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Below are the 14 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Robin Zimmermann" journal:
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03:37 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/94193530/6424329) [Link] |
1040 words
60% of one day's wordcount, and I've kicked things off with a literal bang. Unfortunately, I've a headache, $2.50 of iced coffee I don't want, 1/3 of a brownie I don't want, and a bit of a block.
I guess I just need to remind myself, as the Bard once said, to "lay on - and curst be he who first cries, 'Halt, enough!'"
Current Location: downtown/Mayorga
Current Mood:  ditzy
Current Music: "Walk of Life" - Dire Straits
Tags: journalling, link time: a minute, nanowrimo09, read time: 10 seconds, writing
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10:52 am
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Writer's Block: Newsworthy
Most often would be the AP newswire in the form of the "AP Mobile" app on iPhone - for example, their coverage of the recent DC rail accident was excellent. I also use the NYTimes app frequently.
Other than that, I will occasionally pick up my parent's (paper) copy of the Washington Post, and I will read links in blogs or emails from my parents.
Tags: link time: a minute, news, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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09:30 am
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FiveThirtyEight: Worst. Damage Control. Ever.
I've generally tended to take the position that while the people running Iran are a bunch of reactionary thugs, they're at least a fairly intelligent bunch of reactionary thugs.
After this revelation on Iranian Press TV, however, I'm not so certain.
FiveThirtyEight: Worst. Damage Control. Ever.
(As I mentioned in the Google Reader repost, NY Times noted that Iranians are allowed to vote in districts they aren't registered in. This in no way suffices to explain what we're seeing here.)
Tags: iran, link time: a minute, links, politics, read time: 10 seconds
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08:33 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/48671133/6424329) [Link] |
A brief moment of commercial lust
If I were not the most unprepossessing square I'd ever heard of and didn't already have a better bag, fellas, I would be all over the FreakAngels KK Field Bag like black on soot.
Ah, well.
Current Location: school\EGR\ASME_lounge
Current Mood: tired
Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, shopping, whinging
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11:06 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64766749/6424329) [Link] | Blame luve on DeviantArt for this, the Weirdest Music Video I've Seen This Year:
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  amused
Current Music: "Big Car" - Severed Heads
Tags: link time: a minute, multimedia, music, read time: few minutes, youtube
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10:54 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/63882755/6424329) [Link] |
Only a year and a half away from Clyde!
Dead At Your Age (hat tip to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shatterstripes):
You are 23 years and 266 days old today.
That’s exactly half the life of somebody famous. In another 23 years and 266 days, you will have lived exactly as long as Fernando Pessoa. He was an innovative poet and creator of heteronyms, imaginary characters who write in different styles [sic] who died at the age of 47 years, 170 days of cirrhosis of the liver.
Fernando Pessoa lived twice as long as you have, but other notable people have died at about this age.
- You've outlived Booker Little Jr. by more than 2 months. He was a trumpeter-composer who co-led a quintet with Eric Dolphy. He died on October 5, 1961, 24 years before you were born.
- Bonnie Parker was about 3 months younger than you when she died by homicide on March 23, 1934. She was a Depression-era outlaw who joined Clyde Barrow in a bank-robbing spree across the West. She died 52 years before you were born.
- You've outlived Jacques Herbrand by more than 3 months. He was a mathematician who introduced various theories of mathematical logic. He died in a mountaineering accident on July 27, 1931, 54 years before you were born.
- Ernie Davis was more than 3 months younger than you when he died of leukemia on May 18, 1963. He was a football halfback for Syracuse University and the first African American to win the Heisman trophy. He died 23 years before you were born.
Tags: life, link time: a minute, memes, mortality, read time: a minute, trivia
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04:40 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64384071/6424329) [Link] |
Macintosh: Mail, GrowlMail, and the Safari 4 Public Beta
...are a toxic mix, for unknown reasons - the third causes the second to crash the first. Forum thread here - the short version is, "go into Mail's Preferences, and in the GrowlMail pane set Notifications to 'Show a summary of received emails'. Or uninstall Safari 4."
Edit: Courtesy of codeman38 at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) macintosh, a third way: go into the GrowlMail pane and delete the line in the "Description:" box which says %body.
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: geekery, link time: a minute, macintosh, psa, read time: 10 seconds
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01:55 am
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Watchmen in a link
Watched it today in IMAX. baxil has the goods - I, not having read the comic, have nothing to add.
Current Location: school\chemistry\AXE_lounge
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Aphex Twin: "Windowlicker"
Tags: link time: a minute, links, movies, read time: 10 seconds
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12:21 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/74363938/6424329) [Link] |
When is a writer a writer? - an essay on terminology
coppervale, yesterday, wrote a bit On Becoming a Writer where he approvingly quotes a rule Harlan Ellison said to him: "You're not a writer until a writer tells you you're a writer."
gregvaneekhout begged to differ, and suggests that "the designation 'writer' can only come from the act of doing it".
The question I am inclined to ask is: whence* comes the divide?
First: I claim that it truly is a divide, not merely a quibble of the sort which may be casually dismissed in a footnote. It tears along the same line dividing elitism and egalitarianism, distinction and description - either the former elevates Writer to a title or the latter reduces it to trivia, depending on which side of the line the reader falls, and there is a real sense of investment in the side. "How dare you claim we are not writers?" one might ask; or, inversely, one might ask, "If you are writers, where are your publications? Where are your awards? Where are your membership cards?"
Second: that's where it comes from. It comes from the split between the prototype of the writer and the etymology of the term - from the difference between definition by similarity and definition by function. Further, it gains its power from the conflict in the definition. To use an elitist frame, because we ascribe merit to the title, we wish to gain it (this drives the meaning towards the more general functional form), but because the merit of the title comes from the prototype, we wish to restrict the title to the deserving (this drives the meaning towards the prototypical). To use an egalitarian frame, because we pay attention to this behavior, we wish to employ our language to match the behavior as logically as possible (this drives the meaning towards the functional), but because we pay attention to this behavior, we want to make sure to be thrifty, to only pay to the truly exemplary examples (this drives the meaning towards the prototypical).
Third: These very tensions make the divide impossible to resolve by any maneuvers. Nevertheless, I have an opinion.
My opinion is thus: the best strategy is to employ the word in the functional sense. This does tarnish the trademark, if you think of "writer" as a trademark, but to try to apply the elitist standard raises too many ridiculous confusions. (Check it out: Is Anne Frank a writer, by the elitist definiton? Samuel Pepys? William Topaz McGonagall?) But on the other hand, we should recognize that adjectives apply - professional versus amateur, good versus bad, original versus derivative - and we should recognize that people may (or may not!) take "Writer" as a part of their identity, and not to deny them their identity or ascribe too much moral or social value to their identity.
The same goes for a lot of other titles - "artist", "dancer", "fisher", "poet". These words are not states of being, they are states of doing. Best to recognize it and go from there.
* Linguistic aside: "from whence" is an equally valid form. I simply prefer the shorter version.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Current Music: My brother, playing the guitar.
Tags: link time: a minute, read time: a minute, take my advice, thoughts, words, writing
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12:14 am
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Tweets for Yesterday
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Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, twitter
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08:45 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/48670989/6424329) [Link] |
Genre Book List
Saw this "genre fiction" (how I hate that term!) book list on hmmm_tea's journal - made a few inconsequential alterations to the rules myself...
1) Look at the list, copy and paste it into your own journal.
2) Marks: read one or all of, intend to read (or reread, or finish), loved, hated.
3) Feel free to elaborate wherever you like, whether on the books, the rules, or the list itself.
In no particular order:
( 100 items long, for whatever reason. Be warned. )
Obvious lacunae - Richard Adams (at least "Watership Down", and I'd add "Shardik"), Hal Clement ("Needle", "Mission of Gravity", but probably not "Still River", however much I love that book), Vernor freakin' Vinge ("A Fire Upon the Deep", I haven't read "A Deepness in the Sky", "True Names"), Edgar Allan Poe (anything, for cripe's sake), Bruce Sterling ("Islands in the Net", for one), Bram Stoker ("Dracula")...
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\southwest_desk
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Beautiful World - Devo
Tags: books, geekery, link time: a minute, memes, read time: few minutes, thoughts
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11:01 pm
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Tweets for Today
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Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, twitter
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01:07 am
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Tweets for Today
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Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, twitter
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12:44 am
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Tweets for Today
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Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, twitter
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