Random, messy, personal thoughts and links Estd. 1999 by Joelle Nebbe-Mornod aka Iphigenie / Superiphi, old style netizen, digital native, enthusuastic reader, walker, photographer, web entrepreneur, ecommerce consultant, wine merchant and openly curious mind
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
So why are these things different? Especially outrageous?
I can’t identify any reason except one.
Because they apply to healthy women.
It’s understandable why health insurance companies would refuse care to women with arthritis. It makes sense that they would deny care to women with psychiatric disorders.
Because we, as a society, think it is OK to deny quality of life and societal access to people with medical conditions, disabilities and chronic illnesses. We have determined that it makes sense to discriminate against them. We get why these things are done. And they’re done to those people. Over there. Not to me and mine.
But C-sections? Why, one-third of mothers in the US will have a C-section instead of a vaginal birth! That affects me and mine. Therefore, it is especially outrageous — that we would be treated like we treat them.
Oh, but that’s not how you think?
L’identité sexuelle (ou l’identité de genre) est un sentiment intra-psychique d’appartenance au groupe des hommes quand on est un garçon, au groupe des femmes quand on est une fille. C’est une fierté d’être et d’appartenir à son groupe sexué.
L’identification est le processus par lequel l’enfant intègre les caractéristiques de son sexe telles que définies par sa famille et son milieu.
Les rôles sexuels composent l’ensemble des attitudes et conduites qu’une majorité culturelle estime appropriées pour un garçon ou pour une fille.
Quant aux stéréotypes sexuels, ils sont une sorte d’hypertrophie des rôles sexuels qui perpétuent des comportements typiques et rigides propres à chacun des sexes dans des sociétés données.
L’orientation sexuelle correspond à l’attrait érotique pour l’un ou l’autre sexe.
I’m a fiction reader, and my favorite reading genres tend cluster in the “speculative fiction” genres - science fiction (in all its facets but with a preference for full on “anticipation” and space opera), magical realism, alternate history, mythical and interstitial fiction, surrealism, cyberpunk, steampunk and fantasy. Don’t take my word for it, look at my library http://www.librarything.com/catalog/iphigenie
Out of these, the fantasy, steampunk and related genres are the ones where I have the most mixed feelings, because so much of it ends up feeling formulaic. Clever idea somewhere in the world building or plot, sweeping epic detail, but the same stale and rigid pseudo medieval societies with our simplified projections of what it must have been (one religion, rigid gender roles and clicheed personalities)... usually in 900 page monsters. I get bored. I get annoyed. I swear fantasy off for a while.
But in 2011 there has been a whole pile of fantasy books that have captured this cynical, jaded reader’s attention and imagination - for being fresh, fun to read, and have mythical substance that, well, worked for me.
First there has been Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series, starting with Empire in Black and Gold. Not new but it was new to me. Borrowed from the library at first but purchased since in order to be able to lend them and make R read them. Grew on me over the books, I had an absolute blast reading them and cannot wait to see where he takes it next. Fantasy with a very clever idea to give instant texture to the world and cultures, a new take on the magic versus industrial revolution idea that is both smart, believable and fresh. And great characters all over the place. Worked for me.
Then there is Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series - again, not new, but it takes me time to discover things sometimes. Napoleon era naval adventures - except with dragons, not ship. Aubrey and Maturin meet Pern. As much fun as it sounds, 6 books in.
J.M. McDermott “Never Knew Another”. Fascinating book which - for me - starts by puzzling (borderline confusing) you, but grows on you and grabs you. Hard to describe - demon hunting plot, but strange, and you’re not sure who’s right or wrong… I still ponder it months on, and am looking forward to the next episode. I bought this one as an ebook from baen online store, and very glad I did
The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin. What a find! Can’t remember when a fantasy book last felt this deeply mythological to me. About geopolitics, change, gods and mortals and their relationship. It all feels both familiar and alien and utterly fresh - with a strange poetic feel in the language. This mythology rocks. I have read “The hundred thousand kingdoms” and “broken kingdom”.
Aliette de Bodard’s Obsidian and Blood books - starting with Servant of the Underworld - one of the best finds for me this year, another one discovered thanks to Angry Robot. I probably never would have found it except for my self imposed ebook policy (no DRM) which forces me to look around. This is another one about gods and humans, politics and their relationships and interplay, but it couldnt be more different. Fantasy but in a pre-contact Aztek setting, where the mythology is real, where blood matters and boundaries between worlds need to be guarded and managed - and human politics can create a dangerous mess. Add a detective story in each. Great idea, and wonderfully executed. It worked, I bought the setting and idea - no need for active suspension of disbelief.
On a more classic note, this past year we managed to move forward both on the Game of Thrones and the Wheel of Time - wasnt that bliss?
Automatic index updates: Indexes are updated automatically when files in the corresponding folders are modified, even when DocFetcher isn’t running. This is done via a daemon that waits in the background and watches all indexed folders. The daemon has very low CPU usage, because, rather than indexing files itself, it only remembers which indexes need to be updated the next time DocFetcher is launched.
A portable version: Runs on both Windows and Linux. You can put all your documents in it and then freely move the entire folder around (i.e., DocFetcher + indexes + documents). Possible destinations include other computers, encrypted volumes (TrueCrypt), CD-ROMs and USB drives. The portable version can also be used for sharing an indexed document repository across a local area network, or across the OS’ses of a Windows/Linux dual boot system.
Detection of HTML pairs, e.g. “foo.htm” and a folder named “foo_files”. Each pair will be treated as a single document. This feature may seem rather useless on first sight, but it turned out that this dramatically increases the quality of the search results when you’re searching for HTML files, since all the “clutter” inside the HTML folders disappears from the results.
Search in source code files: The file extensions by which DocFetcher recognizes plain text and HTML files can be fully customized. Therefore you can use DocFetcher to search in any kind of source code.
Unicode support: DocFetcher comes with rock-solid Unicode support for MS Office, OpenOffice.org, PDF and HTML files. There’s no Unicode support for plain text, RTF and CHM yet, but we’re working on that.
To deliver value, Feature Injection helps teams work back from the outputs. A business value model tells us the value we are after. We can use it to identify the minimal set of outputs from the system that will deliver that value. For each output, we can use traditional business analysis modelling techniques to document the business transformations necessary to generate those outputs. Those business transformations will also identify the necessary inputs.
What are we going to stop doing to make room for innovation? The question almost answers itself if you take a blank slate approach. What products, services and business models are outdated or require more in investment and time than they return? What would you do if you could start from scratch? Even if you can’t start from scratch, realize that other entrants and disrupters are doing exactly that. It’s better to obsolete your own products and services intentionally than have others do it for you as a surprise.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
The Baen Free Library offers one of my favorite reads ever!
I enjoy the adventure of Miles (and his parents before him) so much I actually own 2 copies of “Young Miles” so I can lend one and not be without. There are very few books that I have ever done that with. It is Trickster Space Opera and you don’t need to be a SF reader to have fun with it.
Available in more formats than is sensible, too. No excuse!
It was one of my “themes” last year to buy less and use what I have. Whereas it worked OK with books (I certainly bought less except for grabbing tons of free ebooks) it didnt work at all with games. I bought a couple new titles, bought several “preorder to support” indie titles, and raided too many old games when on sale on any digital platform. Games I hadn’t bought when they first came out as I was either too busy, or didnt have the computer for it.
And even though 2012 have an absolute plethora of games coming, I still want to play some of these games I missed, because I am curious, because I enjoy all sorts of gameplay that I won’t necessarily find in new games, and in some cases because I feel I ought to have played them.
So, just like I have the Mount TBR challenge, here’s the (totally unofficiall) Dusty Mousemat, challenge (yeah, I know, won’t win any awards for that name, but “dusty mouse” sounds evil to anyone who ever had a mechanical mouse and “dusty joystick” could be misinterpreted)
The rule I make up for this is simple:
- play an old game you never finished or never played. 1 per month at least.
- old means it came out before 2010, ideally before 2006. It can be a game you have owned a while or it can be an old game bought “new” this year in a bargain bin or digital distribution
- it should be a game you wish you’d played at the time, or think you ought to have played since people keep mentioning it
- give it a chance, play it at least a couple evenings
Here’s a random selection of games I might revisit this year - if I arrange it right I could revisit (or discover) 4 a month!
The first game at the moment is Port Royale 2 - simply because I started on Pirates of the Black Cove and encountered a bug, and hadn’t quite sated my nautical wish yet. I have mostly played the commercial sim part of the game, I fail many of the missions due to not figuring it out, and whereas I can handle some sea battles, the battles against towns just defeat me (even in the tutorial). Still, there’s a lot to figure out and I shall at least master the commerce a bit more, before I get myself annihilated trying to take over a town and quit
I could continue on a nautical theme for quite a while as I have Pirates of the Caribbean, Tortuga 1/2, East India Company, Ship Simulator and Sail Simulator, Sub Command, Silent Hunter IV, Tradewinds, Patrician (2 and 3), Naval Warfare (that’s actually a shooter). Don’t ask…
I’ll probably switch to an RPG or action game before I go through all these, though.
Joelle Nebbe-Mornod aka Iphigenie aka Superiphi, early netizen, reader, walker, photographer, web architect, technology executive, entrepreneurial and generally curious mind - find out more...
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