Seven Quirks meme

tagged by lori_lee69.

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it".


1. If I accidentally kick a kerb or something I balance that by doing the same with the other foot.

2. I stop to stretch my calves (dropping my heels down with my toes on a step) pretty much whenever I go for a walk - have done since I was around ten.

3. I have trouble sleeping without either showering first or just sleeping in my clothes - preferably the former.

4. I sometimes calculate square roots of small integers in my head when I'm bored, to as many decimal places as I can manage.

5. I've only got around half a dozen fine hairs growing on each of my toes, but I still want to get them lasered.

6. I was mostly very bad at sport, but I did hold the distance record for frisbee throwing one year in high school.

7. I want to grow a hedge maze one day. Closest I've come so far was planting a dozen Tiny Trevs for an ornamental border too close to the start of summer - all but two of them died.


I tag originalnilson, angriest, capnoblivious, catundra, sithmagician, skwerlie and callistra.

After stephbg.

My current laptop wallpaper is Howard Sayles' "Faded Glory."



Because it's pretty without being too attention grabbing, and I wouldn't mind having a study decorated in that style.

Way back in the mists of time, sometime around 1984, my Dad would drive me to school. We'd usually listen to 6WF (now 720 ABC Perth), where between 8am and 8:30 they'd read the next instalment of a Book. I quite enjoyed sharing that experience with Dad.

That was my introduction to Orwell's 1984.

There was another book they read that year (or possibly in 1985, but I think I was cycling to school by then). It involved a group of people negotiating an unpopulated building or citadel full of lethal traps, while they hunted down a criminal who had some kind of mental stench. I've no idea what it was called, or who it was by.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Very very good.
Also, very very the-opposite-of-uplifting. I'd say the least uplifting thing I've seen since Maria Full of Grace.

Oh, and I hated Wikus more than any protagonist since.. well, Lord Foul wasn't the protagonist of the Covenant books. Nor was wotsisface from the Time Master trilogy. Ok, since ever.

Sorry, he was just never ( spoiler ). Even his ( spoiler ) was frequently ( spoiler ). The second time he was ( spoiler ) I was just barracking for ( spoiler ).

I spent the bicycle ride back to work from the cinema wilfully enjoying the sunshine, and thinking about butterflies and kittens. Go see it if you haven't, but hide the knives first.

ps - the shakey cam is A Current Affair bad, rather than Blair Witch bad..

Originally got this from letsburn00 a few days ago, though it was sithmagician's post this morning that reminded me I was going to pass it on.



I'm impressed :)

Back in around second or third year uni, I skipped most of the lectures for a unit on Linear Programming. Most of it seemed to be teaching you how to do by hand something that I thought if I ever needed to do I'd just download some software for, though the first few weeks were good for laying out the basics.

I crammed for a couple of days before the exam and got a B.

Nearly two decades later, and one of my more pointless hobbies this year has been attempting to get into the global high score table table for a massively multiplayer browser game, namely Nightfall - Bloodlines. There are a number of different categories of Legend, but the most promising appeared to be Most Wealthy - I was going well at hoarding blood. After a few months I discovered the amount you could bank was limited by your level, so having exhausted the limited storyline mode, I tracked down the mission that gave you the most XP per energy expended and settled into a thrice daily level grind, piling most of my skill points into improving my max energy and hence increasing my rate of advancement. (As well as a trickle over time that stops when you're full, you also get a full energy refill each level bump).

A few weeks ago I reached the point of being about to stick my head over the parapet, and belatedly started looking into building up my defences against any attacks my expected fame as 25th most wealthy might bring. A few defeats and crash course in fight mechanics later, and I switched my skill point income over to building up my primary defence stat.

All that remained was to determine the optimal spread of "powers" to acquire in order to maximise my total defence bonus. (Oh, and at some point I realised the significance of increasing clan size up to 500, but that recruitment drive was a few months ago now, and a whole 'nother story - it's also why I had 937 FB "friends" at the start of July, but that's back down to something more sensible now).

So. I had an income of 1.4million blood per hour, and 504 clan members and zombies to equip with a power each from the Sensory, Physical and Mystical categories, and only a few hundred million blood with which to buy them. Each power costs between $400 and $1.6m, grants a defence bonus between zero and +16, and has an hourly upkeep of up to $3600. It wasn't obvious how best to divide my ill gotten gains, so I did what any obsessive compulsive game playing programmer and ex-engineer would do, and downloaded a Linear Programming solver.

port install lp_solve

One python script later to parse the Powers list from the fan-run game wiki and spit out some equations to pipe through to the solver, and I had not only my ideal mix of defences, but a tool with which I could easily play what-ifs for seeing how the blend would change if I saved up for another few days, or kept aside some income for capital growth. Some of the inclusions were quite surprising, but the result is substantially better than I'd managed by hand.

My defences are holding, and I'm looking forward to sharing this post with a dear friend once he's well enough to read it.

rabbit1080 and I went to see a play this evening.

It was the saddest day of both their lives... Andrew the Astronaut and Richard the Cowboy happen upon each other in a storybook park.

It was like sitting in a giant diorama :) Cardboard buildings and paper bread crumbs, shadow puppetry on the face of the moon. More than a tad nihilistic, but highly recommended. And as J just reminded me, the lighting was stunning.

Runs until the end of next week.

Tuesday - In One Act by Demelza Rogers. Directed by Alexa Taylor.
Featuring Jeremy Mitchell and Kit Sparrow, with lighting and sound by Joe Lui.

20 August – 4 September. Meet the Artists Wednesday 26 August
8:30pm Tuesday – Saturday @ The Blue Room Studio, 53 James St Northbridge
Tickets: $22 / $15 concession. Blue Room members $18 / $12 conc. 
Bookings: 9227 7005 / www.blueroom.org.au

From The Australian:
QUEENSLAND women facing the trauma of a medical abortion will have to cross the border for the procedure because the state's biggest hospital has scrapped its service, forcing the state government to review its controversial laws on abortion.

I'm somewhat lost for words :(

(thanks baby_elvis for the heads up. Oh, and just in case it's not obvious, I'm strongly pro-choice).

I posted a poll earlier this evening, but I think this one's better worded.

I'm off to see District 9 and Coraline sometime over the next week, and am wondering about others' experiences, and how best to prepare for District 9.

Poll #1446268 a better worded poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 21

I've seen Coraline 3D and..

I've seen Alive in Joberg (the 6 minute short that led to District 9) and think..

Once again, reasons in the comments, but no spoilers please :)

So I really want to get around to watching both Coraline and District 9 at the cinema over the next week or two.

But first I have two questions.

Poll #1446238 Help me watch movies
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

How should I watch Coraline?

Which should I watch first?

Coraline I don't know if the stereoscopic thing adds enough to the experience to outweigh any obtrusiveness. Does anyone know which Gaiman prefers?

District 9 I'm torn between avoiding the short it was based on to avoid spoilers, and watching the short first as it may be more impactful for its brevity (as was the case with Enders Game, for which I'm very glad I read the short story before the novel).

Reasons in the comments, but no spoilers please :)

ETA - "Alive in Joburg" is the six minute short that "District 9" was based on, by the same director. I'm definitely going to watch both (likely on the same day), it's just a matter of which way round.

What do these things have in common?

An intriguing blog I found over at esden.net. Common Lisp by day, open source motor controllers for multicopters by night.

Friday
Attended Dr Megan McArthur’s talk for Science Week about her trip into space to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope. Very very cool. Excellent public speaker, awe inspiring video footage of the mission (especially seeing the telescope sliding overhead at mission's end), and she dealt really well with a wide range of questions from adults and children alike.

Saturday
Drinks at Hula Bula with rabbit1080, cherry_distort, dead_corvette, Todd, fipuss, cupcakesncandy, maffyew and Jason F. Lovely to catch up with cherry_distort and friends while she's in town :)

Sunday
Families for Freedom picnic. Somewhat washed out, but still got over a hundred people down. Go Team! Next one should be in October. With a little more notice and better weather we're hoping for a much bigger turnout.

On Sunday, August 16th 2009 (tomorrow) join families, friends and community members who support same-sex and gender diverse couples at our community picnic and support day, “Families for Freedom”. Wear something bright or rainbow coloured, and bring a rainbow umbrella if you can find one (you never know - it may rain on our parade!)


Why are we gathering together?

This August, Senator Hanson-Young will be presenting a bill to repeal the ban on same-sex marriage, and to redefine marriage and family as an institution of love, not discrimination, that should be open to all those who have a committed, loving relationship.


Families are about more than gender balances, they are about providing a supportive, loving support network for each other and for our children. We want to show our support for this bill, and its potential to change the law to reflect the true diversity of Australian families.


Join with us, and show our gay, lesbian and gender alternative loved ones that we love them for who they are, and that we support their right to have their relationships treated equally.


Date: Sunday, 16th Aug 09
Time: 11am - 2pm
Location: Cottesloe Beach Foreshore (under the Teahouse if it's raining :)

(layout snaffled from fred_mouse, more here and here).

The Enrico Antinori boots I bought on sale from Zomp in King St on the 4th of July have been interesting.

3" heel, no platform, fairly classic style¹, calf length. They're comfortable and conservative enough² that I've been wearing them a lot.³


Firstly an observation..

Four or five half days a week of continuous low level exercise is a fantastic way of firming your glutes, and your thighs, and your hamstrings. I've been doing a lot of stretching just to avoid losing any flexibility, and also doing a bit of pilates and cycling, but I think the sore muscles I had for most of last week was basically from a change of footwear. I'm liking my legs at the moment :)


..and secondly a little story.

My cousin's 18th birthday was on Sunday, so there was a moderate sized gathering of my (very dress conscious) mother's side of the family at my cousins house. The boots in question are a perfect fit for how dressy I thought the occasion was, but I wavered because I didn't really want to make a fuss, and I wasn't sure how they'd go down. I mentioned this on my FB status, and a friend just came back with the suggestion that I should wear a skirt..

So anyway, I wore the boots. Arrived at the house, not planning on drawing any attention to them. We let ourselves in the front door, then discovered that everyone was in a sunken lounge area, so basically we were going to be greeting everyone from the top of a small flight of stairs. So much for being subtle.

Imagine my surprise when the first thing my ultra-conservative Grandmother (the one always on at me to cut my hair) says is "Those are nice shoes, Christopher".
me: *thanks her, and comments about the sales assistant being a friend of my sisters*⁴
g: "Are they women's boots?"
me: *umms and pauses while panicking about how much of an answer to give*
g: "Oh, they're unisex?"
me: (firmly) "Yes."

Now at the time I just didn't want to launch into a political speech at a family gathering, but thinking about it the following day, that was exactly the right answer. If one of my aims is to reject the division of clothing along gender lines, then I should be treating my attire as unisex, and part of that is describing it as such. Go me :)


They went down pretty well at _fnkymnky's gig at Double Lucky on Thursday night, too.


¹Think mid-heeled black leather go-go boots, in the original 60's sense of a mainstream fashion street boot.
²by my standards!
³It also helps that I now have enough pairs of plain skinny black pants that I don't need to worry about wearing out the one pair I had before - picked up some more lip-service at clearance prices from MAME a little while back.
⁴..though I found out later she was actually more a friend of my cousin.

..the awesome starts 50 seconds in..

Got a link from @attentive yesterday. Last.fm has published a list of the Top 50 Unwanted Scrobbles¹ (June 2009) - the songs their users most frequently deleted from their public listening stats.

Paul Lamere posits here that this makes a great Uncoolness index. It is, after all, a list of the songs that people most frequently listen to without wanting to own up to it.²

Given @attentive's observation that there's a strong slant towards female artists, perhaps that's where some of the missing Hottest 100 votes went..


¹Scrobbling is a term used by Last.fm to refer to the process of logging the tracks you listen to - partly so they can rec stuff to you, and partly to help them find people with similar interests to you, but I mostly like having my own personal charts of what I actually listen to :)

²..though it doesn't include any tracks for which their users remember to turn off the software before pressing play on their music player of choice.

rabbit1080's selling her 2yo road bike.

$50 ono, though it'll need another $30 to $50 spent on it to replace the front bearing before it's roadworthy again. We'll also throw in a rear mudguard.



First best bid by noon Tuesday gets it, buyer collects unless they're quite central in which case we can deliver. Leave a comment (screened) or email me (shrydar at jaruth dot com).

In the wake of the male dominated JJJ Hottest 100 tracks of all time, I've been enjoying following all the Female Appreciation Month posts various friends have been making (pharoah_katt's been tracking them here).

For my own part, my immediate response was to think "hey, if I set up a poll site with OpenID authentication for LJ and FB, and a hierarchical song selector, and a drag and drop sorting widget, then I could find out how gender balanced or otherwise my friends' Hottest 100 would be." And then realised that that would probably be several days full time work, and before I even started various efforts got underway for voting for a female-focused Hottest 100.

So instead, I'm going to point y'all to Naomi Eve's "Hottest 100 Songs Performed by Women" Facebook group and Twitter account, and present a draft of my personal female-vocalist Hottest 100.

Or rather, my very roughly sorted top 120 candidates, headed up by my approximate top ten. I'm still missing a few artists, and for some of those I have the song selection is still up in the air, and the order's nowhere near final, but hopefully if I post it I'll be able to put it aside for a day or two while the comments roll in :) (not to mention the snark for some of my more embarrassing admissions :P)

The top dozen or so are definite all time favourites¹, but beyond that it gets sooo hard to order them! There are also a number of artists I really like who are only missing because none of their individual songs are as classic as the ones I've listed.

I've pretty much stuck to Naomi's rules, though I've also tended to shy away from covers, otherwise I'd probably throw in most of The Women At the Well, too (a most excellent compilation album of Paul Kelly songs covered by women from Australia and New Zealand) - I'd recommend hunting down a copy.

( The list )

¹though I will add that I've only known 'Seventeen' for a couple of years, and I'd forgotten about 'One For Sorrow' until the other day when I stumbled across it hunting for '5,6,7,8', at which point it made me cry... How well those two will stand the test of time I don't know.

We watched Peter Weir's adaptation of Joan Lindsay's novel last night.

The first half hour or so felt like someone had asked David Lynch to film The Sontaran Experiment against mattes by Frederick McCubbin.

From there it got a little more distinctive. I've fond memories of playing the syncopated ascent theme on the piano.

And in researching this post I discovered that I've been conflating Peter Weir and Peter Greenaway - an easy mistake to make?

The Swan imagery was somewhat heavy handed.

Had a fairly sociable weekend all things considered - a couple of hours at each of aegis_nullius and dang_dodo_ditty's combined birthday gathering at MOtown on Friday, sIn predrinks at miaowkytten's on Saturday (though no sIn), and Ingles for some of notsomighty's crew on Sunday night. Was good to catch up with people. The 'roo at the Ingles is yummy, though service was a bit poor.

Discovered Tequila Rose at the middle gathering. belzacue is evil.

Caved and got the boots from Zomp on my way to Maylands on Friday. Classic mid heeled calf length, nothing too fancy, just very good quality and something I can wear around town without risking fatal death. Just need to put protective soles on them now.

Missed the window for voting in angriest's best SF TV of all time poll, and Triple J's all time hottest 100. Oops.