Докторрр ин дер ролле Fima_Psuchopadt (с) - 65 лет назад была снята блокада Ленинграда
Leningrad during the siege in WWII, alongside pictures of modern day St. Petersburg. I'm amazed that so many buildings are still standing, among other things. I also learned something new after looking at them- the blimp-like things that you see are called barrage balloons. It's always a good day when you learn something new. I also think that it's a good reminder that we're always walking in other people's footsteps.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A very interesting set of photoshopped pictures
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
RussiaToday: Cry Wolf!
RT: Cry Wolf!
From the website: "Our knowledge of these proud animals is very vague, full of scary myths and misconceptions. In many countries wolves are considered sinister killers. They are slaughtered all year round as "hunting outlaws" - no licence is needed to shoot a wolf in Russia, and in many regions every wolf comes with a bounty on its head. You'll rarely find it mentioned that wolves are extremely useful animals, essential to the eco-system in which they live.
Started in November 2008, RT cameras capture the life of a group of orphaned wolves growing up in the forest."
Seeing as I'm not likely to accomplish anything useful today, I think that I'll watch wolf videos instead.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Why can't we face the truth? Having an autistic child wrecks your life ... | Mail Online
Why can't we face the truth? Having an autistic child wrecks your life ... | Mail Online
What an absolutely horrendous article. I know that it's the Daily Mail, but still.
I hope that Tom never knows how his parents feel about him, or that they're
able to place him somewhere.
My son's behaviours are at least that bad (to the point where he can't live at
home because we can't provide him with 2/1 care), but I can absolutely say that no
one who has come in contact with him ever wishes that he hadn't been born.
Crap articles like this are what make it more difficult for our children to live the
best lives that they can. It reinforces every bad stereotype about autism without taking
into account the huge strides that we've made as a community with therapies, funding
support for families, and science.
This is absolutely irresponsible, and does a huge disservice to every autistic person
out there.
Worth1000.com Photoshop Contest- Star Wars+ Fine Art
Worth1000.com | Photoshop Contests | Are you Worthy™ | contest
I'll definitely never look at Yoda the same way again. Some great entries.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Streaming: Monty Python Puts Free Videos Online, Sells 23,000% More DVDs
Streaming: Monty Python Puts Free Videos Online, Sells 23,000% More DVDs
If only the RIAA and MPAA would pay attention to this.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Mark Bittman’s Bad Kitchen
Mark Bittman’s Bad Kitchen - Well Blog - NYTimes.com
I suddenly feel better about my tiny, tiny, TINY kitchen.
Great Book Mash-ups
: "'Green Eggs and Hamlet' - Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery. (Robin Parry, Arlington)"
Sphere: Related ContentSaturday, January 17, 2009
Home Away From Home: Why my autistic children don't live with me.
Home Away From Home: Why my autistic children don't live with me. By Kent Miller for Babble.com.
It's so rare to see anyone talk publicly about what it is like to have to place a child (or children) into a group home.
Friday, January 16, 2009
10 Sci-Fi Books That Even Non-Geeks Would Love - Neatorama
10 Sci-Fi Books That Even Non-Geeks Would Love - Neatorama
Possibly the best SF list that I've seen in terms of great SF. I'd substitute Sideshow for the other Sheri Tepper book, and The Time Traveler's Wife for Neal Stephenson, but they are all excellent suggestions if you need reading material.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Holiday pictures are up!
Flickr: Your Photostream
And hopefully today I'll even get around to organizing them (right after I take the Christmas tree down).
Thought for the day
"No woman will ever be truly satisfied because no man will ever have a chocolate penis that ejaculates money."
Yes, it's sexist, but I still laughed. I'm pretty satisfied, but chocolate? Count me in!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Something I read while on vacation
“I have watched painful relationships between parents and children. I have seen parents who control and parents who neglect, parents who make terrible mistakes that hurt their children deeply, and parents who forgive children who have done awful things. I have seen nobility and courage; I have seen dreadful selfishness and utter blindness; and I have seen all these things in the SAME parents, raising the same children.
What I understand now is this. There is no harder job than parenting. There is no human relationship with such potential for great achievement and awful destructiveness, and despite all the experts who write about it, no one has the slightest idea whether any decision will be right or best or even not-horrible for any particular child. It is a job that simply cannot be done right.”
(Orson Scott Card, Ender in Exile, 2008, p. 300).
I have numerous philosophical, religious, and moral differences with Orson Scott Card. I've been a science fiction geek for many, many years, and Ender's Game was definitely one of the novels that touched me early, and deeply, and in a lot of ways really encouraged me to become an SF geek. The last five or six books of his that I've read have only served to inform my decision not to buy any more of his books- with his stance on gay marriage (among other things), I made a choice not to support him financially any more by buying any more of his books.
That decision went by the wayside (I'm weak), when I found myself in the middle of the ocean without anything to read, and picked up Ender in Exile from the ships' library.
I was lucky in that I really had a happy childhood. My biological parents were divorced early in my life, but I ended up with a truly wonderful stepfather and basically had a pretty great upbringing. It's always seemed kind of weird to me that so many of my friends hadn't, and that they still truly love parents who (in my opinion), have done horrendous things to them. I've never really understood how they can still "love" their parents after some of the things that have been done to them.
I also look at this quote in the context of me sending Dylan away to live in a group home- although it was (I still believe), the right decision for all of us (including him), I'm not sure that he'd see it the same way if I could understand his communication.
There really isn't any possibility that anyone is prepared to become a parent, or any possibility that children are prepared for the parents that they are born to. Every child deserves love, and nurturing, and the chance to be whatever they can be. And although I think that this quote could imply an exculpation for parents, I don't believe that's how it's intended...I think that it's saying that we can't always know the outcomes of our decisions for our children, and sometimes bad decisions can go hand in hand with the good decisions that we make for our children. I don't think that I've made too many bad decisions for my kids (although I'm sure that I have)...I just hope that when they're older, they realize that I made the decisions that I've made with the best of intentions. None of us have practice in this, and I believe that in a "good" family, we all learn from each other.
Cat turns up on weatherman's set
BBC NEWS | Europe | Cat turns up on weatherman's set
Very cute :-) It probably would have caused a meltdown in a North American studio :-)
(we're home safely- trip pictures coming soon!)
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