Friends

juliebata

05:55 pm - Instead Of Content, You Get Pictures

I've made two new galleries, and added more to the gallery where I dump everyday photos.
( Here's a few recent things.. )

hakeber

07:17 am - Fall of the Berlin Wall

Twenty years ago today, a blundering idiot who wasn't supposed to make an announcement, and the overwhelmed guards in the dead of night who decided to open the border brought down the Berlin wall and gave momentum to the dominoes that had been falling for months. What had started in Polish shipyards had finally circled back to the neighboring country of East Germany. And in one night it was all over. I brought the second tv down from upstairs and Ingrid and I sat and watched the cheering and partying for hours while we called everyone we knew. Everyone dumped their programming to show us the fall of the wall. It was literally the end to the Cold War, and even as we watched them start to bulldoze the wall and smashed it with literally anything they could get their hands on, West Germany was trying to figure out what to do with all those new Germans they suddenly had. See, they had a standing promise to all East Germans, make it out allive, and we give you a sum of money and a chance at a new life. Now hundreds of thousands had done just that. Kind of awkward, but they figured it out, and somehow managed to also convince Europe it would be ok to reunite Germany once more (actually, that was a hard sell, Europe was figuring the third time would not be the charm and really didn't want to do that again, not after the first two times Germany had kicked their asses.)

So a great big thank you to those border guards who decided to follow an order that had not been given and opened the gates.

Other articles on this topic:

Berlin celebrates demise of Wall

The night the Berlin Wall fell

chipuni

10:10 pm - One Rat Short

Ten minutes long. A beautiful story.

One Rat Short from atach on Vimeo.

hakeber

09:22 pm - On The Food Front

Right. So I've decided to pretty much cut out meat for now, just having a little non-fat yogurt (made with skim milk, not fake fat), the occasional egg, and maybe some fish. Intead, I'm increasing the number of other things I'm eating. Like salad. I picked up a bag of spinach and a nice lettuce of some sort at farmer's market yesterday. Some of the spinach wound up in my lentil soup, some in M's salad.

I'd also picked up some parsnips and itty bitty potatoes. Today I made parsnip/potatoe/bean soup. Skinned three largish parsnips, diced, then boiled till tender. Added the potatoes and boiled until they were done. Then added both a can of navy beans and northern beans (all rinsed), a couple of bay leaves, and a half teaspoon of salt. Then mixed up a tablespoon of cornstarch and half a cup of 1% milk separately, turned off the soup so it would cool off a touch, and poured in my 'cream sauce', making it a cream of parsnip/potato/bean soup. VERY tasty. But even though I'd boiled the poor parsnips pretty much to death (trust me, totally tender right through), they still made me itch a bit. Worth it, and the leftovers will be my lunch tomorrow.

This evening I tried making a cracker on the fly. Just took a cup of cornmeal and 3/4 cup of water, mixed well. Once I had that on the cookie sheet, I realized my cornmeal was too course to hold together, so I added some brown rice flour. That still seemed too crumbly, so I added one egg. Then flattened and baked. Next time I'll go way heavier on the rice flour, much lighter on the cornmeal, and add something, anything, for flavor. Talk about bland. I had to salt the result after it was out of the oven.

I'm also making a serious effort to boost the fiber I'm getting, to try and make peace with my colon. So lots of beans in just about everything for me now, but it's working. Yesterday I still had some rough moments, but today was finally much better. I'll continue to add back other fruits and vegetables, within reason. I'm still leery of things like cucumbers and peppers, and won't be touching melons. And know better than to go near avocado, at least for now. Later I might eat it in small amounts.

So yeah, no fat and little oil for me at least for now.

cortezopossum

05:33 pm - No Time

Oog... I don't know if I'm just getting old but I always feel pressed for time when it comes to doing anything these days. Anyway, I did get a few things accomplished. First of all it was a really nice day out and I managed to get in another bike ride.

Today's Ride(s): 15.4 miles
Year Total: 817.9miles
Year Goal: 700 miles

This is the first time I've been able to ride all the way back from East Towne Mall on East Washington all year -- the repairs near the intersection of WI-HWY 30 are almost complete. For the past 6 or 7 years Madison has been repairing and upgrading the entire stretch of East Washington from the Capitol to East Towne Mall and doing it section by section each year. When this section is complete it will complete this entire improvement project.

Here's another thing I managed to complete today:

Tachometer-based Speedometer. My car's speedometer is broken so I worked out a temporary solution -- create a chart that can show my speed based on tachometer readings. This gets overlayed on my tachometer. The innermost wheel is 2nd gear, outermost is 5th gear. I didn't bother with 1st gear and didn't bother making marks above 85mph. I also enhanced '55' by pulling out those pie slices. This chart was done in Mathematica.

To make this chart I looked up the gear ratios of my car and came up with the formula:

Once I had the data I had to work out how to get it all to fit nicely into a pie chart. My tach has 1250, 4000, and 6750 RPMs at the '9, 12, and 3 o'clock' positions respectively so I could work out how to place all the slices from there. You can see my 18th slice labeled '...' had to be tuned so that the remaining slices were at the right scale. What I couldn't figure out is how to get Mathematica to rotate the chart such that 'zero' was at the correct angle so I ended up having to import it into a paint program and rotate it 40.9° there. (it's why all the numbers are tilted).

With all the work I put into this pie chart it almost seems like it would have been easier just to pay the $200 to get the speedometer fixed.

rawdon

01:02 pm - Karl Schroeder: The Sunless Countries

• The Sunless Countries: Book Four of Virga
  • by Karl Schroeder
  • HC, Tor, © 2009, 335 pp, ISBN 978-0-7653-2076-6

The Sunless Countries

After Pirate Sun, which brought to a close the events in the first three books of Virga, I wasn’t sure whether Karl Schroeder planned to write more in the universe or if that was it (at least for now). While there were some loose ends, it formed a loose trilogy around three characters, Hayden Griffin, Venera Fanning, and her husband Admiral Chaison Fanning, as they embarked on an odyssey through Virga – a 5000-mile-wide, pressurized balloon in space – to stop their home nation of Slipstream from being destroyed by a more powerful rival. Along the way we learned a lot about how Virga works, and the wide diversity of civilizations that live within it.

As it turns out, there is more, and The Sunless Countries is the first book with a protagonist not from Slipstream, thus presenting a somewhat different view of Virga. Leal Maspeth is a young historian in the city of Sere, a collection of wheels in the sunless counties of Virga, the giant pressurized balloon within which the series takes place. Leal has been frustrated by not being able to crack the faculty of the university, and even more frustrated with the Eternists who are in power in Sere, a party who believe that Virga has always existed, rather than having been constructed by humans (and others) thousands of years ago. Sere is visited by Hayden Griffin, the heroic Sun Lighter, whose deeds in creating a new sun for his nation of Aerie have made him famous, but who has an uneasy relationship with the government.

Worse than the Eternists, something is lurking out in the dark, something which is probably responsible for disappearing ships around Sere and whose origins may hearken back to the origins of Virga. The government slowly moves to action, more for show than for effect, and Leal thinks she has some idea of what’s going on. Unfortunately, her theories run contrary to Eternist dogma, and her hopes of proving herself right fade when the government takes over the university to reconstruct it along their own ideals, barring people from the library.

Schroeder continues to explore the ramifications of living in Virga, this time focusing on a relatively isolated nation without a sun, and what being surrounded in perpetual darkness means. His characters are always well-realized, as none of the protagonists of each novel feels much like any of the others. Leal actually feels a little more generic than the others, especially by contrast with Griffin, who has grown up a lot since he starred in the first book, and who is a leader but arguably not a natural one. Leal’s backstory involves deceased parents and a frustrated career as a scholar, making her a melancholy figure, but one whose beliefs strongly oppose those of the Eternists.

Schroeder uses Leal and the Eternists to score some social commentary points, as the Eternists conduct a referendum about the nature of truth, such that any disputed truths in Sere will be decided by public vote. It’s an incisive commentary on the dangers of direct public government, as well as a grenade lobbed at the opponents of scientific principles, such as creationists. Tyranny of the majority, when that majority votes based on irrational belief rather than rationality and evidence is a frightening and dangerous thing.

The Sunless Countries also delves deeper into the origins and history of Virga, and what lies outside it, the post-singularity phenomenon named Artificial Nature. Schroeder’s take on posthuman society is a little different from what I’ve seen elsewhere, arguably taking that portrayed in Charles Stross’ Accelerando a step further. He’s also starting to work through the implications of posthuman cultures living alongside human cultures, a scenario whose surface has only been scratched in the fiction I’ve read so far.

The novel works much better when dealing with the political, historical and science-fictional elements than it does in its character-based drama: Its setting and the exploration thereof is so rich and deep that it seems Schroeder can keep plumbing it forever. On the other hand, Leal is pushed into a position where she has to decide among several unsavory options, one of which would fulfill her dreams at the cost of her integrity, but the decision feels a little too mechanical, not as heartfelt as it could have, not to me, anyway.

Despite that, The Sunless Countries is probably the second-best of the series so far, behind Queen of Candesce. It’s clearly the first of a longer story (a second trilogy?) and it ends on something of a cliffhanger, but the potential for more neat stuff is so clearly evident that you can believe I’ll be around for the rest of the story. The Virga series is some of the very best hard SF being published today.

rawdon

09:46 pm - Torchwood Season One

It took a while, but we recently finished the first season of Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin-off about a team in Cardiff, England defending the planet against alien incursions, and featuring Captain Jack Harkness, the occasional guest-star of Who. As I’ve done with Who, I’ll list the first season episodes in order of most to least favorite, and as usual my comments below will contain spoilers.

• Captain Jack Harkness (written by Catherine Tregenna)
• Ghost Machine (Helen Raynor)
• Out of Time (Catherine Tregenna)
• They Keep Killing Suzie (Paul Tomalin & Dan McCulloch)
• End of Days (Chris Chibnall)
• Countrycide (Chris Chibnall)
• Random Shoes (Jacquetta May)
• Greeks Bearing Gifts (Toby Whithouse)
• Combat (Noel Clarke)
• Everything Changes (Russell T. Davies)
• Small Worlds (Peter J. Hammond)
• Cyberwoman (Chris Chibnall)
• Day One (Chris Chibnall)

A friend of mine said on Facebook that you have to look at Torchwood as a guilty pleasure. That would be fine – since much of this season is very poorly written – except that I already tend to see Doctor Who as a guilty pleasure, and Torchwood is a big step down from it, so where does that leave it?

The most frustrating thing about the show is that the Torchwood team are mostly incompetent, which is a big change from most shows of this type where the government organization protecting us from the unknown is instead highly competent. But this isn’t really a theme of the show, it’s just a lever used for the stories: The characters are incompetent, so they do stupid things, and that results in problems.

So, for example, in “Cyberwoman”, Ianto has been hiding his half-cyberized girlfriend in the basement of Torchwood since the Battle of Canary Wharf back in Doctor Who season three. He doesn’t really have a plan to reverse her condition, and he certainly doesn’t trust that his co-workers would help him. Naturally it all goes disastrously wrong once she gets loose. Or the first episode, “Everything Changes”, when the characters are making selfish use of the alien artifacts that Torchwood has access to even though Captain Jack’s told them not to. All this would make more sense if the team were more of a research organization, but that’s not really what they do, and it’s certainly not what they’re set up to do. This pattern continues through the season finale, “End of Days”, when the whole team turns against Jack to do something remarkably stupid which puts the whole world at risk. I can’t count the number of times I said, “Maybe next time you’ll listen to Jack!” at the television during the season.

Not that Jack is a whole lot better, since he’s written very erratically. He’s certainly the most competent character in the group (although Tosh is okay; she’s a fair sight better than Gwen, Ianto and Owen), but he also swerves from being empathetic to being very callous and uncompromising. It’s like the writers couldn’t decide if they wanted him to be a tough-as-nails leader, or more of a heroic figure like the Doctor.

The season’s rocky start has one good episode, “Ghost Machine”, and a decent one, “Countrycide”. The former is an atmospheric story about a device that can show echoes of the past, while the latter is a creepy horror story whose punchline is very different from what you’d expect. But neither of these are episodes to build a season on; in a better show, they’d be meat-and-potatoes episodes rather than the standouts. And they’re amidst dumb episodes like “Cyberwoman” or the immeasurably stupid “Day One” with its sex-obsessed alien killer (gah!), or the faerie-inspired but muddily-plotted “Small Worlds”.

The series does get better as it goes on, though. “They Keep Killing Suzie” features the forgotten Torchwood member from the first episode coming back to cause trouble, a well-constructed episode that unfortunately peters out with a pointless chase sequence at the end. “Out of Time” involves some people from 1953 brought forward to the present and having to adjust to a very different era. It’s one of the more thoughtful episodes in dealing with this premise seriously. And the best episode of the season is “Captain Jack Harkness”, in which Jack and Tosh are thrown back to 1941 during the dawn of World War II and have to figure out how to get back even as Tosh is the subject of anti-Japanese sentiment. They also meet, well, Captain Jack Harkness of that era, who’s not at all what they were expecting.

That episode sets up the last episode, “End of Days”, in which the mysterious goings-on turn a promising set-up into the team turning against Jack pointlessly and resolving into another stupid monster story. It’s a bombastic story but it’s frustrating and not very satisfying. And it ends with Jack disappearing to adventure with the Doctor at the end of his third season, which makes the series feel even more like a spin-off which is subordinate to its original series.

Torchwood has all the ingredients to be a solid series, perhaps a little derivative of The X-Files, but with a flaboyant, unusual star character, an inventive visual look to the team’s headerquarters, and an unusual pedigree. But the writing just doesn’t follow through on the series’ premise, and rarely delivers stories that either make much sense on their own terms, or involve characters doing things that seem sensical. Overall, it’s mediocre, and never truly great.

cortezopossum

07:32 am - Crackpot Index

Slightly related to yesterday's LHC post. My friend George pointed this out to me. It's mainly geared towards people promoting new physics theories but could potentially be applied to other topics easily.

The Crackpot Index

by John Baez

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:
Start someone with a '-5' point starting credit. If the total score rises above '0' the person can safely assumed to be a crackpot. Point scores are as follows:

• 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
• 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
• 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
• 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
• 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
• 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
• 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
• 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
• 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
• 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
  (10 more for emphasizing that you worked on your own.)
• 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
• 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
• 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.
• 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
• 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
• 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
• 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
• 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
• 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in [the 7th item].)
• 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
• 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
• 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
• 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
• 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)
• 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.
• 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
• 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
• 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
• 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
• 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
• 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.
• 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
• 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
• 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
• 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is.
  (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
• 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions

rawdon

08:57 pm - This Week’s Haul

Powered by the love and affection of the Wizard convention circuit, it’s time for another round of reviews:

• Doom Patrol #4, by Keith Giffen, Justiniano & Livesay, and J.M. DeMatteis & Kevin Maguire (DC)
• Secret Six #15, by John Ostrander & Jim Calafiore (DC)
• Astonishing X-Men #32, by Warren Ellis, Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning (Marvel)
• Immortal Weapons #4 of 5, by Duane Swierczynski, Khari Evans, Victor Olazaba & Allen Martinez, and Hatuey Diaz (Marvel)
• Nova #1, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & Andrea DiVito (Marvel)
• The Secret History book six, by Jean-Pierre Pécau & Igor Kordey (Archaia)
• Absolution #3 of 6, by Christos Gage & Roberto Viacava (Avatar)
• The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh #2 of 4, by Mark Waid & Minck Oosterveer (Boom)
• Age of Reptiles #1 of 4, by Ricardo Delgado (Dark Horse)
• Witchfinder: In The Service of Angels #5 of 5, by Mike Mignola & Ben Stenbeck (Dark Horse)
• The Boys #36, by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
• Star Trek: Romulans: Schism #3 of 3, by John Byrne (IDW)

	I admit it: I’m a sucker. I signed up with my comics shop for DC’s Blackest Night promotional ring giveaway. It’s not like I don’t have enough random crap around my house that I need a bunch of plastic rings, but something about the idea appealed to me just enough to sign up. The catch is that I’ll buy single issues of a bunch of comic books I don’t usually buy, so we’ll see if any of them are good enough to me to keep buying them. And you get to go along for the ride with me!</p> And I’m far from the only one jumping on this bandwagon: Lots of other people have, too, which means a big sales spike for some DC titles. Which probably means more of this promotional gimmick in the future. But that’s okay, I don’t have to buy into any more of them if I don’t want to. Doom Patrol is the latest incarnation of the venerable Silver Age comic featuring normal people who acquired super powers which made them outcasts from the rest of society. At its best, the series plumbed the depths of this premise better than its Marvel counterpart, The X-Men; at its worst, it was routine superhero fare. Not a bad legacy for a book that was – aside the bizarre Grant Morrison run in the 80s – a B-list title. But as with many such titles from DC, the book has a history so convoluted I really can’t figure out its continuity, including a re-launch by John Byrne (which I skipped) which seemed to throw all previous continuity out the door (which, honestly, is fine with me) and return to the original cast of Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Woman and the Chief. Apparently Infinite Crisis restored the team’s previous continuity, which makes absolutely no sense to me, and it appears from the Wikipedia article that DC went to greater-than-usual lengths to explain away the inconsistencies. Sigh. So this issue – which features the deceased members of the “new” Doom Patrol of the late 70s coming back to fight the “new original” team of this decade – makes my head hurt, since I understand just enough of the continuity to know who these people are, but not enough to be able to make any sense of how these two teams could coexist in their current state. Would it be easier for a new reader to make heads or tails of this book, or harder? I really have no idea. Is the story any good? Well, it’s not awful, but it’s little more than a collection of disparate fights, and I don’t have enough attachment to any of the characters to feel the emotions that I’m presumably supposed to feel about the dead characters coming back, and honestly the main Blackest Night title has pretty much gone the distance with that premise anyway. The issue ends on a cliffhanger which is interesting enough that I just might buy the next issue, but it’s a close thing. As an introduction to the series, this issue isn’t a very good one. The art by Justiniano and Livesay (what is it with single-name artists these days, anyway?) is pretty good, solid, dynamic, stylistic enough to grab my attention, especially in the last two pages. If you like Doug Mahnke’s or Ariel Olivetti’s art, you’ll find the art here to your taste. The issue features a back-up story by the creative team of Justice League International introducing a set of fembot villains for the Metal Men, another B-list team of Silver Age heroes, and who barely appear in the story. I wasn’t a fan of the jokey nature of the JLI era, so this story didn’t do much for me. (As back-ups go, the Blue Beetle story in the back of Booster Gold has been much better.) So I can’t recommend Doom Patrol #4 for anything more than the promotional ring.
	Ricardo Delgado published two Age of Reptiles mini-series a decade or so ago, and as an unreformed childhood dinosaur lover, I loved them. They’re serious “this is what it could have been like” stories of the giant lizards hunting, eating, fighting, protecting their young, only a little anthropomorphized to give the story a plot. Delgado’s artwork brings the creatures to life like nothing else I can recall seeing. They’re well worth seeking out. Now the reptiles are back in The Journey, the first issue of which has left me slightly baffled. As you can see from the cover to the left, all the animals seem to be heading somewhere, and there are hints inside that they might be looking for warmer climate as the earth cools, and the mix of beasts could be from the late Cretaceous period. But the story seems a little buried in the set-up. Still, as I recall from the first two series, it’s the whole that matters, not just the individual issues. Delgado’s art is still great, although it seems a little less detailed than in the past. Maybe my expectations for this series were so high that I was bound to be disappointed by the first issue. But I’ll still be picking up the whole thing, so check back in a few months to see if the whole outweighs the sum of the parts.
	I’ve been on the Hellboy bandwagon for so long that I guess I’m just jaded. Some of the stories are very good, most are okay, few are bad. When push comes to shove, Witchfinder is closer to the “bad” end of the spectrum. Sir Edward Grey was a (fictional) occult investigator in the Victorian era, much like Hellboy in the 20th century. His adventure in this 5-issue series just didn’t make a lot of sense to me, trying to stop a demon killing people in London by reuniting it with its bones, and with various occult stops along the way. The story was too convoluted for me to sink my teeth into, and there wasn’t a single character worth caring about. Overall I think the series was just too clever for its own good, and it lost sight of telling a good story.
	John Byrne’s Star Trek Romulans series apparently comes to an end this month, a bit to my surprise as I’d thought this was going to be another 5-issue series. As I’ve said before, Byrne’s telling easily the most entertaining Star Trek stories I’ve read in years, maybe decades, and he has the visual look of the classic Trek series down pat. His Romulan story has been a shadow history of the Klingon/Romulan alliance implied by the third season of classic Trek. The Hollow Crown described how the Klingons engineered the death of the Romulan Emperor to put their own puppet on the throne to get around the Organian Treaty forced on them with the Federation. Schism is the other end of that story, as hostilities among the Klingons, Federation and Romulans come to a head in a fairly nifty (and wonderfully well-illustrated) space battle. The only real downside to the story is that it ends rather abruptly, with a literal deus-ex-machina with no believable explanation for why it didn’t arise previously. The story ends seemingly setting up yet another arc in the same storyline, but I understand this is the last chapter, so I’m not quite sure what’s going on. That’s really the achilles heel in Byrne’s Trek stories: They’re entertaining, but the endings are abrupt, ambiguous, and/or perplexing so it’s hard to see what the point of the story is. It’s frustrating, even as light adventure fare (which after all is what Star Trek is). All the pieces are intriguing enough that if Byrne keeps writing ‘em and IDW keeps printing ‘em then I’ll keep publishing ‘em, hoping that eventually all the pieces fall into place and he produces a truly great one.

replyhazy

04:59 pm - Hey, I'm kinda sorta published

http://www.gildedserpent.com/cms/2009/11/06/tracyb3cds/

My first set of CD reviews is up at Gilded Serpent!

hakeber

12:18 pm - Orlando

Oi! This is not cool!

http://www.wftv.com/news/21541363/detail.html

No, two mass shootings in one week is definitely not cool. People need to knock it off.

cortezopossum

10:15 am - Bird Shuts Down LHC

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc

Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)
By Stuart Fox Posted 11.05.2009 at 11:09 am 30 Comments
--
The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.

The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

This incident won't delay the reactivation of the facility later this month, but exposes yet another vulnerability of the what might be the most complex machine ever built. With freak accident after freak accident piling up over at CERN, the idea of time traveling particles returning from the future to prevent their own discovery is beginning to seem less and less far fetched.

rawdon

08:50 pm - The Hidden Side of Webcomics

Interesting article at Robot 6 about webcomics that come to an end. The basic economy of webcomics – they’re freely available, and almost always free to read – means that the barrier to entry for a creator is low, but the return on investment can also be low. So many webcomics end after a few strips, and many more end – deliberately or through neglect – some time later:

“Over 15,000 webcomics now exist online,” Wikipedia tells us, but probably 14,000 of those stopped updating after six episodes. This is the dark side of The Promise of Webcomics: It is true that anyone can start a webcomic, and that without the usual barriers to publication, such as editors and budgets, the web has become a seething cauldron of creativity. However, things like slush piles and contracts and editors are there for a reason: Not just to keep the crap out, but also to make sure the creator finishes the damn comic. The internet imposes no such restrictions. Consequently, many webcomics start with a burst of enthusiasm and fizzle when the creator runs out of ideas or has to study for finals.

The parallels to blogging are obvious. I’ve been blogging for over 12 years now, and my direct return on that investment is measured in Amazon.com referrals. The indirect returns, on the other hand – in the form of friends and acquaintances and the things that friends and acquaintances can bring you – have been much greater. Not to mention that I enjoy blogging, which is the direct impetus keeping me going. (I could arguably make some money by putting ads on my blog. I doubt it would be enough money to make a difference in my life – I’m just not a popular enough blogger – and it might not even be enough to justify the effort to put up the ads in the first place.)

I’m enthusiastic enough about the webcomics I read that I have a fairly meticulous system for keeping up with them through RSS feeds and bookmarks. I also enjoy finding a great new webcomic with an extensive archive, and I will buy the print collections of the webcomics I most enjoy. But apparently I’m unusual in that respect, and for many readers a large backstory is a barrier to entry.

But then, this is a problem that mainstream superhero comic books have been dealing with for years: How to satisfy their meat-and-potatoes fans who are into the continuity, while still bringing in new readers. Television series have the same problem. The economics of those media are different, but the problem is similar.

Myself, I’d suggest to someone who finds a new webcomic they enjoy with a large archive not to be put off by it. Enjoy the recent strips for what they are, but also consider going back to read through the archive, even if over a period of weeks or months. You might find it well worth the time invested. And I’d suggest to the creators of those strips that they keep their “About This Comic”/”New Readers” pages up-to-date so new readers can jump in and feel oriented right away; it’s unfortunately quite common to come across strips whose orientation pages seem years old. (As a reader, I’d also rather see an orientation page than a list of cast members; I’d rather learn about the cast by reading the strip.)

For new webcomic creators who find their enthusiasm waning after a few strips, consider that someone who seems like an “overnight success” usually has put in years of work to get to that point, it just seems to other people like that success came overnight. But I bet that much like blogging, you need to be doing a webcomic because it’s what you want to do. Because I don’t think very many people make a living drawing webcomics.

(Another interesting read is State of the Webcomics Union by Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content.)

orangemike

08:05 pm - Happy Debs Birthday!

Before midnight (here in the Midwest, anyway), I want to wish everybody a happy Eugene V. Debs birthday!

news

theljstaff

01:15 pm - LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest

The empire strikes back

RSS feeds again

xkcd_rss

icanhaschzbrgr

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

c_s_i

c_s_i

Enveloped in postcards

Photos of the week

lj_photophile

hakeber

12:20 pm - Cats and Flu

Cuz H1N1 is a genetic mix that includes avain flu genes, it turns out that cats can get it, too.

11:57 am - Recent Books

I haven't made notes on any books for a while: here are some short notes on ones that may be of interest to others.

"Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks : An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms," by Ethan Gilsdorf.

This book is of interest not only because of its subject matter, but because it has significant local connections, with the author having done research for parts of it in Milwaukee and Lake Geneva. The premise is that the author, who played Dungeons and Dragons for a time in high school, has rediscovered his old D&D materials, and wonders if he "dare" dip back into the mental world of fantasy adventure. In so doing, he surveys a spectrum of fantasy and SF-related hobbies, including Society for Creative Anachronism, Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, Live Action Role Playing, and others. Unfortunately, "dip" is the operative word here, since all the chapters are shallow in approach and commitment, and don't go into any real depth or succeed in capturing "what it's all about" for the people who are still enthusiastic about their pastimes. I give him props for hunting up some of the surviving D&D old timers like Jim Ward and Frank Mentzer, and for going to major events like the Pennsic War rather than just finding a local chapter of SCA, but he still holds everything at a distance, rather like a twelve-step graduate agreeing to meet friends at a bar.

I was most interested by the chapter on Guédelon, the project to build an authentic Burgundian castle using period-authentic tools and methods, perhaps because that was one topic I was not previously familiar with. Overall, I was disappointed, since I didn't think Gilsdorf ever really engaged with any of his subjects and really "got it." On the other hand, at least it's generally positive, and would be reassuring to outsiders and parents who are wondering what their children might be getting into.

"The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East," by Neil MacFarquhar.

By contrast, here is an example of a book that surveys a broad subject and does it very well. MacFarquhar is a long-time Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, and wrote this book as a valedictory exercise preparatory to his retirement. Relying on contacts established over years of service, he took a tour of Mideast countries and, for each one, revisits their history, culture, politics, and the people's view of their neighbors, the United States, and MidEast issues such as war, religion, and civil rights. This is a very good exposition of the often startlingly different cultures of the region and their hopes, concerns, and grievances. I recommend this book highly since everyone ought to know more about what is happening in this volatile region.

"Boneshaker," by Cherie Priest

Given I've been reading a lot of Steampunk lately, a book that promised zeppelins, air pirates, zombies, and huge mining machinery run amok looked like a good read, and I was not disappointed. The story is set in an alternate-history America where the Klondike gold rush started in 1860, and the boom town of Seattle was devastated in 1862 by the test of an underground boring machine, the "Boneshaker" of the title, which not only undermined and destroyed much of the business district, but also released a deadly gas, the Blight, which causes its victims to rise again as "rotters"-the typical aggressive, cannibalistic zombie nuisances so popular today.

The action picks up fifteen years later. The Civil War is still going on due to the intervention of England on the side of the South. The Northwest is a neglected backwater, and the ruins of Seattle have been surrounded by an enormous wall that keeps in both the Blight and its victims. A writer interested in the disaster visits the widow of Leviticus Blue, creator of the Boneshaker, and this spurs her son to go into the walled city hunting for evidence that his father wasn't responsible for what went wrong.

This is a good, serious adventure story, suitable for the Young Adult market, which I found interesting and enjoyable.


"Soulless," by Gail Carriger

"Soulless" is an amusing foray into yet another alternate world, this time a Victorian Britain, in which werewolves, vampires, and ghosts revealed their existence hundreds of years ago. The chief vampire and chief werewolf are members of the Queen's privy council, and ghosts are-literally-paranormal investigators. The blurb begins, "Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she is being rudely attacked by a vampire to whom she has not been properly introduced!"

Fortunately for Alexia, her rare "soulless" condition gives her the ability to negate other paranormals powers with a touch, which brings her to the attention of Britain's chief paranormal enforcer, the werewolf Lord Maccon, and gets her involved in a mystery where werewolves and vampires are disappearing off the streets.

As might be expected from the blurb, the book is partly tongue-in-cheek, with the uncomfortable and humorous romance (leading to some bodice-ripper style sex) between Lord Maccon and Alexia being a main part of the action. The mystery solution has a reasonably plausible Steampunk/mad science macguffin. The writing is uneven, and the plot has a bit of a "Mary Sue" dénouement, but on the other hand, the book got picked as one of the year's Ten Best "Mass Market" books by Publisher's Weekly, so Your Mileage May Vary. I would rate it along with a good but not great comic book, and will read the sequel, "Changeless" when it comes out.

replyhazy

10:20 am - today's experrrrrrrrriment

Dr. Heinrich: Und now class, ve haf today's experiment: rrreproduce the
mixture in ze International Coffee Cafe Vienna BUT mit no sugar.

For this trial we will refer to ze Top Secret Recipes version but we will
alter it to one serving only mit no sugar. Also we shall disregard the idea
of further grinding ze Kaffee into a powder. That is a question for another
day.


Trial mixture 1:

1 teaspoon instant coffee
1 teaspoon Splenda (4 packets)
2 teaspoons French Vanilla Coffeemate instant creamer
shake of cinnamon

(Dr. Henrich mixes this with hot water)

Ze aroma, sehr gut. Ze cinnamon, she is pleasatn. Taste: the artificialness
of the Splenda -- it is perhaps too much. For ze next trial, we shall try
only 3 packets. Ja?

Class dismissed, danke.

rawdon

09:50 pm - Just Sick

I’m home sick today – with a cold, not the flu, thank goodness. (At least, it feels like just a cold!) Slept in, read comic books, noodled about on the Internet, blew my nose a zillion times (but that’s better than the sore throat I had last night). Grabbed In-n-Out Burger for dinner while Debbi went shopping with her friend Lisa.

Some other year this would have been a great day to curl up in the evening and watch the World Series. But I just can’t watch playoff games with the Hated Yankees (not even Red Sox/Yankees series), so no World Series for me. Someday maybe MLB will put a couple more teams in New York City and level the playing field a bit. But I won’t hold my breath.

I read a tweet tonight that said “Yankees:Apple::Red Sox:???”. Given the Yankees’ cash flow, free agent signings and aging roster that looks like it had a very healthy dose of luck this year, it’s clearly the Red Sox who more closely resemble Apple, with their more blended line-up, and cutting-edge analytic approach to team management. Just the notion of comparing the Yankees to Apple makes my head hurt. Probably another reason why using sports as a metaphor for real life is a bad idea.

(Besides, if you’re honest about it, it’s the Devil Rays who look the most like Apple.)

Anyway, yeah yeah yeah, as with all things sports, wins by New York teams make the world a little blacker. But I guess it wouldn’t be dramatic without some black hats to root against.

Hopefully things will look brighter tomorrow assuming I can shake the rest of this cold!

07:08 pm - Halloween 2009

Since Oct. 31st actually fell on a Saturday this year, local communities moved the “official” Trick-or-Treat periods to Saturday as well, which gave us the unusual situation of having the T-o-T production and Lytheria Halloween party on the same date.

 The day began early for us, as I started make-up about 10AM, “building” the false beard I would wear as Ivan the Terrible. I did a dark brown beard with dramatic gray streaks which I thought worked really well and was one of my more impressive efforts. Then getting into costume came next. For Ivan, I had black “Ren Faire” pants bloused into knee boots, and a black shirt under a black diamond quilted tunic decorated with small silver spangles at the junctures of the quilting. Over that for outdoors I wore my black shearling coat, which kept me nicely warm. Accessories were a fur hat with plume, leather belt with large silver studs, leather gloves, some jewelry, and a staff topped with a metal skull and shod with a wicked point, similar to the one with which Ivan supposedly killed his son, Ivan. As is often the case, all this I had on hand except for the tunic, which Georgie acquired at a costume shop sale this summer with this part in mind.

 The same sale had yielded Georgie a magnificent gold and black Elizabethan dress, which she wore with multiple strings of pearls and a queenly headdress for her role as Elizabeth I, Queen of England.

 I should mention that this year’s theme was “Night at the Museum,” taken off from the two recent movies, so the production cast were mostly historical characters. This made it easy for a lot of us to costume, so we ended up with twenty-eight people involved in this year’s effort, which I think might be a new record. (See picture below--).

About eleven, we packed up and drove over to Lytheria. Besides our own gear, we were packing costume parts for Jackie Hanchar to be Amelia Earhart (jacket, flying helmet, goggles, aviator scarf) and for Todd Voros to be Napoleon (coat, vest, bicorn hat), and a bag of white crepe hair to do a “Leonardo Da Vinci” beard for Lee Schneider.  We wanted to get there early because I correctly guessed that Lee would be a moving target for the multi-step beard layering process, and I wanted it to get done before we actually had to start.

The set closed in the front porch, and was signed as “National Museum of History, Milwaukee Annex.”  Inside were some wall niches and pedestals, a variety of artifacts, and a historical globe that opened to reveal the candy stash.

As usual, the dining room gradually became a flurry of hairdressing, making up, last-minute sewing and lacing in, but it all came together about fifteen minutes before opening time.

Since I was well insulated for the chilly weather, I decided to work out on the street, along with other characters such as Boudicca, Charles Darwin, Catherine the Great, and Anubis, who kept the crowd entertained while waiting their turn to go through. After a slight delay, we pretty quickly had a line of people waiting that lasted all afternoon until after technical closing time.

As Lee had mentioned, the party started almost immediately after we closed, as we merged basic breakdown of the set with garnering warm drinks, and then food.  Other residents of the house that weren’t involved with the Trick-or-Treat but were helping with the party soon had the table groaning with the typical spread that Lytheria parties are known for.

We were glad to see friends make it in for the party, some from as far away as Madison. We had a good time, but folded our tents about 8PM due to the length of the day.

( Large cast picture follows )

Night at the Museum Cast (From Top):

Col. Theodore Roosevelt; Historical Figure 327; Museum Security; Ms. Not Appearing in This Picture (bunny ears); Pharaoh Akmenrah;  Official Photographer; Leonardo Da Vinci;  Voice of Easter Island Head; Anubis; Easter Island Head.

Susan B. Anthony.

Museum Guard 1; Christopher Columbus; Ivan the Terrible; Larry Daley; Elizabeth I; Amelia Earhart; Marie Curie; Sacajawea; Charles Darwin; Boudicca; Museum Food Service.

Athena; Annie Oakley; Cheetah; Jedediah Smith; Octavius.

Sally Ride; Catherine the Great.