autumnmist

We just got the Battlestar Galactica Season 4 soundtrack, and it's just... amazing. koloth and I agree that the show wouldn't have been nearly as compelling as it was if Bear McCreary hadn't been the composer. I won't say much more since I know at least one of you is watching BSG now, but if you are into music at all and you are watching BSG, read Bear McCreary's blog (one post for each episode where he talks about composing the various cues) and then listen to/buy the soundtrack. Just a few bars from some of the songs can move me to tears. Bear uses all sorts of crazy instruments and rhythms and melodies from all different countries/ethnic groups and it really helps to shape the entire series--gives it an pan-enthnic feel that is what you would expect from a show that is about the fate of all of humanity.

Ok, I *LOVE* this video. First, the fans screaming like crazy when Barrowman and Tennant walk on stage... and second. Oh yes. You want to see this.

If there are any drabbles inspired by this, I wanna know right now. :)

Comic Con '09: Barrowman and Tennant

Life: I passed my qualifying exam in early June (yay!) so I'm officially a PhD candidate now. I probably have another 3-4 years of research to do before I finish. So uh, that's where I've been/been doing for the past year. I find it takes far less time to read, comment, and keep up with all of you than to sit down and actually compose entries for my own journal, so sorry! I'm not a writer though, so at least you haven't been deprived. :)

manic1066's comment to my previous entry reminded me that I would feel far less annoyed by the Mary Sue aspects of TPwP!Hermione if she didn't have the Fawkes-mind-speech ability at her disposal. I feel like some of it is just lazy/shortcut writing and it's the final straw for me that pushes that Hermione into Mary Sue land. (I still like the rest of the story though as I mentioned).

Some thoughts on Hermione in The Problem with Purity by Silver Birch vs. The Mists of Time by amr (not updated regularly, alas, though I'm pretty certain it's not abandoned):

So something that's been turning over in my mind while considering the Mary Sueness of TPwP!Hermione and that makes me not mind it so much is the contrast with the Hermione in MoT. I don't know why, but for some reason, I'm constantly reminded of one by the other story. Now overall, I definitely find the writing and plot in MoT *much* more engaging and exciting (the twist that was revealed two chapters ago was fan-friggin-tastic and tied together many unanswered questions so neatly, it was perfect), and at first I rather liked the portrayal of Hermione as a teenager (not fully mature, etc.). But as the story progressed and Hermione became more and more fleshed out, I've come to the realization that I prefer the mostly-too-perfect TPwP!Hermione to the not-really-grown-up-yet portrayal of MoT!Hermione... in MoT, I feel like every time Hermione considers Ron or Snape, she has an innocent childlike-wonder quality to her inner thoughts that really doesn't jive with my image of her mental maturity (she acts/thinks like I did when I was... 14/15 not like I was when I was 17 and Hermione even has the added maturing experience of growing up during wartime). Essentially, I want to shake MoT!Hermione very hard and tell her to grow up, which is funny because I'm pretty sure amr is deliberately attempting to write a "realistic" teenage Hermione.

But the thing is that Hermione is no ordinary teenager (that's why we love her). Especially in fanon, she's smart and she's learned by the age of 17 how to keep her know-it-all tendencies contained. Not all smart (intellectually "mature") teens are also emotionally mature, but Hermione *could* be and should be (if she's going to be paired with Snape -- in a natural evolving-relationship sort of story) and it drives me nuts to read a Hermione who acts like a (stereo)typical teenage girl. This is probably in large part due to the fact that I remember being that age quite clearly and I identify myself with her. Hmm.

--

Also, I'd just like to say that the bf and I have been watching Torchwood: Children of Earth and it's freaking awesome! We couldn't stand the original Torchwood (couldn't force ourselves to watch past ep 4 of season 1), but CoE is entirely different.

Link to The Problem with Purity

First, I want to celebrate the ending of the saga of fixing-autumnmist's-internet-connection... It only took, uh 8 days for me to regain functional and reliable internet service from AT&T. (Whyyyyy can't FiOS be sold here???)

I've been reading and enjoying The Problem with Purity (henceforth TPwP)--probably currently my favorite WIP that is regularly updated. I love the descriptions of the magic and research Hermione's been doing into the wards/potions. The Hermione in TPwP is most definitely Mary Sue-ish, and yet, I don't really have a huge problem with it. It's a bit hard to swallow that she'd develop the Weresbane potion, become a master-level potion and charms brewer, have little need of sleep, etc. all within one year... and yet I don't mind all that much because the writing is good and the grammar is impeccable (pet peeve--I always get jolted out of a story when I read its/it's exchanged). Plus Silver Birch clearly has tried to at least justify/tie this specialness back to Hermione's identity as a Pure Adult. It's not that Hermione is acquiring abilities out of thin air--the unicorn Animagus and the reduced need for sleep, the ability to work with the castle and wards and Solace's prophecies. Although I am wondering, now that I think of it, what characteristics is Harry going to acquire out of his Animagus alter ego? Presumably if Hermione gets some from the unicorns, Harry will too?

I do think this Hermione has some weaknesses and flaws that make her more normal, though I'm not sure if Silver Birch will ever explore them... Hermione may always seem like she can deftly manage the emotional/relationship tangles with her peers in this story, but she's clearly completely incapable of understanding Snape or Viktor (leading him on much?). I rather hope that Hermione will have to face Viktor's feelings for her and realize she hasn't been handling them well/at all. And most of all, I'm willing to forgive a lot of the Hermione-is-awesome because TPwP kinda reminds me of the Hermione in Anna's (coldcoffeeeyes) Travelogue trilogy -- which I recced recently in my fangirl_tour submission.

What do you think?

Can't say I'm particularly shocked, but...

On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

Newly released Nixon tapes

Edit: Also consider the fact that most people who are in positions of power right now (hiring for jobs, for example) were part of the generation(s) that elected him.

When will people learn that you shouldn't believe stuff you see on the internet? Especially when it involves a very savvy, modern internet company supposedly doing trogdolyte-backwards things? By all accounts Amazon's been pretty damn well-behaved. They have great customer service, they're successful, smart to emerging web technologies... Why would you immediately believe some random dipshit on the internet claiming that Amazon is "banning" LGBTQ books? I mean personally, the first thing I figured was that some crazy conservative group decided to go and use the built-in moderation system (flagging of "adult" books) to mess with Amazon's automated rating system. Really, Amazon even lets people go and mark popular/heavily-marketed products such as Turbotax and Spore that pissed off their customers with 0 stars. Would a company like that "ban" LGBTQ books?

Point is, I wasn't far off in my initial thought. The only thing different is that it was probably some idiot kid in a basement instead of a crazy conservative group.

Edit: And here's Amazon's response (note the very strong mea culpa for making the scripting of the site vulnerable to exploitation). This isn't Amazon being anti-LGBTQ. It's bad programming that was exploited by an internet troll and fanned into a mini bonfire.

I will not be watching the BSG finale for another 12 hours. Don't spoil me please! :) My BSG-watching group/frak party is going to do a marathon of Part 1 and Part 2 of Daybreak together tomorrow afternoon.

Also I was pleased with tonight's episode of Dollhouse. I wasn't too impressed by the first few (coming off of being a huge Firefly fan, pretty much eh on Buffy), but this one was exciting AND interesting. Lots of questions now, particularly:

( spoilers!! )

A British reporter has finally gone back through the data from original "paper" that supposedly showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

The findings are not pretty. The "doctor" Andrew Wakefield, the primary author on the paper (which has since been withdrawn by all the other co-authors), apparently went into the project with the explicit goal of "proving" that the MMR vaccine causes autism. All of the (12) children who supposedly only showed autistic signs before receiving the vaccine had actually showed signs of autism (as noted by their pediatricians) *before* receiving the vaccine. The so-called smoking gun biopsies of the children's colons that supposedly showed evidence of inflammation due to measles particles... well, the hospital pathologists who examined the biopsies for Wakefield way back then disagreed ("varied and unexceptional"). He and his team decided to just ignore the pathologists' reports because the reports didn't match with his specified goal.

This is so completely and utterly disgusting, I don't think I have words to describe my feelings. This man's lies have wasted millions and millions of dollars in research funding and scientist time and attention (to fund study after study after study just to show over and over and over again that there is no link between MMR and autism -- I'm sorry, at this point, some of the studies number over 100,000 people and if you can't find an association in that large of a study, it's not there). That money and time could have been going to REAL research into the causes and triggers of autism (we already know that there are definite genetic variants that increase risk of autism). Kids and even adults have been coming down with measles because our collective herd immunity to measles has been compromised. It's not thimerosal either because the prevalence of autism has continued to increase years after thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

Parents of autistic kids who are desperate for answers have clung to Wakefield's claims because they hope for an answer, any answer. Except they're wasting their money and emotional energy and he's only leading them on, giving them false hope for *his* benefit alone. He would've been a no-name doctor if he hadn't cooked up this idea for a sensational paper.

And now everyone suffers.

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As a scientist, I'm so angry. The genetic studies we do cost a LOT of money (because it's expensive to get full genetic data on so many participants). Yet various groups have been successful in finding genetic variants that increase autism risk. Think of how many more studies could have been funded with the money that was wasted on repeatedly showing no evidence of association between autism and MMR. Wakefield totally perverted the scientific process. You don't go "hey I want to show X and well, even if the data don't show X, I'm going to claim the data proves X anyway!!!" And then say "well I don't care if your study shows X is not true, you obviously didn't do your study right because if you had, you'd show that X is true." If everyone in science worked that way, we'd never get anywhere because we'd be stuck on a merry-go-round. Can you imagine: "If you had just made more observations you'd have seen that the Earth isn't round, it's really flat. Go back and try again, you'll see I'm right." Ugh.

After reading mctabby's Yuletide recommendations, I found my way to a few really good Asimov (particularly I Robot) fanfics...

If I was looking for more quality fics in that vein, is there a particular place to look? Ff.net, as always, has quantity but not necessarily quality (or completed)

Those of you who know me have heard that I live in Hyde Park, just a couple blocks south of Obama. I live on the 16th floor of my building and I can hear *all* the cars on the road honking in celebration.

In other news, I can now be hopeful that there might be jobs waiting for me in science after I graduate.

I'm trying to figure out what to get my dad for his birthday this year... this is the first year I'm really mostly on my own now that I'm out of college and I can actually afford a decent gift. You all are very intelligent and I figure there's a decent chance some of you might help be able to give me some advice.

My dad has developed a bit of interest in sort of comparative world history/civilizations, particularly in reference to China, but he's never had formal education in this area. I'm trying to find him a DVD set (preferably) or books (he reads fairly slowly so a DVD would be better) along these lines. Either something that's a sort of overview of the major ancient civilizations or an overview of ancient Chinese history. The best option (that probably does not exist) would be a DVD/book set that goes through ancient Chinese history and compares that to what was happening around the world in other civilizations. My parents took us to lots of museums when we were younger, so he knows a little about Mesopotamia, ancient India/Indus Valley, etc., but he has said he'd like to know about where those civilizations lay in time relative to what he knows about ancient China.

I looked on PBS, NatGeo, and the History Channel websites but couldn't find any suitable DVDs or books. The best I can find is the Guns, Germs, and Steel DVD set. Anyone have some suggestions? Thanks!

Edit: So, I did find something that would have been perfect: the BBC's Civilization documentary series from 1969... but it only covers the history of the Western world.

So the bf and I entered a contest (best Spore creature), based around Will Wright's next big game called Spore. We're in the top 10 right now and the final winners are selected based on number of votes from visitors to the site. Sooo... if you happen to have some free time and feel like voting ;) our creature is called "Telaridite." You vote by submitting a comment at the bottom of the page.

Gotta love Hyde Park, Chicago when most of the undergrads have gone home for the summer....

Walked outside our friend's apartment to catch the shuttle home and a guy and girl were having sex on the front steps of the building next door.

Standing up.

Also, one of our friends appears to have been scared into taking the shuttle home with us tonight since, well, he went to the big fireworks last night and found out later that there was a gang-related shooting nearby, shortly after.

Arthur C. Clarke is dead as a result of post-polio syndrome.

*sad*

I really liked 2001 and 3001 when I was a teenager.

Sooo, my lovely flist, if I were to look for Firefly fanfic, where should I start first?

Looking for sites similar to OWL or Ashwinder at minimum in quality, hopefully.

I know at least a few of you have written Firefly in the past... :)

First, for anyone who hasn't been following, Nocturne by Scion of Kushiel has been updated finally!


It's one of the most interesting (in terms of twisty plot and mysteries) WIPs I'm currently following.

And I still haven't figured out a lot of things... So if anyone on my flist has answers or comments, I'd love to hear. I need some intelligent, insightful ears to bounce ideas off of.

( Contains spoilers, random hypotheses )

Just an FYI to you SS/HG fans on my flist (that would be uh, most of my flist, go figure), but:

Just a heads up to everyone who had been following Dutchy's superb
story, Nocturne over the summer... I emailed her and she said she will
be updating Nocturne within a few weeks (possibly one week if real
life permits).

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3176020/1/

If you haven't been reading Nocturne, you should!  It's one of the most interesting, attention-grabbing, memorable SS/HG stories I've read in a long while.

Thanksgiving was busy but good.  Had it at my oldest cousin's place--she just got married this past summer (first of our generation to do so). 

But right now I'm still trying to mentally adjust... my youngest cousin's voice dropped over since I last saw him.  He went from squeaky giggles to deeper than my brother's!!!!  *mental boggle*  And I'm thinking, "Dude I remember when you weren't even BORN!!"

We're having some friends over on Monday and we're going to try out this corned beef recipe for dinner.

Does anyone have some good ideas for dessert that would particularly follow such a meal well?

I've been looking for a new sci-fi/fantasy type author to read and I finally settled down to read one of the Mercedes Lackey novels on Baen Free Library (I read the Lark and the Wren)--I gather that at least a few on my flist read her books.

Sadly, I was... not impressed.  I thought overall it was closest in quality to a pretty good fanfic, but not "good" or great.  The story was totally disjointed (a common complaint in its Amazon reviews)--the plotline with Kestrel should  have at least been separated in the text by a "Book 2" or something, not just a new chapter.   But the part that really drove me nuts was the one-dimensionality of the characters.  Rune and the Free Bards essentially never made a single bad/poor/unfair decision throughout the entire story.  The Guild Bards were thoroughly bad (except for Talaysen but instead he's 100% purely perfect, no bad decisions, no real ethical issues).  The falling in love within a week and getting married thing was also annoying, but I was a bit more willing to forgive that. 


So... am I being too harsh, is this book just not representative of Lackey's general writing quality, or is this approximately what I can expect out of her?