Please see
Liv @ Dreamwidth
for all new content after May 2009

(My reasons for abandoning ship)

Not very many of them as I've been really really busy moving between countries, but here's a summary.

• Swedish competence [emigration]
  
• The adventure begins [emigration, family, friends]
  
• A week in New York [diary, tourism]

• European elections [political]
  
• I'm probably going to regret posting this... [disability, discussion, feminism]
  
• Weekend [quotidian]

As usual, please comment on the original posts at Dreamwidth.

I'm in the process of transferring my webhosting, so please do not send any emails to my domain for the next few days, until the DNS change has gone through. Instead, please use my gmail address. (If you don't know my real life email addresses, liv [at] dw or private messages or comments on DW will reach me just fine.) All sorted now, emails should reach me as normal.

Thank you to everyone who suggested webhosts; I went with Tagadab rather than NearlyFreeSpeech in the end, because I'm not quite geeky enough for the do-it-yourself attitude at NFS. I do think they have a cool business concept, I just wanted something a bit more user-friendly. I transferred my toy domain polymera.se first, and am very, very satisfied with Tagadab as hosts so far, so I'm now taking the plunge and transferring my main domain. I hope unsubscribing from TalkActive isn't going to turn out too hard...

This entry was originally posted at http://liv.dreamwidth.org/6133.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

• That "mixed" relationship thing [relationships]
  
• Book: Memory [book]
  
• Remembrance of things past [meme, personal]
  
• Shavuot [jewish, quotidian]
  
• My friends are lovely [friends]

Please keep all the comments in one place, at Dreamwidth.

Also, I tidied up the LJ friendslist a bit; the plan was to remove people who are posting primarily or exclusively on Dreamwidth. Anyone who's cross-posting with conversations in both places, I've kept, or that was the plan, anyway. So if you're up in arms because I defriended you and stopped reading your important posts, let me know, it was almost certainly a mistake.

• Decisions [emigration]
  
• Book: Ninas resa ('Nina's journey') [book]
  
• Long weekend [friends]

Please use Dreamwidth to comment so all the comments will be in one place.

• Web hosting [rfh]
  
• By the numbers [work]
  
• Book: The color of light [book]
  
• Looming future [friends, work]

If you don't have access to my locked posts on DW, and you'd like to, let me know. Comments screened on this post because I don't want to discuss things here, but I do need to sort out practical aspects of letting you read locked stuff. If you have a DW account that I don't know about, or if you use OpenID there, and you can't see my locked posts but want to, please tell me which account I should add to my access list! (If you refuse to go near DW to be able to read my locked stuff, that's totally up to you, of course. This post isn't very interesting, it's just work whining, and in general my locked posts are those that discuss work in detail or very occasionally family medical stuff, so you're not missing much.)

I have more invite codes than I can use just now. I'm hoping we've got past the stage where DW feels like a horrible elitist club that only the cool kids can join, and that everyone who wants an account already has one. But if you have changed your mind, let me have an email address and I'll happily send you an invite. And yes, this offer includes random people who just happened to surf past this largely abandoned journal. I think I've donated paid time to everyone I know who is active on DW and doesn't have a paid account already, but I still aim to buy six x six months of time further. So if you'd like to try out paid time, apply here!

• A new beginning [meta]
  
• Rest of the week [family, friends]
  
• Book: Stand on Zanzibar [book]
  
• Linkable content [linkies, meme]
  
• Book: Odysseus and Penelope – an ordinary marriage [book]
  
• Goodbyes [friends, linkies]

Comments disabled on LJ, as I want to keep all the discussion in one place. Please comment at DW using OpenID. I have a couple of spare invite codes if anyone still needs, and my offer of buying paid time for people whom I know and actually plan to use the site still stands. PM me here or at DW or comment on a DW post if you're interested.

So, Dreamwidth. It's a fork of LiveJournal, which in my opinion has most of the advantages without most of the disadvantages. And although nothing is certain in the internet world, I think it has a very good chance of being viable and sustainable at least on a scale of years. In short, I'm excited enough about it that I'm ready to ditch the place that has been my internet home for 6 years, and overcome the inertia of moving and the hassle of keeping up with my friends in two places. Let me make this absolutely clear: it's my friends who are important, not the particular flavour of social networking software we're using to keep in touch!

( cut to spare everybody who's completely sick of hearing about the new shiny thing ) Anyway, for all these reasons, this will be my last post on LJ. Future entries will be at Liv's place over on Dreamwidth. And yes, things are still shaking down, both for the site itself and for my own set-up there, but I'm pretty psyched about finding a new home to love as much as I love LJ.

I am not putting pressure on you to move. Dreamwidth is not going to bring about world peace, it's just another internet site, and if you're basically happy with LJ, why go to the hassle? I'm moving because I'm not happy here any more. I am not cutting you out of my life if you don't want to move to DW. I will continue to read LJ and comment here, at least until they finalize the awesome feature that will let me read all your posts without having to leave DW! I won't cross-post (because I'm a little nervous that doing so would violate LiveJournal's ToS, even though they're not enforcing it at the moment, and also because it's annoying for people who are in both places). I think I'll make occasional posts, perhaps weekly or monthly, with lists of titles of recent DW posts. If you want to read me over there, you're welcome to make an RSS feed there's an RSS feed at liv_dw. I rarely make locked posts, so this isn't a big deal, but if you particularly want to see my occasional comments about work details or family medical issues, I'm happy to friend your LJ account (through the magic of OpenID) so that you can do that without having to join Dreamwidth.

If you do want to join Dreamwidth, and I emphasize it's only if you want to, I won't think any less of you if you're not interested, or if you'd rather stick with the devil you know than trust a newly started site, or whatever, I have a certain number of invite codes. At the moment my list looks like this (deleted names are people who already have accounts from other sources, but do correct me if I deleted you in error):
daharyn
redbird
darcydodo (if you actually want one?)
taimatsu
ravingglory
ajollypyruvate *sent*
tig_b
_hypatia_
jenny_pop (if you're still reading)
------- (new based on this post)
catwithclaws *sent*
hmw26 *sent*
------- (waiting list)
jacquic *sent*
flying_peanuts *sent*
rivermilk *sent*

Comment if you still want the promised code; I have five available right now and I think that covers everybody I've already promised. And comment if you're not on the list yet but want to be added.

I also believe enough in the site that I want to invest in it financially. There's an annoying bug with the payments system right now, such that you have to use a Paypal account to pay, but as soon as that is fixed, I am willing to buy 6 months of paid time for up to 10 people. I'm going to prioritize people who actually intend to use the site, not just namesquat, cos otherwise it's a bit pointless, and I'm afraid I'm not going to pay for random strangers, only if I have at least some idea who you are.

Comments are screened by default, so that you can include an email address to send a code to, or let me know if you have a different name over there so that I can find you on the new site. Or sign up for me to sponsor you with paid time. But I'll unscreen any general chat about your opinions of Dreamwidth or this post or whatever.

I've been wandering round the UK since Sunday evening, including two interviews, and I'm now chez parents.

( 4 days in the life )

The lecturing job said they would let me know that day or the next, but I've heard nothing. This is leading me to suspect that I'm their reserve candidate, and they are waiting for confirmation from their first choice before they turn me down. I shall nag them tomorrow, but I'm prepared for disappointment. The research job said they are intending to do most of their interviews at the end of May, so I won't hear for a few weeks anyway. So now I just wait and hope.

I won't make it to the Carlton as planned tomorrow, since my parents sort of randomly invited my sibs for dinner without consulting me first. I'm slightly annoyed at having my plans changed on me, but I am very happy for the chance to see Thuggish Poet, so I don't mind too much. OTOH I do intend to show up to the Pembury for doseybat's party on Saturday.

I'm really glad that siderea made a post at some point explaining that intelligence and avidity are different things. This semester I had a class of six students, three boys and three girls. It soon became clear that the girls range between fairly and very avid but aren't very bright, and the boys are reasonably to highly capable but are just coasting. It's always a little worrying when a group divides precisely along gender lines like that, but I'm fairly certain that it's just a statistical blip and not a result of my making biased assumptions.

( more teaching notes )

After finding the class slightly frustrating, I do feel good about the outcome by the end of the course; I made some real connections. Yay teaching!

I'm working on some journal layouts for Dreamwidth, and it's getting to the point where it's mildly annoying to work in a non-specialist text editor. In specific, I want to be able to do the split screen thing that you can do in Word, so that I can simultaneously see where I set up properties at the top of the several thousand line code, and where I use the properties in the body. (I do know enough not to write code in Word itself!) Also, if I had a widget that would automatically colour in my brackets for me so I can see at a glance if they match, that would be kind of nice too.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an editor with both those features? It would be ideal if it runs under Windows, but DOS or in a browser will do at a pinch.

(When this is done, the same property is going to have the same name no matter what layout you use, and most except a few very specialist features are going to be common to all layouts. The guiding principle is that you shouldn't have to choose between form and function. The next pass is going to do the same for CSS classes, making them consistent across all site-provided layouts. Did I mention I love Dreamwidth?)

This is tangentially about both RaceFail and AmazonFail, but only in that they're both examples of the phenomenon I want to talk about. And I'm not drawing any direct comparisons between the two incidents.

Let's take a sequence of events: Somebody is Wrong on the internet. And not just Wrong about, you know, gun control or abortion or whether to vote Democrat or Republican (or whether the rest of the world outside the USA actually exists as anything more than a fable or source of rhetorical ammunition) but displaying bigotry against some minority group. Because the internet is inherently a public medium, people who belong to the minority group are going to notice, and are quite likely to express their hurt feelings. What happens now?

( some observations on crowd behaviour )

In conclusion: calling someone a homophobe is really not equivalent to calling someone a f*ggot. Calling someone a racist is really not equivalent to using a racial slur.

Word to the wise: if anyone asks you to lead two communal seders on two consecutive days, in cities several hundred miles apart, do not agree! Seriously, I had a lot of fun, even if it was completely exhausting.

( Pesach adventures )

You would not believe how tired I am, though. Even by yesterday, I was randomly falling asleep in the middle of conversations (sorry, SA!) and generally feel a bit as if my immune system is protesting at what I've put it through in the past few days. Oof. Happy Easter Christians, and chag sameach frum Jewish friends who should now be back online after three days of festival + shabbat.

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Details: (c) Lois McMaster Bujold 1994; Pub 2008 Baen Books; ISBN 0-671-87646-5

Verdict: Mirror Dance is impressive and thrilling.

Reasons for reading it: I am absolutely starving for more of this series by now, and it was the next one in order.

How it came into my hands: My ever-wonderful Beau lent it to me.

( detailed review )

The good news is that papersky is discussing the whole series on Tor.com. Very cool to have her insights into the series, though on a slightly negative note she's not really tagging her posts properly, so you just have to look through the site to be able to find them. Several are on the front page at the moment, though, including MD.

I have a few. The site's still very much in beta, and really so, we're actually working on bugs, not just that web 2.0 thing where everything is permanently in beta. But if you want to play around or reserve your username before the official launch, do comment. I expect you all know what Dreamwidth is by now; I might do a post talking about it properly later on, but right now codes up for grabs. If you think I don't know your email address, pm me.

And yes, I am planning to move over fully as soon as the site launches into public beta. More on that later.

ETA: Four down, two to go... within a quarter of an hour of posting. You guys are quick like bunnies!

ETA2: All gone! I'll try and pick up some more but no promises, they're still limiting site growth pretty strictly just now.

ETA3: Already 3 8 people in the queue for any more that show up. There may be faster ways of getting codes than joining said queue, but I'll give them away as fast as they show up if you'd like to add your name to the list. Sorry, Americans, it just fell out that way.

I am on my way to Copenhagen to lead the seder for the Progressive community there, travelling by train, and this really does beat flying in every possible way. I have a big seat with loads of space, and I just got on the train at 8:30 this morning and will simply sit here in comfort until I get to Copenhagen mid-afternoon, no stress or messing around. And best of all, there is free teeeeeeeea and free internet. Life is good.

So I have a few hours to post about my insanely busy life in the past couple of weeks. ( why you haven't heard from me in a while )

Because I am completely insane, I'm leading one seder in Copenhagen tonight, then taking an early train back to Stockholm first thing tomorrow, and leading the second seder there tomorrow night. Thank goodness I have the Easter weekend to recover. It's very weird not being with my family for Pesach, I must say. Anyway it should be a memorable experience.

Today's headline news is that the country has passed a law giving formally equal rights to same sex couples, including the right to marry in the state church. (The situation was nearly equal de facto anyway, so really the new law is fixing minor technicalities of wording and such, but it's still good progress.) Anyway, this isn't why I like Sweden; no, why I like Sweden is because the (female) leader of the opposition party decided to celebrate by setting up a photo op snogging a woman who's a big shot in one of the gay rights groups. One of the trashy newspapers headlined this with: HOT LESBO KISS celebrates equal marriage law... this refers to two middle-aged, smartly dressed but not conventionally "sexy" female politicians.

In other news, I'm mostly offline at the moment, because cartesiandaemon is visiting, and I am overwhelmed with Pesach prep and other urgent stuff, and because my main computer is dying.

Author: Katharine Kerr

Details: (c) Katharine Kerr 1991; Pub HarperCollins Voyager 1996; ISBN 0-586-20789-9

Verdict: Polar City blues is a thumping good story, in spite of technical flaws.

Reasons for reading it: cartesiandaemon recommended it, albeit with some reservations. We've mostly run out of books that we absolutely must press on eachother right now, but still like raiding eachother's libraries anyway.

How it came into my hands: cartesiandaemon lent it to me.

( detailed review )

I had a very long and tiring week last week, but at the end of it my experiment didn't yield any useful data, bah. The weekend was fairly quiet; I spent Friday sending out job applications and not doing as much tidying as I'd intended, and the guests I'd invited for Friday night couldn't make it. Saturday I gave the sermon and led the Torah discussion as planned; they both went very well, the sermon especially. I spoke about the ways that the section about constructing the Tabernacle exemplifies building a community and valuing everyone's contribution, which I didn't think was incredibly original, but people went mad for it.

SA was there, and invited me to join her for lunch afterwards. 1:30 on a Saturday is not the best time to be looking for lunch here, because Swedish people generally eat rather earlier than that, and most of the restaurants are only open in the evening on Saturday, whereas most of the cafés are running out of food by that time. Still, we ended up at Nero (not the coffee chain!), which is sort of pretending to be a trendy bar from 80s New York, a bit pricey, but the food is really very good. SA described the place as "yang" in the way that it is all black and white and hard lines and full of motion and very crowded. Weekends they do a sort of set menu where you take a basket containing a salad, a glass of fresh orange juice, a slightly symbolic bloody mary, and two small desserts, and then a choice of American-Italian main course. It's always lovely to spend time with SA, and we talked nineteen to the dozen.

Although the weather yesterday seemed to have the promise of spring, just warm enough for wandering around the city to be pleasant, and the first snowdrops just coming out, it was all a lie, because today it's snowing again. I have to admit I'm less childishly excited about this than the last eight snowfalls this year. But still, pretty.

What else? I have a lot to do with Jewish community stuff, sorting out the services I'll be leading next weekend in Oslo, and then Pesach in Copenhagen and Stockholm, and then in April I'm planning a teaching service and a youth service. And I'm starting teaching at college next week; I can't quite believe all these commitments are looming, I thought Pesach was still far in the future.

( job hunting progress )

Also, friend_of_tofu poses a really interesting question: Who do you turn to first or most often for support?, and discusses relying on your friends, partner(s) or family and how those balance. Recommended.

Author: Steven Brust

Details: (c) 1993, 1996 Steven Brust; Pub 2003 ACE (as single volume); ISBN 0-441-01010-5

Verdict: Athyra is slight, but fun; Orca brings some unexpected novelty to the series.

Reasons for reading it: I'm gradually working through the Vlad Taltos series, which so far range from enjoyable to really enjoyable.

How it came into my hands: cartesiandaemon got enthusiastic about the series too (it's been fun discovering them together!) and bought the next double volume so we could both keep reading. I read Athyra back in December and then didn't get round to reviewing it. And I didn't get to Orca for a long time because the two-volume edition is physically so big that I was never able to fit it in my luggage.

( detailed review )

There's a really sad story in the news here at the moment: ( mentions dead babies )

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Details: Originally published 1892; Pub 1971 Berkley Medallion

Verdict: The adventures of Sherlock Holmes is better than I was expecting.

Reasons for reading it: Between reading Arthur and George and watching a sweet but silly film Young Sherlock Holmes over Christmas, I was intrigued enough to get round to reading some of the original stories.

How it came into my hands: Found it in my parents' house. I'm guessing it's from one of the grandparental collections that we inherited, because I can't remember it being there when I was a kid. And it's physically small compared to most modern books so it fitted nicely in my handbag while I was travelling; actually it's really good for reading on the plane because the short stories are just nicely bite-sized, engaging without needing vast amounts of brain power.

( detailed review )

Reasons for watching it: Everybody's been talking about it, and it seemed cool to see a much-hyped film shortly after its release, so that I could read all the other reviews without worrying about spoilers, and hopefully join in the conversation.

Circumstances of watching it: cartesiandaemon's friends T&R invited us to join them to watch the film. We saw it the Grafton Centre Vue, which is a fairly generic commercial cinema. They had a pick-n-mix counter but nearly all the sweets were full of gelatine so I ate honeycomb flavour icecream instead, which was nicer but not as good for nibbling at while the film was going on. If I'd been on my own I'd have chosen an earlier screening; for me, a three hour film starting at 8:30 is a bit much to take.

Verdict: Watchmen is cinematically impressive even if it's not really my thing.

( detailed review (minor spoilers) )