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I’m completely uninterested in the mainstream part of the DC Comics relaunch, but then DC’s been slowly killing off my interest, dismantling everything I liked about the DCU for the last several years, so it’s more of a final nail than anything else. I checked out Justice League #1, which basically confirmed my opinion. I’m going to give Flash another shot because (a) I hate letting go and (b) that art is just amazing.

On the plus side, some of the offbeat books look really interesting, and I plan on checking out Demon Knights, Frankenstein, Resurrection Man, and Justice League Dark.

Originally posted as a comment on Reddit

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Opened up a spam trap I’d forgotten about and found ~40 copies of some — well, I hesitate to call it a newsletter, but it was a long collection of headlines, summaries, and links to news items and dubious reference sites that looked like someone had taken a few dozen conspiracy theories, put them into a blender, and then splattered them onto the page like Jackson Pollack.

At least, I want to believe it’s some horribly-mangled computer-generated aggregation…but it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out to be someone’s serious attempt to create a newsletter without being able to write a coherent sentence.

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Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself, “Is the problem I’m trying to solve really the problem I want solved?”

For example, “I can’t connect to this coffee shop’s wifi” may be worth trying to fix for a couple of minutes, but the real goal is connecting to the internet. The coffee shop just happens to be the most convenient/obvious means of doing so. If you have another way of connecting — say, by tethering to your phone connection — you’re better off switching methods instead of continuing to chase what may be a dead end.

Similarly, with software design, whenever you begin with a set of parameters and start off down a path that seems to be getting more and more complicated, it’s worth taking a step back and asking: what am I really trying to solve here? Are the constraints real, or can I drop some of them and take a different, more effective approach?

If the problem is presented as: How do I use these tools to accomplish this task, sometimes you’ve got to use those tools — but sometimes another set of tools will do the job better.

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Years ago, I wanted a smartphone so I could write down all the blog posts I compose in my head when I’m away from a computer. Now that I have one, I end up reading Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus instead, and I compose blog posts in my head when I’m away from both my computer AND my phone. Maybe I just need a pencil and notepad.

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Just a few miles away from Incredible Cafe.

I wonder if they have a rivalry of sorts?

And I can’t help but imagine a third competing restaurant called Incredibly Fantastic Cafe…and another called Fantastically Incredible Cafe…

For the record: I ate there and had a grilled ham & cheese sandwich with seasoned fries, and it was good enough but nothing special. The place gave me the impression that someone had bought a Carl’s Jr. and turned it into something more like a Denny’s. Fantastic Cafe (not Incredible Cafe) appears to be a local chain in the South Bay area.