Raro

Hm, Krista. I wonder if you think opening up Joe is like opening a store... first you go around hiding everything that looks dirty and might offend the customers; then you have to check all the mechanical bits -- personally -- to make sure there'll be no surprises later; and then only after you're fully satisfied does the neon sign out front come on: "JOE. Now Serving"

To quote myself: but these journalists sure have a roundabout way of not saying it. -- Raro

We pay actors to be dramatic. Be careful what you wish for. -- Raro

yeah. Sensationalist reporting of science by the press, where all the science is stripped out to make way for sensation... I could cry. But: after a cursory read through... no one seems to be saying masturbation causes anything unhealthy, rather, the same kinds of high hormone levels that make people horny have other health effects. The other thing they suspect, however, is that voluntary masturbation is *healthy* for the over 50 crowd, some vague speculation about "gotta clean out the tubes". So... I'm getting fairly fed up with this whole style of scientific study... you see them every time you open a newspaper, some statistical study of the correlation of random-thing-a on random-health-effect-b. So, Coffee may contribute to breast cancer, or that may have been debunked, but it may help protect against Parkinson's disease, unless perhaps you're a post-menopausal woman... I mean, you throw enough elements into a study, and sure you'll see some correlations. But this isn't science! None of this is contributing towards some grand theoretical framework of what the hell actually happens inside the body. It's just a pile of trivia. Maybe "health effects of food" will appear on Jeopardy one day... true sign of its uselessness. (By the way, blame Krista -- she wanted me to post more nerd-talk on the forums) -- Raro

Very cute! Hope Yoda has a spare! -- Raro

One thing I've always had fun with with piano improvisation: there's no such thing as a mistake. If you play a note differently from how your were expecting, ok, you've just changed the theme, added a detour, are exploring elsewhere. This approach forces you to pick up some new styles and sounds, to let you play around those notes you previously thought were mistakes/dead ends. -- Raro

Hello, from another now-out-of-the-closet longtime fan And, gah! Why are you of all people reading "how 2 rite" books? I'm sure if the authors had been any good at writing, they'd be doing it instead of meta-writing. (You know the old "people who can, do; people who can't, teach.") Besides, all I can imagine a writing book teaching is how to write Danielle Steele (?) in 10 days... and, um, the world needs no more of that. If you want inspiration... read an old classic, or just walk out your door, step on a Greyhound, and the world will provide. Best, --Raro

I remember for many years telling people I wanted to be an architect... see, when I was like 4 years old some friend of my parents must have seen me playing with blocks, and in the awkward way inexperienced adults often engage children asked "so, you want to be an `architect' when you grow up?" And for the next many years, I thought quoting adults to each other was a decent enough way of not answering the question for myself. Later on, I toyed with the idea of wanting to become president, until I mentioned this to my best friend, and she said without hesitation "I wouldn't trust you as president!" And I realized that, yeah, she probably has a point. Even I don't know what I'm gonna do next. -- Raro

Classic literary criticism: http://www.ericdsnider.com/snide/the-fanbo...nd-juliet-1595/ That is all. -- Raro

Happy 19th Michelle!! -- Raro

I'll second this. My mom's got a secondhand laptop that dies in various ways every so often, and just about every time, I tell her using a variety of small words: "get a command prompt, type chkdsk /f, and follow instructions. Beyond this, there be dragons." It's worked every time, dragons avoided. -- Raro

Raro is a screen name I've used before GA, and in this sense, it wasn't exactly chosen with GA in mind... but it's got some interesting background. "Raro" as a pseudonym was used by the composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) ... to quote encyclopedia.com, In order to observe music from all points of view, Schumann invented three artistic characters: the stormy, impetuous Florestan; the gentle, lyrical Eusebius; and the arbiter between the two, Master Raro. In later years Schumann signed many of his own compositions with these appellations. Further comments, via Google Books: Raro was the most delicate of the "Davidsbundler" [schumann's imaginary personas]. He was in his irony, which had drunk deep of worldly wisdom, raised far above the storm and stress of Florestan and the gentle, simple complaisance of Eusebius. In Florestan there was much of Beethoven, in Eusebius an echo of Schubert. Raro was to surpass and combine them in a higher unity. But Raro is just---rare. On that note, "raro" is also a Spanish (which I don't speak) word meaning something like "rare".... Dictionaries more thoroughly translate it as "bizarre, queer, rare, unusual, eccentric..." Does that explain it? -- Master Raro

I'll second everything here. You absolutely need good references. I'm sure you can think of a few people who've been in a position of responsibility over you who really like you. I don't know your background, but possibilities include former teachers, guidance counselors, sports coaches, church/music/theater group leaders. Ask them to write a (sealed) letter of recommendation. The seal is to make sure that the person receiving it knows it's not tampered with; but of course, before you ask someone to write a letter of recommendation, make sure they'll write good stuff about you. The other thing to keep in mind when filling out job application forms is that a form is just a piece of paper with ink on it; if filling out the form "by the rules" doesn't paint the best picture of you, feel free to improvise, cross out questions, give multi-line answers stretching way beyond the answer box for "previous employer's phone number". Your life doesn't fit squarely within the confines of an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. Feel free to communicate that to your future employer. -- Raro

For a moment I thought this topic was gonna be about some new trend in environmental-friendliness. Last year there was Sheryl Crow's campaign to limit people to one square of toilet paper per bathroom visit (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6583067.stm) in the name of saving us from global warming through paper conservation. What could be more natural than a trend to pee into sinks to avoid wasting toilet water? -- Raro

Huh. I'm gonna have to find myself a copy of this... I'd kinda dismissed the book, in part because it was made into a movie (chick flick?) and I couldn't imagine anything profound (and autobiographical) being adapted into a star vehicle for Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. Also, I get the feeling I met the book's author at a party; she was very subdued, stayed in the corners, excused herself to smoke cigarettes. -- Raro

Just thought I'd mention two personal favorites: I've got a thing for , and the video is really something special -- simple, direct, and powerful. On the much more melodramatic side, about breaking up (in French by the way, with unusually literal subtitles) is Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel -- just watching his sweat-drenched face just about tells the story. -- Raro

I can think of at least two relatively straightforward legal ways to get around this: One is to get someone else's XP cd. The installation cds are all identical, so anyone else's is as good as the one that would have come with your computer. Before you install, though, you need to find the product key that corresponds to your legal licensed copy of XP. There are many free tools available online that let you find this (or it might even be on a sticker on your computer), see http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/findxpkey.htm for example. Once you have the key, install from the cd, enter your key, and you're good to go. (On second thought though, I've never seen a media center edition CD, so they might be hard to find.) The second avenue is to just scoot your XP installation slightly to make room for another OS. The technical term for this is "resizing the partition". Again, there are many free tools online that will probably work. A google search reveals http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-res...e-software.html, for example. Of course, back up your data before tinkering with operating systems... -- Raro

I'm not an expert on this, but I get the feeling that XP is about the only operating system existing that's compatible with most every game/hardware. Vista will probably work eventually with many things, but, just as a random statistic, I've heard that about 30% of Vista crashes now are caused by buggy Nvidia drivers. Vista has a really strange security model where they don't trust the user, don't trust the hardware, and barely trust the software, so it'll constantly be fighting either you or the other stuff on your computer. And non-windows operating systems have completely different driver models, shared libraries, etc. So windows software just flat won't work on them; there's still an outside chance that some software you already own comes with a separate version for OSX, but it may not, and I've got no idea to what degree it's even possible to run OSX on AMD processors. Linux and variants have their own quirks, in that it's very hard to find any software for ithem that *isn't* free, so any company that likes to make a profit probably doesn't produce Linux variants of their software. That said, there's a huge amount of free stuff for Linux, including (from what I've heard) decent home-brew drivers for most popular hardware; and OpenOffice is an increasingly popular Microsoft substitute. Anyway, one quite workable option is to dual-boot your system, so you keep XP for games, and just add a second (or third) operating system, either as a sandbox to play around in, or because any of the various quirks of XP are driving you crazy. -- Raro

So I was once seeing this guy, Catholic I believe, who for religious reasons wasn't entirely comfortable with being/acting gay. I felt very awkward about this: I don't want to be someone's guilty pleasure. So, beyond just asking "are our religious beliefs compatable with each other's?" you might want to ask whether they are also compatible with sharing the kind of relationship each of you have in mind. -- Raro

"Hate's not functional; why are we taught it?" Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed "As every actor knows, rage is the easiest emotion to fake; and as every politician knows, hate is the easiest emotion to arouse in others." -Orson Scott Card Hate is contagious; it spreads from mouth to ear. The taboo on expressing hate in public is not a taboo on admitting sickness, but rather an admonishment to cover your mouth when you sneeze. -- Raro

I'd be happy to take a look. -- Raro

<pokes the ether> Where is everyone? -- Raro

I'd second this. I've had a Thinkpad T40 for about 3 years now, carrying it around with me from home to work daily. I know people who own other laptops who refuse to do this because they know theirs won't hold up. It's survived being dropped twice, with the CD drive popping out the second time, a phone call to customer service later, and they had a replacement shipped to me overnight, free. The brand name has changed to Lenovo (Chinese owned now), and I've heard some rumors that the hard drives may be a bit flaky, but it's still the default laptop for most every major business. You've got two basic choices: there's the X series which is less than 3 pounds, with a 12 inch screen, battery life probably up to 8 hours, and then there's the T series (or the R series that may be similar) that's less than 5 pounds, with a 14 or 15 inch screen, battery life up to 6 hours, and is a bit cheaper per feature since they've got more space to put things. I went for the bigger screen to ease eyestrain, but for portability, smaller's the way to go. Two other things: I'd definitely buy a battery upgrade (the default batteries probably last half as long as I've listed), but this will weigh a bit more. Also, for any laptop you end up getting, if RAM prices look exorbitant, RAM is so cheap these days just buy the same model elsewhere and replace it yourself -- RAM is about the only component that's standard among laptops and easy to replace. Best, --Raro

(I hope this is the appropriate forum for this -- never done this before) There's a rather shocking news story about a 15-year-old French boy raped in Dubai, and all the foot-dragging and prevarication Dubai is doing to avoid the embarassment of trying the case in court: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/world/mi...st/01dubai.html. Dubai's been a golden boy of the international business world with its low taxes, openness to foreign investment, and sea access to the middle east; I'm curious how this will play out, if Dubai will be sensitive to international pressure in this case. As a side note, the "News" section of the forum apparently has been closed to discussion because, a year from US elections, most every topic looks like politics and we're not allowed to discuss politics. Hm... I hope this doesn't mean that for the next year all we're allowed to do here is wish each other happy birthdays. -- Raro

I really like the question! When I read magical fantasy, there's still enough little boy in me to ask "would it be cool to have this kind of magic?" And then the more sober rational part of me responds with "is this magic even plausible enough to day-dream about?" I generally prefer magic of the "wishing makes it so" variety, both because you can wish for so many neat things, and because there aren't any cumbersome explanations to get in the way of its plausibility. ((The most recent example I read of trying to overexplain magic is The Name of the Wind, where the author tries to concoct magical laws akin to some basic principles of thermodynamics, and has the characters blithely talking about "conservation of (magical) energy". For one thing this jarred me as being really anachronistic, since the principle of conservation of energy was only discovered in the mid 19th century, well into the industrial revolution and well beyond the technology level of most any fantasy kingdom. And for another, imitation of scientific laws doesn't make good magic, so the author promptly sidestepped many of his so-called laws.)) Anyway, two series that for me have cool plausible magic are the Chrestomancy series, by Diana Wynn Jones, and the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan -- though I never made it past book 6 of this, for quite different reasons. -- Raro