February 06, 2012 05:43 AM
Just a quick plug for an awesome recycling search engine: Earth911
Passing on a worthwhile message from my friend Andy:
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You'll recall that earlier this month I told you about a site called ideablob, where I had posted my idea for green microfinance and was in the running for $10,000.
Well, thanks to your votes, I am now one of 8 finalists (out of hundreds of entries) and I just need you to vote one more time to assure I win! (even if you voted the first time, you have to vote again because the finals start from 0).
To vote for me, just go back to www.ideablob.com and you'll see my project listed on the main page (it's called Green Microfinance For People and the Planet).
Thank you very much. This money would go directly into a loan pool and would then be lent out to the low-income entrepreneurs in the Providence community.
This is the first draft. Please give me feedback.
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Determine your political label with this hypothetical situation.
Due to the poor economy, a man is laid off from his job, losing his health insurance. He then learns that he has cancer. Also, he is gay and wants to marry his partner. Should the government ensure he receives health care? Should it allow him to marry?
- No health care; no marriage. You are CONSERVATIVE.
- No health care; no marriage. Send him to prison if you catch him in the act of sodomy. You are REALLY CONSERVATIVE.
- No health care; no marriage. God gave him cancer for being gay. You are RELIGIOUS RIGHT.
- No health care; the government is not involved in marriage. You are LIBERTARIAN.
- Mediocre health care; no marriage. You are CENTRIST-REPUBLICAN.
- Mediocre health care; no marriage, but he can have a civil union. You are CENTRIST-DEMOCRAT.
- Good health care... but he's in prison just for being gay. You are CUBAN COMMUNIST.
- Good health care; civil union. You are DEMOCRATIC PARTY or WESTERN EUROPE.
- Good health care; civil union. Also, he wouldn't have been fired in the first place. You are FRENCH SOCIALIST.
- Good health care; marriage. You are PROGRESSIVE or CANADIAN.
- Good health care; the government is not involved in marriage. You are PROGRESSIVE INTELLECTUAL.
Putting my mobile phone in the toaster oven may have worked, but putting my iPod in the freezer did not.
From ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.9){kind=small}
jwgh
The Guardian's list of F&SF books you should read before you die. I hope that by not having read some of these, I will have achieved an inexpensive, practical form of immortality.
Rules:
The rules of the meme are familiar: bold the books one has read, italicize the ones on the pile to be read, and strikethrough the ones you wouldn't be caught dead with and/or violently disagree with.
1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
5. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
6. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
7. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
8. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
9. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
10. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
11. Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
12. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
13. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
14. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
15. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
16. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
17. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
18. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
19. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
20. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
21. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
22. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
23. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
24. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
25. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
26. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
27. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
28. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
29. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
30. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
31. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) (half bolded b/c I'm halfway done)
32. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
33. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
34. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
35. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
36. Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
37. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
38. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
39. Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
40. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
41. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
42. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
43. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
44. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984) (half bolded because I got halfway through and never finished)
45. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
46. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
47. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
48. M John Harrison: Light (2002)
49. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
50. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
51. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
52. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
53. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
54. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
55. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
56. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
57. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
58. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
59. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
60. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
61. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
62. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
63. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966) -- I read the short story but not the novel.
64. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
65. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
66. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
67. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
68. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
69. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
70. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
71. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
72. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
73. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
74. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) (I started it and intend to finish someday)
75. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
76. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
77. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
78. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
79. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
80. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
81. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
82. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
83. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
84. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
85. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
86. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
87. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
88. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
89. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
90. Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
91. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
92. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
93. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
94. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
95. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
96. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
97. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
98. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
99. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
100. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
101. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
102. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
103. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943) (I read half of it)
104. José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
105. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
106. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
107. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
108. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
109. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
110. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
111. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
112. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
113. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
114. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
115. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
116. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
117. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
118. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
119. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
120. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
121. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)
122. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
123. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
124. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)
My performance on that list was pretty sad. Then again, I like fantasy but not sci-fi so I was guaranteed to be missing a good chunk. On the other hand, there were some authors on there whose books I have read, but not the one listed. Also, a lot of stuff on there I wouldn't consider in the genre. I mean, Dracula and The Shining are classified as "horror" to me, "Melmoth the Wanderer" is gothic, and "Beloved" is general lit.
Just came across this meme on musechick2007, which I really like. I don't usually do memes, but what the heck, let's give it a try.
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The first 3 people to respond to this post will get something made by me.
It will be about or tailored to those 3 lucky individuals.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! I however, will like it or it won't be sent out in the first place!
- what I create will be just for you.
- it'll be done this year. sometime.
- you have no clue what it's going to be. because i have no clue what it's going to be.
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!
If a recipe calls for "boned, skinned chicken breasts," does that mean boneless skinless, or skin-on, bone-in? Because, to skin a chicken breast means to remove the skin, and to bone it means to remove the bone. So by that logic a "boned, skinned" chicken breast should have no bone and no skin, kind of like a "peeled onion." On the other hand, most recipes refer to "boneless, skinless" breasts, so I would think that "boned, skinned" would be the opposite of that. On the other other hand, usually they will call for "skin-on, bone-in" instead of "boned, skinned."
What's a cook to do???
Does anyone else hear a striking similarity between "Listen To Your Heart" by Roxette and "What About Love" by Heart? I guess they really did listen to their Heart when they wrote that song.
I'm curious about this. I'll post my own opinions later. No trick questions here -- don't try to choose the "right" answer, just pick whatever you honestly think.
Also, for the record, I am counting people who went to the Claremont Colleges and never really left campus as people who have never lived in SoCal, for the purposes of this survey, since I'm not asking about the weather but about the people who live there. It's up to your discretion to decide whether you feel you left campus and went into the city often enough to feel like you really know the people of SoCal.
How did I end up reading two werewolf books in a row? Weird. It's not exactly a genre I actively seek out.
Benighted by Kit Whitfield
I picked this one up from half price books on a recommendation from quigonejinn. It's about as unique a werewolf book as Murcheston was, but in a completely different way. The premise is that almost all humans are born feet first, which makes them werewolves (yeah, I know). People who are born head first are not werewolves, and are responsible for keeping an eye on things when the full moon is out. Basically all nons are recruited to work for a government agency called DORLA (Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity). On full moon nights, responsible citizens lock themselves up, and DORLA employees patrol the streets catching anyone who is out. Supposedly the reason that the lycos lock themselves up instead of the other way around is that if they are out in werewolf form, they cause property damage. Yeah, okay. I have some issues with the premises of this book.
In any case, the story is really a mystery. The main character, Lola, is a lawyer for DORLA, kind of like a public defender, who is mostly responsible for defending lycos who were caught out on moon nights. Also, like all nons, she takes shifts of going out "dogcatching" on moon nights. The mystery starts when a coworker who was mauled on a recent moon night gets killed. Lola is defending the guy who mauled her coworker, and gets involved in the murder investigation (sort of). There are further maulings and murders, and various other strange things, and through the course of the book the mystery is solved. Along the way there's a romance story between Lola and a lyco social worker she meets through work, plus family drama, etc.
I can't make up my mind about this book. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being best), I'd give it a 3.
Positives:
"An ABC poll in July [2008] found that three-quarters of Americans supported allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military compared to 44 percent of Americans who expressed the same support in 1993..."
-- San Francisco Chronicle, Obama will end 'don't ask' policy, aide says
http://www.indystar.com/article/20090108/LOCAL0101/901080418/1150/LOCAL0101
Ben heard this morning that a neighborhood kid had died yesterday, just around the corner from our house, after slipping on the ice and hitting his head while trying to catch the bus to school. He found the article in the Indy Star about it. I recognized him from the picture as being a kid I've seen around a lot, and it turns out he was the son of our next door neighbors. :( The article notes that he played the piano -- we could hear it from our bedroom at night.
I've never actually met these neighbors beyond waving to them in the yard (I don't think they speak much English, if any), but Ben has caught their Chihuahua for them several times when he's been out doing yardwork and it's run across the lawns and through our fence. I want to give them a sympathy card and bring them food (after all, we are their next door neighbors), but I'm not sure how to do it without being incredibly awkward. We don't even know their names, and I don't know if bringing food to someone you don't know is too personal or if it is something that is okay with Chinese traditions for bereavement. I'm open to any advice.
I wish LJ had a search feature. Meaning, a search feature that will search all my entries, including friends-only and private, and which I can use without allowing other search engines to index my journal. All I want to know is when I read particular books and whether I wrote reviews of them, but I only know about the ones I read since I started tagging entries.
So I use google for units conversion a lot. I just searched for "1/2 mile in yards." As expected, the unit converter came up telling me that 1/2 mile is 880 yards. The weird part is the actual web search results -- they're mostly ads for beachfront vacation rentals! Plus a few workout plans.
For my own future reference, 1/2 mile is 880 yards, which is 17.6 laps at my pool (too bad google doesn't have a "miles to laps in your local pool" converter). One mile is 35.2 laps.
from a decision of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals:
"...the difference between a 100+ mile-per-hour car chase and a little finger grabbing seems obvious enough."
Meanwhile, conservative commentator Ann Coulter last week said she would support Democratic contender Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York over McCain.
"If he's our candidate, then Hillary is going to be our girl, because she's more conservative than he is," Coulter said on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes."
-- "McCain tangles with conservatives," CNN
One of the most common criticisms of Obama is that he is all inspirational speeches and no substance. Let's not forget that he was President of Harvard Law Review (a top 3 law school) and a law professor at University of Chicago (a top 5 law school). I'm guessing it takes a lot of competence to achieve those positions.
I'm nervous about tomorrow.
more photos of the angkor temples than you'll ever want to see. (travelog)
pictures taken while studying fall 2001 at SOAS in London and weekending to Barcelona, Northern Italy, Prague, and Budapest.