2017.html.pm

#lang pollen

◊define-meta[page-title]{My 2017}
◊define-meta[original-date]{2017-12-29}
◊define-meta[edited-date]{2018-05-24}

◊heading{Work}

Shelfie, the startup I had worked at since 2014, ◊a[#:href
"https://publishingperspectives.com/2017/01/canada-shelfie-bitlit-closing-service/"]{shut
down in January}. I took a couple of months off and by the time I was
ready to start looking for work, ◊a[#:href
"https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/9/15235686/kobo-acquired-shelfie-app-readers-discounted-ebooks"]{Kobo
decided to buy our tech and hire us}.  Kobo's main office is in
Toronto, but we still work from Vancouver.

◊heading{Reading}

These are some of the things that I enjoyed or that have influenced my
thinking in 2017.

◊sub-heading{Books}

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "Rebecca Solnit" #:year "2004"
#:url "https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/791-hope-in-the-dark"
#:title "Hope in the Dark" #:publisher "Haymarket Books"]

Rebecca Solnit wrote this book near the end of George W. Bush's first
term as president. She presents an outlook of hope in the face of
uncertainty.

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "Carrie Brownstein" #:year "2015"
#:url
"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/312793/hunger-makes-me-a-modern-girl-by-carrie-brownstein/9780399184765/"
#:title "Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl" #:publisher "Riverhead Books"]

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "Isabel Wilkerson" #:year "2010"
#:url
"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190696/the-warmth-of-other-suns-by-isabel-wilkerson/9780679763888/"
#:title "The Warmth of Other Suns" #:publisher "Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group"]

The story of the Great Migration, told through the lives of three
people who left the American south to pursue better lives.

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "HLA Hart" #:year "1961" #:url
"https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-concept-of-law-9780199644698"
#:title "The Concept of Law" #:publisher "Oxford University Press"]

Hart's concept of law comprises primary rules that tell us what to do
and secondary rules of recognition, adjudication, and change. He
contrasts this with Austin's theory that law is just a bunch of orders
backed by threats.

I liked Hart's writing. It was precise and concise: every word
mattered.  I also liked that Hart seemed to take Austin's theory at
its strongest, acknowledging its merits and addressing criticisms that
had arisen against his own viewpoint over the years.

This book made me think about questions that I hadn't thought about
before. ◊margin-note{In baseball, when a runner touches home, their
team is awarded a point. Is that just a habit, or is that a rule?
Assuming it's a rule, is it also a moral rule? These are the kinds of
questions that Hart gets into.} Much of this book is about demarcating
law from non-law (and likewise, rules from habits, and legal rules
from moral rules). In the search for a concept of law, you end up
needing to check whether a particular definition or description
captures those things properly thought of as law and excludes things
that aren't. This is somewhat circular, but Hart takes a pragmatic
approach: what distinctions are useful for the kinds of analyses we
tend to do?

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "Louise Rosenblatt" #:year "1933"
#:url
"https://www.mla.org/Publications/Bookstore/Nonseries/Literature-as-Exploration-5th-edition"
#:title "Literature as Exploration" #:publisher "Modern Language
Association"]

This book changed the way I think about reading, and art in general.
I've long held the view that you simply "like what you like", and that
once an author's words are out on the page, all that matters is the
interpretation that you as a reader bring to the work (FYI, in ◊em{In
Home Alone}, ◊a[#:href
"https://www.thedailybeast.com/home-alone-is-so-much-better-if-kevin-mccallister-is-dead"]{Kevin
is dead}). Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading is one of many
reader-response theories (of which my view was an extreme). She
emphasizes the primacy of your own immediate reaction, but also
describes how to evaluate that reaction by looking at how much of it
is grounded in the text. This reflection on the causes of your
reaction can help you learn more about yourself and others. An
ancillary theme is how literature can help develop the empathy
necessary for a strong and representative
democracy. ◊margin-note{◊em{Democracy implies a society of people who,
no matter how much they differ from one another, recognize their
common interests, their common goals, and their dependence on mutually
honored freedoms and responsibilities.} --- Louise Rosenblatt}

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author-given "Ruth Bader"
#:author-family "Ginsburg" #:year "2016" #:url
"http://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/My-Own-Words/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg/9781501145247"
#:title "My Own Words" #:publisher "Simon & Schuster"]

The highlights for me were Justice Ginsburg's early writing, her
thoughts on comparative law, and the role of dissent.

◊format-work[#:type "book" #:author "John Hodgman" #:year "2017"
#:url
"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557020/vacationland-by-john-hodgman/9780735224803/"
#:title "Vacationland" #:publisher "Viking" #:publisher-location "New
York"]

◊sub-heading{Articles}

◊format-work[#:type "article" #:author "Barton Beebe" #:year "2017"
#:url
"http://columbialawreview.org/content/bleistein-the-problem-of-aesthetic-progress-and-the-making-of-american-copyright-law/"
#:title "Bleistein, the Problem of Aesthetic Progress, and the Making
of American Copyright Law" #:journal "Columbia Law Review" #:volume
"112" #:issue "2" #:first-page "319"]

Beebe argues that, with respect to copyright, courts should recognize
that aesthetic progress can happen when there is simply more art and
more people that have made art (Beebe refers to John Dewey's ◊em{Art
as Experience} in describing this view).  This would lead courts to
find value in more works than they do now, and would support a more
expansive fair use exception, allowing more things to be made, even if
close copies.

◊format-work[#:type "thesis" #:author "Jennifer Leitch" #:year "2016"
#:url "http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/phd/23/" #:title "Having
a Say: Democracy, Access to Justice and Self-Represented Litigants"
#:thesis-description "PhD Thesis" #:institution "Osgoode Hall"]

It is difficult to get meaningful access to justice as a
self-represented litigant. The extent to which a person succeeds at
that can affect their participation in other aspects of democracy.

◊format-work[#:type "magazine/news" #:publication "The Atlantic"
#:year "2017" #:url
"https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/inside-jobs/" #:title "Inside
Jobs: Hear what American workers have to say about their jobs"]

◊format-work[#:type "article" #:author "Zahr Said" #:year "2017"
#:url "https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2902765"
#:title "A Transactional Theory of the Reader in Copyright Law"
#:journal "Iowa Law Review" #:volume "102" #:issue "2" #:first-page
"605"]

How an acceptance of Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading
would change the questions that we ask jurors and the evidence we give
them in copyright cases.

◊format-work[#:type "magazine/news" #:author "Tim Parks" #:year
"December 9, 2017" #:url
"http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/12/09/gained-in-translation/"
#:title "Gained in Translation" #:publication "New York Review of
Books"]

This article put into words the way I've come to think
about reading.

◊q{
"So it’s true that one simply likes or doesn’t like something. ◊elide
But it’s also true that when preferences shift they do so for a reason, if
  not as a result of reasoning. Growing up, one brings more context and experience, more world, to one’s
  reading and this “more” changes one’s taste. We might even say this new experience changes the person
  and with the person the book. ◊elide Our responses and preferences are not arbitrary; they depend on what
  we bring to what we read or watch."}

◊sub-heading{Short stories}

◊format-work[#:type "magazine/news" #:author-given "F Scott"
#:author-family "Fitzgerald" #:url
"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/the-i-o-u" #:title "The
I.O.U." #:publication "The New Yorker" #:year "20 March 2017"]

◊format-work[#:type "magazine/news" #:author "Kristen Roupenian"
#:url "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person"
#:title "Cat Person" #:publication "The New Yorker" #:year "11
December 2017"]

◊heading{Computer things}
I wrote a web app that presents some flight-planning information taken from navcanada.ca that
I find useful for VFR flying in the British Columbia lower mainland. ◊margin-note{◊a[#:href "http://www.lower-mainland-flight-planning.ca/"]{Flight Planning Page}}
I'm not satisfied with how I display the NOTAMs though. They have structure (locations,
times, categories), but I'm not using any of that to help pilots quickly determine what's important to them.

I've been trying to learn how to use a publishing tool called ◊a[#:href "http://docs.racket-lang.org/pollen/"]{Pollen}. I used it to
lay out the text you're reading right now. I was looking for something that let me write in plain text, but would still turn that text into
a nice-to-read website, or PDF, or whatever. I found some alternatives (Markdown, LaTeX2HTML, Pandoc), but have decided to start with
Pollen.

Because I was trying to learn how to use Pollen, I also learned a bit
about Racket, following the book, ◊a[#:href
"https://beautifulracket.com/"]{◊em{Beautiful Racket}}. I like the
things I get to think about while writing in Racket, at least as a
beginner Racket programmer.

◊heading{Travel}

◊a[#:href "https://sanchom.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/washington-d-c/"]{Washington, D.C.}: On the week
of THE INAUGURATION, I saw Gladys Knight perform at the Kennedy Centre for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, watched two cases argued at the Supreme Court,
and visited the Library of Congress, the Capitol Building, and National Public Radio headquarters. My departing flight lifted off at 11:45am on January 20.
I thought that because I wasn't on Earth when the Chief Justice and the PRESIDENT-ELECT recited the magic words,
my universe might split in two and I would land on ALT-EARTH where everything was fine.
I landed on normal Earth.

◊a[#:href "https://sanchom.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/trip-report-cortes-island-cci9/"]{Cortes Island}:
 Alison and I flew to Cortes Island to visit some friends who work on a small
teaching farm.

I visited Winnipeg twice this year: once in the spring for my mom's birthday and again in the fall
 for my Air Cadet squadron's reunion. It was good to see friends that
were part of the most influential experiences of my life. I've been thinking a lot about ambition, privilege,
 and finding meaning in work; this was a perfect chance to talk with a bunch of people that I consider
 peers and mentors about how they think about those things. I also have a small group of friends that I've kept in touch with
since high school that I get to see whenever I'm back in Winnipeg. Some have even made little babies and are raising them
to be curious, thoughtful people.

I attended ◊a[#:href "https://con.racket-lang.org/"]{RacketCon} in Seattle.
A lot of interesting projects, and a lot of people thinking about languages and
functional programming.


◊heading{Track}
The last time I played a game of ultimate was in the spring of 2016, but I hadn't decided to focus
exclusively on track until this year. I like the structured training and predictable progress that I find
in track. We pay much more attention to training variables like volume, intensity, and rest periods in track than
in ultimate. For me, that makes it more conducive to athletic development and I see it being a sport that I'll be able
to compete in for decades. My ◊a[#:href "http://athletics.ca/wp-content/themes/default-bs3/popups/athlete-rankings.php?id=8218097&year=0"]{season bests}
were 7.51◊nbsp[]s in the 60◊nbsp[]m and 11.77◊nbsp[]s in the 100◊nbsp[]m.

◊heading{Games}

I've been playing Overwatch and I'm objectively bad (like bottom 5%),
but it's fun. My mains are Soldier◊nbsp[]76, Junkrat, Orisa, and
Mercy.

◊heading{2018}

I made a resolution in 2017 to not read breaking news. It's just
speculation and guessing games. If I wait for the journalism to sort
itself out, I get less worked up about stuff that's not truly
significant and actually understand the significance of the stuff that
is.  I didn't completely succeed at this resolution, but when I did, I
liked it, and I'll try again in 2018.

Starting in January, I'll be volunteering one day per week with the
◊a[#:href "https://bccla.org/"]{BC Civil Liberties Association} in a
"Communications and Development" position. (I have no idea how much of
my actual role is conveyed by that title.) I am excited about starting
this work and I feel privileged to be able to help them with the
important work that they do.

I want to share more of what I write. And I hope that I might also be
changed by your thoughts, so do◊nbsp[]@◊nbsp[]me!