Jon

Yesterday Flissy and I practiced in an unheated 2nd floor studio at our dance space. We had one little space heater that didn't do crap. Fortunately the owner of the studio is getting the heater fixed, though her landlord won't do it and she has to pay for it all (can we all say "slumlord"?). Next week? More layers! It really sucks when your zill elastics cut off the bloodflow to your finger tips, and sucks even more when your fingers are icy cold on top of it!

Via rigelkitty/BoingBoing:

I have a few obsessions that I do regularly.

My primary obsession is WoW. Yes, I'm a WoW player and have been for the last year. I have a female Night Elf Druid. Duel spec tank/healer. I am one of the raid leader of my guild and they are a fantastic group of people.

If any other WoW players out there.. I am Finowen on Kirin Tor. Alliance obviously with the Night Elf thing going on. Feel free to join the server and say hi some time. If I'm in a raid I might not respond right away since I use an addon that hides all my whispers from me while I'm fighting. It mostly works as an in game chat program for whispers.

And my other obsession is reading online erotic stories. Love em!

But tonight, what has brought on this sudden bout of sharing my obsessions is that I had to share something wonderful written by one of my favorite authors to follow.

Rotation by Heather Killough-Walden

You can go read some of her other work if you are so inclined. I plan to purchase some of her books and she has ebooks available there. I haven't purchased in ebook yet because this is a poor woman's obsession. Her work is more focused on non-human erotica. Werewolves, vampires and the like.

I got the idea to research oxytocin and discovered a whole passel of interesting stuff! Most of it is from the blog "Hug the Monkey".

Oxytocin is a hormone that facilitates pair bonding and mother-infant bonding by stimulating feelings of love and trust. It is secreted during and after sex (in both men and women), during childbirth, during experiences of social intimacy and connection, and from physical touch such as hugs and massage.

Here is some of the interesting stuff I found:

Exposure to cuteness, such as pictures of kittens, can trigger an oxytocin rush.

The presence of oxytocin relieves anxiety, reduces stress, and may be an effective treatment for PTSD. It may also lead to longer life.

Taking care of yourself, by journaling and nesting, can help maintain healthy oxytocin levels.

Oxytocin is not all lovey dovey - it can increase feelings of envy and schadenfreude, as well as the desire to betray others. Creepy.

Oxytocin's effects are more pronounced in women, because testosterone tends to mute its effects, but guys need hugs too.

An "in love" feeling can also be due to dopamine and norepinephrine, not just oxytocin. One psychologist recommends that women date 3 men at a time to avoid becoming accidentally bonded to someone she doesn't know well enough.

Pets may experience genuine feelings of love for their owners - meaning that when they act devoted, they aren't just manipulating their sources of food.

Oxytocin supplementation seems dicey, but it looks like acupuncture may work. (Of course, there are a lot of "natural" ways to stimulate oxytocin, from sex and cuddling to caring for a sick person to practicing generosity and gratitude.)

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

I've had Snow Patrol's "Just Say Yes" stuck in my head for three days now. There should be some sort of legally enforceable limit to the earwormyness of songs beyond which one should be able to sue for damages.

Also, I've been trying to write an interesting LJ post for at least that long and have decided I'd just give it up as a bad job, so this is what you get.

On the good side, I've now lost all my holiday cookie weight. On the bad side, massive nausea is really not how I wanted to do it. Also, our furnace broke. It was repaired quickly (complex repair team for the WIN!) but it now makes me wonder if the nausea and general lethargy didn't have something to do with gas poisoning. Which is scary and rather emphatically not for the win.

I spent most of my afternoon reading "Master and Commander" fic. Because I really need a new fandom right now, amirite? On the other hand, I have a major weakness for anything age of sail related, so it was really a matter of time and it's a small fandom so I'll just read it all and get it out of the way, tralalala.

Yeah, I don't believe me either.

Also, there is Big Bang. Which I really, really thought would happen later. Like March-ish. I am not prepared! I have a self-indulgent kidfic to finish and a Jeff story to write for the Jeff ficathon (which I am inordinately excited about, despite the fact that half of it will probably be Watchmen and nine-tenths of the rest will be het) and even though I've got my Big Bang idea plotted out in my head, I'm still all "Eeek!" about the whole thing. Perhaps because it's sort of a story about an artichoke. On the other hand, signups don't close until February, which means I don't have to seriously think about it until after the Orals when either way I will be in need of a major distraction.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Hello this is day 5!

Let's see if I can keep this up.

The clouds today weren't very thick, but they were there, which presented a great background for sky-shots. The next photo in the photo-stream is like this one but in color, so it has a totally different feeling. This one almost feels creepy. But I'm not in a cheerful mood today so I picked it over the other one :)

Figured I'd just copy exactly her words... Who wants to come have fun, and "funky stuff"? ;) I'm sure I'll be pinging some of you directly if I can find you to ask. :)


Opening weekend of the Arizona Renaissance Faire is February 6th-7th, approximately one month from now!!

What: A gathering of folks in the desert (no not that party).

When: Weekend of Feb 6th-7th 2009. Fly in when you like, preferably Friday the 5th and leave when you have to go.

Where: Tim and Sharon's AZ house.

Who: Open to anyone who likes fest, food, fun, leather, food, friends, funky stuff, leather, watching me try on leather, trying on leather, dressing up, undressing, dressing down, beer, wine, food... you know the rest.

We have plenty of crash space and I am planning another fabulous meal to rival that of Thanksgiving! Current plan is Fest on Saturday and then possibly Football on Sunday. It is Superbowl weekend and I may or may not be interested in it, depending on who is playing. ;)

Hope we see you all soon, especially those we missed at OTT!! ;)

Hey y'all.

I have a 2002 Jetta wagon that isn't in drivable condition. Do any of you wonderful snarkers have any tips or experience junking/scrapping a car for money?

Does this exist? Am I crazy? I just don't have the time or money to fix 'er up. (Cosmetic damage)

If you do, by all means, halp.

If you don't, by all means: snark.

Thanks!

Via xydexx. Notice that the vast majority isn't dominos. It's a finely-crafted perpetual collapse of tongue depressors.



More here: http://www.lunatim.com/kinart/videos/videos.htm

Second decade of the third millenium!

2009 was a damn good year for me. It validated more than ever that moving to California was the right thing. I've been happier out here than I can remember being any time before. California and the USA in general are headed for more tough times financially but I think we'll all pull through. This is certainly the place I choose to find that out.

( My adventures with mostly-back-catalogue games )

I was mostly in hermit mode but I did get up to Redwood City for New Year's Eve to spend it with friends. We played various games - mostly Beatles Rock Band - and saw the new year in in very agreeable fashion. I was out late enough that when I got back home I called Mum and Dad because it was daytime in Britain.

And now I'm back at work and things are back to normal. Well, there's 12 whole new months to take over the world!

Good afternoon and happy new year, fabulous people.

 

This is our once-yearly reminder to all that we have a movie night, roughly every other Sunday, at Question House.

 

If you are not on the email list that we use to announce the next movie, and would like to be, please let Eric know. Traffic is low; typically one or two emails a week tops.

 

If you are on the list and would like to be off it, again, let Eric know.

 

The format is: arrive at around 7:30, we will attempt to start the movie at 8:00 sharp. We’ll provide popcorn and drinks and any baking Eric might have done earlier in the day; if you want to bring other drinks and snacks, feel free to bring them to share. Occasionally an impromptu dinner party happens before the movie; if you’re thinking of coming to the movie and haven’t eaten yet, consider giving one of us a call to see what our plans for dinner are. Also, sometimes after the movie we play Rock Band.

 

We try to have an interesting blend of movies, from cheap horror flicks to intellectual dramas, from the 1930’s to new releases, and from a variety of countries. A list of the previous QHSN movies is appended below for your perusal.

 

The next QHSN movie night will be this coming Sunday, January 10^th, at 7:30 PM. The movie will be the 8-Oscar-winning drama Slumdog Millionaire (2008) directed by Danny Boyle.

 

Question House is at 4339 Thackeray Place NE, in Wallingford. To get there by car, take I-5 to the 45^th Street exit. Take 45^th westbound a few blocks. Turn left on Thackeray. (If you pass Dick’s, you’ve gone too far.) Turn right on 44^th and park; we are the yellow house on the southwest corner of 44^th and Thackeray.  If you arrive late, let yourself in; we’re in the basement.

 

Hope to see you Sunday!

 

Eric & Leah

 

 

 

Historical records:

 

21 Slumdog Millionaire

20 Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

19 I Heart Huckabees
18 The Thin Man
17 An American Werewolf In London
16 Smiles of a Summer Night
15 Sideways
14 The Quick and the Dead
13 The Sound of Music
12 The Sting
11 Night of the Living Dead
10 Antonia’s Line
9 Megashark vs. Giant Octopus
8 Frost/Nixon
7 How To Get Ahead In Advertising
6 The Gang’s All Here
5 The Bad Seed
4 Vertigo
3 The Thing
2 A Shot In The Dark
1 Ghostbusters

 

Things that happened in 2009:

We got a major chunk of MySQL refactored into Drizzle. Thanks to Jay we have a new replication system that we are shaking out. Monty Taylor has created an impressive bit of porting kung-fu that has made porting cake. Eric has the the Listener plugin work in shape which makes NULL plugins, drizzled console, and the future "whatever a server side script is" cake to work on. We have a BSD based libdrizzle so the "well if you link like this..." license questions all go away, along with any historical FUD that has been created around them. Lee, Jay, and community have put together an impressive regression system which is far beyond anything we ever had for MySQL. Stewart killed FRM which has always been one of our "we could do this, if we could replace FRM...". We have full time developers now in multiple companies and contributions continue to come in.

It took three years but I completed my "lets see if we can be a bit healthier if we lose some weight". I started off in 2005 at about 182 and nowadays I stick to about 150. What changed? I cut out eating bread in large part and I switched to eating when I felt like I needed to eat. I get a lot of "you look healthier" or "were you sick?". It is amazing how people see weight loss. People's reactions can really be across the board. For me though? I rarely have issues with my asthma now and I have a lot more energy in general.

I spent more time in Seattle then I have since 2005. I am still traveling, but I made a point of really trying to live in Seattle and be here more. This spring a friend commented on my being around by saying "It has really been great to see you at events again". Comments like that made it completely worth the effort I have been putting in to be here.

Completed the "puppy acquisition". I am always happiest when I have a dog in my life. I've been watching Rosalynd get old and while I know she has a few more years in her, I really wanted to keep a constant flow of dogs in my life.

We built the Worm Tube. For Burning Man this year I worked out a 2800 square foot structure that weighs under 500 pounds and cost less then $800 to build.

Libmemcached is alive and well. Its user base continues to grow and we did a lot of exciting things. It is now distributed in all major Linux distributions. We have a new library that wraps the Memcached protocol. Using it you can create add Memcached compatible existing services to existing projects. Schooner provided a new memslap in December that greatly enhances testing.

What about 2010?

Put more effort into personal relationships. Something I walked away from Burning Man this year was a need to enhance the personal relationships I have. Focus on what matters and put more effort into the core of my social group/family/etc. There are some awesome people in my life and I should be spending a considerable amount of my time nurturing the relationships with them.

Is Drizzle production yet? Whenever I ask an audience if anyone is using Drizzle in production I get a few hands up in the air. I asked one group "what does production mean to you?". I got back an answer of "will we lose data?". My answer was, "if you trust Innodb today, then you are fine". We have our bugs and there are issues at hand but I feel like the gap is narrowing on that question. This year we will shake out the replication system, and it should be interesting to see what all happens there. We have seen plugins being written to replicate to many of the NoSQL solutions and I believe the flexibility that we have put into the system will solve a lot of the mixed shop problems that we run into. A database is not an island unto itself, it is just another piece of infrastructure and it needs to play well with other pieces. I believe this year we will see a Windows Binary. I would like to say we would double the number of major contributors we have in multiple companies, but I can't keep track any more of where all people come from. I should find this out so that I can create a metric :)

For Libmemcached we will see a restructuring of its guts to do more asynchronous work. We have a few years under our belts now of knowledge and we can improve on performance. I am going to be adding support for range queries, which is specified in the protocol. I am hoping to see at least one vendor adopt the protocol library. I believe we should finally support Windows directly out of the box. I have patches now that will allow us to do more centralized management of Memcached clusters. I am looking forward to pushing those. Some of this work will be done in the current version, but I expect to work on some of this in a version 2.0. We hit trillions of transactions some time ago, so claiming 2.0 seems humble enough :)

Gearman work will continue. A C++ api is my head and I will take a week sabbatical to pop it out in the Winter/Spring. There is a small internal language I want to add to the server that will allow it to do chaining/splitting/etc internally. Gearman is still in the early stages, so I expect we will see it just roll along up the usage curve.

Raise puppy. This is not a small amount of work.

Build the Monorail :)

Spend about the same amount of time in Seattle. I want to take a couple of trips overseas this year but I want to spend less time in general away, especially weekends.

Be a better advocate for Open Source, both for the projects and the business models. There is a lot of FUD that has been spread over the years and I want to spend a bit of time being more vocal squashing it. We have seen coalition's built around cripple source concepts, license BS, developer model hijinks, etc... I spent a couple of hours in one country just explaining the differences between open source and free software to some government administrators after a certain luminary confused the hell out of them. There is no advantage too damning one license at the expense of another.

Advocate for open source databases. One thing I have been doing in the last year has been trying to help people pick a database. There are a lot of good open source databases right now and none of them are a one size fit all solution. It has been refreshing to make suggestions or provide answers based on need. When we worked out the original FAQ for Drizzle we made a point of mentioning different databases, I was very happy about that.

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Witness the heat death of the universe.

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." –Woody Allen

宇宙戦艦 ヤマト

(Ganked from jeriendhal.)