Monday, April 12, 2010

Leafing Out

27 comments:

  1. Howard is firstamundo!

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  2. * jc ♥

    On FaceBook
    * Aldon Hynes
    * Corinne
    * Demetrius
    * Denise
    * Holly J
    * Jessica
    * Kimmy Cash
    * Renee in Ohio
    * TeaTimeTim

    Safely Here
    * Alan in CA
    * Catreona
    * donna in evanston
    * listener
    * puddle
    * tc

    Left/Don't Know
    * Dar
    * floridagal
    * nordy
    * Protect Democracy
    * sylvie
    * volneysimmons

    Those listed as on FB are my FB friends, which means I see updates from them. TC, listener and Charlie are also my FB friends, of course, as is Reed. He's busy but doing well last I heard from him.

    listener, I'll look for Nordy's e-mail address, but can't promise anything.

    Susan, I'm sorry to hear about Volney. Or, I should say, sorry she disappointed and upset you. *hug*

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  3. Much going on here, as always. But wanted to share this, about the first same sex blessing in the Diocese of Southern Ohio
    http://www.streetprophets.com/story/2010/4/11/63055/7719

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  4. Julia Sugarbaker died Saturday. (aka Dixie Carter) Loved that woman.

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  5. Thanks, Cat! ♥

    I pretty much keep FB just for family, and some distant friends. I started letting all friends be FB friends, but quickly got overwhelmed. So now I'm keeping it simple...to give me time to also BLOG! :~)

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  6. How many years did she get, puddle?

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  7. Almost 71 (May 25). I coulda gone to highschool with her. Funny, she always felt to me like my friend. . .

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  8. Hi Renee :wave:

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  9. Sis and I were talking about her last night. She must be, err, have been a good bit younger than Hal Holbrook...

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  10. I just checked Analog's manuscript guidelines. For serials they want 40 to 80 thousand words. It's all very confusing.

    But rather than talking and puzzling, I'd better get back to writing. There are still a lot of things to work out, and a lot of things to work in. Isn't language delightful?

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  11. Lol! 14 years. Which is exactly the age spread between the father of my children and me. When you're 22, 36 doesn't look so old. I guess 59 doesn't look so old when you're 45 (they married in 1984).

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  12. Went looking for an old favourite quote today which it turns out is gone from my computer thanks to the crash last August. So I googled part of it and the first entry was an old BBB thread where I myself had posted it! So here's the link to the 14 March 2004 thread!

    http://www.democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/3552-electoral-politics-gerrymandering

    Remember to say hallo to your future self when you post today! :-D

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  13. Wait! I meant 12 March 2004~!!

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  14. No... Fourteen years isn't much...

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  15. Time machine, indeed. Love the quote, too!

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  16. Interesting: I backed up a few threads, and though it's evident that Charlie was there (peeps were quoting him), *his* posts are gone. . . .

    http://www.democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/3550

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  17. Here's a question.

    I understand that humans who developed in the tropics would develop very dark skin, and I understand that humans who developed in northern climes would develop very fair, sometimes almost milk white skin. What I don't understand is why Asians have yellowish skin and why Native Americans have reddish skin. What evolutionary purpose do such skin tones serve?

    The reason the question entered my mind is that, as you know if you've been following the development of Marooner's Haven the native Nova Britannians have copper colored skin. And, I was wondering why. I mean, is there any particular reason that a species that closely resembles Homo Sapiens but of course is not related to H. Sap. shouldn't have, say, blue skin? In Perelandra, Lewis has the natives of Venus look human but for their emerold green skin. For now at least I'm working on Lewis' premise that since the Incarnation here on Earth, intelligence anywhere in the universe would take human form, that is the form Our Lord, so to speak, hallowed. I may change that etiology at some point, but for now that's where we are. The native Nova Britannians have human form. But, they are not "human." Their evolutionary process is necessarily different from ours and obviously the two species cannot interbreed. But while conditions on Earth caused variety in skin tone and also to some extent of other characteristics among H. Sap., there is very little variety among the NBs. Is this plausible (granted the original, fairly shaky explanation of their morphology of course)? And what factors contribute to variety in morphology, including skin color, here on Earth, factors that might or might not have analogs elsewhere?

    My googling skills aren't up to the task. Maybe if Bill or Alan sees this, they might be able to point me in the right direction.

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  18. Hi Bill! I wondered where you were. Not that I was around much over the weekend myself. Glad the computer was still under warranty!

    Why do you have to run ZoomText constantly?

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  19. BTW those Dresden Files books, vols 6 and 7, have become available at Audible. I wonder what the problem was. In any case, I'm downloading them as we speak. Also got Watch.

    Bill, how are you coming with Hominids?

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  20. Bill Thomasson4/12/2010 10:14:00 PM

    I'm back on-line, sort-of-mostly. Saturday night something electrical (lights flickered) bollixed my computer's motherboard. It's still under the extended warranty I bought, but will take 3-4 weeks to repair. So --- new computer. Definitely a better computer (computers get better every year, donch know) and it's no secret that Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista. But getting it set up is a major headache. Reacquiring the software I need to access my old files is a a huge hassle. And tweaking the Windows 7 accessibility setting has been taken ages. Looks like they're set now, ecept I have to run ZoomText constantly.

    Glad to see there have been no major issues for people here.

    P.s., I think I have just figured out how to edit a post: Copy the whole thing. Delete it. Then paste what you've copied into the message box, make your changes, and re-post.

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  21. ARG! Put my response to Bill on Puddle's post. :P Sorry about that, guys.

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  22. Bill Thomasson4/12/2010 11:36:00 PM

    The thing about running ZoomText constantly is that in Windows 7 I can't figure out any way to set screen resolution and text size so that things are not fuzzy yet are generally readable on a 29" screen without further magnification. In Vista I got things set so that I only needed more than 1X magnification for things like this HEP comment box.

    But in Windows 7 there is a keyboard short to turn off High Contrast (yellow on black) display whenever I encounter a situation where a less-than-competent programmer wants to display the default yellow text on a white background.That's nice.

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  23. Bill Thomasson4/12/2010 11:45:00 PM

    I thought I'd mentioned that I'd finished Hominids. I thought that 3/4 was well above average and the other quarter could have been cut with benefit to the story. (Recall that my response to Brin's Earth was far more negative. What I said about Hominids was not faint praise.)

    I was about 3/4 of the way through The City and the City when my computer went out. Hope to get back to it in a few days.

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  24. Bill Thomasson4/12/2010 11:52:00 PM

    Remember that Native Americans evolved in Asia, not the Americas. They and today's East Asians come from common stock, although some people think modern East Asians have changed more.

    I've always wondered whether theories about skin coloration weren't "just so" stories. Especially when you consider that Native Americans aren't the only people who have moved around within proto-historic times. But you may theorize that in mid-latitudes people benefitted to some degree both from resistance to melanoma and the ability to synthesize Vitamin D. So you get an intermediate skin color.

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  25. Remember that Native Americans evolved in Asia, not the Americas.

    Right. This is another scientific fact that some people try to deny. There seem to be so many such facts.

    I'm thinking the NBs developed in the middle latitudes. Hence the sort of median skin tone as opposed to either extreme. I still need to learn a great deal about their history and culture. *sigh* But, at least I seem to have gotten Mama Morrow's psychology worked out. At some point maybe I'll run it past Renee. *grin*

    Forgot to mention earlier, I also got The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire from Audible this afternoon. They were quite the rage at Library Thing last year. I'm glad to have finally been able to get them. They're set in Sweden; the author's name is Larsen. There's a third book, but Audible doesn't have it yet. I started The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. So far, so good.

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