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Fourth round of final drafts (fingers crossed)

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Kenneth John Odle 2024-06-13 18:58:02 -04:00
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@ -170,40 +170,13 @@ If you want to donate financial support for the creation of this zine (and all t
\tableofcontents
\chapter{Introduction}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{small}
\noindent{}Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?
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.
I apologize 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 because I have short bursts when I get quite a bit done, and then long periods where I get nothing done. This is not new—one of my college professors said that I tend to ``run hot and cold''. Some 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,\\—Ken
\end{flushright}
\end{small}
\end{multicols}
\chapter{The Final Salad Days}
\section{College, 2008}
Bush II decided to tank the economy for ordinary people so that rich people could get richer.\footnote{This is the second of three "once in a lifetime" recessions I have lived through. Yay, capitalism! The rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer.} I decided to go back into teaching (which, thanks to current conservative political policies\footnote{Along with the asshole behavior of parents who approve of those policies.} there will always be a demand for), which meant I needed to go back to college to renew my teaching license. But this is a whole other story for which I have run out of space (not to mention it has very little to do with Linux or even computers), so it will have to go in a different zine if I ever decide to write it down.
What I can say is that the first time around, I wanted to get a biology major and an English minor because I wanted to teach biology and English, and I thought (naively) that this was how things worked—you pick a major and a minor and you get a job teaching that major and minor.\footnote{Turns out things don't work this way. Who knew?} But my biology advisor, a man who was many decades if not centuries my senior, advised against that plan. He felt that it would make me unhireable because it would look like I could not make up my mind between biology and English.
What I can say is that the first time around, I wanted to get a biology major and an English minor because I wanted to teach biology and English, and I thought (naively) that this was how things worked—you pick a major and a minor and you get a job teaching that major and minor.\footnote{Turns out things don't work this way. Who knew? (You know who knew? Paul McCartney. ``I look around me and I see it isn't so.'' I guess I failed to look around me.)} But my biology advisor, a man who was many decades if not centuries my senior, advised against that plan. He felt that it would make me unhireable because it would look like I could not make up my mind between biology and English.
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.
@ -218,7 +191,7 @@ If you complain about being stuck in a low-paying job, people of a certain strip
What people consistently fail to remember is that college costs have risen disproportionately compared to the rate of inflation. From 1980 to 2024, 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 when adjusted for inflation\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}}\textsuperscript{,} \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}.} (Oh no! We've taught people how to think and now they're doing it!)
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.
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. Unless you have capital, capitalism is not your friend.
\end{multicols}
\vspace{-1mm}
\hrule
@ -275,13 +248,13 @@ Terror or delight? Either way, like my former classmates, I'm moving on.
\medskip
\lettrine[loversize=0.1, nindent=-0.2em]{W}{hat} does it mean to be ``good'' with something? Especially with computers? The experience of being segregated into a little room almost twenty years ago because of something I knew 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 I think it is that there really is no such thing as someone who is ``good at computers''. This is like ``being good at sports'' or ``liking Asian food''. The concepts of ``computers'', ``sports'', and ``Asian food'' are really too large to be considered as a single entity. There is really only ``being better at this one very specific thing than everyone else in the room''.
In fact, the person who is good at computers generally has three characteristics that make them that way.
In general, the person who is seen as being good at computers generally has three characteristics that make them that way.\footnote{I would argue that these three characteristics are common to people who are good at anything, whether it's computers, ``sports'' or cooking. These are essential characteristics of experts in general.}
First, they are not afraid to experiment. They know how to \textit{undo} things, or they know to experiment on a copy of the file. This is easier to do on a computer than in the analog world because the physical costs are so low—it's basically just your time. You can make an unlimited number of copies. If I'm trying to figure out how long to cut a board to build something, I don't have an endless supply of those boards. Ideally, I would like to make a single cut and get it done in one go and not have to go back to the lumber yard because I cut the board an inch too short.
Second, they are good at recognizing patterns. This means that they don't need to reinvent the wheel each time; they can look at a new problem and see if it is similar to an old one and whether it's possible to adapt an older, tried and true solution to this new problem. ``The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.''\footnote{Eccleiastes 1:9} All our new problems are just iterations of our old problems.
Third, they are good at searching the web for a solution. This is easier now than it was twenty years ago because the web is simply so much bigger than it was then. There is an art and a science to this, so much so that we used to use the term ``google-fu'' or ``search-fu''\footnote{Like ``kung-fu''. Get it? \textit{Get it?} Sometimes we are tiresome people.}. But all this really means is knowing how to construct a search query that does not return superfluous answers. In the old days it was largely knowing how Boolean operators worked, and then selecting appropriate arguments for those operators. These days, artificial intelligence is probably going to screw this completely up. (Or it already has—I recently saw a screen clip of an AI bot recommending adding half a cup of glue to your gravy to thicken it up. I'm sure this would work, but it would not be the gravy you are looking for.)
Third, they are good at searching the web for a solution. This is easier now than it was twenty years ago because the web is simply so much bigger than it was then. There is an art and a science to this, so much so that we used to use the term ``google-fu'' or ``search-fu''\footnote{Like ``kung-fu''. Get it? \textit{Get it?} Sometimes we are tiresome people.}. But all this really means is knowing how to construct a search query that does not return superfluous answers. In the old days it was largely knowing how Boolean operators worked, and then selecting appropriate arguments for those operators. These days, artificial intelligence is probably going to screw this completely up. (Or it already has—I recently saw a screen clip of an AI bot recommending that you add half a cup of glue to your gravy to thicken it up. I'm sure this would work, but it would not be the gravy you are looking for.)
I can give a couple of examples here. At my old job, we received planning schedules from our customers on a weekly basis. Our material planner would print these out and enter their data into our system which would then give us an idea of how much production we needed to run each week.
@ -313,7 +286,7 @@ To my way of thinking the person who is responsible for the maintenance of this
I am still able to use VBA to do little bits here and there for other people—creating forms that generate a pdf and then automatically attach it to an email, for instance. I've done this a couple of times and the people on the other end have been suitably impressed, so I've added this skill to my resume. Imposter syndrome be damned!
The number one characteristic I've discovered that is shared by all people who are generally viewed as ``good with computers'' is \textit{confidence}. Not knowledge, not skill, not experience. \textit{Confidence}. It's true that confidence comes from knowledge, skill, and experience, but I've met a lot of people who have all three of those things\footnote{How can you \textit{not} have experience with computers in 2024, when even Amish people have cell phones? It's because you can either choose to recognize that they are a part of your experience and roll with it, or refuse to acknowledge them and fight a losing battle against them.} but who still lack confidence and thus do not see themselves, nor are seen by others, as being good with computers. I've had to coach a lot of people like this over the years and while it's easy to give someone knowledge, or experience, or skill, it's almost impossible to get them to put those three things together into confidence. It's really something they have to gain on their own, and they either do or they don't. I'm not sure why this is.
The number one characteristic I've discovered that is shared by all people who are generally viewed as ``good with computers'' is \textit{confidence}. Not knowledge, not skill, not experience. \textit{Confidence}. It's true that confidence comes from knowledge, skill, and experience, but I know a lot of people who have all three of those things\footnote{How can you \textit{not} have experience with computers in 2024, when even Amish people have cell phones? It's because you can either choose to recognize that they are a part of your experience and roll with it, or refuse to acknowledge them and fight a losing battle against them.} but who still lack confidence and thus do not see themselves, nor are seen by others, as being good with computers. I've had to coach a lot of people like this over the years and while it's easy to give someone knowledge, or experience, or skill, it's almost impossible to get them to put those three things together into confidence. It's really something they have to gain on their own, and they either do or they don't. I'm not sure why this is.
% New section starts with a drop cap
\medskip
@ -321,7 +294,7 @@ The number one characteristic I've discovered that is shared by all people who a
And that's what I ultimately like about Linux—it encourages you to keep going. You don't get to a point where things are hidden away behind a proprietary brick wall. Everything is open source, right down to the core, and you can dig as deeply as you like. The only thing that's really holding you back (besides your attitude) is your time and money. But for me to even talk about these things would mean that I would have to do a deep dive into the many faults of capitalism, and that's not what this zine is about, although I do touch on that tangentially (or not so tangentially) from time to time.
That is really my biggest disappointment when it comes to computers. They were supposed to be the great equalizer, because everybody would have access to the same information and the same tools. But it hasn't worked out like that at all. We commodified everything. I look around me now and I thoroughly understand the reaction that the Taylor character had at the end of the original \textit{Planet of the Apes} movie: ``You maniacs!'' he yells when he sees the ruins of the Statue of Liberty on the other side of the Forbidden Zone. ``You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!''\footnote{This is an authentically great film by the way. With a script cowritten by Rod Serling and based on a novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote \textit{Bridge on the River Kwai}) and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (who also directed \textit{Patton}) how could it not be? I highly recommend it.} Pretty much every pop-up asking me to join a mailing list or asking me to like their Facebook page, every advertisement, every clickbait article, and every social media algorithm makes me feel this way.
That is really my biggest disappointment when it comes to computers. They were supposed to be the great equalizer, because everybody would have access to the same information and the same tools. But it hasn't worked out like that at all. We commodified everything. I look around me now and I thoroughly understand the reaction that the Taylor character had at the end of the original \textit{Planet of the Apes} movie: ``You maniacs!'' he yells when he sees the ruins of the Statue of Liberty on the other side of the Forbidden Zone. ``You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!''\footnote{This is an authentically great film by the way. With a script cowritten by Rod Serling and based on a novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote \textit{Bridge on the River Kwai}) and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (who also directed \textit{Patton}) how could it not be? I highly recommend it.}\textsuperscript{,}\footnote{Or as Paul McCartney might say, ``I look around me and I see it isn't so.'' No, it is not so. It is \textit{so} not so.} Pretty much every pop-up asking me to join a mailing list or asking me to like their Facebook page, every advertisement, every clickbait article, and every social media algorithm makes me feel this way.
Yep, we blew it all up so we could create value for the shareholders. We're not quite at a ruined-Statue-of-Liberty-on-the-beach point yet, but we are, I fear, very close to the end. We could have done better as a species, but we didn't. As Stephen King says of his generation, ``we had a chance to change the world but opted for the Home Shopping Network Instead''.\footnote{In \textit{On Writing}—which is a great book to read, whether you want to become a writer or not.}
@ -402,7 +375,7 @@ Admittedly, this doesn't save us a ton of keystrokes every time we use it, but i
\section{More about bash commands}
As it turns out, you can add more than a single command to a Bash function. For example, you can use this
As it turns out, you can add more than a single command to a bash function. For example, you can use this
\begin{Verbatim}[frame=lines, numbers=left, xleftmargin=5mm, framesep=3mm, breaklines=true, label=\fbox{Bash function with multiple commands}]
cdl() {
@ -421,7 +394,7 @@ So far, so good, but running the same \texttt{tree} command consistently is not
drafts(){ tree $HOME/Drafts/ -R --prune > $HOME/Drafts/list.txt; }
\end{Verbatim}
What that command does is go to that ``Drafts'' folder, runs the \texttt{tree} command with the \texttt{-R} (recursive) and \texttt{--prune} (to ignore empty directories) options and then sends the standard output to a file called \texttt{list.txt}. I look at that \texttt{list.txt} file whenever I am searching for something to write up, and I can see in an instant what rough drafts I can work on. My ADHD brain is pretty happy with this arrangement, as nothing gets buried in a pile of files, and I don't have a ton of paper sitting around.
What that command does is to go to that ``Drafts'' folder, run the \texttt{tree} command with the \texttt{-R} (recursive) and \texttt{--prune} (to ignore empty directories) options and then send the standard output to a file called \texttt{list.txt}. I look at that \texttt{list.txt} file whenever I am searching for something to write up, and I can see in an instant which rough drafts I can work on. My ADHD brain is pretty happy with this arrangement, as nothing gets buried in a pile of files, and I don't have a ton of paper sitting around.
For what it's worth, I also have a backup script (as I mentioned in issue \#2) just for this folder. I added that command to the top of that backup script, so that before anything gets backed up to my cloud, that \texttt{list.txt} file gets updated and uploaded as well.
@ -449,11 +422,11 @@ Experience has shown me that not all wrong ways are wrong in the same way or to
In the past few years, I've started thinking of things less in terms of a particular ``right way'' opposed to a particular ``wrong way'', and started thinking in terms of a spectrum of choices, some of which are obviously wrong (but wrong to varying degrees) and some of which are right because they work (but again, right to varying degrees).
What I have tried to do here is to create a hierarchy of ``rightness'' and ``wrongness'' as a way to organize my thinking on this subject; I can then jump in and discuss why things fall where they do. No doubt, other people might have more or fewer distinctions in their hierarchy, or might have things in a separate order, or might have different reasons.
What I have tried to do here is to create a hierarchy of ``rightness'' and ``wrongness'' as a way to organize my thinking on this subject; I can then jump in and discuss why things fall where they do. No doubt other people might have more or fewer distinctions in their hierarchy, or might have things in a different order, or might have different reasons.
My purpose here is to see if I am actually making any progress, or if I am simply doing things randomly, as adult-onset attention deficit disorder is apparently a thing in my life. In other words, do my changes move me up in this hierarchy, or do they move me down?
And, as we shall see, sometimes it's beneficial to do something the wrong way. You generally learn more by doing things incorrectly than you do by doing them correctly.
And, as we shall see, sometimes it's beneficial to do something the wrong way. You sometimes learn more by doing things incorrectly than you do by doing them correctly.
\krule{6mm}{0mm}
\begin{center}
@ -498,7 +471,7 @@ Let's start at the bottom, and work our way up from there.
\section{Very Wrong Ways}
Very wrong ways are very wrong because not only do they not work, they take other things down with them.
Very wrong ways are very wrong because not only do they \textit{not} work, they take other things down with them.
\paragraph{It doesn't work and it breaks things in weird places.} You may wonder why this is worse than ``It doesn't work and it breaks almost everything else'' but for me the answer is simple: it can be terribly difficult to find those weird places. When I say ``weird'' I mean that they may be obscure places that nobody looks, they may be distant from the current situation and apparently unconnected,\footnote{But nothing is \textit{truly} disconnected from anything else.}, or they may be things that you don't have to rely on very often, so you may not discover that they are broken until days, weeks, or even months later.
@ -617,13 +590,13 @@ At some point, I realized that most manuals are available in convenient pdf form
\medskip
\paragraph{Summary:} In short, NAPS2 is everything I need in a document scanner. It gives me some of the editing features of GIMP, has a simple interface to use (you can create different profile for each kind of scanning you do) and it just plain works. I recommend it.
\paragraph{Summary:} In short, NAPS2 is everything I need in a document scanner. It gives me some of the editing features of GIMP, has a simple interface (you can create different profile for each kind of scanning you do, which is \textit{very} handy—I have about a dozen) and it just plain works. I recommend it.
\chapter{Chemistry in \LaTeX{}}
I used to be a science teacher, and back in the day, typesetting anything for chemistry was not all that easy. We generally just wrote and drew everything by hand. It would have been easier and much neater if I had known anything at all about \LaTeX{}, but alas, I did not. I do now, though.
I used to be a science teacher back in the day and typesetting anything for chemistry was not all that easy. We generally just wrote and drew everything by hand. It would have been easier and much neater if I had known anything at all about \LaTeX{}, but alas, I did not. I do now, though.
As it turns out, people have written a number of different packages over the years to help with this. Let's take a look at three of them.
@ -673,7 +646,7 @@ which will give us:
\noindent{}\ce{Hg^2+ ->[I-] HgI2 ->[I-] [Hg^{II}I4]^2-}
\vspace{\baselineskip}
If you need something fairly straightforward, all in all the \texttt{mhchem} package is for you. It has a simple, intuitive interface and it does a great job. I wish I'd known about this when I was teaching.
If you need something fairly straightforward, the \texttt{mhchem} package is for you. It has a simple, intuitive interface and it does a great job. I wish I'd known about this when I was teaching.
\section{Package \texttt{chemformula}}
@ -708,14 +681,14 @@ gives us this reaction:
We can also write the names of substances underneath them by using a ! and two pairs of parentheses, like this
\begin{Verbatim}[]
\ch{!( sodium )( $2n$ Na ) + !( chlorine )( $n$ Cl2 ) -> !( s
odium\ chloride )( $2n$ NaCl )}
ch{!(sodium)($2n$ Na) + !(chlorine)($n$ Cl2) ->
!(sodium\ chloride)($2n$ NaCl)}
\end{Verbatim}
which gives us this:
\vspace{\baselineskip}
\noindent{}\ch{!( sodium )( $2n$ Na ) + !( chlorine )( $n$ Cl2 ) -> !( sodium\ chloride )( $2n$ NaCl )}
\noindent{}\ch{!(sodium)($2n$ Na) + !(chlorine)($n$ Cl2) -> !(sodium\ chloride)($2n$ NaCl)}
\vspace{\baselineskip}
We had to use spaces inside the parentheses so that the package will know how to format these separate types of input. Also, because a space delineates different inputs, in order to get that space in ``sodium chloride'' we had to escape the space with a backward slash.
@ -914,7 +887,7 @@ This is an easy package to master, and really fun to use. I encourage you to try
\subsection{How to Get More Font Sizes}
One of the things that has bugged me for some time about this zine is that I was not creating the cover in \LaTeX{}. The reason for that was simple: I didn't know how when I started this project+. But we're now at the fourth issue, and so it was time to finally figure it out.\footnote{If this cover looks a little different than previous covers, this is the reason why. But they will look like this going forward.}
One of the things that has bugged me for some time about this zine is that I was not creating the cover in \LaTeX{}. The reason for that was simple: I didn't know how when I started this project. But we're now at the fourth issue, and so it was time to finally figure it out.\footnote{If this cover looks a little different than previous covers, this is the reason why. But they will look like this going forward.}
One of the issues that I encountered is that your standard document classes give you a limited number of font sizes, and I needed the title to be fairly large—larger than I could get with the \verb|\begin{Huge}•\end{Huge}| command, anyway.
@ -936,4 +909,32 @@ Another issue that I ran into when creating the cover in \LaTeX{} is that I need
\lettrine[loversize=0.1, findent=1mm, nindent=0mm, image=true]{Y}{ou} can also be really fancy by using custom images. In this case, I used \texttt{y.eps} to create this drop cap. I probably didn't choose the best font for this kind of thing, but you get the idea. And you also can see what I mean when I say you shouldn't overdo them.
\chapter{Afterword}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{small}
\noindent{}Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?
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.
I apologize 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 because I have short bursts when I get quite a bit done, and then long periods where I get nothing done. This is not new—one of my college professors said that I tend to ``run hot and cold''. Some 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 both.
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,\\—Ken
\end{flushright}
\end{small}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}