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If you read the news you often read about the incredible cruelty shown towards the homeless, for example about "police sweeps" in which - just a couple weeks ago - 150 people were tossed out of their tent camp in Vancouver, Washington, followed by a bulldozer "cleaning up" what were once their possessions.

But in my actual experience the kindness shown towards homeless people such as myself is far, far more common than is the cruelty. It's just that the cruelty gets more press.

I often hang out at all-night restaurants as I prefer to sleep during the day - during the day there are day centers for the homeless but at night one must either brave the cold, or find a restaurant that will permit one to hang out all night long in return for purchasing one single coffee.

The restaurant I'm at right now gives me my coffee absolutely free of charge. I tell them they don't have to do that, they I sing on the street for tips and so have the means to pay.

"You should accept help when it is offered to you," pointed out one of the waitresses. Just now she asked me if I wanted breakfast.

This isn't the first time, a while back the manager of a Carl's Jr. bought me breakfast, also the owner of a Burger King bought me lunch.

I finally applied for Social Security Disability Insurance, as a result of my Aphasia (not my mental illness). The clerk who took my application was confident it would be approved but there is some problem with my tax records that I expect I can straighten out.

When one's SSDI is approved one's first check is backdated to the lesser of one year before one's application or the date one became disabled. For me that would be quite a lot of money.

I am not dead certain but I contemplate donating all that money to the charities that look after people like me.

Black Friday 2015

Laptops

• $99: 11.6 inch Chromebook, Best Buy
• $300: Core i3, 15.6 inch, Best Buy
• $140: Celeron, 15.6 inch, Best Buy

Storage

• $100: 4 TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive, Best Buy
• $100: 4 TB Toshiba Canvio external hard drive, Office Max and Office Depot
• $120: 5 TB Seagate external hard drive, Costco
• $120: 5 TB Toshiba Canvio external hard drive, Office Max and Office Depot
• $40: 1 TB Seagate portable hard drive, Staples
• $200: SanDisk Ultra II 2.5" SSD 960GB, Newegg

Consoles

• $300: Dell Home & Office Black Friday: Xbox One Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle Plus Fallout 4 & Extra Controller
• $300: Target Black Friday: 500GB Xbox One Console w/ Gears of War Digital Download Code + $60 Target Gift Card

Categories

• Blank Media (CDs, DVDs)
• USB Flash Drives
• Hard Drives

Articles

Best Laptops: Holiday 2015
Best SSDs: Holiday 2015

I'm watching my oldest son read The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander, second book in my favorite childhood book series. He's near the end of the book where things really get exciting and horrific, he seems amazingly absorbed, his eyes are wide, and he looks a bit horrified.

Unlike me, he's read the entire book in pretty much a day. Having trouble keeping up with the voracious book appetite around here, which is a great problem to have.

Over at the other place, when I get a link to a comment, the comment provides no context about the story other than the headline. Here, a link to a comment shows the story as well. Kudos to the guys who made all this work, from little things like that to big things like Unicode support. (And I'm sure bigger stuff than that, but I'm not really educated about it.)

If you haven't shown SN a little love financially maybe think about some of those little details that have been so nicely handled. They took time and work on somebody's part. The least the rest of us can do is help keep the lights on around here.

Most people don't celebrate St. Martin's Day, but we make it a family holiday. Martin of Tours is one of our family heroes, even though we come from a church that typically doesn't honor saints of ages past. We honor Martin for his pacifism, and we also honor Martin for his belief that secular authorities should not enforce religious laws, certainly not with execution! You can read more about Martin here if you are interested.

It's nice that Martin's day occurs on Armistice Day, which used to be a day for celebrating the one thing about war worth celebrating: when it ends.

So, our annual family Remember the Fifth of November fireworks have been delayed two nights in a row due to rain. So what do we wind up doing? The kids come over while I'm washing dishes, look at my laptop on the counter, and see a tab opened to keep track of Bitcoin's current price. They start watching it change and asking questions and before I know it I've explained how a commodities exchange works, along with a lot about supply and demand.

Boy we are a bunch of geeks! (And I love it.)

[A]narchy is in fact the only political position that is actually possible. I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation—that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice. All it means, the word, is no leaders. An-archon. No leaders.

-- Alan Moore

Thanks, Alan.

I got an update for Star Trek Continues from Kickstarter saying they've finished their engine room! There's only one picture, but it looks pretty cool. They say their newsletter will have some updates later this year for production of episode 6. I submitted a story about Star Trek Continues when they released episode 5, and tried to include a lot of good information and links for those who haven't encountered it before.

Ordered yet another book series for my ten year old son today. I am having a blast being unable to keep up with what all he is reading.

For anyone interested, it's the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander. This is a marvelous time of year to read them, too.