Another Churchill quote. If you read a biography or two on him, you’ll realize that most of his career was spent as a critic of the majority in Government, so he knows whereof he speaks:
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
I’m increasingly a little stymied by response to the Sopa / Pipa thing. I’ve written my senators and congressman (and, like a hipster, I totally did it before it was cool), and I’ve asked them to not do anything dumb.
The challenge is that the argument from the tech community is “Hey, let us help form a solution.” But, I have yet to see any such solution proposed.
I think we need to go back to the basic assumptions of the argument. Part of the issue is general disregard for creative content as property. No one argues about who owns and should benefit from a carpenter’s work. The transactions are clear cut.
But, there are many people who would say that creative content is not the same thing. Until we figure that out, we probably won’t be able to work out the mechanisms for protection. Or, rather, any mechanism we work out would be circumvented regardless.
Because I’m lazy.
Sung by my son this morning:
“The bears will not be grown, and the chairs will stand”
That’s either the ramblings of an Apocalyptic Prophet or #ThingsMyKidSang
Okay, so I’ve only listened to one audio book in my entire life. It was Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: Final Empire (From the Mistborn Series). Dude… it was long. For real. 25 hours. That’s pretty long, I think.
The upside of audio books: you can do other things while you read. You can wash dishes, cook dinner, listen to conference calls… wait, not really for that last one. I really did enjoy that part of it.
The downsides… well, there are several:
- You’re less interruptible. Okay, maybe you’re not all the time, but I was listening through head phones about 90% of the time. I was definitely less interruptible.
- It’s slow. Not everyone will find this, (approaching humble brag) but I’m a pretty fast reader. Listening to someone else read seems to increase the amount of time a book takes, by maybe as much as 75-100%.
- The reader can be great or awful. I’ve tried to listen to several other audio books in the past couple of years, and they were all awful. The guy who read Mistborn was pretty good, although the voice he adopted for the female protagonist kind of annoyed me.
- It’s easier to space out. I think I remembered to rewind every time this happened, but if I didn’t, would I really know?
Anyway, that’s my current take on audiobooks. Not as bad as I thought. I’m working on Tina Fey’s BossyPants as I write this blog post. It’s read by Tina, which is fun. But, it’s also that process of figuring out that a writer / creative type person whose work you like may not find you “fun to eat dinner with” in real life.
Back to normal this week, after a week mourning my wife’s Papaw.
And I found a doozy – Winston Churchill on writing. I loved this!
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
Paul Valer
Or not. We’ve been on a “space” kick around the house, so when Luke spied Jetsons: the Movie on netflix, it was a natural fit. For him, not me. This is a movie that was released in 1990, but clearly was from 1987. From 80s songs sung by Tiffany to psychedelic, fluorescent visuals, it’s a time capsule from the 80s.
And it leaves me wondering which of our movies / music / books will show these sorts of signs of aging. Time affects everything. Somethings hold up really well. Other things are Jetsons: the Movies. Probably a great idea at the time, but they just don’t hold up.
I have a real preference for easy resolutions. I mean, you could make those hard ones, but then you have to either deal with the pressure of trying to make things happen or the disappointment of failure. Boo to both those things.
So, my favorite resolutions are ones about reading. I like to read. I read a fairly significant amount anyway. So, challenging myself to read a little bit more seems like the way to go. I set my goal at 26 books. I think that’s pretty light for me, anyway, but hey… at least I’ll succeed!
If you made resolutions, did you include a “gimme” like that? If so, what was it?
“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.”- G.K. Chesterton
When something is so great an experience that it robs you of previous experiences that you thought were good, it ought to have a warning label. I can think of a few things in life that have been this way:
The first video game system I ever owned was the Sega Master system. It was fine… decent… okay for its time. And then, one of my friends got an NES. And it was way awesomer. There was a gun controller. There was Mario. It was the greatest thing of all time. And my Sega Master System was, all of the sudden, not as awesome. That Christmas, we got an NES. And the master system, well, I don’t even remember it being connected to the TV after that.
Ender’s Game did that for books, but in a good way. After I read it, it felt like many of the other books I was reading were hollow… no where near as good (even the sequels to Ender’s Game). It was a good thing — it made me chase good reading experiences. Every great book I’ve read since has caused the same chase.
Most recently (and prompting this post), I received a French Press coffee maker for Christmas. I’ve had coffee from other people’s french presses before, and it’s always been wonderful. But, I’ve assumed that there was some special magic in their kitchen that made it different than what would happen in my kitchen.
For better or worse, I was wrong. I can make really great coffee in my kitchen. Using the same coffee, even, that I put in my drip machine. And it’s ruined (well, not ruined, but cheapened) the regular coffee experience. I look at my mug and think, I could be having this rich experience, and instead I’m drinking swill.
A week ago, I was proud of the coffee that I made in my standard coffee machine. It was the right blend of not too bitter, but not weak. This French Press should’ve come with a warning label!
