amazon secretly fixes something stupid

August 20, 2006  🤤

I often get irritated with things on Amazon. Sometimes, I send an email about my complaints. Usually, I get an automated or otherwise not-very-promising reply. Then, the problem gets fixed after a year or two. The weird thing is that the things that bug me that get fixed never get the kind of fanfare that new features I don’t like get. Those giant video clips kept getting in my way, the animated shaking gold box made me want to smack somebody, and so on.

trying to be true to amazon

August 20, 2006  🤤

I really try to buy things locally whenever reasonable. I’m willing to pay a fairly substantial premium to do so, because I like to support my town. That said, Amazon gets a lot of my business. They have a lot of things that it’s hard to get locally, we have no local bookstores that I consistentlylike shopping with, and Amazon Prime makes it feel like there’s never any shipping tax on my orders.

version control

August 18, 2006  🧑🏽‍💻

I moved from CVS to Subversion a few years ago, and to SVK about a year ago. Moving to Subversion was an unqualified success. Everything is either as good or, usually, better. It has some quirks, and some things that I’d like to see changed, but it has never caused me to scream or waste much time.

sandwich makers

August 16, 2006  🥘

Making a resaonably tasty sandwich isn’t all that hard, especially with decent ingredients, but I think that my new rule will be that I won’t order any sandwich of a type that I don’t think the wichsmith has consumed himself. This rule might be good for all food: if you, food preparer, have never eaten duck, I do not want to see it on your menu.

sergei prokofiev, esq.

July 27, 2006

I dreamt that Dominus, someone else (though I can’t recall who), and I were walking around Philadelphia. The third person had once lived there and Dominus was taking her around to see what had changed. At some point, we went to a large hotel-like building with two E’s on its gates. I poked around and determined that it was now a dormitory for a very hoity-toity university. I had gone on ahead, and when the other two caught up with me, they were sad to see that this building had been so repurposed. They suggested we sneak in, and despite my protests we did so. As we poked around its library, a few students showed up, and we seemed sure to be thrown out or arrested or something.

internalizing and automating

July 24, 2006  🐪 🧑🏽‍💻

My problem with the Mass, I think, is that it does not change. On one hand, this is a great strength: you can go anywhere and know the Mass. (This is less true since the introduction of the vernacular.) On the other hand, out of your hour or so at the church, only something like twenty minutes is spent on material that is likely to be instructive.

today was my birthday

July 21, 2006  🥘 🎲 🍿 🧑🏽‍💻 👾

I always enjoy my birthday. Even when I haven’t yet done anything birthday-y, I want to go up to people and shout, “Hey! It’s my birthday!” I usually don’t.