Friday, July 18th, 2008

Time	Event
5:32a	QotD "Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens." -- Joseph Brodsky (thanks to blueeowyn) (Comment on this)
12:36p	LJ Stuff The good news: LJ is planning to bring back something called 'Basic' accounts. The bad news: they're not the same as what we're used to calling 'basic accounts'; they'll have at least some advertising on them. (So they're really just bringing back the name, 'basic'.) The somewhat encouraging detail: they're asking for feedback on four different proposals for how to incorporate the advertising. The terribly discouraging detail: the change will affect existing basic accounts, not just ones created under the new setup. So those of us who thought existing basic accounts were being grandfathered in when they took away the ability to create new basic accounts ... will (according to the current plan) wind up with ad-supported accounts eventually regardless. Several folks have suggested using a name other than 'basic' for this new account type, such as 'Plus Lite'. Some of the proposals for how to add ads are much, much worse than others. But which is worst and which is least objectionable will depend on how you prioritise different aspects of using a blogging site like this. For the folks reading this somewhere other than LiveJournal, yeah, I'm still using LJ (... so far). Because that's where most of the conversation on my entries takes place so far. This entry won't be especially interesting to the folks who've already left LJ entirely or never signed up there to begin with, but I'm mirroring it like I do all my recent entries -- it's less headache than keeping track of having posted different things to different sites. And for the folks who are reading this on LiveJournal, a few just-in-case links: BL, CL, SC, JF, GJ, DJ, CJ, IJ. Watching to see how this plays out. Hoping for something better than what looks likely. (Comment on this)
4:46p	Fairies and Birds and a Whirlybird I'm trying to make progress on a handful of different projects at once despite the rough time my body has been giving me, and really hoping to get then sorted out before Pennsic -- especially the 'get ready for Pennsic' project. So communication from me for the next week will be kinda scattershot and 'clumpy'. While I'm on hold on the phone, I'll polish off this entry that I started to write days ago ... and try to remember where I stashed other half-written ones. It seems that every time I look out my window, I see fairies floating over Lombard Street. So either there's a huge dandelion infestation somewhere upwind (west) of here, or some local species of tree produces tiny, tufted seeds that I'm mistaking for dandelion fairies. Inside my house, I frequently see strands or tuft's of Perrine's fur floatingby, blown about by electric fans and the occasional fragment of a breeze that deigns to come in through my windows. I wonder -- if I knot a little loose fur into a shape like this, would that constitute a feline fairy? And if we stretch the relationships between different sorts of felines beyond reason ... ah, poetically ... and there are any skin flakes clinging to the hairs, can I call it a "dander de lion" instead of "dent de lion"? (I've been having my mind wander over words a lot lately -- not long ago I spent a while musing about the distinction between 'purplish' and 'purple-y', and more recently I couldn't decide whether an adjective meaning "reminiscent of, or tasting faintly of jalapeño" should be pronounced "ha-la-pee-nish" or "ha-la-peh-nyish". (The jalapeñish pickles that inspired that train of thought are quite tasty.) And on my way home last night I started wondering whether expressions containing the word 'druthers' had spread to dialects that pronounce "I'd rather" with an a-sound instead of a schwa. (A helpful poster on a.u.e pointed out that 'druthers' has had about a hundred and forty years to spread to other dialiects...)) In the meantime, I've been continuing to shoot birds for practice, though I'm still having trouble with the swifts (the birds most likely to be any help in learning to shoot bats). I've noticed that birds are much more active some days than other days, and the swifts in particular spend most of their time at different altitudes on different days. The first few days of this week, they were about three times higher up (except when on their way to nesting sites) than yesterday or any time in the previous two weeks. An obvious guess would be that they're going where the insects are, but that just raises another question ... Larger birds, such as the one shown here, are easier, but even they are difficult to keep in the viewfinder when they fly close enough to see a lot of detail. (I'm mostly using 400/5.6 and 100-300/4 lenses.) I don't think I'll be bat-ready by Pennsic. But I'll certainly try for a bat photo there regardless, as usual. Anyhow, as a result of paying more attention to them lately, I've been noticing that birds make me smile. I've also been noticing birds using ground effect -- sparrows using it to slip down the sidewalk a quarter to half a block well under a wing-length off the ground without beating at all, and other birds using it to 'skip' off my 2nd-storey roof. I'd never paid enough attention to catch that before. I don't remember seeing the parakeets I grew up with doing it, but I can't tell you whether that's because I didn't know to look for it, or because parakeets don't do it, or merely that there wasn't enough room in the house for them to make use of it. Some other recent uploads:       (Comment on this)
5:39p	Cat Pillow Whoops -- forgot this one was already up and ready to go (and I'm not sure where to insert it into my previous entry): I've caught Perrine sleeping in this spot, using the dumbbell as a pillow, several times now (she wakes up while I'm trying to get into position for a photo). So I'm starting to think of dumbbells as 'cat pillows'. (Comment on this)

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