Little talk:

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Grok & Skim and Half & Half

So suppose there are three kinds of reading:

1) Clarified-butter, ghee-saturated grokking.

2) Quick, light, buttermilk-chaas skimming.

3) Ordinary, middling, curds & lassi reading.  Not quite grokking, not quite skimming. Something in between. Half and half.

One of the things I have had to accept over the past few years is that certain books which I thought I would grok one day, it turns out I will never grok, but will only read, or in some cases, skim. One of those books is Thomson and Welling's "PHP AND MySQL Web Development". I was not able to grok it, and am not sure I should get credit for reading it. But I did skim it. What did I get out of it?

1. There's an entertainingly terrifying discussion of all things that can go wrong when you try to host your own server. Suffice to say Thomson and Welling are entirely humorless about unauthorized hackers, who they refer to as "crackers". And they seem to hate crackers more than the old man in the Chris Rock sketch.

2. For your app to persist over time, and feel real, it needs to have a data store. And if you are using a relational database as your data store, that means you need to design a database schema, a schema which will result in your data being stored in tables. There is, I understand, a more modern approach, where the data store is organized around documents, rather than schemas and tables. But Thomson and Welling use relational databases, and the more old-school approach.

3. A web app will consist of app-specific schemas, which change from app to app, and schemas which are common to all web apps, such as user management, and session management.

4. The database schemas common to all web apps are perhaps simpler than you might think. A simple users table, with a username field, a password field, and an email field might be enough to get started with.

5. The hardest thing about dealing with web app data might be various techniques to make sure that passwords are stored, and used, in careful, cracker-proof ways.

Was it worth it for me to skim Thomson and Welling? I think so. Should I have gone farther, and taken the the time to read it, or grok it? Not sure. Perhaps the main thing I got from the book is a reassurance that it's all quite difficult, but perhaps not quite so difficult as I thought it would be.

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Sympathy for the Newtie

In my last post, I quoted a column which said something along the lines of "Most of us, by the age twenty-five, have accepted the fact that we'll never play third base for the Yankees. Newt Gingrich seems not to be one of those people." I feel, in justice, I should point out that I also am not one of those people, and am working on a kind of knuckle-slurve-Eephus pitch as we speak.

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Sympathy for the Nimby

When people come down too hard on Nimby-types, I become uneasy. If I had to put my finger on why, I think I would put it like this: Some people really, really like to organize their lives around maximizing the value of their real estate, they are, in many cases, willing to work very hard to do so, and it's perhaps a pleasure that should not be taken from them.

How do we build homes for everyone, while accommodating, to the extent we can, the preferences of Nimbys?

Let's say, in a region, there are three types of zones:

1) Nimbyland, filled with people mildly, or strongly, inclined to oppose new construction, for reasons of parking, for reasons of historical preservation, and for reasons of CORNERING THE ENTIRE DAMN MARKET ON REAL ESTATE AND MAKING BILLIONS!! BILLIONS!!!

2) Yimbyland, or Affordable Housing Zones, where the ethos should be to pile high till you qualify.

3) Emergency housing zones. Private sector short term emergency housing, public sector short term emergency housing, private sector long term supportive housing, public sector long term supportive housing. The ethos should be a mixture of Roger Miller and Creedence.

    1) Roger Miller: Two hours of pushing broom, buys an eight by 12 four-bit room.

    2) Creedence: You don't need a penny, just to hang around.

If Nimbys are willing to allocate at least some land in a region for affordable housing zones, and emergency housing zones, then I don't believe in hating on Nimbys. If not, not.

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Macro-Write-onomics, part 2

A passage in Hofstadter's introduction to his translation of Eugene Onegin that I think has an analogy to writing:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Eugene_Onegin/MD_AspM98tsC

I remember hearing, one time, that a certain famous concert pianist had an extremely rudimentary sight-reading ability, and for that reason had a devil of a time learning any new piece - it would take him far longer than a "normal" concert pianist. But in the end. . .what counted was not how quickly he could absorb music, but how deeply.

In the end, it seems to me, what counts is not how quickly you write, but how deeply. But of course, to write deeply, you must write!

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Macro-Relations-onomics: How much relations to have.

Micro-Relations-onomics: Who to have relations with, and what kind of relations to have.

The Nutty Professor: Relations 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB25eDhWImc

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Been thinking a bit about pleasure. Can perhaps be thought of as:

1) Blessed pleasures: short term benefits, long term benefits. Generally speaking, pleasures enjoyed in a context of love. Friends shaking hands, saying how do you do.

2) Semi-blessed pleasures: short term benefits. Robust pleasures, enjoyed, but perhaps without engaging the emotions.

https://www.basicincome.com/bp/totheevolutionist.htm

Lucretius, . . . that austere voluptuary, gave it as his opinion that love actually impairs sexual pleasure. The emotion was a distraction. It spoiled the cool and critical receptivity of his palate. (A great poet; but “Lord, what beastly fellows these Romans were!”)

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/341797-christian-letters-to-a-post-christian-world 

 “We are so made that we soon grow weary of ornament for sake of ornament, and even of beauty that makes no appeal to the heart or the understanding.” 

― Dorothy L. Sayers, The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays 

3) Un-blessed pleasures: short term benefits, long term costs. Sometimes, the costs are hidden  (Haha yeah!! Yess!!). Sometimes, the costs are revealed (Well this sucks. WTF.).

Part of life, perhaps, is learning to grow toward blessed pleasures, and away from unblessed ones. Perhaps.

Pilfered Pelf, Toilless Treasure

Loveless Sex, Joyless Pleasure

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All the best

My two core beliefs:

1) The Spirit of Ancient Simia: What one fool can do, so can another. 

https://duncan.mkz.com/what-one-fool-can-do-another-can/

While I am in awe of all the creation and discovery that has gone on, I do not like to think of science, technology, or productive activity in general, as a specialized activity for special people. I prefer to think of them as very ordinary activities, done by fools, which other fools can do, too. Of course, we may not be able to do at the level, or with the consistency, of the greats. But so what?

David Landes argues, that because the 19th century Japanese were so confident, and so secure, they were able to acknowledge their imperfections, and seek to improve:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209184.Culture_Matters

That was the heart of it: the Japanese knew they were superior, and because they knew it, they were able to recognize the superiorities of others. . .No opportunity for learning was lost. In October 1871, a high-level Japanese delegation that included Okubo Toshimichi traveled to the United States and Europe, visiting factories and forges, shipyards and armories, railways and canals. They returned in September 1873, almost two years later, laden with the spoils of learning and "on fire with enthusiasm" for reform.

2) I'm not fundamentally interested in any form of consolation that is not available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Interested? Yes. Fundamentally interested? No.

The two forms of consolation that are available to anyone, anytime, anywhere: 1) Doing your best. 2) Giving your all. 

Doing what? Giving whom? Good question.

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Big talk:

I confess to being stunned and disappointed by the events in Afghanistan. What did I expect to happen, when foreign troops pulled out? I think I expected something similar to what happened when foreign troops pulled out of Iraq. Perhaps some Taliban friendly regions in the country might fall to the Taliban. But I did not expect the entire country to fall to the Taliban.

When I look at the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, the main difference seems to me that Iraq has a strong ally in neighboring Iran. Afghanistan, on the other hand, did not have a strong ally in neighboring Pakistan. I do not know whether the Afghan state could have done anything differently to cultivate better relations with Pakistan.

I don't think it's accurate to say "Pakistan supported the Taliban." Elements in Pakistani society supported the Taliban. But elements in Pakistani society also opposed the Taliban. Pakistan contains multitudes.

The evacuation of so many Afghans in so short a period of time, in many ways, showed America at its best. Many Americans, especially in recent years, have grown suspicious of calls for universal kindness and compassion. But they do still believe in no better friend and no worse enemy. And they showed it.

I found this interview on Australian radio with Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary to be good:

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/afghanistan/13318044

The interview took place at the end of April, about one hundred days before the fall of Kabul.

Sarwary is not uncritical of the Biden administration, which is appropriate.

The Biden administration certainly made mistakes of judgement, for which they may deserve to be criticized, and they also may have made mistakes of morality, for which they may deserve to be called out. But I think any honest assessment has to admit that the failures go back 20, and in some cases 40, years, and that this is much bigger than anything the Biden administration did, or did not do.

One of Sarwary's points is that "No one wanted the Americans to stay forever. But we wanted them to leave after negotiating a settlement and a ceasefire."

I cannot disagree with that. But the Americans had been trying to get the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government for at least the past 12 years, and perhaps even before that. The Taliban, for reasons I don't understand, refused to have anything to do with the Afghan government. And there did not seem to be anything the Americans could do to change that.

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Regarding negotiations in Washington, D.C., my bottom line is that I trust the progressives in the House and Senate. If they decide to settle for some fraction of a loaf, I am OK with that. If they decide to hold out for more, on the grounds that the loaf is really terrible, and such small portions, I am OK with that, too. What can the rest of us do to help? Deep canvassing looks pretty cool to me.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/12/the-new-generation-gap/536934/

December 1992 

The New Generation Gap 

By Neil Howe and William Strauss 

. . .First, look at today’s mainline media, a hotbed of forty-year-old thinking. Notice how, in Boomers’ hands, 1990s America is becoming a somber land obsessed with values, back-to-basics movements, ethical rectitude, political correctness, harsh punishments, and a yearning for the simple life. Life’s smallest acts exalt (or diminish) one’s personal virtue. A generation weaned on great expectations and gifted in deciphering principle is now determined to reinfuse the entire society with meaning. 

Now look again—and notice a countermood popping up in college towns, in big cities, on Fox and cable TV, and in various ethnic side currents. It’s a tone of physical frenzy and spiritual numbness, a revelry of pop, a pursuit of high-tech, guiltless fun. It’s a carnival culture featuring the tangible bottom lines of life—money, bodies, and brains—and the wordless deals with which one can be traded for another. A generation weaned on minimal expectations and gifted in the game of life is now avoiding meaning in a cumbersome society that, as they see it, offers them little. . .

It does seem to me that Howe and Strauss were observing something real. But it seems to me more of an educational, economic and cultural divide, than a generational one.

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Next post: 5-22-22