“Otter get out of here, put my party pants on and my sparkly shoes, it’s Friday baby!”The second Friday in October already. Where is the year going?
This week we have what is probably one of the shortest collections of Friday Links I’ve ever done (unless you count the few times I’ve missed the day). One reason is that I’ve been very busy and a little bit under the weather this week. So I just didn’t collection many. But another reason is that I’ve been thinking about how much time I spend on various activities and considering making some changes. There was a time, not that long ago, where the weekly round up of links was one of my most clicked on posts every week. And that’s just on my personal blog. I can’t get stats from the places where I cross-post the full text, so always assumed the actual numbers were higher. But now Friday Links is one of the least click posts on the blog, consistently.
This isn’t just about click. I’ve always rationalized the weekly round up based on the fact that every day I spend some time reading news and such on the net, and collecting the links of the stories I think worth sharing isn’t a big effort. However, assembling the post takes several hours every Thursday. Even those time when I try to limit how much time I spend, it always takes longer because I’ll reach the time limit and think, “But there was that one story about…” and go looking for the link. Sort of, “Just one more, oh, and that one! And we can’t forget this one!”
It took much less than an hour to assemble this one, and I still spent more time arguing with myself about whether I should go looking for more links so it wouldn’t be so short.
Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
So, yesterday was Friday, the day that usually this post should go up. It’s already October! Where is the year going?
I didn’t get this post finished Thursday night primarily because I am sometimes very absent-minded. It’s not that I forgot, though. When I got home from work I started cooking dinner, and that involved roasted a couple of pork loin chops in marinara sauce, while the veggies cooked in the microwave. Once everything was done I called my hubby in to eat, and got out a couple of plate because I wanted to smother each pork loin in cheese, so I was going to plate them up. And even though just three minutes earlier I had used oven mitts to pull the pan from the oven, I roached over with my bare hand and firmly took hold of the handle of the lid of the pan…
So, once we had doused my hand in cold water, we determined it wasn’t serious enough burn to require medical attention, but the only way I got through dinner was I spend most of the time clutch my cold drink with the burnt hand, and only letting go when I need both hands to cut the meat. One of the blisters is right on the joint of the index finger, and any attempt I made to type, use the mouse, or touchpad that night was just not fun. So, I tried for a while, but eventually spend the evening reading. Things were better by morning, but I had to work, so, here we are, a day late!
Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
No Worries, Washington Post, I Fixed Your Headline For You!.
“People who choose to end their lives as a tool of mass violence do not get to have a public eulogy in which they are memorialized fondly for whatever the fuck they did before they decided to aim indiscriminately into the crowd.”
On the face of it: Misunderstanding the point of Face ID.
“Apple created Touch ID and Face ID not as the best ways to secure your iPhone but as better ways than you were probably using. These are conveniences, not foolproof security systems. When Apple shipped Touch ID, it knew that most people weren’t using a 128-character alphanumeric passcode, they were using 4-digit numeric passcodes (if anything). Why? Because they wanted to unlock their phones quickly. MY SANDWICH MUST BE INSTAGRAMMED AS FAST AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. 4-digit numeric passcodes are terrible security. They are easy to guess, hack or simply jack by watching someone type it in. Fingerprints and faces are not perfect, but they are considerably better for most security situations.”
This Week in Racists, White Nationalists, and other deplorables:
We Snuck into Seattle’s Super Secret White Nationalist Convention.
“Despite usually agreeing with everything the Nazis did and believing the Holocaust is just “anti-white propaganda,” they always claim a technical reason for why they aren’t “National Socialists.” None of these reasons would ever make sense to anybody outside the community and “I’m not a Nazi, but” is one of the most common white nationalist recruitment tricks to have people hear them out.”
This is how I feel, even though the trees outside our windows are all evergreen.I got to spend some quality time each day of the weekend sitting out on the veranda with a mug of either coffee or tea, and it was glorious. On Saturday afternoon I was out there with the laptop and a pile of marked up pages an got some good editing time in. The sky suddenly got dark as the clouds thickened, and I decided to take the paper and laptop inside before it started raining. And I barely made it. It started raining as I was carrying things through the door. And then, I grabbed a new mug of hot tea and the iPad and went back out to do some other writing while the rain splattered on the edge of the deck. There is an eave over the deck. If the rain is light, only the edge of the deck where my flowers in pots are gets wet. But if it’s raining hard, a bit more water splatters a further in.
Anyway, I love the rain. I love autumn. I love the trees changing color. I really like being able to go out on the veranda.
I haven’t posted a goal update since the first of August, for a couple of reasons. One, I was still reassessing some of the goals, as the move was such a big disruption. Another reason was related to the move, and I’ve felt both frustrated and embarrassed about it. Several things went missing during the move.
Some of the missing things were trivial: a silly hat that often call my writing hat, a couple of books purchased just before we started the move, and a set of old stories and art discovered during the packing that I thought would make a fun submission to one of the APAzines I participate in. But other things weren’t: the galley proof of my novel with all my copy editor’s comments, a notebook with all of my notes for one of the roleplaying games I run, another notebook with notes of the other roleplaying game I run, a pile of editing comments on new scenes I had written for the novel in galley proof, and the file with my notes on places to submit short stories.
While we were still unpacking boxes, we just assumed they were in a box we hadn’t gotten to. The fact that I thought I had put most of those things in the same box and one of the boxes I marked as needing to be unpacked early made me a little extra crazy, because we had opened all the boxes with that sort of marking. After we got the last box unpacked, both my husband and I searched through closets and so forth, but no luck.
Then last weekend, literally a few minutes before midnight on my birthday, I pulled a plastic file box off a shelf to file a new insurance policy (that had been sitting on the coffee table since I opened the mail a week or so before). And when I opened this plastic box which I thought was full of legal documents and such, I found all the missing things: my silly fez, the edits, the gaming notebooks, the old art and stories, the books, the other files… it was all there. All the legal documents that I thought were in the plastic box were in a banker’s box on the next shelf over.
The embarrassing part is that during all of my searching for the missing things, I kept not opening the plastic file box because I was sure it was full of legal documents. And the fact that when I looked in the banker’s box and saw that it was full of file folders full of various documents never made me twig to the possibility that there weren’t legal documents in the plastic box is where the embarrassment comes in.
Anyway, since two of my big goals for the year required me finding a couple of those missing things, it was hampering my progress. Now that the missing things have been found, I’ve been busy all week working on edits. There’s a lot still to go, but I’m in a much better position, now.
I’m still reassessing the goals, particularly as I work on a new, um, project that I hope will help me finish more of the writing related tasks faster. But I’m not ready to talk about that other than to a few others just yet.
So, I am still working on my goals for the year. I’ve mentioned before how much I love autumn. I’ve also mentioned that autumn often feels more like a new year to me than New Year’s Day. So maybe it’s a good thing I’m still reassessing. New season means new beginnings.
“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!” —Humbert Wolfe
Kim Davis protested at work, refusing to do her job as county clerk and denied her fellow citizens their right to marry. And she was a conservative here. But let some football players protest the murders of unarmed people of color by police (who are never held to account) and that’s unconscionable!It’s the fifth Friday in September. We are fast running out of the superior month that his the home of superior babies.
This has been a really weird week in part for reasons I can’t go into here. But the weather turned hotter than I like for a few days, and that seems to send plants into another frenzy of pollenating, so we both had nasty sinus symptoms. On the other hand, I’ve been getting a lot of writing done.
Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
FBI: Violent crime up in Seattle and Washington in 2016, but murders specifically down.
“While violent crime increased in Seattle and Washington state last year compared to 2015, the city and state both saw double-digit decreases in the number of murders and non-negligent manslaughters committed during the same time period… criminologists warned the new numbers may not indicate the start of a long-term trend because violent crime remains well below rates seen in the 1980s and early 1990s. And even compared to a decade ago, violent crime in 2016 is 18 percent lower than it was in 2007, and the murder rate is 6 percent lower than it was then…”
A very interesting letter from another team owner back in the days when Donald was a sports team owner. (Click to embiggen)Why the Overrepresentation of Black Americans in Professional Sports Is Not a Good Thing.
“…anyone who has taught in a US high-school system knows that this balance is strictly imposed on black males. Intellectuality is not just discouraged but not even recognized. When you reinforce this attitude by underfunding education, the remaining opportunities for black success are not found in the classroom but in the gym.”
How Hugh Hefner’s Incredibly Complicated Legacy Got Cast as Female Sexual Liberation.
“He published features that supported abortion rights years before Roe v. Wade, and his Playboy Foundation made gifts to rape crisis centers, abortion support services, and the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. Hefner also fought for First Amendment protections—a predictable cause for the publisher of a nudie magazine—ran some brilliant interviews, and gave money to civil-rights causes… At the same time, Hef’s magazine explicitly trashed women who stepped outside his feminine ideal.”
This week’s Surviving the World Comic is spot on. (click to embiggen) survivingtheworld.netIt’s Friday, the third Friday in September. I should be more happy about that than I am.
This week, my husband came down sick early in the week, and I have followed. So it hasn’t been a fabulous week for us. And you may notice that this week’s collection of links is a bit shorter, as once again I haven’t had as much time to read the news.
Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
This Week in Racists, White Nationalists, and other deplorables:
Good Christian Boys: Jesus Worse Than Hitler.“We executed Nazis after World War 2 for engaging in collective punishment and ordering reprisal killings—rounding up and shooting innocent villagers after resistance fighters staged attacks. Kevin would have us believe that Jesus—the Prince of Peace, the Friend of the Poor, the Lamb of God, etc.—will happily drown little old straight ladies in nursing homes because He’s angry at gay men cavorting in bars on the other side of town.”
Apple announced more than one new phone yesterday, and like most years, a certain percentage of current iPhone owners are debating which one to upgrade to as our older iPhones are now more than two years old. More than one person I know is still hanging onto the same iPhone they’ve owned for three years and not sure that they will upgrade this year or wait a bit. But Apple haters all act as if all of us blindly rush out to buy the newest one every year. We don’t, but hey, if your life is so hollow that you need to make fun of other people’s choices of what goods and services to use, I guess that’s what you have to do.
But the really funny thing for me is how many of the haters are making fun of the cost of the high end Apply phone (not the shiny new iPhone 8 that the vast majority of us will buy, but the premium model that literally most of us can’t—not just because of the price, but because of manufacturing limits, but I’ll come back to that) are also comparing it to a particular Samsung Galaxy, about which others were asking just last month: Why does Samsung think you’d be willing to spend nearly $1,000 on a Galaxy Note 8?. Seriously, you can’t complain about price by comparing it to a phone that is just as expensive.
The answer to the question isn’t about either company being greedy—it’s about first the fact that some of those components simply cost more. The OLED screen currently used in the Galaxy Note 8 and that will be in the iPhone X costs at least $100 more each at wholesale than the screen used in the iPhone 8 and comparable screens on other Samsung phones that are less costly than the Galaxy Note 8. And that isn’t the only more expensive component either phone has.
But there’s another factor that a lot of people don’t get: manufacturing scale. The last few years, Apple has sold, on average, 800,000 new iPhones a day. In order to meet the demand, not only do they have to manufacture phones close to that rate, but all of the components that they buy from other companies have to be manufactured by those other companies at that rate. Samsung, currently the only source of the high-end OLED screen mentioned above, literally can’t manufacture them fast enough to meet that kind of demand. And that isn’t the only component in the premium phones like that. So part of the reason that both Samsung and Apple are charging nearly 1000 bucks for their highest-end phones is because they want most of their customers to buy the other models, the ones that don’t have components which can’t (yet) be produced at that quantity.
Embedding the screenshot of the quoted tweet in case the original goes away…So, chill. You buy the phone you want, or stick with the one you have already, and don’t be a douche making remarks that are far less clever than you think they are about other people’s choices and preferences. As more than one person has observed: asshole is the failure mode of clever.
I had a couple more posts about writing ready to go up this week. One was kind of a sequel to Monday’s Confessions of a writing tool addict—good intentions paving the way, while the other was a follow up on a much older post: Trust the reader to keep up. But then on Tuesday morning I read an essay that made me want to rethink some advice that I give out all of the time, but that I suspect I don’t follow as much as I think I do. And even more importantly, it makes me want to rethink some of my assumptions. You should really go read Celcilia Tan’s essay, “Let Me Tell You” at Uncanny Magazine.
Anyway, I unscheduled my two posts. I may rewrite them and post them eventually. Or I may just scrap them and start over. Tan’s essay has got me thinking about several things.
And an old and dear acquaintance reminded me that this excellent music video exists, and that in addition to being a good song, the lyrics speak truth:
Propellerheads feat: Miss Shirley Bassey – History Repeating:
Another in my series of posts recommending web comics that I think more people should read:
Stereophonic by C.J.P.“Stereophonic” by C.J.P. is a slice of life comic set in 1960s London. The two main characters are Elliot, an introverted art student, and Alex, an outgoing singer in a small band who works in a pub to make ends meet. When our story begins Elliot needs a flatmate to help with the rent and Alex needs a new place to live. It’s a very sweet and slow-build story. The artist describes it as a “queer historical drama that follows the lives of two young men living in 1960s London.” The art is good and the supporting cast is interesting. But I want to warn you that the story comes to a hiatus just as a couple of the subplots are getting very interesting. The artist had a serious health issue which was complicated by family problems, but has since started posting updates to his blog and Patreon page, assuring us that the story will resume soon. There are 300 pages of the comic available to read at that moment, let’s hope more comes soon. If you like the comic and would like to support the artist, C.J. has a Patreon page, plus t-shirts and other merchandise available at his store.
Some of the comics I’ve previously recommended: Some of these have stopped publishing new episodes. Some have been on hiatus for a while. I’ve culled from the list those that seem to have gone away entirely.
Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu is the story of Eric “Bitty” Bittle, a former junior figure skating champion from a southern state who is attending fictitious Samwell College in Massachusetts, where he plays on the men’s hockey team. Bitty is the smallest guy on the team, and in the early comics is dealing with a phobia of being body-checked in the games. He’s an enthusiastic baker, and a die hard Beyoncé fan.
“Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls” by Jessica Udischas is a hilarious web comic that tells of the adventures of Jesska Nightmare, a trans woman trying to make her way in our transphobic world. The comics are funny, insightful, and adorably drawn. The sheer cuteness of the drawing style is a rather sharp contrast to the sometimes weighty topics the comic covers, and I think makes it a little easier to keep from getting bummed out to contemplate that the strips aren’t exaggerations. If you like the strip, consider supporting the artist through her patreon.
The Junior Science Power Hour by Abby Howard. is frequently autobiographical take on the artist’s journey to creating the crazy strip about science, science nerds, why girls are just as good at being science nerds as boys, and so much more. It will definitely appeal to dinosaur nerds, anyone who has ever been enthusiastic about any science topic, and especially to people who has ever felt like a square peg being forced into round holes by society.
The Young Protectors: Engaging the Enemy by Alex Wolfson begins when a young, closeted teen-age superhero who has just snuck into a gay bar for the first time is seen exiting said bar by a not-so-young, very experienced, very powerful, super-villain. Trouble, of course, ensues.
“Deer Me,” by Sheryl Schopfer tells the tales from the lives of three friends (and former roommates) who couldn’t be more dissimilar while being surprisingly compatible. If you enjoy Deer Me, you can support the artist by going to her Patreon Page!
Scurry by Mac Smith is the story of a colony of mice trying to survive a long, strange winter in a world where humans have mysteriously vanished, and food is becoming ever more scarce.
And I love this impish girl thief with a tail and her reluctant undead sorcerer/bodyguard: “Unsounded,” by Ashley Cope.
Fowl Language by Brian Gordon is a fun strip about parenting, tech, science, and other geeky things. The strips are funny, and he also has a bonus panel link to click on under the day’s strip.
The Last Halloween by Abby Howard is the creepy story of 10-year-old Mona who is reluctantly drafted to save the world on Halloween night. This is by the same artist who does the Junior Science Power Hour. She created this strip as her pitch in the final round of Penny Arcade’s Strip Search, which was a reality game show where web cartoonists competed for a cash prize and other assistance to get their strip launched. Though Abby didn’t win, she started writing the strip anyway. If you like the comic, you can support Abby in a couple of ways: she has some cool stuff related to both of her strips in her store, and she also has a Patreon.
“Champion of Katara” by Chuck Melville tells the tale of a the greatest sorcerer of Katara, Flagstaff (Flagstaff’s foster sister may disagree…), and his adventures in a humorous sword & sorcery world. If you enjoy the adventures of Flagstaff, you might also enjoy another awesome fantasy series set in the same universe (and starring the aforementioned foster sister): and Felicia, Sorceress of Katara, or Chuck’s weekly gag strip, Mr. Cow, which was on a hiatus for a while but is now back. If you like Mr. Cow, Felicia, or Flagstaff (the hero of Champions of Katara) you can support the artist by going to his Patreon Page. Also, can I interest you in a Mr. Cow Mug?
If you want to read a nice, long graphic-novel style story which recently published its conclusion, check-out the not quite accurately named, The Less Than Epic Adventures of T.J. and Amal by E.K. Weaver. I say inaccurate because I found their story quite epic (not to mention engaging, moving, surprising, fulfilling… I could go on). Some sections of the tale are Not Safe For Work, as they say, though she marks them clearly. The complete graphic novels are available for sale in both ebook and paper versions, by the way.
Oglaf, by Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne is a Not Safe For Work web comic about… well, it’s sort a generic “medieval” high fantasy universe, but with adult themes, often sexual. Jokes are based on fantasy story and movie clichés, gaming tropes, and the like. And let me repeat, since I got a startled message from someone in response to a previous posting of this recommendation: Oglaf is Not Safe For Work (NSFW)!
This photo of the Eagle Creek Fire, taken by Kristi McCluer of Vancouver, Washington, went viral this week, though few who shared the photo gave her credit.It’s Friday, the second Friday in September. Usually at this point I will wax poetic about the blessédness of this month and the superiority of people burn during it, but right now with all the insane weather and earthquakes and wildfires and tsunamis… I’m not sure it’s really appropriate
All week long locally they’ve been promising us that the hellish smoke layer (seriously, ashes were falling from the sky like snowflakes on Tuesday, and the sun has been blood red for days) would start to clear out and be all gone before the end of the week. And then each day the forecast has revised and moved that day back. As I right this Thursday night we are still under a layer of smoke, air quality has only improved to Moderately Bad, and there has been no sign of the promised rain.
Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
Click to embiggenIn 1990 Mister Rogers Sued The KKK For Impersonating Him (and won!). In 1990, Mr. Rogers sued the KKK for impersonating his voice in prerecorded messages. These messages said “AIDS was divine retribution” and included radio skits simulating lynchings of black children on a playground. The messages were spread to elementary and middle school children by passing out misleading fliers with a phone number to call for a special message from a friendly neighbor.
Ah, September, the most blessed of months. The month in which superior people are born! Perhaps, now that it has arrived, are long horrible hot and dry nightmare of a summer will end?
It’s also Friday, so, here are the links, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
9% of the respondents to an ABC News poll say that it’s acceptable for someone to hold White Sutpremacist/neo-Nazi views.I’m running so late on Friday Links that here I am posting them on Saturday.
Besides being another busy week for me at work plus a small medical thing and a vacation day that I really, really needed, there were just so many things I bookmarked. This week was just insane, news wise! And so much of what I’d bookmarked was just terrible news. Seriously, this week’s list of 80-some links is only a subset of what I bookmarked. So part of what took so long is me deciding which 50-some links not to include this time!
So, here are the links, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.
Font Folly 