David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 183

Less Than Five Months Now Until “Not Quite so Stories” Releases!

It’s looking more and more like the tentative release date of March 1, 2016 for Not Quite so Stories (my new short story collection forthcoming from Literary Wanderlust) is going to stay on target! That means it’s less than five months until the book will likely be available! I’m excited. Are you getting excited?

We should start having goodies for you soon on this. Maybe the cover will be next. Keep your eyes out. Great things are in the works.

I’m Famous!

I was reading the Tin House email about early readers loving The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott. I noticed that the ‘David’ review looked familiar. Suddenly it hit me…that’s me! They must have quoted from my goodreads review.

Monkey!

Monkey!

Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!

Ironic Use Of Stock Photo

I happened to see an article recently titled “4 reasons why independent bookstores are thriving.” The article is cool and all, and I have no issues with the content whatsoever. The image accompanying the article amused me though. The selection of it seemed a little ironic, given the subject of the piece (I mean no offense to the author of the article, who likely didn’t choose the image).

The photo is clearly a stock image. A TinEye reverse image search lists it showing up as far back as February 5, 2013. However, the reason this intrigued me is that it appears to be a photo of the second floor of the Tattered Cover Lodo store in Denver.

Tattered Cover isn’t mentioned in the article, but the TinEye reverse image search does pair the image with older articles that are about, or at least mention, the Tattered Cover. Besides, I was virtually certain I recognized the store. I’ve spent a lot of time there, particularly on the second floor of the historic Lodo location.

At first I thought I might be mistaken, bookstores in historic buildings look similar, but you can see the sign in front of the corridor at the far back indicating that the event space is closed. I really know that exact spot at Tattered Cover. It’s definitely the Tattered Cover, and it’s definitely the second floor of the Lodo location. No other store had that. Not Colfax, the airport store, or Highlands Ranch while that was still around before it moved to Aspen Grove (admittedly I haven’t been to Aspen Grove yet). No, unless I’m seriously mistaken, that’s second floor at the Lodo store. That hallway and sign are distinctive.

So what’s the ironic part? Well, the second floor doesn’t exist anymore (as part of the Tattered Cover complete with books and all that shown, the floor itself still physically exists as part of the building). The Lodo store is still there, but occupies only the ground floor. Tattered Cover had to give up use of the second. And, unless I’m seriously misled, they had to give up the second floor due to the rising costs of downtown Denver real estate. There were condos or office spaces or some such thing that would pay more than it made sense for Tattered Cover to pay.

See how this might be an ironic photo choice for an article about how independent bookstores are thriving? A depiction of a space that an independent bookstore had to give up due to monetary concerns?

Sure, it in no way refutes the article. Many independent bookstores are thriving, and rightfully so. That’s a good thing. However, thriving in their industry isn’t the same thing as thriving enough to compete in the condo and office space market in a place such as downtown Denver. They aren’t thriving that much, and probably wouldn’t dream of being able to do so.

It’s just funny that they used an image for a space an independent bookstore couldn’t afford to keep for an article about how independent bookstores are thriving. That strikes me as ironic and amusing, unless I’ve pulled an Alanis.

A Collage Post About Something I Probably Don’t Appreciate The Full Numbers Behind And You Probably Don’t Know The Background Of Anyway

A Collage post about something I probably don’t appreciate the full numbers behind and you probably don’t know the background of anyway:

ConAgra, manufacturer of processed food staples like Reddi-wip, Slim Jim and Swiss Miss, is cutting 1,500 jobs and moving its corporate headquarters and 700 jobs to downtown Chicago in an effort to increase profits, the company announced Thursday.

Genesis Chapter 25, 29-34

And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

Let’s Learn A Little About The UCC

That Facebook hoax going around yet again has me thinking people need to learn just a little about the UCC. There are so many other problems with that hoax (such as the idea one can just retroactively modify something once contracted to in the ) that should make people extremely skeptical and for some reason don’t, but this one jumps out at me. After all, take one example hoax message:

As of September 28th , 2015 at 10:50p.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates.

The only supposed law mentioned are UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute. Anyone who has any idea what these are goes no further, knowing it is a hoax.

After all, the UCC is the Uniform Commercial Code. It isn’t enforceable law. It’s a model law, suggestions that a bunch of scholars, lawmakers, and others have put together hoping people will adopt to make the law more uniform in different jurisdictions. For the most part, it’s been successful. Most states have adopted most of the UCC, though most have modified in one way or another and you don’t necessarily know which update they adopted. Regardless, even in such cases, the UCC itself is still not an enforceable law. When a state adopts a portion, they codify it into their own laws. For example, UCC 1-308 corresponds to Colorado Revised Statute 4-1-308 in Colorado.

So, the UCC is not enforceable law.

Further, the UCC really is concerned with contract law, primarily personal property, not privacy. Additionally, UCC 1-308 is in article 1, which is the general provisions section as opposed to one of the real meaty articles. Even within the general provisions article, it only gets as specific as part 3, which covers territorial applicability and general rules.

Does that sound like it’s going to have crap to do with privacy or Facebook? Doesn’t to me.

Okay, let’s look at the current text of UCC 1-308:

§ 1-308. Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights.

(a) A party that with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as “without prejudice,” “under protest,” or the like are sufficient.

(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to an accord and satisfaction.

See something? Well, there is no subsections 1 or 103. There’s just a and b. Thus, though there is UCC 1-308 in the modern UCC, there is no UCC 1-308-1 or UCC 1-308-103. It vaguely looks like it might be applicable to reservation of rights after that, but there’s nothing about privacy or any punishment for such violation.

It’s crap. Anyone with any clue about the UCC knows that on the face of the hoax, much less looking at the UCC section.

And the Rome Statute? The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court and its jurisdiction to try cases involving things like genocide and war crimes. Nothing about Facebook, privacy, copyright, or anything relating to ordinary contract or intellectual property law. Again, anyone with the first idea what the Rome Statute is would instantly recognize the post is a hoax.

This whole thing would have gone away a lot faster, and gone around less times, if people had the first clue what those cited “laws” were, or at least decided to check into it a little.

Yesterday’s Post Did Run Twice

Yes, yesterday’s post did run twice. I’m not in a canned post mode, but I am tending to write a day ahead of time and using the scheduling feature. However, that only works if one gets the date right. My wordpress is set to something like greenwich time instead of my local time (something I could fix but am too lazy to) so it can get confusing. Still, I should have noticed that I had two posts scheduled for the same day. September 29th and September 29th are still both pretty clearly the same, no matter if it was September 28th that both would go. I didn’t notice though, and both posts went live at the same time.

What good is that?

So, what was I going to do? One had already been liked on Facebook and the other on Twitter. Leave both up? That wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to write an extra post to cover the day the second one was supposed to cover. No, I just decided to unpublish one and reschedule despite the fact that at least one person had already seen it. Why not? I figured not that many people had seen it yet. I caught the error pretty quickly.

Anyway, I’m lazy. So there.

Food Service Leads To New Links Between Songs

When you work in food service, you tend to hear a lot of the same songs. At least, this is the case where the food establishment uses some kind of music service. I worked at a place like that and we tended to hear the same songs over and over again. We only had certain CDs to choose from, after all. Trust me, we tried burning our own in all kinds of formats to get around it. No dice. Repetition was our only choice.

This can lead to some odd thoughts. At one point, one of my coworkers had an epiphany. “My Life” by Billy Joel was playing, as it often did. The refrain runs:

I don’t need you to worry for me cause I’m alright

I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home

I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life

Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone

All of a sudden, my coworker screamed: “It’s Nigel! That’s Nigel talking.” She was of course referencing the lines from XTC’s “Making Plans for Nigel” (another commonly played song):

We’re only making plans for Nigel

We only want what’s best for him

We’re only making plans for Nigel

Nigel just needs that helping hand

Obviously, as she’d worked out, Nigel was sick of people making plans for him. He clearly felt he would be better off if people didn’t and left him to do that himself.

See how dangerous music services can be?

Thinking The Eclipse Was Going To Be A Bust

I was all set to check out the blood super moon eclipse recently after being badgered endlessly about it on Facebook. Once darkness fell, I went out to look. As I’d feared, the moon was completely obscured by clouds. I may have posted the following:

I may have gotten responses from all my friends in places who could see it perfectly, some offering me pictures. Neither made me feel much better. It was cool that they could see it and all, but that wasn’t me. Pictures were cool too, but were nothing like getting to see the real thing.

However, I went out an hour later. The moon was fully eclipsed by that point, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. They were entirely gone and I could see everything. Though I hadn’t seen the moon become eclipsed, I could watch it eclipsed for a while and got to see the second half of the process unobscured. The clouds stayed gone.

That’s perfectly fine, isn’t it? If I could see the moon go from entirely eclipsed to entirely uneclipsed, I pretty much got to see the same thing as the initial part but in reverse, right? That’s the way I felt. That part lasted over an hour, and I could see the red tint to the moon.

That’s all I wanted. Now I don’t have to swear a lifetime vendetta against clouds.

I’m A Bit Behind In My Reading

I’m a bit behind in my reading. I’ve just started on my 150th book for the year and it’s already the end of September. At this rate, I’ll be doing good if I manage to break 200 for the year. I’m about to hit my goodread challenge, but much later in the year than normal.

It’s not something I’m really worried about. I like reading and I read at whatever pace is comfortable. Still, I have some reputation and people may remark. I haven’t read below 200 since 2010, when I read 169. In fact, 2012 is the only year in 4 years where I read less than 300 (249). Around 300 has been the average.

So what is it? Well, there was a several month long moving experience at the early part of the year. I worked extensively on a non-fiction essayish sort of book I hope is being looked on kindly at the moment. Work, as always, has been significantly busy. I don’t know, lots of things. I just didn’t get anywhere near as much reading done so far this year as normal.

I only wish I had a stock of writing to show for where all that time went.