We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

I'm too tired to blog or read or socialize, but apparently not too tired to write this up.



So from one point of view this pattern is completely unnecessary. You could just wear wool socks in the first place.

But sometimes you weren't expecting to need wool socks today. And your toes are cold. (Whenever I start looking at sock yarn, my feet immediately feel cold, no matter what the actual temperature is.) And you don't want to get up.

Here is a quick way to use up scrap yarn, which you can then keep in your office and slip on over your cotton socks when it turns out to be colder than you expected. Mine have a little decorative rib pattern, but you can just knit k2p2 rib if you prefer.

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Ravelry link over here | Reblog on Tumblr

Rudyard Kipling

Roman Occupation of Britain, A.D. 300

Legate, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ship to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I’ve marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!

I’ve served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall.
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.

Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?

For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June’s long-lighted days?

You’ll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate’s triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!

You’ll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines,
Where, blue as any peacock’s neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You’ll go where laurel crowns are won, but - will you e’er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?

Let me work here for Britain’s sake - at any task you will -
A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.
Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,
Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.

Legate, I come to you in tears - My cohort ordered home!
I’ve served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind - the only life I know.
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

Today is the 180th anniversary of the incorporation of my city <3<3.

March is Bisexual Health Awareness Month.

And from james_davis_nicoll, the CRTC has notified two pornography channels that they don't have sufficient Canadian Content, and may have their licenses revoked.

And in other news, I know that it's perfectly normal Canadian weather for March and other people have it much worse, but THIS IS ENOUGH SNOW STOP IT.

I got a Lady's Not For Burning fic and oh, it's wonderful. Accessory After the Fact. Thomas Mendip's attitude toward life is enough like mine at the moment that it was lovely to get an exploration of it partially changing.

I also wrote 9 Yuletide fics, which seems like a lot, but 8 of them are only 100 words long. Way too much fun, like I said. And they appear to be well-received, which is lovely.

There isn't much, other than that. It's been a very nice Christmas so far, but there's still Christmas with my dad and my sister and my grandparents and knumpify to go (I grew up with divorced parents. I'm used to multiple Christmases). My mom's internet hasn't been working properly since the ice storm, so I spent yesterday running down my tablet battery and my brother's data plan reading Yuletide fic while Toronto worked on making "White Christmas" an understatement. And then my brother made me watch what is allegedly one of the worst X-File episodes ever (evil trees!). Very nice.

(Much nicer: I get this week off work and I'm only in three days next week. Ack, I used to like work.)

And now I really do need to leave for Dad's.

The latest in irresponsible reporting: "Collisions, snow squalls shut down highways. See where." from a link on the Weather Network's site. This is not how we headline warnings. Warnings are important. People need to know where the hell they can't be driving.

Does anyone else find that the drive for multimedia on news websites makes them avoid news websites? I don't just mean that there are ads everywhere and the images and videos make everything ridiculously slow to load. I mean that images and videos are actually a pretty ineffective means of finding the kind of information one went to the page for. I don't want to watch a video, I want to skim an article and actually leave with the information I want.

For once I agree with BBC Sherlock: I prefer to do my own editing.

Not to mention slideshows. One page per soundbite is the least efficient information layout I can think of. Which means, of course, that there's more space for ads.

Fred Clark mentioned that the newspaper he used to work at had an online policy the staff unofficially called "Fuck the Capricorns": split up the horoscopes over two pages so the last few signs have to click twice, and look at more ads.

We need to figure out a new model here, and no one's even come close to one yet.

The hilarious part, of course, is that our eyes are trained to ignore image ads already. I suppose making content look like ads is more ethical than making ads look like content.