Flower 2, Squirrels 0

This morning our dog, Flower, paid us the highest tribute she knew how: she left a dead squirrel on our doorstep.

This is actually the second squirrel she's caught, which I have to admit astounds me. I mean, I see her chase after the squirrels and bark up a storm every day. But even as fast as she is, I never expected her to actually catch one. And now she's caught two!

Karen, of course, was mortified. She screamed when she saw it, then ran back inside crying, "That squirrel had a family!" It was up to me to go out and congratulate Flower, give her some love and high-fives, then pick up and dispose of her trophy. I think she was pretty disappointed that I didn't bring it inside to make a stew.

I don't think I've ever mentioned Flower on the blog before, so let me take a minute to describe her.


She's part Catahoula and part Blue Heeler. So, Cataheeler or Bluehoula both work just fine. She's a mutt that Karen saved from the SPCA through her work at the Vet Tech Institute. She just turned two at the beginning of November. I tried to create a Facebook page for her, but it kept getting kicked out (I think because she's "too young").

She is also one of the most affectionate dogs I have ever known. If we're ever burglarized, I can only hope that the intruders are allergic to puppy saliva, as she is more likely to lick them to death than anything else.

She loves to run with me in the morning; she loves to ride in the Jeep; and, of course, she loves chasing squirrels. We're still working on her training, but she's coming along pretty well. She knows a lot of words, but unfortunately chooses to ignore them when she's not in the mood.

I'll post more about her in the future as the mood hits me. I just wanted to make sure I posted a little something about her latest kill. I'm kicking myself for not getting the camera in time. Next time, I'll be ready.

Digital Barbarism

Digital Barbarism by Mark Helprin

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mark Helprin is a novelist who wrote this screed in defense of copyright. His style is excessively erudite and pompous, with almost as many commas as nouns. Unfortunately, I agree with him. It would be so much easier to be turned off by his style and simply dismiss him as an ass.

In arguing for copyright, he branches into other more philosophic ideas like individualism versus collectivism. I found the book to be very interesting, but his voice was off-putting.

Apparently, this book originated from an Op-Ed article he wrote not long ago. It drew such a firestorm of criticism from people from all over the internet that he felt compelled to respond. Sadly, he comes across as a bit of a troll, except instead of responding to his detractors on the internet, he wrote a book about it (so that he can be verbose and get the last word in, I suppose). It amused and somewhat saddened me that an author would bother to quote and reply to some anonymous posters from the web.

In the end, I think the battle for copyright is an important one, and Helprin is literate, intelligent, and stubborn enough to keep up the good fight. I'm just glad I don't have to be in the same room with him while he's doing it.

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Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had heard good things about this classic from various people, so I thought it was time for me to give it a shot. If nothing else, I could claim to be well-read in classic American literature. Unfortunately, although it begins and ends very strongly, the middle is filled with long, dry passages which brought the book down as a whole for me.

It may be part of the style of writing at the time, but there are many, many chapters of the book that are devoted to describing the facts around whaling. There were many detailed chapters about whales themselves, the process of chasing and killing a whale, the tools used, the value of different parts of the whale, and the process of extracting those parts. Some of these were very interesting, but all of them distracted me from the actual narrative. It was only the infrequent interspersion of chapters about the characters that kept me going. One could probably just read the first and last 100 pages and get all the pertinent information.

However, I will say that the narrative passages were quite good. There were many interestingly drawn characters, vivid imagery, and beautiful, haunting dialog. I would most likely not recommend this book to most people, but I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading it either.

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The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Yet another light non-fiction book basically centered around making new observation from gathered data.

I actually enjoyed the book, but there wasn't much meat to it. The anecdotes and conclusions were very interesting, and I can see how these observations could be helpful in future situations.

Unfortunately, I found several parts of the book were deliberately repetitive. Like the other Gladwell book I've read, Outliers, the whole book read more like a padded out magazine article rather than a serious book.

Still, it was informative and entertaining, and I would recommend it as a casual weekend read.

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Oh My Stars

What's in a rating? I use three different sites regularly that give me the opportunity to rate different things: Goodreads for books, Netflix for movies, and Boardgamegeek for games. I like rating things. The problem is that I always feel compelled to use the guidelines for these ratings, and that's where I have a problem.

Let's start with Goodreads. It's a great online community for book readers. It has a good interface, an extensive database, and a lot of active reviewers. I repost all of my reviews here on my blog. But when it comes to rating a book, their star system bothers me.

Here's the mouse-over text for each level of rating:

1. Didn't like it
2. It was ok
3. Liked it
4. Really liked it
5. It was amazing

First off, what if I absolutely hated the book? No option available. Secondly, there are three positive, one neutral, and only one negative option. In my mind, zero stars should be available for something you really hated. That wouldn't balance it out completely, but it would help. Also, how does one distinguish between a four- and a five-star book?

Here's Netflix:

1. Hated it
2. Didn't like it
3. Liked it
4. Really liked it
5. Loved it

This list is better because it offers two degrees of dislike. But the three star rating right in the middle is still positive rather than neutral. However, I like that the top rating is "loved it" rather than "amazing." Amazing just seems like a really high bar to meet, whereas "loved it" feels perfectly subjective.

Since neither of these offer "half stars," they're both scales of five. To me, ideally they should be two negative, one neutral, and one positive. But I can see how no one would see three stars as a neutral review.

But onto Boardgamegeek. Here, it's a scale of 10, using numbers instead of stars.

1. Defies description of a game. You won't catch me dead playing it. Clearly broken.
2. Extremely annoying game, won't play this ever again.
3. Likely won't play this game again although could be convinced. Bad.
4. Not so good, it doesn't get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
5. Average game. Slightly boring. Take it or leave it.
6. Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
7. Good game, usually willing to play.
8. Very good game. I like to play. Probably I will suggest it and will never turn down a game.
9. Excellent game. Always want to play it.
10. Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.

The main problem with all of these descriptions is the inclusions of absolute words like "always" and "never." How could anyone know what their tastes would be in a few years, or on a particular day?

In comparison with the other rating systems, this one is interesting because it seems to have three positives, three neutrals, and three negatives. That's pretty balanced, but the problem becomes choosing between similar pairs, like 3/4, 5/6, or 9/10. I have a friend who only uses even numbers to rate, thus reducing this to a scale of five. There are many others (myself included, I'm sad to say), who actually enter numbers like 7.5, turning this into a 20-point scale. I need to go through and fix all of those, though. No more fence sitting; if I like a game, I should say so!

Anyway, what was the point of this whole exercise? I'm not sure. I just find it interesting that something subjective like a rating has been given restrictive objective guidelines. This wouldn't be a problem at all if I could bring myself to just ignore the text and rate things how I want. Unfortunately, that would render my rating less meaningful for those who saw it and didn't know my personal scale. So I guess the lesson is: always read the actual review and not just the number of stars.