Philotic Web

No you were right we are coding the website in HTML but we were trying to view the site so we could see how it was looking (if anything is to large/small) the preview picture works pretty well although to test the links you still have to download everything. Yeah Google is definitely going to be my friend on this one as well as one of my teachers, but thanks for the help. Pweb definitely has some pretty awesome computer savvy people.

Seriously, I just did this, so unless I'm missing something it should work smooth as butter. If you're coding it in HTML, you should be able to say "Download As..." then select "Text document (.txt)". Once it's downloaded to your computer, right-click on the file, click "Rename", and rename it to whateveritsnamewas.html. Then double-click. That should work, and give you more than just a preview.

yeah we figured that out today at lunch, it's just a drag to have to download all the time. Oh well, thats life.
Thanks for all the help.
-Terresa

So Neil Gaiman is coming to Portland for his latest (and apparently last(!)) book tour, and, as the venue is literally down the street from me, I had to get a ticket. Had to. No questions. Neil is the reason that I read comics and is also a pretty good author, in my opinion.

If I had to be super-honest I would say he's kind of overrated in nerd circles, but it's really not that big of a problem, because he is really awesome. Just not as awesome as some people make him out to be.

However, it's going to be huge. It's at the Crystal Ballroom, a concert hall, and when I bought my ticket they said there were only 300 tickets left. So there will be a ton of people there. As is expected.

The question:

Is it cool to bring another book (since my ticket includes a "free" copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane) to be signed, assuming signings happen? I would abso-frickin'-lutely love to have a volume of Sandman signed, or maybe Good Omens although I would honestly prefer that to be signed at a dual-author thing even though the limit of that probability is approaching zero.

Bring one, maybe two, extra books. Either they allow you to get them signed or they don't. They won't take your books or kick you out.

And if they DON'T want him to sign extra books, but if you strike up a nice conversation with him, then maybe he'll sign them anyway...

definitely bring them, you'll get them signed or you won't but better safe than sorry.

I just don't want to be a jerk. I'll definitely bring a couple, though.

Just in case.

The question:

Is it cool to bring another book (since my ticket includes a "free" copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane) to be signed, assuming signings happen? I would abso-frickin'-lutely love to have a volume of Sandman signed, or maybe Good Omens although I would honestly prefer that to be signed at a dual-author thing even though the limit of that probability is approaching zero.

Bring a few books. I've been to a couple of author appearances. At one I got 8 books signed, and that was not the largest haul. At a John Scalzi appearance he said that he would sign 3 books per person, 1 personalized and the other 2 with just a signature. I kindly asked him to sign 4, which he did, and he personalized by copy of "Old Man's War" with the message, "To Jason, who flouts the rules."

This is a random question, but does anyone know anything about this:

Maybe its some type of social anxiety or something, but my pupils seem to dilate frequently and randomly when I'm out and about. Like, my eyes widen and I feel like I probably look scared. Usually this self-conscious feeling of looking scared worries me, so its like a loop or a self-fullfilling prophecy. I know this specifically usually happens when I'm in crowded places. I half feel it happens when I'm overloaded with visual stimuli/stimuli in general.

In response to it, I sometimes take off my glasses. Which makes everything blurry, but seems to relax my eyes and rid me of this wide-eyed look.

Anybody know anything about this?

Honestly, and I am COMPLETELY guessing, but it sounds like just what you said, just a random physical manifestation of social anxiety. For me, I would say I'm an introvert with extroverted tendencies. Meaning, I like being around people and I'm great with them, I can easily make most people feel instantly comfortable, and can connect with/relate with pretty much anyone (young, old, any culture, any race, tattooed head to toe, bikers, classical dancers, whatever, you get the idea) however I NEED lots of time holed up by myself to recharge, or it can even be in a social place (coffee shop, etc...) if I am not talking to anyone and I can just be there bymyself. However, about 2 years ago I started getting really bad anxiety, not sure why, but my body reacted really physically to it, I would walk into a room full of people (even when they were all of my close friends) and it was instant heart racing, muscles tensing, and to a lesser extent it sounds like than you, but my eyes would dialate. Never went to a dr or anything but did some digging and also just logical thoughts and came up with this:

When I get anxiety my body immediately goes into 'fight or flight mode.' All my senses hightened, which in any other situation would be cool, but not like that haha. Your body will compensate and give you the ability to hear more acutely, see a little better, get blood pumping through you quicker, get your adreneline up and ready for whatever it may be. I think in theory that's freaking awesome that our bodies can do that, it's like we have super powers for just a bit, only it sucks haha.

Anywho I'm rambling and kind of just avoiding work right now but I should probably be productive. Long story short I think you're right, social anxiety, fight or flight, makes sense that taking off glasses would help becuase your prescription isn't made for how your eyes would be when dialated so they would strain more.

Honestly, and I am COMPLETELY guessing, but it sounds like just what you said, just a random physical manifestation of social anxiety. For me, I would say I'm an introvert with extroverted tendencies. Meaning, I like being around people and I'm great with them, I can easily make most people feel instantly comfortable, and can connect with/relate with pretty much anyone (young, old, any culture, any race, tattooed head to toe, bikers, classical dancers, whatever, you get the idea) however I NEED lots of time holed up by myself to recharge, or it can even be in a social place (coffee shop, etc...) if I am not talking to anyone and I can just be there bymyself. However, about 2 years ago I started getting really bad anxiety, not sure why, but my body reacted really physically to it, I would walk into a room full of people (even when they were all of my close friends) and it was instant heart racing, muscles tensing, and to a lesser extent it sounds like than you, but my eyes would dialate. Never went to a dr or anything but did some digging and also just logical thoughts and came up with this:

When I get anxiety my body immediately goes into 'fight or flight mode.' All my senses hightened, which in any other situation would be cool, but not like that haha. Your body will compensate and give you the ability to hear more acutely, see a little better, get blood pumping through you quicker, get your adreneline up and ready for whatever it may be. I think in theory that's freaking awesome that our bodies can do that, it's like we have super powers for just a bit, only it sucks haha.

Anywho I'm rambling and kind of just avoiding work right now but I should probably be productive. Long story short I think you're right, social anxiety, fight or flight, makes sense that taking off glasses would help becuase your prescription isn't made for how your eyes would be when dialated so they would strain more.

Lol@misused superpower
Yeah its a definite possibility. It usually happens in largely crowded places. So social anxiety related to crowded places makes sense. And, in some situations, I have tense muscles too. Never really happens in a place I'm fully comfortable.

However, I half think that my eyes simply widen because of the sheer scale of stimuli fighting for its attention...Which could cause anxiety.

I think that I just really need to own this eye-dilating nonsense like its no big deal. And once I own it, my comfortableness would probably reverse the effects. I literally need to not give a f*** whether my eyes look scared/wide-eyed or not. Supposedly, women/people are more attracted dilated eyes, anyways.

Just turn it around on people. They come up and ask why you look scared and you say something like "Your eyes...they're freaking me out..."

Okay tech people, who knows printers?

My printer is printing totally out of whack lately. I've included a sample below. I've tried realigning the print head the automatic way where you print the pattern, put it on the scanner and the printer does the rest, and I've tried a manual alignment where it prints a different pattern and I had to enter which blocks came out clearest. Neither of these corrected the problem. Anyone have any theories before I take it in to be looked at and probably have to pay an arm and a leg for something stupid?

I don't have a clue. I can't even remember the last time I printed something. My current, two-year-old computer has never been hooked up to one.

Are you showing Bill Nye videos in class?

I do sometimes, but not at the moment because it's summer. That's just something random I printed as a test.

actually - I already tried looking this up on google, but sometimes google is not ABLE to help. so...

I once read a book (maybe it was a short story) that had this very cool game / competition in it, where two (or more?) people would stand at a consoles facing each other, and they'd be confronted with a matrix of challenges. One would pick a horizontal row, the other the vertical... then the matrix of challenges would go into the next level, and they'd repeat that process until finally they'd narrowed their challenge down to a single activity... then they'd have to do that challenge and the winner got some sort of prize.

I really can't remember ANYTHING else about the book. Not the author, no other plot lines, etc. But that challenge matrix always fascinated me.

Any ideas what this is from??

hm. i guess that's a resounding "no" ... oh well.

Sorry, nope. And I even asked my husband too!

wow. thanks! ... I'll hopefully figure it out. I would love to reread it.

Here's an odd one: over Christmas I managed to tear an inch-long tear in my new jeans after a stupid accident involving polished wooden floors and a towel rack. The tear is right about at "short shorts" level, thus making the jeans entirely useless as jeans or even, were I to dare, as cutoffs. Does anyone have any other possible uses for a bunch of scrap denim?

Can you sew or patch it? Or have someone who knows how to do such things do it?

http://denimtherapy.com/

Might that be helpful?

Scarecrows Mich scarecrows!

http://denimtherapy.com/

Might that be helpful?

Ha! They weren't that expensive. Just a pair of Old Navy jeans. I don't know if it would be worth the shipping! I'll look into it.

As to patching, to be honest I find patches embarrassing. It's stupid, I know, but it's a hangover from when I was a kid. Maybe I could sew it up in such a way to not be noticable, though? I'm not particularly skilled with sewing abilities, although I have sewn a few good ones.