The random nerdy interests of a random nerdy person
It’s been one of my most popular designs and now it’s better than ever!
It was inspired by a tweet by Ursula Vernon and now it’s got a cool background on many products and more stuff, including masks, aprons, and puzzles (and more) Get this design and many more here: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/40084254
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If you’re like me and deciding what to eat is HARD and making anything that’s more than two steps is SUPER HARD, then this is for you.
Tips:
Make things you can freeze (I’ll be posting some recipes soon). A lot of things can be frozen if you think you can’t finish all of it before it spoils. Can’t finish that loaf of bread? Divide it into bits you can finish in a week, wrap it up in plastic, and chuck it in the freezer. Defrost in the fridge later.
Convenience foods are your friends. Whether that’s a frozen meal, pre-cut veggies, canned chicken – that’s all stuff that makes getting food into you easier & that’s all that matters.
If you can afford to and you have the space, canned foods are great. Canned chicken or tuna, some frozen veggies, and some bread, rice, or pasta is a good meal.
Make a list of foods you like that are easy and keep it on the fridge so when you can’t think of stuff, you can look at the list. Mine would include miso soup, peanut butter & crackers, bread & cheese, and rice & veggies.
Two books I like:
Cooking is Terrible: This isn’t recipes so much as ideas. But they’re good ideas.
Just Bento: She just came out with a second one, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s full of recipes that are yummy, many of which you can freeze. Browse through the website for lots of recipes too. Most of them are Japanese inspired. Warning: there is some talk of “health” and calories. I ignore all of it because I’m more concerned with getting food into me, but you may not be able to.
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I just read Tamales in Space, and Other Phrases For the Beginning Speaker and it nearly made me cry. It’s a beautiful short story about communication difficulties, diaspora, and homesickness.
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If you follow me on twitter or Facebook you’ve already seen me talking (incessantly, on Twitter) about this, but here’s an official announcement: I’ve started producing a podcast. I’m writing, voicing, and editing it, and I’m open to suggestions.
It’s called A Heroic Moment and it’s a short (about five minutes) podcast set at the radio station of a school for heroes. I’m going to try to be just as diverse as I can – there are already scripts written involving trans, fat, deaf, and wheelchair-using heroes. And, yes, I’ll be providing transcripts.
You can listen and comment at http://aheroicmoment.libsyn.com and it should show up in Itunes, Google Play, and Spotify in the next couple of days if it hasn’t already.
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http://mcmansionhell.com/post/166413635446/looking-around-on-moving-or-the-story-of-a
Each of the times I’ve moved from apartment to apartment (and finally, on this move, to an actual, full-sized house), there have been great difficulties loading and unloading all of my crap– difficulties innate to the houses themselves. These were usually small hardships, involving the clever rotation of a sofa or armchair in order to wrestle it out the door.
This time, however, I came to a horrifying revelation: None of my existing furniture would be able to A.) fit within the cramped dimensions of the narrow staircase or B.) make it around the corner in the shallow hallway to my room.
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bibliobibuli n. – those who read too much, and hence tend to be unaware of or oblivious to the real world
Trying to clear out the backlog of links so this is going to be a big one. But I’m including pretties this time.
(as always pics are linked to their source and you can view more of my favorites on DeviantArt)
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Prints & Photographs, Tissandier Collection – hundreds of old prints, including lots and lots of hot air balloons. Good for steampunk stuff. (from the Library of Congress)
The Magazine Rack – free digitized magazines that are out of copyright. Omni, Galaxy, Heavy Metal, lots others. Available in PDF, epub, mobi, djvu, some more. Preview it before you download – if they did OCR it’s terrible, but scans are good. (from Archive.org)
My Robot Nation – design a robot and get it 3-D printed. It costs to get it printed, but it’s fun just to play with it.
Stagecoach Mary Fields – incrediably badass black woman. (link CN: violence, gun violence, historical racism). Apparently she’s going to get a movie soon, which will be awesome. (from BlackCowboys.com)
From gay marriage to cougar wives, the Victorians have much to teach us (CN: ableist language) (From Guardian.co.uk)
Pattern Cooler – where I got my background. You can customize the colors and size of thousands of seamless patterns. PNGs are free, other options cost.
What Good Writers Still Get Wrong about Blind People, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. A talk delivered at Readercon in 2010. (from Kestrell.dreamwidth.com)
How not to be a privileged ass: A lazy person’s guide (from Stealing Commas)
Giving the gift of worlds – “Non-fiction opens up the world we live in, teaching us more about our surroundings. Fiction opens countless others. It lets you climb inside the head of somebody else and see the universe through their eyes for a while. If the character in question resembles you, it can make you feel less isolated. If they don’t, you gain understanding and empathy for people whose experiences of life are entirely different from your own.” She’s looking for recommendations for ebooks with minority or women protagonists. (from Tea-Fuelled Musings)
(Sorry, I don’t have the energy to deal with selecting, resizing, and linking pictures. Look here for pretties.)
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Sorry, this is going to light on pretty pictures and heavy on things that are of limited interest to most people. You don’t like it, there are thousands of other blogs you could be reading.
Teach yourself linguistics
From all things linguistics:
Other Things
From Aveneca.com, host of the new CBB (aka the conlang board I’m on)
Linguistics lessons for language learners. Includes IPA, phonology, morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, sound change, and more. (from Nativlang, which also has some free lessons in different languages and published some books on Amazon and Lulu that look interesting)
It’s ‘not’ history – how negation usage changes in a cycle through languages. (from the University of Cambridge)
Lexique Pro – a free program for creating a lexicon for your conlang (or natlangs). I wish it was portable. Windows only.
How many languages did Tolkien make?
From Frathwiki.com, one of the conlang wikis:
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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West
Savoy Stomp Stomping through the Savoy Cocktail Book. Also other cocktails, recipes, and other blog stuff.
No Logic in “Etymological”: A Response I Actually Sent Kory Stamper is a lexicographer at Merriam-Webster. She gets odd correspondence. This is a response to one of them. (from Harmless Drudgery)
The Germans have a word for it – and it’s a very long one. ‘The editor of the Accidental Empire series muses on another thing the Germans do extremely well’ (from The Guardian)
Look! Up in the sky! It’s…it’s… it’s an amazing optics display What you can get from just ice crystals and sunlight (from Bad Astronomy)
Cocktail DIY: Stocking Your Bar At Home I’ve started following the blog which has all sorts of great recipes, aside from cocktails. (from Putney Farm)
An Open Letter to Writers in 3 Acts: the Anguish & the Glory (from A. Victoria Mixon, Editor)
(note on this post’s title: Gunsel has a factoid associated with it that will never fail to amuse me. From Dictionary.com:
gunsel
1914, Amer. Eng., from hobo slang, “a catamite;” specifically “a young male kept as a sexual companion, esp. by an older tramp,” from Yiddish genzel, from Ger. Gänslein “gosling, young goose.” The secondary, non-sexual meaning “young hoodlum” seems to be entirely traceable to Dashiell Hammett, who snuck it into “The Maltese Falcon” (1939) while warring with his editor over the book’s racy language.
” ‘Another thing,’ Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: ‘Keep that gunsel away from me while you’re making up your mind. I’ll kill him.’ “
The context implies some connection with gun and a sense of “gunman,” and evidently the editor bought it. The word was retained in the script of the 1941 movie made from the book, so evidently the Motion Picture Production Code censors didn’t know it either.
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Yeah, I’m just naming these something silly from now on.
“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.” – Neil Gaiman
The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains, part 1 and part 2. Why green lights are blue in Japan, how you name colors if your language only has two words, and a lot more cross-linguistic facts. (From Empirical Zeal)
Tired of cliché? Want to be unique? Pursue the why. Figure out the causes of your scenario and the consequences to add depth to your writing. (From TalkToYoUniverse)
Rules, Schmules: Don’t Follow the Rules, Tell a Great Story. “If you’re more concerned with the technical rules of writing than the story itself, you’re hurting your chances of ever getting published.” (From The Other Side of the Story)
Why I Love That Bad Guy: The “S” and “Z” Blocks. Did you know Tetris has villains? This is just amusing. (From Love the Bad Guy)
Mario’s Creators Answer Burning Questions About The Series. Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. We find out the Koopalings aren’t Bowser’s kids and that ‘Dr.’ Mario has no medical license. (From Game Informer)
Review of the Weaponeers of Monkaa (From Michael Crawford’s Review of the Week). And the announcement from Spy Monkey Creations, with more pictures. I don’t need any more toys, but these look awesome to have on your desk to fiddle with. They come apart into lots of pieces (at least 25) and are compatible with all Glyos System toys. The most original thing? Some pieces can be a hand or a head and look nice as either.
And in other pretties news, my latest favorites on DeviantArt: A cat in Nick Fury cosplay, a really amazing Ryuk (from Death Note) cosplay, a gorgeous Voodoo Priestess drawing, and the best tutorial for getting that old comic book look I’ve ever seen.
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I would post another chapter of ‘Ostanes’ except I had a stupid moment (they’re unfortunately not uncommon, but usually small) and left the thumbdrive with it at home. I may post it later today, since I finally have internet at home.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about doing a link dump, and then I saw the first thing and HAD to share it.
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I'm alternately known as Silvercat, Silver, and Silver Tyger. Check out the categories for regular features.
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