Saturday, December 11, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Clusters...
Incidentally, this last cluster has been totally aborted by the application of white wine. I was expecting it to last from August to Nov/Dec; nope. White wine blew it out of the water in August.
Normal service is now resumed (i.e. back on Red). Wonder what'll happen in 2011?
Normal service is now resumed (i.e. back on Red). Wonder what'll happen in 2011?
Sadly, I didn't see it
I know a man who is blind.
He demanded a standing ovation at my brother's funeral; he got it.
I wish he could have seen it.
Who-ever 'he' is.
He demanded a standing ovation at my brother's funeral; he got it.
I wish he could have seen it.
Who-ever 'he' is.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Start of cycle results
Based loosely on the Kip Scale. My cycle starts every 2 years (I've been waiting for this August for more than 18 months...) and has 5 to 6 months on, 18 - 19 months off. On is just starting.
| Date | Start | End | Level | Stuff |
| 7 Aug | 0030 | 0040 | 5 | Here we go again... |
| 0230 | 0235 | 5 | ||
| 2330 | 2335 | 5 | ||
| 8 Aug | 0030 | 0045 | 5/6 | |
| 0150 | 0200 | 5 | ||
| 0230 | 0245 | 5 | ||
| 0900 | 1000 | 5/4/5 | ||
| 9 Aug | 0230 | 0245 | 5+ | |
| 0440 | 0445 | 5 | Just sinus pain? | |
| 12 Aug | 2250 | 2255 | 4 | |
| 2300 | 2310 | 5 | ||
| 14 Aug | 0150 | 0205 | 5 | |
| 0520 | 0530 | 5 | Possibly hot-bath related |
Sunday, March 01, 2009
From an email to my sister
Urban myth I’m making up out of my arse:
Truth: One year in the first half of the 90’s, AOL released a Usenet feed to all its users. At the time AOL was the world’s biggest ISP – remember all those free CD’s given away with anything? This released the great unwashed over the whole of Usenet like an oil slick. Actually, it was more like a shit tide than an oil slick. Usenet’s never quite recovered, and reverberations of the event can be found in the old-timer’s habit of posting AOL! quoting the whole of the previous message; this refers to the AOLer’s habit of replying to a long complicated message chain with no snipping saying just ‘Me too!’ – quite annoying when dial-up connections meant that posting the whole chain (1000’s of characters of information which would have been already read) and adding a fairly meaningless 7 characters which would add a quite appreciable cost to the audience, especially when multiplied by the 1000’s of recipients.
This event happened in September of whatever year it was (93? 94?) and became known as the Rape of Usenet.
Truth: International Talk like a Pirate Day is in September and started in the first half to mid 90’s.
Urban Myth: getting the shit tide to walk around even one day a year talking like uneducated 16th century crims – and thinking it’s cool! – is not fun at all. Seriously.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
C J Cherryh - Regenesis
CJ is on my buy-on-sight list. I love her Science Fiction - but not her fantasy that much. I thought that the Morgaine series was great; I liked some of her faery stand-alones; didn't much like Rusalska, not her current Fortress series.
In Science Fiction she has three major series: The Alliance-Union Universe (to which Regenesis belongs); The Foreigner Universe (ongoing); The Chanur novels ('cats-in-space').
Her major strength, for me, has always been the world-building. One of the major attractions in the Alliance-Union setting, for example, is seeing how the situation between Earth/alliance/Union plays out and then, with Cyteen and its sequel Regenesis, what Union's azi-descended society is going to look like. More on that later.
The Chanur novels arguably fit into the Alliance-Union universe with all sorts of troubles being stired up by the arrival into a relatively stable Compact of multiple races (Chanur and het fellow cats, the Mahendo'sat, the Kif, the Shto, and the methane breathers). However beyong being the initial impetus (and occasional kick along the way) the details on the origin of humans (or just the one, really) are irrelevant and could be anywhere.
Similarly, it's a good bet that the lost colony in the Foreigner universe came from Alliance. Still, if they do it's not too important (as yet: that series is still going with the first on the fourth trilogy - Conspirator - on the way). This series also has excellent aliens: better even than those in the Mote.
There are even clues that Morgaine may have come from Alliance-Union.
Some find her novels to be formulaic; I can see why but have to say the formula works very well for me, and obviously does for all the other CJ fans out there. My personal opinion is that the formla applies in the small, in similar characters across books, but not to the larger arcs across series. Whatever, I'm happy with it.
Come to think of it, I even like the Faded Sun trilogy which not all the CJ fans do. I must be biased.
So, Regenesis. This is good Cherryh, but not geat. It carries forwayds the story of Ari Emory from Cyteen, and is very effective on a couple of levels: the further development of Ari, and it's a damn good political action adventure. It does not carry the larger arc much further: the investigation and possibly resolution of the Gehenna problems don't really get a mention; azi-descended society takes a relatively small place with no resolution or even advancement beyond a throw-away remark that Ari thinks there may be problems.
On the personal, character-based level there is lots of good stuff - the Warricks get a really good work-out, the Nyes are dissected, Ari herself advances, lots of history is looked at with a new eye and fresh information, and so on. Exciting stuff happens and is dealt with is exciting ways - there's absolutely nothing to dislike and very very much to enjoy!
So it's a really good book.
But it's not the book it could have been. As I said the larger elements are missing; it's mostly backward looking in that context with very lttle about the future. It's a good story, and if the series continues and looks at those issues then it will be a stroke of genius - a change of pace between the complex issues brought up in Cyteen and continued in the putative next one.
Will that book appear? I'm not sure. Sadly CJ is - as are we all - getting older. I can see a change of focus in the Foreigner series: it's getting smaller and more personal. I think that she's drawing back from the 'bigger' issues.
I think that this is a possibly a good thing. As you get older your priorities, the things you care about, change. My experience is that the personal small-scale stuff remains interesting and that wild flights of imagination - while amusing - are less imprtant. May be she's following that pattern and staying true to herself by writing about what she's interested in and cares about. If she is following that pattern, the alternative is to force herself to write about things she doesn't care about so much and isn't too interested in developing.
That way lies the brain-eater, and if CJ is avoiding that then I, for one, am very grateful to her and wish her many many more years of writing about what she's truely interested in. She's still truely got my attention.
In Science Fiction she has three major series: The Alliance-Union Universe (to which Regenesis belongs); The Foreigner Universe (ongoing); The Chanur novels ('cats-in-space').
Her major strength, for me, has always been the world-building. One of the major attractions in the Alliance-Union setting, for example, is seeing how the situation between Earth/alliance/Union plays out and then, with Cyteen and its sequel Regenesis, what Union's azi-descended society is going to look like. More on that later.
The Chanur novels arguably fit into the Alliance-Union universe with all sorts of troubles being stired up by the arrival into a relatively stable Compact of multiple races (Chanur and het fellow cats, the Mahendo'sat, the Kif, the Shto, and the methane breathers). However beyong being the initial impetus (and occasional kick along the way) the details on the origin of humans (or just the one, really) are irrelevant and could be anywhere.
Similarly, it's a good bet that the lost colony in the Foreigner universe came from Alliance. Still, if they do it's not too important (as yet: that series is still going with the first on the fourth trilogy - Conspirator - on the way). This series also has excellent aliens: better even than those in the Mote.
There are even clues that Morgaine may have come from Alliance-Union.
Some find her novels to be formulaic; I can see why but have to say the formula works very well for me, and obviously does for all the other CJ fans out there. My personal opinion is that the formla applies in the small, in similar characters across books, but not to the larger arcs across series. Whatever, I'm happy with it.
Come to think of it, I even like the Faded Sun trilogy which not all the CJ fans do. I must be biased.
So, Regenesis. This is good Cherryh, but not geat. It carries forwayds the story of Ari Emory from Cyteen, and is very effective on a couple of levels: the further development of Ari, and it's a damn good political action adventure. It does not carry the larger arc much further: the investigation and possibly resolution of the Gehenna problems don't really get a mention; azi-descended society takes a relatively small place with no resolution or even advancement beyond a throw-away remark that Ari thinks there may be problems.
On the personal, character-based level there is lots of good stuff - the Warricks get a really good work-out, the Nyes are dissected, Ari herself advances, lots of history is looked at with a new eye and fresh information, and so on. Exciting stuff happens and is dealt with is exciting ways - there's absolutely nothing to dislike and very very much to enjoy!
So it's a really good book.
But it's not the book it could have been. As I said the larger elements are missing; it's mostly backward looking in that context with very lttle about the future. It's a good story, and if the series continues and looks at those issues then it will be a stroke of genius - a change of pace between the complex issues brought up in Cyteen and continued in the putative next one.
Will that book appear? I'm not sure. Sadly CJ is - as are we all - getting older. I can see a change of focus in the Foreigner series: it's getting smaller and more personal. I think that she's drawing back from the 'bigger' issues.
I think that this is a possibly a good thing. As you get older your priorities, the things you care about, change. My experience is that the personal small-scale stuff remains interesting and that wild flights of imagination - while amusing - are less imprtant. May be she's following that pattern and staying true to herself by writing about what she's interested in and cares about. If she is following that pattern, the alternative is to force herself to write about things she doesn't care about so much and isn't too interested in developing.
That way lies the brain-eater, and if CJ is avoiding that then I, for one, am very grateful to her and wish her many many more years of writing about what she's truely interested in. She's still truely got my attention.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Stephen Donaldson
Don't go there.
I read the first three books a few years ago (long after they had actually been published). I was younger, I was foolish, I was just getting into fastasy....
I got them in an omnibus edition. I'd like to thank the experience for teaching me that a book is not always worth finishing (I did but I was urging it to finish and put me out of his misery), and I have been a bit more selective since then.
His Gap series (SciFi not Fantasy) was much better; they were still a bunch of f*ckwits, but I could stand reading them, and even re-reading the five-book series. My sister, who owns the literary 'taste' in the family, couldn't get into them, though. You've been warned.
But his 6 (and now apparently 9) book series about about one of the most miserable twats I've ever seen invented? Infect yourself with Candiru first; it's got to be more enjoyable.
I read the first three books a few years ago (long after they had actually been published). I was younger, I was foolish, I was just getting into fastasy....
I got them in an omnibus edition. I'd like to thank the experience for teaching me that a book is not always worth finishing (I did but I was urging it to finish and put me out of his misery), and I have been a bit more selective since then.
His Gap series (SciFi not Fantasy) was much better; they were still a bunch of f*ckwits, but I could stand reading them, and even re-reading the five-book series. My sister, who owns the literary 'taste' in the family, couldn't get into them, though. You've been warned.
But his 6 (and now apparently 9) book series about about one of the most miserable twats I've ever seen invented? Infect yourself with Candiru first; it's got to be more enjoyable.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Yummy!
In article <9fgbgq$7p...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca>, lamo...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca (Laurence A. Moran) wrote:
> In article myers-435E74.12273004062...@news.newsguy.com
> pzwrote:
> > [snip]
> > I had my lab inspected by our local safety committee a few weeks
> >ago, and it's kind of amazing what trivia has to be followed. I
> >passed, but I do have to keep my bottles of alcohol stored in a
> >special cabinet in the lab next door from now on. These guys must
> >never have walked into the local liquor store, or they'd have had
> >a fit of apoplexy (and boy, it's a good thing I finished that
> >bottle of Coke I'd had in the refrigerator next to the
> >paraformaldehyde and the pickled cat heads and the fluorescent
> >dyes before they showed up!).
>
> I'm surprised you passed with pickled cat heads in your lab. At
> my university we aren't allowed to keep food in a lab refrigerator.
That's the nice thing about pickled cat heads. Most people simply refuse to believe that they could be food.
-- pz
I love usenet!
> In article myers-435E74.12273004062...@news.newsguy.com
> pz
> > [snip]
> > I had my lab inspected by our local safety committee a few weeks
> >ago, and it's kind of amazing what trivia has to be followed. I
> >passed, but I do have to keep my bottles of alcohol stored in a
> >special cabinet in the lab next door from now on. These guys must
> >never have walked into the local liquor store, or they'd have had
> >a fit of apoplexy (and boy, it's a good thing I finished that
> >bottle of Coke I'd had in the refrigerator next to the
> >paraformaldehyde and the pickled cat heads and the fluorescent
> >dyes before they showed up!).
>
> I'm surprised you passed with pickled cat heads in your lab. At
> my university we aren't allowed to keep food in a lab refrigerator.
That's the nice thing about pickled cat heads. Most people simply refuse to believe that they could be food.
-- pz
I love usenet!
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