author: Sandi Doughton
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2014/01/06
date added: 2014/01/08
shelves: ebook, history, local, non-fiction, science
review:
Solid overview of a really fascinating topic. I learned quite a bit about the evolution of thinking about northwest quakes (and to some extent, earthquakes in general). Somewhat Seattle-centric, as might be expected with a Seattle-based author, plus I think a lot of the actual science is centered in Seattle. If you live anywhere in the region, particularly in the Puget Sound area, absolutely worth reading.
Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest
author: Sandi Doughton
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2014/01/06
date added: 2014/01/08
shelves: ebook, history, local, non-fiction, science
review:
Solid overview of a really fascinating topic. I learned quite a bit about the evolution of thinking about northwest quakes (and to some extent, earthquakes in general). Somewhat Seattle-centric, as might be expected with a Seattle-based author, plus I think a lot of the actual science is centered in Seattle. If you live anywhere in the region, particularly in the Puget Sound area, absolutely worth reading.
Knitting and coding, part 1
This summer I learned how to knit socks. And not just socks, but two-at-a-time magic loop socks. Which if you’d asked me two years ago, when I’d made a couple of scarves (and as it turned out, was actually doing the knit stitch wrong), whether I could’ve done such a thing…I’d’ve been exceptionally skeptical.
When I started that project, I didn’t know anything about sock construction, and I’d never used the “magic loop” technique. And even with a group of fellow knitters working together, I just got too frustrated (there was a LOT of cursing, and not just from me). So I used one of my favorite debugging techniques: picked out the smallest possible piece of the project, and figure out what’s going on with that. I made a coffee cup cozy, so I could understand the magic loop part. (Magic loop involves doing some weird stuff with a reeeeeally long circular needle instead of several double-pointed needles (DPNs). It’s actually easier in the long run than using DPNs in some ways, but it’s a different way of thinking about the creation process.) That got me to the point where I understood enough to try two at a time, and socks start out as just plain old tubes, so that gave me enough time to get really comfortable with all of those parts before I tackled the weirdness of sock heel construction.
The first time I made a sock heel (which in this particular style has three components: a flap, a turn, and a gusset), I was basically just following along by rote, as I’ve done many times particularly with JavaScript. “Cargo cult coding” — just copy this thing and if it works, it works, if not…who knows? The sock heels were the same way, reading the instructions very meticulously and just doing exactly what they said.
I’m on my sixth pair of socks now (although that includes two pairs of baby socks for my nephew), and now I understand the process and the technique enough to even second-guess a pattern or make up for a mistake I may have made earlier. (Or most importantly: how to adjust a pattern designed for DPNs to magic loop.) There’s parts I can’t always keep straight in my head, not unlike knowing that a function exists but not being 100% sure how it’s spelled or whether there’s a underscore. (Damn you, PHP.) Which side of the sock gusset should be SSK and which side should be K2tog? Sometimes I just have to do one and see if it looks right. Sometimes knitting could really use code hinting…perhaps the material itself is the code hinting.
With every new technique (language, stitch, etc) I’m full of frustration and self-doubt: nothing makes sense, I can’t believe this could possibly work, I’m not smart enough, dextrous enough, etc., etc. I cuss at the materials/tools, myself. And then it just CLICKS. I don’t know how that happens, really, although a lot of it is getting the right help.
I’ve learned over time what kind of help works for me. I had the worst time learning JavaScript. THE WORST. I was a full-time webmaster, writing quasi-applications in PHP, and I still couldn’t make heads or tails of JavaScript. It was the saddest cargo-cult coding when I even tried. Then I read DOM Scripting (mostly on a looong bus ride from Lakewood to Auburn, IIRC) and it made the critical connection I’d been missing, which was to tie it to something I understood really well (HTML) AND to use it in contexts that I actually needed.
Similarly, the whole Ajax thing seemed sort of strange and magical and confusing — and then I was a tech reviewer for Adding Ajax, and that connected what I already knew about writing little PHP things to the JavaScripty bits, and I realized it actually wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, yes a big deal that it can be done, but not as huge as I’d made it out to be.
I mentioned earlier that I spent the first few months knitting wrong. For the knitters in the audience, I was knitting into the back of the loop; which is a subtle enough mistake that it doesn’t look totally wrong, especially when you’re just learning it at all. But it throws off the gauge and the feel of the knitting, so things don’t fit quite right. And it also meant I had a hard time understanding how to increase stitches, which is what I was trying to learn when I discovered my problem. And what I discovered, in addition to the solution to my problem, was the kind of learning materials work best for me with knitting.
Surprisingly enough: not video at all or photos generally, but the right sort of drawing, ones that show the three-dimensionality of both the yarn and the needles (and fingers, to be honest). Along with text that uses the things I already know, written clearly. Not unlike what I need from coding help.
I’ve been sitting on this post for a couple of weeks, so I’m just going to leave it here. There are some other connections in my experience of both knitting and coding, that I’d like to write about later:
- Picking patterns is a lot like picking modules, plugins, and other open-source tools.
- Craftsmanship in general, knowing your tools and materials.
2-at-a-Time Socks: Revealed Inside. . . The Secret of Knitting Two at Once on One Circular Needle Works for any Sock Pattern!
author: Melissa Morgan-Oakes
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/01
date added: 2016/03/17
shelves: crafty, knitting, non-fiction, wishlist, read-again
review:
My group used (mostly) the techniques in this book for a sock knit-along project. Didn’t actually knit any of the patterns in the book, although some looked intriguing.
Thoughts on free labor
Been thinking about a few things since reading Ashe Dryden’s (amazing!) post on The ethics of unpaid labor and the OSS community. Go read it; there’s a lot there, and what I’m writing here is just noodling at the margins.
First, I read Linus Torvalds’ “Just for Fun” a long time ago, maybe just after it came out, since Wikipedia lists it as being published in 2001, and I distinctly remember reading it at the beach in Steilacoom when we lived in Lakewood, which was 2001-2002. So my recollection is vague, but it seemed to me that he was in some way being publicly supported (welfare? student?) when he first started working on Linux. And so I wonder how much a good safety net, in assuring some amount of financial stability, would allow more people to participate in open source.
Second, my first fulltime job was at a children’s museum, and I worked with a woman who was an excellent artist but who didn’t get a lot of respect at work. (I wrote a bit about her for Ada Lovelace Day in 2009.) The managers finally started putting her talent to use, but she confided in me once that it wasn’t as awesome as she’d thought it would be, partially because doing art for work left her with less energy for art on her own time. It’s something I’ve since heard elsewhere in other endeavors, and sometimes experienced myself, but I always associate it with Mona because I knew how gifted she was.
Third, the part I can’t entirely wrap my brain around is this idea that you’d want to hire or work with people whose main hobby is the same thing as their job. Doing other things gives you perspective. Even if they’re not serious important things like taking care of kids or working an extra job. I took a class over the summer, and it allowed me to be more of myself AND I got a better idea of what our audience is doing. I knit, and play games, and work on my yard, and those things are intrinsically pleasurable (mostly), and also make me a well-rounded human who talks to people who aren’t programmers and things about problems that aren’t in code. (Except the knitting is totally code.) I believe in my heart that whole people make better stuff.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2013/11/11
date added: 2015/02/11
shelves: history, non-fiction, ebook
review:
A tremendous book, covering a vast scope and intimate detail at the same time. I’d been meaning to read this for a while, but then in a Metafilter thread about American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America someone mentioned this book again and it happened to be available in ebook from the library. I’m so glad I finally read it! The sense of horror, the enormity of the migration, and the degree to which this movement shaped the 20th century: I hardly contemplated it. The author moves back and forth almost effortlessly between statistics, contemporary accounts, anecdotes, and the overarching stories of her three protagonists. (It reminds me a bit of Michener James A, who I read a lot of in high school/college.) So good, I teared up a bit at the end as Robert (migrated from Louisiana to Los Angeles) and George (Florida to NYC) got sick and passed away.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
author: Tim Wu
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/04/06
date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: economics, history, politics, non-fiction, favorites, technology
review:
As with Nothing to Envy, I should have written this review right after reading the book. It was fantastic, and I’d like to read it again. Great history of the “Information Empires” of the 20th and early 21st century, the continuing tension between openness and control. The history of television seemed particularly instructive: there was no early era of openness; instead Sarnoff (RCA/NBC) manipulated everything he could to make sure that it came out under the exact same control as radio at the time. Found myself kinda wishing for some discussion of Facebook in the closing chapters, in which there was a lot of focus on Apple & Google. It seemed to me that Facebook (or its moral equivalents) are the elephant in the room in that discussion. Very highly recommended.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
author: Tim Wu
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/04/06
date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: economics, history, politics, non-fiction, favorites, technology
review:
As with Nothing to Envy, I should have written this review right after reading the book. It was fantastic, and I’d like to read it again. Great history of the “Information Empires” of the 20th and early 21st century, the continuing tension between openness and control. The history of television seemed particularly instructive: there was no early era of openness; instead Sarnoff (RCA/NBC) manipulated everything he could to make sure that it came out under the exact same control as radio at the time. Found myself kinda wishing for some discussion of Facebook in the closing chapters, in which there was a lot of focus on Apple & Google. It seemed to me that Facebook (or its moral equivalents) are the elephant in the room in that discussion. Very highly recommended.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
author: Tim Wu
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/04/06
date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: economics, history, politics, non-fiction, favorites, technology
review:
As with Nothing to Envy, I should have written this review right after reading the book. It was fantastic, and I’d like to read it again. Great history of the “Information Empires” of the 20th and early 21st century, the continuing tension between openness and control. The history of television seemed particularly instructive: there was no early era of openness; instead Sarnoff (RCA/NBC) manipulated everything he could to make sure that it came out under the exact same control as radio at the time. Found myself kinda wishing for some discussion of Facebook in the closing chapters, in which there was a lot of focus on Apple & Google. It seemed to me that Facebook (or its moral equivalents) are the elephant in the room in that discussion. Very highly recommended.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
author: Tim Wu
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/04/06
date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: economics, history, politics, non-fiction, favorites, technology
review:
As with Nothing to Envy, I should have written this review right after reading the book. It was fantastic, and I’d like to read it again. Great history of the “Information Empires” of the 20th and early 21st century, the continuing tension between openness and control. The history of television seemed particularly instructive: there was no early era of openness; instead Sarnoff (RCA/NBC) manipulated everything he could to make sure that it came out under the exact same control as radio at the time. Found myself kinda wishing for some discussion of Facebook in the closing chapters, in which there was a lot of focus on Apple & Google. It seemed to me that Facebook (or its moral equivalents) are the elephant in the room in that discussion. Very highly recommended.