Homies

davidlevine

| - Last Day in Europe

Word count: 0 Step count: 13,825

This will be a brief post because the wifi keeps going up and down (annoyingly, when it's down there's still signal but no data, so our phones insist on trying to use it instead of the 3G).

Out of yogurt at the apartment, we set out in search of breakfast. But though this is a pretty good neighborhood for restaurants, it's more of a bar-and-club sort of a place than a breakfast place, and most of those we found were just bars that had baked goods and coffee in the morning. We settled for a croissant and coffee, but I think the lack of a proper breakfast put me out of sorts for the rest of the day.

Today is our last day in Europe, at least for this trip. We spent the day preparing for the trip home, mostly, sorting through papers and packing and going to Kaufhaus Galerie to buy another bag (yes, we did buy a lot of souvenirs). Kate also browsed in bookstores and bought a scarf and a few other things. I wrote and mailed a few last postcards, but mostly just lazed around the apartment in a traveled-too-much stupor.

Had currywurst (Curry 61 at Alexanderplatz was better) and doner kebab for first and second lunch. FYI, "kebab" means meat grilled over or near flame, "shish" means skewer, and "doner" means rotating, so when we Americans call skewers "kabobs" we've got it all wrong.

Today is our 21st wedding anniversary. I got Kate a tin of mints with a VW Beetle and the words "Er lauft und lauft und lauft..." (referencing an old VW ad we'd seen at the Glass Factory, it means "it runs and runs and runs...") and a kid's book about a sheep, both of which I'd spotted in one of the shops in the Hackesche Hofe. She got me a bar of chocolate with walnuts and marzipan.

We had an early dinner at a Japanese noodle place nearby, called Makoto. The Japanese staff speaking a mix of German and Japanese made my head 'splode and Japanese phrases lying dormant in my head since 2007 come spilling out. "Eigo-de daijobu desu ka?" I said, and "toide-wa doku desu ka?" I had a Ramune, the lemon drink with the glass marble closure. Our ramen soup was really exceptionally good, and I don't think I'm just saying that because this is the first time I've had Japanese food in a month. After that we wandered through the neighborhood for a bit. I could come back to Venice, Vienna, or Prague but I think I've "done" Berlin. It's got a lot of keen stuff, but it's just very hard to navigate and there's a certain negative vibe -- might be leftover Nazi and Communist engrams or something.

Cab tomorrow at 4:30 AM for a long, long travel day. And then home!

nihilistic_kid

| - May 18

On May 18th, 1980, student protesters against martial law were attacked by paratroopers in the South Korean city of Kwangju. This led to a generalized uprising, the repulsion of the troops to beyond the city limits, and several days of radical transformations of urban society—collective meals in the parks, the formation of a people's militia called the Citizen Army, the creation of new newspapers and organs covering both daily life and the establishment of defenses against the military. The new military government responded by sending in Special Forces troops trained to invade North Korea, and the Kwangju Uprising became the Kwangju Massacre. Amazingly, the Wikipedia entry isn't terrible. Also not surprising: the US, of course, had a role in martial law and even the crackdown—the ROK 20th Infantry Division, which had a major role in the massacre, was part of the US-led Combined Forces Command and required US approval for operations.

Over a decade ago now, my friend Kap and I translated and edited a survivor's memoir of the uprising and massacre called Kwangju Diary. It's out of print now, but will soon be available again, thanks in part to the city of Kwangju itself. More news on that soon.



At the risk of tonal whiplash, here is another bit of 5/18 history. Ninety years ago today, Proust and James Joyce met for the first and only time. There are many accounts of the meeting, but here is my favorite:

"I’ve headaches every day," Joyce announced. "My eyes are terrible."

Proust replied, "My poor stomach. What am I going to do? It’s killing me. In fact, I must leave at once."

"I’m in the same situation," Joyce said. "If I can find someone to take me by the arm...Goodbye."

"Charmé," said Proust. "Oh, my stomach, my stomach."

matociquala

| - This is just to say....

....that there's going to be an Annual Booksale when I get back from WisCon, as there are giant boxes of books all over my house again.

You have been forewarned!

Also, I will be doing an r/Fantasy (that's Reddit) Ask Me Anything on June 5th. Questions may be posted all day in the appropriate thread, and I will answer them in the evening.

Because y'all don't get enough of a chance to listen to me babble...

tobias_buckell

| - House Republicans force US Military to drop investment and use of alternative fuels

I keep mentioning that I came to realize while I wrote my latest book, Arctic Rising, that the US Military was one of the largest investors in green technology. Why? They anticipate that having more control over your own ability to *move* gives you an upper hand in war. By helping green tech along to the point where it can become cheaper (and in some cases it already is in certain military applications) they’ve been the leading edge (let us not forget the military’s role in giving us the internet via DARPA).

However, even the military has now fallen into the middle of the culture wars, as conservatives ban it from using/helping develop alternative fuels:

On Monday, the U.S. Navy will officially announce the ships for its demonstration of the “Great Green Fleet” — an entire aircraft carrier strike group powered by biofuels and other eco-friendly energy sources. If a powerful congressional panel has its way, it could be the last time the Navy ever uses biofuels to run its ships and jets.

In its report on next year’s Pentagon budget, the House Armed Services Committee banned the Defense Department from making or buying an alternative fuel that costs more than a “traditional fossil fuel.”

Imagine that phrase wrapped around any other technology:

In its report on next year’s Pentagon budget, the House Armed Services Committee banned the Defense Department from making or buying any advanced weaponry that costs more than “traditional weaponry.”

Or:

In its report on next year’s Pentagon budget, the House Armed Services Committee banned the Defense Department from making or buying any advanced armor that costs more than “traditional armor.”

Or:

In its report on next year’s Pentagon budget, the House Armed Services Committee banned the Defense Department from making or buying any advanced fighter planes that cost more than “traditional planes.”

It’s a fairly stunning move.

Mabus and his allies countered that the Republicans were taking an overly-simplistic view of things. Of course relatively small batches of a new fuel are going to be expensive — just like the original, 5GB iPod cost $400 and held fewer songs than today’s $129 model, which holds 8 GB. That’s the nature of research and development. With development time and big enough purchases, the costs of biofuels will come down, they argued; already, the price has dropped in half since 2009.

“It’s a false choice to say that we should concentrate on more ships versus a different kind of fuel. If we don’t get a different kind of fuel, if we don’t have a secure domestic supply of energy at an affordable price… the ships and the planes may not be able to be used because we can’t get the fuel,” Mabus told the Senate Subcommittee on Water and Power in March.

What’s more, Mabus added, there’s a value in a more stable, domestic supply of fuel; every time the price of oil goes up by a dollar per barrel, it costs the Navy $31 million. “We simply buy too much fossil fuels from places that are either actually or potentially volatile, from places that may or may not have our best interests at heart,” he said. “We would never let these places build our ships, our aircraft, our ground vehicles, but we do give them a say on whether those ships steam, aircraft fly, or ground vehicles operate because we buy so much energy from them.”

A fairly stunning step backwards, as the US military was one of the few places really helping the US keep up on the advances needed in alternative fuels.

Mirrored from Tobias Buckell Online.

vylar_kaftan

| - Music question: do you know these tunes?

Originally published at Vylar Kaftan. You can comment here or there.

Hey folks! If you’re reading this, I could use a hand. I need to know something for a story.

If you read the following lyrics, which ones do you immediately know the tune for, without thinking about it?

1) I went to California with a washpan on my knee…
2) Yippie-ki-yi yippie-yippie yay, yippie yay!
3) Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight?

Let me know which ones in comments. It’s okay if you know them all, or none of them. I need to know how recognizable these lyrics are. Thanks!

jaylake

| - [travel|food] Open Dinner, Austin, TX, Monday, May 21st (repost)

This is a repost

After some deliberation, I am calling an Open Dinner in Austin, Texas next Monday, May 21st. We'll meet at the Hyde Park & Grill at their original location on Duval Street, at 6:30 pm. Please let me know here in comments if you'll be attending, as headcount can be something of an issue there.

See some, all or none of you there.

jaylake

| - [cancer] Living with a colon resection

I recently had occasion to write an advice email to someone who's just undergone a colon resecting similar but not identical to mine. After a bit of thought, I've decided to post it here, mostly for reference. If someone in your life is undergoing this kind of treatment, it might be useful to know. Likewise for certain kinds of story research.

( Under cut for medical and digestive TMI. Seriously. You have been warned. )

jaylake

| - [photos] Your Friday moment of zen

Your Friday moment of zen.



Leaves in the Oregon forest. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

jaylake

| - [links] Link salad watches the sun come up on a sleepy little town down around San Antone

Wax Bullets: 1909 — A peculiar, steampunkish image from Shorpy.

History's first prank phone call was way back in ... 1884? — (Via danjite.)

How Facebook Saved Us from Suburbia — Research suggests social networks remedy the isolation of modern life.

Columbus' arrival linked to carbon dioxide drop — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and other explorers who followed him may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate.

Tiny deep-sea life eats meals from dinosaur era — Populations of incredibly slow-living microbes live and feed in depths of Pacific.

Discovered: The turtle the size of a SmartCar - which would have hunted crocodiles in prehistoric lakes

?otd: What town are you talking about?

nihilistic_kid

| - Nearly there.

The page proofs of Bullettime have been keeping me up till 1 or 2am every night for the past four, but now they are done. See?




One more pass, after these corrections are made, ought to do it!