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Word of the Day
Oct. 14th, 2005 10:28 amGreeble. I had know this word before, and forgotten it, but rediscovery can be quite fun as well! The context comes from a book of essays on Firefly. So far the book has been quite interesting, consisting of the musings of various artists involved with the show about working on television productions in general and Firefly in particular.
I suppose I'm a documentary junkie, or just curious in some other ways. I always feel I'm not curious enough anymore, I don't peek behind forbidden doors as much as I should, and the Government is making me too obedient with its insistence to brand anyone who wants to know how, say, the utilities work a terrorist. Here I have to insert a soapbox comment. I believe in curiosity. I believe in wonder. I believe in not being too grounded in the moment. I believe in staying away from the Grey Men of Momo, of banality in Changeling, of Lem's Bureaucracy. This very much applies to engineers and scientists too. After all, Newton had to be wondering why the apple fell, rather than just accepting that it did, or that some unseen, unexplainable power you had to have faith in did it in mysterious ways. Tinkering, wondering what makes stuff go, taking things apart and "improving them" is important. That's how you learn the real life basics of your trade. Any device that is glued together, not to be opened, always made me annoyed. You're supposed to have screws, or an ingenious case design that lets you open it up, mess around with the guts, or just take a look, then put it back together. But today is obsessed with "need to know" and protecting intellectual property. My university took publically available blueprints for its buildings down from its website. But what about the people that were just curious? Not a legitimate reason. What about wanting to know how the telephone network works? Or the power grid? Or what kind of pipelines run through the area? Or how a major port is laid out? Or about the view from a parking garage downtown? No, that's all "dangerous" information! You can't have it unless you have a valid reason! Well, curiosity is a reason, damn it!
The fact remains that I love learning about stuff. I can't stop going to class, which is why my job at a college is quite appropriate. I fill my iPod with podcasts about politics, technology and science. And now, instead of reading one of the dozen books I should be reading, I'm spending my time finding out what happens behind the scenes in Hollywood; not so much the intrigue and personalities, as craftspeople explaining composition and effects and all the wonderful myriad details they had put into a show as a labor of love, knowing that nobody would ever notice them unless pointed out, yet knowing that the sum of these things comes to make something truly wonderful.
Oh, and I got a post card from Hell, too :-)
I suppose I'm a documentary junkie, or just curious in some other ways. I always feel I'm not curious enough anymore, I don't peek behind forbidden doors as much as I should, and the Government is making me too obedient with its insistence to brand anyone who wants to know how, say, the utilities work a terrorist. Here I have to insert a soapbox comment. I believe in curiosity. I believe in wonder. I believe in not being too grounded in the moment. I believe in staying away from the Grey Men of Momo, of banality in Changeling, of Lem's Bureaucracy. This very much applies to engineers and scientists too. After all, Newton had to be wondering why the apple fell, rather than just accepting that it did, or that some unseen, unexplainable power you had to have faith in did it in mysterious ways. Tinkering, wondering what makes stuff go, taking things apart and "improving them" is important. That's how you learn the real life basics of your trade. Any device that is glued together, not to be opened, always made me annoyed. You're supposed to have screws, or an ingenious case design that lets you open it up, mess around with the guts, or just take a look, then put it back together. But today is obsessed with "need to know" and protecting intellectual property. My university took publically available blueprints for its buildings down from its website. But what about the people that were just curious? Not a legitimate reason. What about wanting to know how the telephone network works? Or the power grid? Or what kind of pipelines run through the area? Or how a major port is laid out? Or about the view from a parking garage downtown? No, that's all "dangerous" information! You can't have it unless you have a valid reason! Well, curiosity is a reason, damn it!
The fact remains that I love learning about stuff. I can't stop going to class, which is why my job at a college is quite appropriate. I fill my iPod with podcasts about politics, technology and science. And now, instead of reading one of the dozen books I should be reading, I'm spending my time finding out what happens behind the scenes in Hollywood; not so much the intrigue and personalities, as craftspeople explaining composition and effects and all the wonderful myriad details they had put into a show as a labor of love, knowing that nobody would ever notice them unless pointed out, yet knowing that the sum of these things comes to make something truly wonderful.
Oh, and I got a post card from Hell, too :-)
