A local disability group (which is very informal -- we have almost no actual organization beyond "Guy who's mostly in charge because it was his idea to have a local chapter") is trying to put together a statement on Charlottesville. We're all discussing edits. There was some actual discussion about several points, and edits made, and I appreciate all of that discussion, but there are also a bunch of grammatical errors, and I pointed them out, and those were not changed. And I can't really point them out again without looking like an ass, but one of them is really annoying me. (Most of it is misplaced commas, but there's one sentence with the wrong verb tense.)

Ugh to both of those, Hil.

I'm trying desperately not start anything in the next 20 minutes so I can just cleanly leave when my 8 hours are up and get to vacationing. Maybe I'll straighten up the papers on my desk.

Success! Work badge is in its box by my front door and it can stay there for 6 days! Now for laundry and packing be so forth

WHY don't people believe you when you tell them they're texting the wrong number???

Yay for vacationing, -t!

With the eclipse, you just can't look directly at the sun, right? It's not like you can't go outside if you don't have glasses? (I realize I sound like a complete idiot, but Sara is asking, and the last total eclipse I can remember was when I was a kid, and ... I don't remember much about it. Except that Stephen King used it in a bunch of books.)

you just can't look directly at the sun, right? It's not like you can't go outside if you don't have glasses?

Correct.

Please, everyone, don't burn a hole in your retinas!!!

You should never look directly at the sun without a proper filter (or at totality if you're in the totality's path.) Other than that, just like normal except the light is muted. Build a pinhole camera! Find a tree that dapples the sunlight and see the crescents of the sun in the dapples. Or use your fingers to create dappling (It'll take some experimenting.)

In Bhutan, we drilled a buncha holes in a board and made an eclipse sign to project a buncha little crescent suns on a sheet forming words: (go back a few photos and you can see the board) [link]

A not great picture of shadows through the leaves, Zambia 2001 eclipse: [link] Edit: marginally better: [link]

I was unable to find certified eclipse glasses, so I'm going to count on a combo of sunshield overlays for my prescription glasses and regular sunglasses, while keeping in mind that I don't want to look directly at the sun any longer than I would on a normal day.

My main thing is wanting to see the line of demarcation sweeping over the landscape rather than the sun itself, anyway.

There's one hipster bar here that's offering a free pair of eclipse glasses with a cocktail on their rooftop bar, but I'm not gonna assume they have the legit ones.

Playing with pinhole projector plans over the weekend, methinks.