luciaphile

If any other insomniacs are now worriedly trying to get up to speed on Julia sets, thanks to lockmat sharing this cornucopia of delights, this is the best treatment I've found so far. As is often the case with mathematical topics, wikipedia was too arcane: http://www.jcu.edu/m...ettes/Julia.htm

samagon, you should have bought a ticket! I'm prepared to lay odds this is a really special, one-time event, made possible by an unusual synergy of impressionable bubbas, male and female (notable Susan Combs), and smooth Scandinavian guys. No worries as to logistics -- a shakedown was conducted a couple weeks ago, Austin-style: a foot race. Even though the city declined to build a new customs facility as the race planners wished, all other bugs have been worked out, despite the ongoing litigation, and it is certain to be a success. At least, with civic pride at stake (Mexico City! London! Melbourne! Austin??) haters and non-haters alike now find ourselves in the position of hoping so, though it's not clear we will know whether it was or it wasn't, there being only a few dozen locals who understand the sport of Formula One. "Did the hookers come?" will probably be all we have to go by. The newspaper helpfully ran a series of F1 tutorials last year. I'm a leg up having watched "Le Mans" on the late show one time. That's F1 ... I'm pretty sure. There was very little dialogue in that movie. It was hard to stay awake during the frequent record club commercials. And I remember thinking Steve McQueen with sideburns was not as "cute" as he was in "The Great Escape."

I'm sorry, I don't know where to put this. It's nowhere near the Katy Prairie, though the KPC has gotten involved. It's a remnant that prairie enthusiasts have lately found and are hoping to come up with the funds to save. I thought the fellow who posted the pictures on this thread might be interested if he ever looks at HAIF. They will need lots more interested people. The event is happening in like ten minutes, but I post it for the directions. Don't go in winter, when prairies don't look like much. Here's the website: http://savecollegepa...airie.ning.com/ Time: November 8, 2012 from 8:15am to 11:15pm Location: College Park Prairie Event Description: On Thursday, November 8, there will be a field trip to the College Park Prairie in Deer Park for seed collection and general viewing. If you’d like to attend, meet at the prairie at 8:15 am. SPECIALTY REQUEST FROM KPC: Please help collect Rattlesnake Master, Texas Coneflower, and Liatris seeds for the MD Anderson Project (Fannin and Holcombe). If you do collect for that, just drop them off at the KPC office, 3015 Richmond Avenue, Suite 230, Houston. Directions: Going north on Luella from Spencer Highway, go passed Princeton, Dartmouth, Lambuth and Brown Lanes, all going only to the right. Turn right on the next street which is E. Amherst Lane. Follow it to its end and then around left and then left again doing a full 180 degree turn. You will then be on East Purdue Lane. Park on the right side of Purdue (the north side, next to the school).

Regarding the way you cross the economics of Milton Friedman with the language of class struggle -- it's frankly perplexing, it feels like there is some tension there. Regarding your use of the word douchebag: Me: Please don't. You: The word douchebag is so potent, nothing else can possibly convey what I mean, it's like verbal electroshock therapy. I spared you some effort there. Though I don't actually know who the douchebags are...but, let's leave it. Regarding Austin: the places I like in or within an hour of Austin have nothing to do with people. Plants/water/rocks are my thing. Everything that was hateful about home, is not here: I am free -- if something similar was your thought upon arriving in Houston, then we defend our adopted cities for the same reason. But I'm not so militant, nor so pleased with growth; and in any case I'm ready for a change of scene, different plants and birds, different weather even.

Replying in Way Off Topic.

Maybe his tenants are Mormons, and it's a repeat of the Mountain Meadows massacre he's concerned about.

I'm sorry, The Niche, when you're taking it on the chin in that other thread for coming to the defense of the possibly-fake Asian landlord guy with the not-yet-finely-tuned sense of how, when, and, crucially, whether to invoke race -- but I'm going to drop the "envelope of politeness" (your locution) and slip into something more comfortable: I detest your farfetched (Dallas voluntarily elects to shutter one of the busiest airports in the world?!) vision, and the attitude toward rural Texas implicit in it, and all in the service of making Austin grow and grow. Why would we want to do that? Reading it made me unhappy in a wish-I-was-never-born kind of way, which only happens a few times a month. But I wouldn't like to be accused of negativity for not proffering something else instead. (Trying hard to think of my own vision, when actually I'm really super-excited about leaving things the way they are.) Got it. Let's make the spaceport they're planning at Boca Chica, the one on the inholding in the refuge, a super-airport serving a reunified Texas and Mexico and ... the galaxy! Our ideas are about on par -- in fact, mine is a step or two closer to fruition.

I'm afraid that was a yuletide loss leader, Samagon. Well, my hands are clean. I neither drive a Lexus nor need a waffle iron. I already have one. It was a wedding present to my parents in 1961. There's a picture of the gifts laid out on card tables covered with a white damask tablecloth, so the bride's mother's friends could come by and admire them -- a quaintly aspirational middle-class custom, obsolete, because, all evidence to the contrary, we no longer care about stuff. It turns out a good waffle. I recently scrubbed the irons and reseasoned them in the oven, though, and I think that was a mistake: it actually worked better with 50 years' worth of crud. I admit, my fellow travelers haters Wal-mart disdainers disappoint me with their fixation on the least distinguished aspect of the situation. Guys, ya gotta represent!

Except when they are not: http://www.nytimes.c...wanted=all&_r=0 One need not read it all the way through to know they must have been driven mad with hunger. Same thing with the fracas over the $2 waffle irons: http://www.huffingto..._n_1113293.html Give a man a cheap teflon waffle iron, and teach him to beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then gently fold them in with the other ingredients -- he'll never be hungry again. This looks bad: http://edition.cnn.c...ents/index.html ... but again, the virtuous poor were made "desperate" by retailers and their tricks, according to the psychologist. And I think in 2012 we can all agree to define the Four Freedoms upward to include freedom from: wanting the latest game console and not having it.

When Pilot Knob was last active, Austin was teeming with mosasaurs and these creatures: ... which I post because I think it's the most beautiful fossil. It's from Bouldin Creek. McKinney Falls SP: though a half-mile or so from TPWD's bunker-like headquarters, it's not exactly a jewel of the park system. A ranger mentioned that they can't do much upkeep or try to combat invasive plants (I'm looking at you, privet) until they have a "management plan" in place, which will evidently be the work of years. A Friends group tries to make up the gap. The falls are quite dramatic when Onion Creek is full. There are two interesting structures, the ruin of the home of Thomas McKinney, a sort of forgotten figure, a trader who financed the Texas Revolution among other things; and the "earth-sheltered" (there was a lot of that going around, apparently) visitors' center, which I've never found open and which seems to be going the way of the homestead. It's a pretty place to walk your dog and kids will like that it has a frozen novelty vending machine, but I recommend going on to Pedernales Falls to camp -- it is a really well-managed park, and a much better place to swim. That said, in further evidence that Austin has stepped through the looking glass, all 85 campsites and six screened shelters at McKinney Falls are booked for the race weekend.

D.C. now has the highest median income in the country, I think I read -- if you consider the downward pressure on median income that the poverty of D.C.would exert you realize how well the lawyers and lobbyists and some federal employees are doing. This isn't exactly shocking, but interesting that those classes are immune to the recession. I supposed the authors of the study were just trying to compare affordability -- D.C. or San Jose? -- for professional classes, for people like themselves; but I googled and the National Housing Conference (founded by one of those crusading lady reformers) has been instrumental, since 1931, in instituting all the market distortions progressive policies on housing that have led us where we are, and which interest me purely from an environmental standpoint. Anyway, they would have no reason not to trumpet Houston's affordability, unless it goes against their favored narrative about Texas. Perhaps advocacy and not statistical analysis is their strong suit. A study of the sort you propose does sound more germane, but the Census Bureau chose not to ask people their vocations. Home ownership versus rental was the theme of the 2010 census as I recall. I appreciate your explaining it a second time. You might teach, The Niche -- if you could be as patient with those more slow-witted than yourself as you have elected to be with me. I can tell you are practicing at patience, I can practically hear you gritting your teeth.

I just remembered it wasn't a Weingarten's at all - it was a Lewis & Coker. My memory has never been sharp. Sorry, carry on.

Re post #40: harsh. I worked at Weingarten's for a little while when the store was really on its last legs. For a place that was struggling, it did seem to do as much as possible to discourage commerce. The particular women I worked with liked to tell me about their lives. They seemed to have entered on a career as checkers after their "titty dancing" days were over (that was how they repeatedly styled it in conversation, I would have been happy with "exotic dancers.") I was unused to being on my feet all day as they were and once fainted dead away. They were very kind to me. All you obsessively grocery-shopping guys would not have liked Weingarten's -- it was pretty much the opposite of Walmart. Mind, I've long since mastered the art of offering sweet, smiling, and where necessary obsequious 'customer service,' but in retrospect I find Weingarten's disinterest in it hugely appealing.

I was hoping editor would make an appropriately wonky response, but he declined to enter the fray. I can't supply that, but I can ask this: why should we be overly concerned about the relative affordability of American cities for undocumented immigrants? I am presuming your typical economist/business-wing-of-the-GOP support for unlimited immigration, and in return you may presume whatever xenophobia on my part that you wish. The nuances of our positions are perhaps not important.

Isolation is famously more pronounced in a big city. I'm glad you found Houston to be the exception. I didn't know all that. I guess I don't really buy processed food and apart from grains, our produce mainly comes from Mexico, Texas, Colorado, NM, and California. When the blueberries come from Canada, you know that summer is almost over. Your mobility is so foreign to me. I don't even fly, so I'm terribly provincial (thanks for the pictures of Frankfurt, by the way!). I've spent my entire life in just two towns, boomtowns both. When I've wanted something different, my husband has indicated that I am naive and don't know what it's like to live in a place that's not booming -- I might not like it as well as I think. Lately, though, as we contemplate selling the home we've lived in all these years primarily because it was in walking distance to 3 schools, he's become receptive to the idea of installing me .... somewhere, while he would rent a place to stay during the workweek. I don't imagine we could afford the coast, much as I love the wind-bent live oaks around Aransas/Goose Island; but I like the area roughly bounded by West Columbia, Gonzales, and Goliad. Place is very important to me, but I'm not house-proud, so transportation will suddenly become our chief expense if I get my way.

I love it when you show a bit of spirit, editor, and I'm humbled by your careful record-keeping. Is Houston truly on your "wish list" though? The study only addressed housing + transportation; but surely the money you would save on food and utilities by living in Texas would nearly offset your transportation costs. And the Houston humidity is so good for your skin! Anyway, if I'm looking at the right study, Houston and Chicago each received a grade of C. I'm no apologist for Houston, though, so I'm happy to be corrected; in any case it would be understandable if you preferred to spend more on the housing side of the ledger than transportation.

Infinitely preferable to the blue stuff: http://en.wikipedia....es_(politician)

At a party recently I worked out that a college acquaintance of ours, a generous gay man with no designs on a family, had fathered (in an obligation-free way) three of the children there. Afterward, with some glee, I informed my husband that said acquaintance had more successfully reproduced than he had. This was rather spiteful and unfair, as Mr.l is by instinct and reason quietly pro-life, but has not demanded that of me. I sometimes regret that I am not Catholic, and don't look to the pope for authority. Though by convention women are victims, we have an awful lot of power, and I can tell you that "choice" is a sort of Damoclean sword. Only it threatens more than ourselves, so that doesn't quite work. Anyway, not wishing to be too 'severe upon on my sex,' I believe this is partly because women are pragmatic before they are moral -- this favors, often, the short term over the long. People always had their ways (not always effective, true) to sidestep nature -- it's a myth that they did not, but the pendulum has swung too far, it's become too easy to reject life, which is the basis of marriage. So if I am uneasy about the family, it's because it no longer seems organic and is apparently not, to the powers that be, the simplest, self-evident way to arrange things and divide labor. In its several current incarnations it's a strained construct, precarious and dependent on the whim of women and the (surprising, in some demographics) discipline of men, as you note. And yet we pretend, as ever, to worship hearth and home. Ad nauseum. I agree the traditional family is the best way to nurture children, but even when it was unchallenged, it was many times not pretty; it was, however, strong enough to withstand being severed, to be the "plural" the individual must leave behind to embrace something wider. Why encourage illusions about an institution we have more or less destroyed? Along these lines: while they may be necessary, I am nonplussed by the defeminizing of women and the neutering of men, in much the same way that I find it strange that we will soon live in a world without wild tigers. It requires an inversion of Shakespeare: "O Brave New World, that has {so few wonders} in it." It's a diminishment. I would never say this in mixed company, of course. Then, paradoxically, while feminism has refashioned all our relationships, and school and the workplace, and the "role of men," indeed the economy to some extent: I see that women are portrayed, and thus seek to be portrayed, in demeaning ways that would have been unfathomable when I was growing up. This is so routine it goes almost unnoticed. Is this a backlash? If so, it is a feeble one. Way to go, guys. Pace the neocons and libertarians, it is entirely appropriate to codify these things, but we could never do that now and make it square with our New Ideals. BTW someone like Pat Robertson is a sign not of religion, but of the end of religion, the "long, withdrawing roar" of "The Sea of Faith" and all that -- just as it's been suggested that terrorism is a symptom of the death throes of Islam in the face of modernity.

I don't think you need have anything to fear in this regard, Nate99. Sweden shares our Protestant inheritance though not our continued evangelical enthusiasm. Children there are seldom, I believe, born into wedlock. The stability of the Swedes must owe to their phlegmatic Northern European DNA. We can't have what the Swedes have because we are not Swedish; we seem to need the entanglement of marriage, or chaos results. Still, something about the modern American conception of marriage seems off to me. People endow it with more than it can bear, I think. And I find the emphasis on the nuclear family vaguely disconcerting, even repellent -- this despite its evident collapse, and the fact that I am far to the right of anyone I've encountered on this board. Thinking of Sweden, where I've never been. If I were to go I would visit the home of the botanist Linnaeus:

Oh, I can answer that! It's elitism, yes, I've acceded to that elsewhere; and also this: "I wouldn't particularly like to shop there, and doing so will cost more than shopping at HEB." {It's our greedy, sharp, smallminded recall for prices, for tiny little sums, that makes women so successful on "The Price is Right."} But it's a serious charge -- though made with so little provocation nowadays, and so frequently -- that of being a hater. I would like to learn the trick -- comes natural to so many, if they are to be believed, if it is not "part of their carefully constructed image" -- of loving an amorphous group of people unknown to me, and the corporation (yes, "people too," I know) that is said to serve them so well. Your damnable bridge has brought to mind the story that famously begins-- On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below...and closes: But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.Perhaps if I pretend to subscribe to that, I'll start to feel the love, for you, for the babies, for Bill Simon, for the weekenders, for seven billion souls. Why, I think my heart just 'grew three sizes.'

Thank you for not posting a video. I used to love Ma and Pa Kettle movies, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those things where I would not now understand why I found them so funny. At least the Little Rascals hold up. I think. The Apple Dumpling Gang does not, sadly.

But however Machiavellian it may be, you have to appreciate his unusual gift of insight - to have noticed that people tend to shop on payday (!), and to recognize that this is a completely new phenomenon, and to posit that Walmart is thus all that stands between these folks and the abyss. One may as well profit from alleviating misery as anything else, and get credit for it. And the more women who pick up formula at Walmart the better, because they forgo the natural birth control associated with breastfeeding: more hungry mouths, more government transfers!

Was that Walmart CEO hired for his excellent fearmongering skills? It totally worked. The thought of all those babies eating cat food toward the end of the month is alarming, especially when it would be so easy for their non-breastfeeding mothers to sign up for WIC: http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/ Wikipedia: Currently, WIC serves 53 percent of all infants born in the United States. Bit if not enough people are finding it, perhaps Wal-mart with its greater reach should administer the program - as it is probably receiving a good percentage of those WIC and SNAP dollars anyway.

I'm that possibly rare specimen, a repeat Houston tourist. When I am there I am regularly taken to Astros games, once in a while to a Rockets game, Rice baseball game; Bayou Bend for the azalea trail and the decorative arts, the art museum (especially for traveling Tut/Pompeii, and that tunnel), and the natural history museum (especially for anything terra-cotta warrior/Titanic, and the minerals and the malacology). I go to the zoo every two or three years. I feel sure I've been to the planetarium more recently than any of you. I saw some smashed-up cars in the Menil one time. I used to walk around the Arboretum until all the privet began to oppress me. I have toured the Heritage Society homes downtown. I have actually attended the quilt show. I've seen the Houston Ballet dance "The Nutcracker" at least five times. I've been dragged to the Alley Theatre ("You're not even dressed yet?!") I've watched the rodeo and been to the fat stock show much more often than I really deserved to. I'm pretty sure I've eaten lunch next to a shark tank in a downtown "aquarium." Yes, I have trod the Discovery Green. I also go to the dentist. When I saw those renderings, I felt that coldness Harry Potter experienced when the Dementor attacked him. Pretty much drained of all hope, as if there were no light in all the universe, and the possibility of happiness closed off forever. (When I looked away, it was fine.) Dead-zone surface parking lots are pregnant with possibility by comparison. And, oh yes, The Niche, I have even attended a flower show at the fuddy-duddy garden center you don't like in Hermann Park!

kylejack, I certainly did not mean to imply that the cyclist was at fault! The driver had appropriated the shoulder! And it is a well-known avenue for cyclists, he should have expected there to be one. Very sad. Another white bicycle with flowers.