Thothmuffin
Don't get any crumbs on the scale of judgement.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I am a file cabinet.
This is maybe the most accurate personality quiz I've ever taken.
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Thursday, January 25, 2007
Describe me in three adjectives.
This is not a meme. This is because someone actually made me do that during a terrifying phone interview. I was like "Um...uh...organized? Analytical. And...um...and...friendly?"
@_@
I didn't think it would be good to say "Anxious. Introverted. Sesquipedalianistical."
@_@
I didn't think it would be good to say "Anxious. Introverted. Sesquipedalianistical."
Monday, January 22, 2007
MLIS = DADA
Here is my part of a conversation I had about how people laugh at me when I tell them I'm going for my "Masters in Library and Information Science."
TM: someone from high school laughed at me the other day when i told her what i was studying
TM: i think people are ok with it until it ends in "science"
TM: even i have to laugh a little about that
TM: i dunno, i think Library and Information Arts would be kind of cool
TM: i mean, it sounds sorcerous and alchemical
TM: they could have a fair use class and call it "Defense Against the Dark Arts"
TM: library people would LOVE that
Just wait until I am the DOMINION ARCHIVIST. THEN WE WILL SEE WHO HAS THE LAST LAUGH!!
TM: someone from high school laughed at me the other day when i told her what i was studying
TM: i think people are ok with it until it ends in "science"
TM: even i have to laugh a little about that
TM: i dunno, i think Library and Information Arts would be kind of cool
TM: i mean, it sounds sorcerous and alchemical
TM: they could have a fair use class and call it "Defense Against the Dark Arts"
TM: library people would LOVE that
Just wait until I am the DOMINION ARCHIVIST. THEN WE WILL SEE WHO HAS THE LAST LAUGH!!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Dominion!
Apparently the head of the Canadian national archiving program, who set rules on what documents and records would be preserved and how, used to be called the "Dominion Archivist." DUDE. That is the coolest job title ever.
I learned about this in an article from 1986. Now I am sad to learn that in 2004 Canada merged its library and archive divisions, and the Dominion Archivist no longer exists. The new department head is called the "Librarian and Archivist of Canada." LAME! The least they could have done was call him the "Supreme Authority of All Knowledge" or something.
Too bad, Canada. You almost succeeded in luring me into your frigid, Frenchified bosom. All I ask for is DOMINION!
I learned about this in an article from 1986. Now I am sad to learn that in 2004 Canada merged its library and archive divisions, and the Dominion Archivist no longer exists. The new department head is called the "Librarian and Archivist of Canada." LAME! The least they could have done was call him the "Supreme Authority of All Knowledge" or something.
Too bad, Canada. You almost succeeded in luring me into your frigid, Frenchified bosom. All I ask for is DOMINION!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Battery is sexy!!
On my long and arduous commute to and from school, I often pass large LED signs that flash retina-piercing ads for car dealerships, furniture stores, RV lots, etc. Yesterday I passed one for a car dealership/service center that was advertising a deal on car batteries. One of the screens in the ad cycle proclaimed "Battery is sexy!!"
I just...how does that kind of thing make it to your company's LED billboard?
I just...how does that kind of thing make it to your company's LED billboard?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Passport!
Well, I finally got my passport back, and my beloved birth certificate. *hugs them gently* I was very intimidated when I signed my name on my passport, because I was worried I would mess it up. I ended up doing it too well, though, and I will never be able to sign that nicely again. T_T I didn't used to worry about that sort of thing, but I signed so badly on a credit card receipt once that a lady at Bed Bath & Beyond asked me if it was someone else's card, and was on the brink of calling her manager. Luckily I pled a snow-shoveling injury and escaped, but will the TSA be so forgiving?!
This conversation with my brother pretty much sums up the new passport:
Brother: a passport appear! with RFID!
Thothmuffin: how do you know it has rfid?
Brother: because it has the rfid logo, came with an insert talking about rfid and has a section about not bending, folding spindling or mutilating the embedded electronic chip :p
TM: haha so you're psychic!
Brother: pretty much!
TM: crap we got 1st gen rfid passport
Brother: yeah :(
---
TM: were passports always this fancy?
you can't even see stamps on this mess!
Brother: yeah, i think they got a visual upgrade
TM: god, we got the windows vista of passports!
Brother: haha wow, such an apt comparison
The visa pages really are overdesigned. I mean, they're very pretty, but they're etchings of Notable American Things (Mayflower! Cowboys! The moon!) with varying shades of pink (red) and blue and sepia in the background. They actually remind me a lot of the new $10 and $20 bills. Seems like a lot of effort for pages that are just going to get stamped.
Hopefully being among the first to have RFID won't totally suck and result in having my identity stolen. They promise my passport is safe and secure, but I may make myself a tinfoil wallet anyway.
This conversation with my brother pretty much sums up the new passport:
Brother: a passport appear! with RFID!
Thothmuffin: how do you know it has rfid?
Brother: because it has the rfid logo, came with an insert talking about rfid and has a section about not bending, folding spindling or mutilating the embedded electronic chip :p
TM: haha so you're psychic!
Brother: pretty much!
TM: crap we got 1st gen rfid passport
Brother: yeah :(
---
TM: were passports always this fancy?
you can't even see stamps on this mess!
Brother: yeah, i think they got a visual upgrade
TM: god, we got the windows vista of passports!
Brother: haha wow, such an apt comparison
The visa pages really are overdesigned. I mean, they're very pretty, but they're etchings of Notable American Things (Mayflower! Cowboys! The moon!) with varying shades of pink (red) and blue and sepia in the background. They actually remind me a lot of the new $10 and $20 bills. Seems like a lot of effort for pages that are just going to get stamped.
Hopefully being among the first to have RFID won't totally suck and result in having my identity stolen. They promise my passport is safe and secure, but I may make myself a tinfoil wallet anyway.
Friday, January 12, 2007
One Hundred Books
I work as a volunteer "stamping and stripping" books for the local public library. (This involves stamping the book with the library's name and applying, in some sneaky and permanent manner, a magnetic strip. I will be very happy when we go to RFID.) This sounds boring, but is very soothing to the OCD, and also is a good way to stay abreast of collection development and titles that are currently popular. It is also a good way to find way too many books that I want to buy.
I noticed on the back of one book that it said the author had written more than 100 books. And I thought to myself, "Damn. That's a lot of books to write." And then I thought, "I want to write 100 books."
Can I do it? I probably have about 10 finished novels so far. I started writing at 16, so that's 10 books in 8 years. So if I kept up at this pace, I'd be 104 before I accomplished my goal. If I stay on the NaNo plan of one finished novel a year for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to live to be 114 and not, you know, get senile or anything. So obviously I'm going to have to kick it into gear.
Mercedes Lackey, for the record, has(by a rough, Wikipedia-informed count) 92 full length novels to her name or co-name. She is 56 years old, and her first book was published in 1987--meaning she has written 92 books in about 20 years. That's 4.6 books a year. One theory is that she is an idea-factory and her co-writers do a lot of the work, but she could also be a robot that never sleeps or eats. I'm not really discounting anything at this point. Nevertheless, she offers some hope, although her example also suggests that I can't do this alone.
What would I have to do to write 4-5 books a year? I would have to make money off them, and not have another job/school. I would have to have collaborators. They would have to be shorter, and probably less good than I like my books to be (NaNovels aside). And I would have to write every single day.
Maybe I should start, for now, to upping the ante to 2 books a year.
Maybe this is crazy and I should just focus on quality. But the queue of books I want to write is about 4 deep now (5 if we count Time Dragons: Armageddon). I don't like making my books wait.
I noticed on the back of one book that it said the author had written more than 100 books. And I thought to myself, "Damn. That's a lot of books to write." And then I thought, "I want to write 100 books."
Can I do it? I probably have about 10 finished novels so far. I started writing at 16, so that's 10 books in 8 years. So if I kept up at this pace, I'd be 104 before I accomplished my goal. If I stay on the NaNo plan of one finished novel a year for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to live to be 114 and not, you know, get senile or anything. So obviously I'm going to have to kick it into gear.
Mercedes Lackey, for the record, has(by a rough, Wikipedia-informed count) 92 full length novels to her name or co-name. She is 56 years old, and her first book was published in 1987--meaning she has written 92 books in about 20 years. That's 4.6 books a year. One theory is that she is an idea-factory and her co-writers do a lot of the work, but she could also be a robot that never sleeps or eats. I'm not really discounting anything at this point. Nevertheless, she offers some hope, although her example also suggests that I can't do this alone.
What would I have to do to write 4-5 books a year? I would have to make money off them, and not have another job/school. I would have to have collaborators. They would have to be shorter, and probably less good than I like my books to be (NaNovels aside). And I would have to write every single day.
Maybe I should start, for now, to upping the ante to 2 books a year.
Maybe this is crazy and I should just focus on quality. But the queue of books I want to write is about 4 deep now (5 if we count Time Dragons: Armageddon). I don't like making my books wait.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Sexy Librarian Book
I'm using a book this quarter that was written by "O'Toole and Cox."
Nothing further to report.
Nothing further to report.
And in a not-unrelated note...
From Covert Purin: I never make New Year's resolutions, so the Intarweb has made them for me.
|
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Find the Accent!
Yoinked from Davesque. Looks like the good work of Colorado public schools has beaten out my Rhode Island upbringing.
I think they should have had a question asking if, when you say the word "huge," you sound like Donald Trump. "Yooooge!" That would have exposed Davesque right away. :P
Also, do I detect an east-of-the-Mississippi bias in the explanation of the results?
I think they should have had a question asking if, when you say the word "huge," you sound like Donald Trump. "Yooooge!" That would have exposed Davesque right away. :P
Also, do I detect an east-of-the-Mississippi bias in the explanation of the results?
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. | |
| The West | |
| The Inland North | |
| Boston | |
| North Central | |
| The Northeast | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
State of the Book in Progress
Right now I'm mantled in my Bathrobe of Work, doing some serious new year's cleaning of my eternal book-in-progress (BotI, for those of you in the know). My folder for this book had become a mess of versions, non-consecutive chapters, orphaned additions, and other monsters from the nightmares of authors. Now I've collected the most recent version of each chapter and ordered them properly with consistent file names. Yay. XD
[Click for full post to read a long and boring explanation of the problems I have with file names and versioning. Is that a verb?]
I need a better way to keep track of versions of files. I start out with a file name that looks like "book_v3_23_01.doc" which is my personal notion for my Book, version 3, chapter 23, first revision of that chapter. Usually I can keep that up OK, but dramatic revisions always seem to throw a wrench in the works. For example, what do I do if I need to insert a chapter between Ch 23 and Ch 24? That new chapter usually becomes "book_v3_23_24.doc", and then in the next major revision it would be renamed to "book_v4_24.doc," which of course means that every chapter after it has to be bumped up a number in the new revision. This gets confusing if I have to go back and look at what I did in a previous incarnation of a chapter. And sometimes I do stupid things with subversions that lead to file names like "book_v3_23_01_edit2_crit_final.doc". OK, so they're not usually that bad. Usually.
I warned you it would be boring. I'm just wondering if any of you writers/artists/computer programmers have a good system (or program?) for keeping track of versions. I tell you, the date/time stamp is the most beautiful invention in the world. I would be lost without my precious "Date Modified" data.
Now that all my files are beautifully organized, I guess I have to actually go back to writing this book. Eeek. There are a lot of minor and not-so-minor changes I have to make to existing chapters, and then I can *finally* get to writing a new, forward-moving chapter. It's been...*checks date created*...a YEAR and THREE MONTHS since I've written one of those. That's even more shameful than I'd realized!
Of course, I've written two complete novels in the meantime, and added a lot of from-scratch chapters into the middle of BotI. But STILL.
I'm going to be lucky if this book is done by 2009. T_T
[Click for full post to read a long and boring explanation of the problems I have with file names and versioning. Is that a verb?]
I need a better way to keep track of versions of files. I start out with a file name that looks like "book_v3_23_01.doc" which is my personal notion for my Book, version 3, chapter 23, first revision of that chapter. Usually I can keep that up OK, but dramatic revisions always seem to throw a wrench in the works. For example, what do I do if I need to insert a chapter between Ch 23 and Ch 24? That new chapter usually becomes "book_v3_23_24.doc", and then in the next major revision it would be renamed to "book_v4_24.doc," which of course means that every chapter after it has to be bumped up a number in the new revision. This gets confusing if I have to go back and look at what I did in a previous incarnation of a chapter. And sometimes I do stupid things with subversions that lead to file names like "book_v3_23_01_edit2_crit_final.doc". OK, so they're not usually that bad. Usually.
I warned you it would be boring. I'm just wondering if any of you writers/artists/computer programmers have a good system (or program?) for keeping track of versions. I tell you, the date/time stamp is the most beautiful invention in the world. I would be lost without my precious "Date Modified" data.
Now that all my files are beautifully organized, I guess I have to actually go back to writing this book. Eeek. There are a lot of minor and not-so-minor changes I have to make to existing chapters, and then I can *finally* get to writing a new, forward-moving chapter. It's been...*checks date created*...a YEAR and THREE MONTHS since I've written one of those. That's even more shameful than I'd realized!
Of course, I've written two complete novels in the meantime, and added a lot of from-scratch chapters into the middle of BotI. But STILL.
I'm going to be lucky if this book is done by 2009. T_T
