Updates to «Salad Day» (need to eliminate 9 lines)

005/codex-005.tex

@@ -187,18 +187,18 @@ If you want to donate financial support for the creation of this zine (and all t
 
 A long time ago my stepdad had created a successful business screen-printing t-shirts. He had been in the music business (there is a long story here, but it doesn't fit in with this zine) and he realized he could make more money if he printed and sold his own band shirts.
 
-At some point, my parents decided to try to replicate this success. As, at the time, the sure key to success was to have a website (thanks Oprah!), I got roped in, because a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I had uploaded some HTML files to a free web server and told them "look, I made a web page!"  They immediately assumed I was an expert and knew everything about putting a business online, and could build a web page that would have us making millions of dollars in mere weeks.
+At some point, my parents decided to try to replicate this success. As, at the time, the sure key to success was to have a website (thanks Oprah!), I got roped in, because a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I had uploaded some HTML files to a free web server and told them "look, I made a web page!"  They immediately assumed I was an expert and knew everything about putting a business online, and that I could build a web page that would have us making millions of dollars in mere weeks.
 
 This was not the case, of course. What I learned was this:
 
 \begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
 \item Dial-up internet sucks.
-\item Clarke's Third Law normally applies, but in the case of your parents, even doubly so.
+\item Clarke's Third Law normally applies, but in the case of parents, even doubly so. (Or squared, or even cubed.)
 \item Oprah is a great disseminator of false information.
 \item Never go into business with your family, especially your parents.
 \end{itemize}
 
-The useful things I learned from that experience were how to be really good at HTML (and without CSS, you had to be really good at copy and paste\footnote{i.e., copypasta}, how an FTP client works (in this case, Transmit\footnote{\kref{https://panic.com/transmit/}{https://panic.com/transmit/}} on a Mac), and that cPanel really sucks. (If your webhost uses cPanel, \textit{you} can do better, and they \textit{should} do better.)
+The useful things I learned from that experience were how to be really good at HTML (and without CSS, you had to be really good at copy and paste\footnote{i.e., copypasta}(, how an FTP client works (in this case, Transmit\footnote{\kref{https://panic.com/transmit/}{https://panic.com/transmit/}} on a Mac), and that cPanel really sucks. (If your webhost uses cPanel, \textit{you} can do better, and your webhost \textit{should} do better.)
 
 That business died after three or four orders, which was probably a good thing. (Did I mention you should never go into business with your family, especially your parents? If you make that mistake, get out while the getting is good, or at least before irreparable harm is done.)
 
@@ -206,41 +206,41 @@ But it did set me up with some usable skills when I went back to college. I star
 
 Unfortunately, it did not live long. I had seriously underestimated how much money was required just to exist and when it came to putting gas in the tank \textit{or} paying webhosting fees, it was an easy decision. One of those things was helping me make money and the other was not. Something had to go, and so the website went. (Fortunately, it was so short-lived that \texttt{archive.org} never caught wind of it.)
 
-As it turns out, the education community is not as progressive as some people would lead you to believe. Once they find something that works, they are loathe to switch to something new. Having a website wouldn't help me find a substitute gigs. Only being a good substitute teacher would help me do that. Who knew?
+As it turns out, the education community is not as progressive as some people would lead you to believe. Once they find something that works, they are loathe to switch to something new. Having a website wouldn't help me find substitute gigs. Only being a good substitute teacher would help me do that. Who knew?
 
-Anyway, I did keep trying. The educational-industrial complex was pushing ``Web 2.0''\footnote{which was basically social media, but also included blogs} really hard. I tried making another website (\kref{https://kjodle.net/}{kjodle.net}, which survives to this day) and my webhost at the time offered a one-click install of WordPress which at that time was pretty much a blogging platform and little else. So I clicked on the ``install'' button, wondered for a moment what I had done, and thus, \textit{The Big Bad Book Blog} was born.\footnote{\kref{https://bookblog.kjodle.net/}{bookblog.kjodle.net}}
+Anyway, I kept trying. The educational-industrial complex was pushing ``Web 2.0''\footnote{which was basically social media, but also included blogs} really hard. I did make another website (\kref{https://kjodle.net/}{kjodle.net}, which survives to this day) and my webhost at the time offered a one-click install of WordPress which at that time was pretty much a blogging platform and little else. So I clicked on the ``install'' button, wondered for a moment what I had done, and suddenly, \textit{The Big Bad Book Blog} was born.\footnote{\kref{https://bookblog.kjodle.net/}{bookblog.kjodle.net}}
 
-As a newly minted English teacher, I enjoyed having a place where I could talk about all the books I'd been reading. But as a nerdy computer person, having a WordPress blog made me really reach. 
+As a newly minted English teacher, I enjoyed having a place where I could talk about all the books I'd been reading. But as a nerdy computer person, having a WordPress blog made me really itch. 
 
-It wasn't just html and css, for a start, which were the only two technologies I knew how to use to create a website. Rather, it was PHP and JavaScript, with MySQL database attached. And while I was happy with the theme I had chosen, I was not 100\% happy with its appearance. I began tinkering under the hood, which WordPress requires that you do in a rather particular way, meaning I had to level up, so that is what I did. I threw myself into the world of PHP, JavaScript, and WordPress child themes.
+It wasn't just HTML and CSS, for a start, which were the only two technologies I knew how to use to create a website. Rather, it was PHP and JavaScript, with a MySQL database attached. And while I was happy with the theme I had chosen, I was not 100\% happy with its appearance. I began tinkering under the hood, which WordPress requires that you do in a rather particular way. I had to level up, so that is what I did. I threw myself into the world of PHP, JavaScript, and WordPress child themes.
 
-It was tough work, but I enjoyed it. At this point, I was pretty much substitute teaching full time (and being good at it meant my calendar was full), but while it filled my days, it left my nights free to work on this.
+It was tough work, but I enjoyed it. At this point, I was pretty much substitute teaching full time (and being good at it meant my calendar was full), but while it filled my days, it left my nights free to work on figuring out all these technologies that were new to me.
 
-I eventually got to a point where I could create not just a child theme, but also fully blown themes for WordPress, and plugins to boot. Again, tough work, but very, very satisfying. 
+I eventually got to a point where I could create not just a child theme, but also fully blown themes for WordPress, and plugins to boot. Again, tough work,\footnote{I had not yet learned about Git, which would have made all of this \textit{so} much easier. Hence my enthusiasm for Git and the inclusion of a Git primer in this issue.} but very, very satisfying. 
 
-And because I was having problems finding work as a teacher (so many other people decided to get into teaching at the same time, so the market was saturated), I thought that maybe I could become a developer. Why not? After all, I knew that I could learn whatever I needed to, as long as I set my mind to it.
+I was having problems finding work as a teacher (so many other people decided to get into teaching at the same time, so the market was saturated) and I thought that maybe I could become a developer. Why not? After all, I knew that I could learn whatever I needed to, as long as I set my mind to it.
 
-It was a happier, sunnier time, after all, despite the recession—at least if you knew something about ``coding''. I put that in quotation marks because it is a fuzzy word with fairly nebulous meaning. After all, I learned ``coding'' at the age of 12 by programming a TRS-80 in BASIC.\footnote{TRS-BASIC, to be precise} I doubt that anybody now or in 2010 would hire me on the basis of \textit{that} particular skillset.
+It was a happier, sunnier time, after all, despite the recession—at least if you knew something about ``coding''. I put that in quotation marks because it is a fuzzy word with fairly nebulous meaning. After all, I learned ``coding'' at the age of twelve by programming a TRS-80 in BASIC.\footnote{TRS-BASIC, to be precise} I doubt that anybody now or in 2010 would hire me on the basis of \textit{that} particular skillset.
 
-But I did try. I did do some freelance development work for WordPress. I had learned how to make child themes fairly easily, and got a fiar amount of work from people who wanted to customize their blogs, but had neither the time nor the skill nor the inclination to learn the skills required for this. Was I making enough money to pay the bills? No. Was I making enough money for a cheap, greasy pizza and a six-pack on the odd weekend? Yep!
+But I did try. I did some freelance development work for WordPress. I had learned how to make child themes fairly easily, and got a fair amount of work from people who wanted to customize their blogs, but had neither the time nor the skill nor the inclination to learn the skills required for this. Was I making enough money to pay the bills? No. Was I making enough money for a cheap, greasy pizza and a six-pack on the odd weekend? Yep!
 
 I was happy with that level of success and wanted more, but there are only so many hours in a day. I didn't have the time to learn everything I needed to know (I admit that JavaScript still eludes me) and I certainly didn't have any more money for coursework or marketing at that point.
 
-Plus, I had just graduated with an English degree with the goal of being a teacher. I was still substituting in the hopes of landing a teaching job, though, so I taught myself how to use Moodle (which is a terrible name really, and one of the main reasons why software development and software marketing should be completely separate circles in the Venn diagram).
+Plus, I had just graduated with an English degree with the goal of being a teacher. I was still substituting in the hopes of landing a teaching job, though, so I taught myself how to use Moodle\footnote{which is a terrible name really, and one of the main reasons why software development and software marketing should be completely separate circles in the Venn diagram} even figuring out how to make some simple plugins for it.
 
 And…it got me nowhere. Summer came, and I was out of substituting work, so I signed up with a temp agency, specifying that I was looking for second-shift work only. My thought was that if I could finagle a teaching interview, it would be during the day and so I wouldn't need to take time off from work. Also, assuming that I \textit{couldn't} find a teaching job, I could sub during the day and keep the second shift gig as a way to ensure I wouldn't starve.
 
-That was the plan anyway, but it wasn't exactly how things worked out. The agency sent me to interview for a position at a small local manufacturing company that needed someone to operate equipment and keep an eye on inventory during the second shift.
+That was the plan anyway, but it wasn't exactly how things worked out. The agency sent me to interview for a position at a small local manufacturing company that needed someone to operate equipment and keep an eye on inventory during the second shift. I can operate machinery! I'm great at managing inventory! Woot!
 
-What I didn't know (and what the agency also didn't know) was that they also needed someone to completely rewrite all of their technical documentation\footnote{•}, and to create a training program out of whole cloth and then implement and manage that program. They also needed someone to handle their domestic and MRO\footnote{Maintenance, Repairs, Operations—that is, paint, duct tape, toilet paper} purchasing as the part-time person they had doing this currently spent most of her time buying furniture on eBay for her rental properties.\footnote{True story!}
+What I didn't know (and what the agency also didn't know) was that they also needed someone to completely rewrite all of their technical documentation\footnote{work instructions and processes, mainly}, and to create a training program out of whole cloth and then implement and manage that program. They also needed someone to handle their domestic and MRO\footnote{Maintenance, Repairs, Operations—that is, paint, duct tape, toilet paper.} purchasing as the part-time person they had doing this currently spent most of her time buying furniture on eBay for her rental properties.\footnote{True story!}
 
 I've never had a job interview take such a dramatic turn before (which was the first of many red flags—in retrospect this place looked like a May Day parade in Leningrad) but the things they laid out—paid time off, a retirement plan, health insurance (including vision and dental)—were too much to resist. I pushed my tongue against a sore tooth and agreed to take the job. We all shook hands and I left, wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into. 
 
-Quite a bit, actually, as it turned out. I thought I might stay a year get caught up on some things, and then try to get a teaching job again, but the educational-industrial complex is a jealous god who does not trust people who walk away, so that was not possible.
+Quite a bit, actually, as it turned out. I thought I might stay a year to get caught up on some things, and then try to get a teaching job again, but the educational-industrial complex is a jealous god who does not trust people who walk away, so the longer I stayed away, the less it would be possible.
 
 I ended up staying with that company for almost six years, despite the fact that I gave notice on three separate occasions. In retrospect, it was a terrible experience (and the subject of an entirely different zine) but I learned a lot. (The main thing I learned was to never work for a small company with no HR department where the boss is also the owner, and who is a rich boy who was born on third base but walks around thinking he hit a triple. But I digress.)
 
-The main thing I learned is to never underestimate yourself. When a former student told me that his current employer had openings and that I should apply, I did. Six weeks later, I was sitting in the training room of my current employer, which brings us to today.
+The biggest thing I learned is to never underestimate yourself. When a former student told me that his current employer had openings and that I should apply, I did. Six weeks later, I was sitting in the training room of my current employer, which brings us to today.
 
 \section{Today}
 
@@ -250,17 +250,17 @@ So where am I?
 
 I work as a data reviewer for a contract research organization in the pharmaceutical industry. That means that drug companies send us samples of their products, and we test them for things like assay, impurities, appearance, disintegration, etc. People who majored in chemistry run the tests and I sit there and look at their procedures and results and make sure that everything was performed correctly, that the math is correct, and that the results are, indeed, valid.
 
-In theory, I'm an analytical chemist. In practice, I'm a nerdy science accountant who spends the day with his nose buried in Excel spreadsheets. A \textit{lot} of Excel spreadsheets.
+In theory, I'm an analytical chemist. In practice, I'm a botany/English major with a fondness for computers who spends the day with his nose buried in Excel spreadsheets. A \textit{lot} of Excel spreadsheets.
 
 Except that I also used to design websites, so my spreadsheets are easy on the eyes, color-coded, and logically oriented—that is, they take you through the analytical method in a step-wise, chronological manner. In other words, we look at standard concentrations first, and then our system suitability tests, and then the actual tests. Every cell is also labeled, so it's clear what goes where.\footnote{For a visual depiction, see \kref{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IFUYg9IUgI}{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IFUYg9IUgI}.} My boss admires them and I am justifiably proud of them. After all, these aren't just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill spreadsheets we're talking about here.
 
-My spreadsheets are so beautiful that when my boss got a glimpse of them he immediately placed me in charge of mentoring new data reviewers, mostly so that they could see what my spreadsheets look like. And I get it. I worked really hard to make spreadsheets that are understandable not just to me but to everybody because we may have a corrective action come up at some point and we need to be sable to see how we arrived at the results that have. So yep, I strive to make all my spreadsheets consistent and understandable to someone who has no familiarity with them. 
+My spreadsheets are so beautiful that when my boss got a glimpse of them he immediately placed me in charge of mentoring new data reviewers, mostly so that they could see what my spreadsheets look like. And I get it. I worked really hard to make spreadsheets that are understandable not just to me but to everybody because we may have a corrective action come up at some point and we need to be able to see how we arrived at the results that have. So yep, I strive to make all my spreadsheets consistent and understandable to someone who has no familiarity with them. 
 
 \fbox{\texttt{tl;dr:} I'm \textit{really} good with Microsoft Excel. }
 
-But it's not satisfying work. It pays the bills.\footnote{Well, barely (and by the time you're reading this, probably not actually), after the recent fit of massive corporate price gouging—I mean, er…inflation.} It's not exactly the hind end of science, but it's close. (I once worked in a lab that did non-clinical testing\footnote{That is, rats and mice. Lots and lots of rats and mice.} and believe me, \textit{that} is the hind end of science.\footnote{Science actually has many hind-ends. This is but one of them.}) I'm not really doing science; if anything I'm just a science accountant, making sure the books balance. It's boring—\textit{really }boring—and more than a bit mind-numbing. 
+But it's not satisfying work. It pays the bills.\footnote{Well, barely (and by the time you're reading this, probably not actually), after the recent fit of massive corporate price gouging—I mean, er…inflation.} It's not exactly the hind end of science, but it's close. (I once worked in a lab that did non-clinical testing\footnote{That is, rats and mice. Lots and \textit{lots} of rats and mice.} and believe me, \textit{that} is the hind end of science.\footnote{Science actually has many hind-ends. This is but one of them.}) I'm not really doing science; if anything I'm just a science accountant, making sure the books balance. It's boring—\textit{really }boring—and more than a bit mind-numbing. 
 
-Considering that my entire job exists to help keep the drug supply safe\footnote{Well, the \textit{legal} drug supply anyway.} that statement may sound frightening or even disturbing. But it's not really. You \textit{want} this job to be boring. When it's not boring, it's generally because something has gone wrong, and and this is one of those industries (like nuclear energy or air traffic control) where you really \textit{don't} want things to go wrong.
+Considering that my entire job exists to help keep the drug supply safe\footnote{Well, the \textit{legal} drug supply anyway.} that statement may sound frightening or even disturbing. But it's not really. You \textit{want} this job to be boring. When it's not boring, it's generally because something has gone wrong, and and this is one of those industries (like nuclear energy or air traffic control) where you really \textit{don't} want things to not be boring.
 
 The irony is that I took this job because I \textit{knew} it would be boring. My last job had been so nerve wracking that mentally I was completely spent by the time I got home and creating anything at that point was damn difficult if not impossible. I figured that if I had a job that was boring where creativity was not encouraged (that is, we have a procedure, so just stick to the procedure) I could store my creative juices during the day the and use them during the evening to create things.
 
@@ -272,13 +272,13 @@ One of the things that attracted me to teaching was that I got to be creative al
 
 Ages ago I saw an interview you with the father of a very large family (which had grown mostly through adoption) and the reporter asked him how he divided his love among so many kids. His answer was brief and to the point: love is not something you divide he said, it's something you multiply.
 
-Creativity is the same way. You can't save up creativity so you can use it later. Creativity is something that cannot be divided. It must be multiplied.
+Creativity is the same kind of thing. You can't save up creativity so you can use it later. Creativity is something that cannot be divided. It must be multiplied.
 
 I've since come to view creativity like a river—it has to move to do anything. It can move boulders and it can sift the finest silt. It can carve a valley through a plain or it can split mountains. It can nurse the communities around it and it can serve as a way for them to get from one place to another.
 
-Dam a river and it does not become a lake, it becomes a prisoner. It is not content with its lot. It constantly seeks to escape. And when it finds it, it will give some small warning but then it will completely and utterly destroy that dam.\footnote{See \kref{https://damfailures.org/case-study/teton-dam-idaho-1976/}{https://damfailures.org/case-study/teton-dam-idaho-1976/} for a good example of this.} 
+Dam a river and it does not become a lake, it becomes a prisoner. It is not content with its lot. It constantly seeks escape. And when it finds it, it will give some small warning but then it will completely and utterly destroy that dam.\footnote{See \kref{https://damfailures.org/case-study/teton-dam-idaho-1976/}{https://damfailures.org/case-study/teton-dam-idaho-1976/} for a good example of this.} 
 
-That's what I've been doing with my creativity. I've trying to dam it up during the day and then release it in the evening. But it doesn't work that way. You can't hold back creativity. You can't divide it up, hour by hour. You can't parse it out drop by drop. Using your creativity doesn't mean that you use it up. Rather, creativity, like love, can only be multiplied. Creativity just leads to more creativity. It's not a zero-sum game.\footnote{\kref I wish people would realize that our economy—which is not a natural thing, but a thing completely invented by humans—does not have to be a zero-sum game. Just because somebody else gets something they need does not automatically means that I get less of what I need.}
+That's what I've been doing with my creativity. I've trying to dam it up during the day and then release it in the evening. But it doesn't work that way. You can't hold back creativity. You can't divide it up, hour by hour. You can't parse it out drop by drop. Using your creativity doesn't mean that you use it up. Rather, creativity, like love, can only be multiplied. Creativity just leads to more creativity. It's not a zero-sum game.\footnote{I wish people would realize that our economy—which is not a natural thing, but a thing completely invented by humans—does not have to be a zero-sum game. Just because somebody else gets something they need does not automatically means that I get less of what I need.}
 
 That means it's definitely time for a different job.
 
@@ -292,9 +292,9 @@ I have always scribbled. I got a hold of a manual typewriter at the age of eight
 
 As for the teaching thing, I'm not quite sure. I've always enjoyed learning things and knowing how to do things and sharing that knowlege with other people in the hopes that that might change their life for the better.
 
-Long ago, I realized that information is just data—which you can get from encyclopedias and dictionaries (and these these days the internet if you know where to look). But knowledge is information \textit{in context}, where it's part of a whole that helps you understand how the universe is put together and how it works. Most people think that teaching is just about providing information (no doubt a result of our over-reliance on worksheets and scantron sheets and Bush II's policy of ``no child left untested''). And that is unfortunately what a lot of teachers do—they force feed kids information, which most kids retain just long enough to regurgitate on a test and then promptly forget.\footnote{Although some of it sticks with us—Mr. Rex insisted that we would need to know the definition the ``mercantilism'' to succeed in college comes to mind. Oddly, the last placed I was asked for that definition was on his final exam.}
+Long ago, I realized that information is just data—which you can get from encyclopedias and dictionaries (and these these days the internet if you know where to look). But knowledge is information \textit{in context}, where it's part of a whole that helps you understand how the universe is put together and how it works. Most people think that teaching is just about providing information (no doubt a result of our over-reliance on worksheets and scantron sheets and Bush II's policy of ``no child left untested''). And that is unfortunately what a lot of teachers do—they force feed kids information, which most kids retain just long enough to regurgitate on a test and then promptly forget.\footnote{Although some of it sticks with us—Mr. Rex insisted that we would need to know the definition the ``mercantilism'' to succeed in college comes to mind. Oddly, the last placed I was asked for that definition was on his final exam. (I've written about this in a different zine. See \textit{just13} \#2 at \kref{https://just13.click/just13/002.php}{https://just13.click/just13/002.php}.)}
 
-Good teachers provide that context. They provide information along with the context and then guide their students through building knowledge out of those. If you can figure out the information and figure out the context and know how to weave those two things into actual knowledge you'll always be able to figure out any task, any role, any job. You'll be able to do anything you set your mind to.\footnote{I haven't even talked about wisdom yet, which is knowledge tempered by experience. And I don't want to discuss it, perhaps mostly because I lack it. But basically information is knowing what a thing \textit{is}, knowledge is knowing \textit{how to do} a thing, and wisdom is knowing \textit{when} to do a thing.}
+Good teachers provide that context. They provide information along with the context and then guide their students through the process of building knowledge out of those. If you can figure out the information and figure out the context and know how to weave those two things into actual knowledge you'll always be able to figure out any task, any role, any job. You'll be able to do anything you set your mind to.\footnote{I haven't even talked about wisdom yet, which is knowledge tempered by experience. And I don't want to discuss it, perhaps mostly because I lack it. But basically information is knowing what a thing \textit{is}, knowledge is knowing \textit{how to do} a thing, and wisdom is knowing \textit{when} to do a thing.}
 
 That was what I loved about teaching—that if I were allowed to do it right I could empower people just now but for the rest of their lives. I once answered a question in a job interview that when it comes to teaching of course I take the long view. The kid I'm teaching today might be working on my brakes in ten years. The kid I'm teaching today might be doing heart surgery on me in twenty years. This is not selfishness. The kid who is working on my brakes is also working on lots of other people's brakes and the kid doing open heart surgery on me is obviously not doing this as a one-off.
 
@@ -309,7 +309,7 @@ Fortunately there there's a sweet spot in all of that that is small but doable.
 Technical writing—that is, writing instruction manuals and work instructions and translating what the chemists and engineers wrote into something that regular people can understand—is what I need to do do because it lands smack dab in the middle of this Venn diagram:
 
 \begin{center}
-\scalebox{0.8}{ %  begin scalebox
+\scalebox{0.7}{ %  begin scalebox
 \begin{tikzpicture}
 	\draw (0,0) ellipse (60mm and 15mm);
 	\draw (0,0) ellipse (15mm and 60mm);
@@ -330,9 +330,9 @@ Technical writing—that is, writing instruction manuals and work instructions a
 
 That's what I'm shooting for. I'm a good writer and I'm a good teacher, so it makes sense to try to put these things together.
 
-The problem is that while I've pretty much spent my life doing technical writing, my resume doesn't reflect that. I have always been a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none so I need to make sure my cover letter reflects that. We shall see how it goes.\footnote{I have a lot to save about this, but I'll hold my tongue for now.}
+The problem is that while I've pretty much spent my life doing technical writing, my resume doesn't reflect that. I have always been a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none so I need to make sure my cover letter reflects that. We shall see how it goes.\footnote{I have a lot to say about this, but I'll hold my tongue for now.}
 
-If issue \#6 comes out within three months of this issue and has an orange cover you'll know I've been successful.
+If issue \#6 comes out within three months of this issue and has an orange cover you'll know I've been successful. The future awaits us, at least for now.
 
 
 \chapter{Dependency Heck}\label{dephell}