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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | ||
| mind_hacks | 8:00a | Interupting the final curtain
The New York Times has a thought-provoking article on exactly this topic, looking at how, particularly impulsive suicides can be prevented.
The NYT article focuses on jumping and firearms and how erecting barriers and storing guns in locked boxes can prevent suicide. However, if you want a flavour of really how simple the safety measures need to be to make a difference to suicide rate, research has found that putting pills in blister packs reduces lethal overdoses. It's amazing if you think about it, simply making it necessary to pop each pill out of its plastic packaging rather than tipping them out of a bottle means less people kill themselves. The difference is likely a matter of minutes, but it gives time for brief impulsive urges to pass, and every popped pill requires a single deliberate action towards suicide that gives a chance for the distressed person to reconsider. The article merits a read in full, and Liz Spikol has an interesting video commentary on the piece that's also well-worth checking out.
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sinandsalvation [ hackess ] |
1:13a | It's Wednesday in EST ...So I can bump my sales post! In it, you'll find all kinds of lovely things: Carnaval Diabolique bottles, rares (including Black Lace, Cold Moon, The Queen's Salon, and others) up for swap, Gingerbread Poppet, Love's Philosophy, Poes, Halloweenies, Yules, an absolute boatload of GCs, Trading Post soaps, and a rather sizable pile of other e-tailers (Villainess, Wylde Ivy, Possets, etc.) CURRENT SPECIALS: **Buy 5 GC imps, get one free! **Buy any BPAL 5mL, choose two GCs or one non-rare/non-swap LE ($4 or less) for free! **Buy any other 5mL, choose one BPAL GC or non-BPAL decant for free! **First person to spend $25 gets free shipping anywhere! **Spend $50 and get free shipping (US/Canada only, sorry)! **Buy any Villainess product and get the Quick or Dead medallion/charm I received with my recent order (1 available)! What are you waiting for? Go! |
| sjgames | 5:20a | July 9, 2008: Protospiel Pilgrimage Will and I are attending Protospiel this week -- okay, technically this weekend -- where we plan to gather feedback on a few of the not-yet-released projects that have been eating up development time. (Have I mentioned our weekly -- or, if we're in a crunch, daily -- game development meetings? We find a comfortable place in the office to sit down and go over one or two games so that we can hammer out what's going well, what's going wrong, and whether or not we should add the word "Munchkin" to the title. Great fun!) We'll also drag along the well-traveled copy of Munchkin Quest just in case anyone at the show wants a peek at the prototype. -- Phil Reed</p> |
| Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | ||
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girlgeniuscomic |
9:00p | |
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sinandsalvation [ chatrient ] |
8:06p | Big Dreams and Little Precious Bottles Big Dreams of Little Precious Bottles! Next Will Call my Buy the Big Bottle List includes: Inez (x2) ~ It is wonderful! (and has a 12+hour staying power on me) Ashlutum (for the BF, it's wonderful on him, believe it or not :P) Knucklebones (for the BF) Madame Moriarty (x2~to enlarge the Hoard) TAL STFU (this stuff works great!) TAL White Light (ditto) I think that will do... Anyone else dreaming of any little bottles? Current Mood:  curious |
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klingonguy |
10:59p | Trolling for Comments Okay, folks, here's the challenge: Tell me the first convention we met at (which need not be the first time we met), and what the circumstances of that meeting were. Why? Hell, I don't know, why not? Current Mood:  curious |
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mrissa |
9:13p | Swampy Almost forgot to say: I sold a story. Coyote Wild bought "In the Velvet Swamp," which was inspired by an ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} elisem pendant and is also dedicated to angeyja and callunav.Also there are some swampish references in the chapter I revised earlier today. But not so much in the chapter I'm doing right now. Which is as far as I go toward making this livejournal entry thematic in some way. |
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sinandsalvation [ korshka ] |
9:38p | Updates! 13 & Four Seasons and Hay & Mead Moon Updates! I marched down to the USPS with CnS in hand ready to demand the Precious they supposedly delivered to my box a week earlier. However instead of going straight to the counter (since I had made it with 10 mins to spare), I decided to check the PO Box one more time. Wouldn't ya know it, there the extra key was. I went and retrieved the box. As soon as I opened the locker, I was hit by the overpowering smell of lemon and saw a box that looked like it had been to hell and back. Good news is that the two bottles of 13 are safe and sound and look full. There is evidence that the package had been open and gone through. One imp is missing (I'm guessing of the sweet lemongrass variety). There is not, however, CnS on the Four Season part. There was a post on the forum explaining that they were going slow. Also waiting for me was Hay & Mead Moon. Yay. I'll decant and all this weekend. I need a few nights of relaxation after the Caranval. ;) (And yay me and remember to post on the right day!) Current Mood:  tired |
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bpal_decants [ korshka ] |
9:09p | Updates! 13 & Four Seasons and Hay & Mead Moon Updates! I marched down to the USPS with CnS in hand ready to demand the Precious they supposedly delivered to my box a week earlier. However instead of going straight to the counter (since I had made it with 10 mins to spare), I decided to check the PO Box one more time. Wouldn't ya know it, there the extra key was. I went and retrieved the box. As soon as I opened the locker, I was hit by the overpowering smell of lemon and saw a box that looked like it had been to hell and back. Good news is that the two bottles of 13 are safe and sound and look full. There is evidence that the package had been open and gone through. One imp is missing (I'm guessing of the sweet lemongrass variety). There is not, however, CnS on the Four Season part. There was a post on the forum explaining that they were going slow. Also waiting for me was Hay & Mead Moon. Yay. I'll decant and all this weekend. I need a few nights of relaxation after the Caranval. ;) Current Mood:  tired |
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buymeaclue |
8:04p | gratitude: an irregular series A cascade of soap bubbles blown by the hundreds from somebody's balcony in the street. # Thanks, folks, for all the chewy comments on the initiative post! I haven't had a chance to respond to them (and to some on earlier posts) yet, but I'll do that, and I'm enjoying reading them as they come in. # Jump set today with L. as part of the mad rearrangement of lessons happening this week and next. The fold over the fence begins to feel less alien and less like it demands all my focus. I begin to grok the feel of letting the horse jump out in front of me. Or not. It's returned to brutally-hot territory (yes, just mid-80s, but I am a temperate wimp) and the horses were feeling a wee bit sluggish, so we spent a lot of time today on quality-of-canter stuff, which has an additional component for Tucker and I, the flip side of the ICP XC lesson from last week: he is both greener and more broke than I tend to remember. Today, I was tending to be too conservative with my canter: to throttle him back too quickly after jumps and not ride the corners forwardly enough, not trusting that he'll take the half-halt and come back out of the corner if I rev the motor a bit between the jumps. I said to L., after finally getting it during a round and enjoying the payoff, "I can gallop that much in the corners?" and she looked up at one of the other riders and asked, "Did you see any galloping?" Heh. Point taken. It's not that I can't feel the difference between the big, balanced, adjustable canter and the undesirable variations on either side. It's just that I don't trust the big canter, yet, or more precisely, don't trust Tucker in it. And I have to learn. He's more than ready. So we had some super fences, and some that were less so, and got to play with some fun turns (rollback from skinny to in-and-out!). And when I was test-driving that rollback--jumping the skinny and turning and going past the in-and-out so L. could see whether it would ride okay--and I turned through the in-and-out to get back to the center of the ring, Tucker's ears went up and his canter bounced and he locked right onto the oxer all, "Hey, I could jump that. You wanna jump that? Let's!" And that time I had to decline the offer, but--that's my jumping horse. Gives a good feeling, that's for sure. No lesson tomorrow, after all. We'll do some dressage on our own and work on some rubberband stuff--transitions within the gaits--and hopefully get out and gallop some on Thursday. Onward. # 47. The Green Glass Sea (Ellen Klages). As an audiobook. Set in Los Alamos during WWII, with all that that entails. The back cover of this book makes it sound like it's all about Dewey, girl mechanic. That isn't so. At its heart (or half of it, anyway), the book is about the relationship between Dewey and Suze, whose family takes Dewey in when her father is called to Washington (much to Suze's dismay). There's no getting around the familiarity of that part of the story: the growing understanding between two very different girls, not initially inclined to get along. But Klages's hand is light and her characters convincing, and her weave of that story into the grander-scale story--that of the atom bomb--helps it to stand out from the crowd. And yes. There is the atom bomb. Or the gadget, as its called in this secret, secretive place. This part of the book is told mostly in white space; the girls (and the reader) are acutely aware of all that they don't know about what their parents do all day. Klages's detail work is impeccable when it comes to the implications of living in Los Alamos--the graduating high school seniors who can't get into college because the high school they're graduating from doesn't officially exist, and so on--and as someone ( mrissa?) said, I'm not sure how much of it is research and how much is made up, but it's utterly convincing, and in the end that's what matters.And--in the end. I don't usually do spoiler warnings, but I'm going to quote the last sentences of the book here, so this is a special case. Look alive. First things first. I'm not at all sure that the death of Dewey's father (well before the end) is necessary. I suppose he was in the way of what Klages wanted to do, and I suppose that's legitimate, but--meh. I was not impressed. But. About that end. The trip to the see the green glass sea left at the Trinity test site, and somehow I wasn't as moved as I thought that I was supposed to be. It's an impressive moment, and impressively (and, again, delicately) written, and yet, I felt something was still missing. That this was the moment that was meant to open up the scope of the book and drive home how awesome and how terrible was this thing that had been created. I didn't need, "Now I am become Death...", exactly. But I felt like I needed something more than I was getting, and I was all set to be a little let down (not unusual for me at the end of a novel) as they climbed into the car and drove away. Then. Oh, then. They're driving, and Suze turns on the radio, and catches a fragment of news... Suze nodded. "Any music would be good." The radio popped and crackled with muted static. She was almost to the end of the dial when a man's voice came through, soft but clear: "...onto the Japenese city of Hiroshima this morning..." She turned past it to more static and shook her head. "Nothing but war news," she said, clicking the radio off. "We can always get that later." And somehow I could barely see the road for the blurring in my eyes. The book ends there, on that opening-up, and on that rejection of same. Leaves the characters poised on a knife edge and you know that it's going to cut, and deep--but it hasn't yet, and somehow that moment of--privilege? or grace? cuts the reader (maybe just me?) all the more. It is one that feels to me more like a novel meant for adults that happens to have child characters than it does like the childrens' book that it was published as, and I can't quite put a finger on why that might be. (And I'm happy to accept that it's wrong-headed of me.) It also feels a like a book, though, that would work well in a WW2 unit in school, paired up with something like, maybe, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. (Something like, hopefully, rather than exactly that, but maybe my grade school memories of that book are less charitable than it deserves.) In any case, this went in the space of a paragraph from being a book that I'd deeply enjoyed reading to being a book that I loved. |
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rfmcdpei |
8:18p | [BRIEF NOTE] "'At least these mosquitoes don't give you malaria'" Michel Arsenault in Saturday's The Globe and Mail had an interesting article, "'At least these mosquitoes don't give you malaria'". The person of the lumberjack is an iconic figure to Canadians and/including Québécois have national mythos constructed, in part, around the belief that their ancestors were "hewers of wood and drawers of water". No longer. As Arsenault explains, in at least one part of Québec's forest frontier, the municipality of Dolbeau-Mitassini in the famously nationalist Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, the old stock of lumberjacks is beginning to be replaced by African immigrants. It's already 4 a.m., a little late for breakfast. In a fiercely lit canteen, dozens of forestry workers in oilskin jackets and rubber boots are hunched over wooden tables, siphoning coffee, ingesting protein in the shape of eggs and ham. The room is white, but almost all the faces in it are black. They are recent immigrants, mostly from French-speaking African countries, who live in Montreal but come to cut brush in northern Quebec's boreal forest in the summer. Although Québec maintains an immigration policy separate from Canada's--as M.C. Andrews notes in the anthology Quebec: State and Society--founded on supplementing the economic requirements of Québec and maintaining the French language in wide circulation, it hasn't figured out that the non-recognition of foreign credentials is a bad idea. It isn't a racism thing, necessarily: French immigrants face the same problem as well. Immigrants across Canada face these problems, despite a federal program aimed at getting the qualifications earned abroad my immigrants recognized in this country, and despite continued talk of making things better. It'd be a pity for the lumber industry if foreign credentials were taken into account, I suppose. |
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danceswthcobras |
7:28p | Bebehs, and some gratuitous nomming Lookie who's playing peekaboo - a cute little black and white spitting cobra, Naja siamensis. Six eggs are just starting to pip. Since I had the camera with to take pictures of the hatching, I snapped a few of Sunkist nomming a rat. He made it pretty clear when I went in to change his waterbowl that he wanted some dinner and he wanted it now, so I went and whacked him a rodent and rubbed its face briefly on a piece of frozen snake. He's not too picky and will even eat unscented rats when he's hungry enough. If he's still hungry tomorrow I'll give him some more, but I'm trying for small frequent meals to avoid overstressing his digestive system with mammal meat and fur, which is not something kings really evolved to handle. Anecdotally they seem to do fine on rats, as long as the rats are subadults on a decent diet that keeps them lean. Sunkist is a beautifully muscular and athletic boy, and he's gotten remarkably good at lunging quite a ways off the lip of his zoo exhibit cage when I am standing there. Makes it a bit of a dance to open his cage, since where I have to stand to hoist the door is well within his lunge. Kings are really easy to work with though, even naughty big fellows like him, so it's mostly just good fun to dance with him. In other herp news, I thought I had my bedroom turned back into a snakeless zone, but a baby Argentine boa showed up in horrendous condition, so it came home with me for quarantine and daily care. Oh well. Maybe in the winter I'll get to sleep without snakes for a few months. Current Mood:  amused |
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sinandsalvation [ jessiesquash ] |
4:22p | decant circle explosion Okay I'm doing this all in one post so bear with me. First we are doing a TAL decant circle which includes all the unreleased love blends (LaFlamme, Arabian Nights, Fire of Love and Aphrodesia) and a handful of the released love blends (Blinding Glory of Love, Glamour, Charisma and Queen of the Nile). Sign ups for that circle can be found HERE! We have shipped everything out for the Hay Moon/Mead Moon circle so keep an eye on your mailboxes for that! Keep your eye out for our next decant circle which I will probably post tomorrow because we are doing the Grindhouse ladies!! As always we try to keep this community uncluttered with updates so we encourage you to friend ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} stinkinc in order to keep up with the latest stuff! Happy Tuesday! ♥ |
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beckyzoole |
6:03p | What's Cooking at Winnebagend This Week Sunday: We helped clean up the Hospitality Room at the AG, left Denver at 3:00 Mountain Time, and stopped five hours later (around 7:00 Central) in Colby, Kansas for dinner. We found an authentic Kansas Chinese restaurant and were not disappointed. The food was actually well-made. The hot & sour soup had a very good flavor, and the "Indian Chicken" was pretty good too once chili sauce was added. But the buffet obviously catered to local tastes, also offering Cheesy Crab Casserole, Buttered Cabbage, and Italian Salmon. We pushed on 'till close to midnight to spend the night in Salina. Monday: Slept late -- after a week of con we needed it! -- got coffee and sausage biscuits at the McDonalds drive-through, and continued the long drive across the Kansas steppes. Lunch was more fastfood eaten in the car. What with construction, the tail-end of Kansas City's noon rush, and the beginning of the St Louis evening rush hour, I think we made very good time by getting home just before 5:00 pm. For St Louis, the house was deliciously cool and dry. Blessedly, semperfiona had come by the day before to turn on the air conditioning and empty the dehumidifier. But we'd been spoiled by the weather of the Front Range, and sank exhausted into armchairs as we took our time learning how to breathe soup once again.The cable guy came by and fixed our internet service just before Magic night began. Yes, we are hopeless geeks. We hosted our weekly game night anyway! I made lemonade and iced tea, and served trays of chicken fingers and cocktail meatballs with three kinds of dipping sauce. I rock. Tuesday: In an hour I'll take the train to Woof's office and pick up the car. He'll keep on getting caught up on his work while I drive over to see the BABY! All other plans for this evening are up in the air. If Jo and Adam will let me, I'll go do their grocery shopping, maybe pick up some take-out food for them. My evil plan is to offer to hold the baby so they can eat dinner in peace. Then I'll go kiss-kiss-kiss on his perfect little toeses for an hour or so until I have to pick Woof up from work. Or, if they're not up for company, I'll get Woof earlier. Either way, we'll probably stop for dinner and groceries of our own on the way home. Wednesday: Something simple while we do laundry from the trip and get settled back in at home. Soup, salad, sandwiches -- one, or all three. Thursday: Probably more along the soup/salad/sandwich line. Friday: Bris today! Tonight... the Magic pre-release tournament? Saturday: Tonight I'm starting the South Beach diet again. But first, pizza for lunch with a bunch of friends at Cici's. Salmon with mashed cauliflower tonight, I think. |
| mind_hacks | 11:00p | Neurowarfare and the modern Rogue Trooper
The full report is available online as a pdf file, and covers how pharmaceuticals and brain-computer interfaces could be used by enemies of the US to create hordes of sleep-resistant super-intelligent neurosoldiers who can kill at the speed of thought. Obviously, I paraphrase, but it's interesting that the report is not your usual blue-sky speculation. It actually covers the science in considerable detail. It also discusses cultural attitudes to cognitive and brain enhancements of various sorts, and how this might affect how and why they might be used.
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| mind_hacks | 9:00p | The ambiguous gift of sign names
The article describes how assigning and accepting one can be a tricky social negotiation with some having to mount campaigns against unwanted sign names.
I have to say, I find watching sign language completely enthralling. It always seems like a wonderful form of cognitive ballet to me. Obviously, it has its practical uses to, as demonstrated by this video tutorial on how to flirt using sign language.
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| law_ethics_rss | 6:00p | Three WSJ Articles Here are three interesting neuroethics-related articles in today's Wall Street Journal: (1) "The Synapse and the Soul"-- Reviewing Michael Gazzaniga's new book Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique. (2) "Can't Keep the Weight Off?"-- Describing new research into why weight loss is so difficult. A sample:
And check out this controversial comment about free will:
(3) "Linden Avatars Boldly Go Where None Has Before" (the title in my print copy): Discussing efforts to make Second Life avatars capable of "teleporting" into new environments. Perhaps this is one tiny step toward the singularity. |
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mallory_blog |
2:45p | a difference of opinion... What I learned in workshop today: My DoD story received responses all over the map. About half the people wanted me to start on this page or that page and ALL of them different pages. I had enough characterization, not enough characterization. It was too long. It was too short. It was two stories. Jim Gunn is the final critic. He said, "Send it to Realms of Fantasy. It's excellent!" Guess whose opinion I am going to go with? He did make suggestions for two minor adjustments. But basically he thought my voice was strong, unique and MINE! I'm good for that :) What he really liked was that my story was about a girl trying to reconcile with her mother and the drama of her effort. I am just so so so so so so so so pleased!!!! camillemulan and geek_chorus - THANK YOU GUYS!!! You know how much work has been done on this story. Edit: Oh, and everyone liked the Ming Shu and the worms... :) Current Mood:  blogging |
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specficmarkets [ ethan_thomas ] |
3:23p | Winterborn / Nectar: Erotic Horror and Dark Fantasy Thaneros Online Magazine seeks original erotic horror and dark fantasy between 5,000 to 15,000 words to be released in e-book format. No reprints, no science fiction please. Query for longer, though chances are slim; shorter works will be considered for regular issues only and should be submitted as such. If you must use traditional monsters, use them in unconventional ways. ( More information... ) |
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matociquala |
5:05p | inside every candidate waits a grateful death Okay. I've figured out how I'm going to handle the book sale*. Which will commence after Readercon, I think, because the next two weeks are just too damned busy. Basically, what I will do is put up a post for each book or set of books announcing how many copies of each I have to I think the only payment option I'm offering is paypal, right now, because really it's all I can swing without fussing, and the goal is not to fuss. NB: I do not yet have any copies of Ink & Steel or Hell & Earth to unload, because large boxes of same have not yet turned up on my doorstep, but it's only a matter of time. I have at least a couple of copies of everything else, and even some leftover ARCs, for people who like those. And then I will have an entire four foot bookcase back! *(which may also be the buy-Bear-a-new-laptop sale, as the 5-year-old HP refurb I have been happily using since 2003 is reaching the end of its lifespan, and also is awfully heavy). Current Mood:  mellowCurrent Music: Jefferson Starship - Rose Goes to Yale |
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matociquala |
3:55p | it's only forever. it's not long at all. Good news all around! (1) Since it's in the newspaper, I guess I am allowed to talk about this now. David Moles and I will be sharing the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction work in 2007. I'm deeply honored by this, and very sad that I couldn't be there. (I wanted to, very much, but the travel and work schedule... was already topped out.) (2) Blood & Iron ebook. Yay! Current Mood:  happyCurrent Music: David Bowie - Sense Of Doubt |
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kajafoglio |
11:14a | Abney Park, Trilobites, Automata Soooo... Abney Park. I'm really late in mentioning them, because I've been hiding under a rock for quite a while now. So you probably already know all about them. I was actually pointed at this steampunk band last Fall. I went at looked at their home page (which you should do right now, because it's lovely) and thought "Oh, Lord. Look at these people. If I don't like their music, I'm going to cry." Fortunately, I did like their music, and was hugely tickled at what they were doing with their...er...I don't know what to call it. Band image? Artistic design? So I flung a bunch of money at them and got a pile of CDs and assorted merchandise in the mail. It took a while to get here, but I wasn't too worried. First of all, it didn't take an unreasonable amount of time, just a bit longer than web orders usually take. People are spoiled by the Web, I tell you. Why, back in the day... Erk. Sorry, I had to get in a little granny-practice. No, mostly, I wasn't worried because I had a feeling that they're like us, in that they're trying to do the creative part of the job, plus make their stuff and advertise and sell and ship it all themselves. I don't know why I thought that, the AP site is gorgeous and professional, maybe it's just my self-publisher radar. Anyway, I have since been told that yes, that's exactly how they do it. Except that they do it WAY better than we do. I love them for that. I love hearing about artists who do the whole thing themselves and do it well. It gives me hope that I may someday get my own act together enough to clean up my websites and market our work properly. Well, or at least get my e-mail partially answered. Oh, and please, don't take this the wrong way. The business model is the only way I'm comparing us to them. I mean, they're a band. As I understand it, bands are cool by definition. We've never been cool in our lives. Buncha' dorks, we are. Heh. Hm... what else? Something else you might like (now that I've bought the piece I wanted, mu-ha): the gear and trilobite jewelery from this etsy seller. Woohoo! Trilobites! And a while ago I ran across The Automata / Automaton Blog: The Blog for Makers and Collectors of Mechanical Automata and Mechanical Toys. There's a lot of really good stuff there. I've loved this stuff ever since I first went to House on the Rock and saw the mechanical orchestras (oh, so long ago... ) Mercy, I'm such an old lady today. What's wrong with me? I need a cup of tea. (Goes creaking off.) Current Mood:  sleepy |
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truepenny |
1:21p | Due South: "Some Like It Red" "Some Like It Red" (DS 2.12) Original air date: March 28, 1996 Favorite quote: RAY: Tuktoyaktuk, Runamuckluk, what's the difference? FRASER: About two thousand kilometers. RAY: Is that necessary? FRASER: Not entirely, no. Spoilers ( It takes seven fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown. Save your energy. You're going to need it in your childbearing years. ) |
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sinandsalvation [ slave1 ] |
1:11p | July thank you/received post Please use this entry to comment with your thanks for people with whom you've swapped/purchased/etc. This is to help keep the community neat and uncluttered. Thank you! |
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sinandsalvation [ slave1 ] |
1:10p | July Click and Ship post Please use THIS entry to comment with questions re: Click n Ships, and to announce your receipt of a CnS. Please remember to include your order date along with your CnS receipt date. Thank you! |
One of the myths of suicide is that if a person wants to kill themselves, they'll always find a way. While this can occur in some cases, evidence that making methods of self-harm less accessible can reduce the suicide rate suggests that deaths can be prevented with simple safety measures.
Wired has 
BBC Ouch! magazine has a completely fascinating