Apolitically Incorrect » Featured

Moving to blog.oak-tree.us

Rob Oakes — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:25:09 +0000

When I first started this blog, I thought it would be an experiment. I was exploring WordPress as a platform and wanted to know how customizable it was. I wanted to know if it could grow and expand with my interests. I wanted it to be a place where I could post pictures and maybe experiment with podcasts and other internet stuff.

What I did not intend, however, was for it to become a full-fledged website. It was supposed to be a side project, and I figured that I would eventually tire of it and move on. That's why it was set up at oak-tree.us/blog rather than oak-tree.us. Oak-Tree.us was always meant to be something special. (Just to save you the trouble, there's still nothing there. I have yet to find the "something".)

Over the past two years, oak-tree.us/blog has become quite a bit more than an experiment. For a little hobby website, it gets a respectable amount of traffic (sometimes as many as 1,000 hits in a single day) and I think it's time that it have it's own respectable domain. For that reason, I am moving the website from the current address (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog) to something relatively unique. (For me, this almost counts as living dangerously.)

From here on out, the site's address will be:

http://blog.oak-tree.us

The good news, however, is that is where the changes end. I only have so much tolerance for change, and a different Url is about all I can handle. Everything else will remain the same. All of the content, comments and files have been migrated. I'm even using the same WordPress theme. The only thing that's different is the Url. Thus, please update your bookmarks and feedreaders and I hope to you over on the new site!

(Just so people and various search robots don't become confused, I'll keep a copy of the old stuff here. The archives will still work, and the file links will still be active; but comments are closed and the site will be unmaintained. For updates, releases of Time Drive, LyX-Outline news and book related material, please go to http://blog.oak-tree.us. Thanks.)

Temples and Timelines

Rob Oakes — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:55:14 +0000

Newsweek has a fascinating article about an archaeological site at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey that is well worth a look.

The site is the oldest religious temple ever discovered. Preliminary carbon dating has determined that some of the artifacts date from 9,400 BC, which makes the place about 11,500 years old. (Which, just to be clear, is 7000 years before the Great Pyramid and 6500 years before Stonehenge.) The article further explains:

The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals and even agriculture – the first embers of civilization. … [It] may be the very first thing that human beings ever built.

And yet, the site is amazing. The pillars show beautiful stone carvings and there are examples of sophisticated engineering techniques. The stone circles are nearly 30 yards across with pillars that stand more than 17 feet tall. Many of the stones (some weighing up to 50 tons) were first quarried and then transported half a kilometer to the site, where they were erected. What staggers me, though, is that the stone circles were roofed.

This quote from Ian Hodder, head of archaeology at Stanford University, summarizes my response pretty well:

[Göbekli Tepe] is unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date. The huge stones and fantastic, highly refined art [changes everything]. It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong.

This doesn’t happen often. Scientists don’t admit mistakes and call for established theories to be overturned. But when faced with such a revolutionary piece of evidence, you have little choice.

Göbekli is literally an outlier in every way. It shows engineering, organization, and artistic sophistication that seems to materialize out of nowhere. The only other comparable examples won’t appear for five thousand years.

To really put this in perspective, consider the timeline below. Arrayed across the bottom axis are the reigns of several ancient civilizations: the Chinese, Romans, Egyptians and Mesopotamians. In addition to this information, I’ve also placed the approximate dates of the the ice age, stone age and examples of religious and cultural monuments (the oldest of which dates to about 3500 BC).

When compared with Göbekli, the great civilizations and monuments of the ancient world seem to to huddle in an upstart mob at the right of the chart. Even the very oldest of the examples, a Mesopotamian palace, is separated from Göbekli by the same span of time that divides the ancient age from the modern day.

Such an amazing and sophisticated example at such an early date, literally, boggles my mind. It's absolutely amazing. And, paradoxically, the amazement and wonder helps to explain why Göbekli has remained essentially unknown. A discovery of this magnitude demands enormous attention and dedication. It takes almost as much as it gives, particularly from those that discovered it; and not every scientist is willing to give that kind of commitment. Thus, I completely understand the response of the man who discovered the site.

[Unable to interpret what he saw], the [American] archeologist who stumbled on [on the site] in the 1960s simply walked away.

But, even so, the evidence at Göbekli has the potential to completely transform the history of civilization. And I, for one, look forward to seeing what emerges.

Note: You can view a high resolution PDF of the timeline by clicking on the image, or here.

Image Gallery: The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

Rob Oakes — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:31:37 +0000

When I graduated from college and had to choose between a career in industry or academics, I found it to be an easy decision: I stayed in academics. I like to have my head in the clouds and enjoy the intellectual lifestyle. (I actually consider the label of “absentminded” to be a compliment.)

It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the most enjoyable aspects of writing a book has been the opportunity to research my subject. My reading list has included books on analytic design, illustration, anatomy, typesetting, scientific communication, web technologies, LaTeX, the history of science, statistics and informational graphics. And as I worked my way through it, I took some extremely interesting side trips. One of the most intriguing, however, was an extended tangent through the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Da Vinci died in the year 1519, nearly five hundred years ago. Yet, the modern world remains fascinated by him. His name adorns the side of best selling books and conspiracy fiction; and his drawings have become cultural icons. As an example of his popularity:

In October of 2009, Martin Kemp, a professor of art and history at the University of Oxford, found a portrait of an Italian girl. Up until Kemp took an interest, it was widely accepted that portrait had been painted sometime in the nineteenth century by an unknown artist. After a great deal of investigation and the use of a multispectral camera, however, Kemp discovered something startling. The painting had actually been done by Leonardo and nearly overnight, it went from a value of 19,000 British pounds to over 100 million.

I’m no different than the masses. Leonardo fascinates me. He had a very distinctive way of seeing the world and an engaging style. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to lose yourself in the details of his work. Given my interest, a thorough study of Leonardo’s notebooks seemed only natural.

What I didn’t foresee, however, is that I would start to digitally collect his sketches; and in the past several months, I’ve put together a rather eclectic mix from across the internets. Earlier today, I realized that the images might be of interest to others as well; thus, I’ve created a special online gallery for them. It can be found under “Art and Photography” –> “The DaVinci Notebooks” To get there more quickly, you could also just click here.

Enjoy!

About This Book Thing

Rob Oakes — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:22:09 +0000

In the past few weeks, I’ve had several observant readers ask about one of my “secret” projects. They’ve wondered what I’m up to and why it’s detracting from other endeavors. After answering another query this morning, I decided that it’s probably time to speak openly about it. So, here’s my public confession: I’m writing a book.

It’s about scientific and professional writing and open source. Moreover, it will be interesting, intriguing and revolutionary. (Yes, I have an inflated sense of ego.)

Before really diving into the details, I’d like to give a bit of personal background. This might help you understand why I’m passionate about the subject.

Background

Ten years ago, had someone told me that I would end up a scientist and engineer, I would have laughed at them. At the time, I had just started at University and I was fully set on a career in either illustration, design or architecture. I was much too “visual” and “right-brained” to surround myself by geeks, freaks and nerds. It didn’t help that I spent a huge amount of time grooming myself to be an “artist”.

During high school, I had been cursed with moderate talent and highly indulgent instructors. They praised my artwork. They called it interesting and innovative. They encouraged me to refine my technique and to major in visual arts. So, I did.

But as time went on, I realized that I wasn’t very happy. I realized that I had other interests. I enjoyed art, I did well in it; but art classes weren’t my favorites. That honor, as it turned out, was reserved for mathematics and science.

There was also another problem, I found that I lacked the discipline required to systematically create an individual style and build a portfolio. I wanted create art for myself, not for other people; and that is a fatal flaw in an illustrator (the type of work that most interested me). Illustration, by definition, is work that has been requested for a particular use. I was more interested in my own whims than those of potential clients. Thus, not long after recognizing my problem, I decided to go a different direction and changed my major to engineering.

Analytic Design

But even though I condemned myself to a life of investigation and exploration, I remained very interested in art, photography, layout and design. This interest (and some substantial urging by the doctor I worked for at the time) resulted in a fascination with where science and art seemed to intersect.

And this is when I noticed, like many others, a strange trend. If you look at the work of those considered the greatest minds in history – Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Galileo Gallilei, Thomas Jefferson, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, etc. – you find something intriguing. In nearly every case, those recognized as brilliant weren’t judged solely on the quality of their thinking, but also by how they presented and explained their insights. Indeed, the thing identified as “brilliance” was not merely exceptional thinking, but clear communication. After, all, clever thoughts and ingenious solutions mean nothing if they can’t be captured, understood and disseminated.

What is often overlooked, however, is just how much work is required to explain ideas which aren’t inherently simple, and that raises an important problem. Communication in general, and writing in particular, is very hard. To distill random and chaotic thought into a coherent and logical narrative requires energy, time and effort. This is especially true of scientific, technical or professional subjects.

Such documents contain an enormous amount of baggage: figures, theorems, mathematical equations, algorithms, cross references and indexes. And while such things simplify the life of a reader, they can positively drown a writer.

Tools and Technology

Luckily, however, there are tools and technologies that can simplify the organizational side of communication and allow for a writer to focus on the important parts: words, pictures and evidence. But finding these tools and making them work together can be a very daunting task. And that’s why I’m writing a book.

In its pages, I want to introduce principles and ideas that are characteristic of good communication. For example, why was Albert Einstein able to convince both scientists and the general public that E=MC^2? Why do we still read the scientific treatises of Isaac Newton or Charles Darwin – centuries after their ideas have been edited, amended, extended and restated? Why does scientific communication often fail and what can be done to prevent breakdowns or misunderstanding?

Then, I want to show how those principles can be applied. I’ll look at open source tools and how they work. What programs are available for capturing information and references, organizing thoughts, and eventually creating a cohesive manuscript? How can open source tools be used to create beautiful charts, maps, graphs and tables? How can the process of collaboration be simplified?

Finally, I want to show why open source is awesome. I want to demonstrate why it is functionally superior to proprietary alternatives; and I want to do this in a way that shows it to be accessible. (Far too often, I find that people are afraid of open source because they view at as “complicated”, which is very unfortunate.)

Conclusion

When I first switched from art to science, I found myself confused, lost and overwhelmed. Not only did I need to adjust to a completely new discipline and culture, but I also found that no one used the same computer programs! And while it took some time to understand why, once I did, I realized that I would never go back to the “old” way of doing things.

Thus, I’m writing the book I wish someone had given me as a new science student; a book that explained the functional bits of scientific and professional writing with lots of examples, code, and pretty pictures. This is what I’ve tried to put together, something that is part theoretical treatise but mostly instructional manual.

So, for those of you who have wondered where I’ve been and where I’ve wandered; that’s the answer. I’m writing book. The good news, however, is that it’s nearly finished. And it’s in a state where I can start to share thoughts and examples from its chapters. In the next few months, expect to see some of that information here.

But because I’m passionate about the subject, I would love to hear others have to say. What makes for a good piece of informative writing? What are examples of clear communication? What lessons might we in the sciences learn from others? And what tricks do you have for being more efficient?

Time Drive 0.3: Better, Easier, More Refined

Rob Oakes — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:16:56 +0000

Imagine how awesome it would be if this announcement read: “Time Drive has been completely rewritten from scratch (yet again) to take better advantage of the paradigms of modern computing! Version 0.3 has hundreds of updates and new features which will make your life easier and more fulfilled!”

There's just one little problem … such a hyper inflated announcement wouldn't necessarily be true. (Marketing hyperbole, I never knew thee!) The truth is this: Time Drive is a simple backup program that does a good job of reliably backing up your data. It offers a nice list of potential backup options: from an attached hard drive, to a computer over the network, or across the internet. It makes it easy to search for and restore a lost file. In short, Time Drive seeks to change the world by making an act of computer maintenance more convenient.

But the real test of a program isn’t how well it works, but how easy it is to fix when broken. A good program does what you want, but a better program helps you get back on track when things go wrong. Back when I was looking at other backup programs available for Linux, this was my number one frustration. Most of the applications would work (for the most part), but I could never troubleshoot or repair problems when they happened. There just wasn’t enough information available.

For an example, let’s take SBackup. It’s a lovely little program, except you have no way of knowing if it is working. It doesn’t keep log files, it doesn’t notify you if a backup job failed. It doesn’t let you know if it is running. Its simplicity is actually symptomatic of a flaw: it’s incomplete.

These were problems that I desperately wanted to avoid with Time Drive. And version 0.3 includes a number of refinements that solve these issues while at the same time making make it better, easier and more refined. In the rest of this post, I’ll explain why.

Better

There’s a very good reason why Time Drive works with the Ubuntu notifications system and has progress bar notifications for nearly everything. From the very first, I wanted the program to notify the user of what it was doing. But in versions 0.1 and 0.2, there was an essential part missing: some kind of program log. It was a big omission, and several people complained rather vocally about it.

Logs and Notifications

And it's the first thing that was added to version 0.3. Time Drive now logs its activities and will notify you of errors that happen behind the scenes. If a backup job fails silently, you can put on your detective hat and go find out why. If your internet connection cuts out while using cron to automatically backup your computer, you’ll get a warning the next time that you run the program. Backup statistics, problems, errors, even love notes; they’re all there. To open the log, just click on the blue information button on the main user interface.

Progress Indicators for Absolutely Everything

In addition to the log, we fixed a second oversight. Versions 0.1 and 0.2 lacked an indicator that told you how far a backup job had progressed. In 0.3, that problem’s been solved.

Easier

Great. Time Drive does a better job of letting you know about problems, but what about fixing them? For example, what will version 0.3 do when a backup job fails, or your internet connection cuts out at the wrong time? When these things happen, Duplicity leaves unneeded files on the backup drive. (Files, by the way, which are a pain to remove.) How does Time Drive make repair jobs easier?

Well … I’m glad that you asked. Time Drive now has a cleanup function. If it detects a mess or unneeded files, the program will automatically go about restoring things to right. And if you happen to be one of those obsessively tidy people, you can manually run the same tool by going to the advanced settings pane for the corresponding folder.

More Refined

So much for better notifications and easier management of messes. But what about the promised refinements? Where can you look to find those?

For starters, take a look at the settings for remote connections. All of the input boxes have been reworked for cleaner input. While Time Drive and Duplicity have always supported non-standard port numbers, it wasn’t necessarily clear how how to configure them. Now, it is.

More importantly, though, the user interface adapts to your choices. If you choose to make a backup to an attached drive, you aren’t going to be asked for a server and port. If you choose FTP, however, those options will be there. Best of all, you no longer have to keep track of which types of connections require two slashes in the connection url and which one uses just one. Time Drive will do the configuration and accounting for you!

Looking Toward the Future

And those are only the changes that you will see. There’s a lot more that has happened behind the scenes to make version 0.3 the best release of Time Drive ever. You might call these “future enhancements.” They include:

International Support. If you don’t speak English, Time Drive now has you covered. Dutch, French and Spanish translations are in the works. Want to see Time Drive translated to Chinese? Come help out!
Documented API. You know that a software program has grown up and reached maturity when you have a documented API.
Automated Installation and Upgrades for Linux Users. One of the best things about using Linux is apt-get. It keeps your entire system up to date with the most recent software, and the Time Drive project at Launchpad now has it’s own PPA.

Additional Announcements

As you can see, Time Drive is managing to evolve and add new features at a pretty good clip. But as we do so, it’s also time to face a pretty harsh reality. An easy to install and compatible Windows version simply isn’t going to happen.

Producing a version of Time Drive for Windows has always been extraordinarily hard, there are just too many *nix dependencies. To use it requires Cygwin, a compatible version of PyQt and a great deal of black magic and prayer. Changes that are compatible with Mac OS X and Linux break the Windows version, and vice versa. After months of wrestling with it, I’ve decided that It’s just not worth the headache. So, from version 0.3 onward, we will not be targeting Windows as a development platform.

For those of you waiting with baited breath for a Windows release, my apologies. But I should point out that Time Drive isn’t really needed on Windows. There are a number of fantastic backup programs available. The built-in backup is actually quite good in, and if that doesn’t suit your fancy there are some really fantastic commercial alternatives.

Conclusion

In summary, version 0.3 is a nice, incremental release of Time Drive. It patches some important holes and does a much better job of notifying users of what’s going on. It’s easier to manage your backups and clean up disasters. Lastly, it’s more refined with a bunch of spectacular back end improvements. So while version 0.3 may be an incremental improvement, we’ve got a foundation that will let us release even better versions in the future. This announcement might not be filled with marketing speak and exaggerated claims, but you can bet that future announcements will do a used car salesman proud.

Backup for Linux, Done Right - Part 2: Time Drive 0.1

Rob Oakes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:39:48 +0000

In part 1 of this article, I shared a few of the frustrations and reasons why I decided to write my own backup utility rather than submit to the tyranny of currently available solutions. While some might find those ruminations interesting, the vast majority are probably far more interested in the end result. There is a reason why “Get to the point” is one of the most important sentences in the English language.

Here’s the short version: After becoming tremendously frustrated by the state of backup on Linux, I decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own tool.

And though I only want a few things, I want that tool to do each very well. First, I’m looking for a solution that can incrementally backup over the network and let me restore a file from an existing snapshot. Second, those snapshots should be compressed, encrypted and secure. Third, it should be easy to browse old backups for existing files and restoration should be a one-click affair. Fourth, I want a backup system that can protect me from disaster, carelessness and pathological stupidity.Time Drive is based on the excellent command line program, Duplicity though it was also inspired by another backup utility, Back In Time. Because it uses Duplicity for its backend, Time Drive plugs into the same industrial strength utilities used to backup and restore enormous sets of enterprise data. It just removes the industrial level complexity.

Like Back In Time for Linux and Time Machine for Mac OS X, Time Drive not only keeps a copy of the most recent file, but it remembers how that file looked at many points in the past. Put another way, it creates an incremental snapshot which lets you restore to a previous version should you so desire.

The Time Drive main window is designed to be simple and functional. Options related to backing up files are on the left, options related to restoring files are on the right. If you want to restore from a remote archive which is not currently specified in your settings, you can do so through the “Advanced Restore Options.”

Over the Network or Across the World

Backups can be made to remote servers and web services that support any one of the following protocols: file transfer protocol (ftp), secure shell (ssh), secure copy (scp), rsync, webdav (http), and secure webdav (https). Time Drive also supports backups to a locally attached drive or mounted volume. This includes shares that are mounted with virtual filesystems like sshfs, smbfs, and s3fs.

You can configure the remote backup by clicking on the general tab of the settings pane. Then, move the option to “Use a remote directory (SCP, WebDav or FTP).” From the drop down list, choose the communications protocol.

If making a backup to ftp or webdav (http), enter the name of the host and the path to your backup folder as a standard web url. It should look like:

computer.name.com/path/to/folder

For example, the backup path to my webdav share is:

backup.oak-tree.us/RobOakes/Backup

If backing up by scp or ssh, you will need to use a second slash after the server name, for example:

backup.oak-tree.us//RobOakes/Backup

Next, enter the username and password that you use to access the server and some sort of passkey in the “Encrypt Files” box. (While future versions of Time Drive will allow users to choose whether or not they wish to encrypt their files, this has not yet been implemented.) When finished, you can check the connection by clicking on the “Check Connection” button to the right of url text box. If Time Drive is able to connect to the store, a little green check mark will appear.

Restoring Files

Should you delete a file that you needed, you can quickly browse or search the archive to find it and restore it. Need to restore a bunch of files? You can add as many as needed to the queue and then restore them with a single click. The restore dialog is accessed by clicking on the “Add files” button of the main window. The restore dialog itself allows you to browse the folders available in your backup, and any subfolders of the archive.

But what if you need access to a file in your work archive and you happen to be at home? Time Drive makes it easy to brose and restore from any archive, anywhere. Simply type in the url and click “Add files” to enter the restore files dialog.

Set It, Then Forget It

While Time Drive can be configured to work many different ways, file backup should ultimately be a very simple affair. True, it’s nice to have more advanced tools available, but most things in life aren’t really all that complicated.

As a result, setting up Time Drive for the first time is designed to be as easy as possible. First, pick where you want to perform your backups: either to the local machine, or across the network. Next, enter in a passkey to encrypt your backup files and keep them safe. Finally, choose which folders you want to see included in the job. When finished, click “Ok.”

Because each folder is a run as a separate duplicity script, you can always re-add that folder at a later time and Time-Drive will update the existing snapshot with the most recent information. All of the existing history will be there should you ever need to access it.

Time Drive also makes it easy to schedule automated backups through the use of the powerful crontab utility available on most *nix machines. Because it uses cron, there is no need to have a dedicated background process. (Though cron must be running for scheduled backups to work.)

Automated backups are configured by opening the settings dialog and navigating to the “Options” tab. Then, just pick how frequently you would like the program to run: every hour, day, week or month. When done, select “Ok.”

Notifications and Feedback

When looking at other solutions, I quickly became frustrated by the way which they handled user notifications. In some cases, the program provided a level of detail that was simply overwhelming. In others, it didn’t provide any feedback whatsoever; even when there was a problem.

With Time Drive, I’ve tried to split the difference. It uses the notification system of Ubuntu 9.04 and will let a user know when new backup jobs start and it finishes, if there is a problem, it will let you know that too. But for those who would rather not be bothered with such trivial things, the notifications can be easily disabled through the settings tab.

Beta Software

Even though Time Drive is relatively full featured and offers a convenient backup package, it is still beta software. That means that it needs to be tested, beat upon and otherwise tortured. As you do so, I would ask that you be a bit patient and mind the potholes. If it doesn’t quite meet your needs, please leave a bug report or feature request on the bugtracker page. Be as specific as possible and I will try to incorporate your ideas into the next release.

Conclusion

With Time Drive, I finally have a backup utility for Linux that does things right. It can backup to a computer on the network or across the internet; keeps incremental snapshots of only the files that have changed; makes file restoration a one-click affair; and keeps my personal information safe. What’s better, no tweaks or hacks are required to make it work the way that I want. In short, I finally have something that “Just Works” without having to stick some stupid qualifier in front.
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If you are interested in downloading, testing or using Time Drive, you can find additional information on the project homepage. This includes installation instructions for Time Drive, Duplicity and PyQt in addition to the program documentation.

Backup for Linux, Done Right- Part 1: A Mini Melodrama

Rob Oakes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:58:08 +0000

It is a terrible thing to realize that you are stuck in a rut. Being in a rut effectively means that you’ve stopped advancing and life has evolved to monotony. No one likes to be around people in ruts, but it’s even worse to discover that you are personally trapped in one. And, most unfortunately, I am in a rut.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the home page of this blog. You will likely notice that a full six of the ten most recent posts have dealt with one subject: backing up your computer. That’s pretty conclusive evidence of a rut.

Now, backing up your computer is a very important thing to do; you should do it regularly and have a plan. But … well … it’s boring. Talking, thinking and writing about nothing but backup is dull. As one of the doctors I work with likes to say, “That isn’t sexy. If I’m going to spend any time with it – women, food, wine; it doesn’t matter – it should be sexy.”

He’s got a valid point, backup is not “sexy” and I’d like to write about things that are, at least for a while. This, therefore, will be my last post on backups, archives, or servers for the relatively foreseeable future (technology is just too cool to lay it aside for too long). But before doing that, I want summarize where I ended up in my quest for the ultimate backup system.

Backup on Mac is taken care of, I use Time Machine to a Samba share. More adventurous persons than I might even say that this arrangement approaches sexy. It’s convenient, fast, and robust. It even covers disaster recovery.

Backup on Windows is also covered. The built-in file backup is easy to use and works well. Moreover, setting up a disaster recovery system is relatively painless.

But the third major operating system, Linux, is a bit of the odd-man out. Certainly, you can find some excellent backup systems, Back In Time is one such example. With a bit of work, you can even tweak it so that it is almost perfect. But it’s the “almost perfect” and closely related cousins (“mostly useful” and “good enough”) that are the problem. They have those stupid qualifiers – almost, mostly, enough – bolted on.

Any time you hear a qualifier, you can rest assured that you aren’t going to like what follows. Consider the rather innocuous phrase, “that may be a problem.” Here, the term “may,” makes an already bad situation much worse. Instead of specifying some probability of problemhood, it all but guarantees it. Positive qualifiers are just as bad.

As a result, it angers me that nearly every backup program available for Linux requires some kind of qualifier. It shouldn't be like this. Linux is a brilliant operating system in practically every way. It is highly integrated, wonderfully modular and tremendously easy to extend. So … after finding that nearly every backup utility in existence has failed to meet my needs, I found the situation intolerable and decided to do something about it.

I wrote my own.

Backgrounds and Backends

Fixation and ruts can make you do silly things like that. Instead of just accepting the limitations of an existing situation, a fixated person will demand that the world bend to their expectations. While this sometimes leads to great advances, more often it results in interpersonal disasters of epic scale. And the general rule is, the more menial the detail, the larger the scandal. (At this point, it might be argued that backup to an external hard drive versus across the network is a rather menial detail. To all such detractors, all I can say is: stuff it. This is my story.)

Basic Needs

Luckily, however, the story of my backup utility isn’t nearly so sordid. This is probably because my needs are actually pretty simple. I need a backup utility to do just a few things, but I require that it does them well:

It should create versioned snapshots of my drive. This lets me restore a file to any number of past states.
The utility should only transfer the portions of the file or directory that have changed. This makes the backup operation quick and efficient.
I should be able to backup over a network or across the internet. (Very important!)
Restoring a file should be quick, easy and painless. A backup is only as good as your ability to get at the information. And like it or not, information will be lost due to disaster, carelessness or miscellaneous stupidity.

Being a somewhat clever person, I didn't to avoid duplicating as much work as possible. As a result, I started creating my program by reviewing the application that comes closest to doing what I want: Back In Time. The Back In Time user interface is simple and elegant. More importantly, though, the configuration options make sense. Whether you want to run a backup, give your snapshot a name, or just get rid of it; you don’t have to go hunting to find the controls. Additionally, Back In Time makes good use of existing open source programs to actually do the backing up. Though they might be a bit old, rsync and the Unix copy command, cp, are a formidable duo.

But I quickly discovered something unfortunate, Back In Time really couldn’t be tweaked to meet all of my requirements. You see, it utilizes a technique called hard-linking to create space efficient repositories. But hard links only work as long as they are on the same hard drive. Because I want to store my files on the network or across the internet, that isn't good enough.

Duplicity

So, I started to look elsewhere for other options, which is when a colleague pointed me toward a command line script called Duplicity. In a striking bit of irony, while the GUI tools of Linux backup are all fundamentally flawed, the command line versions are the best in existence. They easily accomplish all of the requirements on my list, and do a great many things I’ve never even heard of. As a result, if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and hit the learning curve, there is nothing that you can’t accomplish. And, as you might deduce from my glowing introduction, Duplicity makes short work of my requirements list.

Can it do incremental backup? Yes. What about backup over the network? Ditto. In fact, it handles most protocols I’ve heard of, and quite a few that I haven’t. Should incremental through ssh, webdav, ftp, smb, or imap be insufficient, it also supports backup to Amazon S3. File restoration is also relatively painless, though you have to work through the command line interface to do so.

And that’s only for starters, Duplicity also supports encryption via passphrase or passkey, compression of the files into archives, and local caching of file signatures so that backup operations are lightning quick. I decided relatively quickly that Duplicity would be the ideal backend for my utility.

Frontend and Features

But while a solid foundation is a great starting point, it can only get you so far. After all, you don’t brag up the brickwork and reinforced concrete of your newly purchased home, you’re far more likely to show off the kitchen and home theater.

For a program, the points of interest are going to be the user interface. Which makes two lessons learned while working on LyX-Outline very important: 1) It’s really hard to put together an interface that is both intuitive and uncluttered. 2) I’m really bad at it. Both points prompted me to act on the advice of a famous painter:

Good artists copy; great artists steal.

Thus, I decided to steal the user interface from Back In Time. (It’s open source, which makes it okay.) And speaking from a practical standpoint, why wouldn’t I? The developer spent a great deal of time working out how he wanted his program to work. It would be silly to duplicate that effort. Moreover, the fact that I was able to rave about it for nearly 2800 words means that it wasn't wasted effort. As you browse the menus and configuration panes of my derivative tool, you will probably notice that it bears a striking resemblance to other programs. A few things will be “innovatively different,” but not many. Just remember, I stole the interface. Wholesale. But I’m a discriminating thief, and only stole the best parts.

Which brings us to the real point of interest of this post and my program: the feature list. In part 2 of this article, we’ll take a look at my little creation, which I have unimaginatively dubbed “Time Drive.”

Introducing LyX-Outline 0.1

Rob Oakes — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:16:12 +0000

Writing anything - whether it be a book, or a short story or an angry letter to your boss - is substantially more than starting from the first idea moment of inspiration and continuing to the final draft. Rather, writing involves a fair number of idea fragments, fleeting moments of inspiration, and a tremendous number of dead ends.

It is incredibly unfortunate that most writing software, however, is geared to organizing and structuring the document after most of the hard work has already happened. It simply assumed that most of the planning and layout has already happened and the author is ready to string words together. Unfortunately, this assumption overlooks one important truth: ideas are best defined as they are expressed. Thus, it's usually about the time that the a writer sits down to compose the draft, that the document's true structure becomes apparent. In my own case, this often leads to a flurry of reorganization. And it’s during the restructuring that the real battle begins.

When in full creative passion, I am typically working with three or four different programs all at the same time: OneNote is open so that I can access my ideas, Word is there to start collecting the somewhat finished text, and I'll also probably be using a MindMapper so that I can see a visual representation of the document structure. The tools are separate and don't communicate with one another. Thus, a change made in one place needs to be made everywhere. And all too often, that I end up fighting the word-processor and the notetaker, and the mind mapper. It is tremendously frustrating to battle the tools of your adopted trade. Luckily, I am not alone in my frustration.

In the past everal years, a number of programs have become available that leave the linear model of writing behind. On the Mac platform, one such tool looms above the others: Scrivener. Central to Scrivener's function are two important metaphors: that of the outline and that of the corkboard. And it works really, really well. There are just a few minor problems. First: Scrivener is only available for Mac and Scrivener's lead developer has made it clear that there won't be versions for other platforms. Second: Scrivener was really designed with creative writing in mind. Thus, while it can be used for long and complicated documents, this is a slightly less than straightforward process. Last, to create said fancy documents, Scrivener requires the raw use of a markup language (and all of the associated headaches that come with it).

The document processor, LyX, however, excels in many areas where Scrivener falls short. It is built upon the mature and robust underpinnings of LaTeX, the typesetting language of choice in the science and engineering. And more importantly, it is easy to use (where LaTeX most decidedly is not). But it fails in the same way as Microsoft Word and other word processors, it is a linear writing tool and doesn’t offer a great deal of work-flow flexibility. That is where LyX-Outline comes in.

LyX-Outline is a marriage between Scrivener's organizational tools and LyX's typesetting tools.

Looking for Flexibility

While you can download and play with LyX-Outline, please reember that is still a forthcoming add-on to the LyX. And while you find it useful, this release is an alpha level technical preview. Right now, you can view the structure of your document at a glance in the corkboard, move things around, poke about in the outliner, and even jot your winded thoughts with the very basic plain text editor.

But even though some of the functionality is lacking, you can start to explore. And as you do so, one of the first things you might notice is that LyX-Outline has been designed with flexibility in mind. Nearly all of the tools can be docked, ripped away, or hidden if they are not needed. The work environment should adapt to your work habits, not the other way round. Whenever the writer needs to adapt to the environment, a moment of productivity and a spark of life has been lost.

A Quick Overview

The main interface consists of three main elements. This includes the document map, the editor pane, and the dock tools. As described above, the document map and the dock tools can be relocated, docked or left free floating (depending on your preference). And if you don't find them useful, they can quickly be hidden.

The document map lets you see a hierarchical list of every item in your project. Selecting one of the items displays its content's in the editor pane. The editor pane is the main text processing portion of LyX-Outlineand can be toggled between a text editor (plain text only at the moment) and a corkboard view.

In addition to the main editor and corkboard, there is an additional corkboard and outliner tool available as a dockable widgets. Just as in Scrivener, you can view the pieces of your documents in many way. Every item is a document, and an index card, and an outline point. They are intimately tied together and any change made to the order or content of one will be reflected everywhere. The document map is used to navigate the content of the main window.

The dock tools, however, can be controlled separately. You can view the entire document, or filter to a specific level in the hierarchy via a drop-down menu. In the future, filtering by search term, keyword, document structure, or tag will also be possible.

Item Summary and Organization

The health of any written work can also be greatly improved by connecting a simple synopsis to a larger chunk of text. This makes it much easier to check the flow of your work at a glance . A summary can easily be added to any individual item in the collection by double clicking on it's index card in the corkboard or the synopsis column in the outliner. The summary text is independent from the full text and can include pertinent information that helps you structure the document. For now, the synopsis must be entered by hand; however, future versions will allow for automatic generation of the synopsis from the text.

Of Outlines and Index Cards

Scrivener (and LyX-Outline as it's dedicated clone) utilizes multiple metaphors. The Corkboard may be useful in some instances, but will be less helpful in others. Ditto for the outliner. Either way, it is important to know that both the corkboard and the outliner display sub-items. If you are using the main corkboard, these sub items will be connected to the active item in the document map. If you are using the dock tool, they can be filtered via the drop-down menu. From the corkboard, you can then edit items by double clicking on either their title, or their summary. You can reorder them through drag and drop. From the outliner, you can add new items or sub items, or delete them from the document. You can also change their order (by using the up or down arrow buttons) or change their indentation level (with the left and right arrow buttons).

Minding the Potholes

And that is a very quick tour of the Outline modules for LyX. As noted above, this release of LyX-Outline is a prototype and it is still very far from its intended target. Thus, if it doesn't meet your needs right out of the box, please be patient. The mantra of OpenSource is "release early, release often." In this case, I have erred on the side of early and as you might suspect, there are some dangerously rough edges. These include:

Unfinished interfaces. Most of your manipulation will probably need to happen in the outliner pane. This includes adding or removing new document nodes, as well as indenting or un-indenting the document selection. The final version will include ubiquitous drag and drop.
A crappy editor. The current editor is plain text is a placeholder only. Ultimately, LyX-Outline will be integrated with the LyX editor and have access to all of it's very powerful features. It is important to keep that future in mind.
No export option. While you can save and open past documents, there is currently no way to actually get them out of the program.

In it's current incarnation, this prototype is valuable for pecking out thoughts and playing with the organizational tools. I am releasing it so that people can see how the tools might look in their final form and provide feedback. Please do so. Download the source, use it as you can, and let me know what you think. What things work? What things don’t? What features would you as users like to see?

Update: You can download the source code and find installation instructions on the LyX-Outline project page.

Save Your Favorite Show By Watching Online

Rob Oakes — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:13:13 +0000

Whenever I hear the statistics on television watching, I get more than a bit nauseous. “According to the AC Nielson Co, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (~28 hours/week or 2 months non-stop TV watching per year).” I’m not nauseous for the significant amount of wasted time, but for the fact that there is almost nothing worth watching. How can the average American spend four hours a day watching hideous reality TV and Law and Order reruns? Eck.

Sure, are a few awesome shows (Battlestar Galactica for one), but the majority of television is utter rot. And sure, reality TV may be responsible for the cultural illiteracy of entire generation of American youth, but the real problem lies among timid television executives. Despite noble sentiments to the contrary, television (in addition to music and literature) is a business. (A horrifically expensive business.) TV executives want to make money, which is done by running programs that are popular and profitable. This usually means that instead of trying something different, they opt for renewing Law and Order: White Collar Crime over something, for lack of a better word, good.

That’s why it’s such a shock and pleasure to see a series like Kings emerge. (Put out by NBC of all people!!!) Kings isn’t just different, it’s bold. It is a retelling of the biblical story of David, except set in modern times. I came across Kings when browsing through the iTunes music store. They were giving the pilot episode away for free, so I decided to download it and give it a try. I was blown away.

The writing is smart, the acting is excellent and the production is closer to what you would see in a motion picture than on the small screen. Like the biblical account, Kings gets the Goliath bit out of the way right up front, because, Goliath is probably the the least interesting part of the David saga.

Unfortunately, like many other promising television shows, NBC handled the launch of this one poorly. First, they spent millions on an initial promotion. Then, when the show failed to gain a massive audience after two showings, they changed the show’s air time from Sunday evenings to Saturday (the worst night of television) without bothering to notify anyone. They were then surprised that the ratings went down.

Kings isn’t like an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, it is going require some time to find it’s audience. However, timid television executives aren’t known for the patience (or their foresight). As a result, it looks like a piece of interesting television is headed for the chopping block. And that’s a real shame, because Kings is one of the first shows in a long time that has persuaded me to turn the television back on.

However, there is something can be done. As I alluded to above, TV is a business; as a result, it isn’t necessary to convince NBC that Kings is worthwhile television, only that there is an audience for it. And surprisingly, the least effective way to do that is by telling your friends and family to tune in to a program. Want to save your favorite show? Stop watching it on television.

Here’s the problem: television isn’t a democracy. The only people who are allowed a vote are the 25 to 30 thousand households with Nielsen rating boxes in them. Nielsen boxes are poll stations that record what gets watched and then transmit that information back to the networks. When you hear Fox brag that 30 million people tuned in to the premiere of American Idol, that number is based on an estimate from the Nielsen households. Other than those 25 thousand, the rest of us simply don’t exist to the networks. We’re invisible. And if the networks don’t know you exist, then trying to save your favorite show by tuning in to watch it won’t have any effect.

There is, however, an alternative. Go watch your favorite television through a medium where they the viewership can be counted. That means either online or through download services like Amazon Unbox or iTunes. Video sites like Hulu.com make it easy to watch TV on your own schedule. It’s completely free (supported by 30 second ad clips), but more importantly, the viewership can be counted. TV executives like numbers. They want to know who is watching a given television show, when they watch it, and how they watch it. Hulu give them access to all of that information for the entire population, not just a few select Nielsen households. So, go do both yourself and an excellent television show a favor. Head over to Hulu and catch the first episode of Kings online. Then go tell your friends to do the same. It feels good to make a difference.

Some Alternatives to MobileMe

Rob Oakes — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:37:12 +0000

MobileMe (the email, contacts, calendars and file service from Apple) is something that seemingly everyone loves to hate. It’s too expensive, doesn’t work right, and doesn’t really offer anything that you can’t find for free. This winning combination of traits have lead to more than a few articles detailing how to sync, share and publish without handing even more money over to Apple.

Even with the plethora of articles explaining how to save time and money, however, it is possible to find happy users of Apple products. Users which will "vigorously" share their "carefully considered" opinions. One user from MacWorld raises the following (somewhat legitimate) points:

Are you the pot or the kettle? First you say don’t expect the rest of us to have the same needs/wants, and then you make a blanket statement … [which] is full of assumptions that are not necessarily correct ...

“It’s way to expansive.” If you only use web hosting, then maybe. MobileMe is $8.25/month. how much is hosting? Does hosting give you automatic sync of photo galleries, contacts, ect. How much is Flickr pro on top of regular web hosting.

Alternatives are not that hard to find, set up or use. Really? It seems that not everyone knows of alternatives. And then why did the commenter have to make suggestions and corrections? It seems to me [that] it’s not as easy as you say.

This happy MobileMe user has essentially laid down a challenge. He implicitly (and others explicitly) state that they are willing to pay good money for their time. And in the same bravado common to members of the Cult of Cupertino, he almost dares someone to disagree with him. Since this topic has become a bandwagon and I’ve decided to generally hop in its direction, I accept this challenge. You might even say that figuring out ways to avoid using Apple’s signature web service has become a bit of a hobby.

The Challenge

As with any good competition, first let’s size up Apple’s offerings. From there, we can begin to analyze the competition and see how they stack up in comparison. Here’s what MobileMe delivers: integrated email, calendar, contacts, picture sharing, online file storage/synchronization, and web publishing (also quaintly known as blogging). Advertised as “Exchange for the rest of us,” the service is supposed to deliver the same ease of access that most major companies enjoy. Put another way, MobileMe makes it convenient to keep everything up to date on all of life’s different computing devices.

The lifestyle that MobileMe promises is extremely compelling. When it works correctly, it’s the future of computing. Knowing that schedules, contacts, and files are where I need them to be when I want them is priceless. Even better, any changes made to one are instantly sent to all other devices at the same time. That’s cool! But that’s not all, MobileMe offers a few additional strengths as well:

Works with iPhone/iPod Touch and Mac. There is something tremendously cool about true, cross-platform and mobile sync. While I’ve long had something similar available to my Windows machine and handheld through Exchange, MobileMe hits both the Mac as well.
Integration. Apple has made sync goodness available through a single log-on. Convenience makes it more likely that all of the services will actually be used. It gets better if you use a Mac (nearly 8% of Americans do!) since the MobileMe services are deeply integrated into the operating system and iLife.
Websites and Blogs. Though it is not advertised, MobileMe is tightly integrated with iWeb. In many ways, iWeb exists exclusively as an offline client (and unofficial advertisement) for MobileMe blogs and websites.
Special Benefits for Mac Users. The purpose of this article is challenge MobileMe on its home turf: Mac OS X. For the Mac Faithful, MobileMe provides instant messaging (via iChat) and easy remote desktop connections (via Back to My Mac). Unfortunately, Windows users are not able to use these parts of the service.

MobileMe’s strongest advantages are its simplicity, platform availability and integration. Apple bills it as the service for people who want things to just work and any serious competition should both offer the same services and a similar degree of simplicity.

Strategy 1: Windows Live

When comparing alternatives to Apple, perhaps the first place to look is Microsoft. While Microsoft’s online services have been known under a variety of names (the current flavor of the month is Windows Live) they offer a huge number of services:

Hotmail: Email, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks. Hot is available from the browser, through POP3, a downloadable program called Windows Live Mail, or it can integrate with Outlook through a special connector. And with 500 million users, most people have used it at some point in their lifetime; thus, it’s familiar.
Photos. Windows Live Photogallery, available through Windows Live Essentials, is the Windows equivalent of MobileMe and iPhoto. It includes a place to both share your photos with friends and family (similar to Flickr) as well as a program that lets you organize them (Photogallery). Luckily, Photogallery gives iPhoto ‘09 a serious run for its money in some ways and utterly devastates it in others. My favorite feature is the ability to sync your entire photo library to every computer you use.
Spaces. Everyone wants to be at the center of social networking, including Microsoft. Spaces is their current best effort. It brings together simple social networking tools, a place for blogging, file sharing, photos, comments, emoticons, and all the many other stimulating activities which brought FaceBook to prominence. But while many of the features appear to be aimed at social networkers, it is actually possible to build a fully-developed personal website.
SkyDrive. Online file storage is important. SkyDrive offers 25 GB at a fantastic price: free!
Mesh. What is an online platform without file sync, backup and collaborative sharing? And it works quite well; I would even hazard that it is the most compelling sync framework available. (Did I mention that it also does the simplest implementation of remote desktop I’ve ever seen?)
Messenger. Every online platform offers an instant messenger application, so does Microsoft.
Writer. Back in Digital Dark Ages (circa 2003), Apple came out with iWeb and made a serious push to sale people on the “Blogging Lifestyle.” In its day, iWeb was pretty neat with a real click and drag experience. A few years ago, though, Microsoft released their answer to iWeb and the “blogging lifestyle:” Windows Live Writer. Live Writer is iWeb done right. It interfaces with essentially every blog/content management system in existence and makes updating a website simple and elegant. But that only scratches the surface, using Live Writer you can also publish pod-casts, video feeds, and leverage social networking to its fullest. I run VMWare Fusion on my Mac just so that I can use Writer.
Office Live. Ever needed access to files and documents while on the road? Or maybe you collaborate as part of a research group or project group and need to share documents. While you might use a solution like Subversion, you might consider Office Live as a really good alternative. 5 GB of online storage, discussions, task lists, and more make it a great way to work with others on complex school projects, research proposals, books, or presentations. There is even a plug-in which lets you access your workspace right from Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The Windows Live offerings simply dwarf anything that Apple offers through MobileMe. All of the essential services are covered (email, calendar, contacts) in addition to the not-so essential (simple remote desktop, file sync, blogging, photos). Everything is available from a single log-on and password and there is plenty of online storage. Windows Live Hotmail, Office Live and Live Mesh all offer 5 GB of storage. SkyDrive offers 25 GB. In total, Microsoft offers a whopping 40 GB of free hard-drive space with no strings attached. That’s nearly double the storage offered by Apple’s MobileMe.

If the web side is strong, the software is even better; Microsoft is primarily a software company after all. For the first time this decade, Microsoft has even entered the arena of “lifestyle applications,” long dominated by Apple and its iLife suite. Think about this: some of the coolest features in iPhoto ‘09 first made their debut in Windows Live Photogallery. Face recognition? Check. Geo-tagging? Check. Integration with maps? Check.

Through the use of add-ins, Windows Live lets you extend your existing desktop software into the cloud. Outlook Connector gives you access to Hotmail, Live Calendars and contacts inside of Outlook. Office Live drops seamlessly into Microsoft Office.

But despite it’s overall strength and attraction, there is a major problem: Windows Live exists to “Light Up Windows.” Put another way: Microsoft’s services don’t play nicely with other platforms. While there are some exceptions (Live Mesh), only web versions are available for users of alternative operating systems and support for the iPhone/iPod Touch is non-existent. In fact, only users of Windows Mobile will find anything remotely resembling platform integration. Which is too bad.

Advantages: Windows Live offers everything available in MobileMe and even goes deeper. The online services are strong, especially if you use Windows as your primary OS. And the software applications are awesome. Most important, though: it’s 100% free.

Drawbacks: Doesn’t really play nicely with Mac, Linux or iPhone.

Strategy 2: Google

If Windows Live won’t work for your email, calendar, file sync and other needs; do not despair. There are a number of other strategies which can help you get the job done. Google (another online giant) offers many of the same services as MobileMe and Windows Live. Here’s the rundown:

GMail, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk. These cover mail, calendar, contacts and tasks with the additional benefit that they work everywhere. GMail is standards compliant and offers both POP3 and IMAP access. This means you can access it from the mail application of your choice. Google Calendar works in Outlook, iCal and just about anything with CalDav. And you can connect to Remember the Milk in too ways to count.
Google Sync. Whereas Windows Live lacks any meaningful way to sync information to mobile devices, Google makes this extremely easy. It works with Apple’s iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile; that is, just about every smart-phone in existence. Ironically, the technology that makes this possible was licensed from Microsoft.
Picasa. Google has their own photo software and service, and it’s a heavy weight. While iPhoto and Windows Live Gallery work for consumer use and light professional use, Picasa is pretty close to a professional application like Adobe’s Light Room or Apple’s Aperture. I’ve used it to organize, edit and annotate tens of thousands of medical images and to organize albums of 5000+ pictures. Even better, there are versions available for Windows, Linux and Mac (the only major photo application which loves all operating systems equally). But you don’t have to use Picasa on the desktop. For Mac OS X or Windows Live Photogallery users who would rather use those programs, both plug into Picasa albums for easy photo sharing. As do most of the aforementioned Light Room and Aperture.
Blogger. A look at Google’s services would be incomplete without considering the Google personal publishing platform. While not as tightly integrated as Windows Live Spaces, that can be an extremely good thing. Blogger can be used for both personal and professional sites (complete with custom domains and sub domains), whereas Live Spaces is best suited for a personal web presence.

Google’s strategy is very interesting. Rather than developing both the online services and corresponding desktop software (as Microsoft or Apple does), they instead focus exclusively on the online component. This results in some of the best online experiences available anywhere that comply fully with existing standards. This makes it easy for other companies to come along and integrate the Google into their own products. For example, iChat will let you use a Google Talk account, Mail.app plugs into GMail, and iCal can connect to Google Calendar.

Unlike Windows Live, you can get the full iPhone experience by using Google’s Sync. Configure iPhone Mail for Google IMAP and point your calendar and address book at Google Mobile. The rest happens automatically. When I tested it using my iPod Touch, updates were nearly instantaneous (maybe not push, but really close) and hassle free.

Advantages: Like Windows Live, you can get nearly everything that MobileMe has through Google with one username and password. Even better, Google probably works with your existing software (whether that be for IM, chat, calendar, photo sharing, or email).

Drawbacks: Even though Google’s offerings Come close to a MobileMe replacement, there are still a few missing pieces; most noticeably: no online storage.

Strategy 3: A Smorgasbord of Free Services

While Microsoft may offer a complete package and Google is nearly there, why relegate yourself to a single offering. Both are free and there’s nothing to lose. Thus, let’s look at my favorite MobileMe replacement strategy: Mix and Match.

Use Google for email, Calendar, and tasks; then leverage Google Sync for the iPhone experience. Live Mesh provides for cross-platform file sync and backup while SkyDrive handles online needs. Add a pinch of Flickr for photo sharing (don’t worry, iPhoto and Windows Live Gallery have support built in); and Live Spaces, WordPress or Blogger for your website (conveniently accessed from Live Writer of course). And these aren’t the only options, you might also consider the following:

File Sync/Storage: Oosah (1 Terabyte of free online storage), DropBox (easy sync for Mac, Linux and Windows), and ADrive (50 GB online for free).
Photos: Flickr, Photobucket, DropShots, Zenfolio and SmugMug.

Advantages: Pick and choose amongst the best services on the web. Use the same services as friends and family.

Drawbacks: Multiple usernames and passwords. Integration with specific software may not be as seamless.

Strategy 4: A Custom Web Platform

Okay, so you can get all of the same services through the various online giants (Microsoft, Google and Yahoo) or dwarves (SmugMug, DropBox, Oosah, etc.), but there are actually a few reasons you might want to opt for a paid service. Support is one reason, but let me posit a completely different one: total and complete personal control. While “Mix and Match” might be my favorite, Strategy 4 is the one I actually use.

For my online presence, I pay for a Professional Web Hosting account with Brinkster for $10 per month. In return, I get email, calendar, contacts, to-do, web space and technical support. I use the online space for this site, collaboration projects and encrypted file backup (through use of a Linux tool called Duplicity). While online space can be found everywhere, I deliberately chose Brinkster for its email support.

You see, Brinkster’s servers run Zimbra (an OpenSource competitor to Microsoft’s Exchange). Zimbra works with Outlook and Mac OS X via plugins and it uses ActiveSync, which means instant and perfect sync with iPhone (no futzing required). It gets even better, $10/month doesn’t get me one account, it gets me 500. (If that seems a bit much, there’s also a “Rookie” option, which comes with 200 GB of storage and 50 email accounts for a meager $4/month.)

Sure, hosting your own website can be like riding a tricycle on the the freeway, but it is also extremely liberating. I control my domain name, I control my personal information. I’m not worried about terms of service or what my employer thinks. Even better, I’m outside of the Google, Microsoft, and Apple wars. Should any one of the big three decide to change their terms of service, storage limits, or prices; I simply don’t care. I can still use all of the fantastic web services for free, but at the end of the day, I control my data: not a major corporation. That feeling of freedom is priceless.

Summary

Sure … Apple’s MobileMe offers a pretty compelling vision: seamless email, contact, calendar, and data sync between everything. And while it may be a polished service, there is really no reason to pay for it. Microsoft, Google and many others offer similar services without for free. So, while many of the Apple Faithful might be willing to “pay for their time;” that isn’t a very compelling argument for MobileMe’s price. Just about everyone has a Hotmail or Google account, which means that you are already set up to live “La Vida Nublada.” Finding alternatives is easy and can even be fun.

Getting Started With Subversion - Part 1: The Basics

Rob Oakes — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:11:05 +0000

Anyone who has worked on a major project knows the panic of losing their work. It happens for reasons that are too numerous to count; even to the most organized, disciplined and obsessive. A hard drive goes bad, the work doesn’t get saved or it might accidently be overwritten in a careless moment. While some of these setbacks are inevitable frustrations of the Wordsmith, they don’t have to be. In this, the first of a two articles, we will look at one solution that can greatly simplify a writer’s life: Subversion.

What is Subversion?

Subversion is a version control system (VCS). If you find yourself saying, “Version what?” You might not be alone. Despite the fact that a good version control system can make life much simpler, it seems like very few people outside of tech circles have ever heard of them. This is largely because version control systems have their roots in software development and content management. But regardless of their roots, they greatly simplify the process of backup, archiving, and collaboration and can make your life easier. The philosophy and function behind Subversion might make more sense if we first consider some the problems VCS was designed to solve.

At its heart, software development is really about writing. Granted, it’s writing in a language that few can read and even fewer might want to; despite that, a coder is engaged in creation, editing, and keeping track of changes. Coders may work in large teams and it is also likely that they may be working on the same files at the same, which makes the possibility of mistakes quite likely. This can be disastrous for a computer.

You see, even rather stupid humans are at least somewhat intelligent. The human mind is able to interpret where letters are and what a word should be. Often, if the mind expects a word to be present (which isn’t) it will simply add it. The letters can even be all jumbled up and out of order, yet the mind can still manage to make sense of it (see the figure for an impressive example).

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs!cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
_______________________________
Even rather stupid people are at least somewhat intelligent. The human mind is able to correctly interpret what a word should be, even when the characters are a mess.

In contrast, though computers may be able to do things quickly – giving the appearance of intelligence – they are incredibly and notoriously stupid. If you ever have an opportunity to drop by a computer laboratory where budding programmers are hard at work on assignments, do so. It is a near guarantee that the frustration and overall profanity might just curl your hair.

This visit will also give you greater empathy for a group whose frustration is often misunderstood. A single space, semi-colon or letter out of place is sufficient to send the computer into hysterics. And consider this: if one errant key entry is sufficient to cause these problems, imagine the potential for error when you are working with just not a single person, but many.

Version control systems (like Subversion) simplify the work of making sure that multiple people can all work on the same files at one time. The software automatically keeps a log of every change and who made it. In case there is an error which cannot be repaired, you can revert to an earlier version of the file. It’s even possible to compare a new version with an older one to see what has changed.

If you work with any kind of text (as an aspiring author, editor, coder, student, or researcher) those features should have you salivating. Before using subversion regularly, one of my primary jobs in the research lab was to collect the edits that various collaborators had made to a research manuscript and merge them manually. This was a tremendously painful process. I can testify from experience that if everyone uses Subversion, it makes life much easier.

How does it work?

A Subversion computer communicates with a central file store called a repository. The store is where all files and the changes made to them are saved. To work on a given project, the files are “checked out” which creates a local copy. After the files have been checked out, they can be edited or modified. After all of the changes have been implemented, they are then “checked back in” (or synced) to the central store.

Since Subversion is tracking the changes, only new parts are sent back to the archive. But because the archive saves every modification, you can revert to an older copy of the file, use it for comparison or just rest easy knowing that all of your old drafts are available.

Here are a few additional hints that make working with Subversion easier:

While it is possible to keep your store on the local machine, this isn’t necessarily the best or most efficient way to work. In Part 3 of the “Backup, Share and Sync” series of posts, I described how to setup a simple Subversion server using a simple home file server. This is one really easy way to make your central store available to all the computers in your home. There are also companies where you can find free or cheap Subversion hosting. For collaborative projects with others, I’ve used Beanstalk with good results (Beanstalk has a free account available).
While Subversion works great with Microsoft Office files, simple text files, layouts/proofs (Adobe Indesign, Quark Express and Scribus) and PDF (basically anything that is text based), it doesn’t play nearly so nicely with binary data such as images. Rather than track changes incrementally to the binary files, it creates a brand new copy of the file each time it is changed. As a result, Subversion is probably not the best way to backup and archive images.

Okay, so I know that I’ve written an extremely long introduction, however, it is very important to know a few things about Subversion before starting to use it. Now onto more practical matters. In the next few sections, we will look at how to get the program installed and running; after, we will look at some of the most common commands.

Installation

Though Subversion is a command line utility (and as such can be extremely intimidating), do not despair. There are a number of user interfaces that not only make using Subversion easy, but greatly simplify using it’s most powerful features. Probably the best GUI for Windows is a program called Tortoise SVN. An excellent front-end for Mac OS X is called RapidSVN. (As most people likely use a Windows machine, the screenshots and instructions for the rest of this tutorial will be from Tortoise SVN.)

The installation packages for Tortoise SVN and RapidSVN have all the files that you will need. If running windows, be sure to download the correct version (either 32 or 64 bit) of Tortoise SVN or RapidSVN. While the 32 bit version will run on a 64 bit machine, it doesn’t run well. The download installation files for ToroiseSVN can be found here, while those for RapidSVN can be found here.

Getting Started

When you first start out with Subversion, there are several important terms which you need to be familiar with. These are:

Project. A folder or a group of folders that contain related files. As Subversion is most commonly used for source code, a project is typically all of the files in a program. For a writer, it might be the files of a book or research article.
Check-Out. Copying a series of folders or files from the central repository to the local machine. After being checked out, Subversion will track all changes made to the files and sync those changes back to the repository.
Commit. Checking-in modified files back to the central store. Only the changes are transmitted.
Import. The process of adding a project to the repository for the first time.
Export. Creates a copy of the files in the repository which isn’t under version control, meaning that changes won’t be tracked.

With the terminology out of the way, let’s get started!

Creating a Central Repository. The very first thing that you will need to do is create a central repository (if you haven’t already done so). If you are working with Subversion on your own file server, you will need to do this from the Linux command line. Instructions can be found in Part 3 of Backup, Sync, Restore. If you are going to create a repository on your local machine, however, setting up a repository is very easy.

On Windows, go to the directory where you will want the repository to be located. Then, right click and select “Create repository here” from the context menu. You will be prompted to give the repository a name.

This is probably a good time to mention that Subversion doesn’t store files on the disk in the same way the operating system does. As a result, you can’t directly browse the repository with the explorer in Windows or the finder in Mac OS X. Rather, you will need to look at your files by using the Repo-browser.

When it loads, the repo-browser will prompt you for a URL. If you are accessing the repository on a server, it will look something like: http://xxx.xxx.x.x/svn/ProjectName. If you are working on your local machine, just type the path to the file.

Adding a Folder to Version Control (Import). To add a folder (or project) to the repository, right click on the folder then select “Import.”

You will be prompted to provide the URL of the repository where you would like to store the files. Type in the address, in my case it is at http://192.168.1.106/svn/RobOakes and then click “Ok.” It might also be good to type a description about the files or documents that you have added. This will prove helpful should you need to revert to an earlier copy.

Once you have added the files to the repository, you can delete or archive the source directory, it isn’t under version control yet. We will need to check-out a copy first.

Checking Out Files (Creating a Local Copy). To check-out a folder from the repository, right click and select “SVN Checkout …”

At the checkout screen, specify the URL of the repository you would like to check out the files from and where you would like the local copy to be created. If you want to check out all files, then “Checkout Depth” should be left to “Fully recursive.” “HEAD Revision” will retrieve the most recent version. Click “Ok.”

A new folder will be created with the most recent version of all of files in the project. This folder is under version control and every change that you make will be tracked.

Committing Changes. Once you have decided that you are happy with the additions, edits or other changes; they need to be “committed” back to the repository. You can do this by right clicking on the project folder and selecting “Commit Changes” from the list. The modified bits will be uploaded back to the server.

While tracking the changes to files that are already under version control is a dream, things become slightly more complicated if you want to add a new file to the project. Rather than just move the file to the project folder, you also need to manually add it to the Subversion list. However, this is easy to do. First, either drag or save the new file to the project folder. Second, right click and select “Add File.” The next time that you commit changes, the file will be added to the subversion repository. It will be under version control.

Updating the Local Copy. If you are working on the same project across multiple computers, it is possible (perhaps even likely) that some of the files will fail to be updated. Luckily, Subversion has a simple solution. Right click on the folder and select “Update.” The newer versions of any changed files will be downloaded. Even more impressive, instead of overwriting any local changes that have not yet been committed, it will attempt to merge the two files.

Note: While there will be some differences in the GUI, the process for adding, checking out, or committing files is the same using RapidSVN.

Using Subversion to Stay in Sync

In addition to the systematic backup, there is another substantial benefit to Subversion. It can be used to sync files between different computers. When working on a scientific article, I can check out a copy of my project folder on each computer that I own. I can then work on the files offline at my leisure and commit the changes when ready. Subversion performs the hard job of correctly matching up the changes. It’s cross platform, stable and powerful.

Summary

By using Subversion, it’s possible to keep an automatic archive of important projects with their changes and even sync project folders to multiple computers. While originally created for software developers, automatic backup and version tracking is something that can greatly simplify the life of a writer as well. Even so, consider this article just a quick overview to Subversion and some of the principles of version control. In Part 2, we will look at some of the more advanced features: reverting to previous files, comparing and merging differences, and resolving conflicts should they arise.

Some thoughts on children’s literature

Rob Oakes — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:27:02 +0000

Well … I’ve gone and done it. I got a nasty email. My somewhat thoughtful comments on Eragon and Inheritance have apparently scraped a few ragged nerves (not mine, thankfully). (Coincidentally, the mysterious letter writer fails to specify as a he, she or it; for sake of argument, let’s go with it.) After making various comments upon my person, upbringing and intellect; the writer comments (letter edited for spelling and grammar):

You’re just a bitter wannabe hack who’s angry and jealous that you don’t have the skill to write your own stories. It’s just a children’s book, can’t you cut it some slack?

Before going further, let’s clarify a few simple things. I am not a nice person. Bitter? Check. Angry? Double check and underline. Petty? Oh, yes. In fact, I have an utterly unique ability to alienate, put-off and offend. As my supervisors, family and co-workers have remarked; I am preternaturally gifted at pissing people off. But Jealous? Of Paolini? Hardly.

I wish Christopher Paolini nothing but happiness, wealth and phenomenal success. May he continue to sell well and single-handedly maintain his publishing company. For, in case you hadn’t heard, they haven’t been doing so well lately. After all, when I finally do get round to writing my own stories, I expect to be cut a six figure advancement check as well.

But that is neither here nor there, I would like to focus on and analyze the last bit of the writer’s comment, “It’s just a children’s book, can’t you cut it some slack?”If I am to understand the point correctly, we can allow some lee-way because it’s a children’s book. After all, most kids aren’t going to catch the inconsistencies or worry too much about the language, or notice that some of the characters largely stand in as blow up dolls, or any one of a dozen other major issues. Right? Am I missing something? We should just let the author off the hook because … well … children are just too stupid to realize that a given book is generally a piece of garbage?

…

Short answer: no, can’t do that. Ready for the long one?

Let’s start with the intelligence issue first. Kids aren’t stupid. One of the smartest people I know is seven. He can hold his own in a discussion of most subjects. The only person I know who can beat me at chess is twelve. These are anecdotal, let’s look at larger evidence of child intelligence: kids have taste and rebel when given crap to read.

Don’t believe me? Go watch a third grade class. Any third grade class. When told to do their “reading,” some will throw things, others will tantrum, and larger ones may hit their smaller peers. All will hate it. And why? Have you ever looked at the tripe which fills most third grade reading books? If not, just go look.

And yet … that same group will sit transfixed when read to. The difference is in the source. When read to, usually the teacher is participating and teachers also rebel when given crap to read; just like kids. The book read aloud is far more likely to be a staple: Peter Pan, the Secret Garden, the Hobbit, or … something palatable. It’s just like television, children recognize crap TV too.

But that’s not the important reason why we don’t cut authors slack. The important reason is far more simple: unlike adult literature, children’s literature matters. A whole bunch. In a recent interview, Neil Gaiman summarizes it well:

Q: So what do you think about children’s books?

A: They’re terrible; they should be banned. What kind of a question is that? I think they’re wonderful … Children’s fiction … has a holy place and position that adult fiction doesn’t have. Adult fiction is a wonderful thing and enriching to the soul and mind, and it takes you to great places. But children’s fiction can change the world and give you a refuge from the intolerable. It can give you a place of safety and show you the world is not bounded by the world you live in.

Children’s fiction has power that adult fiction can only dream of. Adult fiction makes us question our place in the world while children’s literature helps us to find and define it. Some of the greatest books of consequence - Narnia, the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, House on the Prairie - are all children’s works. Many a child learned the lessons of hard work, mercy, tolerance, and temperance while reading the exploits the Ingall’s family. I first learned to recognize loss when reading “Where the Red Fearn Grows” in the fourth grade; I also learned that even if the hurt is unbearable when new, it will someday fade.

Like Gaiman says, Children’s fiction is holy. It teaches, expands, edifies, confounds, frustrates, and spellbinds. Rather than be “given a break,” we should hold our children’s literature to a higher standard. While kids may know crap when they see it, sometimes they don’t know why it’s crap; nor should they have to worry about it. Their only concern should be one of enchantment. Descent into Neverland for the first time only happens once.

Ignoring the problems in a children’s book is bad, bad, bad. It’s letting rot take hold in the walls, knowing about it, and failing to act. So children’s books or their authors don’t get slack. They’re simply too important for that.

Eragon Shadeslayer: Sociopath

Rob Oakes — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:23:23 +0000

While the timeless struggle between good and evil has been at the center of Western literature for nearly three thousand years, modern psychology has given us an insight into why some people devolve into heroes and others into villains. One important framework is provided by the mythology of the sociopath. Sociopaths are marked by several important characteristics: impulsivity, irritability and aggression, deceit or manipulation, lack of concern for the safety of others, irresponsibility, or being unconcerned about hurting or stealing. Sociopaths have lost their conscience and soul. They are evil because they can be. Sociopaths don't come with baggage, don't need a back-story or some greedy motive. They just are.

In Christopher Paolini's, Brisingr, we get something rather unexpected: a sociopath in the role of hero. Brisingr's author never explicitly states that Eragon, the novel's main protagonist, is an unfeeling void; quite the contrary, actually. The omniscient narrator, the cast of supporting characters, and even his dragon laud Eragon's actions as careful, considered, and just. A careful reading, though, doesn't reveal this. Rather, nearly every action shows either rash judgments or cold calculation. This represents somewhat of a departure of Paolini's earlier work (Eragon and Eldest). Despite the weaknesses of the earlier books, the character of Eragon was at least likable. Of course he was brash and headstrong, but he at least tried to do and say the right things.

In Brisingr, however, we are presented with another person. Eragon has little mercy or understanding for anyone around him (either friend or foe). This trend only gets worse as the novel progresses. Steadily, we proceed from actions which are merely foolish to those which are profoundly disturbing. Consider how Eragon acts in the first few hundred pages of Brisingr. In the opening chapters, Eragon commits genocide. He later circumvents justice in order to condemn and abandon a man in the desert. Last, he kills a child in cold blood while the boy is begging for mercy. In this essay, we will look at these three scenarios in detail and show that Eragon has lost his way, his conscience and his soul.

Genocide

Brisingr opens where Eldest leaves off. Eragon and Roran are headed to the secret lair of the Ra'zak to rescue Roran's fiancé, Katrina. She was abducted, when her father (Sloan) betrayed the village of Carvahull to the evil empire. In the manner of all damsel in distress clichés, the villain is vanquished and hero triumphs. In Brsingr, however, there is an added layer of unintended complexity.

You see, the Ra'zac where the creatures responsible for the death of Eragon's uncle and Roran's father. And yes, while the Ra'zac are indeed alien and frightening, it is important to remember that they are not human. In contrast to another fantasy author, J.R.R. Tolkien, who primarily used the orcs and trolls of his universe as muscle for the greater villains, Paolini instead chooses to weave the Urgals and Ra'zac into the larger tapestry of his world. They are a part of nature and add to its natural balance.

The Ra'zac. Image Source: Inheriwiki.

When seen in this light, Paolini's treatment of them is very difficult to understand. At multiple time points, he describes the Ra'zac as being "inherently evil." Yet, no justification is given for this label. The Ra'zac share the aggression of the Urghals and the cunning of men; yet, neither Urghals or men are "inherently evil," why are the Ra'zac considered to be? We do not blame a tiger or bear for mauling a man in the woods, nor do we blame a shark for attacking swimmers or surfers who are playing in the surf. Like so many other things in Paolini's world, unfortunately, the answer to this question appears to be: they just are.

While similar to Urghals or men, the Ra'zac share most in common with a race that is treated in a substantially different manner: the dragons. Both are large carnivores that feed on a variety or prey. Both have been known to eat and terrorize men, elves and dwarves. Both races compete for the same hunting grounds and food source. Both are intelligent and cunning. And while the dragons are treated as the most beautiful and noble creatures of the land, the Ra'zac (and their closely related kin, the Lethrblaka) are treated as horrors which are have both earned and deserve their destruction.

But Eragon and Paolini go further. In their last confrontation, knowing that it is about to die, the Ra'zac makes a request:

"I am the last of my race, Shadeslayer. We are ancient, and I would not have us forgotten. Would you, in your songs and in your histories, remind your fellow humans of the terror we inspired in your kind? … Remember us as fear!"

For a being of ancient and "intrinsic" evil, this request is profoundly … reasonable. No virgins are going to die or horrors be freed from long imprisonment. Eragon's refusal to grant it is somewhat baffling. By rashly condemning the Ra'zac to nightmares and legends, Eragon's action lacks prudence, justice or wisdom. There are far worse things than (accurately) remembering your enemies and their horrors.

In fact, there are very important reasons why the names of Nero, Attila, Stalin and Hitler are remember and reviled. It is far more costly to forget monsters and their horrific crimes than it is to remember and instruct. Forgetting evil and how it happened enables others to pursue the same roads to power. Tolkien understood these principles. He took great pains in his own work to demonstrate the consequences of forgetting. From his notes (later published as the Unfinished Tales), we learn something important. While Sauron, the great satanic villain of the Lord of the Rings, rose to power through treachery and deceit; he was enabled because those he conquered had forgotten who and what he was.

Eragon's interaction with the Ra'zac makes explicit something that is previously only hinted at. He willfully (even gleefully) exterminates the last members of a sentient race and in a rage attempts to extinguish their memory. These are not the actions of a hero, or even of an anti-hero; but of a villain and unfeeling monster. And like a true sociopath, Eragon treats the members of his own race with even less consideration or feeling.

Judgment

One of Tolkien's most interesting and complex characters is that of Gollum: murderer, thief, liar, and addict. Gollum is shown to be merciless, dangerous and cruel. Further, he is manipulative, destructive and evil. In summary of his creation, Tolkien said, "After ages alone in the dark, Gollum's heart was black and treachery was in it." Even so, there is a lot going on with Gollum: bouts of confusion and alteration, addiction and maliciousness. Yet, despite his treachery and evil, no one is quite sure what should be done with him. When Bilbo has an opportunity to kill Gollum and provide "justice and resolution," he pauses and instead chooses to leave the vile creature alone. At one point during their conversation on the origin of the Ring, Gandalf and Frodo discuss Bilbo's actions:

Deep down by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum – dark as darkness, except for two big pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!" cried Frodo.

"Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand," said Gandalf. "Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."

"I am sorry," said Frodo … "I do not feel any pity for Gollum."

"You have not seen him," Gandalf broke in.

"No, and I don't want to," said Frodo. "I can't understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment."

Tolkien uses Gollum to explore notions of justice, mercy and ultimately redemption. In many ways, Tolkien's implicitly says that it is beyond the right of any to pass "final" judgment for, as Gandalf explains to Frodo, "[E]ven the very wise cannot see all ends." Each of the main characters in the Lord of the Rings face two interlinked tests. The first occurs when the character encounters the evil Master Ring. The second occurs when they encounter Gollum, the creature most possessed and twisted by it. Tolkien uses his character's responses to these two challenges as a way to highlight their weaknesses and virtues. Indeed, in Tolkien's world, good isn't defined by ends, but rather by means.

Consider one of the very best and underestimated of Tolkien's characters, Frodo. When he and Gollum are thrown together, Frodo attempts to heal and redeem Gollum. Unpredictably and surprisingly, Gollum responds to this. Prior to finally betraying Frodo and Sam, Gollum is as conflicted about his love for his new master as he is about his relationship with the Ring (his Precious). This is admittedly deep water, and it is both ironic and somewhat fitting that Gollum dies as the savior of all free peoples. Tolkien highlights that even if his actions were despicable, unintended good might still come of them.

Either deliberately or by accident, Paolini's work also contains a Gollum: the old butcher of Carvahull, Sloan. In addition to being the butcher of Eragon's home village, Sloan was also the father of Roran's fiancé. And just as Gollum has two identities which can be difficult to reconcile, we see the same in Sloan.

Like Gollum, Sloan is a pathetic creature who has both betrayed others, as well as having been doubly betrayed himself. He has been broken, starved and tortured. His eyes have been pecked out by his captors. He is blind and lost in nearly every sense of the word. Despite his murderous actions, Sloan acted for what might be described as noble reasons: love of his daughter, Katrina. Sloan has also suffered greatly for his choices and at the time of his rescue, he is no longer a threat.

Yet, even in this pathetic and pitiable shape, Eragon feels the need to take "action" against him. He starts by humiliating Sloan and magically forcing him to live. Next, he strips him of those things that he might wish to live for, namely: the opportunity to see his daughter, embrace her and explain his actions. Eragon compels Sloan to travel north toward the elves, a race of alien beings who can neither understand him nor his motives. He will spend the rest of his life among them in silent exile.

Sloan will be tormented by conscience and deprived of any ability to amend to those who were affected. This is not justice, but a cruel mockery and perversion. From his actions, it becomes clear that Eragon understands neither the purposes nor processes of justice. It is important to review what those are since justice has had a particular meaning. It is not driven by personal feeling, animosity or hatred; but rather by laws and statutes. It is dispassionate and attempts to treat all equally, regardless of station, standing or influence. The accused are given a chance to confront their accusers and challenge the evidence against them. Last, justice is executed by those who were harmed or by their proper representatives.

Instead of delivering Sloan to be judged by those he has betrayed, Eragon instead subverts the process. Without seeking input from anyone, Eragon chooses to deceive those most intimately concerned with Sloan's outcome and crimes: his daughter (Katrina) and her future husband (Roran). It is ironic just as Sloan lied and betrayed those closest to him, Eragon chooses to follow the same path. Eragon does not consider evidence, accusation, or motive. He merely pronounces Sloan as guilty. He then creates a punishment which is deliberately brutal and cruel.

There is still a further dimension in Eragon's treatment of Sloan which is even more disturbing, though. He chooses to abuse both his magic and power, for, Eragon knows Sloan's "true name". Within the framework of Alagaesia, this means that he has complete and full power over him. Eragon also seems to feel that his status as a "dragon rider" grants him a special right to trample roughshod over his captive. Consider the scene where Eragon first reveals his identity to the man he has just "rescued":

The Butcher sat slumped against the left hand wall with his head upon his knees. Both arms were chained to an iron ring. His ragged clothes barely covered his pale, emaciated body. The corners of his bones stood out in sharp relief and underneath his translucent skin. His blue veins were also prominent. Sores had formed on his wrists where the manacles chafed. The ulcers oozed a mixture of clear fluid and blood. What remained of his hair had turned gray … Eragon then realized that the Ra'zac had pecked out Sloan's eyes.
- Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

A sense of destiny and doom descended upon Eragon. He felt as if he were the instrument of two merciless overlords and he replied in accordance … so each work struck like a hammer blow and carried all the weight of his dignity, station and anger. "I am Eragon and far more. I am Argetlam and Shadeslayer and Firesword. My dragon is Spahira, she who is also known as Djartskular and Flametongue … We have fought Urgals and a Shade and Murtagh, who is Morzan's son. We serve the Varden and the peoples of Alagaesia and I have brought you here to pass judgment upon you for murdering Byrd and for betraying Carvahall to the Empire."

Thrusting out his mind, he engulfed Sloan's consciousness in his own and forced the butcher to accept memories that confirmed the truth of his statements. He also wanted Sloan to feel the power that was now his and to realize that he was no longer entirely human. And while Eragon was reluctant to admit it, he enjoyed having control over a man who had often made trouble for him.

This is a performance which is fit for Sauron, or Galbatorix, not the principal hero of the saga. It is disconcerting that Ergaon takes joy in subverting an already broken and helpless man before choosing to rape his mind and steal his will. It gets even worse when his motivations are explained. Whereas the villagers of Carvahull are direct victims of Sloan and his betrayal, Eragon was conspicuously absent when the empire and its soldiers came. Instead, Eragon revels in his actions because Sloan was a bully and "made trouble for him."

The last sentence in that passage is particularly damning when considered in the context of how Eragon chooses to leave Sloan: abandoned in a pathless desert with neither food nor water. Whereas Eragon has the ability and power to survive, by draining the energy from the land with his magic and drawing water from the soil, Sloan does not. It is unknown if this crippled, blinded, half starved old man can successfully cross the expanse – even with the enchantments that Eragon has placed on him.

Unlike Frodo, who accepts responsibility for Gollum without passing judgment; Eragon first chooses to condemn and then abandon. Rather than deliver Sloan to be properly judged by those he has wronged, he chooses to be a cruel vigilante and subvert justice; while lying to those closest to him. In the process, Eragon discovers that he enjoys dominating and controlling a man who made his life "difficult." These actions reveal a completely misguided character that is devoid of a moral compass or center.

Mercy

If Eragon's actions with Sloan might be called misguided, there is only a single word to describe a confrontation between Eragon, Arya and a company of Empire soldiers: evil. It is important to consider these events in their proper context. After dealing with Sloan, Eragon has begun his trek back to the Varden. While doing so, he meets Arya as she searches for him. As the two travel together, they are stopped by a band of Empire soldiers and a confrontation ensues. After killing the majority of the group, this is what happened next:

Only three soldiers remained alive. Arya was grappling with two of them some distance away while the third and final soldier fled south along the road. Gathering his strength, Eragon pursued him. As he narrowed the gap between them, the man began to plead for mercy, promising he would tell no one about the massacre and holding out his hands to show they were empty. When Eragon was within a arm's reach, the man veered to the side and then a few steps later changed direction again, darting back and forth across the countryside like a frightened jack-rabbit. All the while, the man continued to beg, tears streaming down his cheeks; saying that he was too young to die, that he had yet to marry and father a child, that his parents would miss him, and that he had been pressed into the army and this was only his fifth mission and why couldn't Eragon leave him alone? "What have you against me?" he sobbed. "I only did what I had to do. I'm a good person!"

"Why are you doing this? You're a monster!" screamed the man. With an expression of pure terror, he made an attempt to dash around Eragon and return to the road. Eragon overtook him in less than ten feet, and as the man was still crying and asking for clemency, Eragon wrapped his left hand around his neck and squeezed. When he relaxed his grip, the soldier fell across his feet, dead.

Paolini seems to directly repudiate the wisdom and morality of Tolkien's work. Gollum (a vile, vicious and dangerous creature) is left alive because Bilbo could not bring himself to "strike without need." Yet, Eragon chooses to coldly terminate the life of a defenseless soldier for no other reason than convenience. It might even be worse than that, however. From the passage, we learn some important things: the soldier is young; he was pressed into service; he is the child of apparently loving parents; and this is only his fifth mission. This list gives rather strong evidence that the soldier is little more than an innocent boy and may even be younger than Eragon's stated sixteen years.

Murder is the only word which can accurately describe this action and its gut wrenching justification. In a deliberately cold and calculated manner, Eragon exterminates an utter innocent. The entire scene is given haunted poignancy as the child cries, pleads and begs for his life. (The audiobook recording is particularly haunting.) And as a moral justification for Eragon's action, Paolini offers the following: "Devoid of emotion, [Eragon] shrugged. 'He was a threat.'" It is with this line that one of Brisingr's most dangerous and evil lies is finally given description: great need justifies extraordinary methods.

Consider the scene for a moment. Both Eragon and Arya are powerful magicians. They have just killed ten armed men without difficulty. Yet, a single child is as a sufficient threat that he must be coldly dispatched? Hardly. We already know that in Paolini's world, magic users can put people to sleep (as Eragon did to Sloan), alter memories (Eragon checked Katrina to ensure that hers had not been tampered with) and bend reality. Eragon murders the soldier because it is the most convenient of the alternatives available.

Conclusion

Good ends do not justify evil means. Tolkien, from his experiences on the trenches of World War I and later during the Nazi bombardment of Britain, understood this instinctively. Brian M. Carney provides a nice summary of Tolkien's position in an opinion published in the Wall Street Journal:

In Tolkien's world, the temptation of evil is one that all, or nearly all, of his characters must confront. The argument of Tolkien's tale—controversial to be sure—is that while intentions matter, the way we act is far more important than why we act. His story, for all its narrative brio, presents a serious rebuttal to the idea that good ends justify using evil means.

… That Tolkien, who wrote "The Lord of the Rings" during World War II and published it shortly after, saw this as a message for his times was made plain in the foreword to the second edition … Tolkien [later said] that by compromising with Stalin in Europe and using the atomic bomb against the Japanese, the Allies had failed to live up to the standards set by his best fictitious characters. In our world, Tolkien concluded, referring to the diminutive, earthy creatures at the center of his tale, "Hobbits … would not have survived even as slaves."

Tolkien may have written in perilous times when the flame of light and wisdom appeared to sputter and there were armies at the gate. But as the events of September 11 and the 2003 Iraq War show, there are still threats to our culture and democracy. This time, though, they are internal. We are not threatened by exterior conquest, but by the risk of losing our souls as we attempt to provide for our security. In that struggle, Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr will not help. Paolini reduces questions of good and evil to points of convenience. He attempts to show that sometimes genocide is justified; it's okay to co-opt justice in the name of vigilantism; and that murder can be acceptable if it is convenient enough. In the struggle to keep civilization's collective soul, why would we emulate a hero who has already lost his?

How to recognize and deal with stupid

Rob Oakes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:55:55 +0000

What would the world be like without Ann Coulter? While some might say, "a much sunnier and happy place," I am not so sure. Sure, Ann continually manages to rile people's feathers, and often comes off like a sociopath; but she also says things which are interesting or provocative every once and awhile. After all, she is an author and being provocative sells books. (Sounding like a sociopath also sells books, sorry to say.)

Book selling, however, isn't why I bring her up. A few days ago, Ann appeared on a popular daytime talk show called the View. I'm not really the View's target demographic, but I had a few minutes and caught it on YouTube. Watching Ann either pound or get pounded is usually entertaining. The next eight minutes were creepily familiar to far too many staff meetings, dinner barbeques, and family parties I have attended. In the clip, Ann beautifully plays the case of the asinine dimwit who has an idea and intends to be heard; no matter what!

This got me thinking about something I've had to do far too often: deal with stupid, duplicitous or extremely difficult people. Dealing with stupid isn't fun for anyone. It's often messy, and far too often it is more divisive and just downright nastier than it has to be. After viewing the video, i thought I would share some thoughts on how to manage stupid.

Recognizing Stupid

Recognizing stupid is important. You can't actually manage something if you don't know it's there, right?

Here's the basics on stupid. It is completely different in both nature and disposition than its closely related cousins, ignorance and idiocy. Ignorance and idiocy are fairly innocuous and not usually destructive. Stupidity, however, is amazingly devastating. Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War would have been far less disastrous if a number of relatively intelligent people hadn't acted in an extremely stupid manner.

Stupid is typically heard in the voices of teenage boys when they start a sentence with, "Wouldn't it be cool if ..." and end that thought strapped to a backboard in an ambulance. Stupid is willfully single minded, proud and pathetic. To be stupid you have to overlook, ignore and displace. Stupid is insisting on the shut, locked, barricaded door that is labeled "Closed" for no other reason than it happens to be there. Stupid is dangerous.

Stupid On Parade

Stupid also happens to be on fine display during Ann's eight minutes on the View. Consider exhibit A, where Ann is responding to a question about "What is her problem with single mothers?"

Whoopi Goldberg: [Reads from Book] "Single motherhood is like a farm-team for future criminals and social outcasts. 70% of inmates come from single parent homes. Hollywood actresses use single motherhood as a way to promote their careers."

What is your beef with single mothers?

Anne Coulter: We now have 30 or 40 years of social science research. This is just dressed up numbers crunching. I'm just giving the numbers. 80% of inmates in prisons are raised by single mothers. About 70% of the runaways ... and juvenile delinquents, juvenile rapists and juvenile murderers are raised by single mothers. And the point is that it didn't happen by accident. The illegitimacy rate alone has gone up by 300% alone since 1970.

Let me highlight where the stupid really starts in that sentence: "It's just dressed up numbers crunching. I'm just giving the numbers." Everything after is really just window dressing. "I'm just giving the numbers," are famous words which have been used to justify all kinds of stupid, inane and duplicitous bullshit for the better of 5000 years.

Just to clear, Ann is not just giving the numbers. Her statement blatantly ignores good research design, statistical nuance and important ideas like correlation or causality. It is, in a word: stupid.

Correlation and Causation

Let's just quickly review why. Ann is cherry picking statistics to support her particular view of reality. This is not necessarily wrong, it is just a foolish way to craft your thoughts. For her book, she has the thesis that "the left's focus on helping people has actually created victims." She is, therefore, obsessed with tracking down potential "causes" of crime without considering them in their proper context. This is also where we hit on the biggest weakness of Anne's argument. It is a fallacy to think that just because something is correlated (or related) to an event that it is also the "cause." There is nothing inherent to single motherhood which causes crime. It is, oddly enough, related with another factor which just might though: poverty. Let's explore correlation and causation using an example only marginally related to either crime or single motherhood: AIDS, sex and homosexuality.

First, the facts: male homosexuals are much more likely to get HIV. Put another way, being gay is correlated with a higher incidence of AIDS. It is not, however, correct to say that being gay causes AIDS. Why is this so?

The answer is fairly straightforward. We know that transmission of HIV causes AIDS. We also know that sexual intercourse is one way which the HIV virus may be spread. What may not be known, however, is that not all types of sexual intercourse spread the virus with equal efficacy. Put a slightly different way: just because you have sex with someone who is HIV positive doesn't mean you will get HIV. While a heterosexual man can get HIV from an infected woman, a heterosexual woman is far more likely to contract HIV from an infected man. The literature appears to indicate that female to male transmission is actually a fairly rare event. So, the cause of the infection discrepancy between heterosexual and homosexual AIDS has nothing to do with being gay (per se) and everything to do with sexual practices. Both sexual practice and increased HIV incidence correlate with being gay. In cases where they are all related, actually getting at the root of the whole mess can be extremely difficult.

Naturally, Coulter eschews the inherent complexity and narrows in on only the components which bolster her argument. That is a hallmark of a willfully stupid (or duplicitous) person. Coulter essentially admits as much later in the interview.

Anne Coulter: "I consider race and ethnicity ... I cite a study which says that if you take single motherhood out of the question (if you control for it), the black and white crime rates are exactly the same."

So she was smart enough to control for one factor, but not for the factor that matters. If it's really single motherhood that causes crime, then 70% of the children will be criminals regardless of socioeconomic status; even if the child is the offspring of the super rich. Let's consider the children of wealthy and affluent individual,s the Hollywood actresses who have made their careers on single motherhood, if you will. If single motherhood is the cause of crime, then approximately the same number of these individuals should end up in prison. Of course, they don't. Everyone knows that there is a tremendous divide between the rich and poor. The crooked poor go to prison while the crooked rich go into government.

How To Win

But knowing you're right isn't necessarily helpful against rampaging stupid. Here, however, are a few things which might. If you watch the View, both Barbara Walters and Whopee Goldberg do a great job of putting these skills into practice. Whopee was even successful at making Coulter back off on her "single mother actress" schtick. That ain't easy.

Stay Calm! If you become emotional or flustered when dealing with Stupid, you will lose.
Understand that you are not going to change Stupid's mind. Most conversations with stupid people are actually about winning the agreement of others, most importantly decision makers.
Slow the conversation down. To win against Stupid, you and others must be calm. You need everyone to be thinking rationally. If Stupid hijacks the conversation and moves into emotional territory, that is just the beginning of the end.
Stop and ask for clarification. Ask follow-up questions. Most stupid talking points fall apart when they have to explained or expounded.
Reiterate and repeat. Make sure that you understand what Stupid is saying. Allow Stupid to understand what they are saying.
Stick to the facts! Don't allow for speculation. When "someone said" or "I read somewhere" comes up, ask for the source. These two lines are used to justify all kinds of imaginary reference material.

If you follow these simple guidelines (most especially the first, Stay Calm!), you can stave off most attacks of stupid. It served both Whopee and Barbara Walters well. It has served me well in fielding doctors, medical students and residents. One last bit of advice: remember that debates can be fun and don't take anything personally. That comment which pissed you off was probably just stupid anyway.

Truth and Fiction

Rob Oakes — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:59:55 +0000

In their heart, storytellers are liars. They take the boring details of a mundane existence and make them interesting. Storytellers fold and rip apart reality, giving it an interpretation, angle, or even direction. While most might don the storyteller hat (at least for a little while) when they spin yearns of office conquest, the encounter with the co-worker they don't like, or the latest fight with their boss they typically embellish or embolden. Yet, there is an enormous difference between someone who occasionally bends the truth and the masters who revel in their own deviousness. Masters storytellers are more than liars, they wear deceit the way most people wear underclothes. They don't just wrap up existence or give an interpretation, angle or direction; a master storyteller can use their lies to tell the Truth. This places them within the realm of the gods. They can create, destroy, and instruct.

William Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman, and Robin Hobb are masters of their craft. Inside their stories we find the reality of our own world reflected back at us. Lady MacBeth, Frodo Baggins, Prince Caspian, Shadow and Fitz feel like real people who walk in a world that might fall off the page. Rather than a lie which has been sloppily papered over with the truth (the realm of reality), we get truth that has been masterfully and regally clothed in lies (the realm of imagination).

The Truth has been given many names (of which archetype and allegory are only two) and while the names may shift, they still convey the same idea; underneath the style and glamour, there is something inherently correct and right about what is being portrayed. Truth is beautiul, but only as long as it remains pure and ... the Truth. There is nothing quite as dangerous to Truth as an "almost truth." We often, euphamestically call the untruths, "White Lies" or "Half Truths" and they are deadly.

Big lies hold about as much danger as a bear that has been painted neon green and mounted with enormous strobe lights and warning sirens. Sure, they can still eviscerate and do awful things to the various bits that you should probably keep on the inside; but you can see and hear them coming from a long way off. The smaller lies much are more subtle in their nefariousness. They can have a presence similar to that of your best friend … right before he pushes you in front of a bus. They can can be beautifully seductive. Sometimes they are things that we wish were true and merely shatter our faith when we learn they are not; but more often they are as dangerous as a deeply flawed keystone at the moment that it accepts weight and shatters under the load. For these reason, half-truths are much more dangerous than their bigger brethren. Unfortunately, they don't come equipped with the helpful entourage.

Cataloging Brisingr

Brisingr's pages are filled with many half-truths that touch upon the nature of good versus evil, the nature of justice, and the importance of free will. Through his characters, Paolini advocates some ideas about science and politics that might have been taken directly from the playbook of America's recent politics and wars. He then offers ideas of science and magic which systematically reduce one to the other and remove the beauty both. When I started to try and review Eragon's misadventure, I thought I would be able to offer a concise and quick rebuttal of some of the nastier lies. So, I sat down and started writing. Off and on for the better part of three weeks, I outlined and read. Then something happend. My short and quick rebuttal morphed into a treatise more than 5000 words in length and while Brisingr was the impetus that got me thinking, I found the ideas themselves to be much more seductive, alluring and interesting.

In trying to critique Paolini's lie and distortions, I rediscovered J.R.R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Robin Hobb, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, Orson Scott Card and a host of other brilliantly talented writers. And instead of a rebuttal I find myself writing an introduction. In the next few posts, I would like to the spend the "long" of my previous Brisingr review touching on where Brisingr and the rest of the Inheritance trilogy commit cardinal sins of consequence. In the process, you can rest assured that I will go after Paolini's cloistered life and misunderstanding of nearly everything. So … let's get started. First up is a detailed look at how Eragon became a sociopath. Next, we'll look at how Nesuada managed to enact policies directly from the playbook of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove. We'll finish up by looking at why Star Wars meets Middle Earth is a tremendously bad idea.

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