Political Correctness

Posted on 2016-02-02 by arjaybe
Wondermark - An Illustrated Jocularity - by David Malki

Wondermark – An Illustrated Jocularity – by David Malki

I have little patience for political correctness. Whether it’s the phrase itself or the people who use it, my patience evaporates immediately. Political correctness was invented for the purpose of mockery. The only people who sincerely use the phrase are the ones who are opposed to it. They seem to think that if they accuse others of political correctness, then they are free to be rude. Like garlic for vampires, they think it will save them from that dreadful condition of having to be considerate. Beyond the merely cynical motive of stifling conversation, some of them actually believe that saying it rehabilitates them. It is a mantra for bigots.

I regret the exhaustion of my patience, because it means that I can’t enjoy the times that the phrase is used ironically, or in satire. The overuse of it by moral shirkers has ruined it for me. Political correctness has been ruined by the very people who invented it.

Go and see the full Wondermark cartoon. It’s good.

rjb

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Valley Cloud

Posted on 2016-01-16 by arjaybe
Credit Daniel Simpson cc-by - tap for original

Credit Daniel Simpson cc-by – tap for original

Cloud of the Day – Valley Cloud

In my valley winters are often visited by a phenomenon called valley cloud. Those days are clear and sunny, except in the valleys. If you’re up on the slopes you’re likely to see ski bunnies in bikinis. But down in the valley the Sun is blocked by a layer of valley cloud.

Credit J.M.Garg cc-by-sa - tap for original

Credit J.M.Garg cc-by-sa – tap for original

Those of us who grew up here don’t mind it. That low cloud is kind of like a snoozy blanket, and we snuggle in. That’s winter. We’re used to it. But people who move here from away, especially from the Prairies, don’t like it so much. On the Prairies it might get bone-cracking cold, but the sky is bright blue and the horizon meets it out near infinity. It’s bad enough that the hills make them feel hemmed in, but now this persistent cloud is blocking the sky and dimming the light. It’s no wonder they look haunted.

valley-cloud-640x232

Valley cloud develops under a stalled upper ridge of high pressure. Instead of moving generally eastward, as systems tend to do, it sits there, pressing down on the air below. Now a temperature inversion forms, with warmer air over cooler air. A stationary situation with little wind and no convection means the cool, moist air is trapped under the warmer, drier air. There will be condensation in the valleys, resulting in fog or cloud. As fog can be thought of as cloud in contact with the ground, I like to think of valley cloud as fog up in the air.

Photo by Jerry3904 - Processing by Utopia

Photo by Jerry3904 – Processing by Utopia

One thing about valley cloud: you can always get above it on the ski hill. Put on a bikini, even.

Credit Don Hunt

Credit Don Hunt

rjb

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Unglue.it Best So Far

Posted on 2016-01-10 by arjaybe
Unglue.it Logo

Unglue.it Best So Far

Since I published Green Comet, I’ve been involved with a few websites whose aim is to help people distribute their creative work. I got involved with them during their alpha and beta phases, and helped them work out the kinks in their processes. All of them espoused an open philosophy and I was glad to be involved. I still am.

The first was BitTorrent Bundle, which I signed up for in the middle of 2013. You can see Green Comet here and Parasite Puppeteers here. I was selected for alpha testing and published in December 2013, along with lots of other people’s books, videos and audios. Their idea is to provide a platform for hosting torrents of these works, and I got up to around 3,000 downloads. I can’t be sure because they had a glitch and the count had to start over. Of course I wasn’t keeping close track.-) Activity there has virtually stalled, and the addition of Parasite Puppeteers last year hasn’t done much.

The second was Unglue.it, which I joined in December 2013. You’ll find Green Comet here and Parasite Puppeteers here. The aim of this site is to free books. They allow the author to set an amount at which they will loosen their copyright on a book, and it is freed if donations reach the target. Alternatively, if the book is already free, as my books are with their Creative Commons licenses, then people are allowed to reward the author to thank them. Green Comet has just reached 1,000 downloads on Unglue.it. (Actually 999 as of this minute, but who’s counting?) Not as much as BitTorrent Bundle, but still chugging along. The fact that it still feels alive is why I say it’s the best so far.

The third site is OpenBooks, which contacted me in the middle of 2014. I told them I would go ahead and they said we’d be going live three months later. There were some delays — birthing pains, to be expected — and we finally got going in December 2014. Green Comet is here, Parasite Puppeteers here. I had high hopes for OpenBooks. Their plan is to get the books onto torrent sites and let exposure do its magic. I had visions of pirates uploading my book all over the Internet, but I can’t find it on many torrent sites. Unfortunately, Green Comet has yet to reach 500 downloads, and it feels moribund.

The experiment isn’t over. There are still more options to try, one of which I’ve just begun. But those are for another day and another report. For now I’ll just conclude, by my highly subjective criteria, Unglue.it is the best so far.

rjb

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