I went down to CompUSA to look at
some amplified computer speakers. They were pretty expensive, so I didn't
get any today. On my way back home, I went to We Be Sushi and ate some
sushi rolls and took notes on love and who should receive copies of the
Bootable Business Card.
Later on, I talked to Michelle and Wolfgang (both of whom clearly should
receive love and copies of the Bootable Business Card).
I also talked to Lee about a legal case, and I talked to Seth, too, for
just a minute.
Computer Literacy Books -- now
Fatbrain.com -- has closed its retail stores. They were one of the best
respected technical bookstores in Silicon Valley.
Help keep your local bookstores open -- buy a book from them!
I did stop by one of my neighborhood bookstores, and I found a copy of
Man's Search for Meaning.
Leonard: how about "Victoria's Shared
Secret"?
For those who don't like
IBM's
OpenDoc license, you could imagine OpenOpenDoc.
Culture
Time: 20 Past Midnight today reminds us of what this time of year looked
like in 1752:
September 1752
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Gregorian Reformation, doncha know. (You can get even more details from a Google search
for
"inter-gravissimas".)
I worked on the BBC a bit, talking to Zack and Duncan about material for our
web site, including endorsing and recommending
Wing Shing Optical Disc Co., the
company which handled our CD duplication.
I did laundry.
I found a small trove of Joey Hess's amazing short Perl programs in my
account on zork.
Here is one:
#!/usr/bin/perl -pl- ,,ep) ayf >|)nj,,
$_=reverse lc$_;s@"@''@g;y/[]{A-U}<>()a-y1-9,!.?`'/][} # Joey Hess
{><)(eq)paj6y!fk7wuodbjsfn^mxhl2Eh59L86`i'%,/;s@k@>|@g # joey@kitenet.net
(That one turns the date of this diary entry into
l002 `E jaqwafdas `hepuow
which works amazingly well.)
And another:
#!/usr/bin/perl -l
@ARGV=$0;$x=###+H}
99;while(<>)##,+Jt
{$y=0;$a[####{_n#n
$y++][$x]#=",)$i=i
=$& while#_H";(s)r
/./g;$x--#$ 8r*2p
}map{$g.=#;YS=t8,;
"\n".join#(ESxs39'
'',@$_}@a#rOE b+/
;eval $g# oJ"_u9y
######## f".$s3$'
One more -- my favorite:
#!/usr/bin/perl -li361M61AAM61AGMAM61AG261_G326G026M03_MG
@t=('_'x8,GAG,MAMAM,__);for(split$x=6,$^I){s/\d/$t[$&]/eg
;y!MAG!\\ /!;print' 'x$x--,$_}# MC Escher meets Joey Hess
Some people like this kind of humor, and others don't. As for myself, I
think Joey is one of the cleverest programmers I've ever met.
It's Labor Day, and I'm thinking about who counts as a "worker" (some
say: members of a particular social class; some say: members of a particular
social class in particular circumstances; some say: people who
are employed; some say: people who support themselves with a salary; some
say: people who make an effort to do something productive).
Workers are conceptually significant in a lot of political arguments and
rhetoric -- like tax cuts designed to "help workers".
I'm also remembering the motto "laborare est orare" (which many people
attribute to the Benedictines, which I guess is right). In trying to
find out more about this line, I
stumbled
upon the following poem:
Labor is Prayer
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)
LABORARE est orare:
We, black-visaged sons of toil,
From the coal-mine and the anvil
And the delving of the soil,--
From the loom, the wharf, the warehouse,
And the ever-whirling mill,
Out of grim and hungry silence
Raise a weak voice small and shrill;--
Laborare est orare:
Man, dost hear us? God, He will.
We, who just can keep from starving
Sickly wives,--not always mild:
Trying not to curse Heaven's bounty
When it sends another child,--
We who, worn-out, doze on Sundays
O'er the Book we strive to read,
Cannot understand the parson
Or the catechism and creed.
Laborare est orare:--
Then, good sooth, we pray indeed.
We, poor women, feeble-natured,
Large of heart, in wisdom small,
Who the world's incessant battle
Cannot understand at all,
All the mysteries of the churches,
All the troubles of the state,--
Whom child-smiles teach "God is loving,"
And child-coffins, "God is great":
Laborare est orare:--
We too at His footstool wait.
Laborare est orare;
Hear it, ye of spirit poor,
Who sit crouching at the threshold
While your brethren force the door;
Ye whose ignorance stands wringing
Rough hands, scamed with toil, nor dares
Lift so much as eyes to Heaven,--
Lo! all life this truth declares,
Laborare est orare;
And the whole earth rings with prayers.
There's a particular attitude toward work expressed in
my Spade Oration of five years ago -- and I think it's
interesting to think about how I treated the question of
manual labor. It would have been hard for me to
have given a speech in praise of manual labor then.
Labor, yes; manual labor, not likely. And I talked about
that in my oration, but only briefly, although the issue
pervaded everything I had to say.
A piece
about EFF board member Dave Farber's visit to Australia, with brief
biography of him and columnist Dan Gillmor. Dave Farber was the one who said
that "Photons have
neither
morals nor visas" -- which Nick Moffitt quoted for a long time.
Speaking of Australia -- which just celebrated its Flag Day -- patriotism
(or the extreme of nationalism)
looks especially odd
from across an ocean.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
(Robert Burns, "To a Louse")
