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dsgood
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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries recorded in the "dsgood" journal:[<< Previous 25 entries]
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04:38 pm
[Link] | Wednesday June 29, 2011 Map of the St. Paul-London railroad, and other train innovations predicted for 1900. http://is.gd/pPT4uC
***From Twitter: nicolaz Nicola Griffith
Synethesia as you've never read it: @kelleyeskridge's new @ClarionWest #writeathon piece The Taste of You http://bit.ly/kLemtn
***O'Shea introduces her with a story that, during her tenure as RedEye editor, she suggested to Sam Zell that "the company [Chicago Tribune] could increase revenue with a 'Second Life for Cats' feature wherein the feline pets of readers could 'live out lives online, have alter egos, get married, get jobs, run businesses, etc.'" http://is.gd/wQ9gPD
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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08:32 pm
[Link] |
If You're Out of High School, You're Getting Old
Some time between 19 and 30, you'll realize that today's high school kids have ghastly taste in music.
Around 40: Women's fashion magazines will feature nostalgia; clothing allegedly recreating that ancient historical period when you were growing up.
Around 50: There will be historical romances set in the kinder, simpler time when you were growing up.
And there will be political nostalgia for that time. A time when American politics was more civil; an era of bipartisanship.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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11:28 pm
[Link] | Dubious Forecasting Method: Newspaper Analysis
In John Naisbitt's book _Megatrends_ (1982), he touted this prediction method:
Read newspapers; note which topics they give the most space to. Papers have only a limited amount of space, and therefore concentrate on the most important stories. And these are the trends which will determine the future.
Does anyone really think "There's a new pet in the White House" is important to the future of the United States? But it's front page news. How important is most sports news to the future? Newspapers don't choose news for its importance to the future; they choose a mixture of what they think is currently important, and what they think readers will be interested in.
What seems important now isn't always what will shape the future.
Still, it can be useful to know what newspapers are devoting their space to; and which stories get the most space. And it's now much easier than it was in 1982.
Read various English-language editions of Google News (http://news.google.com). They have news from a great many newspapers, newsblogs, and broadcasting stations.
If you can read other languages, see what those editions have to say. The Spanish-language US edition probably has a different mix of stories than the English-language one, for example.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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08:59 pm
[Link] |
What is sanity?
I'm working on a story titled "Down Among the Sane Men." It will include several definitions of sanity, which will conflict.
And will have problems.
Very well adjusted to one's society and culture -- what happens when these change? And does this mean adjusted to the norms the society and culture proclaim, or the way things actually work?
Thinking the same way as the majority -- suppose majority opinion shifts drastically?
Having a really healthy mind -- as judged by what standard?
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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07:22 pm
[Link] | Saturday June 11, 2011 Neighborhood sale. Two yard sales on my block, less than last year.
***To the Uptown Lunds for MnSpec (Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup.) Lunds is an upscale supermarket, so it has a good selection of food samples. I snacked on samples, then bought food for the Meetup.
The Meetup was smaller than usual; five people. I suspect being on Saturday rather than the usual Sunday had much to do with this.
Scheduled topic: Open reading. Two people read. Some discussion of their stories, and then conversation.
I worked out background and other stuff for "Down Among the Sane Men." Listening to writers read their work stimulates me.
(Note: I'm not going to work out the complete background. There are two planets, several hundred years of future history, intelligent nonhumans.... And it's a short story.)
***Afterwards, shopped at CVS pharmacy.
On to Pilgrim Lutheran School's bag sale. I found enough things I needed/wanted to fill a bag.
And then home.
***The fireworks season is starting.
***Divinity placed under arrest
MILITANT atheists will be delighted by a Google news alert about a "dangerous god seized by police in Gipsy Hill". This was Google's headline on a story credited to the Streatham Guardian, which covers the neighbourhood of that name in south London.
A few more operations of that kind could save all sorts of trouble in various parts of the world, some might think... if only the story had not been downgraded to mere canine custody in the Streatham Guardian's own coverage of it.
New Scientist http://is.gd/7mtZ5L
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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02:49 pm
[Link] | "I bought my soul at a yard sale. I suggest you do the same."
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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08:54 pm
[Link] | Tuesday May 31, 2011 Montreal, May 30, 2011 — Misconceptions about the Church of Satan abound. For many people, anything with the word Satan is synonymous with evil, conjuring up images of gory offerings and babies bred for sacrifice. Nothing could be further from the truth, says Cimminnee Holt, a graduate student from Concordia University's Department of Religion, who has published a new study "Death and Dying in the Satanic Worldview," in the Journal of Religion & Culture.
Her unraveling of the myths and distortions surrounding the Church of Satan shows it to be a law-abiding, atheistic new religious movement, thriving on the margins of society....
Upsetting people's expectations was, no doubt, what founder Anton Szandor LaVey intended when he first announced the existence of the Church of Satan in 1966. A showman with an aggressive public persona, LaVey liked to shake up the status quo. And how best to trump convention than to adopt a name that suggests devil-worship but really means adversary in Hebrew?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-05/cu-sft053011.php
***Prison Vouchers Sasha Volokh May 31, 2011 12:33 pm
In this Article, I invite the reader to indulge in a thought experiment. What would the world look like if, instead of assigning prisoners to particular prisons bureaucratically, we gave them vouchers, good for one incarceration, that they were required to redeem at a participating prison?
http://volokh.com/2011/05/31/prison-vouchers/#more-46731
***To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church.
As always, there were unusual optional items. I passed up the canned squid pieces.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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05:17 pm
[Link] | Monday May 30, 2011 Memorial Day
Made some notes on a nonfact How To article. Working title: Surviving the Intelligence Explosion.
That is, the scenario in which everyone's intelligence goes through the skylight; and your pets hire crows to operate the can opener.
***Birthright
The case for lowering the voting age -- to zero.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/89090/elections-voting-age-limits-democracy
Note: Votes for the youngest would be cast by their parents.
***Concerned Citizen; via theweaselking on LiveJournal
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/theweaselking/main6/16e8e83d.jpg
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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10:03 pm
[Link] | Has anyone seen Godzilla/Perry Mason slash?
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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08:32 pm
[Link] | Sunday May 15, 2011 Someone asked in rec.arts.sf.composition (Usenet group devoted to writing sf):
"A long time ago, some smart person on this group posted an idea about a book printed on phoenix skin, that would have to be burned every 100 years. The poster said the idea was free for use, so now I've used it - and would like to acknowledge the original source in the book. But my rasfc archives are six computers and four platforms ago, on floppies I don't have any way of reading. Does anyone remember who I should credit for that cool idea?" [Note: More when the story is published.]
Ryk E. Spoor, AKA Sea Wasp, responded:
"Dan Goodman, May 21, 2002:
"'It's made of phoenix skin. It decays, but at certain intervals it's supposed to be thrown into a fire. Renews itself in this process.
After that custom is forgotten (it's explained at the beginning of the book, but when no one has read it lately that doesn't help), it continues decaying till the building it's in burns down. Which is, conveniently, in time for your characters to find it among the ashes.'"
The poster who had originally asked for ideas went with something else entirely.
***Shopping at Aldi was more exciting than usual. The man behind me in line at the cash register wanted the woman behind him arrested for hitting him with her cell phone. When the security guard was unresponsive, he called 911 to talk to the police.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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01:54 pm
[Link] |
Sandifer's People
The new RTN TV series "Sandifer's People" has a background with two major differences from the real world. 1) Franklin Roosevelt lived to complete his second term. 2) The barrier between our world and Elfland came down during the final years of the Oberonic Empire, rather than just after its fall.
Lyle Sandifer is Minneapolis-St. Paul Station Manager for the Incongruity Management Agency. They routinely deal with spies, smugglers, and illegal immigrants from Elfland. Less routinely, they're forced to handle problems from worlds beyond Elfland.
In the pilot episode, Sandifer and his employees try to shut down an organization which is smuggling kudzu into Elfland. The suspected head of the smuggling ring is the very attractive Tamsin Lin.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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09:40 pm
[Link] | What would a truly sane human being be like?
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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09:45 pm
[Link] | Monday May 2, 2011 Science news sources:
Exoplanets and other astronomy http://centauri-dreams.org
Scientific press releases http://eurekalert.org Note that reliability of sources varies, and experimental results may not be confirmed.
Mostly for people more scientifically literate than I am: http://arxiv.org
***From Eurekalert.org: Public Release: 2-May-2011
Nature
Single atom stores quantum information
A powerful quantum computer could be designed with an incredibly tiny memory.
Contact: Dr. Stephan Ritter
Stephan.Ritter@mpq.mpg.de
49-893-290-5728
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
http://www.mpg.de/4290741/Single_Atom
***From Twitter: TweetsofOld R.L. Ripples
Catherine Miller, an old maid, aged 83, of Fredricksburg, confessed on her death bed that she had committed four murders. PA1904
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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03:04 pm
[Link] | Sunday April 10, 2011 Waking idea: Overthrowing a national government by raising the intelligence of the country's population.
I think making a story out of it would require figuring out how it would backfire.
Part of what inspired this: an amateur story in which oversexed sority girls have their intelligence enhanced so they'll be attracted to members of the geeky fraternity. (Not linked to because the characters and sex scenes are boring.) And, of course, Poul Anderson's sf novel _Brain Wave_.
Also, sf in which everyone becomes saner/more observant/__, leading to social change. (The earliest I know of is H. G. Wells, _In the Day of the Comet_, 1906. One sign of increased sanity: people become naturally polyamorous.)
***Bag sale at Walker Methodist Church. Three dollars a bag; stuff which didn't fit into a bag 75 percent off.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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09:02 pm
[Link] | Tuesday April 5, 2011 Walgreens had two-for-one offers on various allergy meds. I bought their store brand of loratadine (generic equivalent of Claritin) and tried it.
Ah! Relief.
***A teacher who called himself the "Salford stallion" has been jailed for having sex with under-age pupils.
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The teacher's abuse was uncovered on Valentine's Day 2010, when two of his victims discovered he was seeing them at the same time.
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On Monday, the court heard that a slanging match began when one of the girls let herself into Drake's unlocked flat.
Discovering the other girl, she threatened to call the police and ran outside to alert neighbours.
Drake told her to "shut up, shut up" and tried to grab her and calm her down.
When police arrived, they found rose petals on the floor and balloons adorning the property.
Officers seized Drake's mobile phone, which had recordings of both girls having sex with him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12969222
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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05:56 pm
[Link] | Sunday April 3, 2011 "They found the antique human at the Temple of Reason."
First line of "Down Among the Sane Men." My fiction-writing dry spell is over.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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07:45 pm
[Link] |
Let;'s take a train to Bermuda
Monday March 28, 2011 Found a book I needed at Steeple People Thrift Store: Martha Beck, _Steering by Starlight: Find your own right life no matter what!_ (More on this later, after I've gone through and used the book.)
Across the street to the Wedge Coop, then south to Uptown.
Movie marquee sighting: JANE EYRE/BASED ON A BOOK/I THINK. (Uptown Theatre.)
CVS Pharmacy, Rainbow supermarket, and then home.
***China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected.
That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy.
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An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science.
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The figures are based on the papers published in recognised international journals listed by the Scopus service of the publishers Elsevier.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12885271
***Measuring the Welfare Gain from Personal Computers: A Macroeconomic Approach
Posted: 28 Mar 2011 06:34 AM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FullTextReports/~3/T5k_YQpHfx8/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Measuring the Welfare Gain from Personal Computers: A Macroeconomic Approach Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta The welfare gain to consumers from the introduction of personal computers is estimated here. A simple model of consumer demand is formulated that uses a slightly modified version of standard preferences. The modification permits marginal utility, and hence total [...]
***Public Release: 28-Mar-2011
Research proves no 2 of us are alike, even identical twins
Just like snowflakes, no two people are alike, even if they're identical twins according to new genetic research from the University of Western Ontario. Molecular geneticist Shiva Singh has been working with psychiatrist Dr. Richard O'Reilly to determine the genetic sequencing of schizophrenia using identical or monozygotic twins. The study is published in this month's PLoS ONE.
Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Ontario Mental Health Foundation, Schizophrenia Society of Ontario
Contact: Kathy Wallis
kwallis3@uwo.ca
519-661-2111 x81136
University of Western Ontario
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/uowo-rpn032811.php
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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07:45 pm
[Link] | The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
© Mary Oliver.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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03:49 pm
[Link] | On February 7, I began changing ADD/ADHD medication: from nortryptiline to generic Zoloft. There were side effects I was tired of putting up with; and I hoped something else would work better for me.
The two days of tapering off the old meds were...interesting. On the second day, I was constantly impatient. My memory was wonky; I had trouble retrieving words. And I stopped being aware of most of my synesthesias.
The next week on a half-dose of the new meds, and then the full dose. Much better! Not just the absence of side effects, but it deals better with the ADD.
Some people think of their ADD as part of them. I don't.
Some -- not only ADDers -- consider it superior certain ways to being neurotypical. For example, there's the theory that it's more useful for hunting; and was usual among humans till we took up agriculture. I think this is nonsense; and it's certainly not better for gathering edible wild plants.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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04:55 pm
[Link] | Wednesday February 23, 2011 Visited Intrade (http://intrade.com) for the first time in a while. It's a British betting site with markets in many things besides sports.
The odds against Gadafi still being in power by the end of 2011 are high.
Internet betting is illegal for Americans. It's possible that Intrade's US political markets are patronized only by non-Americans.
***Googled transcontinental maglev systems. Downloaded some information.
***Public Release: 23-Feb-2011
PLoS ONE
Scientists create illusion of having 3 arms
How we experience our own bodies is a classical question in psychology and neuroscience. It has long been believed that our body image is limited by our innate body plan -- in other words that we cannot experience having more than one head, two arms and two legs. However, brain scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now shown that it is possible to make healthy volunteers experience having three arms at the same time.
Contact: Jen Laloup
jlaloup@plos.org
415-624-1220
Public Library of Science
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/plos-sci021811.php
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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05:06 pm
[Link] | Tuesday February 22, 2011 To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church. I usually walk to the 38th St. light rail station, but today there were too many inadequately-cleared stretches of sidewalk. Not to mention how many people hadn't bothered to shovel snow all the way to the curb. So I took the #23 bus.
Two Hiawatha stops to the 50 St./Minnehaha Park stop. Seven blocks up 50th St. with my granny cart; mostly walking at the side of the road.
Got a reasonable assortment of food.
***From Eurekalert.org:
Public Release: 22-Feb-2011
EARTH: A decade-plus of tracking lunar larceny
In the back alleys of the world's capitals and the ballrooms of presidential palaces exists a black market that preys on the imagination of some and the greed of others. These black-market items are not of this world: they are moon rocks, collected decades ago by six Apollo missions and three unmanned Soviet missions to the moon.
Contact: Megan Sever
msever@earthmagazine.org
American Geological Institute
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/agi-ead022211.php
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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03:50 pm
[Link] | February 21 Monday Presidents Day
Major snowstorm continued. I did not go to the sale at Savers thrift store.
I did shovel snow.
***From Twitter: Penenberg Adam L. Penenberg
"To Celebrate #Jan25 Revolution Egyptian Names His Firstborn “Facebook” http://tinyurl.com/6bqkvus Note he didn't name her Malcolm Gladwell.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Niflheim
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05:59 pm
[Link] | Sunday February 20, 2011 69 years old today. It seems like only yesterday that 16-year-olds were older women.
***A major snowstorm was not what I wanted for my birthday.
***Downloaded and tried the freeware office suite LibreOffice. (It's a split-off from OpenOffice.) Decided I preferred it to OpenOffice. (Largely because I prefer the opening page graphics; which is odd, since I'm not visually-minded.) Deleted Open Office.
***Birthday greetings from a relative I didn't know. She and her husband will be in Minneapolis in mid-March; she wanted to get together with me for coffee or a meal.
a
***Public Release: 20-Feb-2011
2011 AAAS Annual Meeting
Look after your brain
As the average life span becomes longer, dementia becomes more common. Swedish scientist Laura Fratiglioni has shown that everyone can minimize his or her risk of being affected. Factors from blood pressure and weight to the degree of physical and mental activity can influence cognitive functioning as one gets older.
Contact: Sabina Bossi
sabina.bossi@ki.se
46-706-146-066
Karolinska Institutet
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/ki-lay021511.ph
Current Location: Minneapolis, Niflheim
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07:39 pm
[Link] | Saturday February 19, 2011 To Pillsbury House to pick up Fare For All food, and order for next month.
***Revisited Pandora.com, and listened to music. They have some odd ideas of what fits the category "Traditional Folk; and of what singers are similar to any singer in any genre. And I wasn't much interested in an Australian woman singing Bob Dylan songs. But I found out I liked Marianne Faithful.
Then revisited last.fm, which has some music Pandora doesn't.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Niflheim
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03:57 pm
[Link] | Thursday February 17, 2011 Mail: Fred Lerner, Lofgeornost #102. FAPAzine with limited outside circulation. Review of Michael Scott Rohan's _Chase The Morning_ and two sequels. US Presidents who read science fiction (Reagan, and possibly John Adams), moving into a more general discussion of Presidential history. Gardening by middle-class women and an obscure sf writer. Asian art. Letters of comment.
***ACA* meeting. (*Adult Children of Alcoholic and Otherwise Dysfunctional Families Anonymous.)
Current Location: Minneapolis, Niflheim
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