Month: May 2011

bookmark_borderSarcasm – Gotta Love It

Posted on by PaulaO

And I do! Oh how I love it. And irony too. Oh, and while we’re at it, I enjoy laughing. A lot.

Which is why I like this article titled “A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!“.

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.

If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.

(…)

It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.

So yeah, I laughed. But I also wanted to cry. I think often about just what kind of world we are leaving for the kids. While we have professions in “social media”, they’ll have professions in “global clean up” and “how to make rafts out of credit cards”.

I personally know several people who go absolutely frothing at the mouth at the very notion of “global warming”. Each time we got yet another snow storm or the temps stayed below freezing for the second week, there they’d go ranting and raving about how if it is a “global warming”, why is it snowing outside?”. Heavy sigh.

Which reminds me of a joke/parable.

There’s this place that has flood watch out. Neighbors say do you need anything? Guy says no, God will provide.
Then it is a flood warning and they’re told to evacuate. Neighbors say come with us and guy says no, God will provide.
Water is lapping at his porch and the local police, along with the Nat’l Guard, offer him a ride in their Hummer. No, the guy says, God will provide.
Water is now up to the second floor and a rescue boat comes by but, that’s right, the guy says God will provide.
The flood is now up to his roof and the guy clings to the chimney. Helicopter lowers a rescuer but, nope, God will provide.
The guy drowns and he’s standing in Heaven and he says God, why didn’t you provide?
God says “I did, you idiot! I sent your neighbors twice then a Hummer, a boat, and a helicopter!”

So Gaia and God have been trying to tell us we’re about to drown (metaphorically speaking. maybe) yet, we just ignore them.

bookmark_borderThree Month Tour

Posted on by PaulaO

NASA today officially declared Spirit dead. I am sad, really sad. Spirit, along with Opportunity, landed on Mars over 6 years ago with a mission plan of 3 months. Spirit would still be going except he got stuck and couldn’t get into position to keep enough power to last through the bitter cold Martian winter. After over an Earth year of no contact, they ceased attempts to get him to contact.

Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover’s solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions.

(…)

Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit’s right-front wheel became immobile in 2006. The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager.

“What’s really important is not only how long Spirit worked or how far Spirit drove, but also how much exploration and scientific discovery Spirit accomplished,” Callas said.

As some one else said before I could (dangit!):

So long, Spirit, and thanks for the data.

bookmark_borderFree Speech and Copyright

Posted on by PaulaO

For future reference, you can always tell when I am writing (vs playing World of Warcraft) because I am putting up posts here.

That said, I am a big fan and supporter of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Basically, in a nutshell, EFF is an organization representing and fighting for the rights of email, stuff on the internet, and cell phones. Basically. They’re much more than that, of course.

Apparently there is/was this big event called the “e-G8”. Not exactly sure what or who they are but I just read an article about the co-founder of EFF and his attendance at this event.

When Barlow had a chance to speak, he expressed his own surprise at being on the panel, “because I don’t think I’m from the same planet, actually.” He then proceeded to trash the foundational assumptions of everyone who had just spoken.

I may be one of very few people in this room who actually makes his living personally by creating what these gentlemen are pleased to call “intellectual property.” I don’t regard my expression as a form of property. Property is something that can be taken from me. If I don’t have it, somebody else does.

Expression is not like that. The notion that expression is like that is entirely a consequence of taking a system of expression and transporting it around, which was necessary before there was the internet, which has the capacity to do this infinitely at almost no cost.

(source)

Later, after the Big Boys up front with him had a chance to change their pants, they confronted him about it.

Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterand took Barlow to task for his dramatic statements. “I do not share this apocalyptic vision of some dictatorship that will be creeping back through the internet into our lives to control our thoughts and the way in which we function,” he said. Some controls on the internet are eminently reasonable—we need “economic solutions to economic problems.”

The head of Universal Music France talked about just how much money was necessary to nurture new talent. DIdn’t Barlow understand economics?

“If you’re spending $5 billion on new artists, we’re not getting our money’s worth,” Barlow cracked, and he reframed his argument in economic terms of scarcity and abundance.

“Trying to optimize towards scarcity, as you are by all of your methods, is not going to be in the benefit of creation, I promise you,” he said. “It’s not IP enforcement that gets you guys properly paid.” In his view, payment comes from building a product that people actually want to buy—and the movie industry’s repeated record box office takes in recent years show that people have no problem coughing up the cash for something of value.

“I am not against being compensated for what you do,” concluded Barlow.

So why would I, a crippled up old Southern lesbian, give a rip? Well, on a large scale, I don’t want them to start regulating the Internet. Once they start regulating it, they start controlling it. I don’t want them in my email and certainly not controlling what I can or cannot post. On a much smaller scale, I do believe there is a need for some sort of regulation, but not of the Internet itself. There are hundreds of web sites where people can upload whatever so that other people can download whatever. This includes music, books, movies, photos, etc. Some are legitimate. The vast majority are not. There are people who actually scan in entire paper books into .pdf format then upload them so others can “enjoy” them. This is theft. It is piracy. I’ve discussed this before. So on the one hand, keep your nose out of my stuff. But on the other hand, I understand about copyrights. We can’t copyright ourselves to death or we’ll be in a massive gridlock. But a copyright needs to be honored.

So, folks at e-G8, work on shutting down online piracy. You can keep arresting and suing the user but until you get the pirate and the pirate sites, it’s like bailing water without turning off the faucet.

bookmark_borderFonts

Posted on by PaulaO

I have migraines that are mostly related to neck position. As in if I move it, I get a headache. Fun and joy all around. Some of the things I do to lessen the pain is I have my monitor’s brightness turned down, I have background colors in the word processor (although not at the moment), and something new I kinda like.

It is a new font. It is called Lexia and was developed to assist those with dyslexia. I find it real easy on my old, tired eyes and I find it especially nice when a headache is on.

screenshot of Lexia font. click for larger version

It is considered an alternative to Comic Sans.

screenshot of comic sans font

Personally, I find Comic Sans kinda hard to read and tend to make it larger (the above examples are both in 12pt). Before Lexia, I used Verdana which is a bigger font anyway.

Lexia is free and doing a Google search, I found it in a lot of places. But font sites tend to be malware sites so, as always, check it before opening. I got it from K-Type which is where several dyslexia sites suggested.

As long as I am just writing, I’ll use the Lexia. But when I am in the final edits, I’ll have to switch to whatever the publisher prefers, that way I see the layout correctly. Never ever submit anything in a bizarre font. Always always read their guidelines to see what they prefer. Some like Courier, others like Times New Roman.

bookmark_border2012 Election

Posted on by PaulaO

I almost wish the Mayan calendar does mean the world ends next year. I don’t think I can stand another election campaign. If they’d just talk about what they will do or where they stand but, no, they have to spend money cutting each other up and that crap.

At any rate, the Republican “race” is looking interesting. I laughed when I heard Gingrich was going to run. Still laughing, actually.

But now I am laughing harder. I’d heard he’d had a bad week with the press so when I found an article that lists it all out, I was pleased.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Newton Leroy Gingrich

As everyone knows, this was the week that the federal government hit its deficit ceiling. That was the story everyone thought would dominate the week. Yet, somehow, Newt Gingrich surprised everyone by managing to hit his own first. And in the first full week of his life as an official candidate for president, too! For well over a decade, Gingrich had flirted with running for president, and just over a week ago, he finally decided to officially take the plunge. But by the time the sun had set on his campaign’s first weekend, political touts had cause to wonder if his aspirations were over. Let us now pause and take stock in the bizarre and awful week of self-inflicting wounds and puzzling decisions that the former speaker of the House has had, shall we?

(source)

It is a well done article and, after reading well over half of it, I’d not found an error. But I stopped reading because I couldn’t read for the tears of laughter blocking my vision. Seems as though, after an interview on the yawn worthy Meet the Press, and after several days of denials and apologies and all that crap, Gingrich’s spokesman Rick Tyler sent out a press release that reads more like a jumble of Haiku than a statement.

“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

While it is indeed humorous, it is actually more painful than funny. That is, until I see that Cothbert (who I do not watch) covered this on his show.

(you can slide over to about 0:58 to miss out on the cheering audience or skip his part and get right to the meat of it at 2:38 or so although what he says sets the rest up quite nicely)

bookmark_borderSpeaking of Tease…

Posted on by PaulaO

Here ya go. Let me know what you think.

****

Several hours and most of a case of beer later, Sam had reached a conclusion. “Let’s move.”

“Move? Where?”

“I dunno. Somewhere that’s not a city. Not too hot, not too cold.”

“Juuuust right?”

“There’s nothing to keep me here. Nor you, for that matter. You’ll keep bumping into Ruth and I’ll never bump into whatshername.” Sam opened another beer bottle.

“You still hurting from her? It was a one-night stand, Sam. Get over it.”

“I don’t do one-night stands. And she said she didn’t either. Yet, well, don’t get me started. I’ve almost purged myself of her.”

“Must’ve been fantastic sex.” Ellen nudged Sam.

Sam sobered up for a moment. “The best I have ever had. But it wasn’t just the sex, although that alone was enough. It was the talking, the sharing, the laughing. You know?”

“Yeah, I know.” They were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. “So, we’re moving? Where to?”

“You got a map of the U.S. around here? A big one?”

“Nope, but we can make one.” Ellen weaved her way to her computer and opened her web browser. “Wikipedia is our friend.” Soon the printer was spitting out pages that they laid out on the floor to form the map.

“How many of these dead men are yours?” Sam pointed her unsteady hand toward the various empty bottles on the table and floor.

“Shit if I know.” Ellen giggled.

“Find the caps. We’ll toss them one by one onto the map.”

“Then we play connect the dots?”

“Nope. We see where they land and we choose where t’ move.”

“Oh! I get it now.” Ellen gathered the bottle caps within her reach while Sam did the same on her side of the floor. They began tossing them onto the map. Of course, it took a while since far too many of them missed the map altogether.

When they were done, they lay on the floor side-by-side and surveyed their choices. “I say take out all the Florida and Alabama ones. Too dang hot.” Ellen took off the Alabama ones and Sam removed Florida’s markers.

“And Washington. Nice state but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

“Texas?”

“Isn’t that where one of those companies is? Are? Whatever?” It was Sam’s turn to have a giggle fit.

“Yep. Too hot.” Ellen flipped the cap to the side. “Louisiana?”

“Hurricanes.”

“Missouri?”

“Tornadoes.” At each of Sam’s responses, Ellen picked up the appropriate caps. “That leaves Virginia, North Carolina, Wyoming and both Dakotas.”

“Take off the Dakotas and Wyoming. Too cold.” Sam held out her hand for the caps.

“Two in North Carolina, and one in Virginia.”

“Then I’d say North Carolina wins.”

bookmark_borderBelievable Angst

Posted on by PaulaO

Angst is: “An acute but unspecific feeling of anxiety; usually reserved for philosophical anxiety about the world or about personal freedom” (WordWeb). But it is also used by a lot of authors to describe the internal emotional twisting for characters and/or the tension and conflict in a book. Not enough angst, and you wonder why the book was written. Too much, and the reader is exhausted or you’ve made the story unbelievable.

With Romance, the tension/conflict is usually “does she love me yes or no” followed by “she said x but I think she means y so I’m going to run now”. If it were that easy, no one would read it. Usually there’s some sort of medical drama (nothing says I love you like wiping blood of your face or cleaning up your puke, right?). Someone pointed out that nearly every lesbian romance has a concussion in it. And a shower sex scene. Most also have sex in an alley.

So I got Nikki. She’s tall and cute and kinda stingy with her money after years of not having any. Then I got Ellen who is short and cute who spends money too easily because she’s always had someone to bail her out. That and she also keeps an emergency fund on hand for ‘justincaseities’ that crop up. They meet, get to know each other, feel the attraction, get together by the end. I can’t come up with any angst for them. There’s the money thing but that only goes so far before it gets to be annoying. And there’s the Yankee vs Redneck thing which, along with the height thing, is more for comic relief. There’s the dead brother thing but that ties into Harri’s book. I just can’t come up with some believable conflict for them. They just get along rather well, actually. I don’t want to do the misunderstanding thing (something I overdid in BGCFA). Oh, there’s the kitchen. They both love to cook and are rather picky about their kitchen space. But again, that only goes so far.

There has to be something I can do. I want to do this book quickly, get it written (again) and get it sent out. I know I know. Nearly exactly a year ago it was supposed to be out but shit happened. Real Life knocked me for a loop (and Mom is doing well, thank you for asking).

There’s the personal space issue. One is a neat freak (Nikki) and the other is far from it. Then there’s Spam, the big huge Rottweiler with his stuffed elephant.

Sometimes I think I think too much.

bookmark_borderTo Degree or Not to Degree

Posted on by PaulaO

My niece, bless her heart, wants to grow up to be a writer/illustrator. I’ve not sugar coated the profession (the writer part) in the least and yet that is what she wants. Does she want to be one because I am (kinda sorta) and therefore it is a viable option? Or does she want to be one because that is what she truly wants? Only Princess knows for sure.

Sometimes I see an article about writing and I think “Hey, Princess would want to read this.” but most of the time the articles are way way over her head. She is, after all, only 11 (soon to be 12). I came across and article today that I went ahead and sent her the link to. It is one discussing the arguments about whether or not a MFA degree has been good or bad for literature as a whole. Some say it has only made it better. Others argue it has only made cookie cutter novels better.

Here’s what I sent Princess:

As you prepare for thinking about college, here’s something to think about.

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2011/05/17/mfa_programs/index.html

What it basically is arguing is whether MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) in creative writing has been good or bad for literature as a whole.

I’m kinda split on the topic. On the one hand, one shouldn’t need a Masters degree in order to produce a novel. Either you can or you can’t write and a Masters isn’t going to help you much on that. However, the more I write, the more I wish I knew. Not about how to write in terms of plot, characters, etc, but I wish I knew more about sentence structure, verb agreement, and just what the heck a dangling participle is. Would a MFA give me that? Maybe. But so does classes at local community colleges. And goodness knows the bookstore shelves are full of “how to be a writer” books.

And it’s true. I wish I did know more about various grammar stuff. Spelling isn’t a priority but sometimes I wish I could write better sentences and I certainly wish I knew bigger words! Sometimes it takes me two sentences to explain in what someone else could say in two or three words. I’m not an idiot. I have a BA (behavioral science) and an AA (production crafts). And yes, I got them in that order. Sometimes I think about going back to school to get a MFA just so I can continue learning and perhaps hone my craft some. But then I think, nah, all that money wasted! Instead, I look at the online courses A-B Tech offers or I buy yet another ‘how to be a writer’ book.

bookmark_borderThe Value of Proofreading

Posted on by PaulaO

I have noticed this more and more lately and it is quite disturbing. Usually, it is glaring errors in the article itself but now I’m seeing it in headlines. And not just headlines from small magazines and the like. This one is from CBS News.

A vane Osama bin Laden shown in new videos
CBS News – Bob Orr

(the sad source)

In case you missed it:

Noun
vane (plural vanes)
– (countable) A weather vane.
– Any of several usually relatively thin, rigid, flat, or sometimes curved surfaces radially mounted along an axis, as a blade in a turbine or a sail on a windmill, that is turned by or used to turn a fluid.
– (ornithology) The flattened, web-like part of a feather, consisting of a series of barbs on either side of the shaft.
– A sight on a sextant or compass.
– One of the metal guidance or stabilizing fins attached to the tail of a bomb or other missile.

and

Adjective
vain (comparative vainer or more vain, superlative vainest or most vain)
– overly proud of oneself, especially when concerning appearance
– having very little substance
– effecting no purpose; pointless, futile.

I’m betting my 11 yr old niece (who wants to grow up to be a writer) wouldn’t mix up the words. And I’m betting that if she did, she would see it on the first read through. Real journalists don’t make those kind of mistakes. Real news editors wouldn’t let it go past their desk. But I’m thinking that both species are endangered. Journalism just isn’t what it used to be.

I know it may seem trivial, but it’s not. This was a major news source (CBS News) and a big headline. I knew at a simple glance that it wasn’t right. Had it been Fox News, I would not have been surprised. But CBS? I expect more.