ope...a life serial.13
She's Not There cover by Yonaka
Tsunami Warning for, basically, the entire coast of every continent on the Pacific Ocean due to the "8.8 magnitude temblor" in Russia's far east.
Because math is groovy, the U.S. Tsunami Warning System was able to predict how high the tsunami would be and when it would hit.
Evidently tsunamis can travel across the Pacific Ocean at 500mph. It still takes half a day or more for the tsunami to cross the Pacific.
Good advice is to stay off the beaches and above the "Leaving the Tsunami Zone" lines/waves painted on all the streets around here.
The prediction for Lincoln City was a tsunami of less than a foot to hit at 11:55pm PST. We decided to go to bed rather than head to a neighbor's on the cliffs overlooking the ocean to watch it.
Slowly gathering all my old site stuff I can find and putting it in the archivio.antico. A trip down memory lane.
A little preview from a couple decades ago:
The delight of getting your sense of smell back after days of being sick; the distress of it happening at the public library.
Sunday 03 August 2025
Miles ridden this week: 440. Rediscovering some paved(ish) back roads I haven't been on in years.
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Hours writing: 0. Blech. Excuse du jour? Trying to get the archivio.antico sorted - will take a while.
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Notable patron interactions from the previous week:
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Interview with the public library in Flagstaff, AZ. Another cool place. Just like last week, still not sure about pay cut (only ~$25k/yr this time around) and what effect it would have on pension and potential retirement. The conundrum: do we settle for the pretty nifty life we have here and travel lots or possibly hurt our chances of retirement but move around every few years.
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Stopped taking two of my four allergy shots a month ago. Starting to feel the negative effects of that decision. Fingers crossed things don't get too bad.
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Father memory: We had a football game we'd play: make it across the big back yard (about 30 meters) in four passing plays, then three passing plays, then two passing plays, then in one passing play.
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Snowflake memory: slow blinks.
The U.S. government tried denying James Joyce's Ulysses "admittance into the United States." The government's motion was for a decree of forfeiture and destruction. The judge read the book to determine what was what. Here's some of what he said about it.
It would've been too difficult for a jury to read it:
It seems to me that a procedure of this kind is highly appropriate in libels such as this for the confiscation of books. It is an especially advantageous procedure in the instant case because, on account of the length of "Ulysses" and the difficulty of reading it, a jury trial would have been an extremely unsatisfactory, if not an almost impossible method of dealing with it.
The judge liked and loathed the book:
Furthermore, "Ulysses" is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, "Ulysses" is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure, by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.
Ulysses was sexy but not sexy:
...reading "Ulysses" in its entirety, as a book must be read on such a test as this, did not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts, but that its net effect on them was only that of a somewhat tragic and very powerful commentary on the inner lives of men and women..."Ulysses" may, therefore, be admitted into the United States.
In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were personally interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercial pages that overcrowded everything else. All the personalized websites are hidden among a pile of commercial pages. Google isn't great at finding them, its focus is on finding answers to technical questions, and it works well; but finding things you didn't know you wanted to know, which was the real joy of web surfing, no longer happens. In addition, many pages today are created using bloated scripts that add slick cosmetic features in order to mask the lack of content available on them. Those pages contribute to the blandness of today's web.
The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. In addition, Wiby helps vintage computers to continue browsing the web, as pages indexed are more suitable for their performance.
Man. So uncool. I tried rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the last couple nights.
I couldn't do it.
Didn't enjoy it.
I mean, it was neat to see the characters again. Actors did a great job acting. Characters were nifty. Sisko? Great! Garak? Fabulous! Dukat? Love to hate to love him! Kira? Spicy! Dax? Fun!
But, I just didn't care? I can't decide if it's because the plots seemed so contrived (and I know it's always been that way) or if it's because it's such an accurate reflection of what's happening today (we're living it, yo), but I just couldn't.
Watched the first six episodes. Skipped around a bit in seasons two and three. Watched the first couple episodes when Sisko shaved his head. Dominion war! Founders! Maquis! Klingons!
Nothing.
It's a sad, sad day, my friends. A sad day, indeed.
No jury duty for me.
Disqualification Request Result - Lincoln County Circuit Court Your disqualification was granted. You're no longer required to report for jury. For questions, please contact the court.