Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 154

The Sofa And The Cat’s Tail

I wonder if humans were always so prone to thinking “if we can control everything from one central point, that will save time and money and make everything perfect” or if where we are is a deformation from generations taught this fallacy which is at the heart of socialism/communism/totalitarianism.

As much as I like blaming everything on Marx (the fact that there is no dedicated pissoir installed on his grave is a reproach on our civilization) the truth is that there was this kind of insa...

On Being Useful

Somewhere, in a notebook from when I was maybe 12 or 13 which, if the fates are merciful, has gotten eaten by Portuguese rats (last found in the potato cellar at mom’s house, with a ton of my other stuff from that time. In a box. Note I didn’t bring it with me. No complaints) was a phrase penned with great solemnity by adolescent Sarah: The important thing is not to be happy. The important thing is to be useful for something.

Now, look, it wasn’t even a bad idea for a creature caught in a...

The Creating Mind

Before we get off the ground on this post, let’s establish that no, no one creates anything ex nihilo. Or as one of the prime examples of the people we’ll be talking about said “you didn’t build that.” (Turns out he’d stolen that phrase from one of our current afflictions as is, and she’d probably stolen it from someone else. Which is rather a telling point.) That phrase is in fact at the crux of the divide in America and probably a bigger problem than any other, because I think the others f...

I’m alive

More later. Sorry. I forgot I had an eye appointment. We go to same doctor we have gone to for 30 years, which means Colorado Springs. And the roads are terrible and traffic worse. So I just got home and have a ton of things to deal with I should have done this morning.

Maybe more later, but for now, please forgive me.

At Virtual Liberty Con

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I am on a panel on writing totalitarian societies, and attempting to cause trouble on discord, but everyone else are responsible adults, alas

How to Solve America’s Immigration Problem(and Save the World as a Side Effect) – By Frank

*I think Frank’s Guest Post has enough validity to be published here and discussed here, but I have some quibbles with it. Not enough to be “disagreements” as such, but serious quibbles, so I am going to list them:

1- True a wall won’t keep TRULY DETERMINED immigrants away. However, most immigrants (unless bizarrely desperate) aren’t THAT determined. Most people — trust me on this — don’t want to go to a strange place and live there. We don’t need an absolute barrier, we need a DISCOURAGING b...

Getting Drafted * With Footnotes.

We were all drafted into wars we didn’t begin*. A war, that if you’re a believer of certain religions, might very well have started with a serpent in a lush garden, either literally or metaphorically.**

We are born into a place and time we didn’t make and our life will be influenced by decisions taken by others, far away and long ago. ***

Things are certainly not what your parents would want for you. Judging by myself and what I want for my boys, that’s flat out impossible, because I ...

Doing What You Need To

Sometimes it’s important to know why you’re failing.

No, seriously. And it’s important to admit when it’s something, if not external to you, so intrinsic to you that you can’t do a hell of a lot about it.

Not as an excuse, but as an engineering problem. And so that you can figure out how to go back and this time not fail.

I have problems with this. My kids have problems with this. My husband has problems with this. Most of my friends have problems with this. This is why I decided t...

Follies, Chainsaws and Garages

You know what garages are like. You keep things there. Things like weird old stuff, old car parts, empty computer boxes, chainsaws, corpses….

Okay. Probably not corpses. Except mouse corpses, which weird out younger son.

We still haven’t found a place to move to. We have found places we might/could but only if we have to. and we’re giving it till the fourth of July for the perfect house to come up before we settle for one of those.

But it’s time to get the h*ll out of Colorado — an...

Multi-Culti (Still Tutti Frutti)

Yesterday I recorded one of the pre-recorded panels for the virtual Liberty Con (next weekend.)

I must warn anyone who sees me, I’m not a zombie and I didn’t suddenly age 40 years. Mostly there was a confusion with the time of the panel, so I was on 4 hours of sleep after a very crazy 2 days. (Yes, I stopped coloring my hair. I planned to wait till I was 60, but the stupid covidiocy made my hair turn white, or would if it hadn’t been white since I was 28. So, whatevs. I do however look A...