There was an article on best browsers in the Journal [Paywall]. Firefox didn’t even make the list.
Necessary but uninteresting
In writing you often find yourslf doing uninteresting things because if you don’t, the interesting things won’t make sense.
Alice, Bob, and Chay walk into a room for the big fight.
Who’s already in the room? What are they wearing? Where are they sitting? What does the room look like? All that? No one gets excited about blocking, but if you don’t do it, and do it well, the big scenes don’t work.
I read a lot of stuff by people trying to talk about big, tent-pole scenes, sometimes called set pieces, and struggling with the difficulty of it. Battles are like this, but regular fights are too. Often, the author’s struggle is they want to dive into the battle without doing the setup, and that just doesn’t work.
The secret is do it first, do it quickly, and be done.
“Alice walked into the crypt where the Children of Night gathered around a catafalque. They held down an exhausted woman, Isabelle, who had long since spent her energy on useless struggles, and her shouts didn’t escape the old stone. Heaphin stood at her head wearing black robes that seemed to drink in the light, while his Children held Isabelle’s arms and legs. Alice could only see their eyes clearly, fixed on her as she appeared.”
And done. Have some action.
Is Alice going to feed and become a vampire? The scene is set. Is Bob coming in to shoot people with his blood gun? It’s all in the execution. Are other vampires going to come in and fight for power and the victim? Battle on.
But the point is, the setup was quick, clear, and over. Now the author can move on to the fun stuff.
Ads
I don’t understand why ads cover towel characteristics other than how fuzzy it is.
Room
God: And in this room is everyone who could ever love you.
Me, in a totally empty room except for a mirror: Hey there, good looking. (Finger guns)
God: ….right.
Corona
Governments don’t seem to have a lot of control over the spread of the coronavirus. They have influence, and some are doing better than others. But control? Determination? I don’t think much exists.
Opinions pages
There are some angry people out there who write about politics.
Antennas
There’s a thing called a butterfly antenna. It looks like two triangles laid tip to tip, and it’s symmetric.
It is impossible to search for, because butterflies, the insects, have antennas. The entomology world loves taking pictures of butterfly antennas, talking about them, analyzing them, and pushing images of butterfly antennas to children like aggressive science pushers.
So you have to look for something called a bowtie antenna.
It looks nothing like a bowtie.
The only good part of this is that searching lead me to the log periodic antenna, which looks like it’s even better!
Words
Another really good word is etchant. Nice and mysterious. It’s something that etches, typically an acid solution.
Hong Kong
If the US claims to support freedom and democracy, there’s really no justification for not supporting Hong Kong.
I do understand an unwillingness to push matters to the same extent as the USA/USSR cold war. But dialogue and emotional support for the people of Hong Kong fighting for basic freedom is incumbent on our ideals.
I support democracy for Hong Kong.
Status
Two points
1) I like Jeffco Public Library more than Denver Public Library. They’re both good, but Jeffco seemed more willing to let me use their study rooms for free (until the pandemic threw a wrench into everything). Denver has better book selection, and they’ll automatically renew books that go overdue. Both good, but I like Jeffco a little more.
2) The books I hold onto for too long never have waiting lines. How many people really need this edition of Henry V? None. I do miss being able to look at the due date cards and see how often a book has been checked out. It was like peering through time.