Very Slow on the Uptake

When I was a college freshman, my roommate told me that her father always paid cash when he bought a car. She looked very proud of this statement. It was pronounced in a similar way to other teachings of financial advice from her dad, like when she told me that he always knew to a penny what was in his checking account. I had a hard time puzzling out why it would be better to walk into a car dealership with that much cash in his pocket, instead of writing a check. I suppose I never forgot that statement because I couldn't figure it out. I was many years out of college when I remembered the statement again and realized that what she probably meant was he never took out a loan to buy a car, but purchased it with money he had in savings. That is good advice.

Tuesday 2 a.m.: Kill king, implicate princes

On the counter at the drugstore were some pocket-sized planning calendars--plastic coated, with kind of ugly designs. I noticed their labels said, "The Macbeth Collection". In small letters they said:

Plan Ahead.  A little planning goes a long way.

So what do you write in your Macbeth planner?

Boskone 2012 notes

Just the raw notes, now shared on Google Docs.

I was typing notes at some of the panels.  I kept thinking I'd edit them and post them here, but there's always something better to do.  In the meantime, I've uploaded them to Google Docs, and selected share with public. Maybe with them in Google Docs, I'll be more likely to edit them.  I deleted what I wrote during Elaine Isaak's writing exercise and just left the prompts (except the visual prompt that was on a card dealt from a stack.)

Working on my bio for zoetrope

I learned how to read so I could read the Oz books.  I grew up discussing science fiction dreams with my father.  I escaped Jr High and bouts of flu by reading Heinlein, Azimov, and back issues of Analog.  When I was fifteen, I met a disciple of Gerard K O'Neil, who convinced me that people don't need to live on planets: our future is in free-floating space colonies and hollowed-out asteroids  I've been writing about Mark Hankin, his family, and their friends since I was seventeen.

My next commuter car

What I'd like for the vehicle that replaces my '97 Toyota:

• Electric, with a range of 200 miles between charging.
• A really good sound system
• Built-in vacuum cleaning, like are in some houses, or a car-Roomba, to clean up the toast crumbs.  
• Good visibility
• Rear windshield wiper
• Good in snow and on ice
• Why not a front-windshield defroster?  Wires can retract, fold away, or be invisible.  Or wireless defrosting beams from around the windshield.
• I want it to teach me French and Spanish while I drive to & from work
• Ability to download podcasts to my car
• Variable-width cup holders. 
• Easily changed windshield wipers
• Voice-activated intelligent GPS
• Voice-activated cellphone interface
• Polarizing windshield with intelligent sun-blocking (shade intersection of line of sight to sun at windshield) with touch override.  Okay, maybe for the car after.
• How about at least the ability to toggle a shade-spot on the windshield by touching where you want the extra shady spot (or to clear it, of course)?

Today she's eight. World, just wait.

On Monday, school was canceled because of the widespread power outages.  At 6:30 a.m., our house is in its 26th hour without electricity.  I have to wake up to go to work.  I light a candle to find my clothes. 

Rafi hops out of bed.  Her sister is asleep.  Her father, having been up half the night feeding the wood stove, is snoring. 

On ordinary school mornings it is a chore to drag her out of bed by 7:35.   She has only caught the 7:45 bus that stops in front of our house once since September.  What is she going to do with no electricity?  Wait for the sun to get brighter then read a book.  Maybe practice her ukulele.  I can only hope.

I give her cereal for breakfast, with milk we've been keeping in a bucket of snow.

Isn't it strange, she says, how I always wake up when I don't have to wake up.  When I do have to wake up, I never can.

Uh huh, I agree. 

I wonder why I'm not more sleepy, she says.  Then she grins, for she has figured out an explanation: 
It must be that I get lots of rest on days when I'm supposed to wake up, so that I don't need the sleep now.

under the influence

Watched Julie and Julia Saturday afternoon.  Noticed we were low on bread.  Prepared whole wheat bread dough in what must be the first time in a long time, as the whole wheat flour seemed old.   The kids helped knead the dough and form it into rolls.

Since that bread  wouldn't be ready for supper, I also  baked quick beer bread to go under the Welsh Rabbit.  The kids don't like Welsh Rabbit, so I also cooked spaghetti. After supper I remembered the kids needed a snack for Sunday school.  I'd forgotten to buy popcorn on the last grocery-trip, so made fluff-krispie squares with cinnamon and chocolate chips.

Sunday, grocery shopping, the on-sale fish was cod and haddock.  It looked better made into chowder, so bought red potatoes to chowderize it, then baked corn bread on the side.  We all love corn bread.

Now, at work, I'm finishing my lunch:  Welsh Rabbit on broccoli, corn bread, and beer bread, with chowder and whole wheat roll on the side.  Very nice.  The time spent cooking and baking wasn't wasted, although there were a lot of other things I wanted to accomplish this weekend.  What's a good movie for getting other things done?

I am very sad Steve Jobs died

He created beauty and improved our world.

sacks for the tablet interface

Instead of user accounts to organize a tablet interface (as I mentioned in May)  it might be good if, when I turned on my iPad, I saw an icon of a sack, labelled "Margie's", and there'd be other sacks for the other people using the iPad.  The same app could be in several sacks.  The apps we most often use could still be splayed out, or in their "most often used" sack.

There should be a way to tell the iPad to put all the music stuff in a Music Sack, and, more specifically, to put all the ukulele apps in an Uke Sack.  All the kids' games should be in a sack, instead of cluttering up my view.  All the News Readers (Huffington, NYT, ABC, etc) should find their own sack for when I want to read a magazine or check the news.  Apps are very easily categorized, and they should be thus self-organizing.

My kids have downloaded a lot of games and I am tired of sifting through them all to find my stuff.  It is awkward to drag things to the bottom and then pull them out on the screen where I want them.  Just let the iPad organize this for me.  Why can't it?

As for email, if the user sack most recently opened was "Margie's sack", it would be nice, when I click on email, to get one of my email accounts, instead of Zoe's.  And vice-versa for "Zoe's sack".  Although, as her mom, it is good that I can read her mail.

A New Paradigm for Business: Company Showrooms replace Retail Stores

People are already behaving that way: They examine the product in a retail store, then go home and find the best price online.  Retail stores are going out of business as a result.

We like to see and touch many things before making a purchase decision.  To fill this niche, large manufacturers will create showrooms, like the Apple Store, to display their products.  Smaller manufacturers will pay to have their products displayed in new Showroom companies that will spring up to provide this service.

using ground turkey for spaghetti & meatballs

Why?  

• preference: I've grown less used to beef, since I haven't been eating it as often.  
• economic:  Ground Empire Turkey, $3.99/lb at Trader Joe's, vs $6.50/lb for beef when they have it.  
• Health: turkey's less bad for you anyway.

The fear was that ground turkey wouldn't taste enough like "real" meatballs to go with red sauce.  I think it turned out better, in a way, since it didn't have as much of the excess grease that beef burger produces.  

Spices to make the turkey more beefy:

• Worcestershire sauce
• tamari
• ground sage
• ground bayleaf
• coriander
• thyme
• oregano
• ground peper
• Ro insists on cumin, so I added a bit
• egg to bind it
• next time, I'll try potato flakes too.  Ro says he's been adding it to the turkey burgers.

Previously, meatballs turned into meat sauce.  Yesterday, I learned to have enough frying-pan surface to allow each to cook on the bottom and be turned before it can stick to its neighbor and be merged.

The sauce: sauteed red onion, rosemary, celery, garlic clove, zuchinni, in olive oil then added meatballs as I formed them.  Moved the meatballs to the auxiliary frying pan before dumping in a can of tomato paste and 2-3 cans of water.  After the water stirred in to a good sauce consistency, I put the meatballs back in.  Then added a few sprigs of chopped frozen broccoli and some frozen spinach to give it more green.

Served on top of whole wheat spaghetti.  Thought red wine would go with it.  Looked in Christmas-present crate from Gonzalo and Lisa.  Chose THE VELVET DEVIL MERLOT 2009 WASHINGTON STATE.  All caps on the label, so here too.  I liked it quite a lot.  The first Merlot I've liked.  Screw-top cap.  Fun.

quote from Slate: 3 Golden Rules for Book Review

from How Not To Write a Book Review, By Robert Pinsky, on Slate:

1. The review must tell what the book is about.
2. The review must tell what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.
3. The review must tell what the reviewer thinks about what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.

readercon links

quick summary:  http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/07/readercon-science-fiction-as-it-was-born.html

still waiting for my food pills, transcript posted by the author.  I wasn't impressed by the spheres in apple juice.  The caramel stuff was O.K. Very interesting introduction to Post-Modern Cuisine.  I was hoping for something on how compact foodstuff can be created for space travel etc.

Youtube link of Howard Waldrop reading near midnight Saturday, after Poland.  He was having trouble with his eyes.  Read part of a scary Hansel & Gretl en route to what seemed like an Auschwitz analog.  Then read complete "The Bravest Girl I Ever Knew" a fake Hollywood memoir about King Kong actress. (I was very sleepy, but I'd heard such raves about HW, I stuck it out... I kept thinking 1) it was almost over 2) it would have a point.)

Another youtube link of Samuel R. Delany Interviews Katherine MacLean.  Watch Spencer fix the microphones because I forgot to.

Joan Slonczewski's syllabus for course on Biology and Science Fiction

1. Evolution
1. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
2. Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut
2. Ecology 
1. Dune, by Frank Herbert
2. A Door into Ocean, by Joan Slonczewski
3. Genetics and Molecular Biology
1. Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton
2. Brain Plague, by Joan Slonczewski

(From Saturday evening Readercon panel on Science Fiction for Today's Undergraduate)

Random quotes from Readercon panels

At Saturday morning panel on Book Inflation:
Unlike other people, when I get to the end of a book, I quit writing.  (Howard Waldrop)

At Saturday evening panel on Science Fiction for Today's Undergraduate:
Paradoxically, Science Fiction is very much a dialog with its time.

At Saturday evening panel on The One Right Form of a Story:
I always think a lot about serious literary stuff, but I know that no one will ever know that I'm thinking about it.  (Judith Berman)

You can't write the story until you know the thang. 

(Judith Berman, quoting Howard Waldrop)

No two people have the same process. Learn what your process is.  (Judith Berman, possibly quoting Delaney's On Writing.)

At Sunday afternoon panel, Effing the Ineffable: Writers Who Think Cinematically:
I have lots of things to say that are ill-informed. (Maria Dahvana Headley, introducing herself.)

notes from Readercon talk/demo: Walking Through Mayhem, led by Madeleine Robins

Two lists of questions:

1. Who is fighting?
2. Where are they? What is the terrain?
3. What is the desired outcome?

Also,

1. What is the reason for the fight?
2. How serious is it? (e.g. Laertes & Hamlet vs Catherine & Petruchio)

In stage combat, the fight is divided into phases (x hits y on left shoulder, y parries,..), and there are 5 basic targets, numbered (left hip, right hip, left shoulder, right shoulder, head..)

Advice:

• Balance the panic factor ("I could die!!") with pain ("Ow!")
• Think about where someone winds up--reels back, turns.
• If your character is afraid of dying, he will fight dirty
• Write out all the actions, then edit it down, replacing actions with sensory observations (e.g. bad breath, sweat, pain, cold..) and interior monologue.
• Be realistic about effects of violence
• concussion->vomiting, then can't think straight for days
• after a muscle bruise, fencer won't be able to lift sword
• it's hard to pull a knife out of a muscle
• Only the young have the energy and stupidity to not notice how uncomfortable they are.

 

All the other kids with the foam duck kisses better run, better run

Fortunately, the DJ said: "that was Pumped Up Kicks..."

Wanna compete with Apple? Stop copying the iPad.

The iPad is nice, but--at least for me--it never feels like that smooth and beautiful experience I see on the TV commercials.  It's hard to use it without wishing for improvements.  How about:

• Add hierarchical or other better means of organizing apps, instead of having them all on pages and pages
• Let there be different user accounts for email and selections of favorite apps.  I don't need security between them, but a quick way to say which user you are and then see a different set of app screens and books and email accounts would be useful.  Even if a single user wants to organize himself into several virtual users--e.g. My Business Self, My Fiction Self, My Art Self, My Fashion Self...
• Include a stylus.  It's really hard to do fine-detail drawing or pointing (e.g. selecting that space between letters to fix a typo) without one.
• How about a shape that's easier to grasp?
• How about a tablet that comes with the protective cover?
• Do some usability studies.  See what confuses people in the interface.
• Improve touch-typing on the screen.  
• Let the person rest the fingers on the virtual keyboard, and have sensors notice the lift and re-drop.
• Make use of new friction technology: http://bit.ly/lco6b6   http://bit.ly/ivQtNd

obvious need for a klutz-proof phone

My Sony Ericsson was stepped on (we think), which broke the screen, so I was looking through AT&T choices for a replacement.  I was seriously considering a refurbished Rugby phone, which was the only "rugged" option in the free category.  Looking through the user reviews, there were a lot of complaints about the "Push To Talk" button being in the way so that users were hitting it inadvertently all the time.  It was notable that, in nearly all the reviews, nobody wanted the Push to Talk feature.  The phone was designed for job sites, construction workers in a team, that sort of thing, where Push To Talk would be useful.  But many people were buying it because, just like me, they wanted something less likely to break.  (I also liked that reviewers said it was very loud and easy to hear through background noise.  I could never hear my Ericsson sufficiently without putting it on speaker.)

There is a definite need for a rugged phone for individual users.  One with a good volume control.  One where you won't inadvertently connect to the Internet and be charged for it.  Why is this not among the current choices?

The other thing that annoyed me was the lack of protection for the camera lenses. My old Ericson's lens was covered when the phone number pad was slid closed.   All of the 2 MPixel and above camera lenses on cell phones that I saw in the AT&T store are exposed.  There was one 1.3 MPixel camera phone that did protect its lens.  Kind of ridiculous.

Bridegroom magazine

Of course it wouldn't be called that.  A better name would be Ready.  And, yes, a lot of men would not subscribe to it.  But a lot of women would buy their men gift-subscriptions.  It could have some low-key articles about wedding planning.  And also articles on:

• Guide to Formal Attire for guys who've worn jeans all their lives
• Honeymoon Options - Travel Section
• Honeymoon Techniques
• Financial Planning
• Recommendations for merging finances
• Should you have a Pre-Nup?
• Guide to buying Life Insurance
• Guide to buying Houses
• Guide to buying Condos
• Guide to buying Condoms
• Guide to buying Lingerie (with helpful photos)
• Engagement Rings - Alternatives to the Diamond
• The Six Things Every Couple Should Agree On Before Saying 'I do'
• Reasons to delay having children
• Ways to keep the romance when you can't delay having children 
• Preparing to be a stepfather
• Negotiating between your children and your future wife
• How Girlfriends Change When They Became Wives 
• Bachelor Parties - Stories and Advice
• When to Speak Up, When to Shut Up - Survival Guide to Wedding Planning and Beyond

..plus lots of amusing anecdotes sent in by readers.