Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Random Linkage

Library of Babel - Weird. I like the minimalist design of this website. If nothing else you could use it as a soothing escape from all flashy, noisy websites that are always trying to get our attention.

Stuff You Do While Sleeping - Nothing surprising; I already knew about all of these but there's a really cute kitten at the top of the page.

Top Films About Time Travel - I have seen several of these. I'm not really a fan of the concept of time travel but sometimes it makes a good story.

33+ Reasons You Should Be Following Nathan Fillion on Twitter and Instagram

Dr Alesha Sivartha’s Book of Life - Illustrations from the 1898 book The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man

The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel - WANT! But not at that price. (~sigh~ Sometimes being a cheapskate is hard.)

Miniatures - Everyone has been sharing this on Twitter and Facebook so you've probably seen it already but I just have to say, one more time, this is amazing!

Thursday, November 9, 2017

This 'n' That

I got a new Samsung tablet. So far all I've done on it is Twitter. I'm feeling a little guilty about having it. I'm feeling like, it's a very expensive toy and I should not waste that much money on a toy for myself. Here's how this happened. I mentioned last week that I thought I might like to have a tablet, thinking that someone might remember and get it for me for Christmas but my other half wanted to get it for me right away. He did ask yesterday if I wanted to go ahead and get or if I wanted it for Christmas. That's not how Christmas gifts are supposed to work! You're not supposed to know what you're getting for Christmas! So I said let's get it.

It's great for Twitter, except that typing on it actually seems slower than on my phone. I'm going to make an effort to do something with it besides just Twitter. I have to justify owning it. And I'll still do Twitter on my phone sometimes because my phone is always with me.

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I finally started quilting on a quilt that I had intended to have finished by now. The actual hand quilting is the part I really enjoy but to get to that part I have to do a lot of other work that I find less fun. But anyway, it's started and having started it I'm suddenly excited again about other quilts that I want to make.

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And a few quick links...

Recreating 17th century sailors' food

Lucas the adorable spider

Fulton Street subway tiles - tile murals

Weird things that washed up on the beach

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Random Linkage

Bartending in Antarctica

Mian Situ - Wonderful, interesting art. (Warning: the "Other" section contains NSFW images.)

Information is Beautiful - Great website. Informative charts.

Excellent Idea - Would probably never fly in the U.S.

Playlist of the Lambs - I always knew Hollywood had that one wrong. (and yet, they will keep doing it)

Japanese Illustrated World Map, 1930's

Simona Ceci - Beautiful fantasy art. I absolutely love these.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

The Rewards of Perseverance

I finished reading Bleak House this morning! I very rarely give up on reading a book once I've started and my experience with Bleak House confirms my feeling that it is not "a waste of time" to stubbornly finish a book "no matter what." I seriously started thinking about quitting when I was about a quarter to a third of the way into it but by the time I was halfway through it started to get interesting and I started to care about some of the characters. Others not so much.

I don't recall ever reading a novel with so many annoying characters, so many individuals to whom I wanted to give a severe tongue lashing. But the thing that made it hard to get into at first was that everyone used so many words to say the simplest little things. What you or I could say in one or two sentences took up one or two pages in this book. Everyone was so wordy. Generally, I like wordiness in novels; I like big books, I cannot lie (sorry, not sorry) but dialog is different. When someone has something to say I want them to just come out and say it plainly, without two or three pages of preamble.

I am glad I read it. Parts of it were sad and some of those parts made me feel like, "That's not fair! but that's like real life. A lot of it is not fair. And it wasn't all sad. For the most part it was a very good ending.