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[personal profile] jennlk
or, What *was* I thinking?

Sunday's Livingston concert went pretty well, I thought. I needed at least one more rehearsal to be really comfortable with my part, but that's what happens when I switch parts 3 rehearsals in. The director took the mambo piece a little bit slower than the "speed run" we did at the last rehearsal, and it went OK.

Perhaps as a carryover from the LCCB concert, I flailed through the first bits of Farmington's rehearsal, but I got it together before we'd finished the first piece. (Later in the rehearsal, we ran a piece that most of us are familiar with, so we're not buried in the sheet music, and DC likes to really work the tempo and dynamics. He did, and the band was following him, and when we finished it, he paused, started to speak a couple of times, then took a deep breath and said "next piece". There was really nothing he felt necessary to fix, or even bring to our attention. Those are rare. I hope we play it that well in concert....)

Tuesday I wrangled the election reimbursement form, and sent it off to the Election Director at the County. Then I had to send her the pdf with all the timesheets/invoices/expense claims that I'd forgotten to attach. Then I came home and tracked down another copy of a receipt -- I got reimbursed for it, so I turned it in to Expenses, but somehow it's no longer attached to that expense sheet. But it was at Staples, and I was signed in to my account....

Wednesday I shoveled heavy wet snow off the top of the driveway before it froze into a slippery mess. (Driveway is still slippery, but at least it's not bumpy _and_ slippery!) This morning, I traipsed off to a County Clerk lunch meeting and did errands on the way home. (I was in Ypsi, stupid to come home today and drive back tomorrow.)

Stage rehearsal for Farmington tomorrow night, and concert on Sunday. Tomorrow and Saturday, I bake, do last minute errands (cat food!) and laundry, and pack, because bright and early Monday we leave for NC. (I really like to be through Charleston WV by the time rush hour starts, partly because if I do that we're out of the mountains before it gets dark.)

In the Words of Gandalf

Dec. 11th, 2025 01:59 pm
lydamorehouse: (ichigo irritated)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 ... Mason did NOT PASS his first attempt at getting a driver's license.

On the flipside, he seemed in decent spirits about it. It seems that he the the exact same thing that Jas (his partner) did wrong on their first test--he turned left from the far lane. Apparently, the tester did not seem to feel like a lot of other notes were necessary and told him to practice a bit more and come back in a week. All and all, for a fail, not bad at all.

Our of curiosity, for those of you who drive, did you pass the first time? Do you have any funny stories about spectacular fails?

I feel like I might know a few people who did, but most of my immediate friends did not. I failed three times, I think? I'm not exactly sure, but I know it took me slightly longer than a lot of my peers. My memories are pretty fuzzy about my tests. The thing I remember the best is that I wore a black beret (don't judge. It was the 80s) to my final test and I took my hands off the wheel while driving to adjust it and somehow I still passed. Apparently, the tester felt that showed confidence rather than foolheartiness.

I'm still not great at keeping both hands on the wheel.

Pacific Pains Is Eastern Gains

Dec. 11th, 2025 06:55 pm
[syndicated profile] notalwaysworking_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

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Carl would explain the time difference and said that Brewton should call before 5 PM ET, not PT. But Brewton always ignored Carl's requests and demanded that Carl call him back "first thing in the morning."
Carl was nice and would wait until 11 AM ET to give Brewton time to get settled in his own office. Until he decided he'd had enough. 

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[syndicated profile] in_the_pipeline_feed

It’s been obvious for many years now that growing antibiotic resistance is a problem, and that it could turn into a very bad one. There has been a great deal of work put into trying to understand the nature of these resistance pathways, but if you’re studying bacterial pathogens in the modern world, you’re showing up at the crime scene long after the break-in.

You might be surprised to learn (I was!) that there is actually a resource of pathogenic bacteria from the pre-antibiotic era. The “Murray collection” has several hundred bacterial varieties in it, mostly from the Enterobacteriaceae and specifically a number of Escherichia, Shigella, Klebsiella, Salmonella, and Enterobacter species that were collected from 1917 to 1954 by Everitt George Dunne Murray during his long career. These were stored as cultures on agar slopes, and curation of this collection was continued by his son Robert Everitt George Murray during the mid-20th century. In the early 1980s, subcultures of all of these were transferred to the National Collection of Type Cultures in the UK, where they are still available today.

This is obviously a uniquely valuable resource, and the world of infectious disease biology is indebted to the Murrays (father and son) for what must have seemed at times like a very odd use of time and effort. Over the years there have been many studies of the Murray cultures, and a number of very interesting things have been discovered - for example, it was found a few years ago that the majority of the Klebsiella strains in the collection were resistant to penicillin before penicillin even came into any widespread use. They were already prepared with beta-lactamases, presumably due to the natural occurence of such antibiotics in soils and other locations.

Here’s a new paper studying the Murray strains, specifically looking at the DNA plasmids that these bacteria carry. Those are the unfortunately all-too-swappable elements that bacteria trade around, and are a primary method by which resistance spreads through a population. They find that the great majority of the Murray-ra plasmids aren’t carrying many resistance genes per se. About 23% of the old plasmids have actually never been seen again in bacterial sequence databases in the modern era, but there are some from all the way back to 1917 that are still around (in modified form) in 2020. What this team found was that modern bacterial pathogens are dominated by large plasmids that have incorporated the older ones in their sequences, with several lines of evidence suggesting that they’re the product of multiple fusion events over the years.

As mentioned, the early plasmids have low levels of resistance genes scattered among them, mostly efflux pumps and a few for dealing with cationic peptides. The modern plasmids. . .are not like that. 38% of them are carrying resistance genes, often multiple copies, conferring resistance to a whole range of agents, many of them the broad-spectrum or “last resort” antibiotics, oh joy. The peak are plasmids that carry up to 40 different resistance genes, spanning a dozen different antibiotic types.

The authors were able to see several broad types of plasmid in the modern samples, and it appears that those behemoth polyresistance modern plasmids are probably short-ilved, with a lot of the nasty diversity lurking in smaller, more stable and persistent sequences that are mixes of old-fashioned Murray sequences (and their descendants) with modern resistance genes. But as they authors note, it’s not just the presence of resistance genes that determines that fate of all these bacterial plasmids - there are clearly evolutionary forces at work beyond just those from antibiotics, and those need to be better understood. The bacteria are nowhere near giving up all their secrets.

John Varley (1947 - 2025)

Dec. 11th, 2025 12:51 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Multiple sources report the death of SF author John Varley.

2025.12.11

Dec. 11th, 2025 08:35 am
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[personal profile] lsanderson
After weeks of debate, Minneapolis City Council approves $2B budget
Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne called it “the hardest budget season that I think I’ve been in.”
by Trevor Mitchell
https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2025/12/minneapolis-city-council-approves-2b-budget/

‘Somalis are the scapegoat’: fear rises as Trump targets Minneapolis community
Residents have had to adjust how they’re living – staying home, carrying passports – since Trump launched his attack
Rachel Leingang
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/11/somali-minneapolis-fear-trump-ice-deportation

That time a bunch of radical artists got under the hood at Mia – and stayed there
Fifty years on, the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program continues to provide an experimental, artist-curated space inside one of the region’s premier museums.
by Sheila Regan
https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2025/12/that-time-a-bunch-of-radical-artists-got-under-the-hood-at-mia-and-stayed-there/

The Trump administration’s fight against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives has reached Minneapolis Public Schools. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed suit against the state’s third-largest school district, accusing it “of providing discriminatory protections to teachers of color in layoff and reassignment decisions,” specially “the district’s efforts to bolster its minority teaching ranks,” The Minnesota Star Tribune reports. Via MinnPost
https://www.startribune.com/trump-administration-accuses-minneapolis-schools-of-racism-in-protecting-minority-teachers/601543618?utm_source=gift

It’s cold outside. But what should you do if it’s cold indoors? If you have drafty windows or a sputtering furnace, MPR News offers “five things to know about making improvements to your home to save energy and cut heating costs this winter.” Via MinnPost
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/12/10/reducing-home-heating-costs-5-things-to-know

‘The whole thing disgusts me’: Australians ditch US travel as new rules require social media to be declared
Visitors will have to reveal at the border all social media activity over the past five years
Daisy Dumas and Ben Doherty
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/11/australia-us-tourism-new-visa-rules-social-media-history

Trump launches $1m ‘gold card’ visa scheme amid immigration crackdown
Wealthy immigrants will be able to buy residency, and $5m ‘platinum card’ will exempt holders from some US taxes
Marina Dunbar in New York
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/trump-us-gold-card-visa-launch

The town on the banks of the Nile that turned floods into fortune
After record flooding submerged Bor in South Sudan in 2020, the emergency response ended up turning it into a beacon of climate crisis adaptation
Florence Miettaux in Bor
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/11/the-town-on-the-banks-of-the-nile-that-turned-floods-into-fortune

How monogamous are humans? Scientists compile 'league table' of pairing up
Helen Briggs
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gpvx3exglo

Jacinda Ardern once auditioned to be a Hobbit
The former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tells Graham Norton she auditioned for Lord of the Rings but fell short on a specific requirement.
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0mlyy58/jacinda-ardern-once-auditioned-to-be-a-hobbit

The Final Countdown

Dec. 11th, 2025 03:30 pm
[syndicated profile] notalwaysrelated_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

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Dad: "When I die, you should keep my ashes on the mantle. Then, when it's time for the grandkids to visit, dump my ashes in a sandbox for them to play with grandpa!"

Read The Final Countdown

This Knowledge Is Not A Shore Thing

Dec. 11th, 2025 02:30 pm
[syndicated profile] notalwaysfriendly_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

Read This Knowledge Is Not A Shore Thing

Friend: "Man, we really should visit the right coast more often."
Me: *Laughs.* "Haha, yeah, and definitely not the wrong coast."
Friend: "No, I mean the right coast. Instead of the left coast."
Me: "You mean East and West coast?"
Friend: "No, I mean the right coast, the one we're looking at right now. It's the right coast."

Read This Knowledge Is Not A Shore Thing

[syndicated profile] notalwayslearning_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

Read Might Cut Out This College As An Option

Freshman: *Holding up their phone.* "Hey, uh, guys? Over on [Social Media], people are talking about there being a guy wandering around [local main street] with a machete! Look!"
Me: "Oh, machete guy's back?"

Read Might Cut Out This College As An Option

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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A 2567 blueblood travels back to the Summer of Love to save one very special 16-year-old.

Summer of Love (Zhu Wong, volume 1) by Lisa Mason
[syndicated profile] mpr_daily_download_feed

Domenico Scarlatti - Keyboard Sonata in E, K 216


Orion Weiss, piano


More info about today’s track: Naxos 8.573222


Courtesy of Naxos of America Inc.



Subscribe


You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts, or by using the Daily Download podcast RSS feed.



Purchase this recording


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[personal profile] ndrosen
There is a Reason podcast in which guest Sarah McLaughlin talks about how foreign governments police speech in the United States. She is the author of Authoritarians in the Academy, a book which I recommend.

Sweet and Sour Tempeh

Dec. 10th, 2025 10:59 pm
[personal profile] ndrosen
On Sunday, I made sweet and sour tempeh for dinner, and finished it on Monday. I sautéed onion, bell pepper, a carrot, a parsnip, and garlic, and then added canned pineapple, the tempeh, kim chee, kalettes, a little broccoli, ginger, and Tabasco sauce. There may have been turmeric or ground black pepper as well. I cooked brown rice to go with dish.

I’ve made more or less the same thing before, but not for some time.

Efficiency Expert

Dec. 10th, 2025 09:23 pm
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[personal profile] billroper
I am going through some code, cleaning up old constructs before a major release that's coming up. This takes me into some interesting places.

Today, I realized that there is a whole species of things that can be simplified by cutting out a lot of intervening code that is building unnecessary objects and doing unneeded lookups. I've patched a couple of places and will continue looking at the problem tomorrow.

Some of the fun, of course, is that we've moved up to Java 8 since this code was originally written which opens up all *sorts* of possibilities for playing with Java Streams. The amount of things that you can now do with one (longish) line of code is really impressive. :)

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sraun

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