Waking up at 2:30 a.m. from a dream where I promised someone I'd order and raise 49,511 chicks (49,511???) into layers for them and then realizing in my dream that I had no money for capital and investment for the chick order, the feed they'd require, the building I'd need (I've lived on a farm with long, empty chicken houses from the previous owner, so I already have a clue), plus the hardware (feeders, waterers) and the electricity and all the gadgets that would entail, and dang if I didn't come full awake actually doing math.
I was insane thinking that plan to tunnel to 0,0 from the -8000s would be a cinch. I can tell you things about acres of lava and miles of cobblestone that would make you hate minecraft forever. I think the game is psychic, it can feel when I'm my most frustrated and disgusted and spawns big gobs of ores to run into, and alla sudden I'm getting 50 blocks of gold and diamonds and all the other stuff around them. I ran into someone else's settlement that turned out to be part of our own township that I had no clue existed (I died in lava and temporarily lost my "/back" to home base, so I popped out on top to see the countryside for a few minutes, talk about total coinkydink), and way after that ran into someone else's super long unclaimed tunnels that for some reason left all the coal intact and never seemed to lead back out anywhere, which got boring real quick, so after I nabbed the coal I just kept plowing my own path through the bottom of the world.
I kept seeing this guy die over and over in the chat log, cracked me up, finally had to get a screen shot.
Anyway, I'm in the -2000s now *dull cheer*. I am getting super rich, though. I've got so many blocks of redstone that I'm thinking about building a Chinese restaurant. I mean, I NEVER see anyone build with redstone, it would be pretty awesome. And I've got 3 double trunks of cobblestone, so I'm thinking about paving the valley between the village and my evil lair and going crazy building a mall or something.
I've gotta get back into the tunnel. Be careful with your grills, guys. (Memorial Day weekend in the States.)
click for the full collection of cool
Alejandro Sabella faint and fall memes
It actually all started with this post on facebook (which I'm guessing sent out a tag alert when I shared her 3 year old picture with Betty White after I got a Timehop notification), which linked over to this post from yesterday, and apparently a quick verification check about the twitter mention. Or, it could've simply been a polite fav back after I shared one of her tweets yesterday, but that's never happened before in the 3 years I've been following, so who knows, right?
For my psychologist and everyone else who thinks this is one of my narcissistic brag posts, while technically, yes, you are right, I'm going to layer that with *cough*posterity posting in case my glitchy brain goes off*cough*. (Special note for my readers in particular- as Gerald Webb is to the Snarkalecs, Jessica is to Hollywood wives and moms. Yeah, she's there in the middle of it.)
Moving on. I finally made it into chat for #latenightmovie last night at SyfyDesigns and had such a great time that I totally forgot to screen grab a keepsake.
the origin for this (click pic) was an app convo
that went horribly awry
as far as I can tell
*click for boring*
This was the funniest dumbest funniest #latenightmovie I've seen this whole year. The snark was off the wall. This snip will click to youtube if you're desperate for a questionable dude movie.
Felt really good to touch base with the gang. Kinda paying for it this morning, will hafta get on my big athletic ball and do a couple of backward traveling crab walks off it, stuff like that.
The view out my front window this morning.
The view out the back. Yes, I know it's out of season, we're actually still getting hummers migrating through.
Holy cow, just ran into Police say 1 killed, 4 injured in shooting at ZombiCon. What the hell, people, you know we're only practicing for the apocalypse, right? Geez. It's things like that that'll ruin it for everyone and get cons shut down. I try to stay away from news feeds. I usually get everything I need off twitter.
Now I need stress relief from the news. And something motivating while I move around getting busy. Kinda still have this in my head from last night, so I'm going with it. (Save yourselves, stop scrolling down after this vid. God, I want someone to make a KhanGa vid...)
OH. You guys thought I was going to do an Alejandro tribute. You know it's one of my faves. Sure, why not. You guys know I absolutely adore this song, however darkly suggestive it may be of Hessian-esqe-ish Illuminati takeover of Vatican power (quick, cover your eye) and the hint that special ops robots are going around disguised as pop stars (Mulder wants to *believe*), and the haunting hint that there will be hell to pay (get it? hell to pay) for anyone who was remotely involved on either side of the Spanish Inquisition (which is *cough* still going on now *cough*). It's those dang Mason forefathers. Are they Christian or not? At any rate, j'adore these excellent fan tributes. I'm actually quite torn, you guys know I'm a hardcore Lady GaGa fan AND a hardcore fan of the fans in all the fandoms.
So @bonenado's all like I must have a brain disease because he sleepwalked before it was even the middle of the night and made coffee and went back to bed, popped awake hours later long enough to go turn the pot back off and go back to bed, and then got back up an hour later trying to put the pieces back together while I made a fresh pot because that pot was toast.
This is me gearing up for the big SDCC hashtag watch.
The last time I did this (pre pregnant mama-burrito-Bunny) was 2012, awake for 2 weeks straight filtering incoming into a sweet little feed of my own while I watched everything live about anything having to do with Merlin at San Diego Comic-Con, back to back with the live filming in Pierrefonds. Because of that little maneuver, I got picked up for a hawt feed on conferize behind my back and didn't even know it. I went ahead and claimed the account and have been getting invitations to some pretty sweet conferences around the world ever since, some at virtually no cost. I never log in and network, so I have no followers, but it's pretty cool that I have a special con-only feed out there. Ok, enough yapping, need to round up my day and get my surf board ready.
In a truly perfect world, a fan would create an awesome youtube tribute vid with a Neo/Khan mashup.
Sometimes I follow @bonenado around with my old Matrix gristle bone that I keep laying around to get out and gnaw on every little bit, to his disgusted not again because he thinks The Matrix was a boring movie. I've said from the start that there's no way any of them ever got out of the Matrix in the first place, that the Architect might be the one who's really trapped, that Smith might actually have a point, and that the whole thing is so layered with subroutines, how do we know the entire construct isn't an elaborate program written by a high school super nerd with nothing better to do. The fact that the Cracked guys brought up the story within a story within a dream within a story (or something) totally validated me, and I cheered through 98% of everything they said here.
I'll add two more thoughts.
1- All that kung fu when Neo could have simply used the Force to wage wizard wars messing everyone up with thought power alone, because brains are one more layer to the whole mashup, they use electrons, he's already part of the Matrix, so his thoughts alone could have conceivably shredded the place.
2- There could be more than the red or blue pill, and in fact, I can't help wondering what Neo could have done with popping a cocktail of red, blue, green, orange, yellow, white, and whatever else capsules, liquigels, and tablets since the pills themselves were simply code hacks.
Leonard McCoy: Dear Lord, do you think we're intelligent enough to — suppose — what if this thing were used where life already exists? Spock: It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix. Leonard McCoy: Its new matrix? Do you have any idea what you're saying? Spock: I was not attempting to evaulate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create. Leonard McCoy: Not anymore. Now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the earth was created in six days. Now watch out! Here comes Genesis. We'll do it for you in six minutes! Spock: Really, Dr. McCoy. You must learn to govern your passions. They will be your undoing. Logic suggests— Leonard McCoy: Logic? My God, the man's talking about logic! We're talking about universal Armageddon. You green-blooded, inhuman—
Not that I'm identifying with this person, but at least it's proof I'm not alone, clicks to source.
So basically, Khan was doing his best to break the Matrix... And if you really think about it, it's all Spock's fault (the original Neo) because he's the one who tricked Khan, and now Khan thinks all his people are dead and they're really not. The Augments nearly overcame the machines, guys. Chew on that one for awhile.
I really thought doing all this electronically on a blog would be awesome, but wrapping my mind around moving a paragraph here to another chapter there in a pile of 'pages' I can't hold and glance through is more laborious on the brain than using actual paper. So, index cards. Sections, chapters, 2-3 word notes, tabs on cards where I still need to work, etc. Every author/writer I've ever talked to has said writing a book is the hardest thing they've ever done. I'm finding it mind-numbingly laborious, like working on a thesis, only I have to come up with my own material from scratch.
I'm actually not as bad off as Mr. Earbrass. I just need to get my bearings on what's what, what's where, and what's left to do.
I keep hearing Weird Al shout, "Where's my liquid paper? WHERE'S MY LIQUID PAPER???"
TODAY. PLAN. I let my house junk out this week because the pain sucked so bad, and I guess I must've actually been sick because I wobbled into a little fever after I started the z-pack. Two days on antibiotic later, I feel like going KHAAAAAAAAAN all over my kitchen and laundry, and whadayaknow, I need to round up a weekend grill-fest menu. Picked up corn on the cob while I was out, have country ribs and chicken to BBQ, blackened salmon, cheap hot dogs & a can of chili, a giant top sirloin steak for us to split, lotta salad stuff, loaded baked tatos, and @bonenado has requested a blueberry cobbler. Well, I say grill. We've had tropical storm Bill over us last couple of days, all kinds of flash flooding, rivers are waaaay up, and my front lawn actually had standing water in it yesterday. We're on top of a hill... I don't think our alien ancestors migrating here from planet Plymouth realized the wet/dry extremes and all the ticks and mosquitoes, and yet they conquered the wilds and here we are. Taking lots of zyrtec. And benadryl. I need more coffee. Happy Father's Day weekend, all y'alls.
Kind of in freefall getting ready for another possibly crazy weekend.
Dreamed last night all the Brady grandkids got back together in the original Brady house, and I was upstairs watching them mildly fuss between little groups of them gaming and doing drugs. I stole someone's sandwich and was halfway wolfing it down before I realized it had mayo in it and I'd better get on the benadryl, because lemon. Even in my dreams I'm allergic.
One of my dreams was about parts of the earth being scorched off by rivaling corporations wiping out potential profits before anyone else could capitalize and gain more leverage. It wasn't cryptic at all, very straightforward, like gaming gone out of control into real life. I generally don't get involved in eco-anything and usually don't care to have opinions beyond we're where we are and things are gonna go down sooner or later given all the variables and I'm not going to stress my head out because there's not much I can do to change ~that~. My psychologist used to call me a doom and gloomer, a cynic, but I staunchly defend pessimism as being healthier than optimism when the world falls through. At least I have contingency options to fall back on, like surviving instead of crying.
Here, #TBT, quick, what is this creature? You can't find it anywhere now, it's extinct. Yes, even from the internet. Gone. It used to be part of an interactive online game.
Me coming off prednisone isn't pretty. Wired tired super aspie wading in from a week-long forced hormone surge, not a great time to talk to me. But when is, right?
Continuing theme from last night. I need to go wrap my head around something before I get stuck like this. Thought about finding a fractal vid, but I would definitely get stuck in that, better steer clear and keep moving.
Call me slow, but I'm just now discovering that alt Trek tried to migrate us from Spirk to Khirk.
I know, what's all this starting right off with a video thing, am I ~*nuts*~? I've been so caught up in Johnlock and Sheriarty while I work that two months just slipped right by me. Time to get back to some roots here. Don't know if the Khan/Spock name merge was just too much. I mean Khack, Khock, Sphan, Span, Spon, none of it works. Khspack, how's that? I keep waiting for this gen to pick Trek up and really run with it, but this was the only one I found for these two. I hope this isn't indicative of future success.
And in case anyone points out that was awhile back already, I really hope I don't hafta remind everyone that original Spirk thrived once youtube showed up. You know. THROVE.
Wait, finding menages.
Not sure where this one was even going, but someone put a LOT of work into it. Maybe working through some relationship issues or something.
I'm just sad that Khan was put back in the box not even knowing his people are still alive. Anybody out there who's way lost between decades old Khan that drifted more backstory into novels and comics and where alt Khan fits in all this new alt timeline stuff, someone at wikipedia actually did a decent job catching us up. Khan Noonien Singh
So far Abrams has gotten away with blowing up Vulcan and crashing a mega ship practically on Star Fleet. Will alt Trek survive at all??? Tune in next year...
Star Trek 3 is still hopefully tentatively scheduled for summer 2016 release. Last week an interview with the new director Justin Lin came out. I have a feeling I'm going to like him. Keeping my eye on trekmovie.com for more news. Until then I have a feeling I'll dig up every fan video on youtube just out of nerves. I'm finally getting on board with alt Trek, and you guys know that once I'm on board with anything, I'm ON BOARD.
Learned a new thing yesterday, probably nice of me to share. Kept wondering why my blood sugar level kept rising through the day, nearly tapered off the pred, only nibbling on cheese with no carbs, what gives? Well, turns out proteins break down over several hours into other things, and a percentage of protein metabolism becomes blood glucose, so even 4 hours later on an empty stomach, that teensy amount of digestion was keeping my blood sugar level up around 145ish. Wow. Good to know. Meats will do the same thing. Not sure about fats. Haven't really run into this problem before, hope it's not indicative of my function level changing. Probably more like I just never noticed.
Got that one particular big grunge job done yesterday, finally. Can't believe I already had to spend an hour fixing something in the middle of that. Sure glad I did the grunge work, or it would have been even harder to come back and fix later.
Office Cat cleans up your mess
Oh, yeah, remember the big paper.li disaster? They contacted me back. This was my reply to them before I went to bed last night and their reply back this morning. Wait, I'll just paste the whole convo here. I'm just using initials for the contact person. This is me not being paid to help a company test an epic fail.
Janika Banks, Jun 5, 00:11: So something porny was surprisingly my leading story and I had to delete it
off facebook, and none of my twitter friends were featured and they have the
best scifi and gaming content. Settings are there for a REASON. I had my paper
exactly like I wanted it, now the content doesn't relate to my readers on
twitter at all.
D. S., Jun 5, 17:26:
Hi
Janika,
Thank
you for the valuable feedback. The new algorithm is a recent change that is
currently in a 'live testing' phase, so your thoughts and comments are greatly
appreciated. I'm going to pass your message on to our team for discussion.
Kind
regards, D.
D.S, Jun 8, 16:09:
Hi
Janika,
Our
team is discussing the new algorithm this week, and I have a question for you.
In regards to some of your usual content going missing, if you had the ability
to 'star' your most important source so that it's always included, would this
solve the problem?
Kind
regards, D.
Janika Banks, Jun 10, 02:55:
Hello, thanks for contacting me back.
I'm already back on track with most of my content simply by severely
restricting the twitter access down to one out of 20 lists, my favorite
hashtags, and my own timeline. My readers are hardcore scifi fans, and your new
algorithm knocked Star Wars and Lego right off the map for sex positions
and hundreds of cute cats simply because they'd gone viral. Two porny lead
stories two days in a row on my facebook was unacceptable, so I tightened the
bolts way down.
I can't control what my followers at large retweet. Many of them are
grouped by list into things like 'internet magazines' that focus on gaming and
comiccons, and I use those lists on paperli. However, with the new logarithm all
it takes is one of them to have a cat day to flood my paper with cute cat
virals. Instead of spreading out and finding more random content specifically
tailored to my paper's core focus, the new algorithm condensed it down to sex
and cats. (That does sound funny, I'm kind of laughing.) The whole point of MY
paper is sifting out my own kind of random, the kinds of things that fellow
scifi fans love. A quick glance through my paper was adequate for picking up the
best of a multiplicity of feeds, something I found thrilling and very
useful.
I'm really good at juggling bots, have been on social media for years, have
beta tested for photobucket, google analytics, twitter, and sumall. Your idea is
good in theory but very impractical for anyone whose settings were mowed over
with the new algorithm. I have friends who use paper.li but I'm not sure whether
they've noticed yet if anything changed, many of them are professional writers
and might not have had the time yet. I'm a little more obsessive, check the
daily links every single day.
I don't think a star is going to fix this problem. I was very happy with
the old algorithm. I'm not sure what your goals are with the new algorithm,
unless it's to push content that is already maxed out all over the internet
ahead of content that was already locked into settings. I'm not sure what kind
of answer I can give that doesn't sound a little snippy, because that sounds way
too simplistic without more information.
If you do make more changes and would like feedback, I'm happy to try gears
and gizmos galore. Kind of my thing.
I wish I'd just left the first two days of change alone so you could
compare them to past archives and see how utterly cartoony and porny it suddenly
went. I actually thought someone had broken into my paper and changed my
settings. I panicked and started changing the content. If I'd left it alone and
simply deleted the links off twitter and facebook, you'd be able to see it
and fall out of your chairs laughing at how UNrandom that new algorithm was. Sex
and cats. Lots and lots of cats... Like an April Fool's joke from hell. I do
have to applaud that, it's not often I panic any more.
Janika Banks D. S., Jun 10, 03:38:
Hi
Janika,
First,
let me apologize for the content whiplash. Our developers worked very hard on
the new algorithm (and they're still working to improve it), and for most
papers, it's working out great. That said, sex and lots (and lots) of cats is
definitely not an expected or acceptable result. We're keeping track of all of
our feedback concerning the new algorithm, so rest assured and know that our
developers will be reading your comments here.
We
had a team meeting today to discuss the new algorithm, and I'm happy to inform
you that we plan to implement the 'star' system I mentioned that will allow you
to select one (possibly three) sources that you would like to boost content
from. It's similar to our old source priority system and will put more control
over your sources, and therefore your content, in your hands. We'll be
implementing this feature very soon (possibly as early as next week), so please
keep that mind. And I'll be looking forward to your feedback.
If
you have any questions or other comments, I'll be happy to hear them.
Kind
regards, D.
:edit: I may as well insert the reply I just made to that, lol.
Hi again.
Question, just a thought popping into my mind.
If I need to use stars to refocus content now, what was the point of
installing a new algorithm gathering more randomized content? Now we're layering
settings over settings.
Happy hump
day.
Janika Banks
paper.li- how it should have ended... Pretty sure they did NOT get feedback saying most papers thought it was working out great.
I just wanna fix the internet...
Ok, getting on with my morning now. Coffee kicking in.
Waking up at 2:30 a.m. from a dream where I promised someone I'd order and raise 49,511 chicks (49,511???) into layers for them and then realizing in my dream that I had no money for capital and investment for the chick order, the feed they'd require, the building I'd need (I've lived on a farm with long, empty chicken houses from the previous owner, so I already have a clue), plus the hardware (feeders, waterers) and the electricity and all the gadgets that would entail, and dang if I didn't come full awake actually doing math.
