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truth tables
Thursday, June 3 1999
I had an effective day designing and implementing permissions truth tables for the new message board system I'm building. Drawing out a truth table was essential to solving the programming problems that plagued me. Interestingly, the last time I found myself resorting to truth tables was back in high school, when I was designing various hardware modifications for my VIC-20 computer (as opposed to say, worrying about who I would be taking to the prom). Getting the logic to work and knowing what integrated circuit gates to deploy often required considerable planning beforehand on paper.
Though satisfying, today's work left me mentally and physically exhausted. This didn't make for happy domestic times when I came home. When I'm too tired to follow the proper protocol, my evenings invariably degenerate into a series of judgment-flavoured arguments.
I neglected to mention in yesterday's entry that last night I saw Saving Private Ryan on videotape with Kim, Steph and EJ. As war movies go (and I'm a little embarrassed to admit I rather like war movies), this was a good one. It seemed to go out of its way to portray the arbitrary, random horror of even the most just of wars. It delved into the nature of both cowardice and heroism in a unique way, focusing on the odd similarity between the two. This similarity might be traumatized irrationality, or it might be selfish pride, but it's there and those outside it (such as me in the audience) are equally perplexed by both. Though the flick was done entirely from the American perspective, the Germans were not portrayed as any more savage, any less dignified, or any less heroic than their American counterparts. There was no glory in the battles; it was all about enraged individual humans meeting out primitive ape justice. For every prisoner taken, many others would be shot, most of those in cold blood.
The actual cinematography of Saving Private Ryan was unique as well. The lighting was unusually harsh, and the camera jittered, jumped and bounced around, not from cameraman incompetence, but from some other more unnerving force. It actually kind of reminded me of being under the influence of psychedelics such as tussin and psilocybe mushrooms. Though there were a few dull swaths of dialogue, for the most part I sat on the edge of my seat, engrossed by the violence, action, suspense and drama.
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