I have spent quite a long time trying to get my Tumblr posts showing up on Facebook, and now I finally did it! Nowhere, no how, was there anything telling my why things weren’t working. I tried every once in a while, but never really intensively.

I tried deleting and adding Tumblr to Facebook in all kinds of ways and not once did it work. Until I realized something interesting. I had a few old Facebook pages and apps that were showing up in my Tumblr Facebook options. I had ignored them, assuming that by selecting my own profile it would be fine. Wrong.

The pages and apps options have sort of been removed from Facebook, they’re hidden within the Facebook Developer app, to which I never paid any attention. But after a little looking around and some educated guesses, I found the pages and apps and removed them. Once I disabled and enabled Tumblr for Facebook, everything seemed to be working.

Now I just have to figure out how to get ifttt working!

Another blog post stemming from a discussion with friends and family. (And isn’t this little guy cute? I’m borrowing this picture from clickpets.co.uk.)

We were discussing post-secondary education (hence the neat title) and that my friends are considering trying to convince their kids to take a year off after high school to figure things out.

As a university graduate and current employee of a university, you might expect me to be strongly in favour of university, but I’m not. I really think a year off is the best plan. Go get a job (or two) that’s kind of crappy, learn about working, paying taxes, being an adult, then go to university, or community college, or do whatever you want to do.

One of my friends’ concerns was that, by taking a year off, one the kids wouldn’t want to go back to school. But I think that after three or five years of crummy, menial, retail work, he might change his mind. Or it might not, and he’ll be happy.

Once you’re out in the world, you get to find out a lot of things that you don’t want to do, and that’s probably the hardest part of figuring out how to be happy. Four years and tens of thousands of dollars are a pretty high price to pay to find out you want to be a welder and not a biochemist.

Today’s post is just a little bit of housekeeping. I was advised that I maybe use too many kitty cats in my posts, so I will try to use more puppy dogs. In fact this first one is my own, well, my sister’s, puppy dog, The Baron, having a little nap at Xmas time.

The other thing that was mentioned to me is that people are perhaps concerned about having a discussion with me, for fear that it will end up here, on the internet. They’re not entirely wrong. I have, in fact, always been interested in this shirt, because, in fact, I probably am blogging this.

No, I would have to say that if I have a disagreement with you and it ends up online, you should have known it was going to happen. I’m almost positive that if we have a disagreement, you know about it, and nothing that ends up in this blog is a surprise.

While I generally dismiss out of hand arguments of the Not in my backyard (NIMBY) nature, I came into one just yesterday that is not so easy to dismiss. Here in Saskatoon, there was a proposal for a green energy park, which included a wind turbine at the landfill (i.e., the dump).

The NIMBY argument is that it’s a noisy eyesore. I suppose if I lived in the area and had to see or hear it all day long, I might believe the same thing. But I’m generally of the opinion that it has to go somewhere and my backyard is probably as good as anyone else’s.

If the noise is actually an issue or there is evidence of problems with birds and bats, as demonstrated by other, similar turbines, then those are legitimate arguments against the turbine. If you just don’t like the way it looks, I’d say that’s not a thing. In this particular case, however, if you don’t like the way it looks and it sits on a giant mountain of garbage, that you’ve had to look at for years and is only getting worse, then you probably have a legitimate issue. And more legitimate when, I’m sure, the turbine can probably be built anywhere in the city, farther away from established neighbourhoods.

This is all moot, because the project has been deemed too expensive and the turbine will not be built any time soon.

It turns out that the problem is not entirely me. I was out with a very random group Saturday afternoon and we all generally shared the same opinions. A database programmer in his mid-thirties, a former firefighter and EMT and current construction contractor in his late thirties, a city-dwelling farm couple in their mid-eighties, and me discussing the idiots around us.

To be honest, I don’t entirely recall the discussion. I had intended to write this post immediately upon coming home, but only got the first paragraph done. I then chose to move onto eating dinner and snacking while watching Moneyball.

But regardless of the content of the discussion, it revealed to me that I’m not alone in my complaining. It’s also probable that I surround myself with people who share my world view, thus reinforcing my view, and adding further frustration with those people and situations that frustrate me. Unfortunately, I don’t intend to change.

On the way back to the office after lunch, we began talking about coffee  as we passed the Tim Hortons. Somebody asked if I planned to try the new lattes that are on offer. I answered in the negative, not because I’m some sort of coffee snob (I drink Tim’s coffee every now and again), but because I prefer the handcrafted beverages at Starbucks.

While on the topic, someone else asked if I had tried a particular coffee house and bakery in my neighbourhood, to which I replied in the negative again, with clarification. This particular coffee house and bakery is closed Sundays and Mondays, “to maintain family values”. Okay. Whatever. Be closed, but don’t preach to me at the same time. I feel I’m being judged on my own family values, just because I showed up on a Sunday.

I was told that I shouldn’t boycott the place just for that reason; the coffee and baking is really excellent. Unfortunately, I’ll never find out whether the products are good, because I’ll never go there.

What if my religion dictated that I not work on Tuesday, would someone accept that my store’s closed on Tuesday? Maybe. But would they care that I’m closed for religious or “family values” reasons? Probably not. You want to be closed, be closed. You want to be closed to attend church, be closed. You want to attend church and still be open, hire someone who doesn’t attend church. You don’t want to hire someone who doesn’t go church, I think there may be a human rights issue, but whatever, be closed. But I don’t care why, and I don’t need you to tell me.

I can hold a grudge and I will. They can change the sign and change the policy, but I’m soured. And I’ll stay that way and I’ll like it.

Indeed, my first complaint is about people who don’t do their job and then whine when something isn’t right and needs to be fixed (by someone else) immediately.

The other day at work, it was imperative that a change be made at the last minute. Admittedly, the problem was not really caused by the person making the request, but by a bug in the system, but that’s not really an excuse. The person responsible for the work in the first place should have been diligent enough to make sure that everything was functioning properly and raised the issue earlier.

Had the problem been noticed earlier, the workaround could have been implemented, and the issue avoided. But the person responsible did not confirm that the changes were successful when they were originally made and so did not, until the last possible moment, notice that they were not successful.

In my opinion, that’s not doing the job.

Yes, seriously. I’ve decided that I don’t understand people, and I’m not qualified to engage in debates on topics that relate to how people feel and act.

The other night, at family dinner, I was discussing how I don’t bother saving for things that I want. If I want to do or buy something and know that I can afford it (immediately or over time, using credit), I’ll do or buy it. Why not? To which I was told that some people (in fact, a lot of people) have already used their maximum credit.

Understood. I guess.

But it also revealed to me that what makes sense to me doesn’t always make sense to others, or that it’s not the default for others. I admit that sometimes I don’t think all the way through my thought or opinion before I voice it, leaving open to debate from people who perhaps have thought over it longer.

In any case, I will try to vent more of my complaints here, allowing for feedback from my audience, which should give me some opportunity to think further about my thought or opinion.

A grammar blog I read the other day reminded me of a Slate post from a couple of weeks ago about the practice of adding two spaces after a period when typing. Farhad Manjoo, the Slate author, has very strong opinions on the subject, and even consulted typographers for clarification. I checked with the Modern Language Association (MLA) website, which provides a non-prescriptive answer.

I’m not sure I have any strong opinions on the subject. The standard in my English class last year was two spaces, and I did what I was told. Although, personally, I tend to follow the web standard, which solves the problem for me. The HTML specification is to collapse all white space when rendering inter-word spacing; meaning that spaces between words (e.g., from a period to the next word) will be collapsed to one space. Easy.

Generally, modern typography and technology resolve issues that arose from monospaced text on typewriters, allowing for a return to the original rules of typeset typography.

I don’t usually solicit feedback on my thoughts, but this time I will. What do you guys think about spaces after periods?

Something that bugs me is the specific use of “backslash” (“\”) when people mean forward slash (“/”, which is commonly referred to as slash). There is only one place I know that you need a backslash and that’s in DOS file structures (C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe). And, yes, that means Windows, too. Everywhere else, only slashes are needed.

“Uhh, no, websites are h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash-w-w-w….” Actually, that’s not true. “Well, then the address is twitter.com-backslash-ICHCheezburger.” Nope, forward slash.

Or just slash. And not Slash.