CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-01 19:57:30 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

+Chris Mecklenborg knows things. Quoted from comments elsewhere:

I'm pretty sure no one has ever made a life decision of any sort without being criticized for it by someone.

Choose family over career =>
    "Why are you wasting your education?"
Career over Family =>
     "Where are my damn grandkids?"
Pursuing both =>
    "Oh, you poor thing, why do you insist on spreading yourself so thin?"
Pursuing neither =>
    "How come you don't do anything but sit around and play video games?"

Hunh, that was fun. I think I'm gonna go find someone to criticize over an arbitrary decision for no reason!

2013-05-01 16:59:02 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

I thought the baby was with +Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist in the office.

+Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist thought the baby was with me in the living room.

The baby was actually in the bathroom, eating the soap.

This provoked two immediate reactions: (1) When did you get tall enough to start pulling things off the counter? and (2) Soap is not supposed to be delicious.

2013-04-27 15:58:14 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Which is harder: teaching the nine-month-old not to call the dog over to her high chair and hand food to him, or teaching the dog not to accept food someone is clearly giving him?

2013-04-23 19:19:22 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

I have not had any tea today.

The baby woke up at 6:30, very carefully climbed out of bed, and began her reign of mayhem. "I'm tired," I thought. "I want a nap. I will not have any tea now, so that when the baby goes down for her morning nap, I can nap with her."

Have you spotted the flaw in this plan?

2013-04-23 03:42:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

+Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist is reading Vader's Little Princess to the baby. With voices.

It is adorable.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Vaders-Little-Princess/dp/1452118698

2013-04-06 05:36:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

2013-03-11 03:25:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Home from FOGcon. Ded of awesome. Details when not utterly limp with exhaustion.

2013-03-04 19:25:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The Illustrated Guide to Law may be of particular interest to FOGcon 3 attendees (this year's theme: Law, Order, & Crime).

2013-03-04 15:04:18 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I am looking forward to the time change. The baby's been getting up earlier lately, presumably because sunrise has been getting earlier. Adjusting clock time so that's later according to the clock sounds great to me.

2013-01-29 03:03:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Do you like science fiction? Do you like geeky people who talk a lot? Come meet geeky people and talk a lot about science fiction, and fiction in general, and science in general, at FOGcon 3!

It is March 8-10 (day passes are available, but if you sign up for the whole weekend before February 1 you get a discount on your membership) in Walnut Creek. It's a small, new convention so every person that attends it now gets to help set expectations for its future. The last two years were completely awesome, so you should come help it be even more awesome this year!

2013-01-27 20:16:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

On my way to yoga this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that said "I (heart) Mr. Darcy".

Mr. Darcy would be mortified. Madam! Have we been introduced?

2013-01-25 00:16:49 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

They tell you that babies put everything in their mouths. They don't tell you that "everything" includes chairs, end tables, knees, drawer handles, shoes, her toes, your toes, the dog's toes....

2013-01-01 17:25:42 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

This is a legitimately crawling baby. She can't quite manage on the hardwood yet, and on carpet she can only go a few steps (are they still steps when it's crawling?) before faceplanting, but as of the party last night, the sequence is now crawl crawl faceplant, crawl faceplant, rotate crawl TARGET ACHIEVED.

Happy New Year!

2012-12-15 17:58:12 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The trouble with online shopping is that, when gift-givers have their gifts shipped directly to the recipients, sometimes they arrive with no indication of who the gift-givers are.

So if you are the person who sent Morgan a singing Spanish-language stuffed puppy... thank you for thinking of us. Would you like to identify yourself so I can thank you properly?

2012-12-15 01:26:42 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

The baby has a new trick: blowing raspberries. She thinks it is hilarious, and she is correct. (Presumably the novelty wears off at some point.)

She has been very helpfully self-sufficient this afternoon, hanging out making various sounds and inspecting her feet. At one point, if I hadn't been looking right at her I would have sworn she was playing with little toy airplanes, zooming them around and making engine noises to match.

The feet are also rather new, as far as she is concerned. She has toes! Her toes have a flavor! This is all very exciting.

2012-12-14 21:41:12 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Aaaaaaants. In my kitchen. :(

I was looking forward to a nice peacefully busy afternoon of empanada-making -- maybe walk the dog, since Andres overslept and didn't do that this morning, maybe stop by the grocery -- but instead I have been eradicating invaders.

They seem to be coming up around the stove infrastructure, either around the gas line or the vent. Fortunately I found them before they found anything other than some drips on the flavored syrup bottles and a small spill near the stove, so the cabinet's been cleared out and I will finish the thorough make-sure-they-don't-find-anything-else clean in a few minutes here.

Oh well. We needed to move the stuff in that cabinet elsewhere anyway. At least this way it'll be nice and clean before we start moving more baby-safe things into it.

2012-12-09 03:36:52 (46 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

All right, following up on +Vynce Montgomery's last serve of Cyrillic, have a tasty evening breakfast for dinner!

I guess given the community, the hashtag and rules link seem kind of redundant. This post feels so naked without them....

2012-12-07 21:33:44 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

The baby is currently attempting to eat The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

This seems appropriate.

2012-11-09 17:37:44 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Hey everybody,

FYI, you are about to see a lot less of me on G+ -- the mobile site just changed and is now unusable. I tried the app but it is only marginally better. So no more iPad G+ for me. I'll probably be checking in every other day or so in my real-computer time, but if you've got last-minute invitations or anything urgent like that, send e-mail.

(+Yonatan Zunger, +NeilFred Picciotto -- I hear you guys may be interested in g+ mobile feedback.)

2012-11-03 05:55:09 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Baby is not sleeping. Baby is fascinated by the existence of my nose, which she has only just realized she can reach with her hand.

2012-10-26 07:07:45 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I just stayed up way past my bedtime playing this game.

Persevere! It's worth it!

2012-10-16 21:03:10 (17 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

From +Brooks Moses's ice planet Hoth, it's #BreakfastCombo time once again!

2012-10-03 16:41:33 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Vanilla flavor almond milk tastes remarkably like the milk left in the bowl after eating Lucky Charms.

2012-10-02 20:44:14 (31 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Right back from +Yonatan Zunger's Jörmungandr / the Midgard serpent, it's #BreakfastCombo again! Go on. Read my mind.

2012-10-02 05:15:12 (43 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

It's #BreakfastCombo time again! From +Joanna Staebler-Kimmel's digital Easter egg to... heavens. What is this on my plate?

http://dpdx.net/breakfast-combo.html

2012-09-14 20:49:22 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Baby Product Comparative Reviews

Part 5: Carriers

Ring Sling: This is the simplest and fastest to put on. However, it is relatively insecure and puts all the weight on one shoulder. Therefore, while it is possible to type or eat or do other things involving hands out more or less in front while the baby is in the sling (as for instance right now), it is difficult to do anything involving reaching up or down, such as putting away dishes or doing laundry. It's also not very comfortable for long walks. The sling is nice for popping the baby in and out when she doesn't want to be put down but I want to get lunch or otherwise be a little more mobile. As she gets more head control, a wider variety of positions will be available, which should help with the range of arm motion and so forth. It's supposed to be fairly easy to breastfeed in the sling, but I haven't figured... more »

2012-09-09 18:55:32 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Baby Product Comparative Reviews

Part 1: Curvy Pillows

Boppy: A thing of beauty and a joy forever. Very good at supporting baby and/or elbows while nursing. Andres likes to snug it up against him while he plays computer games at night and have the baby sit or lie on it while she slooooooowly falls asleep. The deluxe fuzzy cover with the monkey on it is very comfortable and also the cutest thing ever; the regular cover is also just fine.

My Brest Friend: Ordered when we decided we could use a second Boppy so we weren't having to go fetch the first one from room to room so much. Figured we'd try the other major brand; this was a bad choice. The bit that goes behind you makes my back hurt, the strange lumps don't help anything, and the overall consistency of the pillow is just not as nice as the Boppy. Also it has a really stupid name, so we keep not wanting... more »

2012-09-07 15:37:12 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

You know, the art museum is a pretty good place to practice breastfeeding in public. There are comfy benches, interesting things to look at, and a reasonable certainty that passers-by will not be offended by incidental nudity.

2012-07-21 04:34:51 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

What an amazing gift. 

2012-07-07 22:03:26 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

There's this decorating trend involving putting inspirational quotes up on the wall. I think it mostly looks silly, but if I were going to put up an inspirational quote, especially an inspirational quote about child-rearing, it would be this line from Kipling's "The Neolithic Age":

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right.

Usually it's writing advice, but really it applies quite widely.

2012-06-21 23:49:24 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Overheard from the next cubicle:

"Why is it that you cook bacon but bake cookies?"

2012-06-15 18:05:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

This is something I'd love to see; Spain decided to build a monument to its great mercury mine at Almadén, and commissioned Calder to build a mercury fountain. It's still operating in Barcelona, although nowadays it's safely behind glass to avoid poisoning everyone in the room with heavy metal fumes.

One of the really beautiful, but dangerous, techniques in astronomy is to build a very smooth mirror by rapidly spinning a large dish of mercury. You get a perfectly smooth, highly reflective surface which can be extremely large... modulo the slight challenge that you can't really tilt it and that it may kill you at any moment.

h/t +Aleatha Parker-Wood for the link!

2012-05-26 23:05:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Oooh. Check out the spiffy cake zoetropes. (Watch the second video all the way through -- there are several different cakes in it and the last one's the best.)

2012-05-21 20:13:43 (23 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

My fellow Washington Staters: get your booster shots!

2012-04-26 00:33:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Only 12 hours left! Siren has recieved a very, very generous offer to MATCH THE TOTAL FUNDS RAISED on our IndieGoGo campaign. So if you've been thinking about contributing but haven't, this is the time. Please, please re-share, favorite, forward, spread the word around, and thank you so much to all those that have already contributed!

http://www.indiegogo.com/SirenSanJose?a=367191

2012-04-23 14:26:44 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

This weekend's homemade ice cream flavor: Victorian Sexuality (it looks like vanilla but it's not). Amaretto, white chocolate, and almond.

The amaretto works really well, although if I make this particular combination again I will not add quite so much white chocolate and almond -- the flavor was fine but it came out a bit crunchy.

Next up: Kipling (vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, and pepper) or British Navy (rum, orange extract, and salted caramel). Unless I have a better idea.

2012-04-03 01:04:20 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Remember my unhappiness with the YMCA (linked, if you don't)?

After I sent the letter, I got a nice response from the director thanking me for taking the time to write out my concerns and letting me know that it had been forwarded to the director of risk management.

When I mentioned it to my obstetrician, she thought I was being silly and should take it less personally. "Sure, it would be fine for you to make that decision; you're informed about your health. But lots of people don't follow their doctor's instructions." (That made me grumpy.)

Today I got an e-mail from the director of risk management, informing me that the policy has been changed and now they'll just use the regular waiver that they use for everything else.

::victory dance::

So I guess I'm going to prenatal yoga next Sunday! And probably joining the YMCA... more »

2012-03-25 19:14:59 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 0 +1s)

My friend +Diana Heideman is trying to start a fish & reptile store in San Jose, but has been having a bit of trouble with initial funding. She's got an indiegogo (Kickstarter-type) project up to try to get the last bit of cash she needs to start the place up right. There's swag!

Are you a local who wants to support a local business? Are you not a local, but you want stickers or t-shirts or pictures of reptiles or, for that matter, certain live reptiles? Then go give +Diana Heideman some money.

(+Chris Mecklenborg, I particularly recommend to your attention the $5 gecko stickers.)

2012-03-20 03:37:31 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

The other day I had a rather unpleasant surprise from the El Camino YMCA. It turns out that before one can attend any of their prenatal exercise classes, one must produce a note of consent from one's doctor. They have a handy little "Pre/Post Natal CONSENT FORM" for the doctor to fill out, which I have a copy of here. After playing along long enough to e-mail my doctor and see if there's a good time this week for me to drop in and get the form actually filled out, I thought about it a bit more and decided exactly how annoyed I was.

I am very, very annoyed.

I have written the following letter, which I intend to send to the Executive Director, both Associate Executive Directors, and the Group Exercise Director. My goals here are twofold:
1. Blister their ears so badly their hair catches fire.
2. Effect immediate policy change.
I consider 2 less likely, so... more »

2012-03-18 05:04:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Okay, wow. I think Totem is possibly the best Cirque du Soleil show I have seen so far. Kooza had some acts that were individually more impressive, but the overall quality and coherence of this show were really impressive. I liked all the clowns, and I never like all the clowns.

2012-03-05 05:46:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

As it turns out, Conway's Game of Life is Turing-complete. Here, for instance, is a recursive Game of Life: a working Game running on the Game itself.

(h/t: +Aleatha Parker-Wood)

2012-02-24 07:07:07 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

So, people I don't recognize:

Who are you? I know there's a contingent following Breakfast Combo around, and there appear to be some friends-of-friends I haven't met, but there are also some utterly perplexing names there in the list of people who have me circled, but who I have not circled back. I do not the least bit mind if you want to just hang out and watch the public posts go by -- that is why they are public -- but if you'd like to drop a little note saying who you are (if I know you from elsewhere but am not connecting your name with the person) or how you ran across me and why you find me interesting (if you have just been trawling G+ for interesting people) I'd appreciate it.

2012-02-07 19:20:04 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Proposition 8 ruled unconstitutional.

:)

Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for "laws of this sort."

The particular tack the court took here is interesting. Their ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional relies on the fact that, in California, gay couples can get all other effects of marriage except the word by other means -- they are allowed to adopt children, they can share insurance benefits, all that good stuff -- so Prop 8 literally does nothing other than make a semantic distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples. (Proposition 8 worked a singular and limited change to the California... more »