asyouknow_bob

One of the eternal questions

2009-04-13T05:40:04Z

I went to college at a place that bills itself as "A Technological University", so lots of my friends from those days are engineers and the like: people with a higher-than-average propensity to build stuff.

E.g., I know guys who etch their own circuit boards. I know a guy who was taught how to build a Dobsonian telescope by John Dobson.

One of the questions we've kicked around, is "What's a reasonable household toolkit?"

Yes, every home needs a pair of Vise-Grips - but does every household really need a welding rig? How about a generator? (I can recall helping a friend at school fix his car at the curb; and then his roommate came out to help, carrying TWO toolboxes. He dropped the first: "Wrenches." Then dropped the second toolbox: "Other stuff." Uh, thanks.)

Esquire magazine (of all places) addresses the question this month in an article called "31 Things Every Man Should Own". THEIR list ranges from the obvious to the silly:

Cast-Iron Skillet
Valid Passport
Multipurpose Tool
Waiter's Corkscrew/Bottle Opener/Knife
Ax
WD-40
Cordless Drill
Weekend Shoulder Bag
Giant Wool Blanket Never Removed from the Trunk of the Car
Chain Saw
Work Gloves
Carpenter's Level
Boots for the Shop
Boots for Everywhere Else
Jack
Claw Hammer
Lantern
Chef's Knife
Flying Disc
U.S. Road Atlas
Air Pump
Jumper Cables
Charcoal Grill
Card Holder
Pocket Knife
Grease
Lucky Charm
$1,000 Hidden in Your House
LED Flashlight
Money Clip
Joy of Cooking

Well, I suppose it's a start on a list. I'm trying to think if anybody I know owns "a lucky charm". Or if anybody I know here in the snowbelt DOESN'T own a pair of boots. Or why a "flying disc" is such a high-priority item (in the Top 31?) Or why they spec a simple "shoulder bag" and not some sort of pre-packed "go kit".

Admittedly, it's a general list of "things" and not just "tools", but either way, it seems woefully incomplete.

So, what did they miss?

A Meme for All Seasons: the 1999 All-Time Readers Poll Short Story List

2009-03-20T19:41:04Z

A Meme for All Seasons: the 1999 All-Time Readers Poll Short Story List

borrowed from james_nicoll

"The usual rules apply: bold the ones you've read. Strike the ones you've read that you don't think belong on this list. Post a peeved comment about stories you think should have been on this list but weren't (Extra credit for complaining about the lack of inclusion of stories published after this list was compiled)."

"Jeffty Is Five", Harlan Ellison (1977)

"'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman", Harlan Ellison (1965)

"The Star", Arthur C. Clarke (1955)

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", Harlan Ellison (1967)

"'All You Zombies—'", Robert A. Heinlein (1959)

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", Ursula K. Le Guin (1973)

"The Game of Rat and Dragon", Cordwainer Smith (1955)

"The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

"A Sound of Thunder", Ray Bradbury (1952)

"The Green Hills of Earth", Robert A. Heinlein (1947)

"Day Million", Frederik Pohl (1966)

"It's a Good Life", Jerome Bixby (1953)

"Aye, and Gomorrah…", Samuel R. Delany (1967)

"Light of Other Days", Bob Shaw (1966)

"The Last Question", Isaac Asimov (1956)

"There Will Come Soft Rains", Ray Bradbury (1950)

"Or All the Seas with Oysters", Avram Davidson (1958)

"Requiem", Robert A. Heinlein (1940)

"Air Raid", Herb Boehm (John Varley) (1977)

"That Hell-Bound Train", Robert Bloch (1958)

"The Lottery", Shirley Jackson (1948)

"The Country of the Kind", Damon Knight (1956)

"The Liberation of Earth", William Tenn (1953)

"Harrison Bergeron", Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1961)

"Sundance", Robert Silverberg (1969)

"When It Changed", Joanna Russ (1972)

"Love is the Plan the Plan is Death", James Tiptree, Jr. (1973)

"The Third Expedition" ("Mars Is Heaven!"), Ray Bradbury (1948)

"Passengers", Robert Silverberg (1968)

"Cassandra", C. J. Cherryh (1978)

"Helen O'Loy", Lester del Rey (1938)

"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories", Gene Wolfe (1970)

"The Long Watch", Robert A. Heinlein (1949)

"Space-Time for Springers", Fritz Leiber (1958)

"Speech Sounds", Octavia E. Butler (1983)

"The Way of Cross and Dragon", George R. R. Martin (1979)

"Corridors", Barry N. Malzberg (1982)

"Out of All Them Bright Stars", Nancy Kress (1985)

"Robbie", Isaac Asimov (1940)

"Narrow Valley", R. A. Lafferty (1966)

"The Hole Man", Larry Niven (1974)*

"The Pusher", John Varley (1981)

"That Only a Mother", Judith Merril (1948)

Good heavens: I'm reasonably sure that I've read all of these. (...talk about a misspent youth....)
The Tenn, the Malzberg, and the Cherryh are the only three that don't come immediately to mind, but I've read enough of each author to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

Note that the most recent story here is from 1985 - which is why I know so many of them.

*I argue with the inclusion of the Niven, but only because his "Inconstant Moon" made much more of an impression on me at the time.

What kind of liberal are you?

2009-02-28T22:31:43Z

Seen on the blog "Suburban Guerrilla" ( http://susiemadrak.com/ ) - - the quiz seems to be an ad for a book, but the results were fun enough:

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

the self-referential OCD experience

2009-01-27T03:44:12Z

One of my kids saw an episode of "Monk" at somebody's house, and expressed an interest in seeing more. (We don't have cable....)

One of the local libraries has it, but their run (five seasons, twenty?-some discs already) was (of course) all jumbled at random on the shelf. And it's only logical to start watching it from the beginning, right?

So in order to find and bring home the earliest disc they had, I found myself carefully arranging their run of "Monk" DVDs into chronological order...

There's a simple explanation, really

2009-01-24T03:07:59Z

Inaugural Day: we saw two Supreme Court Justices.

Both of them are Republican appointees.

One of them is 88 years old, and was tasked with administering a 74-word oath, and does it perfectly.

The other is 53 years old, and completely botched the administration of an oath only 35 words long.

So what's the obvious difference here?

The one who was hopelessly incompetent at the simplest aspect of his job was the Bush appointee.

Aw, damn

2009-01-13T03:25:31Z

Via ellen_datlow ....

Gavin Grant and Kelly Link report the death of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series.

http://lcrw.net/wordpress/?p=768#comments

Damn.

sf meme

2008-12-17T06:19:25Z

Came to me from my friends list: kathryn_ironic via fledgist

Bold the ones you've read,
strike the ones you hated,
italicize the ones you couldn't get through.
Asterisks for the ones you loved - more asterisks, more love.
Use a + to indicate the ones you own. Use a - to indicate ones you used to own, but no longer have.

1. ~~The Lord of the Rings,~~ J.R.R. Tolkien +
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov *+
3. Dune, Frank Herbert *+
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein *+
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin +
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson ***+
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke **+
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick *+
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *+
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe +
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. *+
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov +
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras +
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish +
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison **+
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison **+
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester **+
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany *+
21. ~~Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey +~~
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card +
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman *+
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl ***+
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams +
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson *+
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice +
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin **+
31. Little, Big, John Crowley **+
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny +
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick +
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement *+
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon *+
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith ***+
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute *+
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke +
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven *+
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys *+
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien +
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut *+
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson *+
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner **+
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester *+
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein **+
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock +
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford *+
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer +

A few comments:
(Isn't this a relatively old list? Haven't I seen this before?)
A couple of these I don't own myself (16, 26, etc.) , but are certainly in the house.
A couple I'm not 100% positive (5, 47?) if I ever actually read the thing, or just something similar.
A few of these really don't belong on this list. (14, 29, 41?)
Some of these, I'm now surprised that I ever would have finished a book (1, 21) that I didn't much like.

What kind of anarchist are you?

2008-11-08T14:29:58Z

Over on LibraryThing, user MMcM linked to this quiz

http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/biffothebear/what-kind-of-anarchist-are-you/

Anarcho-Syndicalist 85%
Anarcha-Feminist 75%
Anarcho-Communist 60%
Anarcho-Primitivist 40%
Anarcho-Capitalist 35%
Christian Anarchist 35%

Today's meme

2008-07-19T16:14:22Z

1930s Marital Scale: 117

As a 1930s husband, I am: Very Superior

From: http://www.magatsu.net/maritaltest/

Movie meme

2008-07-12T05:10:57Z

from LJer marydell:

IMDb's top 25 all-time box office hits. Bold the ones you saw in the theater, italicize the ones you saw some other way instead, and leave the unseen ones alone.

1. Titanic (1997) $600,779,824
2. Star Wars (1977) $460,935,665
3. Shrek 2 (2004) $436,471,036
4. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $434,949,459
5. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $431,065,444
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) $423,032,628
7. Spider-Man (2002) $403,706,375
8. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) $380,262,555
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) $377,019,252
10. Spider-Man 2 (2004) $373,377,893
11. The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,270,943
12. Jurassic Park (1993) $356,784,000
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) $340,478,898
14. Finding Nemo (2003) $339,714,367
15. Spider-Man 3 (2007) $336,530,303
16. Forrest Gump (1994) $329,691,196
17. The Lion King (1994) $328,423,001
18. Shrek the Third (2007) $320,706,665
19. Transformers (2007) $318,759,914
20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone (2001) $317,557,891
21. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $313,837,577
22. Iron Man (2008) $311,708,133 (Note to self: This is not Iron Giant, which I have seen.)
23. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) $310,675,583
24. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) $309,404,152
25. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) $309,125,40

So I've seen 15 out of the 25, but only three of them were seen in the theater.
And several of them I saw ONLY because it was one of the duties of parenthood.

Interesting how many of these are parts of series (I count only 8 stand-alones of the 25. And it's probably safe to assume that Transformers II is on the way. It won't be long before EVERY top-grossing film is part of a series.)

It's mildly interesting that Shrek , Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back, and the first Pirates of the C... movies have all already fallen off the list of top-grossing movies.

Only two of these 25 movies pre-date my Parenthood years; fully 17 of the 25 are from the 21st century, so at least part of this meme is asking "How many movies have you seen lately?"

Now that my kids are into two digits of age, my familiarity with kid movies is waning: I didn't even know that there WAS a Shrek 3.

Today's book meme

2008-06-28T03:18:50Z

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list. (Presumably, the six that were assigned in school.)

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ

5) Complain about the list

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
    2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien   Even as a kid, I found the politics disquieting.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
    4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Only the first one. (I get the idea, really.)
    5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible- KJV
    7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
    8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger      (Should I?)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot        Even though Mill on the Floss is better.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy      As Woody Allen says: "It's about Russia." I should read this again as an adult.
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis    I've looked inside but certainly never read the series
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis    (How does this deserve two places on this list?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini              Too new.
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres      I started it but gave up
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne    The first book I read to myself
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown     (Why is this here?)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Started it.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins       My wife tells me I should read this. She has good taste.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding    (Hell, I’ve lived it.)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel    I will never read this.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons    No, but I saw the movie
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth I’m a few percent in, might finish it if I live to be 300.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon     (I’ve never even heard of this. And it's ahead of Dickens?)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez.      Started it.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac Let the record show that this does not bear up to re-readings later in life.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy.
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett     May have read this as a kid. Certainly I’ve seen some sort of         movie version, which seemed familiar.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (But what is this doing here???)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce    I’m glad I did, too.
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola. It’s in the house, anyway.
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray      Who doesn't love Becky Sharp?
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert         Sentimental Education was better.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom    (Why is this on this list?)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks I really, really don’t like his non-sf stuff.
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare        Isn’t this is covered at #14?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I propose deleting some of the modern trash, and sending in some great big Henry James doorstops in their stead.

And some of the contemporary novels really don't belong in this company (Dan Brown and Tolstoy? Helen Fielding on a list without Henry Fielding?); nor do the couple of non-fiction books belong.

Come to that, why should there be ANY 21st-century works on a list that has Shakespeare?

Today's quiz

2008-06-24T02:10:12Z

Your result for The Deep and Meaningful Winnie-The-Pooh Character Test...

Eeyore

"Do you know what A means, little Piglet?"

"No, Eeyore, I don't."

"It means Learning, it means Education, it means all the things that you and Pooh haven't got. That's what A means."

"Oh," said Piglet again. "I mean, does it?" he explained quickly.

"I'm telling you. People come and go in this Forest, and they say, 'It's only Eeyore, so it doesn't count.' They walk to and fro saying 'Ha ha!' But do they know anything about A? They don't. It's just three sticks to them. But to the Educated--mark this, little Piglet--to the Educated, not meaning Poohs and Piglets, it's a great and glorious A.

You scored as Eeyore!

ABOUT EEYORE: Eeyore lives in his own thistley corner of the forest and wonders why people don't come to visit him more often. He is master of the Guilt Trip, and is always gently forgiving his visitors for neglecting him. Eeyore considers himself to be smarter than the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood, and is often exasperated by their habit of having adventures and general merriment.

WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU: You are an anxious person, and you tend to expect the worst. Your friends find you somewhat cynical at times, because you have found that it is best to expect disappointment. You often feel unappreciated by the people you work with, but you rarely actually try and do anything to change that fact.

Your close friends admire you more than you think they do. They wish that you would learn to stop worrying so much and actually start trying to fix what is bothering you. If something is making you unhappy... change it!

"Daybreak"

2008-03-22T19:20:31Z

This young woman, in Maxfield Parrish's "Morning"
(http://www.greatmodernpictures.com/mfp08lg.jpg)

was also the model for the reclining girl in 1922's "Daybreak"
(http://americanart.si.edu/eyelevel/images/parrish.jpg)

Her name was Kitty Owen.
And her grandfather was William Jennings Bryan.

I haven't been able to Google up much information about Kitty herself, but her family - even ignoring grandpa WJB, who was not the wingnut of "Inherit the Wind" - has an astonishing story. Kitty's mother - Bryan's daughter Ruth Bryan Owen - was a prominent feminist, was elected to Congress in 1928, and had a fascinating life: three husbands, three nationalities, four children, several careers.

(Not only did Kitty's grandfather and her mother serve in Congress, her half-sister Helen Rudd Brown (noted as "daughter of Ruth Bryan Owen"), ran for Congress herself, in 1958 and 1960 (and lost). According to http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/1185.html , Helen Rudd Brown was still living in 2003.)

This family gets more interesting the deeper one looks:
http://www.nndb.com/people/098/000052939/
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/Cambridge/entries/061/Ruth-Bryan-Owen-Rohde.html
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/jofreeman/polhistory/owen.htm

(Note that WJ Bryan's wife - Kitty's grandmother - was a lawyer herself. Back in the 19th century.)
Not only was Ruth Brown Owen the first woman Representative from the deep South, but when her Temperance stand cost her her seat, FDR appointed her ambassador to Denmark. Where she met and married her third husband. Ruth Bryan had apparently dropped out of college in 1903 to marry and raise a family; was divorced in 1909, and only married Major Reginald Owen (a Brit, no less) in 1910 - so either the girl in "Daybreak" was about 11 years old, or (less likely) she was a teenager who took her stepfather's name.

Here's a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt arm-in-arm with Ruth Bryan Owen:

http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyfdr143.htm

Anyway, let's take a moment to reflect upon Parrish's masterpiece, "Daybreak":

This was considered to be fine art in 1922, and it was the most popular art print of the 20th century (the figure "one for every four American homes" is commonly cited) - but let's note that over eighty-five years later, in today's climate of panic, it counts as kiddie-pr0n: the naked girl is Parrish's daughter Jean, who was all of eleven years old. Parrish couldn't have sold this to the American public in the 21st century; he'd be lucky to talk his way out of jail just for having painted it.

Times change.

.

Datlow's Inferno

2008-02-21T06:36:20Z

I started reading science fiction as a kid, 'way back in the '60s, so I absorbed the Party Line of the day, the one that was promulgated back during the 'New Wave' Wars: that 'science fiction' was but a subset of the larger universe of 'speculative fiction'.

'Speculative Fiction' (known to its friends as 'SF') included 'science fiction', but also includes 'fantasy', and even some of the more supernatural flavors of 'horror'. Slipstream, magical realism: it can all be subsumed under the larger umbrella genre of "SF".

So, while I'm basically a 'science fiction' sort of guy, ideologically I've come to feel an obligation to keep abreast with what's going on in all the other corners of the field.

And for much of this, I've come to rely upon Ellen Datlow: her roundup in the annual series The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror is - in many years - most of what I see in those sub-genres. I'm perfectly happy to let HER find stuff and bring it to my attention. (And her original anthologies are worth tracking down, too.)

So when I heard that she had a new anthology of original horror, I took a peek. Now, let's announce up front that I am NOT by temperment a 'horror' reader, and the peek was from between my fingers; but even so, I can recognize a good story when I read one.

There's good stuff here. You can trust Ellen Datlow.

Today's quiz

2008-02-12T03:40:49Z

What's Your Political Philosophy?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Green

The Green Party believes in an America where decisions are made by the people and not by a few giant corporations. Their environmental goal is a sustainable world where nature and human society co-exist in harmony.

Green

100%

Old School Democrat

95%

New Democrat

95%

Foreign Policy

Hawk

70%

Libertarian

35%

Pro Business Republican

Socially Conservative Republican

(lifted from LJ'er "Orange Mike")

(And as he noted, there are some problems with the quite constrained construction of the questions.

Spreading "freedom" by force of arms is an extremely dubious idea, but seems at the root of several of the questions.

"Should people have tax-free ways to save for college?"
Sure: but we as a nation could send every college student to school for free for less than we're currently burning in Iraq. That's not even in the same universe as these questions.

"Should the states be allowed to provide health care?"
Sure: but National Health should be a federal priority.

"Should certain rights be reserved for 'marriage'?"
Well, OK: but 'marriage' should be an available option for same-sex couples.

A question on whether we should move to a flat tax?
Which implies that something as basic as progressive taxation is now up for grabs....

Political discourse in this country has shifted over to the lunatic right.

'Liberated' from an LT'er called "HippieLunatic"

2008-01-30T03:26:47Z

You are a Hippie

You are a total hippie. While you may not wear birks or smell of incense, you have the soul of a hippie.
You don't trust authority, and you do as you please. You're willing to take a stand, even when what you believe isn't popular.

You like to experiment with ideas, lifestyles, and different subcultures.
You always gravitate toward what's radical and subversive. Normal, mainstream culture doesn't really resonate with you.

Are You a Hippie?

Great big geek

2008-01-27T00:50:47Z

(from lucius t on theinferior4) I seem to have missed two out of 14, which is respectable, I guess.

	I received 86 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Quiz by SheGoddess: Lose weight quickly

We Shall Not See Their Like Again

2008-01-09T02:33:24Z

Sunday, January 13, 2008 - New York Harbor
"Witness the making of maritime history as fireworks and fanfare mark the first and only meeting of Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth 2 and the new Queen Victoria."

The QE2 is being retired in November, so this really is the only chance to see these three in the same place at the same time.

Now I have to find somebody to go to NYC with me.

Update

2008-01-06T18:24:53Z

Re-taking the 'Pres. Candidates Matching Quiz', we now find:

96% Mike Gravel
95% Dennis Kucinich
84% Chris Dodd
84% Barack Obama
83% John Edwards
81% Hillary Clinton
73% Bill Richardson
34% Rudy Giuliani
26% Ron Paul
19% John McCain
15% Mike Huckabee
13% Mitt Romney
5% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Again, about right. It's a looonnng step for me between the worst Dems and the Republican pack, each of whom has the interesting property of being worse than all the others. Presumably Rudy is so relatively 'high' because he's relatively less insane on some of the social issues.

A shout-out to all my homies

2007-11-29T00:20:06Z

PBS' NewsHour just did a story about the rustbelt / factory closings in Milwaukee / Bucyrus-Erie welders / training inner-city high school kids in the manufacturing trades (which in passing, raised the question: heck - will there even BE American jobs for welders?).

A tough school - they talked to a security guard in the HS, who demonstrated various gang signs... and then they talked to a kid who demonstrated the engineer's "gang sign":

the right-hand rule.

Which Major Romantic Poet Are You?

2007-11-27T02:42:38Z

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?

You are William Blake! Wow. I'm impressed. Not only are you a self-made artist and poet, but you've suddenly become a very trendy guy to like. It's not that we doubt that you have all your marbles, it's just that we're not quite sure what you did with them to come up with those terrifying theological visions. The people of your time were nowhere near as forgiving as that, and all your neighbors thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we love you, so rest happy.
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Well, it seems like everybody I know has at least bit of it...

2007-10-28T03:29:39Z

Given that many of the people I know are actually fairly far out there, I'm certainly interested in my results on this on-line quiz:

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

My results:

Your Aspie score: 50 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 154 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

I'm not sure about the meaning of the labels in use on the axes here; but a quick look around rdos.net doesn't turn up much in the way of explanation.

http://www.rdos.net/eng/quizpoly.php?p1=21&p2=82&p3=24&p4=32&p5=80&p6=60&p7=13&p8=78&p9=24

(via LJ user 'pecunium')

(Oh, and Bear, too.)

It's almost an election year

2007-10-19T00:16:54Z

..time to play with the "Political Compass".

http://politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-7.25&soc=-7.54

I keep moving toward the center.

Which Dead Russian Composer Are You?

2007-10-17T02:52:38Z

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Igor Stravinsky.

Known as a true son of the new 20th Century, my music started out melodic and folky but slowly got more dissonant and bizzare as I aged. I am a traveler and a neat freak, and very much hated those rotten eggs thrown at me after the premiere of "The Rite of Spring."

Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test

(Apparently all "vodka" = Mussorgsky)

No, not really a surprise

2007-10-15T04:48:52Z

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Yeah, I've read a lot - - though, given my own famously Low tastes, I hope it's not fair to characterize me as being a "book snob". And, again, given my own imperfect mastery of spelling, I'm not especially offended by others' grammatical mistakes. But, yeah, I guess I'd have to say that "Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm" is probably a fair cop.

Really, now: I think that anybody who finds themself cataloging their personal library probably has more than a bit of O-C in their make-up.

(A shout-out to LJer [ecbatan] for the link.)