I’m a long time Java developer who has been digging into Python these past couple months. Besides the fact that I expect it to be part of my regular tool belt – it is more fun! Brian M. Clapper shares some good reasons why in his piece “Why is Python more fun than Java?”.
In a similar vein, a poster to Hacker News asks What does Ruby have that Python doesn’t?
Yes, this rocks: Tragedy (watch your speaker volume clicking that link!).
Someone is maintaining a Commodore 64 Manual online.
My wife, Richelle, has been encouraging me to talk more about Mom, including here on the blog. I don’t talk about her that much because I have yet to find the words that can adequately express my childhood, but I grew up with a mother who wrestled with a condition called “Schizoaffective Disorder”. I can go into detail about how the disease affected her reasoning and capacity to deal with day to day life, maybe one day I will, but for now, it probably says much by simply indicating that she was aware she had a problem, she sought out help, and that it was episodic, and that those episodes could be heart rendering.
It’s scary talking about such subject matter, many are dealing with such issues in our lives, in our families, and feel forced to conceal such knowledge from others for fear of how it will reflect.
That’s why blogs that talk about mental illness are so important. They are few and far between. And some face insurmountable pressure to represent the views of one establishment or another.
I want to mention two blogs that are worthy of your RSS reader:
Furious Seasons: Ran by a journalist, and psych patient Philip Dawdy, Furious Seasons wrestles with the ongoing, terrible state of psychiatric care.
The Trouble With Spikol: Ran by executive editor of the Philadelphia Weekly, Liz Spikol documents her fight against her illness and her takes on all matters that strike her to write.
Of course I’m biased due to the experience of growing up with Mom, but both these blogs stand as the most courageous I have encountered on the Web.
You know you are dealing with these issues in your life somewhere. Subscribe. Read. Relate. Maybe even comment.
WashingtonPost.com: Marketing Moves to the Blogosphere:
The strategy part is important because a blog may not work for every business. Before starting one, companies have to “make sure that the blog fits in with the existing culture of the company,” said Walter J. Carl, a professor of communications at Northeastern University who has studied corporate blogging. He says a blog is a “really bad idea” for companies that are secretive or tend toward non-disclosure.
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a great piece on George Carlin’s early years, including clips and audio.
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: “The Early George Carlin 1956-1970”:
“The musicians I knew had gone through that transition … I’m listening to Bob Dylan … and I realize these artists are using their talent to project their feelings and ideas… not just please people … I was in the wrong place. In 1967 … I was thirty. I was entertaining people in nightclubs who were forty. They were at war with their kids who were twenty. There was a generation war. I was in the middle of it. I said ‘what the fuck am I doing over here?’ [The twenty year olds] are the people who will understand me and give me a chance … I took two years to change and it happened on television … happened on … shows like Della Reese, Virgina Graham and Steve Allen,” He added, “Virginia Graham was a real shit stirrer. She just loved to get me to talk about smoking pot and Henry Mancini… she got Henry Mancini to cop out to being a pot smoker on TV … I went on there … my beard was growing … my attitudes … were changing. And I talked about my changes on the panel… a lot.”
Google Video: “Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding”:
