Apparently a dude in Missouri computed the 48th Marsenne prime number. It has 17 million digits.
Computers are neat.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
today I love...
...Leo's recent post about savoring life.
Sometimes all that's needed to re-center from a state of frantic distraction is to take a moment, really pause, and really be where and when you are.
It's something I desperately need to learn, and am working on embracing. Leo, of course, articulates it incredibly well.
Every Wednesday(ish), I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
Sometimes all that's needed to re-center from a state of frantic distraction is to take a moment, really pause, and really be where and when you are.
It's something I desperately need to learn, and am working on embracing. Leo, of course, articulates it incredibly well.
Every Wednesday(ish), I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
bento!
In my household, we've settled into a weekday pattern surrounding food. Husband gets home an hour and a half earlier than I do, so he generally pulls dinner together, and I get the lovely benefit of a tasty meal that's all prepared when I walk in the door. He's awesome like that.
I, on the other hand, take care of the lunches we bring with us to work.
What are the goals of a brown-bag lunch? To save money, certainly. Many of my coworkers go out for lunch every single day, and I can't imagine spending that kind of money on daily mediocre restaurants. To use up leftovers, and this does happen a lot. It's a handy way to eat through overly large batches of food from dinner. To provide more nourishing, healthy food than grabbing a burger. And finally, and certainly NOT least importantly, to be interesting and beautiful and tasty.
Ultimately, sandwiches and leftover pizza, though easy and cheap, get boring.
Fundamentally, a bento is simply a meal packed in a box, and almost any packed lunch would technically qualify. But generally it means several different dishes packed together, and intended to be eaten at room temperature. Often they contain Japanese food, as bento is a Japanese concept, but they certainly don't have to. Admittedly, I've been getting a hell of a kick out of expanding my repertoire to Japanese cuisine, but eventually I'll probably calm down and branch out into other options.
Some bento, called charaben or kyaraben, are incredibly detailed works of art that must take hours to assemble. I don't have that kind of time in the morning, people! But Maki of Just Bento focuses on tasty, healthy bento that are appealing to the eye without involving painstaking amounts of effort.
So I worked up my courage, picked out some simple-seeming Japanese recipes, and packed lunches for us in some random tupperware. For a first attempt, I remember it being reasonably tasty and reasonably pretty. I got the satisfaction of having prepared something special and thoughtful for our lunches, and it gave me something to look forward to through the morning in a way that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is simply incapable of. And Husband was surprisingly supportive. Also, it made my coworkers somewhat jealous.
I was hooked. It's a simple way to expand my culinary ability, take care of Husband, and feel taken care of myself.
So, I'm going to post occasional bento, with pictures and descriptions. I don't have pics of all of my past creations, but I have a few and will get those up gradually. Also, most of the pictures were taken with my crappy phone camera, so don't expect stunning quality (side note: learn how to take actually decent pictures of food someday). I generally bento about once a week now, generally on Tuesdays. My bento aren't spectacularly pretty or incredibly detailed, but they are yummy, and maybe someone out there will be inspired to give it a try. It's easy and it's delicious.
Without further ado, some bento!
Yesterday's lunch: cashew chicken and brown rice.
Ironically, this week's bento was remarkably plain, and probably not one I'll be repeating. I found a recipe for cashew chicken in a magazine, and it's been living in the 'to try' section of The Book for a while now. I mostly followed the recipe, except for adding in a bunch of zucchini, as it was notably deficient in veg content. I packed it with brown rice.
It was... okay. The chicken was kind of dry (it would have been much better with dark meat rather than white), I slightly burned the cashews (oops), and the sauce was a pretty straightforward and uninteresting blend of chili garlic sauce and soy. It's a very simple recipe, and possibly one I'll adjust and keep around in my head, but it definitely needs some tweaking and I think I can safely throw away that magazine page now. Live and learn!
Friday, February 01, 2013
thinking, and new directions
I've been thinking a lot lately. This will likely get fairly rambly.
About the world, about my life, and about this little corner of the internet that I have staked out for myself.
There are many directions I could go with this space, and I've come to the definite conclusion that I am completely unsure of where this blog is going (see what I did there?). It started off as a simple platform to get me writing, and to provide some measure of accountability for personal goals and projects.
Heh. Yeah, about those resolutions and goals. The ones I'm constantly thinking up and then abandoning. It's not too encouraging. And about that blogging schedule I haven't kept to, largely out of not feeling like I have anything pertinent to say.
However, maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that I have this space, and I can say whatever the heck I want to say within it. Even if it doesn't fit into my preconceived notion of what my topic is or should be. So I'm going to go on an adventure. I'm going to write about whatever is on my mind, whether it seems relevant or not.
Wow, when I write it out like that, it seems much less momentous than it did in my head. I'm going to blog OFF TOPIC. So brave. But hey, small steps, right?
So, first topic. Feminism.
Yep, I said it. Dropped the f-word.
You see, I'm a feminist. I always have been, but it was in the lazy, non-introspective, inactive way. Perhaps it's because I was so involved in my studies, but I never really bothered to poke my nose out into the world and see what was going on. I didn't actively deconstruct problematic cultural messages, and I had never heard the words 'kyriarchy' or 'intersectionality.' I pinned buttons with cheeky feminist phrases on my purse, but I didn't know, in a real way, that feminism had progressed past the free love movement of the sixties.
In other words, I was a complete dunce on the subject.
But in the last year or so, largely in response to unidentified feelings of ennui and quiet rage, I've really started immersing myself in the literature and connecting with some of the truly amazing folks writing about this stuff out on the big bad internet. People like Melissa McEwan, Ana Mardoll, David Futrelle, and Libby Anne, to name just a few.
I've come across so many different perspectives, many of which make me breathe a huge sigh of relief. Finding safe spaces was a revelation. I hadn't known that such thoughtful people were out there doing the work of identifying subtle double standards, of explaining tricky problems, of inspecting and dismantling rape culture. People who expect more. I got a huge awakening to what was going on in the world, and a call to examine some of the shitty messages I've internalized over the years. Boy, can that stuff be unpleasant to unpack and really look at, especially when it comes to addressing one's unexamined privilege. But it's also profoundly important, and I'm willing to put up with a little discomfort in order to become a better person.
I guess you could say I'm a baby feminist. I've got a whole heck of a lot to learn and grok and incorporate into my goal of becoming a more thoughtful human being.
So let's just say that I was deeply and pleasantly surprised by what I found out there when I finally got around to looking, and immersing myself in the feminist blogosphere has rapidly become my main free-time preoccupation. It's increasingly becoming a critical part of who I am. This is something that I'm passionate about, and something I need to write about. So perhaps this space will take on a whole new direction, or maybe it will just become a more representative sample of my thoughts. There are no internet police to say I can't have privilege-deconstructing posts alongside sock-folding posts, after all. They coexist in my head, so why not here?
My space, my rules. Would you like to come along for the ride?
About the world, about my life, and about this little corner of the internet that I have staked out for myself.
There are many directions I could go with this space, and I've come to the definite conclusion that I am completely unsure of where this blog is going (see what I did there?). It started off as a simple platform to get me writing, and to provide some measure of accountability for personal goals and projects.
Heh. Yeah, about those resolutions and goals. The ones I'm constantly thinking up and then abandoning. It's not too encouraging. And about that blogging schedule I haven't kept to, largely out of not feeling like I have anything pertinent to say.
However, maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that I have this space, and I can say whatever the heck I want to say within it. Even if it doesn't fit into my preconceived notion of what my topic is or should be. So I'm going to go on an adventure. I'm going to write about whatever is on my mind, whether it seems relevant or not.
Wow, when I write it out like that, it seems much less momentous than it did in my head. I'm going to blog OFF TOPIC. So brave. But hey, small steps, right?
So, first topic. Feminism.
Yep, I said it. Dropped the f-word.
You see, I'm a feminist. I always have been, but it was in the lazy, non-introspective, inactive way. Perhaps it's because I was so involved in my studies, but I never really bothered to poke my nose out into the world and see what was going on. I didn't actively deconstruct problematic cultural messages, and I had never heard the words 'kyriarchy' or 'intersectionality.' I pinned buttons with cheeky feminist phrases on my purse, but I didn't know, in a real way, that feminism had progressed past the free love movement of the sixties.
In other words, I was a complete dunce on the subject.
But in the last year or so, largely in response to unidentified feelings of ennui and quiet rage, I've really started immersing myself in the literature and connecting with some of the truly amazing folks writing about this stuff out on the big bad internet. People like Melissa McEwan, Ana Mardoll, David Futrelle, and Libby Anne, to name just a few.
I've come across so many different perspectives, many of which make me breathe a huge sigh of relief. Finding safe spaces was a revelation. I hadn't known that such thoughtful people were out there doing the work of identifying subtle double standards, of explaining tricky problems, of inspecting and dismantling rape culture. People who expect more. I got a huge awakening to what was going on in the world, and a call to examine some of the shitty messages I've internalized over the years. Boy, can that stuff be unpleasant to unpack and really look at, especially when it comes to addressing one's unexamined privilege. But it's also profoundly important, and I'm willing to put up with a little discomfort in order to become a better person.
I guess you could say I'm a baby feminist. I've got a whole heck of a lot to learn and grok and incorporate into my goal of becoming a more thoughtful human being.
So let's just say that I was deeply and pleasantly surprised by what I found out there when I finally got around to looking, and immersing myself in the feminist blogosphere has rapidly become my main free-time preoccupation. It's increasingly becoming a critical part of who I am. This is something that I'm passionate about, and something I need to write about. So perhaps this space will take on a whole new direction, or maybe it will just become a more representative sample of my thoughts. There are no internet police to say I can't have privilege-deconstructing posts alongside sock-folding posts, after all. They coexist in my head, so why not here?
My space, my rules. Would you like to come along for the ride?
Thursday, January 03, 2013
thoughts on resolutions
Metapost side note: I've been away for a while for a number of reasons. Here's a rambly set of ruminations on the most recent holiday.
I've never really done the new year's resolution thing. Oh, I probably parroted a few lines occasionally out of a general feeling of social obligation, but it never really meant anything to me and I never really followed through on any resolutions I might have made.
Last year I started blogging, and made a few monthly resolutions, thinking they'd be more tractable than year-long projects. I think I got as far as March.
On the one hand, the new year is undeniably a time of renewal, and the desire for a fresh start deserves to be honored. Deciding to make a change in one's life is a big deal. It usually involves seriously nontrivial amounts of work (or else why bother with the fanfare), potentially represents a significant improvement in some facet of life, and can be really hard to follow through with. Not to mention that figuring out what change to implement in the first place can be a hell of a project unto itself.
But compressing this process in a one-line throwaway gesture that no one really expects to happen can be not only useless, but genuinely counterproductive. Taking a really important personal mission and summing it up into a sound byte might be useful in clarifying the goal itself, but it also might trivialize a very real and relevant quest into a silly exercise in pointlessness and frustration.
So I'm not sure how I feel about all this. Leo says that having no goals is awesome. Scott says that defined goals are key to accomplishing really cool stuff, and he's a guy who knows all about accomplishing really cool stuff. I suspect that the ultimate answer is intensely personal and individual.
I'm in the middle of what feels like a rather important period of change, even if it does seem to drift aimlessly sometimes. For now, I think I'll spend January without any lofty goals or aspirations, and see where it takes me.
-----
I've never really done the new year's resolution thing. Oh, I probably parroted a few lines occasionally out of a general feeling of social obligation, but it never really meant anything to me and I never really followed through on any resolutions I might have made.
Last year I started blogging, and made a few monthly resolutions, thinking they'd be more tractable than year-long projects. I think I got as far as March.
On the one hand, the new year is undeniably a time of renewal, and the desire for a fresh start deserves to be honored. Deciding to make a change in one's life is a big deal. It usually involves seriously nontrivial amounts of work (or else why bother with the fanfare), potentially represents a significant improvement in some facet of life, and can be really hard to follow through with. Not to mention that figuring out what change to implement in the first place can be a hell of a project unto itself.
But compressing this process in a one-line throwaway gesture that no one really expects to happen can be not only useless, but genuinely counterproductive. Taking a really important personal mission and summing it up into a sound byte might be useful in clarifying the goal itself, but it also might trivialize a very real and relevant quest into a silly exercise in pointlessness and frustration.
So I'm not sure how I feel about all this. Leo says that having no goals is awesome. Scott says that defined goals are key to accomplishing really cool stuff, and he's a guy who knows all about accomplishing really cool stuff. I suspect that the ultimate answer is intensely personal and individual.
I'm in the middle of what feels like a rather important period of change, even if it does seem to drift aimlessly sometimes. For now, I think I'll spend January without any lofty goals or aspirations, and see where it takes me.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
today I love...
...this little kid. At the ripe old age of eight, she's decided to not only express herself in a fun and unique way through fashion, but is doing it in an inspiring crusade of historical education.
Check it out.
Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
Check it out.
Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
Monday, October 22, 2012
new systems
As you know, I recently got rid of between a third and half of my entire clothing collection, which was no small feat. I collect inordinate quantities of apparel. It's not too hard on my wallet or financial plans, because 98% of it comes from yard sales and thrift stores, but it still takes up a ding-dang lot of space. And it was frustrating because I could rarely find a particular piece that would be buried under everything else, and/or I wouldn't even really know what all I had! I longed for a more curated wardrobe.
So I went through the Great Purge of 2012, and boy did it feel good. In the wake of that, I've been iteratively tweaking and reorganizing what's left, as well as removing the occasional unused item that's still hanging around, in order to optimize the overall system.
Today I'm going to share what seems like a silly and insignificant little lesson, but that I absolutely love.
I recently learned how to fold.
Okay, that sounds even less climactic than I'd thought it would be. Everyone knows how to fold clothing right? You learned when you were seven, and your mom couldn't stand your habit of storing everything in a pile on the floor. Or at least you shoved your piles into drawers. I'm not judging.
I'd kind of thought that all ways of folding were essentially equivalent. Take garment, make flat and reasonably neat, stack in a pile. Take things from pile. If you want something at the bottom of the pile, you pretty much have to take the top part of the stack off, play a precarious game of jenga and caaaaaaaarefully extract what you're after, or cause the whole thing to topple messily and ruining your organization scheme in the first place. Oh, and if it's all in a drawer, the stuff at the bottom is nearly impossible to see anyway.
It's a small thing, but that little bit of frustration every day can get to a person.
Recently, via this article, I came across a different way of both folding items and of packing them into drawers. It involves 'filing' your clothing, so that each thing is both visible and easy to extract without disrupting the overall system. As a bonus, it turns out that you can fit SO MUCH MORE stuff in a drawer, while simultaneously making it more accessible. Oh Ceiling Cat, what a revelation.
This drawer, previously only holding pajamas, now holds pajamas, my swimsuit and cover-ups, long underwear, T-shirts, and tank tops. It's not perfect, but hot damn if it isn't incredibly convenient.
Yes, these are my socks. Yes, they're folded and sorted into rows. Don't judge me.
A combination of the Great Purge, implementing a seasonal wardrobe scheme (more on that later), and this new folding method has allowed me to completely empty out my enormously bulky and heavy Dresser of Doom. My entire wardrobe is in the closet, in a container under my bed, and in two little drawered nightstand things. They work well enough, but ultimately I'd love to find a small dresser with more shallow drawers in it. The contents of both nightstands could easily be combined into one piece of furniture with similar overall dimensions as one of them, if it had shallower drawers, and hence more of them. This system leads to a lot of wasted vertical space, even as it facilitates fitting more into the drawers overall despite that limitation. Imagine the sheer optimizing power of the filing system deployed in a more ideal environment!
Sorry, my geekiness is showing there.
Even my underwear are folded like this. Previously, I was of the toss-it-in-the-drawer-and-smash-it-closed persuasion, as I'd given up on any sort of organization for drawers. But this pervading sense of order, coupled with the ability to see and get at any particular article of clothing, really makes me happy. It's the simple things.
Friday, October 19, 2012
finding passion, part 7: flow
I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them. Join me!
Question #7: When was the last time you were in a state of flow, in the zone and totally lost track of time? What were you doing?
To be quite honest, I'm having a difficult time remembering the last time that happened on any significant scale. Perhaps that's a sad commentary, but it's been quite a while since I was so into something that it absorbed me completely. I find the current lack of that in my life rather disquieting.
But the question is not asking how long it's been; it's asking what the activity was. So I shall attempt to summon an answer.
Editing, I suppose. As in part 6, I can easily get into a sort of flow regarding the editing/typesetting of documents. Also, I used to become absorbed in math projects/research/homework when in school, and I do still get some of that same excitement and engagement when one of my grad-school friends asks me a crunchy math question.
And, of course, dance. For sanity maintenance I go out dancing once a week, and usually have no idea what time it is until they call for the last song. Dance is a huge part of who I am. It rejuvenates me, it makes me happy, it connects with me on a very visceral level.
Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes, part 6: obsession.
To be quite honest, I'm having a difficult time remembering the last time that happened on any significant scale. Perhaps that's a sad commentary, but it's been quite a while since I was so into something that it absorbed me completely. I find the current lack of that in my life rather disquieting.
But the question is not asking how long it's been; it's asking what the activity was. So I shall attempt to summon an answer.
Editing, I suppose. As in part 6, I can easily get into a sort of flow regarding the editing/typesetting of documents. Also, I used to become absorbed in math projects/research/homework when in school, and I do still get some of that same excitement and engagement when one of my grad-school friends asks me a crunchy math question.
And, of course, dance. For sanity maintenance I go out dancing once a week, and usually have no idea what time it is until they call for the last song. Dance is a huge part of who I am. It rejuvenates me, it makes me happy, it connects with me on a very visceral level.
Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes, part 6: obsession.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
today I love, jumptoast edition
When sitting in a toasting circle around a campfire, there's a phenomenon known as the 'jumptoast.' That's what happens when it's not really your turn with the bottle, but you claim it anyway, for Very Important and time-sensitive reasons.
This warrants a 'today I love' jumptoast, despite today not being a Wednesday.
Today I love the internet.
Most of the time it's hideously offensive and thoughtless and cruel, but occasionally something really awesome turns up.
This summer, BIC came out with silly 'for her' pens (annoyingly implying that we girly-types are completely incapable of using Normal Manly Pens), and Amazon reviewers responded in a marvelously snarky fashion.
Now they've gone and done it again.
Even the notorious cesspool Reddit can occasionally be decent.
The internet is an amazing tool, and it's truly up to us how we use it. I'm all for making it a safe space to actually talk about important stuff when needed, and to enjoy humor when that's needed. To find like-minded folks to remind you to appreciate what you have. To celebrate the people and things in this world that aren't shitty instead of just complaining about the things that are. To embrace the fabulous.
Claiming a little corner of it is the first step, and I'm very happy that I have the opportunity to that. I'm learning more every day about what I want to create, what I feel like the world needs, and how to make that happen. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.
This warrants a 'today I love' jumptoast, despite today not being a Wednesday.
Today I love the internet.
Most of the time it's hideously offensive and thoughtless and cruel, but occasionally something really awesome turns up.
This summer, BIC came out with silly 'for her' pens (annoyingly implying that we girly-types are completely incapable of using Normal Manly Pens), and Amazon reviewers responded in a marvelously snarky fashion.
Now they've gone and done it again.
Even the notorious cesspool Reddit can occasionally be decent.
The internet is an amazing tool, and it's truly up to us how we use it. I'm all for making it a safe space to actually talk about important stuff when needed, and to enjoy humor when that's needed. To find like-minded folks to remind you to appreciate what you have. To celebrate the people and things in this world that aren't shitty instead of just complaining about the things that are. To embrace the fabulous.
Claiming a little corner of it is the first step, and I'm very happy that I have the opportunity to that. I'm learning more every day about what I want to create, what I feel like the world needs, and how to make that happen. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
today I love...
...this amazing artist. He makes these incredible mandala-like scenes and sculptures out of... table salt. In a squeeze bottle. Dude.
Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!
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