Daily Archives: March 6, 2014

Latin, Myth and Story, Translating Metamorphoses

Off the Rhythm

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Imbolc                                                              Hare Moon

Boy.  Started working with translations I did a couple of months ago and it was hard.  I’ve not been hitting it every day like I do when I’m on my rhythm.  I don’t know why, but that matters.  I’m way ahead of the work I need to do for my every two week times with Greg, by a hundred verses or so, a bit more.  At this point when I work with him I’m tracking backwards over work I did well before.  But that doesn’t explain the sluggishness. It really seems to be a function of staying at it, almost like staying in shape.

(Deucalion and Pyrrha Repeople the World by Throwing Stones Behind Them, c.1636 (oil on canvas)  by Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640))

I would have gotten more done today if I hadn’t decided to fool around with Bittorrent Snyc, but there you are.

More review tomorrow morning, then an hour with Greg.  He monitors my progress, fine tunes my work, keeps me attentive to things I miss.  He also helps me with strategy about how to approach the task of translation.  At this point that helps as much as particular work with the grammar.

Based on his guidance I always look first for the verbs, then the nominatives (subjects) and the accusatives (direct objects).  If I get lost, I do a quick diagram to find my way back. There’s also been an interesting apprentice style aspect of his teaching where I listen to him go through a process of translation, use of the dictionary, what do when you’re stuck and mimic it.  It’s been a surprisingly successful method of learning.

GeekWorld

It’s Free!

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Imbolc                                                                Hare Moon

I wanted, for some reason, to establish a dropbox type relationship between this computer and the netbook which I take with me when I travel.  This means being able to access files on this computer from a distance.  This seems like a good thing to me, though just why I can’t exactly say.

Anyhow I discovered Bittorrent has a program called Sync that will do just this.  It establishes a P2P relationship between one computer or device and another for this purpose.  P2P = peer to peer, that is, both devices are equal to each other.  Dropbox and sugarsync and google drive and microsoft skydrive offer a similar service except you have to upload your files to their cloud.  Now a cloud is only a series of large hard-drives bunkered somewhere, fed lots of electricity and cooled by refrigerants.

In practical terms that means you give your data to someone else to store, then when you want it, you dial into their cloud and retrieve it.  The catch?  It’s free.  And, as I read somewhere recently, when a computer service is free, you’re the product.  That means they can access my data, mine it for advertising relevant facts and then sell me to hundreds if not thousands of others.  Also, the government can, with a warrant, crack the cloud and peak inside.

With a P2P setup all the data remains on your computers, for which the government needs a warrant and all others need the password.  In Sync’s case the password is a 32 character secret that establishes the bond between two computers.  32 characters make cracking the code technically very difficult.  Probably not worth it for my vacation pictures.

So.  I download sync.  And nothing happened.  Hmmm.  After a lot of hmming, I investigated various help forums.  Ah.  That could be an issue.  The two computers have to sync up timewise.  I fixed that since the netbook was still on mountain time from my last trip to Colorado.  Nope.

After a lot of head thumping, I tried a favorite ploy.  I turned off both computers and started them up again.  Ah.  Syncing at last.  Tomorrow I’ll learn if it does what I think it does.

This took most of the morning.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Humanities, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Retirement, Third Phase, Travel

Coming Up in March

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Imbolc                                                                      Hare Moon

Looking down the month toward our 24th anniversary (Monday) and the date I’m wheels 1000Kate and Charlie in Edenon the road for Tucson (the 18th).  24 years with Kate and our relationship improves like fine wine, gaining more nuance and depth, more body with each passing year.  This year we return to the Nicollet Island Inn for dinner, the spot from which we launched our honeymoon.  As spring rolled forward in March of 1990 those three weeks in Europe were as good a beginning as the marriage itself. Next year we’ll celebrate our 25th anniversary at Mama’s Fish House on Maui.

The Tucson trip grows closer.  These rolling retreats, as I like to think of alone time behind the wheel, are really just road trips.  Road trips are part of the American way, peregrinatio updated for the age of the internal combustion engine.

This one of course has its focus self discovery, focus, personal deepening so it will have a more spiritual note, but it will also include my usual visits to spots of natural and historic interest.  Among the possibilities are Carlsbad Caverns, the Saguaro forests, a state park or two in Arizona, the Sonoran Desert Museum, Mt. Kitt, Chaco Canyon, Joshua Tree National Park (probably not, but it’s within reach) and a second visit to the Arbor Day lodge and farm in Nebraska City, Nebraska.