On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

So, I'm hearing that the team developing that free, open-source software for people interested in astronomy has closed down their website for that program and the only place you can now find it is via Sourceforge. Does anyone else reading this know what's up?

I was saying to the friend who pointed this out to me earlier today that this could either be glorious or gloriously disastrous. If it happens.

http://io9.com/the-man-behind-hannibal-wants-to-reboot-the-british-ave-1740269336

Still coughing, but less so than yesterday or last night. I still didn't get much sleep despite going to bed earlier than usual, though there were fewer interruptions last night. Maybe things will further improve tonight. Since I've promised to report for work in the morning, they'd better.

Meantime...I heard about Ta-Nehisi Coates writing a Black Panther story for Marvel. This should be Interesting. I've read his non-fiction stuff for The Atlantic, much of which has opened my eyes to many things. We'll come back to this later, I expect.

Odd note: Marvel's legal people seem to have decided "Registered Gifted" isn't a thing they want to protect anymore...? Like I said: it's odd. If you're building a cultural IP library the way Marvel's been doing for decades even before Disney's current role began, you don't take decisions like that as a rule.

About unemployment insurance in Canada: something I noticed today, for your reference. And on that note, I'll be turning on the TV to listen to Power and Politics. Rosemary Barton's taken the hosting reins from Evan Solomon rather well, thus far...

Okay, what's with this?

( VIsual explaining the problem under the cut )

I wrote this up for the Pen and Paper writers workshop earlier tonight. It related to a story shared by rfmcdpei today.


So I’m back to networking and searching and researching. Nothing new there, although the mix of jobs available keeps on changing. So do the resources used to chase those leads down. One of those leads, however, gave me a surprise this morning.

That resource is Workopolis. A web service spun out of the Globe and Mail as being somewhat of a distraction from its core business over a decade ago, Workopolis is one of a number of web sites devoted to making their money from advertisements aimed at Canadian job-seekers. Whether the ads are for jobs themselves or for services aimed at job-seekers doesn’t really matter a great deal.

And that’s the short version of what Workopolis is. A longer version of the explanation would take more time than any of us here at the moment can spare.

At present, I have about twenty “alerts” set up with Workopolis. Some are for specific types of jobs. Others are dedicated to watching what specific employers are seeking in prospective employees. Sometimes, those alerts will trigger unanticipated results. Including that surprise I mentioned at the top.

In this case, I had the alert subscription tagged as “ArtsMedia-Ottawa”. The rationale was that I wanted to keep an eye on job leads in – you guessed it! – arts and the media on a local scale. I have others for national and provincial-level leads. But the results evolved away from my intentions, and never more so than that day.

I’ll cite the text – partly to explain, partly to pass the word along, and partly to run up the word count:

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia seeks an Archbishop to oversee, supervise and rule the Spiritual and Administrative organizations of all Canadian parishes (20-25) across Canada. Must have a degree in Theology, fluency in English, Russian, Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic. Must be proclaimed by Holy Canons of Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, must be a Bishop and monk with 20 years of providing religious services and spiritual guidance with the Russian Orthodox Church . The Archbishop will be based at the Protection of the Holy Virgin Memorial Church, Ottawa, ON Canada and will be required to travel to parishes and dioceses across Canada and the USA. Wage $21.50 per hour for full-time (40 hours per week). Benefits: paid travel and accommodation expenses, medical coverage. Send your resume and cover letter to: (contact info deleted)

As you’ve likely guessed by now, I have no monastic experience. None. At all. Fluency in Russian, old Russian and Old Church Slavonic is also nonexistent.

The reason behind publicly posting this at all also escapes me. Was it a joke inspired by recent news events surrounding that church? Was it a real posting designed to avert legal actions by parties as yet unidentified? Your guess is as good as mine.

I await the results of investigations by others better qualified for that work than I am.

I'm reminded of something, Douglas Cardinal's comment at the National Gallery a week or so ago about computer tech in particular and how it had freed up his imagination to act and design and build. There is a parallel in those remarks to Col. Hadfield's comments on tech catching up to his ambitions to share his orbital experiences with us here on the ground in as close to real-time as he could.

Any chance of getting those two gentlemen together in one room for a few hours? Any chance at all?

Update - 18 Sept. 2014: Thanks to thetimesink for his help with this one. But if anyone still wants to pitch in with their own thoughts, I'll leave this open to comments for a while yet.

Okay, here we are: a publicity still from the Agents of SHIELD episode "Shadows", kicking off the second season.

My question - which I expect I'll be trying to answer for myself - is what do those 20 decorations under the pilot's wings represent about Talbot's career before crossing paths with Coulson's Crew? I'm guessing right now that this version of Talbot's been in the USAF for 25 to 30 years, so service in conflicts before 1984 is probably right out for the purpose of this version of continuity. And yes, I'm looking at a higher-resolution version of this image at home.

So...subject to revision and/or correction:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Aerial Achievement Medal
6.
7. Joint Meritorious Unit Award
8. Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with what looks like three Oak Leaf Clusters and a "V" Device
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. Humanitarian Service Medal
16. Air Force Overseas Short Tour Service Ribbon
17. Air Force Longevity Service Award with what looks like one silver and three bronze oak leaf clusters. (32 years' service, then?)
18. Air Force Military Training Instructor Ribbon
19. Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon
20. Air Force Training Ribbon

Just removed insidecbc because CBC (or their agents) let the domain name lapse, and now it's being used by some Germanophone(?) weblogger for reasons I don't know the language well enough to understand.

(Seriously: if English-speakers are "anglophones", and French-speakers are "francophones", what might we call German-speakers?)

Looking for informed opinions here. Some of you still reading this are fellow artists, designers, and whatnot, professional or amateur.

So how about it?