Tag: PostADay2011

  • Urban Homesteading, Rural Interneting

    … I’m afraid that the subtitle is, “Why we have no soap movie today.” Today, people are peppering the blogosphere with posts about their Urban Homesteading projects. I spent a significant portion of the morning making a movie about making soap, but each 1 minute segment takes about 20 minutes to upload, and I am…

  • Stoking the Unknown Wants

    My internet is slow: It also has 14% packet loss, for those what care about such things, so it is slow, and it stutters. I didn’t know that my internet was slow until the recent foofaraw over internet caps in Canada. But now that I know that my internet is slow, I kind of want…

  • Finding the Holy Grail

    Before Holy Grail, Fix Cars, Ferry Children. After Holy Grail, Fix Cars, Ferry Children This week we finally got to a point that we’ve been working towards for the last twenty years: my husband got tenure. I think that this is an occasion that should include a ceremony involving funny hats, because lacking such ceremony,…

  • Taking a Deep Breath

    On social media conflagrations. OK. Yesterday, I was writing about the moral legitimacy of a particular trademark. Understandably, there has been a social media firestorm over this issue, as people feel that their contributions have been marginalized. In return, the owner of the trademarks has issued a press release accusing the bloggers of the community…

  • How to Build a 1500 Follower Facebook Page in 24 hours

    It turns out to be rather simple: Trademark a common phrase that is primarily used by freethinking radicals. OK. It won’t be your page, but if you want to galvanize a movement and you are willing to be the common enemy, this could be an effective strategy. There is a disturbance in the force today…

  • Winter Wordless Wednesday

    January Sunset One Snowfall (the table was empty before the storm): Digging out the solar panels: I found myself dreaming of summer:

  • Book: Rational Mysticism

    Rational Mysticism? Surely she mistyped. But no, fair readers (I’ve been into the Austen recently), Rational Mysticism it is. I’ll give away the ending, shall I? “Mystical awe is the inverse of knowledge; it is a kind of anti-knowledge. Instead of seeing The Answer to the riddle of existence, you just see how impenetrable the…

  • Moments of Inattention

    We forgot to close up the chicken coop. It is one of our nightly tasks, along with putting children to bed, making dinner, bringing in the firewood. Every night, we must close up the chicken coop. Last night we had people around for dinner, my husband was out for the day, people were coming and…

  • The Ecstasy of the Dance

    … and then, halfway through the evening, the dance floor cleared. And I found myself hovering at the edge of an empty floor, with a great DJ and some hot music, and I finally didn’t care. I didn’t care who was watching, I didn’t care if I could do it, I didn’t care that I…

  • Crab Bucket

    I was reading a Terry Pratchett book the other day (Unseen Academicals) and I came across the phrase, “Oh, it’s all crab bucket down there.” Fortunately, Terry Pratchett was so kind as to explain this to the character in question (although not until later in the book.) It was an expression I hadn’t previously heard,…

  • Little Steps to Home

    Sitting in the lounge at the mechanic’s this morning (don’t ask), I found myself in the company of a friendly sort, an older man who was definitely from here. I know this because as soon as I arrived, he asked me a question, I countered with a book, we chatted for about a minute, and…

  • Pursuing Home

    Where are you from? I never know how to answer the question, “Where are you from?” I’m Canadian. Sometimes (outside Canada) that’s all that is required. But I was born in Scotland to Canadian parents, who are “from” Saint John, New Brunswick. I grew up mostly in Newfoundland, with a brief stint in England, and…