The best damned abject anybody'd ever seen

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Here's our 2008 Christmas letter (finished on the 10th day of Christmas and mostly mailed on the 11th day of Christmas). It was formatted better on paper.

( Our xmas letter, as a LJ entry )

Blaze
John and I went to Blaze last night, a huge outdoor display of pumpkins. Some were actual squash, some were faux pumpkins ("we call them faux pumpkins, or artificial pumpkins, but never fake pumpkins"). There were all the usual jack o' lantern styles you might expect, and then some other stuff, like the "Thriller" (complete with music) graveyard scene. My favorite bit were some pumpkins set off from the path, so you saw little glowing eyes come behind the leaves.
( pictures )

How much is $700 billion?
* It's a little more than 1/4 of the federal budget, so it will cost you a little over 1/4 your total tax bill.

* $700 billion is larger than the budget of China. In fact, it's larger than the budget of all but six countries.

* That's more than interest on the debt (524 billion), defense spending (583 billion), social security spending (650 billion) and about equal to Health and Human Services, and just 13 billion shy of the sum total of everything else.

* It's $2300 per person.

* It's $15371 per filing taxpayer who has to pay income tax (from

caldri)

* Interest on that debt will be $25 billion per year at 3.54% (current treasury 10-year rate). That's more than spent by Department of Energy or Department of Justice, and four times what is spent on the National Science Foundation. That boils down to around $82/year per person, or over $500/year per taxpayer.

Now, I'm not saying one shouldn't create such a package. But the argument that we need to spend this amount of money so that Joe DownTheRoad can get a loan to buy a car or a house just doesn't wash.

[Note: all numbers approximate.]

My mom is visiting. Here's the weekend:
( pictures )

The kindle
I've been thinking I should make a "Now that Novelty Has Worn Off, What Do I Think Of The Kindle" post for a while, and I was spurred to make this post by someone looking to buy. The short answer is that even with the novelty gone, I am happy with the kindle.

It's my preferred way to read books. The kindle stay flat so it's easy to read in situations where it'd be otherwise hard to hold open a book. (Consider exercise machines.) Also, because you can adjust the font size to large you can place it where you couldn't otherwise read a book. It's also good for just plain comfortable reading in bed. (It's also easier to read while holding a baby, but I don't have to do that quite so much any more.)

I liked being able to order a book and have it delivered while sitting on the runway. It was also nice to buy the Sears vaccine book and start reading immediately (especially since I put off the purchase until only a few days before Helen's 1 yr appointment).

My one big complaint is the book availability. I have plenty of books to read, but I haven't yet been able to get a book for my book club on the kindle.

One thing that puzzles me in reviews and discussion about the next generation kindle is the fascination with a color screen. Very few books have color except on the cover; those that have lots of color are not likely to be amendable to Kindle format. Of the hardware and software improvements I'd want, a color screen is very low (just above "cooks me breakfast") on the list.

Bottom line:
I hesitate to tell anyone whether they should or shouldn't buy this device. I can say I'm happy with it because it makes it easier to read books. Even though the price has dropped, I'm glad I didn't wait more to buy it, since I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it already. I should have bought it earlier, in fact.

A second generation one will likely be better, but without knowing exactly how different it will be and when it will arrive, I don't know whether it's worth waiting for. My instinct would be not to wait, since the Kindle right now is a damn fine book reader even given its quirks.

I've tagged my previous posts on the kindle, so you can read the "just thinking about it", "yeah it arrived", and the "I've had it a week" posts.

( Notes and quirks )

Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, we went walking in the University of Washington Arboretum. A friend of mine got two pictures I really like.

( Read more... )

I went to a baby shower today. Oddly, I think the shower wasn't so much for the guest of honor as it was for her mother and aunts. She also had a bridal shower that seemed similar.

If one steps back, it's an interesting custom. Why do these older females relatives so want a bridal shower and baby shower? What does it mean to them? It must, for them them, mark the occasion in a way that the wedding itself or the birth the baby doesn't? I wonder, too, how the gift giving plays in. I sense that it's not "Oh, shoot, I need to find a gift for X's baby shower", but rather that giving of a gift is an important part of the ritual. When you're a kid, your aunt may give you money for ice cream, but you never (or rarely) do that for your aunt. Maybe the shower gifts are, in some sense, a way of continuing "parenting" when parenting is really not going to be possible any longer? A sort of last chance to be the grown up before X enters the world of "adults"?

Anyway, I had a nice time, and Helen was much admired and called a "good baby". She was pretty good until the opening presents, by which time she was hungry and tired, but found everything too exciting to nurse to sleep.

The Kindle, review 2
I've had the Kindle over a week now, so I thought I'd post about it again.

The short description is to say that I think of it as "my book" and not as a computing device. I think that means it's a success.

I've used it to read two books so far (Sense and Sensibility and Honor of the Queen), and I've downloaded and read sample chapters of other books (included Obama's book). The ability to lay the book flat and turn pages with an easy button press makes it possible to read in situations where a book would not work.

It's not without it's rough edges--it's hard to read in the dark (maybe slightly harder to read in the dark than a book, though unlike a book, you can increase the font size). For another, the keyboard takes up a lot of room that I think would be better used as screen. Their suggested cover use use seems like it would break my cover, so I haven't dared that yet. And the "web browsing" feature is....more of a bug than a feature. (Now, maybe if gmail came up with a web page formatted for the kindle...)

One thing that concerns me: Baen has a very nice free library. It makes a lot of sense to make those books available that way when reading electronic books is so annoying that if you like the book and have the $$, you'll actually buy paper. But with the kindle, electronic books are just about as good as a physical book. I wonder if a profusion of electronic book readers will change their free library philosophy.

I am an early adopter.
My kindle arrived today. I put a couple of books from the Baen free library on, and one from Gutenberg.net. (The Baen free library books work better.)

I got it because I like to read, and I've been reading less lately, in part because lap-lump makes holding open a book and turning pages difficult. I chose the Kindle rather than the Sony Reader because I want to be able to have access to lots o' books--I don't want to limit my options by going for an ebook. (Yes, the kindle limits my options, but they have lots of book titles already, and if Amazon makes this work, there will be even more in the future.)

The screen doesn't knock me over with its beauty or anything, but I do sometimes forget that it's a screen.

It's expensive, and if you don't want a book reader, you're SOL 'cause it's not good at anything else. But so far, it looks like a pretty decent book reader. We'll see in a week or two what I think of it.

Caption this video!
These days, Helen likes carrying something around with her. Sometimes, she doesn't mind giving it up. Other times...

also here

Poll #1131649 Caption this video
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

Suggest a caption for this video

View Answers

Starting at Thanksgiving, she consulted with The Imperial Senate about this solid food thing. They ultimately suggested it was worth trying.

She briefly spurned their advice and embraced the dark side of the force...

But a climatic confrontation with family turned her world upside down and brought her back to the path towards solid food.

She trained with new determination for the battle.

And ultimately was victorious.

(Short video snippets here and here.)

the treacherous pear!
Helen had her six months shots today, which she found much less disturbing than me changing her diaper when she wanted to sleep.

She's 27.5 inches and 16 lbs 13 oz, so she's still on the weightier side and definitely on the taller side.

We gave her some broccoli on Christmas. She wasn't impressed, and perhaps a bit puzzled by the chew toy that fells apart. The pear proved amusingly frustrating. First of all, she had a hard time grabbing the slipperly slice of peeled pear. Then, when she did manage to grab it despite its attempt to escape, she'd squeeze and have it pop out of her hand. Or she'd bring it to her mouth and have it crumble, leaving her with pear in hand, pear on the table, but none in her mouth.

She fared better with the cantaloupe, since it has an EZ-grip rind. She had fun chewing on it and actually ate some. (Though not much.)

Maybe someday I'll even post pictures. (ETA: pictures in a comment)

Halloween was yesterday. We gave away full-size candy bars and toys. Helen had a costume, but none of the rest of us did.

( halloween pics )

Helen has a cold. She has a runny nose and has been sleeping extra and fussing extra (when not sleeping). But with the sleeping extra part, I got some pictures put together.
( pictures )

I guess it's good I didn't end up at RPI
Helen Marie was born this morning! She was not silent about the birth process. Her weight was entirely normal.

Some notes (not in order of importance):
* The cesarean was not as bad as I feared. No comment on the recovery yet.
* They pumped (insulin-resistant) me full of dextrose during the surgery, even though my sugars were normal before. Shockingly, baby's was low at birth. (If mom has high blood sugar, baby compensates by producing tons of insulin, baby's sugar is low at birth.) This meant she was separated from us rather quickly and fed formula.
* Her hips are dislocated, so she'll have a cast for four to six weeks.
* Helen was my grandmother's name.
* RPI is in Troy, NY, so if I'd taken a job at RPI, she'd be "Helen of Troy"

Poll #919399 Guess 2/3 of the average
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 44

Pick a number between 0 and 100 (inclusive). If you get closest to 2/3 of the mean of all numbers, you'll get (1) honor, (2) an unspecificed gift from me. (Seriously. I'll mail cookies or something.)

An explanation will follow.

"I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in this war"
The best book I've read all year--and probably this decade--is All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It's hauntingly beautiful and horrific at the same time. The descriptions are so vivid, and yet they are all about death, depair, living death of people without hope.

People call it an anti-war novel, which I suppose it is, but it's not a political novel in any way. Reading it is entering into another world. A world in which you care more about a dead man's boots than the fact that the man is dying. A world in which a double ration of food is a great thing, even if it's only because the army is slow in realizing half your company died yesterday. The narrator is accustomed to this, which makes it all so much worse.

The narrator dies at the end. The book doesn't say what of. But it's clear the war killed him long before that, even though the hollow shell of his body continued to move.

Today was our book club meeting. Most everyone felt the same way about the book, but since we all agreed, there wasn't much discussion.

(The title quote is from the book, said by a friend of the narrator.)

Are you a woman in science or engineering?
A friend of mine is interviewing women for a book on women in science in engineering. I don't particularly know what type of person she's looking to interview at this point--it seems she has a lot of interviewees and is now being somewhat selective, I would assume to make sure she has a diverse group.

I was going to point a particular person to her web site, but it occured to me that there many of the people on my friends list (especially you aners) could be interesting interviewees.

In any case, here's her web site, and she has her email address on the site.
http://www.nasw.org/users/lhall/wtga.html

Of Paul Bäumer and Frodo Baggins
Paul Bäumer is the protagonist of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Frodo Baggins is the protagonist of the Fantasy adventure series Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. The two books are very different, yet I think Frodo and Paul would understand each other way. There is the same sense of being wounded without a wound, and a despair that a normal life will ever be possible, and both seem to welcome death when it final meets them.
( quotes from All Quiet.. )

To see these two dissimilar books (one pro-war, one anti-war) intersect in this way changes a bit how I view each book. Frodo's trip West may be saying something about war, and not just a nice tie-up ending. And Paul Bäumer's story, too, is reinforced when what amounts to an adventure tale has a character like him, especially since All Quiet... specifically says it's not an adventure tale. I wonder if Tolkien had read All Quiet... and what he thought about it.