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Friday, January 29, 2016




practical rats.


Sunday, January 24, 2016

http://imgur.com/gallery/Mu9rz
or http://brightside.me/article/this-is-how-our-favorite-foods-look-in-their-natural-habitats-66605
foods in their natural habitat, bananas, pepper, peanuts, etc.


                                          coffee.




Saturday, January 23, 2016

When I used to be a lawyer, my most famous case (in certain obscure circles) was Majors v Abell.
2 days ago the DC circuit in Van Hollen v FEC quoted from that case 4 times.

http://ballots.blogspot.com/2016/01/van-hollen-smackdown-dc-circuit-has.html

It's a tiny bit of validation, letting me think I'm still a player in that game.



Wednesday, January 20, 2016

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/feature-astronomers-say-neptune-sized-planet-lurks-unseen-solar-system

how's it get to be january 20th already? so i missed not just my brother's birthday but the night of january 16th. TIL they made it into a movie in 1941. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033954/
and then in 1942 they made a movie of We the Living.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035130/?ref_=tt_rec_tti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFUu2GbkbSc trailer.
http://www.wethelivingmovie.com/ whole film. free online, not sure if Rand would approve.


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

take care clause bombshell.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/19/supreme-court-bombshell-does-obamas-immigration-guidance-violate-the-take-care-clause/



Saturday, January 16, 2016

What kind of challenges did you face bringing this series from its early years to today's success. Were there any specific issues that come to mind?


It's been hard to market these books so that all of those whom they will appeal to will find it. In the early years if a chain store passed on a book, it would take years to build an author or series back up with that chain, even if you could prove they were losing sales. These are not easy books to put covers on, too, and the cover is your primary advertisement about the content of the book, especially before an author has built up a reputation. The Vorkosigan Saga is about heroism—but how can you portray a short guy with bone problems heroically? How do you paint charisma? The books are about family and loyalty and honor—great to read about, hard to portray in concrete images. They contain epic love stories—but how to put that on a cover without alienating the people who are first attracted to the interesting world-building and scientific extrapolation, which are also integral? Probably we needed to put three or four covers on each printing of each volume in the saga!

I've always felt like that's the right way to market this kind of book, 4 covers, to appeal to the sf, fantasy, bodice-ripper and adventure novel buyer.

LMB: Years ago I read an interview with a forensic pathologist who said he had never gone into a bad crime scene, where he had to clean the blood off the walls and whatnot, in any place where there were a lot of books. It occurs to me that because books give us escape even though we may be physically trapped wherever we are, they give us a "time out" space. People who don't have this have to stay in the pressure cooker as the pressure goes higher and higher, until they finally explode into violence expressed either externally or internally in stress illnesses. Books give readers a place to go. This is good for your health and potentially good for the health of the people around you as well. In that sense, I think reading can be a form of self-medication.

That's been the case for me. A stressful environment can be managed as long as I have a good book or an internet connection. Right now the room is too cold, outside is colder,and there is the babble for 20 people talking over each other,but I'm fine, because I'm reading the above interview online.

The Supreme Court Friday took a handful of new cases. Mostly intellectul property cases that don't interest me, but also one each on the 4th Amendment and the Takings clause of the 5th Amendment.

Manuel v. Joliet, Ill.: Whether an individual who claims to have been a victim of police fabrication of evidence has a right to sue for discriminatory prosecution under the Fourth Amendment — an issue left open previously by the Court.

Murr v. Wisconsin: Whether, when a property owner claims that a government regulation amounts to “taking” of the property, two parcels that are distinct but next to each other be treated as one for this analysis.

Friday, January 15, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk

greening the desert. 10 acre farm by the dead sea.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JANUARY 15, 2016
PARIS — One man was brain dead and three others faced possible permanent brain damage after volunteering to take part in a trial for a painkiller and anxiety medication based on a natural brain compound similar to the active ingredient in marijuana, French authorities said Friday.

Read more: http://jalr.proboards.com/thread/868/ignored-patients-risk-says-article?page=1#ixzz3xM0D7XJF

Thursday, January 14, 2016

http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/movies/complete-list-of-nominees-for-the-2016-academy-awards-b99651744z1--365287211.html

update found 4 sample chapters of the new book, so i'll have something to read tomorrow while we are sitting at our desks for 4 hours after taking the study pill.
http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781476781228/9781476781228.htm?


http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25155958-gentleman-jole-and-the-red-queen

https://www.baenebooks.com/s-13-lois-mcmaster-bujold.aspx

great review of a new book in the miles vorksomethingian saga. this is a book that comes out day after tomorrow but some people have bought the unedited proof or the 3/4 done ebook.
at one point the other 16 books were available free online and i read them, but that offer seems to have gone away. i did download a few other free ebooks from baen books. the room where i am spending 3 weeks has exactly 4 books, two bodice-rippers, a good kid's book i'll read, and a piers anthony Xanth novel I left the last time I was here. I should have kept my william gibson novel to re-read, i left it at the hostel in baltimore as a trade for a book i borrowed there one time.

here's a sample chapter of an earlier book about same main character



Wednesday, January 13, 2016

A page of Hayden symphonies.
http://www.haydn107.com/index.php?id=21&lng=2



In the past week I've stayed at hostels in Baltimore and St Louis. It's more social than a hotel, and a bit cheaper, but more convenient than couchsurfing.com. Had very different experiences, but a lot in common. Baltimore is a narrow rowhouse with 24 hour staff, free breakfast, laundry, lots of group activities. In St Louis, I was the only guest, and the friendly assistant manager came by to let me in. Hostels International USA is providing some free stays to groups doing volunteer work in the communities near the hostels, and has other volunteer opportunities, so I'm passing on the link.
To search for opportunities near you please enter your zip or city and state in the search box on the volunteer page of our web site: www.hiusa.org/volunteer. 
I am in a medical study in Missouri this month so maybe I'll get to catch up on my blogging a bit.







Sunday, January 10, 2016

http://www.hngnews.com/waunakee_tribune/news/local/youtube_785884ca-b615-11e5-87db-0713e89a3423.html

chad vader goes to vote

Saturday, January 09, 2016


[–]Applango 3815 points x3 
Here's the list of my favourite websites that literally no one I know knows about (except for a few).

Sunday, January 03, 2016

copied from reddit:

all 15 comments

Friday, January 01, 2016

http://tynan.com/2016
Tynan had an amazing year. I don't know if  I can say the same.

No books written, nothing published at all.
No dating worth mentioning.
Lots of travel, all domestic.Spent time in Denver, Baltimore, St Charles MO,
Lincoln, Cincinatti, I'm probably forgetting a few. made a decent amount of money
but don't seem to have saved it.Turned back at the border of Canada.I don't travel abroad so I don't have a passport, and I don't have a passport so I don't travel abroad.
My spacebar seems to be on strike so I'm editing as i go.
No lawsuits filed or settled, not even an amicus. Last year I worked hard to get my law license
back and now that I have it I don't use it any more than I did back when I decided to let it lapse.
I did not buy or sell a house. I did buy two cars, and lost 3 cars, so I'm down to two.
2016 goal is to fix those cars so they are in good condition.
2014 was an exciting year because I joined a housing co-op, which  had been a long term goal,
and lived with a bunch of great people I liked.
In 2015 the housing coop fell apart. I am as responsible as anybody for that.
Right now I am physically still here, but it isn't totally clear yet if we'll get to stay.
We are down to three people, and between us we don't have $1000/mo plus utilities for a place this size. here I am making another me post on what is normally not that kind of blog.
But the tynan article is worth reading.

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