World this day, international that week, global the other month.
Normally I find out about these things too late to do anything about it. So I'm actually grateful to Eattiamo -- who'll send a box of Italian goodies to your doorstep, if you're in the USA -- for pointing out that 25 October happens...
These have been very trying times. When the UK voted to leave the European Union I was having a good time in two of Britain's former dominions. I was utterly shocked, surprised and depressed. I still am, in a way. I refused to discuss it with anyone over there unless they also allowed me to bring the US presidential campaign into the discussion, and mostly they saw my point.
Which was: if the Brits could vote to the leave the EU -- which all the experts, as opposed to talking heads, believe could be bad economically, culturally, everything -- it is entirely possible that come November, the Americans could vote for the presumptive Republican nominee, as he was at the time.
Only one thing was clear, although I could not articulate it: these voters and the people they followed were not simply stupid.
I have to believe that nobody at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science has actually looked at the site since 11 July. Either that, or this headline is a joke to which I am not privy.
Also interesting, the original on the BBC website, credited by the AACCS, has no such error, and is shorter.
So maybe it is a joke.
Over the past few days I gave myself the luxury of a few unbroken half days to try and get to grips with the machinery underneath this website and to try and revive the Vaviblog. In the process, I've learned a bit about Grav and a lot about me and how I tackle this sort of thing.
The biggest single problem is how easy it is to simply suck it and see. Try something; save it; refresh the browser. Rinse and repeat. I've made a lot of progress that way, but I wouldn't say I have really deepened my understanding too much. I get some of the principles of programming; after all, I started been doing it around 45 years ago, with FORTRAN on an IBM370. The rot set in with my first personal computer, an Apple ][e, a dozen or so years later. Working in BASIC, it just became easier to try things rather than go through all the stages.
Yesterday I was walking down the street and I almost swooned under the influence of a tree full of orange blossoms. Today, I continue repopulating this website and discover that at around this time of the year, 14 years ago, I almost swooned for the very same reason. In fact, that day was very muc...
