Woodpecker X

Shot some stills of a Hairy Woodpecker yesterday, in the Red Maple on my front lawn...

Or, I suppose, it might have been a Downy Woodpecker...

Or, I suppose, it might have been a squirrel.

Thank you, Samuel Marchbanks. Yes, I have a degree in Biology, and yes, I've always kinda sucked at identifying birds. I've always felt this combination of admiration and loathing for those oh-so-confident types in MEC gear who can take one look at a tiny, three-pixel blur in a viewfinder and say with absolute certainty, oh, my, what a lovely specimen of Corvus frugilegus... why, yes, of course I'm sure... look... see... the feathers on the face?

To which I reply: 'And... which end's the face?'

Okay. Uncalled for. And I actually kinda like crows and their cousins. Shame on me. But seriously, yeah, I'm not good with birds. A bit better with trees, but then, trees are (i) larger than birds, and (ii) don't move, all of which helps a bit.

I wonder, now and then, if my real problem with this has something to do with my very strict and touchy attitude about certainty. That's to say: I'm one of those people who's always tried to stay very much in touch with what he doesn't know, and how well he knows what he thinks he does. I mean, sure, I'm pretty sure about a lot of things, but it's also my nature, when I'm not quite sure, to say so, and to be as precise or as vague as is reasonable given my perception of that reality. So if I'm looking at what I think might be a rook... and I'm not quite sure it's a rook, I don't say, oh, look! A rook! (even to compose an homage to Dr. Seuess). Rather, I say, oh, look, a bird... which might be a rook... or a raven... or, hell, it's only three pixels... maybe it's not a bird; it could just as well be a wombat, for all I know.

There's probably something in this, here, that also sheds light on my intense hostility to the Brylcreemed undead horrors that shill for the various flavours of fundamentalism (and my slightly less intense hostility to slightly less fundamentalist varieties of obscurantism)--insofar as there, really, is the near ultimate in declaring certainty when it's so unwarranted (or so, for that matter, utterly contradicted) given the evidence... but I guess that's probably a larger discussion.

Anyway, getting back to the birds, it seems to me so much undue certainty (and the corresponding arguments, and birders are a scream to watch when they get in a fight over something--'Hairy!' ... 'Downy!' ... 'Hairy!' ... 'Downy!' ... 'Is too!' ... 'Is not!' ... 'That's it! I'm taking my spotting scope and going home'...) if they'd just get used to using higher taxons. I mean, sure, I can at least probably declare, proudly, about said rook (or raven), 'Look! A Corvid'. And I'd think that should count for something.

Or, at worst, I could say, 'Look! A chordate!'.

I think.

Anyway. The photos in this article are of said Picoide. And my daughter thought, whatever he was (it was a he, this much we could tell, whether pubescens or villosus) quite pretty.

Signs of life in lit

So, yeah, I bitched snootily and with some crankiness some weeks back about the painfully poor quality of some of the work on the critical circle I recently joined. I still make only so much apology for that. Life's too short to read bad writing. There's a reason I don't normally do these things (okay, scratch 'normally'--guess it's more like 'ever'--this is the first one I've ever tried, though I used to get invited to the odd thing, some time ago, and went once or twice, much to my regret).

No, I'm not quite saying there's anything wrong with them; I'm sure they can help, and there's obviously also a reason I'm trying this one--specifically that I've got something I really need people with some distance from it to look at. I'm just saying it's something that ain't easy for me, personally. I read something really bad, my first reaction isn't 'how can I make this better?'. My first reaction is, rather, more often, 'where's the wastepaper basket?'. And I think, in many cases, that's a perfectly reasonable reaction. Can't remember who said it (probably lots of people, at different times), but I still hold that euthanasia, while controversial as law when it comes to people, is the law when it comes to fiction. Them's the rules: if it's bad, kill it.

But I thought there were three updates I should pass on, as a matter of balance:

1. Despite my initial whinging, I've managed every week so far (it's been four) to find something solid enough to comment upon. Yes, it's always a bit painful fishing for it, but there's always been something there I can at least read to the end without wincing so much my face freezes that way. And some of it, actually, is even quite good. Usually still worth looking over, sure, but you can see it definitely could be going somewhere, and that's nice.
2. It's actually been quite rewarding, on and off. One of the first pieces I did, the writer thanked me for the most helpful critique he'd had yet, and that's also nice. I get, at this point, what one old publisher friend says about the occasional rewards that come in this sort of effort; it really felt good to think I was able to help him over something he couldn't quite see the way over himself. The work was good, and the writer was really working at it, so this wasn't charity. It was just someone who'd lived a different life, able to spot slightly different things more easily. And, with luck, it really might help him make the thing a bit better.
3. And finally, now and then, there are brilliant moments. Like when you find something that's just beyond good. So good that you do your diligent best to spot whatever you can that's wrong with it, and it's still not much. And then you find out the writer in question hasn't published (yet), and you're probably seeing them just stretching their wings for flight. And that's really neat to see.

Re that last bit, I know it's probably not real nice to whet your appetite that way when you can't actually read the work in question. But them's the rules, too: you can't (as, obviously, the work isn't published yet).

But I can pass on the name you've got to look for, anyway. Holly Messinger (I'm assuming this is her blog here) has just managed to put together one of the coolest little short stories I've read in a very long time. It's this funky, stylish horror thing that borrows some atmosphere from old Westerns and ghost stories and really, really makes it work.

And yes, for those of you who've occasionally heard my sporadic grumbling about the paucity of things actually worth reading on the bestseller lists and awards lists lately, yes, this actually redeems the situation for me somewhat. It's nice to know there are still people out there who can write interesting stuff that actually tells a good story, stuff that's actually fun to read, stuff that actually has a nice, crisp denouement that actually looks like such a thing.

So, if and when you see her name on the spine of a novel or on the cover splash of a magazine in a store near you, my recommendation is: do pick it up. My bet is you won't regret it.

So there you go. Maybe there's life in lit after all.

Search engine trick for partial polyglots

I was doing a critique of a piece of short fiction for someone--part of a critical circle I'm in. The piece was principally in English, but had dribs and drabs of French dialogue.

I speak a little French. Not a lot, but enough. And my grammar's good enough that I can usually spot obviously bad stuff. So I could tell, looking at the piece, that the bits of French had some issues. I knew enough to know one of the expressions, while technically gramatically correct, would never be spoken that way by a native speaker. There were also some gender issues (I'm resisting here any obvious jokes regarding the operation a sentence might undergo to resolve its gender issues), and so on, and some grammar problems.

But I'm at the level of fluency where I can spot the bad, but not necessarily correct it particularly reliably. The difference between being able to say 'That's not how you say it' (which I can frequently do) and being able to say 'You say it like this' (which I frequently can't, or can't with much confidence). And it's late at night, and I've got no one I want to wake up to handle it.

Enter the search engine. Google in this case, but any engine that handles phrases will do.

I've done this before; worked like a charm this time. Just enter the phrase, as a phrase, with quotes, and look at the count of occurrences. A few or none, that's not how you say it. Hundreds or tens of thousands, yep, that's how it's usually said. So if you think you might know how it's said, you can try it, and confirm.

You can even sift for expressions you can't even guess at particularly well on your own, if you know enough of the words likely to occur. Enter them (not as a phrase, obviously), look at the previews for a phrase something built roughly like you're looking for. And you can check for arcane little questions--does one tend to use this particular past participle as an object of a linking verb, for instance?

Works much better than a mere dictionary, since it doesn't just tell you what's legal (and thus, what might still be understood, but sound clunky), but what's common. Great stuff, that.

Let us now praise great software

Try to forgive the geek exuberance, but I just thought I'd take a moment and say that the CPAN shell is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So I need to test this big mound of hexdump I'm pretty sure represents a sizeable prime. Don't happen to have a widget at my fingertips to do so... but I've got a Debian box I use for a buncha slush projects sitting there.

So I tell the CPAN shell: get me Crypt::Primes.

For you non-geek types, just quickly: CPAN is this magnificent console-oriented modules management system for Perl. Crypt::Primes is a module that allows you to generate big primes and test big numbers for primality from friendly bread 'n butter Perl--the language in which I still do pretty much everything I can get away with. I follow the dictum: if you can do it with a shell script, do. If you can't, use Perl. If you absolutely must, sure, compile something in C or C++. But c'mon. Apart from doing protocol stuff, stuff seriously close to hardware in new and adventurous ways, and stuff calling for serious performance, how often does that actually happen? So Perl and I, we do pretty much everything together.

Anyway: called upon to do its magic, CPAN figures out the system I've got has a copy of PARI (a marvellously capable system for doing number theory stuff), but not the build directory (PARI came in via a Debian binary; wasn't built locally). Crypt::Primes needs one of these at hand to install--along with a handful of other Perl modules.

So CPAN sez: shall I just go get one of these and build it for you? And all that other stuff the Crypt::Primes module feels it needs?

And I sez: sure.

And it does. Switches light up, drive spins, gcc grinds away.

A few minutes later, I'm testing primes, using Perl.

Now that's what I call software.

Asleep at the switch

Yeah yeah, I know, I done been asleep at the switch on the whole Alabama sex toy law thing. I mean, I really haven't been holding up my end here, have I?

I flirt more and more with charges of false advertising. Lucky for me there are no laws in cyberville, or some square-jawed law enforcement type might be looming in the entrance to my blog this very moment, pounding on the door, demanding I improve my coverage in this area, or change my subtitle.

Well, my apologies. I been busy. Kids. Work. Sexual addiction. You know how it is. But I'll do what I can to catch up here. So, here goes:

Now, personally, I still think the real question about the various sex toy bans that crop up here and there is: what do the legislators that pass such laws find so very threatening about these devices? I've always found it rather suggestive that the concern that's expressed centres around women actually enjoying themselves with these things... Now, granted, the popular image of the sex toy is mostly as a woman's device. But, still, the focus does make me wonder:

I mean, what is it that's really got ya so worried about these things, my dear gents in the Alabama state legislature? Afraid you can't keep up, perhaps? Do the batteries in your pacemakers seem just a bit inadequate next to the big, strapping D cells in the heavy duty vibes out there, maybe?

Yeah, that's my question. But Bitch, Ph.D. raises a pretty good one too. To wit: won't someone please think of the children:

A young girl, fresh and innocent, purchases her first vibrator. She becomes addicted to sexual pleasure, masturbating constantly, and neglecting her studies and her family duties. Her hair becomes greasy and unkempt, and her eyes unfocused, and she begins to steal money to purchase more vibes. Anything, anything! to feed her habit. Next thing you know, she's lost touch with all that is Good and Holy and is prostituting herself on the street, mere pennies for a blow job, anything to earn money towards a rabbit vibe.

-- Bitch, Ph.D., Skeeered of vibrators! Ooh!

That there's greatness. Go. Read.

Barking moon poodles

Editor's note: Due to a certain nutbar right-winger's apparent touchiness over the use of the French language in mixed company, the remainder of this column will be written in heavily-accented faux-Franglais. If this confuses you, feel free to take yer 'Freedom-Fry'-stuffed butt elsewhere. If it offends you, and you are, actually, French, my apologies. My only excuse is I was kinda drunk on Mouton Cadet red when I wrote it. Thanks, XOX, &c.

Happened across PZM's bit on le nutbar Horowitz's Barking Moonbat page. Ver' amusant. But it poses to me des questions difficiles. So, what does le Horowitz mean here, by these Barking Moonbats-la? How do les bats bark? En this cas, sur la lune? There is no oxygène there, no? And how do les bats get to la lune? I am not understanding, moi-meme.

Unless, bien-sur, le fou Horowitz means a suggerer by this that these bats-la, ils bark at la lune, mais ils habitent ici, sui la terre. In this cas there is still this probleme--how do these bats bark? I have jamais seen les bats aboient. Not on this world, not on la lune.

Peut-être, he means by this to make la métaphore. Et pour Horowitz, quand les hommes they suggèrent such idées étranges that son president has spoken les mensonges when he speaks that l'Irak a les weapons of mass déstruction, they are as bats, speaking in these voix trops hautes, and he cannot hear them.

Moi, je ne comprends pas. These neocons, ils sont bizarres. Commes les foaming poodles hydrophobiques.

Bowl o' coffee

Ah, there's nothing like that first 30-oz. bowl o' coffee in the morning... after a night of scattered bits of sleep spent in a house with a cranky infant.

Little guy's been pretty good. But there's always gonna be the odd night, I guess.

Little else goin' on. Managed to get another query out.

Including the ones I bought for work, I now own six sizeable soup mugs (those big thangs with the handle, often seen in the company of big bowls of French onion soup), all used exclusively for carrying various permutations of coffee. The one currently on my desk contains an epic quantity of latte, freshly brewed the moment the little one calmed down enough I could get him to take up residence in his bassinet without complaint.

Now that's a coffee mug.