ttj - Tom Jones

It's a sad fact of computing in 2022 that you can't just "sit down and write", given requirements something like the following: documents in sensible, specified format amenable to external version control, backups, and other manipulation easily searchable works on standalone computer -- if it's in the cloud, then it's a service, not an item of computing you can do yourself (must) presentable, or even looks good, both on screen and in print editor works by default in prose (paragraphs) mode, and never makes the user worry about line-wrapping documents by default, including in editor (which may be same as viewer), are presented at sensible of abstraction, such as titles, sections and paragraphs, not as pretend sheets of paper outline view (optional) visual peace (no flashing cursor or other distractions) by default beautiful by default, with custom styling possible  decent hyperlinking Off the top of my head, the closest an application comes to an acceptable exp...

 On my new android handset, I installed fbreader from fdroid, because this worked for me before, last time I was on android.   I downloaded a book in epub format using the builtin browser chrome.   At this point, the book should become visible in the reader app's view of what's available.   It's not there. The categories like "by author", "by title" are empty.  Choosing "library" or something brings up a complaint from the developers about how google has blocked their authentication page or something I don't care about. There does seem to be an option to browse the local filesystem and find the book yourself.  This exposes the dreaded Android filesystem via the cryptically-named "Device" and "Memory card", which tends to be the built-in memory.  Trying "Memory card" gives permission denied, so I try "Device".  The result is what looks like the root filesystem of android linux, which is internals from ...

The last 5 easyjet flights I've been on from Innsbruck have been delayed.  The easyjet flight out from Innsbruck is always the plane that's just arrived.  The airport doesn't have much traffic, so are probably flexible on slots.  So I suspect easyjet are playing a game, perhaps involving saving a marginal amount of airport fees on each flight, by scheduling for unrealistic turnarounds, and systematically messing their customers around, on every flight out of Innsbruck, in the process.   The departure boards might not work at Guernsey, but at least the flight left on time.   And at checkin, the checkin person called over a colleague and asked them how to handle a "high risk booking".  These three words were in English, the rest in German.  This might explain the increasingly idiotic questionning every time I check in to fly out of Innsbruck, things along the lines of "going home are you" (kind of, well, no -- I was resident in Austria atthe time). ...

Many years ago, at a literary festival, I went to a talk by an autistic   who helped design abattoirs.  The story was that she had special   empathy with the livestock, and could spot things that might bother them, sights, sounds, smell, space, and could suggest other things on the positive side to make the experience more pleasant, the whole   "about to be slaughtered" experience.  I don't know if she is   available for work on airports, but perhaps they could benefit from a similar treatment.  In the mean time, based on a recent experience departing from Gatwick North, I've come up with a few airport architecture design principles myself:   from any point in the airport through which livestock items are to be processed, a livestock item should be be able to see at least one clock    clearly, and statically, displaying the current time  bright, flashing objects should not project light into livestock items' eyes  ...