My kid just started high school and was taught cursive—not the way I was—but it was part of the curriculum, so it’s not gone. Also, there’s some indication that learning cursive has some sort of overall benefit for kids that I’ve conveniently forgotten.

Cursive is taught so that you can a) read stuff written by us older folk and b) because you may end up in a situation where you need to do a lot of handwriting—in which case cursive is faster and more efficient. In that case, you’ll probably develop some sort of hybrid, but at least you’ll know how to go about it—I…

Print’s only faster if you haven’t learned cursive well. Way back when PCs weren’t standard and typing was considered a skill for secretaries, a *lot* more time in school was spent on learning and writing cursive. No one from my era prints more quickly than they write cursive.

I disagree. Bad writing becomes more annoying, not less, as time passes. People still read Jane Austen, in part, because her writing style makes her more accessible than her near-contemporary Sir Walter Scott. Scott, though, was much, much more successful at the time. But his writing style has not aged well, along…

While there are androgynous actors, I think Left Hand would actually work best as an animation—something where you can’t think—well, that guy’s really Tilda Swinton and, therefore, a woman—if it were animated, you could really come up with an androgynous people who changed—and you could made them brown the way they’re…

Thanks, this is what I love about the i09 comment section—people know their stuff. So some change, but the basic current pattern remains and that bloody cold water from the bottom of the ocean may not be as bloody cold, but still too bloody cold for hurricanes to be an issue.

It’s interesting how warm the water has to be for hurricanes—I hadn’t realized the waters off Japan and China were that warm—since the two countries kind of line up with California in terms of latitude. I do know that the water’s warmer off of Oregon than it is in northern California, but I assume Oregon is still way…

I thought that though El Ninos were normal, the severity predicted for this El Nino is due to global warming.

This. I don’t consider myself a huge SF/Fantasy fan because I’m pretty picky about it—I can’t just pick up an SF book and assume I’ll enjoy it. Aasimov had some great ideas, but his writing drives me nuts. The good stuff is wonderful, but I don’t have the patience to get through work that’s not well-written.

I don’t think SJ has anything to do with that trend. That trend has everything to do with the current state of publishing, which has become more and more risk averse.

El Nino and droughts are normal in the West—climate change apparently just makes for bigger swings.

Thanks for the explanation—that’s kind of what I thought, but it used to be Hawaii didn’t see tons of hurricanes—some, but nothing like Florida—and now hurricanes are definitely starting to seem like a thing. So our cold current will continue to protect us as well making beach wading unpleasantly and shockingly cold…

At what point does the Pacific warm up enough that hurricanes become an issue for California? Does the cold California Current offer us some protection even with rising ocean temperatures?

Yep. It has continuity with the previous flag, but the black field makes it a little less busy than the red, white and blue version.

Yep. I barely remember it and I read it for a book group and discussed it and everything. I still find it forgettable. Franzen’s way up there on my list of overrated writers. Most of the time I can figure out why other people admire a writer even when I don’t, but not with Franzen—his reputation baffles me.

I don’t like eyeliner, but it’s nice to know if my part is straight and my contacts aren’t wondering.

Yep. I live in Silicon Valley and these guys are very, very competitive and entitled as a rule. Some are good family men, some are not, but the successful ones tend to be ruthless and arrogant more often than not—at least when it comes to business. The one upmanship aspect can get really, really tiresome.

On the plus…

You missed the antitrust suits then. Bill Gates was aggressively competitive and Microsoft was in the business of crushing competition to the point of holding back technological advances.

Gates, himself, single focused and quite possibly on the autism spectrum. So, okay, in person, but really, really nerdy.

Yep, Jobs was famously a bad-tempered brat as a young tycoon. Seriously, Mark Zuckerberg at the same age comes off a lot better. But at some point, Jobs mellowed a bit and this myth got built up around him that conveniently whitewashes Jobs’ less pleasant aspects.

Fraud.