The Guardian on today’s Twitter outage:

The company initially confirmed the outage by, somehow, tweeting, from its @support account. We were unable to see the tweet, because Twitter was down. Twitter emailed the text of the tweet to the Guardian, which read: “Some users are currently experiencing problems accessing Twitter. We are aware of the issue and are working towards a resolution.”

I love the “somehow.”

You write J. J. Steinfeld’s name like this: J. Period. Space. J. Period.

I know this because, two years ago, I set an excerpt of his Our Hero in the Cradle of Confederation in metal type and I needed to know.

It was the space that I was concerned about: I could have gone either way, but I deferred to J. J.’s preference and so J. Period. Space. J. Period. it was:

Even now I’m not sure that I took the right path. In The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst writes:

Names such as W. B. Yeats and J. C. L. Prillwitz need hair spaces, thin spaces, or no spaces at all after the intermediary periods. A normal word space follows the last period in the string.

So perhaps I should have mixed J. J.’s preference with some typographic wisdom and used a thin space rather than a full space? So J. J. rather than J. J.

But it is too late now and I must live with my decision.

This Wednesday, January 20, 2016 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., the aforementioned J. J. Steinfeld will launch his latest book, Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (buy it online) at the Bahá’í Centre, 20 Lapthorne Avenue here in Charlottetown.

Not only is the event a book launch, but it’s also an open mic night, where we members of the general writing public are invited to read 3 to 5 minute pieces of poetry or prose. I believe I might give it a go (readers can sign up at 7:00 p.m.). Perhaps I will see you there?

I’m in Summerside this afternoon, wearing my Hacker in Residence hat, to talk about open data with the Instructional Development and Assessment group in the Department of Education, Early Learning and Culture.

They have a beautiful office space in the Holman Building: bright, open concept, lined with substantial pillars: the kind of space you’d like your curriculum being developed in.

The table markers at Samuel’s in Summerside are named after the Island’s township lots. I scored Lot 16. I once bought a schoolhouse in Lot 16, so this is entirely appropriate.

Two podcast episodes over the last month have opened my eyes to things I didn’t know.

First, that cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, savoy, and kohlrabi are all variants of the same species of plant, something revealed in an episode of the Surprisingly Awesome podcast.

Second, via an episode of the 99% Invisible podcast, that expiry dates on things like milk and yoghurt, have nothing at all to do with food safety (although it’s important to disclose that my partner Catherine insists that she’s been telling me this for years, and I haven’t believed her).

From a recent post, Oakland incident highlights risks for absentee landlords, by Edward Hasbrouck:

Second, Airbnb’s guarantee does not cover any personal liability to third parties — only damage to the rental property and its contents.

If your Airbnb tenants’ meth lab contaminates or burns down your neighbors’ property (the other condo units in the same building, for example, or the house next door) along with your own, Airbnb will reimburse only the damage to your own home. You’re still liable in full for the damage to your neighbors’ homes. Ditto if damage to the plumbing, or firefighting in your unit, causes flooding and water and/or smoke damage to other units in the building or other nearby properties.

I’ve been a contented Airbnb “guest” several times but, like Edward, I’ve never considered becoming a “host,” for many of the same reasons he enumerates.

In the parking lot of Sherwood Home Hardware.

Remember that WKRP in Cincinnati episode where Venus explains the atom? Oliver’s grade 9 science teacher showed it to his class when they were learning about the properties of matter.

So the sitcoms of my youth have become the teaching aids of Oliver’s youth.

Nothing could make me happier.

I eagerly anticipate the creative injection of the Del’s Stereo Emporium episode into Oliver’s ethics education.

Fortunately the duck is not a real duck.