Thothmuffin
Don't get any crumbs on the scale of judgement.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Insomnia, where did you come from?!
OK, suddenly I have insomnia! I've been sleeping 7-8 hours every night just fine for months. I haven't had any caffeine today. I haven't eaten for 8 hours. I have to get up at 8 AM tomorrow. There's not good reason why I should still be awake. I'm just...not tired!
Maybe I have turned into some sort of superhuman who no longer requires sleep. I doubt this for one very good reason:
1. A superhuman would not have spent the last hour of precious time snatched from sleep's claws looking at lolcats.
I guess we will see how superhuman I feel tomorrow. IF TOMORROW EVER COMES. If I never sleep, won't it just be today...FOREVER? I know time doesn't work like that, but it feels that way when I don't sleep.
But now you know the conditions under which I have the time to make blog posts. That's right, the blog comes AFTER an hour of lolcats.
I will try to do better.
Maybe I have turned into some sort of superhuman who no longer requires sleep. I doubt this for one very good reason:
1. A superhuman would not have spent the last hour of precious time snatched from sleep's claws looking at lolcats.
I guess we will see how superhuman I feel tomorrow. IF TOMORROW EVER COMES. If I never sleep, won't it just be today...FOREVER? I know time doesn't work like that, but it feels that way when I don't sleep.
But now you know the conditions under which I have the time to make blog posts. That's right, the blog comes AFTER an hour of lolcats.
I will try to do better.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Another Installment of "Words I've Never Heard"
My archival studies reading today brings you, dear readers, another installment of "Words I've Never Heard!" Today's word of the day is: thigmotropic.
In context:
"the archivist-historian relationship is a thigmotropic one. Archivists do historical work of sorts and historians do archival work of sorts."
Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing [!] the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice", Archivaria 33 (Summer 1991), p.86
From Internet gleanings (The American Heritage Dictionaries), it appears that "thigmotropism" refers to "The turning or bending response of an organism upon direct contact with a solid surface or object. Also called stereotropism." I grok this as what happens when a tree encounters a fence post and proceeds to grow around it, or, if you like, the mythical phenomenon of the kitten in a jar. Very well.
So wtf is Brothman talking about? Is the archivist the organism, and the historian the object? Or the other way around? Or can there be a such thing as mutual thigmotropism, whereby two organisms act as objects for each other? In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
More importantly, wouldn't it have been clearer and more accurate to say "The shape of the archival profession affects the shape of the historical profession, and vice versa"? Or just delete the first sentence all together, and rely on the second sentence to make the point, though in an unhelpfully imprecise way?
On a side note: this is why skimming reading is so difficult for me. If authors would be considerate enough to confine themselves primarily to one- or two-syllable words, things would go much faster. I'm just glad I only have to read a reaction paper to Brothman's article, and not the whole thing, although who knows how many deliciously unnecessary new words he could teach me?
In context:
"the archivist-historian relationship is a thigmotropic one. Archivists do historical work of sorts and historians do archival work of sorts."
Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing [!] the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice", Archivaria 33 (Summer 1991), p.86
From Internet gleanings (The American Heritage Dictionaries), it appears that "thigmotropism" refers to "The turning or bending response of an organism upon direct contact with a solid surface or object. Also called stereotropism." I grok this as what happens when a tree encounters a fence post and proceeds to grow around it, or, if you like, the mythical phenomenon of the kitten in a jar. Very well.
So wtf is Brothman talking about? Is the archivist the organism, and the historian the object? Or the other way around? Or can there be a such thing as mutual thigmotropism, whereby two organisms act as objects for each other? In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
More importantly, wouldn't it have been clearer and more accurate to say "The shape of the archival profession affects the shape of the historical profession, and vice versa"? Or just delete the first sentence all together, and rely on the second sentence to make the point, though in an unhelpfully imprecise way?
On a side note: this is why skimming reading is so difficult for me. If authors would be considerate enough to confine themselves primarily to one- or two-syllable words, things would go much faster. I'm just glad I only have to read a reaction paper to Brothman's article, and not the whole thing, although who knows how many deliciously unnecessary new words he could teach me?
Sunday, April 01, 2007
The USPS: It's better not to know
I still submit my tax forms in paper by mail, for some strange reason. I will do everything else on the Internet, but when it comes to taxes, I just really need the satisfaction of filling out and copying and stapling all my forms and what have you.
But then I have to mail them. I think, deep down inside, I trust the USPS less than I trust the Internet to deliver things on time. So what do I do? I send my taxes priority mail with delivery confirmation, thinking this will prevent any nastiness.
Yesterday when I checked the status of my tax packet, I got a message that went something like this:
"Your item has been sent to an incorrect destination. We are doing everything we can to correct this error as soon as possible. Delivery Confirmation status is updated every evening."
I wish I'd copied the message exactly, because it was such a hilarious mix of surprise and apology. I was not greatly comforted by it, but I checked back today and everything seems to have worked out. It does make me sort of wonder what would have happened if I had sent it by regular 1st class...is the USPS less likely or more likely to get that wrong?
I do love the USPS, though. They're fast, they're dedicated, and now they have Star Wars themed EVERYTHING, including R2-D2 mailboxes. I just don't want to know how they work their strange and wonderful magic.
But then I have to mail them. I think, deep down inside, I trust the USPS less than I trust the Internet to deliver things on time. So what do I do? I send my taxes priority mail with delivery confirmation, thinking this will prevent any nastiness.
Yesterday when I checked the status of my tax packet, I got a message that went something like this:
"Your item has been sent to an incorrect destination. We are doing everything we can to correct this error as soon as possible. Delivery Confirmation status is updated every evening."
I wish I'd copied the message exactly, because it was such a hilarious mix of surprise and apology. I was not greatly comforted by it, but I checked back today and everything seems to have worked out. It does make me sort of wonder what would have happened if I had sent it by regular 1st class...is the USPS less likely or more likely to get that wrong?
I do love the USPS, though. They're fast, they're dedicated, and now they have Star Wars themed EVERYTHING, including R2-D2 mailboxes. I just don't want to know how they work their strange and wonderful magic.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Check out all these crazy mothers!
Yesss! I finally found the obscure shoebox that I stuffed the pans for my Scales of Justice in. Oh, balance is restored~! <3
And I doused my oven with vinegar again and let it cook itself for about 3 hrs at 500F, and now I think almost all the death smell is gone.
I was telling my mother about my oven problem last weekend, and she was like "Oh, yeah, did you rinse it with vinegar?" And I realized that my mom is this huge source of practical and household knowledge, as I'm sure many people's mothers are. They are an untapped resource! So now I want to do a show called "Your Mom vs. the Internet" to see which one can come up with better, more relevant, and more reliable answers to real-life problems in the shortest amount of time.
My money's on my mom, to be honest. But I think the Internet has better hours, and I don't feel nearly as bad about waking it up in the middle of the night for trivial things.
And I doused my oven with vinegar again and let it cook itself for about 3 hrs at 500F, and now I think almost all the death smell is gone.
I was telling my mother about my oven problem last weekend, and she was like "Oh, yeah, did you rinse it with vinegar?" And I realized that my mom is this huge source of practical and household knowledge, as I'm sure many people's mothers are. They are an untapped resource! So now I want to do a show called "Your Mom vs. the Internet" to see which one can come up with better, more relevant, and more reliable answers to real-life problems in the shortest amount of time.
My money's on my mom, to be honest. But I think the Internet has better hours, and I don't feel nearly as bad about waking it up in the middle of the night for trivial things.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Meet my vinegar and despair, Oven!
So, my new apartment is really nice, but the appliances in it have been giving me some trouble. The dishwasher doesn't get dishes clean (a major problem), my oven reeks of poisonous oven-cleaner residue whenever I turn it on, and I'm pretty sure my dryer is missing the removeable part of its lint-trap, but it might just be poor design, so I'm afraid to bring it up.
The dishwasher is obviously something I'm going to have to take up with my landlords, but I figured the oven cleaner miasma could be fixed with a simple rinse. And I wanted brownies!
However, my foe was wilier than I surmised. Apparently oven cleaner is impervious to water. I thought of using vinegar, then wondered if that would make matters worse, so of course I asked the Internet. eHow told me that a watered-down vinegar solution would fix my problem in a trice. Not bothering to convert measurements to the scale I needed, I just threw some vinegar and water in a spray bottle and had at it! (Organic chemistry had a lasting and possibly detrimental effect on my willingness to accurately measure.)
I'm trying the heat-test of my oven right now, and despite my devil-may-care attitude towards proper concentrations, it seems to be working. At least, the oven cleaner smell is greatly dimished, and there is only a slight scent of warm vinegar, which hopefully will dissipate.
The dishwasher is obviously something I'm going to have to take up with my landlords, but I figured the oven cleaner miasma could be fixed with a simple rinse. And I wanted brownies!
However, my foe was wilier than I surmised. Apparently oven cleaner is impervious to water. I thought of using vinegar, then wondered if that would make matters worse, so of course I asked the Internet. eHow told me that a watered-down vinegar solution would fix my problem in a trice. Not bothering to convert measurements to the scale I needed, I just threw some vinegar and water in a spray bottle and had at it! (Organic chemistry had a lasting and possibly detrimental effect on my willingness to accurately measure.)
I'm trying the heat-test of my oven right now, and despite my devil-may-care attitude towards proper concentrations, it seems to be working. At least, the oven cleaner smell is greatly dimished, and there is only a slight scent of warm vinegar, which hopefully will dissipate.
