Unsubscribed from Dinosaur Comics

I unsubscribed from Dinosaur Comics this evening in Google Reader. I just consistently didn't "get" Dinosaur Comics.

One less RSS feed burying me.

Finally got to the end of my Reader queue

I think I'm trying to stay on top of too many feeds.

I'd like to sell a vowel

Finally made my ItsYourTurn.com move. Too late to stay in my Jamble games with dad, unfortunately.

Some Walkable Locations

I live where there are Some Walkable Locations according to WalkScore.come. I'm pretty amazed the score is this high.

Just a Chance that Maybe We'll Find Better Days

On the occasion of a birthday.

And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

And it's someplace simple where we could live
And something only You can give
And that's faith and trust and peace while we're alive
And the one poor child that saved this world
And there's 10 million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

Better Days
The Goo Goo Dolls

My Normal Approach is Useless Here

This xkcd web comic is here included under a
Creative Commons License.

Read an article about an Internet Relationship

I found this article pretty disturbing.

It's the sort of thing that reminds that "intentional infliction of emotional distress" isn't always hogwash.

Dear Kohls, your website is unusable

A note I sent today to the kind folks who run kohls.com

Dear Kohls,

I write to express significant displeasure with your website.

I first visited your website in order to register my Kohls credit account in order to pay it online.

I navigated to http://www.kohls.com

And at the upper right there's a My Kohls Charge link with this URL: "javascript:launchCorporate('http://credit.kohls.com')"

When I click it, I am directed to "https://credit.kohls.com/psp/zcprod02/?cmd=login&errorCode=105&languageCd=ENG"

Which is an error message, quoted here:

[



My Kohl's Charge





We have recently improved our site and have a new address.

Please click here to go to Kohls.com, select the My Kohl's Charge option at
the top of the page, and update your Favorites link to My Kohl's Charge
with the new address.

If you continue to have difficulties, please contact us at 1-800-470-0554.

Please note that payments can be made in ANY store at ANY register, over
the phone by check, or the payment can be mailed to our payment center at:

Kohl's Payment Center
P.O. Box 2983
Milwaukee, WI 53201-2983

]

The "Please click here" hyperlink takes me to "http://www.kohls.com/", and when I use the link to My Kohl's Charge at the top of the screen as directed, I again visit this error message: infinite loop.

So then I go to the Customer Service portion of your website in order to contact you. Rather than clearly articulating an email address at which you may be reached, there's some kind of web form for entering my first and last name and email address, and then selecting a topic from a pull down, and clicking "Go". That doesn't work either: when I do that, it clears the filled out form fields but doesn't give me an opportunity to compose a message.

Overall, I'd say you haven't "recently improved your site" enough. Please correct these significant usability problems with your web presence. A website that doesn't work frustrates customers, erodes consumer confidence, and erodes the association of the Kohl's brand with quality.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Petro

Why do I keep doing this to myself?

That really hurt.

Phone call

A phone call from a friend just made my day.

Honesty

Honesty and Honest Tea with a local friend. Stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut and coupon clipping fun to go with.

Simple Personal File Backup

I've been trying out Mozy for file backup on my personal computer. So far I've been very impressed. I wish they had an Ubuntu client, in addition to the Mac OS X and Windows support.

Gave blood

Today I gave blood. Success at this for the first time while in Arizona. I'm feeling it, but I'm not feeling too badly.

Drawings of Guns, sense of proportion

I've been disturbed to read in the local papers of students suspended from school for having drawn stick figures with guns, vague drawings that might be interpreted as an impressionists "aura of gun", etc.

Certainly violence in all its forms, physical, psychological, and its conceptual pre-cursors, should be addressed with seriousness and attention. This is one lesson of the Virginia Tech tragedy -- that there may be premonitions of violence peoples' lives -- in their writings, their drawings, their speech -- and that there will be opportunities to intervene to bring people back into balance and coping rather than spiraling out of control with tragic results.

This isn't news. The statistics of the incidence of mental illness are astounding, surprising to many, and ought to lead to a recognition that many troubled people are not evil but rather are ill, that they cannot be treated as rare exceptional outliers but rather need to be considered as part of the mainstream "care for the masses" provided through such institutions as public schools.

Violence is part of our culture. This isn't a good thing, but it is a fact. Presently my government is engaged in military action in Afgahnistan and Iraq about which there are varying political viewpoints but no one can disagree with this fact: there are a whole 'lotta guns involved. Popular culture is filled with such concepts as MOAB ("Mother of All Bombs", a particularly large yield conventional weapon), occasional consideration of the use of tactical nuclear devices against terrorists holed up in tunnels, Russia resuming strategic flights of nuclear bomb armed long rage bombers. It is a fact that the United States Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. It is a fact that in the United States, in contrast with other countries, most police officers are armed. It is a fact that the army is paying an unprecendented twenty thousand dollar signing bonus to young people not much older than this eighth grader to do more than draw stick figures of guns -- to be that stick figure, dragging a gun into battle. To fire a gun and potentially kill other human beings or be killed by gunfire.

Do we suppose denying all of this is in the best interest of schoolchildren?

The most recent case leading me to write here is that of an eighth grader who drew a stick figure pointing a gun at another stick figure. Neither of these stick figures was labeled, but a neither pointing nor targeted stick figure was labeled with the name of a school administrator.

Disturbing? Yes, absolutely. Worthy of attention and intervention? Yes. Not my attention or your attention or media attention. Worthy of a guidance counselor's attention. What is leading to these drawings? Are there guns in this child's life being ignored? Is the implicit message that the school administrator would ignore one student visiting violence upon another? Is this child reacting to the violence of Iraq and Afghanistan? To the gun violence here in Phoenix? Did he see a gun and hasn't told anyone because he was afraid of what would happen next with that information?

What is the purpose of school? I see the purpose of school as that of educating, of assisting society's children to grow into thinking, moral, capable, responsible citizens. And so legitimate school activities are the diagnostic, curative, supportive activities that promote learning.

No doubt disciplinary measures must needs be in the array of tools available to schools. Sometimes suspension will be a necessary response to express the seriousness of an offense to the standards of the community, to protect students from credible threat of harm.

But suspension must be reserved for those circumstances that necessitate it. The continuity of presence in school is, unless our schools are totally without value, of importance to the quality of education experienced by a child. We go to ridiculous lengths to encourage "perfect attendance". There is a disconnect, then, to whimsically suspend students.

Reserve suspension for circumstances that actually warrant it, and with the extra school time thereby recovered, refer students needing intervention to capable professionals capable of diagnosing and remediating this sort of acting out.

I am concerned that the generation of students resulting from schools without a sense of proportion, with draconian or capricious discipline, will be at a disadvantage in providing appropriate leadership. The lesson learned here is "the response to drawing stick figures will be disproportionate, because the bullies in charge have no shame." When this or other students are in a position of power over others later in their lives, how will they have learned to behave? Will they apply power consistent with principles of minimal force, of understanding and support, of offering the benefit of the doubt and trust, of sound diagnostic and curative action? Or will they have learned to jerk the reigns of power to force those below them to comply without making an effort to understand the situation or what less severe force may prove helpful?

Cline said that school officials do not thing Joshua meant for any physical harm to come to anyone, but that the school had to discipline him for the safety of the other students and faculty.
- As reported in Aug 31 Arizona Republic

This is the sort of 1984-esque doublespeak that disappointingly too often comes from public officials. Say what? No physical harm was meant. Clearly none was actually imparted. ("Oh no! A stick figure! And you, Brutus?!") Yet school officials needed to discipline him "for the safety of other students".

I object, sir. Nods to Virginia Tech do not excuse disproportionate punition. "Safety" and "Security" have become buzzwords excusing official an institutional cowardice and failure of judgment. Instead of disciplining the student, apply efforts to discovering and addressing the underlying problem. Instead of useless random punishment that doesn't actually improve safety, do things that will improve safety, such as verifying emergency exits will actually work if needed, and getting to the bottom of where these gun images are coming from. If there's actually some guns around, that's an interesting problem worth addressing. Punishing the messenger to discourage future early warning of guns encroaching on schools won't help.

"It is our hope this young man learns from this and comes back to school."

I doubt that's the lesson the student will learn here. The lesson I learned here is to have less confidence in the sound judgment of the officials involved.

But, I really liked Hitch

But, but, I really liked Hitch.

Insomnia

Somehow, I couldn't sleep a wink last night. Made for a relatively miserable traditional-hours work day. I managed to sleep 6pm to midnight or so, though, which felt great, and after working a couple hours, plan to get another nap in before facing tomorrow, and ideally feeling much more human.

kittens

Today's Tribune front page includes:

Swamped with hundreds of kittens that need new homes, the Arizona Humane Society is facing a feline overload and worries some may have to be euthanized.

Tempting. Having a cat would be kind of fun, and there's a tiny bit of pleasure in doing my little part to care for all these needy kitties. But I'm not sure I care to be responsible enough to care for a cat, and I'd have to litter box train it, and I'm miserably allergic to them, as are some relatives that I like having visit once in a while...

Would be fun in a nerdy kind of way to toilet-train one.

Dogsitting

Dogsitting for a friend of mine. She thinks I'm doing her a favor, looking after the beasts while she's away. What I'm not sure she fully appreciates is that she's doing me a favor -- it's a blast getting to walk and run with these guys, and Brady (the St. Bernard) doesn't seem to get bored no matter how much I hug him. He's much more huggable post-washing.

Free Airborne Seasonal

I ordered me some free Airborne Seasonal at my mother's prompting this evening. Airborne actually seems to work pretty well -- usually take it before flying and it at least makes me *feel* like I don't get sick as often.

insomnia and its dulliing effects

Haven't been able to sleep, but I desperately need it. Too late to take something tonight.

I think sometimes I don't sleep because not sleeping much dulls the world enough that I don't have to deal with the hard questions. Like why am I here and what am I supposed to be doing, anyway?