Tuesday, January 21, 2003
It's light out much earlier now. Soon I'll be able to ride my bike to work and not have to deal with the darkness at all. After all, dealing with cars is much more complicated in the dark. I'm not the only cyclist who has to deal with getting the squeeze put on by a land yacht. The comments are funny and a testament to why this site does not have them.
Listen, selfish drivers. You're a bunch of freakin' ingrates. If I'm on the side of the road, I am doing it as a courtesy to you. I could be taking your whole lane; I have the right to do that. Sometimes I do because there are a bunch of numnuts who keep on trying to hit me. We're small and invisible and believe me, I try to stay out of your way, but have some respect. To the majority of drivers who don't try to push me off the road. Thanks.
8:14:34 AM
8:07:10 AM
Fly UI
Every toilet or urinal needs a fly:
If you're the user interface specialist Donald Norman , I suppose you'd say the fly affords being peed on.
8:05:14 AM
I've found myself reading The Fountainhead with my girlfriend and one of her colleauges. It's certainly a ponderous book at 1058 pages of tiny type. So far I've made it to page 79, so I'm less than 1/10th of the way there. It's amusing how the ratings at Amazon have so thoroughly panned this book. I would agree that it would be a much tighter novel with some editing, but it's not boring, even though it is about the railroad business.
Sometimes the use of metaphor is a little over the top. She describes this traumatic event in the childhood of Eddie Williars:
He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.
One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away a long time ago . . .
It seems clear to me that this passage refers to those things that we hold sacrosanct, like government, human institutions and authority. These things seem to us to be infallible and eventually we learn that they are hollow shells, rotten on the inside. It's really depressing and cynical. It would have been a great metaphor had she not decided to use it as a bludgeon. One page later she writes:
The building stood over the street as its tallest and proudest structure. . . . It would always stand there, thought Eddie Willars.
Wham!
I am also amazed by the cynicism in this book towards people. Rand is obviously one hell of a misanthrope. Most of the people are sheep, useless functionaries who go through the day with the sole purpose of thinking as little as possible and never making any actual decisions, all the while patting themselves on the back for their brilliance. Meanwhile there are the Enlightened Ones who work, think and make decisions. They are responsible for moving the world forward and everyone else is a freeloader. Wow. That's the most negative view of humanity I've read in a book for a very long time.
8:02:19 AM
Last Update: 2/2/2003; 8:46:56 PM
