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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 |
thnidu
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12:00a |
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| Saturday, May 26th, 2012 |
thnidu
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11:45p |
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thnidu
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10:59p |
Ragtime play of video game themes
SON sent me this, thinking I'd enjoy it. How right he was! Here's the note he sent with it, with permission.
There's no playlist for them, so I just explore from one related link to the next. The pianist is Tom Brier, and in this video he's playing the theme from "Ghosts & Goblins". I like this video particularly well since it's a good playthrough and an unexpected interpretation of a track I've always liked quite a bit.
And here's the YouTube note, by the guy who posts these:
The melody of this 1985 Capcom coin-op videogame theme always has been ragtime, but the left-hand part in the game was arpeggiated. Last year, I received an arrangement from YouTube's "MrTrent" with a march bass and some extra little bits thrown in which turned the theme into a true rag. I finally got around to giving Tom a copy of it during this ragtime party last weekend. The theme was composed by Ayako Mori (森 安也子). The game Ghosts 'n Goblins was titled 魔界村 ("Makaimura") in the original Japanese. The sheet music that Tom is reading can be downloaded here: http://www.keeper1st.com/music/gandg1.pdf...and just now I notice that I put a wrong note in the 13th measure. Ah well. It's obvious that it's wrong though, so shouldn't be a problem. Current Mood:  amused |
thnidu
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10:38p |
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| Sunday, May 27th, 2012 |
papersky
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12:28a |
Thud: Turnover
Words: 2264 Total words: 5764 Files: 3 Tea: White Orchard Music: Three Double Concertos, arguably the best music of all time ever. RSI: Forgot that line, didn't I? Well, reminded of it now. Reason for stopping: end of chapter. I'm two chapters in, and these people are five courses through a twelve course lunch? Seriously? Oh well, we've also had a lot of backstory. It'll work out. Anybody know anything about ballet that they didn't get from Noel Streatfeild and Rumer Godden? Any recommendations for ballet blogs? |
| Saturday, May 26th, 2012 | |
itsallonething
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9:13a |
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timprov
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5:41a |
QOTD
Minnesotans are nice; they're also a small and homogenous group. There are 5 million nice people in California, too, but they're surrounded by 32 million rude people. If you turned Minnesota into a giant salt shaker and sprinkled its citizens all over France, you'd get California. --Mike Wolffe in the Strib. |
| Friday, May 25th, 2012 |
mrissa
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8:22p |
Grandma turns 80.
Today is my grandma's 80th birthday. We're having a big party for her on Sunday--where by "we" I actually mean my folks are doing all the work--but today is the official date. I don't mostly put birthdays on here because I don't want it to seem like a statement if I miss one. But 80, 80 is a big, round number. Eighty is a thing. Grandma is my last grandparent standing. I mean, I have Grandpa Lyzenga, but I married into him when I was full grown rather than having memories of walking with him when I was tiny; and as much as I will sometimes introduce Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil as my Lingen grandparents, and as much as they are doing their darnedest, they are in fact a really really special great-aunt and -uncle, which is its own thing and not to be denigrated. But Grandma has enough personality for four grandparents all by herself. (So, I know firsthand or hear quite vividly, did each of my other grandparents in their own ways. Lack of personality: not an issue in this family.) Grandma is an Energizer bunny. I wrote in her birthday card that she embodies the adage about blooming where one is planted, and I really think that's true. She does well with new people and new situations. She just dusts herself off and tries again, whatever she needs to try again, and I have never once heard of a situation she couldn't eventually make that work in. Never once. Her persistence inspires me. I hope it lasts long past 80. |
| Saturday, May 26th, 2012 |
papersky
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12:18a |
Lemonade (for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) fivemack and rezendi)
You need a 2 liter jug, a pyrex jug, a lemon squeezer, 2 big or 3 small lemons, 2 limes, 1 orange, a tray of ice, 2 oz of sugar, and lots of cold water. Takes 5-10 minutes. Put the sugar in the pyrex jug. Boil the kettle. When the kettle boils, cover the sugar with boiling water, stir to dissolve. You don't need to make syrup or anything, but you want the sugar dissolved. Meanwhile, put the tray of ice into the 2 liter jug. Squeeze the lemons, limes and orange in, getting out all the juice and pulp you can and avoiding adding the pips. Pour the dissolved sugar and water in. Top up with cold water. Shake or stir. Drink, with ice. It'll be cold enough. I used to refrigerate it for a while first, but then I had to make some in a hurry and it was just fine. This is very refreshing and about as isotonic as you can get. I sometimes add mint or basil to the sugar in the boiling water when I have that growing outside. If it's too sweet, use less sugar next time. I figure this has about a teaspoon of sugar per glass. The other thing you can do, right now while limes are nine for a dollar, is just squeeze half a lime into your glass of water and ice. Kids won't drink this, but it's good. |
| Friday, May 25th, 2012 |
thnidu
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6:48p |
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papersky
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9:09p |
Thud: Turnover
Words: 3492, about 100 of them words from last time. I started again, much better. Now have good grip on voice. Total words: 3492 Files: 2 Tea: Four O'Clock White Orchard. Also home made lemonade. Music: Three Double Concertos. Reason for stopping: Solid end of chapter. Z fixed, or reasonably fixed, Protext on this computer, so I am trying it again. Much nicer using this keyboard! Posted and deleted science query because I want an answer, not my competence to write SF brought into question. Thanks to people who gave useful answers anyway. I think the short version of what this is about is "an art festival on a generation starship". |
|
makinglight
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3:04p |
"Felony Interference with a Business Model"
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013973.html Fox, CBS, and NBC have sued DISH Networks over its "Auto Hopper" feature, which allows viewers to auto-skip commercials in programs they record.
What's wonderful isn't that the TV networks are claiming that skipping commercials is "copyright infringement." I mean, that's insane, but no, there's more. The networks are also claiming that if you record a bunch of shows intending to skip the commercials...and then, the next day, you watch the commercials anyway...you're guilty of "copyright infringement" anyway, because you intended to skip the commercials back when you recorded the shows. They're arguing that this supposed "infringement" (which is, of course, not actually infringement) inheres in the intent.
It goes without saying that the word "copyright" is here being used in ways that would be utterly unrecognizable to the people who originally devised the concept. Beyond that, this is Because-We-Say-So legal reasoning of the purest, most flamboyant kind.
The problem isn't that these loopy arguments are going to win in this particular case. The problem is that the entertainment conglomerates have the resources to keep doing this kind of thing nearly forever, endlessly wearing away at the legal system and at our notions of what's just and unjust.
Pretty much the same way the energy conglomerates have nearly unlimited resources to keep propping up the notion that there's a "controversy" over whether we're undergoing anthropogenic global climate change.
The problem is that in order to spur economic development, we created a class of human organizations that are sociopathic. Our army of killer robots has made it clear: they work for themselves, not for us, and they will break the world. |
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itsallonething
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6:42a |
the problem with "Final girl" "phallic appropriation" theory
http://shetterly.blogspot.com/2012/05/problem-with-final-girl-phallic.html The " Final girl" is the girl or woman in horror films who is the only survivor, who either ends the evil or escapes. Carol J. Clover popularized the name. Wikipedia notes, "During the final girl’s confrontation with the killer, Clover argues, she becomes masculinized through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer." I do wonder about people who see phalluses everywhere. As Freud noted, sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. The final girl does not become masculinized—she takes charge of her life by using what's available to save herself. Symbolically, she comes of age. The change has nothing to do with masculinity and everything to do with adulthood, where we must kill monsters and then live with our wounds. |
| Thursday, May 24th, 2012 | |
itsallonething
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3:54p |
The easiest way to sell comics and picture books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
http://shetterly.blogspot.com/2012/05/easiest-way-to-sell-comics-and-picture.html I recently made my old comic book series, Captain Confederacy, available as two ebooks on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The cost to me? Free.But I had to figure out a few things that I'm sharing now in the hope of helping other folks.Note: This approach is for creating a very basic ebook. It won't have a table of contents that people can use to navigate within it. For ebooks consisting primarily of text, a functioning table of contents is customary, but picture books and comic books are designed to be read without interruption, and all ebook software remembers the last page someone was on, so I suspect few readers will notice.Useful software - A program to resize your pages and save them as jpegs.
- A program to save those jpegs as a pdf file.
- A program to turn the pdf files into an epub file.
I used Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and Calibre. Photoshop was especially useful because of its "save to web" option, which makes very small jpeg files, and its macros, which let you quickly resize many pages. Acrobat Pro easily makes pdf files—it's essentially a drag and drop process. And Calibre is a free way to convert a pdf file to an epub file.What you need to know about page size and file size Page size refers to the number of pixels in an image. File size refers to the number of bytes needed to store it. Keep both in mind when you're making your book.Because there are so many tablets available, you have many possible choices about page size. I chose a width of 600 pixels, which means most ebook readers will display them at actual size. (The length of my pages varied, but most were at or near 900 pixels.) If you want people to be able to zoom in for more detail, choose a larger page size, but remember the 127 KB limit for the page's file size. B e prepared to save your files as medium or low quality jpegs.Amazon will let you sell ebooks as large at 50 megabytes, but Barnes & Noble's limit is 20 MB. You could choose to only sell on Amazon, but you'll reach more buyers if you sell on Barnes & Noble too. Keep your total file size under 20 meg, and you can sell your book on both.How to make a basic picture-based ebook 1. Resize your pages.2. Assemble them in an epub file smaller than 20 MB.3. Go to Kindle Direct Publishing to make your Amazon book. There's one tricky thing: KDP offers two royalty options, one that gives you 35% of the cover price or one that gives you 70%. If you choose the 70% plan, you have to pay 15 cents a meg for each download, which makes large files incredibly expensive. Choose the 35% plan for free distribution.4. Go to Pubit to make your Barnes & Noble book. Probably because they don't allow files larger than 20 MB, they don't offer royalty choices: there's no charge for downloads, and you get 65% of the cover price.A note about pricing: You might be tempted to charge more for the Amazon book because Amazon takes a bigger cut. Don't. Amazon will notice if your book is cheaper elsewhere and reduce its price automatically to match it. Just accept that you'll get a different rate for Kindle sales than for other readers. Good luck! Update 1: On Google +, Stephen Geigen-Miller asked, "Have you gotten any feedback about the image quality? I've heard that graphics files need to be optimized differently for ebooks." I answered, "Alas, no feedback yet. I was working with old files, so I decided not to spend time optimizing them, but if I was doing new work, I would try to find the magic spot between file size and image quality." Update 2: Steven Sudit added, "I read them on my wife's Kindle Fire, and it was fine." Update 3: Thanks to IRS requirements, selling comics this way is harder if you aren't a US citizen. See: Comics in the New Media ~ Part IIIUpdate 4: Amazon Kindle Tax Information for Non-US Publishers. |
mrissa
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4:10p |
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matociquala
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12:21p |
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itsallonething
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7:50a |
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timprov
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11:39a |
The War On The War On.
Pakistan has sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi to 33 years in prison for intelligence activities that helped locate Osama bin Laden. The US government is predictably up in arms about this, but my own feeling is that if it's out of line, it's out of line in being too short. Why? Dr. Afridi used a vaccination program as a cover for collecting DNA samples hoping to prove bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Bin Laden doesn't seem to have been very dangerous to anybody in his final days, but even at his most dangerous there were things that were much, much scarier. In 2003, some people in northern Nigeria got the idea that American vaccination teams were really there for some ulterior motive, and here's what happened:  In 2002, polio had been restricted to rural areas of Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. In 2012 it's spread across central Africa, as well as to Yemen and Indonesia, all because some Nigerians thought, almost certainly incorrectly, that Americans were using vaccination programs as cover for other activities. Now we find out that Americans are using vaccination programs for other activities, which is bound to set back global health programs all over the world. You can bet Pakistan won't be well-covered anytime soon. This can't happen. If the US manages to slide their operative out from under the consequences here, they'll be killing thousands of innocent children. This needs to be a major scandal in this country, and we need to make sure that the CIA never uses global health as a shield for their own nonsense again. There are worse things than terrorism, and we can't forget that just because we've managed to kick most of them out of our country. And if we don't do damage control now, we won't be allowed to - we aren't magically immune from the return of polio, or other diseases, if immunization efforts in the rest of the world fail because of a lack of trust in the immunizers. Current Mood:  angry |
thnidu
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11:18a |
Geek question: any risk in playing unsolicited YouTube video?
Recently I got an email from YouTube Service <noreply@youtube.com> with the subject line - Bronisliva sent you a video: "Ну, почему ты, кицечка, сердита? Isa Kremer Farvos Iz Die Ketzele Broiges"
The message was in Russian (translation behind cut). The video is apparently a performance of a Yiddish song, "Farvos Iz Die Ketzele Broiges", written or performed by Iza Kremer (Иза Кремер). I would be interested in hearing that, and may have made a comment on some other song that prompted Bronisliva to send me this. The hyperlinks in the message point to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb5CvVkoQrk&feature=email. But is there any possible risk of a virus in playing this video? I have to be suspicious because I've never heard of this person. ( Machine translation, from script button in the email ) |
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makinglight
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1:26p |
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thnidu
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10:44a |
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thnidu
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12:44a |
weird synchronicity
- Seeing diannaamarich's retweet of stuff from "blindie problems" and getting totally caught up in it.
- Then going to kai_mikael's blog and seeing (not for the first time, but this time... !), under Reading and recently read,
Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Second Edition C Ware. Such a lot of useful stuff, unfortunately it’s limited to visual perception only. On the other hand, that means there is a research field open.
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| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 | |
makinglight
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11:33p |
English usage rant
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013955.html I realize that we're all traumatized from having been corrected when we would say "Dad and me went to the store" at age five, and that we suffer from hypercorrection as a result. But holy cow, it boggles my mind when really good writers use "I" when they should use "me," as in "Take a look at this picture of Melvin and I."
Some of my smartest and most well-spoken colleagues at Tor do this all the time, too, and I often wind up biting off bits of my tongue to avoid being an annoying real-time grammar cop. But this is Making Light, where I can be an annoying timeshifted grammar cop instead! Seriously, folks, forget any technical grammar explanations you may have been forced to learn. Instead, whenever you're making a sentence about yourself and another person and you're not sure whether to say "I" or "me," just cut the other person out of the sentence and see which one you'd naturally use:
Melvin and me immanentized the Eschaton.
WRONG, because would you say "Me immanentized the Eschaton"? You would not!
Melvin and I immanentized the Eschaton IS CORRECT.
The last survivors of the horrific massacre were Melvin and I.
WRONG, because you wouldn't say "The last survivor of the horrific massacre was I"</em>, now would you?
The last survivors of the horrific massacre were Melvin and me IS CORRECT.
(Disclaimer: I myself make all kinds of equally annoying usage and pronounciation mistakes. English is unruly. I'm just venting about the one that happens to get on my personal last nerve LIKE MAKING THAT SQUEAKY SOUND WHEN YOU RUB A BALLOON ARGH STOP. You know. How. It is. I'll go lie down now.)
UPDATE: See "pronounciation", above. This post is a self-demonstrating artifact. (H/t David Goldfarb in the comments.) |
matociquala
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9:01p |
i just know that i'm harder to console
I'm working on "The Deeps of the Sky" tonight, and generating a regular festival of Words Word Don't Know: luminesced, tropopause, sheeny, thicks, unnavigable, dartlike, Meanwhile, I had a little argument with myself on twitter as to whether I should use some modestly bogus science to create a cool special effect. I went with it. ;-) Now I'm stopping because I have to figure out how the protagonist intervenes to stop the Bad Thing from happening, or how he mops up afterward... Oh, I might have just done so. Woot! Current Mood:  mellow |
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itsallonething
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5:23p |
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