The Longest Now

In Snow Use’s kitchen there stood a large stove,
And what she cooked on it she cooked with much love.

She used chunks of chocolate, melted in steam,
And sugar and egg-whites and oodles of cream.
(And, for effect, an occasional scream!)

She stirred it and mashed itinto a thick paste,
And added some cognac to give it more taste.
(As to the calories: they went to waist)

She poured the concoction into a strange mold;
Then into the freezer until it got cold.
(With a note saying: Please do not spindle or fold)

And when it was frozen so-o-o pleased was Snow Use,
For she had made Thidwick, the chocolate mousse

The recent historic wins for net neutrality in the EU demonstrate an organized and informed advocacy network that is still not echoed in the US or in many other parts of the world. We should celebrate and learn from their work.

Thanks to Axel Arnbak for his thorough and delightful writeup of this.

Vassily Aksyonov wrote The Island of Crimea in 1979 – about an imagined future. It looks surprisingly like the present.

Kudos to Michael Idov at the New Yorker for writing about it beautifully, with all of its spooky accuracy.
(Night Wolves! Aksyonov again!)

Bruce recently recommended an essay on the historical public voice of women, by noted classicist Mary Beard.

Beard is a fine and provocative writer; it is good rhetoric.

But I don’t think it gives much insight into historical causes, or ways we can bring about change. Women face deeply gendered and hateful criticism today, particularly online. The argument that this is due to Greco-Roman rhetorical traditions, or the Western literary canon, is unconvincing. I see selection bias in Beard’s examples.

I would love to see a version of this essay that gets nuances right, and tries to explain changes in the past century based on its arguments.

Left out:
+ The complexity of women’s voice in Rome, from Fulvia and Livia to Irene of Athens;
+ Greek admiration of Gorgo, Roman admiration of Zenobia;
+ Conflicting views of leaders in adjacent cultures (Boudica, Cleopatra, Dido);
+ The Old Testament (Deborah and Esther ?)

Misused for effect:
– Ovid: No metamorphs of any gender could speak; Io for one was changed back.
– Fulvia: First by describing her as someone’s wife, though she was one of the most powerful figures in Rome; then by framing her hatred of Cicero as a matter of gender.

On a tangent: Two speeches I love, to lift the spirits. (Both American; I know less oratory from the rest of the world. Suggestions welcome!):

Frances Wright on global patriotism and change:
# Independence Day speech at New Harmony (1828)

Margaret Chase Smith on an issue too great to be obscured by eloquence, thankfully no longer a concern today:
# Declaration of Conscience (1950)

XBRB – stories from the Singularity.

A Blue/Red/Brown production.

On the development of language around ‘Big Data’:

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4869/3750#p3

A lovely combined review of four different biographies, helping to highlight the topography of each.

Madagascar’s presidential election, after 4 years of being couped up, heats up in neck-and-neck runoff with apparent vote-rigging and complaints about fraud on both sides.

It is a beautiful island of 22 million people; also a microcosm of regional political hijinks.

A cluster-class rant.  It warms up around 2:45.

Here is a gallery of great pope memes celebrating the awesomeness emanating from Catholicism’s new Pope.

After a Pope who sometimes made one despair that global religious leaders could inspire perspective, this is a daily source of happiness.

misplaced ideas with corollaries, antonyms with alternatives, symmetry with simulacra.

and then I am back in the moment. recalling, lives ago, looking forward to this future, married to my (smart, lovely, mad) sweetheart. perennially fighting over homes and children and unmeant slights and trivia.

I chose otherwards, nor ever doubted that, though it would have been sane and not wrong. now she has colonies of frozen fertilized embryos waiting for the next wave; you have families to love and sweat and curse and laugh about; I have corollaries yet beginning. different paths are necessarily incommensurable; and to the extent they can be directly compared, they all come out to the same possibilities in the end. never demean where you are; find the joints and levers at hand and use them with confidence and joy.

When I travel with my laptop, kids of all ages want to play with my cover. It’s full of books with wonderfully bad title-puns. Here’s a quick how-to for making your own form-fitting skins, for $20.

Start with your favorite high-resolution art from Colin Thompson — beautifully hued, full of word and visual tricks.

Pipe it through Gelaskins with your favorite laptop or phone model. End up with a thin, removable full-body sticker that will give you countless moments of joy. (I’ve tried covers for both top and bottom to fit my laptop; this was the best of the 3 skin-printing services I tried. The bottom skin survived being removed after 3 months when the laptop was sent in for repair, and reattached a week later, with no distortion.)

Adapted from Bunsen,
via Pipeline’s Things I Wont Work With:

Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzita-ane
Even though the synthesis
is something quite insa-ane
If you cough too close to it
You’ll lose a window pa-ane
Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzita-ane!

Dimple jousting is the purest form of duel. Everyone can play on equal footing, the winner is obvious, and there is no chance involved.

Help continue projects Aaron believed in, in person or online.
I’ll be at the Cambridge event and aftermath throughout the long weekend.

• Aaron Swartz Hackathon (site and shared IRC)
• Hackpad with related notes and coordination
• Project summary  and SF hacking:  Repeal the CFAA and more

• EFF overview of related projects
• GWOB announcement

En Puerto Varas, para ser precisos. Un articulo por Sebastian.   ᔥmadre.

“Hay paisajes extraordinarios, pienso, y luego este. Esos campos y poblados guardan un centenario orgullo que emociona.”