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Below are the 50 most recent friends journal entries:[<< Previous 50 entries]
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02:01 pm
nineweaving
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/24542829/5737971) [Link] |
"I'm certain that if I took even one sniff..."
Old book smell has been analyzed as "a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness." Ah, the scent of home. But beyond nostalgia, gas chromatography could be used as a diagnostic for the preservation of old books.
Nine
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02:09 pm
metaquotes
[bottledgoose]
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/94946110/20864715) [Link] |
It's not all yar yar hump hump y'know
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
Current Mood:  amused
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01:43 pm
rosefox
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/51491217/84422) [Link] |
"We have a pwan!"
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
Current Mood: pleased
Tags: behavior.planning, experiences.work, experiences.work.freelance, people.xtina, projects.crafts.knitting
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01:29 pm
nyuanshin
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/88532405/11565038) [Link] |
Hacking
Someone, somewhere, said that a hacker is an applied philosopher. Like academic philosophers, they're at their best when they're tinkering with things normally taken for granted, and at their worst when they prize clever solutions to superficial problems instead of elegant solutions to deep problems.
Tags: brain droppings
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06:00 pm
new_scientist
[Link] |
Today on New Scientist: 12 November 2009
http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/7182b53/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A0A90C110Ctoday0Eon0Enew0Escientist0E120Enove0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/11/today-on-new-scientist-12-nove.html Today's stories on newscientist.com, at a glance, including: the quest to tag the tigers of the sea, the promise and perils of solar sailing, and the peeriodic table of illusions
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05:42 pm
new_scientist
[Link] |
Quantum 'trampoline' to test gravity
http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/71816a3/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cdn181480Equantum0Etrampoline0Eto0Etest0Egravity0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18148 A technique to bounce ultra-cold atoms provides a new way to test the strength of gravity with high accuracy
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09:30 pm
e_apraksina
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/70737139/2979858) [Link] |
Tags: #
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10:11 am
nyuanshin
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/79486639/11565038) [Link] |
Malaise
So if we take the idea seriously that emotions are cognitive markers for somatic states, we really ought to be looking at the state of the whole body rather than just the brain when thinking about how to treat affective disorders. We might, y'know, pay attention to things like the fact that giving people IV interferon tends to make them depressed, and our ears might perk up upon finding out that daily aspirin alongside SSRIs seems to speed up remission of depressive symptoms. There's a pretty enormous literature linking immune function to depression, and all the most effective treatments for unipolar depression and bipolar also modulate cytokines and/or other inflammatory signaling molecules, so where's the horde of enterprising rheumatologists who want to eat psychiatrists' lunches? Come on guys, it's there for the taking . . .
PS -- How many people know that old-skool antihistamines are also technically SSRIs? OTC, cheap, comparatively safe, and they seem to do pretty well for anxiety disorders. Also St. John's Wort apparently works as well as more conventional antidepressants. OTC self-medication FTW?
Tags: health
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10:14 am
whswhs
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/67542548/5716589) [Link] |
this looks like really cool tech news
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08:59 pm
e_apraksina
[Link] |
Tags: #, gif
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12:50 pm
doqz
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/55896658/76208) [Link] |
Movies!
Every time a catch the trailer for the Ninja Assassin it just bothers me. As soon as they get into the voiceover of "he's been raised to be an ultimate weapon since childhood" I just can't help but wonder - they couldn't take a couple of hours to teach him how to use a gun? Or C4? Seems inefficient.
Also - I am totally watching the crap out of that thing. What are you kidding? Ninja. Assassin. Right there in the title! It's like we are back in the best parts of the 1980s, man!
Far out.
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12:47 pm
james_nicoll
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/22865467/5045564) [Link] |
Canada to narrow inhumanity gap with US
Canada won't be offering Afghan detainees H1N1 vaccine
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12:44 pm
richardthinks
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/89527706/10100235) [Link] |
but first of all...
this is simply brilliant: Rupert Murdoch to reinvent news as an exclusive nightclub. Thanks, Lore.
The best thing I've seen all week except for the ship with legs (insert fish/bicycle gag here).
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12:33 pm
james_nicoll
[Link] |
ALong with the flier from the CPC (non-communist) and a bath tub ad, I found in my mail box
A flier from Boskone 47.
Boskone Guests
Guest of Honor Alastair Reynolds
Official Artist John Picacio
Special Guest Tom Shippey
Featured Filker Mary Crowell
NESFA Guests
NESFA Press Guests Lois McMaster Bujold
Michael Whelan
Hal Clement Science Speaker Vernor Vinge
It's an interesting line-up but it's in the US and I don't visit the US for fun.
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04:45 pm
new_scientist
[Link] |
The Peeriodic Table of Illusions
http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/717afce/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg20A427330A0B90A0A0Ethe0Epeeriodic0Etable0Eof0Eillusions0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427330.900 Illusions can tell us much about how our brains work, but first we need to know how each one works, says Richard L. Gregory
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04:02 pm
new_scientist
[Link] |
Common cold may hold off swine flu
http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/71771b1/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg20A4273450B10A0A0Ecommon0Ecold0Emay0Ehold0Eoff0Eswine0Eflu0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427345.100 This intriguing idea would explain why swine flu's autumn wave has been slow to take off in some countries and point to new ways to fight flu
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12:27 pm
james_nicoll
[Link] |
Guess who I am listening to
Poll #1484489
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 60Do you believe in rock'n roll, Can music save your mortal soul, And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
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08:26 pm
e_apraksina
[Link] |
брейк данс
Tags: нямочка
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11:42 am
tamnonlinear
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/81330209/1171516) [Link] |
Short post - with thoughts on dancing and war
Yesterday I went down to DC to meet up with friends. We went to the Museum of the American Indian, where, among other things, we watched series of short films about American Indian war veterans (thing I did not know: American Indians have the highest per capita rate of participation in the armed services of any ethnic group in the United States). The stories were moving and brave and sometimes heartbreaking. I hadn't known that American Indians didn't have citizenship rights until 1924, which was stunning in the context of veterans of WWI. The stories of veterans of more recent conflicts were moving as well, some painfully so (the veteran of the cavalry division who became suicidal after another tribe member yelled at him for joining the division that had slaughtered their ancestors), and some heartening (the images of the gulf war veteran at an outpost with a medicine wheel hanging from a staff by his outpost, or the Vietname vet who said he made it through because his CO, a Comanche, made him invisible the first night when he was sleeping, though it was decades before he had the gestures explained to him, and found the man again to thank him).
The museum was, as always, an amazing collection. There was an stunning display of works by artist Brian Jungen, whose works were interpretations of traditional items made from recycled modern materials, such as a sweat lodge made from recycling bins, totem poles made of golf bags, a raven mask made from air Jordan sneakers. There was a whale skeleton made from plastic lawn chairs that was truly breathtaking and I had a very hard time resisting the urge to caress it. There was a skull made from unstiched baseballs covers that made me squeak in delight. It was a gorgeous exhibit, a wonderful fusion of tradition and modern materials.
(some pictures here, although the pieces have such a sense of presence that it's a pity not to see them in person.)
In the evening I went down to dance class, which was fun, as always, although it did at one point involve a fairly aggressive game of "keep Verne away from the new girl".
At the end of the evening, the instructor said we had time for one more dance. We'd been working on dances for the upcoming Argyle ball program, but since it was Veteran's day we asked for the Reel of the 51st Highland Division (usually just called "Reel of the 51st") in honour of our veterans. After we'd danced, while I was changing out of my ghillies and into the boots I'd put on for a hike that never happened (due to rain), one of the older gentlemen said thank you, from a veteran, for thinking of them. I said thank you for being a veteran, which was the more important aspect of it.
In case you don't feel like following the link to learn the history of the dance, it's one of the first modern dances accepted into the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, and it was invented by members of the Scottish Highland Division who were held as prisoners of war in WWII, as a way to keep active in the prison camp.
I was thinking about that, driving home in the rain - the link between dancing and war, the war dances and welcome home dances for warriors in Native American culture from the films I'd seen earlier in the day, and the dance I'd done in the evening to honor people who danced as a way to stay sane and alive during conditions I cannot imagine. It was interesting to have that tie come up from two of my major activities of the day, and, I hope, an insight into the balances we try to keep in life, the multiple threads of history we try to honour, and the many ways of remembering that become part of our cultures.
(okay, maybe not such a short post after all.)
Tags: linkses, observations, public
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10:46 am
redneckgaijin
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/94631980/7235612) [Link] |
Hey, Fred, Dino's really let himself go...
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08:10 pm
e_apraksina
[Link] |
Tags: кошкофильское
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08:05 pm
e_apraksina
[Link] |
Джамбулат Хотохов, в 9 лет он весит 150 кг
Tags: #
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11:01 am
cargoweasel
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/73232416/662088) [Link] |
Tango Down
This essay contains plot spoilers about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 & 2. Reader discretion is advised.
---
Last night I finished the single-player campaign of Modern Warfare 2, one of the most hotly anticipated and best reviewed games of 2009. Its 18 single player missions were short but action-packed - it felt a little easier than its predecessor Cod4:MW.
Awash in testosterone, the gripping plotline of MW2 is ludicrous in retrospect, like playing a Michael Bay movie. References to movies such as Red Dawn, The Rock, Hunt for Red October and others are stitched together into a ridiculously over-the-top story about a brutal terrorist attack in a newly nationalistic Russia being blamed on Americans, which triggers a Russian invasion of Virginia and Washington DC. The Russians are somehow in cahoots with a corrupt US General who double crosses you, and, with only sketchy reasons given, the final showdown is fought in an Afghan sandstorm against Shepherd's hand picked team of American forces. In the original game, the main villain who supplied nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein standin General Al-Asad, was Imran Zakhaev, Russian ultranationalist loosely based on the real-life Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In MW2, Zakhaev's right hand man Makarov has apparently taken over Russia but still manages to find the time to stage and participate directly in terrorist attacks on his own people in order to foment a war with the West. The mission 'No Russian' was the most violent and unpleasant thing I've ever seen in a video game, one that implicates the player in acts of total brutality and critiques the genre of FPS games by itself, while indirectly referencing 9/11 with its civilian airline setting. It has been compared to GTA, but the GTA games are cartoony satires, while this was as real as it gets. It was brutal and scary.
The plot moved incredibly quickly, and elided past many of the questions one might have - such as, is the rest of the US under invasion, or just DC and suburban Virginia? What about the NATO allies, or the UN? Or what happened to the President? Would the rest of the world truly believe that Americans supported openly by the US government would just walk into a foreign airport and gun down innocent civilians at random? I had trouble buying the premise of the invasion, but it was so awesome while it was happening that I didn't mind. The portentous Hans Zimmer score and the voice talent from the likes of Keith David and Lance Henriksen just made it work, and the heartbreaking scenes of a war-torn Washington DC were intense. Another standout mission was the Boneyard, towards the end, just total chaos and bullets flying from every angle - it was the flipside of the airport scene, involving wrecked airplanes (another 9/11 reference) and now, instead of shooting civilians, you're shooting your own countrymen in the back. I found the Boneyard mission almost as brutal and scary as No Russian.
Then came the endgame. I would have preferred a little bit of reasoning behind General Shepherd's actions. Based on his closing speech he seemed to be saying he was trying to prolong/deepen the war or encourage Makarov in some way in order to increase his own power. It was unclear what happened to the US President, beyond seeing a blown out bunker (that was implied to have been destroyed from the inside). Was General Shepherd marshaling a military coup of the United States? It wasn't totally clear but that's what I gathered. The writing could have made that a little more understood. Also, at the end of the game, Price and Soap are fugitives and just killing Shepherd doesn't necessarily end World War 3, setting us up for the inevitable next game in the series (which I eagerly await). Perhaps Shepherd or his successor will be an American military dictator.
When we look back at this decade, post-9/11 and the Global War on Terror, and now into the Obama era of "AfPak" and the resurgent Taliban, there's only a few cultural artifacts that truly capture the complex zeitgeist of the era of war. Battlestar Galactica, from its opening nuclear attack right down to its unsatisfying ending, is one. The Modern Warfare series, along with Rainbow Six and other military FPS games is another. Why do I say that? Game developers need to sell games worldwide. To do this they have to be somewhat apolitical, at least on the surface - something too overtly Rah-Rah Americuh won't sell well in Europe, etc. Or even here. These games are not ultra-nationalist - every time you're killed in MW1 or 2, you get a quote from Gandhi or Donald Rumsfeld or the cost of an Abrams tank or B2 bomber. Infinity Ward is aware of the moral complexities of making a game based on current events and modern warfare.
This moral complexity is subservient to the main goal of video gme writing. The goal of the game scriptwriter is to build a loose story structure upon which can hang a string of action sequences. To do this they need an enemy that can be killed in large waves with impunity. You can't feel bad about shooting Space Invaders. Tangos are the obvious choice, that won't offend anybody too much - who can sympathize with terrorists? But you can't make them anyone's idea of a freedom fighter. Their nationalities are usually obscured or they represent an evil 'faction' of a larger nation (like ultranationalist Russians), and the one pulling the strings has little motivation beyond simple greed or lust for power. The video game version of the Global War on Terror as fought by millions of gamers is the fantasy version of the war, the one we wanted. The one against an unambiguously evil foe. It's the one where the neocons were right, where Saddam DID have WMDs and the invasion of Iraq saved the world from a mad dictator. The one where we kicked ass acting out all the best war movies and action films for real, in response to the straight-outta-Bruckheimer 9/11. But even in the fantasy gameworld, reality keeps creeping in. The war on terror is not simply good vs evil, no war ever is. Our greatest enemy lies, as always, not in foreign sands but in ourselves.
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11:55 am
nellorat
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/35687297/874628) [Link] |
Pleasures, Guilty and Not
Guilty Pleasures
Fringe, tv show with all the dramatic supernatural nonsense of The X-Files while purporting to make scientific sense, sort of. OTOH, I really like the characters, X-Files mix of bear-of-the-week and overarching conspiracy plot, imagination, and pacing; and the special effects are better. Makes nice late-a.m. but still-over-coffee viewing on my first day off after a lot of long days beginning in the morning.
Evil Evolution, the newest and even more absurd installment in the Marvel Zombies comic book series, in which anthropophagous living-dead superheroes and -villains meet their counterparts from an all-ape dimension. Iron Mandrill! Baboon von Doom! And Spider-Man reminiscing about eating Aunt May. I don't know if the high-quality repro makes it better or worse.
Some not-guilty pop-culture pleasures: The Venture Brothers (tv), The Walking Dead (really 1st-rate b+w comic), The Big Bang Theory (tv), Comic Book Comics #4 (by the team doing Action Philosophers; why are references to Steve Ditko synchronicitously showing up in my life right now?), re-reading P. K. Dick's Through a Scanner Darkly, reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Mood: relaxing, entertained
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11:58 am
james_nicoll
[Link] |
Today's vaguely disturbing thought
Francisco Solano Lopez ... with nukes.
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08:52 am
metaquotes
[pandoras_closet]
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/86640611/866201) [Link] |
Because really, who doesn't want one?
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
Current Mood: Mmm, I do love me a tasty money burrito
Current Music: Ambient Noise
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11:33 am
richardthinks
[Link] |
lazyweb request: pls Minardise LOTR
So everyone's delighted by Randall Munroe's handiwork on the time-map* of Jackson's LOTR movie trilogy, and Strangemaps draws the (obvious, in retrospect) parallel with Minard's legendary map of Napoleon's Russia campaign.
...and now I want a strictly Minard map of LOTR (book and film versions overlaid, for comparison) - that is, an infographic you can overlay on Chris Tolkien's Middle Earth map, that shows Fellowship size, army casualties, prophecies fulfilled and/or any other data schema of relevance to the general key. Also with the OS "tumulus" mark on the Barrow Downs and Paths of the Dead. Even better would be the Iliad and Odyssey Minardised - or, rather, a cartographers' battle-royale flamewar-in-graphics, since that's what it would probably turn into. Fun though the maps of the Med-in-Homer are, they're just not that creative, and they assume that our understanding of the eastern Med is commensurable with Homer's, or Odysseus'.
Please, though, no more ME=EU maps, even though they tend to flatter my Turkophobia thesis.
After that, a spacetime map of The Anubis Gates would be lovely, if anyone has an idea of how to chart it in 2D.
* so happy that Seadragon appears to be freely available for all. I'm more tempted this morning to put up a website of my research project than I ever have been before.
** this Underground Map of Pulp Fiction just isn't as smart, sorry. And Simon Patterson's Great Bear is funnier.
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11:46 am
vvalkyri
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62085161/905508) [Link] |
If you're free tonight it means free admission to a dance
Well, if you're willing to help hang a huge military parachute inside Glen Echo's Spanish Ballroom in prep for the Veteran's Day Dance on Saturday: Due to some scheduling conflicts w/ Glen Echo, we've been informed that we need to hang the parachute tonight if we are going to get it hung at all. This is an urgent call for anyone who can come out & help us!!
Roger Marks is our volunteer extraordinaire who is the mastermind behind how the parachute gets hung. I've cc'd him on this email. If you reply to all, he will see your email & can advise re: timing. Of course, volunteering in the hanging of the parachute is rewarded w/ free admission on Sat. and you don't miss any dancing!! (If you are already on the schedule to volunteer for Sat, we can offer you free admission to our Dec 19th dance w/ Daryl Davis in exchange for helping us out tonight.) Anyone going to blues tonight? Show up a little earlier, do a good deed, and earn a free pass for Sat night -- woo hoo!! If you're interested and didn't get Ellen's email, ping me and I'll give you Roger's.
I shan't write about my feelings re Glen Echo's not allowing it to be hung yesterday while folk were off work nor Saturday before the dance as usual.
Current Mood:  hungry
Tags: flyingfeet
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11:21 am
ursulav
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/82694920/806676) [Link] | ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
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11:22 am
james_nicoll
[Link] |
No Whole Earth Discipline chapter today
Got reviews to write.
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11:18 am
james_nicoll
[Link] |
Via Torque Control
An interview with Kim Stanley Robinson
On the one hand there's this:
Anyone can do a dystopia these days just by making a collage of newspaper headlines, but utopias are hard, and important, because we need to imagine what it might be like if we did things well enough to say to our kids, we did our best, this is about as good as it was when it was handed to us, take care of it and do better. Some kind of narrative vision of what we’re trying for as a civilization.
and
And if we did achieve a just and sustainable world civilization, I’m confident there would still be enough drama, as I tried to show in Pacific Edge. There would still be love lost, there would still be death. That would be enough. The horribleness of unnecessary tragedy may be lessened and the people who like that kind of thing would have to deal with a reduction in their supply of drama.
but on the other
There are a lot of problems in writing utopias, but they can be opportunities. The usual objection—that they must be boring—are often political attacks, or ignorant repeating of a line, or another way of saying “No expository lumps please, it has to be about me.” The political attacks are interesting to parse. “Utopia would be boring because there would be no conflicts, history would stop, there would be no great art, no drama, no magnificence.” This is always said by white people with a full belly. My feeling is that if they were hungry and sick and living in a cardboard shack they would be more willing to give utopia a try.
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11:21 am
supergee
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/88280695/834056) [Link] | Catholic archdiocese holds the poor hostage to its demands.
Thanx to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rm
Tags: christian charity
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11:12 am
shadesong
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/14167089/505856) [Link] |
Why working from home sucks
Yesterday: Lost entire workday due to child being home from school.
Today: Losing any parts of workday that require concentration (read: most of it) due to people fucking DRILLING into my SIDEWALK.
Because midday is considered ideal for that, because most people are away from home then.
<--- not most people, and not getting any work done, clearly
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07:06 pm
animals_glamour
[natty_natty_b]
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/88147806/19739097) [Link] |
На зарядку становись!..
(с) автор natty_natty_b( раз-два, раз-два... )
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11:03 am
james_nicoll
[Link] |
The subtle understated wit of conservapedia
I went looking for the conservapedia article on Olympia Snowe (1) but it was boring
I noticed this on their front page, though.
Usual warnings apply about about conservapedia.
1: I was wondering if she is forced out of the Republicans as too liberal, whether she'd cross the floor or be an independent, and I thought maybe looking at conservapedia would indicate how hostile other Republicans are to her.
Tags: memetic prophylactic recommended
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10:58 am
matociquala
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/41142099/863621) [Link] | I am a tired Bear. And one who is contemplating working on this book review and my Storytellers Unplugged colun today before I open the novel.
Yeah, I think I will do that.
Balancing demands is a bit tricky sometimes.
Current Mood:  exhausted
Current Music: Morning Edition
Tags: entropy requires no maintenance
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10:38 am
richardthinks
[Link] |
Titans still not responsible drivers
I'm surprised James hasn't commented on this yet. For once I think the LOTR cinemopera treatment might actually work, as long as it doesn't lose the plot in favour of rock-god style or turn into another bit of swords-and-sandals drudgery. And I guess I'm happy that they don't seem to have wanted to camp it up. If it were me, though, I'd make less of this and more of that.
Now I'm hoping the presence of Pete Postlethwaite means it will contain acting to go with the animation, since I'm already a fan of one of the animators.
Finally, Russian movie 1612 proves that Hollywood isn't the only place you can get some of that old-time skull-crushing, although it may come with an eye-watering dose of State Vodka.
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10:47 am
james_nicoll
[Link] |
A question about Clarke's Imperial Earth
Did it have as part of its background a sudden collapse in the human population, perhaps on the order of 90%?
I thought they got from the peak population of the 21st to the billion or so around in 2276 by having fewer kids but am I misremembering?
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10:45 am
madfilkentist
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/63982570/4634885) [Link] |
Two fallacies
In an article in the Phoenix and online, Adam Reilly dissects the two fallacies permeating discussion of the Fort Hood shooting; (1) "He's a Muslim? What did you expect?" and (2) "He's a Muslim? What's that got to do with it?"
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10:47 am
rysmiel
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/8265416/607011) [Link] |
"..but if we shut the puppy mills, where on Earth will we get the flour to make dog biscuits?"
I am less than entirely well. I am quite a bit better than yesterday, nor do I think it is flu; it's basically exhaustion, the odd spot of dizziness, and the glands in my neck doing the your-immune-system-is-BUSY-right-now thing. It appears, thus far, that neither the $bosses nor anyone else in my team is in today, so I suppose I do more seminar today.
(Oh, and scatter-brainedness. The several other things that I wanted to put in this post have fallen out of my head.)
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05:51 pm
animals_glamour
[chernenok]
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/90113284/11175438) [Link] |
Gull not far from Mukilteo waterfront, WA, USA
Tags: птицы
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09:26 am
copperbadge
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/75305468/1000843) [Link] | Via 51stcenturyfox:
OH YES. I don't know where it came from or how it happened, but there it is. The internet is over, we've peaked, and everyone can go home now.
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10:11 am
supergee
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/87372345/834056) [Link] | This LOLthing of attributing words to insentient beings has gone too far.
Thanx to Eve Ackerman on Facebook.
Tags: wiseass
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09:58 am
nyuanshin
[Link] |
Fingertrapped
So, here's something that bothers me: social norms have accommodated medication but haven't accommodated recovery from medication -- particularly antidepressants, ADD meds, etc. Why isn't needing to go off meds for a while for the sake of your long-term health considered a legitimate cause for sick leave?
Tags: health, knots
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09:56 am
rm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/85651720/935250) [Link] |
sundries
Wait, isn't this the plot of one of the Twilight books, but like, with sharks or something? via enegim.
I try, I really really try not to be anti-faith in general or specific around here. I'm not an atheist and I grew up with a lot of different faith traditions because of family wackiness. I have a huge variety of believers and non-believers of many different faiths on this friendslist and so-forth and so-on. Among other things, I have close LGBTQ friends who are also members of the Catholic Chruch and try to exist within and with their church is a way that reduces the harm some of the church's current doctrine causes. All of which means I generally don't post about anti-gay stuff from religious quarters -- it's not a surprise, and I don't really view it as my problem, until it injects itself into politics.
The D.C. Catholic Archdiocese has threatened to stop helping thousands of the needy in the nation's capital if the District's City Council approves a pending bill which states that marriage between 2 people in the District of Columbia shall not be denied or limited on the basis of gender, and which also ensure[s] that no minister of any religious society who is authorized to celebrate marriages shall be required to celebrate any marriage...or solemnization of a same-sex marriage.
This is not how we show compassion, ease suffering or let God do the judging.
Can I make a request? When we talk about models being too thin, or being photoshopped to look too thin (things we should be genuinely outraged/concerned about, I agree), can we stop saying they look like "concentration camp victims?" It makes me uncomfortable both as a Jewish and a queer person and as a person with a genetic disease that makes me very, very thin. If you think I look sickly, it's because I am sick.
So-and-so "needs a sandwich" talk sucks too. It's also worth remembering that eating disorders are illnesses, not personal moral failings (cultural culpability is another matter entirely); people with anorexia aren't bad people, they are people with anorexia.
So confronting skinny privilege/expectation? Good! Saying that a given level of skinniness looks sickly to you? Fine! Blithely making the Holocaust comparison or judging people who have various nutrient absorbtion diseases or eating disorders? Not cool.
Apparently there's going to be some weird Miracle Whip vs. Mayo thing on Stephen Colbert tonight? There were weird angry Miracle Whip ads about in the paper this morning. Patty hates mayo (and Miracle Whip) more than anything, but we'll be watching anyway.
Women with brain tumors more likely to wind up divorced. The numbers could mean a lot of different things, but few of them are good.
Malcolm X was bisexual? Seriously, I just got linked to this, I have no idea, I must sit and read. via i_amthecosmos. (Actually, the article is a bit crap in several ways, delineated in comments below).
Megan Fox and the construction of celebrity. I don't think she's that sly, but the topic is always of interest (celebrity construction, not Megan Fox).
In New York, we all look in each other's windows.“He would sew in the dark every night, except for a small desk light. His hands would flutter up like a moth to the light,” she said. “I found the image so lonely and sad, but somehow soothing. Maybe because I was lonely, too. It gave me comfort.” Look, I just pass this shit along. ALSO, WHO IN INDIA TOLD TONY HELLO FROM THE TORCHWOOD LESBIANS? FESS UP!
There's a word for one of the strange things ConSweet is playing with via Io Station! Defictionalization! I probably should have already known this. via tod_hollykim.
OMG, I just had this conversation with Sprint. I feel sorta bad about it:
Me: "I'm going abroad in a couple of days and want to know if my phone will work."
Them: "Will you be leaving the country?"
Me: "That's what abroad means."
Zurich progress:
- I've called my bank
- I've rented a mobile for there
- I'll do all cat-related errands tonight
- this just leaves currency exchange and packing tomorrow
- I also, unrelatedly, but hey important phone calls, played more phone tag with the headshot guy.
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09:44 am
asim
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/3604717/53454) [Link] | MightyGodKing does a What If (if that doesn't work, try this) on...well, don't read if you want to avoid spoilers, ( so I'll slice it here for the pure of heart... )Although I agree that some of it stretches credulity, it's poignant and touching, and the ending makes you want to re-read it not just once, but again and again. A pity I'm neck-deep in work!
I've never been a mega-fan of this band -- the ultimate band, according to many -- although I respect their musicality and impact on the medium (media, really). This work reminds me of why I do, and that's not faint praise.
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09:41 am
crowleycrow
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/45397576/9775674) [Link] |
Little Lessons from the Masters IX (I think)
"An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts after publication, lest they mislead academic mediocrities into thinking that it is possible to unravel the mysteries of genius by studying cancelled readings. In art, purpose and plan are nothing; only the results count."
-- Vladimir Nabokov
Quoted by Alexander Hemon in his review of the new Nabokov fragment appearing now with publishers' brass band fronting. www.slate.com/id/2235023/
Of course Nabokov wasn't in the business of selling his drafts to collectors -- a nice source of income for those who need it.
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09:44 am
filkertom
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62836888/2338425) [Link] |
Digby vs. The Little Blue Pill
And she's got a rock-solid argument.
Tags: politics, religion
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09:35 am
browngirl
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/66714551/373854) [Link] |
Pi~natas and Other Candy Containers
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
Current Mood:  creative
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09:36 am
theweaselking
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/32302970/2839561) [Link] | "The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, you may have invented warp drive, but the chances are a lot better that you've screwed up."
- #19, Dave Akins' Laws Of Spacecraft Design.
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