Thursday, October 31, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy 10/29/13 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  http://dsgoodman.blogspot.com 612-298-2354

Tuesday October 29, 2013  "Of course the Romans had starships.  Why else would they build pyramids on Mars and Earth?"

Ouch!  At least I hadn't been seated with one of the people who don't believe Earth ever existed.

From The Queen of Stone and Fire (working title.) 

***At the Wedge coop, there were samples of hemp milk.  Since I don't care for cold milk, I can't say what it tasted like.

***"Google and some carmakers are developing technology for driverless cars, and a company in Israel is working on flying cars."
http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2013/10/despite-population-growth-car-use-declining-twin-cities

Flying cars have been about to make ground cars obsolete Real Soon Now since at least the 1920s. 

***From Twitter:

Chris Geidner ‏@chrisgeidner Retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor performed a wedding for a same-sex couple at the Supreme Court today: http://bloom.bg/1dK1nvA
Retweeted by Zerlina Maxwell

H & I Voices ‏@HI_Voices "10 languages indigenous to British Isles & spoken today: English, Scots, BSL, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Angloromani and Shelta".
Retweeted by Ken MacLeod

Monday, October 28, 2013

Sunday October 27, 2013     Fanfiction I'm not going to write:  1) "Hail Emperor Chewbacca and Empress Leia!"

2) Mirror world in which Hannibal Lecter is a vegetarian; and all decent people are cannibals.

***Comments:
Mike Glyer 10/26: "Car Chasers Anonymous -- like it. Remember the Bill Cosby joke about why do dogs chase cars. And what would a dog do if it caught one? Punchline -- 'Ohhhhh....'"

Tyler Tork 10/26:  "Adult children? That sounds like basically everyone I know."

Full name:  Adult Children of Alcoholic and Otherwise Dysfunctional Families Anonymous.

Bill Detty 10/27: As it happens, I have a high school buddy who joined the Ukrainian Orthodox church in his fifties, when he was called upon to be somebody's godfather and it was realized that somehow he'd never been baptized, despite having nominally been a Baptist since 1955.

***From Twitter:
Michael A. Ventrella ‏@MikeVentrella Fantasy fans will be interested in my interview with NY Times bestselling author Steven Brust. We discuss his... http://fb.me/1Gti1nD6U
Retweeted by Steven Brust

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Saturday October 26, 2013  In Dinkytown, a musical group was performing on the sidewalk.  Turned out to be a missionary group. 

Their literature included a listing of U of MN area churches.  (Actually, only Minneapolis Campus ones.)  Not nearly a complete list; only the theologically correct ones.  Which did not include Catholic or Lutheran churches.  And except for one Baptist church, none whose names identified them as belonging to any mainstream Protestant denomination.

***At Southeast Library, I returned books and picked up books being held.

***Comments of comment:
thnidu, 10/25, on LiveJournal:  "How about Unitarians?"  Not mentioned.  I think it's unlikely the Orthodox churches would consider Unitarian Universalists to be Christians.

Don Fitch, 10/26, on LiveJournal: "I'm not sure about the ins and outs of Church Politics, and don't know much more about the Greek churches than I've picked up by way of some years of attending the annual Festivals at St. Nectarios', here in Covina, but my impression is that the operative word is not 'Greek', but 'Orthodox'. I suppose a certain number of Greek immigrants adopted 'American-sounding' family names, either originally or in the course of time, but some members of the congregation are likely to be Armenian, Russian, Serbian, and possibly Coptic or Anglo-Catholic, depending (I think) on how the various local Bishoprics stand on inter-Communion & ecumenism."

Some of the non-Greek names are Scandinavian and German.  My guess:  in most cases, the wife took the husband's name and the husband the wife's religion.

There are Armenian, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Serbian Orthodox churches in the Twin Cities area.  And The Orthodox Church in North America.

"(I have no knowledge whatsoever, but sometimes indulge in fascinated speculation on the possible involvement of the Maronite Church here -- it's one of the Patriarchies of the Eastern Rite/Orthodox Church(), but has long had a close relationship with (and under) the Bishop of Rome.)"

Minneapolis has Maronite, Byzantine, and Ukrainian Catholic churches.

The Liberal Catholic Church of St. Francis is descended from a group which split off because it found some of Vatican I's results unbearable.

***PROTOZOSIN:
PROFILE: Alpha blocker notably effective against Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder
BANNED BECAUSE: Banned on request of DARPA, who are trying to use epidemiology of Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder to predict the course of future conflicts. Lobbying to overturn ban by “Future Veterans of the Pakistani War” thus far ineffective.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/25/list-of-fictional-drugs-banned-by-the-fda/

***From Twitter:

Mental Floss ‏@mental_floss In the 1890s, the University of Nebraska football team was called the Bugeaters.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Thursday October 24, 2013  There was a dog at the Adult Children Anonymous meeting.  I began thinking about 12-Step groups for dogs, but didn't get farther than Carchasers Anonymous.

***From Publisher's Lunch list of books sold:  "Author of In the Hand of Dante Nick Tosches's untitled historical thriller about the life of Jesus, here seen as an erstwhile street-punk outlaw from Galilean society"

***From Twitter:
Poynter ‏@Poynter Candidate endorses himself in ad on @Cleveland_Scene's cover: http://bit.ly/1fYkMK3  Criticism of move is "pretty boring," editor says

Co.Exist ‏@FastCoExist Feeding Future Megacities With Floating Hydroponic Farms http://f-st.co/lxD4ISC

***Friday October 25, 2013 "For two years I was involved with 'The Lifestyle'...Then I met an incredibly sexy man and the four of us had 'Moby sex.'"

"The Lifestyle" involved "bondage and pigtails."  Advice columnist Alexis had never heard of Moby sex.
http://www.vita.mn/alexis/229006181.html

***From laughingsquid.com, via Facebook:
Sound Engineer Who Wasn’t Paid by Band Remixes Their Hardcore Song into Electronic Dance Music Tune
http://preview.tinyurl.com/mzrdfx5

***From Publisher's Lunch list of books sold:
Reif Larsen's second novel, I AM RADAR, about a love-struck epileptic radio operator from the New Jersey Meadowlands who becomes involved with a secret international society of scientists and puppeteers that perform avant-garde shows about particle physics for populations suffering from genocide

Laurie McKay's THE LAST DRAGON CHARMER series: THE VILLAIN KEEPER (Book 1), in which a prince is pulled from his realm into Asheville, NC, and discovers the local middle school is staffed with banished villains from his world

Friday, October 25, 2013

Wednesday October 23, 2013  The bookstore at Minneapolis Central Library had a 25 cent sale.  Bought a Lonely Planet guide to Papua New Guinea. 

***On to the Wedge Coop's annual meeting.  It was held at St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church's event center.

St. Mary's Church's congregation is apparently mostly English-speaking.  And not all the surnames are Greek.

Looked at some church literature.  They perform marriages to other kinds of Christians, but not to non-Christians.  Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are classed as non-Christians.

This year, the Wedge had charged five dollars for dinner up to a certain date -- to be refunded at the meeting.  Purpose: to get a reasonably accurate count of how many people needed to be fed.  (And how many were vegetarian or vegan.)  After the cut-off date, the cost was ten dollars and not refundable.

The refund turned out to be a Wedge gift card.

Appetizers available during the formal meeting were organically correct, with a good selection of gluten-free items.

Speeches, announcements.  And a short film about Gardens of Eagan (organic farm owned by the Wedge) and its associated school.  It would have made farming seem attractive to me, if I hadn't grown up in the country.

And then, dinner.  I ate well. 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Tuesday October 22, 2013 CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
Ambrose Bierce

***Comment from Don Fitch on LiveJournal 10/22  "May I suggest (without checking-out the site, because my computer/browser is wonky) that you probably do not have _the_ answer to the question 'what color is an orgasm?'. You seem to have _an_ answer. Probably quite a good one, but only one of many. (Okay, I might be missing something,because you're usually sharper than that.)"

The article does give several diverse answers.  And it's not always, or only, visual.

***The birth of Prince William’s son in July 2013 was the occasion for an outpouring of media speculation about the fate of the royal baby’s foreskin. The possibility that he might be circumcised was connected to a purported tradition of circumcision within the British royal family, said to be have been initiated either by Queen Victoria or by George I. In this article, we trace the origins and evolution of these stories and assess their validity. Our conclusion is that belief in a royal circumcision tradition derives from the reported circumcision of Prince Charles by the mohel Jacob Snowman in 1948, and the efforts of the British Israelite movement to concoct "lost tribes of Israel" origin for the British race. These elements merged into a fully developed narrative that was widely disseminated from the late 1990s. The initially separate claim that the tradition was imported from Hanover by George I can be sourced precisely to 2012. We further show that these stories are inventions, and that the royal family circumcision tradition should be regarded as a classic instance of a contemporary legend or urban myth.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/kz2dmcd

****Groom Who Halted Own Wedding With Bomb Hoax Jailed
LONDON October 22, 2013 (AP)
By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
Associated Press

A forgetful British bridegroom who made a hoax bomb threat rather than admit he'd neglected to book the venue for his wedding was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail.

Neil McArdle called Liverpool's St. George's Hall from a phone booth on his scheduled wedding day in April, claiming a bomb was due to go off in 45 minutes.

His fiancee, Amy Williams, was left standing in the street in her wedding gown while the building was evacuated.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/pg98wmk

***From Twitter:

Guy Kawasaki ‏@GuyKawasaki Looking for a thrill? Pay to get kidnapped http://is.gd/jO6YPo

Antonio Regalado ‏@antonioregalado Million-year storage disk able to outlast civilization features a QR code etched in tungsten. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/520541/million-year-data-storage-disk-unveiled/ …

pourmecoffee ‏@pourmecoffee I study history. The founders recommended open source code and rigorous load testing for sites like Obamacare. Read a book why don't you.
Retweeted by Richard S. Crawford

Dr. Phil Metzger ‏@Philtill777 How to hunt for alien transmitters in our own solar system.
http://bit.ly/H5SgI6
Retweeted by Winchell Chung

Ian Katz ‏@iankatz1000 Senior employee in nuclear industry had "degree" from "university" that offered our dog an MBA for £4,000 #newsnight

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Monday October 21, 2013 

Via Facebook:
What color is an orgasm?

People with a condition known as synesthesia are prone to swapping their senses. They can feel colors, see music, and smell words. This raises an important question for science: What's it like to have sex when you've got synesthesia? Thanks to some inquisitive researchers, we have the answer.
http://io9.com/what-color-is-an-orgasm-1449322041

***From Twitter:
MarkMillerITPro ‏@MarkMillerITPro Flying cars? "Just imagine the DMV issuing licenses. I'd be building the thickest roof I could come up w and never go outside." Andreesse...

Future Aware ‏@futureaware Transition to Renmembi as the world?s reserve currency on track for sometime in the 2020s #future http://bit.ly/16rqivZ

Peg ‏@ethnobot Yikes! Creepy: App enables users to accept offers such as plastic surgery or a tank of gas in exchange for a date http://alj.am/1bQOjQT
Retweeted by rivenhomewood

Alex Wild ‏@Myrmecos @bug_girl @edyong209 @slugnads @pwthornton I understand that the strategic spider reserve helped us win the war in Arach.
Retweeted by Bug G. Membracid

Marketplace ‏@MarketplaceAPM Credit Suisse launches an index with only LGBT-friendly companies, will you invest? http://mktplc.org/1fRvz8G

Monday, October 21, 2013

Sunday October 20, 2013

Comment from Don Fitch on LiveJournal 10/20:
"I was all set to post a response similar to soon_lee's, but in a final re-reading realized the import of your concluding sentence (something about an alternate universe in which some other fowl had been domesticated) -- you were perfectly solid on 'liver', and 'giblets', but were questioning (or noting that you were assuming) the 'turkey' aspect because the market did not use this word on the package. (That was probably just a careless error, but it was also probably illegal... and I'd guess that someone in the store has noticed it (or will soon) and it won't happen again, for a while, although the giblets might be a trifle more expensive if they have to move up to a larger label-printing machine.)"

The Wedge Coop used to label it as "turkey giblets."
10/21 -- I complained, and the problem is supposed to get fixed.

Comment from Al Zorra on LiveJournal 10/20:
"By coincidence I looked at The Last Werewolf in my local branch yesterday, along with the book that comes after it. Look was all I did though, because really, like to you, to me it looked so ho-hum dull, why bother?

  "Love, C."

***From Twitter:

Spring Heel Patrick ‏@SpringaldJack
#dearStudent Jewish people do not study Talmud "to learn how God wants Muslims to live." PLEASE PROOFREAD
Retweeted by Lillian Cohen-Moore

R.L. Ripples ‏@TweetsofOld
A strange airship was seen last night in the sky over St. Louis. It was a fiery red ball of light, as big as a Ben Davis apple. IL1897

Science Fiction ‏@ScienceFiction0
Science fiction can rescue black communities - Frost Illustrated http://dlvr.it/49ZjyL

Lynne Murphy ‏@lynneguist
I just sent round a quote attributed to Ronald Searle, cartoonist. Looks like it was really by John Searle, philosopher. Always check 1st.

Lynne Murphy ‏@lynneguist
"You can never understand one language until you understand at least two" --John Searle

R.L. Ripples ‏@TweetsofOld
Roanoke Fine Lager Beer is highly recommended for a family tonic. Call for it at the Dispensary. VA1915

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Saturday October 19, 2013  Picked up two fantasy novels from Southeast Library.

Maz Gladstone, Three Parts Dead.  Tor, 2012.  Enjoyable.  Pulpish, with interesting characters and a background which held up. 

Note:  the cover shows a young Black woman, fully clothed.  (Since the book isn't set in our world, "Afro-American" would be inaccurate.) 

Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf.  Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.  Found it boring.

***Rain mixed with ice pellets today.  Rain mixed with snow coming up.  I think I can put away my shortsleeved shirts.

***comment from soon_lee on LiveJournal, October 19:

"Liver (more mushy) & giblet (more chewy, even sometimes rubbery) have very different textures."

Here's what the OED has to say:

giblets...
the liver, heart, gizzard, and neck of a chicken or other fowl, usually removed before the bird is cooked, and often used to make gravy, stuffing, or soup.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/giblets?view=uk
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/giblets

***In conclusion, _Hideous Progeny_ is a thoroughly researched and
well-structured introduction to eugenicist thought on disability in
classic horror films. It reveals eugenicist uses of disability as
pernicious, and offers a variety of nuanced and developed arguments
about the use of horror to undercut eugenical rhetoric, and, more
importantly, presents it as fundamentally unstable, "obsessively
fascinated with the deviance it claimed to abhor" (p. 7). Such
fascination is as relevant to contemporary cultural studies of
disability as it is to 1930s horror films, and _Hideous Progeny_ is a
valuable contribution to discussions of disability, spectacle, and
eugenics in genre fiction and film.

Citation: Hannah Tweed. Review of Smith, Angela M., _Hideous Progeny:
Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema_. H-Disability, H-Net
Reviews. October, 2013.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38628


***From Twitter:

Mr Rossignol ‏@jimrossignol
The internet contains so many sentences starting "Am I the only person who..." and the answer is always "no".
Retweeted by Texas Triffid Ranch

Al Jazeera America ‏@ajam
Video: California man secures health insurance for $1 per month through Obamacare http://alj.am/1c4C4V6

Lauren Hall-Lew ‏@dialect
Labov announces that the Atlas of North American English is being made available for Open Access! Whoo hoo! #NWAV42
Retweeted by Benjamin Lukoff

Davho Pldal ‏@SnarkOnTap
Freedomworks CEO says shutdown was a brilliant strategy. Freedomworks is going broke. Coincidence? Uh, no.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #8 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Friday October 18, 2013 Last night, I ate turkey livers.  Today, I was over whatever I'd had.  I think the turkey livers contributed.

Pedantic note:  I ate what I'm certain was turkey giblets, including livers.  The Wedge Coop has been labeling them just "giblets."  For all I know, they're imported crosstime from an alternate world in which different fowl were domesticated.

"Keep calm and chive on"  Seen on a car.

***Got a flu shot.

***From Twitter:

Tim O'Reilly ‏@timoreilly
RT @make First two 3D printers in Haiti will be put to work printing umbilical cord clamps & other medical devices. http://bit.ly/1c2Ia8s

Laura Anne Gilman ‏@LAGilman
"Dear God." - otherwise jaded houseguest on reaction of cats to my opening a tin of sardines... #furrysharks

Means of Exchange ‏@MeansofExchange
What happens when a slum in Mombasa adopts its own complementary currency: http://bit.ly/1115ID3  via @BrookingsInst

Elf Sternberg ‏@elfsternberg
Dennis Miller told a caller, "This is the America Americans chose in 2012." Caller: "Most Americans aren't Americans then!"

R.L. Ripples ‏@TweetsofOld
The U. S. bureau of education has endorsed the effort to educate high school girls to make them efficient wives and housekeepers. MO1913

Hard Sci-Fi Movies ‏@HardSciFiMovies
Police begin using "pre-cognitives" to prosecute crimes that have not yet occurred. The Supreme Court deems the practice unconstitutional.

Friday, October 18, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #6 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Thursday October 17, 2013  From brotherguy on LiveJournal:  "...Since it has significant theological content (the title is, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?) and both my co-author and I are members of a religious order, that means that we have to be sure not to embarrass the order too much with what we say, so it has to go past someone higher up to check for theological howlers. (My last book garnered a comment that 'the statement you make on page 213 was specifically condemned by the Council of Nicea'. Well, I didn't know... I added the word 'not' to that sentence.)"

***Feeling better, but not up to par.  Skipped the Adult Children Anonymous meeting.

***From email:
The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum, "Where Everyone is Treated like Family," is the former home of Lizzie Borden, who remains in the center of a whodunnit involving the murder of her parents--to this day

***From Twitter:
Dan Goodman ‏@dsgood
.@USRealityCheck "Genetically modified crop pioneers" How were they modified? Were the geneticists who modified them also honored?

Thursday, October 17, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #6 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Wednesday October 16, 2013  Sickish.  At least partly Fall allergies, I suspect.

***In my opinion, the House Republican leadership has done for responsible conservatism what Frank and Jesse James did for the banking industry.  But now, at the last minute, they acted responsibly.

****October 15 Seawasp says:
"> Thoughts: Ability to transmit sensations other than sight and sound might
> make computer dating sites more interesting. 'This is what my [body part]
> feels and tastes like.'

"> I haven't seen this done in science fiction. Has anyone else?

"Well, that sounds like immersive VR with selectable transmission (for your dating idea).

"OOO! How about this! Computer dating where your date controls the sensations you can access! So like many games, you get achievements at various levels of successful dating. *Bing* Your recent dates have made _Your Date_ very happy. You have unlocked Breasts!"

I was thinking about using the Net to find people for in-person dating.  But this does sound interesting.

From Twitter:
RAND Congressional ‏@RAND_OCR
Just ended: brief on preparing for possibility of #NKorea regime collapse. Download book free http://bit.ly/1cupGuk  pic.twitter.com/d9ZdYZMHuS
Retweeted by RAND Corporation

Davho Pldal ‏@SnarkOnTap
*spit-take* RT @AlanColmes: GOP Rep: Press To Blame For Falsely Reporting We Wanted To Repeal Obamacare http://colm.es/1cuObHC  #p2

Kory Stamper ‏@KoryStamper
Oh, email: "Just because a word is in historic print, or because people used it, doesn't make it a word!!" By this logic, words don't exist.
Retweeted by Copyediting

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #5 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Tuesday October 15, 2013 Ada Lovelace Day

Method of recording brain activity could lead to mind-reading devices, scientists say
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/october/parvizi.html

***Gary Shteyngart wrote recently that he chose to set his novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” “in an unspecified near future, because setting a novel in the present in a time of unprecedented technological and social dislocation seemed to me shortsighted.” Even so, Mr. Shteyngart’s novel “proved prescient all too quickly.” Soon after it was published, many aspects of the book’s satirical near-future world — from transparent clothing to smartphone apps that help people hook up in bars — had become commonplace.

It’s a problem all novelists have to contend with, to a certain extent. Fiction is supposed to reflect reality, in some way or another. But reality is constantly changing. It can take years to write a novel and in those years, history marches on. Wars break out and governments are toppled, perceptions shift and new gadgets are invented....
http://preview.tinyurl.com/lt6jg54

Not mentioned in the article:  Failure to observe what's already happened.  In the 1950s, English science fiction writers (notably Arthur C. Clarke) took for granted that England would continue to be a Great Power on Earth, and would become one in space.  The UK was no longer a Great Power.

I'm not sure when it should have been obvious that the Soviet Union wasn't going to take over the world.

***From Twitter:
Eric W. Dolan ‏@EWDolan
Lithuania moves to takes advantage of Polish ban on ritual slaughter http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/15/lithuania-moves-to-takes-advantage-of-polish-ban-on-ritual-slaughter/ …

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #3 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Monday October 14, 2013  Columbus Day, Anti-Columbus Day, Canadian Thanksgiving

Thoughts:  Ability to transmit sensations other than sight and sound might make computer dating sites more interesting.  "This is what my [body part] feels and tastes like."

I haven't seen this done in science fiction.  Has anyone else?

***I'm not in the target audience:  Emailed invitation to a presentation on the Shroud of Turin.

***From Twitter:

Evil Wylie ‏@EvilWylie
I’ve read Amish vampire fiction before, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect. You don’t need electricity to change into a bat.

Reason ‏@reason
Ohio Republicans Attempt to Eliminate Minor Parties; Libertarians and Greens Push Back - http://bit.ly/18fwaMz
Retweeted by Benjamin Lukoff

Hard Sci-Fi Movies ‏@HardSciFiMovies
A boy and his sister discover a space alien and provide him refuge in their home closet. Their parents correctly identify it as a groundhog.
Retweeted by rivenhomewood

Andrew Shaffer ‏@andrewtshaffer
The long-awaited 3rd chapter of my NSFW Edward Snowden erotic fanfic: http://www.literaryrogue.com/edward-snowden-fanfic/chapter-3.html …
Retweeted by Evil Wylie

Evil Wylie ‏@EvilWylie
"She stared at him for a moment and then flung out her arms, shouting, 'There is no baby, lizardman!'" actual line from "lizard erotica"

Monday, October 14, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #3 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Sunday October 13, 2013 "A Few Geniuses More" (working title, sf short) is now going well.

***Comments to me:

October 9 Lee Gold. "A recent article I noticed on Salon or on GoogleNews disclosed that federal rules allow unpaid interns to continue working for free, with the result that interns are now doing a lot of work during the shutdown."
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/08/government_quietly_being_staffed_during_shutdown_by_unpaid_interns/

"You might be interested in the various rumors recently debunked by Snopes in which the Federal Government cloaks Mount Rushmore, shuts down the Amber Alert system, and threatens to arrest Catholic chaplains in the military if they hold Mass."

I wonder why specifically Catholic chaplains?

August 23 Lee Gold <lee.gold@ca.rr.com>
"On 8/23/2013 4:09 PM, Daniel S. Goodman wrote: 'I sometimes wonder how a teleportation network would affect where people live.  If they could commute from places with extremely low housing prices to jobs anywhere, how many would do it?'

"Places with extremely low housing prices may have higher rates for heating & air conditioning
(or will you cheaply teleport hot/cold air to them?).  They may also have more annoying noise levels and smells and other problems."

These are among the things which people who now make such moves run into.  Plus weather they're not used to, high food prices, unaccustomed poisonous plants, less choice of utility providers ....

August 20 Fred Lerner. "Deer certainly are kosher, if slaughtered properly. A bit of googling should take you to sources for kosher venison. We used to get kosher bison from a butcher in New Haven, but they haven't had any lately. (I'd hate to be the guy who has to get up close and schecht the critter!)"

Thanks for the correction.

August 22 Lee Gold. "> Friday August 16, 2013 The New York Times has a culinary report from Montana, where meat slaughtered in a most unkosher manner is more legal than it had been.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/us/roadkill-gains-traction-as-a-home-menu-item.html?hpw
>
> Deliberately running down deer for eating has not been legalized.  And human roadkill doesn't seem to be discussed.

"How do they tell whether a deer was accidentally hit or deliberately run down?
Or illegally shot (out of season, maybe) and then disguised as an accident victim?"

"> From politicalwire.com:
> Iranian politician Nina Siakhali Moradi had her city council election overturned by religious conservatives, who barred her from office for being too pretty, Iran Wire reports.
> http://iranwire.com/en/projects/1961

"Did the article say she was too pretty?
Or just that she was a young woman behaving improperly?"

It said she was too attractive.

""> [Note:  Deer, pegasi, and most insects are not kosher.]

"Deer split the hoof and chew cud, and therefore are kosher -- if they are properly slaughtered.
http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm  -- 'Cattle, sheep, goats, deer and bison are kosher.'

"Pegasi would probably get classed as a variant of horse -- which doesn't split the hoof OR chew cud.  But if you could persuade your rabbis to class pegasi as flying animals, then they might get by on the grounds that they're not any of the forbidden species.  In practice, though, kosher rules only accept birds for which there's a tradition of Jews eating them.  The turkey squeaked through on its resemblance to chickens, as I understand it.  A "pegasus" built on a deerlike or goatlike body might qualify, and this means that deerlike depictions of unicorns would qualify and horselike ones wouldn't."

Saturday, October 12, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #2 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Thursday October 10, 2013  At Steeple People Thrift Store, found a manbag which I liked better than the one I'd been using.

Across Lyndale Avenue to the Wedge Coop.

***Among the new books at Central Library, found:  Paula Guran, The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons.  (Mammoth is the publisher; unfortunately, none of the angels or demons are mammoths.)  Recommended; theological accuracy not guaranteed.

***I arrived at the Adult Children Anonymous meeting place with a large backpack.  Someone remarked that I was obviously prepared for any emergency.

No, I said.  I only had one elephant gun.

***From politicalwire.com:

Drunk Dial Congress
A new service randomly connects you to the office of a Member of Congress so you can yell at them.
drunkdialcongress.org

***From Twitter:

Jim Antle ‏@jimantle
Don't believe the liberal pollsters on the shutdown. These are the same skewed polls that said Obama would be reelected.
Retweeted by Josh Gerstein

Friday October 11, 2013  The Star Tribune had an article on the upcoming Zombie Pub Crawl.  The Brain Eating Contest will use veal brain tacos, which I'd never heard of before.

***Intentional communities designed for autistic people:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/garden/the-architecture-of-autism.html?hpw&pagewanted=all&_r=0

***From Twitter:
Nancy Friedman ‏@Fritinancy
Portmonthteau of the day: Socktober. http://soulpancake.com/socktober/

Swedish Canary ‏@SwedishCanary 9 Oct
Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords as a basis for a system of government is starting to sound better every minute.
Retweeted by Bug G. Membracid

Friday, October 11, 2013

I Don't Want to Be Normal.  I Want to Be Healthy. #1 Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354


Wednesday October 9, 2013  To Waite House for NAPS and produce distribution.

***The Geek Partnership Society (currently the major sf/fantasy fandom(s) group in the Twin Cities Metro) is now on Meetup.   

***From politicalwire.com:

Headline of the Day
"IRS Official Says She Never Consorted With the Devil"
-- Associated Press, October 9, 2013.

***From Publishers Lunch (free email from Publishers Marketplace):
Book deal: "NYT bestselling author of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS Ian Doescher's THE EMPIRE STRIKETH BACK and THE JEDI DOTH RETURN, completing the original Star Wars trilogy in iambic pentameter"

***From Twitter:

MarkMillerITPro ‏@MarkMillerITPro
I hate it when I use the wrong word in my status and people just consume that I am stupid. Jeanette Breedt #quote

Julieanne Smolinski ‏@BoobsRadley
I think more credit for the baby boom should go to food in the 1950s. Jello salad, or sex with just about anyone? You know what you'd pick.

Petteri Tarkkonen ‏@ptarkkonen
"Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect." -Benny Hill #business

Gates Foundation ‏@gatesfoundation
More than 2/3 in Kenya use mobile money. MT @BillGates: There are only 10 ATMs for every 100K adults in #Kenya. http://gates.ly/GGyAts
Retweeted by Futurist Watcher

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Deep-fried Sashimi 10/06/13  Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Sunday October 6, 2013  I thought "and their names were Adam and Eve" sf stories were no longer publishable.  But at Minneapolis Central Library, new books included Tanith Lee's collection Space is Just a Starry Night; Aqueduct Press, 2013.  It contains "With a Flaming Sword," one of the book's two non-reprint stories.

Another story, "Black Fire," references Adam and Eve more subtly.  It appeared in Lightspeed in January 2011.

***From Twitter:
R.L. Ripples ‏@TweetsofOld
Samuel Rouzee seeks a divorce from William Rouzee. That two men have been living as man and wife suggests a horrible state of affairs.DC1889

Monday, October 7, 2013

Deep-fried Sashimi 10/05/13  Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Saturday October 5, 2013 It’s clear that Bryce was conceived in Dallas. But Jocelyn and Paige were conceived in New York City (in the borough of Manhattan). However, neither of those place names seemed to work as baby names, so Ron and Cheryl [Howard] went with the name of the swanky hotel where the twins were conceived: The Carlyle. Using that logic, Reed’s middle name should have been Volvo, but that car brand didn’t work as a baby name either, so the Howards went with the name of the quiet street on which the Volvo was parked in Greenwich, Connecticut: Cross Street. (If you’ve never heard of that "celebrity lovers’ lane" before, you’re not alone.)
http://babynamesinthenews.com/2013/09/19/names-that-reflect-where-the-baby-was-conceived/

Via tweet from Bruce Lansky.

Note:  Subscribing to baby name Twitter accounts got me suggestions of pregnancy and baby supplies accounts.

***From Twitter:
wwwtxt (1988–94) ‏@wwwtxt
If the Apple II ever dies, I'd be really surprised. Nearly one out of every ten Apple computers in the world is a IIgs. 89MAR

Future Crimes ‏@FutureCrimes
“@mbgrinberg: Predictive Policing: The Role of Crime Forecasting in LE Operations http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR233.html#.UlBNJiCTBVM.twitter … via @RANDCorporation

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Made From Recycled Politicians 10/03/13  Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Thursday October 3, 2013  Downloaded the final volume of the Child Ballads from Project Gutenberg.

      "O haud awa' frae me," she says,
      "I pray ye lat me be;
    I winna gang into your bed,
      Till ye dress me dishes three:                                
    Dishes three ye maun dress to me,
      Gin I should eat them a',
    Afore that I lie in your bed,
      Either at stock or wa'.

    "Its ye maun get to my supper 
      A cherry without a stane;
    And ye maun get to my supper
      A chicken without a bane;
    And ye maun get to my supper
      A bird without a ga';       
    Or I winna lie in your bed,
      Either at stock or wa'."

    "Its whan the cherry is in the flirry,
      I'm sure it has nae stane;
    And whan the chicken's in the egg,                               
      I'm sure it has nae bane;
    And sin the flood o' Noah,
      The dow she had nae ga';
    Sae we'll baith lie in ae bed,
      And ye'se lie neist the wa'."
Captain Wedderburn's Courtship

***Adult Children Anonymous meeting.

***Synaesthesia and Sexuality: The influence of synaesthetic perceptions on sexual experience
http://www.frontiersin.org/cognitive_science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00751/abstract

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Made From Recycled Politicians 10/01/13  Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Tuesday October 1, 2013  Federal Government largely shut down, first day.

***Shopping day.  Wedge Coop, first.

Steeple People Thrift Store.

HealthPartners Riverside pharmacy, to pick up meds.  Came with the standard warning not to use if I'm pregnant or breastfeeding.

***From Ansible 315:
RUMBLINGS. _Beach of the Dead 2013:_ the annual Brighton zombie parade has been cancelled owing to 'health and safety fears.' That's what this troubled world needs -- safer and healthier zombies.

GENRE PURITY MASTERCLASS. Outing Lois McMaster Bujold as a writer of romance rather than True SF: 'Bujold tips her hand in the eloquence of her language (normally a good thing) and the attention to detail that only women would find attractive: balls, courts, military dress, palace intrigues, gossiping, and whispering in the corridors. All of this is right out of Alexander Dumas.' (Paul Cash, 'When Science Fiction is Not Science Fiction', _Amazing_, 4 September) [NL/JDN]

From politicalwire.com:
Dean Chambers, the man who helped "unskew" polls during the 2012 presidential campaign to show Mitt Romney was actually leading, now says President Obama is gay.

"I think Sullivan is right, but not for the right reason. I do believe that Barack Obama is in fact our first gay president. But I believe this for entirely different reasons. I believe the man actually is gay."

From Twitter:
Harvard Biz Review ‏@HarvardBiz 8m
Do Depraved Thoughts Make You More Creative? http://s.hbr.org/1hjjIwt

Sara Benincasa ‏@SaraJBenincasa 18m
Pretty psyched to have gotten health insurance in 2013 from one of the same companies that denied me in 2012. The #ACA is my jam.
Retweeted by Zerlina Maxwell


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Made From Recycled Customers 9/25/13  Dan Goodman, 1720 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.  dsgood at iphouse.com or at gmail.com.  612-298-2354

Wednesday September 25, 2013 "As early as 1804 some New England Federalists had discussed secession from the Union if the national government became too oppressive."

"Secession was again mentioned in 1814–1815; all but one leading Federalist newspaper in New England supported a plan to expel the western states from the Union. Otis, the key leader of the Convention, blocked radical proposals such as a seizure of the Federal customs house, impounding federal funds, or declaring neutrality. Otis thought the Madison administration was near collapse and that unless conservatives like himself and the other delegates took charge, the radical secessionists might take power. Indeed, Otis was unaware that Massachusetts Governor Strong had already sent a secret mission to discuss terms with the British for a separate peace." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention

***Smartphone app, learned about on Twitter:

    40% of the food we produce goes to waste.
    25% of us don't know our neighbors' names.
    70% of us are overweight.
    16% of Americans lack enough food for a healthy lifestyle.
    99% of us don't need a second helping of the beef lo mein.

LeftoverSwap solves all of these problems.

LeftoverSwappers don't feel the need to eat an enormous restaurant portion, and instead pass it on to a hungrier neighbor, in turn learning their name and avoiding excess calories. Through increasing the efficiency of each plot of land dedicated to food production, we can reduce our intensive use of natural resources, and reduce our expansion into sensitive environmental areas.
http://leftoverswap.com

***From Twitter:

GalleyCat ‏@GalleyCat
Would you like a glass of "Red Satin?" E.L. James helps create ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ wines: http://mbist.ro/190wN8J

isalmanac ‏@Disalmanac
Today in 1951, Mark Hamill was born. George Lucas has removed Hamill from the original "Star Wars," replacing him with a CGI walrus.

Jessica Misener ‏@jessmisener
i think we're all ignoring the real news here: portland has a VEGAN STRIP CLUB
Retweeted by Ben Smith

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Is Your Future Strange Enough?

Prediction 1:  Three months from now, the weather will be exactly the same as it is today -- all over the world.

Prediction 2:  Twenty years from now, human society will be exactly the same as it is today.  Take the United States, for example.  Americans will have the same political beliefs, consider the same matters most important, have the same sexual mores, listen to the same kinds of music (if not the exact same music you like now.)

The first prediction is more likely to be accurate.

Two hundred years from now:  The United States will probably remain the most powerful country in North America.  It's unlikely to still be the world's most powerful country.  (I do think it's likely the US won't be among the weakest nations.  The country which exported frankfurters to Frankfurt, hamburgers to Hamburg, and bagels to Warsaw is adaptable.)

If the current major parties survive, they'll be very different from what they now are. 

Any music which survives from our time will almost certainly be played rather differently than it is now.

Two thousand years from now:  English, like every other living language, will be changed enough so if you were brought forward into that time you'd need to relearn it.  Any cities which remain from our time will be much changed.