Coding brain != reading brain?
Oct. 14th, 2009 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrikoThe exhaustion/stress from fixing crud and trying to get my thesis done at the same time hit me hard today, so I came home at 4pm and immediately fell asleep.
As these things usually go, this resulted in me awakening sometime later, still feeling like a zombie, but unable to go back to sleep. I completely failed to read a magazine because I found myself skimming before I'd read a couple of sentences. So I figured I'd go mess about with flickr... time flies, and I find I've written a greasemonkey script making it easier for me to blog photos. Which is fine, except how the heck does it work that I can't concentrate long enough to read two sentences, yet I can write JavaScript code just fine?
I am concerned that in the dystopian future, some evil megacorp will take advantage of this and generate worker drones who are incapable of reading but perfectly good at writing code.
No, wait, that's just the exhaustion talking. In that spirit, though... Have some tentacles, and I'm going back to bed:
As these things usually go, this resulted in me awakening sometime later, still feeling like a zombie, but unable to go back to sleep. I completely failed to read a magazine because I found myself skimming before I'd read a couple of sentences. So I figured I'd go mess about with flickr... time flies, and I find I've written a greasemonkey script making it easier for me to blog photos. Which is fine, except how the heck does it work that I can't concentrate long enough to read two sentences, yet I can write JavaScript code just fine?
I am concerned that in the dystopian future, some evil megacorp will take advantage of this and generate worker drones who are incapable of reading but perfectly good at writing code.
No, wait, that's just the exhaustion talking. In that spirit, though... Have some tentacles, and I'm going back to bed:
Vernor Vinge
Date: October 14th, 2009 02:00 pm (UTC)Asad
Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 14th, 2009 04:44 pm (UTC)I was, however, able to read icanhascheezburger.com, which leads me to believe that the revolution will come in LOLcat sized infobytes.
This is shaping up to be a *terrible* story. Or perhaps an awesome one. If only I could concentrate long enough to write it. ;)
Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 15th, 2009 06:28 am (UTC)I do really recommend that you---especially you :) ---read Vernor Vinge's novels, both Fire and Deepeness. (Ignore the rest of his oeuvre, it's even preachier.) He's a CS prof in *sigh*SoCal*/sigh* and uses the space opera genre to convey some CS-ish ideas. In Fire he introduces us to an alien race called the Tines, for whom a sentient individual is actually a pack of canine-like Tine units, who communicate at high speeds via something like modem noises to produce a single personality.
Deepness is the one with the Focus virus and an alien race that lives around a star that periodically turns itself off. I think they both won Hugos or something.
Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 15th, 2009 06:28 am (UTC)Asad
Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 15th, 2009 05:24 pm (UTC)Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 15th, 2009 07:11 pm (UTC)Asad
Re: Vernor Vinge
Date: October 15th, 2009 07:32 pm (UTC)Cherryh
Date: October 16th, 2009 05:45 am (UTC)The world, characters, and the culture of the atevi are so well-realized that she's now writing her 12th novel in that world, and it's still good. Never fear, while they are in chronological order, they all have episodic/conclusive endings, so you can just read as far as you want without generally being left at a cliffhanger. I started reading them grade 10, and they've had a considerable effect on me. I also own them all and would lend them to you but I am in the wrong country at present :)
If you end up not liking it, you may instead like The Faded Sun trilogy. I had a friend who did not like Foreigner but loved The Faded Sun. Or the Chanur series.
Asad
Re: Cherryh
Date: October 16th, 2009 05:47 am (UTC)Asad
Re: Cherryh
Date: October 16th, 2009 08:54 pm (UTC)I like your tentacles
Date: October 14th, 2009 03:48 pm (UTC)-Gail
Re: I like your tentacles
Date: October 14th, 2009 04:44 pm (UTC)