(no subject)
May. 13th, 2008 02:12 amre: Angel Series 3; also Secret Country book 1.
You can't just leave it there! :)
(Don't tell me what happens. Just augh :))
You can't just leave it there! :)
(Don't tell me what happens. Just augh :))
Bimonthly depression
Mar. 9th, 2007 01:28 pmGoodly, I've got quite a bit done this week, success at work, big tesco order, social stuff, and well enough to feel able to relax rather than have to try to squeeze something else in :) And have several things to look forward to.
Badly, half a dozen friends have just been really busy recently, and there's been a distinct lack of relaxing evenings in, and I feel depressed. Looking back at previous cyberhugs and looking forward to upcoming events cheers me up a little bit.
Badly, half a dozen friends have just been really busy recently, and there's been a distinct lack of relaxing evenings in, and I feel depressed. Looking back at previous cyberhugs and looking forward to upcoming events cheers me up a little bit.
Buying wroblication
Jan. 20th, 2007 04:26 pmIs it just me?
Obviously, if you're interested in getting a wroblication service, it's good to have a link explaining (1) that wroblicating will cause dolphins to fly out of your computer and make you the envy of all your friends, and have a patronising introductory video explain very very slowly with clunky graphics and a patronising patriarchal American male accent that wroblicate is a word and words are made up out of letters, and that here we have a w, also for witch, but that that isn't pronounced, and an r, which is, perhaps with some aspiration, and then...
And you definitely need (3), a link allowing you to sign up for an N year wroblicating contract.
But does no-one else at all want (2) a short list of which wroblications are included in the service? And maybe how fast they are?
The complete absence of any indication that the information I wanted might even exist, let alone be useful, always makes me feel like a freak. *stabbitykillstabbityuserinterfaces*
Obviously, if you're interested in getting a wroblication service, it's good to have a link explaining (1) that wroblicating will cause dolphins to fly out of your computer and make you the envy of all your friends, and have a patronising introductory video explain very very slowly with clunky graphics and a patronising patriarchal American male accent that wroblicate is a word and words are made up out of letters, and that here we have a w, also for witch, but that that isn't pronounced, and an r, which is, perhaps with some aspiration, and then...
And you definitely need (3), a link allowing you to sign up for an N year wroblicating contract.
But does no-one else at all want (2) a short list of which wroblications are included in the service? And maybe how fast they are?
The complete absence of any indication that the information I wanted might even exist, let alone be useful, always makes me feel like a freak. *stabbitykillstabbityuserinterfaces*
Lies-to-children
May. 17th, 2006 01:23 amManual: To upload pictures to your computer from your camera [install software, change camera settings, plug in, software autostarts...] Do not connect your camera to your pc until installation is complete!
Me: Gah, that's complicated. Why can't I just read the xd card like an external disk?
Me: But I don't have another card reader here, so I'll try it.
Computer: Installed. Click to reboot.
Me: Gah.
Me: Connects camera now.
Computer: Reads xd card like external disk.
Me: Gah! Couldn't they have said that? What's with the dire warnings? When will I accept that I know bettter than instruction manuals? (Sometimes. Often they mean their warnings.)
Anyway, lj picnic and family up north photos coming soon. Pictures of blossom and flowers and people in startrek uniforms at worldcon and amusing signs forbidding canoeing on hillsides were snapped with my phone and never saved, so gone now, sorry
ETA: Needs batch resizing. Thinks, "well, I have the software, ANYWAY", surely it's designed to do this easily. Crashes. Gah. Gimp, whereforartthou? Or maybe one of the online services designed to do this.
ETA: Gah. I don't know if there's a way to turn off rich text editing in livejournal. I'll disable javascript and sort it out later.
Me: Gah, that's complicated. Why can't I just read the xd card like an external disk?
Me: But I don't have another card reader here, so I'll try it.
Computer: Installed. Click to reboot.
Me: Gah.
Me: Connects camera now.
Computer: Reads xd card like external disk.
Me: Gah! Couldn't they have said that? What's with the dire warnings? When will I accept that I know bettter than instruction manuals? (Sometimes. Often they mean their warnings.)
Anyway, lj picnic and family up north photos coming soon. Pictures of blossom and flowers and people in startrek uniforms at worldcon and amusing signs forbidding canoeing on hillsides were snapped with my phone and never saved, so gone now, sorry
ETA: Needs batch resizing. Thinks, "well, I have the software, ANYWAY", surely it's designed to do this easily. Crashes. Gah. Gimp, whereforartthou? Or maybe one of the online services designed to do this.
ETA: Gah. I don't know if there's a way to turn off rich text editing in livejournal. I'll disable javascript and sort it out later.
LARP -- linear
May. 1st, 2006 11:38 amI'm happy: I think I've got the hang of it, and the system -- while I don't know how it compares to other LARP systems -- seems pretty good in absolute, and hitting people with swords is fun -- fencing actually comes in handy, woop!
Though I feel kind of bad that everything I did went wrong. Which isn't a big deal, it's only LARP, and isn't anyone's fault including mine, but all the time I seem to have conversations like:
Someone else: What are you doing here?
My character: [Paraphrases ref's brief, typically "You're a guard patrolling here for blah."]
Someone else: Why the hell are you doing that? Who sent you?
My character: Uh, [adlib]
Someone else: Gah! All guardsmen seem to be idiots.
Me: What am I supposed to do? If I adlib, it's false in character. If I go and ask a ref every question I think my NPC would know the answer to, I'll hold the game up 5 minutes a time. I read all the rules, and was given a one-line description with no motivation, but can't know what's normal in this situation, and taking cues from people who've played before just makes it worse. I'm sorry!
But it was overall good and I will come back next time and do it right. And hopefully develop a character this week for the interactive. And fight chessypig with rubber swords any time the opportunity presents itself :)
Though I feel kind of bad that everything I did went wrong. Which isn't a big deal, it's only LARP, and isn't anyone's fault including mine, but all the time I seem to have conversations like:
Someone else: What are you doing here?
My character: [Paraphrases ref's brief, typically "You're a guard patrolling here for blah."]
Someone else: Why the hell are you doing that? Who sent you?
My character: Uh, [adlib]
Someone else: Gah! All guardsmen seem to be idiots.
Me: What am I supposed to do? If I adlib, it's false in character. If I go and ask a ref every question I think my NPC would know the answer to, I'll hold the game up 5 minutes a time. I read all the rules, and was given a one-line description with no motivation, but can't know what's normal in this situation, and taking cues from people who've played before just makes it worse. I'm sorry!
But it was overall good and I will come back next time and do it right. And hopefully develop a character this week for the interactive. And fight chessypig with rubber swords any time the opportunity presents itself :)
Fuck again. Today overall went very well. Work went well, wrapped up by 7. Came home, had dinner and watched TV for a bit but not too long. Fiddled with breaks, answered email, ok.
Spent an hour getting CTS agenda, (hopefully) last announcements about the agm, and everything else written. Went the carlton. Know what I'm doing tomorrow so I don't put off going to sleep or getting up.
Except, fuck, guess what I did? I used winscp and ms word to write the agenda on my server space. Oops. It was in text only format, but with an rtf extension (oops). I saved it as rich text (double oops) because Word helpfully changed "agenda.rtf" to "agenda.rtf.doc". Then scp uploaded it when I closed word (treble oops) because it then deleted the directory.
When will I learn?
ETA: And then I spent half the night trying to propose a good compromise between having life members and not dinging freshers for so much they don't join. It takes a long time to compose my thoughts into something coherent and persuasive, and I don't think I even reached that point. But I felt I had to do my bit, hoping the AGM won't be a big argument about this that ends inconclusively by picking one unsatisfactory side arbitrarily.
Spent an hour getting CTS agenda, (hopefully) last announcements about the agm, and everything else written. Went the carlton. Know what I'm doing tomorrow so I don't put off going to sleep or getting up.
Except, fuck, guess what I did? I used winscp and ms word to write the agenda on my server space. Oops. It was in text only format, but with an rtf extension (oops). I saved it as rich text (double oops) because Word helpfully changed "agenda.rtf" to "agenda.rtf.doc". Then scp uploaded it when I closed word (treble oops) because it then deleted the directory.
When will I learn?
ETA: And then I spent half the night trying to propose a good compromise between having life members and not dinging freshers for so much they don't join. It takes a long time to compose my thoughts into something coherent and persuasive, and I don't think I even reached that point. But I felt I had to do my bit, hoping the AGM won't be a big argument about this that ends inconclusively by picking one unsatisfactory side arbitrarily.
Some people have lives told in Shakespearean style. Bleak house. Austen. Saki. Anything. I have sitcom. Oh well :)
This will be represented as a rapid sequence of scene cuts, as I move from one bike shop to the other. Some humour will be evinced in repetition, some in breaking the repetition.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I see you have a selection. What's the difference between this £100 bike, and this £130 bike?
Him: *gormless look* It costs more. It has a, uuuhh, *looks at bike* better frame. And different coloured gears.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: So, do you have any bikes less tall than I am for under £230 pounds?
Him: No.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: *shocked look*
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a bike?
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is a hardware store.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is subway.
** series of shots of me muching through a sandwich looking tired **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
** long pan down ten meter long row of off-road bikes costing £300 **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: Why are you late for work?
Me: Well, I was *going* to ride in...
*sigh* And all those 0.14s transitions took me half an hour of walking. At least I had a book and a plot to write. But I'm 5'10 or 5'11, I'm not *that* short.
I thought it might be as easy as last time. Where else should I go?
This will be represented as a rapid sequence of scene cuts, as I move from one bike shop to the other. Some humour will be evinced in repetition, some in breaking the repetition.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I see you have a selection. What's the difference between this £100 bike, and this £130 bike?
Him: *gormless look* It costs more. It has a, uuuhh, *looks at bike* better frame. And different coloured gears.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: So, do you have any bikes less tall than I am for under £230 pounds?
Him: No.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: *shocked look*
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a bike?
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is a hardware store.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is subway.
** series of shots of me muching through a sandwich looking tired **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
** long pan down ten meter long row of off-road bikes costing £300 **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: Why are you late for work?
Me: Well, I was *going* to ride in...
*sigh* And all those 0.14s transitions took me half an hour of walking. At least I had a book and a plot to write. But I'm 5'10 or 5'11, I'm not *that* short.
I thought it might be as easy as last time. Where else should I go?
BBC english and maths quizes
Sep. 20th, 2005 05:07 pmGo and see. The quizzes had surprisingly few bits we took issue with.
English: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4246472.stm
18/20 :( I am teh[1] bad speller. One was a complete spelling mistake because I'm bad.
The other was the hyphen question. OK, it should have been obvious, but I thought hyphen compound modifiers were only necessary when confusion would result. When *necessary* I even use n-dashes and m-dashes to denote levels of binding, but he'd hardly likely lost a long brother, had he?
Also, the simile question. It was obvious what they meant, but dictionary.com says "A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared". If "hands cold as ice" means literally below freezing at one atmosphere, does that count? Obviously "eyes cold as ice" would, but is "he was as tall as a lampost" a simile??
And the Jane's question. As someone who habitually and correctly says Jens' house, I thought their example was bad. If they'd said 'more likely to be correct' ok, but they said 'correct'. The same problem often applies to headlines -- sometimes scientists do do something amusing to a hononym; but these were ok as far as I can see.
Maths: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4263590.stm
See http://www.livejournal.com/users/ewx/313391.html for discussion of flaws, etc. Do use a calculator or google or at least paper if you want to. (I think google would be good at these. IT IS BECOMING ALIVE! :))
He said "20/20 or I'd have fallen on my sword" but I prefer 19 because one of their questions was wrong :) Not that I did.
[1] Irony.
English: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4246472.stm
18/20 :( I am teh[1] bad speller. One was a complete spelling mistake because I'm bad.
The other was the hyphen question. OK, it should have been obvious, but I thought hyphen compound modifiers were only necessary when confusion would result. When *necessary* I even use n-dashes and m-dashes to denote levels of binding, but he'd hardly likely lost a long brother, had he?
Also, the simile question. It was obvious what they meant, but dictionary.com says "A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared". If "hands cold as ice" means literally below freezing at one atmosphere, does that count? Obviously "eyes cold as ice" would, but is "he was as tall as a lampost" a simile??
And the Jane's question. As someone who habitually and correctly says Jens' house, I thought their example was bad. If they'd said 'more likely to be correct' ok, but they said 'correct'. The same problem often applies to headlines -- sometimes scientists do do something amusing to a hononym; but these were ok as far as I can see.
Maths: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4263590.stm
See http://www.livejournal.com/users/ewx/313391.html for discussion of flaws, etc. Do use a calculator or google or at least paper if you want to. (I think google would be good at these. IT IS BECOMING ALIVE! :))
He said "20/20 or I'd have fallen on my sword" but I prefer 19 because one of their questions was wrong :) Not that I did.
[1] Irony.
Why am I so fucking stupid #n
Sep. 10th, 2005 02:21 amOK, I am using flash. It's so easy to automatically hit ctrl-s to save and then later close the program, forgetting this carefully loses any code changes you made. OTOH it's interesting how quickly you can recreate it when you remember what you did the first time.
God and bike repair
Sep. 2nd, 2005 01:04 pm*sigh*
Is there a God who designed the worlds[1] for the benefit of human life? Look at a world which *is* designed by intellegence for life: ie.[2] Sims. There's little real estate wasted on 10^big vaccuum[3] with no people in. All your actions are personality-relevant. It seems suggestive (though we're outside, obviously, so it'd hard to tell).
In fact, for I while I was considering fic in a matrix-like world, where they *did* twig because of such a philsophical point -- there were psychic powers which could only be explained by minds having a distinguished place above other matter (because the simulation made some optimisations).
Is *our* world like that? Maybe. It'd be hard to tell -- of all the random nuclear decays, etc, whcih ones cause a hurricane? Which ones stop one? Is the number statistically significant? Especially if the "god" is playing hide and seek.
Specifically, bike punctures must be fairly random. Do they happen statistically significantly more often when you're late for a date, a job interview, or doctor who[4]?
OK, sorry. All this is leading up to me adding a few steps to sonicdrift's really marvellous bike repair manual:
* Fix puncture.
* Wait overnight.
* Fix other puncture, two inches from the first.
* Wait overnight.
* Cycle 500 yds.
* Kick wall repeatedly.
* Examine tyre. The tyre has popped loose from the wheel, and a rabbit's ear of doubled up inner tube has popped out sideways and caught on one of the many struts designed to prevent easy maintance to the wheel.
* Try to reduce bike to pushable condition.
* Carry bike 200 yds.
* Partially deflated. Stuff bits back and push carefully 300 yds.
* Drink beer and write computer games.
* Blog about it.
[1] The first time I typed "word". Very saphir-whorph :)
[2] Or maybe eg. But The second part is the relevent one, in mind during the first half. Which is more correct?
[3] Hmm. Unless you count the MB of memory used for the OS. Is hacking out of the game program equivalent to us discovering, say, quantum entanglement? Hmm.
[4] Or all of the above, in the case of, say, Billie Piper :)
Update: I forgot * pour bowl of water on floor
Is there a God who designed the worlds[1] for the benefit of human life? Look at a world which *is* designed by intellegence for life: ie.[2] Sims. There's little real estate wasted on 10^big vaccuum[3] with no people in. All your actions are personality-relevant. It seems suggestive (though we're outside, obviously, so it'd hard to tell).
In fact, for I while I was considering fic in a matrix-like world, where they *did* twig because of such a philsophical point -- there were psychic powers which could only be explained by minds having a distinguished place above other matter (because the simulation made some optimisations).
Is *our* world like that? Maybe. It'd be hard to tell -- of all the random nuclear decays, etc, whcih ones cause a hurricane? Which ones stop one? Is the number statistically significant? Especially if the "god" is playing hide and seek.
Specifically, bike punctures must be fairly random. Do they happen statistically significantly more often when you're late for a date, a job interview, or doctor who[4]?
OK, sorry. All this is leading up to me adding a few steps to sonicdrift's really marvellous bike repair manual:
* Fix puncture.
* Wait overnight.
* Fix other puncture, two inches from the first.
* Wait overnight.
* Cycle 500 yds.
* Kick wall repeatedly.
* Examine tyre. The tyre has popped loose from the wheel, and a rabbit's ear of doubled up inner tube has popped out sideways and caught on one of the many struts designed to prevent easy maintance to the wheel.
* Try to reduce bike to pushable condition.
* Carry bike 200 yds.
* Partially deflated. Stuff bits back and push carefully 300 yds.
* Drink beer and write computer games.
* Blog about it.
[1] The first time I typed "word". Very saphir-whorph :)
[2] Or maybe eg. But The second part is the relevent one, in mind during the first half. Which is more correct?
[3] Hmm. Unless you count the MB of memory used for the OS. Is hacking out of the game program equivalent to us discovering, say, quantum entanglement? Hmm.
[4] Or all of the above, in the case of, say, Billie Piper :)
Update: I forgot * pour bowl of water on floor
Agnst poetry - the onion
Aug. 24th, 2005 03:35 pmOK, maybe I can justify *two* angsty poems. I had something in mind when I started this, but nothing coherent by the end. But I thought I'd post anyway; finding meaning can be an exercise for the reader :)
I cringe to think of who I used to be
And even then I hated who I was before.
And then I look at who I have become
And guess how long before I must repent of this.
The six, the sixty-six, the ages of a man
Are layered about me like an onion
And everything before is still inside
Except, a rotted tree, the core is slow forgot.
And then look out and see the empty space
Out into which my allium must grow
But even as it struggles in the waning light
It's slowly left behind by faster growing life
But can I not just like it as it is?
And yes, somtimes I do like onion
And yet, and yet, you still can't help but ask
"Why does it make you cry?"
Amazon whine
Jul. 7th, 2005 02:50 pmI finally accepted that I'm going to buy the entire series, but not today, so it's worth ordering from amazon.
Though, in the interests of wailing against the universe, couldn't there be some universal system of relating books to prevent having to hunt around to establish what's the same? I mean, everyone has a big database of ISBNs that identify books, couldn't there be some record of which books R what book, where R is:
* In the same series
* Later in the same series in publishing order
* Later in the series in internal chronology (more or less, obviously nested books and circular series need arbitrary decision)
* A revision of
* Contains
* A different edition of
Maybe there should be a big website[1]. Maybe there is?
[1] If it was fan-created, it could include "is universally agreed to be better than" and "owned by in your area" :)
Though, in the interests of wailing against the universe, couldn't there be some universal system of relating books to prevent having to hunt around to establish what's the same? I mean, everyone has a big database of ISBNs that identify books, couldn't there be some record of which books R what book, where R is:
* In the same series
* Later in the same series in publishing order
* Later in the series in internal chronology (more or less, obviously nested books and circular series need arbitrary decision)
* A revision of
* Contains
* A different edition of
Maybe there should be a big website[1]. Maybe there is?
[1] If it was fan-created, it could include "is universally agreed to be better than" and "owned by in your area" :)