Friday is all mixed up.

Because this shit happens. That's a link to an article on the list of "illegals" that was sent to the local media in Utah. The good news of this is that it's the document creators that are coming under investigation. And, gee, they included people who are here legally? Why, I couldn't see that happening? Shocked, shocked I am to discover...

Another one of those posts about the myths we tell ourselves. This one is on how Pres. Obama is just letting illegals over-run the country, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, strange how doing audits which 1) cost less, 2) penalize the employer and 3) end the employment of illegals actually, you know, works better than making big raids and arresting/deporting illegal aliens. Just to remind everybody, if the illegal aliens didn't have jobs to come to, and those jobs didn't pay better than they could get in their home countries, they wouldn't come. Just like if you get people to stop using drugs (like in the suburbs where the majority of drug use happens), we wouldn't have to have so much interdiction and foreign entanglements (to stop drug production). Strange that.

I had a whole semi-post on the TPE vs. NAACP, but really, Mark Williams is the leader of something? As Gene Hackman said as Lex Luther in the 1978 Superman movie, "It's amazing that brain generates enough electricity to move those legs." Sorry, Tea Party, you're losing the argument. You as individuals may not be racially motivated, but your leaderships' slip is showing.

Changing topics:

Noticed and passed on without too much comment other than my Mom is a breast cancer survivor, and as a male, we can also suffer from it (or it's close relative protate cancer) Save the TaTas (no nudity, but might not be work safe for your place of employment). Wonder if I should design a "Save the Cajones" shirt? What is depressing is that I could probably sell more of them. (Grokked from Dan)

There's a whole bunch of buzz about the I write like site. As exampled here on Making Light. Yeah, just seems like it's vocabulary. For the current short story, "Grace" I write like "Kurt Vonnegut." Which is cool, and I wish. For the first 50 pages of Blademan I write like Raymond Chandler. Again, cool, and I wish. To quote Teresa Nielsen Hayden, "Wanted cool; got balonium."

Two is almost a magic number.

Serious SF-al napery, done lightheartedly. Don't look up now, there's a few million insects overhead. Close you mouth, one might fall in. And not just those with wings, but spiders and aphids. If this kind of NPR story by Robert Krulwich doesn't make you go, wow, I don't think you're paying attention.

A.M Dellamonica on how to soar when you're already in flight. And interesting little piece on a phenomenon I've notice and has been commented on with the Feral Writers. There's a lot of advice on starting to write, and some advice on the other end of how to handle being very successful, but not much in that wide Sargasso of having a little success to being a mid-list. Actually, I think I've made a comment to Tobias Buckell about waiting for his sequel to "Getting Past Being Joe Blow Neopro" (which I just tried to find a link to his new series, which is also about starting, and the GPBJBN pieces, but can't find a link from his site. Hmm, may need to bring that up when I see him.)

Curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid get

Another late night and no post form yours truly. Not even a "3, it's a magic number" post of links. Didn't see much of the intertubies today (Wednesday, for those that are counting).

And being that it's 1:30am Thursday, having just arrived home, there's not much hope for a coherent post tonight.

So, get the to a bed-erie, or something like that. Hope your weeks are going a little smoother.

Oh, before I forgets, got a 41 out of 40 on the quiz/test on Tuesday (she had 4 extra credit questions, which means I missed three, pretty sure I screwed up some -emia and -uria terms by not paying close attention).

Reason 1231 for retraining

I haven't talked much about the day job.

There's a lot of things going for it. One, most people seem normal. They also value their vacations (I like that in a company). Plus, free pop in the break room (which I had two today, which were two too many).

However, I just got home. And it's from trying to cover for someone else's poor planning. Really and seriously, I want a job where I don't have to do this. I'm tired of educating people on how to not wait to the last moment for no other reason than they have no other way of working. Really, really tired of it.

I did lay down some of the law before I left in an email to those concerned. In it I also reminded them that tomorrow 1) I have a class, 2) I have a quiz, and 3) I was talking a lunch to study and will be leaving on time. And that I have grave concerns of where the project is at and the time left. Not to mention the version control issues I see about to hit. Well see how that plays out tomorrow.

Wait, was that a weekend?

This weekend just sort of evaporated. I remember being there for it, but much of it was taken up by "Holy Cow, it's (insert time here) already? I've gotta get (chore) done." Add in a healthy dose of studying and there's a weekend that just goes "poof."

Medical Terminology isn't like other classes I've had. Judging where I'm at is difficult. Did I really learn that term, or am I faking it with the clues? Some of it is the subject of the class, some of it is the presentation, and some of it is having spent the past several decades learning to speak plainly, I now need to reverse that course. So if you say "cardiomytosis" I can get you talking about inflammation of the heart muscle. However if you say "kidney stone" and I going to be able to come up with "renal calculus"? I don't' know. It's easier (and clearer to me) to just say "kidney stone."

So, obviously, I didn't get any posting or writing done.

On the side of "there' hope for us all," Jay Lake lake is on the other side of his chemo and feeling the musely love. Go, Jay, go. But remember the spoons.

And thinking of health, I haven't talked about that for a bit. Over the past few months I've had both a serious ear infection and a serious allergic reaction that gave me hives. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I really hope to not repeat it. My guess is that they were stress related.

I've been gaining a little weight as of late. The new day job has free snacks, free pop/coffee/tea, and with all the meetings of late, extra food in the lunch room. Definitely a toxic atmosphere for someone trying to lose the weight. I think the last time I talked about weight was when I broke below 300 for the first time. Of course then I went back up, and down. I'm glad to report that 300 is now the top of the cycle. And I'm working on keeping it that way.

At the end of last week I hit 300 again. It seems weird to me that when I was 310, 300 felt light. Now having ranged into the 280s, the same weight feels uncomfortable heavy. I think part of that is all the new weight seems to be going to my gut, which is the dangerous kind of weight. Before, as I've told other people, I was deceptively overweight because the fat was evenly distributed over my body. It bothers me that if I gain any extra weight, it doesn't redistribute that way. And, as I said, gut fat is the dangerous kind. The kind that leads to heart disease.

But hopefully I've hit the top of the curve and I'm on my way back down. It feels that way because I am voraciously hungry, which tends to be the case when I'm losing the poundage. And with each swing that hunger gets stronger.

Two quickies to hold me over until I get a brain again

Another Recession Myth Debunked. Ah, that horrible, liberal leaning reality. It keeps screwing with the myths we tell ourselves. "The rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population." Considering the whole "just walk away" movement was targeting at people who make over $0.5 million, not really a surprise at that. "More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent…"

I sense a disturbance in the force. I've only had one interaction with Harlan. I hope he's enjoying the refreshable supply of maple syrup from his beloved homeland (sent his people contact info on where they can get the Geuaga County real stuff whenever he wants).

You're the right kind of sinner

First two links and then to classes.

My friend, Porter Grand, is having a book signing for Little Women and Werewolves tomorrow, July 8th, 7pm at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Legacy Village, Lyndhurst, Ohio. I'll be in class so I can't go, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. Porter is a great person, and she's a former librarian (which I guess is redundant). She, if you're in the Cleveland area and ever wanted to meet someone who looks at a classic book and thinks, "You know, that would be so much better with monsters," now is your chance. Also, Porter has a great blog with reviews of just my kinds of books.

And in case you missed it (and because others are starting to point it out), and because the anniversary is in two days, I give you Starfish Prime. Not the only plan to detonate a hydrogen (or stronger) bomb in outer space, but I believe it was the only test to come to fruition. If you ever wondered where the idea of the EMP attack came from, here you have the genesis. Back when the idea was, "Heck, I wonder what would happen if we did this, let's give it a go," was still good. This is one of the reasons we no longer do that. People actually held parties to watch it.

Last night was the first quiz of the new class, I got a 31 out of 30 (2 extra credit questions). I knew I misspelled vertebrae (vertibrea). Damn these pencils not having spell check! And I also put peritoneal instead of peritoneum. Sigh. So I guess she gave me one of them (probably peritoneal). And see, that's part of my problem. Way back when I was but a wee child, school came easy to me. So I didn't study hard. The results are as you can see; my spelling is atrocious (although I've worked hard on that), and my grammar isn't always kosher. And now those crows are coming home to roost.

I did want to do a whole post on this, but I don't think I have the focus today. What I do want to talk about is how technology first killed me, but the right tech is now helping me. When spellcheck came out, it was god-sent. I love it, but it also enabled to cripple my ability. Same with "auto check" (which just corrected "cripple"). Great technology, but totally sucked in making me better.

However, the MacOS-X universal spell check is much nicer. Any "aware" application can use Apple's built-in tech which checks spelling as you type. This isn't exactly the killer part, after all Word has been able to annoy writers with its squiggly lines for almost a decade now. No, the big difference is that I can put the curser over the word and hit command-control-D and pull up a dictionary. A dictionary that offers alternative spellings.

Now, you could copy and paste the correct spelling from the dictionary ap. Instead I normally retype the word in the program I'm using and that helps me learn the correct spelling. That's a technology that actually helps. And I hope my long time readers (all one of you) have noticed the difference.

Technology doesn't save automatically. In fact it normally cripples us by giving us a crutch to lean on when we don't need it, but then find out legs won't support us anymore. The right technology, however, allows us to leapfrog. And I like the second kind.

Four on a Dime

Today is book day for Jim Hines and his latest Red Hood's Revenge. I haven't been able to read Jim's fairy princess books yet, but I have read some of his shorter works when it comes to fairy tales and I can say that I am eagerly wanting to read them. Jim does some nice things with the genre.

It's also a book day for Tobias Buckell and the release of The Alchemist and the Executionist, a combination of two novellas written in the same world (the other novella was written by Paolo Bacigalupi).

A PC World article on reading speeds vis a vis electronic readers vs. paper. Quel surpize. People read slower on electronic devices. As I've said before, the printed page and books are a nice piece of kit. They are high tech, we just don't see them as such because they're ubiquitous and you've had them all your life (although how they're made has changed). Also, this goes to how the brain perceives and processes images (no, it's not all that easy, thanks for asking). However the sample for this test was exceedingly small (only 24 participants). I'd really like to see a much larger version of this test to see how it shakes out demographically. But, yes, reading on a screen is much slower that on paper. And reading on a computer screen just sucks. (grokked from Jay Lake)

Elizabeth Bear ruminates on science fiction. The crunchy and not so crunchy kind. As other people have said, "Yes, this!" Science Fiction is dead, long live Science Fiction.

Self-evident

First of all, a writing post (because that's what this blog is really supposed to be about, more than politics, etc). Jeff VenderMeer talks about opening paragraphs using his newly release Third Bear as an example. Some good writerly neepery going on there. And just as an example of why I keep reading Jeff's blog (you know, other than it's good, except that he's been a little quiet as of late), "Why 'the third bear'? Well, because the third bear is 'just right,' and the story is meant to poke holes in fairytale like machine gun fire through cheesecloth." Read it all (with all the examples).

On the 234 Anniversary of bells ringing out that a new country has been born, NPR's Morning Edition reads the Declaration of Independence out loud. Very, very good. And this is why I love Public Broadcasting in all its forms. And, really, the Tea Partiers should really listen to this (after all, this is the document they revere and are attempting to connect themselves to). "To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world." I think the rest of us have been waiting for just such a declaration. And, please, notice taxation without representation isn't first, second, third, fourth… In fact "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands," comes before it. Arizona's new immigration law, anybody?

So, I'll be on and off-line this weekend, but I don't promise to post anything new. You all should be out and enjoying the summer, and your freedoms. This is the holiday for us, the citizens.

"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

Amen.

Grades posted

I scored a 107 out of 100 for the final (there were ten bonus points possible). So, for the class, before she posts the grades for the second paper (but including those possible points in the calculation - to my deficit) I have a 100.87%. If we cut out the "bonus points" (that is take the total points possible - regular + bonus), and don't count the second paper (as we don't have that grade yet), I have a 97.3%.

edited 07-02 Got a 20 out of 20 on the final paper, overall a 103.49%.

Talent Is Highly Overrated

This past week the story of the Tortoise and the Hare has been particularly on my mind. I think because there are plenty of parallels in day to day life. And there's something in there that I can't quite touch, yet. Something I need to learn or experience.

Slow and steady wins the race. Yeah, I know that was Aesop's moral. Frankly, he's wrong. The difference is in their motivations. See, the Tortoise and the Hare were running two different races with two different goals. The Hare's goal, and hence the race he ran, was only to beat the Tortoise. That is why once he was far enough ahead, he slacked off (depending on the version of the tale you read, he did different things). The Tortoise, on the other hand, was running the race to win. That was his goal. Not, "beat the Hare," but "win the race." The difference is subtle, but crucial. no matter what happened, the Tortoise was going to finish the race.

You may remember me talking about how I was dismayed that when I found out how low the bar was for me to get an A in my last class, that my brain went into sloth mode. See, I suffer from having been the mental Hare for too long in my life. It's easy for me to learn new things, to retain that knowledge, and to make it applicable. It wasn't until my third year in college that I turned that around. It had become comfortable to just do what was necessary and not pushing myself harder. Once the Hare, it's hard to change your perception.

I've also been thinking about it in terms of advertising. Many companies, well many companies that are doomed to fail, misunderstand who their competition is and what race their running. Many look out at their competitors and say, "I've gotta beat that guy/gal/company." And they're doomed to fail. They might win their goal of beating the other person, but they'll lose the race, which is what they're in to begin with. What your competition can do is set the pace and make you fight harder. However, if all you're doing is "beating that person," you'll soon find some excuse to slack off. What the real competition is about is getting orders/sales/moving product, whatever. Do that well and to the best of your abilities and you'll win. Do it especially well and you'll see that other goal accomplished in addition to winning.

And then there's the discussion about "Talent" and "Work," especially when it comes to "artistic endeavors" like writing. See, "talent" is "god given" and can't be adjusted. We should all use our gifts as we've all been told since childhood. There's the mythic projection that those who rise to "celebrity" have "talent", which some people have and some people don't. It's an immutable property. Which is bull crap. Sure, you may have an affinity for something. Someone who is "tone-deaf" (which is an actual medical condition) probably shouldn't try to make money singing or playing music. Someone who has no concept of grammar or how to string words together probably shouldn't be writing. However, I do know of several authors who struggle with dyslexia and are still published and well liked.

Now, the Hare has a talent for running fast. You really can't deny that. The Hare has never had to work hard at that, which is part of his problem. In his mind there is no chance of him losing. So when it happens, it shakes him to the core. You can take a poll of people you knew in high school, the ones who got the appellation "Most Likely to…" in the year book. How many of them have done what they were supposed to do? Not many, at least not in real life (unlike TV shows and soap operas). High School is a place were "talent" still will get you far.

And that was my problem. My talent for learning let me coast along in high school and still get good grades (Bs and Cs). It crippled me when it came to actually having to work for a grade. And I think I've stated before in all endeavors there comes a point where everything becomes work. It's that point that separates the people who will excel and those who will relive the glory days. With the help of Bette, a desire to be better than I was, and a professor throwing down the gauntlet, I passed that barrier (which is why I was so upset those old habits still were there).

This is like writing and art. I never did take art classes in high school. I wasn't all that good at it (there was some natural ability, but not refined). However, with hard work (and it still is hard work), I've made a living at it for almost 20 years now. With writing I also had a little ability. About ten years ago now I left behind that modicum of talent and in the realm of hard work. I'm relearning things other people knew by heart (because that had to work at it sooner than I did). That leaves me crippled, but I'm determined to get past those hangups. You may have seen many of them here (homophones, grammar, constancy, etc, are all my bugaboos).

By switching to the mindset of the Tortoise I'm determined to win in these endeavors. I've seen enough Hares sleeping by the roadside, or get lost partying with friends. I don't' want that path. I'm here to win. It doesn't mean other people can't win also (and in fact, I hope they do, and I've watched many of them go zooming by me on their way to their goals). But I will win also. It may take me longer, but I'll cross that line myself.

And that last paragraph was the secret kernel that didn't want to reveal itself until I wrote this post out. Like I said, I've been thinking about this for almost a week now an dI couldn't figure out why. There it is.

So the more complex moral of the story is know what you're doing, set your goals appropriately, and get moving towards them.

It's a Big Sky Country

Still don't have my final grades. Sigh. So fourth things make a post.

Look, they say the sky is falling, again. Robert Sawyer opining on if the days of the full-time novelist numbered? In my travels I think I've met just one or two genre novelists who do it as their full-time occupation. Now writing, sure, lots of novelist make their living from writing, just not writing novels. John Scalzi has some good rebuttals (and the comment thread was decent for as long as I read it).

Dan points me toward this. They've confirmed the first extra solar planetary photo. And according to the article, there are several other photos in the running as well.

Juliet Marillier talks about how she writes slows and goes against some of the advice on writing that is out there. She talks about how her process works for her. As has been said before when it comes to writing advice, use what works for you. If it doesn't work, try something else. The major advice is your second draft should be 70-80% of your first draft. It's nearly a mantra of writing. And it doesn't work for me, no matter how hard I tried to make it work. Once I was given permission to make my second draft 120% or so of the first draft, my writing has gotten much better.

And here's were I turn in my bleeding heart liberal badge, I have absolutely no sympathy for these people. Yes, they're part of the poor affected by the oil spill, and they should get some help, but we shouldn't excuse them their past of working under the table. They took their chances and they knew what they were doing at the time they did the action (selling their catch for cash to keep it off the books and avoid paying taxes). Now it's time to pay the piper. No, no amnesty.

It's sort of how all these conservatives who still run on the platform of a smaller government, greater deregulation, "get the federal government out of our lives" and are now wailing to the heavens about how Obama isn't helping them enough. I'm looking at you Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour. Two-faced sycophantic pawns of the media.