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Mostly Book Reviews
Jun. 5th, 2006 08:41 pmYesterday I was still a bit out of it. So in order to do something productive while using no energy, I started reading Edward R. Tufte's highly regarded The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
I'm only halfway through, but so far I've learned only one thing: that graphs are best for huge quantities of information. I've also seen a couple of examples of this being done well. But so far this isn't changing my thinking about graphs in a revolutionary way. I think the second half of the book still might, though, because the first half is mostly about the history of graphs (which is shockingly recent, by the way) and things to avoid in making graphs.
Of course it makes sense that having been a psychology major and a sociology major, and been certified to teach secondary math (and taken a course in teaching elementary math), and having been a statistics tutor, and having been shown the coolest graph of all time by Sally (from this book), that I might have already learned a few things.
Today at work I found another broken thing (couldn't move a student's records into test because something didn't match properly), which I then reported. Got instant headache. Ate plenty of snacks. Got progress done on a training document. Learned that a new Registrar has finally been chosen and will begin in two weeks. Smiled good morning at one of the applicants who didn't get the job, and he smiled back. Got very chilled.
Then at the bus stop it felt like it was over 100 degrees, but when I came home, the weather reports all agreed it was only 93.
Meanwhile, the book I'm reading during bus rides (because Tufte's book is hardcover, large, and pristine) is Snow Crash, which I've already read a couple of times. This is classic sci fi which some people don't like because they are not into cyberpunk or whatever this is. I don't think I'm into cyberpunk, either. But this book is too big to categorize.
It's got your fight scenes and chase scenes, fear of screwing up your job, skateboarding, doggies, tough guys, programmers, rock bands, motor vehicles, freeway systems, suburbs, philosophy, religion, linguistics, ancient history, viruses, librarians, bureaucracies, and every single one of these things is way over the top. It also has romances, which are not over the top. Well, I guess one is.
My favorite thing about the book, though, is that it's fun to read aloud. When I'm on the bus, I just read it aloud to myself, so it's slow going but very enjoyable. It's so well written that I just want to make into a book-on-tape, except that it's a very long book. And except that I have no idea how to pronounce Da5id's name. DAY-vid? Dah-FIVE-id?
Hmm, wikipedia explains: "pronounced as David, 5 represents the V as in Roman numerals." Oh, cute. So you might not want to listen to this book on tape because you'll miss, at the very least, the spelling of this name. But I still like to read it aloud. Oh, I also can't pronounce Ng's name.
I especially like the voices of the doggies, the swordsman, and the teenager.
A doggie:
The swordsman:
The teenager:
I'm only halfway through, but so far I've learned only one thing: that graphs are best for huge quantities of information. I've also seen a couple of examples of this being done well. But so far this isn't changing my thinking about graphs in a revolutionary way. I think the second half of the book still might, though, because the first half is mostly about the history of graphs (which is shockingly recent, by the way) and things to avoid in making graphs.
Of course it makes sense that having been a psychology major and a sociology major, and been certified to teach secondary math (and taken a course in teaching elementary math), and having been a statistics tutor, and having been shown the coolest graph of all time by Sally (from this book), that I might have already learned a few things.
Today at work I found another broken thing (couldn't move a student's records into test because something didn't match properly), which I then reported. Got instant headache. Ate plenty of snacks. Got progress done on a training document. Learned that a new Registrar has finally been chosen and will begin in two weeks. Smiled good morning at one of the applicants who didn't get the job, and he smiled back. Got very chilled.
Then at the bus stop it felt like it was over 100 degrees, but when I came home, the weather reports all agreed it was only 93.
Meanwhile, the book I'm reading during bus rides (because Tufte's book is hardcover, large, and pristine) is Snow Crash, which I've already read a couple of times. This is classic sci fi which some people don't like because they are not into cyberpunk or whatever this is. I don't think I'm into cyberpunk, either. But this book is too big to categorize.
It's got your fight scenes and chase scenes, fear of screwing up your job, skateboarding, doggies, tough guys, programmers, rock bands, motor vehicles, freeway systems, suburbs, philosophy, religion, linguistics, ancient history, viruses, librarians, bureaucracies, and every single one of these things is way over the top. It also has romances, which are not over the top. Well, I guess one is.
My favorite thing about the book, though, is that it's fun to read aloud. When I'm on the bus, I just read it aloud to myself, so it's slow going but very enjoyable. It's so well written that I just want to make into a book-on-tape, except that it's a very long book. And except that I have no idea how to pronounce Da5id's name. DAY-vid? Dah-FIVE-id?
Hmm, wikipedia explains: "pronounced as David, 5 represents the V as in Roman numerals." Oh, cute. So you might not want to listen to this book on tape because you'll miss, at the very least, the spelling of this name. But I still like to read it aloud. Oh, I also can't pronounce Ng's name.
I especially like the voices of the doggies, the swordsman, and the teenager.
A doggie:
The things that the strangers are carrying are bad. Scary things. He gets excited. He gets angry. He gets a little bit scared, but he likes being scared, to him it is the same thing as being excited. Really, he has only two emotions: sleeping and adrenaline overdrive.
The bad stranger with the shotgun is raising his weapon!
It is an utterly terrible thing. A lot of bad, excited strangers are invading his yard with evil things, come to hurt the nice visitors.
He barely has time to bark out a warning to the other nice doggies before he launches himself from his doghouse, propelled on a white-hot jet of pure, feral emotion.
The swordsman:
Hiro is in his 20-by-30 at the U-Stor-It. . . . He is holding a one-meter-long piece of heavy rebar with tape wrapped around one end to make a handle. The rebar approximates a katana, but it is very much heavier. He calls it redneck katana. . . .
He is shuffling back and forth down the thirty-foot axis of the room. From time to time he will accelerate, raise the redneck katana up over his head until it is pointed backward, then bring it swiftly down, snapping his wrists at the last moment so that it comes to a stop in midair. Then he says, "Next!"
Theoretically. In fact, the redneck katana is difficult to stop once it gets moving. But it's good exercise. His forearms look like bundles of steel cables. Almost. Well, they will soon, anyway.
The teenager:
Just as Mom is looking up at her, Y.T. winds up and throws the crystal award. It goes right over Mom's shoulder, glances off the computer table, flies right through the picture tube. Awesome results. Y.T. always wanted to do that. She pauses to admire her work for a few seconds while Mom just flames off all kinds of weird emotion. What are you doing in that uniform? Didn't I tell you not to ride your skateboard on a real street? You're not supposed to throw things in the house. That's my prized possession. Why did you break the computer? Government property. Just what is going on here, anyway?
Y.T. can tell that this is going to continue for a couple of minutes, so she goes to the kitchen, splashes some water on her face, gets a glass of juice, just letting Mom follow her around an ventilate over her shoulder pads.
Finally Mom winds down, defeated by Y.T.'s strategy of silence.
"I just saved your fucking life, Mom," Y.T. says. "You could at least offer me an Oreo."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"It's like, if you--people of a certain age--would make some effort to just stay in touch with sort of basic, modern-day events, then your kids wouldn't have to take these drastic measures."
(If you read that in the book, you can see Y.T.'s point of view, whereas reading it out of context hear, you really only get her mother's point of view.)