Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
Today at Pratt I noticed a student wearing a t-shirt with this on it. Call me an old square, but I prefer this.
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10:50:36 PM,Friday 5 September 2008
I'm looking for recommendations of eBooks. Because I'm carrying a
massive amount of stuff on my back every day and even the biggest
backpack I could find has only enough room for a small paperback once
I've got all my essential gear packed into it, I haven't been able to
carry around as much reading material as I'd like. There's a lot of
downtime in some of the classes I'm CARTing (since they're studio
classes and the students do a lot of in-class work) and I'd like to do
something with that time other than sit on my thumbs looking out the
window.
Come NaNo, this will be a godsend (Though I'll have to qwerty
it while I'm in class. If you can believe it, there's actually no way
to use my steno machine to write into more than one file at a time.
Either I have to beam the entire contents of my novel to my student,
mixed up with his transcription, or I have to break the session
manually every time I want to switch files, which means stalking over
to the other side of the room, grabbing the tablet he uses to view the
file over the local network, resetting the connection -- a process
that takes about 2 minutes -- and then stalking back to my steno
machine. Neither of these are feasible, obviously. So I'll have to use my
regular computer keyboard, like I'm doing now, if I want to work on
anything.) Yesterday I downloaded a Trollope novel from Project
Gutenberg, though I have to confess it's not really grabbing me.
Over the summer I read ebooks of Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End
and True Names and Cory Doctorow's Little Brother,
and it was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Paper is awfully nice,
but text on a screen is much better than it used to be.
I'll take Project Gutenberg recommendations, free modern eBooks,
and hell -- I'll even consider paying for one, if it really catches my
eye. Python manuals and tutorials are also welcome. I read Dive into
Python on a Palm Pilot a few years ago, and I should probably revisit
it. Any other useful treatises out there?
The main requirement is that the entire thing has to be downloadable,
because when I'm in class my wireless connection is used
up by the local LAN. I could buy another adapter, I guess, but I've
just had to drop a huge wad of cash on a new steno machine and new
parts for the old one (long story) so spending $50 on a new gadget
just so I could be online during class would be pretty frivolous.
Anyway, I like the idea of spending time at a computer
without access to the internet. There's less temptation to mindless slacking.
I also like to read on the subway -- usually on my tablet,
'cause the laptop requires too much elbow room. So anything that can
be grabbed in a single bolus (or a few discrete files) works for me.
I prefer txt or html to pdf, just because the scrolling action
is much smoother. Other than that, you name it.
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01:49:17 PM,Friday 5 September 2008
Neal Stephenson answered my question in the BlogTalkRadio chat! {fangirl squee}
Also, he was all "What he's talking about... uhhh... what he or she is talking about..." Nice save, dude. :'D
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04:59:21 PM,Thursday 4 September 2008
I've successfully completed two full months without a red day. I gave myself a pass twice, once when I went to Boston for a day (I probably could have completed them, but a five hour train ride plus a three hour show plus a six hour bus ride left me pretty beat) and once when I had that toothache last week. Otherwise, I actually did it. I set myself ludicrously simple goals, but I'm proud of myself anyway. I've never kept to a schedule this long in my life. Soon I'm going to amp up the difficulty -- probably consolidate the exercises into one task and add in something related to either Python or music. (I'm going to my first rehearsal with a new orchestra tomorrow! We'll be playing Brandenburg Concerti and some Mozart Symphonies and maybe some stuff by Boyce. I'm crazy excited.) I know why I was able to keep this up rather than slacking off as usual and racking up the red marks: one of my tasks was even easier than all the rest, and it required overcoming very little inertia to kick me into it.
When I started out, my task was to fingerspell 15 words on "slow" at ASL Pro. Now I'm up to 15 fingerspelled words on "fast" and 15 multiple choice vocabulary words, which is a significant improvement. It's definitely paid off in my actual ASL classes. The important thing, though, is that I was nearly always sitting at the computer, dicking around, having exhausted my reader and tracker and LJ friends list (I also recently installed Leechblock, which restricts me to 10 minutes of slack per every two hours between 10:00 and 4:00), and looking for something to do which would prolong my sitting-on-my-ass time and delay my getting-down-to-work time. Heading over to ASL Pro fit the bill perfectly. I only had to lift a single finger, click on the favicon, and there I was. It felt just like procrastinating, but once I completed the task, I was allowed to fill in that green square. And once I filled in that green square, I thought how stupid I'd feel if I had to put red squares on the other three tasks, and that was enough to force me grumblingly off my ass and into action. I don't know how long I can keep this up; I've had a slow summer without much else on my plate. I'm going to give myself a few weeks to settle into my school year routine, and then if I'm still living up to this schedule, I'll try something harder.
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12:32:36 AM,Saturday 30 August 2008
The following is an unedited transcript of my latest adventure into gargoylism:
"Jurisdictions I, ever being.Ing beingsed okay, now once again around
the room. Walking to into the bedroom. It's still better, but it's
still not quite there. I'm having to type pretty slowly are, if I'm
sure there will be errors. Still, pretty exciting. Back into l
kitchen. And off.Sesses everrh to j a hes is oldseds guideline how
about this? Sort of low slung. Requirement? Still work? Yep.
Working. He being else image image I I a ooh whether
guideline now, that's significantly better.Ed 1 I'm still not
sure whether I want suspension or whether I u. *6R7B8G9DZ image
request have if a he inset want to rest on the bottom of the jacket.
But this is definite progress. To rue Jewings voir dire 1ed?S this
may be one of the only walking steno sets outside of Congress! And
it's way better looking, to boot. Eventually, of course, I'll want to
sew this into the lining of jacket. $100eded 1 *E6RBGSDZ image, be
ASomething. In this is suspended on the right hand side. I think I
like it.and a somewhat is you this is now suspended on both
sides. Ait's a little less stable, but I think the angle is better.
With with can easy he had upsometimes this is is
is z it to to microcirc irthat was with the jacket zipped up. Too
constrictive. Cool. Well, should I try walking around again? As I
said in one of the discard stake, I'm Bates worrieded about heat
exchange in the back pockets where the computer is, especially if the
battery is gonna be back three, it is right now. I'm walk around into
the kitchen, into the hail, into the bedroom. It's still a little
wobbly. I wish I could set it up on gyroscoping or something. But
it's not so bad. It's show, but it's workable. no real quest strain,
no my fingerings feel a you bit odd. I definitely need to stibbles it
moor. Too much bounce being with each stroke. Okay, let's go back to
the kitchen and think about how to work this out. Yous to the cat is
going crazy because I'm reflecting only the floor. Onto the floor.
Okay, let's put it away for foy. Now."
I finally got a battery for my Gemini2. This, coupled with my Samsung Q1, my gadget jacket, and some well-placed velcro, makes me a walking stenographer. It's crazy exciting. As you can see, the two halves of the Gemini are less than ideally stabilized; the jacket has to be open, or there's not enough room for my fingers to work, but that means that the two halves of the jacket bounce with each stroke. I'll have to figure out some way to mitigate that in the future. But still! Yee!
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02:56:19 PM,Thursday 28 August 2008
When clipping fowls' wings, clip only one wing, preferably the right (left wing keeps the ovaries warm.)
M: Thanks, George Orwell!
K: You know how pundits have been talking about how Obama needs to reach out to women? I think we've found the slogan!
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10:05:50 AM,Saturday 23 August 2008
Remi last week, Moss and Julia (though, sadly, I only got to see Julia) this week. I am a lucky beast.
You know what I want? Tomatoes the size of champagne grapes. Get cracking, GMO engineers.
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08:46:15 PM,Friday 22 August 2008
Finishing Anathem (thanks ineffably, Leonard and Sumana!) reminds me that I need to read more Iris Murdoch. They scratch the same sort of itch. I really enjoyed it, though I'm less confident of being able to predict which of my friends will dig it and which will find it tedious, compared to his other books, which are easier to narrow down in terms of flaws and virtues. It didn't have anything like the jaw-dropping brilliance of the Baroque Cycle, but it was just the thing for a weekend with lots of leisure and a gradually subsiding toothache (which started on Friday, got steadily worse until I went to the dentist on Sunday and got antibiotics, and pretty well released me from its grip as of this morning). One thing you really have to give the guy -- he's got plenty of recurring themes, tics, and trademarks, but he never writes the same book twice.
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10:13:21 PM,Tuesday 19 August 2008
In the more than two years I worked for a captioning company, the hardest phrase I ever had to write in steno coincided with just about the most godawful song I ever had to transcribe, displayed below for your viewing pleasure. In steno, the phrase is written like this:
HO*PBG
KWRI
TO*PBG
PWA
TKO*PBG
KA
TKO*PBG
And it's a finger twister the likes of which I hope never to encounter as long as I'm in this business. I was actually telling this story to Leonard and Sumana a couple weeks ago, and Leonard asked, "Couldn't you have just made a one-stroke brief for it?" Yes. I certainly could have. And then it would have been in my dictionary. And every time I went to delete it, I would have to contemplate a world in which I might someday have cause to write that phrase again.
TubeCaption. Caption your own YouTube videos. Brilliant.
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11:39:07 AM,Thursday 7 August 2008
K: What shall I do with the bowl of Mark Twain's ears?
M: {blank stare}
K: {singing} What shall I do with a bowl of Mark Twain's ears? What shall I do with a bowl of Mark Twain's ears? What shall I do with a bowl of Mark Twain's ears earleye in the morning?
M: {thousand-yard blank stare}
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12:10:14 PM,Saturday 2 August 2008
Our cat goes by many names: Elbow Cat, Chompy Cat (most often in the form of "Alcibiades! Ooh-ooh! Alcabiade-es, he's so chompy!" to the tune of Groovy Underwear by Pansy Division), Long Cat, and when he's being especially petulant, Little Miss FaggyPaws. But more often than anything else, he is Interested Cat. And Interested Cat, as everyone knows, is Interested.
More than any cat I've met, Alcibiades embodies the ideal of the Natural Philosopher. He's not just curious; he's inquiring -- not to mention persistent. A while ago I got spooked reading the account of a veterinarian who claimed that cats who live on dry food, as ours does, are in danger of chronic dehydration, since, in the wild, cats are used to getting most of their water from prey, and don't have an especially strong thirst instinct. We filled his glass bowl with fresh cold water several times a day, but he didn't seem to drink from it all that often. Every time we go to the bathroom he runs in to hang out with us, and usually begs with huge and plaintive eyes for us to turn on the tap. Most of the time, we do, and he frequently laps at it (or sometimes bites the stream of water viciously as if he's trying to sever its jugular, which is pretty funny to watch), but sometimes he just stands in the tub and watches it, enraptured. K. was concerned about the quality of the bathtub's water, since our water is sort of nasty tasting unless we filter it. So we bought him a bubbler. True to form, Interested Cat was Interested. He sniffed all around it and seemed greatly to enjoy watching the water flow down from the top into the pool. He coexisted happily with it for a week or so, and seemed to be drinking a bit more water, though it's hard to tell. Then, though, I made my fatal mistake. I opened it up to add more water to the reservoir, and Interested Cat noticed an enticing object ensconced within. An application of the teeth and a swift upward motion brought it, wet and wriggling, out of its home and onto the floor, where he proceeded to bat it about, immensely proud of himself. I laughed, wrestled it from him, and put it back. He did it again. I snatched it away, put it in place, and slammed the top cap down on the bubbler decisively. He poked his nose up into the water tunnel -- Object Permanence is one of his specialties -- but didn't make any further attempts to seize his prize.
Until 3:00 that morning. I stirred in my sleep, flopping my arm over the side of the bed, and felt something damp. Damp and felty. "Brrrrrb?" Came a politely solicitous voice. Two luminous eyes beamed at me in the moonlight. All of a sudden I figured out what I was touching. I ran out to the kitchen and saw a puddle stretching from the kitchen table to my steno machine to the power strip at the far wall, in the midst of which the bubbler sprawled upended. The top cap had been flung across the room. Alcibiades trotted in with the water filter in his mouth, still burbling happily. I ran to unplug everything and sopped up the worst of the mess with paper towels. Then I bunged the bubbler and all its bits under the sink and brought the old glass bowl back out before stomping back to bed. He drank uncomplainingly from the bowl all last week, but we spent $40 on the damn bubbler and it seemed a shame to throw it out just because our cat's too clever by half. I brought it out again today and so far he's been only moderately Interested, without any attempts at disassembly. We'll see what tonight is like, I suppose.
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12:05:31 PM,Saturday 2 August 2008
I put up something new at my Muxtape site: The Ephemeral Artery. I hate driving (though I enjoy being driven, especially in a bus or train), but there's just nothing like a road trip mix in the summer, even if I've got no plans to leave the city. The kernel of this mix comes from a CD I burned for a cross-country Greyhound bus ride back in August 2002, thanks to a number of generous uploads from the blogmass. I listened to that thing dozens of times, while the wheels thrummed and the road swam by, and whenever I hear those songs I get the same dreamy, loping, deliciously ominous feeling of the dusk rising up to plaster over the windows. I took that feeling and tweaked it for this mix, leaving off most of the old songs and adding several new ones.
The songs on the original mix were:
Desaparecido (From my own collection, though I had the Manu Chao version, which I prefer to the one on this mix. Muxtape didn't like my copy for some reason, and I couldn't find it to download anywhere else, so I had to make do with this cover.)
The Way (From Kristin, I think? Her taste and mine don't often match up, but this song is so creepy in the way it cheerfully curdles the myth of the bronze god.)
A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes (From Martin, I believe.)
These three had a sort of foreboding, almost prophetic tone that I've since found in surprisingly many road songs, and in a couple (The Catbird Seat and Imitosis in this mix) that don't explicitly mention the road at all. Whether lyrically or in an undercurrent of the music, they all seem to be saying, "Get out, get out, get out. Something bad is going to happen, and if you get yourself lost enough, it might not find you."
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01:40:50 PM,Thursday 31 July 2008
