Today’s small victory: I closed something like 150 tabs on my iOS devices. I did it because of an annoying longstanding iPadOS Safari bug: if you have a few dozen tabs open, and you force-quit the app, then when you restart the app, it often throws away all of your tabs. I forgot and did […]
This week in my family history project: A Marine World visit; a letter from Peter explaining how much debt we were in; a response from Grandpa George advising us on how to deal with the debt; a letter from Peter and Marcy explaining that the debt wasn’t such a big deal after all. November-ish, 1972 […]
This week in my family history project: two brief postcards, and one longish letter. Also, moving to a new city. (All from fall of 1972.) September 15, 1972 Marcy explains why she was “running around the house yelling Money Money while [Peter] was on the phone.” September 27, 1972 A thank-you note for some napkins, […]
I’m reading a book called Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design, by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. I picked it up a while ago because I’d like to learn at least a little bit more than I know […]
I recently skimmed Asimov’s 1969 story “Feminine Intuition,” the second-to-last-written of the Susan Calvin robot stories. (Written about 12 years after the previous one.) The first three-quarters of the story is full of eye-roll-inducing stuff like this: “[…] call it ‘intuitive.’” “An intuitive robot,” someone muttered. “A girl robot?” A smile made its way about […]
This week in my family history project: some items that aren’t exactly letters, plus one letter. All from mid- to late-1972 (I think). June 23, 1972 A postcard that just has my name written on it. (Written by me, age 4+.) Fall-ish, 1972 Peter’s list of his suggestions for names for “the house where i […]
I’ve finally finished reading Andrew Brown’s A Brief History of Encyclopaedias. I continued to find it both interesting and annoying all the way through. (It’s less than 120 pages long, but it took me a few days to read it because I kept falling asleep. That’s not the book’s fault; I was inexplicably sleepy all […]
This week in my family history project: a letter from me and two from Marcy, all from mid-1972 (I think). May-ish, 1972 In which balloon stationery makes me think of The Red Balloon. June 2, 1972 In which everyone is very busy in the run-up to Peter’s graduation from Berkeley. “ARGH. So much is happening.” […]
Me: I want my code to make this text on the screen invisible. So, right here at the beginning of the function, I have code that hides that text. Everything I can do to test the code says that it’s working. When I run a check right after hiding the text, it tells me that […]
This week in my family history project: three letters from my mother and one probably dictated by me. Mostly written in spring 1972. March 7, 1971 A birthday note to George. “a friend says my handwriting is quite pretty—too bad she can’t read it” I had thought that this one was from 1972, which is […]
Movies and TV shows often show us a view of the main characters through a window (say, looking through a window into a lighted living room from a dark outdoors), or from behind a tree, or otherwise at a little bit of distance. And frequently, when I see such a shot, I interpret it as […]
This week in my family history project: three brief letters, two from my mother and one from me, written in early 1972. January 26, 1972 A brief placeholder postcard about an unsent letter. January 30, 1972 Assorted life updates, including thoughts about Jed and stuffed animals. “sometimes [your presents] sit around for a year or […]