Sophie's Secret LJ

So, next wednesday we're skipping Firefly for a session. I was thinking Singstar since I haven't had a chance to try it out as a party thing (Cam refuses to play it with me)

EDIT: By "next Wednesday" I mean the Wednesday after next, ie Wednesday next week. Oops.

Poll #1489129 Singstar?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

Would you come to Singstar next Wednsday night 2nd December?

So today it is my birthday. I have had the odd moment of "OMG I'm thirty" but overall am ok with being so Very Old.

To celebrate, a poll:

EDIT: Yes, you will have to round up/down. But this way I get a mean and standard deviation!

Poll #1489109 How old are you today
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

How old are you right now?

Specifically, are you thirty?

And now to have a lie down, because the last few days have been fun but tiring.

Only spoils the first few minutes or so, and of possible interest to geeky people who don't watch the show.
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People have started asking me what I want for my birthday, so here's a list. I've turned off notifications for this post, so if you decide to buy something say so and other people will know not to buy it.

99% of you aren't getting me presents and that's totally cool, I just can't be bothered wrangling the other 1% :)
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FINALLY! After something like four dvds worth of tv (Avatar the Last Airbender, Warehouse 13, The Waters of Mars and The First Australians), a sort of regency-ish dress made of three of Cam's old tshirts and one of mine. I made it up as I went along and there's a bunch of things I might do differently if I make one again, but overall I am pretty much in love with it.


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DeviantArt: http://sqbr.deviantart.com/art/Kira-investigates-144088719
Hapless (currently down): http://comics.distantwisdom.net/blog/84

I think it turned out ok given that it was drawn in my teeny moleskin while waiting for a bus and coloured with a mouse.

(Server seems to be back up but for some reason email isn't :( )

I have internet but not email or homepage. Also I have to use Cam's Windows machine with it's damn ergonomic keyboard that messes up my two finger typing (shut up)

So, if you MUST contact me use lj messaging.

No pattern, no rulers, no pressing, I just chucked it together with chalk and pins from a mediums size women's sleeveless shirt and one of Cam's old 4XLish tshirts. Ideas taken from McCall's M5893.


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So I just finished "Scout's Progress", the next Liaden book by Sharon Lee and Steven Miller.

It turns out to be a romance about a mathematician/maths lecturer who uses her ability with equations to become a renowned spaceship pilot and find love. I mean really, how could I not enjoy it? :)

Also the introduction is by Susan Krinard, who is married to serge_lj, which is just cool.

The ending is remarkably abrupt though. I vaguely recall someone warning me about that.

After being recced them a bunch of times I finally got around to trying a Liaden Universe novel. They're by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Specifically, "Local Custom", which was written something like 5th in the series but is first chronologically. It was a lot of fun, somewhere between Anne MacAffery and Lois McMaster Bujold on the girly space opera continuum.
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Right! I have submitted my art for both yuletart and hp_holidaygen. And I am VERY GLAD I had pretty much finished both of them when my tablet broke, though I wouldn't have minded being able to fiddle with them a bit more.

And now to wait! *twiddles thumbs impatiently*

For anyone who wants in on the Archive of Our Own and doesn't get updates, the open-ish Beta should start this weekend, to get an account you add your email address to a queue or ask a current account holder for an invite. Afaict we only get one and mine is spoken for, sorry!

See that thing about how they'll no longer automatically delete comments when you delete a chapter? That was me! As in, I accidentally fell afoul of it, I didn't fix it :)

(For anyone wondering, An Archive of Our Own is a fanfic archive)

For this prompt. Since I haven't gotten around to replacing my tablet yet so I did it in coloured pencil, it's almost physically painful not to be able to edit my many mistakes. Still, it turned out better than most of my coloured pencil stuff.

Come celebrate me turning 30!

Date: Saturday 28th November
Time: 11am-2pm ish
Place: my house

No presents required, but since it's lunchish please bring something to eat, here's some examples of foods I can eat too.

Our house isn't HUGE so no randoms please, but anyone who I'm at least kind of friends with and wants to wish me a happy birthday is welcome to come.

So! A list of foods I can eat for those foolhardy enough to try to feed me.

Savoury and/or healthy is better than sweet/unhealthy (overall your best bet is chopped vegetables and humous :))

I'll add things to this as I remember them, please ask if you want clarification. When in doubt, please check with me!

Here is the list of things I can't eat. I'm being a little less paranoid about soy flour since it's in EVERY BREAD but am happier if I can avoid it.

Preprepared or easy food

• Pfeffernusse biscuits
  
• Turkish bread, most white bread
  
• regular hummous (not spicy or fancy) eg Black Swan or Chris's brand from the supermarket
  
• unflavoured rice and corn thins
  
• most seaweed flavour rice crackers
  
• Boiled eggs
  
• Chopped vegetables (not red capsicum, but I can always just not eat it if it's there)
  
• non-acidic fruit: melons, grapes, banana, pear, paw paw, lychee/rambutan, loquat, custard apple. Ok in small amounts: red apples, berries, cherries
  
• Marshmallows
  
• Mondo brand nougat
  
• nuts and dried fruit (not pine nuts, nothing too acidic)
  

( And now it gets trickier.. )

I was planning on taking a lot of these to Femmeconne, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it at this stage.

So, we have:
-a bag of men's clothing, sizes 3XL to 5XL
-a bag and box of conventional women's clothing, sizes 10-14
-a bag of costumey/gothy etc womens clothing sizes 10-14 (mostly 12)
eg this outfit, a size 12 burgundy version of this dress, various tops

The first two will be taken to an Op shop very soon unless anyone is willing to take them off our hands. The last bag I may keep until a geeky clothes swap since I think fellow geeks would get more out of it, but I'm willing to give it to anyone who wants it or wants to poke through.

So, anyone want to come over and have a look? I'm always open to company, even if you don't think you'll find anything.

Warning: the cat fell asleep on top of the women's clothes, there's a bit of cat hair in there!

I've been tutoring a Finance student in calculus recently before his exam on Wednesday. I warned him I didn't know any Finance stuff but he said it was straight maths. And afaict they were just taught plain calculus, he showed me the last few worksheets and chapters and the latter could have come straight out of any not-very-good first year calculus course.

Unfortunately, the worksheets couldn't, and contained finance terms I had never seen before and which the notes didn't mention. And there's no textbook.

One question said "what is the marginal production?" but once google revealed that "marginal product" was a quantity I'd already calculated in a previous question I was ok.

But another said something like "Use the Mean Variance Portfolio Method to calculate the optimal value of L". I have never heard of the Mean Variance Portfolio Method. And what the hell was L? Google was no help until I realised the lecturer might be using a slightly off phrasing again, at which point I found Modern portfolio theory. The student paled at all the equations, I paled at the stats and finance, and even with the answers to the worksheet question in front of me I only managed to reverse engineer about half of it before he said "You know what, I'm never going to learn that by Wednesday. I'll just concentrate on the stuff I almost have the hang of."

I've encountered this sort of thing a lot, where students are made to feel stupid for not being able to answer questions they haven't been given the tools to solve. This combines badly with the common misconception that maths is hard and makes no sense, and that if you don't get it immediately you must just be too dumb to ever understand.

Grr!

I was Perthed the other day: I was reading the lj of thefourthvine, an (awesome) American fanfic fan and she started talking about emma_in_oz visiting.

And just now I came across Smalltimore.

So, do other cities have terms for this sort of thing?

I'll come up with specifics later but: 30th birthday party for me at my house Saturday 28th November during the day. No extra special theme, no presents required, but I will be coming up with a list of suggested snacks that I can eat if you want to bring something :)

Also if you want even more opportunities to see me I intend on going to the Swancon picnic on the 22nd (note: it costs $5 and requires an RSVP, though you might be alright just turning up if you don't eat any of the food they provide?).