Essay on Lovecraft

I'm trying to read all the Britannica Great Books and I am now over half of the way there. I just finished Montaigne's Essays and I have to say they're not only full of wit, but many are disquieting as he humbly goes against the current. What strikes me most at this point, nonetheless, is how he goes about writing them. Sure, an essay is supposed to be a free, unconstrained text, but Montaigne's go beyond what I expected. His essays are nothing like your usual high school assignments. He doesn't have a structure that I can point my finger at, or build a case around whatever he's writing about, much less get to a conclusion. He just lets himself go with the flow and keep on writing on and on until he feels he has exhausted the topic. He could easily stop at any point and no one would be the wiser. Length is no impediment whatsoever; a couple of his essays could fill a volume each by themselves. I do not mean to limit myself, but I feel that I couldn't write like that, firstly, because I lack his knowledge, wisdom and style; and secondly, because I do feel the need to get somewhere with whatever I'm writing about; if I'm going to take pen and paper, or more likely keyboard and text processor, I better give the reader something that is worth her while, that is, getting to the point I want to get across. The absence of the point, or kicker, bothers me. Notwithstanding, I'm going to give it a go right here, right now and see what it's like.

How I beat back pain

Second (and probably last) in the series of solved physical troubles. Back pain is probably the most difficult challenge that I have faced. This is partly because of the uncertainty and doubts of any given treatment, but mostly because results take a long while to show up. Of course, the pain itself  is nothing to scoff at. First, the usual disclaimer that what follows should not be taken as medical advice and that you should consult your doctor. Now, to give you an idea of what I felt extend your hand palm down and pinch with your other hand the fleshy part between the thumb and the index finger; if you're averagely strong, aim for three quarters of your strength. Now, mentally place the sensation on your lower back and you'll know what I felt.

Doctors ruled out herniated discs or degenerative diseases and surgery was never considered.

• What didn't help me:

• Long-term anti-inflammatory drugs.

• Staying put and trying to reduce movement. It is counterintuitive, but if  I stayed put, negative thoughts began to creep in with a pain increase following

• Chairs with lumbar support. These  supposedly give support to your lumbar area, but after trying them I have to agree with someone who accurately described the sensation as having "someone's F** elbow jabbing you on your back"

• What helped me:

• Cold, then warmth applied to the area. Just for some minutes. After some months I reduced the cold component and then entirely dropped it.

• Some physical therapy. One should be wary though, because many therapists expect you to get well right away with their treatment, even if you are not out of the woods yet

• Swimming. Great exercise, makes you move all the muscles in your body and it is pretty tame. I still do it.

• Getting up and moving around at least once every half an hour

• Regular stretching exercises. The trick is to find which ones to do.

• Overcome Back Pain by Kit Loughlin. Only Incorporated five or six exercises from the first part and by then I was already well, so I didn't push for more.

• Relaxation recordings. I may talk of these in a later post.

• What I am uncertain if it helped or not:

• The Herman Miller Areon chair. In desperation I got one. The back support in this one is in the sacral area rather than the lumbar and can also be tweaked.

• Placing a pillow under my knees while sleeping or lying down

• What I didn't try, but could have:

• Healing Back Pain by Dr. John Sarno. This one came to my attention too late to play a role. I would encourage you to check it out nonetheless if your initial treatment does not work, the pain moves around your body (i.e. from the right side to the left side), or if you have been suffering for more than a month. Also, good alternative is Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain by Fred Amir, which includes a treatment plan.

• Acupuncture

Sacking of Rome: Community Service





What follows is the sequence of events from the death of Theodosius leading to the sacking of Rome by Alaric. This was extracted from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Thought this list might come handy to someone who is doing research and in a hurry.

Theodosius dies in January. Honorius crowned as the Western Emperor

Goth revolt in autumn. Low subsidies & Rufinus incitation. Alaric demands title and command.

Pillage of Greece. Oversight of Corinth and the Thermopylae

Stilicho navigates to Greece. The Goths besieged. They escape

Constantinople asks for the exit of Stilicho

Constantinople honors Alaric, gives him authority

Alaric arms himself in Greece. May have been reinforced at the Danube

Alaric enters Italy. Stilicho defeats him. Alan and English garrison as Imperial reinforcements.

Stilicho pacts peace (403?).

The Huns enter Germany

Radagaisus enters Italy. 200K versus 30K/40K

Stilicho encircles and defeats Radagaisus at Florence

Radagasius' allies overcome the Franks at Gaul

Revolt at England. Constantine rival Emperor

Constantine takes parts of Gaul, Spain

Attack from Italy to Gaul

Alaric demands presents from Ravenna for alliance

Stilicho intercedes in favor of Alaric before the Senate. This approves

Commoners, soldiers, Honorius (thanks to Olympus) suspect Stilicho

Officials executed by Olympus. Stilicho executed

Family members of the executed auxiliary units join the Goths. 30K

Alaric enters Italy a second time. Embassy from the Senate. Ransom paid

Slave (40K) and Hun (10K), reinforcements

Renewed demands for gifts (land, title and subsidies) are rejected by Olympus

Alaric's threats make the Senate crown Atalus

Veterans reinforce Ravenna. Failed African expedition. Attalus disgraced

Negotiations between Alaric and the Emperor break down when the former is attacked by auxiliaries

The city of Rome falls when its doors are opened. 410

How to limit cpu use in windows

Two ways to deal with your CPU running at 100%

Some programs are known to be resource hogs.  Nowadays, these have become less of a problem thanks to multicore and multithreaded hardware, but they can still become bothersome as they can drain your laptop's battery or simply not let you to do anything else while their process is running.  Here are two solutions that limit the CPU usage of a program:

1) lower the priority of your program

(Copied this from another source some years ago; don't remember where)

 write this on a text editor:

cmd /c start /low appname.exe

and save it as a .bat file and put it in the same folder as your application.  Now run your program by double-clicking it or make a shortcut linking to it.  Each time you run the program, it will take a lower priority to your other processes.  It will still run at 100 percent but will give way when other programs needs it.

2) limit the CPU usage to a desired amount

To do this download a program named Battle Encoder Shirase, which, if I remember rightly, is freeware.  With  BES you can make a target program run to a maximum CPU percentage of your choice.

http://mion.faireal.net/BES/

Negotiauctions book review

Last year, I worked as a supplier for a German company. Cost reductions hit said company and my services were subject to revision. All of a sudden my offers were pitted against those of  other purveyors by the purchasing manager. Caught off guard, I could not effectively draw up a winning proposal and was outbid. I had been in the center of a negotiauction and had played badly. I vowed this would never happen to me again.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I recognized the situation for what it was. I remembered having read about it in Negotiation Genius. Sure enough, when I checked back later, there was a mention about it and  found that there was a book by the person who coined the term, which I promptly ordered. Negotiauctions by Subramanian is the book.

A negotiauction is the murky middle between pure negotiation and a pure auction. Sharing traits from both, negotiauctions are a completely different animal and strategies are needed to play them effectively both as a process setter and taker. This book, probably the first in the field, sets itself to deal with them. First, we get an introduction to negotiauctions, which describes them and illustrate the ways they differ from old, regular negotiations and auctions. The author, in fact goes so far as to hint that most "negotiations" nowadays, are in fact negotiauctions. The rest of the book is divided into two parts. The first one, describes the existing theory of both negotiations, and auctions taken separately and the strategies to treat/confront them.

The second part deals with negotiauctions proper. One of the characteristics of negotiauctions that makes them special, is that rules are more flexible than the pure extremes, which lend themselves to better deals, that is, more value extraction, if the situation is played well. This means that not only the process setter, who is generally thought to have the upper hand, can end up with a better deal, but also the process taker, if she plays her hand well. Throughout the book, there are very handy charts, which easily let the reader see if she is in fact in a negotiauction, and what steps she can take from both sides of the table to arrive to a safe harbor. The strategies described in the book are not a surefire approach to always winning. Rather, they are sensible ways to dealing with the situation, permit the reader a good shot at the table, and reduce the downside risks.

Examples from real life are given by the author, but I found them a bit complex on my first read, so I had to take pen and paper to disentangle them. Once done, they became clear.

It surprises me that this book hasn't had more impact, judging from the small number of reviews at Amazon. However, if you choose to read it, this may come to your advantage, as you'll have an edge at the negotiating table, while the other side may still be groping in the dark.

Totally recommended if you're a supplier or purchase manager.

Yamamotoyama teas review

I have heard tea being compared to wine. One aspect of the comparison is all too true: premium teas can go way beyond what normal people are willing to pay, much the same way as in some wine bottles. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get readily available great tea for low prices?

The Yamamotoyama brand of teas grants this wish. If you can look past the pre-packaging of their products, you find in their teas very high value. My first acquaintance with them was with their jasmine tea teabags some years ago, and have been a fan ever since. The flavor in that case is very pleasant and can be very intense if you oversteep it. That is not a problem because it allows you to stretch it over many cups; I can get five 16 oz. cups out of just one teabag.

Another great tea I have found from them is their hojicha roasted green tea. This comes in loose leaf form. Even though I bought the cheapest family pack I got a very drinkable tea. The flavor can be intense to the point of unpleasantness if you oversteep it or if you use too much of it, but with just a bit of restraint you can get excellent results. To my palate it tastes just like the seaweed used for sushi making; if you're anything like me, you might not want to compound the flavor by having both at the same time. I have also found that it leaves my mind fresh and that it can be had an hour before bedtime with no ill effect on my sleep.

In the same family pack category there is also the genmai, which is green tea with brown rice. I skipped it the first time I saw it in the store shelves not knowing what it was about, but in the interim I listened to a review of it in that Tea Lover's Room podcast and decided to try it out. The podcast's host, the Tea Lover Chic, didn't like the tea blend that much (I believe that it was not Yamamotoyama), but that didn't deter me; in fact, I so trusted the brand by now, that I went on. The results were wonderful! I found this tea even better than the aforementioned hojicha. Only one word can I use to describe its taste: toasted. I can add that it is very, very pleasantly so. I do not know what device of ingenuity they used to get to this Goldilocks flavor, but they nailed it precisely. In my palate, this flavor does overpower, or more accurately, cloak, the grassiness of the green tea; for me this is not a bad result. The actual rice flavor undertone stayed low and did not become unpleasant, even after prolonged steeping. I found that this one needs about the double of leaf as the hojicha to reach the same brew strength and that it doesn't retain enough flavor for re-steeping.

Although I am not too much a green tea fan, the pure sencha is also commendable. Once it has cooled enough to drink, I get the taste of something akin to a rich vegetable broth. I find that I have to watch this one more closely than the others, because it can easily get bitter if time runs away from me. About 4 to 4 1/2 min. of infusion does the trick. A second steeping can be pulled off, but all the good  flavor from the first go falls down to about one fourth and the bitterness now shows, so I do not recommend it. Dust or fannings that fall through the tea basket's mesh are something to watch for because, for, if they remain in the teapot, they can still make the brew bitter after a while.

All of these teas are very cheap in price too. 7 ounces or about 200 g of loose leaf can be bought for about $4-$5 which to me, it's a steal. This does not mean that you have to stock up when given the chance. It is so readily available, that there is no reason to buy more than one packet at a time of the ones you like or wish to taste.

I am sorry to see that they do not have oolong in loose leaf, as I would like to taste it from them, though they do have it in teabags. There appears also to be not one but two lines of higher grade offerings, especially of the sencha, at higher prices. These I have not tasted as of yet. The family packs easily  score  on my uncouth taste buds. Finally, it appears that also there is matcha from this company. Since it looks that it is too much of a bother to prepare, I have skipped it. This is not to mean that I will not take a look into them if given the chance. If so, I'll let you know.

The Yamamotoyama teas are the best value that I have found so far.

De-essing part 3: AT440mla review

Rather than offering a review per se, I will let some pictures speak for themselves. The AT440mla has a finer needle than what's generally available. A finer needle results in a closer and deeper tracking of the groove and that impacts in the quality of reproduction as the inner, deeper parts are in better condition than the outer ones. At least, that's the theory. I bought this one, for about $200 in my attempts to de-ess my turntable. The runner-up in this occasion was the Ortofon red, but I settled on the Audio Technica because other people had had good results trying to solve the same problem as I. What you see next is the comparison between my previous setup consisting of a 681 EEE cartridge with a 6800EEE MK III needle, and the AT440mla needle and cartridge.

Red circles contain s vocals. Screenshots of Magix Audio Cleaning Lab. No processing.

Wave 1st disc

Spectral 680ee ~0:58s

Spectral AT440mla ~0:58s

Wave 2nd disc

Update 12/07/2016:

Here are a couple of microscope photos of the needle with around 120-150 hours of use (just a guess!):

More on de-essing: 

De-essing part1: Easier cartridge alignment

De-essing part2: Get a hardware de-esser

De-essing part4: Laser turntable

De-essing part5: Software