On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Recent Reading: November 2024

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 23:34:04 GMT

Seemed like a good idea to put these choices out there.

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Another Morning, Somewhat Less Snowfall

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 12:29:10 GMT

We might get more snow during the day today, we'll certainly get more overnight tonight and into early tomorrow. But it's not going to be the same degree as we got yesterday.

Getting slowly caught up on my comics reading.

More later.

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Affordable Housing and the Well-Read Member of the Precariate

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 01:45:08 GMT

ysabetwordsmith pointed out this item on one method being used to make affordable housing doable.

Looking at my personal library...well, I can be branded a hoarder. Or militantly well-read. I wouldn't want much for kitchen space, but I'd want accessibility in anticipation of days to come when I need a walker, wheelchair or some other appliance for moving around. And I would absolutely demand space for my library. Affordable housing and I are going to have an antagonistic relationship, I think, for a very long time. Even if I manage to cull a large portion of my reading collections without sending it into landfill, which I still hope to do.

*sigh*

I'm going to have to find new homes for a lot of comic books, aren't I? I haven't even been able to catalogue them all properly yet.

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NPR's Top 50 SF&F Books For 2011-2020

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 18:14:16 GMT

Petra Meyer came up with this list the other day. You might have preferences of your own. Some of you, I see, have works included in this list, and I offer congratulations upon that inclusion!

Not sure how many of these I've been able to read yet, but that is a quest for another day.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1027159166/best-books-science-fiction-fantasy-past-decade

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Ways of Reading

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 19:28:13 GMT

I needed the reminder of this:

https://www.tor.com/2021/07/22/theres-no-wrong-way-to-read-a-book/

Thanks to supergee for pointing that out.

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Books: A Poll Result and a New List

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 02:27:47 GMT

You remember this poll?

Decided to go with an option unpicked to date by anyone: Stumptown Vol. 4: The Case of the Cup of Joe. Greg Rucka wrote it, he helped me out with some research on something I co-wrote a little over twenty years ago, and a lot of his stuff's entertained me over the decades since then. So he gets a little more of what I can spare, effective today. I pick the book up on Saturday.

Other titles I'm either reading, re-reading or trying to make time for right now, whether by my own finances or with the public library's help:

Glimpses of Cumberland Township - For the Honour of Our Ancestors - Cumberland Township Historical Society
The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World by John Davies and Alexander J. Kent
Star Trek: Discovery - Wonderlands by altariel
Obscure Ottawa by Ray Corrin
Earth by David Brin
Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power (Yes, she's a Biden appointee nowadays.)
Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
Draplin Design Co. - Pretty Much Everything by Aaron James Draplin
This Day in Vancouver by Jesse Donaldson
How to Lie With Maps by Mark Monmonier
On Property by Rinaldo Walcott
The Library Book: An Overdue History of the Ottawa Public Library by Phil Jenkins
Trumpocalypse by David Frum
Tangled Up in Blue by Rosa Brooks
Cartographic Grounds - Projecting the Landscape Imaginary by Jill Desimini and Charles Waldheim

Another incomplete list, and I'm not going to be able to get to all of them, anymore than I managed with the March 2021 list.

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Starships and Railroads

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:29:05 GMT

Seemed like a good mix of reading material while I had supper tonight.

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BOOKS: A Defense of Housing

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 01:07:49 GMT

Once upon a time, Sarah Gelbard was my editor.

I'm going to heed a reading recommendation of hers.

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Progress

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 02:56:07 GMT

New printer is up and running.

New eyeglasses are on order. I should be seeing them - and seeing with them - in about a month.

Made more progress with cataloguing my personal library today.

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SPACE: Kappa Tucanae and Xi Scorpii

Mon, 11 May 2020 14:09:04 GMT

Since multi-stellar systems became a plot point in Star Trek: Picard's first season...I've been curious. I doubt that I'm going to have the time to explore deep-space astronomy to the degree that I want, and even so...

Kevin Jardine put out word via Twitter about these two systems - both five-star systems, literally speaking - getting some attention. I don't know if either system has planets orbiting any of their components, but the research paper's interesting to look at.

Printing it out for later reading. Meanwhile, back to the job search.

Sidebar:

For Kappa Tucanae...

http://starmap.whitten.org/index.php?x_c=30&y_c=-30&z_c=-50&xy_zoom=20&z_zoom=20&m_limit=&select_star=4106&image_type=normal&image_size=2000&max_line=0&trek_names=1

http://galaxymap.org/dr2/index.html?search=Kappa%20Tucanae&tileset=SGD&distanceEstimator=bj

For Xi Scorpii...

http://starmap.whitten.org/index.php?x_c=70&y_c=0&z_c=0&xy_zoom=40&z_zoom=200&m_limit=20&select_star=86902&select_center=on&image_type=normal&image_size=2000&max_line=0&trek_names=1

http://galaxymap.org/dr2/index.html?search=Xi%20Scorpii&tileset=SGD&distanceEstimator=bj

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Workshop Writings - 21 Jan 2020

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 13:46:54 GMT

I went to writing workshop last night. Some of what I read out last night, with modifications for the privacy of other people in mind:

I’ve been listening to the news on the radio this morning. But not this afternoon as well. In answer to one anticipated question: I am not planning to watch the trial as proclaimed by Mitch McConnell today. Friends of mine on the US side of the border who call this particular “event” a farce have it right.

The weather this morning was warmer than I’d anticipated. I went to the local library branch and shopping mall to take care of several errands, and found a lack of wind chill and felt warmer inside my jacket than expected. Incidentally, three books were overdue for return, so that got taken care of before I arrive at this meeting.

As for the job search today, I’m sure that you’re curious. I’ve checked job boards from Revenue Canada and the Public Service Commission to Maxsys and Excel.

There’s a course I’m going to attend next Wednesday night: it’s called a Planning Primer. This course will be held at Ottawa City Hall. The main topic of the course is called “Legislative Background and Policy Documents”. I get the sense from a quick read-through of a 29-page document published on the subject by City Hall that this is about the rules that the provincial government requires all municipalities to work within in order to build and maintain their communities. It will probably make much more sense after several more read-throughs between now and next Wednesday.

I decided to take this course for a few reasons. It might make me better informed for my writing work if I do any more blogging for Spacing Ottawa. Which is a thing that is long overdue. It’s been years since I finished an essay and took it live through them.

Also, defensive learning about the law in general is also a thing. You want to be a good citizen? Then, you learn what you can as quick as you can. Which might also protect some of my relatives. We'll see.

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Staying In Motion

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:04:12 GMT

I'm trying to work out another bit of resume-tailoring this morning. Meanwhile, I'm distracting myself with this. Also, the Pen and Paper writing workshop is tonight at the Rideau Branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

I want my own copy of Rachel Maddow's Drift, because I can't seem to make the time to read the copy I borrowed from the library. It strikes me, from what I have read of it so far, that it would be worth the cash and time.

More later.

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Street Names: A Follow-Up

Fri, 24 May 2019 00:13:27 GMT

There's a reason why one of my tags covers that topic:

https://dewline.dreamwidth.org/tag/street+names

I blame/praise this book: Regina: the Street Where You Live. It fired up an obsession that hasn't gone away.

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Further Proof That I Am an Infomaniac: Magazines I bought last Friday

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 02:46:39 GMT

Uppercase (crafting and design magazine published in Canada)
Branchline (published by Bytown Railway Society)
Star Trek
The Atlantic
Warships - International Fleet Review
Bloomberg Business Week
Toronto Life

It seemed a good idea at the time, while I was making my way home.
And yes, this is a not-so-veiled clue to Metro, Shoppers Drug Mart, Rexall, and a few other companies operating in Ottawa. I've spoken of this before, after all.

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Sun, 30 Dec 2018 19:19:26 GMT

Picked up the Microsoft Office 2013 Bible and Gwynne Dyer's Growing Pains at the library. Working on reading Growing Pains in between social media posts now.

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200 points for every dollar spent on books and magazines?

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 03:29:38 GMT

Hey, thanks, PC Optimum!

Now, could you stock some of the magazines that would get me shopping at your stores?

Harper's, ImagineFX, Trains, The New Republic, Bloomberg Business Week, Mother Jones, Cinefex, Mark (an architecture magazine), Canadian Architect, Quill and Quire...it's a long and incomplete list.

Also, I remember when pharmacies really packed in a wide selection of paperback books...

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Magazines I Want to Buy This Weekend

Sat, 28 Apr 2018 12:53:32 GMT

Bloomberg Business Week
3D Artist

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Reading Update - 28 December 2017

Fri, 29 Dec 2017 02:33:03 GMT

Just finished Persepolis Rising from the Expanse series. Starting on Andy Weir's Artemis and Masha Gessen's Man Without a Face biography of Putin. After that, hopefully Linden McIntyre's The Only Cafe, since that was one of the gifts I got this Christmas.

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Going Digging Through the Stacks...

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 18:17:28 GMT

...of my very disorganized personal library, I rediscovered my copy of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. I suspected as much, and my memory didn't betray me. Chapters 11 and 12 are devoted to what might be called an inquest or autopsy into some of the other root causes of Grazhdanin Putin's rise to political dominance in Moskva.

And from there, I think I'll spend part of the afternoon watching Agents of SHIELD as I catch up on my e-mail.

More on other matters as the day wears on.

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