This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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 Author: Jefferson Davis
Started: 10 Jul 2006
Finished: 18 Nov 2006
662p / 102d
6 p/d
The Amazon listing linked from the cover picture doesn’t say it explicitly and has the wrong cover shown, but if you look at the search inside the book you can tell it is indeed Volume 2. Anyway… I finished Volume I in November 2005. I had really enjoyed it, and this summer decided it was time to read Volume II. Volume I was about the time leading up to the Civil War, and a lot of time was spent on Davis’s analysis of the legal and constitutional underpinnings of his view of state’s rights and of the right to succession. And then continuing with a chronology of the actual succession of the various Southern states, the formation of the confederacy, the drafting of the confederate constitution, the events which led up to the start of hostilities, etc. I found all of this exceptionally fascinating. Looking at all of these things from a viewpoint that is rarely given these days.
Volume II was interesting, but no where near as much so. It was mostly about the war itself. Battles and troop movements and the ebb and flow of the war effort itself. To some, this would be the interesting part. To me, this was the least interesting aspect of the entire affair. There was a bit more of the philosophical stuff in this one, and toward the end some very interesting aspects about the beginnings of the reconstruction period and the workings of the initial Federal occupation and clamp down on the former Confederate states. But whereas MOST of the previous volume was related to these aspects that I found extremely compelling to read about, in this volume it was in the minority, and was overwhelmed by the nitty gritty of the war itself.
Even in these portions I learned quite a bit, not having done any extensive study of the civil war in the past. And it was interesting… just not as interesting to me. It was definitely worth reading for completeness. But if you had to pick just one of these two volumes, Volume I would be the one to pick.
That whole thing about what assuming makes? Yup. Gotta remember never to assume anything and always make sure everything is explicit. I keep learning that but eventually forgetting it again. Can’t ever forget that.
Thats it for now.
Sometime in the next few days I have to catch up on some posting. I have one book I finished and one movie I saw that I haven’t posted about yet. And I should do more ancestors soon too. Not to mention other things that might be worth commenting on… for instance… it looks like Roscoe has learned the “and now bring it back” part of “Fetch”.
It has been a really bad five weeks. Starting with what happened with Zuri which had me in very horrible frame of mind which I am still working to get over. These last five weeks I have been sadder and angrier and meaner and less patient than I remember being in many years. I think it is almost over though. Five weeks is enough. Meanwhile, almost as soon as that happened, Brandy got sick. Then Brandy broke her leg. Then this last week I’ve been sick. It has been a bad five weeks.
Of course, then I remember that right before that five weeks I had a kidney stone episode. And right before that we found out my Saturn is dying. And right before that some one bumped into Brandy’s car in a parking lot while I was in it waiting for her to come out of a store. (No serious damage.) Literally the day before that someone dented my Saturn in a different parking lot while Brandy was driving. (It was the mom of one of Amy’s schoolmates… we know her.) And a week before that, someone smashed in the window of Brandy’s car and stole her purse while she was at a school rummage sale within sight of the car.
And come to think of that, before that we had months of tension about selling the house.
And going back almost a year, there was all that nonsense in Florida.
Come to think of it, it has been a bad couple of years.
All in all, though, I am now at a job I enjoy and can grow in, we are now in a decent house that we like in a decent neighborhood, money is no longer a major day to day concern, either through my previous employer faling to meet any of their commitments like last year, or through maintaining two households like the first part of this year. Amy is in a school she loves, and she is doing very well.
MOST things are going very well and the trends are all in good directions.
But there have been some very hard bumps and bruises along the way. And the last five weeks has for me very tough in terms of those personal at home things. But I can see the sky again now I think.
And I really really hope the next five weeks… hell, the next five months… the next five years… are all up trend all the way. Well, at least mostly. I don’t need any more months like the last month please.
Saturday was a musical day in the Minonagony household. The morning had us getting up early (for a weekend) to get Amy to a church in Everett where her chorus was singing for a “Lady’s Tea” at some church up there. It is their first public performance of the season and somewhat of a warmup. I took this picture and was busy trying and failing to post about it from my Treo and so intent on trying to figure out why it wasn’t working (never did figure that out) that I didn’t notice at all when the music suddently stopped mid-phrase and there was a gasp and a commotion as a parent ran up to retrieve her daughter who had just fainted on stage. It was not Amy. After a few minutes of everybody composing themselves they started over at the beginning of that song.
After that, we raced back down to Seattle to the University of Washington. The bass teacher we had taken Amy to didn’t quite know what to think or how to approach the task of teacher her after her first lesson with him, so had arranged for her to be seen by HIS teacher, a professor of Music at the UW. So we got there just in time, only to be the only ones there. Both the teacher and the professor ended up being about 30 minutes late. When they got there they took Amy and asked Brandy and I to leave. So we went and got coffee while Amy had a one hour session with the Professor. Apparently she did pretty well other than her usual 11 year old attention span and taking it seriously issues. They are going to consult with each other and get back to us on what they think the best approach to continuing her bass education will be. The Professor is also going to try to get us set up with the Seattle Youth Orchestra, which Brandy had sent email to over the summer but who never answered us. Since Amy doesn’t have an orchestra at her school (too small) it is important to have an actual outlet to perform… it gives a direction to lessons and practice and such.
Anyway, musical day.
I’m a little bit late getting this out, but a couple of weeks ago my father, William Minter, was given the “Bud Day Award” by the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. Congratulations to him!
Tuesday around 02:00 UTC as I was leaving work to slog through a drive home three times longer than it usually was because of snow I saw firetrucks. A lot of firetrucks. I was crossing the bridge right after I left work (it took 15 minutes just to get across the bridge) and firetruck after firetruck after firetruck went zooming by with sirens on. I wondered where they were going and what the big fire was that needed so many firetrucks. When I got home I checked on the local news and couldn’t find anything at all. Nothing on the 11 PM news either. Just lots about how all kinds of people were stuck in the snow and such.
Today at lunch I found out… the fire was in the building where I work. The alarms went off minutes after I left the building. And it was not a false alarm as happens occationally. The lobby was apperantly actually full of real smoke from some sort of real fire.
But it seems it was small and taken care of quickly by the dozens of fire trucks. Today there is no sign whatsoever that there was any problem at all. I have no idea where exactly the fire was. There is no obvious damage anywhere.
Anyway, that is what the firetrucks were for.
I have once again gone too long without posting an ancestor. So now it is time. No picture again, they are sporadic in this generation. In any case, this time it is the turn of my Father’s Father’s Mother’s Father, Christian Eber Smith.
He was born in 1839, died in 1905. Lived basically his whole life in Glenn Springs, South Carolina. Married Henrietta Anderson in 1870 and had 8 kids of which my great-grandmother was the second. He started college, but left to fight in the Civil War (on the Confederate side). After the war he became a farmer as his family’s fortunes had been wiped out in the war. He also became an elder in his local church.
And that is about all I know. What additional details I know are at the Abulwiki page linked above.
This morning in the second game of the latest big “Human Champion vs Computer” match current World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik did not only lose but was actually checkmated by Fritz. It was a one move blunder. Kramnick made a mistake, then wham, checkmate. That is just plain not supposed to happen to a world champion. Games at this level almost always end with someone resigning, or with an agreed draw. An actual end of the game due to a mate or a by the rules draw is very very rare. So it was kind of cool to see happen. Well… I missed the exact moment because I was on a conference call with Europe, but I saw right before and right after…
Anyway, two games into this match it is dissapointing to me even though the computer is ahead 1.5 to 0.5 at the moment. Cause the first game was a draw, and apperantly some people think Kramnik should have been able to pull out a win. And this second game was again definately a draw, with some people thinking Kramnik should be able to pull out a win… before he made his stupid move.
It has been years now since Deep Blue first scored a point against Kasparov. Now, DB was a custom built computer, whereas the program now competing with world champions can be purchased by anybody and runs on commodity windows machinces. So I guess there has been improvement and all, but I am looking for the point where the world’s best machine can wipe the floor with the world champion the same way that the world champion human could wipe the floor with a five year old who just learned the rules. So far that just isn’t happening.
It is looking more and more like the humans will remain good enough to be able to at least manage a draw if they don’t make big mistakes. That is kind of disappointing. Well, we’ll see how it goes given a few more years.
And there are a few more games left in this match. I have been getting up early to watch them online. Maybe there will be more excitement in the coming games. The actual checkmate and all is cool, but it would have been nicer if the computer had outplayed the human all game long instead of there just being a stupid mistake at the end.
Also… just to repeat a tirade I make every time I watch one of these human/computer matches… traditions and respect for your opponant and all that nonsense aside… a computer in a human computer match should NEVER resign and should NEVER accept a draw. And this game shows exactly why. The human can make a stupid mistake. The computers should accept the human resigning, but otherwise should force the game to go to the bitter end no matter what… either a checkmate or a draw by the rules (Stalemate, Insufficent Material, Threefold Repitition, Fifty Move Rule). Because up until that very last moment, the human could always screw up and let the computer back in the game, even if the computer was losing previously. Computers should NEVER resign and NEVER accept a draw offer. Period.
 Last weekend we watched one of Amy’s movies. This was supposedly loosely based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night”. But I had never seen or read that play, so I can’t evaluate that. But basically it is all about a girl who decides to pretend to be a boy (taking the place of her brother in order to prove she can play soccer as well as the boys) and all the hi-jinx and romantic triangles and rectangles and such that ensue.
There were a few funny moments. But this most definitely was aimed at the 10-13 year old girl demographic, not at 36 year old men. It was cute and all, especially if you managed to completely and totally forget about the fact that she was not a convincing male and all the huge plot holes. But forgetting that, it was cute and there were a few moments to laugh at.
And if you happen to have a 10 to 13 year old girl around, they will enjoy it I am sure. :-)
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