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Dan Goodman's journal
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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Dan Goodman" journal:[<< Previous 25 entries]
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05:42 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, cakmpls and akhmed!!
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07:59 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, hrj!!
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01:54 pm
[Link] | Happy birthday, dhole!!
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10:35 pm
[Link] | ‘Mad Pride’ Fights a Stigma
By GABRIELLE GLASER
Published: May 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/fashion/11madpride.html?pagewanted=all
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05:19 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, bachsoprano!!
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03:19 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, starcat_jewel!!
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12:46 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, cristalia!!
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05:36 pm
[Link] | 0:00 GMT, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 11:00 UK
Heading skyward to beat gridlock
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
The solution to gridlock on our overcrowded roads is to take to the air in a plane-car hybrid that will revolutionise the way society works.
This vision of the future twenty years hence was revealed at the 2008 Electric Aircraft Symposium held a stone's throw from San Francisco airport in California.
Plotting the next frontier in green technology was Richard Jones, a technical fellow at Boeing Phantom Works.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/technology/7384788.stm
Aircars replacing groundcars is a perennial "just around the corner" prediction. The earliest prediction I've seen was in 1943 (when it was to happen right after the War ended.)
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03:24 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, elfs and whytcrow!!
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06:14 pm
[Link] | CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT POLITICAL PROPOSAL
Dear Sir
First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and "top secret".
We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family's political careers since our country has been frustrating us....
http://gastaxscam.com/
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01:39 pm
[Link] | Wednesday April 30, 2008 Comment I made in this discussion: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1243654.html
Perhaps SFWA should narrow its membership criteria rather than broadening it. Go back to requiring yearly renewal of credentials. Only credit work which meets a strict definition of "hard science" for science fiction or "hard magic" for fantasy. Take points off if a story contains scientific or magical errors.
Make it really rigorous, and there will be no one to cause trouble in SFWA.
***Two of the questions which keep coming up on soc.genealogy.jewish: What Jewish name corresponds to this English language name? What English-language name corresponds to this Jewish name?
An illustration of why these questions are unanswerable:
The Newest Member of the VC [Volokh Conspiracy] Community
is Eden Daisy Bernstein, born Monday at 4 am, 7 lbs, 4.5 oz, 20.5 inches long, and cute as a button. Her Hebrew name is Shulamit Fayga, after three of her great-grandmothers. I'm very proud of Mrs. Bernstein who endured--yes, that's the right word--her second natural delivery.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_04_27-2008_05_03.shtml#1209511029
English for Shulamit: Shulamith. Fayga is Yiddish for "bird."
***Rainbow had good sale prices on yogurt (their private brand) and oranges. I went to the Rainbow near Lake and Hiawatha for them.
Saw a notice that the store would have a Cinquo De Mayo celebration. Considering how many Hispanic customers the local supermarkets have, this seemed reasonable. Except that the notice was only in English. And the celebration would be on the third, rather than the fifth.
There was also a sale on Rainbow's pasta sauce. Unfortunately, it contained 26 percent of the daily sodium requirement. My blood pressure is no longer too high, but if I were to start regularly eating such salty foods....
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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11:11 pm
[Link] | Tuesday April 29, 2008 "Why do we hanker for magic? That is a question that the large-C Catholic fantasy writer must squarely face, and the small-c catholic reader ought at any rate to find interesting....What I mean is that the same problem faces every fantasy writer in a more or less Christian or post-Christian society, regardless of denomination; it is only that Catholic writers, if they take either their writing or their religion seriously, have less room to shirk the issue."
http://superversive.livejournal.com/67317.html?view=474101
gutenbergupdate
A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire by Wadham Pigott Williams
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/25212
Thanks to http://imanotalone.livejournal.com/282486.html for this one:
Forget the Stairmaster in the basement. What if the house itself was your Stairmaster. Hungry? Climb the ladder to the kitchen. Want a shower? Use the two-story rock wall to get to the bathroom. There's no way around it. These houses were designed to be fat-free, to make you move even if it means having to strap on skis to get there. Author of High Fit Home, Joan Vos MacDonald, strongly advocates "designing the whole home so that people are encouraged and even enticed into walking or moving during the course of their regular activities." The house that inspires (or, in many cases, forces) you off the couch is the house that make you lose weight. Our only question: Where can we get one too?
http://www.pointclickhome.com/decorating_design/articles/21_list_waist_watcher_houses
From a letter of comment to Fred Lerner:
What I meant: I think that at least the first Harry Potter book is accessible for people not familiar with the reading protocols of written fiction -- ANY kind of written fiction.
Note: Any discussion of the reading protocols of written sf and written fantasy should take into account various hybrid forms: paranormal romances, paranormal mysteries, near-future thrillers, game tie-ins, visual-sf tie-ins and novelizations, and secret history fiction.
And I suspect some people who can't manage the protocols of written sf/fantasy can cope with them in stories labeled as magical realism.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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11:08 am
[Link] | Happy Birthday, naominovik and andyhat!!
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07:09 pm
[Link] | Monday April 28, 2008 Got over whatever I'd been sick with. Went out to buy eggs.
Finished critiques and comments for Link (somewhat late) and emailed them.
***On the Project-Wombat list, someone was trying to track down Addison Whithecomb, cited by several web pages as originator of the quotation "When you resort to attacking the messenger and not the message, you have lost the debate."
I suspected Mr. Whithecomb was nonexistent. I did some googling. Found the Isle of Man gay & lesbian pages, among other things; but no trace of Addison Whithecomb except as originator of the quotation.
***After looking up the dates of Vatican III, googled on Vatican III. If the pattern so far holds up, that should be held late this century. (Then again -- if Canadian Thanksgiving is in October and US Thanksgiving in November, there should be Mexican Thanksgiving in December.) I found several lists of items Vatican III would most likely discuss. And an explanation of why it wouldn't be needed. And this joke:
"Did you hear about Vatican III? The bishops are bringing their wives."
"Did you hear about Vatican IV? The bishops are bringing their husbands."
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02:52 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, varkat!!
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02:52 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, zoethe!!
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06:58 pm
[Link] | Tuesday April 22, 2008 Comment at SF Signal: "...my opinion is that if one is reviewing books, one must have a near flawness understanding of English grammar." Spelling and punctuation sic.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006568.html#more
___________
"By the late 1990s, I had largely decided that either the idea that people can find a community of others where they feel comfortable and at home was entirely a myth, or at minimum, that I was not something that I'd ever find. Then, in 2004, I started going to otherkin events – first to a meet-up in a nearby restaurant, and then going to Walking the Thresholds in Pennsylvania. In these events, I felt at home in a way that I still find difficult to describe or explain. After the first few minutes in any such event, my shyness almost completely vanishes and I feel as comfortable and relaxed as I do in a group of people who I all know well. In addition, I have met more than half a dozen people who I regard as very close friends (despite the unfortunate fact that most of them live much too far away). Since that time, I've gone to otherkin gathers of various sorts in various settings and the comfort remains a constant. It has nothing to do with the presence of certain specific people or the size of the group. It's simply true that in a space where everyone identified as otherkin, I feel at home."
http://heron61.livejournal.com/548040.html
[From Wikipedia: "Otherkin are a subculture of people, primarily internet-based, who identify in some way as other than human. Otherkin often believe themselves to be mythological or legendary creatures, explaining their beliefs through reincarnation, having a nonhuman soul, ancestry, or symbolic metaphor."]
There are groups in which I feel comfortable and at home. But there isn't any subculture in which I feel either comfortable or at home in all groups. And no group in which I feel comfortable with everyone.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
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12:20 pm
[Link] |
Pre-Interstellar Historical Fiction: Getting the Details Right
The kinder, simpler times of the 22nd Century and the two preceding centuries appeal to writers for many good reasons. Also for many bad ones. Among the bad is the belief that Atomic Age historicals are easy to write. You know all about that period, except for pesky little details.
Do you really need to worry about details? Perhaps not. If you get them wrong, only two kinds of people will notice -- editors and readers/viewers/sensers. In other words, the people you want to sell to.
Yes, checking details is work. More work than you think, because there were large changes during that three-century period.
In 1910, your hero would produce text by typing on a manual typewriter. ("Manual" doesn't mean what you might think; it means the typewriter had no source of power except the user's muscles. None.) In 2010, she would type at her computer. In 2110, she would keyboard her wordie.
( Read more... )
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12:19 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, naomikritzer!!
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07:12 pm
[Link] | Sunday April 20, 2008 To Lunds for the spec-fic-writing Meetup.
Lunds is an upscale supermarket chain. It has more food samples than downmarket chains do. Today they included organic strawberries.
Program this month: Members reading their work. My contribution was a how-to article on writing historical fiction set in the 20th, 21st, and 22nd centuries. (Read for me by Hilary Moon Murphy; I don't have a good speaking voice.)
I got good suggestions. Decided that it would be simpler to use the idea in a story than to make needed revisions.
***Went to the Wedge Coop, then the Aldi on Lake Street.
Took the Hiawatha Line (light rail) home. The trains would be wind-powered on Earth Day, the electric signs said. I wondered what kinds of sails might be used. Reluctantly decided the reality would be less interesting.
Confirmed at metrotransit.org: "Ride a wind-powered light-rail train in conjunction with Earth Day. Metro Transit is buying enough wind power through Xcel Energy’s Windsource® program to power the Hiawatha Line."
I still want to see them using sails.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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01:39 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, jonquil!!
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08:40 pm
[Link] | Thursday April 17, 2008 Last night, I thought about telepathic tea kettles. That is, ones which would send a recorded message when the water was hot enough.
Today I figured out how to build a story around such gadgets. Working title: The Uses of Thought:
He didn't need a telepathic tea kettle. But Steeple People thrift store had a used one at what Saul Grandon considered a reasonable price. And its transmissions were multi-sensory, according to the attached booklet: the sight of a steaming cup of tea, the smell and taste of tea (adjustable for different blends), the whistle of an old-fashioned sit-on-the-stove kettle.
***ACA (Adult Children Anonymous) meeting. It went well, I think; a good thing, since I was running it.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
Current Music: It's My Party, and I'll Cry if I Want to
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04:05 pm
[Link] | Are There Rural Voters in Pennsylvania?
Originally published at Daily Kos: http://tinyurl.com/3p2y8p
Wed Apr 16, 2008 at 03:45:45 PM CDT
Also at http://tinyurl.com/6opynh
Smalltown voters (and which candidate despises them most) are getting a lot of discussion -- in blogs, the mass media, etc. Urban voters get some discussion.
But I don't see discussion of rural voters. The people who don't live in towns of any size.
Yes, I know they're being included in "smalltown voters" -- but they shouldn't be. The answer to "It's the same thing, isn't it?" is almost always "No."
The differences between town people and country people can be larger than those between city people and suburbanites. I don't know of any case in which urban-suburban animosity has led to respectable people shooting at each other.
The relationship between small town people and rural people is probably different in every area. But sometimes their economic interests are very different. (Less so these days, when farmers are a small minority of rural population.) They might speak different languages at home, belong to different religions. And even if the differences are small, they might be seen as being large.
Ignorance and stupidity from the mass media, I'm resigned to. I expect them to be mentally lazy. But I expect better from kossacks.
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02:34 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, jimhines!!
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01:47 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, stevendj!!
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