Rereading / (2007-01-07/11)

"There is no great genius without some touch of madness. "--Seneca, Moral Essays. On Tranquility of the Mind, 17, 10
"'Without effective therapy, widely available and used, we wouldn't be able to support the dataflow economy we have today.'"--Greg Bear, / (Slant)

Several science fiction authors explore the relationship between sanity and society. In Xenocide and Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card imagines a society which regards obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as possession by the gods. In A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge imagines a far-future society which uses hyperfocus--which my society regards as a symptom of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism--for enslavement. In /, Greg Bear imagines a near-future society which stresses its best and brightest into unhappiness--until technological therapy restores them. / adds Tourette syndrome alongside OCD and ADHD to the list of disorders with subplots in science fiction.

I read again my autographed copy of / in Seattle. In this city my programming work and play, in business and hobby projects, have brought me into contact with "neurodiversity." In former subconsultants and friends I have observed these traits: preoccupation with a single subject, repetitive rituals, idiosyncratic speech, inability to express empathy, impaired ability to perceive nonverbal cues, perfectionism, perfect alignment of objects, echolalia, self-injury, social avoidance, fidgeting, poor impulse control, unusual reluctance to take risks, sexual preference uncertainty, substance habits, and a subvocalization behavior I don't know how to classify. One could regard these traits as symptoms of Aspberger syndrome, OCD, high-functioning autism, Tourette syndrome, borderline personality disorder, social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder, ADHD, or a comorbid combination of these.

One could also regard these traits as personality weaknesses associated with expert knowledge, technical thought, humor, helpfulness, attention to detail, organization, problem-solving, cognitive motor control, artistic temperament, or shyness. Hacker culture certainly has some skepticism about Aspberger syndrome and ADHD:

After all, people in authority will always be inconvenienced by schoolchildren or workers or citizens who are prickly, intelligent individualists — thus, any social system that depends on authority relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and therapize and drug such ‘abnormal’ people until they are properly docile and stupid and ‘well-socialized’.

Whether disorder or personality, I am intrigued by the range of experience, and curious about the requirements of excellence.

Working on D800 in Seattle (2006-12-28/2007-01-11)

Jim waved his hands and said, "Chicken, chicken, chicken," the previous time my laptop refused to turn on. I assume this was because he lacked a dead chicken. Afterward, when he replaced the battery, the laptop turned on. This time (I bring all my hardware problems to Jim) even removing and replacing the battery failed.

I removed the hard drive, shipped the D820 to Dell for repair, and went back to using a D800. The D820 hard drive contains the photographs that I would use to bring this blog up to our 2006-12-04 return flight from Paris to Seattle, instead of leaving the travel diary at Château d'Amboise. I'm disappointed: my Europe blogs posts were my most complete travel diary to date, tripling the 9 handwritten entries in my 1996 European travel diary. I want to finish the trip diary in photos, once the D820 returns and I have easy access to the nearly 2100 photographs Ryan and I took.

In the last half of our Europe trip I traveled and developed software. Now that we've delivered the 0.2 (alpha) version of the user interface, I want to begin blogging books and--when the D820 returns--finish the travel diary.

Listening to Minor Majority (2006-10-18)

Readers of this blog may know my love of the Garden State soundtrack, especially Iron & Wine, and my desire to play folk rock guitar music like Norwegian band Kings of Convenience. Knowing this it would be no surprise that when I heard Norwegian band Minor Majority's "Wish You'd Hold That Smile" on Reasons to Hang Around I was immediately interested. I walked from the back of my morning workplace to have a conversation in rudimentary French. "Did the Internet disconnect? What do you want?" they asked me. "I want that music," I replied.

Hey, I wish you’d hold that smile
Help, if only for a while
I need to know about all the things you did and didn’t do
And just how hard you tried

At Château d'Amboise (2006-10-23)

Our last stop of the day, before riding the TGV back to Paris, was Château d'Amboise. The Flickr photostream contains a photograph of the castle itself.

At Le Close Lucé (2006-10-23)

Le Close Lucé, a Leonardo da Vinci museum (and his onetime house), was inspiring because of the models of Leonardo da Vinci ideas and inventions. I was impressed that, as Wikipedia says, "He conceived of ideas vastly ahead of his own time, notably conceptually inventing the helicopter, a tank, the use of concentrated solar power, the calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics, the double hull, and many others. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were feasible during his lifetime; modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance."

At Château de Chenonceau (2006-10-23)

After lunch in Tours, the tour group expanded and we rode to Château de Chenonceau.

At Château de Villandry (2006-10-23)

Our second stop was the gardens and castle of Villandry.

At Château Azay-le-Rideau (2006-10-23)

Our tour guide David first drove us and a British couple to Château Azay-le-Rideau.

Touring around Tours, France (2006-10-23)

Our fourth of six rail days took us from Nantes to Tours to Paris. We wanted to take an excursion that would permit us to see the Château de Chambord, but the tour was full by the time the tourist office opened. Instead, Alienor Excursions took us to Azay-le-Rideau, Château de Villandry, Château de Chenonceau, Le Close Lucé (a Leonardo da Vinci museum), and Château d'Amboise.

Taking Pictures of Cathedrale Saint-Pierre, Nantes, France (2006-10-22)

That's Ryan in the doorway within the doorway of La Cathedrale.