I usually work at a standing desk but today I did some work sitting on the couch and learned I can write for short bursts while the dog is licking my face.
Later, the dog booped the keyboard to let me know she thought there should be a comma there.
There did not need to be a comma there. Dogs are bad at punctuation.
Occasionally I get annoyed at Inoreader’s quirks and I try alternatives for reading feeds. But then I come back to Inoreader. Nothing beats it for powering through many headlines quickly to zero in on the articles I actually want to read.
News about retrieving samples from an asteroid have got me thinking about a Lovecraftian eldritch horror that has been stranded on a rock in space for billions of years and has anger management issues.
”Level 7,” by a Ukrainian-born Israeli writer named Mordecai Roshwald, is written in the first person by a modern soldier whose name was taken away from him by the state, and is now designated only as X-127. He lives in an underground military complex, and his sole job is the push the buttons that launch the missiles in the event of nuclear war. X-127’s nation, and that nation’s enemy, are intentionally left unidentified.
The residents‘ lives are regimented and standardized, with the people reduced to little more than machines themselves. And yet I found X-127’s little world fascinating, and weirdly appealing.
Next paragraph is a spoiler—cut-and-paste it into Rot-13.com to read:
Va gur zvqqyr bs gur abiry, gur rarzl angvbaf unir gurve ahpyrne jne, naq rirelobql ba gur fhesnpr vf xvyyrq. Gura gur ahpyrne ernpgbe gung cbjref gur haqretebhaq pbzcyrk ortvaf gb yrnx enqvngvba, naq gur erfvqragf ortva gb qvr bar ol bar. K-127 vf gur ynfg fheivibe, naq ur qvrf ng gur raq bs gur abiry, fpenjyvat gur svany jbeqf vagb uvf wbheany. Gung ohttrq zr jura V jnf n obl—vs gur ynfg zna ba Rnegu vf qrnq, jub’f ernqvat guvf svefg-crefba obbx. Vaqrrq, V yrnea abj gung guvf cbvag obgurerq Ebfujnyq, gbb; gur bevtvany abiry unq na nccraqvk fhccbfrqyl jevggra ol Znegvna nepurbybtvfgf jub pnzr gb Rnegu naq sbhaq gur znahfpevcg.
Roshwald emigrated to America and died in Maryland in 2015.
Despite myriad potential distractions, it’s good to see Washington lawmakers focused on what really matters, which is whether John Fetterman looks nice.
A friend’s post on social media was too funny for the simple thumbs-up or smiley emoji, but not funny enough for the laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji. I overthink things sometimes.
Our new mortgage company wants to have a closer emotional relationship with us than we are interested in having.
Quit: The Silo Series Collection by Hugh Howey 📚 Grinds to a halt 300-400 pages in with 1,200-1,300 pages to go. I’d rather seal myself and my descendants in an underground cylinder than continue reading.
Finished reading: Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum 📚 Extremely interesting!
I’m finishing up writing a networking product factsheet now. Grammarly suggested I change “packets” to “boxes.” Noooooo…..
