| A Christmas Miracle |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|08:19 pm] |
Not a magic star. Not a virgin birth. Not a visit from three wise men. No, sir. Something else. Nothing magical. Just science. In fact...
London, Dec 25 (PTI) In yet another medical achievement, British scientists have restored eyesight of a partially blind person using pioneering stem cell treatment.
God bless us, every one. |
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| Lovely and Painful All at Once |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|09:03 pm] |
Today I spent time in a great deal of lovely company, first at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) okoshun's Mom's place and then at 's sister's place. I was also showered with a great many lovely gifts. The food was also quite tasty.
okoshun did most of the driving, since I'm not feeling well, but I drove us home, since she wanted some alcohol with her dinner. The drive home was extremely gruelling. It was only between 90 and 120 minutes in duration, but I felt like hell the whole way, and it was torrentially raining to the point where it made it hard to see the stripes on the road. okoshun slept through almost the whole thing, though, and we arrived home safely and without incident, so I'm thankful for that.
I'm really about ready to be done with this whole "illness" thing. It's sucking rather mightily. Also, at least one of the cats is feeling unwell. We came home to a couple of locations where they'd thrown up and one spot where there were other.. surprises. And while we *were* home late, we weren't home *that* late, and there have been some other signals recently. I'm hoping that we can manage to head this off before it gets worse. I have some theories. But it ultimately might be that Bean needs his insulin adjusted, which is a lengthy process involving several vet visits.
I really can't complain too much, but I'd especially like to be feeling better before we go to my parents' place, because it's trying at the best of times, and at the outside, before New Year's Eve, because I'd like to be able to enjoy our party.
Some of the things that I got relate to my synthesizer, which is exciting. I received another chassis, parts to build a third if I so wanted (!!!), a whole bunch of cables from multiple sources, and four new modules. I also received a tiny digital storage oscilloscope, which I've thus far gotten so far as proving to myself that I have no idea whatsoever how it works. I'll need to order some more components before I can really put the new chassis into use, but it's still all very exciting.
The only sort-of-a-bummer thing is that despite being told several times to NOT buy me clothes, okoshun's Mom decided that she wanted to buy me clothes and she'll buy me clothes if she wants to. Unfortunately, since we've been specifically telling her not to buy me clothes, we also didn't update her as to what size I take these days, and *all* the clothing is in the wrong size. It also all appears to have been bought at Outlet stores in the U.S. I feel bummed that I don't fit into it. okoshun might, and she likes some of the styles, so she might take some. The rest I'll probably donate to charity.
But all in all, despite the illness and the wrongly-sized clothing, it was a very nice Christmas day, and part 2, involving my family, is yet to come. I'm very lucky. I think that I will go try to see what I can do to reduce my desire to remove my head until it stops stabbing me, though. |
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| this is for nessun |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|01:06 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | ten | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Near To You - A Fine Frenzy | ] |
...who may indeed already follow this community.
I don't get half the jokes, being only a few eps into season 3, but I thought I'd pass on the amusement. :) |
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| Merry Christmas! |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|09:53 pm] |
We've had our Christmas Eve dinner, and decorated the tree, and I'm turning out the lights to go to bed, and wanted to share the tree with you all. I probably should have moved the table centerpiece out of the way of the camera, but it was dark and I didn't see it. Merry Christmas to all (well, to all of you who want to be wished a merry Christmas, and a happy Newtonmass or 25th or whatever you'd like to the rest of you), and to all a good night! |
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| NVIDIA: Only in Black! |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|12:04 am] |
- Go to Dell.ca. (Also works on Dell.com, I can't swear for other countries.)
- Click "For Small and Medium Business" at the top, then "Laptops and Tablets".
- Click "Choose Vostro" under the Vostro laptops.
- Click "Choose" under the Vostro 1520.
- Click "Customize it" under the rightmost model that says "Includes a 256MB Video Card".
- Click "System Color" in the icons near the bottom.
- Choose "Deep Cherry Red".
- Receive a compatability warning telling you that the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB (the only video card option for this model) is incompatible with your colour selection.
Buh?
P.S. Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates it (and happy Friday to everyone else)! (It's just a hair past midnight here.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|10:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
We went to my cousin's house today! Upon arrival, I showed my eldest younger cousin my Doctor Who scarf (He's watched some of Doctor Who). We then ate dinner, part of which was pumpkin souffle and then for dessert the pear gruyere pie that bu_sama makes for pie night. After dinner, everyone opened a few presents. The same eldest younger cousin got a civil war era bayonet! It was really neat. Apparently he has a whole civil war collection up in his room complete with musket balls and such. After I looked at his collection, more presents were opened. My family had brought wrapping paper tubes over so that my cousins could sword fight which was fun. My cousins seem a lot older now that they are 13, almost 10, and almost 8. |
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| Advise me, interwebs |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|08:48 pm] |
For Winter Holiday, I am getting myself a new phone, as the PalmOS is headed to its grave and I can't get the dang Treo to work with my carrier quite right anymore. I've determined that (A) I like TMobile enough to stay with them, (B) I will not tolerate not having a physical keyboard, and (C) I want an Android phone. Careful consideration has narrowed this down to two candidates, both of the same price. Poking on them for nigh unto an hour in the store has not helped me decide between them. THerefore, I choose the wisdom of crowds. What should I has in my pocketses?
I'm trying to choose between the Google/HTC G1 and Motorola Cliq. If I used a lot of social-networking sites, I think I'd like the Cliq, but I don't, so I don't. The trade-off is simpler: the G1 has more physical buttons and a trackball you can use to scroll screens/items when the keyboard's closed. The Cliq has more app storage space and RAM, which makes it work a lot more snappily. I really like having buttons and other physical objects, because touchscreen scrolling and touch keyboards hate my fatty fingers. I can't decide if the better speed is worth the interface annoyance, although I feel like I'd get used to the latter at some point. There's also some weird questions about OS upgrades that I choose to ignore because it's all speculative anyway.
Opinions? I think I might just pay the stupid $10 restock fee, get a Cliq, and then walk around with it for a week to see what happens. |
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| +/- |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|10:18 pm] |
+ Today was my last day of work before the holidays...
- ...but I'm going to have to remote in and work a bit during my "vacation" due to poor planning, or something.
+ I had a lovely dinner out with today...
- ...but I seem to be infected with whatever she had the other day. I hope it passes as quickly as it did for her. I feel pretty crappy at the moment, and Holiday Mayhem begins tomorrow.
+ elwoodontario gifted me with a lovely gift for use on the Sony eBook Store, for which I am very grateful.
- They seem to have made some changes to how the store couples Sony accounts and Adobe accounts which may cause eeyorerin, and I a very large amount of grief. |
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| coming in for a landing |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|10:08 am] |
Survived the flight! I love airplanes--the takeoff especially, but also what you can see out the window. The sun had set by the time we got off the ground, and the sky was clear, so for most of the trip the little glittering galaxies of lights were strung out below us. Minnesota was overcast. We dove through layer after layer of clouds, plunging through with the winglights flashing alarmingly bright white and red. And then we were down, and through, and the Cities lay beneath us, smooth white fields of lakes and the dark shapes of trees, and the soft glow of Christmas lights under snow.
I wrote about 1400 words while in airports and en route, despite the plethora of children. ("Minute 32. They have me surrounded on all sides. I am trapped against this window. Flight attendants' offers of pretzels to placate children not stopping the screams. But who will placate me?") So that's 11.4k, and eventually I really will get a wordcount meter.
Minnesota has snow, real snow. It looks like winter here. Today I'm going out present-shopping, and hopefully will return laden with all sorts of things to hide in my wardrobe and wrap in newspapers.
If I can swing it, I also want to go by the library or a bookstore--I'm taking a J-term class on GLBT content in children's and YA literature, and they've given us the list of readings, which basically reads like a list of things I've vaguely wanted to buy for the past few years except with more picture books. (Which is why library. As cool as Heather Has Two Mommies is, I don't think I need to own it.) A couple of things might be difficult to find, but I can always order them online; I just want to get a head start. |
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| Prague by Night |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|09:13 am] |
I've always wanted to go to Prague. okoshun cut it out of our European tour plans without even mentioning it to me, and I was more upset about that than I expected. It wound up being moot because the whole European tour wind up getting the chop, but still. I have a photo of Prague on my shelves in my den at home. I know surprisingly little about it, given all of that, and I really should take some time to learn more. However, in the meantime, here's some beautiful footage of it intended as a demo of the remarkable nighttime sensitivity (this purportedly used no added lighting other than that available naturally in the scene) of the Canon 1D Mark IV digital SLR:
Prague: Canon 1DMKIV from Philip Bloom on Vimeo. |
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| Installshield Update Manager |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|08:50 am] |
On my computer at work, there's a program called the Installshield Update Manager. I can't think of the last time I noticed an application using InstallShield, but I imagine some must. Anyway, every once in a blue moon it pops up, usually at a time critically set up to annoy me, and tells me that I have to check for updates. I can either just close it, or click "Check for Updates". It then invariably tells me that there are no updates available and to check again later.
This is a classic case of terrible UI design, incidentally. It should just check in the background and only prompt me if there are updates actually available, before it installs them.
Today, however, it popped up when I wasn't hugely busy, just as I was settling in and doing my morning stuff, so I took the chance to poke at it a little. It turns out that there's a button that allows you to show what all programs are using the it to search for updates. It said that there were two programs. I was kind of curious, so I clicked it.
The two programs: Installshield Update Manager, and Update Manager.
So basically, all this time I've been putting up with this thing when every actual app that depends on it has been long-since uninstalled and it's only been checking for updates for itself.
Durr. Off to Add/Remove Programs for me! |
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| "A Phoenix By Any Other Name" is up! |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|07:21 am] |
My short fantasy science fiction story, "A Phoenix By Any Other Name," is now up at Short-Story.me! and you can go there to read it for free. This is an older story of mine that I revamped and sent out, and I'm quite pleased it's found a home.
Excerpt:
"I need a creature that none have seen, and it should be wild and impressive to the eye. It must be perfect. I am hosting a party, and I intend it to be an occasion that people will speak of for months. It occurred to me that a live, exotic creature would add a touch of novelty." Lupant looked down his nose at his surroundings, as if doubting such a thing could be found here.
"Certainly, sir," Bruant said. "Let me show you our stock." He gestured to the store window, where two rigid gray lizards balanced upright on the tips of their tails, their eyes closed, their forelegs crossed over their chests. "These tomb-lizards are from the planet Cassial. They are known as tomb-lizards because of the resemblance between their dormant state and gravestones: the gray color, the posture--"
"Do they do anything interesting?"
Bruant blinked. "Every half-hour, they revive, change to their normal color, and run around frantically for about ten minutes."
"In other words, no."
Read more.
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