So I've asked a few honest-to-goodness males what the hell is up with this other guy, and the consensus seems to be: he is a creep, run the hell away. Which is all well and good only I need to have class with him Wednesdays for the rest of the semester. Hopefully we won't have to have much contact.
Cate, if you're reading this, please save me a seat on your side of the poetry room.
Also, on the way to class I passed a protest or demonstration or some damn thing clogging up the other side of MLK and now I wonder what they were protesting, because I was too busy, y'know, DRIVING, to get much gawking done.
I'm not going to miss this semester for anything other than the classes, which have been unalloyed awesome. The whole rest of the time that wasn't spent in class was a huge annoying pain in the ass. At least I am currently still employed!
Monday, November 22, 2010
Jubilation and frustration
YES. Source material has arrived. I can spend time today and the rest of this week pounding out articles.
It's not as intellectually satisfying as, say, back-engineering explanations for Transformers physiology, or working out a system of fictitious (meta)physics for Hell, but it's a lot of fun nonetheless.
In other news, I do so wish that when I said things like "I do not go out on dates," "I don't date," "I'm not interested in dating or relationships," and "I need my weekend time alone," people would actually understand that this applies to them.
I've tried the CZ engagement ring with my faux-wedding band. I've tried coldly offensive incomprehension. I've tried honest discussion. I've tried plain old not answering emails. It doesn't seem to get through.
I'm not issuing a challenge to every dingbat who thinks they want to go to bed with me--and I am in no way saying that everybody wants to go to bed with me, but those who do fail to understand that it's not going to happen--I am telling them honestly that no, I appreciate the thought, but they really ought not to bother.
I've tried saying it through class assignments. I've tried saying it out loud in discussion. I've tried saying it face to face and I've tried saying it in emails:
I AM BETTER OFF ALONE.
Sigh. I'm not from this planet.
It's not as intellectually satisfying as, say, back-engineering explanations for Transformers physiology, or working out a system of fictitious (meta)physics for Hell, but it's a lot of fun nonetheless.
In other news, I do so wish that when I said things like "I do not go out on dates," "I don't date," "I'm not interested in dating or relationships," and "I need my weekend time alone," people would actually understand that this applies to them.
I've tried the CZ engagement ring with my faux-wedding band. I've tried coldly offensive incomprehension. I've tried honest discussion. I've tried plain old not answering emails. It doesn't seem to get through.
I'm not issuing a challenge to every dingbat who thinks they want to go to bed with me--and I am in no way saying that everybody wants to go to bed with me, but those who do fail to understand that it's not going to happen--I am telling them honestly that no, I appreciate the thought, but they really ought not to bother.
I've tried saying it through class assignments. I've tried saying it out loud in discussion. I've tried saying it face to face and I've tried saying it in emails:
I AM BETTER OFF ALONE.
Sigh. I'm not from this planet.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I am a terrible person and a Bad Blogger. This is partly because holy shit work and partly because a lot of the things I should like to write about should not be seen by the delicate eyes of professors and classmates. That's what other sites are for.
But since I'm feeling guilty, here is an update on the final project. I'm really, really enjoying this. After some initial flailing I've got into the proper rhythm of writing fictitious scientific/scholarly articles again--it really is like riding a bicycle--and as soon as my source material arrives from Barnes & Noble I should be able to provide a lot more content for the site.
Coming up with the name was the most difficult part. Once I had that--tractive effort is a measure of how hard the locomotive is working--everything else fell into place, and I was happy to find that Wordpress' blogging interface is pretty much intuitive. You don't have as much scope as you would on Blogger or LJ to screw with your layouts, but if you have patience with it you can sort of coax it into doing what you like. The whole process of getting the framework of the site set up involved a TON of minor changes and view-blogs and minor changes and view-blogs and so on, so most of the hits on the site so far are from me checking to see if a tiny adjustment has made any change.
I love steam engines because they make absolute sense. They are purely analogue. They are physics in motion. There's no incomprehensible electronic interference, no scram logic, nothing that happens in magic boxes with LEDs on the side: everything in a steam locomotive is just plain physics.
(I would so, so love to drive one of these things. So much.)
But since I'm feeling guilty, here is an update on the final project. I'm really, really enjoying this. After some initial flailing I've got into the proper rhythm of writing fictitious scientific/scholarly articles again--it really is like riding a bicycle--and as soon as my source material arrives from Barnes & Noble I should be able to provide a lot more content for the site.
Coming up with the name was the most difficult part. Once I had that--tractive effort is a measure of how hard the locomotive is working--everything else fell into place, and I was happy to find that Wordpress' blogging interface is pretty much intuitive. You don't have as much scope as you would on Blogger or LJ to screw with your layouts, but if you have patience with it you can sort of coax it into doing what you like. The whole process of getting the framework of the site set up involved a TON of minor changes and view-blogs and minor changes and view-blogs and so on, so most of the hits on the site so far are from me checking to see if a tiny adjustment has made any change.
I love steam engines because they make absolute sense. They are purely analogue. They are physics in motion. There's no incomprehensible electronic interference, no scram logic, nothing that happens in magic boxes with LEDs on the side: everything in a steam locomotive is just plain physics.
(I would so, so love to drive one of these things. So much.)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
abandoned things
I love derelict, abandoned, and ruined things. If I weren't such a complete and utter coward I should love to run around abandoned buildings and take photographs of fascinating things the owners left behind. I'm allergic to being charged with trespassing, unfortunately, which leaves me extremely happy when I come upon something in the public domain that's worth investigation.
Such as this.
Was walking along the Gunpowder South trail in the Hereford area of Gunpowder Falls state park this afternoon and came upon this lovely carcass. From what I can tell it's a mid-30s Dodge or Plymouth (based on grille, body shape, and dash) but that's as far as I can get without writing down serial numbers, which I couldn't do because it was getting late and I hadn't got any idea where on the block to look for one.
It's got a flathead six that looks to me like the sort you'd find in mid-thirties Chrysler Corporation models, and an adorable one-barrel carb that is obviously made out of some magical space-age material as it has not oxidized all to hell like the rest of the car. I really, really wanted this carburetor. I really, really couldn't have it.
Taking pictures of the interior with a point-and-shoot necessitated flash, which meant that I scared a little grey mouse with white feet (LIGHTNING OMG!) that I thought really rivalled the carb for adorability.
I'm still trying to get the year and marque pinned down and also to find out how the hell it got there. It's located on the floodplain of the river a long way away from any remains of decent roads. Why is it there and why was it left to decay?
Bonus river shot.
Such as this.
Was walking along the Gunpowder South trail in the Hereford area of Gunpowder Falls state park this afternoon and came upon this lovely carcass. From what I can tell it's a mid-30s Dodge or Plymouth (based on grille, body shape, and dash) but that's as far as I can get without writing down serial numbers, which I couldn't do because it was getting late and I hadn't got any idea where on the block to look for one.
It's got a flathead six that looks to me like the sort you'd find in mid-thirties Chrysler Corporation models, and an adorable one-barrel carb that is obviously made out of some magical space-age material as it has not oxidized all to hell like the rest of the car. I really, really wanted this carburetor. I really, really couldn't have it.
Taking pictures of the interior with a point-and-shoot necessitated flash, which meant that I scared a little grey mouse with white feet (LIGHTNING OMG!) that I thought really rivalled the carb for adorability.
I'm still trying to get the year and marque pinned down and also to find out how the hell it got there. It's located on the floodplain of the river a long way away from any remains of decent roads. Why is it there and why was it left to decay?
Bonus river shot.
saturn v (first stage)
It seems all one piece.
One bright white pencil, checkered black,
larger than large in xenon floods:
already alien.
Around its base machines and men swarm.
Daylight finds its steeple first,
impartial light slides down its length,
strikes diamonds from the snow that cases it. Mist flows.
When it begins it seems so slow a rise.
Pillows of flame support it, cradling. Lazily
this spire decides to wake up after all, and
grumbling, shakes umbilicals away.
five F-1 engines take slide-rule sums tipped with people
tiny, dwarfed by their machine,
thrust them forty-two miles up the sky
in not quite three hot minutes,
gobbling four million
four hundred thousand pounds of go.
What must it be
to be the cupped hands underneath a nation’s boot
to light a candle
(that will in some days and two hundred thousand miles
warm the dead face of a distant mythic disc)
to wrench a stack of parts and men
four hundred feet per second out from gravity’s dark womb,
to thrust conquistadors toward their unknown shore?
but it is just those hands that make a step,
the first step.
First stage: not three minutes gone, and spent. It does not let go:
rejected by its successor, eight little thrusts, it’s spurned.
and now the living stack is on its way, past max-Q,
rebelling from the oldest mother anyone can know.
Five guttered engines,
vast and scorched, ablated, mouthless,
still silent in the airless dark, go cold:
what’s left of their force lifts S-1C still,
introduces solitude.
Without the others it describes an arc
(already slide-ruled, predetermined, months before)
higher and higher, till all the world shines blue.
It seems so slow a rise.
Sixty-eight miles up, not fast enough to slip its bonds, it reaches apogee
before it is called home.
Is it pride that crystallizes
on those white flanks, as they fall?
does it know that in its death
it makes possible a life?
The ocean rises to receive its shell. Water is kind.
Embraced and cradled, it is drowned to sleep.
Four days later its journey is complete:
man sets his bootprint
on another world.
One bright white pencil, checkered black,
larger than large in xenon floods:
already alien.
Around its base machines and men swarm.
Daylight finds its steeple first,
impartial light slides down its length,
strikes diamonds from the snow that cases it. Mist flows.
When it begins it seems so slow a rise.
Pillows of flame support it, cradling. Lazily
this spire decides to wake up after all, and
grumbling, shakes umbilicals away.
five F-1 engines take slide-rule sums tipped with people
tiny, dwarfed by their machine,
thrust them forty-two miles up the sky
in not quite three hot minutes,
gobbling four million
four hundred thousand pounds of go.
What must it be
to be the cupped hands underneath a nation’s boot
to light a candle
(that will in some days and two hundred thousand miles
warm the dead face of a distant mythic disc)
to wrench a stack of parts and men
four hundred feet per second out from gravity’s dark womb,
to thrust conquistadors toward their unknown shore?
but it is just those hands that make a step,
the first step.
First stage: not three minutes gone, and spent. It does not let go:
rejected by its successor, eight little thrusts, it’s spurned.
and now the living stack is on its way, past max-Q,
rebelling from the oldest mother anyone can know.
Five guttered engines,
vast and scorched, ablated, mouthless,
still silent in the airless dark, go cold:
what’s left of their force lifts S-1C still,
introduces solitude.
Without the others it describes an arc
(already slide-ruled, predetermined, months before)
higher and higher, till all the world shines blue.
It seems so slow a rise.
Sixty-eight miles up, not fast enough to slip its bonds, it reaches apogee
before it is called home.
Is it pride that crystallizes
on those white flanks, as they fall?
does it know that in its death
it makes possible a life?
The ocean rises to receive its shell. Water is kind.
Embraced and cradled, it is drowned to sleep.
Four days later its journey is complete:
man sets his bootprint
on another world.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
narcissism
God, I love Apple. I love Apple so good. My previous MacBook didn't come with Photo Booth but Megatron the MBPro does, and it is just a hoot. You can have yourself andywarholized:
or you can be in fake pencils:
or you can be in high-contrast grainy webcam style:
When I was growing up this sort of thing was utterly sci-fi. You couldn't put pictures on the internets unless you had some awesomely fast modem that'd do like 56K and even then they were mostly low-res .gifs. These days shit is instantly public. In many ways I'm awfully grateful to have got through the bullied-child stage in a pre-internet world.
or you can be in fake pencils:
or you can be in high-contrast grainy webcam style:
When I was growing up this sort of thing was utterly sci-fi. You couldn't put pictures on the internets unless you had some awesomely fast modem that'd do like 56K and even then they were mostly low-res .gifs. These days shit is instantly public. In many ways I'm awfully grateful to have got through the bullied-child stage in a pre-internet world.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
No, it's not okay to steal people's writing
This post was originally put up on the SA forums.
Story goes like this: Author Monica Gaudio wrote a piece on the historical development of apple pie for a specific website, which mentioned that content was copyrighted.
Gaudio was then informed by a friend that Cooks Source Magazine had printed her article without a) permission, b) notification, or c)credit. edit: they did apparently "credit" her but also made several edits to the copy without consulting her.
Gaudio contacted Cooks Source to ask what the fuck, and was fobbed off with what is probably the most :smug: reply ever (excerpted):
"Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!"
This rapidly went viral from Gaudio's LJ post to Facebook and Twitter, and over the course of Thursday more and more evidence that Cooks Source and editor Judith Griggs basically sourced all their content from other people's intellectual property.
Links:
Gaudio's LJ entry
Another LJ entry concerning the issue, which spread to other platforms
a pretty comprehensive compendium of data on this clusterfuck
Cooks Source on Facebook, being overrun by commenters
I think this is a pretty good example of the astonishing power of social media via the internet to fuck someone's shit up. Like a lot of the /b/ vs. Terrible People instances--that dreadful woman who posted amusing photoshops of a dying child, for example--it really illustrates how dangerous it is to show your true colors on the internet.
Discuss.
(second edit: Apparently Ms. Judith Griggs is not just breathtakingly ignorant and incompetent as an editor, she also couldn't handle being a town selectman. I can't so far find incontrovertible proof that this is the same Judith Griggs but it jolly well looks like her.)
Story goes like this: Author Monica Gaudio wrote a piece on the historical development of apple pie for a specific website, which mentioned that content was copyrighted.
Gaudio was then informed by a friend that Cooks Source Magazine had printed her article without a) permission, b) notification, or c)
Gaudio contacted Cooks Source to ask what the fuck, and was fobbed off with what is probably the most :smug: reply ever (excerpted):
"Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!"
This rapidly went viral from Gaudio's LJ post to Facebook and Twitter, and over the course of Thursday more and more evidence that Cooks Source and editor Judith Griggs basically sourced all their content from other people's intellectual property.
Links:
Gaudio's LJ entry
Another LJ entry concerning the issue, which spread to other platforms
a pretty comprehensive compendium of data on this clusterfuck
Cooks Source on Facebook, being overrun by commenters
I think this is a pretty good example of the astonishing power of social media via the internet to fuck someone's shit up. Like a lot of the /b/ vs. Terrible People instances--that dreadful woman who posted amusing photoshops of a dying child, for example--it really illustrates how dangerous it is to show your true colors on the internet.
Discuss.
(second edit: Apparently Ms. Judith Griggs is not just breathtakingly ignorant and incompetent as an editor, she also couldn't handle being a town selectman. I can't so far find incontrovertible proof that this is the same Judith Griggs but it jolly well looks like her.)
Thursday drivel
This is c&p verbatim from a newsletter published by the School of Social Work's Promise Heights program (which is a Good Thing on its own merits, but jesus christ).
Dear Friends of Promise Heights:
The University of Maryland, Baltimore and faith based and non-profit organizations have formed a unique partnership to improve educational, health, and developmental outcomes for children and youth by creating a holistic, community-centered education continuum that serves child and families living in Upton/Druid Heights communities of West Baltimore – Promise Heights. By joining forces, this partnership will level the playing field for socioeconomically disadvantaged children by developing and implementing a long term strategic plan that incorporates evidence-based elements of nationally recognized best practice models and will build on the strengths, assets, and knowledge of local stakeholders.
Setting aside the glaring grammatical and punctuation errors, can anyone diagram that last sentence? It's got two "By [doing X], Y" phrases referring to one another and it's reached buzzword saturation point. Any more buzzwords added to this sentence will just fall right off again, unable to go into solution.
What I don't understand is why they think this is in any way a good or pleasant or interesting or inviting way to explain what they do. Even if people can follow the tortuous path through their sentence construction and work out from context what some of the more improbable phrases mean, why would they want to? It puts everybody off. It's utterly distasteful and makes me itch.
SSW is so earnest about Doing Good Things For The Community, because it's sort of their purpose, but they go about it so breathtakingly wrong-headedly. Watching them try to get funding is sort of like watching a turtle try to have sex with a sneaker: it's so ludicrous it's funny, but it's also very sad.
Dear Friends of Promise Heights:
The University of Maryland, Baltimore and faith based and non-profit organizations have formed a unique partnership to improve educational, health, and developmental outcomes for children and youth by creating a holistic, community-centered education continuum that serves child and families living in Upton/Druid Heights communities of West Baltimore – Promise Heights. By joining forces, this partnership will level the playing field for socioeconomically disadvantaged children by developing and implementing a long term strategic plan that incorporates evidence-based elements of nationally recognized best practice models and will build on the strengths, assets, and knowledge of local stakeholders.
Setting aside the glaring grammatical and punctuation errors, can anyone diagram that last sentence? It's got two "By [doing X], Y" phrases referring to one another and it's reached buzzword saturation point. Any more buzzwords added to this sentence will just fall right off again, unable to go into solution.
What I don't understand is why they think this is in any way a good or pleasant or interesting or inviting way to explain what they do. Even if people can follow the tortuous path through their sentence construction and work out from context what some of the more improbable phrases mean, why would they want to? It puts everybody off. It's utterly distasteful and makes me itch.
SSW is so earnest about Doing Good Things For The Community, because it's sort of their purpose, but they go about it so breathtakingly wrong-headedly. Watching them try to get funding is sort of like watching a turtle try to have sex with a sneaker: it's so ludicrous it's funny, but it's also very sad.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
so, chocolate.
This is one of those things where I'm not cool enough to like the Sophisticated Thing. It's like, I don't know, Victorian/Edwardian lit. I honestly do not like Trollope because reading him makes me feel like I am reading the court minutes of some impossibly dull technical disagreement while being repeatedly hit on the forehead with a teaspoon. I honestly do not like Jane Austen because reading her makes me feel as if I am reading the briefs of some impossibly dull technical disagreement re. marital disputes, or possibly Potential Discourtesy. I am not awesome enough to enjoy these works of literature.
I am also not awesome enough to enjoy dark chocolate.
Dark chocolate is just dandy in things. Pain au chocolat is way better with dark than milk chocolate. Similarly, chocolate chips for things like cookies, brownies, or cake are much more effective when they're dark, because the sweetness of the matrix containing them makes up for the bitterness of the chocolate, and the sharp flavor goes much further. I've even had good results making ghetto Mexican Chocolate per sixties cookbooks with melted dark chocolate chips. But for eating?
No.
Cadbury's Dairy Milk, the real thing, not the knockoff you can buy stateside under the sold-out "Cadbury" marque, is to me the acme and delight of milk chocolates everywhere. Lindt's Excellence Extra Creamy Super Awesome Kawaii Milk is absolutely delectable but it tastes much more like honey than chocolate. Guylian's milk/white/praline fruits de mer are certainly worth committing felonies for but they don't compare to the real thing. Dairy Milk is chocolate heaven.
And I do feel chastised and disenfranchised when I see all these chichi chocolate bars in grocery shops and CVS. 60% Cacao. 67% Cacao. 80% LOCK UP YO WIVES, LOCK UP YO CHILDREN Cacao. 95% OH MY GOD THIS SHIT IS GOING CRITICAL Cacao. It all tastes like the astonishing disappointment we experienced as children when we opened up the Hershey's Cocoa tin and stuck a moistened finger into the rich and wonderful-smelling powder: bitter as ashes, bitter as aloes.
Maybe one day I will become cool enough to like Classic Literature and dark chocolate. For now, I cling to my Dickens and my Dairy Milk, and the rest of you can go screw.
I am also not awesome enough to enjoy dark chocolate.
Dark chocolate is just dandy in things. Pain au chocolat is way better with dark than milk chocolate. Similarly, chocolate chips for things like cookies, brownies, or cake are much more effective when they're dark, because the sweetness of the matrix containing them makes up for the bitterness of the chocolate, and the sharp flavor goes much further. I've even had good results making ghetto Mexican Chocolate per sixties cookbooks with melted dark chocolate chips. But for eating?
No.
Cadbury's Dairy Milk, the real thing, not the knockoff you can buy stateside under the sold-out "Cadbury" marque, is to me the acme and delight of milk chocolates everywhere. Lindt's Excellence Extra Creamy Super Awesome Kawaii Milk is absolutely delectable but it tastes much more like honey than chocolate. Guylian's milk/white/praline fruits de mer are certainly worth committing felonies for but they don't compare to the real thing. Dairy Milk is chocolate heaven.
And I do feel chastised and disenfranchised when I see all these chichi chocolate bars in grocery shops and CVS. 60% Cacao. 67% Cacao. 80% LOCK UP YO WIVES, LOCK UP YO CHILDREN Cacao. 95% OH MY GOD THIS SHIT IS GOING CRITICAL Cacao. It all tastes like the astonishing disappointment we experienced as children when we opened up the Hershey's Cocoa tin and stuck a moistened finger into the rich and wonderful-smelling powder: bitter as ashes, bitter as aloes.
Maybe one day I will become cool enough to like Classic Literature and dark chocolate. For now, I cling to my Dickens and my Dairy Milk, and the rest of you can go screw.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
iMovie is a nice chunk of technology and I approve of it. I am definitely, but definitely, not cut out to be a film editor. Or director. Maybe a storyboard artist, but if so then I need to get a lot faster with my pencils.
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it lets me record voiceover audio, which means that all the trouble I went to in recording mpg files of me narrating was unnecessary, but hey. The MacBook Pro has quite a snazzy little mic. Had to screw around a lot with the ducking levels and am still not happy with it, but eh, it's at least coherent and you can understand it, and the pics are reasonably good-looking.
Enjoyed watching bits of the Rally For Sanity yesterday online. Christ, I can remember when 28.8 was FAST INTERNET. Did I really do online chat with graphics back in those days? It's hard to believe, but I remember having lots of conversations with a chap calling himself Methodin Madness, in a chat room consisting of a (bad) CGI beach/deck/promenade, in the persona of a white-haired black-eyed woman who went by something utterly abysmal like "Aevanis."
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it lets me record voiceover audio, which means that all the trouble I went to in recording mpg files of me narrating was unnecessary, but hey. The MacBook Pro has quite a snazzy little mic. Had to screw around a lot with the ducking levels and am still not happy with it, but eh, it's at least coherent and you can understand it, and the pics are reasonably good-looking.
Enjoyed watching bits of the Rally For Sanity yesterday online. Christ, I can remember when 28.8 was FAST INTERNET. Did I really do online chat with graphics back in those days? It's hard to believe, but I remember having lots of conversations with a chap calling himself Methodin Madness, in a chat room consisting of a (bad) CGI beach/deck/promenade, in the persona of a white-haired black-eyed woman who went by something utterly abysmal like "Aevanis."
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Looks like it'll be the BS Tower. I've just recorded a bunch of clips of me narrating. Question: Can I extract the sound files from the .mpg and use that?
God, I wish I knew everything already. Decided agin Summerland due to having to request a huge horrible number of copyright permissions from the guy who's done the biggest investigation into the concept so far. BS Tower I can do with mostly my own pix and hope that basic fair-use will cover the rest.
God, I wish I knew everything already. Decided agin Summerland due to having to request a huge horrible number of copyright permissions from the guy who's done the biggest investigation into the concept so far. BS Tower I can do with mostly my own pix and hope that basic fair-use will cover the rest.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
tweet this
Cate and I are PARTNERS! for the looking-at-forms-of-electronic-publishing project, and we're working with Twitter. I've had a couple of twitter accounts over the past year or so, and just started up one for Jean-Paul Marat to accompany my Joseph Bazalgette twitter. I have one of my own now, though, @alientaxpayer.
Cate's idea is to use Twitter as an actual real-time interactive literary tool to create a story, or a narrative, or a conversation--not just between us two students but with as many people as we can get to join in. It's kind of the 2010 equivalent of those stories where you take the sentence the previous person wrote and write your sentence in response/continuation.
Cate's idea is to use Twitter as an actual real-time interactive literary tool to create a story, or a narrative, or a conversation--not just between us two students but with as many people as we can get to join in. It's kind of the 2010 equivalent of those stories where you take the sentence the previous person wrote and write your sentence in response/continuation.
So, videos.
I'm not one of Nature's videographers, and I'm certainly not one of Nature's narrators or on-screen talent. For the most part I think my video project is going to be pretty much entirely a slideshow, maybe with some stock footage, because I know perfectly well I won't be able to get the quality of video I'd find acceptable with my dinky little PowerShot's movie feature--and I don't have access to professional-grade cameras or someone who knows how to use them.
I think I'd like to do either something like a video version of one of my essay entries about the Earhart disappearance/Gantenbrink's door/the search for Andrew Irvine or a little mini-history-lesson on something like the Bromo-Seltzer tower (as a companion piece to the essay on the tower in November's UB Post).
I'd really like to do a tiny documentarylet on the two Pajarito Site accidents, Daghlian and Slotin, or something on the Summerland disaster...wait. Summerland might actually work, on account of I have a lot of the pictures and I know a ton about it based on my research--and I can probably find some really brief news footage of the actual conflagration. Maybe I'll be focusing on that. BS Tower is a good fall-back as I've got some of the work on it done already.
I think I'd like to do either something like a video version of one of my essay entries about the Earhart disappearance/Gantenbrink's door/the search for Andrew Irvine or a little mini-history-lesson on something like the Bromo-Seltzer tower (as a companion piece to the essay on the tower in November's UB Post).
I'd really like to do a tiny documentarylet on the two Pajarito Site accidents, Daghlian and Slotin, or something on the Summerland disaster...wait. Summerland might actually work, on account of I have a lot of the pictures and I know a ton about it based on my research--and I can probably find some really brief news footage of the actual conflagration. Maybe I'll be focusing on that. BS Tower is a good fall-back as I've got some of the work on it done already.
Monday, October 18, 2010
i was a teenage phone psychic
Actually I was a twenty-something phone psychic and it only lasted a week or so because jesus christ was that unbearably depressing. At least with the UB Post horoscopes I don't have to worry about people believing the tripe I come up with.
Oh wait. Yes I do.
A Concerned Reader wrote to me after the inaugural horoscope column to complain about my characterization of Aquarius. I had explained that, contrary to expectations, Aquarians aren't all about crystals and homeotherapy and moxibustion and indigo children and similar, and suggested that if people with this sign wanted to indulge in new-age rubbish they ought to pretend to be Pisces instead, as Pisces are supposed to be bigga-time practitioners of woo.
I'm not entirely sure which is more disturbing, a) that she apparently didn't twig that the entire goddamn column was a send-up of newspaper astrology in the first place, or b) she takes her astrological sign seriously enough to complain when she feels it is misrepresented.
It's harder than you might think to make up horoscopes. They're all basically the same: this (day, week, month) you will find yourself challenged by (some conjunction of planets, stars, etc) in your (career, love life, finances), plus (other conjunction of planets, stars, etc) will give you much-needed support in making decisions about (career, love life, finances) but you could easily be led astray by (conjunction, etc) so you should not make any important decisions while (planet) is (in location). The trouble is making them interesting.
Sigh. Oh, well. At least I have some fun articles in the next issue.
Oh wait. Yes I do.
A Concerned Reader wrote to me after the inaugural horoscope column to complain about my characterization of Aquarius. I had explained that, contrary to expectations, Aquarians aren't all about crystals and homeotherapy and moxibustion and indigo children and similar, and suggested that if people with this sign wanted to indulge in new-age rubbish they ought to pretend to be Pisces instead, as Pisces are supposed to be bigga-time practitioners of woo.
I'm not entirely sure which is more disturbing, a) that she apparently didn't twig that the entire goddamn column was a send-up of newspaper astrology in the first place, or b) she takes her astrological sign seriously enough to complain when she feels it is misrepresented.
It's harder than you might think to make up horoscopes. They're all basically the same: this (day, week, month) you will find yourself challenged by (some conjunction of planets, stars, etc) in your (career, love life, finances), plus (other conjunction of planets, stars, etc) will give you much-needed support in making decisions about (career, love life, finances) but you could easily be led astray by (conjunction, etc) so you should not make any important decisions while (planet) is (in location). The trouble is making them interesting.
Sigh. Oh, well. At least I have some fun articles in the next issue.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
So, food.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a household run by people who had spent their college years in de facto poverty: it meant that both my mother and father had a lot of experience making meals for very little money that would feed them for several days and still taste of something worth eating.
We didn't go by cookbooks, in my house, except for things like sponge pudding or particular baked goods that required exact measurements to turn out right. I learned to cook basic food without needing a recipe, and how much is enough of this herb and that herb to throw into a dish by watching my parents--and by trial and error. Living on my own, cooking is a bit more complicated than it would be for more than one person: ingredients need to be bought in the right proportion and stored until needed, whereas in a household of three or more you don't need to worry about aliquoting your veg or bread or whatever into freezer-ready bits so it won't spoil before you can use it.
I've spent some time looking at cookbooks from the Lurid Vintage era of cookery, and what strikes me most obviously about them is that almost every meat recipe contains sugar. Here's a representative but fictitious example:
Polynesian South-Of-The-Border Cheesy Meat Roast Bake
Mix one pound of ground beef with half a pound of Velveeta (if using real cheese, add half a cup of vegetable oil and three drops of yellow food coloring). Add 1 one-pound can of pineapple tidbits, drained (reserve syrup). Mix in one cup packed brown sugar, half a cup of vinegar, two cloves, one quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and one can sweetened condensed milk. Mix to emulsify.
Grease a pyrex baking dish sufficient to hold the contents and pour in your meat batter. Bake at 350 for 2 hours or until pretty much done. 10 minutes before removing from oven, pour syrup from pineapple bits over meat and replace in oven to glaze. Garnish with radish roses. Your family will love it!
It's most obvious in the dishes made from pig--almost nothing pig-related in the fifties, sixties, or seventies was included in recipes without honey, brown sugar, molasses, more honey, or fruit syrup of some description. It's an interesting sociological point when you think of what you might say today if someone offered you Ham With Nectarines or Piquant Meat Ring (containing half a pound of refined sugar).
Tonight, for example, I had ghetto caprese salad consisting of chopped cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cubes with a dressing of olive oil, salt*, black pepper, and basil. Followed by a chicken breast butterflied and stuffed with tarragon and marjoram and baked with garlic and onion. Neither of these dishes contained any form of sugar other than that included naturally with the tomatoes, and surprisingly enough I did not miss it. Perhaps the era of sweetened meatloaf has passed.
We can hope.
*okay so it was pink himalayan salt but don't judge me, that shit is amazing
We didn't go by cookbooks, in my house, except for things like sponge pudding or particular baked goods that required exact measurements to turn out right. I learned to cook basic food without needing a recipe, and how much is enough of this herb and that herb to throw into a dish by watching my parents--and by trial and error. Living on my own, cooking is a bit more complicated than it would be for more than one person: ingredients need to be bought in the right proportion and stored until needed, whereas in a household of three or more you don't need to worry about aliquoting your veg or bread or whatever into freezer-ready bits so it won't spoil before you can use it.
I've spent some time looking at cookbooks from the Lurid Vintage era of cookery, and what strikes me most obviously about them is that almost every meat recipe contains sugar. Here's a representative but fictitious example:
Polynesian South-Of-The-Border Cheesy Meat Roast Bake
Mix one pound of ground beef with half a pound of Velveeta (if using real cheese, add half a cup of vegetable oil and three drops of yellow food coloring). Add 1 one-pound can of pineapple tidbits, drained (reserve syrup). Mix in one cup packed brown sugar, half a cup of vinegar, two cloves, one quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and one can sweetened condensed milk. Mix to emulsify.
Grease a pyrex baking dish sufficient to hold the contents and pour in your meat batter. Bake at 350 for 2 hours or until pretty much done. 10 minutes before removing from oven, pour syrup from pineapple bits over meat and replace in oven to glaze. Garnish with radish roses. Your family will love it!
It's most obvious in the dishes made from pig--almost nothing pig-related in the fifties, sixties, or seventies was included in recipes without honey, brown sugar, molasses, more honey, or fruit syrup of some description. It's an interesting sociological point when you think of what you might say today if someone offered you Ham With Nectarines or Piquant Meat Ring (containing half a pound of refined sugar).
Tonight, for example, I had ghetto caprese salad consisting of chopped cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cubes with a dressing of olive oil, salt*, black pepper, and basil. Followed by a chicken breast butterflied and stuffed with tarragon and marjoram and baked with garlic and onion. Neither of these dishes contained any form of sugar other than that included naturally with the tomatoes, and surprisingly enough I did not miss it. Perhaps the era of sweetened meatloaf has passed.
We can hope.
*okay so it was pink himalayan salt but don't judge me, that shit is amazing
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
privilege
One thing I've learned over my years of being female, human, and existing in the world is that privilege is seldom actually recognized by the privileged.
Example: [heterosexual white middle-class person] complains about [members of group they don't belong to] being "oversensitive" or just "looking for a reason to cry sexism/racism/classism/whateverism."
Until you have been a member of the group discriminated against, you don't get to state what is and is not prejudice against that group. And I'm not even going to touch male privilege here: it's so utterly endemic and ingrained in our culture that pointing it out is like pointing out that water falls from the sky when it is raining.
You see, privilege is something you don't realize you have if you have it. Here are some rather eye-opening studies of the idea of privilege: Unpacking the Knapsack: White Privilege and Unpacking the Knapsack II: Straight Privilege. And because I know it's a lot of work to click links and read, here's some telling points from each. Can you say this and mean it?
White Privilege
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Straight Privilege
I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.
I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.
I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.
I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.
People don't ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
People don't ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It's assumed.
My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
I don't have to defend my heterosexuality.
I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.
I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.
If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.
When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.
I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer).
I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.
I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.
I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
If you're a member of the majority and you don't bother to think about these things, think about them to the point where you actually become aware of your privilege informing everything you do, you do not get to tell any other group of people who do not share your privilege that they are being oversensitive or just need to suck it up and get on with life.
Example: [heterosexual white middle-class person] complains about [members of group they don't belong to] being "oversensitive" or just "looking for a reason to cry sexism/racism/classism/whateverism."
Until you have been a member of the group discriminated against, you don't get to state what is and is not prejudice against that group. And I'm not even going to touch male privilege here: it's so utterly endemic and ingrained in our culture that pointing it out is like pointing out that water falls from the sky when it is raining.
You see, privilege is something you don't realize you have if you have it. Here are some rather eye-opening studies of the idea of privilege: Unpacking the Knapsack: White Privilege and Unpacking the Knapsack II: Straight Privilege. And because I know it's a lot of work to click links and read, here's some telling points from each. Can you say this and mean it?
White Privilege
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Straight Privilege
I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.
I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.
I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.
I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.
People don't ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
People don't ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It's assumed.
My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
I don't have to defend my heterosexuality.
I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.
I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.
If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.
When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.
I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer).
I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.
I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.
I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
If you're a member of the majority and you don't bother to think about these things, think about them to the point where you actually become aware of your privilege informing everything you do, you do not get to tell any other group of people who do not share your privilege that they are being oversensitive or just need to suck it up and get on with life.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Done it.
http://home.ubalt.edu/students/UB13J07/unfoundisland.html
I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that I needed the eventual URL in order to make links that linked to something other than my USB drive or my home computer. It's tricky. I'm sure there's a better way to do it than the one I did, which I shall detail in the rewritten paper.
I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that I needed the eventual URL in order to make links that linked to something other than my USB drive or my home computer. It's tricky. I'm sure there's a better way to do it than the one I did, which I shall detail in the rewritten paper.
Welp.
EDIT: Ok, I know what the problem is. Oy. Ignore the stuff below.
I've got all the files for the site uploaded to my H drive, but (surprise of surprises) none of it seems to work. Much of it gives me 404 errors and when you go to the actual URL for my webspace you get the directory folder I created on the H drive to insert all my files into, but you don't get any actual, y'know, FILES.
I've been fighting with this all day and I'm starting to lose stability. At least I have all the files for the site, all the links work when previewed in Firefox, and it doesn't look as awful as I feared it would. Still can't do anything at all with the bg image/image map issue, and there's no adorable little animation on the home page when you hover over any of the links, because--again--they're image maps. And you can't do image maps on a bg image, you have to do them on an inline image, and I do not feel like using Flash to get round this.
All the websites I've found that suggest they know how to get round the issues I've come up against have this adorably coy way of showing you the code: they show you the snippets of CSS, but then when you go to the live example and ask it to show you source code, they don't actually show you their style sheet. Just the HTML. Which does not help.
Looks like I'll be handing in the flash drive. It is just so infuriating not knowing where to start troubleshooting something like this.
There's a very great deal of information in the site. The home page links to 4 main categories, each of which has at least four or five individual content pages, each of which link back to the homepage AND the about AND the bio. If I could just get it running, it'd be less embarrassingly inadequate.
Also there's not a lot of graphics involved. I'm going to hope that the header/footer/link .jpgs count as graphics.
I've got all the files for the site uploaded to my H drive, but (surprise of surprises) none of it seems to work. Much of it gives me 404 errors and when you go to the actual URL for my webspace you get the directory folder I created on the H drive to insert all my files into, but you don't get any actual, y'know, FILES.
I've been fighting with this all day and I'm starting to lose stability. At least I have all the files for the site, all the links work when previewed in Firefox, and it doesn't look as awful as I feared it would. Still can't do anything at all with the bg image/image map issue, and there's no adorable little animation on the home page when you hover over any of the links, because--again--they're image maps. And you can't do image maps on a bg image, you have to do them on an inline image, and I do not feel like using Flash to get round this.
All the websites I've found that suggest they know how to get round the issues I've come up against have this adorably coy way of showing you the code: they show you the snippets of CSS, but then when you go to the live example and ask it to show you source code, they don't actually show you their style sheet. Just the HTML. Which does not help.
Looks like I'll be handing in the flash drive. It is just so infuriating not knowing where to start troubleshooting something like this.
There's a very great deal of information in the site. The home page links to 4 main categories, each of which has at least four or five individual content pages, each of which link back to the homepage AND the about AND the bio. If I could just get it running, it'd be less embarrassingly inadequate.
Also there's not a lot of graphics involved. I'm going to hope that the header/footer/link .jpgs count as graphics.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
public service announcement
There are many little annoying grammar and spelling mistakes people on the internet make over and over again, and for the most part I can skim over them with some concentration and effort. Some of them just jump out and grab the gaze and snag it, unignorable, unmitigated, excruciating. Such as this:
a women
STOP DOING THIS.
Would you write "a men"? No. Because "men" is plural of "man." Just as "women" with an E is plural of "woman" with an A. They are in no way the same thing. They are disparate. They are not synonymous. They are discrete. Ils ne sont pas la meme chose. STOP DOING THIS.
a women
STOP DOING THIS.
Would you write "a men"? No. Because "men" is plural of "man." Just as "women" with an E is plural of "woman" with an A. They are in no way the same thing. They are disparate. They are not synonymous. They are discrete. Ils ne sont pas la meme chose. STOP DOING THIS.
Monday, October 4, 2010
of the day's positives, these
1) got drinks paid for by a charming and cocksure young lad I've spoken to before with whom I had a vivid and interesting conversation touching on, among other things, childfreedom, and was astonished that after bingoing me with "you're so smart you are totally the type of person who should breed" we got on to an honest and interesting discussion in which he did not mansplain to me excessively and did, in fact, agree that he had not thought some aspects of the issue through completely
2) at class, explained my problem with getting bg images to scale in css to both profs, and had both of them get to the point I was on Sunday where we were annoyed enough that it wasn't working to go keep looking for solutions on the internet, so now there's three of us looking for the answer instead of just me. also? this class is the definition of awesome.
3) got books signed by Mark Doty at his reading, <3 <3 <3
4) got home without incident, after Udo's little flailing I DON'T WANT TO GO INTO GEAR ON THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO 295 moment on Sunday afternoon I am paranoid that I am somehow awful enough at driving a manual transmission that I am capable of comprehensively fucking up a clutch without realizing it within three months, so it's nice to get from point A to point B without AAA. It would also be nice to have that lovely fleeting sense of NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT MY CAR back, but not poppy nor mandragora nor all the soothing syrups, etc.
5) ROOF DID NOT LEAK DESPITE RAINS TODAY
6) earlier, landlord caught me on way to class and asked after roof; I said that it looked bone-fucking-dry when I stopped in before class to put on jeans and grab school bag, and he thanked me prettily again for the triple midnight trash-bag offensive, plus volunteered that he'd just put out more anti-rat without me even having to ask him nicely
On the whole, net positive.
2) at class, explained my problem with getting bg images to scale in css to both profs, and had both of them get to the point I was on Sunday where we were annoyed enough that it wasn't working to go keep looking for solutions on the internet, so now there's three of us looking for the answer instead of just me. also? this class is the definition of awesome.
3) got books signed by Mark Doty at his reading, <3 <3 <3
4) got home without incident, after Udo's little flailing I DON'T WANT TO GO INTO GEAR ON THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO 295 moment on Sunday afternoon I am paranoid that I am somehow awful enough at driving a manual transmission that I am capable of comprehensively fucking up a clutch without realizing it within three months, so it's nice to get from point A to point B without AAA. It would also be nice to have that lovely fleeting sense of NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT MY CAR back, but not poppy nor mandragora nor all the soothing syrups, etc.
5) ROOF DID NOT LEAK DESPITE RAINS TODAY
6) earlier, landlord caught me on way to class and asked after roof; I said that it looked bone-fucking-dry when I stopped in before class to put on jeans and grab school bag, and he thanked me prettily again for the triple midnight trash-bag offensive, plus volunteered that he'd just put out more anti-rat without me even having to ask him nicely
On the whole, net positive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)