News: Iain Banks 'civilised' by Sid - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

Wow. Here is a story about Iain M. Banks admitting that his latest book is late because he became addicted to a computer game, the latest Civilization from Sid Meier.

I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this, as more and more computer games become 'open-ended' and increasingly time-consuming. We intelligent folk are particularly vulnerable to becoming enamored of controllable and engrossing worlds within worlds.

(I also wonder how good of a player Iain is, and if anyone I know played against him online. hmm)

YouTube - Crocodile Hunter cries


Reliable reports are that Steve Irwin is dead. I've been watching The
Crocodile Hunter since I was young, and he's become an irrevocable part of our culture, with his wild enthusiasm and trekking to show us dangerous wildlife.

Steve has done a an enormous amount to show people the natural wonders of the world, and has raised huge amounts of money for zoos and conservation efforts.

Steve died as I thought he might, dealing with dangerous animals, in this case, a poisonous ray, which stung him in the chest. He was dead when he arrived at the hospital. He was filming a documentary called "World's Deadliest" in the Batt Reef off Port Douglas, Queensland.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

YouTube - Long Time Gone ~ Dixie Chicks

A song about a girl who has grown up, and found that outgrowing her childhood town has cost her a past, and lost relationships.

I was talking with my father about his feelings, now that our family has broken up, that I've grown, and Jessica is away. Andrea is off in South America, and Aaron is in treatment. I know he misses when we were all together and small, however stressful it was at the time.

So far, I've always been glad of the direction my life has gone in, and I don't yet feel that anything is less full of promise than it once was. There are a lot of things I miss, but I wouldn't trade what I have now for access to them. Yet. I worry that I won't have time to spend all the time with the people I care about while they're still here. Or before things change too much. A lot of the places I went to as a kid aren't there anymore. The things I used to do with my dad might not be possible.

I know the porch I watched (and helped as much as a child could) him build around our home in Orinda is gone. Which is too bad. I loved that thing, and would have liked to see it as an adult.

There are also a lot of people I may never be able to find again. Friends and neighbors and passing acquaintances. It's a stiff price, growing up.

Daddy sits on a’ front porch swinging
Looking out on a vacant field
Used to be filled with burley t'bacca
Now he knows it never will
My Brothers found work in Indiana
M' Sisters a nurse at the old folks home
Mama still cooking too much for supper
And me I’ve been a long time gone

[Chorus:]
Been a long time gone
No, I ain't hoed a row since I don't know when
Long time gone
And it ain't coming back again

Deliah plays that ol' church pian'a
Sitting out on her daddy’s farm
She always thought that we'd be together
Lord I never meant to do her harm
Said she could hear me singin' in the choir
Me, I heard another song
I caught wind and hit the road runnin'
And Lord, I've been a long time gone

[Chorus:]
Been a long time gone
Lord, I ain't had a prayer since I don't know when
Long time gone
And it ain't comin' back again

[Instrumental]

[Bridge]
Now me, I went to Nashville,
Tryin' to beat the big deal
Playin' down on Broadway
Gettin' there the hard way
Living from a tip jar
Sleeping in my car
Hocking my guitar
Yeah I’m gonna be a star

Now, me and Deliah singing every Sunday
Watching the children and the garden grow
We listen to the radio to hear what's cookin’
But the music ain't got no soul
Now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard
They've got money but they don't have Cash
They got Junior but they don't have Hank
I think, I think, I think

The rest is a long time gone
No, I ain't hit the roof since I don’t know when
Long time gone
And it ain't coming back
I said a long time gone
No, I ain't honked the horn since I don’t know when
Long time gone
And it ain't coming back again

I'm back from Michigan. At a week and a day off the job, this is the longest I've been away in two and a half years.(it reinforces my preference for short, staggered time off)

My grandmother, Helen Finton Corwin(or perhaps Corwin Finton) is dying of cancer. At this point, there is little that can be done. Her prognosis is anything from weeks to months, as metastatic cancer advances erratically.

She's still in full possession of her faculties, and currently without pain. She's staying with her daughter, my Aunt K. She seems upbeat, and I was glad to spend time with her.

Things of this nature always make me angry. I expect that the forms of cancer will have effective therapies developed within my lifetime, and that the host of other problems that make her life so short as well. But it will not come in time for her. And knowing this, I can think of nothing to do but to preserve what memories and time I have with her as well as I can. It's a weak salve to someones death, to promise to remember them. I've never seen my grandmother cry before. She has always been an upright and certain person. The most solid figure in my family.

I know that she is scared and unhappy and I see her seeing things with the unspoken subtext "this is the last time you will see this", and what a terrible thing that is.

You would think that such a reality would sweep away pride and social norms, and that I could say all the things I wanted to her. But in that situation, you cling to it instead, and so I stayed largely silent, not wanting to upset the fragile upbeat thing that was my few days, likely the last days I will spend with her. I didn't want to embarass her. I didn't want to upset her. I didn't want to embarass myself.

This is a bad world.

I've known this for a long time, just as I've always accepted that our progress upon it is slow and certain and altogether to be aided and believed in. But it is still too slow. Too slow again for one more.

For me, the rate of change in the world has always been clocked by the problems the people I care about have. The power of medicine is the sicknesses my friends and family survive. The failure of the same is shown conversely. It's easier, when you're a teen, and the only people who have died are those you did not have time to know. That's when I decided that the world was fundamentally getting to be a better place over the centuries.

It still is, but it's slower than it should be. Perhaps it always was and I should have known, but the markers for me started later. I feel guilty about many things, but mostly it's my helplessness and complicity, however small, in the pain of those I care about. I don't know what would have been enough, but what I have done and tried was not it.

I'll miss her.

"In the mirrors of many judgments my hands are the color of blood. I am a part of the evil that exists in the world and in Shadow. I sometime fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils. I destroy Melkins when I find them, and on that Great Day of which prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on that day when the world is completely cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Perhaps even sooner than that, I now judge. But whatever... Until that time, I shall not wash my hands nor let them hang useless."

--Corwin, "The Guns of Avalon" by Roger Zelazny

Sztywny Blog - Stiff asks, great programmers answer

Interesting answers from master programmers.

I guess I didn't have as much freetime as I thought last week.

Incidentally, I'm 25 now. An auspicious milestone, but I suppose I'll make more effort for my 30th birthday.

I'll return to the stalled feature on my stalled projects later. Sorry.