Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta. | | The Midland | | | Boston | | | North Central | | | The South | | | The Inland North | | | Philadelphia | | | The Northeast | | What American accent do you have?
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*sighs* People are dumb. I need to quite going to the Fark.com comment threads if I don't want to be brutally reminded of that at random and semirandom intervals.
There was a post about an English commedian, a real racist ass, named Jim Davidson, who refused to be served at a resturaunt because the server was Welsh.
Down in the comment thread there was this post:
"delmark
I do not think white people behaving badly towards other white people is racism."
Er. Yeah.
So apparently in this fellow's world there are what? 4 Races, maybe as many as 8? (I figure he is getting white, Asian, Native American, African, and then maybe Pacific islanders, Jews, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners.)
Of course, he is probably American, where it is fairly easy to glom all vaguely similar ethnic groups together in your us vs them games.
So it has been a while since I posted here. New in my life:
I have Books 1, 2, 22, and 23 of Oh My Goddess (the new reprints. very nice.)
I also just got the second What's New with Phil & Dixie book from Amazon. Also very nice. I love the commentary from Phil's own Ginny (and if you can figure out who she is, who Ginny is and why I am comparing them, congratulations. You are as obsessive as I am.)
I've ordered some Warhammer 40k figures, not quite enough to make a basic army, but getting there.
I also just got a small bamboo steamer. Something I've wanted for a while. I also pucked up some new books at borders. They have a 4 for 3 sale on science fiction and manga and I bought a Warhammer 40k novel, a Shadowrun novel, and 2 Eberron novels. Oh and two new pairs of shorts. I'm all set for the winter.
Seems by little brother has exactly two types of question that he asks me. The first is the sort where I don't know the answer. I tell him this and he gets pissed at me. Apparently I'm supposed to pretend to know everything. *shrugs* Sorry, I'm not 16 any more, and I've out grown certain formative experiences since then. The other sort is where I can't figure out what he is asking. Today he asked what "average rate" means. It means what the two words together mean. I get questions like that a lot. I'm not explaining basic concepts to him, that would annoy me. But when I answer, "Which word don't you understand?" it annoys him. When I answer, "It means exactly what the two words mean." it annoys him. I suspect that if I refused to answer, that would annoy him too. (And I won't just claim to not know. He already accuses me of lying whenever I tell him I don't know something. And I'd hate for him to be right about that.) Since all routes are going to annoy someone, I think from now on, I'll pick the one that annoys him without taking up more than a minimum of my time.
Oh and then there was him asking me a question, me beginning to answer it, and then him telling me to prove it, then when he decided that he didn't want to be wrong in his assumptions from ignorance and told me that no matter what, I was wrong. So I agreed with him and quit talking. Then he called me asocial. I hope I wasn't that much of a twit when I was his age. Probably was. Thanks Chris.
Well, this is friends locked now.
Of course, it is still better than people who ask questions where they want a specific answer and then get pissed when you give them a different answer. I try to always give them the "wrong" answer.
Just finished David and Leigh Eddings' latest book. The pov shifts mostly don't work and mostly end up repeating the same things in almost the same words over and over again instead of providing new and useful insight. They needed an editor for that who could stand up to their momentum of fame.
Also, the ending? It sucks when it is done in SF. In fantasy where it isn't even a grand old tradition? Gah.
Also, I think the message would have been stronger if the character who was revealed to be more than they appeared had just been themself.
In all? a mostly enjoyable book with very loose editing and the world's worst plot resolution device. Not their best work.
Leave a list of fictional characters in your journal that you would love to get a message from. It is your friend-list's mission, should they choose to accept it, to write you an in-character "letter" from a character on that list. Then they post their own list in their journal and the process continues!
1 Jubal Hershaw
2 Kaylee Fry
3 Skeeve the Great
4 Kerrigan (Pre Zerg)
5 Grayson Death Carlyle
6 Aphrael
7 Eric Banyon (the older more together Eric)
8 Fiona (Barimen?)
9 Dirian
10 Belldandy
't’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe.
This one be a bit picky. Ye can slack off an' th' results be fine, but then ye’ve put in th' effort fer somethin' that wasn’t worth 't. Do 't starboard, an' this makes an exqusite sandwich, an experience o' more than jus' flavor.
Mike`s "what else be I doin' wi' me free time?" sandwich.
Ingredients
2 slices o' thick sliced roast beef (a wee thicker than an American nickle)
1 slice o' thick sliced roast turkey breast (a wee thicker than an American nickle, roast chicken might work too. Ham dasn't.)
1 sandwich sized slice o' mild cheese (provalone or mild cheddar be me favorites. I make 2 thin slices off o' a 1 lb block o' cheddar or use one slice o' presliced provalone)
1 bun or bun-like roll. I use wee hoagie buns, but I`ve used hamburger buns an' they's turned ou' fine.
Tools
1 Microwave safe plate (I use paper)
1 spatula or fork
Regular plate t' eat off o'.
Process
This assumes ye be havin' a bilge watery microwave like me. If ye own a good microwave, yer order o' events be modified.
Prepare all o' th' ingredients before hand. Make sure th' turkey stays away from all heat sources (Ideally put th' slice o' turkey in th' fridge on a paper plate or somethin'.) Let th' slice o' cheese sit ou' but nay 'ere 't will get hot. 'tis goin' t' act as a heat buffer in a wee while.
Turn th' o'en on t' broil an' wait fer th' coil t' glow a nice hot red. While waitin', put th' roast beef on th' microwave safe plate an' put 't in th' microwave. Don’t start th' microwave yet.
When th' o'en be ready, pull th' top rack ou' about 6 inches an' place th' buns cut side up on th' rack. Close th' o'en door an' go stand at th' microwave. If yer microwave be slow, start 't starboard away, but otherwise ye probably want 't t' wait 45-50 seconds so th' bread an' th' roast beef come ou' one starboard after th' other.
When th' faces o' th' bun be browned, remove them from th' oven. (Oh use o'en mits if ye must. Wuss.) Put them on th' eatin' plate. Put th' hot roast beef on one o' th' buns (Ideally th' one that goes on th' bottom.)
Then in quick succession, put th' cheese an' then th' turkey breast on top o' th' roast beef. Put th' top bun on th' turkey an' serve smartly. Ideally, whoereis eatin' th' sandwich will start after th' roast beef has cooled enough nay t' hurt the'r bung hole, but before th' cheese has melted or th' turkey has gone soft.. Th' sooner ye start eatin', th' better, an' if th' turkey be warm when ye start, ye wasted th' preparation effort.
Eat 't plain, nay mayo or mustard or other sauces. Fresh sliced onion (raw) be arrr if ye like that sort o' thin' (I don’t) an' dry spices will nay screw anythin' up much. A wee drops o' flavored olive oil an' a wee bit o' fresh milled pepper put on th' roast beef before ye nuke 'tisn’t completely amiss, but sautéed onions ruin th' texture an' simplicity o' flavor o' this sandwich.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe.
This one is a bit picky. You can slack off and the results are fine, but then you’ve put in the effort for something that wasn’t worth it. Do it right, and this makes an exqusite sandwich, an experience of more than just flavor.
Mike's "what else was I doing with my free time?" sandwich.
Ingredients
2 slices of thick sliced roast beef (a little thicker than an American nickle)
1 slice of thick sliced roast turkey breast (a little thicker than an American nickle, roast chicken might work too. Ham does not.)
1 sandwich sized slice of mild cheese (provalone or mild cheddar are my favorites. I make 2 thin slices off of a 1 lb block of cheddar or use one slice of presliced provalone)
1 bun or bun-like roll. I use small hoagie buns, but I've used hamburger buns and they've turned out fine.
Tools
1 Microwave safe plate (I use paper)
1 spatula or fork
Regular plate to eat off of.
Process
This assumes you have a crappy microwave like me. If you own a good microwave, your order of events will be modified.
Prepare all of the ingredients before hand. Make sure the turkey stays away from all heat sources (Ideally put the slice of turkey in the fridge on a paper plate or something.) Let the slice of cheese sit out but not where it will get hot. It is going to act as a heat buffer in a little while.
Turn the oven on to broil and wait for the coil to glow a nice hot red. While waiting, put the roast beef on the microwave safe plate and put it in the microwave. Don’t start the microwave yet.
When the oven is ready, pull the top rack out about 6 inches and place the buns cut side up on the rack. Close the oven door and go stand at the microwave. If your microwave is slow, start it right away, but otherwise you probably want it to wait 45-50 seconds so the bread and the roast beef come out one right after the other.
When the faces of the bun are browned, remove them from the oven. (Oh use oven mits if you must. Wuss.) Put them on the eating plate. Put the hot roast beef on one of the buns (Ideally the one that goes on the bottom.)
Then in quick succession, put the cheese and then the turkey breast on top of the roast beef. Put the top bun on the turkey and serve quickly. Ideally, whoever is eating the sandwich will start after the roast beef has cooled enough not to hurt their mouth, but before the cheese has melted or the turkey has gone soft.. The sooner you start eating, the better, and if the turkey is warm when you start, you wasted the preparation effort.
Eat it plain, no mayo or mustard or other sauces. Fresh sliced onion (raw) is okay if you like that sort of thing (I don’t) and dry spices will not screw anything up much. A few drops of flavored olive oil and a little bit of fresh ground pepper put on the roast beef before you nuke it isn’t completely amiss, but sautéed onions ruin the texture and simplicity of flavor of this sandwich.
*sigh* me Pakistani IMer seems t' have thought I was a lass (or gay, it could go either way.) He eventually asked me if I had any beautys, and when I said "No, I'm straight." He quit chattin'. Oh well. (I'd assume he thought I was a lass, except that me MSN account broadcasts me first name t' t' world. t be entirely possible that me name doesn't actually occur in hus country and thus he has no gender referents for it, but were I him, I would have used a search engine t' figure that one out.)
Oh aye.
Arrr.
*sigh* my Pakistani IMer seems to have thought I was a girl (or gay, it could go either way.) He eventually asked me if I had any boyfriends, and when I said "No, I'm straight." He quit chatting. Oh well. (I'd assume he thought I was a girl, except that my MSN account broadcasts my first name to the world. It is entirely possible that my name doesn't actually occur in hus country and thus he has no gender referents for it, but were I him, I would have used a search engine to figure that one out.)
Oh yes.
Arrr.
So today I have:
Input 10 more Coke Rewards Codes
Read some Oh my Goddess.
Watched Geeks In Love, Ultimate Show Down of Ultimate Destiny, some bizzare anime girl on a loop spinning a leek to the tune of some eastern european singer scatting in a language I don't recognize, the Japanese end of the world asteroid impact video, a 1965 Chevy commercial with the casts of Bonnanza, Bewitched, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., a cheesy 1984 D&D commercial, and a new Wierd Al Video.
Plotted something for a D&D adventure some time in the near future.
Made fried rice (was okay, not my best effort)
Avoided writing a response to every article in a 32 page booklet about evolution published by the Jehova's Witnesses and chocked full of either willful deception of idiotic misunderstandings.
Not been Pope Inconsederate Nazi the first.
Written a disjointed "essay" about Belldandy (sort of) and posted it in a mostly public forum.
I haven't felt this geekishly fulfilled in a long time.
Especially when you add that to rewatching Love Hina and Visions of Escaflowne in the last two weeks, DMing an adventure last Friday, rereading Love Hina in the last couple of weeks, playing a few rounds of nethack, and relearning the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets. Oh and hanging out in a game store.
The Geek is back. Long Live the Geek.
What are we going to do tomorrow night?
Try
To
Take
Over
The
World
Wow. That is disjointed, even for WhyTee.
I thought that I had talked about this here in the past, but a quick search of the pdf of my journal that I created a couple of months ago via www.ljbook.com doesn't turn anything up, and I remember it as having been at least a year ago.
You see, the thing is, I really like Oh! My Goddess.
More embarassingly, I like Belldandy.
Let me digress for a moment.
A couple of years ago, I read a book about anime that included almost as an aside, an interesting thesis. It was something like "Successful (or popular) media confirms society's norms." It isn't that all characters always fit into the rolls that the society that the media was intended for's norms, but the ones who do will tend to be happy, and even the characters who don't conform to the expected will really be contented only when they are filling their socially expected roles. For example, Love Hina. Ketaro plays several traditional Japanes Male roles through out the series and as soon as he finds the first one (Hard working mostly dutiful student) his life starts improving. Naru on the other hand is an agressive girl who out performs everyone. Throughout the series most of the times that she is actually happy are when she is helping Ketaro, being domestic, or generally not being herself. By the end of the series she has become a wellspring of calm and beauty who has faith in her man and isn't even upset by him being late for their wedding. Shinobu really changes very little throughout the series, and is the second closest character to the traditional Japanese woman anyway. Su, well, she's sort of the Pheobe role in the series. Mutsumi Is very much a traditional Japanese woman who is happy throughout the whole series (and has a lot of the positive traits of Belldandy that if she didn't have some strong negatives at least implied, I wouldn't be able to stand her.) Kitsune well she's half of the cautionary tale of the series. She and Haruka both differ from the cultural expectations and are both unhappy. (Haruka becomes a fairly traditional wife and becomes happy) Motoko... Motroko is a tomboy warrior who strives to fill her sister's shoes. Her sister also gave up her accomplishments to get married and a big part of what Motoko learns throughout the series is that that is okay. By the end, she is decorating a wedding cake, and while she is still a warrior, she is also a romance novelist who writes wierd samurai romance novels. As she embraces more of the traditional Japanese feminity, she becomes more grounded and happiert too.
Ooh then there's Friends. Pheobe is the only character in the whole series over how many identical seasons the show ran that didn't fulfil society's expectations, and while she wasn't unhappy in her role, she was constantly the odd woman out. The rest of the cast? Wealthy, pretty, white, boring. Exactly what you are supposed to strive to be in America.
(I am hamstrung here by the smallish amount of TV I watch.)
Tool Time. Tim Allen's character is an absolute geek. He revels in it. Almost every bad thing that happens in the show is due directly to his geekhood.
Vision of Escaflowne.
Van: Warrior. As he becomes a better Samurai, he becomes happier.
Hitomi: Dares to want things for herself. Every freaking time that she tries to get something she wants, she gets to watch people die in fires. The only times that her precognition doesn't cause her pain are when she is using it to aid the male characters, and even then, only if she is helping them for them and not for what she wants. (Seriously, she once tries to use her power to get a guy, and she causes the death of a king, the injury of his son in law, and the firey death of a bunch of random towns people. Her grandmother on the other hand, was very happy but only ever did things when called by the Male character who was obsessed with her. (Other characters. these two encapsulate the series though)
Back to Belldandy.
You see, she is absolutely the image of the suportive subsume-yourself-to-the-needs-of-others ideal that is one of the acceptable roles for a Japanese female (not limited to Japan, but particularly egregious there.) Her older sister (one of two female characters in the series who have sensual sides at all) is continuously unhappy. She is brash and bossy and dominant, and a half-demon to match. The younger sister shows signs of turning into Belldandy as she gets older. The Male Lead is actually fairly similar to Belldandy after he gets over the inexperienced letch bit that all harem manga have their characters go through apparently.
Someday I want to read something like Love Hina or Oh! My Goddess where the two love interest characters partner up/get married whatever early on. From the midpoint of Love Hina, Ketaro and Naru could have been having regular sex (or at least been boyfriend/girlfriend) without seriously changing the story at all. From the point that Naru decided that after all she did like Keichi and that she prefered him to the unobtainable Seta, they acted mostly as a partnership/couple (with a couple moments of stupidoubity.) As things stand, that period gets written off by the words "Four Years Later."
Actually on second thought, in Oh! My Goddess, they do start acting as partners fairly quickly. (I'll have to reread the early issues to see where that happens.)
Hurm... it may be that I've found the answer.
If that happened around book10 to 15, that means it happened at about the same number of pages as it did in Love Hina and is thus much too slow.
In Oh! My Goddess, Belldandy really does care about everyone. And while Keichi isn't as petranaturally good a person as she is, he does too. (He takes on a very culturally feminine role in this series. Which since Skuld and Urd and really everyone but Belldandy and the geek girl and the rich girl whose names escape me at the moment are quite culturally masculine in the series, lends a sense of ballance. (His sister could go either way but she eventually dissapears from the series.)) (<-- Still don't see why I'm not supposed to nest parenthetical bits in other parenthetical bits)
She's willing to give up a lot for pretty much anyone, and everything for Keichi and her loved ones. But this isn't unilateral. Urd, Skuld and Keichi all demonstrate their willingness to give up their most important aspects for her as well. While she expresses this as a strong conformation to societal norms, it is a recriprocal trade.
(There is an awesome issue where Keichi is being quietly despondant while trying his best to cheer up someone who is having troubles that they can't do anything about. She confronts him about this, and he tells her that he's recently come to realize that his relationship with Belldandy has the potential to hurt her a lot. See, he is mortal. She isn't. He's realized that because his wish bound them together and they fell in love, his mortality has the potential to be a huge blow for her. Well, it is more indirect in the comic.)
In O!MG Belldandy's happyness isn't because of her conformation to societal norms. It is because she is a happy person. Two seperate issues.
so a while ago I posted about dual wielding a small and a tiny greatsword. I missed the bit where you get a -2 penalty on attack rolls with the small one and a -4 penalty on the tiny one (On top of the penalty for using 2 weapons)
So, I was looking at the PHB today. I had never thought through the implications of the weapons size chart. For a medium creature, a small creature's 2 handed weapon becomes a 1 handed weapon, and a tiny creature's 2 handed weapon becomes a light weapon.
2d6 medium becomes 1d10 small or 1d8 tiny.
Critical Ranges and multipliers stay the same.
For 100 gp, a human ranger can dual wield a small and a tiny greatsword, do 1d10 and 1d8 damage and get 2X criticals on a 19-20 and have a light weapon in the off hand. All without having to take exotic weapon proficiency bastard sword.
So you can be ambulatory. Which means you have to have a mode of ambulation. This implies the ability to ambulate.
I had forgotten how much I liked Love Hina. The epilogue is quite neat, and I sort of wish that there were a couple of books set in that setting with the main characters from the original being the background characters in the new one. Have them leading their lives, sort of like what the original X-men do in the new xmen groups' comics. They are there, sometimes they are very there, but the new people are very much central. Have a couple of cross over characters (Shinobu, Sarah, Su) but make the story about Emi and some other new residents. (The older characters could be handled like Haruka and Seta. You see bits of their lives and actions, some times they take center stage, but if the viewpoint characters go somewhere else, we quit following what is happening in their lives.)
Silly
Rabbi
Kicks
Are
For
TRIDS!
yane no ue de sora o aogu, hizashi wa uraraka
miageru sora, karadajuu genki ga minagitteku
I liked the fan translated version of the manga better than the official ones I bought. (Comes mostly from them leaving a big chunk of the common words untranslated in the fan translation. There are points where you know that's not what they are saying in the tokyopop edition.)
Okay
Astroturf : bad
viral marketing : ?
When a company hires someone to go create a new identity on a forum, establish themselves as respected forum members, and then plug the product? That's bad.
On the other hand? When they create a massive distributed online/offline puzzle/mystery that ties in with an upcomming product? That can be hella cool (I'm looing at you I love bees)
In the middle ground? We have electronics companys hiring attactive well dressed people to wander around high traffic areas using their products. That seems more honest than the forum people, but less honest than is desirable. On the other hand, I'd rather see how a piece of equipment works in the field instead of seeing a commercial for it.
Just read two mythosey stories. First one was pretty good. Neither had the pointless purple prose that mars most mythosey stuff. Second one is a little too quick with the motivation dumps. The main character draws conclusions from evidence yet to come, which I would have accepted from the first one since it was written after most of the events in question, but since the second one is a series of as events occured emails, is unexcusable.
They both have the rushed compulsion problem common to the genre.
First (and better of the two)
http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/index.html
Second (lots of nice journaly stuff. Should have used several different journal systems though. 2 LJ, maybe a blogger or myspace, instead of all lj)
http://www.dionaea-house.com/
Today I saw heteronormativity and white guys inhabit the earth fantasy described as vanillia cupcake syndrome. Meaning boring, dull, and not worth eating.
Thing is, I don't know that that's an apt name. I'm not sure I've ever had a vanillia cupcake. I've had white and yellow cupcakes, but I don't think they had any more vanillia than a chocolate cupcake has, I think they were just yellow and white cupcakes. Boring, dull, and not worth eating. On the other hand, it seems that you should be able to make a cupcake that tastes of vanillia the way a chocholate cupcake tastes of chocholate. Then a vanillia cupcake could be a sublime experience. That's a secret covered up by some silly cultural assumptions around these parts. We use vanillia to mean plain, dull, normal, and boring. I suspect the folks that think that way have only ever had vanillia flavored things. Theobromine rush aside, real vanillia is so much better than chocolate (Well, I'm a guy. Chocolate doesn't latch on to the pleasure centers of my brain the way it does for women. I suppose that I'd be unable to convince me if it triggered the same parts of my brain that get lit up during an orgasim too.) The flavor is a more complex thing than chocolate's, it lends itself to considered enjoyment. (Quick, run to the store. I'll be here when you get back. Buy a thing of mid-quality vanillia Icecream. Breyers will do. The one with the vanillia flecks. When you get back, eat some. Don't just eat it, but taste it, pay attention to the things it does in your mouth. See?) If you can make vanillia cupcakes lie that, then the metaphor doesn't hold.
So, I use mentadent toothpaste. Usually one of the dark blue ones. This time though, "Replenishing White" was massively on sale, so I bought it. The colored toothpaste is pale green. Nastiest toothpaste I've ever had. It is in the same category (though not quite idenal with) drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth, even to the point of having a similar lingering aftertaste. Blech.
Did anyone else out there play Call of Cthulhu at a table with the Eldritch Ducks screen?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14497678/
So, scumfuck political appointee Steven Galson has lost a round to science. He is the asswipe who decided on his own to ignore the reccomendations of the FDA scientists who actually do their jobs in favor of the keep women barefoot and powerless agenda of his political masters. Well, the Democrats forced his masters' hands by tying up the nomination of another scumfuck political appointee until he reversed his decision. RU 486 will now be avaliable to woman over the age of 18 over the counter. He did manage to spike the process (and ignore the science in favor of politics) by insisting that 16 year olds shouldn't have access. (Er? So they send a friend in to buy it, or use a fake ID. Most pharmacists are decent people, they aren't going to check IDs that closely. Of course there are a fair number of asshole pharmacists out there who will use the fact that it is behind the counter to withold it from women, undermining the whole point of making it avaliable. If you can't do you job...)
Stolen (without asking questions yet) from and (I'll try to come back with a couple of questions.)
I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want. Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including me) to ask you anything.
I'll answer them.
No promises about the truth of the answers.
*EDIT* So I am an idiot. Not only did Istress and strain to find 18 movies to fill my 16 movie quota, I then posted my key instead of the quiz. *headdesk*
A. Pick 16 of your favorite movies.
B. Then pick one of your favorite quotes from each movie.
C. Post the quotes in your journal.
D. Have those on your friends list try to guess what the movie is without Googling, you cheating fuckers.
E. Strike out the quote once it has been correctly identified and place the guesser’s username directly after the quote (whenever I get to it, since I'm doing this while I'm uploading a huge frickin' file).
In my case I picked 16 movies that I could remember the names of. I can't think of 16 favorites. I don't watch that many movies.
yanked from and
1 "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?"
2 "Freedom? We have it! And fame? Nah. It's an empty purse. Count it, go broke. Eat it, go hungry. Seek it, go mad!"
3 "If you're looking for a partner, then stop flying solo."
4 "Our domain is the shadow. Stray from it reluctantly. For when you do, you must strike hard and fade away . . . without a trace."
5 "An intelligent guard... didn't see that one coming."
6. "God, I miss Communism! The Red Threat? People were scared, the agency had respect, and I got laid every night."
7. "Greatness. It comes in many forms, sometimes it comes in the form of sacrifice - that's the loneliest form."
8. "There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost, the ship has sailed and that only a fool will continue. The truth is I've always been a fool."
9. "Hey, c'mon. We're superheroes. What could happen?"
10. "He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using."
11. "They don't advertise for killers in the newspaper. That was my profession."
12. "That's a pretty big risk for a Science Officer. It's, uh, not exactly out of the manual, is it?"
13. "Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."
14. "I'll kill you with my teacup."
15. "I'd like to wish you the best in your future career, but I doubt you'll live long enough to have one."
16. "Oh, what a romantic notion. Do you honestly believe that I could've amass the wealth that I have if I worried about honor? Ooh, no, no, no, no, no, tisk, tisk, tisk. So, pretty boy, if you don't want Hugo over here to come rearrange your features for you, I suggest you just give it up."
17. "I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it."
18. "Then, if you'll excuse me, but I'm in the middle of 15 things, all of them annoying. Thank you for coming by."
I checked my email today and when I realized that I was excited about emptying the spam folder, I realized something. I need to write more emails.
Specifically I need to write more emails to people who reply to email. (The majority of my email writing in the last year has been to two people. Neither of them reply quickly or even reliably to email.)
So, I picked up several books from the library the other day. Two and four of the Vampire Earth series (3 was out so I put a hold on it. The other person reading the series ahead of me is slow. I can read books 3 and 4 in a couple of days. If I waited for three and he or she grabbed 4, I'd have to wait 2 weeks for the last book.)
I also grabbed His Majesty's Dragon and the new Stackpole novel. I've been waiting for it, though I did forget about it until I saw it on the shelf.
Choice of the Cat was in part much better than Way of the Wolf. More tightly written, I didn't have to work as hard to suspend my annoyance with the psychic mutant space vampires this time.
His Majesty's Dragon? Well, early this year I read 1602, Identity Crisis, and Kingdom Come. In that order. This was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Kingdom Come was wonderful, one of the best books to come out of DC. Had I read it alone, or even first, it wouldn't suffer from an acute case of nicebut (as in "That was nice, but it was no Dune.") Sadly as I was reading it, I couldn't help but compare it unfavoriably to Identity Crisis and even more so to 1602.
Choice of the Cat could have fallen into the same category had I been unlucky enough to read it after His Majesty's Dragon.
About HMD... Novik and Webber appear to share the same source material. There is a scene that is essentially the same except for setting where the problem Lieutennant sees the error of his ways, shapes up and asks for forgiveness. I suspect that this is straight from Hornblower, but I can't bring the exact scene to mind at the moment. This isn't a criticism. Both Webber and Novik have their main characters do something that Hornblower didn't do, at least as far into the series as I have currently delved. They grow and change and shed the bits of their prickely persona that make them less good at their jobs. I think hornblower does too, but only after he marries his second wife and I've not gotten to the bit where he meets her.
Go here: Random Quotations. Refresh the page until you find five quotations that you like, and post them to your journal.
Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you--if you don't play, you can't win.
Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
Jack Paar
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944), "The Wisdom of the Sands"
A ship in harbor is safe--- but that is not what ships are for.
John A. Shedd
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903), Maxims for Revolutionists
Runners Up:
There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.
Alice Thomas Ellis
A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood.
Mark Ardis
Work is not always required... there is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
George McDonald
Wow.
I just let my hotmail account lapse. 30 days without logging on apparently does it, and msn messenger via gaim apparently doesn't count.
Fortunately, back when I got my gmail account, I used mr postman and eudora (and possibly "pop goes the gmail" to transfer my hotmail to my gmail account. I haven't done so again, but most of the important stuff is there.
So, the west wing was, I think, not intended to be watched in large chunks. I started last night and watched till lateish. Didn't watch them in order, but that's mostly because I'm not really as smart as I used to think I was and I failed to notice that going from the first to the second disk brought me up a lot in episode numbers and I convinced myself that the things I hadn't seen in the intro clips had gotten cut from the series completely. Instead, I had not noticed that both sides of the DVDs were playable. The series works skipping 4 of each 8 episodes, but it works even better skipping none.
And Wow.
Bartlet has a speech early in the show where he talks about the armor provided in Rome by the words "civis Romanus" and I can't disagree with him completely even though where he wanted to go with it was wrong. But. The next part where Leo replies to him and says that as the president of the sole superpower left on the planet he can conquer the world, but if he does, Leo will "raise up an army against you, and I will win." is one of my favorite bits from the show. (There's actually several others that beat that, including when he tells his daughter exactly why her being kidnapped is a bigger fear of both the Secret Service and the Joint Chiefs than him being killed.)
I just finished reading E.E. Knight's Dragon Champion. A great deal of fun. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series while hoping he can hold it together. (Assuming that it picks up shortly after this book, which given the potential logitivity of the protagonist, is not a completely safe assumption, there's a danger that he'll spin it out of control as the scope expands. Probably not, but I've seen other good authors fall into that trap before.)
I know that this doesn't effect as many people as the decline and fall of E3, but it still sucks. Guardians of Order is closing their doors.
Mark MacKinnon was very up front about it and said that their financial problems were a combination of the down turn in the RPG market, the recent drop in the American Dollar vs the Canadian Dollar (He is in Canadia but makes most of his sales in the states so his company, which was already having problems was hit hard by the decrease in value of his product where it sells the most,) and his own lack of buisness accumen.
Mark's company made damned good games, with a system that I would frequently use when I wanted to run a new setting without spending months working up all of the mechanics.
He had made a deal with Phage Press to print a new edition of Amber Diceless, which had me all giddy.
And George R.R. Martin had a contract with them to make the A Game of Thrones RPG. A lot of material is almost ready or even printed now, and Mark is trying to make sure that it gets to the stores even though that means handing them to other companies.
To make things worse, the news was broken earlier than MacKinnon had hoped for when there was a miscommunication between him and Martin. (He was trying to get as many of his obligations fulfilled as possible before going public and Martin though that he was making an announcement about it in their conversation.)
I hope that Mark and his staff and family come through this okay. I'm going to miss his work.
So I've not been online as much as usual for the last two weeks. My little brother was home and we usually split the computer time 20/80 during the day. Add to that my uncle Mackie (he changes names occasionally, but this one has stuck for quite a while) and his boyfriend Jim stopping by after a highschool reunion and I didn't actually check any webcomics yesterday. When I got to Penny Arcade, I saw the thing about E3 cutting way back. Well duh. I thought it would take a couple of years but when they did the idiotic move of cutting back booth babes at a trade show, I figured that was the first knell of mediocratcy and decline for the event. Didn't expect it to happen quite that fast. Oh well. I was never really all that hyped about it anyway. Give me Origins, World Con, GenCon Indy, or ComicCon any day over the gated community that was E3.
*EDIT*
E3 isn't exactly dead and it is still a gated community, but now it is much smaller and well, it is sort of like gating Gary Indiana. (Without the stench.)
There is something wrong with people. This is by far not the first time I've heard of folks calling 911 over stupid buisness crap. I swear, somewhere in gradeschool or middle school we should have a lesson unit on who you call to report various types of problems.
Okay, I am the first to admit that I really have a hard time making aesthetic determinations about guys, but why the hell would a bunch of people be sending Neil Gaiman an article about how ugly guys are doing better these day... oh. He's mentioned in the article.
*EDIT*
Yeah, I've been spending too much time over at and 's head space. I'm seeing "Serious Gender Racial Issues" where none may exist.
*/EDIT*
So, I finished Way of the Wolf 2 before starting In Fury Born.
This is the third time I've checked it out from the library. THe previous two times I just couldn't get past the cover blurb.
This is a science fictionish book. (Well Science Fantasy at least)
It is about alien psychic invader vampires.
Yeah.
Alien Invaders and Vampires. Who can subsist on the "auras" of humans.
But I can get past that point.
I can accept alien invaders and ignore the vampire bits.
Oh they also have uber minions that are more the traditional blood drinking vampires. Also alien, but probably engineered to eat humans.
The brute minions though...
The big strong stupid alien rapist unable to plan for the future brute minions...
Were there any black face shows on the silent screen?
These guys, Glugs or something similar, well it is is pretty easy to draw a fairly strong case that they are stand-ins for the darker side of white America's view of blacks.
This is probably entirely unintentional. In fact, I am not sure that it would be possible to create a big strong stupid servitor race that you couldn't draw the same parallels to.
So, since they are mostly in the background, I can get past that.
Ignoring the above, these are pretty good books. I was going to say pulpish, but if I ignore the above bits they lose some of the pulp aesthetic.
I'm going to give at least the next book a chance. I'll have to see after that. If the vampires get all angsty and stand-in-for-sex-and-deathy then that'll be the end of it for me.
I think I ought to be reading more David Webber.
He makes me want to write.
His newest book? In Fury Born?
Well, it lifts the drop sequence for the drop troops from Starship Troopers, but then so does everyone else who uses drop troops.
Also, it uses all of his favorite military philosophy catch phrases.
You know what the character will do because you can ask "If Honor was a marine, what would she do?"
(It even has, almost verbatium, the scene in either the first or second Honor book near the end where her sponsor almost comes to hate her because of how she reports her casualties with no feeling, seeming to read them off, not coldly but like a grocery list, but then he realizes how much pain she is in and that hiding it is her method of coping.)
There is an in memorandum thread for Jim Baen over at websnark. Very touching. I do wish that Jim weren't dead and that the thread after the article was after some other Snark. The first one needs no explanation. The second one? Well, there are all sorts of discussions hiding in this thread that I'd love to have, but I don't want to be part of moving it away from a discussion of Baen and his life and the good he has done.
(There is a huge Heinlein Discussion in there that won't be had because of that.)
I also wanted to reply to this:
"So too are Baen Books’ titles. David Weber’s books are more about political and social what-ifs than space battles, but work just as well as “space battle” type stories."
Which is a small part of someone's very long "I'll miss Jim Baen" post.
Problem is, at least if he/she is discussing the Honor Harrington books... well, no. They are all about the space battles.
That isn't to say that there isn't a lot of impressive world building, but the question that inspired the setting isn't "what if there was a high tech monarchy on the edge of human space" it is "What do I need to do to justify putting Horratio Hornblower in a space ship?"
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Nice. I'm downloading it right now. I want a generic tool like this though. the .lit format only lets you select one page at a time. Gak. At least with a properly prepared PDF I can select the whole document.
There was a car on fire in front of my house.
Well, between my house and the next one down the street.
I saw it roll past smoking, but I live out in the country, a big cloud of white smoke/dust following a car isn't really noteworthy, even though we have blacktop roads here.
Then someone was running toward my house and I went to get the door and saw a burning car through the window.
About that time the first firefighters showed up in their private vehicles. ONe pulled out a fire extinguisher and gave it a go. The fire didn't even notice. On the otherhand, in the intrem the smoke had turned grey and the plastic bits had started to drip.
Then the engine showed up and they hosed it into submission. (The hood, which had warped shut gave them a moment of trouble, but it is all taken care of now.)
Nobody was hurt, the car on the other hand looks like a writeoff.
What the hell do you do to a new or newish car to make it catch on fire?
My dogs are in their cage so they don't get too excited about all of the strangers walking back and forth out there.
From http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/nonerrors.html
A frikken men. (Note that Peter Brians is an English Professor and this is attached to a massive page of proper English usage.)
AND that I fully intend to start using the phrase "Apples and Organs."
Oh and an interesting note about Lion's Share? Frequently a lion will actually get her kill taken away from her by groups of scavengers.
Non-Errors
(Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.)
Split infinitives
For the hyper-critical, “to boldly go where no man has gone before” should be “to go boldly. . . .” It is good to be aware that inserting one or more words between “to” and a verb is not strictly speaking an error, and is often more expressive and graceful than moving the intervening words elsewhere; but so many people are offended by split infinitives that it is better to avoid them except when the alternatives sound strained and awkward.
Ending a sentence with a preposition
A fine example of an artificial “rule” which ignores standard usage. The famous witticism usually attributed to Winston Churchill makes the point well: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” see The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Jack Lynch has some sensible comments on this issue. If you think you know the original version of this saying, click here.
Beginning a sentence with a conjunction
It offends those who wish to confine English usage in a logical straitjacket that writers often begin sentences with “and” or “but.” True, one should be aware that many such sentences would be improved by becoming clauses in compound sentences; but there are many effective and traditional uses for beginning sentences thus. One example is the reply to a previous assertion in a dialogue: “But, my dear Watson, the criminal obviously wore expensive boots or he would not have taken such pains to scrape them clean.” Make it a rule to consider whether your conjunction would repose more naturally within the previous sentence or would lose in useful emphasis by being demoted from its position at the head of a new sentence.
Using “between” for only two, “among” for more
The “-tween” in “between” is clearly linked to the number two; but, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, “In all senses, between has, from its earliest appearance, been extended to more than two.” We’re talking about Anglo-Saxon here—early. Pedants have labored to enforce “among” when there are three or more objects under discussion, but largely in vain. Even the pickiest speaker does not naturally say, “A treaty has been negotiated among England, France, and Germany.”
Over vs. more than.
Some people claim that “over” cannot be used to signify “more than,” as in “Over a thousand baton-twirlers marched in the parade.” “Over,” they insist, always refers to something physically higher: say, the blimp hovering over the parade route. This absurd distinction ignores the role metaphor plays in language. If I write 1 on the blackboard and 10 beside it, 10 is still the “higher” number. “Over” has been used in the sense of “more than” for over a thousand years.
Gender vs. sex
Feminists eager to remove references to sexuality from discussions of females and males not involving mating or reproduction revived an older meaning of “gender,” which had come to refer in modern times chiefly to language, as a synonym for “sex” in phrases such as “Our goal is to achieve gender equality.” Americans, always nervous about sex, eagerly embraced this usage, which is now standard. In some scholarly fields, “sex” is now used to label biologically determined aspects of maleness and femaleness (reproduction, etc.) while “gender” refers to their socially determined aspects (behavior, attitudes, etc.); but in ordinary speech this distinction is not always maintained. It is disingenuous to pretend that people who use “gender” in the new senses are making an error, just as it is disingenuous to maintain that “Ms.” means “manuscript” (that’s “MS”). Nevertheless, I must admit I was startled to discover that the tag on my new trousers describes not only their size and color, but their “gender.”
Using “who” for people, “that” for animals and inanimate objects
In fact there are many instances in which the most conservative usage is to refer to a person using “that”: “All the politicians that were at the party later denied even knowing the host” is actually somewhat more traditional than the more popular “politicians who.” An aversion to “that” referring to human beings as somehow diminishing their humanity may be praiseworthily sensitive, but it cannot claim the authority of tradition. In some sentences, “that” is clearly preferable to “who”: “She is the only person I know of that prefers whipped cream on her granola.” In the following example, to exchange “that” for “who” would be absurd: “Who was it that said, ‘A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle’?”*
*Commonly attributed to Gloria Steinem, but she attributes it to Irina Dunn.
“Since” cannot mean “because.”
“Since” need not always refer to time. Since the 14th century, when it was often spelled “syn,” it has also meant “seeing that” or “because.”
Hopefully
This word has meant “it is to be hoped” for a very long time, and those who insist it can only mean “in a hopeful fashion” display more hopefulness than realism.
Momentarily
“The plane will be landing momentarily” says the flight attendant, and the grumpy grammarian in seat 36B thinks to himself, “So we’re going to touch down for just a moment?” Everyone else thinks, “Just a moment now before we land.” Back in the 1920s when this use of “momentarily” was first spreading on both sides of the Atlantic, one might have been accused of misusing the word; but by now it’s listed without comment as one of the standard definitions in most dictionaries.
Lend vs. loan
“Loan me your hat” was just as correct everywhere as “lend me your ears” until the British made “lend” the preferred verb, relegating “loan” to the thing being lent. However, as in so many cases, Americans kept the older pattern, which in its turn has influenced modern British usage so that those insisting that “loan” can only be a noun are in the minority.
Regime vs. regimen
Some people insist that “regime” should be used only in reference to governments, and that people who say they are following a dietary regime should instead use “regimen”; but “regime” has been a synonym of “regimen” for over a century, and is widely accepted in that sense.
Near miss
It is futile to protest that “near miss” should be “near collision.” This expression is a condensed version of something like “a miss that came very near to being a collision” and is similar to “narrow escape.” Everyone knows what is meant by it and almost everyone uses it. It should be noted that the expression can also be used in the sense of almost succeeding in striking a desired target: “His Cointreau soufflé was a near miss.”
“None” singular vs. plural
Some people insist that since “none” is derived from “no one” it should always be singular: “none of us is having dessert.” However, in standard usage, the word is most often treated as a plural. “None of us are having dessert” will do just fine.
Scan vs. skim
Those who insist that “scan” can never be a synonym of “skim” have lost the battle. It is true that the word originally meant “to scrutinize,” but it has now evolved into one of those unfortunate words with two opposite meanings: to examine closely (now rare) and to glance at quickly (much more common). It would be difficult to say which of these two meanings is more prominent in the computer-related usage, to “scan a document.”
Off of
For most Americans, the natural thing to say is “Climb down off of [pronounced ” offa” ] that horse, Tex, with your hands in the air"; but many U.K. authorities urge that the “of” should be omitted as redundant. Where British English reigns you may want to omit the “of” as superfluous, but common usage in the U.S. has rendered “off of” so standard as to generally pass unnoticed, though some American authorities also discourage it in formal writing. However, “off of” meaning “from” in phrases like “borrow five dollars off of Clarice” is definitely nonstandard.
“Gotten” vs. “got.”
In England, the old past participle “gotten” dropped out of use except in such stock phrases as “ill-gotten” and “gotten up,” but in the U.S. it is still considered interchangeable with “got” as the past participle of “get.”
Till vs. ’til.
Since it looks like an abbreviation for “until,” some people argue that this word should always be spelled “’til” (though not all insist on the apostrophe). However, “till” has regularly occurred as a spelling of this word for over 800 years and it’s actually older than “until.” It is perfectly good English.
Teenage vs. teenaged.
Some people object that the word should be “teenaged,” but unlike the still nonstandard “ice tea” and “stain glass,” “teenage” is almost universally accepted now.
Don’t use “reference” to mean “cite.”
Nouns are often turned into verbs in English, and “reference” in the sense “to provide references or citations” has become so widespread that it’s generally acceptable, though some teachers and editors still object.
Feeling bad
“I feel bad” is standard English, as in “This t-shirt smells bad” (not “badly”). “I feel badly” is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they know better than the masses. People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know they mean to say they’re healthy.
Unquote vs. endquote
Some people get upset at the common pattern by which speakers frame a quotation by saying “quote . . . unquote,” insisting that the latter word should logically be “endquote”; but illogical as it may be, “unquote” has been used in this way for about a century, and “endquote” is nonstandard.
Persuade vs. convince
Some people like to distinguish between these two words by insisting that you persuade people until you have convinced them; but “persuade” as a synonym for “convince” goes back at least to the 16th century. It can mean both to attempt to convince and to succeed. It is no longer common to say things like “I am persuaded that you are an illiterate fool,” but even this usage is not in itself wrong.
Normalcy vs. normality
The word “normalcy” had been around for more than half a century when President Warren G. Harding was assailed in the newspapers for having used it in a 1921 speech. Some folks are still upset; but in the U.S. “normalcy” is a perfectly normal—if uncommon—synonym for “normality.”
You shouldn’t pronounce the “e” in “not my forte.”
Some people insist that it’s an error to pronounce the word “forte” in the expression “not my forte” as if French-derived “forte” were the same as the Italian musical term for “loud”: “for-tay.” But the original French expression is pas mon fort, which not only has no “e” on the end to pronounce—it has a silent “t” as well. It’s too bad that when we imported this phrase we mangled it so badly, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. If you go around saying what sounds like ”that’s not my fort,” people won’t understand what you mean.
However, those who use the phrase to mean “not to my taste” (“Wagnerian opera is not my forte”) are definitely mistaken. Your forte is what you’re good at, not just stuff you like.
“Preventive” is the adjective, “preventative” the noun.
I must say I like the sound of this distinction, but in fact the two are interchangeable as both nouns and adjective, though many prefer “preventive” as being shorter and simpler. “Preventative” used as an adjective dates back to the 17th century, as does “preventive” as a noun.
People should say a book is titled such-and-such rather than entitled.
No less a writer than Chaucer is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as having used “entitled” in this sense, the very first meaning of the word listed by the OED. It may be a touch pretentious, but it’s not wrong.
People are healthy; vegetables are healthful.
Logic and tradition are on the side of those who make this distinction, but I’m afraid phrases like “part of a healthy breakfast” have become so widespread that they are rarely perceived as erroneous except by the hyper-correct. On a related though slightly different subject, it is interesting to note that in English adjectives connected to sensations in the perceiver of an object or event are often transferred to the object or event itself. In the 19th century it was not uncommon to refer, for instance, to a “grateful shower of rain,” and we still say “a gloomy landscape,” “a cheerful sight” and “a happy coincidence.”
Dinner is done; people are finished.
I pronounce this an antiquated distinction rarely observed in modern speech. Nobody really supposes the speaker is saying he or she has been roasted to a turn. In older usage people said, “I have done” to indicate they had completed an action. “I am done” is not really so very different.
Crops are raised; children are reared.
Old-fashioned writers insist that you raise crops and rear children; but in modern American English children are usually “raised.”
“You’ve got mail” should be “you have mail.”
The “have” contracted in phrases like this is merely an auxiliary verb indicating the present perfect tense, not an expression of possession. It is not a redundancy. Compare: “You’ve sent the mail."
It’s “cut the muster,” not “cut the mustard.”
This etymology seems plausible at first. Its proponents often trace it to the American Civil War. We do have the analogous expression “to pass muster,” which probably first suggested this alternative; but although the origins of “cut the mustard” are somewhat obscure, the latter is definitely the form used in all sorts of writing throughout the twentieth century. Common sense would suggest that a person cutting a muster is not someone being selected as fit, but someone eliminating the unfit. See the alt.usage.english faq explanation of this term.
It’s “carrot on a stick,” not “carrot or stick.”
Authoritative dictionaries agree, the original expression refers to offering to reward a stubborn mule or donkey with a carrot or threatening to beat it with a stick and not to a carrot being dangled from a stick. Further discussion. This and other popular etymologies fit under the heading aptly called by the English “too clever by half."
“Spitting image” should be “spit and image.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earlier form was "spitten image,” which may indeed have evolved from “spit and image.” It’s a crude figure of speech: someone else is enough like you to have been spat out by you, made of the very stuff of your body. In the early 20th century the spelling and pronunciation gradually shifted to the less logical “spitting image,” which is now standard. It’s too late to go back. There is no historical basis for the claim sometimes made that the original expression was “spirit and image.”
“Lion’s share” means all of something, not the larger part of something.
Even though the original meaning of this phrase reflected the idea that the lion can take whatever he wants—typically all of the slaughtered game, leaving nothing for anyone else—in modern usage the meaning has shifted to “the largest share.” This makes great sense if you consider the way hyenas and vultures swarm over the leftovers from a typical lion’s kill.
“Connoisseur” should be spelled “connaisseur.”
When we borrowed this word from the French in the 18th century, it was spelled “connoisseur.” Is it our fault the French later decided to shift the spelling of many OI words to the more phonetically accurate AI? Of those Francophone purists who insist we should follow their example I say, let ’em eat bifteck.
from _eurekalert
A University of Illinois at Chicago study published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development reveals a link between smoking during pregnancy and very early child behavior problems.
Well DUH
And this goes both for mothers who smoke and mothers who spend time around smokers. Of course smoking hurts fetuses. It hurts toddlers and children and adults too. Even if they aren't the ones smoking.
On the other hand, this is cool, about as cool as the article about electronic eyes that I might not actually have copied to my journal a while ago:
For the first time, a team led by Brown University researchers is publishing detailed clinical trial results that show a tiny new brain sensor allowed a quadriplegic to open a prosthetic hand, control a robotic limb and move a computer cursor -- using thoughts alone. The work, featured on the cover of Nature, offers important insights into the human brain and how to tap its power to improve the lives of people with spinal cord injury and other severe motor impairments.
My copies of Civil War 1 and 2 just came in!
I don't remember if I posted this or just talked about it with a bunch of people, but I finially finished The Moor's Last Sigh. The last third of the book would have been decend had it not been laden with all of the baggage of the first 2/3. It really wanted to be a novella instead of a novel.
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