I've done a couple direct posts to identi.ca recently. Since the stated purpose (see "About" sidebar) of this sub-site is to not let other servers own my data, I should catch up:

1. Stephen Covey dead at 79. Quadrant III news: urgent but not important

   about 3 days ago from web

2. Ever read a few books by 1 author that keeps putting somewhat distinctive in her phrasing & find yourself thinking in suchlike? Thanks, Kerr

   about 4 days ago from web

In related news, Twitter is at it again: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/in-closing-its-platform-twitter-risks-destroying-its-community.php

Generation gap? I've been battling gratuitous bashisms in #!/bin/sh scripts for a decade now. Personally I insist on installing either ksh93 or pdksh on my Linux machines: http://www.netmeister.org/blog/what-unix.html

Somewhere along the line I got a recommendation for Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I was surprised, when my library reservation became available, to find that it was published under the Penguin Twentieth Century Classics imprint and classified as "literature". My fears were justified after beginning to read it. From Michael Wood's review for The New York Review of Books: "Gravity's Rainbow is literally indescribable, a tortured cadenza of lurid imaginings and total recall that goes on longer than you can quite believe.... It is crowded, technical, serious, self-indulgent, frivolous, and very heavy going." Yet I'm encouraged by the first Amazon review that popped up, which contains instructions for reading the book. Maybe I'll speed-read the rest tonight and contemplate another go next year.