aren't my thing anymore. I'm more interested in saving lives. Which is different than protecting them. It's just on the radar. I don't own a gun, I never will, and maybe I'll be shot crossing the street someday. I hope not, it wouldn't be my choice.

But I know I wouldn't shoot back. It's not my reaction. For myself, possessing a gun would be more hazardous to my health than not. It would be more likely to be used against me.

Which is just another little seed to contemplate.

Your Birthright!

The Economist released an article about the Best Places to be Born. Unsurprisingly, the US (arrogant as we are) were not on the top of the list. It was an interesting little piece, entertaining. Besides the wealth of idiotic comments the article generated in about 4 minutes, I take umbridge with one thing they said:

"Being rich helps more than anything else"

Bullshit.

You're just The Economist. That's what you would believe. In these rankings, there is a bit of a correlation: richer countries being higher ranked than poorer countries. Yet I wonder if that was pre-determined by the factors used for the analysis. Remember when you read something like this that it has a bias. Even though there are numbers, those numbers came from an equation built by a person who favored some type of information and ignored other information. So is the reason richness matters because it was a factor in the equation?

In my limited experience, the correlation is almost the opposite. The poor I know seem quite a bit happier than the rich I know. And, according to documentaries such as Happy, that is not all that uncommon on a global scale.

Money doesn't really matter. It only matters in how it can affect the things that matter.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Have to admit: I enjoyed The Hobbit. Much (much, much) more than I expected I would. Though I began expecting I would.

I went into it knowing a lot of what to expect. I was told Pete Jackson was "indulging himself", and I knew what he likes. Pete's an 'Epic Guy'. He likes big world-saving, end of the line, larger-than-life, fate in the balance, overblown stuff. And this all features heavily in The Hobbit. It is not quite so heavy as in The Lord of the Rings. In its stead is a little more humor, which fits this story aptly.

And probably a good portion of the reason I still like The Hobbit more than The Lord of the Rings. I like humor. Even if it made the overall feeling of the movie a little... Strange. Made the battle scenes a little awkward. Even if the movie had this strange deja-vuie feel to it. Augmented by cameo appearance scenes put in just for the sake of having cameo appearance scenes put in and by re-hashed scenes so similar to their parent, they really didn't have to re-shoot them. Even if some details like hobbit feet weren't done quite so well. Even if Bilbo mentioned his plumbing... And the elves had electricity... I still liked it.

A lot of that has to do with Howard Shore's work. I loved the Dwarve's song in Bilbo's home and I am not alone. It did very well. It could be a theme on the same song from the ol' Hobbit movie, which creates a nice little link. But it is better. Beyond that, it is just the right style to match the point and power the song is supposed to have. My greatest disappointment with the movie is just that they didn't sing the whole thing and finish the song during the movie. (I also would have liked more of Tolkien's poems made into as good of  songs, like Fifteen Birds.)

It was a good story. I liked the dwarves, and how the movie was able to make them feel. It was a little undermined by Thorin's age (he should have been older, I think) and human look, but these are small detail. The adventure was captured well. The artists who worked on all of these middle earth movies are very good. I suspect that many of them have been inspired by Middle earth for a long time. I think the weakest link, was probably Pete Jackson himself.

But that's just a supposition.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (2003)

Terry Pratchett's 31st book, Monstrous Regiment is about as good as you would expect it to be. He is, after all, Terry Pratchett. His fluid, funny style feels spontaneous, is quirky, and playful. If you like his style, you'll like it; if you don't, you probably will not.

The themes he explores are valuable for anyone. The raucous stupidity of war, sexism and feminism, how important it is to have some socks. It is for this reason that I this book is Recommended so highly. It allegory, it is one of his greater works.

Literally, it has its few faults. He moves so quickly though the beginning and introduces so many characters that I had trouble differentiating between Lefty and Shufti for pretty much the entire book. Wazzer only really stood out in the end, which, I suppose, was the point. The end feels a little rushed. After he said what he wanted to say and just had to wrap it up to get to his next story. It begins to wax philosophical so that man paragraphs are so thick with inside jokes and information and poetic refrain that it's hard to tell what it actually means.

That said, I love Terry's books. They are right up my alley. 

A change of focus....

One thing I noticed as I cleaned out all my extra shit is that when I was younger I thought more about stories, literature, and sociology. Whereas now I think more about computers and economics....

I would rather be like the self of my past, in this regard, than the self of my present.

So I will be going through my old essay scraps and trying to turn them into something useful. Rather than just redundant and annoying rants on operating system battles and economic stupidity which obsesses my mind too much, now.

Blasting the Past

Moving a home takes a lot of work. It quickly becomes obvious that most of the work is self-inflicted. Baggage is ported from one place to another to another when there is really very little use for it. Stuff fills the nooks and crannies of my home and I didn't realize quite how much of it there was until I had to haul it somewhere else.

When I got to looking through it, I realized that most of it was work I did once, a long time ago, and given the constraints of the modern life-style, I would be hard-pressed to find any time to ever look at it again. Even though I learned a lot. Again.

One thing I learned is that Art takes time. In this world of ours where we are (increasingly) fond of science and logic, it is hard to find a time and place for art. When I was in high school, I did more than when I was in college; I was more artistic as an underclassman than as an upperclassman; I did more in school than I do now out in the "real world" (bloody awful term if you ask me...)

Now I do hardly any. Every time I try to find time for art, I fail to notice what I didn't do instead. And then I feel like I'm not getting anything 'worthwhile' accomplished. Which is truly sad.

However, nearly all of my 'art' is utter crap. I was a very angry child growing up. I visualized a lot of violence. Perhaps, if I lived in California, I would have become a Peter Jackson-esque director - except I'm not really a director personality. If, as an adult, I came across a child creating this kind of art, I would be very worried and probably turn it in to a licensed psychologist and maybe even the police after having a few words with their parents. Some of it is pretty scary shit. I never listed names of real people, it is all devoted fiction, but it is rather bloody. And the further back I go, the bloodier it became (when I was ten, I wrote about decapitation).

Hm. I was a horrible person.

And now all of that tainted work is in the recycle bin. It is time to move on into the future. Stop lamenting if I can (which I can't) how little I write in the real world. Stop looking at these stacks and stacks of paper which could go to better use as a post-consumer recycled product than just taking up valuable real-estate in my home. I feel better now that I have less stuff. I'm not pulling such a heavy burden of crap I keep meaning to go back to, but never will.

I know that I am not alone in this tenancy to hoard. Most of us, in America, (at least those of us with walls and roofs) have a little hoarder in our blood. It may not be as damaging to our lives as it is for those poor people we exploit on our evil glowing boxes, but it is there and it is damaging all the same. The scale is simply different. Whilst I rummaged though my trash, I had a lot (a very lot) of time to reflect on the astounding quantity of trash we generate because we record and keep. It's kind of a sad thing. How much of this stuff in our homes do we really use? Perhaps a little more than what we need, but a small fraction of what we have.

Just a thing to think about. I lament the lack of a great recycling system to get all this Stuff to the understuffed. People who really do Need more. Though there are a few systems. Luckily for me, I don't have a lot that people can actually use... it's all just bloody paper. The recycling is simpler that way.

I don't want this little thought to be a call to arms for throwing away all the excess shit that lies in y'alls houses. Because, if we're gonna have landfills they might as well be our homes. But if it does inspire you (somehow...), please remember to reduce first, reuse second, regift third, and recycle fourth. Try never to throw away.

Writing too often about computers and technology

I find it almost hard to believe that people are surprised Windows 8 has a small market share.

How old is Windows 7?

I find that in most things, people get loyalty. There are Windows-heads, Mac-heads, Democrats and Republicans, and those in between. Those who like Windows will continue to use windows and malign those who like Mac; and vice versa. Those who like Democrats will also malign Republicans who will sling the mud right back.

But image if there were several versions of Democrat OS and Republican OS. And they came out every few year to compete against themselves. The computers that shipped with Windows 7 are still young and viable. And, unlike the superphone market, I don't know anyone who replaces their computer every year or two. Not even my computer-geek friends, who may want to, do that... primarily for a lack of funds. (I don't know how or why the superphone got to be replaceable every goddamn year whether it was still working or not.)

So Windows 8 is competing against the still-young Windows 7. My girlfriend is still using Vista. My college switched to 7 about 6 months ago. They will not be switching again for a few years, I wouldn't think.

Businesses take a long time to get things done, sometimes. For good and poor reasons. Switching over your computers is expensive and time-consuming and requires that all of your employees learn something new that isn't directly affecting your business at the moment.

Why switch?

In comparison, I don't compare the version of Ubuntu I'm using; and people don't compete to have the latest Mac. The releases are not as big of a deal. They happen more regularly and are just part of a series. Not benchmarks.

Windows is still the most popular PC OS and probably always will be.

It's the next generation they've really got to worry about.

Dear Patrick R. Donahoe and Paul Vogel,

How many people change their address online versus the old and cumbersome paper way? I wonder if it is much less than expected. I expect it is. I also got to wondering if anyone in the Post Office knew why.

Here it is:

I had to change my address the other day. Finally got a new place to move into and out of limbo. The Post Office was filled with adverts telling me I could do it all online, where it would probably be faster, and more direct. I would get pretty quick e-mail notification, it probably goes straight into the USPS databases, effects my mailing address sooner, doesn't require someone to enter it in to the database and all that.

How much does it cost for someone to change their address? Online or by paper? I know the paper is more expensive. It has to be produced, first of all, and it can be mailed for free.

But online costs more for me.

But it wasn't the cost that made me mail in a change of address postcard. Changing my address online costs only a dollar. But it is the way that this dollar is charged.

It sets off my Scammer-Alert radar. Big time.

"Identity Verification: For your security, a valid debit or credit card must be charged $1.00."

That is a direct copy-and-paste from the website. Look at it again.

....For my security... I must be charged a dollar? After I filled out 4 other pages? My credit-card company might notify me of a single round dollar being charged to my card. It will ping on their professional Scammer-Alert radar. This is exactly how fake web-pages, Craigslist and email scammers operate. They don't reveal their plan until later in the game when you're a little bought into the process. I remember coming across a scammer page once which had an "about" section, a "history" and a "who we are" and it still wasn't real. I thought to myself, if they put as much effort into a legitimate business, they could probably succeed. But all they wanted to do was steal money from unsuspecting people.

I was confused. The web-page was https, but it was also a .com, rather than .org or .gov which did nothing to allay my suspicions, so I did a search. There were a lot of other people wondering if this was a scam, but it appeared that it wasn't. Which was still confusing. Why would an organization like the United States Postal Office have such a shady tactic? There are a lot of other ways to "be secure". If you need money, they just say it costs a dollar. Hell, charge five dollars. It has to cost something for you to change people's addresses, even if you have a vested interest in keeping an up-to-date mailing system complete with correct addresses. People might pay it.

But not if it say "Identity Verification: For your security, a valid debit or credit card must be charged $1.00."

That's just stupid. Identify some way that doesn't make people think your going to steal their credit card information and buy a plasma TV. Charge a dollar in an honest way.

I don't think government sponsored enterprises are inherently inferior to other enterprises, and I don't think the Post Office is, on the whole, so inefficient. I have very rarely had problems with my mail, receiving or sending, and it is usually earlier than the estimated time. I am impressed that I can send a letter to New York and it is there in about three days. That's faster than I could get there if it was the only thing I had to do.

But this is dumb. Sorry. Change it. Now.

Note:
Perhaps this is also for Nagisa Manabe, Joseph Corbett, and Megan J. Brennan. Forward it on.

Open/Libre Office

I use it only because it's the only thing, really. When is someone gonna make something just a little more useable?