soupytwist

I haven't read much (for me!) this month: I've been super busy, and also I started reading Les Miserables, and I am not counting that until I've finished it or given up. Which may be in, like, ten years time, because HOLY CRAP PEOPLE THAT IS ONE MASSIVE BOOK.

Anyway. :D

( The Map That Changed The World - Simon Winchester )

( Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis - Sarah Monette )

( The Golden Road - LM Montgomery )

So December is over, and now it is 2013. Um, apparently December's reading was mostly horrifying and/or depressing? I don't know. The rest were fluff, in a lot of ways, though, so maybe it balances out!

( Generation Kill - Evan Wright )

( Bad Pharma - Ben Goldacre )

( The School At The Chalet and The Chalet School And Jo - Elinor M Brent Dyer )

( One Salt Sea and Ashes of Honor - Seanan McGuire )

( Pet Sematary - Stephen King )

( MetaMAUS - Art Spiegelman )

( The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer )

All in all I read 135 books this past year. I think I feel good about that. I do think I may try to read less and write more in 2013, though. I don't know. Hmm.

Happy New Year, everyone, btw. :)

Stuffs:

Via jae - who never fails to link awesome things - I discover that of all the places to actually institute a guaranteed minimum income, it was a small place in Canada. And more than that: YEARS AGO. Only we're only now going through the data. Personally, I am totally thrilled to discover that it looks like it was probably ultimately positive.

I really hope we now go through this data and use, y'know, some actual number crunching to tell us things. The idea of being able to do some really amazingly potential-filled research, for years, but just sitting on all that data instead of using it is so sad! And would still be even if one of my pet theories turned out to not work so well in practice.

Terry Jones' documentary on Rome is up online! I am not a historian but I thought this was very good: entertaining and focused on what life was like for the general population in ancient Rome. (The eyerolling at the "omg really, being a slave was horrible? REALLY? cause that's not at all inherent to the very concept!" nonwithstanding: it's also potentially triggery.)

Polyamorous Recs has updated, yaaaay.

Anyone who cares probably already heard this, but Sean Maher came out! I kind of want to hug him. Although the bit that really makes me want to do that is the support-a-thon all the other Firefly alum on Twitter went on. Awww.

Some interesting posts on the politics and ethics of ebooks.

I must have had this link for over a month, but omg I want to go to this ice hotel for the views ALONE. Holy moly.

For the record: I am going to be spending a bunch of my evenings studying, along with a whole lot of unexpected Life Stuff, so I suspect public posting will get, um, even more sparse than it has been for a while! So if I miss stuff you think I need to know, please poke me.

(Soon there might be a post about television. THE EXCITEMENT.)

It has been raining hard here for the past 24 hours, and for once I am very happy about this. Namely, because it seems to have at least temporarily stopped people trying to set my country on FIRE.

Well, some of it. Where I am we've only had one night of scariness compared to London or Brum who've had several. We've got off relatively lightly. But still, this footage here is pretty indicative of how actually scary it's been round here.

The centre of town is all cops and boarded up windows right now, but over a thousand Mancunians went out and cleaned up what the council hadn't already got to (a thousand! with brooms and binbags! ♥ ), and things were open pretty much as usual today. The sirens zooming everywhere seem to be preventative, rather than anything actually kicking off.

I am mostly torn between feeling desperately sad for the people whose homes and livelihoods have been screwed over, worrying that all this anxiety and stress is bad for us as a culture in itself, and feeling sad for the world that there are sufficient people who actually think this stuff is a good idea... and who may, from a certain perspective, be right to think that they will benefit from smashing and stealing and setting stuff on fire. Even if it's only as temporary relief of anger and resentment or frustration at poverty/a terrible relationship with the police, or just the satisfaction of having more stuff.

I don't know. I am pretty goddamn sure that going on a weird vendetta against social networking sites, threatening to kick people off benefits and out of their council houses, or blaming immigrants is not going to help, though.

Er, it may be obvious that this is the Big Topic round here! Some links:

How To Really Hug A Hoodie is a very good article about anti-gang programmes in Glasgow that actually worked... by treating said gang members as reasonable human beings.

This is a (to me) blackly hilarious article exlaining to Americans about how zomg we have cops who don't have guns!

A discussion about the balance between treating the criminals as people and not be seen to be ignoring the damage caused to the victims.

Here's the advice guide for anybody who's been directly affected.

And now we go on, cause that's what people do. Which for me is going to involve some food, and packing, and more job stuffs.

(note: I'm screening all comments because I want this post public but I don't want raging badness all over my comment section.)

Today, linkspam, of the vaguely thematic variety.

I have nothing to add to the ongoing coverage of the tragedy in Japan, being miles away and thankfully not affected personally, but here are some of the links I think worth passing on:

help_japan is the fannish auction for money to help Japan.

It's also worth noting that Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders, one of my go-to charities, are not taking donations for Japan at this time, for practical reasons. If you're donating, also, please make sure you're doing so via a legit site, as apparently fraudsters pretending to be raising for Japan have been particularly rife. Blech.

(I also like that that points out (in a way which is not all "omg they're not looting!" racist condescension) that the Japanese government have done incredibly well in what is one of the biggest natural disasters ever. Charity is an excellent, wonderful thing: good infrastructure and building regulations are also wonderful.)

This is an explanation of what the data about nuclear radiation being spouted everywhere actually means. I also think this comment by Charles Stross is probably going to be rather prescient, at some point when the horror is less immediate.

Elsewhere, serious stuff is still going down in the Middle East. I don't have much to say about that, either, but Laurie Penny's article here about the occupation of the Gaddafi family's UK home is worth a read.

Now the gobsmacking:

Here's a TED talk and related article about a guy who recorded SEVERAL YEARS of his son's language acquisition. The scale of this is truly incredible, although I am not 100% sure where I stand on the potential consent issues involved.

And now the frivolous:

As someone who LOVES books, "book surgery" should make me cringe in horror, but wow, this stuff is beautiful.

I have a huge affection for well done flash-mobbing/theatre in public, and this one in an airport in Beirut is lovely.

Courtesy of gavagai, omg hilarious fliers. (The last is the best, but I'd seen it before: that the rest exist make me SO HAPPY.)

gavagai also has an excellent reaction post to the finale of Being Human: spoilery thoughts I agree with, here.

a.k.a. I'm listening to Christmas music on repeat while blogging some links and some blather about TV.

Delicious is probably getting sold, not just closed down. Which, let's hope, means those of us who use it regularly won't need to find a replacement just yet. Though it's a good reminder that backing up everything is always a good plan. And I will also be happier when the fan-run version gets done, which knowing fans will be any time now.

If you don't read gavagai, then you've missed out on a lot of excellent links.

Relationships between UK citizens as measured by phonecalls is FASCINATING. Just look at how closely those match up to the bureaucratic boundaries!

I'm someone who believes in enthusiasm, and this article about the politics of enthusiasm has lots of food for thought.

( NCIS )

( Psych )

( Dirk Gently )

And finally, in honour of the fact my weather forecast now says Heavy Snow in very ominous letters, and because newsbot3 sent it to me, and also just in case you hadn't had enough festive Christianity lately *g*, here: Let It Dough. Mmm... baked things.

- I don't have any personal connection to the Bloody Sunday events, but I feel the Inquiry report being published today deserves a moment. Here and here are the posts I have been thinking about the most.

- In the worst segue EVER, I apologise in advance, but I'm afraid I really can't help finding this really inappropriately funny.

- I have nothing to say about Doctor Who; I mean, it wasn't bad, but it was football-related filler, with a bonus of "Hey, Matt Smith got scouted back in the day, we can show off!", and I enjoyed it fine without particularly caring or having anything to say except OOH FINALE.

- I have been reminded today that it is not long now until I go HIKING. I am going to do the first bit of the Coast-to-Coast. I am really looking forward to it, but I have never done any proper hiking before and other than 'pack light, no really, LIGHTER THAN THAT' and getting some decent shoes, maps, and foot-care stuff, I haven't much idea what I'm getting into. Advice from any more experienced hikers in the audience is welcome.

I got quite a bit more reading done this month than I expected to: I didn't get to go on a trip I was really, really looking forward to, and so I kind of drowned my sorrows in books a little...

( Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Scott Pilgrim And The Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe - all by Bryan Lee O'Malley )

( A Life Apart - Neel Mukherjee )

( Cotillion - Georgette Heyer )

( Cousin Kate - Georgette Heyer )

( Envious Casca - Georgette Heyer )

( Behold, Here's Poison - Georgette Heyer )

( Annabel Scheme - Robin Sloan )

( Unsuitable For Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers - ed. Jane Robinson )

I also read a bunch of Rex Stout, for the milk_and_orchids re-read: The Red Box, The League of Frightened Men, and The Rubber Band. And one new one...

( Three At Wolfe's Door and some re-reads - Rex Stout )

Dear people who get very stressed about "family values", or any variation thereon,

I realise this is something other people have been trying to explain for a while now, but just for the record I'm going to clarify something. Right, here it is:

My family has queer people in it. My family has atheists in it. (Also a lot of agnostics, some Jews, some Christians of various stripes, and at least one person who is vaguely pantheist.) My family includes women who've had abortions, and men who've had a vasectomy, and a bunch of people who've been divorced or lost a partner and then gone to find someone else. At least one member used to sell Socialist Worker, which is even less relevant but apparently being left-wing goes against some kind of 'family code' somewhere, along with the way a bunch of the women in my family do in fact have jobs that they care about and want to succeed in.

I love those people. They are my family. If you would like to really be 'Family Values' oriented, then you need to include them. Otherwise... you're kind of saying they don't count as a family, which will in fact necessitate me coming round there with a clue-by-four.

The Indian family next door probably have something to say to you as well about this, by the way. Just a heads up: I'm pretty sure they think they're a family too.

oh so nicely,
Katie

p.s. Next time anyone goes on about how one nice white Christian dude and one white Christian woman is the perfect way of perfectness, a magical teleport will pop into existence and bring them to the nearest Social Services, where I am confident they will find, among other things, that this is not necessarily true. If you like, I have ten examples of really horrifically non-perfect white Christian hetero monogamous 2.4 kids families off the top of my head. I would give out the details, but that wouldn't be fair to said kids, who do actually have lives and feelings themselves.

Utter, utter asswipe being awful about the American healthcare debate in a way that truly makes one boggle that okay, there exist people for whom more egalitarian healthcare is the same as Nazism and knowingly yelling "Heil Hitler!" at a Jewish person is okay

vs.

New Being Human tomorrow night

I suspect the final result will only be known after some serious sleep.