Some time ago I saw The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters. Except I did not see the thing mentioned in that linked. I saw the thing that the linked program was edited from. The original, full version is closer to a full 60 minutes (though I was once sure it was nearly 90 minutes) than the shrunken "television hour" of what most know. What happened? Disney did. Disney snapped it up and cut it down. I saw the original, uncut version made for PBS's American Playhouse. And it was hilarious.

Jean Shepherd (who also did A Christmas Story which I find not to be as good) tells the story of a small town American Fourth of July and the various stories and side-stories to it all. To fit within the one-hour commercial television slot, stuff was cut. Most of the major stories are still there, but enough little bits are cut that it's a shadow of what it should be. It's annoying. It's very... almost. Maybe if you haven't seen the original, full version the cut down version can be pretty good. But if you know there are bits missing, it's quite frustrating. It's a cinnamon roll without the cinnamon: The bulk is there, but it's not all there, the part that really makes it is missing. I'd like to see it again, but only if it's the complete thing.

Current Mood: nostalgic

Chances are you've heard of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and maybe have read it. Almost certainly you've seen some variation of it on TV at one time or another. Most such variations are pretty unimaginative, barely doing anything more than Twain had already done, if even that much.

Over a year ago I saw a mention of 1632 by Eric Flint, and bought it as it was a variation that sounded truly interesting. Instead of only one person or even a tiny party of time travelers, an entire town gets thrown across time and space. A small town, but still a whole town. It's the small town of Grantville, West Virginia, and around April 2000 something happens. This something transports the town to Germany in the 1630s, where the 30 Years War is going on. It takes a while for folks to work out just what happened (or rather, just what was the result of whatever happened) and then decide how to deal with it all. Returning to West Virginia in 2000 is out because they simply don't know how.

This has become a series of books, dealing with succeeding years and various events of those years. There are at least three books just for 1634 as that much is going on. As Eric Flint says, "History is messy" and it's not all cut and dried as many history texts might indicate. There are other books, the Grantville Gazettes and a couple others that are collections of shorter stories by other authors, filling in background on some characters and events.

I have not read all of the books, but I have read a number of them. They are interesting not only for the story itself, but for revealing some historical characters. Before I started reading these, Oliver Cromwell and Cardinal Richelieu, as just two examples, were just names of historical characters but I really didn't know anything about them. Also there is the matter of how to do things with 1630s technology. Even with 2000 know-how (and not all of that made the trip - Grantville is a small town, and not a major industrial or research center) there is the matter of materials. It's going to be a while before there's any significant amount of new aluminum, stainless steel, or plastics. The Gazettes are not all fiction. There are separate articles on various aspects, ranging from the problem of getting good draft horses to what it would take to make telecommunications work at just 19th century levels.

I've just finished reading 1635: Cannon Law (that's not a typo) and found it good except that it feels like it just ended and it should have been marked 'Part One'. I expect there will be a book along eventually that picks up where this one leaves off, but I don't know when I'll get to it.

That aside, I really like the series. Eric Flint said he had two objectives in writing 1632 beyond just making a good book. One was that the story would not make out small town or rural inhabitants as idiots. Real people, with their flaws, yes. But not fools who don't know any better than to do foolish things. That includes the people of the 1630s as well, not just the transplants from Grantville. Yes, there are some fools, but everybody around them recognizes that. The other was that it would not be yet another depressing dystopian story. There would be hope for the future, though it would not be easy and would experience setbacks, the general mood is that people can and will overcome problems and overall things will improve. I like both of these objectives and I think the 1632 series succeeds in meeting them.

Current Mood: good

"I don't try to predict the future. I try to prevent it." -- Ray Bradbury

That line explains why I find many of Ray Bradbury's works to be depressing. He's not describing a future he hopes for, but one he hopes against. It's certainly useful to have such warnings as Ray's own Fahrenheit 451 and Orwell's Animal Farm (I haven't read 1984 having not done so by 1984 and then hearing of it almost endlessly such that even without having read it I am quite sick of the thing.) and others. Some futures do need to be prevented.

Yet it seems that somewhere along the time, the dystopian future became the default. Rather than the somewhat hopeful futurism of, say, Star Trek and such, we got the hopelessness of Mad Max and Max Headroom. At the last Penguicon there was even a panel, "How We Learned to Love the Dystopia." Yes, it's good to have warning signs and know where not to go, but it's also good to have an idea of where we might want to go. Dystopias are depressing and a lousy default. I'm not asking for Utopian stories as that has the two problems of being rather dull and of being plainly unrealistic. It's very easy to poke holes in a Utopia. But there is the idea of a generally brighter future, or at least one where things haven't become horrendously worse.

I am not sure of the cause of the depressing trend. Is it that many editors only tend to go for dystopias? Is it that authors find it easier to write for dystopian worlds? Is it a backlash against futures perceived as too bright and so there is a nasty over-correction? And this is just actual fiction or science fiction, not the Hollywood error of claiming something to be science fiction when it's really just a horror movie set in space or such.

Maybe I do want some escapism. But I don't enjoy seeing dark futures. The "Hey, it's not me." effect doesn't work for me. I tend to empathize, so it's more "great, just what I need, more crap happening." It's the future, yes? We're all going there, all the time. How about a future that can we feel good about going to? Not perfection, not utopia, not heaven, just something that doesn't make the trip seem pointless.

[A bit of amusement: The spell checker I use evidently does not know of 'dystopia' and suggests 'dustpan' -- a substitute I find rather apt.]

Current Mood: blah

The last week or so jmaynard and I have been dealing with a Nash. Not the car, the fridge. Yes, fridge. Okkay, it says Kelvinator on the door, but it was made by the Nash Kelvinator company. That means it was made in 1954 at the very latest.

This thing was the fridge that was left in the hangar for Jay to use. While it runs and does "make cold" it is showing signs of aging. Not merely just being old, which the latch on the door indicates (No magnetic easy-escape safety seal here. This is the sort of fridge the old PSA's warned about) as does the complete absence of any shelving at all on the door. One shelf-rack is missing and the parts that would hold it in place are broken anyway. The latch is loose and wobbly, and the seal doesn't seal properly. I'm not sure that fixing the latch would make it seal any better. And it is a 50+ year old appliance, with all the inefficiencies that that implies. I've looked up the model number (ANC-R, if you were wondering) and the thing doesn't seem to exist. Not even places that say "We have Kelvinator parts" on Google acknowledge this model.

Rather than deal with all that, this afternoon we just replaced the old fridge a new GE. It's smaller, but with a full compliment of shelves it really holds more. The thing is now full (water and Diet Coke), with stuff on every shelf, and the shelves and such on the door are full, too.

I don't recall having the oft-mentioned childhood fear of a monster under the bed or monsters in the closet. Certainly part of that is that you just can't have a proper closet monster without a closet. And "under the bed" was a place a little kid could go and explore. It wasn't a place for monsters, it was a place for me. I imagine that if there had a been a closet it would have been much the same. It would also have a been a space I explored and considered mine rather than some strange thing of mystery. It certainly helped that I do not ever recall being claustrophobic. Then, in some of the places I've lived, claustrophobia simply wasn't option. There wasn't room for it.

I do recall one thing which was a bit of a phobia and seemed something of a monster when I was very young. I grew out of it, but even as I did so there was a period when I logically knew it was no big deal, but still had this odd feeling about it. This thing couldn't move about, and it was harmless when anyone else was around, but when I was alone... I kept my distance.

It lived in my grandparents basement and it was part of the furnace and chimney arrangement. At the time, my grandparents had an oil furnace and the monster was the barometric damper* (also called a flue damper, draft damper, or flue regulator) and it would seem to move on its own. I've found pictures of similar barometric dampers (Example 1 Example 2) but none that looked exactly like the one I remember. It was a circular metal flap, hinged at the center diameter, with an adjustable weight on a bent threaded rod. It looks vaguely like a face with a hooked nose.

Got that? Little kid. Thing looks like a face, but not a very nice one. It moves by itself (alright, it was the wind, but little kid, remember?). BUT... it couldn't move about, so you could deal with it by keeping back. Work up courage to get closer and if it moved too much, it was easy to get away again. That damper was the one "monster" I recall that wasn't a big fuzzy friendly Muppet from Sesame Street.

As I got older (still a little kid) I realized more of what the thing was: a metal flap that moved with air pressure. Wind moved it. For a while I knew this, but it still was a bit of the old monster. And later the monster faded into distant memory and it was just a bit of metal. And then I pretty much forgot it until a while ago there was something about childhood fears going around. I might have posted this sooner but I had to find out what the thing was. It took me a while (and a couple phone calls) to hit on the right search terms to get me to the name "barometric damper." And now I wish I had a picture of the thing.

I haven't seen such a damper in some time. Mainly because I haven't seen an oil furnace in some time. Wood stoves don't need (and should not have) such a thing. Gas furnaces don't need it. The high-efficiency gas furnaces don't even use a traditional chimney.

--
* There are a few explanations of the purpose and action of barometric dampers on the web, but the best I've found seems to be hidden well down on this page. Search for "barometric damper" to get to the right section.

Current Mood: calm

If you see me at Anthrocon...

DO consult your physician. I am not there.

DON'T adjust your medication yourself. You are already hallucinating.

Current Mood: mischievous

That's what I feel like now after spending yesterday morning outside without any sunscreen. I did make an effort to stay in the shade, but it clearly wasn't enough. It's not a really nasty burn as other exposed skin while affected, isn't really reminding me. Just the back of my neck.

At least I got my vitamin D, I suppose.

Current Mood: sore

Via sideband:

( Drink me. )

Current Mood: calm

The local airport in Fairmont had their fly-in breakfast this morning, going from 7:00 or 7:30 to noon. For some time now jmaynard had been reminded "You have to have your plane here for the fly-in breakfast." He heard this often enough to comment, "You'd think nobody here had ever seen a new airplane before."

Well, since he got home yesterday*, he was. And his plane was out, displayed for folks to see. He answered a lot of questions. Most of them many times.

It was a nice, clear morning and there were a lot of people and a lot of planes. As the morning went on, puffy cumulus clouds started showing up. After things had pretty much wound down, Jay took me up for a few minutes mainly so I could say that I've had a flight in his plane. It was rather bumpy, as the clouds indicated. As it was around noon and I hadn't had lunch yet it wasn't too big a deal. While I think I could have handled the bumpy air for some time, I'm perfectly happy not to. The flight was fairly short, but it was just the first for me in N55ZC. There will be more.

--
* For once I could pick someone up at the airport and not need to drive 2+ hours to do it.

Current Mood: good

Since I'm asking about Windows software, I might as well ask a bit more. I know there are some programs that can vastly improve the experience of using Windows, such as using Foxit in place of Acrobat, and Opera (or FireFox, or.. pretty much anything) in place of IE. What others are there? Any programs that are on the "The Windows install isn't done until I download *this* to make it tolerable" list? Free preferred. Cross-platform is a bonus.

I hope to download these at home (where there is DSL) and burn a CD for my next visit to sistaur. Even with drive time, it'll likely be faster than downloading on the dialup connection.

Current Mood: curious

Last weekend I got sistaur's computer into a reasonably useful state, but in doing so removed an (outdated) anti-virus program or two. Since it is Windows (XP), I suppose there ought to be some sort of anti-malware program. The problem is, I have no idea about that. I haven't had to deal with keeping Windows secure for some time.

So I am looking for recommendations. The anti-{adware,spyware,virus,whatever} should not drag system performance down noticeably, and would ideally be free. Any recommendations?

Current Mood: curious

On various visits to sistaur I'd see a book or two about Pagan or Wiccan topics and I'd look through them. These were clearly not just so much New Age nonsense (newage, as I've heard it put). I recognized the topic. It was largely visualisation and autosuggestion, a sort of self-hypnosis-light. It was just presented in a manner that might be more acceptable to some than the more, I suppose, clinical manner that I am more familiar with and generally prefer.

Various aspects can be taken as either forms of suggestion ("You don't do a spell to change the world, you do it change yourself.") or as means of extracting information from the un- or sub- conscious mind (divination - "Tea leaves don't know anything." as Terry Pratchett's Discworld witches say.) The one that I had the most trouble with was astrology. The best I can make of that is that, despite the cautions not to rely on the astrologer for too much, is that it seems to be using the astrologer as a therapist and the stars and planets as an excuse to see the therapist.

There is a lot of hokum, of course, but then consider what televangelists and "faith healers" do and it's hardly unusual. Not good, but not at all unusual. One thing I heard this past weekend was that someone had made a list of the things some particular item was good for and it went on and on and on... I joked about adding "...whiter teeth and fresher breath!" at the end. Evidently there were a few folks thinking that or close to it.

The gateway thing? A friend of sistaur had given her a pentacle necklace that she no longer felt any use or need for. She had found a different faith, Christianity. So evidently for her, Wicca was a gateway spirituality.

Current Mood: calm

( What race am I in...? )

Current Mood: amused

Wine has at long last reached version 1.0. It started as a means of running Window 3.1 applications on Linux, and changed through time. It was a bit of a joke if it would ever reach version 1.0 ("Someday I'll run Duke Nukem Forever on Wine 1.0 on GNU/Hurd...") but here it is. The jokes about Duke Nukem Forever and GNU/Hurd* remain accurate.

And if you want to run Linux but have a need to run a Windows program and it can run with Wine (not a sure thing, even with the first stable release) then it's a good thing. I used to think about the odd program from Windows that I missed, but not anymore. I can't recall any Windows programs I feel any need to run.

Abiword and Opera (and Open Office and FireFox) are cross-platform. There are ports of some of the Linux programs I use back to Windows (such as X-chat). Others have replacements, such as TextPad on Windows being replaced for me by NEdit on Linux. And gaim, er, pidgin just blows away AOL's own AIM client, and hey, there is a Windows version.

Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike Wine. I just see it as a tool that I do not need.

Current Mood: calm

A while ago I saw the movie Prince Caspian and enjoyed it for the most part. There were some bits that I didn't care for, and some that didn't quite make sense. Perhaps I forgave a lot since it portrayed centaurs in a good light rather than as evil or base creature with one bright exception amongst them. Since then I've seen a few reviews. One said it did well to jettison much of the book, but most claimed that too much was tossed. Some was clearly in the script and cut, which resulted in the parts that really seem not to fit.

However you look at it, it was rather simplistic and I'm not sure if that was due the children's book source or due to the moviemakers. I suspect the moviemaking process is responsible as the book's author said that the one to never do in a children's book is to talk down to your audience. The movie did seem to follow the plot summed up in this Shortpacked comic.

Current Mood: amused

I spent the weekend at sistaur's as she said a storm or something had taken out her modem, and it would be good to do some general cleanup on her computer. I brought an external modem I haven't used since getting DSL, figuring the modem she had was toast. She had done the proper phone diagnostics and found that if the computer's phone line was plugged in, no other phones worked. Before she left for work I'd said that I'd try the original modem and when that didn't work, I'd see about removing it and getting the new one set up.

To my surprise, and later to hers, I plugged it in and it worked. I wasn't arguing, especially since I'd forgotten to pack a toolkit. Neither was she. But it took for-freaking-ever to boot that machine up, and shutting it down was an exercise in patience as well if one watched and waited through the process. sistaur's former housemate had installed a bunch of stuff and I'm not sure what all was from the original setup where unneeded junk is too often included in the default setup by the vendor. One or two wanted to update themselves and had no patience about it, popping up boxes whining about not having a net connection to exploit. But things were going to change.

By cleaning up the Startup menu, which had a number of things that didn't need to be there, cleaning up the desktop, I got the boot time to about four minutes. Not great, but approaching sane. After asking her about a couple of things I hadn't removed and eventually even hearing a suggestion from the former housemate, a bunch of really crufty stuff was removed (I took immense pleasure in removing RealPlayer and the like, but ditching the ancient Norton/Symantec stuff probably made the biggest difference.) and the boot time had dropped to about 90 seconds. Shutdown took about 30 seconds. It's like it's a new computer.

I got a bit annoyed with IE and Acrobat and whatever the default image viewer was, as well as having to hunt for putty (an ssh client so I can check on things at home) so I downloaded Opera, Foxit, and IrfanView, and even an IRC client so I could talk to someone. And after installing and configuring those, I made an Internet menu with the right shortcuts so they'd be out of the way but easy to find.

Later when we were both home, Sistaur guided me through some additional cleanup as many games and old files were things she didn't use or didn't need and this was a time for cleaning things up. I had planned to do some backups to CDR, but simply didn't get around to that. I did leave a stack of blank CDRs so they are available. One more download and I had a bit more control over things that wanted to startup all the time. A few things lived in the system that didn't need to and didn't have a more polite way of being told to go away.

It's been a long time since I used Opera on Windows. It was familiar, of course, but it does look a little different. Or maybe it's that it's the very latest version. Foxit blows Acrobat away. I used to hate PDFs as viewing them took far too long. It wasn't the PDFs, it was Acrobat sucking and advertising for a ridiculous amount of time while pretending to startup - and Acrobat was also one of the things clogging up the Startup. Foxit is nearly instant - like the PDF viewers for OS X and Linux. While I doubt Sistaur will ever use it, IceChat looks like a nice, easy IRC client. I'm not fond of the default layout and color choices, but there is an included color scheme that only needed minor tweaking. The layout was easily tweaked and the alias editor made getting the commands I prefer fairly easy. TinyApps is as useful as I remembered.

That wasn't the whole weekend by any means, but it was the main point of this visit. It was great to see Sistaur so happy. "I have a computer again!"

Current Mood: good

I'm getting a bit of a head start on things for ACME at Penguicon.

I'm looking for suggestions of what ACME should deliver at Penguicon 7 (2009), and who things should be delivered to.

( Advise ACME  )

NOTE: Friends replies are NOT screened and will be visible.

Current Mood: curious

I'm getting a bit of a head start on things for ACME at MFF. I'll have a couple other ACME polls for Penguicon and RCFM later this month.

I'm looking for suggestions of what ACME should deliver at MFF this year, and who things should be delivered to.

( Advise ACME )

NOTE: Friends replies are NOT screened and will be visible.

Current Mood: curious

At renaissance faires it's not unusual to find folks dressed as and acting the supposed part of faeries. Some of these use glitter, and not always the nice gel kind. The fine, loose glitter is their "faerie dust." There's a problem, though: it gets everywhere and sticks to garb. Even through washing. A severe encounter can mean finding glitter for quite a long time - even after you thought you were finally rid of it.

So when I found this comment regarding glitter, it was something that amused me enough to quote for the amusement of faire folk:

"...glitter is the herpes of craft supplies." -- sheryl67

Current Mood: amused

Somewhere recently I read or at least skimmed a quick book review by someone who mentioned a sex scene that was skipped over, "another threesome fantasy.. skip" or close to that. That reminded me of something that happened in college. It was just a conversation, so don't get your hopes up - or down. There was a woman in many of my classes and labs, Kelly. She was either the only one or one of very few, and so she got some attention. She handled it and herself quite well and summed it up as "Really, I'm just one of the guys."

I don't think it was her boyfriend, but more likely someone who wished to be her boyfriend who was pestering her one day about the idea of a threesome. He figured it would be a very cool thing and she was thoroughly put off by the idea. This went on for a while, and it was getting to be distracting and not in a good way. I realized I had been handed the equivalent of a good straight line and it was time for a punch line.

"Kelly," I said, "I think you're looking at it wrong. I expect you'd really like it, but you'd have to set one condition." This got the attention of both of them. The guy was still far too hopeful and Kelly was suspicious but curious. She or they asked about the condition. I replied, "Simple, you get to pick who the other guy is." Kelly lit up with a huge grin, and the guy's mood turned from eagerness to disgust. In an instant, they had traded attitudes.

I was still distracted for a while, but now I was giggling. I was not alone in that.

Current Mood: mischievous