How not to run a campus pub, vol. 4

One of my perennial complaints about my campus pub is its lack of a sit-down bar: all we have are tables. This, of course, makes it more difficult to meet new people at the bar. Generally, people sitting at tables are socially entrenched — one doesn’t just pull up a chair at a table full of strangers and start talking. On the other hand, someone sitting at the bar invites conversation with random strangers — one doesn’t sit at the bar and expect to be left alone. If nothing else, sitting at the bar puts you in direct conversational range of the bartender.

It seems to me that universities are exactly the sort of places where social contact between random people should be encouraged. Someone screwed the pooch here.

Conservatives seek “no-fly list”

Yep, just as the headline says. Orwell, anyone?

• Ottawa plans no-fly list by 2007

The disgusting part is the thing’s name: “The Passenger Protect[sic] program”. The programme, as outlined in CBC’s article, protects no-one — it simply denies entry to people who have brought themselves to the unwelcome attention of the federal government. Hijackers and suicide bombers who have not yet identified themselves as such are somewhat unlikely to be identified by any screening programme.

A better idea might be to issue fighting knives to all passengers and allow them to take care of matters themselves — but of course that requires us to take immediate and personal responsibility for our own security, rather than simply clamouring for the government to pass more laws and pretending that we’re all safer for it.

Avoid Tim Horton’s

I’m informed by one who works there that Tim Horton’s forbids its employees from defending themselves against physical assault from customers — and that such assault is depressingly common. Defending one’s self from an assailant who might want to buy some donuts is, apparently, a firing offence. I will avoid Tim Horton’s from now on, and urge you to do the same.

(Their coffee is horrible, anyway. That the Tim Horton’s double-double is a hallmark of Canadian culture is a self-inflicted slur upon the country.)

A writer’s (abbreviated) bibliography

Well, I’ve done programming and personal security, so I may as well do writing. I will confine myself to the writing of non-fiction in English.

The first book on my list is obvious: William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style, often simply known as “Strunk and White”. I haven’t found a better manual of English style than this little book — it is clear, concise, and a delight to read. Chief among its virtues is its habit of putting the most important points first — if you do nothing more than read the very first page of the main matter (“1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ’s.”) and remember what you have read, you will make yourself a better writer of English than eight tenths of the Internet. (Perhaps more.)

You may be better off re-reading Strunk and White than reading other books on non-fiction writing: it’s that good.

Next on my list is Richard Mitchell’s Less than Words Can Say. For one thing, it’s a brilliantly caustic attack upon turgid bureaucratic prose, and enjoyable on that level alone; for another, it’s a call to arms against imprecise, obfuscatory, and sloppy language. Mitchell’s work is fun to read, and makes you question your writing — is this as clear as it could be?

Third is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Zinsser’s book isn’t as much fun to read as Mitchell’s, nor is it as brilliant as Strunk and White, but it gives a detailed account of writing procedures — and that’s worth the price of admission.

Finally, you should pick up a Fowler’s. When writing non-fiction, you should strive for precision — if you don’t believe me, re-read Mitchell — and Fowler’s is the archetypical guide to precise usage.

You do not need a dictionary. You have the Internet, and it will suffice.

Beyond these four books: read the sort of thing you want to write, and pay attention to the writing. Make note of the things that annoy you, and the things that impress you. Expunge the former from your writing, and strive toward the latter.

Further, read good writing in any and every genre. Beyond Strunk, White, and Mitchell, I can recommend (in no particular order):

• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Marc “Animal” MacYoung
• Brian Kernighan
• Rob Pike
• Jeff Cooper
• Mark Twain
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• H.P. Lovecraft
• H.L. Mencken
• Robert A. Heinlein
• Bill Starr
• Winston S. Churchill
• Brooks D. Kubik
• Neal Stephenson
• Chuck Palahniuk

Find authors whose work you enjoy on technical merit as well as for its content, and read a lot of their work.

Beers of Vancouver, vol. 4

Today’s beer is Holsten Festbock, a strong (7%) German dark beer conforming to the famous 1516 purity laws  It’s thick, dark, rich, and almost but not quite sweet — has almost a cherry flavour to it that reminds me strongly of Russell’s Cream Ale.  In fact, it might be described as halfway between Russell’s Cream Ale and  Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  Holsten Festbock is also available in half-litre cans for just over two bucks at my local liquor store.  They have Holsten’s regular lager for less than two bucks, too; it’s a decent but unremarkable Euro-lager.

Slim Volumes

The best books are usually the smallest.

For example: the canonical book on English writing style is Strunk and White — whose fourth edition contains just over one hundred pages and fits easily into one’s pocket. Strunk and White does its job so well that Kernighan and Plaugher consciously imitated it when writing The Elements of Programming Style, including its brevity: the first edition of Kernighan and Plaugher weighs in near 150 pages, though its format is somewhat larger than pocket-sized.

The pinnacle of the excellent-small-book art may be Jeff Cooper’s excellent Principles of Personal Defense, which requires fewer than fifty pages to convey the essential mindset of protecting one’s person against violent assault. A reader interested in brevity as well as quality would also do well to read Fairbairn’s Get Tough!, which in just over 120 pages conveys the essential techniques of protecting one’s person.

On a lighter note, the Principia Discordia (or How I Found Goddess, and What I Did to Her When I Found Her) is one of the funniest works of subversive satire ever penned. Voltaire’s Candide is none too long, either, although my copy is beautifully illustrated and somewhat bulky.

All hail small books!

Iran restricts internet access

From Thomas Barnett’s blog:

• Iran bans fast internet to cut west’s influence

This seems to me like the best sort of argument in favour of “western cultural imperialism”.  (Should I have capitalized that?)  I mean, it’s one thing if Iran decides to censor, I dunno, FOX News or something — but the internet is about as politically and doctrinally agnostic a medium as you could ever hope for.

If the internet scares nations that hang rape victims for defending themselves — more power to the internet!

Symbolically-Transmitted Dementia

Using LaTeX protects one from this sort of thing.