more news from nowhere

Smart kitty

switchknitter — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 19:14:40 GMT

Last night I needed to clear some remaining (and unusable) yarn off two bobbins. I put them on the lazy kate and started pulling the yarn off onto the floor. While I was doing this, Bengal came in. OMG MOVING STRING. He tried to go after it as I took it off the bobbin. I pushed him back and said NO very firmly. He tried again. NO, BENGAL. Repeat three more times.

And then, the coolest thing happened. He sat down on all fours two feet from the growing pile of yarn, and just calmly watched me as I spent another two or three minutes unrolling the yarn. He actually paid attention to the word no. When I was done I scooped up the pile of yarn in one hand to throw it away, and petted him for a bit with my other hand. Good kitty.

Knitting with my handspun: first attempt

switchknitter — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 20:41:11 GMT

I knitted these fingerless mitts with some Corriedale two-ply I'd spun. They came out meh. The Corriedale wasn't really soft enough, and in places I'd overtwisted enough that it was practically barbed wire. HOWEVER! Knitting with my own handspun taught me a hell of a lot about what to do (and not do) to get the yarn I want, so I'm really glad I made them. I'm going to soak them in some warm water and Johnson's Baby Extra-Conditioning Shampoo later as an experiment, to see if I can make them a tad softer. I'm not expecting much, but it too will be a good learning experience.

Pacific Rim: awesome.

switchknitter — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:57:56 GMT

Saw this Tuesday, and wow was it good. I love how it kept making me think it was going to do something typical for an action movie, but then would go completely the other way with it. Also, the fight scenes were great fun. The internet tells me there are plans for a sequel. I hope it's as good as this one.

The sweater from a minor hell

switchknitter — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 21:51:46 GMT

I'm currently knitting a top-down cardigan for my sister. I altered the original pattern a bit, and... I swear this sweater is evil. I've had to restart it three times. This time I had to rip back because somehow it was ten inches too big. I ripped back to the point I'd marked as the right width, and remeasured... and it was four inches too small. I swear to Bob, every fucking time I measure this thing it's a different gauge.

I'm not really mad or anything, it's just fun to swear at it and say I need a priest to exorcise the yarn. I had ripped back a skein and a half's worth, and I'm back to work on it today.

I will not be defeated by a mere sweater. Hopefully it'll work out this time. Otherwise, I think it's going in the back of the closet...

That goes rather quickly...

switchknitter — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 04:37:13 GMT

Franklin Habit had said that long draw gets a lot more spinning done in a shorter time, and boy was he right. I've almost completely filled up a bobbin with a fairly thin singles, and I only spun for maybe 2 hours in total this evening. Wow.

A friend mentioned on Facebook that she was getting into knitting while listening to audiobooks, so I got Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek to listen to while spinning. It's incredibly fun. Thanks for the idea, Devi!

Spinning wheel, revisited

switchknitter — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 00:39:36 GMT

I started spinning again! I haven't touched my wheel in a few years. I got sick of not being able to draft worth shit and always fighting the wool, and it just wasn't fun.

Franklin Habit's newest blog post has him trying long-draw spinning and really enjoying it. so I figure, WTF. If he can like it, I'll try too. I opened a browser tab to YouTube and started looking for videos on long draw.

Turns out I wasn't drafting right at all. I didn't know I was supposed to go from the fold, not from the end of the piece of roving. No wonder I hated it. I spent the last 45 minutes spinning and loving it. Me, a playlist of history podcasts, some Corriedale... It was great and I'm going to do more shortly.

I need to watch some more videos and read some more stuff on technique, because I'm having trouble getting the right amount of twist, but drafting was soooooo easy. I couldn't believe the person who taught me to spin never told me how to do it! I always wondered why everyone liked it and I had such problems. I mean, I liked making yarn, but it was so hard! And now I know why. Woot.

TOO MANY BOOKS

switchknitter — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:43:26 GMT

I used to be a serial monogamist with books: read one until finished before starting the next. In the last month, though, I've been experimenting with polybibliophily. I think I've taken on too many at once. I have five going right now, and I just simply don't have the time to make each feel properly loved. So this leaves me with a quandry: whom do I temporarily set aside? The book on mathematical topology a friend sent me that I can only read in small doses at a time because of the complexity? The Python book I've been ignoring for a week anyway?

I want to live post-singularity so I can fork my brain, let the child processes read a bunch of books at the same time, and then I can re-incorporate the memories of reading them (as well as the information in the books) into brain Prime. It would be the only way I will ever get to read all the books I want to read in this lifetime.

Mississippi Personhood Amendment

switchknitter — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:02:53 GMT

Originally posted by james_nicoll at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by soldiergrrrl at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by twbasketcaseat Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by gabrielleabelleat Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting ~~very little~~ no attention in the mainstream media.

Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.

Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.

Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states.

What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.

The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute.

So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.

If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.

What to do?

- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.

- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.

- You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.

- Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness.

Breakfast Casserole

switchknitter — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:14:02 GMT

I made up this recipe, basing it loosely on one I found on SparkPeople.

16oz frozen hash browns
6 pieces cooked turkey bacon, crumbled
1/2 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup 2% cheddar, shredded
1.5 cups Egg Beaters
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt

In a 9"x12" casserole dish, layer the hash browns, bacon, veggies, and cheddar. In separate bowl mix Egg Beaters, milk, salt, and pepper. Pour over the layers. Bake 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

It was really, really good. Although next time I think I'll add another 1/2 cup of egg...

The history of the future

switchknitter — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:22:50 GMT

Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century by Paul Milo is a very cool book. It's funny in a lot of places, and thought provoking in others. My favorite funny prediction is one from the 1950's that nuclear bombs would be used for things like blasting tunnels or demolishing buildings. These weren't science fiction writers doing the speculating, either. The predictions in this book comes from respected (at the time) think tanks, futurists, and scientists of all stripes. Fascinating stuff. The last chapter talks about predictions that were right, like HG Wells's vision of an Internet-like worldwide network. Definitely worth reading.

Fucking awesome zombie novel!

switchknitter — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:36:17 GMT

For the last two years or so I haven't read fiction at all. So when Mike pressed me to read Feed by Mira Grant, I was skeptical of my ability to enjoy it. I shouldn't have been worried. Feed is the best zombie story I've ever read or watched or heard. It's quite simply brilliant.

Georgia and Shaun Mason, sister and brother, are bloggers in a world dominated by zombies. They get asked to follow the campaign of a US senator who's aiming to become president. The resulting book is an interesting look at the potential future of news reporting as well as being a total page-turner. I was addicted from page one. I seriously, SERIOUSLY recommend this. Great fucking book.

Weather watching

switchknitter — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:40:53 GMT

Blame It on the Rain: How the Weather Has Changed History, by Laura Lee, is a weird little book. On the one hand, it's full of interesting facts about how weather has influenced wars and other human endeavors -- okay, mostly wars -- since the Athenians and Persians duked it out a few thousand years ago. My problem with it is the writing style. I like science books that assume I am an intelligent human being and can grasp concepts. This book is very, very simplistically written. Enjoyable, for the most part, but I sometimes had to grit my teeth over some of the phrasing. I'm actually surprised that this was in the adult collection and not the youth section. It's also badly edited. There are more typos than I could count. But overall it's not a bad read -- a good bit of fluff for when you want some knowledge with your brain candy.

Now, to cleanse my brain by reading something with some depth to it. I raided the New Non-Fiction section of the library today, and I have so many lovely things to choose from... I think I'm going to try a new history of the Dark Ages called The Inheritance of Rome. Looks interesting!

A random library find

switchknitter — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:47:15 GMT

I occasionally browse my favorite shelves in the library, looking for odd things I've never heard of. Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever by Hal Hellman is one of those. Newton v. Liebniz, Cope v. Marsh, and Freeman v. Mead are a few of the feuds covered. It's an interesting book. Like, I didn't know that Galileo was friends with Pope Urban VIII before he became pope. Or that the philosopher Hobbes was something of a scientist as well, and was obsessed with geometry. Neat stuff. My only complaint with the book is that it's written very simplistically. But the contents were enjoyable. I liked it.

I want that half-hour of my life back.

switchknitter — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:13:06 GMT

Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and Other Great Pretenders by Paul Maliszewski is a horrible book. The title sounds fascinating, doesn't it? And yet I can't slog my way any further through the author's bragging about a con he pulled. It's supposed to be funny. It might be if it were only two pages instead of half the book. I quit. I can't take any more. It's terrible. I need to go read something good now.

Okay, so I don't ALWAYS love Bill Bryson.

switchknitter — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:27:50 GMT

Shakespeare: The World As Stage is a biography of the bard. Which I was and am completely uninterested in. I like Shakespeare's works quite a lot, but I don't really care about his life. So this book was kind of boring for me. It was very well-written, and I enjoyed the parts about what life was like in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, but for the most part it didn't do anything for me. Oh well. I'm eagerly awaiting Bryson's history of private life, due out this fall. That's more my kind of thing. I always wanted to read the five-volume series on the subject (the one edited by Philippe Aries and Georges Duby), but I couldn't really get into them. Bryson's will be one volume, and no doubt will be a bit more entertaining.

My Bill Bryson love continues unabated.

switchknitter — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:24:34 GMT

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States is thoroughly brilliant. It's fifteen years old, but it holds up extremely well. The book is officially about language, but it's more like a history of this country with some language thrown in. It's wonderful. Bryson goes off on all these weird little side streets and digressions, and it's fascinating. I'd love to see him update it with his take on the language of the last fifteen years -- the language of the internet. I think I'm going to look him up on Facebook...

I just read a book on obituaries. Yes, really.

switchknitter — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:44:04 GMT

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson is... interesting. I had no idea that there are people in this world obsessed with obits, much less that they have a newsgroup and an annual convention. Fascinating. Johnson is a fan, and a professional writer of things besides obituaries. For the book she interviews a lot of obit writers who are famous among devotees of the genre, giants in their field. It's a very strange book, one which I enjoyed enough to devour the 223 pages in a couple of hours.

So that's two books I've finished today. I love vacations.

Women at Home in Victorian America: A Social History

switchknitter — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:34:28 GMT

Ellen M. Plante reveals all the different facets of life during 19th-century American women -- clothes, home decor, motherhood, weddings, old age, and so forth. Plante quotes a lot from popular advice manuals and magazines of the day, such as Godey's Lady's Book. It's interesting, but the writing style isn't particularly engaging. Also, just for amusement's sake, I wish she'd included a bit on what the "water cure" actually was. But, sadly, hysteria was only mentioned in passing. There was also nothing about attitudes towards sex. Seems like a big thing to leave out in a feminist history...

The History of White People

switchknitter — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:39:11 GMT

Nell Irvin Painter, a professor of American history at Princeton, wrote this about the development of racism in white culture. Painter is African-American, and I found it incredibly interesting to read her take on white supremacy across the ages. Apparently the real start of "whiteness" as a self-definition was during the Enlightenment. Painter goes back further, though, all the way to ancient Greece. It's an excellent book, if a hard one to read. At more than one point it made me embarrassed to be a human, or an American, or white. Not because I feel shame over any of these things, but because I loathe the fact that there are so many shitty people in this world. Some of the writings quoted in the book even come from American heroes, like Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson was the one who started the mainstream spread of white race theory. I had no idea. I looked up some of the quotes, though -- Painter wasn't kidding. He really was a WASP bigot of the worst kind, and what made it so bad is that he had a huge audience.)

Also interesting: most WASP racism has been targeted at other whites. The Irish I knew about. But then there were people from southern and eastern Europe. Some race theorists divided whites into as many as seven "sub-races." Very little of the book is about white/black relations, actually, as most past race theorists were focused on immigrants. Blacks were nearly invisible to them. The book does, however, cover the ridiculous amount of anti-Semitism in America's history, because the men who wrote about race wrote a hell of a lot about the Jews.

My only issue with this book: too many footnotes. They're everywhere. Most pages have at least one, if not more. It's really frustrating to keep having to look down at the bottom of the page and then find my place in the main text again. But it's a great book. Check it out.

Moon

switchknitter — Sat, 08 May 2010 21:07:23 GMT

Mike and I just watched Moon. It's science fiction, about a guy who's alone on the moon as part of a robotic mining colony. It's fucking amazing. I'm in awe of the lead actor now. Sam Rockwell. I highly, highly recommend this. (I wish I could tell you more, but there's no way I'm spoiling the movie for anyone.)

The history of color

switchknitter — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:20:43 GMT

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay is a history of dyes, pigments, and paints. Finlay traveled all over the globe to write this book. The chapter on ochre has her in Australia, talking to aboriginal painters. The section on green talks about how the bright green paints of the nineteenth century had arsenic. Yellow shades tend to be poisonous, too. White, too. Lead white was notorious for killing women who wore it as makeup. The book isn't about killer paints, though. There's lot of other tales. Michaelango never finished one of his paintings probably because his patron never got him the expensive ultramarine he needed for the Virgin's robes. Finlay goes to the lapis lazuli mines in Afghanistan to see the source for ultramarine paint for that chapter. She goes to Spain and India in search of the indigo plant. Red takes her to Mexico to see where carmine red is produced. (It's from a bug. There is bug juice in your lipsticks and Cherry Coke as coloring.)

I loved everything about this book except for one thing: Finlay's flights of fancy. She imagines journeys and dreams of historical personages sometimes, and it's really fucking annoying. I wish she'd stuck with facts and her travelogue. They're certainly interesting enough on their own. But her dreaming is a small part of the book, and it's a great read otherwise.

Obsolete science books can be fun.

switchknitter — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:13:59 GMT

I finished A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson a few days ago. It was published in 2003, so some of the science is out of date, but it was still a fun read. Bryson started out at the Big Bang and the beginnings of the universe, and traced his way to the origins of human life. Along the way he talked about the formation of stars and planets; physics; geology and paleontology; and biology and evolution. The history of each was given, in brief, with weird little biographical anecdotes about famous and not-so-famous scientists along the way. Bryson wrapped up each section with a look at the current (as of 2003) thinking about how humans got to where we are today. That's the part that's out of date. But it's still well worth reading for the historical stuff. Bryson's a wonderful writer. I loved his book The Mother Tongue, about the origins of the English language. This tome (400 pages long) didn't disappoint.

Stupid History and diagramming sentences

switchknitter — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:08:57 GMT

Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey is fantastic. And hysterical. Yes, a book on diagramming sentences can be funny. I highly recommend it.

Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages by Leland Gregory was amusing, but for some reason I didn't trust it. Maybe because there were no sources cited or anything. Still, it was fun to read.

Accept No Substitutes: The History of American Advertising by Christina Mierau was for a school paper. There will be more advertising books in my near future. Like, this weekend. Sigh.

And two I didn't finish:

The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting by Tom Standage was interesting, but I couldn't really get into it. I may try again at some point.

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett was also hard to get into. The first three chapters were "This is why you should read this book if you're religious." It got old fast and I couldn't stay with it enough to get to the meat of the book.

Recent books read

switchknitter — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:27:06 GMT

I haven't been writing up the books I've read recently. So here we go.

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior by Scott O. Lilienfeld (2009) -- I loved this, and I learned a lot. There was some stuff I already knew, but some of the myths were very surprising. Like, did you know that criminal profiling actually doesn't work? There have been several studies done, and profilers did no better than college students at profiling criminals. It's a great read.

59 Seconds: How Psychology Can Improve Your Life in Less Than a Minute by Richard Wiseman (2010) -- an absolutely wonderful self-help book for people who like their advice to come from science and not woo.

When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That by Martin Gardner (2009) -- a collection of essays. I like Gardner. He wrote this book last year, at the age of 93. Damn. I admit to skipping the sections on math and logic puzzles, though. Not a big fan of those.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky (1998) -- this was nowhere near as good as his book on salt. Actually, nothing I've read by him has been as good as Salt. But this was still an interesting (and depressing) read, which is mostly about how the seas are being overfished. I'd love to see a follow-up to this, since it's eleven years later. I'll have to do some research myself.

And there you have it. Off to study for my ASL midterm...

I <3 Franklin Habit

switchknitter — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:09:01 GMT

Franklin is a cartoonist, blogger, and knitter. He is also hilarious. He just posted a short send-up of Project Runway that's completely awesome. I love him.