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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
- 09:25 Host has issues with router the same time I run cron for first time, day of DNS switch. Yay! Fun times.
- The development of 'BitterCon' and other meta-convention activities.
- The role of LJ in programming (thinking of
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ktempest and coffeeandink's sprints to develop program proposals from a PoC perspective.) - LJ as ad-hoc programming space for continued discussion of items (such as "But the Master has a Black and Decker drill.")
- LJ as immune system (responding to the OSBP, and organizing people on the ground to handle harassing situations.)
- LJ as pre-convention coordination (are you going, I need a room, I can share a ride, what panels are you on, what panels are you going to, and what the hell is with that panel?)
- LJ as permanent floating WisCon.
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||
|
redneckotaku |
9:38a | Preakness and Balticon The next two weekends coming up are busy for me. One is tradition for me and one is to finish my 30th birthday gifts. The Preakness is this weekend for me and I am very excited about this. This is the first time for me as an attendee. I was an usher in 1998 and just stood all day, but did help my Knights of Columbus Council. I wouldn't work the event again, but I will be attending it in the Grandstands. Everybody is abuzz with Big Brown possibly winning the triple crown for the first time since I was a two month old (1978). He is not how you make money at the Preakness (1-2 and I think by race day 1-5 odds will do that for you). You are going to make money on the other races and Preakness Trifectas. I want to win the Preakness Trifecta because you can get $3,000 from the Trifecta in the preakness. It will also be fun seeing the frivolity of the infield from a far. Ah, I wish I was 21 and that stupid again to do the infield. Next weekend is Balticon (a tradition in my fannish Calendar) and I will be help out Cindy Shockey in the Green Room. I will be there on Saturday and Sunday. One of these years, I will finally get to meet Tkunsman and Kevin_Standlee at a convention and hear their stories. Hopefully, next year at Worldcon in Montreal. I haven't seen the program, so I don't know what I will be seeing besides the Dealers Room and Art Show. Current Mood: busy |
|
cherylmmorgan |
6:39a | Classic Spam Originally published at Cheryl's Mewsings. Please leave any comments there. Ben Jeapes gets much better quality spam than I do. I particularly liked the idea of that well known religion, “Japanese esoteric Dadaism”. |
|
timill |
2:27p | A Ray of Sunshine ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) Current Mood:  cheerful |
|
nihilistic_kid |
9:33a | Three, she's a magic number! I just sold my third story to Εννέα (3+3+3=9!), which pays three eurocents a word. The story in question, "Impression: Sunrise", was the third piece of fiction I ever published. It has now been published in three magazines — the first two being the now-defunct Webzine Speculon.com (one of three sales that got me into SFWA years ago) and the now-defunct community arts paper Wide Angle NY (no connection to three there, but it was run by Greeks). I did have to cut three hundred words to meet the strict Εννέα guidelines, but did earn ninety-six (lots of threes there!) euros for that ...yep, three minutes of work. I have no idea why more people aren't submitting their short SF (2500 words or less, no fantasy or horror, but if they take my SF, it can be soft as marshmallow) to Εννέα. They run 52 stories a year and are always eager for content. Just email Mr. Mastorakis at angmstATenetDOTgr with a RTF file containing your story. It really is the easiest thing in the world, plus euros are hot these days and the magazine, a newspaper supplement full of comics in the Euro/Heavy Metal mode, has 200,000 readers. Current Music: Gogol Bordello, "American Wedding" |
|
debgeisler |
9:19a | That's a lot of cookies you're pushing there A Michigan Girl Scout sold 17,328 boxes of Girl Scout cookies by finding the right street corner in Detroit. Oh, the sugar shock. |
|
mkhobson |
6:14a | I have no phone, and I must scream I tell you what, I've pulled some serious travel boners in my time (and no, that's NOT dirty, jeez you guys) but this takes the cake. Tumbling out of the house at an ungodly hour to make a flight to San Diego, it seems I left my phone at home on the charger. My indispensable BlackBerry! At least this is a short trip, and I'm home tomorrow. But still. No phone. No email. I am so screwed. Please everyone, fingers crossed for your forgetful and out-of-touch comrade! |
|
bugshaw |
1:54p | Things I should have posted several years ago but I didn't think of them till now "I know I said on my CV that I'm good at 'pushing the envelope' but I did not mean that I wanted to manually put 5000 envelopes through the office printer in a mail merge!" |
|
feorag |
1:53p | |
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feorag |
11:35a | Nice try, but not quite there. On a letter from my bank today: Please contact your branch if you'd like this in braille or large print. Okay, it was in nice large print, for the benefit of those who need large print, but a quick fondle reveals no sign of that notice in braille, which means people who need braille would have to find someone to read the letter and let them know of the possibility of getting it in braille. It's nearly as good as a council form I filled in in the 1980s: If you are blind, please tick this box. Current Mood:  amused |
|
cherylmmorgan |
2:57a | Where Has All the Summer Gone? Originally published at Cheryl's Mewsings. Please leave any comments there. Today is apparently National Work from Home Day in Britain. The people pushing this event might claim it is all about cutting down congestion on the roads and railways, and reducing carbon emissions, but everyone here knows that it is all about the first day of the first Test Match of the summer. England are due to face off against New Zealand at Lords in about 10 minutes time. Except, of course, it is pouring with rain over most of the country. This is entirely expected. The weather has been quite good for several days now, but faced with a major sporting event the British climate hardly ever fails to produce a good downpour. Next month we have Wimbledon, which means solid rain for two whole weeks. One theory is that the endless rain is actually the gods weeping for the lack of soccer. The summer is a period of major psychological stress for many Britons. Sky Sports is so concerned about the mental health of its viewers that it has been broadcasting adverts reassuring them that the soccer season will start again in August. I suppose I could turn on Test Match Special anyway, but I have an awful feeling that instead of the entertaining banter of yester-year all we will get is Aggers & co droning on about how awful Twenty20 cricket is and how there are too many overseas players in the English game. Ah Johnners, you are so sorely missed. |
|
cherylmmorgan |
2:45a | Bay Area Events Originally published at Cheryl's Mewsings. Please leave any comments there. This is a post for those of you lucky enough to still be in California rather than exiled to a cold and rainy place on the far side of the Atlantic. Various emails have arrived this morning with details of forthcoming events, so I thought I should list them. Here goes (below the fold): |
|
agrathea |
2:07a | Tweets for Today |
|
fjm |
8:59a | I have a web page. http://www.farahsf.com/ I'll be using it to stash oddments: things commissioned for places not within the usual SF -fan radar, and also chunks from the book that didn't make it but struck me as still useful. If you were ever a fan of the Out of this World anthologies, there is a short [essay is too strong a word] riff there. |
|
jamesb |
8:44a | comics BBC 4 Today; Phillip Pullman and Graham Kibble-White were on this morning talking about the new comic DFC. I had heard about it ages ago (somewhere) and have signed up, first issue pops through the door sometime at the end of the month. Still time to sign up in time. There was also a number of artists promoting it at Bristol Comic Con, as they have contributed. Its a Random House project I think. Pullman is writing a script that he said he is basing on Storm Nelson in some way, from the Eagle comic. http://www.thedfc.co.uk/ is the website and subscription is required, it won't be available in newsagents/shops. (which is disappointing as I am sure there would be justification of listing it in Diamond for COMIC shops at least) meanwhile, is anyone going to Cheltenham this evening, I am working a late and cannot make it. I am looking forward to the new Captain Britain and MI 13 comic, from Marvel Comics, its being written by Paul Cornell. You can see a preview here: http://www.marvel.com/news/comicsto Its out today so maybe pop round to the comic shop. James |
|
fjm |
8:46a | Legal comment please. Tucked away in an article about a French rival to Wikipedia in yesterday's Indie was this: A print version of the encyclopaedia [Wikipedia], featuring 250,000 of its 10 million online articles, is due to be published in September by the German media group Bertelsmann. So: Did Wikipedia ever *specify* that it has rights to print people's essays? |
|
whumpdotcom |
12:16a | WisCon and LJ Panel Hi. I normally do not post public entries here, but wanted to respond to As read, the panel description sounds rather wank-tastic, however, given the background of my co-panelists, I'm sure we can discuss more interesting things: I didn't write the program item description (if you did, please clarify your intent in the comments.) |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||
|
k6rfm |
11:21p | Logjam breaking We just got the house painted. That shouldn't be a big deal, but I had been deceiving myself that I would do it myself "once I had the time, and once the weather was good enough." Well, I've been retired for a year and half now, so I can't say I don't have the time, and the weather the last few weeks has been pretty nice -- and that's "pretty nice" for the Bay Area which is nice indeed. So I got started on painting. First thing to do is to get out the power washer and blast off the really loose paint, so I can see what needs scraping and sanding. I got around two sides of the house and finally realized the job was beyond me. I could do it, but it would take me months, and I'd be ingesting way too much paint because I can't stand to wear a mask. So we called up the people who painted the house next door last year, and they gave us a very reasonable estimate. They brought in a crew of 6 for a week; given I'd only work a couple hours a day, that's the same "months" it would take me. The best thing is now I can start working on things I had been putting off on the theory that "that's after painting the house." Fully 9 years ago I decided I had to redo the room I use as my office; the first move was to decommission the old computer workstation I had, to make room for a new workbench with enough room for the four computers, two radios, network hardware, printer, two telephones, and two monitors that seem to be the minimum I can live with. The real problem was that the old workstation had a bookshelf topper which held a lot of my favorite books on computer history and computer languages. Those got boxed up and put in the garage while I did the workbench; the plan was to build a new bookcase to fill the gap between the workbench and the wall. That bookcase project is the one that got trapped into "after painting the house". It got really bad after I got laid off from Sun, and brought home all the useful books I had stored at work; I couldn't usefully prune that collection because I couldn't see what duplicated the books resting in the garage; so all the books from work sat in boxes in the corner of my office. Once the house painting got underway, I could finally turn attention to the bookcase problem. For some reason, I had decided that commercial bookcases wouldn't work, so I set off drawing plans with AutoSketch. I have a table saw, a circular saw, room to lay out a sheet of plywood, a pickup truck that can carry sheets of plywood, a biscuit joiner, and biscuits. Bookcases should not be a problem. (There's a Burbee quote about the fannish mind here I'm not quite remembering.) After several revisions to make sure the end result didn't have too long a shelf run or be too big and heavy to bring in after making it, I ended up designing two side-by-side 80" high, 32" wide, 11" deep units with a top, a bottom, a fixed middle shelf, and four movable shelves. "Bugger" I said. "Doesn't Ikea make those? " (The East Palo Alto Ikea is only two miles away.) A quick check shows that no, they don't; the closest units are only 80" high, 31 1/2" wide., and 11" deep. Well, given they can sell them to me for cheaper than the material cost I would have paid for the plywood, I think I can live short an inch and with oriented strand board instead of plywood. So today I set up the cases and unpacked all those boxes that had been sitting around for up to 9 years. Indeed, there were many duplicates, and also a bunch of computer books that are now obviously obsolete and just as obviously not of historical interest. (I'll keep Wirth's books on Modula 2 but everybody else's can go.) There are now 8 boxes of books queued up to donate to the library book sales, and I have books out on the shelf I haven't seen for nearly a decade. There are four whole shelves not filled! That won't last long. Next project: window screens. I don't know if it's global warming or what, but we never had problems with bugs in the house until last year. Current Mood:  relieved |
|
jorhett |
11:50p | OMG .mac is actually the best! So I finally joined .mac today to find out just how good the acclaimed synchronization is. Very Good. Unbelievably good. It synchronized my mailboxes, and gave me options to decide which setup was right (where options were different) It synchronized all of my contacts and calendars of course. It even synchronized my signatures... WOW. Best stuff EVAR. Current Mood:  pleased |
|
johno |
10:51p | Fourth set of CC25 pics posted - Mouse-Kerade/Reanimated Canine/Breakdown. http://flickr.com/photos/johno 129 shots of the Mouse-Kerade (including "Green Room" shots from the bar), "Reanimated Canine" Party (Dead Dog or closing party)and Breakdown of the Stargate. I was both the "official photographer" and "fan photo", therefore the mix of posed and action shots of the Mouse-Kerade contestants. http://flickr.com/photos/johno/tags/mou All the images are marked as "safe" which means you don't have to be logged into Flickr/Yahoo to view them.  Still to process: Friday Night Social and the 1940's Bathing Beauties. |
|
bovil |
10:10p | When shopping for Japanese snacks and drinks... The Nijiya Market at 6th and Jackson in San Jose has a much better selection (particularly for sake) than the Nijiya Market at Grant & El Camino in Mountain View. |
|
jorhett |
9:49p | I've lost my spring! No seriously, the monstrous spring that provides counter-weight and makes it possible for me or the automagick arm to lift my garage door snapped. It is now impossible by any human means to lift my garage door. Current Mood:  frustrated |
|
timiller |
10:59p | Hockey Weather My sister and I have noticed an alarming trend in Dallas Stars Playoff Hockey. Bad weather in Fort Worth invariably means a Dallas Stars Playoff win. This goes back years. And the Stars don't even have to be playing in Dallas for it to work. Tonight the Stars played the Detroit Red Wings in game 4 of the Western Confrence Finals. The Stars were trailing 3 games to zero and it was Do-or-Die Time. And for the first time in the series, some breaks and bounces actually went the Stars' way. In the second period, Detroit scores a goal that is called back for some reason. Officially, the call in the building was "Interference", but on the post game shows on the way home they were saying that Turco was never touched. Yes Detroit Fans, it was a bad call and you did get screwed. But it makes up for some of the lame calls in game one when Dallas got screwed. How about that Interference non-call (same two players) that led to the thrid goal in game one? Finally, with 30 seconds left in the second period, the Stars scored a goal. Yeah. Our first lead in the entire series. Less than a minute into the third period, the Red Wings score. Darn. Our only lead lasts less than 90 seconds. Tie game again. But about that time it starts raining West of Fort Worth. 5 minutes later, Mike Modano scores on the power play. Brendon Morrow scores late in the third to give Dallas a 3-1 lead. Then, despite having two Stars in the penalty box during the final minute of the game and Detroit goal tender Chris Osgood sitting on the bench (a 6 on 3 situation), Dallas holds on to win! Dallas fans got to leave the American Airlines Center happy and the Red Wings fans had to put their brooms back in the closet. I don't think Dallas will be the third team in the history of the NHL to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, but all the San Jose Sharks fans were telling us last month that it happens every 33 years (1942, 1975, so why not 2008). And hey, wasn't it the Detroit Red Wings that were the first team to blow a 3-0 lead and loose a series? It started raining as I was putting my "Red Wings Suck" sign into my car. It was pouring as I pulled into my driveway. And as I am watching CSI: New York from my PVR, they are telling me about the tornado watch in Fort Worth, Texas. Maybe it will rain on Saturday afternoon, too. A guy can hope... Current Mood: amused |
|
lysana |
8:44p | The things you learn Thanks to a spam I received about a career fair for Raytheon (old resumes on job boards collect the oddest things), I found out there is a security clearance level called Full Scope Poly. I am currently suffering from pun paralysis and cannot choose amongst the multiple options provided by this coincidental title. Current Mood:  amusedCurrent Music: It's All For Love (Noemi Remix) - Marc & Claude - Trance Mix USA 4 |
|
girlgenius_lab [ thelittlebudgie ] |
11:13p | Sparky measuring cup I came across this measuring cup by accident, and it really seems like the sort of thing a Spark would make. Who needs cups or liters when you can use the size of Tyrannosaurus Rex's brain or the volume of a human breath as your standards of measure instead? |
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debgeisler |
11:15p | Geese, ducks no longer safe in Windy City Chicago lifted its two-year-old ban on foie gras today. |
impressed