J's journal

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Many of my posts are friends-only. If this journal seems light and trivial, well, it is, but there's more blood, sweat and tears to read if you have an LJ account and I befriend you, although you're more likely to find me on Dreamwidth now.

http://news.livejournal.com/144003.html

I cancelled the renewal for my LJ paid account a few months ago. Glad I did. The new friends page is extraordinarily awful.

Dreamwidth doesn't currently require invite codes...

I like maps, and so I read the Strange Maps blog. There's an entry about how the US presidential election works that you should read. OK, if you're an American you probably know most of what it says, so here's the best bit:

From the footnotes: "the Rasmussen list of 11 swing states excludes New Mexico and includes Michigan."

So, as with UK elections, most people's votes are almost completely pointless, but a minority get to choose who's in charge.

I'm not sure if people here are aware of the drivingrevenue thing, and I've only just discovered the scorecardresearch thing. Both of these are plain examples of LJ doing things that users would not want, if only they knew about them.

The drivingrevenue is that LJ sends your browser a script that modifies links you click, and notifies external sites about links you mouse over. It's a way of making money for LJ.

The scorecardresearch thing sends info about the pages you visit to a market research company. It's a way of making money for LJ.

If you look at your LJ privacy settings, you won't find any mention of these. You haven't opted in to them.

So that's two more reasons not to use LJ any more. I'm on dreamwidth. I have dreamwidth invites if you want to go there. If you don't, you can read me on LJ here: jbanana_dw

I've had a few anonymous comments on Dreamwidth that turn out to be from LJ people I know. You don't have to be anonymous if you're logged in to LJ. Here's what you do.

1. Log in to LJ, but then go to a Dreamwidth comment page.
2. Pick "OpenID" and enter exampleusername.livejournal.com (but use your name, silly).
3. Write and submit your comment, and LJ asks you to confirm.
4. If you say yes, your comment is submitted to Dreamwidth, and I can see who's talking. 8~)

This works on other sites too.

I found this yesterday: the "Let's tag" page in ScrapBook, which I'd never seen before. It's lovely, as is the tag cloud page.

I'm pleased with dreamwidth. If you want to read my stuff it's available on LJ here: jbanana_dw. I'll be mostly posting on there, but still trying to read on here.

You may already have seen this, but just in case you haven't, have a look at the three women dressed up as Daleks. It shouldn't work, but it does.

I can't cope with the word "cosplay", and I had to look up "gijinka" - I think "dressed up as Daleks" is fine.

There are daily reports about MPs' expenses. Someone may have had his moat cleared out at the public expense. Why don't I have a moat? I plan to become an MP just so that I can claim expenses to get one dug.

But how important is it to know that someone fiddled a few thousand? Almost nothing gets said about the billions to be spent on ID cards, or on the lives still being lost in Afghanistan and Iraq (see pie chart). And let's not forget the money given to the banks that caused the credit crunch. It's almost as if someone were trying to divert attention from the real issues.

I am jbanana at dreamwidth.

I'm not sure how this will work out. I don't post here much nowadays, so why do I need another journal? I already have a Vox account that I don't use. But whereas I have no great interest in Vox, I want DW to succeed.

It's been warm this weekend. The guinea pigs have been out on the lawn. We've eaten outside and played table tennis at the bottom of the garden. Lilac is blooming, oak leaves and katkins are fresh and bright, and several unidentified bushes are in flower. The children are happy to be away from games consoles, at least some of the time. Mostly they're just happy.

Sometimes life is good.

I posted a version of this in reply to one of cynnerth's posts recently.

God (gods, goddesses, whatever) could have created any one of an infinite number of universes. Unfortunately he (she, etc) realises that all of them involve Bad Things happening. Fortunately he can tell which possible universe is the Least Bad. This is the one that he creates. He doesn't interfere in the day-to-day (or eon-to-eon) running of the universe because he already knows how it plays out. There are plenty of bigger problems to which to apply his infinite omniscience.

Or the universe happened all on its own at random.

Either way, humans (during breaks between eating and reproducing) try to grasp What's Going On. The finite contemplates the infinite. Unsurprisingly, this does not go well. We don't get it, and we hate that we don't get it. We can do all those clever technological things and appreciate the arts and be kind to small animals and make scientific discoveries, but none of this stops the nagging feeling that there's something bigger going on that we don't understand, which might explain why earthquakes and terrorism and disease happen (please?). Some people codify their intuitions about What's Going On into religious beliefs, and others deny that there can possibly be anything "going on".

I'm no nearer knowing What's Going On, but I can see why it's hard to know.

The entire purpose of the web is funny cats. I haven't posted nearly enough (any) of these. Time to put that right.

It's not my cat (I think it's a Japanese cat). I didn't even find the video (I got a link from the free newspaper). But I did watch the cat playing with the big box, and it's good.

millihelen

enough beauty to launch one ship

beard-second

length an average physicist's beard grows in a second (5 nanometers) - short enough to be useful in nuclear physics

kilowarhol

famous for 15,000 minutes (a bit more than ten days)

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

I'm still excited about Spotify. I've just queued everything they have by the Cocteau Twins. I don't know much of their stuff, so I don't know how much I'm going to like it, but I can listen to it all for nothing. It's like Napster used to be, but without the legal problems. Whoopee!

We went to see the Brighton Pavilion, where you may not take photos. I did take a few at the beach, though.

The popular theme for April Fool attempts this year is Twitter. Yawn.

But here's one that's actually amusing: http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/04/01/

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