I like having tech books around as reference and for ideas (Ruby, Python, Linux, security, style, …). I tried various books apps to use them: bad idea – no way to leaf through them easily on ereaders, although desktop isn’t too bad. I tried hardcopy which is better but bulky. The real problem is obsolescence. Both of the forms are subject to that.

I was a big user of Lynda, but video is just too damn slow to pick up on essentials, and it is also horrible for browsing, and it’s gone into the trashcan since LinkedIn bought it.

I’m now trying oreilly.com. They might have gotten this right. One subscription, no purchases, a boatload of resources. It still has the browsing problem, but I can use the desktop for that, and they add newer titles regularly. It’s not cheap though.

Techo entries for Jan 2 & 3. Phenology entries are for sunrise, sunset, weather, unusual weather events, and any animals observed. Other entries record sleep hours. That’s St. Clare on the right. She’s in charge of marking the current day.

Computing: The Human Experience – The story of computing is the story of humanity.™

RIP Fran Allen. IBM Fellow Emerita.

I’m beginning to really dislike Markdown for technical doc. All of our system’s special values begin with *. Unix-style pathnames contain /. I wish I could turn off the highlighting for those characters in tools like iAWriter, Bear, and Ulysses.

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

The White Queen 💬

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

Benjamin Franklin 💬

I hate edge tiling of windows.

I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, ‘What are you?’

– Grace Hopper 💬

Chaos is a friend of mine – Bob Dylan 💬

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. – Alan Turing 💬

I’m finding that the photos I’m posting for this February challenge are from my everyday life. They’re not art by any means, but tell stories about things or people I encounter that fit the prompt, maybe with a little twist. I think I’ll stay on that track.

Something’s gotta give. I can either continue to fiddle with blot or just go whole hog with micro.blog. I like blot a lot, but once you start playing with your own themes, well, it turns into a time suck.

Is @blot down? I’m getting time-out and cert errors.

My ##mbnov story has taken a life of its own. I blame @amit 😁. I’ll continue to post until I reach some resolution but I’m removing the tag. I have no aspirations to include fiction writing in my retirement activities and that’s probably a good thing.

I was considering submitting these flash fiction episodes to the 2020 Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, but the rules state that they have to be previously unpublished. Just my luck.

I have been freed from the tyranny of #mbnov words!

Actually, it was fun trying to find ways to fit them into the story line. Constraints can force one to be creative and there were many times the word changed the story arc. I was thinking only about a post ahead the whole time.

It’s a good thing MicroBlogVember has been extended. There’s no way I could wrap up this story in time otherwise. Thanks @Macgenie!

I’m running icro on Catalina. I didn’t even realize it was the iOS app running under Catalyst until I tried to find it in the Mac App Store for Mojave. The only issue was that It wasn’t immediately obvious how to do replies. Kudos to @hartlco.

There was no way I could integrate today’s word into the story. #mbnov

Only a few more days left in microblogvember. I need be wrapping this story up. How the heck am I going to do that?

You could say that some of my microblogvember story posts are a little forced and you’d be right. This one felt a bit like square peg and round hole. Nevertheless, I will persevere! 😂

@amit Interesting. These flash fiction posts are a little challenging to write and keep a thread. I have a general idea of bits to include but find it nearly useless to write anything ahead of @macgenie’s prompt words.