The Fall of Western Civilization

The husband and I have a theory. We’re pretty sure that the fall of western civilization is going to be caused by computer programmers. You all know how I feel about QuickBooks Online. Tasks that used to take me two mouse clicks and five seconds now require eight mouse clicks and 42 seconds.

Part of the reason I am resisting purchasing a new car is because I want to enjoy my drives, and I can’t do that seated in the cockpit of the space shuttle. I do not need a 12" display screen. I do not need my car to greet me by name when I get in. I don’t need assistance to drive. I want my car to move me from point A to point B with a minimum of fuss and that’s it.

After one of my blog readers commented on a recent post that the comments link for the podcast website wasn’t working—thank you, Heather—I went to the podcast website to see what was going on. I was pretty sure I had built the new podcast website with the same settings that I have on this website, although the podcast website uses a different template. In the control panel, there is a section for “blog and commenting” settings. Within that section are settings to toggle on and off. At the top is “enable commenting globally,” which was toggled on. Further down is a choice to allow anonymous commenting or not. I had that toggled off. My feeling is that if you’re going to comment on something, be an adult and don’t hide behind your keyboard.

After e-mailing tech support (in Ireland, of all places) with my question—why is commenting not working if I have it enabled?—a helpful tech support person responded that in order for commenting to work, I had to have both “enable commenting globally” and “allow anonymous commenting” toggled on.

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That makes no sense. If “allow anonymous commenting” has to be toggled on in order for commenting to work, why offer the option to turn it off?

We’re quickly reaching the point of ridiculousness, where computer programmers have to think up reasons to keep themselves employed, and do it badly in the process. Not everything has to have code associated with it.

In any case, the comment function now should work on the podcast website, although I have to allow anonymous commenting. Also, get off my lawn.

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We have several active 4-H groups here in the valley. Elsyian’s son, WS, belongs to our local group and has picked up some great skills in the last year. He is working on a quilt to enter in the fair in August. Elysian asked me if I could help him work on getting a good quarter-inch seam. He came over with the machine yesterday afternoon so I could take a look.

Elysian bought him a very nice little machine:

This is Singer’s attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Featherweight. This model is called the Featherweight Plus. It is actually a great machine for a kid just starting out. It is solidly built, has a minimum of features, and can be set at a slower speed.

The only drawback to this machine is that the default needle position is left, not center. WS had picked up on that even before I said anything. (He’s a smart kid.) I had several shanks for interchangeable snap-on feet. I also had eight or ten different snap-on quarter-inch feet. However, we couldn’t find a combination of shank and foot where the needle didn’t hit the side of the opening in the foot. All of the openings in the feet were small round holes, which is what you want for a nice straight stitch, but the needle has got to enter that hole dead-center or you risk breaking a needle or messing up the timing. That left needle position was a problem and there was no way to adjust it to center. Finally, I located a quarter-inch foot with an oval opening instead of a round one and that one worked. It also had a blade on the side, which I thought would help him in getting a consistent seam. I think he’ll be fine after some practice and the little motivational speech I gave him.

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Today’s to-do list consists of editing the podcast for posting tomorrow and collecting all my teaching supplies. I have a master list of things I need to remember to take with me, which includes not only my teaching supplies, but also items requested by DD#2 and a box of books from our community library. I am taking the box of books to Half-Price Books to see what they will give us for them. We have a volunteer librarian who has identified some books in our collection that may have some value. This is a test to see if we could generate income from selling them. (Yes, we’d probably get more on eBay, but that requires a bit more time and effort and someone willing to coordinate that.) I’ve spent enough time at Half-Price Books to be comfortable going this route.