FIRST!

Rainy in Portland, no wind at all. I wish the East Coast only had to deal with rain. Take care!

There's block in downtown Houston, at the corner of Lamar and Louisiana, where the Bernoulli principle is demonstrated perfectly. One building there is shaped as a semi-circle. When the wind is from the north, the building adds at least 10 mph to the wind velocity because of the narrowing and then expansion. It makes an interesting walk to my bus stop when the cold fronts come in.

HLN: Area astronomy guy goes out to local observatory on public viewing night, shoots several images of nearly fully moon.

Nearly full moon

Santa Ana conditions usually run force 6-9. It's so much fun. Not.

They've already closed my teenager's school for tomorrow, not surprising. Teenager's dad lives a few blocks from a hospital and rarely loses power, so the kid is going to ride it out with him. My brother is on Long Island, but on the north side, and not currently under evacuation orders; I'm hoping he'll do all right.

I've said before that I'd give up electricity and running water to live the lives I've given my characters in 1805, but what they had that I don't? SERVANTS. And much better heat, cooking, and lighting sources than I'll have. No fireplaces or coal ranges in this house.

Too late now, but for future reference, an old-fashioned oil (or kerosene) lantern puts out a sufficient quantity of light to read by. I'd guesstimate it's as bright as four or five candles at least. We keep a "decorative" one as a centerpiece... full of oil and ready to go in case of power outage.

In response to Abi's sidebar item about the "houses" of Lienster Gardens which are really false fronts for subway train ventilation:

There is something like that in New York too.

Visible from a high highway in the Bronx as you ride the Greyhound bus into the city, there is a huge block-long row of false-front rowhouses, with no roof and with huge-diameter-pipe equipment behind the facades.

Is it for ventilating the subway? Could be. I'm not sure. Looks more false-frontish than the one in the London picture.

I have also seen telephone exchange buildings with nonfunctioning windows placed there to give a sense of scale that blends into the neighborhood.

7
I've seen power substations with high (fifteen to twenty feet) walls that make them look like buildings.

(Riposted from 177 -- good fencers make good neighbors, after all):

The other day, the Ex called to discuss the schedule for the Son, and then told me she's "seeing someone". I very carefully did not suggest a double date. The Son apparently told her "Finally!", for which she punched his arm -- and which he demonstrated upon me. "Like this," he said.

The FG and I had a good laugh.

In other news, the earth goes around the sun. Grass is green, dogs and cats are living in harmony, and tea with milk is good.

Useful chart, thanks. I never know how to interpret wind MPHs in terms of feel/effects.

Any idea of what wind MPH is considered unsafe to drive in? I'm trying to figure out about going to work. (Obviously it's easy to say, 'stay home'... but of course that has its own consequences, albeit longer-term. So I'd like a sense if anyone has one.)

Off topic- but Patrick and Teresa, be well; I'm moving to San Francisco next month. I've definitely enjoyed our occasional intersections, and will treasure the memory of being introduced to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Patrick and Elise with their ukeleles, and introducing you to "Drum Boogie" from Ball of Fire.

Fred

10
Force 7 can be driven in without a lot of trouble, but much stronger than that means you should slow down and be ready for the car to go sideways without warning. (Definitely hazardous for slab-sided, top-heavy, and tall vehicles.)

Wind effects on cars depend on what quarter they're coming from and your vehicle's sail area. Rather, I'd look at what the wind was doing to the landscape. Wires and trees down ... bad idea to be driving through there. I expect trees would start coming down before something as low, heavy, and aerodynamic as a passenger car would be blown off the road.

Jim, it's not so much being blown off the road as being shoved sideways when a gust hits (like being on an east-west street with high north winds: intersections become more-than-usually hazardous). Generally, when there's a lot of tree breakage, the word goes out to stay home if you possibly can. (They close freeways in California when it gets bad.)

Fred, good luck on the move. I'll miss hanging out with you at Quarter and the like. (Guess I'll just have to get back to San Francisco soon. Shouldn't be hard to lure me there; I didn't get to spend half as much time with half as many people as I would like last week, though it was chock full of fun.)

Currently from my office window in Auckland the trees are indicating Beaufort 4 gusting to 6. The weather station says 18 knots gusting to 30. It's nice when things work out properly.

HLN: Stuck in Ohio, with a lot of fen, singing, whisky, stories. Plants are in the garage. Having, all in all, a good time.

For frivolity's sake:

Kite wind speed chart

Gnomed. How about some of that nice Whole Foods chocolate with pear and almond?

When I was young, my family lived for 3 years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.* We of course had our fair share of hurricanes, but were only forced to evacuate for one. We spent the night in the high school gym, near the port, where we could be boarded onto Navy ships if the storm turned directly on us.

This was my first experience with te hurricane party. Everybody brought snacks, water, soda (and a few beers for the adults) and we turned the radio to the Armed Forces Station and listened intermittently to weather updates and pop music.

We stayed up all night, running around playing, listening to the rain and wind and never quite knowing just how close we came to being shuffled into the hold of a Navy transport and bobbing our way to Miami.

Anyway, if I have a pint to this rambling bit of memory, washed up by the storm, it's stay safe, but remember to enjoy yourselves. There's a weird energy to a storm and if you can channel it into a party with your neighbors, it's a lot more enjoyable than just sitting around, being anxious.

_________
*This was 1984-87, when the base was a naval training station/ curiosity of Cold War politics. We moved there a dew weeks before my 8th birthday, so it was all a great adventure, like moving to a small town in Florida, though one surrounded by shark infested water and land mines. I had a wonderful time, riding my bike on a tropical island playing with my friends. I'm of course not at all happy that my childhood home has been turned into a gulag for Afghan taxi drivers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

HLN: Man's hotel robbed at gunpoint. No one hurt. Filkers undisturbed as they sang. Front desk staff fine. Whisky offered, declined.

Here's a question: would British naval captains have been using the Beaufort terms widely between their invention in 1805 and their official adoption in 1830? And how much resemblance did the terms bear to ordinary/colloquial usage prior to 1805? Was Beaufort's list something like the old SCA joke I remember which quantified amounts from "some" through "lots" all the way up to "metric shitload" as a way of gauging enemy troop strength?

The terms were in wide use for a century before Beaufort. What he did was standardize the definitions, with objective criteria, so that weather observations reporting (for example) a Strong Breeze would mean the same thing regardless of who did the reporting.

The Australian Weather Bureau changed its description of heavy weathers from the Beaufort terminology after the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, when many of the participants didn't realise that in predicting storms it was actually predicting something stronger than even a strong gale.

The storms - the worst weather ever to hit the race - were probably in the severe category at sea, on the lower side of "hurricane". Six sailors died, and five boats were sunk.

the worst weather ever to hit the race

And even in good years it's not a friendly piece of water. The TV coverage of the race will cause sensitive souls to blanch and rapidly exit the room.

In 1998, 115 yachts started and only 43 finished.

The Vendée Globe is scheduled to start next month, on the 10th. Speaking of sailing. And the Sydney to Hobart.

Giants won the ball game. San Francisco has transitioned from a drunken party into a riot, at least around 17th & Mission where @QuinnNorton is live-tweeting. Sigh.

Good luck with the storm on the East Coast, folks.

Paarfi, alas, does not sustain his usual incomparable style, in the account linked to by our inestimable hosts. One might surmise that the latter part of the passage is no more than an incomplete sketch, an aide memoire for the sequence of events, intended to be replaced after additional research into the matters recounted.

Seldom can it be said that he does not provide a full account of events and circumstances, in his final telling of a tale.

When there is a big storm in the Bay Area, they close the bridges. The Golden Gate bridge gets a lot of wind even on a nice day. I wouldn't want to be on it in a storm. Not that it is seriously dangerous, but it would be no fun having to wait for a tow on a sidewalk while the rain blows at you from all directions including up from below.

Riding the local ferries during a storm can be interesting. One time I was on the boat to San Francisco, the rain wasn't bad, but the clouds were down to the water and visibility was about 20 feet. I was standing at the bow when the captain asked us to shout out if we saw anything. Eventually a San Francisco pier appeared and we docked. It was not where we were suppose to dock, but I think everyone was happy with the captain's choice to get to shelter.

While the actual broadcasts may not be easily accessible from beyond the UK via the Internet (this seems slightly odd if true) the BBC Shipping Forecast does use the Beaufort Scale. So the wind might be "5 or 6, decreasing 4".

The web-page version is available here.

I can never remember the difference between backing and veering.

TomB @29:

On the Forth Road Bridge north of Edinburgh, there are two intermediate stages between "traffic as normal" and "bridge closed due to high winds."

Just short of closing the bridge is closing it to high-sided vehicles. That lets passenger cars go, but reroutes the trucks inland to the shorter, more sheltered crossing at Kincardine.

But there's a stage before that that always looks Noachine to me: they pull all of the trucks out of the traffic and send them across two by two. I've never quite understood the logic of it, but I've seen it happen a number of times.

Here in the netherlands, where people tend to be hyper-aware of waether (seriously, you can predict the weather later in the dat by how many people are commuting on the bike paths int eh morning) people tend to talk about wind in terms of the Beaufort Scale - they'll say it's at Force (Kracht) 4 instead of 22 km/hr in casual conversation.

Ob. political commentary: THe Atlantic dredges up Romney saying that we cannot afford federal disaster relief.

I notice that the scale makes a dramatic example of a whole series of physical regime shifts. As the wind increases quantitatively, the water's behavior goes through several qualitative changes.

Dave Bell @30: I don't know if this applies to wind, but "backing" and "veering" strike me as having intuitively obvious meanings comparable to how they'd be used for cars. So "backing" would be a 180-degree change of direction, and "veering" would be for other angles. My brain wants to limit it to >90 degrees, but that could just be about the way I use the word to describe a vehicle's behavior.

I'm in the path, so last night I dug up exactly what Jim has, except with a mph column. Linky.

Jim, any comments on gusts vs sustained winds? Peak gusts predicted to be 74mphm, but sustained at that time point is only 43?

I'm pulling my data off of noaa.gov's "hourly weather graph", which you can get to by getting a local forecast for your zip code, and then looking for the link for the hourly weather graph for that location. Sample for Baltimore, MD, here.

Thanks, K.

Dave Luckett @24: That very distinction (between storm and gale) is pertinent for people reading the Lake Michigan forecast at the moment, where the influence of Sandy is being felt. Small craft advisory until 1 this afternoon, when the gale warning commences, running until 4 a.m. Tuesday when the storm warning begins.

As I said in the other thread, I am trying to wrap my head around the concept of 20 to 25 foot waves with the occasional big one up to 33 feet. That's what the National Weather Service warnings say, anyhow.

Damn, but this storm is big. Frankenstorm indeed.

abi @ 39, that makes me think of my father-in-law's stories of driving across the Mackinac Bridge (to get from one peninsula of Michigan to the other). He said under certain wind conditions, they'd send each car across paired with a fully loaded truck as a windbreak -- I guess on the grounds that a fully loaded truck would weigh enough not to take flight itself.

Terry Karney@17 and 21: Things seem to have gotten ... interesting ... for a while there between 11:04 and 12:04.

Backing and veering:

Look down on your location. See the direction the wind is coming from? (Note to all: An east wind is a wind coming from, not going to, the east).

The wind is changing directions: First east, then southeast, then south ... clockwise. That wind is veering.

Another east wind. It too is changing directions; east, northeast, north. Counterclockwise. That wind is backing.

How to remember it: Counterclockwise is going backward.

Gusts are winds of less than a minute, but usually less than twenty seconds. Sustained winds are winds of more than a minute's duration. To be a gust the difference between the sustained wind and the gust must be at least nine knots.

(A knot is one nautical mile per hour. A nautical mile is 2,000 yards. There are sixty nautical miles in one degree of latitude, which makes navigational calculations very easy.)

Another Beaufort scale page, with more details and an abi-specific introduction.

The wind here has been a steady breeze for about 24 hours at this point.

I, for my part, like the colloquial Jamaican term for a hurricane: breeze blow. It's one of the nicest bits of natural understatement I know.

The wind traps each in their own tiny room,
blasts out the silence, and makes all take stock
for in the morning we face one last doom;

it was but yesterday we saw the bloom
pallid yet vibrant, not a thing to mock.
The wind traps each in their own tiny room

on this dark day when the only perfume
is bitter scent of ashes, our knees lock
for in the morning we face one last doom

with no sun rising to relieve the gloom
nor to bring warmth to the hard barren rock.
The wind traps each in their own tiny room

for hearts to harden and for minds to fume
while each lost traveller waits on the knock
for in the morning we face one last doom.

The golden cradle will serve for a tomb;
To learn that fact will not come as a shock.
the wind traps each in their own tiny room
for in the morning we face one last doom.

P J Evans @ #8:
power substations with high (fifteen to twenty feet) walls that make them look like buildings.

Toronto used to go all-out in disguising its residential power substations.

I am thinking of King Canute today:

sedile suum in littore maris, cum ascenderet, statui iussit. Dixit autem mari ascendenti, tu meae ditionis es, & terra in qua sedeo mea est: nec fuit qui impune meo resisteret imperio. Imperio igitur tibi, ne in terram meam ascendas, nec vestes nec membra dominatoris tui madefacere praesumas. Mare vero de more conscendens pedes regis & crura, since reverentia madefecit. Rex igitur resiliens ait. Sciant omnes habitantes orbem vanam & frivolam regum esse potentiam, nec regis qempiam nomine dignum praeter eum, cuius nutui coelum terra mare legibus obediunt aeternis....

(he commanded that his chair should be set on the shore, when the tide began to rise. And then he spoke to the rising sea saying “You are part of my dominion, and the ground that I am seated upon is mine, nor has anyone disobeyed my orders with impunity. Therefore, I order you not to rise onto my land, nor to wet the clothes or body of your Lord”. But the sea carried on rising as usual without any reverence for his person, and soaked his feet and legs. Then he moving away said: “All the inhabitants of the world should know that the power of kings is vain and trivial, and that none is worthy the name of king but He whose command the heaven, earth and sea obey by eternal laws”.)

Not sure what made the crew of The Bounty think they could avoid the storm, but I hope they find the last two crew-members. Sad to see that ship go.

Going into Hospital. Good wishes appreciated, but you may hear nothing from me for a while.

Dave Bell @47:
Going into Hospital. Good wishes appreciated, but you may hear nothing from me for a while.

Wait, what?

All good wishes, and I hope your stay is brief and effective.

Dave Bell #47: Best of luck to you.

Good wishes headed your way, Dave Bell.

Dave Bell... Good wishes on their way to you.

I am having some odd experiences these days.

This past weekend, I noted on Facebook that an old friend (whom I had not seen in propia persona for nigh on three decades) was celebrating a birthday. So, naturally, I sent him birthday greetings.

Hours later, I saw, on his wife's FB wall, that he had died just a couple of days before. I felt devastated.

Nancy @18, I can confirm that it's not fun to fly kites in 20+ kt winds. I got to do this, flying 15lb UAV payloads in Canada, and both the line tensions and wear on the hardware are scary. Jackets, gloves, and a climbers care for not getting anything wrapped around you are mandatory. Our biggest kite ran 3 meter span, and flew on 500 pound Spectra line. Ground anchors were useless -- we used the truck's frame, with carabiners and nylon webbing to keep the kite line away from the metal.

Dave Bell (47): Best wishes. May all be well.

Dave Bell: best wishes for a quick and uneventful recovery.

Fragano: how unspeakably awful. My condolences to you and to her.

A great deal of detail on navigation in extreme weather situations here.

Including notes on backing and veering winds. At one point in my career I had this chapter memorized.

When you see the advice, "It may not be possible to receive any assistance at sea and if the vessel is lost to sea, there is little chance of survival of individuals on board" you'll understand why.

And if you need a handy-dandy referce, see Rising of the Wind: Adventures Along the Beaufort Scale.

Steve C. @3: Awwww-rooooo...

Stephen Frug @10: Any idea of what wind MPH is considered unsafe to drive in?

If the wind is blowing semis over, it's probably not a good day to be out.

C. Wingate @33: that fits right into something I was thinking this morning, that conservatives often have a problem with things that don't scale well. There's a point at which disaster relief is much better handled at a high level....

Nerdycellist @46: you might want to ask Doug Faunt, known to many here, about that. He was on the Bounty, and has posted to Facebook that he's fine.

Dave Bell @47: Good wishes from here too!

It's too bad they're not calling the new publishing venture Random House Penguin. I always prefer my house penguins randomized.

re 61: Personally I would go for Random Penguin House.

re 60: Beyond that, historically the states frequently choose to do a bad job, or the state (e.g. Mississippi) simply can't do it by themselves, or (see under "major NE storm", pick a storm, any storm) there's a multistate response that requires coordination. I suspect what this is really about (besides knee-jerk rhetoric) is making sure that the local guys who have ins at the state house get their paybacks.

Since the federal government is closed today and he hadn't received any other guidance, hubby - who's a contractor - stayed home. Around noon, his team lead called and asked rather indignantly whether he was coming into the office. "Well, no," my husband replied, "given that Capital Weather is telling people not to be outside after noon."

Tell people in DC that an inch of snow is going to fall and they panic. Tell them there'll be derecho-like destruction and dangerous wind speeds, and they shrug and go to work anyhow. I don't envy all the people who will be commuting home in the high winds this evening.

Oops, that was supposed to go in the "Riding it out" thread.

Re 62 & 61, I would have voted to shorten it to Random Penguin myself.

OtterB #65:

Whereas I'm fond of Penguin House, meself.

Those are all good, but I vote for "Random Penguin".

Speaking of parhelia, and tangents... http://eblong.com/zarf/thod/44.html

(Sundogs, halos -- apparently Sandy blew in a lot of high-altitude ice crystals this past weekend.)

Dave Bell: best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Dave Bell, good luck in hospital.

We've been lucky wrt to high winds in the Northwest this year. October is the regular month for windstorms (the worst one was the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 in which Portland recorded a 116 mph gust, and more anemometers were destroyed than records set). But every few years we get to see what high-end Force 12 looks like. The year after I moved to Portland, we had 95 mph gusts, in which roofs were peeled back and ripped off; a few years ago we got 105 mph gusts, and boats and light planes were picked up and smashed. I've been in the open in 50+ mph winds and walking is difficult; I'm not going out in anything stronger if I can help it.

Jacque @ 59

If the wind is blowing semis over, it's probably not a good day to be out.

Once upon a time when I was driving cross-country on I-80 heading back home to California, I'd been encountering a bit of wind around dinner time coming down the pass into Salt Lake City, but figured that I could keep on my planned schedule to get as far as the Nevada state line before finding a motel room for the night.

Coming out of the west side of the city into the salt flats, I suddenly entered an obstacle course consisting of semis and other trailer-like-objects lying on their sides on the interstate. In the dark. Fortunately there were still some motel rooms available in SLC.

Thanks, Tom Whitmore@70 - I just had it explained to me by someone who knows more than Tall Ship Pretty! that the last place a ship should be in a storm is in dock. Which of course when I think about it, DUH. Sounds like there's no good place to be when this sort of weather hits.

There's Coast Guard footage of the folks being rescued here; Doug is clearly visible among the people being unloaded for significant time starting at about 10:59 in the 11:14 video. We cheered when we saw him!

Back from Fire Ant Frolic, and playing catch-up...

Rikibeth, #5: And if you had lived back then, you still wouldn't have servants. You'd be one of the servants, as would most of us. I'll take the electricity, clean water, and mechanical devices, thank you.

Terry, #21: Yikes! That's the weirdest thing that's ever happened at an OVFF, I think. Glad to hear nobody was hurt.

Jim, #40: Thank you; I'd always wondered why a knot, but was too lazy to go look it up. (Although I do dimly remember that the word had its origin in a physical knotted rope.) The fact that there are 60 nautical miles to the (latitudinal) degree makes a whole lot of other things fall into place.

Dave Bell, GoodThoughts being sent.

Lee, I wouldn't actually have been one of the servants; I'd have been living in a primitive cottage in a shtetl. It's why I said I'd trade with one of my characters.

And if the power goes out, I'll be a little worse off than even my shtetl ancestors, because of the lack of cooking fires and equipment to deal with an un-electrified household.

Good thoughts to Dave Bell--recover well! Also, Husband and I are hoping that all of you in Sandy's path are safe. (I really hope our friend in Brooklyn listened to Husband on some of the storm prep...)

One thing I forgot to mention -- the featured band for Fire Ant Frolic, Wild Asparagus, is from western MA, and they're stranded in Austin because all the airports near their homes are closed. The event organizers were looking for volunteers to host them for a few days.

I have photos and videos from the event here.

Just finished season one of Game of Thrones. Now I'm helplessly fantasizing about Peter Dinklage playing Miles Vorkosigan.

Apropos of the "too windy to drive" subthread, if wires are coming down, STAY AWAY. No matter how stable and secure your actual vehicle is.

J Homes.

80
The only time I had to deal with a downed wire, it was dead at the time (but hadn't been when it came down - although I didn't know that until some time later).
(It was the power drop to the house I was living in, and not too long after it came down, power went out in the area. Made it fun reporting it, too.)

Lee # 75

There was a knotted line attached to a piece of wood that you'd throw over the stern back in the Old Days of Sail and count how many knots paid out in thirty seconds to get an idea of your speed through the water.

(Since the water itself is moving this won't tell you speed over the ground.)

I'm trying to find a quotation here. I'm pretty sure it was Teresa who said it, but I don't remember when, or whether it was in a top-post or a comment, nor can I remember enough of the exact wording to do a phrase search. It was to the effect of, "There are people who will try to convince you that your share of America is worthless, and you should let it go. Don't believe them, because they will happily snatch it up." Only it was much better said than that. Can anyone point me to it?

Sent this to family in Milwaukee last night:

Hurricane weather:
Harsh winds blow the autumn leaves;
I sit in darkness.

Best of luck to Dave Bell!

HLN: My boss brought his new dog into work today. A cute little ball of fluff named Stone -- and I got a groan by noting that was about what he weighs. Of course, that's going to change quickly... Stone is a 5-week-old St. Bernard puppy.

Sad to report this note from old time fan Dave Hulan about the passing of another classic fanzine fan (& stubborn progressive), Dave Locke. This was originally posted on the Southern Fandom e-list:

On 10/30/2012 5:02 PM, DAVID HULAN wrote:
A little over an hour ago I heard from Brian Locke that his father had passed away over the weekend. Brian had been out of town and when he went by Dave's house to check on him he found him dead. He was going to let various people in Dave's phone book know directly, which is why I waited, but I figure an hour is probably enough delay. [....]

In recent years, I knew Dave mostly from his participation in several other Yahoo e-lists populated by fanzine old timers. He was living in Vermont after relocating there from the Midwest. Those of you who were active on rec.arts.sf.fandom may also remember him.

Dave kept his hand in as a fanzine fan. Most of his recent issues can be found on e-fanzines.com.

Jacque @ 79:

OMG, yes! And, let's see ...

Michelle Pfeiffer as Cordelia Naismith
Mandy Patinkin as Aral Vorkosigan
Alan Arkin as Grandfather Piotr for the prologue scenes,
Tahmoh Penikett as cousin Ivan
Gina Torres as Sargent Taura
Enver Gjokaj as Armsman Roic

so many character ...

Ohh, a Vorkosigan film would be good. I'm no use with actors, I'm only fit for sending emails and online posting about how they need to make sure it fits the books and complaining about how badly they've done the characters. Yes I am a bit cynical.
Mind you I was alright with the remake of Casino Royale; a sensible modernisation of an old story.

More importantly with a Vorkosigan film, who would you get to direct it?

Bruce, I've always favored Julianne Moore and Harrison Ford for Cordelia and Aral.

Sebastian Stan as Byerly Vorrutyer.

Has anyone here ever done a DIY wall texture application? That is, spraying drywall with plaster-like glop to make a nice even patterned surface?

I'm trying to decide between DIY and hiring a contractor.

Stefan Jones @91:

I sprayed a ceiling with acoustical texture many years ago, and was never really happy with the result. The next time I painted I stripped the stuff off and painted it flat. If you have the money available, I'd recommend a contractor.

Rikibeth,

Moore might work, but I'm not sure about Ford. I've never seen him portray a character as complex as Aral.

guthrie:

I was thinking about Joss Whedon to direct. He certainly would be able to understand the SFnal aspects of the stories. If "Hulk" hadn't been such a disaster I'd suggest Ang Lee, because he's done Jane Austen: "Sense and Sensibility", martial arts: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and romantic comedy:"Eat, Drink, Man, Woman". Maybe he could recoup "Hulk".

#92: I'm finishing a garage. Drywalled, and fairly well taped, but not what you'd expect to paint and look great. My inspector suggested the texture spray as a way of covering up the rough work.

But . . . I am dealing with a garage / shop. The paint is there to brighten things up and make the wall cleanable. I may just patch up the holes and dings, prime and paint.

And: The money and effort I would have put into texture I might better put into a floor treatment.

Stephan Jones @ 91:

I've done trowel textures (where you spread thin plaster over the wall with a trowel; gives a rustic plastered wall look) several times. It's time consuming, and because of the differences in individual ergonomics, only one person should ever work on any single wall (the differences will be noticeable). It's a skill and an art; muscle memory has to be learned and it's a practice, man, practice thing. It has the same downsides as painting - prep takes longer than the actual painting, furniture will be in the way, floors must be protected - but takes longer. It also renders the wall unsuitable for future wallpaper.

It can be delicate and does not survive well during earthquakes or significant house shifting. On the other hand, it is pretty, and is neither flat nor orange peel. If you tint the plaster powder with powdered pigment, it looks lovely, even unpainted, and the tinted plaster can serve as a permanent base color. (downside - ALL plaster must be tinted at the same time; colors will not match otherwise.)

I've rarely seen a good amateur spray job; again, art and skill. Orange peel is a knock-down texture (i.e. sprayed on then leveled with a trowel). Too often it ends up looking like the wall got covered with baby stalagmites. It's also hard to paint.

It's a big job. The last time I did a room was a non-master bedroom, about 10x12. The entirely empty room took about 4 days total, including bull nosing the convex corners, feathering the concave corners and replacing the moulding. Without those details, it looks like bad DIY. Have you considered textured wallpaper? That paints and re-paints beautifully, covers a multitude of wallboard sins and will survive washing, small children and most dogs.

Given that the Amazing Girlfriend and I are living in an apartment with orange peel texture on all walls, whatever you do - don't do that!

waiting to see what antibiotics do. it could still be very serious. infected wound on foot.

internet tech here ancient

Bruce, I admit I was casting primarily for looks. Julianne Moore has the requisite talent along with the red hair, but you're right, Aral might be a challenge for Harrison Ford. But he does have the right sort of shorter broad build and saturnine features like Bujold described. Also, though Indiana Jones in the first movie wasn't the most subtle character, I think he hit a lot of the important notes for Aral.

Mandy Patinkin would certainly work, though, and might fit the looks even more. I just had to adjust my mental image from "Inigo Montoya" to the present-day "Jason Gideon." (There's also the weirdness that present-day Mandy Patinkin looks disturbingly like my dad.)

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt for Gregor? And who would you choose for Simon Illyan?

With adult Ivan, I think Helen Mirren would make a fantastic Alys Vorpatril.

It's a pity that Miles' type is TALL, because I'd love to see Michelle Rodriguez as Elli Quinn, but she's so tiny.

Here's an interesting one: who would you cast as Bel Thorne?

Dave Bell @97, Youch. Take care of that foot, ok?

Connor Friedersdorf on not voting for Romney/

The American Conservative (paleocon magazine) writers discuss how they plan to vote.

Megan McArdle's lack of excitement about the candidates.

Reason magazine's contributors talk about who they plan to vote for

However little they show up on TV, it's worth remembering that there are a *lot* of conservatives out there who have zero love for what the party has become or who it's running for president. One of the most hopeful signs in current politics, to me, is the number of people who are explicitly feeling betrayed and are willing to say so, even in an election year where both sides are (as always) telling us this is the most important election ever.

An addendum to the Tobermory Cat-Troll Diffraction: the Guardian picks up on the story. The Artist creates what would have in any case been a hilariously obvious sock-puppet to argue his side in the comments... then rather gives the game away by accidentally using the first-person pronoun in his very first comment...

Today, with the election coming up, I'm very thankful to be an American.

My sister's husband is Kenyan (Luo), and his family has some political involvement. We heard from her last night that she will probably be in the US next March, as the Kenyan elections are then and her husband thinks that it would be safer for her not to be there.

For all that this is a close race, and feelings are high on both sides, I'm not worried about my personal safety, or that of any of the candidates' distant relatives. And for that, I'm thankful--having been reminded that it isn't something to take for granted.

James, #101: I notice that the author talks about having gotten "nasty little fantasies of what his friends would like to do to her if they got up close and personal". That's almost certainly rape threats, although she's being too polite to say so outright. But it's the standard mode of cyberbullying when a woman is the target.

Stefan Jones @94: My dad used to do wall texture by the simple expedient of mixing sand into the paint. I would probably go with something a little softer and larger grit, like fine grade sawdust.

@Jaque, CZ: Thanks. I'm leaning toward something lower-effort than spraying on wall texture. I'll be rolling on primer and paint anyway, so adding texture to one may be enough.

I really want to get the garage painted, and the floor coated, within a week of getting the keys to the place. Fixing the space up after I set up shelves and a work table would be much more difficult.

First project in shop: A deck diaper. The main-floor deck overlooks the tiny back yard. Rain drips right through. I'm going to make a mini-roof to hang under the deck, so the rain flows outwards.

Bruce Cohen @87: Gina Torres as Sargent Taura

::blink:: Would never have crossed my mind, but...yes.

Modulo age, how about Nathan Fillion for Ivan?
Or maybe Jeffrey Donovan.

Gregor: Goran Visnjic.

How about Alan Cumming for Bel Thorne?

While we're poaching Game of Thrones, how about Sean Bean as Aral?

Jason Momoa as Sgt. Bothari.

& @93: I was thinking about Joss Whedon to direct.

And write the screenplay.

Jacque, I try to leave Sean Bean out of things. Much as I've admired his acting, I hate to even mentally assign new roles to someone who's got a history of domestic abuse.

Rikibeth: Hadn't heard. Maybe that's why his credit doesn't appear in the Game of Thrones IMDB page.

Stefan Jones @ 105 and previous

I may just patch up the holes and dings, prime and paint.

That's what I'd recommend. It's a garage; a textured finish will make the walls look dirtier over time; even unfinished drywall, painted, doesn't look too bad to me.

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt for Gregor? And who would you choose for Simon Illyan?

I would like to nth the casting of JGL as Gregor. And I'd cast Chris Evans as Ivan--he can do the aggressively-lazy young Ivan, but has the depth to showcase Ivan's growth.

For Illyan, I'd go with Giovanni Ribisi; he can pull off the unobtrusive look that is so much a part of Illyan, but can turn on the personality when he needs to.

Charlize Theron for Ekaterin.

Dave Bell

Oh dear. Best wishes that you heal quickly and completely!

Dave Bell @97
Continuing good wishes being beamed your way. Sorry it's ancient internet equipment, but glad there is some.

This afternoon, Making Light keeps freezing up pageloads while "waiting for cache.blogads.com". Or rather, it loads the page, but doesn't actually pan down to the response I clicked on, and the (new) greasemonkey script, which had been working fine, seems to fail to load.

Even as I type this, the tab has the swirling "page loading" symbol instead of the eclipse.

Is it just me?

Cally Soukup @113: no, not just you. I've been getting the same thing for several hours now. (My computer's running Chrome on Ubuntu.)

Cally Soukoup@113

It's definitely not just you.

If it helps, on the browser I'm using right now (one of the Mozilla-type browsers) I can get to the clicked-on response by going to the location bar and hitting return (when the top of the page has appeared, but the "page-loading swirl" is still turning). The "page-loading swirl" continues to turn but since I'm on the correct response I can then simply click the "stop loading" button.

Cally @113:

It looks like the feed.css and feed.js from blogads is experiencing gateway timeouts. (I'm using Firebug to watch the page load).

I'm not sure what we can do about this; I think it's got to be blogads who sorts it out.

abi:

Thanks, it's good to know it's not just me. I'm sure it'll be worked out eventually.

I've found that after waiting several seconds to make sure the page really did load, if I hit "stop loading" it jumps down to the comment I clicked on. Ubuntu/firefox.

I've been getting wonky behavior on all of the web pages I've tried to access. I'd been presuming it had to do with other known issues with this machine.

Amanda Tapping for Cordelia?

The method Cally mentions @117 is working for me as well, with Firefox on Windows XP. Hitting the "stop loading" button after a second or two allows the rest of the page to function normally.

Why not Tilda Swinton for Bel Thorne? She's done the man/woman thing before ...

Nathan Fillion as Captain Canada

Somebody on LJ pointed me to this.

(Comparison chart, in cartoon format, between Obama at his worst and Romney at his best. Just in case you thought there was no difference.)

joann @ 121:

I thought of Tilda Swinton, but then lightning struck me: Enrico Colantoni. Think about it before you decide I'm crazy, and remember "Galaxy Quest".

Jaque @ 119:

Tapping has part of what's needed for Cordelia, the action, but I'm not sure she has the depth, especially for the later Cordelia. I guess I'm too picky; I haven't found anyone I like unreservedly for Cordelia, and I think getting her right is even more important than getting Miles right. In some ways Cordelia is the heart of the series: she anchors both Aral and Miles, and gives them a vision that goes beyond contemporary Barayar.

One of the problems with casting the Vorkosigan saga is that you need to cast a lot of the characters both early and late in their lives: Cordelia, Aral, Ilyan, Alys Vorpatril, etc. For old Ilyan ("Memory" and after), how about Patrick Malahide?

And nobody has mentioned Mark. I've got nothing. Anyone?

Jacque @106:

Jeffrey Donovan for Ivan would work very nicely. He's got the comic chops to handle Ivan's silliness, and the dramatic experience to keep Ivan solid below the waterline. And I'd completely forgotten until I just looked him up that he played D.I. Dave Creegen in "Touching Evil".

Bruce Cohen @124: Enrico Colantoni

Oh. My.

(But then, I'll wager he could play Marilyn Monroe, and pull it off.)

The dirt obvious for old Illyan would be, of course, David McCallum.

I would be fascinated to see Dinklage have a go at Mark.

One of my frustrations with Tapping is that she has a lot of presence that doesn't often get used to good effect. This is one of the reasons I'd like to see her try Cordelia.

you need to cast a lot of the characters both early and late in their lives

Yeah, I was kind of quietly trying to ignore that problem. :-)

Presumably you have whoever plays Miles double as Mark. I bet Peter Dinklage could pull it off.

Bruce, #124: Mark is going to have to be a CGI character based on whoever plays Miles, in the same way that Gollum was based on Andy Serkis or the Hulk on Mark Ruffalo. They'll split-screen scenes where the two interact.

Also, I looked up Enver Gjokaj, and I'm just not seeing him as Roic. You'd almost need a body-builder type from the description, and he has to be movie-star hot as well. Hmmm... Chris Evans? He might not want a supporting role, though -- although Roic definitely becomes a very strong role in the later books.

Rob Rusick @904(177): I just bought an LED TV (brand Element) from the local Target [..] it has one bad pixel in the upper left, which shows as a red spot on a dark field [..] is this a 'take it back to the store' defect?

Benjamin Wolfe @907(177): It usually depends on the store; I know most online retailers require more than one bad pixel to authorize a return, but I've no idea what brick and mortar policies are.

Thanks for the reply; pardon my late response. Having put the question out there, I thought I should at least set out the resolution.

Browsing the internet, the sense of the room was that it would take more than a few bad pixels to justify a return, and you had a fair chance of getting a TV with similar or different defects in exchange (although you had to consider that people who were having bad experiences were the most likely to write about it).

One post suggested that Target would take a TV back in the first 30 days, no questions asked. Don't know if that is the actual policy, but I did call the store back and described the problem to the electronics manager. He said absolutely it's a defect, bring it back if you want.

He had another of the same model to make an even swap, and he offered $30 off on the cost of a same size Vizio LCD TV if I was willing to pay $30 more on the exchange (i.e., a $60 difference in price we'd be splitting in the middle). I went that route, and it is a nicer TV than the one I first got, with no picture defects.

So a vote for dealing with the local merchants, even if you could save some money ordering online.

As an aside, I'd felt silly bringing up such an issue (literally a pin-prick) while other people are dealing with hurricanes. It was a small concern, but it has its place.

CassyB, if you're reading this, please email me. Your address is stored in my computer, which I can't get to right now.

Mary Aileen @130, email sent!

The news is not good. Possibility of amputation, between ankle and knee. The infection is deep.

Call me Hopalong.

Dave Bell -- healing energy on it's way, an' it be your will.

You will be in my thoughts.

Dave Bell, I hope that prognosis turns out to be overly pessimistic. Wishing strength and health for you, skill and compassion for those caring for you.

Dave Bell (132): Oh, no! Thinking good thoughts for you.

Dave:

FWIW, you're in my prayers.

Dave Bell @132, sorry to hear it. Prayers and good thoughts continue to be directed your way.

Different Doctors have said slightly different things, but I think I have to be prepared for the worst. So far, I have been comfortable, but that cannot last, I reckon.

And I have to tell my family...

Dave Bell... :-(

Dave Bell,

Crap; I'm sorry to hear that. I'll be thinking about you and wishing you well.

Dave Bell, sorry to hear that. Continuing GoodThoughts.

Aw, Dave, I'm so sorry.

@Dave Bell: Damnit. Let's hope it isn't necessary, or you keep as much leggage as possible.

Yow. Dave, add my good wishes to the others stated here. I hope you emerge intact.

Dave Bell, holding you in my thoughts.

Two things for people who might need something to brighten their day a bit:

12-year-old uses D&D to help his dad with a science research project -- and gets first-author credit on the resulting paper.

An Unexpected Briefing -- WETA and AirNZ are having fun, and we get to share it.

Probably for a very long URL. Would Their Lownesses care for some of the Aussie version of Good 'n' Plentys?

Dave Bell

Yikes! I hope they're overly pessimistic, and the antibiotics can take care of it. Failing that, good luck with quick healing after the surgery!

Dave Bell - good thoughts sent your way.

Dave Bell: sympathies. Thinking good thoughts your way.

Dave Bell -- good wishes from here as well.

Over on another thread, albatross says in passing:

I know a couple people in my field (we're scientists if you count computer science) who don't buy human-caused global warming (AGW), but the overwhelming majority do.

I know computing science people, and I know IT people real well, and I've concluded that, as a class, we're kind of lousy people so far as our political and social views are concerned.

Would someone please convince me I'm wrong? I want to be wrong, so this should be easy.

Dave Bell @ 132:

The news is not good. Possibility of amputation, between ankle and knee. The infection is deep.

Call me Hopalong.

Will do!

Yo! Hopalong! Dave Bell is looking for you!

I hope that makes you laugh instead of cringe. I'm cringing in sympathy and hoping for the best.

And, as usual, I've forgotten how the <blockquote> tags work. Sigh.

Dave Bell #132: Ouch, my sympathies! At least you can commiserate with Paula....

Bruce Cohen #124: For Mark I'd suggest Andy Serkis.

It is obvious that The Vorkosigan Saga has to be a miniseries.

I have my own candidate for Bel Thorne: Hilary Swank.

Dave Bell #132:

Oh dear. I wish you the best.

Dave Bell: Thoughts and prayers for you and your family.

Dave Bell @ #132: Much sympathy, hope it all works out for the best.

It gives me a bit of a flashback, that was my middle of May. I'm walking again with a prosthetic but it was a very long summer. If there is anything I can do to help, offer personal support, etc. email me directly. Hugs across the e-ways and prayers for good, safe healing.

Just popping in to say that I would read the HECK out of a Paarfirotica novel-length novel thing. And then, unashamed, would probably do so again.

--Dave

Dave Bell, additional prayers and thoughts for you and yours from here.

Yes. Mr. Bell, sir, my best wishes and a hope that magical antibiotics suddenly reverse the prognosis.

Best wishes and sympathies, Dave Bell.

Dave Bell: Good thoughts from this corner.

I'm thinking Pete Postlethwaite for Bothari.

eric @ 165:

Very regrettably, Pete Postlewaite died in January, 2011.

Oops. I guess I didn't check to see if he was actually available.

Dave @ 132

Sending good vibes. Take care.

On a different vector:
Someone brought bacon doughnuts to work for Halloween: basically largish doughnut balls topped with sugar glaze and crumbled bacon. Smoke does not go with sugar glaze. Less smoky bacon would have worked much better.

Saw patches of frost in the meadow this morning (~8:00), first time this year. (I'm sure it's frozen overnight before this, though.)

Wow. I don't know if anyone else here has read this piece, but I think it's fantastic. It's about politics, and it is a thing of beauty.

Perhaps I borked my link?

Carrie S. @ 171, thank you so much for sharing that. I just read the whole thing, and you are correct, it is a thing of beauty.

Seconding thanks to Carrie @171. That is a wonderful piece.

Has anyone heard from Xopher lately? He hasn't posted for awhile, and he lives right in one of the areas that's been really clobbered.

Carrie S #171: Thirded; that is a gem, and very neatly encapsulates what I've been saying for months, only more articulately and with lots of supporting evidence.

albatross #175 and others: Lenore (a mutual friend in Hoboken) posted yesterday on FB that Xopher was fine and had gone to City Hall to volunteer.

Thanks, all, and Paula in particular.

The final decision will be Monday, yet I cannot but assume the worst. There is no sensible chance of a better outcome.

I have some previous experience of trauma and surgery so I view that aspect with some equanimity. The rest will be interesting.

PJ Evans - I see your name on this. did you go to High School in Colorado

Dave #178: You have my best wishes, and if the worst comes to pass, my hopes that the surgery and recovery is as straightforward and easy as possible.

Dave Bell, good luck!

Dave Bell, you have my prayers and best wishes.

There are any number of TV channels which seem devoted to the terrible history of Nazi Germany. Maybe the old pictures are cheap.

And there is so much AH fiction.

I have just thrown a very dead Otto Skorzeny off the Orient Express. Should I worry?

Anxious Author

#183 Dave

AH in a story writing in the past several years is a near-automatic I-will-neither-buy-nor-read for me...

Xopher Halftongue is fine but has no electricity or internet access.
-A Friend

179
No. (I think if I was ever in Colorado, I was too young to remember it.)

Dave,

Shocked to hear about your leg. You have my and Omega's email addresses?

I got my ticket for November 29's theatrical release of Melinda Snodgrass's "The Measure of a Man".

Dave Bell - you have my sympathy and prayers. Hope all goes as well as it can and that you recover quickly.

Tracie and Gobby - good to hear about Xopher. I'd been worrying.

Paula #184

I woould be ashamed to have written some of the WW2 AH I have seenn in the last few years, and some of the as-you-know-adolf passages are truly dire.

I fear our younger people are no longer aware of what was at stake. The SS-mann is becoming the anti-hero.

And so Skorzeny: brave and clever, but he was Waffen-SS in Russia, and he told us his own legend, spun to save his neck.

Dave Bell: best wishes for a good result and speedy recovery.

(I'm currently coming to grips with having a family member in hospital.)

I have a problem with what I think is the material behind PNH's uppermost link to "An eminent member of the British conservative party". Namely the member in question is, shall we say, extremely unpopular with the barking-mad right wing of his own party, who have been known to smear political opponents in the past. Innuendo linking him with Jimmy Saville would be, shall we say, par for the course.

I have no way of knowing whether the allegations about said eminent member are true or not; I'm just noting that there are people within his own party who would benefit from such allegations, whether baseless or otherwise.

Politics is a dirty business, especially in the UK in the dog-days of the Thatcher/Major/Blair neoliberal consensus.

Dave Bell @132: oh shit is all I can say.

(My mother is recovering from having her left leg amputated between knee and hip on Wednesday. Not diabetic, just poor circulation and infected leg ulcers that got out of control ...)

How does it go? AKICWML?

Can anyone direct me to reality-based reporting/analysis/opinion on how/whether fracking affects earthquakes? I am just beginning to look into this, but I fear I don't have the scientific chops to sort fact (or at least well-reasoned, knowledge-based speculation) from fud.

TIA

Boy, based on the report on This American Life this week, the New Hampshire Speaker of the House is a piece of work and needs to go now...

194
The Science News cover story for the September 8th issue was on fracking. It should have further references.

And, since he seems to have been instrumental in an act to get immunization out of the schools since it was a government intrusions, well, he may have his name attached to some future events he might not like.

Dave Bell, all good wishes for the best possible outcome.

Glad to hear that most of the Fluorosphere in the areas affected by Sandy have come through at least relatively well, but still wishing the damage and loss of life was significantly less. Also hoping that we as a species can get our collective heads wrapped around reality in time to ourselves some good, since ignoring the problem will only make it impossible to ignore much sooner than later.

Did my one-month mini-review yesterday...or rather, I reviewed myself--fairly well, based on the phrasing of the items under review. Then was told by my supervisor that we'll talk about what she reported to HR, and the differences between her review and mine, on Monday. I know there's nothing dire on hers, because she's the type who would have told me about any major screw-ups or issues, but of course I can't stop trying to figure out where I over-rated myself. (Which may get a mention on the DFD thread, $%#*%^ those stupid Tapes...)

Syd @198, but of course I can't stop trying to figure out where I over-rated myself.

It's just as likely the disparities are where you UNDER-rated yourself, you know...

(I'm posting this here so you can warn others; I suspect you'all are probably savvy enough not to fall for this.)

BEWARE! "Global PC Cure" is a scam outfit posing as support for various providers and computer companies

DISTRIBUTE THIS WIDELY

DO NOT CALL 1 888 958 7518, or ANY OTHER number from a page with "globalpccure" in the domain.

My aunt had trouble with her AOL connection. She gave me what she thought was the AOL support number, which she had googled for.

When I called, there was no company introduction.

They IMMEDIATELY wanted me to turn on remote access. They were DESPERATE for me .to give them access. I hung up, and they CALLED BACK! "Global PC Cure" is a SCAM.

Again: Taking advantage of a Google search hack, they POSE AS YOUR PROVIDER'S TECH SUPPORT LINES!

I posted a warning about a scam outfit that included a number NOT to call.

Man, I am pissed at these people. They actually called me back when I hung up on them.

"Global PC Cure" advertises by spam.

Charlie Stross @ 193:

Damn, that's hard. Good luck to your mother and a good recovery.

Dave Bell @ 190:

IIRC, Skorzeny spent the last years of his life here in the US, where I am sure there were people in power who would have loved to use his expertise for the good of the US military. To which end it made good sense to give him good public relations. I recall an article I read in the early '60s about him, which tried to do precisely that.

Yow! So busy with the show, I got miles behind here. Too late for most comments, but I have to say, Dave Bell @132, oh, man, I hope things come out better than they're looking now. Yow.

Stefan Jones: Scammers like that have been very active recently. I am a bad enough person that I want to find the guy who did this and hug him and squeeze him and call him George. Which I suspect says ugly things about me...

Probably because I included a wonderful link to a website with a bad reputation (for good reason, though not for anything tied to the link) showing something that had been done to a scammer like the one that Stephan Jones was talking about. I've got some frozen Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs and noodles...

Cassy B @ 199, I appreciate the vote of support, but considering that the things I was rating myself on were understanding of the computer system (B), attendance (never absent or tardy--A!), helpfulness to my teammates (well, I offer to help, and I do help, so I guess that's an A as well!), company spirit (oh, look, another A), and a couple of things I can't recall but which also seemed, upon reading, like I'd earned As there as well...I don't see too much room for "Why didn't you rate yourself more highly here?"

;)

But come Monday I'll know what my supervisor is evaluating, and understand the discrepancies between the way I read the questions and the way the company intends them to be read.

Damned if I'll accept less than an A on attendance, though. :)

Dave Bell, best wishes for a speedy recovery, whatever the decision.

—
In regards to the Vorkosigan casting, I always assumed that Miles would be CGI'd because you would have to portray him at some many different points in his life and health. By the time he gets married, he mostly just looks short—but in Warrior's Apprentice, he's crooked and braced. Not to mention the wound tally that his skin tells. I'd go for a middle-aged actor and digitally de-age him to get some of that unreality about his looks—that "set with pain" kind of feature set.

I'd also consider looking to theatrical actresses for Cordelia. You'd have a bigger range to work with than "Hollywood pretty" and you could probably pick someone with a vast range of experience who might never otherwise get cast on film. (I always think of Cordelia as a woman who is not so much pretty as striking—and the latter is a facet of personality.)

John A Arkansawyer @ 152:

I know computing science people, and I know IT people real well, and I've concluded that, as a class, we're kind of lousy people so far as our political and social views are concerned.

Amongst IT practitioners (a number of whom don't have 4-year computer science degrees, though they may have a technical degree in another field, or a 2-year associates degree, or technical training from the military), especially those who are self-taught and have achieved a measure of professional success, I've found a strong libertarian streak.

Some of this is left-lib, but far more is right-lib, and there is usually an accompanying aversion to common forms of authority.

They often demonstrate a prickly independence and believe they are qualified to judge for themselves any issue which has a scientific or technical basis, and in so judging, they're rarely inclined to believe in the wisdom of others, even if those others are highly trained and experienced, thinking (incorrectly) that to rely on others is to accept their authority unquestioned.

This is why there are a good number who refuse to accept AGW and react negatively to the overwhelming acceptance of AGW by practicing scientists, characterizing them as sheep who refuse to think for themselves.

Further, because a good number of them have been self-taught and achieved success in that way, they strongly believe in boot-strapping ones own way to success, and denigrate those who have to rely on the aid of others, especially when that aid comes in the form of government-sanctioned welfare--since they see the taxes from which the welfare comes as a violation of their ethics.

So they generally disdain collective (read: government) actions to aid the poor and indigent. (And it can't be overlooked that this disdain happens to fall disproportionately on minorities, leading an dispassionate observer to accuse them of racism as well.)

I can't convince you you're wrong for I happen to agree with you.

B. Durbin @209 -Cordelia was also striking, as a facet of having a convenient sword-stick handy...

Speaking of sword-sticks, this sword-bracelet is awesome!

So. I am now using Google Chrome.

I happened to mention to my husband (whom I love very much) that my browser had begun c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g, and also that I hadn't found the time or spoons to try the next solution on the list to get rid of the latest outbreak of DNS Redirectitis. So my husband (light of my life) did what I was afraid he would do (which was why I tried not to mention it until he noticed on his own) and stayed up until chicken o'clock doing stuff to my computer. He downloaded some program or other from Symantec that we hadn't already been using, found "something," deleted it, realized that my IE was still c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g, and decided that I should use Google Chrome.

So here I am on this new browser.

Anything I should know? Security holes, hidden fees, sites the browser routinely ignores?

213
I've been using it work for Google Streetview. Haven't noticed anything major, except for the total lack of a searchbox. (There may be a way to get one, but I haven't gone hunting for it. Yet.)

Xeger @212, nothing in the description says how long the "rapier" is; if the bracelet is a standard bracelet-size (say, 3-4" in diameter) then, judging by the second-to-last photo, wouldn't the "rapier" really be more of a hold-out knife, about 9" to 12" long? (Still cool, mind you...)

P J Evans (214): It looks as if the address box doubles as a search box. Before I discovered that, I just went to google.com. Oddly, when you do that, Google does *not* then appear in the dropdown list of recently visited sites (not sure of the formal name for that, it's the one from the "back" arrow in the upper left). Disconcerting, at least to me.

Jenny Islander @ 213: I mostly use Chrome. From time to time, a website doesn't seem to be working as I'd expect, so I try it in Firefox and it works there.

Back in the day when IE dominated, it wasn't uncommon to see websites that only worked reliably with it, but that's pretty rare now for any "consumer" website. It is still the case for some corporate web apps that are only intended for employees to use.

Both Firefox and Chrome do very frequent updates so I wouldn't expect to see security holes. No fees. As to ignoring sites — that would be a function of the search engine you decided to use.

In Chrome, just go to the URL address bar and type your search. No need for a separate search box. It defaults to using Google search, but you can change that. I'm using it on a Mac, and to change my default search tool I go to the Chrome menu and select Preferences.

Dave Bell--

I am so sorry to hear this. I hope whatever happens goes as well as possible and that your recovery and rehabilitation go as well as possible.

Cassy B. @ 215 ...
Xeger @212, nothing in the description says how long the "rapier" is; if the bracelet is a standard bracelet-size (say, 3-4" in diameter) then, judging by the second-to-last photo, wouldn't the "rapier" really be more of a hold-out knife, about 9" to 12" long? (Still cool, mind you...)

Details, details ;D Maybe it's a Highlander sword bracelet, or there's a portal of holding involved... :)

xeger @ 219... The kind of portal of holding that allows funny-sounding Highlanders to carry a katana within their trenchcoat's lining?

Serge Broom @ 220 ...
Elegantly and without being noticed, at that !

re particle on AirNZ Hobbit safety video. All the AirNZ safety videos are like that -- entertaining the first few times and really, really trying for frequent flyers. I've already seen the Hobbit one three times.

Jenny Islander@213, I haven't used Google Chrome in a few months; my biggest problem with it was that it was a real memory hog, resulting in it crawling along while the disk swapped, so I couldn't handle anywhere near as many open tabs at once as recent versions of Firefox. (Unfortunately, my work laptop is running 32-bit Win7 instead of 64, because that's what the IT department wants us to use, so I can't add more RAM.) Obviously if it goes faster for you, great!

The other main differences I noticed were that not all of the extensions were quite as flexible (such as some of the link-handling things), but they've been getting better. I had a nagging suspicion that Google might be tracking user behaviour more than Firefox does, so I've tended to limit Chrome to technology-related reading, but I don't have any current evidence for that.

Hmmm... Is it a new ML policy to delete not just spam comments, but also the comments that point out their spamminess? Or maybe it's been this way for a long time and I never noticed. Just curious.

Mary Aileen @216: The latest version of Safari for Mountain Lion (the one I haven't been able to figure out how to make run Java applets) does the same address bar doubling. I guess it's the coming thing. Really, there's no reason why the two need to be separate.

Serge@224: I've noticed that happening as well -- I wouldn't say it's been going on for a long time, but it's been a least a few months. I'm fine with it, personally.

David Goldfarb #225: The latest version of Safari ... does the same address bar doubling. I guess it's the coming thing. Really, there's no reason why the two need to be separate.

If you were sufficiently paranoid, you might not want all your mistyped URLs to go to the search engine, but Firefox defaults to doing that even with two bars.

Serge 224

For the past several months I've been hiding (not deleting) the spam-flag comments, once they've served their purposes.

You'll still see them in the View All links.

Bill Stewart @ 223: I switched from Firefox to Chrome awhile ago, when I realized that Firefox was hogging memory when I had a lot of tabs open. I think the two browsers leapfrog each other — one is better with memory for awhile, then a new version comes out and the other one has the edge.

I just got Scrivener as part of a bundle. Does anyone know of any good videos on the program?

Bruce, Scrivener seems very flexible, and I have a copy myself. I cannot help from hospital, but explore: find the methods which suit you. There is no one true road.

I am on a long road but it is headed in a good direction. Today the Doctors decided not to eesort to surgery. I hope the improvements continue.

They have just removed the "nil by mouth" notice and lunch looks good.

Dave Bell @231:

Stomps, cheers, whistles! I hope things continue to improve!

Also, eet smakelijk.

I've been a part time reference librarian for about eight years now and can say that most of our patrons have trouble distinguishing between the address bar and the search box. At first I tried to educate people, but it was pointless and so I stopped. Browser makers have been quite aware of this all along; I've been seeing people put the things they're looking for in the address bar and getting search results for quite some time now (possibly that whole eight years?)

I suspect that Google decided it would make a good way to simplify Chrome's interface.

Dave Bell, glad to hear it! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dave Bell: three loud cheers!

Possibly for an overly-generic message of congratulations to Dave Bell (yay Dave!).

Dave Bell, that's excellent news. I hope you heal quickly!

Dave, that's excellent news; may the news continue to be good!

Dave Bell: Wonderful news! May all continue to go well.

HLN: Local woman coins new term for thoughts that spin endlessly and unproductively: 'brain gerbils'.

In other news, local woman is still living unlocally until her power is turned back on. Local woman is very grateful for generous sister, who hadn't counted on having a house guest for several weeks instead of several days.

Yay Dave! Hooray for antibiotics! I hope you continue to heal quickly and completely! And now I've used up all my exclamation marks for today....

I don't usually do this sort of thing, but I'm tired, and have not the spoons to keep at this one:

http://manboobz.com/2012/10/29/manosphere-civil-war-avfm-fires-back-at-the-mgtow-rebels-also-kitty-pics/comment-page-2/#comment-217162

Trying to tel them (without losing my shit) that the US Civil War was actually about slavery... tiring.

That they are making a specious argument that post-war racism, chain gangs, etc. PROVES the war wasn't about slavery; and then goes of on bizarre tangents about slavery existing today...

I'm still coping with the disruptions of Sandy (and no, I don't have it as bad as many, but it's still an unholy mess, and I'm going to be affected; directly, for at least another month, with commutes of something like three hours to work... for a six hour shift, minor; compared to no house; but if I don't I will end up with no-house, etc.).

Then again, this is sort of me venting; it's not that I really need support in the whack-a-mole category. Spoons, thin on the ground.

Dave Bell... Yay!

David @ 225... Jim @ 227... Thanks. I had written some of those alerts and couldn't see them when I came back so I was wondering if I had actually hit the 'post' button. I was beginning to consider the need for stronger coffee. As for why I only now noticed, please refer to my earlier caffeination-related words.

janetl--

There are definitely still consumer/general user sites out there that work in IE and mostly work in Safari, but fail in various ugly ways in Firefox. (Some of them are definitely not internal-only: I cannot get anything useful out of Cigna, my health insurance company, using Firefox. Only spurious errors claiming that my password is wrong.)

When the spam-flag vanishes, that means that particular spammer has been dealt with.

The Pie-Song of Dinas Vawr

The pummmpkinn pie is sweeter. but the fish has crispy batter.
We therefore deemed iy meeter to gorge upon the latter.
This so annoyed the ladies who had served pie full of spices,
That they called a strike connubial, denying us all vices.
And so in each November, we eschew all fish and batter,
Pumpkin pie for ever! And no more Lysistrata!

Dave Bell, great news!

HLN: My Amazing Girlfriend is taking her oral qualifying exam this morning - I'll be waiting outside for her when she's done.

#242 ::: Terry Karney

I'm not up for dealing with those arguments, but the url is one of the greatest urls in the the history of the web.

@Dave Bell: Congrats on renewed hope, and enjoy breakfast / lunch!

Dave at 231: Yay!!

Dave: that's good news. (I've just seen events leading up to a leg amputation and, well, it's a procedure that's best avoided by any means short of death.) Hope the good news continues.

Bruce @ 229: The makers of Scrivener have a number of tutorial video on their site here.

Dave Bell: Wonderful news! I hope it heals quickly and well, and I am sure your post-NPO meal tasted wonderful!

Dave Bell -- O frabjous day! Excellent to hear. (Hey, if you can reference Thomas Love Peacock, I can reference Carroll....)

Dave Bell, hip hip HOORAY. I would rather no one whom I hold in any kind of esteem have to go through what I went through this summer. Yes I am getting around and walking pretty normally now. But it was a long delay to walking, and I still wear out pretty quickly.

Hugs of joy across the e-ways!

HLN: My Amazing Girlfriend passed her quals! We're both qualified to be doctoral candidates now!

Congratulations to both Dave Bell and Benjamin Wolfe's AG.

(Aside to Benjamin Wolfe: I'm going to be back in the Bay Area around Thanksgiving and for the week after. Want to meet up? Drop me a line at goldfarbdj at gmail.)

Not sure where best to put this because I haven't been following the political threads, but Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill to allow voters displaced by the storm to vote in any precinct with an affidavit ballot. At the end of that article are links with information about changes in New York polling places due to Hurricane Sandy.

Benjamin Wolfe@258: Congratulations to the Amazing Girlfriend!

Benjamin Wolfe: Yay.... and....

YAY! "\o/"

Dave Bell, hooray!

So I just discovered that in order to bookmark anything using Google Chrome, I have to get a password, establish a username that can't be any of my first sixteen choices plus a G-mail account when I already have three email accounts to check daily, and oh goody now I can comment on a zillion other sites I rarely if ever have the time or inclination to read yayz!!!! Also they want my cell number, and my age and gender so they can decide for me that I want to see ads for shows that middle-aged ladies presumably enjoy (I don't have cable) and products I might like (hi ho, weight loss ads, go to Hell kthxbye).

I'm keeping my bookmarks in a text file on my desktop. C&P works just fine without a password.

Dear gnomes, I am sorry that I cussed at that browser. Would you like some homemade dark chocolate chip cookie bars?

With any browser - I generally use Firefox, but this certainly applies to Chrome as well - I suggest running an adblocker (I like AdBlock Plus, which is free and very, very good). Google will still want your phone number (as an authentication measure if you need to recover your password), but at least it'll block the ads for lousy TV.

I decided to just plain not get a password. I don't have the time, I don't have the spoons, and I think that making me get a password in order to use the bookmark feature in my copy of the fricking software is something the gnomes would not like to read.

Dave Bell: That's great news; hope it continues.

Terry Karney@242: Vent away - it's allowed!

Benjamin Wolfe @258: Congratulations to your AG.

Jenny Islander @264/267: Sympathies, I totally agree with your assessment, and I think you made the right decision.

Jenny Islander @ 267: Google would dearly like you to log into Chrome with a password. I think that allows you to share bookmarks across computers and such-like, but I don't know — I've never logged in. I save bookmarks on the computer I'm using without using any Chrome password..

Dave: That's great news!

Terry: There will never be an end to people who are offensively and stupidly wrong on the internet. So while it's worthwhile to show the flag now and then and point out that nonsense being spouted is indeed nonsense, it's not like you're falling down on the job by not jumping in to correct the latest bit of idiocy.

Bruce E. Durocher II @ #206:

Being much lazier, my usual response to being rung up by an accented stranger keen on helping me fix a terrible problem with my Windows PC is "What if I were to tell you I don't have a Windows PC?"

So far, this has had the same effect as lying outright; apparently Indian scammers are not getting paid enough to untangle English conditional clauses.

(Actually, I find that "I don't have one of those" efficiently disposes of most of the accented telephone calls I get, and usually I don't even have to bend the truth; I genuinely don't own either a house or a mobile phone, and that rules out most of the things accents have tried to sell me lately.)

Paul A...

Two days late, I know, but...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Benjamin Wolfe at 266: thanks for that recommendation. I just installed Adblock Plus (I use Firefox).

BTW: to all ML folks who might be tempted to buy an HP desktop computer: do not do it. I purchased an HP Pavilion last year from my local Staples. It lasted 15 months before the motherboard crashed and burned. (No, I did not have an extended warranty.) I have replaced it with a Dell computer. (My last Dell computer lasted 6 years.) I still own two HP printers, and have nothing bad to say about them (especially the LaserJet, which is seven years old and has given me no trouble; if it were to die tomorrow I would feel that I had gotten my money''s worth), but I cannot recommend HP computers.

I'd concur with Lizzy L's comment on HP computers - my Amazing Girlfriend had a HP Laptop, and I've never seen a worse laptop-oid object. Myriad technical problems - including two logic board replacements - in a 2ish year period. Stay very far away from their computers.

That said, the Amazing Girlfriend and I bought a monstrously large (takes 24" rolls of paper) HP printer off eBay back in March or so - I refurbished it (my guess is that it'd sat in a Florida warehouse for a year or two, so the printheads were very, very dead), but after a few evenings of work, we've got a great printer for $450 or so (between parts and the printer itself) versus $1600 for one new. It's a lot of fun to print 24x36 prints at home (that's larger than you'd think, if you've spent years with a 13x19 printer). HP inkjets, especially the older ones, are absolute tanks. Amazingly, it's cheap to run (I grab genuine HP cartridges off eBay, and I hunt around for cheap good paper). I think the aforementioned 24x36 print is $5 or less to do.

I've less experience with their laser printers, but the only thing I'd advise against is buying really cheap generic cartridges... the lab bought one for a $1000 HP laser that everyone uses, and it nearly dumped a load of toner all over the guts of the printer. We'd killed one laser printer with that trick a year and a half ago, so you'd think the lab would learn...

Congratulations to the bipeds!

And that "Manboobz" page... I can't tell if those people think they're forming a coherent argument, or if they just learn that they do as well, or better, with incoherent ones. Either way: Depressing.

Serge Broom @ #272:

Thank you!

(For the record, I follow the tradition of the birthday octave, so anything less than a week after the official date still counts as on time. Especially if the reason you didn't give greeting any sooner was because I wasn't around.)

My reply to Serge has been gnomed. The enthusiastically grateful Words of Power, I believe.

I scoffed all the mint-infused dark chocolate, but there are still some biscuits in the pantry if the gnomes would like.

Re the Fibonacci Cabinet Parhelion, it's indeed beautiful and impractical. It's actually a Golden Rectangle cabinet, of course.

This reminds me that it's actually a little odd that Fibonacci is chiefly remembered for his sequence (which he didn't even discover himself) that approximates Φ/the Golden Proportion, when actually he did something much more important: he introduced Arabic numerals to Europe, by writing Liber Abaci (The Book of Calculation), which explained the essentially mechanical process of calculating with them. Just about all of our technology would be impossible without Arabic numerals (or some other place-significant system).

Lizzy L (273)/Benjamin Wolfe (274): Oops. I bought an HP desktop last summer, partly on the advice of the library's tech guy, who says Dells have gone way downhill lately.

I haven't exactly had great experiences will Dell machines either - I've used their laptops and desktops, and unless you're buying very high end from them, they're pretty junky (and terrible to service).

Benjamin Wolfe (280): I've had low end Dells before with no problems. My library recently switched from Dells to HPs; we never had any particular problems with the Dells, either. Nor the new HPs, so far.

So, I don't post here often, and I am unsure of my etiquette - but this seems like a twitter # that will provide some entertainment to those that read and post here, and I've not seen it mentioned. Hope this is an appropriate place for it!
#RomneyDeathRally
Some genius played off Romney's unfortunate PA rally, and this happened.

Any suggestions for a movie to watch while avoiding election coverage?

Not to say that all Dell computers are bad, rather that when I've had to fix them - even for something as simple as ripping a hard drive out to make a full copy - the Dells have always made it harder than it needed to be because the company hasn't been willing to spend a few extra dollars for better machining on the case parts. That, and historically, they've been really bad about standardizing on parts within a machine's lifetime. If you've got their service agreement, they're great - but I'd expect them to burn through parts (one of my labmates, who has one of their XPS [high-end gaming] laptops, has had pretty much every single part replaced twice over in three years... and he's nicer to it than I am to my Macbook Pro). My advice to anyone with Dell computers: buy the service plan that makes them come to you.

That, and their LCDs are at the perfect intersection of quality/price for me (I'm staring at a c.2006 24" panel right now).

Mary Aileen,

Import from the fruitcake thread: Would you like to me bake the baked good for you, and ship it downstate for you? (I will need the recipe.)

Dave Bell #231: That's excellent news.

Nancy C. Mittens (285): Thank you for the generous offer, but I'd probably do better to send the recipe to my mother and let her make it for the family holidays.

Lizzy L (273)/Benjamin Wolfe (274)/Mary Ailen (279) ...

From what I can tell, it doesn't much matter if it's Dell or HP or small fury aliens from alpha centauri -- one brand is going to end up working well for some people, and not for others, and vice-versa.

I'm in the camp that's had horrible experiences with Dell, and hasn't had problems with HP (laptops/desktops, in specific). Then again, I've had horrible experiences with Wells-Fargo, and good ones with BoA -- and know plenty of people reporting the inverse.

Mileage varies, frequently horribly.

Xopher HalfTongue @ #278:

For a moment there, I thought you said he was responsible for Liberace.

We have HP desktops (or on-floor) at work and they've actually done pretty well for us.
We also have a color platter (we used to have two), and it's a good machine (it's a 1055).

You can buy rolls of plotter paper through big-box stores; it isn't as expensive as you would expect. Good for sewing patterns, too, if you get the bond paper instead of the coated paper.

Finally checking back in here after an extended 'cannot handle internet socialz' period. Sorry to any who've missed me. All Very Well Here; kidlet has now suddenly begun engaging often in fluent imaginative play (of the 'telling an interactive story as we walk around the house pretending to be on a Quest' sort), so I think she hit some quantum neuron density/interconnectedness/whatever.

Also, I am knitting a scarf for my sister ... in worsted-weight cashmere. This stuff is made of snuggly softness, like everything a dryer-sheet commercial has ever promised you.

And I have a big pot of stew including pork bits and beets that is just the right thickness! I have a recurring stew problem; they tend to either come out watery or cool to such a state that they have to be sliced to put in a bowl for reheating.

Today, the kid not only got a good solid nap, but was asleep before 9:30PM, so we may have a much better morning than FOR WEEKS. I can hope, anyway.

PJ Evans @290: For making sewing patterns, I like the huge rolls of wrapping paper that go on uber-sale around New Year's. The clay-coatedness seems (to me; anecdata) to help them last through folding and refolding.

Odd amputation factoid, for any for whom it might someday become relevant: there are certain lengths of foot prosthetic (measured from the floor to the point where they mount on your leg) that are more prevalent in the Cool And Functional Prosthetics department. If you end up with an unusual length, you may be limited to assistive devices with less design and awesomeness. Quite a few of our returning wounded warriors in the US armed forces are opting to have a little more taken off to put them into a 'better' size quantum range. Something to raise with one's doctor, anyway.

Chaomancer @ 282: Thank you! I can't think of a more delightful way to hear that Romney's conceded, as apparently happened in the last few minutes.

Oh dear gnomes, you would not *believe* the Vietnamese tofu in peanut curry that we have in the fridge. I insist you try some with the fried rice!

An example of how the Dunning-Kruger Effect applies to sex. NSFW link.

I was watching a film built around the impact of technology. In a war against an evil empire, a mad scientist devises an insane weapon to destroy an impossible target. A force of picked pilots is trained to carry out the mission, knowing they face certain death.

They make their attacks trying to hit a precise target as they fly directly at the enemy guns. At great cost, they succeed, and the survivors return to their base.

There is no glorious parade. Their leader has a few letters to write...

Dave Bell@296: Heh. And in this one the good guys get the eminently whistleable march theme...

Re HP vs Dell: I'm still using the 20" monitor that came with the p-o-s HP desktop: it's a very good monitor.

I didn't buy the Extended Warranty this time either.

Used to be computers were over-engineered, you know.

Whistling?

Does the RIAA allow that?

Dave Bell #296:

Was the film by any chance 633 Squadron?

@abi: the link "The Gop and Me" really moved me. I'm relinking that around; thanks for linking it.

Hitler has only got one...

Sorry, wrong tune.

Open Thread-y:

Anyone here have an experience with Portable Apps? I'm particularly interested in Portable Firefox and Thunderbird. Any idea how big a flash drive one would need to use both? I can't seem to find that information anywhere. You'd think it would be on the Portable Apps site somewhere, but if it is, they hid it very well.

(As an aside, why is it that FAQs so seldom have answers to *my* questions?)

I have a pet problem, and I'm looking for advice. AKICWML, so I figured I'd try here first.

My roommate has an exceedingly affectionate cat. She also has a dog, who sleeps with her. During the night, the cat would step on the dog, startling the dog, and waking her up. Her solution was to shut the cat out of her room at night, which is perfectly reasonable.

Before she moved in with me, my roommate had two cats, one of which she had to give away due to the pet limit in our building, so AffectionateCat is lonely at night. She used to just sleep under my bed, but recently she's been sleeping on my bed with me. Again, fine; I had a cat who slept with me when I was a kid. The problem is, this cat sleeps calmly for a few hours... then wakes up and starts trying to lick my face, or paw my face, or rub her whiskers against my face, which wakes me up.

I don't want to just shut her out in the living room every night, but I might have to resort to that in order to get solid sleep. Is there any good way to discourage her from moving about/poking me in the face, while still allowing her up on my bed?

Mary Aileen @ 303: A quick look says that you don't need a particularly big drive to do it - the management app is about 6MB, Firefox is ~70MB, Thunderbird is ~30MB. It lists install size at the download button for each app.

Benjamin Wolfe (305): Thanks. That's what I needed to know. I wasn't seeing the install size by the download buttons, but I guess I just overlooked it.

Mary Aileen @#303 asks:

Anyone here have an experience with Portable Apps?

I used Portable Firefox for a while about 2 years ago, so newer versions (and newer flash drives) should do better. I found it to run pretty slowly compared to the regular version, with all the reading and writing to the flash drive. Otherwise it worked the same and was a good way to have my browser history and bookmarks stored off of the computer and accessible on any usb capable pc. The biggest annoyance was how long it took to save when quitting. As for size of drive, I think I ran it on a 512K or so stick, certainly no bigger than 2gig. It was a vendor freebie, and they tend to be smaller. Bigger gives you more room for other stuff, too.

Leah @304: If AffectionateCat has the common feline aversion to citrus, maybe you could find an orange-scented facial lotion or hair product to apply just before bedtime? I don't know whether anyone makes orange-scented pillows or linen sprays. Or whether bergamot might be sufficiently citrusy to ward her off-- if it is, maybe tucking some Earl Grey teabags into your pillowcase might help?

Leah Miller @ 304 ...
I don't want to just shut her out in the living room every night, but I might have to resort to that in order to get solid sleep. Is there any good way to discourage her from moving about/poking me in the face, while still allowing her up on my bed?

It takes a bit of time/repetition, but I've found that responding to being woken up by hissing and going determinedly back to sleep (or at least pulling the blankets over my head) is clearly understood feline vernacular[0].

If said feline continues to pester after being hissed at and ignored, hiss vigorously, and push off the bed with an object (or a limb under the blankets).

If you actually pay any sort of vaguely positive attention to her when she wakes you up, she'll keep on doing it :(

The result with my cats is that they don't wake me up (anymore). They'll cheerfully be pests once I _am_ awake (or at least semi-conscious), but not until then.

[0] This also turns out to be well understood by 6yr olds, when they wake you up, although somewhat embarrassing to explain to their parents, once you're fully conscious.

Dave Bell #296:

Well this weekend I'm going to see a Mosquito fly over a dam, is that close?

http://www.facebook.com/ArmisticeinCambridge

European cyclists, may I beg crumbs of your expertise?

Premise: in about 18 months, I will have the happy coincidence of sufficient time and capital to do a historical demography /book research trip that can combine East Anglia and Waterloo, and possibly time for other fun, depending how the final schedule works out. I plan to take advantage of trains and bicycles - I don't want to even consider trying to drive. I won't be camping, having located a B&B in Suffolk central to my interests, and London I have covered well enough. It's Belgium that's got me wondering.
A) Eurostar says it accepts a limited number of bicycles by reservation. How early do I need to make that reservation? (I'm looking at March, April or October of 2014, so can I assume off season?)
B) is Belgium as bike friendly as The Netherlands?
C) my now rusty, but once serviceable French seems to be coming back with study and exposure. I have a year to improve that. My American English is military brat variety, meaning I have a chameleon accent (this can be embarrassing). Any other languages in which I should acquire a working vocabulary? (assuming my Norteno street Spanish and moribund Russian will be useless.)
D) any guides/maps/must see suggestions?
E) any legalities I must imprint in my head?

I'm a good walker, and average 70 hilly miles a week on my bike at altitude; I'll be increasing that over the next year. I've bike toured before, though never with a convenient base.

cajunfj40 (307): Thanks. That's good to know. I mainly want to be able to take my own bookmarks and history with me, but there are ways to work around that.

Belated congratulations to Dave Bell - that is *seriously* good news, as we say - and to Benjamin's AG.

And to Xopher, I can't say how good it is to see you posting here again. I was quite concerned, what with all the Martian Death Tripods marching through Hoboken and - what? - oh yes, flooding.

I offer a toast to all who have made it OK through Sandy, the US election, and other recent tribulations. It goes as follows: Let's have a couple months of pleasant calm, OK?

Thank you Clifton. I have a suggestion for the wording of your toast: "To dull times!"

May I grouse? A group of which I am a member has just suggested we "chip in" for a combined x-mas gift to an important member of said group. The amount that was suggested is the equivalent of what I spend on the one carefully chosen Xmas gift for my Family Member - we do Secret Santa to keep the costs down, so only one Family Member must be bought for (although we all get stuff for the Baby, because that's just fun). It is optional, of course, but it sure makes me feel poor, cheap and/or the only person who is not a grown-up in the group. Because a real grown-up would have that amount of money just lying around in the sofa cushions to "chip in".

nerdycellist @315: Because a real grown-up would have that amount of money just lying around in the sofa cushions to "chip in".

Um...no. Speaking as a grown-up who is currently having to impose "austerity measures" on her own budget. Just: no. :-)

nerdycellist #315: Not in the least. I'm a grown-up, and I'm also our sole income, and Husband has been looking for work since he was laid off in March. (Most of the time he doesn't even get rejection notices--this week he's gotten three in a row. And his bennies run out on the 29th of December.) The moneys, they are tight, and your income has nothing to do with whether you're a "real" grown-up.

Honestly, your situation is yet another example of why I don't like "let's all chip in" gift arrangements--all too frequently, the person making the suggestion has no idea that what might be a reasonable amount for hir to spare might be impossible for others.

Mary Aileen, #303: Obviously, your questions are not frequently asked. :-) It's the same reason that lengthy telephone voice-mail menus almost never cover the issue I need to talk to someone about -- I don't call when I have a problem I for which I can find the answer online.

nerdycellist, #315: First, What They Said. What you're seeing here is a variety of privilege in action -- "I can do this, so of course everybody else can too."

Secondly, it's very likely that you're not the only one having that reaction. Can you bring yourself to speak up and say, "That amount of money doesn't fit into our household budget"? Because if you do, there's a good chance a few other people will do so as well, and a different approach will be proposed.

Help, my e-mail has just been hacked -- need advice!

I have two e-mail addresses, one gmail, one an old earthlink address which I maintain but no longer use. Today I received messages from a bunch of folks suggesting that the old address has been hacked: these folks got a stupid commercial message which was definitely not from me.

What should I do? I can contact earthlink and cancel the old address, that seems simplest. Is it sufficient? Should I do anything else? Advice much appreciated!

Do you use the old email address for anything? Do you have emails saved there that you want to keep? Contacting Earthlink is a good place to start and you should be able to migrate anything saved to gmail without too much trouble.

Benjamin, the answers to your questions are yes, & no. It's the e-mail address I use at a few -- not many -- websites. But that's easy to change.

I'm thinking it's really time to cancel the address. I've kept it only because it was an old business address.

It's possible that your account was not hacked. I seriously doubt the spam was actually sent from your account. Checking full headers of the spam would probably show that the real origin of the mail was somewhere in Bulgaria.

It's trivially easy for spammers to type just anything in the FROM block of their spam; sometimes it turns out to the a real email address.

re: "Let's all chip in"--I really like the way this is done at my office.

"So-and-so has such-and-such--lets give them a gift from the group. There will be an envelope on my office door until Friday." Whatever's in the envelope on Friday goes to the person. Absolutely no transparency as to who gave how much.

I like that method better. My office just passes around cards to be signed, because it's a small family company and they all know how little we make...

323/324
Mine passes around an envelope or a folder with card and (if a gift is involved) an envelope. No one knows if, or how much, you give. (There's usually a check-off list on the front, because people aren't always at their desks when the card is passed around.)

I like the anonymous envelope idea. The gift was suggested "in good faith" and it's optional, but I'm already butt-hurt. I will probably pitch in about $20-$40, which I can do and still afford Ardala's physical therapy, a pair of non-Croc shoes for the winter and decent food for the month. I need to find a non-rich group of associates. They mean well, but they're just not in the same reality that I am.

Crap.

An old college buddy, whom at least two semi-regulars here know (and that others may know from his years as a guest liason for a local SF convention), found out that his daughter has an aggressive cancer.

Meaning he may lose a second child to cancer in five years.

I'm thinking of a Kickstarter project to locate God's balls, so I can arrange a kicking party.

Jim, thank you. It's possible I was caught up in the Linkedin hack; it's the e-mail address I linked to them. I've canceled the Linkedin account, and will cancel the old e-mail account tomorrow. I spent a lot of time this afternoon changing passwords, just in case. Grrr.

Jim (& Lizzy):

I sent Lizzy a full set of headers early this morning, when I received the spam message from her account. The spam used the ISP's SMTP servers and did not appear, to me, to be a case of simple email address harvesting.

If Lizzy changed the password to something strong,this afternoon, that should probably be the end of spam from it through the ISP's SMTP servers. Typically, the way accounts get cracked like that is that the account has been targeted for some reason (i.e., public display on a high-traffic website) and the old password is easy to crack.

Lizzy: it might not hurt to run an A-V scan on the computer with a good, current utility to rule out the presence of keystroke loggers that could have trapped the old password.

If you do cancel the old account, you may want to see if you can arrange to have its mail forwarded to another "neutral" free account, for awhile, if you think anything real might still be sent to it.

Telling Jim and Lizzie that the ISP's SMTP servers were used in the spam from her account, so it probably wasn't just an incident of address harvesting.

The internet service at this hospital is a decade-old heap of steaming Microsoft crap.

(It rebooted and I saw the version numbers)

Good news, if my foot continues to heal as it has, I might be home on Monday.

Dave, I hope that it does - then you'll have real internet again.

Re: Dave at home with real internet access

...and a foot.

Wonderful news. Thanks for the updates, wherever they happened to take us.

nerdycellist @ 326 ...
I like the anonymous envelope idea. The gift was suggested "in good faith" and it's optional, but I'm already butt-hurt. I will probably pitch in about $20-$40, which I can do and still afford Ardala's physical therapy, a pair of non-Croc shoes for the winter and decent food for the month. I need to find a non-rich group of associates. They mean well, but they're just not in the same reality that I am.

$20-$40 sounds eminently reasonable to me. I'd almost wonder if they're stuck in "keeping up with the Jones" mode, and it's all Potemkin's houses on their part. Has a specific gift been identified that justifies $$$$$ ?

FWIW, the general question is one that seems to show up in advice columns on a regular basis -- "My friend(s) keep on insisting on doing $$$$ things, and I literally can't afford to be friends with them".

The advice seems to boil down to one or more of "suggest less expensive things to do with them", "say flat out you can't afford that", "hint delicately", "do what you can" or "find new friends", none of which are especially helpful.

Huh, gnomed... and I didn't have any urls at all, this time. Maybe it was the excessive number of dollar signs.

Dave Bell... Bravo!

Over $20 bucks per donor for AN OFFICE GIFT?! In my entire Federal career the most I was ever able to pitch in was $5. And individual baby shower/wedding gifts (if I was attending) were always under $20, because that was what I could afford.

Of course, some of the limitation on amounts was due to Federal ethics rules (for which my personal budget was grateful).

Dave Bell @332:

*does traditional ancient internet happy dance*

The group gift I'm contemplating is not an office gift. It is from my church's governing body, of which I am a member, to help defray immigration costs of a minister. The email came from a member of the group who is a lawyer, and was enthusiastically seconded by a member of the group who is a homeowner in a very expensive neighborhood. (actually, pretty much anywhere around here is a very expensive neighborhood if you are a homeowner). Again, entirely voluntary, but honestly, if I had that kind of cash lying around, I wouldn't be so far behind on my pledge.

I'm crabby, but not nearly as crabby as I get when someone passes the hat at work for the VP's birthday gift (really? she can't buy her own stuff and needs the peons to contribute) or the frequent harrying emails encouraging me to chip in to some manager I've never worked with's baby shower. In both cases, we're not "friends", can barely qualify as "colleagues" and they make much more money than I do. Those requests are easy to laugh at and blow off; this request is for a person I admire, from a group I like and for a good cause. It's stickier for me to deal with emotionally, although quite simple for me to give only what I can afford. I doubt seriously that there will be any judgement from the group - only myself.

nerdycellist @340, that is indeed different from the office situation. If you're the only one judging, I suggest you treat our friend more kindly. :-) You may also want to be up front with the group that you want to contribute and will contribute but can't afford the suggested amount. I have, on occasion, chipped in more than my share on things like that, because I was in a position where I could and I knew others were not. (I've had the shoe on the other foot, too.)

Re the office, I once worked in a small office where the norm was that if you wanted your birthday celebrated, you brought in the cake, bagels, or whatever. We did do the occasional baby shower.

This is . . . wow:

http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/35339803002/oh-snap

Best use of Condescending Willy Wonka this year!

Dave Bell - Good to hear that. May the good news keep coming.

Patrick's Sidelight about killing in the name of safety is bouncing off of a thought I've been having about being hit by a car on Thursday.

I've been hit by cars twice, and nearly-missed once, since I started biking in the Netherlands. This last one was definitely the worst: I fell off my bike, lost some knee skin, and (it develops) got a couple of small but dramatically-colored bruises.

Two of the incidents occurred at T-junctions where I had right of way across the "top bar" of the T. Cars which had stopped (or paused, at least) on their way up the stem didn't see me and started to move again. The third incident was similar, except that the driver was turning from the top bar onto the stem, across my (right-of-way) bike path.

In all three cases, the speeds involved were trivially slow. The drivers, even when they didn't see me, were just not going fast enough to do me any significant damage. There simply wasn't enough momentum in the system to spend.

The other thing to mention is that my commute includes a number of roads where the cycle path is either marked by road color alone, or where there is no cycle path. And yet, I've never been sideswiped. I feel crowded by a car about once a fortnight, but "crowded" means "what are you doing within half a meter of me?".

The roads I cycle on generally have limits of 50 kph (about 30 mph), and are engineered so that that speed feels about right, or perhaps a little fast. There are speed readout cameras along the route, and I note that most cars are under the speed limit rather than touching or exceeding it. A car going 55 kph looks and sounds deeply wrong.

I've been watching one of the roads be gradually re-engineered over the last few years to make it slower: it's been narrowed down, and visually narrowed even more with the addition of visible bike lanes*. It has chokepoints where only one car can pass at once, so that oncoming traffic has to wait. (The bike lanes go around the street furniture that defines the chokepoints; this is a feature for the cars.)

Obviously, this is all in Foreign Europe, where we Do Things Differently.

-----
* Their presence is a social signal rather than a legal one anyway. Cars can drive in the bike lanes if there aren't bikes in them. And cyclists can ride outside of the bike lanes without breaking the law.

abi @344: Chicago is undergoing a massive sea-change in street design, walkability, and bike-friendliness. I think it's basically being imposed from City Hall top-down (with input from walking-friendly aldermen) and very little publicity -- as I've said before, Chicago is a feudal despotism, but sometimes it works in my favor.

This year, the city began installing true protected bike lanes (with bollards between the bikes and the cars, and sometimes with the parked cars between the moving ones and the bikes), as well as 'buffered' bike lanes (which have a 3-5' wide zebra-striped zone between the bikes and the moving cars). In Jan 2012 there were none. Now they are on track to possibly have 20mi of them before snow flies and construction stops.

This is staggeringly fast change, especially for Chicago.

Because there has been almost no communication aimed at the public (though I don't know what would do any good, aside from enormous signs in the actual streets), some cars are treating the wide, protected lanes as a sort of curbside 'express' lane that cars can of-course drive in, despite the bike symbol painted on the pavement; in Chicago, it is illegal (and a ticketable offense) for a car to be driving/parking in a bike lane at any time.

The city is also attempting to roll out something they keep calling BRT that is basically express busses with a painted 'bus-only' lane, and are going to be putting them on some streets that, while currently serving arterial levels of traffic, are right now only two (wide-ish, but not 16') lanes of traffic, two lanes of parking, and occasional median left-turn boxes. They want to put the busses on the left edge of the lane, which will nix the turn-boxes entirely. Massive screaming matches are ensuing between the business-owners on the street, who do not want parking taken away, and drivers, who DO NOT WANT (in the gif sense) to have only one lane of car traffic in each way on the biggest, most arterial north/south street for a mile in each direction.

It is a puzzlement. And a culture clash.

And I'm certain the instant they stripe those bus lanes cars are going to be driving in them constantly, because the CPD hasn't had the manpower to actually ticket people for moving violations and car-operability problems (headlights out, etc) for over a decade now. :-/ They'll probably put license-plate-reading cameras on the busses or the bus-specific traffic signals or something and send out robo-tickets, but still. People are going to be angry, because taking a bus lane from a street already too tight for its rush-hour traffic is NOT the same as reorganizing nice wide lanes to find space for bikes.

And some drivers are already angry enough about the bike lanes to be deliberately rage-driving at bicyclists. :-/

But even in just this partial year, the protected bike lanes are providing 'arterial' ways to bike into the central business district and other places; we are already so much more bike-commutes-possible-to-non-daredevils than I thought was possible last year.

As each street gets repaved in the usual schedule, it is being specifically investigated for its suitability for a 'road diet,' which takes pavement width (and sometimes lanes) away from cars and uses it for other things, plus the installation of pedestrian refuge islands, etc. This is now policy, and it is proceeding ahead with the inexorability of a highway snowplow and what feels like the speed of a hooning motorcyclist.

Exciting times to live in Chicago and be a transit-head, I can tell you.

Teresa, thanks for the link to "Questionnaire". I LOL'ed. If you haven't read scifigrl47's stuff, check it out. Her particular forte is Tony, Jarvis and the bots, and she is awe-inspiring.

Here's another brilliant Avengers fic: Contrary Advisor. There's also a sequel, which is even better. The author's note says that the person does not wish to be identified, so I shan't speculate, but I have a really strong feeling.

I just listened to an interview with John Williams on NPR. Of course they didn't ask him to sing the lyrics to the Indiana Jones theme (are you kidding? This is NPR) or, God forbid, the theme from Superman, but since it came out that he writes lyrics to his themes when he's doing them I keep wondering what the hell the ones are to The Time Tunnel or Jaws.

Nerdycellist @340:

Church related...that is different, I was so grateful at KTC that our donations to the temple or a lama were given in an blank envelope, so it was simple to give what you could afford.

I'll admit I see no graceful way of handling your fellow group member's request. The best I can come up with is a private email stating you don't have the funds to cover that large a donation?

Wish I had some better advice to offer...

A knitted hamster hammock!

So, someone made an assertion on Twitter, I asked him for examples, and after a couple of angry Tweets, and without further response from me (it was a few minutes, no more) he blocked me.

On the other hand, I got reTweeted by Peter Sagal, so overall life is tweet sweet.

HLN: Local area woman signs paperwork to start the short-sale process, making the future simultaneously more concrete and more random. Woman idly wonders what else has accumulated over the several collapsed lifetimes presently tucked away, in addition to the four garbage bags of half-used cosmetic products.

(For the curious, we're hiring a storage unit, and will be moving most of the non-garbage into it. From there, we can handle it a car-load or a day at a time. But I'm a little averse to making permanent decisions when I'm under this much stress; it's a good way to make bad judgements. And yes, the cosmetics went into the trash for hygiene reasons.)

@KayTei: Is the kipple from the former tenant? I didn't realize that cleaning out the home was part of a short sale.

* * *
I watched Cloud Atlas this morning. It was just short of overwhelming. Highly whelming, I guess. A significant cinematic achievement, I think.

Stefan @ 353

Don't I wish! I'd leave it behind in a heartbeat (or hire a dumpster and chuck it all)!

A lot of it is my mother's (who lived here prior to her death) and my aunt's (likewise) and my grandparents' (which both of them inherited) and my sister's (from her life pre-novitiate) and my husband's and my accumulated stuff. It used to also include stuff being held for two of my uncles and my brother, but they have thankfully retrieved their belongings so that I can have less to worry about.

A lot of it has sentimental value, so I'm reluctant to part with anything the family might regret losing, while people are still struggling to come to terms with my mother's death. A small amount has practical value, as we have several family members starting new lives who can benefit from not having to repurchase. Hence the storage unit, until we can decide who inherits what and what else gets donated.

Leah Miller @ 304: I don't want to just shut her out in the living room every night, but I might have to resort to that in order to get solid sleep. Is there any good way to discourage her from moving about/poking me in the face, while still allowing her up on my bed?

Xeger @309 is quite correct that hissing is feline for Leave Me Alone. It works, if done with conviction. My sweetie can't pull it off, but I can.

The other technique for sleep in a house with cats is to never feed them less than 20 minutes after getting up in the morning. When we fed our cats first thing in the morning, they woke us up when we slept in on weekends. When we added the time gap, they forgot about the link.

News from the dept of this is tempting but insane to consider but it *is* tempting...

On December 8 (then the next day), some theaters will be showing the whole "LoTR" trilogy.
The extended version.

The Alamo Drafthouse does an extended trilogy marathon every year, and every year it ends up being scheduled against something else, or when I don't have the money. When they do it, it's a hobbit feast, with a full multi-course meal (and wine with each course!) served through the day, matched when possible to actual instances of meals (or at least mentions of food) on screen.

Some day. Some day.

Fade Manley @ 357... That sounds neat. I know some people who do the one-day "LoTR" marathon with friends at their house. That means more comfortable seating, and quickly accessible bathrooms. I asked what they'll do when the "Hobbit" trilogy is done. I expect that strong coffee will be required.

Friends of mine rented a small theater in Niles for a LOTR showing a few years back. It held maybe 50-75 people, which was just about right for their household, family, friends, filkers, and other local fen. Things were slightly interrupted by an hour of power failure, but it was a nice day. They've occasionally done a Bilbo's Birthday party, complete with various hobbit food throughout the day, though the last time I got to one of those we spent more time watching Firefly episodes than LOTR.

Niles is an old railroad town at the corner of San Francisco Bay and the mountains which was the hub of a lot of silent movie filming, with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and others using it, and the theater also functions as a silent movie museum. (Ithaca NY, where I went to school, also did a lot of silent movies, with the "Perils of Pauline" and trains falling into the gorge, and former movie-star mansions gradually turned into fraternity houses.)

Fade, #357: I've done an extended-LOTR marathon at my place. Food was potluck, and there was a pee break after every disk. Makes things much easier on everybody!

I share your regret about having to miss the LOTR marathons-with-food. One of my friends is renting the Alamo Drafthouse for a private party during the first regular showing of The Hobbit on the 14th, and my partner and I will MAKE time for that.

The Riverview Theater in Minneapolis usually shows all three LotR movies sometime during the winter holiday break. I just checked their website, and they can't this year, due to the upcoming release of The Hobbit. I've never gone; it's usually sold out.

Regarding TNH's IJsheiligen particle (which I read half a paragraph of in Dutch before realizing it was in Dutch): the article talks about how climate change has brought summery weather earlier in the year, but also cites several instances of night frosts in June in recent years.

I wonder whether the dates of the last night frosts will change in the future, and if so, which way. We had a chilly early summer this year, because the upper-atmosphere winds that usually warm northern Europe were elsewhere, or weaker, for most of June and much of July.

Wouldn't it be ironic, in kind of an uncomfortable way, if the forces of warming and the forces of (northern European) cooling were to strike an exact balance, leaving the IJsheligen in place?

On the Roman dodecahedra: None of the descriptions are adequate for me to figure out what's going on with them. Are they all the same size? Are the circular holes in each one all the same sizes? It's clear that the size of hole varies within a dodecahedron, but how do they vary across them? If they're intended to be pipe-bore measurements, the variation should be small. And the icosahedron is a completely different beast, which looks like a censer to me (the holes are much smaller, good for letting smoke out but not for measuring). The dodecahedra have holes that are too big for this. And the wheat-planting explanation: nicely complex, but why the hell would they build something that complex for a fairly simple measurement? And how would they tell which way up the dodecahedron should be, since the different sizes of hole would give different results?

Personal theory: they are mentioned in various documents, but they have a name that is not associated with them. It's probably some sort of pun.

Tom #363: If I got it right, the wheat-planting guy said the icosahedron had one pair of big holes through it, but the additional faces let you put that at enough angles.

For why to build them: Hey, portable, durable, and they double as knicknacks. :-) Hmm... Brass-worker's challenge?

Dave Harmon @364: But why build them all the same, and not build other items that had the same purpose/effect? Occam's Razor applies here. There are enough examples found to indicate there was some reason for consistency in making these.

The Wikipedia article on the dodecahedra mentions different sizes, but doesn't make it clear if the sizes are the sizes of the holes or the sizes of the dodecahedral sides. I can read it either way.

Apparently, each of the holes is a different size. The "Campbell" fellow quoted in one of the articles says that's so at least for the one he found, and the other pictures shown in the three articles suggest the same.

Also, I was moved to inquire, and discovered that "dodecahedron" in Latin would be Dodecaedri.

O, joyous day!

I'm home, with continuing bipedal locomotion.

And decent Internet access.

Flawed though it sometimes can be, the NHS is still pretty good.

Dave Bell @367, excellent news all the way around.

Dave Bell... Huzzah!

Hmm, those dodecahedron are an interesting mystery.
I completely discount the wheat sowing one, beccause why use a complex object when you have your own eyes, skin, and the possibility of using buildings for far greater accuracy? (Although using standing stones for astronomy had probably died out long before) Plus you would expect an entire class of objects that work in similar ways- technology doesn't exist on its own, people use it in lots of different ways.

Reading Wikipedia, the suggestion of pipe diameter checking could be tested by making a database of the hole diameters and positions of known dodecahedri.
Another question would be, what allow are they actually made of? Wikipedia says bronze, and that with their distribution suggests they are a completely civilian object with no connection to the military.
Which would then rather damage the pipe diameter hypothsis.

They do remind me of the stone balls found in Orkney, which have no known use but are quite decorative.
The candle idea is interesting, but why so many different sizes of hole when normally you just cut the candle to size?

And some sort of survey instrument connection would sound plausible but I don't recall reading of any missing necessary parts for Roman survey instruments, and of course you'd expect to find them closer to the mediteranean.

Circles and circles within them remind me of the cup and ring marks found in Scotland, which are a lot earlier than these, and yet I wonder what sort of religious links there might be.

Glad to hear it Dave!

stone balls found in Orkney

Weights for simple pre-loom weaving - the kind where you tack your warp strands to a rafter and move the weft either in a ball or (more sophisticated) on a shuttle.

Not talking lace-weight yarn here - something thick and substantial. Perhaps the weft is roving. Gets wool from fresh off the sheep to a bed covering as quickly as possible.

guthrie: I discount the wheat-sowing idea because it'd be much simpler to make an L-shaped doodad with a line across the bottom bar; when the shadow from the upright hits the line, that's the right day (or the day you base your calculations on, at lesat).

Personally, I think some bronzesmith decided to make a cool little thing to demonstrate his skillz, and it caught on.

I can't remember (or find) the attribution from one of those time-traveling stories, but the old woman who lived with her brother (Wales?) was doing a variation on this type of weaving, where the strands formed both the warp and weft, with the fabric woven on the bias.

IIRC the visitor was done in by the brother.

Roughly like this guess about paleoweaving.

This looks like the flat braid sailors make, but it was with many more strands, a piece of fabric. The weights made me think of yoyos, and googling the Orkney stone images showed them looking like yarn could easily be wound around them. As soon as technology (or more likely, space) made looms possible, this was supplanted as it was enormously labor-intensive.

Anyone got the story? Part of the dynamic was that the locals developed a folk tradition and laid for the new crop of insensitive travelers who showed up every generation or so.

Could it be used for sizing something like reeds? (Gods know why, I don't.)

I thought I might have a lead and looked through a book on Villard de Honnecourt's drawings (medieval builder) to see if there might be something similar roughly a millennium later, but no joy ... not even things that might require something like that in order to function. (Closest drawing was for a way to build a keystone arch, and I couldn't imagine how you would need different-sized whatevers to actually set it up.)

You know those plastic toy balls with holes of different shapes, and different shaped blocks to put them in? Maybe it's a toy or puzzle, to teach kids about objects of different sizes. Although you'd think there'd be toy balls to go with it nearby. Unless they were wooden?

I'm saddened to learn of the death of Kevin O'Donnell. His books were a great deal of fun, and he was a real mensch the times I got to talk with him. Thank you, abi, for pointing to his memorial page.

Roman dodecahedron: Pshaw. They're obviously artifacts left behind by the Van Daniken aliens.

(BTW, in the category of things that don't move the cursor around the screen: if you're used to the trackpad on your macbook, and you sit down to a desktop mac with a wifi track board, rubbing your finger around on the tabletop in front of the keyboard does absolutely no good.)

There have been some disturbing allegations against Kevin Clash, the muppeteer behind Elmo. He has taken a leave from his work with Sesame Workshop while this all gets dealt with; I have a sinking feeling that no matter how it is resolved, whether the allegations are proved true or false, his career may be over.

If they are true, he deserves it, of course, but ...

I was born in 1968. As a teenager, I spent a lot of my meager spending money at the Waldenbooks in the big mall the next town over.

I knew the SF&F section well, but now that I think about it, I don't think I ever saw a trade paperback. Was that just not a thing back in the 80s? Was it a thing but I just didn't notice? As far as I knew then, the life cycle of books was a hardcover release for, like, libraries or rich people, and then some time later a mass-market paperback release.

#381: I remember SF trade paperbacks appearing . . . hmmm. Late 70s? Well, I remember receiving a gift-copy of a Larry Niven book in that format. "Jigsaw Girl?" And a copy of a fantasy novel whose title escapes me. "Parsifal" maybe?

#380: That's sad news. I find Elmo profoundly annoying, but was impressed by Clash's drive and talent, as show in a documentary about him.

Trade paperbacks are a lot more common now than they were when I was a kid, at least. I can remember getting angry when it became common for books to go hardcover-trade-mass market rather than skipping the middle step.

Thank you, abi, for the parhelion pointing to Kevin O'Donnell's memorial. Though I never met him, I enjoyed his books immensely, especially the McGill Feighan series. He had a distinctive voice and style, and he will be missed.

abi@362, one of the real risks of global warming is that Arctic ice melts could disrupt the Gulf Stream and other parts of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation, in which case Europe's climate could end up in deep trouble, considering that you're a bit north of Saskatoon, and Edinburgh's about even with Ketchikan.

Laertes @381: trade paperbacks were scarcer then, but they did exist. They go way back, actually -- the Tauchnitz paperback editions predate the modern mass market paperback, and dime novels predate them. In genre, bestseller The Sword of Shannara was a 1977 simultaneous hb/tpb, to give an early example of tpbs rising. I could give dozens more off the top of my head. My google-fu isn't giving me a start date for the Quality Paperback Book Club, but I think it's in the 70s; and Time/Life was certainly doing some wonderful tpbs earlier than that.

That Roman Dodecahedron?

Looks to me like a puzzle with the loop of cord and the ring missing.

If you magnify it enough, the inscription says "Dudus, mea Pumilio totaliter appropriatae vestra barbarus."

More seriously, though, the Romans did a lot of gambling, with knucklebones as the traditional dice.

They even gave different odds to the way the astraguli fell. Too bad Google keeps sending me to astragalus the herb rather than astragulus the bone, or I'd have useful links for you.

Dave Bell, that is wonderful news. Glad you are ambulatory and still bipedal.
Hugs across the e-ways!

Mel R. Pew @210: Well, that's kind of what I was thinking. Gloom.

It's balanced out somewhat by a seemingly disproportionate number of them (not me!) being kind and generous personally, which I think is why libertarianism is still taken seriously.

On another gloomy topic, does anyone know more about these folks' stuff?

http://www.peakmoment.tv/

We're planning events at church and folks are zeroing in on the videos available at this site. Something about it makes my BS meter tick but I can't find any reason why. Do you know more?

Do the SCP Foundation know that there's more than one of SCP-184?

Fuming a little. One of the jerkier inhabitants of another site just responded to a systematic takedown (not mine, another guy's) of his political nonsense with "you have kind of a crush on me, don't you?"

Then he asserted there was nothing homophobic about that.

Frackin' jackhole.

Xopher #394: It's amazing how that goes, isn't it? You have my sympathies; my husband gets called all sorts of homophobic slurs when he out-logics a right-winger, and it throws them into a tailspin when he's not offended, and then points out their homophobia.

Dave Crisp: But only one Time Lord to operate the resulting structure.

If you happen to encounter a phisher over dinner, please point out to them that it kind of blows their cover when they put their entire message, including all of the html code, in the subject line of their email.

Yeesh.

Xopher @394: I have to admit I was a little taken aback by that too. I knew the guy was a dickweed, but the "LOL U GAY" came rather out of left field.

and @396: now you've got me wondering what the SCP guys would make of a sonic screwdriver

He's intent on proving himself an ever-greater dickweed.

And I was working, for a while, on an SCP writeup of the Golden Helmet of Mambrino (provides invulnerability but if worn in bright sunlight convinces the wearer that s/he is a barber).

The guy who accused "Elmo" puppeteer Kevin Clash of an underage relationship has withdrawn his claim.

I still find Elmo annoying, but I'm glad the talented Mr. Clash is cleared.

I will be in Chicago for training from the 9th to the 14th of December. I am expecting it be intense, so I would prefer not to plan anything on a weeknight - would anyone be interested in a Chicago area mini meetup in the late afternoon of Sunday the ninth?

Re: The "disaster utopia" sidebar: The article utterly neglects the findings of games theory regarding cooperation vs. conflict, which easily explains the "disaster utopia" effect. The larger society is an open field where cooperation and conflict are mixed... but in a disaster, suddenly there's a Big Enemy present, and people band together against that.

The disruption of normal social patterns will help with that -- when your office is underwater, your relationship to your boss is liable to change!

Nancy C Mittens, in re a Chicago Mini-Gathering-of-Light Dec 9th: I'm in, possibly with my preschooler, depending on venue and activities.

Stefan Jones: There's at least one claim out there that this was to forcibly out Clash, which is a jerk move.

My favorite line from the SCP Wiki FAQ:

When a mod says "Stop" they mean, "Talk louder and more stupid", right?

Nancy Mittens

I'm not sure about my schedule, but I'm interested. Email at my first and last names all shoved together at the company of yahoo.

It seems that my source for a change in the tax rules which Amazon apply on Kindle Royalties was wrong.

It's still a case of dealing with a US company, wherever you are in the world, getting 30% of the Royalties withheld for the IRS, and jumping though the labyrinthine hoops of international tax management.

Considering how much business Amazon do in the UK and bow they take advantage of those same labyrinthine hoops to minimise the tax they pay, I find it hard to have any sympathy for what happened earlier this week, when they were hauled over the coals by a parliamentary committee. And the European Commission has them in their bomb sights over the way they're based in Luxembourg to take advantage of that country's unusually low tax rates.

At the moment, the rate difference on ebooks is so great that anyone selling them to the EU really has to operate from Luxembourg, or face a cost penalty of some 15%.

UK tax on Amazon--it's going to hurt me, but I cannot totally suppress my joy at the thought of them being kicked in the corporate nadgers.

Stunning video; this is going on my list of unicorn chasers.

408
It's today's Astronomy Picture, also

Beautiful and informative videos: they each take a full day's movements of the vehicles of a public transit system and animate them as white dots on a black field, sketching out streets and routes like a bloodstream.

There are ten or fifteen cities/regions animated so far.

This is intolerable. Dear God. My church has much to answer for. I hope this hospital can be called to account.

Remembering scenes from Cloud Atlas is like having flashbacks.

I may have to see that movie again.

I recently read some links, probably at ML, about the history of the religious right and abortion-- in particular that the religious right wasn't even interested in opposing abortion until something like the seventies. Does anyone else remember where they were?

In the course of searching, I found a lecture by Randall Balmer which has quite a bit of detail about the anti-abortion plank getting added as an odd side effect of Bob Jones University having discriminatory racial policies and not wanting to lose tax-exempt status.

Nancy @ 413

You may be thinking of this:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/

and/or this:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/30/hey-remember-when-evangelicals-were-pro-choice-because-of-the-bible-what-a-difference-30-years-makes/

Nancy Lebovitz @413, you want the Slactivist. Fred Clark's writing is interesting in general. He is most well-known for his dissection of the Left Behind books, but I find much of his writing illuminating.

Tea?

413
Slacktivist, most likely.

Banana?

Egg fried in a hole in a piece of bread?

(I bet we were all gnomed for the same link)

Cally, it looks like it!

I've adjusted the filter that's been taking out Slacktivist.

Stefan Jones @353: I watched Cloud Atlas this morning. It was just short of overwhelming. Highly whelming, I guess. A significant cinematic achievement, I think.

OMG! Me too. What you said. Etc. I may have to see it again. (I wonder if the DVD version is going to be 5 hours; looked like they cut some stuff out.)

Dave Bell: Yay!!

Tom Whitmore @390: A search on astragulus bone seems to produce what you're looking for. Searching on astragulus bone game produces a Wikipedia article on knucklebones as the top result.

Is anyone besides me having trouble getting the "younger than a happy meal" article to load? It won't do it for me.

424
I'm not seeing it on the front page, so try here.
In case the link doesn't work, it's from last February, at Slacktivist.

Lizzy @ 411: The death of Savita Halappanavar was avoidable. Dr. Jen Gunter also blogged about that here, and made some very good points about the medical malpractice that occurred.

Ginger, thanks for the link. I had no doubt that the medical care offered to this women was sub-standard, but I appreciate having that confirmed.

I am having a very hard time with this.

P J Evans, that direct link won't load. I tried going right to it, and I tried sneaking up on it from the previous entry in the archives, and that page just. won't. load.

Any suggestions?

The page is loading fine for me. Clear cache, restart browser?

Lizzy @ 427: It's very important to me too, for many reasons. The entire situation is just a violation of basic human decency. An Irish friend of mine requested that I write to the Irish Embassy, and other places, to add my voice in protest. I am composing a letter, carefully.

Ginger at 430: my issue, alas, is with my church, and writing a letter will not help. Not that you should not write as many letters as you like: there's plenty of culpability to go around.

"Let's all chip in" gift arrangements: my least favorite coworker is (finally!) retiring this month. Another coworker just sent around an email suggesting we get him something "really nice" as a retirement gift. Maybe an iPad? Since payday is the day after the party, "just tell me the amount you're committing to."

Um, no. Particularly since, given my current situation, things like vet bills have to come out of savings.

A second email just came around: "Oh, just pay what you're comfortable with." For me, that will be a big, fat, goose egg.

AKICIML : I have been tasked with producing the annual Christmas pageant at our church (US Episcopal not very high). The tradition is to use a lessons and carols format and have the pageant at the beginning of the main service on Sunday morning. The last two pageants have focused on Mary and the Incarnation and this year I'd like to focus a bit more on the shepherds and angels since the Sunday School has been following a theme of "The Good Shepherd"

I have a decent selection of older children/youth for readers etc. and three or four lower elementary age children who can read/sing etc. I don't have a good script. The last two were written by someone who is no longer with us...ideas and or links would be much appreciated...K

Kyndra, I have no good idea for scripts, but you could use Jefferson Airplane's Good Shepherd as a soundtrack. ;)

"Musicians duet better."

Bumper sticker sighted today.

Open Threadiness: Draggable pre-/post-Sandy satellite pix.

Kyndra @433: Dr. Rivka (who once wrote Respectful of Otters and is now chronicling her homeschooling experiences at Tinderbox) wrote a really interesting little-kids pageant based upon The Friendly Beasts a while ago, and another more general one in 2010

Elliott Mason @437

I remember her writing those now that you mention them...thanks!...K

Can I offer a nice cuppa? ...K

Department of Totally Frivolous Literary Questions: In Barrayaran society, is the syllable "Vor" always unaccented? (Example: would Ivan's last name be pronounced VORpaTRIL or vorPAtril?)

Lee @440: According to one of LMB's mailing list FAQs, Vor surnames generally have the second syllable stressed.

I'm not sure if I've ever heard anyone say it out loud; I've always heard the latter pronunciation in my head ("vorPATril") and indeed all the Vor names I can think of off the top of my head I accent on the second syllable.

I think Vorharopulos (which I think is probably vor-ha-ROP-u-los) may be one exception. I think the rule is that the root name keeps its stress, and the Vor- prefix is never stressed. (That would be wrong if Vorkosigan is after Kosygin, which is stressed on the second syllable.)

Hmm. Looks like it is. Which would mean either there's no consistent rule, or Vorharopulos is vor-HAR-o-pu-los.

Xopher, maybe the stress shifts over time. If somebody is of a family with recent Vor-status, maybe it is still an unstressed prefix, but things shift over a generation or two. But cousin Fred might still use Vor-ko-SY-gin when he wants to make a point: near in blood but not Vor.

As the generations pass, the balance shifts, and the non-Vor name is no longer so close in lineage, and the stress shifts.

Does that sound plausible?

HLN: Area woman's small New England town is shaken by clergy misbehavior incident (controlled substances type) by the officiant of the congregation next door. Area woman feels slightly guilty for being relieved it's Not My Church Thank God.

I hate it when stupid things like this happen.

Thena @446: Clergy misbehavior incidents -- and things misreported/twisted into presumed clergy misbehavior -- can be really, really disruptive.

My parish priest when I was in grade school was a gentle, friendly, enormous redhead of a man, who instantly put all his non-pastor-duties time into ministering to AIDS victims when that whole story broke. Visiting The Sick, like you're supposed to. Bringing them meals. Helping them into and out of bed. And so on.

He got side-eyed kind of hard by the more conservative members of the parish, but they were also a little proud of him for 'going so far' in following the directives of the Gospels to minister to the outcast and undeserving.

Until he suddenly had a positive test.

Then they instantly all moved to assuming he was a Dirty Homosexual, and always had been, and also a liar and unfit for his collar ... and they defected en masse to other congregations. I have no idea what, if any, his preferences were; it always seemed more likely to me that he got innocently infected in the course of caring for sick people with lots of loose body fluids sitting around.

He spent his last two years bedridden in the rectory, being cared for by the priest who would be named pastor after him (but, in a staggering gesture of compassion from Cardinal Bernardin, he was allowed to remain pastor in name until his death) and some of the nuns from my school's penguin-house ... and visited almost never by some of his former staunchest friends and allies in church work.

It was sobering for me to be on the sidelines of, especially because I never really bought the 'only bad people get AIDS' narrative, because my mom was friends with mass quantities of artists, queers, and self-identified Freaks.

Many years later I was shocked to realize that I am in a sort of mini-generation, psychologically: to the kids the age of the characters in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (a bit older than me), the worst things that could happen from wild sex were pregnancy and syphilis, and you could get a shot for syphilis. To my baby sisters (13+ years younger than me), AIDS has never been untreatable, and cancer is way scarier.

But to me and my tranche, for a formative period of our lives, AIDS was scarier than cancer. Scarier than ANYTHING. Because not only 'could you get it' in all kinds of random ways (like public toilets, Halloween candy, and water glasses), turning up postive meant everyone you knew would assume you were Evil.

Ryan White was my age, roughly.

BP will pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in relation to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Note: this has no effect on any of the civil lawsuits currently in process against BP.

Link to a Reuters article, or a Word of Power perhaps.

Regarding Jim's latest Diffraction, End of the Line for Twinkies--

This story has been much circulated on Twitter and elsewhere, but if you actually look at it in detail -- even on a site as reflexively pro-business and anti-union as CNN Money -- several things are clear. First, this is a maneuver in a bankruptcy-court game of chicken. Second, it's a maneuver in an extended piece of union-busting. Third and most pertinent to the silly headlines being attached to this story, there is approximately 0.00% chance that this is actually the "end of the line" for venerable brands like Twinkies, Drake's Devil Dogs, and Wonder Bread. Appalling though these products are, their long-established popularity means that they own miles and miles of space in grocery-store planograms all over America. So someone is going to keep making these products under these brands.

What's happening here is that the current ownership of Hostess Brands is trying to get the best deal it can in an ongoing bankruptcy proceeding, and is taking the opportunity to get a nice unions-spoil-everything narrative into the national media.

Didn't someone already make a movie about the malevolence of Twinkie filling? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stuff

(This movie was so bad, it was good. Something like Plan Nine meets The Blob.)

Also, Hostess is just plain lying.

May I add that Hostess isn't owned by anyone in the food business: It's owned by a couple of venture capital groups.

We could have a remake of Little Caesar called Little Twinkie, with classic line "Is this the end of RICO?"

For some reason, I had read Jim's Diffraction as ending in a question mark, and so applied Betteridge's law of headlines:
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".

*has a sudden vivid memory of the expression on Patrick's face when he saw the Hostess Bakery Thriftshop with a sign that said "BARGIN DAY"*

And it can't be the end of Twinkies. Twinkies are forever, man. The Twinkie abides, as it were.

The gnomes are welcome to eat the foodstuff mentioned in the gnomed post. :-)

Elliott Mason, I am of the age that I know who Ryan White is without having to think about it.

Lila (457): Me, too. Although I might not place the name immediately without the mentions of AIDS.

> So someone is going to keep making these products under these brands.

I think that's clearly true, although there's also a good chance that the new owner of the brand will alter the recipe.

Of course, there's no way to tell if Hostess alters the recipe, so it's not that big a change.

Lee @448:

The largest fine in US history, and it's still just a slap on the wrist. It's less than BP's net profit last quarter.

What would be interesting would be if Bimbo Bakeries -- Hostess' largest competitor, who is doing quite well, thank you, despite being fully unionized AND paying better wages -- were to buy the rights to the brand names and make them into decent products again.

Robert, #460: If you were to compare the ingredients list on a current package of Twinkies to one from 30 years ago, it would be painfully obvious that Hostess has indeed altered the recipe. Finer levels of difference may be seen, over time, by checking the order of the listed ingredients. Which isn't exactly what you were talking about, but is still a point worth making.

@Lee:

I once picked up a Bimbo Bakery "Gansito" snack cake.

I ate about half of one of the two in the package. I stopped because it tasted . . . odd. After teasing apart the various components I narrowed down the "Eehhh" factor to the "chocolate" coating, which had a "carob and burnt bread crumbs" vibe.

I put the cake on the ground and called over Kira, my dog. She picked up the cake-half, rolled it around in her mouth, put it down and gave me the stink-eye.

Bimbo Whole Grain White sandwich bread (or, as we call it on the running grocery list in my house, "toast bread") is pretty good, though. Better than the Wonder "whole grain white."

Shirt seen this morning at LA Union Station (subway part):
Occupy Mars

Dave 445: Yes, it does. Also, if you're speaking a language with a second-syllable predictable-stress pattern, that would make them shift over time (but none of Barrayar's languages do, so that's out).

I'm reminded of the fact that Schröders who came to the US became Schroeders, and half of them became SHROW-ders and the other half SHRAY-ders, because ö just isn't a sound in English.

Stefan, #463: Take a look at the website I linked, though, and notice how many well-known, high-quality brands are part of the Bimbo line. They've been buying up smaller companies and then NOT wrecking the product for a couple of decades. I can see Bimbo deciding to rescue the Hostess name from its quality freefall and reverting the recipes back to what they were using 30 or 40 years ago.

@Lee: I hope they can pull it off.

But those Gansitos . . . just horrible.

Author becomes his own distributor.

HLN, post-Sandy division: Local woman's apartment has power! Heat, hot water still not available. "But I can manage," local woman insists. "I have electric space heaters."

Local woman is currently living non-locally, visiting parents in another state. "I'll stay until after Thanksgiving, then return home," she reports. "I'm anxious to get back to my own stuff."

I'm putting this in the open thread since the post about TSA stupidity and malice is a bit stale now.

In the news this morning in the SF Bay Area is the report of a man arrested at Oakland Airport for possessing an "elaborate watch ... which had a large leather strap with a protruding toggle switch, wires and fuses and a circuit board." The man "told authorities he is an artist and the watch was one of his art pieces."

No big deal you might think. But TSA decided this item fell in the category of "bomb-making materials" and arrested him "under a section in the state's penal code that says that 'a person who possesses any substance, material, or any combination of substances or materials, with the intent to make any destructive device or any explosive without first obtaining a valid permit to make that destructive device or explosive, is guilty of a felony.'" Oh, but he did other suspicious things! Like not checking any luggage!

Never mind that the bomb squad examined the watch and found no explosive materials of any kind. Their spokesman's evaluation of the device? "He had every component to make a trigger mechanism. Was it? No. But was everything there? Yes."

So there you go. It wasn't a trigger mechanism ... but it _could_ have been! Any device that some TSA agent could _imagine_ that you might be able to make a trigger mechanism out of can land you in jail on felony charges.

San Jose Mercury News story here.

Mary Aileen, excellent news! Best wishes for an uneventful return after Thanksgiving.

471
I saw that at SFGate. It was the watch, in combination with the oversized shoes with hollow soles and the military-type shirt with built-in tourniquets.

Regarding Avram's Phosphene "What Twitter is turning into": So that's the reason for preceding @-replies with a period! Huh. Color me slow on the uptake; when I first started seeing it, I thought it was a bit of crud on my computer screen. Multiple times.

"Web 1.0 was good enough for my pappy and my grandpappy and it's good enough for you, ya darn whippersnapper. Now, git off my lawn."

Ooh, want to hear some internal rhymes? Look:

Opportunistically lying in wait and grinning giggling lamely at the ashy glow of the painted wall in the streetlamp and suddenly I hear a dead man walking round the corner and the dying fall

You're making up your mind and nervous, humming inanely snatches of the anthem of your good old school out west; forgotten the words and meanings subtle meaninglessness, your time has not yet come so you play the fool

And suddenly crumpling and falling, lifeless, playing a wrinkled fool, to an audience of jaded friends

You're running now frantic feel the rhythmic pace and all the scenery's the same just one repeated shot flickers past and you could swear you've been out here before Mr. Hitchcock; and this stupid mistake will not be your last
nor the last of the creatures entrusted and painted and lined
with precious gems, heirloom for a generation
of bureaucrats --
you switch back now and look him full in the face
and suddenly you find you cannot recognize this familiar caricature, this crudely sketched archetype of disquiet, or you do not want to (and so you fail to), unfamiliar expression you know so well, could trace it out in the dark you reckon soft ivory fingers on imaginary skin and so you stare into his absent eyes and identify yourself with his absent character and longing

And you so long to be there, to be present.

(and he is not sure why?)

[A filter has been adjusted. -- Fius Ceosro, Duty Gnome]

Rikibeth (472): Thanks. Unfortunately, I managed to book a much earlier flight than I had wanted to. I misread the arrival time as the departure time. So I'm going to have to get up by 4:30 AM next Saturday to catch my flight. Oops.

But I'll be glad to get home!

#471 Heather Rose Jones

Hmmm.... do you think they know how to make a trigger mechanism out of a bag of dried beans, or a clothespin and a gum wrapper?

The list of things that you can't make into a trigger mechanism is a whole lot shorter than the list of things that you can.

Is that really true? My followers don't see my replies to people I follow unless they follow them too? Damn, I had no idea. You put the dot before the @?

One more try

¡Gracias, señor Ceosro!

Xopher (479): That can't be right. I see tweets in reply to people that I don't follow all the time. Including tweets from you responding to a variety of other people.

Then what are they talking about? I'm confused.

P J Evans, #473: I notice they don't show a picture of the watch. I would bet my betting nickel that it's a steampunk piece. Yes, even with a circuit board involved.

Xopher (483): Beats the heck out of me. I'm not only a Twitter newbie, I'm also terminally confused in general.

Nicole @474, Xopher 479, it doesn't have to be a dot. Any text'll do; a dot is just easy to type and minimally obtrusive.

Here's the official skinny from Twitter, though I don't see a date on it, so it might be obsolete. There are two things discussed there: @replies (I think that's pronounced "at-replies") and mentions, the former being a sub-category of the latter.

A mention is any tweet that contains a user's handle with the @ sign in front of it, anywhere in the body of the tweet. An @reply is a mention where the @handle is the first thing in the tweet. That's why sticking a period at the front of an @reply demotes it to a regular mention. (Maybe you could use a space instead? I don't know; I haven't tried it. It's possible that Twitter trims leading whitespace.)

Supposedly, people only see other people's @replies if they're following both the sender and the recipient. And if someone you're not following sends you an @reply, it shows up in your Mentions tab instead of your normal timeline.

484
Since the guy was on his way home from something, I wonder if he'd worn the watch on the flight out, or if he'd bought it while he was in the Bay Area (which seems more likely).
I can see, though how a collection of items, each one innocent in itself, could fit together to make a suspect picture for someone whose job is looking for such things.

As discussed here before, I made honigkuchen† today, from my grandmother's recipe*. It's cooling now, then it needs to go into an airtight tin to age** until Christmas. I used dried pineapple, apricot, and cherry instead of the candied orange and lemon peel. I almost forgot to put the honey in, until I realized it was way too dry. And I had to substitute baking powder for the baking soda††; if my mother has any of the latter, I can't find it. So I hope it comes out. The crumbs that fell off when I took it out of the cake pan were good, so that's promising, at least.

†honey cake, very similar to Lebkuchen
*or a cookbook recipe with her annotations, anyway
**Grossmutti used to make it in October for Christmas, so I'm starting late.
††According to the Internets, 2-3 times as much baking powder makes an adequate substitution for baking soda.

Avram (486): Supposedly, people only see other people's @replies if they're following both the sender and the recipient.

This part is definitely not true. I frequently see @replies from senders that I follow to people that I don't. I don't see @replies directed to people I'm following, but I wouldn't expect to when they're posted by people I'm not following.

For what it's worth, I almost always only see @replies directed to people I also follow. There are a few exceptions:

1) The @reply is malformed in some way; a mistyped name, a name accidentally run into the subsequent word, or a reply that's made by typing the name in manually instead of using the reply button.

2) The @reply has itself been retweeted by someone, at which point I see it like any other retweet.

3) The @reply has had a period slapped on front.

#1 is mildly annoying but a common mistake; I ignore those. #2 usually indicates the tweet not only stands alone sans context, but is exceptionally interesting, or is being retweeted by the person who it was sent to, and thus I have the full conversational thread.

#3 drives me absolutely batty, to the point of unfollowing people who do it regularly off my feed.

See, the whole reason to not see @replies unless you also follow the person they're going to is that they're...well, replies. And a reply to something I can't see is meaningless cruft 90% of the time. It's like listening to half of a phone conversation.

Occasionally, people will use the .@reply method to share something more widely that they're also directing at a particular person. In which case... it's annoying formatting, but at least still containing useful content. But I've often seen people use .@reply in baffling ways, so that I'll see a tweet stream that looks something like:

.@horribleperson That's a filthy lie! Never repeat it again!
.@horribleperson No, that's not true either.
.@niceperson Well, yes. But only if you add cream after you've blended the sugar and butter already.

It's maddening. If an @reply can't stand on its own without any context apart from it, it's probably a bad idea to break it out to make sure all followers see it. And I implore all those who have just discovered this function to use it carefully, because I am apparently a twitchy person with finicky beliefs about how social media get used.

.@490 It's like listening to half of a phone conversation.

@Hofstatder: Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles

I used it for a bit after seeing that, but now I see good reasons not to. I'm pretty sure I see @replies FROM all my followees, whether I follow the recipient or not. That's how I want it. So no more .@replyies for me.

A Roman Catholic priest and bishop in Minnesota have told a teenager that he can be confirmed only if he denounces gay rights.

The priest who's been denying the confirmation (and also denying the family communion!) is Father Gary LaMoine. Here's the address of the church:

Barnesville Assumption Church
307 Front Steet North
Barnesville, MN 56514

Fr. Gary LaMoine (Pastor): 218-354-7320

The bishop who told Lennon Cihak that he could be confirmed if and only if he denounced his support for gay rights is Michael J. Hoeppner. His address is

Diocese of Crookston
1200 Memorial Drive
Crookston, MN 56716

Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner: 218-281-4533

It's not the whole church. There are plenty of parishes where nothing like this could ever, ever happen. Just a couple of bad men. Very much in line with the Pope's position, but they affirmatively took action to tell the kid he has to do a Galileo. And IIUC denying the family communion is extreme and outrageous.

Wait, what? Excommunicating a family because one of its members supports legal protection for people who behave in a manner the Church considers unacceptable?

Folks, as a backslid Episcopalian I feel comfortable telling you that my former co-religionists would be happy to have you. If, y'know, you wanted to be welcome somewhere.

And if you wanted to shake the dust off your feet as you come in the door, nobody would blame you.

Lila, 494: Well, we have some vicious assholes too. The Diocese of South Carolina just voted to leave the EC-USA. But I'm pretty sure the Minnesota diocese is full of normal people.

Speaking of the Episcopalian Church, I still miss Aidan Quinn's all-too-shortlived TV series "The Book of Daniel".

Anybody interested in a Gathering of Light on Monday, December 3, at 6:30pm? D Potter and I will be meeting at Oakland's Breads of India, a couple of blocks from the 12th Street BART station. Interested? My email address is sergeunderscoreLJatcomcastdotcom. Or post here.

Serge at 497, wish I could join you, but I teach Monday evenings. Tuesday evening I am free, if there's any possibility of a change in the day. But I expect not -- sparkle on!

Xopher at 493, I have read that the priest is now denying that he refused the boy confirmation, and he is also refusing to answer any questions. His behavior, and that of his bishop, sucks.

This case, and of course the death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland, has been making me crazy, to the point where I have considered severing my membership in my parish. (My pastor has never done anything like this.) I have made my peace with staying, for now, by adopting the idea of a parallel church. The parallel church is the real one, the one which feeds the hungry and shelters the homeless, the one which celebrates Christ's resurrection and which teaches that we are all God's children. The bishops -- well, they're welcome in it anytime.

Good morning, Your Lownesses! Would you like some persimmons?

Lizzy L: Tuesday would also be fine. (Serge sent email.)

Lizzy L @499: Yeah, the way I figure it is that the bishops would be welcome at my church, but that we stink too much of diversity and love and charity for them. Heh.

(Although I wouldn't want to issue a direct challenge, what with the cathedral a twenty-minute walk away...)

Lizzie L. #499

The Church (Pope, cardinals, archbishops, etc.) is to the church (the Body of Christ; the faithful) as the Worldcon Committee is to fandom.

Serge or D., if the Oakland Gathering of Light has been switched to Tuesday, would you post that here, please. Thanks.

Let it be known henceforth that the Gathering of Light mentionned earlier will instead be held at 6:30pm on Tuesday, December 4, at Oakland's Breads of India.

#503 ::: Jim Macdonald

The Church (Pope, cardinals, archbishops, etc.) is to the church (the Body of Christ; the faithful) as the Worldcon Committee is to fandom.

At best.

Jim 503: There we go.

Also, though you may not have seen it, I want to apologize here (as I have on Facebook) for suggesting on Facebook that Catholics should switch to the Episcopal Church. This is not like suggesting that Boy Scouts switch to Campfire (although there are similar issues with local vs. national/global organizations, church affiliation is a much deeper thing).

I was intemperate and stupid because I was so angry about this. I've left the post up for now, but I'm considering taking it down. It was just plain wrong to say that, and I deeply and unreservedly apologize to my Roman Catholic friends and anyone else I offended with that stupid remark.

Let it be known henceforth that the Gathering of Light mentionned earlier will instead be held at 6:30pm on Tuesday, December 4, at Oakland's Breads of India.

Ah well, I was just about to post a "yes" for the Monday, but then I scrolled down. I'll think of you-all while I'm out dragonboat paddling. I missed last week's practice because I was sick and will miss this coming week's because I'll be in New York, and probably the week after because I'll have just flown home. So I think I really need to show up for practice on the 4th.

(I did think about inquiring about possibly meeting people while I'm in NYC, but my primary purpose there is is to hang out with my newish girlfriend and the various socializing schedules are already a bit complex.)

Heather Rose Jones @ 508... I hope you will come.

Serge @ 509

The practice runs from 6-7pm. If you don't mind me showing up in my damp-and-salty exercise clothes, and if there's still anyone there ca. 7:30 I can swing by afterwards.

Heather Rose Jones @ 510... No problem at all. See you at the Gathering!

Jim Macdonald @503: The Church (Pope, cardinals, archbishops, etc.) is to the church (the Body of Christ; the faithful) as the Worldcon Committee is to fandom.

And remember the crazy site-rotation fan-feuds between Rome and Avignon?

Serge Broom @497(and later): I'm returning to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving Day, and staying on until the next week to play in the North American Bridge Championships...but I'm flying back to Houston on Monday the 3rd. Sigh.

(At that, to accommodate me we'd need to move it back to the previous week, and forward in time to 5 or so -- I'd need to be back in San Francisco to play by 7:30.)

David Goldfarb @ 513... Drat! Well, if your plans change, let us know.

Seeing as I have non-refundable plane tickets, it's not at all likely.

Another followup with the doctor, another "looks OK, come see me in three months." Many more of these and I'll start thinking the cancer's really gone for good.

Not yet though.

Just call me Xerxes!

Good news, Xopher! One case where like the "negative," eh?