links – Among Mad People

Way Too Many Tabs Open, Year End Closeout Edition

Anna Schwind — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:21:58 +0000

I have too many tabs open. Most of them were things I intended to post here.

On your mark, get set, go!

The trailer for the gorgeous, wonderful “Surreal Guide to Botany”
The awesome Amanda Palmer, giving us all a Christmas gift: “What’s the Use Of Wond’rin’?“
Ok, so who am I kidding. There’s no way one Amanda Palmer video is enough, so here’s “Leeds United” aka the Belly Incident Video.
An insightful interview of Derren Brown conducted by Richard Dawkins (link is to part 1 of 6. They’re all worth watching, though.)
Hilarious post-election Get Your War On video. Yeah, I know, it’s been a while. But you know what? Still funny. “America’s new flag is just a white flag, but there’s a picture of a burning American flag on it.” and “Dude, he’s Muslim, that’s how we do!”
Coolest Theremin EVER. I hope I can get my husband to make one of these.
New Coraline trailer! New Coraline trailer! New Coraline trailer! Man, I totally need to get on the ball if I’m going to read Sophia the book before the movie comes out.

Interesting word test. Fun to take, though it does require some endurance and even my prodigious attention span flagged a bit about 170 words in or so. I did ok, though I don’t trust the claimed score percentile to IQ correspondence.
The Graveyard Book won the Newbery! Neil Gaiman didn’t swear! (like he did when he got the Hugo).

In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection by Caitlín R. Kiernan. This is a gorgeous, wonderful story. It’s everything I love about Kiernan. I can’t quite understand why her King Kong story won year’s best in Clarkesworld’s reader poll instead of this one, which I think is so much better.
Rampion in the Belltower by Merrie Haskell. Because happy ever after fairytales are better with zombies.
Watermark by Michael Greenhut. My favorite thing out of Fantasy magazine in ages and ages. I always read, but I’m usually disillusioned. This one works for me.

Why I still love slacktivist and the Library of Congress.

Anna Schwind — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:01:18 +0000

Besides creating a forum where people of differing (or no) faiths can discuss Christianity and providing insightful theological and political commentary, I love slacktivist because he can come up with a phrase like “bibliolatrous babble“. Oh yeah.

Also, the Library of Congress has a flickr account. They’ve posted more than three thousand photos from their collection and are inviting users to submit tags and identifying information. I love living in the future.

If A is the set of seven links, and B is the set of seven wonders, what is the set of both A and B?

Anna Schwind — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:20:14 +0000

Two real posts and a panicked PSA after interminable silence frees me for a linky post, right?

Penny Arcade on boy librarians made me laugh. Of course in librarianship, like in teaching, while women outnumber men, men still get the directorships the way they get to be principals at schools.
Surely that woman dressed in traditional Mayan clothes is a bag lady. Throw her out. Oh wait, you mean, she’s a Nobel Laureate?
From the newest, and most favorite, of the blogs I read “Strange Maps” comes this “Cat’s Map of the Bed“. On our bed the Heaving Spot is much, much larger. Oz has always been a prodigious vomiter and Rorschach, who thinks he needs to groom even the dog, hacks up some enormous furballs.

Continuing on the cat trend, I took the Egyptian zodiac quiz and no one who knows me will be at all surprised to find I turned out Bastet

Bastet

You look for balance and harmony, anxious, devoted. Often rash and impatient.
Colors: male: yellow ochre, female: grey
Compatible Signs: Sekhmet, Horus
Dates: Jul 14 – Jul 28, Sep 23 – Sep 27, Oct 3 – Oct 17
Role: Goddess of cats, women, and secrets
Appearance: Cat or cat-headed woman
Sacred animals: cat
What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign?
Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock’s Quizzles and Quandaries

Bastet rocks.

So the votes on the new seven wonders were counted, and they are: Chichen Itza, Macchu Picchu, Christ Redeemer, Petra, The Great Wall, The Taj Mahal and The Colosseum. I have to say, I’d love to go to Macchu Picchu but the only one of those I’ve been to, the Christ Redeemer wasn’t all that. I mean, it was cool and all, but it wasn’t in the top seven things I’ve ever seen or anything.
Sophia loves these boxy paper toys from paperboxworld. You might like them too.
Also in the world of folded and glued paper beings are the paper critters. Sophia’s made several, and I made this one: . Go make your own!

This is the end, beautiful friend

Anna Schwind — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:05:02 +0000

And here I go out…with a whimper. Have some links:

Matthew Cheney’s brilliant Rules for Writing. On a more serious note, quit your whining, they’re just techniques.
For Matthew and Deirdra (case you haven’t seen it) : Pain from fibromyalgia is real. In the good news/bad news department, however, I don’t find it reassuring that the studies that demonstrate the for real pain factor also “indicate that fibromyalgia patients have abnormalities within their central brain structures”.
In the ego department, have I mentioned my livejournal syndication feed? Set up by birdofparadox, it actually has 2 subscribers!
Secret of the Hessian crucibles cracked, and it only took us five hundred years. I love stuff like this. Definitely story fodder. Or maybe you’d like to read about the Greek lunar cycle machine instead.
You’ll think this list is being composed by an impostor if I don’t give you something political to be outraged about, won’t you? How about this? Not enough? How about oft-repeated fallacies about the level of violence in Iraq?
In the “we had to do a study to figure this out?” department: money really is the root of all evil (or at least the root of selfishness) and kids do not in fact, believe everything they hear.
Did you need a set of stack and weigh scales? Your tax dollars at work! Or wait, is the post office supposed to be financially independent? Maybe it’s your future stamp rate hike at work.

Closing Time

Anna Schwind — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:44:52 +0000

When I start one of these posts, I always hear that Semisonic song “Closing Time” in my head because I clear out all my opened tabs.

We’ll start with the freaky, cool science news : vampire bats can find you by your breathing, arctic warming is killing polar bears, the bigger the dinosaur the hotter the body temp, the Royal Society issues a statement on the teaching of evolution, a child who engages in pretend play learns to speak with ease, a unique view on gender bias in science from a person who is transgendered, the same genes act differently based on gender, and beautyberry repels mosquitoes. Yes, Science Daily is awesome.

I’ve had a lot of fun pretending to be an abstract painter with this cool little app. Sophia even used it some. Also very visual and very cool is the presidential speeches tag cloud. How come presidents don’t talk about labor anymore? Or the treasury?

The “common fantasy tongue” is fascinating, if you’re at all a language geek.

Need forms to help you get organized? Try these. I’ve been using the freezer inventory form for almost a year now. Handy since the freezer is on a completely different floor than the kitchen.

Tab closing time

Anna Schwind — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:01:06 +0000

The latest set of links that have caught my eye:

Science: are we seeing evolution in action with electric fish? Possibly. So how much energy is being expended to produce this new species? I was waiting for you to ask. In other news, experiments with animals suggest that prolonging life has more to do with calorie restriction than with exercise. And theories that figs may have been the first domesticated crop. I love the idea that if I grow a fig tree, I’m preserving a twelve-thousand year old connection to my ancestors. Also, archaeobotanists, can you think of a cooler occupation name than that?
Need a laugh? Try this suspect device cartoon, or this outsider view of X3, or watch this video of extreme Diet Coke and Mentos experiments.
Montessori schools rule!
Political outrage: Thought NYC was iconic, did you? Yeah, me too. Turns out we’re wrong. As you’ve probably heard by now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, New York has no national monuments or icons. Counterexamples at the Whatever, commentary at Making Light. The U.S. Army Field Manual is getting a facelift, one that will remove language that prohibits torture. I am so saddened and enraged by our country’s increasing tally of human rights violations that I can barely express it. Meanwhile, our president feels what’s really important is to enshrine discrimination in the constitution. Is there anything he won’t stoop to trashing?
To refresh your eyes, check out these seamless pictures. Prefer optical illusions?
Writing advice from Kelly Link and not-writing advice from Jeff VanderMeer (both of whom are amazing writers). For those who prefer the cold hard numbers, here’s Slushmaster‘s stats for the year.
Ursula Vernon puts the smackdown on her brain when there’s work to be done. The brain exacts revenge. Also, how come it’s not cool to have stories with morals at the end anymore? For rejection blues, watch “Bernard’s Letter“.
Irony: “Rhythm Method” May Kill Off More Embryos Than Other Methods Of Contraception.
Wishlist: this zester, the owl saint (in 13 x 19) and the fisher (in small), Thievery Corporation’s new CD “Versions“.

There we go. Down to thirty-three tabs. That’s manageable.

Drink me! Linktasty!

Anna Schwind — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:07:17 +0000

Have a handful of links, because I have got to close some of these tabs:

My love of New Orleans and my career as a librarian caused me to get a flood of well-meaning notices about how NOPL wants used books donated. This seemed dubious to me, because I know that they have little staff for processing right now and many of their branches are closed indefinitely so they likely are short on space as well (and I won’t even talk about what sort of collection you could build from other people’s discards, anyway). Finally, Snopes has weighed in. The New Orleans Public Library doesn’t want your (or my) ratty old books, though they’ll take them. What they really need is money, as I suspected.
Is it possible that whiny, insecure kids turn into conservatives when they grow up? This research says so. Yet another reason to provide a positive environment for children. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could fix the world by making sure all our preschoolers were well-adjusted and self-confident? [hat tip to Legomancer.]
I just missed They Might Be Giants in our town. Alas. Thank goodness I can still take the internet quiz to see which part of Fingertips I am. I suspect I will be “I hear the wind blow. I hear the wind blow. It seems to say, ‘Hello! Hello! I’m the one who loves you so.'” though I could also be “Hey now everybody, now hey now everybody, hey now everybody now.” From the fiendish mind of my friend Legomancer, of course.
For all my writer friends, this hysterical dramatization of the editing process. Had me snorting and laughing. [hat tip to Elizabeth Bear.]
Also, this is my kind of Communist Party.
Moving from funny to frightening, discover that paying down your credit card is potentially unAmerican. Really. Your money could be held up as a threat alert while your creditors notify Homeland Security. Feeling safer, yet? [hat tip to Legomancer.]
If kids get unstructured playtime in a natural environment, then they’re more likely to grow up to be environmentalists.
The incredible torn-up credit card application. At our house, we routinely get credit card applications for Rorschach. Of all the pets, I expect that Rorschach would be the least able to responsibly manage his credit. [hat tip to Legomancer.]
In case, like me, you’ve wondered if all conservatives lack a sense of humor, here’s proof that at least one can still locate his funny bone. Read Results of New In-Depth Study Revealed: Bush May Actually Be Hitler! The guy may have read The Onion once or twice. [hat tip to Transylvanian Dutch.]
I’m not actually going to inflict my version of the “10 writing things” meme that Elizabeth Bear started, but I am going to link her entry, because it’s worth looking at.
Ever read Terry Bisson’s story “They’re made out of meat”? It’s cute. And brief. And when you’re done you can watch this video of it, which is like that story made into an Outer Limits episode. Good old sci-fi. [hat tip to Elizabeth Bear.]
Predictably, I’m pro-immigrant, and I think building a fence between the Mexican and American borders is a stupid idea. I also think a lot of the talk about the illegal immigrant “invasion” is fear-mongering of a most irresponsible nature. Read Queen Sucia’s sensible commentary on media foolishness in this regard, then Real Live Preacher‘s description of a humanitarian, border-living friend. If you asked me whether I wanted to build a fence or leave some cans and ask people to close the door behind them when they leave, I’d definitely choose the latter. I just wish my government would listen to me on this.
I try to be good to service people because working in a service job can be really tiring and stressful, and usually pays not nearly enough. Also, when people are willing to cut my hair or serve me food or clean my hotel room or look after my kid or bring pizza to my house because I’m too lazy to fetch it, I am generally grateful. I’m not saying I’ve never been infuriated by a service person, nor that I am willing to return to places where I get bad service, but I try to apply the benefit of the doubt, if you know what I mean. Apparently, CEOs believe that observing how potential employees treat waiters is a good gauge of what sort of human beings those potential employees are. I am not surprised. [hat tip to Waiter Rant.]
Interesting neuro-scientific explanations as to why hanging out with negative people can be a real downer. [hat tip to Merrie.]
I love this word : psychoceramics.

Linketylinklink

Anna Schwind — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:14:37 +0000

So, for a nice change of pace, here’s a host of engaging links:

“Roses are Red” (from Emilie Autumn’s site, via Shasticon)

Hilarious conversation on the “Crazification factor” (from Kung Fu Monkey via slacktivist). Lines I especially enjoyed were “John: I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.” and “John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US? Tyrone: Does that seem wrong? John: … a bit low, actually.”

New Orleans news : Doing the right thing during Katrina, this mystifying collection of refrigerator graffiti, Chris Rose asks “Are You Nuts?” (answer, if you’re living in New Orleans, you must be) and gives lurch lessons (via Poppy Z. Brite — also check out her pictures of the Lower Ninth Ward). Some people can’t face going back. Cokie tells NPR about surreal things in New Orleans: no children, no black people and at least 4,000 persons still missing. Firefighters from my area that volunteered to help with Katrina report their frustrations with FEMA.

For all my non-cat-loving friends : “Why being into cats is essentially the same as being into psychotic tweakers.” (via Naomi Kritzer)

And because anything labeled “Monkey Math Machine” is cool, read about how semantic congruity may not be related to language.

In dinosaur news, which it is now my business to know, because of Sophia : recently they’ve found a mean croc ancestor with a dinosaur head, Dakosaurus andiniensis, as well as a new small member of the raptor family, Buitreraptor. Both these fossil finds were made in Argentina and “buitre” is the Spanish word for vulture.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden tells a hilarious story from Capclave. Do not read if you are offended by dinosaurs, sodomy, or any combination thereof. The cool thing about Making Light is that when I read entries these days I hear them in the voices of Teresa, Patrick and Jim inside my head.

Of course, I wish I could show all those authors who anguish over their poor amazon reviews this lovely collection of one star reviews (saw this all over place, but possibly at Elizabeth Bear’s LiveJournal first). See? Everyone gets them. Although, I have to say, I’m kind of on board with the guy who hated The Sun Also Rises. Ugh, Hemingway.

I want everyone to know that I, as a woman, am “inclined to be nervous and…happier with change.”

Did you know that all those pretty colored autumn leaves are trees waging chemical warfare? Me neither.

I’m saving this great word to unleash on someone : bullcrit.

Special note for my friend Kostia: You’ve certainly already heard it, but Terry Gross’ interview with Bruce Springsteen was good, even by a non-Springsteen fan standard.

And one more thing, don’t hit your kids. Whether it’s the cultural norm or not, it adversely affects them.

Huh. What do you know. This still isn’t book reviews.

Stuff you could read, if you weren’t saturated, and only some of it about Katrina.

Anna Schwind — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:01:39 +0000

First, I’ve heard secondhand complaints that the media aren’t covering the good news coming out of New Orleans. My friend Legomancer says there must be some puppies holding balloons that the everpresent cameras seem to have missed, but alas all I can offer you is “Cats in Sinks“.

Though usually bilious to a level that makes me roll my eyes, nihilistic kid has a good refutation for all the people questioning whether New Orleans needs to be rebuilt. Yesterday, he also wrote an eye-opening account of how stories get misreported (including the looters shooting at helicopters which apparently was just a rumor, thank God). He’s also posted a letter from Left Turn editor Jordan Flaherty, an eloquent firsthand account. CNN examines the disconnect between “official channels” and what journalists on the scene report. I guess this is what happens when our government is not part of the reality-based community. An interesting series of blog posts from author China Mieville on the Politics of Weather: part 1, part 2, part 3. His socialism is showing, but that doesn’t discredit his arguments. Particularly incisive is this bit from part 2: “Where do you even start? The lack of planning for/giving two shits about the poor? The wittering on about ‘looting’, ie the clear, unambiguous prioritising of property over human life?”

If I hadn’t already raged and spewed enough venom at the man who claims to lead my country yesterday, I could go on at length today about the incredibly facile and infuriating thing he said about Trent Lott’s beach house. Fortunately for me, others got there first, so I can just provide links: he’s clueless, he thinks a second home is the worst thing one has to face losing, he could have said something heart-warming if he had an ounce of empathy like Clinton did, he might have said one of these extrapolations if he’d been present at other calamities.

A common sense warning to the self-righteous finger pointers who insist everyone who lived in New Orleans deserves what they got because they’re stupid enough to live in a bowl below sea level. The loveliest line in the tirade : “Circumstance is chasing us all down, slowly but surely.” Indeed. “There but for the grace of God go I” has never been more eloquently phrased. Also, one last word on why someone who had no means to leave the path of a hurricane might not admit to it.

A list of New Orleans musicians who have been accounted for, and those who have not, from Looka! (via Making Light). Alex Chilton, another Ninth Ward resident, is still missing.

Morbid but funny, cobaltgreen brainstorms on what news would make the government stop dragging its feet and rescue the stranded. Also in the gallows humor category, this billboard (via Making Light) reminds us of the connection between small government and the lack of safety nets for our citizens:

My husband loaded a bunch of pictures into the photo database. Here’s a couple of my favorites from the summer:

I’ve noticed lately that Google News doesn’t have a feature I would like. It offers to sort things by date, assuming you want the most recent news, which is normally the case. However, several times in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been searching for the first instance of a quote or the first time something was mentioned in the news…this means that I’d want a reverse date sort, which it doesn’t have, and which would be really useful. Going to the last hit would accomplish a similar thing, except that you might get news that was too old, like years old instead of weeks old. So it would need to be a recent reverse sort, like seven days or two weeks.

Ok, so it wasn’t all negative, right? I tried for that vaunted balance I hear the media values so much.

Follow the links at your own peril. Also, Dayenu.

Anna Schwind — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:03:57 +0000

Yesterday was a day filled with melancholy, in which I wished very much to not be in the world, because of stories like this, this, and this. Please note, it’s all horrifying stuff. I wouldn’t blame you a bit for not wanting to know. I didn’t.

Today I feel a bit better, in part because I slipped sideways into Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and vanished from here for a few hours, and in part because of things like this. Discovery landed safely, with a woman commander, how cool is that? And I learned something new, I didn’t know the shuttle got carted around on the back of 747 NASA carrier jet.

What a perplexing, sad and awe inspiring time to be alive.

Also, this is a weird thing that I have no explanation for, but I hope one of my readers can point me to one. There’s an African country that is currently undergoing a starvation catastrophe. Yet another one of those things that has me disheartened because everyone knew this was coming and no one did anything about it. I digress, though. The mystery is when I was young, I learned to say this country name as ‘nI-j&r, but I increasingly hear it pronounced in a more Frenchified way, as nE-‘zher. When did this happen? And why? The other day I actually heard a radio announcer correct themselves from the first pronunciation to the second. What is that about? Anyone know?

I heard this most moving story concerning a woman’s remembrances of the bombing of Hiroshima, sixty years ago last Saturday. There’s four parts to the series, all of which are excellent and worth hearing (though you will need to guard yourself against becoming depressed on listening, if you are at all like me). A day or so after the story that I linked above aired, the station read an angry letter from a guy who was totally outraged that nothing in the piece justified the bomb dropping. This seemed so odd to me. Why would a bombing survivor have any business talking about how great the bombing was? I understand that arguments can be made (though never proven) for a quicker end to the war and therefore a smaller loss of life overall because of the United States’ use of the atomic bomb, but I hardly think it’s appropriate that every article about Hiroshima contain a cheering section for slaughter, regardless of potential justifications. How does that honor the dead and the living? Why would anyone demand that others capitulate their position and abnegate their actual experience in order to praise the actions of their enemies? It’s a bizarre sort of thing to be offended about, to my mind, and I can’t quite fathom it. You can hear the letter for yourself here under the entire program link, at about the 22 minute mark.

I am also concerned about the impending, forced evacuation of Israelis from the settlements in Gaza. I don’t want there to be any violence from any person on any side of this polygonal dispute. It is a courageous move on the part of the Israeli government to publicly cede land and I hope the Palestinians can see that. Turning the military on your own people is always dangerous, always difficult and rarely wise. I hope the settlers can understand this is a move of duress on the part of their government. I will be praying for a peaceful transition in which no one (else) comes to harm.

And that’s today’s newscast through the Anarkey filter.

One last thing, Slacktivist is as insightful as ever, with his piece on the difference between need and greed. Today I bless you, reader, in this way: may you always remember that there is enough, whether you have it when you do or not. Dayenu.