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@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ All contents \copyright2024 Kenneth John Odle
Although this is now in your hands, and it's also on the web, so if you really wanted to steal this, I've made it pretty darn easy. I can't imagine why anyone would want to, though. However, you don't need to, because this is licenced under a CC BY-NA-SA 4.0 Creative Commons license. More information is at
\kref{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/}{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/} \ccAttribution{}\ccNonCommercial{}\ccShareAlike{}
\kref{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/}{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/} \ccbyncnd
\medskip
@ -146,14 +146,16 @@ FYI, this is made in \LaTeX \,using the report document class. It then gets expo
\kref{https://pdfbooklet.sourceforge.io/wordpress/}{https://pdfbooklet.sourceforge.io/wordpress/}
\medskip
The image of Linus Torvalds on the front cover is courtesy JericoDelayah from the WikiMedia Commons. The image is from \kref{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_RETAT_04_Linus_Torvalds.jpg}{https://commons.wi\\kimedia.org/wiki/File:4\_RETAT\_04\_Linus\_Torvalds.jpg} where you can also find a link to the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license there, as well.
The image of Linus Torvalds on the front cover is courtesy JericoDelayah from the WikiMedia Commons and is at \kref{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_RETAT_04_Linus_Torvalds.jpg}{https://commons.wikimedia.org\\/wiki/File:4\_RETAT\_04\_Linus\_Torvalds.jpg} where you can also find a link to the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license there, as well.
I'm pushing this to my own git server as I write this. You can find it \href{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}{here}: \kref{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}. New issues will be pushed after they are complete. A list of topics I may cover in the future can be found at \kref{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex/wiki/List-of-Future-Topics}{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex/wiki/List-of-Fu\\ture-Topics}.
You can just skip over all the diversions in here if you want. It's just how my mind works. (And yes, there will be politics in this. \textit{You have been warned.}) Also, I use a lot of em-dashes, parentheses, and footnotes because that is also how my mind works. It's just one big long stream of consciousness up in here most days.
If you want to donate money to provide financial support for the creation of this zine (and all the hours of research that go into it), you can do so at
\kref{https://paypal.me/kjodle}{https://paypal.me/kjodle} (Thanks!)
\medskip
\noindent \textbf{Errata:} To err is human, to document those errors is divine. A list of errata can be found at
@ -175,10 +177,20 @@ You can just skip over all the diversions in here if you want. It's just how my
I'm gratified that this zine has a small but dedicated fan base who have a lot of great things to say about it. The feedback that I have gotten has been nothing short of amazing. I appreciate every single bit of it.
It does make me sad, though, that I can't get these out on a more regular basis. When I was younger, I wrote all the time, but as I get older, I find that I write more slowly and often with great difficulty. Part of that is no doubt my current job (which I talk about chapter two) and part of it…well, all the things that go along with just trying to make it in this day and age. And a large part of it is no doubt due that I have short bursts when I get quite a bit done, and then long periods where I get nothing done. One of college professors said that I tend to ``run hot and cold'', some other people have told me that this sounds like bipolar disorder, and others have said that this is a natural part of the creative process for some people. I suppose there isn't any reason that it couldn't be all three.
It does make me sad, though, that I can't get these out on a more regular basis. When I was younger, I wrote all the time, but as I get older, I find that I write more slowly and often with great difficulty. Part of that is no doubt my current job (which I was going to write about that in this issue, but I ran out of space, so it will have to wait until next time) and part of it is…well, all the things that go along with just trying to make it in this day and age.
And a large part of it is no doubt due that I have short bursts when I get quite a bit done, and then long periods where I get nothing done. One of my college professors said that I tend to ``run hot and cold'', some other people have told me that this sounds like bipolar disorder, and others have said that this is a natural part of the creative process for some people. I suppose there isn't any reason that it couldn't be all three.
Another reason is that I find I write best when I can work longhand. There is just something about the feel of pen or pencil on paper that really gets my creative gears going. Once they get going, I can usually switch to working digitally without too many problems.
I do have a website for all my zines, which you can visit at \kref{https://just13.click/}{https://just13.\\click/}. I used to have a mailing list, but then Mailchimp decided to get rid of their TinyLetter service because why provide a public good for people when you can make money instead? If you want an email notification of when I produce a new zine, just send me an email at \texttt{wolfgangswishlist@gmail.com} and let me know which zines you want to hear about.
I also have a list of topics I intend to cover in future issues. I've provided a link to it on page 2. If you have ideas for things you'd like me to talk about, you can send me an email at the above address.
\medskip
\begin{flushright}
\noindent{}Thanks again,\\—Ken
\end{flushright}
\end{small}
\end{multicols}
@ -194,40 +206,80 @@ What I can say is that the first time around, I wanted to get a biology major an
I did not realize it at the time,\footnote{I may not have realized it until just \textit{now}, when I wrote this.} but he was revealing his prejudice as a Biology professor. He was wrong, ultimately (schools absolutely love it when you can teach more than one subject as it provides for a lot of flexibility in scheduling), but his argument scared me. I was going to go thousands of dollars in debt for this degree (I was not smart enough to get a full scholarship, so I had to make up the difference with grants and loans—lots and lots of loans), and if I couldn't get a job, I wouldn't be able to pay back those loans. I would be sentenced to a life of penury, which is the very thing a college degree was supposed to protect against. So I agreed with him and forgot about getting an English minor.
\medskip
\noindent{}\textbf{It's time for a diversion!}
\begin{multicols}{2}
If you complain about being stuck in a low-paying job, people tell you that you should go to college. If you do go to college and then complain about being crushed under a tremendous amount of student loan debt, people tell you that you should have gotten a job that doesn't require a college degree. It's a vicious circle.
What never gets pointed out is that college costs have risen disproportionately compared to the rate of inflation. From 1980 to 202, the average price to attend a four-year college full time went from just over \$10,000 a year to almost \$30,000 a year\footnote{\kref{https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/college-tuition-inflation/}{https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/college-tuition-inflation/}}—an increase of 180\%. Whereas the state of California used to provide \textit{free} college tuition back in the day\footnote{\kref{https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/digital-tweed/tuition-free-college-yesterday-and-tomorrow}{https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/digital-tweed/tuition-free-college\\-yesterday-and-tomorrow}} it no longer does—because then-Governor Ronald Reagan wanted to punish the University of California for tolerating student activism.\footnote{\kref{https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/\#d6b48652-908b-4639-be19-3f09ecab02f9}{https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/\#d6b48652-\\908b-4639-be19-3f09ecab02f9}}\footnote{For more detailed information on rising college costs, see \kref{https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year}{https://educationdata.\\org/average-cost-of-college-by-year}.}
A well-educated populace is a public good and there is no humane reason why any economically successful nation should burden its youth with high levels of student loan debt. There are plenty of inhumane reasons, however, the primary one being that conservative politicians do not want a well-educated populace, as it is easier to exploit them for commercial gains if they have no idea what is happening to them. It's much easier to pin their woes on the boogeyman of ``communism'' despite the fact that they have no idea what communism actually is. In short, unless you have capital, capitalism is not your friend.
\end{multicols}
His second argument was that as a prospective biology teacher, I was \textit{required} to get a group science ``minor'', which is in quotation marks because it was actually 36 credit hours, which was the equivalent of a major, rather than the 20 credit hours typical of an actual minor. As a result, I would have little time or energy (or money!) for another minor.
So in 2008 I decided to go back to teaching. To do so, I needed to get eight credit hours in ``a teachable subject'' so I decided to take a couple of English classes, as that would both meet the legal requirements and also give me a chance to read and write for credit.
As they say, things happened.
At first I was taking a couple of English classes. But then I thought, that's eight credit hours. If I take three more I could actually get the full minor. Why not? So a couple of English classes became an English minor, which eventually became an English major.
At first I signed up for a couple of English classes. But then I thought, that's eight credit hours. If I take three more I could actually get the full minor. Why not? So a couple of English classes became an English minor, which eventually became an English major.
Becoming a biology teacher required that I take a \textit{methods} class, which is a class about…well, basically it's a class about how to \textit{be} a biology teacher. It teaches you how to plan labs and field trips, and how to do things in a safe way so that nobody gets hurt, and covers the specifics of teaching biology that were not covered in your regular education classes.
Becoming an English teacher required that I take \textit{two} methods classes: one about teaching literature and one about teaching writing. I remember very little about either class. (And to be honest, I remember more about the graduate class I took in fairy and folk tales, because those tales evolve like living beings—which in a way they are. This was where biology and literature overlapped for me in the Venn diagram of my life.)
Becoming an English teacher required that I take \textit{three} methods classes: one about teaching literature, one about teaching grammar, and another about teaching writing. I remember very little about either class. (And to be honest, I remember more about the graduate class I took in fairy and folk tales, because those tales evolve like living beings—which in a way they are. This was where biology and literature overlapped for me in the Venn diagram of my life.)
The one thing I remember very distinctly about the writing methods course was that our capstone project had to be \textit{online}. Oh wow, I thought—I've been creating websites for a while now. But I was worried. I had been hearing about how young people were so good with technology, so comfortable with it, that I was sure whatever I came up with would just blow my feeble old school attempts out of the water.
The one thing I remember very distinctly about the writing methods course was that our capstone project had to be \textit{online}. Oh wow, I thought—I've been creating websites for a while now. But I was worried. I had been hearing about how young people were so good with technology, so comfortable with it, that I was sure whatever they came up with would just blow my feeble old school attempts out of the water.
I could not have been more wrong.
Our instructor asked how many of us had any experience creating websites. Only three of us raised our hands: a middle-aged woman, a young woman still on Plan A, and myself. Half of the rest of the class had mildly panicked looks on their faces.
Our instructor asked how many of us had any experience creating websites. Only three of us raised our hands: a middle-aged woman, a college-aged woman, and myself. Half of the rest of the class had mildly panicked looks on their faces.
Our instructor sent the three of us into a small computer lab at the end of the classroom to star making plans while she explained to the rest of the class how to create a web site. Of course, if you leave three students alone in a room, they're not going to get any work done—they're going to sit and talk. It doesn't matter what their ages are—work is just not going to be a priority for them. It simply won't be on the list of things to do.
Our instructor sent the three of us into a small computer lab at the end of the classroom to star making plans while she explained to the rest of the class how to create a web site. Of course, if you leave three students alone in a room, they're not going to get any work done—they're going to sit and talk. It doesn't matter what their ages are—work is just not going to be a priority for them.
As it turns out, the older woman and I both had experience creating websites from scratch and the younger woman (the one of us who was still on Plan A) had once set up a forum for her gaming community using phpBB. Which is not quite the same thing as setting up a website, but close enough. It's better than nothing. She also spent quite a bit of time talking about "leetspeak" which had somehow passed me by—perhaps because I have never been much of a gamer.\footnote{Everything I read about this makes me feel that is either something that is pretty cool or the most annoying thing in the world. I can't quite make up my mind.}
Still, this left some twenty-odd young people on the other side of that door who were utterly clueless about how to create a website, and judging by the looks on many of their faces, were more than a little nervous about the prospect.
Still, this left some twenty-odd young people on the other side of that door who were utterly clueless about how to create a website, and judging by the looks on many of their faces by the end of class, were more than a little nervous about the prospect.
I mention all of this because what I often heard then was young people are \textit{so} good with computers, that they are \textit{so} comfortable with computers, and why wouldn't they be? After all, they grew up with them. In fact, the term that got bounced around a lot in the education world at the time was ``digital native''. It was just assumed that young people could do anything with computers because they had grown up with them.
Well, I had grown up with computers, too, only I did it twenty-five years before these kids did. Only the computers I grew up with did not have GUI or a mouse. They made you think a little bit more than modern computers.
Well, I had grown up with computers, too, only I did it twenty-five years before these kids did and the computers I grew up with did not have GUI or a mouse. They made you think a little bit more than modern computers.
But it is not the presence or absence of a mouse or a GUI that means are good with a computer. A lot of kids my age also had Commodor 64s and all they did with them was shove a cartridge in the back and play games. This in no way prepared them to know how to set up a spreadsheet in VisiCalc to balance your checkbook.\footnote{Which was one of the very first things I ever tried to do with a spreadsheet. It is not nearly as easy as one might think.}
But it is not the presence or absence of a mouse or a GUI that makes you good with a computer. A lot of kids my age also had Commodor 64s and all they did with them was shove a cartridge in the back and play games. This in no way prepared them to know how to set up a spreadsheet in VisiCalc to balance your checkbook.\footnote{Which was one of the very first things I ever tried to do with a spreadsheet. It is not nearly as easy as one might think.}
Again, I blame the educational industrial complex here, which I believe is where the term ``digital native'' came from. (And again, this is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. The main goal under capitalism is to just extract as much money as you can from the people around you, and it doesn't really matter if you are correct or not. Your only value is determined by how much wealth you bring to the shareholders.)
Growing up with a computer in your house doesn't mean that you'll be an expert at anything and everything digital any more than growing up with a car in the driveway means you'll know how to drive it, let alone change the oil or rebuild the carburetor. It's a completely false assumption.
\section{Today}
I am in a very different place now than I ever thought I would be. I'm not on Plan A or Plan B. In fact, I've pretty much run out of alphabet to describe exactly where I am now.
So where am I?
I work as a data reviewer for a contract research organization in the pharmaceutical industry. That means that drug companies send us samples of their products, and we test them for things like assay, impurities, appearance, disintegration, etc. People who majored in chemistry run the tests and I sit there and look at their procedures and results and make sure that everything was performed correctly and that the results are, indeed, valid.
In theory, I'm an analytical chemist. In practice, I'm a nerdy science accountant who spends his day with his nose buried in Excel spreadsheets. A \textit{lot} of Excel spreadsheets.
Except that I also used to design websites, so my spreadsheets are easy on the eyes, color-coded, and logically oriented—that is, they take you through the analytical method in a step-wise, chronological manner. In other words, we look at standard concentrations first, and then our system suitability tests, and then the actual tests. Every cell is also labeled, so it's clear what goes where. My boss admires them and I am justifiably proud of them. After all, these aren't just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill spreadsheets we're talking about here.
My spreadsheets are so beautiful that when my boss got a glimpse of them he immediately placed me in charge of mentoring new data reviewers, mostly so that they could see what my spreadsheets look like. And I get it. I worked really hard to make spreadsheets that are understandable not just to me but everybody because we may have a corrective action come up at some point and we need to be sable to see how we arrived at the results that have. So yep, I strive to make all my spreadsheets consistent and understandable to someone who has no familiarity with them.
\medskip
\texttt{tl;dr:} I'm \textit{really} good with Microsoft Excel.
\medskip
But it's not satisfying work. It pays the bills\footnote{Well, barely, after the recent fit of massive corporate price gouging—I mean, er…inflation.} It's not exactly the hind end of science, but it's close. (I once worked in a lab that did non-clinical testing\footnote{i.e., rats and mice} and believe me, \textit{that} is the hind end of science.\footnote{Science actually has many hind-ends. This is but one of them.}) I'm not really doing science; if anything I'm just a science accountant, making sure the books balance. It's boring—\textit{really }boring—and more than a bit mind-numbing.
Considering that my entire job exists to help keep the drug supply safe (well, the \textit{legal} drug supply anyway) safe that statement may sound frightening or even disturbing. But it's not really. You want this job to be boring. When it's not boring, it's generally because something has gone wrong, and and this is one of those industries (like nuclear energy or airplane manufacturing) where you really don't want things to go wrong.
\chapter{How to Be Good With Computers}
\paragraph{Note:}This originally started out as part the the ``College, 2008'' section, but soon took on a life of its own. It didn't belong there, but it belongs somewhere. So here it is.
So what does it mean to be ``good'' with something? Especially with computers? This experience of being segregated into a little room almost twenty years ago because of something I new while those around me didn't has marked me in some way. It's taken me a long time to actually figure it out, and it boils down into two main concepts.
The first is that capitalism (and one of its most pernicious offspring, social media) deliberately blurs the lines between being a \textit{user} of some technology and being the \textit{product} of that technology. (Protip: Do you see ads on your content that you can't control? Does the algorithm tell you whom it shares your content with, or how it determines that? If the answer to those questions is ``no'' then you are not a user, you are a product. I could say more about this. In fact, I already have, and will probably say more in the future.)
@ -264,7 +316,7 @@ This was sheer genius! And yet I had never heard of it. If I had known this ten
So in this instance, this engineer, who viewed himself as anything but ``good with computers'' was indeed very good with computers, simply because he knew something I didn't.
\vspace{\baselineskip}
\medskip
\noindent{}Here's another example. At my current job we have an Excel form that we use every single day. It basically does three things: 1) It collects any findings we discover in an experiment. 2) It adds those findings to a database so that we have metrics to measure analyst performance by. 3) It generates an email to send to the analyst in question so they make corrections.
@ -293,28 +345,6 @@ In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. I'll keep writing, I'll keep st
And I'll keep hoping.
\section{Today}
I am in a very different place now than I ever thought I would be. I'm not on Plan A or Plan B. In fact, I've pretty much run out of alphabet to describe exactly where I am now.
So where am I?
I work as a data reviewer for a contract research organization in the pharmaceutical industry. That means that drug companies send us samples of their products, and we test them for things like assay, impurities, appearance, disintegration, etc. People who majored in chemistry run the tests and I sit there and look at their procedures and results and make sure that everything was performed correctly and that the results are, indeed, valid.
In theory, I'm an analytical chemist. In practice, I'm a nerdy science accountant who spends his day with his nose buried in Excel spreadsheets. A \textit{lot} of Excel spreadsheets.
Except that I also used to design websites, so my spreadsheets are easy on the eyes, color-coded, and logically oriented—that is, they take you through the analytical method in a step-wise, chronological manner. In other words, we look at standard concentrations first, and then our system suitability tests, and then the actual tests. Every cell is also labeled, so it's clear what goes where. My boss admires them and I am justifiably proud of them. After all, these aren't just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill spreadsheets we're talking about here.
My spreadsheets are so beautiful that when my boss got a glimpse of them he immediately placed me in charge of mentoring new data reviewers, mostly so that they could see what my spreadsheets look like. And I get it. I worked really hard to make spreadsheets that are understandable not just to me but everybody because we may have a corrective action come up at some point and we need to be sable to see how we arrived at the results that have. So yep, I strive to make all my spreadsheets consistent and understandable to someone who has no familiarity with them.
\texttt{tl;dr:} I'm \textit{really} good with Microsoft Excel.
But it's not satisfying work.k It pays the bills\footnote{Well, barely, after the recent fit of massive corporate price gouging—I mean, er…inflation.} It's not exactly the hind end of science, but it's close. (I once worked in a lab that did non-clinical testing\footnote{i.e., rats and mice} and believe me, \textit{that} is the hind end of science.\footnote{Science actually has many hind-ends. This is but one of them.}) I'm not really doing science; if anything I'm just a science accountant, making sure the books balance. It's boring—\textit{really }boring—and more than a bit mind-numbing.
Considering that my entire job exists to help keep the drug supply safe (well, the \textit{legal} drug supply) safe that statement may sound frightening or even disturbing. But it's not really. You want this job to be boring. When it's not boring, it's generally because something has gone wrong, and and this is one of those industries (like nuclear energy or airplane manufacturing) where you really don't want things to go wrong.
\chapter{More Fun with bash}
As I get older, I find that I want to spend less time doing repetitive tasks that need to be done, and spend more time doing the stuff I want to do, like writing.