Reading log, 2018

Not many great books this year, but there were a few. My favorite is Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain. Number two is Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, about climbing Mount Everest.

I also enjoyed the collection of short stories by Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others. The titular story, “Story of Your Life,” was made into the science fiction movie Arrival, released in 2016.

• James M. Cain
  Mildred Pierce (1941)
• Ted Chiang^†
  Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)
• Gretchen Bakke^†
  The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future (2016)
• Ursula K. Le Guin
  A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
• Jon Krakauer
  Into Thin Air (1997)
• James S. A. Corey^†
  Leviathon Wakes (2011)
• Elmore Leonard^†
  Maximum Bob (1991)
• Lauren Beukes^†
  Zoo city (2010)
• Alice Feeney^†
  Sometimes I Lie (2017)
• A. J. Finn^†
  The Woman in the Window (2018)
• Eric H. Cline^†
  1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (2014)
• Michael Lewis
  Moneyball (2003)
• Devin Murphy^†
  The Boat Runner (2017)

†	First time to read author

Reading log, 2017

The year 2017 marks when I caved and got a smartphone. Nevertheless, I still found time to read ordinary books.

My favorite from the year is Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny (1969), a science fiction novel about planetary colonists who possess god-like technological capabilities and literally turn themselves into gods to be worshiped by people lacking those technologies. However, my one-sentence synopsis fails to capture the poetic beauty of the writing. That said, this book is not for everyone.

A more general recommendation is City of Thieves, by David Benioff (2008). It's about two young men in Stalingrad during the siege of World War 2 and their mission to procure a dozen eggs for a wedding cake for a Russian general's daughter.

Lastly, I'll point out that every book I read in 2017 was by an author I had never read before. This wasn't my original intention, but by summer it had become a thing and I kept the streak going. Towards the end of the year, I scoured my file of reading suggestions to find new authors, leading me to read a romance novel (!) set in pre-revolution eighteenth century France (These Old Shades, by Georgette Heyer (1926)) and Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)—both of which were great reads.

• Daniel Suarez^†
  Daemon (2009)

• Roger Zelazny^†
  Lord of Light (1967)

• Malcolm Gladwell^†
  Outliers (2008)

• Anthony Williams^†
  C++ Concurrency in Action (2012)

• Charles C. Mann^†
  1941: New Relelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005)

• David Benioff^†
  City of Thieves (2008)

• Michael Lewis^†
  The Undoing Project (2016)

• Mary Shelley^†
  Frankenstein (1818)

• James M. Cain^†
  The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

• Robert Montgomery^†
  Sheppard Lee (1836)

• Dashiell Hammett^†
  Red Harvest (1929)

• Georgette Heyer^†
  These Old Shades (1926)

• Harriet Beecher Stowe^†
  Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

†	First time to read author

Reading log, 2016

Here it is, my annual reading list, for 2016.

Far and away my favorite of the year was The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. Never having read it until this year, I was surprised that it's a pro-socialism book, not an anti-food-packing-industry book. Said Sinclair about the novel after its publication: “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

• Elizabeth Gaskell^†
  Cranford (1853)

• G. K. Chesterton
  The Innocence of Father Brown (1911)

• Oscar Wilde^†
  The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

• Anne Morrow Lindbergh^†
  Gift From the Sea (1955)

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle^†
  A Study in Scarlet (1887)

• Charlie Jane Anders^†
  All the Birds in the Sky (2016)

• Oscar Wilde
  The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  The Sign of the Four (1890)

• Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu^†
  C++ Coding Standards (2005)

• Upton Sinclair^†
  The Jungle (1906)

• H. G. Wells
  The War of the Worlds (1897)

• Charlotte Brontë
  Jane Eyre^‡ (1847)

• Theodore Sturgeon^†
  More Than Human (1953)

• Hugh Howey^†
  Wool (2012)

• Emily St. John Mandel^†
  Station Eleven (2014)

†	First time to read author
‡	Reread

“Setup” vs “to set up”

“Setup” is a noun. “Set up” is a verb. Please stop confusing the two.

Example:

“Did you set up your computer yesterday?” “Yes, the new setup is working great!”

Recently, I’m seeing many websites that fail to distinguish between noun and verb, and it’s needless and sloppy. Not just blogs—I’m talking professional websites that process real money. The latest, which irked me enough to write this article, is for my apartment, which asks me to “setup autopay.” Why would I use autopay for a setup? And what's the setup for? Oh, never mind, you want me to set up autopay. Got it.

The problem here isn’t limited to setup and set up. There are many more words like this.

• Bob needs to pick up his pickup truck from the shop.
• The software backup failed. Maybe I should try to back up again?
• I once lost data because I shut down my computer incorrectly. Proper shutdowns are important.
• D-backs baserunners are getting run down a lot this season. Rundowns and other mental mistakes are a big problem for the team.
• Getting shut out is bad. Last week’s 13-0 shutout loss to the Reds was terrible.
• Retailers should knock off with selling those cheap knockoffs.

Usually the noun is one word, but sometimes it’s hyphenated. For example, we’ve got shut-ins, come-ons, and do-overs, each of which are distinct from shutting in, coming on, and doing over.

Why does any of this matter? As with most grammar rules, the point isn’t to follow a rule for the sake of following a rule. The point is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to parse a sentence on the first pass, without having to backtrack and reread part or all of the sentence in order to make sense of it. A single backtrack costs the reader only a fraction of a second and is forgivable—maybe even unnoticeable. But backtracks compound upon each other, adding up, first leading to ambiguity and confusion and later leading to reader fatigue—that’s where the reader’s mind wanders while their eyes continue to skim over the words. Reader fatigue isn’t the reader’s fault: it’s the writer’s fault. And if a fatigued reader has enough good sense, they’ll give up on the piece and go read something better written.

Thank you. I hope I didn’t give you reader fatigue.

Airport push-ups update

Dallas Love Field	25	(+25)
JFK	20
Houston Hobby	50	(+50)
Sky Harbor	45	(+25)

Reading log, 2015

The biggest reading news of the year is that I bought a Kindle Paperwhite—my first e-reader. I enjoy reading on it—more so than paper books—a preference that has caused an up-tick in the number of books I read that were published before 1923.

• Ray Bradbury
  The Martian Chronicles (1950)

• Gene Wolfe
  The Sorcerer's House (2010)

• Andy Weir^†
  The Martian (2011)

• Emma Orczy^†
  The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)

• Joe Haldeman^†
  The Forever War (1974)

• Rudyard Kipling^†
  Kim (1901)

• John Buchan^†
  The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

• Robert Heinlein
  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

• G. K. Chesterton^†
  The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)

• T. C. Boyle
  A Friend of the Earth (2000)

• E. O. Wilson^†
  Anthill (2010)

• Ursula le Guin^†
  The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

• H. G. Wells^†
  The Time Machine (1895)

• H. G. Wells
  The Invisible Man (1897)

• Larry McMurtry^†
  Lonesome Dove (1985)

• Harry Crews^†
  A Feast of Snakes (1976)

• Scott Meyers^†
  Effective Modern C++ (2015)

• H. G. Wells
  The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)

• Jane Austen
  Mansfield Park (1814)

• Jane Austen
  Pride & Prejudice^‡ (1813)

• Robin Sloan^†
  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

• Malcolm Lowry^†
  Under the Volcano (1947)

• Neil Gaiman
  The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)

• Agatha Christie
  The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

• Vernon Lee^†
  Hauntings (1890)

†	First time to read author
‡	Reread

Hikes #82 - 83

Hike #82

When

Wednesday, 2015-12-23

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Morning hike

Hike #83

When

Wednesday, 2015-12-23

Where

Papago Park

Duration

1 hour

Notable

Evening trail run

I started another blog, Const Volatile. It's where I'll write about software stuff. So far, CV has one post: a how-to article about setting up hibernation in Debian using a just-in-time swap file. If that sentence makes your eyes glaze over then CV is not for you.

At the risk of adding misery to boredom, I'll note CV is hosted on GitHub. That means all of the source code is publicly accessible. I statically render the site on my laptop using a program called Hugo, then I push source code and final output to my Git repo. In addition to my one post, I created a theme from scratch, which I call “simplicitism.” It has a decidedly retro look-and-feel, circa 1998 sans <blink> tag. CV is a work-in-progress.

Hikes #78 - 81

Hike #78

When

Thursday, 2015-11-26

Where

South Mountain at the Pima Canyon Trailhead

Duration

1 hour

Notable

Turkey trot with the Aravaipa trail running group

Hike #79

When

Wednesday, 2015-12-02

Where

Papago Park

Duration

1 hour

Notable

First nighttime trail run with the Aravaipa trail running group

Hike #80>

When

Thursday, 2015-12-10

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing

Hike #81>

When

Sunday, 2015-12-13

Where

South Mountain, along the Max Delta Loop trail

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Impromptu trail run instead of staying on San Juan road

I've long given up on completing one hundred hikes this year and am now aiming for a B grade, somewhere in the 80's.

Hikes #73 - 77

Hike #73

When

Sunday, 2015-11-01

Where

Manhattan – Brooklyn – Manhattan

Duration

9 hours

Notable

First time to walk across Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge

Hike #74

When

Tuesday, 2015-11-10

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Not sick anymore?

Hike #75

When

Tuesday, 2015-11-10

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Second hike in same day

Hike #76

When

Wednesday, 2015-11-11

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing

Hike #77

When

Thursday, 2015-11-12

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing

When I was in seventh grade, I got pink eye. My eyes reddened, alternating between gooey and crusty, and I missed a few days of school. On my first day back, I handed my excuse note to my Texas history teacher—a tiny women whose name I can't remember—and she remarked that pink eye was typically a girl's disease. “Why?,” I asked. Because girls share makeup and thus spread the disease among themselves. I felt awkward as she told me this.

Now, twenty-four years later, I went to New York for a few days and came back with pink eye. Pink eye is nothing like what I remember. First of all, it's an upper respiratory infection that happens to also affect the eyes. My first symptoms were a sore throat, headache, and sinus infection—the same as with a cold. Only after taking a few days off from work did I happen to look in the mirror, and I was startled to discover I had pink eye. (Laura was still in New York and thus unable to alert me to the horridness of my swollen red eye sooner.)

Here's another new thing about pink eye: being sick for three weeks. After the first week, I thought I had recovered—notice the ‘A’ Mountain hikes above—but my optimism proved unfounded and I soon thereafter relapsed—the details of which aren't worth writing about.

It brings to mind something Oliver Sacks once wrote: it's not so much the person having the disease as it is the disease having the person.

Hikes #69 - 72

Hike #69

When

Saturday, 2015-10-24

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Movie + hike

Hike #70

When

Monday, 2015-10-26

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing

Hike #71

When

Wednesday, 2015-10-28

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing

Hike #72

When

Friday, 2015-10-30

Where

Southards Pond

Duration

1 hour

Notable

Fall colors in NY

Yesterday and today I did something I've never done before: airport push-ups. My lifetime totals are now:

JFK	20
Sky Harbor	20

Hike #68: Project Gutenberg

When

Tuesday, 2015-10-20

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Weather too ominous to bicycle

Recently, I waded a few inches deeper into the modern world and bought a mobile device. A smart phone? A tablet? No, an ebook reader.

The first thing I did with my new Kindle was to download a Jane Austen novel. Doesn't everyone? They're all free on Project Gutenberg—legally free, as are all works published before 1923, the date of the oldest surviving copyright. (Note to non-Americans: Your laws may vary.)

Project Gutenberg boasts more than 50,000 free ebooks and has been around a long time, predating Amazon, Google, and even the Web itself. I first learned about Project Gutenberg fourteen years ago, before the rise of ebook readers and when a “mobile device” was a laptop with a nickel battery. Since then, ebooks have exploded in popularity—and some laptops have literally exploded—so Project Gutenberg must be doing well, too, right?

Sadly, not so. The most-downloaded book on the site is Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen, and has been downloaded, as of today, a scanty 30,531 times. That averages fewer than five downloads per day since the ebook's release in 1998. How many times has Amazon charged customers for the same book?

Yes, this blog post has an agenda, and that's to spread the word about Project Gutenberg. Don't be fooled into paying for written content published prior to 1923.

Hikes #46 – #67

Hikes #46-49

When

Saturday, 2015-06-13 – Tuesday, 2015-06-16

Where

Havasupai

Duration

n/a

Notable

Counts as four hikes—one for each day

Hike #50

When

Monday, 2015-06-22

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

First ‘A’ Mountain double

Hike #51

When

Thursday, 2015-07-09

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Another round of Achilles tendinosis, probably owing to the Havasupai hikes the month prior

Hike #52

When

Monday, 2015-07-13

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Yep, still injured

Hike #53

When

Wednesday, 2015-07-15

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Nothing, absolutely nothing

Hike #54

When

Monday, 2015-07-27

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Still nothing

Hike #55

When

Tuesday, 2015-08-04

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Even more nothing

Hike #56

When

Monday, 2015-09-21

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Out of shape for hiking due to taking a month-and-a-half off, but at least my Achilles tendon feels better

Hike #57

When

Thursday, 2015-09-24

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Sharp, shooting pain in my left foot

Hike #58

When

Monday, 2015-09-28

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

First pre-sunrise hike this side of summer

Hike #59

When

Wednesday, 2015-09-30

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Migraine headache, nothing to do but go for a easy-does-it hike

Hike #60

When

Thursday, 2015-10-01

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

First cool and dry morning this side of summer

Hike #61

When

Sunday, 2015-10-04

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Saw kids playing on the concrete ‘A’

Hike #62

When

Monday, 2015-10-05

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Rainy hike

Hike #63

When

Tuesday, 2015-10-06

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Still sore from Sunday's hard run up the mountain

Hike #64

When

Sunday, 2015-10-11

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Saw grown kids playing on the concrete ‘A’

Hike #65

When

Saturday, 2015-10-10

Where

Camelback Mountain, from the Echo Canyon Trailhead

Duration

1½ hours

Notable

Hiked with Former Coworker Nick

Hike #66

When

Saturday, 2015-10-17

Where

Camelback Mountain, from the Cholla Trailhead

Duration

1½ hours

Notable

I may have forgotten to log the real hike #66

Hike #67

When

Monday, 2015-10-19

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hours

Notable

Stepped in a puddle, which is unusual while hiking a steep slope in Arizona

All caught up!

Hike #45: Tempe

When

Thursday, 2015-06-11

Where

‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

First hike from the new apartment

Laura and I moved apartments last weekend. For the first time since 2006, I live in a city other than Phoenix. Welcome to Tempe, pronounced tem-PEE, with the accent on the second syllable, and I should make an effort to say it right after saying it wrong for the last nine years.

Wikipedia says Tempe is named after the Vale of Tempe, a gorge in Greece. Greece makes me think of mythology, and a phoenix is a mythological bird, so really the cities are very similar. They're also adjacent.

Hike #44: Blah blah blah

When

Thursday, 2015-06-04

Where

Flat loop hike, from the 40th St Trailhead

Duration

1 hour

Notable

Last hike at the 40th St Trailhead?

Another day, another aimless walk around the unnamed trails in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve.

Hike #43: Don't stand too close to a rattlesnake

When

Thursday, 2015-05-28

Where

TwoBit Peak, from the 40th St Trailhead

Duration

1½ hour

Notable

Saw another rattlesnake

Today's hike was a slower-than-normal hike up and down TwoBit. There was that rattlesnake, and there was that older gentleman chasing the snake off trail, over terrain that one could fall off the mountain from, and there was the rattlesnake rattling its tail with the man standing two feet away, trying to get a closer view for his camera. But other than that, nothing much happened.

Hike #42: Why?

When

Sunday, 2015-05-24

Where

Holbert Trail to Dobbins Lookout, South Mountain

Duration

1½ hours

Notable

First hike at South Mountain this year

Today, after the hike, I saw for the first time in my life a chicken crossing the road. Questions were asked.

Hike #41: Three hundred thirty hikes

When

Thursday, 2015-05-21

Where

Circumference hike around unnamed peak, from the 40th St Trailhead

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Every time I hike TwoBit Peak after work, I see an older man, sometimes alone and sometimes with a buddy or two, and every time wearing jeans and a cotton shirt that contrast with the REI plastic clothing the rest of us hikers wear.

Today I started at the trailhead at the same time as this man, and I asked him if he hikes everyday. His answer was yes, and that he hiked TwoBit about 330 times last year. This makes my own goal to do 100 hikes this year seem not so hard.

Hike #40: Snakes on a plain

When

Tuesday, 2015-05-19

Where

Unnamed, flattish loop hike, from the 40th St Trailhead

Duration

1 hour

Notable

First rattlesnake of the year, while hiking

Laura joined me on today's hike, and my snakeophile wife was pleased to encounter not one, but two rattlesnakes. The snakes were less pleased to see my wife.

The first rattler we heard before we saw, as it gave a quick two-count rattle before slithering under some brush and making every effort to blend in unseen. It looked well fed, and because the evening sun was dipping low on the horizon, it was probably done sunning and ready to find a warm place to stay for the night.

A fellow hiker alerted us to the second snake, which was shorter and thinner than the first. It slithered off the trail into some brush, but then coiled and watched my wife and me warily.

Ironically, two days prior, I told Canadian Fred that I had never seen a rattlesnake while hiking in the Phoenix area—a fact that was true at the time. Until then, my only encounters with rattlers had been while (1) hiking Pine Mountain north of the city and (2) road biking in north Scottsdale, where sometimes I see the snakes crossing the roads.

Hike #39: House Finch

When

Sunday, 2015-05-17

Where

Shadow Mountain, from the 28th St Trailhead

Duration

½ hour

Notable

Considerably less Achilles' tendon pain than last week

Today while running down the mountain, I noticed a house finch, calling from some brush. The house finch is another bird I would have assumed is non-native to the Phoenix area but is in fact native to the western United States.

Hike #38: Our friend to the north

When

Saturday, 2015-05-16

Where

Tempe ‘A’ Mountain

Duration

½ hour

Notable

First time to the ‘A’ Mountain this year

Today on the way up the mountain, Laura and I met Fred from Quebec City, a student who's spending his summer break traveling the western United States. He just started his trip, having spent a night in New York and one night couch-surfing in Phoenix.

Fred asked me where the good hiking in Phoenix is—the ‘A’ Mountain is a disappointment if you aim for more than a pleasant view of the ASU campus—and considering myself an expert on the topic, I told him about the local peaks and paths of the Greater Phoenix area and recommended hiking Camelback. This led to a discussion of how a non-driving Canadian should get from Tempe to Camelback. I again consider myself an expert on the topic—that is, taking public transportation from Tempe to Camelback, not Canadianness. The answer, for anyone interested, is to take the light rail, or bike, to 44th St and Washington, and from there take the #44 bus route to Tatum at MacDonald. The bus arrives every thirty minutes—about the length of time as the bus ride.

But it turns out there's a much quicker way to get there. It involves giving Fred a ride in your car, which is parked about a mile away from the ‘A’ Mountain, and dropping him off at the Camelback trailhead, which happens to be on the way home for Laura and me.