Tag Archives: writing

Affordable Housing, Role Playing Games, Legal Wranglings, Inspiration, Tragedy, and Everything Since Friday

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This entry is part 65 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Yeah, apparently I’m skipping Friday updates more often than not. I should stop that. Actually stick to my own schedule.

One of the big topics that ended up being discussed today in the stream was the whole rich/poor divide and the idea of affordable housing… spawned by an article about a new building in NYC that’s going to have a separate entrance for it’s less privileged residents (who they agreed to take in so they could get a tax break, mind you).

The topic of “affordable housing” comes up frequently here in Maryland. Particular in Silver Spring. The issue is a little different than it is in places like NYC.

Here we have the problem of people building a lot of expensive housing that is then bought/rented by people who mostly work and play in DC. This leaves people who work in Silver Spring (which has a wide diversity of jobs and pay rates) unable to afford to live there (in some cases), pushing them farther out where public transportation is less viable, leading to a bit of a traffic problem and a bit of a parking problem (which leads to all sorts of other problems… like local businesses being able to do solid business because people can’t get to/part at them easily or actual residents not being able to find parking/get around easily during the day).

A number of members of the community here are very interested in trying to build and maintain an actual community. One that’s vibrant at all times during the day…. not just during rush hour. What’s been in place has been slowly slipping away as development has boomed and busted a few times. (Most of what’s being built are one or two bedroom apartments/condos… not conducive to people with families, encouraging more transient people who go elsewhere to put down actual roots.)

It’s an interesting situation. A problematic one. And one I know I haven’t come up with a good solution to (mainly because I’ve got some very mixed feelings about all the affordable housing solutions I have seen–some of which were laid out in the article that Nancy shared–but some of those concerns are at odds with my desire to have poor people actually treated as people, since I’ve seen that be one of the best ways to help someone get back on their feet).

Needless to say, a number of people disagree with me on a lot of those points.

I’m okay with that.

Like I said, I don’t have an answer, so the discussion obviously needs to keep going on somewhere.

Here’s the extra long feed (which contains a few interesting discussions or starting points, so you should check it out)…

Cultural Perspective, Political Wranglings, a Really Big Hole, and Some Humor

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This entry is part 63 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

My brain is feeling particularly fried and unfocused tonight… bit of a busier day at work than expected plus not enough sleep last night leads to that, I guess.

So the “additional content” part of the feed is going to be even more lame than it’s been lately.

Sorry ’bout that…

Short Short Stories, Green Fetish, Warp Speed, Color Capture, He Says He Didn’t Know, Russian Homophobia, and ER Perspective

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This entry is part 44 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Amid the slightly less hectic waves of work, I had the chance to read a couple of interesting–and infuriating–news articles today.

One of the big ones was about Archbishop Robert Carlson, one of the far too many higher-ups in the Catholic Church who were involved with the whole child sex abuse scandal. According to him, he doesn’t remember when he figured out having sex with kids was illegal.

As a friend of mine put it in their own stream: “Sex out of wedlock: SIN! Sex with someone of the same gender: MORTAL SIN! Sex with a kid: Gee, I just don’t know… could be okay, I guess, maybe.”

And then people wonder why I have no respect at all for the temporal body of The Church.

Thankfully, I know enough good Catholics–ones who actually live decent lives and are properly critical of their leaders–that I have yet to descend into the full-on hate of the religion itself.

One of the other big ones is about the institutionalized homophobia that’s now in place throughout Russia. Gay rights groups–really, any group in any way affiliated with the whole GLBT population–are being deemed “foreign agents.” That basically means, as far as the government is concerned, they are subversive, enemy organizations. The powers that be have taken to applying pressure to other agencies–banks, landlords, etc.–reminding them that dealing with foreign agents can get them on that list, too.

This has, of course, lead to the gay rights groups not being able to do things like renew their leases, maintain bank accounts, or, for those who are affiliated with the groups, hold down other jobs.

That right there is example enough to remind us all why we fight so hard for the equal rights under the law that we enjoy in this country. And why we need to keep fighting any time those rights are infringed upon.

It makes me sad that modern Russia seems well on its way to being the bundle of bad examples that the Soviet Union was when I was growing up, before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Apparently, everything old is new again. Can’t say I like it.

Science, Madness, Ice Cream Truck Music History, Slowly Impending Doom, and More

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This entry is part 26 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’m really not much of a programmer.

Yes, my job title technically does have “developer” in it, but I’m really not happy when I have to build things from scratch. I much prefer to mix already working things together in ways that get the job done in a quick and effective manner. Hopefully something that’s at least “close enough” at worst.

That’s not always possible.

And that’s what I’ve been dealing with at work on this one project.

Because I’m not much of a programmer, there’s no single language that I’m awesome with. At best, I’m mediocre with a few. And when it comes to some things, I’m really not that good at all. So I run into a lot of problems as I’m trying to get things to do things they don’t normally do.

But! I do have my own way of working through things. A lot of it relies on letting my subconscious bang it’s head against the issue while I occupy my conscious mind with something else (like, say Facebook, or another project).

Nine times out of ten, the solution pops into my head in less than an hour (sometimes much sooner). Sometimes it’s not the whole solution, but it’s enough of a perspective changer to shake loose the right fix from the aether (you know, where all computer programs already exist, right?).

On the surface it doesn’t look particularly “worky” or efficient. But it is terribly effective most of the time. Mainly because I’ve been using a similar method to work through all sorts of other problems–both life and work related–for a couple of decades now.

Compared to the times when I try to “buckle down” and solve problems like we’re told we always should–in some iterative, methodical way that other people can understand–things get done in about the same amount of time (if not more quickly) and I don’t get particularly stressed out about it. (When I’m actively banging my conscious head against a problem, the stress level just skyrockets and, eventually, totally gets in the way of coherent thought… which isn’t all that productive.)

The process basically goes like this:

  • Identify the problem
  • Do a bit of research (so I’m sure I know that there’s no simple solution out there)
  • Set the subconscious on the task
  • Fiddle around with other things for a while
  • Immediately switch gears when the solution pops in
  • Implement to solution
  • If it works, awesome… if not, see how it’s changed the problem
  • Repeat if necessary

So, yeah, that’s what I’ve spent most of my work life doing… especially when it comes to programming.