firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2023-10-01 02:26 pm

Fannish knitting want

OK if anyone can hook me up with a knitting pattern for Okoye's sweater from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I will love you forever.
two images )
firecat: snoopy wearing sunglasses and a red t-shirt that says "Joe Cool" (joe_cool)
2023-08-26 03:13 pm
Entry tags:

Referenced in The Atlantic

TIL one of my posts was referenced in The Atlantic way back in 2017.

Jennifer Adams posted about Wisława Szymborska‘s poem “Pod jednq gwiazdkq” (“Under One Small Star”) and mentions several different translations of it. Then she comments “If you’re really invested, someone even compiled a table of four translations side by side” and links to a post I made in 2012.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2017/04/favorite-poems-under-one-small-star/622507/

https://firecat.dreamwidth.org/791082.html

I wonder how many of my allotted fifteen minutes of fame that counts for.
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-03-26 03:03 pm

(no subject)

via [personal profile] snippy. It seems like a good idea to create free teacher training materials for teaching children about consent culture.

Help fund / signal boost 'Creating Consent Culture by Providing Youth the Tools: A Teacher Training Model' http://igg.me/p/creating-consent-culture-by-providing-youth-the-tools-a-teacher-training-model/cstw/330779
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-02-05 11:45 am

Joe-Stef sez check it out

The free MOOC I'm taking through Coursera:
https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalsounddesign
This format works for me because the course happens over a particular time period, and I had to sign up. Both of those make me feel like I committed to something. So I'm actually working on the course instead of just bookmarking it for later. Also it's free, so I didn't talk myself out of signing up with "This is too far outside my area of knowledge to spend money on." And it's not for any kind of official credit (although supposedly I get a "certificate of completion" at the end) so I don't worry about grades. (Although on the forums for the course a lot of people are worrying about what's on the tests. Maybe that's habit, or maybe they're taking it to fulfill a requirement elsewhere and it matters to them how they do.)

I sometimes use NewEgg to buy tech stuff. I didn't know they were patent law heroes.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/

Unrelated white people who look alike, especially because they're wearing similar clothes and hairstyles
http://slideshow.nbcnews.com/slideshow/today/strangers-who-look-like-twins-im-not-a-look-alike-50590127/
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-02-04 12:44 am

Stalking some steampunk consulting detective character or something

I asked Bertha at Size Queen Clothing to make me an Inverness cloak with a purple lining. She did a fabulous job and I love it. Have a look.
five piccies )
firecat: Andy Scott of the Sweet playing a guitar (fannish)
2013-02-03 03:11 pm

glam rock ftw

Here's The Guardian's list of "The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time," created in honor of a new exhibition (which I wasn't able to find info about) (I think it's this one: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/glam-performance-style).

http://m.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/01/20-best-glam-rock-songs-all-time


I don't know if they're really the 20 best, but I like enough of them well enough that I was inspired to create a playlist on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM-OlnHsrXC-TcWbEl4yyPVk9ymR_ZnwN

(My favorite is "Ballroom Blitz".)
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-01-24 04:58 pm

Linkspam

Passing along some linkspam I got from the OH.

Assuming you think it's a good idea for abortions to be available to women who want them, even poor women, take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-17/how-state-governments-are-regulating-away-abortion

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49998217
Is Women's 'Retirement Gap' Really a Pay Gap?
By: Paul O'Donnell
Much is made of women's lack of engagement in basic investing, including investing for retirement. Reasons given range from a lack of confidence to a congenital fear of risk to a simple lack of information....But here's a reason that may be too simple to get much attention: It could be that women invest less than men because they don't have as much money.
D'oh!

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/bigger-better-google-ngrams-brace-yourself-for-the-power-of-grammar/263487/
The Google NGram now offers text from more books, and more parameters, including the ability to search for a term in British English or American English.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/17/15965768-a-way-out-of-the-landfill-paraguay-kids-play-mozart-with-violins-made-from-trash?lite
Musical instruments made out of trash and other recycled materials

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201212/dsm-5-is-guide-not-bible-ignore-its-ten-worst-changes
More problems with the DSM-5, e.g., "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder: DSM 5 will turn temper tantrums into a mental disorder."
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-01-15 03:03 am

Four ways to care

This is a really good post: "Reflections on Caring, or Things to Think About Along the Freeway" by Lisa Freitag, who sees a lot of billboards with phrases such as "saving lives" and "we care" on them, and has smart opinions about them.

http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=8938
in order to make sense of care, of this recognition and meeting of needs, Joan Tronto, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, has proposed a new way of breaking down the process of meeting needs into stages, or phases, of action. This framework can be used to analyze all types of caring, from feeding the hungry to cleaning up the environment, but it applies particularly well to the conglomerate of actions we call medical care. These levels help understand who in medicine is actually doing the caring, what that care entails, and why that care is undertaken.
The framework, from Tronto's book called Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care, has four parts:

Caring about ("Right away, we can spot a problem in the medical system. We depend on people to recognize their own need and present themselves to a hospital or clinic to get help. Those who cannot do this are overlooked from the outset.")
Caring for
Caregiving
Care receiving
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2013-01-08 08:52 pm

Because wars create hate

Via Body Impolitic, a TedxWomen video featuring Lynne Hurdle-Price, a plus-size African-American woman, calling for an end to the "war on obesity".

Because, in her words, "wars, even metaphorical, create hate, not love."

http://tedxwomen.org/speakers/lynne-hurdle-price/

(TW for discussion of weight humiliation and emotional eating)
firecat: person wearing purple and typing on typewriter (purple personality typing)
2012-11-05 08:51 pm

42 Magazine!

My friend [personal profile] serene has a wonderful ear for words, which she uses to select work for her fine publication, 42 Magazine. I won't deny I am saying that in part because she likes to publish my poetry. :) But words from every page of the latest issue of 42 Magazine pounced on me as I turned the pages.

"Before Kaveri started to die she lived briefly like a flowering cactus, all thorns and ablaze with colors." ("One Step One Step and a Limp," Smriti Ravindra)

"I must insist on appropriate attire for dinner," Whistler's mother clucked. ("Inside Out," Hall Jameson)

"After he ate salad your father was coaxed out of the kitchen and into a van by a preacher named Rodney." ("Things that Came Out of the Kitchen," Grace Maselli)

"'pretty' is a word you can hit with a stone to watch it crumple and tear" ("The Wasp Garden," Story Boyle)

"A billboard pasted to the window read, 'Every book ever published in stock.'" ("Bibliopolis," Frank Roger)

"The house is quiet but never silent." ("Nothing Here Can Wash Away," Amanda England)

"Fragrant as a bee's buzz." ("Lemonovember," Daniel Ari)

"She reaches out—a slash of arm through air—and misses her target." ("Four Minutes," Jennifer Stern)

"The fog rests on the asphalt, our houses a collection of gables and shingles in the Savannah mist." ("Betty's Branch," Linda Heuring)

"Her bones would probably crunch like a cricket shell
but I doubt her marrow could be as silvery" ("Cosmovore Meets Her Antithesis," Kristi Carter)

"Theresa wanders into the swamplands in her dreams. Sometimes she is on a bicycle" ("Notes on a Father," Jenny Maloney)
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2012-07-29 01:16 pm

Linkspam Sunday

I failed to record the sources where I found these, but many are from [personal profile] andrewducker and [livejournal.com profile] moominmuppet

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112661209/young-gorillas-observed-dismantling-poacher-snares

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/30-awesome-behind-the-scenes-photos-from-old-movie
"Old movies" are now movies made in the 70s and 80s, and in a couple of cases, 90s. Ghod.

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/23/eagle-scouts-stand-up-to-the-b.html
Some Eagle Scouts are returning their medals in protest of Boy Scouts of America homophobia and religious intolerance.

http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons
Complete with equations! Now to get medical schools to also realize that days-long shifts aren't a good idea.

http://vimeo.com/28457062
Video of lightning captured at 7,207 images per second

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/21/paranoid_parents_kill_cities/
This is about how in the US and some other cultures, children are no longer allowed outdoors unsupervised.
"In the Sydney Morning Herald, a writer recently marveled at seeing children wandering unchaperoned all over Tokyo. When she worried to her Japanese colleague about the lack of adult supervision, he responded, “What do you mean, no adults? There were the car drivers, the shopkeepers, the other pedestrians.” In Japan, 80 percent of kids between 6 and 12 walk to school grownup-free."
Note: I don't judge any parents. But I wonder about the consequences of a culture where children are not allowed to have any time to themselves outdoors.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/07/geeks-guide-ursula-k-le-guin/all/
Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin. Includes the cover of an SF Masterworks version of The Dispossessed that strikes me as the most awesome bookcover ever. This interview also links to an article Le Guin wrote for Harpers in 2008 about reading:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081907

http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/dc-and-marvel-superheroes-as-manatees
MANATEE SUPERHEROES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/happiness_is_about_respect_not_riches
Yes I agree, but that doesn't mean people who have survival needs going unmet are happy. So I hope no one uses it as an excuse to continue suppressing the minimum wage and promoting other underpaid work.

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs
How Stereotypes Can Drive Women To Quit Science

And can I just say that I'm disgusted people are criticizing the body of a female swimmer who has won multiple gold medals? (Leisel Jones of Australia). I'm not linking to any of the news articles about it because they quote body hatred, but you can quack it.

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/fluoride-lowers-your-iq-b.s.-headline-week
Fluoride lowers IQ, or does it? (How science is misreported, especially by people with an agenda.)

http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/de-gendering-academic-dress-at-oxford/
I approve.

http://scienceinmyfiction.com/2012/07/23/science-fiction-fails-immunology/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-flooded-with-brand-police-to-protect-sponsors-7945436.html
Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London", if they give the impression of a formal connection to the Olympics.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/pot-legalization-is-coming-20120726
Interesting article about the ramifications of various ways to legalize and regulate marijuana.
firecat: maze (obsessive)
2012-06-12 12:44 am

obsessions 'r' us

This is my "Obsessive" icon. I've been playing an iThing game (also available for Android) called "Trainyard." There's a free version (Trainyard Express). Both contain hours worth of puzzles and tutorials that make it easy to learn. You can also post your solutions on the web.

http://www.trainyard.ca/
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
2011-12-22 05:37 pm

labradorite

I have been looking at this web page for the past several days and I have to stop myself from licking the screen.

http://www.madagascarminerals.com/cat-labradorites.cfm
firecat: smiling cat (cool)
2011-10-18 05:15 pm

Cool!

A mysterious stranger sent me a cool Totoro i-Thing pouch all the way from Thailand. See!

totoro gadget pouch

Thank you mysterious stranger!
firecat: poc holding water in hands (cupping water)
2008-08-30 03:22 pm
Entry tags:

Kiva microloan charity

The Kiva microloan charity organization lets individuals lend money to individuals or small groups in areas like Africa and Asia via the Internet. You don't get interest on the loan, but it is repaid to you, and you can either lend it out again or withdraw it.

Kiva initially repaid lenders at the end of the loan term (typically 10 months to 18 months), but they've just changed their policy so that they repay lenders each time the loan recipient pays an installment (typically once a month). So you can get your money back faster.

I just went online to lend out my accumulated "Kiva credit." A lot of other people were doing the same thing, presumably because of this change in policy. I was refreshing the pages of several loan requests and watching the "amount still needed" drop every minute.

It is cool to watch people trying to help other people.

My lender page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/firecatstef