Last Sunday, Marcia and I climbed down a cliff to a beach where they have awesome tide pools. I have even mentioned them before on here. You have to take a scary path down to get to them.

But it was a cool foggy day, which was nice because it was in the low 90s by my house. Also, there were tons of flowers everywhere.

We climbed down and discovered that, duh, the tide was coming in. We couldn’t even get to all of the beach, let alone see anything in the pools. Also, these cliffs are dangerous with sleeper waves that come up suddenly and splash you. Even the fishermen were thinking of leaving.

But we looked around and still saw some cool things. For example:

A stick that looks like a friendly elephant

A dead squid, possibly left behind by the fishermen

A multi-colored seed pod

A naturally yellow rock

A really pretty plant

All in all, it was nice to get out, climb down a cliff, and look at nature for awhile. And it was great to get out of the heat.

Aside from a new book by Kyle Rankin, this article pointed out that an astounding number of books by big writers are coming out this fall. They include new books by Thomas Pynchon, E. L. Doctorow, Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, John Irving, A. S. Byatt, Dave Eggers, Philip Roth, Barbara Kingsolver, and even Vladimir Nabokov.

This is unheard of. Never have so many major writers released new books at the same time. And all in a year where everyone is moaning that publishing is dead dying. Apparently not. Not, at least, if we all buy some books this fall–sounds like there will be plenty to choose from.

(02:58:35 PM) Joy: tell me a story.
(02:59:53 PM) Marcia: once there was a fierce chipmunk warrior named Alphabetus
(03:00:09 PM) Marcia: he conquered all his foes in the land of Casturena
(03:00:26 PM) Marcia: however, one day, he traveled with his girlfriend Betty to a neighboring land
(03:00:36 PM) Marcia: and discovered all his foes living there together in harmony
(03:01:06 PM) Marcia: so he asked the leader of the foes, “how is it you all exist here in harmony, though i have vanquished you all?”
(03:01:20 PM) Marcia: and he replied, “something deep about cooperation. lesson!”
(03:01:37 PM) Joy: LOL
(03:01:41 PM) Marcia: and they all danced and sang
(03:01:43 PM) Marcia: THE END
(03:01:48 PM) Joy: that was a good story
(03:02:29 PM) Marcia: that is what those fable fairy tales sounded like to me when i was a kid
(03:02:37 PM) Marcia: bossy lessons from animals!
(03:03:37 PM) Joy: they were bossy! but wise
(03:04:36 PM) Marcia: maybe i should write children’s books?

In other Kyle news, he has been writing a column with Bill Childers in Linux Journal for awhile now. The column is called Point/Counterpoint, where they talk about opposing sides of different geeky topics. In the most recent column, they talk about Twitter. Bill likes it, Kyle does not. An excerpt:

Bill: Okay, I get that you’re annoyed. But admit it, you’re still judging without fully understanding.

Kyle: What’s there to understand? People read text; people occasionally reply to text. You get into a group with certain people and all of them see what you write and (potentially) vice versa.

Bill: The difference is the audience is broader. Broader than arguably a blog. You could use it as a good marketing tool, if you quit judging.

Bill: But noooo, just go ahead and sit in your tower, and pout.

Ouch! Read the rest here.

Is it sad that I would totally watch this, if it existed?

Kyle’s newest book, The Official Ubuntu Server Book, will be out July 27. I am very excited about this one. He worked with Benjamin Mako Hill, one of Ubuntu’s founders. Prentice Hall is publishing the book. It will be Kyle’s sixth book and his first one with Prentice Hall. Hurrah!

Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux. The book goes over how to use it on servers. Or, according to Amazon:

The authors cover Ubuntu Server from start to finish: installation, basic administration and monitoring, security, backup, troubleshooting, system rescue, and much more. They walk through deploying each of the most common server applications, from file and print services to state-of-the-art, cost-saving virtualization.

In addition, you’ll learn how to

* Make the most of Ubuntu Server’s latest, most powerful technologies
* Discover easy, fast ways to perform key administration tasks
* Automate Ubuntu installs, no matter how many servers you’re installing
* Quickly set up low-cost web servers and email
* Protect your server with Ubuntu’s built-in and optional security tools
* Minimize downtime with fault tolerance and clustering
* Master proven, step-by-step server and network troubleshooting techniques
* Walk through rescuing an Ubuntu server that won’t boot

Kyle!

As someone who spent most of yesterday daydreaming how I can make a lamp that says “Read” on it for my living room–and then plotting out with my husband the exact font I would use for the word “Read” and how I could make a grid in Gimp to exactly reproduce the word on the lamp–I naturally love MythBusters Co-Host Adam Savage’s speech on obsession. In it, he talks about his quest to reproduce a dodo bird skeleton and then the statue from the movie The Maltese Falcon. Although I don’t have his patience or detail-mindedness, I am totally picking up what Savage is putting down here. (Thanks Justin for the link.)

“Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.” Genesis 3:18-19

I often think of this scripture when I’m out weeding and fighting gophers and ants. Melodramatic? Perhaps…

The other day, I was saying how I should have been a playwright. All my formative reading was in plays. I used to go to the library when I was 15 or so and get out stacks of plays a foot high and sit in my room all night reading one after another. I know, I was the coolest teenager ever.

Anyway, if I were more inclined toward plot-oriented fiction, I might have gone down the playwright path. But after reading this article in the NYTimes, I’m glad I didn’t. Apparently, there is a gender bias against female playwrights in the theater.

At least, that’s according to a three-part Princeton study looking into whether “women who are authors have a tougher time getting their work staged than men.” Short answer: They do. And shockingly, at least to me, it’s the female artistic directors and literary managers who are doing the discriminating.

Ms. Sands [who headed the study] sent identical scripts to artistic directors and literary managers around the country. The only difference was that half named a man as the writer (for example, Michael Walker), while half named a woman (i.e., Mary Walker). It turned out that Mary’s scripts received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response than Michael’s. The biggest surprise? “These results are driven exclusively by the responses of female artistic directors and literary managers,” Ms. Sands said.

… Ms. Sands put it another way: “Men rate men and women playwrights exactly the same.”

Fascinating. And … disturbing. Less surprisingly, this is also the fault of the female playwrights. There are fewer of them, they produce less work than the men, and the quality of their work seems to be lower. That makes sense if they are working against a bias–it takes a lot of nerve to write knowing that is against you.

Still, despite that, plays by female playwrights make more money than plays by men: “Plays and musicals by women sold 16 percent more tickets a week and were 18 percent more profitable over all.”

“Yet even though shows written by women earned more money, producers did not keep them running any longer than less profitable shows that were written by men.”

Pretty surprising stuff. Depressing too. However, I still refuse to watch a staging of The Vagina Monologues.

Oh British journalism. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you. Here is an article by a British woman about how hard it is for her, an anorexic, to eat normally for a week. Yes, she decides to live out a fantasy and eat everything she wants like a “normal” person for three weeks, just to see how she fares. (Spoiler: it’s hard for her.) When I read this, I get the feeling of impatience I always get when I read about eating disorders. Who cares about the last time you ate Yorkshire pudding, lady? I realize these people are sick, and I really do pity them, but they are also so boring. Reading about someone’s obsessions is like reading about people’s dreams–they are only interesting to the person who has them.

In the end, she realizes that she is gaining weight, so she suddenly decides to be anorexic again. Because, somehow, “all this eating has proved what I thought all along: food makes you soft, lazy, undisciplined.” Huh? This author comes off as narcissistic and mentally ill, which is pretty irresponsible on The Daily Mail’s part, if you ask me. What’s next, a kleptomaniac who gives up stealing for a week? A schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur explaining why he really is god?

The article does do one thing, however. It shows how utterly pointless eating disorders are. As the author herself says: “Oh, and by the way, at the start of this odyssey I weigh 8st 2lb, which is slight for my 5ft 8in frame. What a silly, empty half-century achievement that is.” Amen, sister.