Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 77

The Still, Small Voice Of Writers A Blast From The Past from January 2011 Annotated

The Still, Small Voice Of Writers A Blast From The Past from January 2011 Annotated

Continuing my view of the coming of ebooks, I’d like to go into the good things brought by ebooks first.

[I’d forgotten people were terrified of ebooks. Eh. I guess some still are – SAH]

This is important. There’s a feeling of doom and gloom in the air. Publishers tell us daily they’re on the verge of collapse *because* of ebooks. (This is not exactly true, in my opinion. Look both at yesterday’s post...

The State Of the Writer, or September?

This could be titled “another year up the spout.”

It’s not true, not quite. But I thought it was time for a state of the writer post, because ya’ll start worrying about me, when things fall behind and I don’t meet even self-imposed deadlines.

So, I’m all right. The problem has been I haven’t had a sleep study in seven years. Mostly because it’s a pain and I haven’t got around to scheduling one. There have been more serious health issues in the family and I’ve been hounding people to ge...

Killing Me Softly

Yesterday, on twitter — yeah, I only go there for five minutes, morning and evening, to echo my posts, but sometimes it’s enough to hit my face on some kind of stupid — I came across someone, almost for sure European, screaming at a friend.

My friend had commented on the idiot desire by the current maladministration to raise our taxes. My friend was particularly — as he should be — exercised about progressive taxes, a system that always ends up punishing the middle class (of course) and w...

The F-word by MaryH10000

The F-word by MaryH10000

I used to think feminism was a synonym for women’s rights. I don’t any more. Many people still do.

According to Wikipedia, “Most western feminist historians contend that all movements working to obtain women’s rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.” [emphasis mine]

Of course feminist historians do. They don’t care whether I consider myself a feminist or not. No one is against giving wom...

Knowledge of Good And Evil

I probably shouldn’t expect anyone forty or so, no matter what supposed position of authority to know anything about how economics works. Even those who — as this one did — announces they’re not socialist and communist have their brain eaten up by all the Marxist cr*p they were fed in school.

I know because I was fed the same, and it took till my mid forties and a lot of reading to thoroughly rid myself of it.

However one of these days I’m going to stand up in church and correct the se...

Meme Like You Mean it

The Chosen Ones

The night before last, as I tried to write the next installment in the serialized novels, I ran aground on lack of words.

For background, we were on a trip for a week, came back late on Wednesday, had to figure out medical appointments for tomorrow and have (I HOPE) resolved the insurance fight. (I hate it when the insurance tries to provide medical care instead of my doctor, you know? And it’s now the third or fourth time. Being treated by actuaries is particularly bad for Odds because, ...

There Is No Going Back Home

Three things to point out before I start the post:

First, the left is acting as though it could lose this coming election. Maybe it’s just their fear and their guilty conscience and they really have it sewn up anyway. This is possible.

Second, if DeSantis were nominated I would of course vote for him over Biden. Yes, I have very profound doubts about him, mostly proceeding from the reason people desperately want him. No, not the reason they say. The reason they REALLY want him, with d...

Ignorance is not Bliss By David Bock

Ignorance is not Bliss By David Bock

For those that think high school students protesting things they don’t understand is anything new, back in the mid-1980s I experienced my fellow students protest the forming of a military history club. This happened at one of the most prestigious science high schools in New York City.

We were called vile names, our meeting posters were vandalized or destroyed, and the other members of the club and I were harassed on and off school grounds.  All of t...

The Shape of Our Problems

Before I start this, let me explain that “stupid” is not meant to cover “nonintellectual”. There is a tendency among those of us who are good with words to consider anyone lacking that facility “stupid.”

For years Dan and I joked that each of our colleagues thought we’d married someone mentally deficient. I, because Dan is often not verbally fluent (though fluent in writing. Younger son has same problem), his because I can’t do big math off the top of my head.

But even beyond that, I...