Infrastructure Inches Closer

I can see the warning saw horses announcing the end of the sidewalk installation work zone from the corner of our property.

I can't see any workers or equipment because the horses are close to a mile away still and extend for a good couple of hundred yards beyond where any actual construction is going on. This far away, they're mostly just announcing the intention to build.

As you go back deeper into the work zone the order of appearance is: sawhorses with blinking lights marking the limit of the construction zone (which seems excessive since these are on the exit side of the zone for traffic and, except for the guy putting out the horses, no workers will be anywhere around there for a couple of weeks, at least); string on stakes, declaring the planned path of the sidewalk; scraped and leveled shallow trench to be the sidewalk bed; actual construction ahead of the sidewalk to modify driveways that will intersect; wooden forms to hold the sidewalk concrete; wet concrete curing in the forms; dry sidewalk with forms removed; sawhorses with blinking lights marking the beginning of the active construction zone (and which, for some reason, don't extend nearly as far as the warning lights at the other end). The whole thing resembles some glacially slow train or parade.

At the rate they're progressing, it will be March before the first of the sawhorses arrives on our property.

Late Night Drinks With Pete Seeger

I woke up this morning to the news Pete Seeger had died and flashed back about forty years or so. 1971 to be exact.

I was a sophomore at a small private university in northern New Jersey majoring in political science and self-appointed chair of the school's environment committee. My roommate, Bart, was majoring in theater (and later went on to get his masters and create and lead the puppetry department at the University of Connecticut).

There was an official student entertainment committee that booked popular-but-safe concerts (I remember Santana being one) but Bart wasn't satisfied with their selections and essentially started his own freelance booking agency on campus specializing in unknown, under appreciated, controversial acts mostly of the acoustic or folk variety. Among others, I remember he brought in the Boys of the Lough featuring Aly Bain and Mike Whellans.

And he booked Pete Seeger.

I don't remember the actual venue for that concert. The official committee usually booked into the gymnasium. Bart's concerts were much smaller and usually played in the common room of the Great Hall ( a copy of Christ Church Hall at Oxford University).

The important thing is not where the concert was held, or that it was a roaring success. The important thing is that, after the show, as Pete and his accompanists were packing up, someone asked him if he would care for refreshments before taking off and he allowed that, "singin' is thirsty work," whereupon we decided, what with the hour and all the commercial establishments being close to or already past closing time, to invite him back to our dorm room for a beer or three.

To our delight, he accepted. And so Pete Seeger (and troupe) spent the next two hours or so up in our room in deep conversation about music and politics and the environment. We talked about the war. We talked about pollution. He told of us building the sloop, Clearwater, a sailing ship on the Hudson River as a kind of moving billboard for cleaning up the water. He took out his guitar and and strummed a bit. He told us never to get discouraged or give up, the fight was its own reward and you never knew what kind of effect you could have down the line.

Rest in peace, Pete Seeger. What an effect you had, down the line.

The MOOC and Me: Building From Scratch

I'd like to think I'm making progress.

I've watched three weeks worth of lectures so far. Weeks 0, 1 and 2. For some reason it's a 12 week course going from week 0 to week 12 with no week 11. Apparently, Harvard math. There's a project assigned at the end of each week but, since the deadline for completing them all is the end of the year, I'm taking my time to ensure I understand what I'm (supposed to be) doing. One of the problems I've run into is that the Harvard students get more information on campus that is not made explicit in the videos. I found out about a whole on-line file of downloadable study aids including slides and notes and such only because it happened to be mentioned in passing in one of theWeek 2 (i.e., third week) lectures (Not, "Be sure to check out . . ." but, "Oh, yeah, that's addressed in the study guide."). I've gone back over the beginnings and become aware of a few other assumptions that are not obvious to non-resident students (i.e., references to things in lectures 5 and 6 that were never covered in the previous lectures).

The first week's project requires building something--anything--using a visual training language called "Scratch" which was developed by MIT and uses colored puzzle pieces to assemble a program. Since only certain pieces can fit into others it kind of limits the damage one can do. I've built the basics of an adorably stupid little "game" involving a parrot and a polar bear. Periodically, the parrot flies across the screen left to right. If it gets to the other side a palm tree grows on the spot. As the number of palm trees grows they begin to fill in the space forcing the polar bear to shift away. The polar bear can stop the destruction of his habitat by leaping up and hitting the parrot causing the bird to go back and start over. So far so good/inane.

The problems are these:

1) The characters are sprites from a library. Some of them have multiple images, called costumes, that can be used to simulate motion but the polar bear's costumes merely make him blink. There is another bear in the library composed of multiple parts that I could manipulate to create more costumes and make it not only jump but reach up to hit the bird, but it's an ugly bear. And the parts are extremely difficult to manipulate. And even then don't do exactly what I want.

2) When the bear hits the bird right now, it just goes back to the edge of the screen and starts over. I want it to fall to the ground so I can introduce a third character, a cat which will run across the screen, pick up the bird, announce the number of points it is worth and carry it off before the next parrot starts. Just because. I can get the bird to fall down O.K. when the bear hits it but the next parrot merely starts at the usual place and flies straight down.

3) I really want the parrot to speed up as the "game" progresses but, so far at least and with the puzzle pieces I can find available, I don't see how to do that. I can manually change the variable for speed but I don't seem to be able to make it change itself while the program is running. Within the structure of the puzzle pieces I don't see how to make Speed = Speed + 1.

But, at least I'm having fun. And maybe learning something. Next week's problem set requires some actual coding in C.

They Got Over It

We traumatized the cats last night. It could have been worse.

My brother brought home flea collars for the girls. He'd been waiting until they were mature enough that the chemicals in the collars wouldn't unduly harm their development. They're almost a year old now and about as grown as they're likely to be (except, maybe, girthwise if they take after mom).

They haven't been especially vexed by fleas although at least one of them always seems to have a few and they pass them around on a rotating basis, kind of like kids with a cold virus. Since none of them ever go outside, we assume there is a reservoir in the carpet and have sprayed it several times but haven't been able to get at any survivors already occupying a cat or two, except by brushing which my brother does on a regular basis. Brushing catches the flea but does nothing to eliminate any eggs the cat may already be harboring.

Anyway, last night he came home with three brand new flea collars. Mittens knew something was up as soon as he started prepping the collar (which involves stretching it to release the infused chemicals) and took off for parts unknown. Paribanour was not as swift on the uptake and I was able to nab her and hold her more-or-less still while my brother threaded the collar and slipped it over her head. As soon as I released her she tried frantically to bite it off but discovered it is impossible, even for a cat, to reach under your own chin with your tongue.

Just then Jasmine came in to see what the fuss was about and I grabbed her. Unfortunately, my brother hadn't gotten the second collar out of the box yet, let alone prepped it, so I wrestled with the cat who, unlike her daughters, and despite being fat and soft and squishy, was perfectly willing to try biting and clawing to make her escape. She was also, while squirming and snapping, impossible to pick up so I just pinned her to the kitchen floor until my brother could slip the collar on. Then we went searching for Mittens.

Fortunately for us, she had picked a hiding place that was both obvious and accessible. She also opted for a strategy of passive resistance which did no good for her at all. My brother cradled her in one arm and slid the collar on.

All three cats spent the rest of the evening scratching, not at fleas, but at the collars. Two of them seemed a tad too loose and I was afraid they might be able to lick the collars and ingest some of the insecticide so I tightened them a bit which also seemed to stop most of the fussing.

Of course, being cats, this morning they have forgotten all about the collars and act as if they've worn them forever.

The Extremely Flat Lizard Learning Curve

Dear Lizard:

Stay out of the house. Cats live here. You know this. I am not always around to rescue your stupid (now truncated) ass from them, either. You know this, also.

The only reason I even knew you were inside and in danger is when Jasmine started growling at her daughters because she was afraid they'd snatch you away from her. Unfortunately, I couldn't snatch you out of her mouth either. You're lucky her grip wasn't any tighter or I wouldn't be writing this to you now.

I have no idea where your tail is. It was still attached to you when Jasmine carried you into my brother's room. It was not on you when you escaped and I found the kids playing with you in the living room. Either she ate it or it's still in my brother's room where it will stay forever unless he finally cleans out from under his bed and discovers it all shriveled and mummified. In any event, it's not yours any longer; grow a new one.

And I repeat: Stay outside! You're much safer out there where all you have to face is the larger birds, the black snake that lives in the woodpile, the Cuban tree frogs, the feral cat that keeps coming around because the kids haven't been fixed yet and the hormones and pheromones and such, the raccoon, the opossum and the phantom coyote someone claimed to have seen on the other side of the peninsula. It's not even cold out there anymore.

That's much safer than taking on three bored indoor cats with nothing better to do.

Sincerely,
The Human

The MOOC and Me

I signed up for a couple of on-line free classes with EDX.org at the end of last year and the first one has just begun.

Technically, it began right on the first of the year and I'm already two weeks behind but, since the course work isn't due until the end of the year, I think I have plenty of time to catch up.

I suspect I may have skewed the survey they make you take before starting the course. I'm sure I'm at the far right end of the age range. But I did still remember my high school SAT scores (within a reasonable margin of error).

This course is Harvard's basic introduction to computer programming. So far I've watched the first week's lectures (two of them) and the supplementary videos. I was pleased to find out I knew most of this stuff already apparently having picked it up by osmosis just by using computers on a regular basis. (We're talking real basics here: bits, binary, hexadecimal and pseudocode.) I have an assigned project to use Harvard's teaching language (it uses intuitive little snap together puzzle pieces in place of written code) to build a demo game, or animation, or story or whatever. So that's what I'll be doing this weekend.

I'm also signed up for another programming course through the University of Louvain, France that starts next month. Then we'll see if I've taken on more than I can handle at one time. The goal, after all, is to reinvigorate my brain, not break it.

In the meantime, although they can't see me, I feel energized already watching all the college kids in the lecture hall.

New Year, Same Us

Looks like the New Year just turned on a dime.

It started the way it ended: warm, slightly humid, cloudy. Yesterday a cold front moved through. Perhaps it's a "cold front" since it can't compare to the deep freeze people are going through in the rest of the country, but our temperatures did drop 20 degrees over the course of two hours and rain came in wiping out the humidity. The crescent moon was out but I've become a wimp since moving down here and it was too damn cold to use the telescope.

The house got down to 65F last night but a warming trend is forecast for the weekend and it's going to have to stay "cold" for a lot longer before we break down and turn on the heat. Undershirts, long sleeves (my brother broke out a flannel shirt I didn't even know he owned) and sweaters for outdoors are more than sufficient for us although the cats, despite their fuzziness, are not happy. This is the kittens' first winter and they don't know what to make of it. That, and the Christmas tree coming down, is confusing them no end. At least the cooler weather has convinced the library to finally turn off their air conditioning.

The cold did do in my car battery and I had to have my brother come down to the deli where it died and jump start it. New battery, new posts, new left headlight (coincidence) and we're good to go.

Meanwhile, I find out my brother ran a stop sign on a deserted* road where only one directional turn is permitted . . . and managed to get caught. So he now has his first moving violation in over 20 years, a $167 fine (Who makes up these numbers? What's the logic?) and has to take an on-line remedial driver's course. I presume that's to keep points off his license.

And I forgot my platelet donation was scheduled for the second and went ahead and took my aspirin on the first. I was scheduled for two donations this month but now we'll only do the one on the 30th. I feel bad about that.

Happy New Year!

*except for the lurking cop who caught him.