Am-I-Dumb.com - Dumb Test

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Dumb Test

Apparently I am bored tonight. Actually, I think I am procrastinating actually doing any work on my NaNo story. Even though it's getting good.

Free-IQTest.net - Free IQ Test

And I was not exactly awake or concentrating on it, either.

It was an okay test, a little tricky in places. But the really annoying was the end. It takes nearly ten minutes of clicking 'skip' to get get past all the ads and products they want to sell you.

A Review of Anathem

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
A book review

From the word “anthem” meaning “a piece of sacred vocal music” and from the word “Anathema” meaning “a formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.”

This is the title of Neal Stephenson’s latest book. Now, I usually read science fiction and fantasy. I had never before read Stephenson because he is not a pure genre author. Most of his work falls under the category of historical romance. Some of his work is alternate history/near future. And his earliest work has been described as cyberpunk. None of these are genres or subgenres that hold any interest for me.

Then Stephenson wrote Anathem. The pre-release work-up in Locus was interesting, and I thought, “I might give it a read once it’s out in paperback.” But as the release date grew closer, I found myself thinking about the concept of the novel that I’d read about. And if I am thinking of a book I haven’t even read, well, I take that as a sign. I bought a copy, in hardcover, which I am loathe to do if it’s an author I don’t know, trust, admire, love, etc.

The first thing I noticed was that the book was 900 some odd pages long. Long books don’t scare me. I read Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth because it was a long book. I read very fast, you see, and frequently run out of book long before I’m ready to leave the story. My favorite authors, who by sane standards are prolific, don’t write fast enough to suit me. So long books don’t scare me.

I settled down to start reading Anathem. I thought it would take me several days to read it because I lack the time to devote to intensive reading right now, what with NaNoWriMo, the revision of my own book, school etc. Nuh-uh. Just over a day. Why?

Because Anathem is a complex book with many themes and concepts interwoven and I was afraid that if I put the book down for any great length of time, I’d lose the thread of it. At the same time, I found the book insightful, funny, and absolutely brilliant. And more importantly, it was an awesome read. I read a lot of books. This is the best book I’ve read in well over a year.

From the beginning the concept grabbed me. The plot took two hundred pages to show up, and I didn’t care. The concept, the background, the sheer detail of the fascinating world-building held me spellbound. Then when the plot did show up, it got even better! It alternated between philosophy and action and politics and science and math and religion. Any concept you can name was probably thought about at some point during this novel.

Anathem is what science fiction used to be. It is what science fiction should be. This is not a rehashing of the typical sci fi plot involving rockets and space colonization. It isn’t thinly veiled socio-political commentary. It isn’t space opera with nothing but lip service paid to the science aspect of sci fi. No, it’s innovative. It’s like 40s sci fi writ anew, based on modern science. Not Newtonian or Einsteinian physics, but sciences like quantum mechanics.

The science is dazzling, well researched, and logically presented in such a way that the average reader probably can understand most of it. Ditto for the math. And the characters are human, believable, and likeable. They make you want to keep reading to find out what happens to them next. All the way to the end of the novel. At which point, I heaved a huge sigh and said, “I wish there was a sequel.” Of course, the odds are slim, I think Anathem was written as a stand-alone, but still, what a wonderful, wonderful book.

Here’s hoping that Stephenson considers writing another book in the same world.

Horses in Writing

As a writer of fantasy and a lover of horses, this blog post was pretty much inevitable. The following is a primer for those people planning on putting horses into their novels in any way, but particularly as a form of transportation.

1. The horse is not a machine. It needs to rest, it needs to eat, it needs to sleep. It drinks lots of water, very messily. And then the horse smears it’s wet, grain-and-dirt-and-snot coated muzzle across the shirt you’re wearing.

2. The horse has a mind of its own. It can get cranky. Or frisky. And they startle easily. The horse is a prey animal and wired that way. Its instinct says run away first, then wonder if that flapping thing is really trying to attack. So sometimes the horse goes sideways because a leaf flips over in the wind. Sometimes, the rider doesn’t go with the horse.

3. Some horses will hold their breath while being saddled so that the girth is too loose. And some horses will try to scrape their riders off on trees. And then there is propping. Propping occurs when the horse stops suddenly, usually at a gallop. The horse stops by planting its stiffened front feet to the earth. Propping them, see? The problem with that is simple: the rider rarely sees it coming and ends up flipping over the horse’s head.

4. Horses have bad habits, too. They need mental stimulation. A bored horse who has been in a stall too long picks up vices. Cribbing, for example. Cribbing is when the horse starts biting and chewing on the stall itself, and swallows air as a result. There are a whole host of stable vices that the budding author can look into.

5. The rider. The escaping princess leaps onto the back of a horse in her silk dress and gallops off into the night? She falls off after ten paces because silk is slippery. So are the bare backs of horses. Okay, she has a saddle. Ever try mounting a horse in a full length skirt? And side-saddles aren’t well balanced, so no cross country, which makes it easy for the guards to catch her. Dress sensibly: boots, long pants.

6. The characters ride all day long, hand their horses over to the stable boys, and saunter into the inn. Riding all day long is hard physical work. It’s exhausting. After a full twelve hours or more in the saddle, even given stops for nature-calls, the character shouldn’t be able to stand up straight, much less walk, much less saunter. And both people and horses can get saddle-sores.

There is plenty more to think about when using horses in a novel. The best recommendation I could give you is to find someone who owns horses and will let you experience the joys of riding AND taking care of their needs.

Art and Personality

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Conscientious, Fulfilled, and Spiritual

20 Renaissance, 14 Islamic, 11 Ukiyo-e, -23 Cubist, -27 Abstract and 2 Impressionist!

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosopy, religion, art, politics, science, and all other aspects of intellectual enquiry. Renaissance artists looked at the human aspect of life in their art. They did not reject religion but tended to look at it in it's purest form to create visions they thought depicted the ideals of religion. Painters of this time had their own style and created works based on morality, religion, and human nature. Many of the paintings depicted what they believed to be the corrupt nature of man.

People that like Renaissance paintings like things that are more challenging. They tend to have a high emotional stability. They also tend to be more concientious then average. They have a basic understanding of human nature and therefore are not easily surprised by anything that people may do. They enjoy life and enjoy living. They are very aware of their own mortality but do not dwell on the end but what they are doing in the present. They enjoy learning, but may tend to be a bit more closed minded to new ideas as they feel that the viewpoint they have has been well researched and considered. These people are more old fashioned and not quite as progressive. They enjoy the finer things in life like comfort, a good meal, and homelife. They tend to be more spiritual or religious by nature. They are open to new aesthetic experiences.

A Blog Suborned

I stopped following a blog today.

The owner of the blog, a literary agent, started to use the blog to express political opinions. Now, there is nothing wrong with expressing those types of opinions. But it would be better to start a new blog for that purpose than to use your pre-existing blog about being an agent. That's rather underhanded, in my opinion.

And even though the agent had previously been on my list of those to consider querying, I now have doubts. Does it matter that she sounds like a good match? Does it matter that I seem to write the sort of fiction she seems to like? Can I trust her, given her dishonesty in regards to her own blog?

Even if I had agreed with her political viewpoint, which I don't, I would have stopped following her blog. I simply don't like politics. I don't want to hear about it. On election day, I will go to the poll and make my own choice irregardless of what anyone else on earth thinks about the candidates or issues.

So by using a blog as a vehicle for political preaching, this agent not only offended me, she may have gotten herself removed from my consideration as an agent. I know, she doesn't care. Neither do I.

Rant complete.

Musings about MRSA

A friend recently asked me (yet again) about the "MRSA thing" and what can he do to prevent it?

Okay. MRSA has been around, and known about, since the 1970s at least. It stands for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. It is a variant of the normal Staph A that every one of us already has on our bacteria-laden human bodies. What makes MRSA special is that R. Resistant. Bacteria gain resistance by several methods.

1. Antibiotics. In the good ol' days, patients could pressure their docs to write antibiotic prescriptions for viral issues like the common cold. Placebo effect, to be sure, for the cold. But the bacteria, they learn.

2. Antibiotics. Again. Patient is sick, takes antibiotics, feels better, stops taking antibiotics even though full prescribed course is not done. Patient may think 'I'll save these for later, in case I get sick again.' Uh-huh. By not finishing the antibiotics, some bacteria are left alive and kickin'... or actually, dividin', and they learned a lot about surviving that particular antibiotic. And what they know, so do their neighbors and offspring.

3. Bacterial communication. Okay, I know, it's strange to think that a bacterium, a simple single-celled organism, can talk. But it does. At least, it talks to other bacteria. They swap DNA frequently. We shake hands when we meet, and bacteria rub their membranes together and trade DNA snippets in lieu of discussing the weather. As a result, your new resistant friend set up from #2 doesn't keep the resistance a secret.

4. Darwin. Darn that man, it's all his fault. Whether you agree with him or not, life does adapt, evolve, and change. And with bacteria that change can be rapid. If they weren't microscopic, I'd have said visible. E. coli, for example, can divide every 20 minutes. This is exponential growth. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16... and so on until the bacteria run out of nutrients. The only growth curve in all of nature that can match the bacterial curve is ours. We are also reporducing exponentially. (I wonder if we'll die off when the nutrients are all consumed?) But because of that rapid growth, adaptation can occur at a high rate. Like all life, it appears to be imbued with a will to live. So the bacteria can learn resistance from natural selection processes as well.

But there's good news. Really. Because of #4, resistant bacteria do not reproduce as well as non-resistant strains. So take all of the antibiotic prescribed, even if you feel better. Invest in hand sanitizer. And eat that activa yogurt to re-establish the good bacteria before another resistant strain sets up. Resistant strains can't compete with the normal strains in a non-antibiotic laden system. And yes, that's why antibiotics cause diarrhea. They're not very specific about which bacteria they kill.

Furthermore, the bacteria is cultured out and then resistance-sensitivity tests are run on your personal infecting bacteria. The antibiotics you are given are specific to that strain of bacteria.

I laughed a lot when the media fastened onto MRSA like it was the next pandemic. MRSA is small potatoes in the hospital setting these days.
It's community acquired.
It's been around for decades.
And...

Vancomycin kills it.

What the media failed miserably at noticing was the bacterium that scares even the ICU staff.
That would be VRSA.
Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
MRSA has a new family member.
Be afraid.