Finally got home late last night, after my flight from Newark being delayed for a few hours after we were on the plane. *sigh*
I only made it to the ML party a few minutes before we were kicked out of the initial location, and I opted to go back to my hotel and sleep instead of hang around in hopes a new one might be found, but I did manage to grab one of the chocolates on my way out.
I'll be on the Adirondack on Wednesday.
the planned dialogue between Charles Stross and Paul Krugman, now scheduled for Thursday night at 9 PM
So glad to hear this. Especially since I didn't already have anything I wanted to attend in that time slot.
One of the reasons I was so psyched to realize that I had NLD was that it explained so much of my life....
Goodness, yes! It's so much easier to give myself permission to suck at the things affected by NLD than it is for everything else, and such a relief to do so.
This post was particularly well-timed for me, though perhaps it ought to say "permission to fail" rather than "permission to suck".
Because on Friday the new job that had been created specifically for me, which I'd been excited about, and which I'd only really been able to start a week ago was declared redundant. (Which I'm pretty sure is code for "she's been here long enough that she makes more than we want to pay", given that it was a brand new program.)
The timing is particularly bad--on July 1 I had just signed a 2-year lease on a new apartment, wherease if I'd known I was about to be unemployed I could have arranged to move to North Carolina, where I could live rent-free while jobhunting--and I'm still kind of in shock.
While the past 11 years of experience working with libraries means more than likely I'll end up stuck working in one despite not having an MLS, what I'd like to do is get into testing. Someone upthread mentioned the OTW and the Archive of Our Own; I've been on the QA team for the Archive since the project got off the ground last February, and Test Lead for about 6 months now. The fact that we have "training newbie coders" as one of our goals means at least I have an opportunity to use this time to learn Ruby with a lot of resources eager to help me out. (In the process, I've been asked to test our training materials. :))
I've selected Ruby as my first real foray into programming precisely because of those resources, and from what I hear about the wider Ruby community I'm doubly glad to know about the OTW. I don't know if the difference in atmosphere is because the coding team is all female (we have a few men on Systems, I believe, but that's pretty much it as far as I know), or simply because we arose out of a fandom-based culture rather than an IT one, but it sounds like open source projects in general tend to be beginner-unfriendly, even without adding gender to the mix.
Because I recognise too many of those words to not test myself:
Lehet minden nyelvet használni, vagy csak Francais seulement?
may-be every language ('used', I'm guessing?), or just French alone?
Something like that?
How many of you good people might I encounter in Montreal?
I'll be there; my first WorldCon, only my second con. And then a month after that, I've decided I'll probably drop by DragonCon. (It's local, or I'd never consider it. But...Lois McMaster Bujold! So I've bought a membership, and will probably use it at some point.)
Because not having a purpose is scary, is why.
To some people, it apparently is. Possibly even to most. But that's no more a universal than anything else.
I've genuinely never understood why people think life should have a purpose. I've never felt any sort of lack in not having one for my own. I am not upset, or scared, or in any way diminished by my lifelong conviction that life just is, with no inherent meaning or purpose.
And now, for a completely Open Thread-y shift of topic, the incredibly simple pomegranate/raspberry sorbet:
1 l pomegranate juice
1 c (US)* red raspberry preserves, preferably seedless
1 c sugar
juice of 1 lime
pinch of salt
Heat preserves, sugar, lime juice, and salt in roughly 1 cup of pomegranate juice until preserves and sugar are dissolved. (Do not allow to boil.) Mix in remaining pomegranate juice, then chill thoroughly. Churn once the mixture is cold, then freeze.
Very tart, as you'd expect. In my experience it remains nicely scoopable, too.
* Yes, I'm switching units. Presumably 4 c of the pomegranate juice would work just fine, since that's the amount of liquid used in the recipe I adapted this from, but the cheap Turkish pomegranate juice I was using comes in 1 liter boxes, and I just use the whole thing rather than dirty a measuring cup.
Unfortunately, pretty much the only cookbook I have is Alton Brown's baking book, and while I love it to pieces, I don't think it's got anything about cake yeast. I'll check out that link, though!
And yeah, the pomegranate-raspberry sorbet turned out pretty well, I have to admit. Perhaps when I'm putting off packing for my upcoming move tonight I'll see if I can find the details, and post it here.
Was just looking at the cookbook...hadn't realised we'd had a recipe for sugarcake posted! Will have to try that; my aunt keeps promising me hers, but never sending it, and I can't quite bring myself to order it from Dewey's. Mostly because I don't ever want it quite badly enough to pay shipping.
Anyone know how much "a cake of yeast" is? Grams preferred, but teaspoons/tablespoons fine, too. (Must. Not. Bake. Before. The move.)
Perhaps before the next book I'll post my pomegranate-raspberry sorbet recipe. (For that matter, perhaps before there's a next book I'll have gotten around to figuring out a pomegranate ice cream recipe....)
* KY, TN, southern IN and IL, northern AL and GA
Also NC, at least in parts; my father grew up in Winston-Salem, and although he knows there's a difference in those words to some people, he can't hear it unless we really exaggerate it for him. I grew up in Atlanta, and they're different to me (unless I've recently spoken to my father's family).
Someone this current thread leads me to believe was probably David Harmon saying something here a year or two ago about Nonverbal Learning Disorder, which prompted me to do some research, which lead to much of my life suddenly making sense. (Not to mention becoming a lot less stressful, now that when I'm getting really frustrated about just plain not being able to do something that seems to be simple for everyone else, at least sometimes I am able to take a mental step back and identify that, no, I'm not going to be able to do it easily, and there's no point in worrying about it.)
I believe it was abi who started a discussion about QA testing, which led me to realize that the occasional software-breaking I'd been doing for our very small IT department was an actual job, and what it was called, so that when the Organization for Transformative Works was looking for QA volunteers for their archive, I applied. Now it's giving me a direction for my "can't stay in this place any longer than I have to" job search.
In a more general, chain-of-events kind of way, someone I knew online emailing me in summer of 1995 saying, "I was just sent a copy of the cast album of some show in German I've never heard of. I haven't listened to it yet, but it looks like the Dutch Fantine is in the lead. Want a copy?"
I noticed just this week, and thought it strange, that when my department and another closely-connected one had a group lunch, everyone appeared to be getting along and enjoying themselves--but the minute lunch was over, the atmosphere went back to being just as toxic as it was beforehand. That happened the last couple of times we had a department lunch, too, now that I think about it. (Perhaps it's no coincidence that this was the week I finally decided to get out. Though what I'll do next, I've no idea; I just know that the last couple of years in this job have completely turned me off of the idea of doing anything with libraries aside from borrowing books, just by association.) Even more interesting, at the company-wide holiday lunch yesterday we were all scattered over the room, whereas in the past my department had mostly clustered together at such events. We'd be joined by people from other parts of the company, of course, but we did stay in the same vicinity. I guess having a new manager whose admitted goal when coming into the department was to do whatever it took to get rid of everyone already in it will do that.
When I take food in for my colleagues, it's almost always because I've discovered that for some reason I love to bake, even though I loathe cooking, and I can't eat an entire batch of cookies or cinnamon rolls or whatever by myself. (Incidentally, Xopher's Black Hole Brownies of Death have been a huge hit each time I've made them.) The bread, OTOH...all mine.
As for what I'll be doing over the holidays...spending the week alone, which I desperately need. Probably not going to make latkes, much as I love them, simply because my cast iron skillets both need reseasoning and I'm probably not going to get around to doing it. And ever since college, my traditional food on Christmas, like Thanksgiving, is leftover Chinese takeout from the night before.
Fragano #138: I'm really, really hoping that's enough to get rid of Chambliss. And I'm worried that a lot of those new voters won't bother turning up again if it does go to a run-off, as it probably will.
Jennifer Barber @34, only had to wait an hour and a half.
Err, that sounds kind of weird to me. Only?
Granted, at the primary I was in and out within 10 minutes, but the wait for the general election in 2004 was around an hour at the same time of day, so an extra half hour isn't bad.
Especially given the fact that everyone else I know in the Atlanta area has waited longer. A colleague who voted today in a different part of town had a two hour wait; some of those I know who did early voting waited four or even six hours.
They'd rearranged things at my polling place--handed out the forms and did the ID/voter roll checks earlier in the process, and got rid of the bottleneck they usually have right outside the room with the voting machines. It all went rather smoothly--there was one (older, white) guy who was having problems being allowed to vote, but a poll worker was on the phone trying her best to get it straightened out for him. (Something about the computer saying he was at the wrong polling place, but listing the place he was already at when they tried to look up where he ought to go.)
I turned up a few minutes before 9:00, only had to wait an hour and a half. Glad I can walk to my polling place, though, since the parking lot's pretty small. (It's an assisted living facility.)
This is in contrast to the people I know who did early voting "to avoid the lines" and ended up waiting up to 4-6 hours.
For what it's worth, I interpreted the initial post the same way Torrilin and Mia did, and was surprised to see such a statement from abi. I certainly did not get a "these posters are assumed to be incompetent/lazy astroturfers rather than real users who just don't happen to have userpics" vibe from the original statement.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 14 |
| 2008 | 28 |
| 2007 | 63 |
| 2006 | 8 |
| 2005 | 3 |
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