The Blog of Siram

Final word count of 51415 for Nanowrimo 2009. :)

At some point last spring, one of the trees disappeared. I don't even remember seeing a stump - it was just gone, with nothing but a patch of mulch where it once stood.

A few weeks ago, after heavy rains, the whole place started blooming in mushrooms. Lots and lots of them in big clumps. Here's one of the smaller clumps:

The biggest clump was about four times that size. No clue what kind they are, though they smell like portabellas. I guess the tree's symbiotic fungi are trying to find another tree.

Sidenote: my camera still takes macro shots because I remember what sequence of buttons to hit to get there, but I have no control over where it autofocuses. Thus the ..uhh, softening.. if you embiggen.

The main thing that keeps me from considering an electric car as my next car: lack of feasibility for long distance road trips. They cannot presently go for up to 15 hours without stopping. I can see three possible ways to fix that:

a) Make a car battery that can last 15 hours without stopping. :p I assume this is unlikely, considering that laptop batteries only last for 2...

b) Make a car battery that can be charged back to full within 10-15 minutes. Most of the blurbs I've seen talk about 2-3 hours. I'm not going to pull into a battery station and sit there for 2-3 hours while it charges, when I can pull into a gas station and be gone again in 5-10 minutes.

c) Make it so that the car batteries are interchangeable and can be easily replaced. I pull into the battery station, remove my depleted battery, trade it for a fully charged battery, and get back on the road. This doesn't have to be free (I'd assume some sort of nominal charge if there's a station attendant that does this), but it also shouldn't mean actually purchasing a new battery at full price each time. It probably would require all the car manufacturers to agree on a standard battery design. Ideally, it should be simple enough that I can change it myself without being professionally certified in the procedure.

How about hybrid cars then? If the gas charges the battery, then the battery can last 15 hours, and then the only difference would be fewer stops for gas. I could do that.

Chapter One

Boy meets girl.
Boy wants to impress girl.
Boy does some sort of astounding feat.
Girl gushes over boy, impressed.
Hooray! :)

Chapter Two

Boy meets boy.
Boy wants to show up boy.
Boy does some sort of astounding feat.
Other boy? Does the same thing, only better!
Boy and boy probably go off to have a beer together.

Chapter Three

Boy meets me.
Boy wants to impress me.
Boy does some sort of astounding feat.
I? If I'm attracted, I want to impress him.
I do the same thing, only better!
Boy slinks off feeling like a loser, never to be seen again.

And thus: I stay away from love lives. :p

Like I've done every November since 2004, I'm writing 50,000+ words toward a novel in the next 30 days. By tradition, it's something from my Fortress Launne series, which originally had six books in it, but they've shifted around a lot in the intervening years and are still six books, but not the six I'd originally envisioned. :)

Anyway, it didn't take long before I got distracted by the Nanowrimo forums. One of their threads is pictures of writing areas. Well, here's mine:

Messy, huh? It's the normal state of my living room, alas. The computer was originally on the gray desk at the left, but it's too tall for my current chairs - a blue exercise ball and a one-seater couch. I had others, but freecycled them a few months ago. (The couch will be too when it's time to move.) My mouse is on a clipboard over the trashcan, which I move back and forth depending on which hand I feel like using to mouse at the time. The white keyboard is wireless, but the mouse isn't - hence the length of wire to make it reach the couch when I'm not on the ball. The black "keyboard" under the table is my Alphasmart Dana - it's actually a better keyboard than the Apple.

For those who want to follow along to my writing angst trials and tribulations, I have a writing blog freshly ported over from Hobgoblin.net, which is sadly defunct at the moment. I'll be posting a lot over there this month. :)

On a completely unrelated note: yes, that was taken by my broken camera. It still takes pictures just fine, so long as I don't want to change any of its settings or compose or something else that requires the screen to be working...

On another note: I'm looking forward to finding out what my European readers will decide to be intrigued by in this picture. ;)

Now that I have three whole articles up at Bright Hub, I thought I'd mention it here. :) Bright Hub is basically a collection of science and technology articles. The pay is potentially better than eHow (we'll see if that's true in a few months), and they have actual quality control in the form of editors who approve article ideas before they're written, and then approve the articles again before they're published. (eHow's idea of quality control is to delete stuff after they've been published, without telling anyone, and without sending back the stuff they've deleted. -.- Though they're slowly getting better about informing people.)

So far I'm enjoying writing for them. Compared to eHow, the possible topics I can write about are more in line with what I can actually write about, and the format is more flexible. I have lots of ideas for future articles, mostly about ecology and evolution and marine science, but I'm hoping to have a variety to show off as samples for more lucrative writing work later on.

Thanks to fellow UCFer Jeri for pointing me to the place. :)

Before I discovered Pandora, I listened to a lot of Internet radio broadcasting from other countries. I was mainly interested in music in languages other than English. My favorite was a metal/alternative station in Germany, which introduced me to all sorts of great songs and bands popular in Europe, but then they started broadcasting ads not just between songs, but in the middle of them. o.O After that, I moved to a Dutch station, but their music just wasn't the same and some of the announcers were annoying (yes, even in Dutch). I found Pandora and, although they didn't have very many of the songs from that German station, they also didn't have ads, and thus I was going to live happily ever after.

I'd still be at Pandora if it weren't for their new 40-hr per month cap. I run out of that after the first two weeks. T.T I'll happily give them money to let me listen to more (only $0.99 per month for unlimited) just as soon as they accept PayPal, but in the meantime, now I'm on Youtube.

It's nowhere near ideal. I have to go back every five minutes to hit "replay" and find new songs all by myself instead of having it all stream past me. However, I've been looking up songs I used to like. Some of it is finally making it onto Youtube. Such as:

And, as I wander, I find more good stuff that I hadn't heard before. For example, my new favorite:

5. Marz by Megaherz and Ohne Dich by Eisbrecher have the same singer. Megaherz is so named because they wanted to make "metal with heart." These two songs succeed well, I think. Both are actually love songs in disguise, though angsty rather than sappy. Yay emo metal. :D

Then, for something completely different, there's also Gottmensch by Schock:

and Vollmond by In Extremo:

and Walpurgisnacht by Schandmaul:

which isn't technically metal, but it comes to mind whenever my friends in Europe talk about Walpurgis Night, which is a major holiday over there.

And finally, because I can't very well post about German metal without mentioning Rammstein:

Dalai Lama is one of the few songs that doesn't have extremely disturbing lyrics. Rammstein is totally awesome so long as you don't go looking for translations to anything. o.O

I discovered Foxtrot by Bill Amend while I was in grad school. I now own all eleven of the treasury collections. Here's one of my all-time favorites, which came out while Star Wars was also out:

(copied out of Assorted Foxtrot, click to embiggen)

I laughed and laughed at that one, then tacked it to my office wall so I could laugh some more. I still laugh at it. Nothing like three punchlines in one. :)

Sadly, the daily strip is no more (though there are still weekly Sundays). Which is probably just as well - better to end while things are still funny, than to start recycling the same jokes over and over for decades. Here's my favorite strip from the very last treasury, which came out in May:

(copied out of Wrapped-Up Foxtrot, click to embiggen)

More of these are available for browsing at GoComics.

Cop: "Do you know why I'm stopping you?"

Me (what I actually said): "Umm ... ahh ... urk."

Me (what I should have said, now that I've had several days to think it up): "Yeah, because it's a smalltown speed trap, and I'm a non-local who didn't realize that the speed limit would suddenly drop from 45 to 20 for two blocks in the middle of a highway. And because I didn't do the obvious, logically safe thing of slamming on my brakes in the middle of a highway, I shall now be forced to give you lots of money. It might possibly cause some financial ruin, but hey, you just want my money and I'm a non-local so who cares."

Cop (after handing me the ticket): "Now, try to slow down."

Me (what I actually said, just before I went back to driving exactly the way I was driving before (because the 20 mph zone was over)): "Yeah, sure."

Me (what I wanted to say): "Up yours."

-.-

TO:
Rep. John Barrow
Sen. Saxby Chambliss
Sen. Johnny Isakson

Please support President Obama's plan for health reform in 2009. We need to bring stability and security to those who currently have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

We are not the first generation to tackle the cause of health reform, but we must be the last.

We need this. It's an excellent, well-thought-out plan. Please don't destroy it.

Sincerely,
MWT

I signed the above shortly after the speech. Most of it is pre-written but there's room for individual comments on the form. It automatically pulls up your particular representatives when you fill in your street and zip code. I think people who live in red states especially should sign it.

On the whole, I like the proposed plan. It won't be as nice as what other countries have - but it accounts for all the ideas and concerns from all sides, it's realistic and therefore has a chance of actually passing, and it's an important first step in the right direction. Here's a flowchart that summarizes it pretty well (click for larger version):

My favorite part (from the speech) was:

Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.

These are exactly the sorts of things I worry about most. Back when I had health care, I wondered what would happen if I passed my lifetime cap - would I just be expected to drop dead at that point? (Apparently the answer is yes.) And now that I don't have health care, the pre-existing condition clause is a bit worrying, if I were to develop something before finding a job where I had health care again. (And, I might add, until the speech I hadn't known that people got denied health care for pre-existing conditions they didn't even know they had. o.O)

Part I liked least:

... individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

I understand the reasoning behind it. But the exemption bar had better be high. Better would be to just put all the people below the exemption bar on a public option for free, though that raises some questions on how it would affect the whole self-sufficiency thing.

In general, I think the speech has brought the health care reform conversation back on topic and moved it forward another step. Hopefully good things will happen from here.

Yes, Kenza. I really am a boy on the inside. Thank you for noticing. You have no idea how much it pleases me that you can see what all the grownups cannot.

I think that the next time a six year old asks me that, if it happens again, I'm not going to evade with an answer about wanting to talk to her mother about it first. I'm just going to say yes.

Assuming anyone is even still looking, posting here has been rather light and fluffy for a while, possibly even verging on nonexistent. >.>

I've been busy. I got official notice of being laid off in late June (with warning hints back in April), my last day was Monday, and in between I've been wrapping up work at work, job hunting at home, trying to put together a demo website of my leet skillz, and taking care of an enormous number of details involved in preparing for a move (because, if I actually found a job, I'd need to move to it). I still haven't gotten to the packing part of the proceedings yet, but I'm down to only five boxes left in my storage room. Once those are sorted, packing will commence. I'm also shedding all sorts of unused-but-still-useful items to Goodwill and Freecycle, and trying to eat everything in the pantry.

Instead of writing longwinded posts here, I've been putting short updates over on Twitter instead. For those not on Twitter, here's an abridged version:

Today I did almost nothing of note. Tomorrow I dive back into the chaos. If there's another lull somewhere, maybe I'll post again this month...

Some artwork I did back in 4th grade, when I drew a lot and was also fascinated by the Plains Indians:

Sitting Bull, drawn in 1984 from an 1885 photo

I forgot about it for a good long while, until I stumbled across a photo on the Internet:

Sitting Bull in 1885 by D.F. Barry

The feather gives it away, I think. :)

Then, while sorting through lots and lots of old personal papers this past year, I came across my drawing again. In retrospect, looking at this and other drawings, I'm really not as good of an artist as I thought I was, and as everyone said I was. But I'm not too bad, either. Maybe I'll start drawing again someday.

My tomatoes are doing well. Here they are, happily in their final pots:

And here are some future tomatoes (hopefully):

I haven't decided where they're going when I move, but they probably won't be able to come with me. But that's okay, I have more seeds for later. :)

A hypothetical scenario: Joe Blow is informed that he is being laid off. Shortly after, he discovers an unusual lump in his leg. What happens next?

Well, if Joe Blow lived in any first world country other than the U.S., he would go to a doctor, get it diagnosed, undergo any necessary medical treatment, and otherwise get it taken care of. Then he would find a new job and go back to being a happy, productive taxpayer. The End.

In the U.S.?

Being laid off means that health insurance is about to end. Sure, health plans can be extended through something called "Cobra" - but in practice that means adding a sizeable new bill during a time of zero income, which is not a financially sound thing to do.

Being diagnosed with something serious while without health insurance means that all health care costs must come out of pocket. This is even less sound financially during a period of zero income. Especially if Joe Blow only has enough savings to afford being laid off OR have a medical issue, but not both at the same time.

Being diagnosed with something serious before acquiring new health insurance means that "pre-existing condition" clauses might kick in, thereby causing the new health insurance to cost more.

Thus, financially speaking, Joe Blow should delay going to the doctor until after he has acquired a new job with new health insurance. Then he can discover he has now-incurable terminal cancer, and die.

Because the other choice would be to go to the doctor "now," discover he has cancer, undergo treatment, and enter financial ruin. Then he'll become homeless, possibly no longer be able to afford the rest of treatment, and die.

Ahh, the U.S. of A. Very nice first world country - if you're rich. Third world country if you're not. Alas for Joe Blow.

(Note: the above is all entirely hypothetical, of course. Entirely.)

At first I was going to make crop circles and other patterns, such as:

It turns out, though, that other people are much better than I am for coming up with patterns to make (*cough* Anne *cough*), so now I'm going the route of Nerd King instead. Here's my first Farm Town Sudoku:

I got the pattern by playing a round of Jigsawdoku, then writing down the numbers at the end. I then assigned nine different crops to the numbers (carrots, peas, tomatoes, rice, wheat, watermelon, potatoes, strawberries, cabbage) and planted accordingly. Voila. :D

In other news, it's high time I did a sequel to my pylon bunny. That one became my trademark on Battlenet and in RPoL's chat. Amongst the UCF, however, I now have: o.O In online chat situations this is a commonly used ascii facial expression, but most UCFers hadn't seen it before I came along, and it became associated with me. Just like the bunny did. Meanwhile, Farm Town seems to have become the official UCF pasttime (even if half the membership have not yet been sucked in). Thus:

:D

On the one hand, I'm going to miss this place. I enjoyed being able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, so long as 40 hours worth of work got done each week. I enjoyed the scenery to, from, and during work, the relaxed pace and lack of stress. I enjoyed everything about living here, as it gave me the time I needed to rest, regather, and redefine who I am. It's been a good eight years.

But on the other hand, it's time to move on. It has been time to move on for almost a year, in fact. What once was solace has slowly become limitations and fetters. What once didn't matter now does. I can't keep pets, I can't grow gardens, I can't do a lot of things involving money that I don't have, and I'm increasingly disgruntled with the way I'm treated at my workplace. It's no longer enough just to survive. I'm rested, and now I want to live.

And so, after I got over the initial shock of being canned due to a lack of grant funds, now that I am no longer bound by honor to finish the work I've started here, what I most feel is freedom.

A scene in a crummy little town in Kentucky, next to a semi wreck that has closed both sides of the interstate and forced everybody to go 15 miles on a dinky little state road...

I walk into the gas station.

The lady behind the counter finishes helping the customer in front of me, then starts sorting change.

I stand there and wait patiently for her to finish.

Eventually she runs out of stuff to fiddle with. Without looking at me, in a carefully guarded tone of voice that says "I'm being as polite as possible under such trying circumstances," she says "yes?"

I get as far as "how do I--" before she interrupts and tells me how to find the detour.

Halfway through, a man walks into the store and says something like "did you mean the red light out that way?" (Obviously he was looking for the same directions.)

The lady behind the counter drops talking to me entirely as she shifts her full attention to the other guy. The directions get clarified. I stand there and listen in. The man nods and leaves.

I say "thanks." The lady completely ignores me.

I follow the man through the door. He tries to close it on me. Then he goes back to his truck without looking back.

I usually don't bother getting offended by stuff like this, because it happens so often that it's 'normal'. But in the spirit of describing what I see that other people don't, I thought I'd share.

Clan [Wolf] was an awesome bunch of Starcraft and Diablo 2 players that I knew back at the beginning of the century. We're having a reunion. I'm collecting snarky comments. Take it away, guys. ;)

And so the knight in shining armor, who spent the last six years never having time to be with the princess that he worked so hard trying to keep, failed. And the shared dream came to an end, even though it was never like that at all.

I don't know what I can say or do to make it better. I'm sorry too. And I still love you anyway.

I wish you could come with me.

30 November 2009

21 November 2009

09 November 2009

05 November 2009

01 November 2009

15 October 2009

24 September 2009

21 September 2009

17 September 2009

10 September 2009

08 September 2009

03 September 2009

15 August 2009

28 July 2009

17 July 2009

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03 July 2009

30 June 2009

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