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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "nancylebov" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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06:11 pm
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Science fiction and transcendence
https://www.facebook.com/alexei.panshin/posts/871197556276048?comment_id=871481732914297¬if_t=feed_comment_reply
I'm going to do a bit of a summary because I realize not everyone reading this is on Facebook, or wants to be.
Alexei Panshin has been discussing on Facebook whether Heinlein was a Sufi. Not to keep you in suspense, but there's no evidence that Heinlein was a Sufi, or even knew about Sufism.
Cory Panshin brought up that Heinlein didn't seem to want the human race to become different, which led to me thinking about sf about transcendence.
Here's something I wrote:
When I was a kid, I really liked Childhood's End, and then it occurred to me that the Overmind might just be eliminating competitors, and the human race was eaten rather than achieving transcendence.
As I recall, humanity was stopped from investigating psychic powers so it wouldn't become "a telepathic cancer spreading through the stars". From one angle, humanity could become just that. From the other angle, the Overmind could already be just that.
It's a gamble in general. True religion or destructive cult?
Which authors see the human race as needing to become something very different?
John Varley ("Persistence of Vision", _The Ophiuchi Hotline).
Sturgeon (_More that Human_, _The Cosmic Rape_, and less drastically "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?")
John Brunner: (modest levels of change) (_Stand of Zanibar_, _The Stone that Never Came Down_)
Any suggestions for someone more recent?
Alexei Panshin has written The World Beyond the Hill - Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1062115.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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12:53 pm
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Fluoride and hypothryrodism
http://www.oregonlive.com/beaverton/index.ssf/2015/02/fluoride_in_water_new_study_su.html
There's some evidence that the amount of fluoride in tap water and toothpaste is enough to push some people into hypothyrodism.
Could people becoming fatter be related to fluoridated water? I've collected theories about obesity, but I've never seen this one before.
I'll look for links if anyone's interested, but from memory-- hypothyroidism is tricky to diagnose, and fat people frequently have a hard time finding doctors who will do more than tell them to lose weight.
Even if fluoridated water causes hyothyroidism and this is bad for people (being fatter may have little or no effect, but lack of exercise is bad for people, and low thyroid lowers energy levels), I have no idea how to balance that against fewer cavities.
Home filters generally don't remove fluoride. Some brands of bottled water down't have fluoride.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1061666.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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04:27 am
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Panix and my email
My email account is available again, but it looks like about 24 hours worth of email hasn't arrived. Has anyone gotten all their email? Have people who tried to send email to a panix account during the down period gotten bounce notices?
Also, panix.com is down. If I try to go there, I get
"SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_5.9 NetBSD_Secure_Shell-20110907-hpn13v11-lpk
Protocol mismatch."
Anyone know what's going on?
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1061498.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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04:53 pm
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Improved parking signs
A tale of private initiative and government cooperation.
Link thanks to GeekPress.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1061337.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
Tags: things that don't suck
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11:22 am
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Looking for books about men and women living well with each other
I just read The Just City by Jo Walton*, and it's a spectacular book.... but there's rather a lot about rape (of women by men), and about women getting stuck with most of the childcare, and I find that I'm tired of reading about misogyny.
In some moods, and moreso in the past, I've wanted to read about societies where women are oppressed, and about women getting revenge, with a special fondness for C. J. Cherryh's "The Haunted Tower"-- that's the one about the far future mayor of London's mistress and the ghosts in the tower of London, but the last time I read it, it had worn out. It's not that I want those stories to go away or that other people shouldn't read them.
I expect there's fiction about societies where it's the default for men and women to treat each other well, but my mental filing system isn't turning them up. Any suggestions?
*I just realized I'd been recommending a non-existent book called The Good City. I hope google will make up for my lapse.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1060946.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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08:02 pm
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The triumph of the geeks
People are buying electronics instead of high-end jewelry.
Offhand, I can't think of any downsides to this, except for a loss of craftmanship. Can you think of any downsides?
One more downside-- jewelry isn't a great store of value, but it's better than electronics.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1060666.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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11:36 pm
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Spiced cabbage with scrambled egg
some of this spiced cabbage
3 eggs
about an ounce or so of pancetta
half a quince, chopped up
some black pepper
some cream
salt
That half quince had been in the refrigerator for a few days, and I thought it might be a little dry-- quince is the driest fruit I know of, even when it's fresh.
I heated some olive oil and water, and put in the quince. When almost all of the water was gone, I put in the thinly sliced pancetta and the pepper. (Pancetta is something like bacon, but fattier.) I tried a very low heat, but the pancetta was barely making any progress, so I went to medium high.
Then I lowered the heat and mixed the cream and eggs together and put them in. Salt was added at some point.
This was really excellent, and perhaps better because the weather is cold.
Quinces aren't all that available for most of the year around here. A tart apple might be a good substitute.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1060439.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
Tags: recipe
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11:31 pm
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Spiced cabbage and fish
Either I wasn't as hungry as I thought, or this is *very* filling.
Large cabbage, chopped medium fine
Juice of one lemon
1 pound of mahi mahi
olive oil
salt
soy sauce
mild curry powder
ras-el hanout
forbidden rice noodle ramen
a couple of handfuls of roasted sunflower seeds
Heat olive oil in skillet on medium heat. Put in cabbage and lemon juice.
(I had a lot of cabbage, it filled a 12" skillet.) I added the spices
while the cabbage was cooking, but they could have gone in with the oil. I
added the sunflower seeds late, too, and they might have benefited from
being toasted in the oil at the beginning.
Put large pot of water on to boil.
When the cabbage is partly cooked, put in the fish, and cover. When the
fish is cooked, uncover and turn the heat off.
When the water is boiling, put in the ramen. Cook according to
instructions, I guess.
Add soy sauce to taste when it's done. I put on more than I intended, but
it tasted good.
Notes: I was underwhelmed with the ramen-- I may have overcooked it. One
ramen certainly isn't enough for that much food, and I think I'll cook
rice to go with the rest of it.
Forbidden rice is a black rice. When it's good, it tastes like brown rice with a stronger brown rice flavor. When it's mediocre (I mean Whole Foods house brand) it's a black rice that tastes like brown rice but costs more.
Also, that's way too much cabbage for the amount of fish. I'm planning to
cook the rest of the cabbage with egg when I run out of fish.
The fish wasn't great-- I don't know whether mahi mahi shouldn't be steamed.
I'm still fairly happy with it-- the mild curry/ras-el hanout/soy sauce
combination on the cabbage is a big win.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1060269.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
Tags: recipe
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12:03 am
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Government, the poor, and driver's licenses
http://www.npr.org/2015/01/05/372691918/how-drivers-license-suspensions-unfairly-target-the-poor
If you get caught drinking and driving in Wisconsin, and it's your first offense, you lose your license for nine months. For a hit and run, the punishment is suspension for one year.
But if you don't pay a ticket for a minor driving offense, such as driving with a broken tail light, you can lose your license for two years.
"It's an incredible policy," says John Pawasarat of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. It's "a policy of punishing people who can't pay their fines."
The practice – repeated in states across the country – is mostly impacting the poor and creating a spiral of bad consequences.
Anyone know how driver license suspensions are handled in countries other than the US?
More about how normal operations of the US government keeps a good many people trapped in poverty-- basically escalating fines and jail time (and fines for being in jail) for minor offenses.
There are a good many people who mistrust business much more than they mistrust government-- the arguments seems to be that you have better tools for changing government than you have for changing businesses, and that government is motivated by the public good (do I have that part right?) while business is motivated by the desire for profit.
I see two problems with this argument-- one is comparing businesses (in a range between the worst businesses and real world business in general) to a somewhat idealized vision of government, and the other is neglecting the fact that while there are more tools for changing government, in the short and medium run, it's easier to get away from a business. Also, governments specialize in violence more than businesses do. Okay, more than two problems. If you find dealing in money somewhat revolting, it might be worth considering that while governments don't exactly make a profit, they still have a streak of trying to maximize revenue.
As you may gather, I'm not fond of government. However, I'm inclined to think my emotions are not entirely well-calibrated on the issue. What I believe rationally is that government and business are the only methods the human race has developed for doing large projects, and the seven billion of us are dependent on large projects. Neither government nor business are reliably benevolent, but we can't live without them.
Neither of them is completely evil, either.
I wouldn't mind (at least I don't think I would mind) if the world switched over to something friendlier and less hierarchical, but no one has figured out how to make that work stably and on a large scale, and not for lack of trying.
I've wondered whether the steady drizzle of contempt for government (from one set of people) and for business (pretty much from another set of people) discourages conscientious people from going into business and government and/or from being ambitious to do much in business or government.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1060038.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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08:37 pm
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Question for liberals and progressives, and possibly some conservatives
American banks are closing the accounts of small businesses near the Mexican border from fear of laws against money laundering.
As a libertarian, my opinion is easy to come to-- laws controlling drugs and forbidding immigration are bad and this problem wouldn't exist if it weren't for those laws. This might even be evidence that they're bad laws.
However, if you believe that the government should regulate business to prevent public harm, is this over the line? Would you change the laws about money laundering, and if so, how? Is this an example of people having to make sacrifices for the public good?
If you're a libertarian or have libertarian-flavored politics and would like to explain in more detail about why those are bad laws, go for it, but I'm definitely interested in hearing from people with other political orientations.
Meanwhile, I'm working on a theory about laws against remote harms are a problem.
This entry was posted at http://nancylebov.dreamwidth.org/1059640.html. Comments are welcome here or there.  comments so far on that entry.
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