Halfway Between the Truth and the Lie

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Rebecca Solnit’s essay “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway” is excellent.

…the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat. Those of us who know it’s round will not recruit them through compromise. We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction.

Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s and it won’t work now. That doesn’t mean that people have to be angry or hate back or hostile, but it does mean they have to stand on principle and defend what’s under attack. There are situations in which there is no common ground worth standing on, let alone hiking over to.

On This Day: Nov 19

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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 November 19th

  • 2023
  • 2022
    • Travel and CO2 I tracked CO2 levels as I traveled from Denver to Seattle. Airlines may say their planes have good ventilation, but my monitor sure wasn’t impressed. ➡
    • 🎥 The Man Who Killed Don Quixote Gilliam's tendency to slip in and out of reality at any given point always engages well with me. ➡
  • 2020
    • 🖖 Discovery S03E06: A rather “meh” A plot (a bit much on Georgiou’s snark; the Running Man homage amused me but was too violent for my wife), but all the B plot bits on the Disco (geeking out over the upgrades, Tilly vs. Grudge, Stamets and Adira) were much more interesting. ➡
    • He looked over the valley in amazement. Instead of wooded slopes on either side of the small river, there was a town that looked as if had been there for decades, with ships docked at a pier, and though it didn’t seem possible, small, winged people flitting between buildings. ➡
    • He had long since lost faith in his ability to reliably predict what was and what wasn’t possible. Mystical creatures surrounded him, magic was not just real but apparently limitless, and most amazing of all, he’d been fed a dish of Brussels sprouts that was actually quite tasty. ➡
    • Most common passwords of 2020: The list details how many times a password has been exposed, used, and how much time it would take to crack it. If you’re using any of these for your passwords, change them. ➡
    • Facing collapse, the famed Arecibo Observatory will be demolished: While teams will try to salvage some parts of the observatory, the decommission will bring an end to the popular 57-year-old telescope, which has been featured in numerous films and television shows. ➡
    • Halfway Between the Truth and the Lie 'If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat.' ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 19 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 19 ➡
  • 2019
    • The ship drifted in space, sensors active, waiting for the radiation surge to abate so the crew could be revived. But the stasis pods weren’t shielded against this type of radiation, and what emerged would be very different from what had gone in. Microblogvember: abate ➡
  • 2018
    • Book forty-eight of 2018: IKS Gorkon Book One: A Good Day to Die, by Keith R. A. DeCandido. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
    • Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive? This is a really clever way to analyze this question. Nice presentation, too! ➡
    • The ERA May Have A Chance of Finally Being Ratified Good luck to Virginia, to the ERA, and to all the women in the country who could benefit from the ERA finally being ratified! ➡
  • 2017
    • Took this last week, forgot to post until now. Streaming video glitches amuse me. I knew #startrekdiscovery was switching things up, but I didn’t expect a #madamesecretary crossover! ;) #startrek #discovery #dis #disco 🖖 ➡
    • Book forty-six of 2017: Silence Fallen, by Patricia Briggs. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is I’ve just set up small recurring monthly donations to Planned Parenthood, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the ACLU. Have you added donations to your routine? If so, who are you donating to? ➡
    • It’s a bit earlier than we’d normally do it, but with the daylight savings switch and the election falling in the same week, we decided we needed some Christmas to push back against the literal and metaphorical dark times we’re living in. ➡
    • Book forty-eight of 2016: The Tears of the Singers, by Melinda Snodgrass. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tos ➡
    • Book forty-seven of 2016: Penny Dreadfuls, compiled by Stefan Dziemianowicz. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (324/366) ➡
  • 2010
    • Not Really a Surprise It is no accident that women have been complaining...for nearly 10 years now.... What was different? Suddenly an able-bodied white man is the one who was complaining. ➡
  • 2009
  • 2007
    • True Enough My coworker Rachel watched as our poster printer produced three posters, all wintertime shots taken in the late 1800's or early 1900's. 'Y'know,' she said, 'all the people in those shots are probably dead. That's kind of depressing.' ➡
  • 2004
    • New Reads Thanks to tdavid's creation of an easy-to-import OPML file of Wednesday's Meetup attendees, I've just added a good number of local webloggers to my daily reads. ➡
    • Me as a South Park character Just a little mid-morning amusement: me as a South Park character, thanks to the South Park Character Creator. ➡
  • 2003
  • 2001
    • Junet and Caro, ‘shrooms, and small worlds I'd bounce off and online from time to time during the day, and ended up getting in a conversation with Candice, a girl from the Seattle chatroom. Turns out she's also an ex-Alaskan, so we started babbling about things we knew about from Anchorage. ➡
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“How is it you’ve been able to manage being isolated out here for so long?”

“I was born in 2013. My parents were fanatical antivax isolationists, so I didn’t see anyone other than them from 2020 until they died in 2033. I never developed much dependence on other people.”

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She didn’t know quite when she’d first realized the fluid was seeping from her walls, or why she’d ever been tempted to taste it. But she was increasingly worried that she’d so quickly developed such a strong dependence on the substance to get her through the tedium of her day.

On This Day: Nov 18

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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 November 18th

  • 2023
  • 2022
    • Accessing Higher Ground 2022 On this last day of the 2022 Accessing Higher Ground conference, I put together a thread about the week. This is a lightly edited version for this blog. Be warned, this isn't short. :) ➡
  • 2020
    • “How is it you’ve been able to manage being isolated out here for so long?” “I was born in 2013. My parents were fanatical antivax isolationists, so I didn’t see anyone other than them from 2020 until they died in 2033. I never developed much dependence on other people.” ➡
    • She didn’t know quite when she’d first realized the fluid was seeping from her walls, or why she’d ever been tempted to taste it. But she was increasingly worried that she’d so quickly developed such a strong dependence on the substance to get her through the tedium of her day. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 18 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 18 ➡
  • 2019
    • The parts arrived in the mail, each one with just enough instructions to allow him to attach it to what had come before. Who sent them or what they would build were the mystery that kept him working, but the quantity of needles was starting to worry him. Microblogvember: build ➡
    • Monty Python and Enjoying Problematic Media There are the Monty Python skits everyone knows and remembers fondly. Then…there are the others. ➡
  • 2016
    • Choir fall concert night! (323/366) ➡
    • A Resurrection It won't always be easy, and it may take some time for me to really get into the routine again. But to me, this is important. I will not be silent. ➡
  • 2007
    • Oscar the Adults-Only Grouch According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, 'Sesame Street: Old School' is adults-only: 'These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.' ➡
  • 2005
    • Frack! Hehe -- Prairie and I just finished watching Season One of Battlestar Galactica. I'd seen it before, 'twas the first time for her. She's hooked. ➡
    • Sony’s rootkit In one of the (many) stories that have been flying by my radar without being remarked on over the past few weeks, it recently came to light that Sony has been using some _incredibly_ nasty "copy protection" schemes on many of its audio CDs. Wired News has an excellent rundown of the situation that's worth reading. _This_ is how the major corporations are treating their customers these days. It's not a pretty thing. ➡
    • Could I be a US Citizen? Oh. Oops. Okay, so it’s been a long time since high school, but still…I need to do some studying! ➡
    • Top Artists according to last.fm From Adriaan: last.fm has nice charting tools, mapping out your listening trends. From data collected over the past year, this list appears to show my top artists. ➡
  • 2004
    • Resurrecting the Evil Dead The good news: the previously rumored 'Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash' is probably dead. The bad news: that's because Raimi is remaking The Evil Dead (bad enough) and will be letting someone else direct it (worse). ➡
  • 2003
    • Same sex marriage OK in Massachusetts Massachusetts' highest court ruled Tuesday that the state cannot deny gays and lesbians the right to marry and ordered the state's lawmakers to devise changes in the law within six months. ➡
    • Apple updates iMac, G5 families New goodies from Apple today! The mid-range G5 is now a dual 1.8Ghz machine, and a new iMac was announced with a 20 inch screen. ➡
  • 2002
    • Karen by Night Just a silly little song that I hadn't heard in a while that popped into my headphones during work today, as a way for me to start actually posting here again, after a few busy weeks. ➡
  • 2001
    • Boo-ya! I'm online! It's slow , it's not under my name yet, and it's not on the mac -- but I'm up! It's a start.... ➡
by

Though no train had come through in ages, the ties were kept clear of growth, rails shined as if they’d just been laid down, and the whole town had come out for the ritual tying of the damsel across the tracks to be saved or sacrificed at the will of their diesel powered god.

by

It had started about a month ago. He’d been restless in the middle of the night, and had climbed out onto the fire escape when he heard the phantom train approaching. He knew that one of these nights he’d find the tracks. He just hoped it would stop for him when he did.

This Means Nothing

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Pet peeve: The little fake level meter animation that Music shows when a track is playing drives me up the wall. It’s just a looped animation that bears no relation to what’s actually playing. Give me real data or a static icon, but this is useless.

Five-second clip of Apple's Music app UI.

On This Day: Nov 17

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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 27 posts previously published on November 17th

  • 2024
    • Twisters 🎥: ⭐️⭐️: Not that I expected much, but I was hoping for more _enjoyably_ dumb instead of just...meh. ➡
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
    • Though no train had come through in ages, the ties were kept clear of growth, rails shined as if they’d just been laid down, and the whole town had come out for the ritual tying of the damsel across the tracks to be saved or sacrificed at the will of their diesel powered god. ➡
    • Happy birthday to the COVID-19 coronavirus! A 55-year-old individual from Hubei province in China may have been the first person to have contracted COVID-19…. That case dates back to Nov. 17, 2019, according to the South China Morning Post. ➡
    • It had started about a month ago. He’d been restless in the middle of the night, and had climbed out onto the fire escape when he heard the phantom train approaching. He knew that one of these nights he’d find the tracks. He just hoped it would stop for him when he did. ➡
    • This Means Nothing This is useless. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 17 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 17 ➡
  • 2019
    • “Truly,” thought the commander, overlooking the fleet of ships before their eyes, “this is magnificent. Surely, no fleet as superb as this one had been seen since—“ “Alex!” “What, mom?” “Turn off the holoprojector and get in bed! Now!” They sighed. Microblogvember: superb ➡
  • 2018
    • Book forty-seven of 2018: Elevation, by Stephen King. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • Almost done with the week! (322/366) ➡
    • Silly Snapchat filter because I forgot yesterday’s photo. (321/366) ➡
    • So Amazon had a really good deal earlier this week ($35 for this stack)! The Alien quadrilogy is an upgrade from the DVDs, the AvPs and Prometheus are new to my collection. No regrets. #alien #aliens ➡
  • 2015
    • Sometime soon it’s going to be time for us to have a mega Hobbit-thon! #lotr #lordoftherings #hobbit #thehobbit ➡
  • 2010
    • Fly Commando! I’m almost disappointed I’m not flying soon. I’d wear my kilt. Commando. Grope away, sucker! ➡
  • 2008
  • 2007
    • Missed One… Took a test in the morning before school (it was posted online at 6:30am), went to school, came home, had lunch with the girl, went to work, came home, had dinner with the girl, and went to bed. Somehow managed to completely forget about posting...and there goes the one-a-day streak. ➡
  • 2004
    • Weblogger’s Meetup Just got back a bit ago from this month's Seattle Weblogger's Meetup. Roundabout 20-something people in attendance, of whom I knew three or so beforehand. Now I'm tired, though, and will be heading to bed before too terribly long. ➡
  • 2003
    • Creators admit Unix, C hoax In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate April Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years. ➡
    • November Weblog Meetup For the first (and quite likely only) time, I'm going to be able to attend one of the local Weblogger's Meetup events, as my training schedule for this Wednesday has me off work at 6pm. ➡
    • Major referrer spam attack Looks like there's a major referrer spam attack going on at the moment. The sites in question look like real weblogs but aren't. ➡
    • The sound of silence Why can't we as a nation honor our four hundred and twenty two dead as touchingly and honestly as the Italians do their nineteen? ➡
    • Blog For Lease Blog for lease (in Bloomington, Indiana). ➡
    • Fight Link Rot! Calpundit has an excellent summary posted on how to link to New York Times articles without having the links succumb to link rot. This should be required reading for all bloggers, IMNSHO — citing sources is important, and it's best if the sources don't later disappear. ➡
    • GeoURL I've just added my GeoURL location identification to my main page — I had it on my old Long Letter blog, but hadn't thought to put it in here on Eclecticism yet. Silly me. ➡
    • Stuff I've Seen Every so often during my time working on the Microsoft campus, I'd see something that really caught my interest. However, I couldn't ever talk about it — NDAs and the like — so I've never mentioned any of them. However, the one that was always at the top of the 'I really wish I had this' list was just announced at Comdex. ➡