LibraryThing 106 Unread Books Meme

Yeah, another book meme. I figure it’s better than not posting, and you do get to at least learn something about me in the process. I have a couple of half-finished posts that I keep meaning to work on.

According to a LibraryThing survey, these 106 works are the ones most often marked as “unread”, That is, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones read solely as a curriculum requirement, italicize the ones you started, but didn’t finish.

Final touch: denote (*) the ones you liked, and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you did read them for school in the first place.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
*Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
*The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
*1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
*Dune
*The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
*The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
*Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Of the books I’ve read on this list, I’d say “1984″ is my favorite. “Dune” is second. One of the things I noticed on the second reading of “Dune” is that Frank Herbert has trouble writing inter-personal relationships. It really shows in the scene where Jessica befriends Stilgar.

You Know You’re a Geek When…

You know you’re a geek when the first thing you do after moving offices at work is go to Home Depot to buy plastic cable wraps to take care of the cabling for all your computers (three to be exact: one development box, and two test servers).

What I Learned This Week

This week I learned:

1. That the sight of blood and other icky stuff doesn’t gross me out nearly as much as it did in the past.
2. That a cat who is smart enough to almost instantly learn a new place she isn’t supposed to sit at in order to get attention is dumb enough to chew on a leaf dangerous to cats. Fortunately, the only harm done was losing her dinner.
3. That once again, you don’t pick your house projects, they pick you. This time it was installing a railing for the steps in the garage. Yeah, something the builder should have done.
4. That when my father-in-law says, “we’ll work on this tomorrow”, he really means, “in an hour I’m going to decide to work on it anyway”.
5. That the best way to fix a gas trimmer which won’t start is to show somebody what’s wrong with it.

With any luck, in a few days I’ll get back to my semi-regularly scheduled deep thoughts.

RL Calls

Been busy the past week, and I won’t be in-world the upcoming week because of RL. I may blog if the mood strikes me.

Book Meme

Since I was implicitly tagged by Josie to do the book meme, and I’m sitting right next to a bookcase, I’ll pick one from my “to read” pile.

“Pandora’s Star” by Peter F. Hamilton. British SF author for those who don’t know. Turning to page 123 and counting to the fifth sentence. Here are the fifth, sixth, and seventh sentences:

There was definitely vodka in it, she could feel the distinctive chill burning along her throat. The recovery vehicles sent out from the main convoy had picked her up twenty hours ago. Which had come as a profound relief; two and a half days alone in the temperate forest was slightly more wilderness adventure than she wanted.

And, in the spirit of “recycled memes”, I’ll let people tag themselves. Everyone go forth and post about your books if you haven’t already done so.

Secrets and Lies

So I was going through my Google documents a few days ago when I stumbled upon what looked like a draft to a response to a Second Life Insider article written by Akela Talamasca back in September, 2006 (made obvious by the fact that I mentioned his name). A little investigative digging, based on the date of the document, turned up this article.

The article talked about how easy it was to hide your identity and other aspects of yourself in SL. In addition, Akela mentioned:

“And yet, it’s ridiculously easy to feel that you have trustworthy friends and loved ones in SL. [various explanations excluded] Whatever it is, it’s frequently the case that people fall into each other’s lives much more readily in SL than they do in RL, but with much less forethought about possible harm.”

My response, which appears in the comments section, was:

“On the topic of misplaced trust, I think the reason it’s ridiculously easy to feel that you have trustworthy friends and loved ones in SL is because of what Akela said: the lack of subliminals such as tone of voice, body language, and word choice. Perhaps an avatar’s detailed appearance, somatic tics, and preset idle animations help convey a positive non-verbal impression which leads to a false sense of security where one would normally be cautious. It’s much harder to mask or have deceitful body language than it is to lie in a conversation.

Personally, sometimes I feel uncomfortable having conversations in SL with people of any shape, form, or gender because of the lack of non-verbal feedback. In those cases, it feels like I’m talking with ear plugs on (hope that analogy makes sense).”

Most of the time, I look back at stuff that I wrote which is more than a year old and cringe. But this seems to have held up pretty well in the year and a half since I wrote it. In addition, it was written after being in SL for only a month.

At the time the article was written, I had considered the lack of non-verbal communication to be an almost insurmountable barrier. It was one of the reasons I almost left SL back then. In RL, I’m very conscious of and rely heavily on non-verbal communication. I’ll deliberately make use of it in conversation in order to achieve some desired effect.

Fast forward to today, and obviously I have not left SL. I’ve compensated for the lack of non-verbal feedback by waiting, sometimes very long, to make discernments about other people. In some cases I’ve known people for almost a year in SL before becoming friends. That tends to be the opposite of what I do in RL, where I decide far more quickly.

A year and a half later, I can’t think of much to add to what I said, which tends to be unusual. Perhaps I’ll check back in another year or year and a half and see how it holds up.

A Whiff of Football in the Air

So the NFL draft was this weekend, leaving the unmistakable smell of football in the air. Admittedly, I’m a college football fan (primarily following the Big 10 and SEC) but will take anything at this point.

So the Atlanta Falcons drafted Matt Ryan. I haven’t seen him play much, but I’ll ask the same question as when the Falcons drafted Vick – “Who’s gonna protect him?” The Falcons still don’t seem to have much of an offensive line. At least this time they didn’t trade the picks which netted the Chargers Drew Breez and L.T. Oh well, hindsight is 20-20.

Not much to report on the college scene. Over at my alma mater, Purdue, it looks like Joe Tiller will be retiring after this season. I’m happy to see that he’s pulled the program out of the cellar. Over at UGA, looks like they’re the #1 in the pre-season rankings. Not sure they’ll be able to hold onto that with a brutal conference schedule and Florida looking for revenge for that excessive celebration last season. Oh well, one can hope.

Only four months to the beginning of college football. Sigh. Don’t worry, this will probably be the last football post… at least until the beginning of the season.

Recycled Meme #2 – State Thy Groups

This one should be fairly easy. Here are my groups as of April 23, 2008:

Abraca’s Dance Hall – Abraca Cardiff’s notification group for her Dance Hall. Used to be a regular hangout, but I haven’t been there in a while.

Al’s Place – The group which owns my land.

CasaBlanca Society Lounge – Romantic dance club managed by Kevin Nordwind with Kylie and Rosa working as hosts. Becoming one of my regular hangouts as I usually go to support Kylie & Rosa when they’re hosting.

DJ CoolJ’s Groupies and Friends – Erbo Evans’ notification group for when he DJ’s.

Fantasyland Estate – Sirux Mahoney’s group, which is the estate owner for my land. I’ve only had one issue, which was quickly resolved, in the 15 months I’ve owned my land.

Frogg and Jaycatt Fan – Frogg & Jaycatt’s notification group.

Howling Mad – Joined back when I had a wolf AV. Not sure why I’m still in it.

Intrepid Explorers – Group for gathering together to explore new and interesting sims.

Jade’s Jazz Lounge – Romantic Jazz club

Kim’s Club – Kim Siefert’s notification group.

LaSalle’s Liner Notes – Patrick LaSalle’s notification group.

Less Lag More Leg – Vel’s group protesting lag. More leg means fewer prims.

Lorrie’s Fun House – Notification group for my friend Lorrie’s club.

Miranda’s – Romantic jazz club. Not sure if it’s still open.

Mourning Middy – Midel Shabtay is gone but not forgotten.

Patrick’s Peeps Posse – The official fan club of Patrick’s Peeps.

Photographers Of Second-Life – One of several photography groups in SL. Mostly consists of requests for wedding photographers and gallery opening announcements. I’m in it more as a statement of my interest in photography than anything else.

Science Fiction Rangers – SF fans in SL. Used to go to events back when I was a newbie. I left once very early on, and Shawna, the group owner, immediately asked why I was leaving. I subsequently rejoined because I thought it was inactive. Nobody else has ever made an effort like that.

Shelter in Exile – From back when all the strife was taking place at the Shelter in late 2006. Still a member for sentimental reasons.

Technical Difficulties – For those who aren’t very technical in sl. Believe it or not, that’s me.

The Carnival of Doom – Notification group for the “carnival from hell” sim. You die if you exit a ride prematurely, only to return after spending some time in “hell”.

The SHELTER – A haven for those new to sl, and a regular hangout as well.

White and Nerdy – The only question I ever thought was hard was ‘Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?’ Contrary to rumor, you don’t have to memorize PI to 17 places to join.

Shadow Dancing

So… I’m all set to publish a recycled meme article when I read Josie’s post about Jung’s Shadow. I got to put mine in decent view once by being on Percocet for a week, becoming pretty a pretty mean person as a result. Ok, that technically violates the definition, but then again I thought I was acting pretty normal. I do like to think that I keep my Shadow in check, but one never knows for sure.

I think this all circles back to the faces we show in sl. Since all we see is a digital representation of ourselves, our appearance and our words are usually all that we have to go by. None of us get to see the brief facial expressions that can give away more than we care to admit. Real speech doesn’t have a backspace or enter key. You don’t get an opportunity to edit something while saying it. That combined with the lack of non-verbal communication often leads me to wonder if it causes a much bigger perception gap than in rl.

As for our Shadows, I think they’re something you can eventually deal with but never eliminate. They’re part of who we are and where we came from. Behavior change is possible but is almost always a long, difficult, and sometimes painful process. Two steps forward, one step back. Two steps forward, one step back…

SL’s Friendship Mechanism is Broken

So Wednesday night I’m hanging out at Casablanca Society Lounge when I notice a very old friend, one who I haven’t seen since November, 2006, comes online. I rarely remove old friends from my list because I always figure you never know when they might show up again. They logged before I had a chance to chat. Reflecting on this led me to conclude that the current SL friendship mechanism is broken.

In RL, I don’t think I’ve formally “asked” or “offered” friendship since the 4th grade. For as long as I can remember, friendships have tended to form over a period of time. Sometimes very quickly, sometimes very slowly, but there has never been an instant where one moment you’re not friends and the next moment you are. Women seem to grasp this concept a lot better than men do. Of course, it goes without saying that friendships can dissolve instantly.

SL, like in RL, has varying levels of friendship. Some people are just acquaintances or co-workers. You see and talk to them because you work together, see them at a place you regularly frequent, or even just have a common interest. Next is your circle of friends. This probably is most associated with the concept of “friendship” in SL. Finally, you have close friendships, “family members”, or bff’s. People can get closer or drift apart as time goes on. The binary concept of “friendship/no friendship” does a poor job of capturing the subtleties of the relationship (referring to friendship and not romance) between friends.

How would I improve the SL friendship mechanism? For starters, I would get rid of the concept of “adding friends”. In its place I would have several options for contact and interaction. The first, or “lowest”, option would be little more than an address book where you could pull up people to IM them. When a person gets added, there is also an option available to let them see your online status. From there, one could add the options to allow you to be teleported, to be map stalked, or to have your objects modified. Of course, permissions could be changed or revoked at any time. The whole concept of “friendship” would go back to its proper amorphous state, which is reflected but not defined by the permissions you give a person.

And as Dennis Miller always says, “That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.”