Saturday, October 15, 2011
Because I Did
I decided to add hyperlinks to that previous post and found something by Steve Wozniak that talks about the early days of Silicon Valley. It's pretty great. That dude totally reminds me of Matthias the Mouse from the Redwall series.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Popol Vuh
In a few weeks I'm going to a memorial service. It's been put together by a bunch of ex-NeXTies, so I can only imagine how intensely nerdy this might be.
Speaking of nerdy, somehow I've ended up teaching a friggin' zooarchaeology unit. I only realized this yesterday, so now I have to scramble and get some sort of vaguely coherent reference material together. Like, basic stuff. Basic bone biology, basic animal taxonomy. Basic directional terminology. I grew up in a biology household, and all the work I've done on this collection so far has been with a woman who is totally down with scientific classification and identification and bone formation and all that stuff. Turns out, THIS IS NOT STANDARD.
Me:"Have you ever used a field guide?"
Student:"I've seen some before. They were really big." *implication that they were too terrifying to use*
Me (inside my brain): "Oh...this is gonna be painful."
Bone cleaning is all well and good, but you really shouldn't be doing it without knowing what you're looking at. I will FORCE the learning on them. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh? You want access to this raccoon boiling session? 1. What the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? 2. You have to LEARN STUFF first!!!
....Now if only I knew what I should be teaching. Did I mention that I've never taken a zooarchaeology class? Nor have I taken any kind of osteology class...EVER. I am so not qualified to be doing this. I forget that I have actually taken shit tonnes of biology classes and have a fair amount of hands on experience and also, unlike these students, apparently, I know how to use a book. Or even *gasp* several books AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
Sorry. I realize that these people are really young and almost certainly haven't had the same sort of access to information as I have always had. Gonna go out on a limb (ha!) and say that they probably don't have horse bones in the back yard....or a deer skull on the TV.
The best part is that right now we're working on (half of) a brown pelican. This is the first bird I've done, so it's all new and exciting!!! (read: I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm doing) Fortunately we live in the future and I have the interwebs at my disposal....though it's surprisingly difficult to find a good example of a pelican skeleton online. What I have learned that birds skeletons are all WILDLY DIFFERENT so even the reference bird skeleton pictures I have are only sort-of useful since the pelican differs in many specifics. Thank you class Aves for making this not easy. Have YOU ever Googled "brown pelican phalanges"?
Other winning moment today:
Student:"Oh! You're on Twitter?!"
Me: "Yes." *changes subject* No, you do not get my Twitter username. It's pretty fucking easy to track me down.
Did I mention that I got asked to write a letter of recommendation? I really tried to persuade her that I was not the best person to do that since, you know, I have ZERO QUALIFICATIONS. No dice. Apparently in her world I count as a legitimate "academic advisor" or some shit. We're doomed.
Be Seeing You.
Speaking of nerdy, somehow I've ended up teaching a friggin' zooarchaeology unit. I only realized this yesterday, so now I have to scramble and get some sort of vaguely coherent reference material together. Like, basic stuff. Basic bone biology, basic animal taxonomy. Basic directional terminology. I grew up in a biology household, and all the work I've done on this collection so far has been with a woman who is totally down with scientific classification and identification and bone formation and all that stuff. Turns out, THIS IS NOT STANDARD.
Me:"Have you ever used a field guide?"
Student:"I've seen some before. They were really big." *implication that they were too terrifying to use*
Me (inside my brain): "Oh...this is gonna be painful."
Bone cleaning is all well and good, but you really shouldn't be doing it without knowing what you're looking at. I will FORCE the learning on them. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh? You want access to this raccoon boiling session? 1. What the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? 2. You have to LEARN STUFF first!!!
....Now if only I knew what I should be teaching. Did I mention that I've never taken a zooarchaeology class? Nor have I taken any kind of osteology class...EVER. I am so not qualified to be doing this. I forget that I have actually taken shit tonnes of biology classes and have a fair amount of hands on experience and also, unlike these students, apparently, I know how to use a book. Or even *gasp* several books AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
Sorry. I realize that these people are really young and almost certainly haven't had the same sort of access to information as I have always had. Gonna go out on a limb (ha!) and say that they probably don't have horse bones in the back yard....or a deer skull on the TV.
The best part is that right now we're working on (half of) a brown pelican. This is the first bird I've done, so it's all new and exciting!!! (read: I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm doing) Fortunately we live in the future and I have the interwebs at my disposal....though it's surprisingly difficult to find a good example of a pelican skeleton online. What I have learned that birds skeletons are all WILDLY DIFFERENT so even the reference bird skeleton pictures I have are only sort-of useful since the pelican differs in many specifics. Thank you class Aves for making this not easy. Have YOU ever Googled "brown pelican phalanges"?
Other winning moment today:
Student:"Oh! You're on Twitter?!"
Me: "Yes." *changes subject* No, you do not get my Twitter username. It's pretty fucking easy to track me down.
Did I mention that I got asked to write a letter of recommendation? I really tried to persuade her that I was not the best person to do that since, you know, I have ZERO QUALIFICATIONS. No dice. Apparently in her world I count as a legitimate "academic advisor" or some shit. We're doomed.
Be Seeing You.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Ap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-lications
I'm having issues properly articulating my feelings about Steve Jobs dying. It feels a little like the death of a second cousin twice removed or however you wish to define that guy you met once at a family gathering and continued to hear about over the years through the grapevine.
The cousin that was a genius with a reality distortion field. Yeah, I hear that he did act like a real jerk much of the time, and that was kind-of part and parcel with the whole deal.
I hear people sneer at "Mac fanboys" and Macs a lot. All I can think, every single time, is "Do you like the internet? Do you happen to know what kind of system it was invented on? Oh, you've never heard of NeXT? GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN."
I grew up alongside the Mac OS. I believe it was the ][gs (but I'm not positive, forgot to ask my dad, and can't find the answer after a desultory search of the Interwebs), but one of the early systems had a recording of Steve talking about how awesome this new computer was and stuff. That's not important. What IS important is that this was the sample in a sound editing program. Basic stuff, like the ability to copy one short part of dialogue (like, oh say, the "pap" sound out of "applications") and then re-insert it a whole bunch of times so instead of a smooth speech, the word sounded more like "apapapapapapapapapap...lications." Not the most complex edit in the world, but to a young girl, it was HILARIOUS. Also then apparently I recorded something that started with me saying "Hello Mr. Computer..."
When I say I'm a child of Silicon Valley, I don't just mean location. In fact, we didn't move over the hill until I was 8. Before then we lived over on the coast in Montara, which was full of all sorts of weirdos. Jef Raskin lived a few houses down from my parents before he moved into a classy house over in Pacifica (and by "classy" I mean "not falling apart and really kind of sketchy in an endearing way like the great majority of houses in Montara"). One aspect of the early computer industry that I think a lot of people either forget or don't know is that it was a originally a bunch of completely crazy nerdy weirdos who did this stuff for fun. My dad went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings at SLAC (though he wasn't at the one where the Steves introduced the Apple and doesn't actually remember seeing Jobs there...though I pointed out that it was a lot of super crazy brilliant weirdos in one small space and maybe he blended in). My mom went to a few of the meetings and mostly remembers that someone would pull out something like a home-made logic board with a bunch of wires and a display of lights that would flash 888888 and everyone else would get super excited and crowd around it. When my parents went to the West Coast Computer Faire (where they met the arguably psychotic Captain Crunch), they had their picture taken and then it was digitized and printed out using ASCII symbols. We're talking CUTTING EDGE SHIT here!!!
The only time I remember formally meeting Steve Jobs was at a NeXT Christmas party. My sister must have been 9 or 10 and was not at all pleased about having to wear a nice clothes. In fact, she insisted on bringing jeans with us in the car (I assume so she could change into them afterwards). Anyway, at some point during the party, Steve arrived and my parents introduced us to him. The man was wearing a full-on Canadian leisure suit: beat-up jeans and a denim jacket. As soon as we were done talking with him and he walked off, my sister turned around, went out to the car and changed into her jeans.
I don't care how iconic the silver haired guy in a black turtleneck became. Every time anyone mentions Steve Jobs, the image I get in my mind is of that dark-haired dude in the jeans and jean jacket at a company Christmas party. That, and a voice saying "apapapapapapapapapapapap...."
Be Seeing You.
The cousin that was a genius with a reality distortion field. Yeah, I hear that he did act like a real jerk much of the time, and that was kind-of part and parcel with the whole deal.
I hear people sneer at "Mac fanboys" and Macs a lot. All I can think, every single time, is "Do you like the internet? Do you happen to know what kind of system it was invented on? Oh, you've never heard of NeXT? GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN."
I grew up alongside the Mac OS. I believe it was the ][gs (but I'm not positive, forgot to ask my dad, and can't find the answer after a desultory search of the Interwebs), but one of the early systems had a recording of Steve talking about how awesome this new computer was and stuff. That's not important. What IS important is that this was the sample in a sound editing program. Basic stuff, like the ability to copy one short part of dialogue (like, oh say, the "pap" sound out of "applications") and then re-insert it a whole bunch of times so instead of a smooth speech, the word sounded more like "apapapapapapapapapap...lications." Not the most complex edit in the world, but to a young girl, it was HILARIOUS. Also then apparently I recorded something that started with me saying "Hello Mr. Computer..."
When I say I'm a child of Silicon Valley, I don't just mean location. In fact, we didn't move over the hill until I was 8. Before then we lived over on the coast in Montara, which was full of all sorts of weirdos. Jef Raskin lived a few houses down from my parents before he moved into a classy house over in Pacifica (and by "classy" I mean "not falling apart and really kind of sketchy in an endearing way like the great majority of houses in Montara"). One aspect of the early computer industry that I think a lot of people either forget or don't know is that it was a originally a bunch of completely crazy nerdy weirdos who did this stuff for fun. My dad went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings at SLAC (though he wasn't at the one where the Steves introduced the Apple and doesn't actually remember seeing Jobs there...though I pointed out that it was a lot of super crazy brilliant weirdos in one small space and maybe he blended in). My mom went to a few of the meetings and mostly remembers that someone would pull out something like a home-made logic board with a bunch of wires and a display of lights that would flash 888888 and everyone else would get super excited and crowd around it. When my parents went to the West Coast Computer Faire (where they met the arguably psychotic Captain Crunch), they had their picture taken and then it was digitized and printed out using ASCII symbols. We're talking CUTTING EDGE SHIT here!!!
The only time I remember formally meeting Steve Jobs was at a NeXT Christmas party. My sister must have been 9 or 10 and was not at all pleased about having to wear a nice clothes. In fact, she insisted on bringing jeans with us in the car (I assume so she could change into them afterwards). Anyway, at some point during the party, Steve arrived and my parents introduced us to him. The man was wearing a full-on Canadian leisure suit: beat-up jeans and a denim jacket. As soon as we were done talking with him and he walked off, my sister turned around, went out to the car and changed into her jeans.
I don't care how iconic the silver haired guy in a black turtleneck became. Every time anyone mentions Steve Jobs, the image I get in my mind is of that dark-haired dude in the jeans and jean jacket at a company Christmas party. That, and a voice saying "apapapapapapapapapapapap...."
Be Seeing You.
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