Mark

LibreOffice Writer — Cursor Position

March 11, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

If you use the free, open-source word-processing program LibreOffice Writer, and have discovered that the program does not save the last cursor position when you close a document, I can confirm that noxious behavior.

If you have searched for relief you may have come across a variety of proposed remedies, including claims that the last cursor position can be recovered by pressing the Shift+F5 key combination. You may also have tried that solution and found it did not work, or read responses from others indicating that Shift+F5 does not move the document view to the last saved cursor position.

When I press Shift+F5 on my keyboard as configured by default, that solution does not work. Like many keyboards, however, my keyboard requires that I press what is literally labeled the ‘F-Lock’ key to enable the functionality of the ‘F’ keys. If I do that — effectively turning on the ‘F’ keys on my keyboard — then Shift+F5 does indeed move the cursor and document view to the last saved position.

If you try this solution yourself — turning on the ‘F’ keys (which may also turn on an indicator light on your keyboard), then pressing Shift+F5 — I would like to know whether it does or does not work, and which version of LibreOffice you are using. And if it doesn’t work, keep reading. [ Read more ]

AI is the New Crypto

February 23, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

In the span of a few days, dating back to the initial flush of articles about ChatGPT and its ascendancy as a form of artificial intelligence, I began been receiving spam emails about how AI can change my life. These emails and the pitches they contain have no connection to my reality — or, as far as I can tell, any reality — yet they exist precisely because some small number of recipients will inevitably respond.

Contrast this glimpse of internet bottom feeders and their hapless marks with a similar push now being made in the financial markets, and I see little difference. Massive bets are being placed on various search engines and corporations, which will purportedly turn the ability of a computer to communicate with humans into fortunes similar to those promised by ventures which pushed the miracle of crypto a year ago. Which is to say I don’t have a lot of faith in either spam email or the financial markets to identify and differentiate truly meaningful revolutions from con games designed to separate suckers from their money.

Speaking of which, it’s also interesting to me that at a time of steep inflation and genuine financial pressure on individuals and their purchasing decisions, and in a context where venture capital is indeed having a much harder time raising money, there is nonetheless a great pile of free cash that is looking for the next big thing. I mean how poor and beleaguered are we if we’re all walking around with $1K smartphones that are primarily being used to figure out how to get us to fork over our diminished reserves in promise of future riches? Or is that a working definition of 21st century poverty? Too poor to invest in scams?

— Mark Barrett

Flying North for the Winter

February 8, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

Despite the fact that I not only enjoy winter, but have always thought of its furies and merciless silences as sacred and central to my own sense of annual renewal, I am not going to lapse into a rant about how this year’s non-winter makes clear that we have destroyed the planet. Instead, allow me to simply point out that when I took the trash out yesterday afternoon I was greeted with multiple squadrons of geese flying northwest in massive vee’s. The birds I saw must have numbered in the hundreds, and despite the fact that it is still early February they were demonstrating the same eager commitment that used to take place in mid-March.

But it’s all fine. Your heating bill this winter will be less, and you’ll be able to drive hither and yon through all four seasons, just like people from Missouri and Arkansas always have.

— Mark Barrett

University of Iowa Lawsuit Roundup

February 1, 2023 By Mark 4 Comments

Following years of bureaucratic and legal obstruction by the University of Iowa and the Iowa Board of Regents, in mid-December the Iowa State Auditor finally concluded his review of UI’s celebrated public-private utility partnership. (Excellent reporting and context here, from the Gazette’s indefatigable Vanessa Miller.) Because that partnership was a notable administrative act perpetrated by former illegitimate UI president J. Bruce Harreld, I began writing a post reviewing and commenting on the state audit, and whenever life stops dropping hammers I intended to finish that post to put a black bow on Harreld’s legacy. [ Read more ]

Yamada Sensei

January 30, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

Yoshimitsu Yamada passed away recently. He was many things, but above all he was a teacher.

In my aikido practice decades ago I first became aware of Yamada Sensei through VHS video tapes. There were a number of high-ranking senseis who had some prominence in the aikido community, and a few who seemed to aspire to celebrity, but Yamada Sensei appeared constitutionally incapable of anything other than humility and unqualified encouragement.

His simple goal of daily improvement became my goal in various crafts, and is still the only future I seek.

On one of my recurrent trips to New York City — again, decades ago — I went to the New York Aikikai just to watch him conduct a class. I didn’t want to sit in, I didn’t want a picture with him, I didn’t want anything except to see if the person matched the images I had seen, and he did. The exact same person on camera, and in person in a roomful of students on a random day.

Yamada Sensei’s last class — part 1 of 3.

— Mark Barrett

Nodding and Shaking — A Primer

January 25, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

A long time ago, in an undergraduate writing workshop far, far away, I read a story in which a character shook their head yes. When the workshop met for discussion I pointed out that people can either shake their head no or nod their head yes, but it wasn’t clear from the context which error the author had made. What genuinely surprised me, however, was not that the author didn’t know the difference, but that a handful of the other members also did not.

At the time I assumed I had stumbled into an aberrant cluster of people who were not well verse in the obscure art of describing head movements, but in the intervening decades that has proven not to be the case. In particular, there seems to be a persistent percentage of people who believe that nodding and shaking of the head both mean yes when they are decidedly not. So let this post — abetted over time by the long reach of search engine algorithms — stand as a corrective. [ Read more ]

Happy Copyright Notice Update Day!

January 1, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

Yes it’s that time of year again….

While admittedly a pedestrian clerical task, nothing demonstrates attention to detail like an up-to-date copyright notice. And I think that’s particularly important if your website offers services or is intended to demonstrate your professionalism or keen cultural relevance.

(If you have really been off the grid: it’s 2023. And no I can’t believe it either.)

— Mark Barrett

Apple Slices

December 12, 2022 By Mark Leave a Comment

Growing up in the Midwest in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the only apple variety commonly available for eating — as opposed to baking — was Red Delicious. As apples go it was mediocre, but because it was the only variety commonly available we didn’t know that at the time. If you wanted to eat an apple you were going to eat a Red Delicious, and that’s just the way it was.

The main selling point of the Red Delicious seems to have been its stable shelf life. If you had a Red Delicious apple on your kitchen counter in September, you could count on it being palatable in January if you suddenly developed a hankering. Which of course you didn’t do very often because Red Delicious apples were also relatively bland and a bit on the pulpy side, but still. [ Read more ]

The Face of Chess is a Clown

October 21, 2022 By Mark Leave a Comment

There is a lot of backstory here that I’m not going to get into, so if you’re not already up on the drama raging in the world of chess feel free to skip this post. Even if you know very little about the game itself, however, you may have heard that there was a recent cheating scandal, and that’s true. While the full contours of the cheating are still unclear, there is compelling and convincing evidence that a player of some considerable skill and accomplishment cheated in online games on multiple occasions. [ Read more ]

Whoa Stop and Woah Wow

August 22, 2022 By Mark Leave a Comment

On more than one occasion over the past — *checks notes* — half-century, I have been moved to look up the proper spelling of the word people say when bringing a horse to a stop or expressing stoner surprise. Until fairly recently I was sternly advised that the only such word was ‘whoa’, and in no civilized context would one write ‘woah’. Meaning even though there were two available spellings for two distinct usages, there was only one proper spelling for that word regardless of the intent or context.

Over the past year or two, however, ‘woah’ seems to be gaining steam, and some sources are now grudgingly acknowledging that — as language is wont to do — we are witnessing the evolution of the spelling of that word. What does not seem to be happening, however, is any disambiguation between the spellings and definitions, and I think that is a missed opportunity. If we have two completely different usages, and a new alternative spelling is gaining legitimacy, that would be the perfect time to differentiate between the spellings and definitions, forking them into homonyms.

To that end, and in service of clarity forever more, I am advocating that ‘whoa’ continue to be used to indicate a literal or figurative command to stop, while ‘woah’ should be used to signify low-key surprise or shock. As to how to put this plan into action, just put the plan into action. When you mean stop, write ‘whoa’. When you mean wow, write ‘woah’. The word police will catch up.

— Mark Barrett