Keith

sonjaaa @ 06:38 pm: [Toronto] Yorkdale Mall question
Does anybody recognize the door with the giant sign or gate on the south side? What is that huge sign or door? Is it Sears maybe?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.724429,-79.454917&spn=0.001223,0.001652&t=h&z=19

toniabarone @ 04:48 pm: Rant
Go here to my myspace blog for a small rant.

EDIT: Link fixed. Sorry, guys.

Tags: me, myspace, rant, rl

toniabarone @ 04:28 pm: Grrr...
After reading this article I am sorely tempted to go to the CVS in Lewisburg and buy a preggy test. 1) To see if they'll kick a fuss, since I'm told I look to be in my late teens/early twenties and 2) to see if it's accurate. If it comes back positive, I plan on laughing my ass off and announcing to the world that I'm the second coming of Mary, since I am still a virgin.

I'm off to do stuff cause I'm still a bit tense from earlier. I tried to set up wireless in the house. Instead, I had to call Verizon to re-establish my internet connection and they told me to 1) drop Vista asap and 2) don't mess with things I don't understand ever, ever again. Or if I did, to call the router's people (which would be Linksys). Lovely.

I'm in the kitchen cause, well, the router is in the comp room. This kitchen chair, after three hours, is killing me. My hands are shakey, so that means food and I keep forgetting to take my meds, despite the fact that last night I found the last day in my week pill thing and I filled it up for today and the rest of the week and DAMN I forgot to call Seneca for my rit refil. *huffs* Tomorrow.

Ta.

Tags: comp probs, feministing, preg tests, rl

sonjaaa @ 01:14 pm: Montreal hosting?
Any suggestions on a place I could crash or couch-surf in Montreal on the evenings of July 15 to 17? It should be close-ish to downtown and have no cats.

goulo @ 03:18 pm: amuza teĥnika sonĝo
Hieraŭ mi ekreinstalis Windows sur unu el niaj komputiloj, kompreneble iom ĝena longa frustra afero. Krome lastatempe ghewgill taglibrumis pri el siaj diversaj teĥnikaj aventuroj. Do eble tiu kombinaĵo inspiris amuzan strangan sonĝon dum mi dormis hieraŭ nokte: En la sonĝo, Greg rakontis pri tio, ke li estis en ia granda arbaro kaj devis elektre lumigi iun arbon en la mezo de la arbaro apud iu lago. La arboj iel havis foliojn kaj branĉojn kiuj povus lumi se estus elektro por ili. Do Greg trenis longegan elektran kablon al tiu arbo por konekti ĝin. Ĉiuj arboj efektive havis elektrajn ingojn por kabloj, sed Greg trovis ke lia kablo havis maltaŭgan konektilon, do frustre li devis serĉi adaptilojn. Krome estis ia neklara afero kiu kaŭzis, ke Greg devis dividi la kablon en kelkajn partojn per dividiloj ĉar alie estus tro da elektro por la unu arbo. Do unu teĥnika ĝenaĵo post alia, kaj finfine Greg plendis al mi pri la daŭraj problemoj elektrigi la arbon. Verŝajne mi iom ekkonstatis ke la situacio absurde sonĝecis, ĉar mi subite respondis "Sed kial vi plendas? Viaj arboj en Nov-Zelando eĉ havas elektrajn ingojn kaj povon elektre lumigi, do jam la problemo ege pli facilas por vi ol estus en aliaj landoj!", kaj mi tuj vekiĝis.

Yesterday I started reinstalling Windows on one of our old computers, of course a rather irritating long frustrating process. And recently ghewgill blogged about various of his technical adventures. (E.g. this and this.) So maybe this combination inspired an amusing strange dream while I slept last night: In the dream, Greg was telling about how he was in some big forest and had to electrically light up some tree in the middle of the forest by some lake. The trees somehow had leaves and branches that could light up if there'd be electricity for them. So Greg dragged a very long electrical cable to that tree to connect it. All the trees actually had electrical sockets for cables, but Greg found that his cable had the wrong kind of plug, so he frustratedly had to search for an adapter. Plus there was some unclear reason that he had to branch the cable into several parts with splitters since otherwise there'd be too much electricity for one tree. So one technical annoyance after another, and in the end Greg was complaining to me about the continual problems to get electricity to the tree. I seemed to become semi-aware of the absurd dreamness of the situation, because I suddenly replied "But why are you complaining? Your trees in New Zealand even have electrical sockets and the power to light up electrically, so the problem is already a lot easier for you then it would be in other countries!", and I immediately woke up.

goulo @ 06:44 am: the so-called liberal media bias, and different treatments of Obama and McCain
( I rant about inconsistent treatment of the Obama and McCain campaigns by the media / Mi plendas pri nekonsekvenca traktado al la kampanjoj de Obama kaj McCain fare de la amaskomunikilo )

sonjaaa @ 04:11 pm: Job ad guidelines?
If a job ad has no official posted deadline, what is a good deadline to assume? For example, one week after the post date?

Basically I don't want to go in "stress mode" and assume I must apply right away, but at the same time I don't want to wait too long and risk missing the opportunity!

goulo @ 10:48 am: Warszawski Turniej Go
veni ad varsaviam
lusi vi ludos
vici iii ludos

http://warsaw.go.art.pl/2008/ = varsovia go-turniro

Mia tria fojo en tiu ĉiujara varsovia go-turniro. Verŝajne mi estas 6K laŭ eŭropa kaj pola sistemoj. Krom ludi goon, mi ankaŭ akiris 24 pliajn paĝojn en mia preskaŭ plene stampita pasporto (presita en 2005) ĉe la usona konsulejo! Hura. Ni renkontiĝis kun diversaj varsoviaj amikoj kaj bonŝance aranĝis reveni aŭte kun tre afabla vroclava familio kies filo ludis en la turniro; tio estis agrabla! (Interese mi estas 3K laŭ KGS, dum tiu filo estas 2D, kvankam ni ambaŭ estis 6K en la turniro kaj ambaŭ gajnis 3 el 6 partioj.) Pro tio 5-hora konversacio mi ekzercis mian polan kaj krome pli emas iri al somera go-lernejo, kio estas interesa tendumada tabulluda afero en julio. Kompreneble veganismo estos iomete problema tie.

My third time at this annual Warsaw go tournament. It seems I'm 6K in the European and Polish systems. Besides playing go, I also got 24 additional pages in my almost fully stamped passport (issued in 2005) at the US consulate! Yay. We met with various Warsaw friends and luckily managed to return by car with a quite friendly Wrocław family whose son played in the tournament; that was nice! (Interestingly I am 3K on KGS, while the son is 2D, although we both were 6K in the tournament and both won 3 out of 6 games.) Because of that 5-hour conversation I practiced my Polish and also am more likely to go to the summer go school in July, which is an interesting camping and boardgame thing in July. Of course veganism will be a little tricky there.

Byliśmy w Warszawie. Był coroczny turniej go a to mój treci raz tam. Poza tym, dostałem więcej stron w moim paszporcie w amerykańskim konsulacie, to dobrze bo prawie każda strona była pełna. Spotkaliśmy się z przyjaciółmi warszawskimi. Przypadkiem mogliśmy wrócić samochodem z miłą rodziną. Syn też grał w turnieju. Myślę że Letnia Szkoła Go w lipcu byłaby ciekawa dla mnie. Oczywiście weganizm będzie trochę skomplikowany tam.

http://lsg.go.art.pl/?lang=en = Letnia Szkoła Go

toniabarone @ 03:09 pm: Preparing for the Family Invasion of 2008
So my aunt Sandra and her brood are coming down July 11th through the 18th, roughly. I have a little under two weeks to clean my room.

Those that know me know I HATE cleaning my room. Partly because I'm lazy, partly because I don't have room for it once I've neatened up, and mostly cause I hate the disorder it causes me. I know where (roughly) everything is at the moment. After cleaning, it takes me anywhere from a few days to a few months to find stuff again. If it's even there for me to find!

But I just spent a bit (maybe a dozen sing-throughs of Gunpowder & Lead) clearing out the most troublesome area--the area directly between me and the tv. I can now see most of the blue rug in that space and boy does it need a cleaning. Among the things found were several DVDs, music CDs, games and, to my surprise, the first CD of the S1 DVD set for SGA. *beams* Now I can get Y into it! WHEE! *cackles*

So. Everything for about 3 sq ft is nice and neat and orderly. Now to clean the other...*does the math* Room's 11x13 so minus 3 from both sides...8x10 sq ft of space. Well, also minus the bed, which is about 6x4, which leaves 2x6. And the rollertop desk is about 2x4...*blinks and frowns* Okay, I screwed up on the math cause that means I have 2 sq ft of space to clean. *eyes room* Um. That's more than 2 sq ft. *shakes head* Anyway. I started, got some done. *beams* Ain'tcha'll proud?

Tags: cleaning room, family, rl, sandra

sonjaaa @ 04:01 pm: Career advice for secretaries
Between the chapters that teach the actual writing system, my Gregg shorthand book from the 1960s or 70s has interesting career advice for secretaries (PDF) with comments like "While her boss is not averse to a sparkling personality and good looks..." The social context feels so outdated today.

sonjaaa @ 02:42 pm: WALL-E and The Fall
When I first saw the posters for WALL-E, I immediately thought "Omg, lame family movie, hybrid rip-off of E.T. and Short Circuit."

But now I'm being told by people that it's one of the best science-fiction movies they've ever seen and that it's a must-see!

So I guess it's time to go to the movies this week. I also need to see The Fall.

No spoilers please! :)

sonjaaa @ 02:27 pm: Mnemonics for month numbers?
I remember the numbers for Jan, Feb, Mar, Aug, Nov and Dec fluently as 1, 2, 3, 8, 11 and 12, but everything in between requires me to count on my fingers and name all the months until I reach the right number to figure out what number is June or what month name is the 9th month.

I think what throws me off as well is that as a linguist I see prefixes like sept-, octo-, nov-, dec- and I have to try to ignore them in my head, because they scream the wrong numbers to me.

Do you have any visual grapheme-to-grapheme mnemonics or tricks to remember these faster? For example, see how I instantly know Cantonese tone contours and numbers.

Maybe I can use leetspeak, like: 4pril, 7uly, etc.

sonjaaa @ 03:43 am: Writing speed and style
I was initially drawn towards Gregg shorthand because of the severe limitations of longhand in trying to write as fast as I think.

My typing speed is 91 WPM using a Dvorak keyboard (1 word = 5 characters), but it's not realistic to expect me to have a computer nearby at all times, especially when I'm out and about.

I clocked my longhand writing speed today at 37 WPM (1 word = 1.4 syllables). I wrote as fast as I could while still being legible to me. I know my longhand is much faster than most people I know, but it feels so slow compared to the 100 to 280 WPM that people achieve using Gregg shorthand! It's amazing to think that after my Gregg proficiency improves with time and practice, I could potentially quadruple my writing speed!

Interestingly, my longhand is not cursive. I've been using all-caps block letters ever since I was a little kid in daycare. (I was literate very precociously.) I always felt more comfortable and faster using block letters in my personal notes, even after I was taught cursive in grade 1. And my handwriting has changed very little since age 4!

This is from an editorial cartoon I made right before the 1988 federal election, when I had just turned 10 and was in grade 5:



This is from a Star Trek comic I made in 1992, at age 13 (grade 8):



Here is an excerpt from the speed test I did today, at age 29 (in a hurried writing style):

sonjaaa @ 12:06 am: Early Flash cartoons
Wow, this takes me back to 2000. Hooptie-Goo!!

toniabarone @ 04:15 pm: Sylvia Browne, psychics, and me.
I believe psychics exist. Mostly because I am one, to a degree, but also because some folk are just so spot on, without outside info, that they have to be.

Sylvia Browne is not a psychic.

I believed in her, up until I read one of her books. I don't remember which one, just one on the afterlife and heaven and all that. I got such wrong vibes from that book and what it was spouting that I stopped reading about halfway through. Maybe it was a few chapters in, I dunno. I know I didn't finish it. Ever since, I've gotten nothing but bad vibes from her.

Then Meg showed me a site where a dude is trying to show how awful she is with logic and calm thought. While reading through this site, I came across this article and I'm astonished. One section says, abuot halfway down, quoting herfrom a chat she did:

---
Sylvia_Browne_Live says: All I saw the whole week before was fire. I kept calling my son's house. When it hit I was like "Oh my God, that's the fire." But I don't know any psychic that got a bead on it.
---

The emphasis is from the dude who who runs the site. What I take exception to is the last sentence. "But I don't know any psychic that got a bead on it." Um. *holds up hand* I did. I can't find the blog post now, but I think I was at Diaryland.com at the time of the attacks, and I remember going back and checking. Two days prior to the attacks, I got a MAJOR "bad feeling". I blogged about it. A week after the attacks, when I got my new desktop (a Dell I named Belladonna, I think I've mentioned her), I reread my blog posts and found that. I was stunned.

So, um, yeah. *raises hand* I "got a bead on it", just not the when or what, but I knew something bad would happen. And I got that feeling again when, last month (I think, maybe in May) there was a bad tornado in Virginia in the middle of the day. I got one yesterday/day before, but nothing's come of it yet. Might be a little thing, who knows. It wasn't insistant, just kinda "something Not Good is happening somewhere, or will happen soon".

Consider me a flake or not, but read that site against Browne and tell me this man is lying. Especially read his post I Speak With Sylvia Browne and this post about an email he got from someone who got a phone reading from her if you don't believe me. Very informative.

Gonna go now, done ranting. just hand to say that. Yes, I am psychic, to a degree, and no, I don't claim to able to read minds or any such thing, but I do take exception to folk who claim to be psychic and aren't and give us a bad name. At least I'm not making money on the pain of others.

Tags: 9/11, diaryland, precog, sylvia browne

toniabarone @ 09:49 am: Something funny that I found at Y's.
So I'm sittin' down this morning and I see a piece of paper on the desk. I read it and find it funny enough to share. Bold is my comments.

( Just a little thing about West Virginia... )

Hope that was amusin' to y'all folks. *bows* Ta.

Tags: humor, west virginia

sonjaaa @ 03:35 pm: LCD Soundsystem
Last week I heard a song playing in the mall that I really liked. This is a fairly rare occurrence, because malls love to play what I consider to be crap music. I wrote down the lyrics I was able to discern so I could Google them later and identify the song.

It turned out to be Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem. They're kind of poppy, electronic British dance punk or something.

toniabarone @ 11:47 am: Surprised
I just got a fresh new review for Atlantis on wraithbait. People are still reading it. Despite not being updated for nearly three years. *is in awe* That's enough to make me wanna work on it.

So. What's my fic todo list look like now?

1. 5 Bingo fics
2. Hot Zone Atlantis chapter

Hm. Maybe I'll reread Atlantis and rewatch Hot Zone and pop it out. I miss that world anyway.

And yes, Meg, I'll work on the bingo fic.

Tags: atlantis, fic, kink bingo

sonjaaa @ 08:39 pm: Dubai's moving skyscraper
Beautiful concept. Watch the video.

sonjaaa @ 06:12 pm: Cellingvaj memnomoj, ne eŭfemismoj!! / Target-language endonyms, not euphemisms!!

Mi malamas politikan korektecon sed pro aliaj kialoj ol la plimulto. Mia regulo estas simpla: Uzu la vorton, kiun la homoj mem preferas uzi por si, ke oni uzu por nomi ilin en la cellingvo. Estas la sama politiko kun individuaj homoj. Se iu diras "Nomu min Guĉjo," tiam mi nomos lin Guĉjo. Sufiĉe simplas la afero. Do mi ne ŝatas la terminon "aŭda handikapo" ĉar la plimulto de surduloj, kiujn mi konas, nomas sin surduloj. Alivorte, "aŭda handikapo" estas artefarita kaj nur uzas ĝin tiuj, kiuj provas esti ĝentilaj sed fakte scias nenion pri surdula kulturo, kaj do la eŭfemismo havas la tute malan efikon ol deziratan. Mi ne uzas vortojn kiel "kripluloj", ĉar "homoj kun fizika handikapo" kutime preferas pli neŭtralan terminon kiel tiun lastan. Por substreki la lastajn 3 vortojn de la regulo, mi ne uzas "Nipono" por "Japanio", ĉar kutime Japanoj preferas uzi la vorton "Japanio" (aŭ Japanujo) en Esperanto. En iuj okazoj ne estas interkonsento. Ekzemple, Persoj nomas sian lingvon "la persa" kaj ne "la parsia". Sed por la lando, la oficiala nomo estas Irano, uzata de la registaro kaj de malplimultoj, sed laŭ mia kompreno multaj etnaj Persoj preferas ankoraŭ nomi ĝin Persio en Esperanto. Do iafoje oni devas elekti unu flankon de debato. En tiuj okazoj, mi provas esti neŭtrala aŭ inkluzivema. La sola malfacilaĵo pri tiu politiko estas tio, ke ĝi postulas, ke la parolanto iom esploru la bezonojn de tiu komunumo kiam li priparolas ilin, kaj sciu kiel ili kutime nomas sin en la lingvo, kiun vi uzos.

I hate political correctness, but for a different reason than most. My rule is simple: Use the word that the people themselves prefer to use for themselves that people use to call them in the target language. It's the same policy as with individual people. If somebody says "Call me Gus," then I'll call them Gus. Pretty straightforward. So, I don't like "hearing impaired", because most Deaf people I know find the word offensive or at least dislike it. Deaf people call themselves Deaf. In other words, "hearing-impaired" is artificial and only used by people who are trying to be polite but who know nothing about Deaf culture, and therefore the euphemism backfires on them. I don't use words like "cripples", because "people with a physical disability" usually prefer a more neutral term like that one. To highlight the last 4 words of the rule, I don't use "Nippon" for "Japan", because Japanese people normally use the word "Japan" in the English language. In some instances, there is no consensus. For example, Persians call their language Persian in English and not Farsi. But for their country, the official name is Iran, used by the government and by minorities, but to my understanding, most ethnic Persians prefer to still call it Persia in English. So sometimes you have to take a "side". In these cases, I try to be neutral or inclusive. The only difficulty with this policy is it requires a bit of research for the speaker to know the issues of that community when referring to them, and knowing what they normally call themselves in the language you are using.