One year ago today: June 3, 2013, worst photo of me ever.
Five years ago today: June 3, 2009, generic post.
DAYTIME
I delved further into celestial navigation. I did so because I found it difficult, but it is starting to thaw. Here’s your new information for today, as always, in a simpler form than you can get from the “experts”. The sextant measures an angle, that is it. But what for? I found out this morning. You need this angle and you need the exact time.
You take the sextant out of the box. When you hear the radio beep, you set the stopwatch to running. Then you look through the sextant mirrors and twiddle the dials until your target (the sun, the moon, etc) just is superimposed to just touch the horizon. That’s your angle. Then you instantly stop the watch. You now have the interval between the radio beep and the instant you took the reading. You add them together. That’s as far as I’ve read and it wasn’t easy reading. My guess is you would now look up this “reading” on some kind of chart, from which you get some kind of map coordinates.
This [material] looked like a quagmire y’day, so the real lesson here is don’t quit easy. It doesn't begin to make sense until you've read it three times.
EVENING
Hello to Italy, today’s top non-US viewing site. I wish the stats would say what town or city, but blog stats are totally obsessed with hit totals.
The world’s oldest pair of trousers is aged 3,000 years. Apparently they’ve never met {insert name here}. That's a joke, right? Insert name of somebody you know with older trousers. Apple has announced a “new” programming language called “Swift”. If it is new, how come it looks like C+, the worst programming language in history? Or how about that new Chinese M-9(?) missile whose guidance system uses American GPS? Is it just me or can anyone else spot the inherent flaw with this arrangement?
I attended the writer’s meet-up this evening. Here is the report but I admit to sounding a bit disappointed, even though I half expected that [would happen]. The good news is you get exposed to a lot of different writing styles, but that is also the bad news. Pardon me for being a stickler, but if you are going to write, there are certain prerequisites. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation come to mind. There is also the aspect of having more than common knowledge about your subject material. I further submit that one learn to change away from the Windows default font of 11-point Calibri. It sucks.
And may I hint that little things matter? Such as knowing how to staple pages together evenly. Centering titles on the page. Indenting the first sentence (which I happen to know an awful lot about). While you can get by without paying much attention to detail, I don’t recommend it.
At least I was not the only non-fiction writer present but even then there is a dividing line. The difference is new information. I do what I can to sound entertaining, but the bottom line is my writing regularly barrages the reader with new information. On the flip side, there are topics which no amount of treatment will ever impart anything new. For example, writing about the woes of the old slave days or how openly prejudiced America used to be. All the major points have been covered to exhaustion. That reduces most anything written today to yet more tedious personal examples. Some may find such reading to be entertaining, but it brings no new knowledge to the table.
The mediator was a former newspaper columnist. I’m certain of it because he repeated that fact more than several times, and he kept a good rein time. Normally each author is allotted 15 minutes, including a question and comment period. It was pointed out that after every pause in my reading, I would ask, “Okay?” before continuing. This was oblivious to me but I know exactly where it came from. Bingo. And I will instantly cure this habit.
Never have I attended such a meeting anywhere, so I was surprised the number of people in the room who recognized me. It took me a long time to place them, but mainly they have seen me in the libraries, Karaoke, bingo, the band, etc. The writer’s diversity is there but some people were definitely writing beyond their own knowledge or experience. I was naturally attracted to the non-fiction, or at least to those topics which were heavily based on fact, like Michener. I found the following the most interesting on tonight’s roster.
√ A description of student life in an art institute in the former Soviet Union.
√ The sad story of a Indian child-bride who threw herself down a well hoping to be reincarnated into a better life, but instead winds up in a coma.
√ In Gary, Indiana, 1906, a foremen gives a welcome speech to new hires at a steel mill, managing to insult every cultural group except northwestern Europeans.
√ A short description on the fact that a housing co-op is not a condo and the rules must be obeyed.
√ Descriptions of two Victorian era couples at their mutual wedding.
I admit to being grouchy about undefined terms. Don’t use a word if you don’t know what it means. Worse, I don’t like nodders, but they are always a majority, those who don’t know the word, but nod and pretend to get it from context. Tonight was amusing, a lady gave a talk about a TEM machine. I glanced around to note most present had no idea what it meant, but they said nothing. Please everyone, write unto the crowd, write in their terms. Exception—when you are writing technical material, in which case you don’t have to start from scratch.
Will I attend next week? Yes, but more out of curiosity. Don’t think I didn’t notice any difference between my presentation (as separate from my writing) and the others. Sure, I was hoping to meet published authors who might suggest potential markets for my material. But it may turn out that I’m the most published in the room. Thirteen people were present. At the cafeteria of Sheridan Tech. The cafeteria staff took an instant liking to me and I got free refills. I needed them. Can't function without my coffee.
Author's note 2015-06-03: TEM can refer to a couple of medical machines, but in this case the lady was a former nurse. She was referring to a "Transmission Electron Microscope". And if it is not clear, a "nodder" is a person who pretends they know what is going on so they won't appear stupid by asking questions. College lecture halls are full of them.
ADDENDUM
Here are some privacy issues spelled out long-hand. This blog is not the voice of secret societies, but I have always been concerned about how the trusting child-like nature of some people causes the loss of personal freedoms for others. I’m not even an extremist on the point, I simply believe if someone wants your information, they should ask you, not the government. It’s a basic tenet of a free people. I cannot abide by those who “volunteer” their information because that forces others into unwilling compliance. If you don’t say no today, you may not be allowed to say it tomorrow.
Well, you can cancel out my recent speed-dating idea. The event is a little too sewn up for me, as in I don’t mind telling the organizers my first name and email address. But you should see the “registration form” they want. I know a credit application when I see one. And if I met the right lady there, I might eventually tell her whence I derive my income, but I hardly think that is something I’d discuss with the sort of people who would run a dating service.
Remember, information in your head is private and a warrant is required to search anything else. But information you give a business becomes a “transaction record” which can be combed and sifted behind your back. You may not have anything to hide, but you should still not give up your right to do so nor insist that others do the same. And you don’t know what you may have wished you’d hidden come the future. I cannot stand people too stupid to understand this basic principle. There is one and only one reason anybody wants to keep a file on you and there is no sense being naïve about it.
Social blackmail has long been a favorite of governments anywhere. They know everybody has something to hide, or something that can be twisted to make a trap for fools. But before the advent of centralized databases, it was expensive as hell to send out agents to find it. Now, it is the touch of a button away. Why would they want dirt on every citizen? In a word, leverage. A single glitch from your background makes you vulnerable today, now that you have more to protect. You go along or your life and career are ruined. They don’t even have to find anything on you, they just need enough to cook up a bad enough accusation.
Not long back, I pointed out the Oregon idiot that told the farmer the rain that fell on his land was not his. Was I prescient or what? The national government is now moving to control the entire water supply right down to the dry riverbeds of Oklahoma. Told ya. There are no new supplies of fresh water on the planet. The idea of a water crisis is not mine, but the spotting of the Oregon incident as the onset of a new regulatory situation was ahead of its time.
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