Erratica Reduex

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.

Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.

"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."

The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter.

Not so good a weekend, one that involved searching for a hat, LARP stuff, and a car accident involving me.

We spent a large chunk of the weekend frantically writing for the LARP; My main contribution was working on the system, one that's borrowed from the Lloegyr LARP.  After some additional inquiries to Ryan about his system, it's starting to look good.  I just hope explanations will go easily.

Sunday involved going shopping for a hat for the LARP that is oncoming like a freight train.  As a passenger, I appreciated the ride, however as it turned out, no stores in Fremont had skadelic hats.  They do however have a number of pricey antique stores, crammed with tables towering with fragile expensive bric-a-brac, just waiting for an errant elbow or knee to brush against them and cause the whole delicately balanced mass to topple.  I am absolutely full of random knees and elbows, by the way. It was nerve-wracking. 

The sheer volume of bric-a-brack terrified me as well.  I mean, we talk about consumerism, but then here it is, stores full of stuff that nobody in their right minds would buy.  How do the antique stores stay in business?  We decided they sell it to each other, in some sort of modern tulpa ring.  I'm also pretty sure that someday far in the geologic future our era will only be known by the huge amount of ceramic and glass gewgaws we produce.  It will be known as the bric-a-brac layer, and will be tens of meters deep of glass deer, ceramic santas and gnomes, letter openers, and velvet paintings.  It will be considered to be the work of some kind of social insect.

I'm uninjured as regards to the car accident anyway, there's that to be said.  It was a fender-bender in a residential parking lot, and I have no idea whether the insurance company will find me at fault or not.  I was so shaken I had to have help with basic things like pens, and exchanging infirmation.  It didnt' help that the other guy was new to this sort of thing, and was wondering if the police should be called before moving the cars out of the way of traffic.  The whole thing left me with frayed nerve endings- thankfully palecur came around and helped out.

And incidentally, on the way home, I stopped at a vintage clothing shop on San Carlos st., and immediately found a cheap hat that's perfect.  *sigh* So it goes.

When I went back to the apartment to show the damage to my insurance agent, I arrived to find him conducting his interview with my downstairs neighbor; an interview that mostly consisted of said neighbor complaining about me.  He  was taking the opportunity of a captive audience to list off all the problems he had had with us, from falling flower pots, to noises, to our watering our plants wetting his porch. It was bad of me to listen in, but I couldn't help overhearing my neighbor stating that he had heard the closet door opening, and something running around upstairs...he concluded that we must have been home, gone outside when the leak started, and evidently hid in the car for several hours, to come back when the repair people came.   The beleaguered agent's response to the litany of complaints was simply "I'm just here to get the information about your damages."

I DID like the part where Neighbor of Mine complained that because we had been living here for years, the management wasn't taking his complaints seriously.  I'm nevertheless thinking of getting an affidavit from oh, six or seven people who saw us at the party.

But in any case, my sympathy for my neighbor has declined quite a bit.  

No cake for them.

I was surprised when I mentioned My Beautiful Mommy on rpg.net, mainly because of the reaction.  The vast majority of people there had no real problems with the book, and were either enthusiastic about the idea of plastic surgery for themselves, or were annoyed that people cared about what other people did to themselves.  

It's weird; I'm feeling like there's a generational gap in attitudes toward plastic surgery, with the younger generation being much more accepting of using drastic methods to seriously mold one's appearance on a large scale. They frame it in terms of individuality, and compare it to dying one's hair.  the actual risks are handwaved away.

 It leads me to think that now body image issues are so integrated that they are seen not as a problem, but as a normal lifestyle element..  In other words, if the dresses in the store don't fit you, it's not the fault of the designer, you need to shape yourself because YOU are wrong.

I honestly feel like I've wandered into the world of Logan's Run.

It seriously was a waste of an hour, and I'm more than a little frustrated, given I could have been writing instead.  I also was left with a question regarding refurbished DVD/CD-R drives.

To recap: in order to get Norton to stop keeping me from acessing the internet, I need to reformat my computer.  To do that, I need a functioning DVD/CD-ROM drive.  So today, I decided I would get one from a local dealer.  I tried the two most likely choices, and called etech4sale, one while driving over to Central Computers.

What a waste of time.  Etech4sale put me on a phone tree, hung up on me, and then told me no one was available to take my call.  Central computers was there, but the geezer at the  desk could find only one laptop drive, and he was doubtful it would fit.  

So that was my lunch hour.  Now I'm considering buying a drive off the internet.  the question is, do I buy a new one for $130+ dollars, or a used one, for around $50.00?  Does anybody have experience with refurbished computer gear?

I am totally annoyed.  Yesterday when we came back from grouptank, it was late, we were tired, and there was a notice from the landlord.  it was a noise complaint; we have three days to do something about the noise or get evicted.  

My first reaction was "what noise?" From having people over on Friday?  From the cats?  I looked at the note: "...refrain from walking too hard, and making noise after 9:00 PM.  Walking.  Too.  Hard.

Well, crap.  Not only can we evidently not have people over after nine, even on a Friday, but I can't even walk in the apartment.  And the neighbors didn't even bother contacting us first.  We've done our best to live with our neighbors; we havn't complained about the noise the neighbors around us make, or the cigarette butts on the sidewalk.  Maybe we should have.

I went to sleep, annoyed.  and then I was woken up at three in the morning, to the sound of the baby downstairs crying its head off, for half an hour.  When I woke up the next morning, i couldn't help but think: we have cats, who are quiet, clean, and mostly self-maintaining...and WE had to pay a $500.00 deposit.  babies are not clean, noisy as hell, and need constant care, and how much of a baby deposit is required?  It doesn't seem fair.

So I 'm going to talk to the apartment manager this afternoon, find out what's what.  I' am going to be cool and collected, solicitous, willing to compromise.  but not right now.  I'm pissed.