Words to live by

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

To Hell With It. Cobwebs festooning the corners? Dust pumas under the bed? Floors that crunch underfoot? So what? The laundry goes from body to hamper to washer to clothes basket to body again without being sidetracked into closet or drawer. No problem. Why scrub down the stove and the counters? They’ll only get dirty again. Okay, we stop short of being shut down by the Board of Public Health. But who gives a rat’s backside if the linens match? And making the bed? Please. Life is too short.

And I have novels to write.

I was bad and printed the climax first. Sort of like eating dessert before dinner. But the rest of the post is here, and is well worth your time.

Posted in around the house, blogging, writing

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Saturday morning

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Kristine Smith| 2 Comments

Had a great time at Capricon yesterday. Arrived at the Wheeling Westin around 10am, just as flakes started falling. By the time I gave my reading (an excerpt from Continuing Education, my entry in MODERN FAE’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY which is out 6 March hinthint) and sat in on my 1130 Classic Dr Who panel, the snow was coming down fairly hard. Had a really nice lunch at the hotel’s Italian restaurant, then sat in the causeway with Michael D Thomas and talked for, well, a few hours. Light dinner with him, Lynne Thomas, and John O’Neill, followed by my last panel, Why Are SF Writers So Bad At Predicting The Future, with Cory Doctorow, Bill Higgins, and Gene Wolfe. A good, thinky panel where we discussed possible reasons why SF writers predicted the rocket car but not the stubby little roadcar/minivan, the great central supercomputer but not the PC. Conclusions included the feeling that predicting the future isn’t the point of SF, and that the sorts of discoveries that had the biggest impact on our day to day lives may not have been the ones that lent themselves to dramatic storytelling.

After more hallcons and final farewells, I hit the road around 1130pm or so. The snow had started letting up around midafternoon, and by the time I left the hotel, the tollway was perfectly clear and dry. A few sideroads had some snow, but not very much. Made it home around 1230am or so, and listened to music/decompressed for a couple of hours before going to bed.

I will say that this developing pattern of Snow Events Every Time Kristine Decides To Drive To A Convention does not bode well for a drive to Toronto/Richmond Hill for WFC in early November.

It’s *freezing* outside, the first weekend with high temps under 30F. A few inches of powder fell, then blew around enough that I don’t really need to shovel. Grocery shopping still to do. Then I am getting my hair colored, a darker brown with highlights. I want something different-but-not-too. Want to cover the gray. ‘Tis the winter of our discontent, I guess.

A worky afternoon/evening is planned. The excitement, let me show you it.

Posted in blogging, conventions, weather

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Okay, maybe no one was crazy about the printed food…

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Kristine Smith| 3 Comments

…but printed bones are just wow.


An 83-year-old woman operated on last summer was the first person to receive an entire 3D-printed jaw transplant, her Belgian doctors announced Monday. The woman’s own lower jaw was riddled with infection, and given her age, and the fact that reconstructive surgery would have been a long and painful process, her doctors decided to have a new jaw specially manufactured for her. The replacement jaw is made out of titanium, assembled in thousands of layers by a 3D printer.

Rest of the story here, with a link to a paper about 3-D printing of bone substitute implants.

Posted in science!

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Several things make a post

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

February is going to be a tough month, so blogging may be light.

1) I will be at Capricon this Friday, for the day only. Schedule is as follows:

Reading: Kristine Smith – Friday, 02-10-2012 – 11:00 am to 11:30 am – River C (Cafe)

My First Doctor- The Classic Doctor Who Panel – Friday, 02-10-2012 – 11:30 am to 1:00 pm – Botanic Garden A (Special Events – Programming)

Does It Matter If Science Fiction Authors Are Bad at Predicting the Future? – Friday, 02-10-2012 – 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm – Willow

2) I don’t care who wins the Super Bowl. The Blackhawks are in a slump, and that’s all the sports shit I can deal with at the moment. Trying to forget about it, actually. As my Dad used to say, I don’t have any money riding on them. And yelling at the TV just alarms the pups, anyway.

3) Stocked up the cookie jars yesterday in preparation for the month ahead. My fave oatmeal cookie recipe, with a few additions/changes. Toasted the oatmeal as well as the nuts (walnuts this time instead of pecans). Added a tablespoon of dark rum, a half-teaspoon of ground ginger, and a half-teaspoon or so of freshly ground nutmeg. Used organic raisins that turned out to be rather large, as in actual large shriveled grape-size, and a bit sweeter than usual. All combined to boost the flavor significantly. Next time, I will toast the oatmeal a little longer–some of it had turned light golden, but not all of it. But it looks like cookie flavor is improved if you lightly toast everything that’s toastable. And add more spices. And rum. I can tell you where some of the rum has gone.

4) Can’t believe tomorrow’s Monday. I do so love being home, puttering, doing what needs doing when I want to do it. Being able to think in solitude. The place is a hovel with dog hair everywhere and needs a good scrub from stem to stern, but oh well. Hovel Is Where The Heart Is. And The Brain, too, most days.

Posted in around the house, blogging, life

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In lieu of actual content, 1 Feb edition

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

No time to say more than…whoa. Totally encrusted with science…and just a bit scary.

And if they get a little bigger and brave the outdoors, UFO sightings will jump about 1000%.

Posted in science!, you tube

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Google thinks I’m an old man

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

Ever since Google informed the world of their Grand Unification of the Privacy Policies, folks have been checking out their Google Ad Preferences and finding in many cases that Google is to pinpoint accuracy as an elephant is to a Chippendale sideboard.

Your Ad Preferences profile is not based on your Google profile—what you search, what you talk about in your Gmail, what you upload to YouTube. It’s based just on what you visit.

Well, I visit a hella lotta sites, and according to Google Ad Preferences, I am a man, age 55-64, with the following preferences:

Arts & Entertainment – Comics & Animation – Comics
Arts & Entertainment – Music & Audio
Arts & Entertainment – TV & Video – Online Video
Arts & Entertainment – TV & Video – TV Shows & Programs – TV Sci-Fi & Fantasy Shows
Games
News – Politics – Campaigns & Elections
People & Society – Subcultures & Niche Interests – Science Fiction & Fantasy

No fashion sites. It missed all the cooking blogs I visit. All the recipe sites. SF/F “subculture” (hate that word. sounds like something that grows under the shower benches) is right. Politics. But nothing about books or writing or animals. Travel. Science.

On the other hand, maybe I should be glad that it missed me so badly.

Posted in the internetz

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Cornell Lab Prints Food

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

There are printers that can spit out 3-D model cars and others that can make paper solar panels. Next up: technology that can print food for restaurants and homes.

Engineers envision printed breakfasts synced with alarm clocks and gourmet spreads downloaded from high-end restaurants but served at the dinner table. Printers could to linked to digital food logs and programmed to churn out meals that fill in the day’s nutritional blanks.

So instead of not being able to get a table at an exclusive restaurants, will there be a waiting list for licenses for a particular dish?

It occurs to me how this could revolutionize food manufacturing–anything you eat could be plumped full of nutrients/fat-free/tuned to your individual metabolism. Could kick world hunger in the slats as well, depending on the price of the starting materials.

Link to the Cornell website here.

Posted in food, science!

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Physical

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Kristine Smith| 3 Comments

Had it today. Down 20 lbs since last year. BP’s down about 20 points (systolic), too.

I think it was the new treadmill, which shows total distance and approx calories burned. It made me want to work harder to hit high numbers. I added speedwork, which helped a lot as well.

So this is the least I’ve weighed since early 2004. I would like to lose 15 pounds more, but I would take 10. I’d be delirious if I managed to lose 20 more, but that would match the least I ever weighed as an adult, and the elderly carcass may balk at that.

Funny thing is, I’m still wearing most all of the same clothes. I was able to buy shirts one size smaller, but trousers are still hanging on. I need a belt for most of them, but they’re not too big yet.

Jackets and blazers fit me no matter what. Coat hanger shoulders.

I think I’m going to have to increase the running/jogging/walking/mix ‘n’ match in order to drop any more. Nice thing is, I’m still able to cook and bake and eat. I am eating less than I did before, but I was forced to the conclusion that I just don’t need that much food. Sad, but true. Breakfast, dinner, and a snack around lunchtime. The occasional cookie. Not giving up cookies. They are a food group.

Posted in life

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“We are not anti-social; we’re differently social.”

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

Another good column/Q&A about introversion, by author Susan Cain. The most surprising thing that Cain discovered?

The most surprising and fascinating thing I learned is that there are “introverts” and “extroverts” throughout the animal kingdom – all the way down to the level of fruit flies! Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson speculates that the two types evolved to use very different survival strategies. Animal “introverts” stick to the sidelines and survive when predators come calling. Animal “extroverts” roam and explore, so they do better when food is scarce. The same is true (analogously speaking) of humans.

I have my extroverted moments. But the quiet glass of wine with a friend instead of a party? The need for seclusion at times? The irritation concerning the confusion between shyness and introversion? So me.

Posted in science!

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Tuesday post-con

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Kristine Smith| Leave a comment

Taking today off. A good idea.

I picked up the pups this morning from the Doggy Spa/Retreat. Both were !!HAPPY!! to see me. Gaby whimpered most of the way home and bugged me to pet her, while King sat in back and looked out the window. Once home, they ran around and drank water and ate snow and peed and dashed around and drank more water and ate more snow. They’re both sleeping now in their usual places, King by the back door and Gaby on the other end of the couch.

They were both groomed, and have the neckerchiefs to prove it. Gaby’s is pink checkers, while King’s is blue with white polka dots.

Household’s back to normal. Or as normal as it gets around here.

Posted in around the house, conventions, life with dogs

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