Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

On This Day: Apr 14

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on April 14th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • 📚 16/2021: The Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven ⭐️⭐️ After the excellent first Ringworld book and a good sequel, this third entry takes a sudden detour into drudge and mediocrity. Boring sludge—large portions are essentially people describing what they see on monitors. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • The Transformers version of this Valkyrie mech was one of the coolest toys I ever had. I will always be disappointed that it disappeared at some point and I don’t have it anymore. ➡
    • I’m in a Fred Meyer in Vancouver (WA), and they’re playing “Walk Away” by The Sisters of Mercy on the musak system. I’m simultaneously amused and appalled. ➡
    • Family visits mean we aren’t marching today, but we’re with the #marchforscience in spirit! ➡
  • 2017
    • Shirt five for #nwc40: Well, it’s true! ➡
    • Shirt four for #nwc40: @sweartrek #StarTrek blue shirt. ➡
    • Shirt three for #nwc40: Lego skull. ➡
  • 2016
    • Almost forgot my photo today. Goodnight, kids! (105/366) ➡
  • 2009
    • Who’s Defining ‘X-Rated’ Here? Sorry, AP, but there's more than a little bit of hyperbole there. Almost having a bit of accidental boobage is PG, maybe PG-13 if her top actually _had_ fallen off (and even _that_ used to be a good solid PG). 'Nearly X-rated' would be something very, very different. ➡
  • 2006
    • Googling a Dead Horse There's a certain irony in Google's new Google Calendar supporting the iCal standard for calendar sharing and distribution when -- as usual -- they don't yet support the standard Mac web browser. ➡
    • Pretty in Pink Slight soft-focus pink flowers. ➡
  • 2005
    • The next logical step First, the good news (and, for once, this _is_ good news): federal legislation is being introduced that will protect a woman's ability to get birth control. ➡
    • I hope I don’t regret this… If you're as much of a glutton for punishment as I obviously am, get your Star Wars Episode III tickets here. I'll be at the 10:30pm show at the Cinerama on Thursday, May 19th. ➡
    • Until death (or homophobia) do you part Well, I can't say I'm _surprised_, but I'm certainly disappointed that Oregon has nullified the same-sex marriages performed last year. It's frustrating enough to see it happen from the standpoint of someone's who's _very_ much in favor of _true_ equal rights for all -- but even more so when this decision affects a friend of mine. ➡
  • 2004
    • Camera! I've got a camera! Iit's a loaner, not my own, but what a loaner — an Olympus C-2500L 2.5 megapixel DSLR. ➡
    • Online crack Hey Alan -- you thought this game was bad? Wait 'til you start this one...;) ➡
    • Not again I really, really really hate the fact that electronic banking transactions can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days to post to a bank account. ➡
  • 2003
    • All about love Yesterday I kissed a girl in a private place...we were behind a tree. ➡
    • From Berkeley to the Matrix Wired mentions that much of the inspiration and technology for the more eye-catching special effects in the Matrix films were drawn from a project called The Campanile Movie, which is fascinating in its own right. ➡
    • Nekkid Here's a really interesting Flash presentation about being naked — sixteen volunteers photographed in various states of undress, with audio clips of interviews discussing various views on nudity, comfort and discomfort, and similar things. ➡
    • No Safari timeout Annoyed by Safari constantly giving up on pages that won't completely load in less than a minute? SafariNoTimeout to the rescue. Now that I've posted this, maybe I'll remember to download it when I get home… ➡
    • Disgusted and depressed Every morning I get up, and every evening when I get home, I pop open my newsreader to browse through the day's news and headlines. And every time, I find more and more that disgusts me, outrages me, and quite simply, makes me want to go back to playing ostrich and pretending that the world outside my own private little bubble doesn't exist. ➡

Norwescan’t Wrap-Up

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Under normal circumstances, I would have spent this past weekend at Norwescon, running around a hotel and getting up to all sorts of geeky shenanigans with ~2,000 of my closest friends. Of course, these are not normal circumstances, so that didn’t happen.

Instead, the party moved online, taking place mostly in the Norwescon Facebook Group, with lots of people posting past costumes, planned costumes, memories of cons past, or silly updates on what they were doing at the con that wasn’t happening. And all in all, it ended up being a pretty good weekend, with lots of community silliness keeping all of our respective spirits up.

I made a point of posting at least once a day on both my personal pages and in the group, starting things off in group each the morning with a photo post asking people what their convention outfits were that day. Here’s my “Norwescan’t” experience this year…

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On This Day: Apr 13

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on April 13th

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • Norwescan’t Wrap-Up Under normal circumstances, I would have spent this past weekend at Norwescon. Of course, these are not normal circumstances. Here's what happened instead. ➡
    • On This Day: Apr 13 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from April 13 ➡
  • 2018
    • I’ve joked about this for years, and am really excited that it will soon be a real thing: Contact Lenses That Darken in Sunlight Are Going to Give You Some Creepy Alien Eyes. ➡
  • 2017
    • Shirt two for #nwc40: a clever take on lowbrow humor. ➡
    • Got my #nwc40 tattoo! (Temporary.) I’m stupidly happy about this; it started with a silly offhand comment at a meeting and then I found a good source for us to use. My mad schemes came through! 😁 ➡
    • Shirt one for #nwc40: #StarTrek/#StarWars logo mashup. Here we go! ➡
  • 2016
    • Have I mentioned just how much I enjoy this daily exercise routine? (104/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Lazed around the house for most of the day and forgot my daily picture until now, so this oddity is what you get. I don’t really know…. ➡
  • 2009
    • This Will Disappoint Mom… I'm not _quite_ in to full-on 'DANGER skullet' territory, but I'm close, and with the added impetus of putting employment before vanity, it's probably only a matter of days or weeks (at the outside) before the curls go away. ➡
  • 2005
    • George Carlin: Airline Announcements By the way, that little George Carlin moment in my previous post comes from one of my favorite of his routines from his 'Jammin' in New York' album, where he skewers the convoluted and bizarre language used by the airline industry. ➡
    • Trains. Trains are good. One thing I have to say I _really_ like about living in Seattle -- it's part of the Lower 48. I've got fifty states I can get to within a few days without _ever_ having to set foot on an airplane (49, if I make the time to drive the Al-Can). ➡
    • Rush Job Because, apparently, no teenager ever hit upon the idea of getting or giving a blowjob until Clinton introduced the idea to the world. ➡
    • Google Video PC only (for now?) This really shouldn't surprise me, but Google's just-announced video hosting service has continued their tradition of being Mac-unfriendly at launch. (UPDATE: A Mac uploader is available as of 5/18/05.) ➡
    • Bloggers in my neighborhood Here's an interesting little web toy: feedmap.net. Give it your weblog address and (if necessary) physical address, and it returns a map of other weblogs close to you in the real world. ➡
  • 2004
    • National ID not a good idea One of the many ideas being bandied about in the post-9/11 era has been that of a single national ID card, to replace the various forms of ID we carry around now (state IDs or driver's licenses, military IDs, company ID badges, etc.). Bruce Schneier points out that this might not be a good idea… ➡
    • LiveJournal voyeurism Entirely random and surprisingly addicting: LiveJournal Images, a page which displays the last 40 images posted to LiveJournal weblogs. So many pictures get posted so quickly that you can get an entirely new set every few seconds. Lots of kittens, anonymous people, celebrities, random wierdness, and the occasional NSFW image (be warned, just in case). ➡
  • 2003
    • Which claims panned out? Anger Managment Course's rundown of claims made by the pro- and anti-war camps prior to hostilities, and how they seem to be panning out so far. ➡
    • President for life? House Joint Resolution 11: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President. ➡
  • 2002
    • Blade II Candice and I went out to see Blade II this afternoon. Candice didn't think to highly of it, and while I can't really refute her impressions, I had a lot of fun with it. ➡
  • 2001

On This Day: Apr 12

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 28 posts previously published on April 12th

  • 2025
    • Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer 📚 21/2025: I was quite thrown off by the introductions of the two primary female characters. Not what I’ve come to expect from these more recent Hugo winners, and I won’t be continuing on with this series. ⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • Hey friends (and interested acquaintances)! Do you have a blog (or more than one)? Do you have an online presence outside of the Facebook/Twitter social media ecosystem? Tell me about it and where to find you! Help me rediscover the web outside of Facebook! ➡
    • Linkdump for February 27th through April 12th An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between February 27th and April 12th. • poor people deserve things they want, too. • Charities/organisations to avoid (with links to reasons) • 'The Simpsons' To 'The Problem With Apu': Drop Dead • Molly Ringwald Revisits “The Breakfast Club” in the Age of #MeToo • Gun injuries go down by 20% during NRA conventions • If You Want To Be An Effective Ally, Be Quiet And Know Your Place ➡
    • Another attempt at revitalizing my blogging I’m not leaving social media, but I am going to be making a concerted effort to try to come back to making my blog the primary canonical source of my content. These are the tools and services I’m using to keep an active social media presence. ➡
    • This is a brief test to make sure I didn’t just break things with my WordPress/micro.blog integration. ➡
    • I’d been considering it for a while, but comments are now disabled for my blog. Between my low post volume and the low signal to noise ratio, it just wasn’t worth it anymore. #f ➡
  • 2017
    • I have my #nwc40 badge! I’m officially here! ➡
  • 2016
    • Book sixteen of 2016: Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, by Isaac Asimov. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (103/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Live music by the Ellensburg Big Band. Much fun! ➡
    • All set to be photographer for tonight’s CWU Library Gala fundraiser. ➡
    • More spring blossoms; this time, the cherry tree in our front yard. :) ➡
  • 2007
    • We’re so retro! Sean Flanagan, a graphic designer working on an ad campaign for the upcoming SIA08 (SnowSports Industries America) conference, contacted me ask permission to use an old family photo of ours for one of the ads. ➡
  • 2006
    • Misty Morning Shooting in the wetlands around NSCC that make up part of the Thornton Creek Watershed. ➡
  • 2005
    • Kirsten’s here! Over the past few days, I've had the pleasure of playing host to Kirsten, as she spends a couple days in Seattle in the midst of her vacation. Hooray for visits from friends. :) ➡
  • 2004
    • Solutions for MP3Concept Another thing I like about the Mac community — there are a lot of very intelligent and creative people in it. Scant days after the proof-of-concept MP3Concept 'trojan' caused such a brouhaha in the Mac community, various approaches to dealing with the potential vulnerability are appearing. MacFixIt highlighted two very interesting techniques today. ➡
    • Bunnyrabbits, satan, cheese and milk I've just stumbled across a wonderful little combination of technology, found audio, and music — Stark Effect's 'mic in track'. ➡
    • You break it, you buy it I just broke my store. ➡
    • Bush: ‘…the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat.’ What? I challenge anyone to explain to me how this isn't just flat-out idiotic. From a press conference with President Bush yesterday: ➡
    • Good for you, Janet Given how incredibly silly all the controversy was, I think it's great that Janet is spoofing her 'wardrobe malfunction' — and doing it in character as Condi Rice, no less! ➡
  • 2003
    • Priceless historic treasures looted The world's first written words may have been lost forever. After surviving for more than 5,000 years, distinctive clay tablets that are recognised as the root of all mankind's written communication have either been destroyed or stolen in yesterday's looting of the Iraqi national museum. ➡
    • I hope that something better comes along SCENE: Evening in a bar. Our HERO walks into the the bar, pausing by the piano as the bar's PIANIST plays an opening riff. The PIANIST looks up and greets our HERO as he plays lightly on the keyboard. ➡
    • Ghosts, goblins, and Things That Go Bump in the Night There's something of a mini-meme regarding obsessions, superstitions, the occult, and all things that go bump in the night running around right now — see the links to the right to visit the three lovely ladies that got this whole thing started. ➡
  • 2002
    • The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien It really is as good as people say it is. Not that I ever really doubted that, however, it's far different to have so many people hold it up as a masterpiece of fantasy, and to be able to actually form that opinion for yourself. ➡

On This Day: Apr 11

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 20 posts previously published on April 11th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E13 So many questions; quite glad there’s still one more episode. Enjoying the Short Treks tie-ins (maybe even Calypso?). But…wow. The Enterprise bridge! That was an incredible modernization that still obviously respected the original. I was blown away. ➡
  • 2018
    • In an ideal universe, my personal aesthetic would be a blend of ‘80s goth (as can be seen in the photos posted to the NOWTHISISGOTHIC or Trad Goths blogs) and ‘70s sci-fi artwork (particularly the styles of John Berkey, Vincent di Fate, John Harris, and similar artists). #f ➡
    • Just about three weeks away from turning 45. Since my mental image of myself is still in my 20s, celebration plans include going out to a goth club and getting a new tattoo (not simultaneously). I’m getting older, but not old. #f ➡
    • More testing: Posting to Eclecticism on WordPress using the micro.blog iOS app. ➡
    • Another micro.blog test. Creating a title-less “aside” format post on eclecticism that should show up on my micro.blog and my Twitter. Also making sure that IFTTT will still pick up the #f hashtag for selective Facebook cross-posting. ➡
  • 2017
    • Book twenty-four of 2017: The Worst Werewolf, by Jacqueline Rohrbach. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • Took this #StarTrekEMP shot with an old friend at the @empmuseum table at #nwc39, and totally forgot to post it then, so this is today’s shot. 🖖 #llap (102/366) ➡
    • What do I want to do when I grow up? I'm looking, and trying to figure out how to sell myself with the combination of degree and volunteer experience to get into a career very different from where my actual paid job experience sits. Not easy to do. ➡
  • 2014
    • Took a walk around the block earlier today. Gorgeous day, but crazy windy. Almost lost my hat a couple times! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Mystery Flower Since I'm not babbling much at the moment, I figure I can at least (try to) post a picture a night before I go to bed. We'll see how long I manage to do this regularly. ;) ➡
  • 2005
    • But it’s funny because they’re gay! For the past three weeks, I've been using bittorrent to watch Grey's Anatomy. So far, it's struck me as fairly average-but-watchable television -- nothing groundbreaking or award winning, but not horrid. One thing about this week's episode really bothered me, though. ➡
    • It’s illegal to photograph Seattle bus stations? Looks like another Seattle-area shutterbug has run into more bogus 'no photography' harassment from heavy-handed officials. This time, Alex Williams had his digital film card confiscated after taking pictures at the Pioneer Square bus station. ➡
  • 2004
    • Happy Bunny Day (This is random…) You may just have to bear with me here. I'm at work today (boo — filling in for a co-worker who made plans for the day when we thought we'd be closed for Easter), stuck in a store with no customers and no work, looking out through the windows at the sun. ➡
  • 2003
    • The only way out is in In an effort to kick-start my brain back into gear, I think before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to have to watch something that actually has decent plot, interesting characters, and — most importantly — some semblance of scientific crediblity. ➡
    • Quote of the day If a vocal minority of colonists had protested the Revolution the way these disingenuous appeasers do today, we'd all be speaking English. ➡
  • 2002
    • Fire next door! Well, here's some early morning excitement. Apparently the apartment building next door to me is on fire. Sirens got my attention, and I just counted 6 fire engines, 2 Fire Dept. blazers, a FD van, and an ambulance all around here right now. ➡

On This Day: Apr 10

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 19 posts previously published on April 10th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2017
    • Linkdump for April 8th through April 10th An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between April 8th and April 10th. • Weeping Angels and everything that sucks about Steven Moffat • Stylistic Differences in Traditional [Vulcan] Calligraphy • Hubble Contacts • IPA Phonetic Transcription of English Text • Y’all, You’uns, Yinz, Youse: How Regional Dialects Are Fixing Standard English ➡
  • 2016
    • Seems it was spa night at our house. Sparkly purple for Prairie, black for me. :) ➡
    • Weekends really need to be longer than two days. Let’s get that fixed, okay? (101/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • At Gig’s in ’97 or so. Probably around Halloween, as I didn’t do the full Goth whiteface and makeup very often. :) #throwbackthursday ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • First Christian Church demolition I mentioned yesterday that the First Christian Church on Broadway was in the midst of being demolished. While wandering around today I stopped by the site, got some video of the work being done, and found out a little bit more about why the building's coming down. ➡
    • Interference When the lines on your screen / Make more lines in between / That's a moiré! ➡
    • Guess what? You’re not normal. Not a bad day at all today. Woke up at about 8am, looked outside, and realized that we were in for a gorgeous spring day -- mostly clear skies, bright sun, and just a hint of breeze. Perfect for going out wandering...so wander I did. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • What she said I can't say it better than Shelley did, so I won't try. Just go and read. ➡
    • To Tim Robbins, re: Bob Roberts The following letter was sent to Tim Robbins via his agent. I have no real idea if he will recieve it, or whether he will answer. No matter the outcome, I'm preserving the letter here. ➡
    • Stalker songs For no particular reason whatsoever, a list of 'stalker songs.' More when I can think of them. ➡
    • Questions regarding Saddam's statue Some questions regarding the widely publicised images of Saddam's statue getting toppled. This is more information that resides in that netherland of suspicion, rumor, and possible conspiracy theories, so keep that in mind. ➡
  • 2002
    • Site statistics are back It took a while, and I had to reset my server logs to do it, but the site statistics page is live again. Getting it running was a bit of an adventure, that's for sure. ➡

On This Day: Apr 9

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 30 posts previously published on April 9th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 343 Hanging out at Green River College for most of the week for the spring DSSC and WAPED conferences. ➡
  • 2021
    • Quotebacks – Quote the web: “Quotebacks makes it easy to reference content and create dialogue with other sites by turning snippets of text into elegant, self-contained blockquote components.” ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book thirty of 2019: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, by Diana Rowland. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 Upping the stakes with conspiracies, some zombie virus science and military experiments, and a little undead romance. Definitely as enjoyable as the first in the series. ➡
  • 2017
    • Chucks of the day (53/53): grey with neon green lacing and inner lining, navy blue outside around the padded ankle, and a fold-down piece around the ankle with the Converse logo in green. These amused us, they’re almost Converse moon boots. :) #chucks #converse ➡
  • 2016
    • Took a nice walk this morning, and the Yakima River is running really high. That water behind us is normally part of the trail, but it’s currently flooded. (100/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Our apricot tree is starting to bloom! ➡
    • Another evening staying late on campus for a meeting. Always a joyful thing. ➡
  • 2009
    • Norwescon 32: My (Preliminary) Schedule While I'm not at all happy to be unemployed, I have to admit that it does make some things pretty convenient. This weekend, it means that for the first time, I'll be hitting _three_ days of Norwescon, adding a few hours today (Thursday) to my usual Friday/Saturday run. ➡
  • 2008
    • Lunchtime Flickr has video now! This is a silly little meme that's going around called Fridgets: short little videos with the camera inside the fridge. ➡
  • 2005
    • I need to follow up on this… Mostly, I'm tossing this up here to remind myself to do something about it, and _soon_... (Tracking down Poems for Laila albums from Germany). ➡
    • Voting at 16 in WA’s future? All stereotypes aside, not _all_ teenagers are solely interested in video games and bad music. Some of them are interested in video games, bad music -- and voting. Here in Washington, the local chapter of the NYRA is working on lowering the state's voting age to 16. ➡
    • Conventions…or the lack thereof I just found out about Cascadia Con, what looks to be a _major_ Science Fiction convention taking place here in Seattle later this year. The downside is that the convention is scheduled for the first four days in September, right when Prairie and I are planning to be busy moving into our new apartment. ➡
    • My most popular Flickr photos My most popular Flickr photos by number of views, number of favorites, and number of comments. ➡
  • 2004
    • Congratulations Dan Savage and Amy Jenniges! About a month ago, Dan Savage wrote a column for The Stranger explaining just how he, a gay man, was able to get a legal marriage license in the city of Seattle. It was pretty simple, actually. He applied for, and was granted, a license to marry his lesbian friend. ➡
    • Racism and broadband…what? There's a certain almost surreal incongruency in the combination of banner ads promoting wireless networking and DSL-based broadband and the blatant racism plastered across the top of Sonnet Networking's website. ➡
    • Very Good Friday I just wish I'd known about Very Good Friday earlier — I've only got two hours! ➡
    • Moving the library For someone who whines and complains every time I switch apartments, I'm fascinated by what it must take to move the Seattle Central Library to its new building. ➡
  • 2003
    • Could this be true? Is it possible? Well, of course it's possible. The question is whether it's an actual probability, or if it's just a well thought out conspiracy theory. Either way, we're not really likely to know unless someone high enough in the heirarchy turns whistleblower (not a very likely option). ➡
    • Pax Americana Sometimes I think the only thing really standing in the way of a truly Orwellian society is our ability to find other sources of news and information via the Internet and form our own opinions. If all I got was the official propaganda, I'd probably be fairly satisfied with the world right now. Heh. ➡
    • Water for the worthy A chaplain from Houston assigned to the Army V Corps support unit in Iraq is now the focus of an Army inquiry for his practice of offering soldiers a dip into his 500-gallon pool if they agree to be baptized. ➡
    • I've found religion! The Lord is my coder; I shall not crash. He maketh me to use Mac OS X; he leadeth me beside BSD and Linux. ➡
    • We're not done yet, folks Okay — so everyone on the 'net is linking to the pictures of Saddam's statue in the middle of Baghdad getting yanked down by Iraqi citizens, helped by U.S. Marines. Yes, it's wonderful. It's a high point for the campaign. Many Iraqis are thrilled. But this isn't the end. ➡
    • Springtime storms Spring has definitely hit Seattle. The past two days have been really warm, and today the clouds that we've been living under for the past few weeks finally broke, letting sunshine flood the world again. ➡
    • The fourth horseman A particularly ominous political cartoon. ➡
    • Theft is for the birds! The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was losing significant amounts of money from his coin machines each week. He went as far as to accuse Bill's employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off. Bill just couldn't believe that his people would do that, so they set up a camera. ➡
  • 2002
    • Goth humor I was hanging out in the Yahoo! Chat Alaska room this morning, and ended up meeting Wytchmagick on there. After discovering we shared some interests, we started tossing some links at each other, which was quite entertaining. ➡
    • I’m employed again! Well, after a whole week and a half of being unemployed, I start work again tomorrow! I'll be working at the Xerox printshop on the Microsoft campus, the same place that I worked two days at last Friday and Saturday. I guess they liked me! ➡
  • 2001
  • 1995
    • [From Usenet: 4.9.95 2300] Thing is, this happens to me, too...and I'm on a IIvx. The 'main' voices work fine, but all the 'secondary' voices have the fan-stutter in them. Any other ideas? ➡

Bernie Out; Biden the Presumptive Nominee

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Bernie Sanders Drops Out Of Presidential Race, Ceding Nomination To Biden

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ended his bid for the White House on Wednesday, effectively handing the Democratic nomination to former Vice President Joe Biden and ending hopes that a progressive challenger would take on President Donald Trump in November.

I know a lot of people on my list are going to be upset about this. There’s nothing wrong with that — I’m still upset that my candidate of choice this year dropped out, and I’m still upset that my candidate of choice in 2016 only won the popular election, but lost the electoral vote (\suchBS\). Take the time to grieve, to be angry, to rant and rave about how poorly our system works.

But once that’s done, please: Prioritize the good of the many, and recognize that however much you don’t like Biden, he will in no way be as bad as Trump. Sure, he’s not as good as you’d like, so push him to be better than he is! Continue pushing, fighting, and protesting in favor of all the causes that led you to support Bernie! Do everything you can to move Biden further to the left.

But please, please, please: Don’t throw a fit and refuse to support Biden, whether through giving your vote to a third-party candidate who has no chance of beating Trump, however ideologically closer they are to you than Biden is, or by not voting at all.

You’ve all seen what’s happened over the past four years. Please do everything you can to make sure we don’t have four more years of Trump in office.

On This Day: Apr 8

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 23 posts previously published on April 8th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 342 A word of thanks to those people I've seen sharing snarky comments and memes about Beyoncé's new album. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Happy Rex Manning Day! ➡
  • 2017
    • Chucks of the day (52/53): Navy blue high tops with orange accents; reflective grey heel stripe and thread woven into the laces. #converse #chucks ➡
  • 2016
    • Happy Friday, all. Have a good weekend! (99/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • On Being a Good Person In general, I think we need to move away from the premise that being a good person is a fixed immutable characteristic and shift towards seeing being good as a practice. And it is a practice that we carry out by engaging with our imperfections. We need to shift towards thinking that being a good person is like being a clean person. Being a clean person is something you maintain and work on every day. ➡
  • 2014
    • My appointment was at 3:20. Got here 10 minutes early. Was shown to the exam room 25 minutes late. That was almost 15 minutes ago. Uuuuggggghhhhh… ➡
  • 2009
    • DIY Bicycle Camera Mount Yes, there are already a ton of posts on the 'net telling people how to do this, and I'm indebted to them all, as I read most of them when planning out my approach. Still -- this is how _I_ did it, so I'm going to add to the chatter. :) ➡
  • 2007
    • Happy Easter Or, if you don't happen to be an Easter person, just enjoy a nice spring day. Whichever works best for you. ➡
  • 2006
    • New Toy: Nikon D70s Thanks to some very kind assistance in the mysterious and tricky realms of credit and financing by the best girl in the world, I've got a new toy to play with for my birthday. ➡
  • 2004
    • Eats shoots and leaves Another book I need to add to my collection: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. ➡
    • Facts about Canada Lane should get a kick out of this. ;) Questions and answers about Canada from a tourism website (I'm not sure which one, I found this on dad's website)… ➡
    • Kurt Am I the only person in Seattle who doesn't give a flying fig that Kurt Cobain is (still) dead? ➡
    • First OS X exploit: Concept One of the (many) nice things about being a Mac user is our general invulnerability to the multitudes of viruses, trojan horses, and other exploits that threaten the 'net on a regular basis. So it's no wonder that the Mac world is all a-tizzy over anti-virus company Intego releasing news of what appears to be the first Mac OS X trojan horse, wrapped inside an apparent .mp3 file. ➡
    • Condi under oath CLAIM: There was 'nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S.' in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste] FACT: Rice herself confirmed that 'the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'' [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04] ➡
  • 2003
    • Protest music links Continuing in the protest music theme I've been trying to keep up with lately, today brings us a MetaFilter discussion started by a post opining that, well, to be honest — most modern protest songs suck. ➡
    • The importance of dissent However, protestors of any ilk are certainly doing a very important thing for the continuation of democracy. We are exercising muscles that, if left unused, could very possibly atrophy, leaving our democracy damaged and ineffective. ➡
    • Random thought Was the phrase 'another day, another dollar' coined (no pun intended) at a time when that was actually the average payscale? ➡
    • Bomb the World This was mentioned in the Rolling Stone article I just posted, so I went searching it out to add to the growing list of anti-war tracks released to the Internet: Spearhead's Bomb the World (original and 'Armageddon' mix). ➡
    • Things are changing these days The mother of one of the members of politically conscious band Spearhead was recently questioned by Army officers about her son's 'un-American' activities. During the interview they displayed photos of her son at peace rallys, records of his travels, a list of people he worked with at the band's management office, and revealed that her daughter — currently serving in the military, and deployed in the Gulf — had had her CD's confiscated. ➡
    • By the numbers Snippets from the Toronto Star's Iraq War Index. ➡