flwyd | Reading

alegar (AL-uh-ger, AY-luh-ger) - n., vinegar made from ale.

As opposed to vinegar made from vino, or wine. This was much more common in medieval England than it is now. It has a much stronger taste than wine vinegar, or even cider vinegar (which would be cidegar? cidagar?). And yes, there was also beeregar (fortunately much rarer). The stem at the end of all these is French aigre, sour.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/667908.html

dglenn

"Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers." -- Ray Bradbury (b. 1920-08-22, d. 2012-06-05), Dandelion Wine

flwyd

(it's bedtime, so an alternate intro for Senator Bennet is still pending)

Senator Gardner,

Thank you for your recent op-ed in the Coloradoan arguing that science should be nonpartisan. Thanks also for your work to ensure that Colorado’s leading research institutions like NIST, NOAA, NCAR, and NREL receive sufficient funding to further understand our complex and dynamic world. For over 50 years, Colorado researchers have been instrumental in understanding the Earth’s weather and climate.

I am writing in support of Citizens' Climate Lobby, a nationwide nonpartisan group committed to fair, effective, and sustainable climate change solutions. Earlier this month, 1000 Americans, including 35 Coloradans, traveled to Washington and met with representatives and senators from across the country. CCL is building bipartisan support for a carbon fee and dividend proposal. This proposal would help relieve Americans from the challenges faced by climate change while accelerating American businesses focused on clean energy, all without increasing the size of government or putting American exports at risk.

The last two decades have seen remarkable changes in temperatures and climate, contributing to bigger heat waves and more frequent natural disasters. I experienced the changing climate first hand during the 2013 Boulder floods. When I woke up on September 12th, the thousand-year flood had turned the canyon road to my house into a roaring river. While I was fortunate and avoided significant loss, my family’s lives were disrupted for several months and several friends were much harder hit. Without systemic action to address the rapidly warming atmosphere, this kind of disaster will become more common, straining the ability of first responders and relief organizations to help those impacted.

Energy lies at the core of any economy, and fossil fuels have long played a key role in the American economy. We now know that carbon dioxide emissions are a major contributor to climate change. It is therefore crucial that we transition to a lower-carbon energy mix. The most efficient way to make this transition is to put a price on carbon emissions so that the costs of fossil fuels are no longer externalities. To avoid sudden disruption to the American economy, CCL’s proposal begins with a modest $15/ton fee, rising predictably every year. The money collected will be rebated equally to all Americans. This dividend will give citizens and businesses the opportunity to respond to market changes and to invest in transitioning to a affordable clean energy solutions. These investments in turn will create new jobs and help keep America competitive in global energy technology. Over the course of a generation, we can make the transition to a resilient low-emission economy.

Although President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Accords, it is still crucial for America to take action on climate change. CCL’s proposal would help America take the lead in clean energy while boosting our economy and creating jobs. The proposal includes a border adjustment to ensure that American exporters remain competitive. This will also incentivize our trading partners to implement their own national carbon fee, leading to a global decline in carbon emissions without the need for complex multinational treaties. A substantially similar proposal was put forth by James Baker, George Shultz, and the Climate Leadership Council. It has received support from many leading organizations and individuals including Larry Summers, Stephen Hawking, ExxonMobil, and The Nature Conservancy (https://www.clcouncil.org/founding-members/).

Sincerely,
Trevor Stone
Boulder, CO 80304

Mood: quixotic
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Music: KGNU - Dub Palace
Crossposts: http://flwyd.livejournal.com/377704.html

dr_tectonic

More than one person asked for the recipes for the two kinds of coleslaw I brought to the Floyds' birthday barbecue this evening, so I figured I'd just post them.

Apple-Bacon Coleslaw

Ingredients

* 3 Tbsp olive oil
* 2 Tbsp mayonnaise
* 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
* 1 Tbsp lemon juice
* 1/2 tsp hot sauce
* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1 (16-ounce) package shredded coleslaw mix
* 2 large apples, cored and diced
* 4+ cooked bacon slices, crumbled / chopped
* freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation

Whisk together first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well to coat. Chill for at least half an hour.

NOTES: Use a good eating apples, like Galas or Fuji. Don't use Granny Smiths. Precooked bacon works fine if you don't feel like dealing with frying it up. You can go heavy on the dressing.

Vietnamese Slaw

Slaw

1 package coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage + carrots)
1 small white onion or 3-4 green onions, sliced thin
1-2 stalks celery, sliced thin
1-2 carrots, julienned (macho) or sliced (lazy)
1 handful cilantro, chopped / shredded
1 handful mint, chopped / shredded (de-stemmed, also)

Mix everything up in a great big bowl.

Chicken (optional)

Add a pound or so of sliced / shredded cooked chicken to make it a main dish.

Dressing

3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp white vinegar
1 Tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp crushed / chopped garlic
a few shakes dried crushed red pepper

Whisk everything together in a small bowl. Pour over slaw and mix well just before serving.
Tip: For a potluck, double the dressing; put the ingredients in a small mason jar and shake it up to mix before serving.

Topping (optional)

2 Tbsp peanut oil
1/2 Tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1 Tbsp brown sugar

Fry the garlic in the oil until pale golden, then stir in the chopped peanuts and brown sugar.
Alternately: just crunch up some honey-roasted peanuts and fried onions to make an easy approximate topping.

Bonus recipe: here's the recipe for carb-free parmesan spinach balls, which I brought to Craig's housewarming yesterday and to games night at Jeff and Alice's last weekend. The original recipe calls for Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs; to make it low-carb, I substituted chopped nuts, which also solves the problem of the originals being too dry.

No-Carb Cheesy Spinballs

Ingredients

* One 10-oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
* 1 cup walnuts or pistachios
* 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 2 Tbsp melted butter

* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp parsley flakes
* 1/2 tsp black pepper
* 1/2 tsp garlic powder
* 1/2 tsp onion powder
* 1/2 tsp dried oregano
* 1/2 tsp dried basil

Preparation

Chop nuts in food processor to breadcrumb size.
(If not pre-grated, use the grater disk on the food processor to grate parm.)
Mix dry ingredients (nuts, parmesan, and spices) well in a large-ish bowl.
Preheat oven to 350.
Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with Pam.
Squeeze the spinach to drain, then add to bowl.
Using bare hands, mix until homogeneous.
Add eggs and butter and mix again.
Form into 24 ~1-inch balls and place on baking sheet.
Bake 22 minutes, until well-browned.

The base recipe doesn't make all that many; you may want to double it for a party.
Uncooked spinballs reportedly can be frozen and baked on short notice.

Crossposts: http://dr-tectonic.livejournal.com/484753.html

dglenn

"Ice cream is the perfect buffer, because you can do things in a somewhat lighthearted way. Plus, people have an emotional response to ice cream; it's more than just food. So I think when you combine caring, and eating wonderful food, it's a very powerful combination." -- Jerry Greenfield

[Eid Mubarak to everyone celebrating! And unrelatedly, distant greetings to all my friends gathered in NYS for ice cream and camaraderie this weekend -- hoping next year I can manage to make it up there myself again, after too many years absence.]

flwyd

I love the debate that I get into occasionally… They say, "You know the way you farm won't feed the world versus the way we farm. We're feeding the world," and I love it when they say that, because they say, "You just can't produce enough."

… I say, "Okay, let's have that debate, but before we have that debate, I want us to both stipulate that neither farming system will feed an endlessly increasing population." The Earth has got a carrying capacity, and once you get beyond that carrying capacity, neither one of them is going to feed the world.

And most of them will stipulate that… And I say, "Okay, well I'll go ahead then and capitulate right up front that if we're going to run out of acres first, you win. You can feed way more people than I can if acres are the only limiting factor. If we get unlimited water, unlimited petrol fuel, unlimited antibiotics that don't create pathogen-resistance unlimited fertilizer resources you win.

"But now if the limiting factor becomes water, I'm probably going to win, because I don't use as much water as you do. If the limiting factor becomes petrol fuel, I win, because I don't use as much of it as you do. And if the limiting factors become phosphates and potash and these other depleting resources, I win, because I don't use as much as you. And antibiotics and pesticides, and so on. I win just about any way we do it other than acreage."

— Will Harris of White Oak Pastures on industrial versus sustainable agriculture, quoted in Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating food systems for a changing climate by Laura Lengnick

Well put. It's something of an engineering approach to food.

Mood: quixotic
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Music: KGNU - Under the Floorboards
Crossposts: http://flwyd.livejournal.com/377472.html

threemeninaboat

ivy and I were singing this song as we were capturing Pokemon gyms last weekend

Watch on YouTube

grim23

Life is in the here and now. Either we meet it, we live it - or we miss it. - Vilama Thakar

Goals Completed: 4
Goals in Progress: 33

I've been really busy working on things on my list, in pretty much all categories.

In Body, I've gotten a good week of Tai Chi training in around all the other things, and even gotten to the gym a couple of times and ran a fun run 5K. I've started longer runs in preparation for the 10K next weekend, and I expect that it'll be a good run. In Mind, I did get my formal zazen practice for the month completed, and I'm working on another book. In Maintenance, I did complete my First Aid/CPR course, and I've seen my new dentist (no cavities!). In Zombie Preparation, I've continued to clear out and upgrade both Ol' Number 3, and prepare for deck work up top.

Travel and Adventure, though, is the main focus of this post. I took a roadtrip to Utah via southern Idaho and found a few really old geocaches that let me complete the hard part of my grid of finding at least one geocache placed for every month since geocaching started (called the Jasmer Challenge), a goal that's been on my list since the second list. I also worked on my goal of finding the oldest caches in new states/countries that I haven't already found, and got two. Additionally, I found an old Oregon geocache, way at the eastern part of the state, that was part of the Oregon History Challenge.

The main reason for the roadtrip, though, was to buy a Black Rock Ranger Jeep, a Burning Man icon called the Whorse, that needed some love and attention. The Jeep has been dropped off at my mechanic and is being worked on to see if it'll be ready for the playa this year. She needs some love and elbow grease and some faith, at this point. The Jeep comes with a hard top, a bikini top, some custom parts, a tow package, and a ham radio. *smile*

Some hiaku:

sweat blinding my eyes
8am is still too hot
got to run earlier

Warm sunny days
being outside versus the gym
training at odd times!

The Jasmer Challenge,
memories of the journeys -
Well worth the time!

Mood: cheerful
Location: Home Base
Music: Nickelback: If Today Was Your Last Day

dglenn

"We're at a party at a Chuck e Cheese. This place is like something you'd subject a Panamanian dictator to. Why does it exist?" -- Zinnia Jones, 2017-06-03

threemeninaboat

"I really wanted to drive my Spitfire into work today, but it is all rainy."
"I'm sure your STi consoled you."

prettygoodword

acuminate (uh-KYOO-muh-nayt) - adj., pointed, tapering to a slender point. v., to sharpen, to make pointed.

The sharpening can also be for an edge, rather than just sharpening the point -- this, despite the etymology: from Latin acūminātus, past participle of acūmināre, to sharpen to a point, from acūmen, acuteness. The adjectival sense is almost entirely used in botany (an acuminate leaf) or zoology.

And that wraps up this week's grab-bag of random words -- back next week with another round of the usual mix.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/667700.html

theferrett

I was told the other day how true polyamory didn’t have rules. You just got to fuck whoever you wanted, and nobody could stop you or it wasn’t polyamory.

Okay.

Let’s break that down.

Because people forget rules weren’t inflicted on people wholesale by malicious bureaucrats. Rules are like pearls, which are beautiful to us but an irritant to an oyster. Oysters create pearls because they can’t get a piece of sand out of their tendermeats and layer it in nacre until they have a ball of Stuff stuck in their craw. That’s not great for the oyster, but it’s better than having sand ripping up their insides.

And like a pearl, every rule started with some Problem that was causing distress, and people decided to wrap a Rule around it – because as annoying as that Rule was, it was better than the initial Problem.

Now rules, as I’ve noted, are the failure state of polyamory. You’d be better served by utilizing expectations, which aren’t quite as brittle and lead to better understanding. But rules and expectations both are solutions to the same ultimate problem:

You’re hurting someone you love.

They feel abandoned when you don’t text them at the end of the night. They feel threatened when you cancel dates on them to go out with New Person. They feel exasperated when they’re spending their dates with you as a pseudo-relationship counsellor, picking apart the reasons you’re fighting with your other partner all the time.

But hey. You have no limits. So even if your partner’s cat just died and they’re desperate to not be alone tonight, fuck that! You had a date. And you’re not cancelling that because NO LIMITS!

What’s that?

That’d be cruel? You wouldn’t leave your partner alone during a time of need?

Well, I guess you have limits.

“That’s different!” you cry. “That’s what I wanted to do! I chose to do that of my own volition, not because of some stupid rules!”

Here’s the secret to rules, my friend:

Everyone chooses them.

There’s no legal contract for any poly relationship saying, “I have to stay with this person.” There may be consequences, divorce laws being punitive and all, but there’s consequences for any bad decision. You treat them badly enough that they refuse to talk to you, you don’t get the hot sex or the emotional support. If you’re really a shithead, you may lose friends over the breakup. There is no consequence-free decision.

As such, people may bitch about rules, but ultimately they chose to stay with the person who enacted them. Why? Because the irritant of the rules is better than losing that person entirely – or better than the less-critical problem of “I love them, so I don’t want to make them feel bad.”

You’re not better because you made a decision on the fly to alter your behavior to be with someone. That’s how relationships work. You negotiate, you compromise, you figure out where your elbow hits someone’s eye.

And in a lot of cases, you don’t do something that would bring you magnificent satisfaction because you know it would hurt someone. Unsafe sex. Taking someone else to the concert you promised you’d take them to. Disappearing for a two-week vacation with a new sweetie without letting them know where you’re going.

All those are limits.

“They’re self-imposed limits!” you cry – but now you’re changing the argument. Because polyamory was supposed to have no limits, man. Total and utter William Wallace-style FREEEEEEDOM!

…except that compassionate human beings, when given the choice to do whatever they want, will often choose not to do things that injure the people they love.

True freedom involves the ability to self-limit.

And so “Polyamory has no limits” often is a synonym for “I am a sociopath who is only out for my own satisfaction, and anyone who inconveniences me in any way will be shunted aside. I don’t give a fuck about you as long as I get mine.” It’s not so much an ethos as a warning sign that this person is not someone you want to date unless your Venn diagram of what you desire overlaps theirs perfectly.

And yes. It’s perfectly logical to stop dating someone whose feelings are so sensitive you can’t avoid bruising them; I’ve done it myself. But that’s not “I have no limits” so much as “Our limits were irreconcilable.” There’s nothing wrong with a hedonistic relationship based on pleasure, either, so long as everyone involved chose it honestly. It’s possible to have a relationship with such low limits that you never brush against them.

But I generally find that the people who bristle at any idea of limitations are the people who bristle at the idea of other people having needs. They want no limitations because really, anything that obstructs their satisfaction is an enemy to be destroyed.

Date these people at your peril.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

Crossposts: http://theferrett.livejournal.com/2106755.html

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by med_cat

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710942.html

Snollygoster, n.

Definition:

an unprincipled but shrewd person

About the word:

The story of its origin remains unknown, but snollygoster was first used in the nasty politics of 19th century America. One definition of the word dates to 1895, when a newspaper editor explained "a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles...."

Source: Merriam-Webster Online, Top 10 rare and amusing insults

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710942.html

dglenn

"We stand on the shoulders of giants who bothered to login to StackOverflow and explain their problem in words easily indexed by Google." -- SwiftOnSecurity, 2017-06-01

[But also, of course, to the ones who came before StackOverflow, such as Alan Turing (b. 1912-06-23, d. 1954-06-07)]

randomdreams

Nobody wanted to go riding at lunch today because everyone was tired and there was a lightning storm outside.
Wimps.
I rode over to Xilinx and rode with them instead.
We rode down to Niwot almost entirely offroad, because Bill has a brand new cyclecross bike. I was on my road race bike, sliding all over the place on the gravel and sand.
It was exhausting.
My coworkers DO all want to go out riding tomorrow, but I don't think I'll have time.

Pirate the bunny is so blind sometimes I feel like I need to hand-feed him to get him started on new food I put in his cage.

Monty got jumped by a posse of four chihuahuas today, all loose. We ran, because I don't want to have another chihuahua eaten.

My phone updated itself and has turned into Super Naggy Phone. "I see your battery is at 30%, would you like me to turn off Bluetooth?" Which gets really annoying when it tells me about six times a day that I have the ringtone silenced and might miss calls and would I like to change that. I'd like a NO FOREVER button.

We have milkweed growing like, well, weeds. We are cheering for monarch butterflies.

Some architecture at Regis University, mostly for

basefinder

A sunset for

elusis

I have a friend on G+ who is in an awful situation: a lesbian dying alone of lupus in her mother's basement in the deep south. She wants a lightsaber. I'm making the drive electronics for a lightsaber acting prop. This is a sample board for fitment purposes, to make sure that one channel of lighting works correctly with a control board someone else is doing, and also provides a one-shot-producing microcontroller using a hall effect sensor. The intent is that when a magnetic ring she wears gets close to the system, it detects the magnet, sends out a single pulse, and the control board handles sequencing and colors, then when her hand moves away it sends out a second pulse. (It's a silly way to handle off/on, in my opinion, but I'm working with someone else's design.) The whole works is a three channel, 1 amp per channel, LED driver with high efficiency, all designed to fit in (while not overheating) a 22mm in diameter cavity inside an aluminum lightsaber body.
I found an old body washer and bored it out to 22mm to make sure it slid snugly over the board.

The board is only about 1/3 loaded: one channel of LED driver and the microcontroller, and one big ol' coilcraft inductor to make sure it fits in the enclosure. It's missing two more drivers and another regulator to provide high efficiency power to the microcontroller. If I get the time I may port the code over to a TI microcontroller that uses 1/1000 the power of this one and costs 1/10 as much.

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/921143.html

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by prettygoodword

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710799.html

chiasmus (kai-AZ-muhs) - n., a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases; any linguistic structure with an A-B-B-A pattern.

synchysis (SIN-ki-suhs) - n., a parallel structure in the order of words in two phrases; any linguistic structure with an A-B-A-B pattern; (rhet.) a confused arrangement of words in a sentence, such as an inversion taken to extreme.

I like chiasmus, for chiasmatic structures are likeable. "He knowingly led and we followed blindly." It's useful all sorts of way for binding phrases together and highlighting that they are bound. It's also capable of quite subtle effects, such as when used as a pattern of alliteration binding four key words together without being obvious about it by alliterating all four on the same sound. The name comes from the Greek letter chi, written Χ -- and why becomes clearer when you write the schema thus:

 A  B
  \/
  /\
 B  A

The great variety of meanings for synchysis, which is the much more common structure, comes from a technical use in Latin poetry, where a line in the form adjective_A-adjective_B-verb-noun_A-noun_B (because case inflections have to match, it's clear which adjective has to go with which noun) is known as a golden line, which is a delicious device but does greatly deviate from standard word order.

Regardless, both are originally technical jargon from ancient Greek rhetoric.

---L.

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710799.html

prettygoodword

1word1day: chiasmus & synchysis

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/667453.html

dglenn

"[...]
For want of me the world's course will not fail;
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not."
-- Coventry Patmore (b. 1823-07-23, d. 1896-11-26), "Magna est Veritas", The Unknown Eros, 1877 [spotted in a tweet by @aristofontes]

rydra_wong posting in

metaquotes

Possums and communism are basically my whole life.

Context is locked; QWP.

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by trellia_chan

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710436.html

Sorry for the missed weeks!

flounce: [flouns]

verb:

1. To move or go in jerky, exhaggerated, bouncy motions, often out of anger.

2. To fling the body about, to flounder.

noun:

1. An act of flouncing, a flouncing movement.

2. A strip of materal pleated and attached at one ege with the other edge left loose and hanging, such as on a skirt, curtain, or slipcover.

Origin of the verb and first noun: First known use 1535-1545. Origin obscure, possibly from Norwegian, flunsa, to hurry.

Origin of the secound noun: First known use, 1665, from obsolete French frounce, to gather in folds.

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710436.html

prettygoodword

lanuginous (luh-NYOO-juh-nohs) - adj., covered with fine soft hairs, downy.

Lanugo is the soft woolly hair that covers the fetus of some mammals, but this adjectival form covers any downiness. It's most often used in botany (and spelling bees) as elsewhere we already have the excellent word downy. Adopted in the 16th century from Latin lānūginōsus, from lānūgō, down/wool -- and so also the root of lanolin, wool-grease.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/667143.html

dglenn

"'Come with me,' Mom says.
To the library.
Books and summertime
go together."
-- Lisa Schroeder, I Heart You, You Haunt Me (2008)

[A happy summer solstice to all who mark it! (Exact time was about five hours ago.)]

prettygoodword

galeanthropy (GAY-lee-an-throh-pee) - n., the delusion that one is or has been transformed into a cat.

Not a common mental condition, but enough examples have been documented to warrant coining the term from Greek roots galéē, weasel (also used sometimes for cats) + ánthrōpos, person.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/666930.html

theferrett

Hey guys, I’ve got a quick-turnaround website to protest the AHCA – but while I’ve written the words and done the research, my web design looks like 2003 hot garbage.

If someone out there can commit to a professional, bare-bones web design to help me get out a three-page website this week, please email me at theferrett@gmail.com stat, along with a page or two that you’ve designed so I can verify you’re better than I am. (It’s not hard, trust me.) And I’ll happily share details if you’re a professional who knows design and/or political protest and wanna email me at theferrett@gmail.com, because, well, it’s a last-ditch shot in the dark against the AHCA before it passes next week.

If you’re feeling volunteery, please email. Thanks.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

Crossposts: http://theferrett.livejournal.com/2106405.html

dglenn

"This is not a monarchy." -- House Government Reform Chairman Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, after President Bush invoked executive privilege to deny Congress access to prosecutorial documents, which have routinely been turned over to Congress by past administrations. [ USA Today] (via outragedmoderates.org)

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by ersatz_read

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710317.html

prolix (prō-lĭks′, prō′lĭks′), adj.
1. tediously prolonged; wordy
2. long-winded; tending to speak or write at excessive length

Etymology: from Latin prolixus, extended, long

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/710317.html

prettygoodword

anoa (uh-NOH-uh) - n., either of two species (Bubalus quarlesi or B. depressicornis) of small wild Indonesian water buffalo with short, sharp horns.

I got tired of playing a word in Words With Friends without knowing what it meant. Found on the islands of Sulawesi and Buton, this is the smallest of the cattle family, living in the rain forest as they do, looking somewhat like deer in the body. Name is from a local language, but whether Makassarese or Buginese or Sulawesi, dictionaries disagree.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/666722.html

dglenn

[I didn't find the original source of this quote from Bryon Rushing, but I did find two fragments of this on Twitter...]

"MLK Jr said 'the arc of the moral universe always bends toward justice'. I'd like to add 'but not by itself'"

"[arc of justice] only bends toward justice because there are courageous people who grab it and bend it down"

[I wish everyone a happy and inspiring Juneteenth, and keep bending!]

randomdreams

threemeninaboat and

ivy and I were talking about the Myers Briggs Hell discussion, and as I couldn't remember what type I am I went and took the test and got my result.
ENFP – Every minute of the rest of your life has been scheduled for you – and it’s a long series of arbitrary, solitary tasks.

That is frighteningly accurate.

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/921063.html

dr_tectonic

Jerry and I saw Wonder Woman this afternoon, and both thought it was excellent.

I liked pretty much everything about it. It's not perfect (there are nits that could be picked), but I liked the choices they made about the characters to include in the story, and what they did with various elements of WW's character design, and the storyline was interesting and novel (during the credits I turned to Monkey and said "wait, that was an origin story and I didn't even notice it!), and they did a good job of avoiding the tired and obvious, and I liked the arc of the whole thing. And it didn't drag; despite being almost two and a half hours long, I never wondered how much longer it was going to be.

And I now have a theory about what's wrong with the other DC superhero movies. Diana is allowed to have feelings. Plural. At different times she's happy, and sad, and angry, and confused, and outraged, and delighted, and so on. She feels different things, and those feelings are important to the progression of the story. And that's interesting and engaging.

Whereas the other superheroes tend to be very one-note. The further along you get in the Batman franchise, the more the Dark Knight only exhibits a single emotion: grim, brooding, vengefulness. Oh, sure, maybe it modulates a half-step into vengeful anger or melancholy brooding, but Batman never gets to be happy or grossed-out or embarrassed or affectionate, just some combination of angry + sad. And after not very long, that gets to be really boring.

Superman is only allowed to be alienated and repressed. He may have other emotions, but their only purpose is to strengthen his alienation and repression. Boring. Batman vs Superman? All repressed-anger-sadness all the time. BOOORRRINNNG.

(The problem with Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie was not a lack of emotions other than smug cockiness, but the fact that the movie's emotional arc was incoherent because it was fixated on Hero's Journey Dammit even though it makes no sense for that character. So it was Confusing instead. Which turns out to also be boring.)

So here's to hoping that the Justice League movie manages to figure it out. At the very least, it's got six different characters in it; even if they're all one-note, maybe they'll be different notes...

Crossposts: http://dr-tectonic.livejournal.com/484508.html

dglenn

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." -- George Herbert (b. 1593-04-03, d. 1633-03-01)

flwyd

According to reports, Colorado's Cory Gardner is one of thirteen Republicans drafting a Senate version of the House's rush job American Health Care Act. Observers expect Senate leaders to try to ram this bill through before the July 4th recess, which doesn't give Americans much time to comment on the substance of the measure. This week is therefore your opportunity to talk to your Senators about the House bill and your feelings about health care in general. This BoingBoing post provides links to useful resources, including contact information for health care staffers for all Republican senators. Interestingly, 28 of 52 health care staffers have female-sounding names, with two or three ambiguous first names while only 5 Republican senators are women.

Senator Gardner,

Thank you for your work in support of an effective Veterans Administration, ensuring that Americans who have served their country can receive a high quality of care. I am writing because I have read news reports that you are among a group of senators developing a health care bill based on the one recently passed by the House. I have also read that Republican leaders hope to pass the Senate bill before the July 4th recess. I have concerns about both the process and the rumored substance of this bill.

America’s health care system needs improvement. Americans spend more on health care per capita than any other country, yet our life expectancy and other quality of life measures trail many of our peers in the G20 (https://ourworldindata.org/the-link-between-life-expectancy-and-health-spending-us-focus). This imbalance puts America at a competitive disadvantage. Higher health care costs lead to less discretionary spending, weakening domestic demand for American products and services. Worse overall health leads American workers to be less productive as they must take time away to care for their own health or for sick family members. The imbalance between coverage offered in the group market and individual market also makes it harder for entrepreneurial Americans to leave a large employer and start a new business. By increasing access to care and reducing its overall cost, America can become stronger, more productive and innovative, and more resilient as a nation.

The message that the House sent with the AHCA was that insurance premium costs are the biggest challenge facing the American health system. Premium costs are an important issue, but they pale in comparison to both the overall cost of care and the ability of many Americans to access quality care at all. Many of the premium savings offered by the AHCA are driven by changes which allow insurers to offer less coverage or to offer cheaper policies to younger and healthier people while older and at-risk Americans’ premiums will rise. These changes will not bring about a healthier or more resilient America. Rather, they will lead us to abandon the Americans who need help the most: the CBO estimates that the AHCA would cause 23 million Americans and 280,000 Coloradans to lose health coverage by 2026 (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52752 and http://acasignups.net/ahca-coverage-loss).

2016 was a challenging year for my wife and I, navigating several medical crises. We were able to survive the financial aspect not because of low premiums or our ability to save about $2000 through a HSA but because of a reasonable out-of-pocket maximum and because in many cases our insurance-negotiated rates were half of the provider-billed amounts. My biggest worry as I faced months of illness was that I would lose my job and therefore my insurance. Under the AHCA plan and with my newly discovered pre-existing condition, I worry that if I lose my job that the high cost of American health care would lead to either bankruptcy or death. This is a prospect that Americans need not face: our nation is strong and innovative enough that we can find a way to ensure that every citizen can receive quality health care at a reasonable cost.

Finally, I am concerned that you and other Republican senators are developing this bill in private and are hurrying to pass it before the American people can come to understand the proposal and provide our input. America’s health care system needs significant improvements, but the situation is not so urgent that we cannot take six months to have a national conversation about how we can best ensure that Americans have access to the care we need. The United States Senate has a proud history as a deliberative body, carefully considering the impact of legislation not just on the current political cycle but on the effect it has on the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans for generations to come. The House version of the AHCA bill was prepared in such a rush that the CBO has not yet had time to estimate the macroeconomic effects and share that data with the American people. I hope that the Senate takes a more careful approach and listens closely to the people of Colorado and America. I encourage you to include success metrics for cost, coverage, and overall health in the Senate bill; if these metrics do not improve under the bill, its provisions should sunset.

Come 2020, the resilience of the American health care system will play a significant role in my voting choices. I will be swayed not by how low my monthly premium prices are but by whether I and the people I care about receive better or worse medical and mental health care than we could in 2016. I am blessed to have a good job and modest investments; I happily paid $221 for the Net Income Investment Tax knowing that it helps provide health care to those less fortunate than I. And I would gladly pay more in income tax to achieve a healthier and more resilient America.

Thank you for your consideration and hard work on this matter,
Trevor Stone
Boulder, Colorado

Mood: quixotic
Location: Boulder, Colorado, USA
Music: KGNU - Reggae Bloodlines
Crossposts: http://flwyd.livejournal.com/377120.html

randomdreams

ivy is staying for a couple of days. We sat up late talking about the world, which is invariably a great conversation when she's involved. We also hiked through a bog, which was equally great.
Today we had brunch in a park with

basefinder, who gave me a neat book about thin-shell concrete structures, and talked about geiger counters a lot. We were going to play scrabble but the wind was strong enough it would have blown away the board. Instead we walked around the lake and admired red-winged blackbirds and baby ducks.
Monty did not eat any little dogs. Success is sweet.
Now I'm off to modify some bicycle pedals.

Yesterday I rode this.

I just about broke my collarbone, and now have cuts and scrapes all over.

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/920819.html

conuly posting in

metaquotes

Someday in the Whoniverse, an evil alien invading force will threaten to disable humanity's defensive capabilities by making humans remember all of the invasions that they've bizarrely forgotten about. When people are forced to notice things like the gaping hole in Big Ben, the weird monuments, the work camps, the missing family members, the damage to personal property, etc., humanity will be reduced to quivering catatonia.

Context has identified a minor plot hole.

dglenn

"By shooting motes into kernels, worldken folk have shifted samesteads of one firststuff into samesteads of another. Thus did they make ymirstuff into aegirstuff and helstuff, and they have afterward gone beyond these. The heavier firststuffs are all highly lightrottish and therefore are not found in the greenworld." -- Poul Anderson (b. 1926-11-25, d. 2001-07-31), "Uncleftish Beholding", 1989

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by med_cat

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/709962.html

verisimilitude, n. veri·si·mil·i·tude \ˌver-ə-sə-ˈmi-lə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\

Definition of verisimilitude

1: the quality or state of being verisimilar

2: something verisimilar

Definition of verisimilar

1: having the appearance of truth : probable

2: depicting realism (as in art or literature)

verisimilitudinousplay \ˌver-ə-sə-ˌmi-lə-ˈtüd-nəs, -ˈtyüd-; -ˈtü-də-nəs, -ˈtyü-\ adjective

'
Examples of verisimilitude in a Sentence

the novel's degree of verisimilitude is compromised by 18th-century characters who speak in very 21st-century English

Did You Know?

From its roots, verisimilitude means basically "similarity to the truth". Most fiction writers and filmmakers aim at some kind of verisimilitude to give their stories an air of reality. They need not show something actually true, or even very common, but simply something believable. A mass of good details in a play, novel, painting, or film may add verisimilitude. A spy novel without some verisimilitude won't interest many readers, but a fantastical novel may not even attempt to seem true to life.

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/709962.html

prettygoodword

pelargonium (pel-ahr-GOH-nee-uhm) - n., any of several southern African flowering plants (genus Pelargonium), the cultivated species of which are the geraniums.

Not to be confused with the plants of the genus Geranium, which were once considered part of the same genus. The pelargoniums are also called stork's-bills (after the shape of the seed-pod) while the Geraniums are also called crane's-bills -- a distinction that helps me not, as I have trouble telling cranes from storks just by the bill. The name was coined in New Latin from Greek roots Greek pelargós, stork + (gerá)nion, geranium, or stork's-geranium, to add to the confusion.

Pretty flowers, okay? -- and leave it at that.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/666516.html

dglenn

"People meeting for the first time suddenly relax if they find they both have cats. And plunge into anecdote." -- Charlotte Gray

randomdreams

We walk Monty very late at night now, because there are very few dogs out wandering around loose, late at night.
Two nights ago, we were up by the water tower and she was nosing around in the gutter looking for food because we STARVE HER MERCILESSLY she's only gained 12 kilograms since she started living here after all, and we noticed her jump back and then start nosing at something.
It was a small garter snake that was stuck in the gutter: not long enough to climb up the curb.
I tried to grab it. Between the darkness and her head in the way I got something closer to its tail than its head and as I swung it up out of the gutter it twisted around and tried to bite me. Not effectively: too small a mouth. But it startled me enough that I kind of threw it. Monty thought that was a great game.
Tonight, in the same place, she started snuffling at something that I thought was a bit of trash, and it squawked. It was a fledgling, all black feathers and an enormous wide beak/mouth. I picked it up and stuck it in some bushes immediately above where it was so it wouldn't be quite as easy for the foxes and coyotes that come out at 2 AM.

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/920384.html

siderea

I keep having bright ideas that seem very plausible, but which then seem to not work in reality. I'm wondering if any of you can advise me about the following.

D, who will be moving into an assisted living facility shortly, is undecided about what size of bed she wants. The room she will have is quite small, so on one hand, she wants to maximize floor space. On the other hand, she's used to sleeping in a full size bed, and not sure she can handle downsizing to a twin.

So I had the brainwave that maybe we could use one of the rent-to-buy furniture places to rent a twin bed for her to try out. While we'd pay a premium for doing this, it would allow her to change her mind and have her full bed moved in if she didn't like the twin, without having to pay the full price for the twin if she didn't like it.

Now, I thought my question would be whether rent-to-own furniture places would even rent mattresses in MA given our laws about reusing mattresses – it turns out they do – or whether rent-to-own furniture places, having the reputation they do of being skeezy, are too disreputable to contract with or would have terms unfavorable to doing what I want – it turns out their model and rules seems ideal to our purpose.

But no. The problem seems to be whether rent-to-own furniture places on the North Shore will rent an entire twin bed.

There only seem to be two furniture rental places that serve the North Shore, Rent-a-Center and Aaron's. Both seem to be convinced that only children use twin beds. Aarons, at least, will allegedly (per website) rent a twin mattress and boxspring set, but none of their bedsets or electric adjustable bed bases are compatable. Rent-a-Center has no twin mattress sets at all; all their twin beds are for children, and either bunk beds, or platform beds (no place for boxspring), all of which are strangely inaccessible with things like elaborate superstructures (e.g. to make the bed look like a car, or a Cindarella coach) or higher than usual bed surfaces for under-bed storage (Captain's beds).

Does anybody have any suggestions about this? I can call the stores and ask if they have things available not on the website, but I figured I should stop and ask if there's things I should know that I don't. Like does anybody know of a local alternative? Has anybody done this?

randomdreams

Anyone here know much about theraputic/pharmaceutical radiochemistry?
Palladium-103 decays by electron capture from an inner shell, which emits an electron neutrino, and subsequently emits an x-ray when another outer electron falls into the hole where the previous one had been.
But we are definitely detecting a ton of beta particles coming off my friend. (As in, the geiger tube with the beta window closed detects about half as many particles as when it's open.)
Scattering from subsequent impacts of ionizing radiation?

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/920076.html

siderea

Via Metafilter: Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Developers Who Use Tabs

Apparently, a suprisingly robust finding, even after controlling for absolutely everything obvious, and a lot of clever non-obvious things, too.

While correlation does not imply causation, in case you were wondering: 8.6% higher, on average.

lj1word1day_feed

Posted by prettygoodword

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/709845.html

coulter (UK) or colter (US) (KOHL-ter) - n., a blade or sharp disc attached to the beam of a plow, used to cut the ground ahead of the plowshare.

An advance in agricultural technology that increased farm production in the middle ages -- the coulter loosens the earth, making it easier to turn the furrow with the plow proper.

Thanks Wikimedia Commons

The original coulter was the blade (#4 in the diagram) -- discs started to be used around 1900. From Middle English colter or culter, from Old English culter and Old French coltre, both from Latin culter, plowshare/knife. Spencer mentions in The Faerie Queene:

"a furrow ... which my coulter hath not cleft"

---L.

http://1word1day.livejournal.com/709845.html

prettygoodword

1word1day: coulter/colter

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/666213.html

dglenn

"You are under no obligation to listen.
Kindness begins at home.
Please be kind to yourself. You don't get a replacement."
-- Seanan McGuire, 2017-05-29

[Happy birthday to dmk, twistedchick, and Tabitha!]

randomdreams

I managed to get my Geiger counter together with my friend who is full of radioactive palladium the other day. Since we were outside, we were trying to find a slightly quieter place. There's a space between two buildings that has no windows, intended as a smoking area, so we walked into there and he stuck the counter probe pretty much down his pants and it started clattering wildly: nicely radioactive, easily detectable. Just as he did that, a guy in a suit walked out of the building and turned towards us, and my friend, in a very smooth move, swept the probe out and over towards one of the picnic benches there, and told the guy in the suit, "we're checking for radioactivity in the cigarette ashes!" He's smooth.

Crossposts: http://randomdreams.livejournal.com/919920.html

siderea

I swear, not 48 hours after I finally get around to actually putting a Patreon icon on something, Patreon launches a completely redesigned logo.

It's like washing the car to make it rain.

prettygoodword

fizgig (FIZ-gig) n., a firework or toy that makes a hissing or whizzing sound as it spins; a flirtatious or frivolous girl, something frivolous or trivial, a gewgaw.

The two main senses have separate etymologies. The latter is the earlier one, from Middle English gig, a frivolous woman, with an intensifier of unknown origin but possibly relating to Old English fist, the act of farting. The former is from gig in the sense of a whirling thing with a descriptive fizz.

---L.

Crossposts: http://prettygoodword.livejournal.com/666016.html

theferrett

In my basement sits a bookcase that, I am told, was built by my grandfather. I don’t know; I never met him. He died three months before I was born.

The bookcase has a huge, multilayered wad of gum on the side from when I was a teenager, and had no idea what the bookcase was – it was just in my room, and I owned my room, and besides the gum wasn’t where my Mom could see it. It was my little act of dickish rebellion that, like a thousand other things I did as a teenager, I regret.

And that’s all it was for several years: my grandfather’s bookcase. My teenaged gum.

Now that I’ve taken up woodworking, I can now see the choices he made in making it: fixed shelves, because drilling in the holes for adjustable shelves is a pain in the ass. He chose a little hand-carved decoration along the top to hide the boxlike construction – not exactly beautiful, but a step beyond everyday bookcase making. It sits on a base for greater stability, which is something we haven’t done yet.

Now that I build things, it’s not a bookcase but a language my grandfather spoke. Were he alive today, I could grunt in a manly way and ask what tools he used back in 1960 to make this thing, and discuss where he kept his workshop, and ask about the staining.

And he would, in the way of all woodworkers, be able to point out every tiny flaw he could not correct. Every craftsman knows about them, because you cannot avoid them: that joint that isn’t perfectly snug, that router that drifted from the fence, that board that’s 1/16″ too short. Experienced woodworkers – and me and my crew are getting there – know how to hide those errors with wood putty and on-the-fly plan alterations, but we keep them tight to our chest. They are the secrets of furniture, an encrypted thieves’ cant of sorrow only told to others in the hobby.

Last night I made my own contribution to the house: a dye shelf I made for Gini in the basement. It’s made of pine, my first natural wood project – not that you’d know that because at the last minute Gini insisted on switching from a dark stain to a bright purple paint.

I can list all its flaws: the squaring is off by an eighth of an inch because the pine was slightly warped. There’s a gouge underneath the right third shelf where – you guessed it – the router drifted from the fence. The paint was the wrong kind for woodworking, latex, too sticky to sand the brush strokes off, so there’s dribbles everywhere.

Gini loves it.

And soon, it will earn its place in the basement, just another fixture in the house, a useful engine. And my garage workshop is filling other houses; we have two bookcases meant for Eric’s attic, and two customized shelves meant to fit in the gaps on either side of Jim’s fireplace.

And in a sense, I feel like I’m firing a flare into the future. I will die, like my grandfather before me. But my friends and family will know that Ferrett did woodworking – here, here’s the shelf he built for Gini, we didn’t have the heart to throw it out, can you use it?

Maybe some day there will be someone who never got to know me but can rest his hand on some shelf I built. And they too will speak this language of craftsmanship. And they’ll look at the speckly paint job and the uneven shelves and judge me, and they will look at the love it took to spend a few hours building something because your wife asked you to and adjust their thinking, and they’ll cock their head and look at this stolid thing as if trying to unravel what sort of man I am from the things I left behind.

I wish I could tell them. But I won’t last.

My shelves might.

Let them talk for me when I’m gone.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

Crossposts: http://theferrett.livejournal.com/2106241.html

dglenn

"You're a grand old flag,^[*]
You're a high-flying flag,
And forever in peace may you wave."
-- George M. Cohan (b. 1878-07-03, d. 1942-11-05), "You're a Grand Old Flag" (1906)

[*] Original lyric, "You're a grand old rag, you're a high flying flag." Title and chorus revised (still in 1906) after complaints about the use of the word "rag" applied to the US Flag.

"Do you realize that it's almost two decades now, now since those terrible days in September of 2001? Seventeen years of war and death and sacrifice and the supposed Global War on Terrorism. For our children, this most recent generation, the ones just now reaching the age of reason and awareness, they have never known an America not at war. They have never lived in a nation at peace. Never." -- Jim Wright, "Memorial Day 2017," Stonekettle Station [thanks to realinterrobang for quoting this earlier]

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