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First weekend off since I’ve started. Wheeeeeeeeeeee! These things are excellent and then some. Today was also a staff day, for all of us to have a little fun, mingle, and otherwise get to know each other. I got two books for my shelf by recognizing a horrible pun with a hint, and being able to add some numbers faster than anyone else in the hall. I wonder if people are going to think that I work in the publishing industry somehow, since there’s advance copies becoming part of my library. I even lucked out and picked up an advance copy of a book that I had heard being discussed on the public radio channel. Later on in the day, I volunteered (always dangerous) to participate in one of the sketches for the improv comedy team that was hired on to give us entertainment. From what I was told, it looked like I knew what I was doing there, so much so that one of my co-workers asked as to whether I had pre-arranged to volunteer with the crew beforehand. So I think most of the people in the library system got to know who I was and experience some part of my sense of humor. This is either very good or very bad. And only time will tell which it was. That said, work continued fairly uneventfully afterwards, and I find that I and other men are really outnumbered when it comes to the library system. But I like the place a lot, so I can handle it. All in all, it was a really fun day today. Wish more days could be like that. But now I’m in storytime country, so I guess the performance part is going to be part of the normal way things go.
Also, reminder to self - any substance which is lower than about six or higher than eight on the pH scale will probably cause you discomfort if you should have it come in contact with an underlayer of skin. The discomfort will increase proportional to the further away from seven the item itself is. Thus, do not rub your hands together after you have squeezed the juice out of a lemon in an attempt to make some sort of guacamole. It will hurt and continue to sting some afterwards. The fresh lemon scent, however, isn’t half-bad.
And for the non-me parts of this entry, we’ll start with the United States Consumer Product Safety Comission's current list of recalls for the month of September.
Shorter halfing hominid confirmed to be separate species from Homo Sapiens. Dang. Almost, right? Still, with that many humanoids, I wonder if we could populate the standard fantasy tropes yet.
Regarding the Middle East, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and death seeks all those whose time has come, regardless of whether they fight and write for the war or against it. Furthermore, those who wish to speak out against the war have an element that wants to silence them, even by desecrating a memorial to the soldier who died in his family.
Cameras, cameras, everywhere and not too many crimes solved with their help. The cameras are supposed to help solve crime - when it happens in their field of vision. I wonder how much of that unsolved crime has been moved to non-camera areas. It’d be the perfect excuse to install cameras everywhere, of course. Brush up on your Newspeak, citizens? And start being ready to inform on your comrades if they start behaving suspiciously. Like wearing an art circuit board with wires and batteries to an airport. The culture of fear had the security personnel ready to shoot the MIT student if her device turned out to be malicious. As it is, the student has been charged with possession of a hoax device. Admittedly, carrying something that looks electronic and potentially dangerous into a fearfear culture hub, such as an airport, isn’t always wise, but the only part that seems to be sane in the way things were reacted is that they didn’t shoot when she was cooperative. Just for the record, what would have happened if a security personnel, even perhaps one of those undercover flying agents, expressed an interest in the board and asked what it did? The student would probably have been happy to demonstrate it, and then no need for panic. Perhaps an admonition that such a device could be misconstrued as a bomb, and a request to take the batteries out while in the airport and on the flight. No need for guns at all. But I suppose that’s something that only happens at “Green” level, rather than the “Orange” that they were at. Others are aggravated by the lack of fidelity to the Constitution that many Senators have with regard to habeas corpus.
Some things are funny to one person and not to another. However, blaming something that tries to make having an underage minority girl chained in a closet and subjected to being urinated on funny as issues with a 'generation gap' doesn't work. Things must be funny to claim that someone else isn’t getting it.
Something more sane, and actually more interesting, is an idea that’s worth pursuing, if you want to take the time - don't throw away broken stuff, send it back to the company. You might end up getting a replacement if it’s out of warranty - obviously, if it’s in warranty, send it back to them. By being honest about what the product has done for you, the company might comp you a new one. And I wonder if that broken products gets to go down to the lab and be studied to see how it failed and what data can be gleaned from that.
Robert Heinlein's archive is to be put online at UC-Santa Cruz. As both a preservation and accesibility effort, the entirety of the archive, which includes manuscripts, published work, notes, and other such things, is now going to the web. The first batch is all the data associated with his manuscripts.
The ending part for tonight is yet another "definitive" rock-paper-scissors list. Even simple games get strong complexities, I guess. I shouldn’t be surprised that much, though, seeing what complexity will do to a simple pen. Of course, at the same time, one can make excellent science projects out of complexifying simple things, like putting a barbie doll in a working electric chair. Well, now that I think about it, perhaps I could have dismissed it all with a sarcastic remark. For those who need a refresher, a primer on how to be sarcastic.
Okay, that fell apart. Go look at some laughably bad tech ads while I regroup and try again. Or maybe I’ll strike back with Passive-Aggressive Notes. Or just run away and go to bed. My choice.
Also, reminder to self - any substance which is lower than about six or higher than eight on the pH scale will probably cause you discomfort if you should have it come in contact with an underlayer of skin. The discomfort will increase proportional to the further away from seven the item itself is. Thus, do not rub your hands together after you have squeezed the juice out of a lemon in an attempt to make some sort of guacamole. It will hurt and continue to sting some afterwards. The fresh lemon scent, however, isn’t half-bad.
And for the non-me parts of this entry, we’ll start with the United States Consumer Product Safety Comission's current list of recalls for the month of September.
Shorter halfing hominid confirmed to be separate species from Homo Sapiens. Dang. Almost, right? Still, with that many humanoids, I wonder if we could populate the standard fantasy tropes yet.
Regarding the Middle East, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and death seeks all those whose time has come, regardless of whether they fight and write for the war or against it. Furthermore, those who wish to speak out against the war have an element that wants to silence them, even by desecrating a memorial to the soldier who died in his family.
Cameras, cameras, everywhere and not too many crimes solved with their help. The cameras are supposed to help solve crime - when it happens in their field of vision. I wonder how much of that unsolved crime has been moved to non-camera areas. It’d be the perfect excuse to install cameras everywhere, of course. Brush up on your Newspeak, citizens? And start being ready to inform on your comrades if they start behaving suspiciously. Like wearing an art circuit board with wires and batteries to an airport. The culture of fear had the security personnel ready to shoot the MIT student if her device turned out to be malicious. As it is, the student has been charged with possession of a hoax device. Admittedly, carrying something that looks electronic and potentially dangerous into a fearfear culture hub, such as an airport, isn’t always wise, but the only part that seems to be sane in the way things were reacted is that they didn’t shoot when she was cooperative. Just for the record, what would have happened if a security personnel, even perhaps one of those undercover flying agents, expressed an interest in the board and asked what it did? The student would probably have been happy to demonstrate it, and then no need for panic. Perhaps an admonition that such a device could be misconstrued as a bomb, and a request to take the batteries out while in the airport and on the flight. No need for guns at all. But I suppose that’s something that only happens at “Green” level, rather than the “Orange” that they were at. Others are aggravated by the lack of fidelity to the Constitution that many Senators have with regard to habeas corpus.
Some things are funny to one person and not to another. However, blaming something that tries to make having an underage minority girl chained in a closet and subjected to being urinated on funny as issues with a 'generation gap' doesn't work. Things must be funny to claim that someone else isn’t getting it.
Something more sane, and actually more interesting, is an idea that’s worth pursuing, if you want to take the time - don't throw away broken stuff, send it back to the company. You might end up getting a replacement if it’s out of warranty - obviously, if it’s in warranty, send it back to them. By being honest about what the product has done for you, the company might comp you a new one. And I wonder if that broken products gets to go down to the lab and be studied to see how it failed and what data can be gleaned from that.
Robert Heinlein's archive is to be put online at UC-Santa Cruz. As both a preservation and accesibility effort, the entirety of the archive, which includes manuscripts, published work, notes, and other such things, is now going to the web. The first batch is all the data associated with his manuscripts.
The ending part for tonight is yet another "definitive" rock-paper-scissors list. Even simple games get strong complexities, I guess. I shouldn’t be surprised that much, though, seeing what complexity will do to a simple pen. Of course, at the same time, one can make excellent science projects out of complexifying simple things, like putting a barbie doll in a working electric chair. Well, now that I think about it, perhaps I could have dismissed it all with a sarcastic remark. For those who need a refresher, a primer on how to be sarcastic.
Okay, that fell apart. Go look at some laughably bad tech ads while I regroup and try again. Or maybe I’ll strike back with Passive-Aggressive Notes. Or just run away and go to bed. My choice.
