[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends View]
Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
- Some speculation on what effects Amazon's fanfic foray might have on publishing.
(tags: writing fanfic amazon publishing ) - Mercedes-Benz shows off self-driving car technology in its new $100,000 S-Class
(tags: ai technology cars driving ) - Tolkien and Magic
(tags: lotr Tolkein ) - Everything I Know About Project Management, I Learned from Game of Thrones (spoilers for TV, but no further)
(tags: management GameOfThones ) - Kinect 2's visual DRM could prevent you watching content with "too many people".
(tags: DRM Microsoft consoles ) - Closing hospital windows 'increases infection risk'
(tags: NHS healthcare ) - Hayao Miyazaki on the flawed concept of Good versus Evil
(tags: movies ghibli good evil miyazaki ) - What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers!
(tags: politics uk funny marriage lgbt ) - Everything Non-Europeans Need To Know About Eurovision
(tags: music europe eurovision funny ) - I need context for this photo!
(tags: epicwtf dogs lions photo ) - How to get a bra that fits you.
(tags: clothing breasts ) - How a team of sneaky librarians saved the ancient library of Timbuktu from Al Qaeda
(tags: books library alquaeda ) - Thu, 19:38: A night of snarky television awaits! (@ Offhand Manor) http://t.co/C5i9q0pbfL
| Saturday, May 25th, 2013 | ||
|
cakmpls |
9:16a | Update, for anyone who still cares I say that only because I haven't been around here much in quite some time. Awhile back, the landlords where J office-shared raised the rent on the suite they were in. The upshot was that the other attorneys took a smaller suite and J moved his office home, paying a nominal amount to the other attorneys for the occasional use of their conference room to meet clients. (Many of his clients are personal friends and acquaintances, and he meets them in our living room or their home.) His contact email address and phone remain the same, in case anyone out there needs legal help. (Check out http://www.jhadamslaw.com/) Oldest "kid," B, turned 30. E (29) and P (26) still gainfully employed. R graduated from Hamline University, with a double major in psychology and religion, last weekend. In August, she leaves for Korea, to teach English for 1-2 years. I am kept suitably busy with editing projects. Something or other hurts a great deal of the time, so it's not worth talking about. (Intelligent design, yeah, right.) Last night J's mother took us all out to dinner at Hell's Kitchen to celebrate R's graduation. This afternoon we are going to a 90th birthday party for J's aunt. Tomorrow morning we are having brunch with J's mother, sister, and brother-in-law. So, lots of good family times this weekend. (Yes, we are those fortunate people who actually like our relatives.) I am planning to take a day off on Monday, as P does not work, and he, J, and I may go see Star Trek. R made dinner for us twice this week--shrimp Florentine and chicken enchiladas. She's pretty good at the cooking thing. You know, the usual. |
|
ginmar |
8:42a | gee, how convenient There's now two charges against two girls in the south for child abuse with two other girls. Each couple is within the so-called "Romeo and Juliet" clauses that these laws usually have. Gee, you hear lots of rumors about this with older boys against younger girls. The parents say they're not motivated by homophobia. .......suuuuuuure. Yeah, I believe that. Really. So these cases might be used to weaken age-of-consent laws, which will pretty much benefit predatory males, given their numerical domination in the sex offender category. Oh, and right here: anybody who tries ti trot out, "I know a guy who got busted for public urination!" I'll ban you in a heartbeat. In case you haven't been keeping up, whining about the sex offender registry and how you 'heard' about this guy getting put on there for a lewd license plate is the new "Bitchez lie, amirite?" |
|
andrewducker |
12:00p | Interesting Links for 25-05-2013 Original post on Dreamwidth - there are |
|
joe_haldeman |
6:48a | Frank R. Paul There's a really fun page about the great pulp artist Frank R. Paul's take on life throughout the Solar System at . . . http://io9.com/alien-life-in-our-so Paul had a tremendous visual imagination, and wasn't burdened by too much scientific rigor. These paintings are all about contact, usually first contact, between humans and aliens. All but one or two of the human space travelers are armed with pistols. One has a futuristic version of the lever-action Winchester Model 94, causing a little bit of genre shock. Joe |
|
supergee |
9:05a | |
|
james_nicoll |
12:41a | I wonder What is the most horrifyingly ancient and decrepit piece of infrastructure on which you are forced to depend? Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
| Friday, May 24th, 2013 | ||
|
james_nicoll |
11:53p | The dolphins are stampeding! The dolphins are stampeding! Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
|
joe_haldeman |
8:17p | outside balmer We are safely here in Baltimore, or wherever we actually are. Hunt Valley, Maryland, according to the label on the phone. The plane over was a little too interesting. Storms up and down the east coast. Alan Steele's plane got grounded at Dulles, less than a hundred miles south. Ours orbited a great circle around BWI (Baltimore-Washington International) eight times, waiting for the storms to open an avenue to the runway. Then we had to wait at BWI for another hour, for other peoples' flights to come in. The convention's van was taking six of us to the hotel, maybe 45 minutes away. We left San Diego about three in the afternoon, which would be noon Eastern time. Got here at 1:30 in the morning. The flight was less interesting in other aspects. Old plane with no movie. So I've got these nifty new earphones but couldn't use them. Squeezed into the middle seat in a budget flight. Only thirteen and a half hours. This continent is too wide. It does explain to me how they can sell first-class seating for jaw-dropping prices. It's not just creature comfort, but the prevention of paralysis. Plus being able to work, rather than juggling stuff trying not to spill your Coke onto your laptop while someone's baby screams in your ear and the fat guy next to you falls asleep at a 45-degree angle. How long would that train ride be? Anyhow, a few days' rest before climbing aboard again. Joe |
|
serge_lj |
8:04p | Hugo finalists - short stories I've finished reading the Short Story category of the Hugo finalists. That went rather fast. Then again, they *are* short stories. Also, there were only three of them. I wonder how often a category hasn't used up all five slots. Best Short Story (662 nominating ballots cast) "Immersion", Aliette de Bodard ( Clarkesworld, June 2012) "Mantis Wives", Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012) "Mono no Aware", Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC) |
|
james_nicoll |
9:08p | Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Man, that's some crummy design for a house with a handicapped person in it. Is that more for narrative convenience (it keeps Blanche a prisoner on the second floor) or a reflection of just how awful people were at accommodating the needs of the disabled back then? They did a remake about 30 years after the first one. If they keep to that schedule, another remake should be along around 2020. I would not do what the 1990s remake did and change when it is set because the movie (as was mentioned to me) has a very cell-phone unfriendly plot. Hmmm. Assuming the actors are about the same age as Bette Davis was in WHTBJ, actors who will be the right age in 202* would include Charlize Theron, Drew Barrymore and Angelina Jolie. (It's Blanche's house and she's not poor, so money isn't the issue) Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
|
tiger_spot |
5:40p | Whee! At the park this afternoon, Morgan climbed up a stair for the first time! And then climbed all the way to the top of the play structure, and had me slide her down in my lap, and then crawled around to the stairs and did it again, and then again (pausing to investigate the rocket ship sliding thing on the way), and was starting on a fourth when she got distracted by the bigger girls pretending to be dogs. Doesn't do things by halves, this baby. Current Mood: proud |
|
james_nicoll |
8:11p | American authorities assert vital bridge so fragile minor collision triggered collapse
|
| Saturday, May 25th, 2013 | ||
|
rozk |
1:09a | The Poet to her young comrades 3 These are the worst of times that I have known. I'd like to say they'll pass, yet fear to lie. It's probable that some of you will die before all this is done. Will die alone in exile or in prison, slowly starve die from diseases we know how to cure be left to die from them because too poor. Worse yet, know while you live your every breath is stolen from those poorer. Make them count each angry moment, live write fuck and dance. You cannot choose your time. So take each chance to live. Remember me. Give good account of who I was. And make the bastards pay who kill our world, our lives, our brief lost day. |
|
rozk |
12:50a | The Poet to her young comrades 2 I have forgiven several of my friends betrayals so bad they will break your heart as they did mine. Quite soon, departures start among you – lovers, comrades. Never ends this agony of watching things go wrong in times of trouble. One will turn to drink and slowly die. Another start to think small compromises best, self-sold belong among the worst there is. And yet his face still has the smile you loved, as with a moan reluctantly he sends the robot drone that kills us each in turn. I hope for grace to curse, love, understand such traitors still. Stare coldly in their eyes, then shoot to kill. |
| Friday, May 24th, 2013 | ||
|
georgiamagnolia |
3:43p | not fallen offa the planet I feel like I fell off the planet though, gods above. School is done for now, did the graduation thing even though I still need a math credit, once you sign up for graduation they don't let you back out, dammit. Mom is happy she got to see me graduate so that is nice and really I could finally finish the thing if I wanted now. I actually have enough credits just not the right ones in the right combination. I was sick and missed the last week of classes and couldn't go to my recital or the two concerts for chorus, that sucked because I was really looking forward to them. I was happy that I could do the grad-walk with no cane though so that was a nice accomplishment. My math prof gave me an admin-withdrawal rather than an F, so my transcript doesn't look like hell, nice of him really. He was an awesome guy really, I could tell by the way he lectured that math is beautiful and wondrous to him and I recognize that because I sound that way when I talk about Tarot. But I didn't understand the math. In fact it was like being dropped into a community where only Mandarin Chinese is spoken and I can barely order off the American written menu. I literally do not understand the language. I can pick up a little German or French as I go, but math is not even in the same family of languages I speak. *sigh* But I did learn other good things and I did well in my Power Point class, yay. I didn't need that credit for anything, but who cares. Maybe I can get back to thinking about fun things again here soon. CrossPosted from DreamWidth. Comment here, comment there, comment anywhere. Current Mood:  tired |
|
james_nicoll |
5:42p | Ford breaks silence
I expect a lot of people will comment on the tense he used. Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
|
serge_lj |
2:40p | cactus An action taken by the new henchboss has left yours truly and one of our team's other coordinators feel *extremely* prickly. |
|
ailbhe |
8:40p | God I love the NHS Astrid was discharged after her adenotonsillectomy this morning (she was monitored all night, and she and I were both given all the food we wanted because I'm still breastfeeding her) and while she was at home sleeping it off her sister developed tooth or jaw pain and screamed blue murder, so we got her an appointment with the children's dental clinic and she was seen in under an hour and the pain is just molars coming up but there was also a non-urgent filling repair so they did that while they were there. And because she hates the flavour of Bonjela, the dentist gave her a dosing syringe with the banana-flavoured topical anaesthetic they use in the clinic. Then when we discovered that Calprofen and Nurofen for Children have different doses listed we called the paediatric ward and asked for clarification and were given it. I love love love the NHS and their crispy clean bedsheets. |
|
gridlore |
12:00p | My tweets |
|
silmaril |
2:29p | Fridays. I'm sleepy. I'm supposed to put together a few update slides to a presentation on a project we haven't formally worked on for a year. Doing that now, but grumbling about it. Internally. My stomach is also unhappy in general; I don't know why. I should make tea. Finished the presentation now. Other work is happening, but grudgingly, as I push myself to it, step-by-step. Grmph. I'm in a mood today, apparently. Oh well. Crossposted from silmaril.dreamwidth.org. You can comment here or there. |
|
geekchick |
2:26p | QOTD Desiree at Pull Your Socks Up!: If someone invited me to an event requiring a dress code, I'm not sure what I'd wear.  |
|
athenais |
11:19a | What the wind did My yard is practically denuded of roses. Many branches were broken, many buds snapped off or withered, all the big blooms had their petals torn off and whirled away in the space of two weeks. Luckily, all my roses are repeat bloomers. Queen of Sweden has already pushed new blooms open. Excitingly, Glamis Castle is finally budding and I hope to see a rose or three over the weekend. That is, of course, if we don't get more wind. May 6th:  May 23rd:  |
|
annathepiper |
11:04a | To the person who just hit my site looking for Le Vent du Nord sheet music Google Analytics informs me that you just hit my site three different times looking for sheet music for the Le Vent du Nord instrumental “Petit rêve III”! First of all, hello to someone who’s clearly a fellow fan, as well as being musically inclined! Second, sorry I have no leads on such a thing, though I’m right there with you: it’s a beautiful tune and it’s high on the list of Le Vent things I want to learn to play myself! I’m having to amuse myself with trying to transcribe Le Vent tunes by ear. The only Le Vent instrumental I’m aware of that has sheet music available online is “Gigue à trois”. Third, hey, drop me a line, I’d love to hear from a fellow musically inclined Le Vent du Nord fan! And I MAY be able to help you out if you want to learn to play “Petit rêve III”. I can sort of play it by ear, and I could probably transcribe it! And for the rest of you, I’ll just take this opportunity to be amused at how it’s an indicator of how much I post about Quebec music AND about Le Vent du Nord that apparently people have started hitting my site pretty frequently looking for data! *waves cheerily to all her fellow Anglophone Quebec music fans out there* Mirrored from angelahighland.com. |
|
james_nicoll |
11:58a | Adventurer Conquerer King: Session Three Bar-hopping! Gossip! Stable-cleaning! Feel the white heat of RPGING! ( Read more...Collapse ) Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are |
|
funwithrage |
12:05p | Needlessly Epic Journeys Hour 1: Dark Omens Zipcar reservation is from 6-8 PM: in theory, more than enough time to drop off Aralis bins at  arianhwyvar's house and get back for dinner. I haul the Temple bin across the street, find the car, and try to unlock it. No dice. Half an hour later, a nice Zipcar lady on the phone says that there must be "weird electrical signals" in the car, as "happens sometimes", extends my reservation, and unlocks it remotely. I can't lock it again, but eh. On the road! Hour 2: The Gathering Storm Ten minutes into the ride, my GPS, which has been charging in my apartment all day and is now plugged into the cigarette lighter thingie, makes obnoxious beeping battery noises and then dies. I say things. I stop at a Milton gas station and buy a new car charger. I plug it in and turn the GPS on. The GPS lights up, still in the red, works for all of five minutes, and then dies again. Hour 3: Delivery. With the help of several kind strangers and a number of calls to arianhwyvar that involve phrases like "...so, what are your feelings on Trapelo Road?", I arrive. I drop things off, I say hi, I charge my GPS up to green again, I get in the car, and get to Cambridge before once more suffering the Heat Death of the TomTom.Hour Four: False Hope and Dialogue "Dear Boston: You know, some cities have street signs. Yes, 'on every street'. Some cities also make sure that aforesaid signs are visible from the road rather than hidden in a morass of trees. Just wanted to let you know. No reason." "...ALLSTON? The HELL?" "I will buy everything in this Walgreen's if you can tell me how I get to Quincy. No dice, huh? Probably just as well: I do not really need an inflatable beach ball." "Directions! A map! I love you, walrus-y hotel manager! If I'm ever in Allston and in need of a Day's Inn, I will turn to you." "...thaaaaat was not my off-ramp. Or my on-ramp. Or any kind of a ramp that goes anywhere." "TARGET! YES!" "I will take this shiny new GPS please." "Yaaaaay! Shiny new GPS is correctly plugged in. Shiny new GPS knows how to get home! After dangers untold and--did you just beep, Shiny New GPS, in that dying-battery way with which I am now INTIMATELY FAMILIAR? And turn red? And..." The audience is here invited to picture something like the Darth Vader "NOOOOOOO" scene. But with more of an R rating. Chapter 5: Despair. When GPS 2 dies, I'm somewhere in Chestnut Hill, in what I would have called a "Residential Zone" back in my SimCity days. I keep driving, in the vain and foolish hope that I'll see a sign for a highway. The time is now 11 PM. I do not see a highway. I do discover that I've left my cell phone at arianhwyvar's and, as a result, spend some time that is not my finest moment weeping into a borrowed CVS phone and asking my Zipcar agent to send an extraction team. Then I get back on the road with my fifth set of directions tonight."Oh, hey, that's the house where daemo and k_beckett used to live....fuck." I spend some time in Dorchester. I don't remember all the time I spent in Dorchester, except at one point I stopped to try and get directions and had an unlicensed cabbie offer to drive in front of me to my apartment. I tried to explain that while I was sure he was personally very nice, that seemed like a bad idea, without offending him; I failed. At some point, I think I also had some kind of "this...isn't...happening!" Eternal Darkness style breakdown. No zombies followed, though. Only Blue Hill Avenue, and signs for "evacuation route." Shouldn't an evacuation route take you out of the city? And toward a place where a girl might find a highway? Apparently not. Hour 6: Homecoming Is that? It is! It's an Interstate sign! Oh, Highway 93, clasp me to your welcoming and straightforward bosom! Let us never be parted again, or at least not until Exit 12! After Exit 12, I'm good. This isn't, alarmingly, the first time I've been lost in Precipitating Quincy. I park the Zipcar, grab my things, and go in to have a hero's dinner. By which I mean rice and an apple. |