Getting it done!

Time to stop goofing off. I was looking at timelines and I need to start hitting two chapters a week or I'm going to have some nasty crunch time early next year. I've been writing around 1200-1500 words a day lately, but I need to bump that up to 2000 or I'll have to start working some on the weekends. We'll have none of that in Casa de Sanders!

If I got two chapters a week in I'd finish up the first draft in mid-February, which should work fine with my deadlines. So starting tomorrow - 2000 words a day, and a chapter every other day (or so).

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Comment Nation

So I got around to looking at closing old comments today, and wasn't entirely thrilled with my discoveries. The plugin that did it automatically doesn't work on MT 3.2. The plugin that did it semi-automatically doesn't work right with my data backend.


Ultimately I found a plugin that lets me close comments from a higher level menu so I can do 20 items at a time. So I went through Pic_A_Day and the Sniping Post and closed comments on everything over a month old. I think that's all I did, but if you see anything strange holler out. Also, the month cutoff is completely arbitrary, so if you were dying to mouth off on an older post drop me a note and I'll open them up.

Basically, the new spam system was stopping the comments from showing up publicly, but I was still having to deal with them under the hood. There is one reader/commenter who tends to read in bursts and comment on older entries, but I think 30 days will be enough of a window for that. Like I said, if it starts being a problem I could go to 45 days, or 60.

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And now I have a headache. Thanks Terminator!

Have any of you actually ever read that pamphlet of voter information they send out discussing the propositions? I seriously considered voting against whichever side used all-caps but I couldn't stomach that in a few cases. And my original phrasing was "used all-caps or excessive italics" but several propositions have italics fans on both sides. (sigh) Just reading through that thing gave me a headache. And I will say that I don't see a single one of these propositions that justified a special election. None of this couldn't have waited until next year, except the fact that Arnold has ridden to power on calling special elections. I'd love to see an analysis of what the whole slate actually saves over one year, versus the cost of running this election. And that's not even considering the aggravation level of being bombarded with crap for months (Hey CTA? We know your stance, duh. I swear you really strengthened my opinion on 75 by sending us junk mail every freakin' day for weeks on end.  We get it, you want to keep spending on campaigns. I'm voting for it just to make sure you have a smaller budget for mailing me crap next year!)


Anyway, now I'm informed. I guess. Hooray.

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Broadcast Flag Notes

So the EFF has found the sweet spot of political advocacy for me. They tend to have the same concerns I do on many issues, and they've figured out how to alert me when I need to comment and to reduce the effort to a point where I actually do. What happens is this - on three separate occasions now they've sent me an email alerting me to some attempt to sneak the broadcast flag provisions into some non-related bill or another. In these cases they've identified that one my Senators or Representatives is on a relevant committee and asked me to send them a letter. They then provide a web page with a suggested form letter that I can edit and fax to them. I've sent three this year - two to Senator Barbara Boxer, and one to Representative Zoe Lofgren last week. The first message to Sen. Boxer was early this year, the second was in early October

Sen. Boxer eventually replied to the first one (months later, after the issue had resolved) with a form letter telling me of her support for the broadcast flag. It was obvious that my initial letter had no impact whatsoever in her reply - just a total form letter. As yet I have received no response to my October 5 letter, over a month later. I'm not terribly surprised by Sen. Boxer's support - her third largest industry supporter is TV/Movies/Music[opensecrets.org].

In contrast Rep. Lofgren replied within a week, with a letter that was obviously still form, but at least somebody edited it slightly to refer to the reason I sent my original missive. I know how she stands on the broadcast flag and more importantly I know that she has somebody in her organization that looked at the input her constituent (me) sent her.

Wanna guess who is more likely to get my vote next time? I sincerely hope somebody in 2010 runs against Boxer that doesn't come up with even more vile positions to take, because I don't like her stance, and I don't like how she responds to her own voters.

(Speaking of voting I've got to go read up on a kazillion squirrely propositions today. Sometimes being a Californian is a real pain in the rear.)

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