scholia again, some more

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118718711/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

April B and C (retrospective)

I'm feeling somewhat glum about the fact that
I don't really remember what happened towards
the end of week B; and I know I went on vacation
sometime in the midst of week C.

At the same time, I'm not glum at all to note
that I seem to have gotten all the "important"
code in the file working again -- this leaves
me with the decision between fixing up the
less important stuff too, just for the sake of
principle, or diving into some new and less
explored territory.

The other thing I'm wondering about is "how
to make work fun again". Not that it's even
been completely un-fun: it's more that I'm
realizing that feelings of dread or worry &c
tend to throw off some of the balance inherent
to the fun-ness. Any time (or worse, any
time period -- like a week) in which I seem to
drop the ball, tends to engage my stressful
feelings. I get wrapped up in the inevitability
of actuality not matching my models -- which
in fact I think is probably a good thing, since
life in a model reality would probably be
rather dull. Still, if things feel too out of
control, I get really upset. My hope is to
"start over" on a realistic scale -- and also
to acknowledge that I did get some things
done even if I didn't explicitly plan what
they would be. It doesn't mean anything
dire like "I wasn't being proactive". I have
to wonder, if I'm feeling pressured, where
is the pressure coming from? It's not as
though I'd be all that willing to opt in to
unmanageable pressure, so what gives?
I want to challenge myself to resist
getting stuck in someone else's pressure
field, while at the same time retaining
my own senses of fun and balance at
the ready.

the geography of poetics

Look at some collection of words. Each word points
directly to its definition, which sums up all of the
word's usages. A definition is like the grand central
station of a word.

A poem asks the reader to travel in and between word
metropolises: from the city center, then out into the
countryside, and into nearby towns and cities. To look
around, and get to know what happens here.

By suggesting direct connections between now-adjacent but
geographically disparate words (both on the page and
implied), poetry invites the reader into the unexpected:
"lavender" "bouquet"... this excellent wine has a lavender
bouquet!

The reader's emotions or thoughts come from their road
weariness or their wanderlust; or from their sense of
themselves playing a profound role in the world of the
poem: bringing mountains to Mohamed, or stealing fire from
the gods.

The reader and the poet together have between them life, a
whole world, in a jar.

The reader may dive in as a hero, an explorer, or a mere
tourist, but the poet is always Geographer of the
Possible. The poem itself is a handshake between poet and
reader, a thin surface, a hot air balloon drifting along
cultural currents to unknown destinations.

more music

http://metameso.org/~joe/ambient.mp3

yeah so

Stress is this annoying but wonderful part of life.
It causes you to think weirdly. Why does it exist?
Perhaps because we think too much or because
we overreact to or avoid problems. It's for this reason that I want to start an Autonomous Chthonic Bon Ton for Studies in Stress Management. It's not as though we don't have access to all the submarines, drugs, and witchcraft that we might need -- just look at the film "Tideland" (or even this one image from it).

testing

After many long (why so many?) and tedious hours
I seem to have a reasonably well-functioning
Gmail/GNUS installation working. But even if
it isn't I don't see myself having much more
time to futz with it. However, it may save
me the effort of many future cut-and-pastes
and could get me working back within Emacs
almost all the time again. Which would be
great.

remote collaboration w/ Anders Amala

http://metameso.org/~joe/dulcimer-bango-dorian-g.mp3

April A (retrospective)

This week I believe that I got into a bit of a panic
about "getting work done", since I've imagined
April as this time when I'm supposed to do a lot
of that. Intermixed with panicking, I think I also
gathered some perspective on where things are
at.

The first thing is: I seem to be "very close" to
having everything that was working in my old
code working again in the new code. The main
frustration associated with working with a series of
prototypes is that each new one breaks a lot of
things in the one before it. Anyway, the fact that
it's close to all working again is great, but I'm also
feeling the pressure to get it "there".

The second thing is: even when that is done,
there will be several more things that I'll want
to do to make something really interesting or
useful. I've picked five core things that I might
spend the rest of the month on.

* Search, by which I basically mean word-based
search a la Sphinx, but which could also combine
with semantic search.

* Editing, for which it will be important to notice
the difference between structural changes and
"superficial" changes at the level of content or
'leaves'.

* Browsing, which also has to do with constructing
and processing queries which return the desired
material (and so may be related to search). (Note
that in some previous prototypes there were pretty
nice features for browsing.)

* Clusions, which I now picture as frames occupying
the second component of a triple, but for which I
still need to assemble the other components of
a functional, fundamental, design. For example,
just how will they work for users? Wiki-style?
Sticky- (as in text properties) style? (Note that
a previous prototype had some "OK" treatment
of clusions, but I think it got overwhelming for me.)

* Tasks, which I have a simple system set up
to "manage" -- but does this system even lend itself
to keeping track of my tasks?

With this for "perspective", I'll also mention -- that
I've cleaned up my (mobile) workspace to a reasonable
degree for beginning a new, intense, month of work.
As I go into the next week, I'll be thinking about how
to distribute my time among these 5+1 items -- and
hopefully knocking out the special one that stands
between me and a "fully functional system".

audioblog

I had the idea of posting short practice snippets to share w/ my
musical friend Anders. May as well share at least some of them
with everyone:

http://metameso.org/~joe/joe-4-1-09.wma

5 minutes, 5 strings.