Month: August 2011

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Not Just Sloppy Writing

The two people credited in a byline for an article that included the following should be whipped with a dangling participle, along with any editor who passed on their work:

“…the recently re-ignited 40-year-old cold case that has haunted the FBI for years.”

?!? OK, I don’t get paid to write anything, but even I know that is unnecessarily awkward. How about, “…the recently re-ignited cold case that has haunted the FBI for 40 years” instead? It’s even easier to write than the other, too. Clarity, simplicity, brevity: watchwords for reporters to observe carefully, IMO.

Of course, now that I think of it, where would the “journalists” of today find such writing to emulate? (And I’ll admit they’d not find it here, but then I don’t take anyone’s money for this gig.)

Just another small piece of the “literacy means more than just being able to painfully puzzle out those weird chicken scratches on paper” puzzle, along with idiot Hiveminders who don’t know such things as the difference between “affect” and “effect” or “than” and “then” (and don’t pretend you haven’t seen such abortions of literacy in print or heard them from Podpeople Pie Holes).

Such people don’t even qualify as subliterates in my book. That would be giving them too much credit.

OK, OK, these sorts of things have been around forever, I suppose. I just notice them more and more often nowadays. But… re-reading (and taking very little time to do so *heh*) a book from the so-called “Golden Age of Science Fiction” authored by one of its pillars, I ran across,

“…according to their desserts.”

Where the author meant, “according to their deserts.”

Yes, the first instance is incorrect and the second is correct. Check me, if you wish. I’ll wait. 🙂

OK, back now?

Now, that incorrect word usage may have been a slip of the typewriter 61 years ago, though since I’m conversant with this author’s work in print, and he was more literate than 99% of fair-to-middlin’-to-pretty darned good contemporary authors, even given the space opera-ish tone of his work, I suspect an error in transcription crept in along the way to the eBook edition.

And naturally, it went flying right past any proofreader or editor with nary a pause.

Chaps my gizzard, it does… *heh*

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Cry Me a River

It’s called SUMMER, for those crybabies who can’t deal with the heat. Of course, it’d help if Weatherbuggy and others would get their forecasts closer. *heh*

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A Kid Again

In 1959, we were a single income family, even though both of my parents were college graduates. My dad was making decent money working in a field not known for particularly good incomes. Still with five children, the budget was sometimes a tad tight. So, when my folks decided to buy a World Book Encyclopedia with all the trimmings, including ten years of “yearbooks” and a large (no, REALLY large, “library-sized”) two-volume dictionary set, our lil family library grew by almost 25% overnight, and I found my backup reading material for the next few years.

Yes, there was always at least one volume of the set under my bed, close enough for a night time “sneak read”. Sometimes, it was just one of the two dictionary volumes (yes, for reading), but most often it was just a volume chosen according to some topic that had caught my fancy, then kept for further reading as one article led to another and another and…

And that’s how I get to be a kid again. For the last 18 years the web has been my go-to reading material for times when I’ve exhausted my stash of new books. It’s also been my substitute for an encyclopedia, since I never run out of things to learn. And thanks to my *cough* encyclopedic reading habits over the years, I have a skill set and basic knowledge base that allows me to filter out most crap.

And the resources–good quality resources–are effectively limitless, now, and not confined to one book case. Heck, I find myself re-reading classics online that are in a book case that’s literally within the reach of my right hand as I type these words.

And on top of being a library with more than enough resources to keep me in learning material for life, the web’s a source of amusement (dumbasses a-plenty to poke fun at! Yipee! *heh*), entertainment (I have a full movie list at Crackle, for example), contemporary information (I’ll not say it’s “news”) and interpersonal interactions.

But most of all, it’s a resource just jam packed with information that’s either new to me or in a new format that makes sense in a different way or old information that’s fun to re-read, review and cogitate over.

Sweet. Kid. In a candy store. Unlimited candy budget.

*sigh* I’ve entered my second childhood.

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Assiti Shard Challenge

So Baen has a “challenge” out to readers. The prizes? Get red-shirted in an upcoming Eric Flint novel and receive a complete set of the 1632 “Ring of Fire” eBook series.

Not bad. Of course, I only lack one of the series, so far, so that’s not a biggie, but getting killed off in an Eric Flint novel might be… novel.

So what’s the challenge? Given a 10-mile diameter “Assiti Shard” that displaces either forward or backward in time from 2011, come up with a story proposal. You know: place transported, people, where transported, conflict, etc.

The problem for me is this: it’d be really interesting if a 10-mile diameter area centered around where I took Son&Heir on a country drive here in America’s third world county were transported back in time just 100 years… to the same place. The interesting thing to me would be the situation: how long would it take the people living in this area to discover they’d traveled back in time 100 years? I’m betting on an average of a year, but some might never find out… No. I’m serious. *heh* (You’d really have to know the area I’m talking about. “Piney woods” just doesn’t capture the flavor… )
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OK, the Assiti Shard books and stories, beginning with 1632, are generally just fun reads. But the more extensively read one is in history, especially European history and particularly the Renaissance, the more fun the tales will be.

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Am I a Cynic?

Just saw the opening to a cop show. If this were real life, I could see some sense in wiping out the gene pool that comprised the “sympathetic” characters.

Car stops by kid walking home from school. She gets in the car with a total stranger. (Too stupid to live.) Behind the car, her brother rides up on a bicycle. Hears his sister scream, sees her in the car. What does he do? He gets off his bicycle and starts running after the car! What?!? He was On! A! Bicycle! (Too stupid to live.)

The writers and director should be terminated. They’ve obviously already lobotomized themselves.

Everybody (but me, the UNintended audience) is frantic! Agitated music and all that! The search is on!

And I’m bored already. I can hardly wait for good news that the fictional lil girl will not be passing on her genetic material to another generation of fictional characters. Please let it be so! (But I’m not holding my breath… or watching the rest of this drivel.)

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Frying Dinner on the Sidewalk Tonight

Forecast for today said high of 97°F. Dam*ed lying Weatherbuggy. The current report from the high school’s weather station is slightly higher in temp…

Well, now that the actual temp is DOWN from 111°F, the heat index of 115°F seems OK, right? Right?

Oh, dear. Spoke a bit too soon. After burning myself on the table saw out on the deck, I decided to check again:

And "downtown's on fire, man"

Again, if weather forecasts are this inaccurate from one day to the next, even IF the global warmistas’ Cult of Anthropogenic Global Climate Scare-ism models hadn’t already been shot full of holes, I’d still have no reason to place any confidence in them, now would I? At least not confidence enough to further wreck the global economy with their proposed “remedies” for “problems” they’ve not offered anything more than failed computer models to support..

Meanwhile, it’s hot. It’s called “Summer”. I remember it from last year about this time. *heh*

And speaking of heat and summer and all that jazz, as I have been, how can I neglect to link this (via Sister Nicole) and give a hearty and soul felt “AMEN! Preach on brother!”

(One small cavil about The Church of The Blessed Evaporator: w/o AC, Congress wouldn’t meet so often and make so much trouble, and “feddle gummint bureaucraps” wouldn’t have all those nice, air conditioned offices from which to work their deeds of iniquity. Sad that such a boon to humanity can be perverted so… *sigh*)