501 Verbs in English

I went down to browse the public library annual book sale. Supporters of the library donate their extras and have a festive annual sale with thousands of book. I bought one. Because I’m cheap and because I borrow books from the library mostly. The books I keep on my shelves are reference books and the odd title I don’t expect to find easily in the library (‘Modern Primitives’ and ‘The Tears of Eros’ come to mind). But what caught my eye was the book “501 English Verbs”. Now I often see 501 Whuzzu Verbs in the foreign language section in bookstores and I’m tempted to buy one for whatever language I happen to want to know at the time, but for English! Well, why not?

I’m learning Portuguese at the moment. I adore Brazilian music. It has the sophistication and virtuosity reminiscent of the best of American Tin Pan Alley. Though I know that even if I learn the basics of Portuguese, the poetry of the songs will still elude me. But it’s fascinating to see the language continues to use the subjunctive mood. English has gotten much simpler over the years (or people like me are just beating it to death). The subjunctive in English sounds quaint and Masterpiece Theater-ish. Still, it would interesting to study a whole book of English verbs. The copy at the book sale was water damaged so I passed on it. But there will be other copies around…

Sticky notes

I like Post-It Notes(tm) and I wish someone would invent some kind of sticky string to make it easier to draw links between them.

Maps

Overheard in Bird and Beckett, a great local bookstore in San Francisco, a woman looking for maps, nobody sells them anymore. The sales person commiserates, there are no map stores anymore (I’m thinking, Rand Mcnalley in North Beach is long gone). And what of it? Don’t I just use Google maps myself? Except maps aren’t just for finding your way from here to there. In writing the question is whether you should have an outline before you start writing and if so, how detailed. One author counseled that you want a map of the territory ahead, not the exact path. Because writing isn’t that straight forward, but you still need to have a sense of where you’re going and the territory ahead. But also maps are needful for what isn’t there. At one extreme, those ancient maps that ‘here be monsters’ or closer to our own eras, with helpful cartoon illustrations of wonderous things along the way. Bill Buxton in his book on design wrote “You have to leave big enough holes to let imagination come into play.” Google maps look too complete, too stolid. Now, I am not adventurous by nature, I’m just a bookworm, maybe Google maps are still enough to stir the blood and quicken the heart of adventurous souls—Samarkand and Uttar Predesh, Istanbul, Prague, Budapesh, the Escalante. I always expect that software hidden behind the Google maps will keep it updated, fill in the mysterious. A paper map is different, somehow they beckon, ask me to fill in the blanks.

Change

When Mr Obama won the Democractic primaries gave his speech, an emotion washed over me for what I hadn’t known was an issue. I am not black. I’m asian. I’ve had few racial incidents in my life. And I worked in a field were asians are not only welcomed but sought out. But as Mr Obama spoke, I felt for the first time in my life, fully enfranchised. 

I came from a rather conservative part of the country. And from a recent visit I can attest that it is still rather conservative. I hadn’t the heart to point out that from where I stand Mr Obama is a centrist. What I think needs to be done for this country would sound like the ravings of a Martian. Mr. Obama is inspiring. To fill with spirit. To breathe again.

I don’t know what I’ll feel tomorrow, Martin Luther King Day. This day too seems suffused with special meaning. I don’t know what I’ll feel Tuesday. I can’t wait.

Universal Incompetency, Inc

I’ve been reading that the government should be careful getting into bed with banks, auto makers and the like because the government has a terrible track record managing businesses. Like this recession is proof businesses know how to run businesses? OK, sarcasm aside, nobody knows how to do it right every time under every circumstance. Being a lefty, my first impulse is to shout out that that proves the failure of capitalist ideology. But after taking a breath I have to admit I don’t trust socialism or communism either. If I were more of an optimist of human nature I might, but I’m not. A plague on all your houses.

don’t worry, be happy

While Mr. Bush tries to tell us don’t think about, you know; the Christian Science Monitor reminds us to be thankful about what we have. I’ve lost quite a bit in paper profits this year, but I still have time. I have health, a good family, a wonderful home city, my wits, good books to read, good music to listen to, friends to make me laugh, to comfort me, stand by me.

I am reminded too that although the financial crisis is terribly important to bankers (Paulson was a banker?) the economy goes through cycles, maybe not as wild as this one, but it happens. It will recover. Meanwhile, we do have to act, now and decisively if we want the environment like it is now, we do have to act now and decisively if we (Americans anyway) want a reasonable health care system (see USNews and World Report article by Bernadine Healy).

Great books never read

The Telegraph has a piece about great books you’re too embarrassed to admit you’ve never read.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/22/bonever122.xml

I didn’t quite read the whole piece. For me my list of unread classics is too long to bother with. What does embarrass me are the books I’ve read where I come to the end, kind of wake up and say to myself, ‘whot was all THAT about?’

My new DTV converter

So I got a DTV converter for my television. I do not have cable nor satellite nor a modern TV set. And do not plan to get any one of them in the near future. I watch Bill Moyers, the Simpsons and sometimes the local news when making dinner–which I don’t do all that often anymore either. I did look into replacing my DVR because my existing one has incrediably crappy controls. But when looking around I did not see any DVRs that included (1) a digital receiver and (2) a hard disk.  Most assumed you have cable. Or wanted to record direct to DVD. I didn’t look too hard, but most TVs seem to be monitors too–no broadcast receiver, they assume  you have cable too. So when my TV dies I may find myself having little choice but enter the 21st century and get cable or some internet connection.  

But for now I have the DTV converter. I got the coupons. It’s strange that you get these plastic cards with serial numbers. Seems like much some contractor sold the government another gold plated solution.  I would have thought some bar codes on a piece of paper would have sufficed.  Maybe they want to discourage people from hacking bar codes and stealing converter boxes. (Yeaah) 

But I bought a couple of converters and I hooked them up. For the first TV the hook up actually went much faster than I had anticipated. I unplugged the antenna lead to the TV,  plugged that into the converter and then plugged a coax into the TV. Simple. The software setup was straight forward. I got a lot more channels than before, and a lot more channels than I want. Better technical quality (more on that later) doesn’t mean the content got any better. The converter had a ‘favorite channels’ option but it didn’t seem to work. Actually, the instructions were flat out wrong and I only figured out how it works by wandering around the menus–nerd behavior and OK for me, but nothing my mom would ever do. And I would think DTV converters are primarily for moms with antique ‘analog’ sets. And cheap bastards like me.

The second TV was slightly more complicated hook up. I have a DVD player, a DVR, and a VCR all hooked into the TV. The antenna is hooked into the DVR and that feeds back out to the TV. So I just had to switch the antenna to the converter box and the converter box to the DVR. The DVR is now permanently tuned to channel 3 for broadcast. The problem is that the DVR cannot record any channel anymore. It can only record from the channel the converter box happens to be set to. If I actually watched much TV this would be a show stopper. Commercials drive me nuts and I cannot watch a show as broadcast. I have to record it first so I can skip over the commercials. If I wanted to record a number of shows on different channels, this converter box/DVR set up would require me to change the DVR manually as the shows came on. I would have to be there as each show starts. Since I record so few shows, I can at least preset the channel so I don’t have to be there. But then I have to leave the converter box on. And to save the planet (hah) I’m trying to figure out how to shut these suckers down without incurring those stupid blinking clock lights when I fire them up again.

So recording is a minus feature. Is the picture quality better? While still with my analog signal, I recently recorded Dexter for a friend but made a mistake and didn’t adjust the antenna first. So the image quality is horrible. I don’t know yet if he’ll watch it or just toss it in disgust. So digital is better right? Well, so far it looks as though digital is much pickier about signal quality and either breaks up in a dozen pixels and no sound, or a blue screen of death. Whereas analog would have kept on trucking albeit with a fuzzy image.  So which is better?  I kind of think analog is. I think something is better than nothing. I’m after content, not ‘technical’ superiority. I’d much rather watch “The Gold Rush” than “Stars War VI”. 

Plus, I may just be seeing things, but it seems as though the digital image is extra blurry for a fraction of a second when making a jump cut. Sometimes I see this odd hexagonal pattern on monochromatic backgrounds. And digital just looks harsh to me. Plus switching channels is slow–as if the converter box has to think about it a moment.  Not good for someone with a low irritation threshold like me.

This particular brand displays a status light that looks rather like the slit eye on GORT the robot from The Day the World Still Still.  Which I find rather creepy. I’m thinking of covering it with electrical tape.

health care?

When I read about health care, the issue seems to be about insurance. Only insurance. As if once everyone has insurance costs will go down and we’ll all be healthy. But insurance just spreads the costs around. It seems to me any comprehensive discussion has to include (1) public health, (2) personal fitness, responsibility and risk avoidance, (3) evidence based medical practice (how many commonly accepted medical procedures and practices actually work? and for whom?), (4) poverty, (5) the problem that a few people drain the system disproportionately, (6) the issue that most people tend to incur most of the medical expenses for their entire lives in the last year of their life.  I don’t know what could come out of such discussions (some of the obvious ‘remedies’ are obviously untenable), but I know other people are probably a lot more imaginative ideas than I do. And I’d like to hear.

creationism

In the February 23, 2008 New Scientist a letter from Denis Alexander caught my eye. He suggests that a way to talk about Creationism is not to attack it head on (like Dawkins et al) but by showing that not all Christians believe in creationism.I had just watched an episode of Bill Moyers journal with an interview with Susan Jacoby (“The Age of American Unreason”). She had said, among other things, that people don’t bother to listen to contrary views.  Not exactly news. But she also pointed out that people don’t know much about their own views. I’ve noticed that few Christians I’ve talked to have read the Bible. There is a word I need here. I come up with ‘Isolation’, though that’s not quite right.  We get ideas. Creationism, Intelligent Design, Capitalism, Marxism, Darwinism. But they lack context. They lack connection to anything else. Association, commutation, you know what I allude to, but I get the impression in the wide world these ideas largely shine as isolated as stars in the universe. So what happens if Christians get to see that within their own galaxy, from their own community, there are worlds of ideas and opinions not just like their own?