Old Favorites Resurfacing, Purposeful Work, Music, and a Very Chill Sloth

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Busy and stressful day (which ones aren’t, right?) so the bulk of the feed is just kind of distraction and nostalgia.

Good news is, some of that nostalgia is for creators that are putting out new work for the first time in a while. Faith No More announced it’s first new album in 18 years and Flight of the Conchords may be coming back to HBO after being gone for far too long. Oh, and the director’s cut of Nightbreed is starting to get advertised in places (my copy is already pre-ordered).

Amid all that an article about how doing purposeful work leads to better everything all around. I don’t find that all that difficult to believe. When I was both excited and engaged with my work, when I felt it had a clear, distinct, and necessary purpose, everything went more smoothly. Not flawlessly, mind you, but the bumps didn’t feel quite as disruptive and there was a much cleaner sense of accomplishment when all was said and done.

These days, since I’ve kind of lost all sense of purpose (also still trying to find it or something similar, so don’t worry too much), I’d much rather be spending my days (and nights) like the sloth you’ll find in the feed. Just kind of laying back chowing down on.. stuff.

Anyway, here’s the feed…

Good Ol’ Al, Water Woes in Detroit, Old Blood, Workplace Hijinks, and Some Good Ideas

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’m really not sure where my evening went.

I got home and sat down in front of the computer. Watching the piled up YouTube videos from my feed, and started working on a few different things. At some point I know I made it through another episode of Salem on Hulu…

But, really, I don’t have a whole lot to show for whatever work I did. That’s one of the more frustrating things about the work I do. The progress is sometimes utterly invisible until right near the end.

Then everything suddenly pops right out.

It’s a bit disheartening at times and utterly frustrating when trying to prove that there’s actually things being done (to yourself or others). Sure there’s code and a few adjusted things here or there, maybe a new piece of content (Hey! That’s something! Right?)… but, ultimately, nothing that looks all that impressive.

Regardless of what effort was put into it.

All the planning and experimentation and research just kind of is. Not flashy, not always in a form that anyone would actually understand even if you could show it to them. But it’s there… and its important… and, some of it, at least, is now more done than it was before.

I think.

This is a problem that I think is somewhat unique to writers and coders. Visual artists can end up with sketches and piles of crumpled paper covered in attempts. People building physical objects end up with scrap material and prototypes and callouses. Those of us who just type? We have hours of “lost” time… and then we have a finished, working, project.

Usually just in time to have revisions that need to go into place.

Come to think of it, my day at the office was exactly like my evening at home.

~sigh~

I think I may need a vacation…

On with the feed…

Tesla Awesomeness, Classic American Musicals, Good Superhero News, and Homestar

I was moderately successful in the music theme I wanted to have going today. I didn’t get to quite as many posts about it as I’d wanted, but that was mostly due to not having time to hunt through my feed for more interesting stuff to put between the clips.

I’d sure like to know what’s generating all the heat in this apartment. It’s near 80 degrees in here… it’s in the mid-60s outside… and the A/C (which was on because it was raining outside, which kind of precludes leaving the windows open) can’t even keep up. The oven’s off. Everything else generates negligible amounts of heat (definitely not enough to warm up the room this much–it wasn’t happening in the fall or winter).

Pretty sure that leaves the HVAC unit itself as what’s generating more heat than it can handle.

That’s just… problematic.

Guess I’ll have to put in a call about that sometime soon. Maybe next week when the summer weather plays hide-and-seek with us.

Anyway, there’s a bunch of music in the feed… go enjoy it.

Just a Whole Lot of Stuff

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I meant to update Thursday… and even Friday… but… well… it was a holiday weekend and I figured I’d use it to catch up on things.

And by “things”, it turns out I meant all those games I bought during the Steam sale. Because I really didn’t do much else for most of that long weekend.

The feed from Thursday features a bunch of music (via YouTube) because I was in a classic rock kind of Throwback Thursday mood.

Then there were all sorts of questionable political things that went on (or kept going on, as the case may be), as well as some astounding (both in good ways and bad ways) social stuff.

So, this extra long rundown is a real mixed bag. Kind of like life.

Bad Dice, Blackwater, Continued Hobby Lobby Hubbub, Nature, and a Little Fan Service

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The two big bits of news that were bouncing around today were the Supreme Court’s decision in the case for Hobby Lobby regarding whether it should have to pay for insurance plans that cover contraception and the recently released documents that show just how messed up the U.S. relationship with “freelance security” firm Blackwater was.

Both of these stories point toward different, yet similar, machinations that go on when powerful ideologies get involved and sensibility takes a back seat to making a point.

In the Hobby Lobby case, it seems the only reason they’ve suddenly started to care about what insurance their employees have is because they’re against the healthcare reform act that was passed. They’re needling their way into nooks and crannies that were left open in the law as part of the eviscerating “negotiations” that had to take place in order to get it moved through congress.

In the Blackwater case, it’s about a company given far too much power in a war zone and how that power was abused. Many Blackwater employees and management staff seem to have thought that they were above the law… and, it seems, some of them may have been right.

Both of these are playing games with the lives of people outside of the debate–Hobby Lobby’s employees (who are just trying to make a living and stay healthy) and the U.S. and Iraqi people who were harassed, threatened, and in some cases murdered by Blackwater.

Now, undoubtedly, the Blackwater situation was a lot more immediately serious, but the Supreme Court decision on the Hobby Lobby case opens up a more insidious can of worms. With Blackwater, you had a bunch of hooligan with guns doing as they please. Worst case scenario there is they end up on the other side of the list for the U.S. military–as targets instead of assistants. Pretty cut and dried when you really get down to it. The Supreme Court decision, though, seems to open the door to all sorts of denials of service based on an amorphously defined religious preference and privilege.  That’s the sort of thing that can quietly accrue bits of case law here and there for months or years before there’s someone with enough time and resources to challenge it… and in that time, it can touch thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives.

It’s going to be interesting (and, I’m suspecting, unpleasant) to watch both of these situations play out now that they’ve come to light and are on the table for discussion.