9 listopadu

2100 words, bringing the chapter to 2800 (rounding down that same fifty words) and the book to 19 000. Accomplished: got religion established in a couple of sentences and now the story can refer to it casually from here on out. Also got the "superstitious" old system explained. Got Yanek in the car and set up for the events that will get him mistaken for a servant boy at the Palace. The rest of the chapter will be about that and its consequences. And meeting the first, and less vile, tutor. And then I will be done with Yanek being ten years old.

On another front: the result of the knee exercises having been a worsening of the symptoms or rather the arrival of a new and worse one, I have been instructed to quit them and start using a stationary bike. Or go straight for the cortisone shot, but even if that's where I'm headed, I'd rather get stronger first. This is dumb. I'm not even trying to walk to work, and I feel idiotic having to drive four blocks.

In case you were not online last night and you haven't read the news yet, the Mississippi personhood amendment lost, but by far too narrow a margin (42-58 which I guess is not such a narrow margin, but it's too narrow for an issue like this: the bastards will be encouraged to try again), and also, in Ohio, they defeated "issue 2," the ballot proposition that would have limited collective bargaining rights for public workers and other anti-labor measures in the name of cost control. Since Ohio also voted to make public healthcare unconstitutional, it's hard to see this as a clear signal that the class war is turning. Yes, there is class war. There never has not been. Whenever the classes are seen to be to peace, it's an illusion: a ceasefire at best, and you can bet that the only side that's not fighting t those times is the "working" class (we really need a better word for it in today's world, where unemployment is so high and the richest people all claim to be workers because they go to an office when they're not running for an office).

Somebody should, however, take a moment to compare and contrast the current political movement with those of the twentieth century or even the nineteenth. There's something interesting going on. I'm looking at you, Mike.

You have to go look at these cute raven pictures

They are sort of unassuming raven pictures, but they are also profound and sweet raven pictures, and if you had recently forgotten what cute birds they are, this will remind you.

Has google removed the advanced search option or am I just confused?

Google changed the way the page is laid out and I can't find an advanced search button. Also, they changed my settings without asking me. Also, the whole thing seems wonky. When I changed my search terms, the page kept doing a thing where it bliked the new results page at me and then reset to the one before that. Four or five times before I could get what I wanted.

Okay, you people who try new things all the time. What search engines are you using? Something that allows me to exclude terms as well as add them is what I want. Also, I would like the "search within results" back, please, though that's been gone for a while.

Also, I hate this way that it tries to predict what I'm looking for and keeps ghosting results at me before I've even clicked the button or hit enter. Also, I hate the thing where it shows you a bunch of results and tells you there's a lot more of them and you have to beg it to show you the rest of them and I really hate the ghosting thing with the stupid grey placeholders: I want the old pages back. They were faster and easier to navigate.