Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 304

The Pleasures of Idleness

I understand there is pleasure in idleness.  I understand because OTHER PEOPLE tell me so.

Maybe it is something like sleeping.  I used to hear there was pleasure in sleeping, but I never fully believed it.  Sleeping is what happened when I ran out of energy, and it was done reluctantly.  Ever since I was a little kid, I felt when I slept, a portion of my life was stolen.  So I hated it.

Then I had kids.  The times I could lie down and JUST sleep were like gifts from the gods, and the greates...

Io9 gets it wrong again. – William Lehman

Io9 gets it wrong again. – William Lehman

In this ever-changing world in which we live, it’s nice that there are a few absolutes.  Like Walmart is always vilified, Starbucks coffee is always over roasted, and io9 can’t get it right to save their ass.  In the Navy, we had a scale for questions and answers. From 4.0 knows and explains answer when asked, on down…2.5 if I remember right, was recognizes right answer when prompted.

Poor little io9 can’t even score that.  In an article based on an i...

Give Away the Bigger Portion

I was a greedy child.  No, seriously.  Looking at the pictures of me as a little kid, all legs, teeth and eyes, you wouldn’t know I had to have a lot of lectures on not taking the better portion of (whatever) when we had guests.

Last time I was back in Portugal, I was talking to my dad and he got into his early years of marriage.  Dad is an enlightened male, particularly for his time and Portugal.  (Yes, he still has weird stuff, like it’s not manly to carry plastic bags, but that’s because h...

A Little Bit of Promo in your Life & Vignettes by Luke, ‘Nother Mike and Mary Catelli

A Little Bit of Promo in your Life by Free Range Oyster Pam Uphoff First Posting The Directorate Book 4

That difficult first job! Sometimes it’s what you wanted, sometimes it’s not. But with a willing attitude maybe it won’t be disastrous… maybe.

Ra’d, Ebsa, and Paer have graduated, and they are determined to get Across, to explore new parallel worlds, just a step through a transdimensional gate away. Unfortunately they’ve pissed off just about everyone, so they’ll have to take what they are...

Almost the End of the World

There is a story by Ray Bradbury called “Almost the End of the World” and it’s one of my favorites for two reasons.  The first is that it ends in the line “Chicago, Pearl of the Orient, here I come.”  The second is that the posited reason for the world “ending” was the end of television transmission.  Or, given the mechanism and updating, internet too.

No, neither of those would be a good thing, but it amused me A LOT because of what he implied: that if you removed TV and by extension interne...

The First Stone

Some of you might be wondering why I get so worked up over relatively unpopular or strange cases and why I invariably take the position of defending incredibly flawed individuals.

I was thinking about it myself yesterday.

I can’t remember, and I’m too lazy to look it up, whether I defended the guy who made the movie “The Innocence of Muslims” — I can’t remember his name now — you know the guy that our entire government decided, apropos nothing to blame for the Benghazi attacks, arrest, drag t...

United Airlines and the Internet Mob – by Amie Gibbons

*This post ran previously at Amie’s blog.  She makes some points I didn’t.  I’ll be back tomorrow.*

United Airlines and the Internet Mob – by Amie Gibbons

We all know the United Airlines story by now. It’s a tale of woe, of a man trying to get home, an airline at the mercy of federal regulations and just trying to survive the internet mob sicced on it by those silly peons who think they have the right to something if they pay for it.

Yeah, if you can’t tell by my intro where I’m going wi...

Flying Blind

One of the recurring themes of this blog is “how companies, particularly those used to having control over their customers adapt/not to the new world of communications, the new world of technology that empowers the individual.”

Yes, you do know exactly where this is going.

My name is Sarah A. Hoyt, and I fly.  I don’t fly often — anymore — and I don’t fly with much degree of enjoyment because I was always rather afraid of flying.  (Afraid is not the right term.  I hate not being in control.)

...

Snippet from A Small Medium at Large by Stephanie Osborn

Snippet from A Small Medium at Large by Stephanie Osborn

Snippet from A Small Medium at Large by Stephanie Osborn, available for pre-order at Amazon now, e-book delivery on April 11, trade paper on April 25.

 

When Ke’ri Gla’d’s caught a cab at her hotel to head for the Machpelah Cemetery late on Halloween, she was unaware that a certain black Lexus, some distance behind, was following her to that same destination.

“Not too near, not too far,” Romeo said to India, as he drove down the street...

Free Trade

Years ago, I attended a workshop in which the well known, award winning editor told us his job was to filter the submissions and choose the best for his readers.

So far so good.  We have people here, including me, who have read slush, and of course, no magazine no publishing house, no newspaper or even newsletter could survive long if you just took whatever came in over the transom and put it out for people.

[And no, before you say anything, no, most of these things AREN’T going straight to I...