1 Knuth gets annoyed at his publishers, \(\TeX\) is born.
Back in the late 70s Donald Knuth who was (and still is) publishing a
seminal series of Computer Science text books got annoyed at the
typesetting, layouts and font choices he was being presented by
publishers. So he did what any self-respecting hacker who happened
to be Donald Knuth would do: he created his own typesetting system
called \(\TeX\) which (along with \(\LaTeX\) which borrowed heavily from SCRIBE)
is something of a standard to this day in academic publishing.
Because, you know, why is it unreasonable to expect publishers to
render simple equations, right?
“Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention…”
This piece began as some thoughts on “attention” and wound up as
reflections on daydreams. I think I’m a fan of daydreaming.
1 Attention
Attention is a finite commodity. You only have so much
attention to give in your life, in your day. Parents want your
attention. Brothers and sisters and friends want your attention.
Teachers want your attention. Employers want your
attention. Politicians want your attention. Social media wants
your attention. And, of course, advertisers1 want your attention
(the most literal translation of the Latin roots of the word
“advertisers” would be rendered “turn-toward-ers”)
On this Armistice Day, 2020, commemorating the end of “The war to end
all wars” 119 years ago, I reflect that if the whole world were busy
fiddling with their emacs configs there would be no more war. Well…
so the treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations did not work out
as planned…so maybe we look for community in the small instead.
There is community that has grown out of research labs in Boston (a
city notable for its contribution to the birth of other well known
communities). Some of the well known members of the community that I
am acquainted with include a Chinese programmer living in Palo Alto, a
philosophy major in France, an Astronomy professor in the
Netherlands, a programmer in New Zealand, a Fin living in the United
states and a Filipina mother of a 4 year old living in Canada and of
course it’s founder, still in Boston.
Richard Nixon lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy in the closest
(popular) election of the 20th century. There was a credible case to
be made that voting irregularities in Chicago (read, the Richard Daley
political machine) and Texas put Kennedy over the top (in the electoral
college). And yet…
I’ve always liked history. And because the un-examined predilection
is not worth having (γνῶθι σεαυτόν), I turn to Livy to understand it:
This I hold to be the chief value and reward of history, to have
examples of all kinds set forth as an illustrious record, from which
you may choose what is worthy of imitation in public and private life,
and what is to be shunned as wrong in inception and ruinous in outcome
Livy, Preface to History of Rome.
Quoted from “Classics In Translation: Volume II, Latin Literature”,
MacKendrick and Howe, 1982
So, history provides examples for present living. It provides a moral
and practical purpose, helping to guide our interactions with others
in the present, but also…
“Why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding miserable and
tragic things which he himself would by no means wish to suffer? Yet
he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow, and this sorrow is his pleasure…”
Was this guy watching too much news, political mudslinging or maybe
just hanging out on Facebook?
Goodbye twitter. In 2016 Facebook got too political so I dropped it.
Now, Twitter. You can reach me as gmj AT pobox DOT com. Please drop
an email if you to stay in touch. I blog semi-regularly at
http://curious.galthub.com/.
Source code distribution has changed over the years. Today we
all love (hate?) git, github and friends, but, believe it or not
there were ways to distribute source code even before the
Internet. In fact, this was the world in which the GNU Public
License was created. Below are a few of the ways I’ve
gotten/transferred source code through the years, in something
like chronological order
There is, I think, an urgent need to protect the essence of
individuality from headlong technological progress. For unless we are
careful, individual men and women may soon be reduced to little more
than numbers in immense and terrifying data bank.
Georges Duby, Forward to A History of Private Life, 1987
I’m in the process of deleting Facebook, Twitter and Google from my
life. I think Duby et al. were on to something a little ahead of their
time.