Doug's Sounding Board » questions

Impact of fiction vs non-fiction

Douglas — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:53:57 +0000

This is probably obvious to most people but as I was making a list of 15 books with the most impact on me the other day and while I was making the list I noticed that most of the books I was listing were fiction. That seemed odd to me since most of the books I read are non-fiction. Then I began wondering why that is the way it is. I think it’s that non-fiction usually gets integrated into the readers knowledge, filling in gaps in knowledge, but rarely offers something that changes how you view things. Fiction can go in directions you don’t expect and as such it can really hit you.

Longshot bug id request

Douglas — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:28:04 +0000

Â I don’t have a picture because there are only camera phones in the office and none of them can get close enough to resolve the image. I would draw a picture but my poor drawing skills are more likely to mislead.

It’s a bright red bug (6-legs), about 2.5-3mm long and probably about 1mm wide. The head is probably 1/4 of the total length and is more gray-brown in color. When walking the body is fairly high off the surface at about a millimeter. The antennae are about the length of the body with the last 1/3 of that being about twice the thickness of the lower part.

Today I used a semi-colon

Douglas — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:01:32 +0000

During the past few months, when writing, I’ve had an urge to use a semi-colon. I resist and tell myself that it really doesn’t know what it wants and restructure things so that no semi-colon is possible. I don’t know where the urge comes from. I’ve read the rules on when they should be used but still I get filled with doubt when presented with the option. I stop and appreciate semi-colons in sentences written by people who know how to handle them. Today I gave in to the semi-colon, doubt and all, and there was no complaint on the receiving end. The urge rose up twice more but how much could I push my luck? Not yet being able to make peace with the semi-colon I had to go back down the road of rejection. Those of you who are semi-colon masters, how do you do it? Help me come to terms with this marginalized punctuation.

Blog software upgrade

Douglas — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:00:51 +0000

Friday when it was late and I was tired I attempted to upgrade the blog software I use to WordPress 2.1. It was broken until I had a good night’s sleep and was able to tackle it again Saturday morning. The result is not really much difference for the outside user except that it should load a little faster now and there is a nicer text editor for comments (I think I have that enabled). Also, the links aren’t sorted as they used to be or limited in their quantity. I’m working on fixing that.

Also,Â withÂ thisÂ themeÂ ifÂ youÂ clickÂ optionsÂ youÂ canÂ setÂ theÂ colorsÂ youÂ wantÂ toÂ viewÂ with,Â unlessÂ youÂ are
usingÂ theÂ OperaÂ browserÂ likeÂ meÂ inÂ whichÂ caseÂ clickingÂ OptionsÂ isÂ moreÂ ofÂ aÂ wayÂ toÂ passÂ timeÂ withoutÂ any
resultsÂ exceptÂ forÂ someÂ lightÂ fingerÂ exercise.

RelatedÂ toÂ that,Â shouldÂ IÂ allowÂ readersÂ toÂ selectÂ theÂ themeÂ theyÂ wantÂ toÂ viewÂ with?Â ThereÂ areÂ pluginsÂ that
allowÂ thatÂ andÂ itÂ mightÂ beÂ fun.Â ThatÂ wayÂ ifÂ IÂ chooseÂ aÂ themeÂ thatÂ youÂ thinkÂ isÂ uglyÂ youÂ canÂ keepÂ goingÂ with
oneÂ youÂ like.