Long Head

Here’s a list of a few things I like: books, audiobooks, music, movies, video games, iPhone apps. I consume these items on a variety of devices: Kindle, iPhone, PC, Mac, Xbox, PS3, Wii. Most of those platforms have a digital download mechanism in place for the software, e.g. you can download music or audiobooks from the iTunes store, Amazon or Audible. You can download movies from iTunes, Amazon, Xbox, or PS3. You download iPhone apps from iTunes. You can download Kindle books from Amazon. You can download many PC games from Steam. Some games are ONLY available for download. The consoles have their own built-in stores that use points or a credit card.

Of all the permutations and combinations, only a handful permit gift-giving. You can “gift” (as we say now) iTunes music, movies, or audiobooks from one account to another. You can do the same with Steam to give someone a PC game. You can purchase an Xbox downloadable game code from Amazon and give it to somebody. That’s it, that’s the full subset of the above available for giving as a gift. You cannot give iPhone apps, Amazon music or movies, Kindle books, or PS3 or Wii downloadable games. The best gift-giving experience is still to give someone a physical item, but as time goes on that’s just not what I want to receive, with the notable exception of movies. I am not yet comfortable owning a purely digital version of a movie. I want to have the disc, preferably blu-ray since the quality is the highest possible.

I use my iPhone quite heavily as an ebook reader. I read in various situations, but one of the most frequent is when I’m in bed. When you’re lying down, either on your back or on your side, it can be quite a strain on your hand muscles to grip the phone and also use your thumb to scroll the pages. So a while back, I came up with a super-cheap way to improve the situation by adding a strap that holds the phone to your hand (actually, it holds it to just your index finger). Whenever I show this trick to other folks, including seasoned, cynical tech folks, they seem impressed. So I thought I would post it for search engines to find. All you need are

• an iPhone or iPod touch, any model
• a case that covers just the back of your phone
• a thick rubber band (you might need to try a few sizes to get one that’s comfy)

I tried other kinds of straps besides a rubber band, but the elasticity and rubber material both make it very comfortable and easy to grip your hand. You might need to try a few different sizes of rubber band, to get the tightness and thickness that are most comfortable for you. Lay all these items out like so:

Notice my Incipio case is looking cracked and old, after just a year! I do not recommend that brand. I think the dust inside is from all the rubber bands I’ve used . Anyway, next you wrap the rubber band around the case. I find that if you do it at an angle, it is more comfortable for your hand and provides more alternatives for finger positions:

Then, put the iphone in the case, on top of the rubber band. You may have to work some slack into the rubber band, so that the phone can nestle into the case without straining against the rubber band. The phone won’t fit all the way into the case since the rubber band has some thickness, but I don’t really notice it.

Here it is from the back:

Now, whenever you want to hold the phone for extended periods, just slip your index finger through the rubber band.

Your hand muscles can relax, and you can much more easily use your thumb to scroll the pages of an ebook:

I’m sure a case manufacturer could do much better with a built-in strap, but so far I have yet to see a case like that. In the meantime, enjoy this trick and enjoy reading ebooks!

On my Mac, I had a movie in my Movies folder called “Sesame Street Season 1 part 1.m4v”. I dragged it to iTunes so I could play it there (for my daughter), and all was well. One day I wanted to move those old Sesame Streets into a folder called “old”, so I made the “old” folder and dragged that movie in, no big deal.

iTunes still had a record of that movie file of course, but what happens when I ask iTunes to play it? What do you think ought to happen? What do you wish would happen? What do you think computers are capable of enabling to happen?

I’ll tell you what happens on a Mac: it plays the movie, and on Windows and all other operating systems, it does not. This is not about iTunes. The distinction holds for any piece of software at all that maintains pointers to files, whether it’s a media organizer, or a Recent Documents feature in a word processor. This is because on Windows, there is no other system-provided mechanism for storing file locations besides paths. Paths include the name of all enclosing folders, plus the filename, plus of course the drive letter on Windows, e.g. “C:\Documents and Settings\Greg\My Movies\Sesame Street Season 1 part 1.m4v”. If I change the path to include “old” partway along the chain, which is what moving the file into “old” amounts to, then the path has changed and the original path is invalid, it points to nothing.

I will not describe the technical details of the mechanism the Mac uses instead, because frankly it doesn’t matter, that’s the whole point. It’s a smart piece of technology that hides from the user, but enables the user to work in a more intuitive way. It permits all software not to be sensitive to changes the user makes to the locations of files or folders.

This mechanism has existed since the early days of the Mac. It’s not some fancy modern cpu-intensive disk-intensive feature that indexes your hard drive or anything. It’s just a better way of storing file locations in software, since users like to move stuff around.

This is one of those differences that I usually have trouble articulating, but subconsciously affects all my decisions, just like the fragility of paths affects many of my decisions when I’m using Windows.

I am in the process of converting the entries into a table, bear with me.

I am amending this post as I go, so check back for more.

I am a huge fan of Peter Jackson’s movie versions of The Lord of the RIngs novels. A HUGE fan. But I am also a fan of the books, which I have read several times, and which I have also done supplementary reading on.

This post is for anyone who enjoyed watching the movies, is willing to re-watch the extended editions, and has a desire to read the books but hesitates to invest the full time required to read 3 novels.

What I have done is go through the books and find the paragraphs where the story differs from the story told in the movies. This serves two purposes. Firstly, for me, there are a few things I felt were especially disappointing or overlooked in the movies, and I want others to share in that opinion with me without having to read every word. Secondly, for you, it will allow you to use the movies to substitute for most of the content of the novels, which when added to the material I am listing here, will give you the entire story as presented in the book. It will also give you good exposure to Tolkien’s writing style and the tone of the books.

I have tried to make it easy for you to follow along no matter what edition of the novels you have. I have provided page numbers for the 3-paperback version published by Ballantine in 1993, and the single-volume collector’s edition. But in addition I provide the chapter number and the snippet of text that begins and ends the excerpt, plus the approximate number of pages the excerpt runs in my paperback edition, just to give you a sense of the size of the excerpt. If you own the Kindle edition, you can probably type in my snippets to find the beginning. I have also annotated each excerpt, to indicate why I am including it.

Note that each novel has two sets of chapters numbered from 1, since it’s actually a 6 ‘book’ story the way Tolkien divided it up.

The Fellowship of the Ring

• Chapter 2
• (< 1 p.) p. 66: "As time went on" to "to appear in the Shire." -- 17 years pass between Bilbo's departure from Bag End and Gandalf's return with the final word on the identity of the Ring. More on what Gandalf was up to next.
• (3 p.) p. 82: “‘You have seen Gollum?’” to “Indeed, Frodo, I fear that he may even think that the long-unnoticed name of Baggins has become important.’” — Gandalf interviewed Gollum twice during the 17-year gap, and on the second occasion he was with Aragorn.
• Chapter 3
• (1 p.) p. 92: “‘You ought to go quietly, and you ought to go soon.’” to “If he does, I really shall turn him into a toad.’” — Frodo doesn’t leave Bag End for Bree for a few months, which is much less urgent than the way Gandalf sends him off in the movie.
• (7 p.) p. 108: “‘Elves!’ exclaimed Sam in a hoarse whisper.” to the end of the Chapter — this is the hobbits’ encounter with some elves led by Gildor. In the movie (extended edition) it is just a quick but pretty scene of some elves walking past singing.
• Chapter 5
• (3 p.) p. 136: “‘Well!’ said Frodo at last” to the end of the poem “We ride before the break of day!“. This is how the four hobbits came to travel together, as opposed to having Frodo and Sam trip over Merry and Pippin on their way, as in the movie.
• Chapters 6-8
• These three chapters are cut in their entirety from the movie, and instead the Hobbits appear immediately in Bree. You can read it all (45 p.) or you can read the highlights, which include a snippet from Chapter 7 and one from Chapter 8.
• Chapter 7
• (1 p.) p. 170: “Indeed so much did Tom know” to “‘nor is aught that goes on two legs.’” — Tom Bombadil is unaffected by the Ring; he is a more powerful force of nature.
• Chapter 8
• (5 p.) p. 180: “Frodo fell forward” — “one of the adventures in which their flights would land them.” — the Hobbits escape the Barrow-Downs and obtain blades of Westernesse. Merry uses this to stab the Witch King in the battle in Return of the King, which is shown in the movie. The blade was forged to fight that very same Witch King long ago in history, so I think it’s cool to know that Merry stabs him later with a special weapon.
• Chapter 10
• (3 p.) p. 211: “‘Well?’ said Strider.” to “If once we shake off the pursuit, I shall make for Weathertop.’” — Strider/Aragorn has the broken sword with him from the start, it is not brought to him later by Elrond, which was a ridiculous idea anyway, I felt.
• Chapter 11
• (2 p.) p. 221: “In the end there was more than three hours delay.” to “‘But I reckon I’ll miss them both before long.’” — introduction to poor abused Bill the Pony, who is in the movie, but only mentioned by name once when Sam sends him away outside the Mines of Moria. He is a significant friend for Sam, so I am including him here.
• Chapter 12
• (< 1 p.) p. 244: "As soon as the daylight was full" to "to seem so much better than its former life." -- short paragraph about Bill's contentment to be with Sam.
• (3 p.) p. 256: “Strider sprang from hiding” to “better than many a good breakfast in the Shire had done.” — The Elf Glorfindel, not Arwen, helps Aragorn and the Hobbits after the attack on Weathertop, and he stays with them rather than taking Frodo on the long horsey chase from the movie.
• Chapter 2, Book 2
• Chapter ?
• Chapter ?

I’m going way out on a limb here, so bear with me.

42% of Americans are pro-choice, according to a new Gallup poll, and 51% are pro-life. My response to this is: since so many Americans disagree with the pro-life stance, then we should stick with the neutral road, which is the policy to keep abortions legal.

Those who are against abortion may avoid having them, and convince those around them not to have them, either. That is also neutral. What is not neutral is to project one’s morality onto others and require adherence without sharing the morality. Not when there is so much disagreement. There is no clear morality here if 42% disagree. Morality is not democracy, I’m sure you’ll agree, but when did it become OK to require conformance to one view in the presence of many others? Maybe in Afghanistan, but not here.

If John is pro-life and Mary has an abortion, she does not commit any sin against John. John is NOT INVOLVED unless he actively and aggressively meddles. Any view that reaches out and forms an opinion about the actions of others is suspect. I question the motives of that person, because I suspect they are overcome by their will to dominate others.

Oh, and by the way, I’d like to see the poll numbers broken down by response to the question “are you anti-abortion?”

I was linked to this video today and really enjoyed it. I have never heard of Alom Shaha, but I hope to see more from him in the future.

Why is Science Important? from Alom Shaha on Vimeo.

I’m reading an interesting book about economics, public policy, and psychology. It’s called Nudge. They make many interesting points that were completely new to me about the way people do not behave in the rational manner modeled by the previous generation of economists. In fact, there are systematic biases in our decision-making that can be quantified and worked around by enacting sensible policies. The cover issues ranging from the Medicare prescription drug plan to 401k plans, to organ donation, to the environment. The ideas are presented clearly with lots of examples. Highly recommended.

I’m so tired of living with Windows Vista. Especially when it comes to USB. Whenever I plug in a USB device that I’ve used a million times before, but I plug it into a different USB port, Vista goes into overdrive. “Searching for driver!” it exclaims in a balloon. The hard drive churns and churns for about two minutes. You can’t do anything else disk-intensive during this time, so basically you’re just waiting at this point. If you click the little tray icon that appears, it says “Searching for driver in installed locations” or something. Finally it’s done and it says “Canon digital camera.” No kidding, the one I plugged in yesterday? Congratulations. Maybe I should plug it into each port in my hub so that I can go through this once and then know that I’m safe.

I love the feeling I get after I tweak what songs are on my iPhone. I added a composer (Mahler) and a Teaching Company course (about Mahler) because I finished listening to another course (about US relations with the Middle East). I added some Beatles album art and the latest Ben Folds album. It’s all freshened up and ready for new listening!

I have a long history with Infocom games (”text adventures” was what I called them as a kid, and “interactive fiction” is the new name). People still write these games, did you know that? There’s a big archive and an annual competition. I haven’t played any of the non-Infocom variety, though I think I ought to try one. I have copies of all the data files for all the original Infocom games from the 80s, and for years there has been an open-source program to load these files and let you play the games. It’s called Frotz. I’ve had a version of Frotz on all my computers for the last 12 years, including my various Palm PDAs. The only Infocom game I’ve ever finished in my life (making it one of like 5 games of any variety that I have ever finished) was “Enchanter”, which I played on the Palm. The latest incarnation of Frotz is for the iPhone, and so of course I downloaded it right away.

PDAs in general are not the easiest devices to type on, though, and there’s lots of typing in Infocom games. So it occurred to me that it would be really cool to speak the commands. After all, there is a limited vocabulary, which should be ideal for getting good accuracy from automatic speech recognition, and furthermore the engine should require a pretty small amount of data. On top of that, what if Frotz synthesized a (pleasant, configurable) computer voice to read you all the text in the game? Then you could set the iPhone down in front of you, close your eyes, and enjoy a nice bit of interactive fiction by having a dialog with thin air. All of a sudden the very stodgiest and oldest of technology leapfrogs three decades of competition and actually sounds futuristic! I patted myself on the back for thinking of such a great idea, and told myself I’d take a stab at it myself “one day,” since speech recognition is just a hop, skip and a jump away from machine translation.

But that’s not all, there’s a punchline to this story. It further occurred to me that I wouldn’t have been the first to think of this idea, so I did a Google search. The link I found is inside a code repository for Frotz itself, namely the iPhone version. Actually, this is just a branch of Frotz, so I checked the general Frotz SourceForge repository as well and the same file is there too. It’s a placeholder for future work on just this idea, but it’s super-vague and kind of creepy, what with the whole “commissioned by a presently undisclosed party” thing. The technology looks good, it’s all open-source stuff released by academics, which was where I figured I would start looking as well.

So who wrote this document, and when, and when do they intend to come out of the shadows with the result of their work? Who knows — but it sure is a weird end to my story.