Tuesday is the US election, and it’s all over the news here. Even though I do not get to vote, it’s an election that will affect the whole world. Including me. So I tried to keep updated on it to have a well-formed opinion.
That was surprisingly hard.
One thing I regularly do is to try and look for other occurrences of
the symbol at point in my buffer. This can serve as a poor man’s way
of finding the definition or callers of a function, or uses of a
variable. It’s kind of annoying to do that in Emacs by default, sadly.
The following code from my .emacs will enable the key shortcut C-d
in isearch to yank the symbol at point into the search string. So
C-s C-d will then start a search for that symbol, and already
highlight it. Keep hitting C-s to move to further occurrences.
A while back, the notorious terrorist organization Al Qaeda called for an “electronic jihad” against the United States. This video is almost unheard of in the European Union outside of the UK, but it seems to have caused quite some fear in the United States. The worries range from a general low-key anxiety to full-out fear that the end of civilization is close. So, what’s the true threat of “Cyber Terrorism”?
The christian fundamentalist school book series A Beka Book is advertised, among other things, with the following:
“A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory.”
… wait a moment. Set theory and “burdened?” “Modern?” 1874 is not exactly what I’d call “modern,” but then I’m a computer scientist so my views on “modern” and “old” are somewhat skewed. But “burdened?” Set theory is one of the most fundamental theories of mathematics and important pre-requisite for most higher-level stuff. So. Uh. What?
I’ve recently read some people rant about how science and only science gives us “the truth” about the world. This belief seems to be quite common in fundamentalist atheist circles. As a scientist, I find that sad, because it’s wrong. I’d go as far as “science does not care about truth.” Let me explain.
In Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, 16-year-old Ree Dolly has to tend her mentally ill mother and two pre-teen brothers all by herself, as her dad has been gone for a while now. One day, she learns that he put his house up for his bail-out, meaning their house will be gone if he doesn’t show up for court. Ree decides to set out and find him.
Wow. Just … Wow. The setting is a contemporary rural area with most people living in isolated houses, strong family bonds, and a lot of individualist strength. A reality completely beyond the grasp of most city-dwellers like myself. There is no blame and no arrogance in the book. Personal tragedies and daily suffering are described as simple reality, often not even particularly highlighted, just a mention in passing. An incredible book.
If you happen to feel too good and like to face some sobering reality, this is just the book for you.
The adventure novel Serpent by Clive Cussler follows the underwater specialist Kurt Austin in his investigation of the murder of archaeologists. What were they about to find that would require their death?
Ah, I love adventure novels. And I like Cussler a lot. Sadly, this one was a bit too prototypical. Kurt Austin is the hero, physically strong and fit, knows everything, can do everything−a bit boring as a character. Additionally, the story reminded me a bit of Cussler's Fargo novel Lost Empire, even though the quality of the storytelling here is far less developed. I suppose Cussler just re-used information from his investigations in the Fargo book.
All in all, a pretty average adventure novel with all the stereotypical requirements from uber-hero to the damsel in distress fulfilled. If you’re looking for a quick read and can live with these problems, the book isn’t a bad choice at all.
