monkinetic the blog

I first learned John Harris’ name from personal friend John Scalzi [Ed. John Scalzi is not a personal friend of the author], whose excellent series of books in the Old Man’s War series are graced with Harris’ atmospheric and inspirational paintings.

Perusing a sampling of his fine art prints or a Google image search, however, yields tens if not hundreds of familiar scenes, covers of largely science fiction books over the years.

> a selection of reasonably-priced prints which include images which act as a reminder of that writing. Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Frederik Pohl, Orson Scott Card, Samuel R Delany, Ben Bova, Allen Steele, and many more

I am in love with his art and seeing his work, or similar, on a volume in the local library will at least guarantee a look from me. John (Harris, not Scalzi) has a range of prints available (linked above) of his cover art, as well as of his poster work for Sinclair in the 80s, and (if you’re into boats) a lovely series of pastel illustrations of racing yachts. Any sci-fi or art lover should definitely check out his work.

Update:

I didn’t realize that there was a book of John (Harris’) work, with an intro by John (Scalzi). While neither frameable or mountable on a wall, this tome is considerably cheaper than the 6 prints I want (wah) and would make a lovely gift for your humble blogger…

Today was my first day of PyCon, in Montréal, Quebec (my first). I’m headquartered with two other Wells Fargo teammates in the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth (Fairmont de la Reine Elizabeth), a 10-minute walk or so from the Palais des Congrés, where this year’s PyCon is being held. It’s an impressive building, though in the end, one tutorial room and conference hallway look pretty much like another.

Timezone changes (west-to-east sucks) had me up later than I wanted last night, and up earlier than I wanted this morning, but I walked over to the Palais in the brisk 40°F weather to get registered. One coffee later I found myself in the room for the first tutorial session I had registered for, only to find that I had not actually registered. The staff person managing the room was kind enough to let me stand in the back after all the sold-out seats had been filled, so I was able to at least listen and follow along with the notes.

This session was Descriptors and Metaclasses, and dug much more deeply into these advanced topics than I had before. My daily work digging through Horizon’s internals made more sense especially after the presenter – Python Academy’s Mike Müller, who did an excellent job – took us on a tour through the way that Python metaclasses work. My homework tonight while I de-jetlag is to work through the incredibly detailed tutorial notes in iPython notebook and make sure I understand them.

More rest tonight, things begin in earnest tomrrow!