The fact is that I just don’t like needles. In itself, that isn’t so bad; it’s no great feat to go to the clinic, joke with the medics, stare at anything else until they’re done. It’s not like there’s any real pain involved. The real problem is afterward: pretty much as soon as they tell me I can go now, I’m in no shape to do so.

The symptoms are predictable: they happen reliably every time I have blood drawn. Nausea. Cold sweats. Paleness. Greying of vision coupled with graininess, as though my eyes have just cranked up into their Boost ISO ratings while slamming closed the pupils. When I was young, I passed out more than once after blood withdrawals, but I’m not allowed to anymore: military pilots aren’t allowed to faint. That would be an entry in my medical history that I really don’t want; it might threaten my ability to fly. So I don’t pass out anymore.

Instead, I sit for a minute until it seems prudent to stand, then retch into a toilet for a little while. Then I go sit down for another ten or fifteen minutes, waiting quietly to regain my equipoise. Only then can I go about my day.

This whole process is inconvenient and irrational and annoying, even more so for the fact that it’s automatic and unavoidable. I’d really like to be able to face blood drawings with the unconcern of a machine having an oil sample taken: through a convenient access port, with none of these autonomic responses incapacitating me regardless of my desires in the matter. Unfortunately, that skill continues to elude me.

At least it will be two years at least before I have to go through any of this again. And even despite this, today was a good day.

Aaron Brown was not a morning person.

This wasn’t atypical, though. Very little about him was. In sleepy sequence he did all the normal things: showered, shaved, suited up, downed a bit of coffee, went to work. Traffic was light this morning, which was a relief.

Another of Aaron’s traits was that he was a quiet sort of person. From the moment the alarm died until greeting the receptionist at the firm, the only noises he heard were the incidental noises of moving about his condo in the well-established routine. It’s not that he was particularly trying for stealth; he just saw no reason to make any unnecessary noise. If he moved without any particular grace, it was with at least the smoothness of a well-rehearsed morning routine; very little noise indeed turned out to be necessary. Even his Prius was far too polite to bother anyone with the excitement of burning fossil fuels, most of the time.

The receptionist was quite otherwise: a cheerful young woman named Sally. Cheerful wasn’t quite the right word; the right one would have most of the denotations of ‘perky’ without the connotations of ‘annoying.’ She was bright in personality, if not in intelligence, and her friendly greeting typically spiked through his sensitized hearing in a way quite comparable to the alarm.

Today proved to be an exception: her desk was empty. This was an anomaly, but not one which particularly troubled Aaron. His only interaction with her was through the brief trivialities of greeting and parting as he walked past her twice each day. There was surely some perfectly reasonable reason why nobody was there today. As he summoned the elevator, his mind wandered to other things.

Upstairs, in the office, Milo Hammerschmidt was frantic. Milo Hammerschmidt was Aaron’s boss. Milo Hammerschmidt used to play football. Milo Hammerschmidt was now 60 pounds overweight. As he heard the rumble of the approaching elevator, Milo Hammerschmidt slammed down the telephone on yet another endless ringtone and prayed. When the doors dinged and began to open, he leapt from his desk with joy and paced directly over.

“Aaron! Thank god you’re here; I’ve had a devil of a time getting anybody in this morning! Nobody’s answering their phones; it’s as though they’ve all vanished off the face of the earth. Listen, I need you to hold down the fort here for a while; I’m going to go start knocking on peoples’ doors. We just can’t function if nobody shows up!”

Aaron was an actuary. His job wasn’t to sell insurance, or to investigate claims, or to answer calls: all of those jobs required assertive people, loud people. People people. They wouldn’t have been a good fit.

Aaron’s job was to investigate data, and determine probabilities. Conditional probabilities, chained probabilities, and expected values were his bread and butter. Black swans and white noise were his seasonings. Aaron could tell you about the difference between correlation and causation, the statistical tools to determine which was which, and the perfectly good reason why it didn’t matter to the company which one it was as far as setting rates went. When he ran out of data, Aaron was a man who could commission a study to collect more data.

Aaron was not a powerful man, but he had enough power to suit his desires.

He was happy enough in his job. Shortly after noon, he looked up from his work and realized that while he was engrossed some people had come into the office. They were a small fraction of the normal office population, and were mostly standing around the coffee machine, chatting quietly. This almost never happened. Milo didn’t tolerate it. The coffee maker was set up directly across from his office door for precisely this reason. Milo, Aaron presumed, was probably still out trying to round up the rest of the staff.

Aaron liked to eat at a particular cafe near the office. It wasn’t heavily patronized in the best of times, but the food was good and cheap and surprisingly healthy; if it weren’t for that last fact it could have been called a greasy spoon. As he walked in, and the bells hanging from the door handle jingled their greetings, he saw that the place was empty. It could be that the staff were all busy in the back. That wasn’t entirely implausible. A bit of his subconscious was ticking away, though, working out what the probabilities actually were, given the available information. The numbers it was coming up with were startling. They couldn’t be right. In the meantime, while waiting for the waitress to take his order, he sat and watched the television.

It was showing the news, or at least it seemed to be. A young-looking reporter was interviewing a wild-eyed man in clerical clothes.
“The Rapture has come and gone. We are the remainders! We are, all of us, the damned.”
“Surely there’s some other explanation for the disappearances. After all, the Rapture was only supposed to take 144000 people; the most current estimates are that over five billion have already vanished. How do you explain the fact that so many more people were saved?”
“Can you question God’s grace to that extent? He promised to save that many, but through His divine munificence He’s saved the majority of the people of the world!”
“Why would he have left us behind, though? What made us different?”
“I cannot say. I’ve been searching my soul to discover why I am among the wicked to endure the Tribulation, but I cannot answer for the ineffable will of the Lord.”

The text ticker at the bottom of the screen was showing similarly apocalyptic messages:
IS THE END OF THE WORLD NIGH? VOTE ONLINE OR BY TEXTING “YES” OR “NO” TO 57668
NUCLEAR DETONATIONS DETECTED IN KOREA, PAKISTAN
5 BILLION PEOPLE AND COUNTING VANISH WITHIN HOURS. EXPERTS MYSTIFIED
US MILITARY ORDERED TO DEFCON 2: “WE ARE PREPARED TO REACT TO ANY THREAT” SAYS SECDEF
POPE IS AMONG THE MISSING
COULD THIS BE TERRORISM?
NO EVIDENCE YET OF DEAD RISING
BRITISH RECLUSE WINS 258 TRILLION EURO FROM BOOKIE FOR PREDICTION

After some twenty minutes of fascinated horror at the messages, Aaron ducked behind the counter and made himself a sandwich. He left a $20 bill on the counter without making change. It was hard to feel like it mattered.

Walking back to the office was somewhat surreal. There were people on the streets, but nearly no traffic. Occasionally a window smashed in the distance, but more people were simply walking into stores and taking what they wanted quietly. When he arrived back, he discovered he was the only person at work. He puttered for a little while, proving that using standard models the probability of current events was on the order of 1*10^(-340). Then, in the single most rebellious act of his life, he walked out of the office.

The streets were jammed with idling, empty vehicles. He walked, randomly at first, then decided to go to the park. By the time he got there, the sun was glaring blindingly golden off the glass facades of the surrounding skyscrapers. He leaned on the railing of a pedestrian bridge and looked out at it all. The trees shone verdant in the setting sunlight; the sky was a rich azure; the buildings rose haughty in the distance. The only noise was the wind through the leaves and the chittering of the small animals who lived nearby. He leaned on the railing, and became aware of a pressure in his head: the same periodic pounding which in a normal context meant that there was a signal there which his brain was refusing to interpret correctly just yet because it wasn’t yet aware enough to handle its reality. As its intensity increased, he lay back, perfectly relaxed, on a nearby park bench. He fell quietly into a painless sleep.

The scene was still but for the rise and fall of his chest. Shortly thereafter, that motion gently ceased as well. His constituent mass dissolved silently into dust, drifting lightly into the air. Only minutes after he sat down, all trace of him was gone.

Orbiting high above, in a craft no human ever detected, in a language no human would ever hear or translate, a being spoke. “It’s just hit 100%, Captain. There is no intelligent life on the planet.”
“Good job. What are the final violence statistics we’re going to have to report to the Ethics Committee?”
“Fourteen nuclear detonations in the eastern half of the major continent, though we’ve got solid evidence showing that those were aboriginal weapons. A few thousand deaths from depiloted aircraft and vehicles hitting bystanders. All told, we achieved a better than 99% peaceful resolution rate.”
“That’s excellent work, men. Stand down. Nonessential personnel are not required to report for the next three shifts.”

The captain paused, the eyes of its crew on it. “You’ve all performed above the standard for this, the most technically tricky part of this mission. Still, the hardest work is yet to come:”

“Colonization.”

From: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 4:03 PM
To: 2-2 AVN Staff; 2-2 ASLT COs; 2-2 ASLT 1SGs
Subject: FW: Wikileaks data on Gov’t Computers & Personal Owned
Computers (UNCLASSIFIED)
Importance: High

ALCON,

Below is the guidance for viewing material on Wikileaks’ website.  To
summarize the below, the Wikileaks website is not to be viewed on a
Government computer, the information is still considered to be
classified and any computer found containing classified information
(i.e. information from Wikileaks) will confiscated and subsequently
wiped.

If there are any questions please contact the S2 office.

v/r

[redacted]
CPT, MI
2-2 AASLT BN S2

—–Original Message—–
From: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 11:05 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Wikileaks data on Gov’t Computers & Personal Owned Computers
(UNCLASSIFIED)
Importance: High

BLUF: Do not view released or published classified data found on the
internet (Open Source) on unclassified Government systems OR on personal
owed systems. (See caveats)

Department of the Army policies regarding the issue can be found in AR
380-5 Information Security and AR 25-2 Information Assurance. All of the
information is still considered classified. Although now that it can be
found via open source, DOD still considers it as classified until
further notice and should not be viewed or process on a designated
unclassified government computer. Should a unclassified computer be
found containing classified information, it will need to be isolated and
wiped to remove the information.

As for viewing the information via personal computer, I have not seen
any official message traffic preventing military personnel from viewing
the information; however should a personal laptop be found with
classified information on it, it will be confiscated with the potential
for a 15-6 investigation based on the information on an unapproved
system and improper storage.

AR 380-5, Chapter 10-2 a.

and

AR 25-2

4-31. Employee-owned information systems a. Prohibit the use of
employee-owned information systems (EOISs) for classified or sensitive
information.

AR 25-2 Chapter 3-3

c. General users. Use of Government IS and access to Government networks
is a revocable privilege, not a right.

Users are the foundation of the DiD strategy and their actions affect
the most vulnerable portion of the AEI. Users must have a favorable
background investigation or hold a security clearance and access
approvals commensurate with the level of information processed or
available on the system. Users will-

(1) Comply with the command’s AUP for Government owned ISs and sign an
AUP prior to or upon account activation.

(2) Complete initial and/or annual IA training as defined in the IA
training BBP (https://informationassurance.us.army.mil
<https://informationassurance.us.army.mil/> ).

(3) Mark and safeguard files, output products, and storage media per the
classification level and disseminate them only to individuals authorized
to receive them with a valid need to know.

(4) Protect ISs and IS peripherals located in their respective areas in
accordance with physical security and data protection requirements.

(5) Practice safe network and Internet operating principles and take no
actions that threaten the integrity of the system or network.

(6) Obtain prior approval for the use of any media (for example, USB,
CD-ROM, floppy disk) from the SA/ IAM.

(7) Scan all files, attachments, and media with an approved and
installed AV product before opening a file or attachment or introducing
media into the IS.

(8) Report all known or suspected spam, chain letters, and violations of
acceptable use to the SA, IAM, or IASO.

(9) Immediately stop using an infected IS; and report suspicious,
erratic, or anomalous IS operations, and missing or added files,
services, or programs to the SA/IASO in accordance with local policy.

(10) Not disclose their individual account password or pass-phrase
authenticators.

(11) Invoke password-protected screen locks on your workstation after
not more than 15 minutes of non-use or inactivity.

(12) Logoff ISs at the end of each workday.

(13) Access only that data, control information, software, hardware, and
firmware for which the user is authorized access.

(14) Access only that data that they are authorized or have a need to
know.

Should someone have additional information regarding this issue please
send to me so I can review and disseminate.

V/r,

CPT [redacted]
BDE S2, 2 CAB, 2 ID

I’ve redacted the names in the emails; what matters is that they came from the BDE and BN S2. For those of you not in the Army, the S2 is the information security office; the bit of each unit in charge of classification, and the officer who signs as S2 is the person in charge of information security for that unit.

The policy they lay out here actually seems pretty sane to me: even though they’re threatening confiscation and erasure of personal computers discovered to have classified data on them, it’s not like they’re proposing to audit everyone’s individual PC; they’re just reiterating already extant policy. As it stands, on your own time and internet you’re perfectly free to look at this; just turn on porn mode and prevent your browser from caching anything!

Of course, it’s only the fact that none of these rules are followed that makes driving like an aggressive maniac an efficient way to beat traffic: most places in the world, it just slows down everyone else without speeding you up appreciably. Still, I suspect that driving would be much less frustrating if a tad less fun if there were a situation other than anarchy on the roads here.

For me, that time is now, that library is ConfigParser, and the replacement is included below the fold. It’s called conf, and it means that the only interaction you as a programmer are required to have with your config file is to assign and/or read values to/from it. Assigning and reading look exactly like normal attribute assignment/reading.

Subversion/TRAC string: https://svn.coriolinus.net/OOconf
distutils packaged version: conf-0.2.0

As always, I’m too cheap to pay a thousand dollars for a site certificate, so please ignore any certificate mismatch errors you encounter when viewing the https side of the site. If you don’t trust me enough to click through, you’ll still find the current version under the fold.

import os
import codecs
import json
from ConfigParser import SafeConfigParser

def internal(func):
	def tf(self, *args, **kwargs):
		self.__dict__['__conf__'].__dict__['__internal__'] += 1
		try:
			return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
		finally:
			self.__dict__['__conf__'].__dict__['__internal__'] -= 1
	return tf

class Section(object):
	def __init__(self, conf, name, fullname=None):
		if fullname is None:
			fullname = name

		self.__dict__['__conf__'] = conf
		self.__name__ = name
		self.__fullname__ = fullname

		self.__dict__['subsections'] = set()
		self.__dict__['attributes'] = set()

		#this lines MUST be the last in __init__
		self.__restrictedvars__ = set((i for i in dir(self) if '__' not in i))

	@internal
	def __setattr__(self, name, value):
		if self.restricted(name):
			if (not self.__conf__.__restrict__) or self.__conf__.__internal__ > 0:
				self.__dict__[name] = value
			else:
				raise AttributeError("Namespace conflict: %s restricted for Conf use." % name)
		else:
			self.__conf__.__new_data__ = True
			self.attributes.add(name)
			self.__conf__.__cp__.set(self.__fullname__, name, json.dumps(value))

	@internal
	def __getattr__(self, name):
		if self.restricted(name):
			return self.__dict__[name]
		else:
			return json.loads(self.__conf__.__cp__.get(self.__fullname__, name))

	@internal
	def __delattr__(self, name):
		if self.restricted(name):
			if (not self.__conf__.__restrict__) or self.__conf__.__internal__ > 0:
				del self.__dict__[name]
			else:
				raise AttributeError("Namespace conflict: %s restricted for Conf use." % name)
		else:
			self.__conf__.__new_data__ = True
			self.attributes.remove(name)
			self.__conf__.__cp__.remove_option(self.__name__, name)

	@internal
	def restricted(self, name):
		"""
		This function returns true for all attributes which should be stored locally, not in the
		configuration file proper.
		"""
		if name.startswith('__') or name.endswith('__'):
			return True
		if name in self.__restrictedvars__:
			return True

		return False

	@internal
	def add_section(self, name):
		fullname = ''.join((self.__fullname__, '.', name))

		if hasattr(self, name):
			raise ValueError("Namespace conflict: %s already in use" % fullname)

		if not self.__conf__.__cp__.has_section(fullname):
			self.__conf__.__cp__.add_section(fullname)
		self.subsections.add(name)
		self.__dict__[name] = Section(self.__conf__, name, fullname)
		self.__restrictedvars__.add(name)
		self.__new_data__ = True

	@internal
	def remove_section(self, name):
		fullname = ''.join((self.__fullname__, '.', name))

		if not hasattr(self, name):
			raise ValueError("Can't remove section %s, as it doesn't exist" % fullname)

		sub = getattr(self, name)
		for subsub in list(sub.subsections):
			sub.remove_section(subsub)

		self.__conf__.__cp__.remove_section(fullname)
		self.subsections.remove(name)
		self.__restrictedvars__.remove(name)
		del self.__dict__[name]
		self.__new_data__ = True

class Conf(Section):
	"""
	Automatic storage and retrieval of arbitrary values into a config file. 

	Uses type information and automatic reconversions to store a variety of primitive types in a
	perfectly human-readable format. Primitive types are those encodable by the json module.

	Usage:
	>>> from conf import Conf
	>>> conf = Conf() #or Conf(filename, defaultsectionname)
	>>> conf.foo = 'hello world'
	>>> conf.bar = 723
	>>> conf.baz = False
	>>> conf.flush()

	[exit, start a new session here]

	>>> conf = Conf()
	>>> conf.foo
	'hello world'
	>>> conf.bar
	723
	>>> conf.baz
	False

	If you want implicit file creation, you need to use a with statement:
	>>> with Conf() as conf:
	...      conf.foo = 2783.1
	...
	>>> del conf
	>>> with Conf() as otherConf:
	...      otherConf.foo
	...
	2783.1
	"""
	def __init__(self, filename ='.conf', sectionName=None):
		"""
		Initialize a new Conf object.
		"""
		self.__dict__['__internal__'] = 0
		self.__dict__['__restrict__'] = False
		#the above is magic; it must come first

		#sanity check
		if sectionName is not None and '.' in sectionName:
			raise ValueError("Namespace: '.' cannot be part of a section name")

		#initialize the superclass
		Section.__init__(self, self, sectionName if sectionName is not None else 'config')

		self.__filename__ = filename
		self.__cp__ = SafeConfigParser()

		#load and initialize the configparser
		if os.path.exists(filename):
			with codecs.open(filename, 'rb', 'utf8') as cf:
				self.__cp__.readfp(cf, filename)

		if sectionName is None:
			topLevelSections = [s for s in self.__cp__.sections() if s.count('.') == 0]
			if len(topLevelSections) == 1:
				sectionName = topLevelSections[0]
				self.__name__ = sectionName
				self.__fullname__ = sectionName
			else:
				sectionName = 'config'

		#create the default section
		if not self.__cp__.has_section(sectionName):
			self.__cp__.add_section(sectionName)

		#load default section attributes
		self.attributes = set(self.__cp__.options(sectionName))

		#load the various sections
		#first, sort them by the number of dots they contain
		secs = [(s.count('.'), s) for s in self.__cp__.sections() if s != sectionName]
		secs.sort()
		for name in [sec for count, sec in secs]:
			if '.' not in name:
				self.subsections.add(name)
				self.__dict__[name] = Section(self, name)
				self.__dict__[name].attributes = set(self.__cp__.options(name))
				self.__restrictedvars__.add(name)
			else:
				fullname = name
				rest, name = name.rsplit('.', 1)
				sec = self
				for part in rest.split('.'):
					sec = getattr(sec, part)
				sec.subsections.add(name)
				sec.__dict__[name] = Section(self, name, fullname)
				sec.__dict__[name].attributes = set(self.__cp__.options(fullname))
				sec.__restrictedvars__.add(name)

		self.__new_data__ = False

		#this must come last:
		self.__internal__ = 0
		self.__restrict__ = True
		#This is used in combination with the @internal decorator. Each method so decorated
		# increments this variable on entry, and decrements it on exit. They can then check: is
		# __internal__ > 0? If yes, they were called from within this Conf object, and can adjust
		# their behavior accordingly.
		#
		#Note that we initialize it here to 0. When this __init__ exits, it decrements to -1. This
		# is intentional. Since each internal function starts by incrementing it, this means that
		# only if the variable is > 0 was its caller also internal.

	@internal
	def __enter__(self):
		return self

	@internal
	def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, traceback):
		if self.__new_data__:
			self.flush()

	@internal
	def flush(self):
		with codecs.open(self.__filename__, 'wb', 'utf8') as cf:
			self.__cp__.write(cf)
		self.__new_data__ = False

	@internal
	def add_section(self, name):
		"""
		Create a new section in the conf file. This will become a dotted extension of the conf object.

		For example:
		>>> c = Conf()
		>>> c.foo = 'hello world'
		>>> c.add_section('bar')
		>>> c.bar.baz = 'world says hello'

		The above turns into a config file which looks like this:
		[config]
		foo = hello world

		[bar]
		baz = world says hello
		"""
		if hasattr(self, name):
			raise ValueError("Namespace conflict: %s already in use" % name)
		if '.' in name:
			raise ValueError("Namespace: '.' cannot be part of a section name")

		if not self.__conf__.__cp__.has_section(name):
			self.__conf__.__cp__.add_section(name)
		self.subsections.add(name)
		self.__dict__[name] = Section(self, name)
		self.__restrictedvars__.add(name)
		self.__new_data__ = True

	@internal
	def remove_section(self, name):
		"""
		Remove a section and all included data.
		"""
		if not hasattr(self, name):
			raise ValueError("Can't remove section %s, as it doesn't exist" % name)

		sub = getattr(self, name)
		for subsub in sub.subsections:
			sub.remove_section(subsub)

		self.__cp__.remove_section(name)
		self.subsections.remove(name)
		self.__restrictedvars__.remove(name)
		del self.__dict__[name]
		self.__new_data__ = True

conf.py by coriolinus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.coriolinus.net/contact/.

Tank fire sounds like a bass drum the size of a stadium. It is louder than thunder. A kilometer away from the firing, it rattled the walls of a building strongly enough that I felt the pressure wave passing while inside. It is the boom of the hammer of the gods pounding out a new mountain range.

Tank fire is loud enough that I could hear it inside a Black Hawk in flight, at least 3k away, over the noise of the engines and through the two layers of ear protection that are mandatory for flight crew.

None of this is exaggeration. I was deeply impressed by the sound of cannon.

The will generated the power to accomplish the work of the spell. Magic, after all, is little more than human will imposed upon the world, forcing the world to change. The precision was required to actually perform the spell, which in casting looked something like an impressionistic dance: precise, twitchy movements accompanied by precise, arpeggaited nonsense syllables. None of it was actaully nonsense though: one twitch misplaced, one word mispronounced, and the whole spell was wrong. When dealing with the kind of spell the casting of which allowed a wizard to afford a tower, even the most trivial error was often fatal.

Incidentally, most people are familiar with Merlin, the last of the great casters of the old style. He was a genius, to be sure, and was instrumental in uniting Britain. However, in the popular imagination, his prowess has eclipsed his actual accomplishments. Few people remember that the lowest 12 stories of his tower were occupied by his support staff, who did most of the work of actually inventing the grand spells that he cast. He was the performer, and an exceptional one; he was the manager, and talented at it. They were just the writers, but without them he would have been a gun without bullets. All his most famous sorceries were ghostwritten.

The Djinni of Arabia, the faculty of the research university of al-Djinn, had been advancing the world’s understanding of magic for centuries. In an inversion of European norms, the faculty themselves were the researchers and writers; they used slaves to cast the spells they wrote. They’d discovered compulsion spells as early as the 9th century AD, but it took another four centuries before anyone figured out how to make them useful: on their face, they were more complicated and more trouble to cast than simply paying someone to do whatever work would have been compelled.

The key to the revolution wasn’t immediately obvious: an efficiency improvement which allowed anyone who could cast a cantrip to at least begin a compulsion. Even then, the meticulous precision with which the actions to be performed had to be described couldn’t make compulsion cost-efficient for industrial purposes. Upon this discovery Abara Adaba, the researcher in charge of the project, lost his grant and turned to other projects.

Two years later, he made history by casting on himself a compulsion to read a given magical text, memorize it, then perform it exactly as written. The resulting spell–one which endowed an ordinary carpet with flight–had been until that moment tremendously expensive: it generally killed dozens of slaves attempting to cast it before one managed to get it right. Adaba rode his magic carpet straight into the history texts as the innovator who introduced the Industrial Age.

That turns out to be surprisingly important. The routine while working settles down fairly quickly until even given the time and opportunity to head out and entertain myself, I simply don’t have the energy or will to do so. Living the drab life isn’t awful in any traditional sense–I still exercise, eat, sleep, work; strictly speaking I’m pretty high up in the hierarchy of needs–but it makes me feel more than usual like a machine. Without creativity, without the mental energy to exercise that creativity, I’m more or less going through the motions of life.

Vacations are the only time I know of in which I can refresh that well of creativity and start feeling human again. I could tell that it was working about halfway through when I started cleaning and cooking for the friends with whom I was staying. I’ve made, or had a major hand in the making of, cuisines from three continents (including General Tso’s Chicken, from scratch!), a bunch of writing, three or four toy programs (including a full implementation of Pong!), and a yet-to-be-launched website for a friend while out here. None of this, strictly, was required. All of it was a wonderful exercise in proving that I am in fact more than a machine which takes in money and churns out work.

The vacation is nearly over: I fly back tomorrow. I’ll have spent a ton of money and nearly all my accumulated leave in exchange for these 30 days in the US.

It was worth every bit.

In Korea, you could accurately simulate a day’s visibility as a function of randint(0, 8), expressed in nautical miles. 2 is the minimum to fly a low-risk mission; 3 is required to be comfortable; 7 or more is considered unlimited visibility. That’s not really true, though: even on a day when the weather shop’s reporting unlimited vis, you can tell that visual acuity fades sharply toward the horizon. Unlimited visibility in Korea really just means that you can usually distinguish the horizon, as opposed to the region where the ground fades into the sky.

I never really thought about it, because Korea does get occasional days where visibility is truly unlimited. They are rare and perfect days of intense beauty. Since coming back to New England, though, I’ve had almost three weeks so far of such days uninterrupted.

The weather here is a treasure. It’d be a pity to leave it unremarked.