Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

On This Day: Nov 27

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Since I 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 November 27th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 209 The joys of remote work: on the one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand. ➡
  • 2021
    • Vinegar: YouTube5 was a Safari extension back when Flash was still a thing and hated by everyone. It replaced the YouTube player (written in Flash) with an HTML <video> tag. And now the YouTube player situation has gotten bad enough that we need another extension to fix it. That’s where Vinegar comes in. Vinegar also ... Read more ➡
    • Figured out how to create an iOS shortcut that grabs a webpage URL, title, and any selected text from Safari, formats it into a Markdown link and block quote, and then sends it to Ulysses as a new post to be published to my blog. Pretty happy with the result! ➡
    • With No Time To Die, or even wash his hands, James Bond’s travel hygiene fails: From his questionable sexual behavior to his unsafe eating habits to his risk-taking with regard to insect- and animal-borne diseases, it’s remarkable that the famous fictional secret agent has repeatedly lived another day. In a new paper, published in the ... Read more ➡
  • 2020
    • Once the initial breakthrough was made, time-travel was actually fairly simple…as long as you were going backwards. After all, that had all already happened. But going forwards was a much larger dilemma due to the difficulty in targeting any one of the infinite possible futures. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 27 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 27 ➡
  • 2019
    • Merely being rich wasn’t enough. Even being the richest person wasn’t enough. But finally, he had amassed all the wealth there was; all else was poverty. And as Bezos looked over the wastelands from atop the Amazon citadel, he still yearned for more. Microblogvember: rich ➡
    • Amazon’s Ring Considering Facial Recognition While the basic home security idea isn't bad, the implementation, especially when combined with the (existing or just discussed) partnerships with law enforcement, giving them unfettered access to the video captured by the cameras, is really, really disturbing. ➡
    • No Love for White Gloves, or: the Cotton Menace: “Rare books, unlike many museum objects, are still used today in the same way that they would have been when they were new centuries ago – they’re held and opened, and their pages are turned. It would make sense that these historical objects should be handled ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-two of 2016: Battlestations!, by Diane Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (332/366) ➡
  • 2007
    • Zoom Cosmic View, Cosmic Zoom, Powers of Ten, and the Simpsons. ➡
    • Schedule? What Schedule? Two more days without posting. It's official -- trying to enforce a daily posting routine just didn't work for me this year. ➡
  • 2006
    • Rainier and the Flood Looks like the scenery is going to be a little bit different next time Prairie and I are able to head down to Mt. Rainier for a weekend getaway. The heavy rains and flooding of the past weeks have hit Rainier National Park _hard_, including quite a few of the areas that we went through this summer. ➡
    • Best Bad Review of the Zune The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure...it almost becomes _important_ that you encourage people not to buy one. ➡
    • Snowy Evening A small selection of photos from an evening walk last night, after Seattle got an unusually heavy snowfall. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2003
  • 2002
  • 2001
    • Paying bills is such fun So that was about it...home by 10:30 or so, in bed about midnight. Not the most exciting stuff in the world, I suppose, but that's the way my life goes. ➡
  • 2000
    • Vacation time Vacation time! Off to Florida, Indiana, and Seattle -- back to Anchorage on Dec. 14th. ➡
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🖖 Discovery S03E07: After last week’s action, really liked having a week of talky-thinky Trek that expanded both the season arc and the overall world building of the new era. Vulcans! Romulans! TNG throwbacks! Plus a nice tribute to NuTrek’s Chekov, the late Anton Yelchin.

On This Day: Nov 26

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

There are 27 posts previously published on November 26th

  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ First re-watch in a few years. Some sequences really could have been dropped (the mountain giants add nothing except a few minutes of running time), others are just tonally weird (the goblin city sticks out as being goofy in the midst of serious sequences). But that said, it’s still ... Read more ➡
  • 2020
    • 🖖 Discovery S03E07: After last week’s action, really liked having a week of talky-thinky Trek that expanded both the season arc and the overall world building of the new era. Vulcans! Romulans! TNG throwbacks! Plus a nice tribute to NuTrek’s Chekov, the late Anton Yelchin. ➡
    • While spell development was superficially similar to most any other sort of creative process, the fine-tuning was killer. There were just so many variables to know what to adjust — ingredients, gestures, words, tone of voice — that those final touches could be quite dangerous. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 26 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 26 ➡
  • 2019
    • Baby Yoda Has Conquered the World: “‘I had a day with one of the weirdest moments I’ve ever had directing,’ [Director Deborah Chow] told Vanity Fair. ‘I was directing Werner with the puppet, and Werner had just fallen in love with the baby. Werner, I think, had forgotten it wasn’t actually a live creature, and ... Read more ➡
    • He watched the floor in satisfaction from the DJ booth as the crowd moved to the sounds of the music. Those recordings of readings from ancient texts he’d layered into the mix had definitely helped. Now nobody could stop dancing until he decided it was time. Microblogvember: mix ➡
    • Bruce Wayne warns wealth tax on billionaires could result in fewer crimes foiled via jet-powered cars: “When asked whether a wealth tax could help curb costumed murders by investing in public schools, job retraining, and community mental health initiatives, Wayne responded, ‘Sure, but do any of those programs involve a 7000 pound car that can ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-one of 2016: Dreadnought!, by Diane Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Book fifty of 2016: Ishmael, by Barbara Hambly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (330/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Mmmm…that’s a good looking Thanksgiving spread! ➡
    • A little classic gaming with friends on Thanksgiving. ➡
  • 2014
    • Tear Gas: Banned in War, Used on the Streets The use of tear gas by the US police (and in other countries) is something I find seriously troubling. How can we justify using a chemical agent banned from use in warfare on our own citizens? ➡
    • Debate links regarding Ferguson and Darren Wilson Just found this excellent Tumblr post laying out the most common arguments defending Darren Wilson or condemning the Ferguson protests, and linking to a wealth of stories and resources addressing those points. ➡
    • Mike Brown’s shooting and Jim Crow lynchings have too much in common About twice a week, or every three or four days, an African American has been killed by a white police officer in the seven years ending in 2012, according to studies of the latest data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That number is incomplete and likely an undercount, as only a fraction of local police jurisdictions even report such deaths – and those reported are the ones deemed somehow 'justifiable'. ➡
  • 2006
    • So Long, Space Needle The Space Needle will once again become this city's tallest building in April 2009, when NASA launches the tower into Earth orbit. The rotating restaurant will provide simulated Earth gravity, not to mention fresh salmon and Dungeness crab from Washington and Alaska waters. ➡
  • 2003
    • The trickiest zen on the menu I wanted to take a moment to point out Pops' domain, 2 Hour Lunch. I discovered his site at some point during the TypePad beta testing process, and he's become one of my favorite reads. ➡
    • Bad Santa I first heard about Bad Santa thanks to Pops about a week ago, and it immediately sounded like something that would be right up my alley. Roger Ebert's review has just solidified that. ➡
    • Digital elocution So what do you do if you're trying to put together campaign commercials for a President who can't seem to string together more two multi-syllabic words without stumbling? Simple! ➡
    • Capt. Yee charged with…being a shmuck Two counts of failing to obey a lawful general order, adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, making a false official statement and failure to obey an order or regulation (the latter two charges stem from allegations that Yee viewed and stored pornography on a government computer). ➡
    • Troy Another film I'm really looking forward to seeing — Troy. ➡
    • Just what I always wanted! Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. ➡
  • 2000
    • Colophon djwudi.com gets a Colophon, with details on the construction and maintenance of the site. All sorts of nifty geek goodies in there. ➡

Twenty Years of Blogging

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Twenty years ago today, I became a blogger.

Admittedly, the date could be argued a bit, as I’d had my own website since 1996, and even back then had been in the habit of making short, dated updates that were usually site-related, but sometimes just personal ramblings. And I didn’t come across the term ‘blog’ until a few months later in February of 2001.

But on November 25, 2000, I moved from hand-coding updates into a static HTML page to using a script called NewsPro to manage and automate posting updates. So that’s what I’ve been using as my “official” blogging start date.

In the past 20 years, my posting frequency has waxed and waned (waning more often than waxing, admittedly) but has never disappeared altogether. I’ve moved platforms from self-hosted (first NewsPro, then MovableType) to hosted (TypePad) back to self-hosted (WordPress). Sometimes self-hosted meant on a server in my apartment; these days I use DreamHost as my hosting provider, but I still use a manual installation of WordPress rather than using the WordPress.com hosted service. I don’t tinker as much as I used to, but it’s still nice to get into the nuts and bolts from time to time.

Most of the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve just been another one of the many random voices on the ‘net, never one of the Big Names. The closest I ever came to breaking out of that…well, you can look back if you want, but I’m just glad that it’s in my past. Maybe I’ll have more to say in another three years on that twentieth anniversary, maybe not. Generally, I’m fine with just tossing my occasional thoughts on Apple, Star Trek, politics, and whatever else pops into my mind into the electronic void to see if anyone picks up on it.

If you’ve been stopping by and checking out my ramblings from time to time over the years — thanks! If you’re a new visitor, thanks to you too, especially if you’ve made it this far through this post. You might want to check out this somewhat random collection of notable posts, or just see what was posted on this day in the past (which will work for whatever day you read this).

And, of course, there’s my alter-ego DJ Wüdi side project to be promoted: A weekly (except when it isn’t) Twitch broadcast where I play an eclectic mix of music (mostly focused on alternative dance genres like goth, industrial, EBM, and various flavors of electronica, but with a fair amount of other stuff tossed in as I feel like it). Tune in to Difficult Listening Hour on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Pacific time, or cue up my past archives (plus more mix sessions) on my MixCloud page.

Twenty years down — and hopefully, twenty (and more) yet to come!

On This Day: Nov 25

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

There are 25 posts previously published on November 25th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • 📚 48/2021: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1976 Hugo Best Novel ➡
  • 2020
    • Space, as we all know, is silent. Sound can’t travel through a vacuum, it’s simple science. But then the great bird of the galaxy appeared at the outer rim of the system, opened its vast beak, and uttered a call that used the very fabric of spacetime as a medium for its cry. ➡
    • Email a dumpster fire. Literally Email dumpsterfire@hey.com whatever you want to torch. Use plain text or an image attachment. PG-13 rules apply. Watch on the live feed as your message is created, conveyed, and then dropped into the rolling flames. Experience catharsis. ➡
    • Twenty Years of Blogging If you've been stopping by and checking out my ramblings from time to time over the years — thanks! ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 25 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 25 ➡
  • 2019
    • It’s one thing to know the regulation that everything has to be in secure storage before the jump to light speed. But the point is really driven home when you see the size of the hole that inertia and a loose pencil can punch through the hull. Microblogvember: secure ➡
    • That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It: “Professional trolls…are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.” ➡
  • 2016
    • Second day off, with two yet to go. Why aren’t four day weekends more common? (330/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Post-Ferguson Decision Links All originally posted to my Facebook account, but I need to post here more regularly (jeez, it's been over a _year_ now), and I feel strongly enough about the discussions I'm seeing in the aftermath of the Ferguson decision that this seemed a good way to get some movement here. ➡
  • 2010
  • 2009
    • Facebook ‘Dislike’ Button Suspicion I just got an invite to a Facebook group titled 'DISLIKE BUTTON is here - ADD it now!'. After looking this group over, I have _very_ strong suspicious about it, and my first impulse is to recommend that everyone ignore it. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2006
    • Black Friday Recap Ick. There were people lined up outside the store, waiting for us to open the gate at 6am. ➡
  • 2002
    • Now there’s an image for ya. You think you were surprised — I'm envisioning the world's most alarmed spider as you pull thread out of its ass as fast as it can produce it. Now there's an image for ya. ➡
    • Dreams are odd I had a dream last night that I was DJ'ing at a dance somewhere, with a lot of high-school age kids asking me for lots of bad rap. Unfortunately, all I had with me was bad techno, because I'd accidentally packed one of my music cases with boxes of cereal, instead of CD's. ➡
  • 2001
    • What a weekend Oh, and just to confirm any suspicions that may have arisen -- yes, it does appear that I'm no longer single. Candice and I talked about it Friday night, and after roughly three years of being (technically) single, I've re-entered the dating scene. ➡
  • 2000
    • Parallax1 Parallax1, then a 3-week vacation. ➡
    • NewsPro up and running NewsPro's first post. From here on out, all posts will be saved and archived for future reference. Uh-huh. Yup. ➡

Star Trek Technobabble vs. Magic

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So in last week’s Star Trek: Discovery, the ship got a major upgrade (in just three weeks). What we’ve seen so far includes programmable matter bridge and spore drive interfaces, detached nacelles, and even (though not yet seen on screen) holodecks.

Discovery 1031-A

Today I noticed one thing in the new promo pic (embedded above) that I hadn’t noticed while watching the episode: apparently the four corridors connecting the saucer’s inner section to its outer ring have been removed. Here’s a top view of the original design for comparison.

Discovery 1031

This seems like a really odd design decision to me. Before, while getting from the inner to outer sections may not have been super convenient if on foot and not using a turbolift (especially given the size difference between the Disco and any non-Abramsverse version of the Enterprise…and geez, I hadn’t realized just how huge all the Disco ships were), at least if it needed to be done they wouldn’t have had to go more than a quarter of the way around the gap. And there must be times when a turbolift isn’t practical — for instance, moving material, supplies, machinery, or other such things too large to fit in a turbolift around the ship.

I guess it all relies on everyone using those fancy new site-to-site personal transporters embedded in the new badges. But what if they’re not wearing a badge (taken off, fallen off, forcibly removed, etc.)? What if something goes wrong and the transporter system isn’t working properly (which, I know, never happens in Star Trek, but allow it for the sake of argument)? Now the only way to get from the inner ring to the outer ring is to take the primary corridor at the back of the inner ring towards the body of the ship, and then go around the outer ring to your destination. I just hope they don’t have to go from a point on the front of the inner ring to the front of the outer ring! Heck, now I wonder how hard it would be to estimate just how far that distance actually is….

Anyway. It looks cool, sure. But there are practicality considerations.

In a similar vein, how is maintenance done on those fancy new detached nacelles? In our first glimpse, it looked like they can be attached to the body of the ship, and were in the process of detaching in the shot, but what if something goes wrong while they’re detached?

One of the things I absolutely loved about Star Trek when I was a kid, and part of what has always fascinated me about it, was how real everything felt. Even fantastical elements, like the warp drive or transporters, always felt like there could be real, logical science behind them. And obviously, I’m not the only one who was drawn to this part of Trek, as I wouldn’t have all these Star Trek technical manuals and blueprints on my shelves if there weren’t enough of a market for them to get them published in the first place.

Trek Manuals and Blueprints

But so much of modern Trek (both Abramsverse and Discovery) seems to fall into the hand-wavey, might as well be magic, “because it looks cool” school of thought that breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Programmable matter I’m fine with — I want to know more about it, sure, but so far, I’m cool with how they’ve presented it. Detached nacelles (and other ship parts) could really use some serious work on defining what makes them desirable, possible, and accounting for practical considerations. We’ve seen lots of equipment, from space suits to prisoner anonymity hoods to asteroid-catching gravity platforms that just seem to fold open and create matter out of nothing — how is that explained? Where are all these fold-away pieces being stored when they’re not in use? Specifically regarding the asteroid-catching gravity platform, how do you get that much matter and mass into a suitcase that a human can carry around when it’s not in use?

And sure, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“, and sure, we’ve jumped another 900-some years into the future, and yes, we’ve just been introduced to these things, so there’s still plenty of time to develop the technobabble to justify them (or write scenes and scripts that deal with the situations outlined above). And, of course, these are modern shows, and I in no way expect them to be slavishly beholden to the set designs and special effects of the 1960s or 1980s.

But for me, at least, they’re really dancing on the line of believable technology vs. magic. And going too far towards magic is very likely to break a fundamental part of what has defined Trek for me for my entire life.

On This Day: Nov 24

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging tomorrow, 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 November 24th

  • 2024
    • Gruber: If I never see it, I don’t care. Despite many people whose opinions he says he respects refusing to support Substack because of their refusal to deplatform Nazis, _he_ hasn't personally seen stuff like this, so he doesn't care. ➡
  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 206 Wrapped a bunch of presents for a family for the annual giving tree program at work. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • Happy Anniversary, D.B. Cooper! From The Stranger: The 10 Weirdest Revelations from the FBI Files on D.B. Cooper for the 50th Anniversary of His Escape. Personally, I still subscribe to the Don Draper is D.B. Cooper theory, even if it was debunked by the Mad Men series creator. ➡
  • 2020
    • They’d finally managed to convince the supply chief to provision enough supplies to ensure they’d have a reasonable chance of making it across the wastelands. As long as the anti-grav units held out, at least, since replacement parts were more and more scarce every year. ➡
    • Star Trek Technobabble vs. Magic Too much of modern Trek seems to be resorting to prioritizing 'cool' over 'believable extrapolations' in the design aesthetic. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 24 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 24 ➡
  • 2019
    • “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking to hold back tears. “I’ll miss you, but…well, people judge us by the company we keep, and I can’t be seen with you anymore.” She backed slowly away, watching carefully for any tentacles trying to keep her from leaving. Microblogvember: company ➡
  • 2017
    • Cleaned up a bit for the big Thanksgiving dinner get together. ➡
  • 2016
    • Mmmm…Thanksgiving dinner! Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, rolls, cranberry sauce, and jello salad. Plus pumpkin pie for desert (in a bit, when we have room for it). Perfect! ➡
    • Book forty-nine of 2016: Uhura’s Song, by Janet Kagan. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (329/366) #startrek #tos ➡
    • A Thanksgiving Prayer Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams. ➡
  • 2015
    • Our first good snow of the season. Started overnight, still coming down quite nicely! ➡
  • 2014
    • Came home to find feminist inclusive smut in my mailbox! #smutpeddler @iron_spike ➡
    • In the low light at night, the seed pods from the trees look like giant alien slugs. Or maybe it’s the other way ’round? ;) ➡
  • 2013
    • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 01 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the first of quite a few to come! ➡
  • 2007
    • Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test I'm Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the '80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years. ➡
  • 2006
    • I sense a trend… Not at all a normal Seattle forecast, but this hasn't exactly been a normal Seattle November, either. Kinda fun to see what might happen as the week goes by! ➡
    • Black Friday Morn So now, here I am at five in the morning, trying to shake off a turkey coma so I can go deal with the craziest of the Black Friday shoppers. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2004
    • Four Years While I'd been keeping hand-updated websites since '95 or so, November 25th, 2000 marked my first foray into using a software engine to keep track of the random rambling I occasional put up on my website, starting me stumbling into the world of weblogging. ➡
    • Nomanisan Island I hadn't picked up on this before, but the name of island where Syndrome has his evil lair in The Incredibles is 'Nomanisan.' ➡
  • 2003
    • Three Years Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. I've highlighted a few posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. ➡
    • Fasten your seatbelts! If you live in the Seattle/Portland/Pacific Northwest -- or Japan -- you might want to think about moving. At least, think about it if you have plans to be in the area in about 200 years. ;) ➡

On This Day: Nov 23

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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 29 posts previously published on November 23rd

  • 2025
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while, and have just added a number of (backdated) posts, but there’s one particularly important item of note: I’m about to start a new job as Program Manager for Accessible Technology at Highline College. Looking forward to this new adventure! ➡
    • 📚 47/2021: Spartacus by Terry Mancour ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
  • 2020
    • The best part of being a bounty hunter was the chase, pursuing prey across planets and star systems, using every trick she could until she ran them to ground. The worst part was the time after the capture, when there was nothing to fill the days as she waited for a new contract. ➡
    • Of Goth Diversity Let’s bring back the 'creature' in Creature of Darkness. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 23 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 23 ➡
  • 2019
    • The aliens had studied us long enough to be able to use what we perceived as a woebegone appearance to their advantage, preying on our sympathies and our desire to help. It was far too late when we discovered how our better natures had doomed us all. Microblogvember: woebegone ➡
    • 📚 fifty-four of 2019: The Sundered, by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Captain Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior mix it up with Tholians and a mysterious new race with ties to Earth. A good, easy bit of fluff to spend a quiet day reading. 🖖 ➡
    • 📚 fifty-three of 2019: Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Not bad, and I enjoyed the sexual politics, but not my thing. This is definitely (mostly) in the “life in medieval Europe” style of fantasy, which I’m less enamored of than more fantastical fantasy. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-one of 2018: Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, by Chuck Palahniuk. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
    • Book fifty of 2018: The Mask of Cthulhu, by August Derleth. ⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • I don’t have to go to work tomorrow! Or the day after! Or the day after that! Or the day after that! (328/366) ➡
    • We got a two-pack of “grow zombies” (the little toys you put in water so they get bigger) for Halloween, so one went in the water while one stayed dry. After about a month, here’s the end result! ➡
    • And…another Snapchat filter as penance. Good thing we’re approaching the end of the year, and the end of this project! (327/366) ➡
    • Being feminist is not a shield against criticism I’m far from perfect; I can, do, and will make mistakes; and when I do, I need to own up to them and try to avoid doing so in the future. ➡
  • 2007
    • EstroBlaster! Apparently, I'm a 50-something gun-toting impotent Republican. ➡
  • 2005
    • Lost s02e08: Collision Scribbled notes while watching tonight's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
    • Buying a camera? Oh, by the way...on the off chance that any of my Seattle-area readers are considering or planning on buying a camera this holiday season, I'd love you forever if you came by the Kit's Cameras store in the Northgate Mall while I'm working. ➡
    • Top 20 Geek Novels The Guardian UK ran a survey voting for the top 20 geek novels written since 1932, and in 'net meme tradition, here's the list with those I've read in bold. 13 out of 20...65%. Not bad, but I could do better. Time to add to the ever-growing reading list! ➡
    • Bush targets Al-Jazeera for bombing President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a 'Top Secret' No 10 memo reveals. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • FBI monitoring antiwar protests The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum. ➡
    • CSS Hints and Tips Dave Shea at Mezzoblue is working on a CSS Crib Sheet/Best Practices/hints and tips post. Lots of good information and suggestions in those posts for writing good, clean CSS. ➡
    • Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Special Extended Edition) First off, and most simply, if you're a fan of the series, there's no question about it. This is a must-buy DVD (as is, incidentally, the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Feel free to stop reading this and just go buy it. ➡
    • The biggest cause of failure is success What if Google set up an agreement with hosting sites in which, in order to offset the cost of bandwidth spikes, Google AdSense ads could be (semi-)automatically added to a site when they reached a certain bandwidth point? ➡
  • 2001
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 2 There are probably many other things and people that I should add to this list, but this will do for now. This Thanksgiving season, those are the things I value the most. It's a day late -- but Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. ➡
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 1 (I'd mentioned earlier that I had two posts planned for Thanksgiving. I didn't get around to putting them up Thanksgiving day, so they go up today, instead.) A Thanksgiving Prayer, by William S. Burroughs... ➡
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📚 forty-six of 2020: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖

Nice to see an encounter with something so alien so to be literally incomprehensible. A bit heavy on references to TNG episodes to prove that the author watched the show; otherwise good.

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.11.21

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Week thirty-four of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts, now on Saturday afternoons. These are the results. Anything goes.

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