There she goes, my beautiful world
OK, well, they’re sort of both island sides. See, Alameda is an island ever since they carved out the canal that separates Oakland from Alameda. Bay Farm Island isn’t actually an island any longer, though I’m pretty sure that once upon a time it was. So which side of the canal between Alameda and Bay Farm Island is «the island side» is left as an exercise for the reader. I walked both sides today so my bets are hedged.
I … Read the rest
I couldn’t make this up: unarmed man is charged for shooting spree.
It seems clear that we can no longer stand by as a nation while our friends and neighbors are slaughtered by the menace of unarmed people. I call on Congress to immediately draft legislation requiring:
I’m not sad to say goodbye to 2013. There were some accomplishments, but also many difficulties that I would rather not have to revisit. Though many of the difficulties won’t magically disappear with the turning of a calendar’s page, the arrival of the new year nevertheless does seem to come with a sense that there could be a fresh start, that perhaps some of the previous year’s failures and disasters can be left behind.
Of course, not all of … Read the rest
There are no topics about which reasonable people cannot find disagreement. In the end one may be right and the other wrong, but this does not make either unreasonable.
Of course, not all disagreements are reasonable. However, if you find yourself thinking someone else is unreasonable because they don’t agree with you, the other person might not be the unreasonable one in the conversation.… Read the rest
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Updated 2021. Originally posted 2013
There has been a lot of talk lately about the minimum wage and how it ought to be raised. It has been claimed that minimum wage workers are making less now than ever and that the nation is in a critical race to the bottom where workers on the low end of the spectrum are getting squeezed harder and harder.
This raises the question of the historical minimum wage in … Read the rest
At a few minutes before midnight I am declaring NaNoWriMo over, and I did not make it to 50,000 words.
In the middle of the month I had a bunch of work that needed to be done for money, and a particularly amazing weekend workshop led by the incomparable Jason McClain. So after getting to 19,478 words by day 10 I plateaued and and didn’t start racking the word count up for 13 days. On … Read the rest
Totally unrelated to The Vampire Rule,1 today I got a practical lesson in PHP request precedence.
I’ve seen for years recommendations not to use the superglobal $_REQUEST along with a variety of explanations why to avoid it. These explanations stem from the possibility that one could be confused about the source of the information from $_REQUEST and end up getting some data other than the data one expects to see. It was exactly this reason that I have been … Read the rest
This thing keeps taking me in unexpected directions. What I thought had gone sideways a couple days ago has gone farther sideways.
Yesterday I didn’t get as much writing done and I didn’t think I’d get much done today because I had a lot of other work to do. But I carved out some time in the morning and then got on a roll in the late evening. I finished a 3500 word chapter (2,824 of which … Read the rest
Some intense writing today. I wanted to make up for the time lost yesterday in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I hoped I might push my total to 10,000 words today, but didn’t get there and at this point I’m exhausted. I need to set it down for the night. I wrote 2,825 words today which is the most I’ve written in one day since I started keeping track on Friday, and I wrote material that wasn’t … Read the rest
Today I wrote 116 words on my novel, bringing me to a total of 6,967 words. I fell rather far short of my daily goal. I could spend some time trying to catch up before midnight, but I think I’d rather tell you the story.
I didn’t do my writing (or any other work) today because I have a Costco membership.
This may not make a lot of sense, so I will explain further. In addition to my Costco … Read the rest