Author Archives: Walter Underwood

Arden Shakespeare and Slings & Arrows

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I’ve bought my last non-Arden edition of a Shakespeare play. I picked up a Yale edition of Hamlet to supplement the first season of Slings & Arrows. Yale is a fairly reputable institution and I’m inclined to respect their publications, but this is obviously designed for high school students, and not very good students at that.

The in-line index numbers for notes are intrusive enough, but when in Act 3, Scene 2, line 279, the note for “recorder” read “a wooden flute played in vertical position (modern flutes are metal and played transversely)”, I nearly threw the book across the room. Except that would have awakened my sleeping wife.

I’ve had similar experiences with a couple of other editions of Shakespeare, but not with the Arden Shakespeare. The editions cost two or three times as much, even in paperback, but are worth about 10X as much to a reader competent in modern English. For one thing, they don’t use in-line index numbers. If you want help, there are notes keyed to the line number. And those notes don’t stoop to explaining words that should be obvious to the educated reader.

The introductory essays in the Arden editions are extensive and detailed and helpful, if you are into that (I am), but the key difference for me is that the notes do not break the flow of my reading.

Oh, and watch Slings & Arrows. Three seasons of six shows each, set in a fictional theatre festival in Canada. Each season is built around a play — Hamlet, then Macbeth, then King Lear.

I especially enjoy three aspects of this series, the backstage action, the way they use Shakespeare, and the occasional shading away from realism. If you’ve ever worked on stage or backstage, parts of the series will feel very real. Shakespeare is pervasive in the series, in interesting ways. If you don’t know Hamlet, you can enjoy the series and learn a lot about the play. If you’ve studied Hamlet extensively, you might notice lines quoted and elements remixed in the “real life” action — betrayals, a ghost, people talking to themselves, pretense, hasty marriages, the list goes on. It could almost be a drinking game. Finally, I love how the cinematography gets caught up in the magic. At one point, a character nails his part in rehearsal and the set and costumes appear for a short while because he is creating the whole play on a bare stage.

Tina and I have watched two seasons and it is already in our top ten TV series of all time. That puts it with My So-Called Life, thirtysomething, the good episodes of The X-Files, the first few years of Saturday Night Live, The Carol Burnett Show, and Sesame Street.

If you get it from Netflix, I strongly recommend getting both discs for a season at once. I also recommend setting aside a couple of hours, because by the fourth episode you might need to finish the entire season. That has happened to us with both the first and second season.

Give it at least three episodes. The first one is a bit slow, but by the third, oh my.

If you’ve ever worked on stage or backstage, you’ll recognize the good and the bad, the awful and the magical. I’ll give you one lovely clip with a terrible actress and marvelous directing. Watch Geoffrey Tennant desparately try to elicit a real performance from Claire Donner playing Ophelia.

If you don’t believe me, read Tim Goodman’s review of Slings & Arrows, since that is what convinced me to watch it.

You Know You Might Be A Scoutmaster If …

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I’m scoring well below 50% on this test, but I do have several hits. Here they are:

  • You hoard tent stakes.
  • You cannot walk by a piece of trash without picking it up. (ever since I was a Scout …)
  • You carry a duffle bag size first-aid kit in your car. (meatloaf size, really)
  • You know all the words to “Little Bunny Foo-Foo”, but can’t remember where you left your briefcase. (I know where my briefcase is, but I misplace plenty of stuff)
  • You always cook enough food for twelve. (but this comes from growing up around Cajuns; if you are cooking something good, why wouldn’t you invite all your friends? Adults don’t cook for Scouts anyway, so this is a bogus one.)
  • You open letters with a pocket knife. (only when the sterling letter opener isn’t handy; I was raised in the south)
  • You know 365 one pot meals. (maybe only 30 or so)
  • You really do use those emergency sewing kits. (but they never have buttonhole twist, and sewing buttons back on is #1)

On a more serious note, I finally found the job description for Scoutmaster. It isn’t in the BSA Scoutmaster Handbook (a real Dilbert Moment); it’s in the Troop Committee training materials. It isn’t even in The Scoutmaster’s Other Handbook. For the uninitiated, the Troop Committee hires the Scoutmaster. The Dilbertness is for the hiring manager to know the job description and never tell the new hire. Geez. Hello Bob Mazzuca, put this on page one of the Scoutmaster Handbook.

So, here is the job description. I’ve tweaked it for our troop, changing Patrol Leaders Council (PLC) to “Greenbar” and adding notes about Scoutmaster conferences.

Scoutmaster (excerpted from BSA Troop Committee Guidebook, 1990):

  • Train and guide boy leaders
  • Work with other responsible adults to bring Scouting to boys
  • Use the methods of Scouting to achieve the aims of Scouting
  • Meet regularly with Greenbar for training and coordination in planning troop activities
  • Attend all troop meetings or, when necessary, arrange for a qualified adult substitute
  • Attend all troop committee meetings
  • Conduct periodic parents’ sessions to share the program and encourage parent participation and cooperation
  • Take part in annual membership inventory and uniform inspection, charter review meeting, and charter presentation
  • Conduct Scoutmaster conferences for all rank advancements (in T-14, for Scout, First Class, and Eagle ranks, others are by patrol liaison ASMs)
  • Provide a systematic recruiting plan for new members and see that they are promptly registered
  • Delegate responsibility to other adults and groups (assistants, troop committee) so that they have a real part in troop operations
  • Supervise troop elections for the Order of the Arrow
  • Make it possible for each Scout to experience at least 10 days and nights of camping each year
  • Participate in council and district events
  • Build a strong program by using proven methods presented in Scouting literature
  • Conduct all activities under qualified leadership, safe conditions, and the policies of the chartered organization and the BSA

Kinda big for a volunteer, spare time position, eh? The only saving bit is that you are required to delegate.

Odd Cataloging Decisions at Palo Alto Library

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I really wonder about the cataloging at my local library. I was looking for books by Jo Walton and I noticed that a series by her was spread across two areas, both arguably wrong. First, Ha’penny is a sequel to Farthing, so they really should be shelved in the same section. Second, they are both alternate history novels from a fantasy author, and I wouldn’t look in either Mystery or Fiction for them.

Check out this screenshot from their search on July 2nd.

PA Library webcat screenshot

Big hint, Tor has been a major SF&F imprint for over 25 years.

I’m looking forward to Palo Alto’s choice for Half a Crown, the next book in the series. Maybe DDC 737 (Numismatics)?

I reported this to the reference desk at Main. Let’s hope they fix it.

The fun doesn’t stop there. I’m currently reading The Fall of the Kings. That was shelved in YA Fiction, where it doesn’t even belong. I read a fair mix of books, from Westerfeld to Dostoevsky, with plenty of YA, and this just doesn’t fit in the Teen collection. It is long (476 pages of small print), there are no teenage characters, nearly every chapter has sex and/or violence, it is quite slow moving, and it helps if you care about university politics. I read Valiant immediately before, and that book has half the word count with double the action and four times the dialogue, plus teens, fairies, drugs, NYC, and a massive betrayal by mom. Valiant belongs in the Teen section. Dreamhunter belongs there. The Fall of the Kings does not.

I thought that maybe, just maybe, they put it in YA because the most recent book in the series, The Privilege of the Sword, has a 15 year old girl as the main character and can easily be considered YA, so they decided to keep them together. Sorry, they shelved that one in Science Fiction.

I know that strictly defining Science Fiction (or Fantasy) is nearly impossible, but they must be able to avoid howlers like this. Yes, Michael Chabon has written fantasy (Summerland) and SF (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) but it might as well be shelved in the mainstream section because that is where people will look for him. On the other hand, Jo Walton has written a sword and sorcery trilogy and a book set in Victorian England where the nobility are dragons. Where would you look? Heck, ask Jo Walton. Her answer to the FAQ “What genre is Farthing?” reads “It’s an alternate history mystery. I think that makes it SF.”

Hmm, Palo Alto also shelves The Lord of the Rings and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series in mainstream Fiction. Bizarre. The Kushiel books are also published by Tor. Can we just shelve all the Tor in SF, as a stopgap?

Hiker Hell Blog Collects Hiking Incidents

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The Hiker Hell blog collects reports of trail emergencies worldwide: lost hikers, injured hikers, and fatalities. Favorite title and story so far is Turtle Fascination Gets Hiker Lost. He even includes the maybe/maybe-not mountain lion attack in Palo Alto, both the original report and the followup, can’t-prove-it story.

Besides the sheer fascination, real examples make great stories for getting Scouts to remember trail safety practices. “Stories” is principle #6 from Made to Stick. Filter through Hiker Hell for items that meet the other principles, then start teaching.

The Merchants Are On Board

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I just heard a commercial on KCBS from Shreve and Co., a San Francisco jeweler. There are three different people talking about shopping for wedding rings with their sweetie. The second voice is a woman who says, “Julie and I have been dreaming about this for years…” and the third is a man who says “Rick and I have been planning our ceremony, the reception, and, of course, looking at rings…”

To paraphrase Engine Charlie, “What’s good for jewelers is good for America.”

Testosterone Poisoning on Highway 85

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Driving to work this morning, I was squirting some particularly resistant goo off the windshield. About when I had partial success, the BMW behind me zipped around, pulled in front of me, squirted their windshield washers, then changed lines to get onto 280. Sigh. It is sad when someone needs vengeance about tiny things. I somehow doubt that driver will have a long and happy life.

He did help get more of the goo off my windshield, though.

Favorite photo of Loken

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This really isn’t going to turn into a 24/7 Loken blog, and it is not some conceptual art piece about cat pictures on blogs. Right now, Loken is a big change in our lives and pretty danged important to our son, so he is getting all the ink.

This is a photo that I keep mailing to people — Loken’s puppy raiser, the caretakers of Loken’s sire and mom, and so on. At some point, it makes more sense to post it.

There is a bit of trivia which makes this photo more fun for us. I’m the only one in our family who can raise a single eyebrow (either one), which somehow gets more attention that you think it would. As you can see, I can share the glare of the Klieg lights with Loken, who also raises one eyebrow.

This was taken on the patio of our CCI dorm room, the first afternoon that we took Loken back to our room. Click on the photo for the full-resolution version, or check out the original, uncropped photo. The full photo was projected as the “title slide” for our class graduation. Kevin was the first to notice that a picture of Loken was up on the wall.

Loken on the patio

At home with Loken

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We took Loken to church today as our first public trip and he was a perfect gentleman. At the snack time after the service, Kevin and Loken sat together and people came by to be introduced. The church cat was playing behind us, but Loken didn’t even turn to look.

We have had a couple of training sessions with him, some Heel and Side along with some Get/Sit/Give retrieves with car keys, and showing off Lap and Visit for a neighbor. He is testing us, doing a sloppy heel or dropping the keys and not going back for them. It provides a good chance for both Tina and I to practice our handling and let Loken know he isn’t going to get away with sloppy work.

We took some time this afternoon for play in the back yard. The tennis ball was fun, but Loken really likes his Hol-ee Roller. He ran around playing with it for a while after each throw. He brought everything back to Kevin, even when someone else threw it.

Afterwards, Loken settled down to watch some TV with Kevin. That was Loken’s idea. He actually left his beloved dog bed to be close to Kevin.

Kevin and Loken watching TV

Public Access Here We Come

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Today was our ADI public access test and our CCI written test. The Coddingtown Mall was busier than usual, perhaps because it was over 100 degrees outside. It was noisy, echoey, and warm, but the dogs were well behaved.

Both Tina and I had trouble with the Get command, taking three or four tries for success, but we’ll work that out. Loken certainly knows the command, it is up to us to elicit his response.

The test is primarily about safety, and I didn’t see any issues on that front. We had to be extra careful about the hot asphalt and keeping the dogs hydrated. Tonight, we celebrate with the other families in our class.

CCI Skilled Companion Loken!

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At CCI Team Training on Saturday, they told us our pre-matches were final, so we can tell the world the name of our dog – Loken. We headed home immediately after and found that our internet connection was cut (“backhoe fade” as a friend told us), so this post is delayed.

We are very, very excited, but also very busy as we study and practice for our ADI public certification test. This will be a quick post with a couple of photos, since I need to be in class in five minutes.

Loken meeting Kevin for the first time:

Loken really enjoys laying in the sun. He was raised in Seattle, so maybe that has something to do with it.

And a few pictures of Loken as a puppy, one with his Puppy Raiser. Thank you, Allen.

Headed to CCI Team Training

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CCI is Canine Companions for Independence and Team Training is where the team (recipient and handler) are trained to work with a service dog. The dogs are already trained, so we will spend two weeks learning.

We will be training for a Skilled Companion Dog for our older son. CCI calls this a Skilled Companion Team:

A three-part team including a child or adult with physical, developmental or emotional disabilities, a primary caretaker, and a Canine Companion who helps with physical tasks and creates a bond of companionship, affection and love.

My wife, my older son, and I will be in training for the next two weeks. We will live on campus in Santa Rosa, and our younger son will stay home, go to school, and live with friends for one week and have his grandparents as companions for the second week. He’s being great about this. We are going to have a wonderful new dog, and he knows that he has to make room for his brother to be the best friend. How amazing is that?

The dogs really are wonderful. Here is a photo from our interview. The trainer is in the wheelchair and the dog is quiet and attentive, waiting for the next command. My audition was with this dog, and he was a joy. I told him “let’s go” and he walked with me, keeping light contact with my leg to stay close.

CCI trainer and service dog in training

Our son is developmentally delayed but doesn’t have major physical handicaps, so some friends have (reasonably) asked what a service dog can do for him. I think that is best answered by this video of Cole and Skilled Companion Ilia. Watch how Ilia puts her head on him (the “visit” command), how he holds the leash for security in physical therapy, and how Ilia is so careful to be close but not in the way in the solo dog walk. Warning: have a hankie ready.

Video of Cole and Skilled Companion Ilia (YouTube, 3:24)

If you are curious how a Service Dog can help, as opposed to a Skilled Companion Dog, read about Thida Cornes and her magical dog Hermione.

For a taste of Team Training, read Thida’s My Hermione matching story. I expect I’ll be a bit busy to liveblog our training.

This is a big commitment. We will be helping our son bond with the dog (we are not the dog’s best friend, he is). We’ll have a big friendly dog in our family for years. We will have epic levels of dog hair (one friend estimates that 60-80% of their food intake goes directly to hair production). We will be maintaining the training and teaching new commands. We will be re-tested yearly to retain our ADI certification. The dog will go to work with one of us every day — CCI rules don’t allow the dog to be alone for more than four hours. It should also be loads of fun. I’m already checking out dog-friendly trails in the area.

How much does metadata cost?

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It is very hard to find numbers on what it really costs for metadata, but here is one from a Netflix job posting. $6 per movie for “original, descriptive movie and TV episode synopses.”

Here are links to a Hacking Netflix blog posting (likely to remain a valid URL) and to the Netflix job posting (guaranteed to succumb to link rot as soon as the opening
is filled).

The only other published numbers I’ve found are similar, $6.20 to $14.67 per jazz CD depending on the detail in 2003 at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. They were given a collection of 6200 jazz records and were estimating what that gift would cost them. See the article How Much Will It Cost? Making Informed Policy Choices Using Cataloging Standards.

The Netflix numbers are probably closer for an ecommerce or search application. Still, the close agreement in the numbers makes it pretty safe to say “less than $10 per document”.

Remember that the metadata must be updated when the document changes. Maybe “$10 per document per year” is a better number. HP was spending about that much to manage the HP-UX spec (man pages) about ten years ago. That covered all activities, not just metadata.

The Netflix job posting is for six openings, each with a six week duration. That sounds like a lot of work, but if I assume each writer does three synopses per hour (seems very fast for finished work), that is still only 4300 movies. Metadata is very, very expensive.

I have a couple of other stories without dollars, but still instructive.

One publishing company needed to digitize their back content and planned to start a division in the Philippines with 3000 employees to get it done. They found a different way.

I was consulting with a telecom company, and the CEO asked for metadata on every page in their intranet. They had 4M documents.

One final note, since I work for Netflix. All of the Netflix info here is derived from the job posting. No insider information was required or is included in this post.