Monthly Archives: April 2023

This entry was posted in Personal on by | Open »

My email addresses on mcgath.com are temporarily not working. My outgoing mail was all being blocked, and HostGator was totally useless at helping me with the problem, so I’ve migrated my mail to Dreamhost. The DNS setup had a mistake, which I just recently fixed, and it will take a while to propagate through the Internet. At the moment I can send mail but not receive it.

Hopefully this fix will get everything working again. If you need to mail me and get a bounce, try again tomorrow. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Update: I’ve started getting email, so the problem appears to be fixed. There could still be glitches for a while, since not everybody in the world gets DNS updates at the same time.

Update 2: In the process of getting it working on Dreamhost, I determined that a major issue was a broken SPF record, which HostGator had created for me. The HostGator support people never recognized this issue, instead trying to put the blame on T-Mobile.

This blog is still on HostGator for the moment, because it isn’t broken and migrating a website is a pain. No promises either way for the future.

Smashwords adding Kobo Plus

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing as business and tagged DRM kobo smashwords on by

The ebook publishing site Smashwords is adding Kobo Plus to its options for self-publishing authors. Smashwords already has Kobo as one of its publishing channels. The difference is that regular Kobo lets people buy books individually, while Kobo Plus is a subscription service letting users view as many books as they want.

Smashwords’ emailed notice says:
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Book Discussion: Waco by Jeff Guinn

This entry was posted in Book discussion and tagged books history Texas Waco on by

It’s been thirty years since the disastrous events near Waco, Texas. In the nineties I read and reviewed five books related to them; I’ll link to them at the end of this review. Jeff Guinn’s Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage is a new addition to the literature.

The first third of the book, except for a short introductory chapter, is about the history of the Branch Davidians before the ATF raid. Much of what it covers predates Vernon Wayne Howell’s taking leadership and assuming the name David Koresh. This is an important area for anyone studying the matter in detail, but I was more interested in information about the ATF raid, the subsequent siege, and the final assault on the buildings. Getting through the material about the Adventists and the earlier leaders of the group was an effort for me.
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The pointlessness of trigger warnings 3

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged education ethics on by

There’s a widespread notion that warning people about impending discussions of distressing topics is a necessary and desirable way of saving them from being “triggered.” Recently, for example, the Student Assembly at Cornell University passed a resolution urging the university to require trigger warnings on a broad range of “traumatic content” in teaching materials. The university quite appropriately rejected this recommendation.

Do these warnings do more good than harm? What kind of “triggering” are they supposed to present? What will their effect be? More and more people are agreeing that on the whole, these warnings aren’t helpful. They can lead to the suppression of discussion of important topics.
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Religious authoritarianism at San Francisco State

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship education religion on by

It’s not just Hamline University. A professor at San Francisco State University is being investigated for failing to comply with the rules of some conservative branches of Islam. The Office of Equity Programs and Compliance has launched an investigation of him. 14th century Islamic art showing Muhammad receiving Quranic revelation from the angel Gabriel

San Francisco State University is, as the name implies, a government-run institution. It has no business requiring its faculty to comply with religious rules. Maybe the investigators think they can require compliance with a Muslim law because the professor was born in Tehran. It doesn’t work that way. The First Amendment protects him in the United States regardless of what country he came from or what ethnic group he belongs to.
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Signal boost: Shadiversity

This entry was posted in News and tagged Shadiversity YouTube on by

Shadiversity, a YouTube channel run by Shad Brooks, was helpful in my research for The Magic Battery. It covers old weapons, buildings, and daily life. It’s having trouble staying afloat, in large part thanks to Google’s unpredictability. I support the channel through SubscribeStar, which is like Patreon but (as far as I know) hasn’t done dubious things like trying to unilaterally increase the amount supporters pay.

If you haven’t watched Shadiversity but liked my novels, you may find the channel interesting. If you’re already a fan, please consider providing some financial support.

I have no association with Shadiversity and wasn’t asked or paid for this signal boost.
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