Kylog

I’ve just started reading Sprawl: A Compact History a cleverly-titled book by Robert Bruegmann. I am coming to this book as an interested layperson, with absolutely no academic or professional background on the subject. I feel I must start with that disclaimer because, at least up to the 50-page mark, I feel I’ve innocently stepped foot into Bruegmann’s personal pissing match with the urban planners of the world (or the US). The best way to describe this book is as vehemently anti- the anti-sprawl movement.

Bruegmann takes issue with many apparent tenets of thinking about sprawl: sprawl is uniquely American, sprawl is uniquely post-WWII, spawl is uniquely middle-class. But as he does so, this reader sees him dashing about to prop up his straw man before he cleverly smashes it to pieces. In short, he may have found some particularly doctrinaire writers who think there have been no places in time or history outside late 20th century America that have had low-density urban housing. And if so, they must be soundly routed from their caves by his retelling of history. But as is so often the case with those who would joust with straw men, Bruegmann ends up undermining his own arguments.

At least for this non-doctrinaire, non-professional reader, Bruegmann has the unintended effect of convincing me that there is something qualitatively different about post-war America. It’s actually humorous how often he insists that his straw man is a fool, then nicely proves the fool’s point. For example, he provides density gradient graphs of London for every 50 years from 1800-1950 (why not 2000 by the way?), demonstrating that there has always been low-density urban housing. Yes, but the increasing flatness of the gradients over time is exactly what one thinks of as sprawl. And his parenthetical remarks about the dead flatness of the density gradients for Phoenix brings home what an excellent tool density gradients are for understanding sprawl. Likewise, when he gets to the post-war period, he is compelled to explain all the ways in which sprawl became so much more prominent in the US than anywhere else in the world. All very interesting stuff.

So, 50 pages into this book, I’m finding it an engaging introduction to the subject, while at the same time, Bruegmann provides much unintended amusement as he repeatedly proves his opponents’ points. This is just the history third of the book though; I’m curious how his rhetoric does when he gets to the “diagnosis” and “prescription” thirds of the book.

Just finished this very pleasurable read, an account of Samuel Johnson and his Dictionary. Hitchings does a fine job of evoking Johnson’s personality, as well as life and culture in mid-18th century England, really inspiring me to read more of this era, to read more by Samuel Johnson (I’ve never read but excerpts in lit surveys), and especially to place the Dictionary on my privileged reference shelf! Lacking the $300 to buy a copy of the entire dictionary, I’m going to settle on a portable excerpt, and Hitching’s marvellous survey.

This was a great book for to make you hungry for more Johnson. Hitchings himself sometimes trips over his own prose and ideas. Three irritations: the A-Z organization of the book is cute, but he struggles to make it work at points; I’m a wordlover like Hitchings, but sometimes he reads like a freshman with a thesaurus, using a big word when a little one will do fine; and he’s at his worst in the odd ill-advised excursus to our contemporary day, e.g. when he declares “rapper[s are] … often associated with violence”. Stick to the 18th century, Hitch! These things don’t get in the way, though; buy this book and enjoy it. Then read more Johnson.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.
- HL Mencken

Now we will have no more war, and the most backward countries will be able to start catching up.
- Ernest Lawrence, after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Gregg Herken, The Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 139)

Take back your existence or die like a punk.
- Outkast

I think history will show that [Mike, the first H-bomb test, Nov 1 1952] was a turning point … that those who pushed that thing through … wihtout making that attempt [to negotiate with Russia] have a great deal to answer for.
- Vannevar Bush (Priscilla McMillan, The Ruin of J Robert Oppenheimer, p. 142)
Aesthetics is for the artist like ornithology is for the birds.
- Barnett Newman

Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.
- Paul Valery

Traditions are group effort to keep the unexpected from happening.
-Barbara Tober, chair, New York’s Museum of Arts and Design

Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. (Hitchings, p. 179)

(OK this next one is Pope, but Hitchings says the above might be a play on:)
Tis with our judgements as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
–Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism

The traveller that resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hours of daylight in lookingfor smoother ground, and shorter passages.
(Hitchings, p.161)

[Note to self: wasting daylight ….]

I now begin to see land, after having wandered … in this vast sea of words. What reception I shall meet with upon the shore I know not, whether the sound of bells and acclamations of people … or a general murmur of dislike. I know not whether I shall find … a Calypso that will court or a Polypheme that will eat me. (Hitchings, p 192)

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar. (Rasselas, cited Hitchings, p 220)

Do not suffer life to stagnate, it will grow muddy for want of motion. [Instead] commit yourself to the current of the world. (same)

A couple great quotes circa the early 18th century environment when printing was becoming widely available:

“… so widely is spread the itch of literary praise, that almost every man is an author, either in act or in purpose.”

“It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing.”

Both quotes from p. 32 of Defining the World.

There are 8 log levels that can be specified in a printk; from include/linux/kernel.h:
#define KERN_EMERG "<0>"
#define KERN_ALERT "<1>"
#define KERN_CRIT "<2>"
#define KERN_ERR "<3>"
#define KERN_WARNING "<4>"
#define KERN_NOTICE "<5>"
#define KERN_INFO "<6>"
#define KERN_DEBUG "<7>"

There are 4 values that define what gets printk’d where. They are also in include/linux/kernel.h:
extern int console_printk[];
#define console_loglevel (console_printk[0])
#define default_message_loglevel (console_printk[1])
#define minimum_console_loglevel (console_printk[2])
#define default_console_loglevel (console_printk[3])

Their meaning:
console_loglevel: if a message logValue < console_loglevel, print it on the console
default_message_loglevel: if a message d/n specify a logValue, use this
minimum_console_loglevel: used with a syslog(6, ...) [disable printk]
default_console_loglevel: used with a syslog(7, ...) [enable printk]

Note that all of this pertains only to the console; klogd will report all messages regardless of the above settings.

They can be read/written through /proc/sys/kernel/printk:

kylo@kylodl01:111032:~> cat /proc/sys/kernel/printk
6 4 1 7