2006-05-24

mindstalk: (Default)
2006-05-24 02:06 am
Entry tags:

Name tag

Explain your LiveJournal name and its meaning. When you're done, tag as many people as there are letters in your name.

Mine postdates my senior year of college. I was writing columns for my school paper, and wanted a distinctive title, and when I thought of this it was so good I could taste it. And part of the appeal was that it seemed to express that idea of taste, the joy in hunting down a new idea. As well as the joy of conversation.

The inspiration was P. C. Hodgell's fantasy novel God Stalk which I love, and which also had been ambiguous to me for a time -- was it God Stalk, or Godstalk? Gods talking, a stalk of gods, stalking gods? Actually in the book it's the latter, but I enjoyed the ambiguity anyway.

From freshman year in college I'd been "phoenix", because I like the firebird and resurrection themes. So does a lot of the rest of the Internet, so I've moved on. The icon is still from that -- it's the first image I ever downloaded, via ftp, found via searching 'archie', the old ftp files index, for "phoenix".

(Which reminds me of a friend who some years ago found a still-working gopher service, and said it felt like a ghost town, with little activity, and occasional mention of this "web" thing.)

http://home.sprynet.com/~dbrukman/hodgell-art.html -- the God Stalk cover (Berkeley 1983)
http://mindstalk.net/ -- see the imitation the editor got someone to make for me.
http://mindstalk.net/old/Publ/mindstalk.html -- me talking about the name, back then.

Tags (since lyceum hit shiver already)
unforth
mrs_feltner
dyrecorn
mindstalk: (Default)
2006-05-24 02:38 pm
Entry tags:

Wacky science news

Sleeping pills "wake up" people in persistent vegetative states
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060522/full/060522-9.html

Traits are sometimes inherited, for generations, without DNA (RNA is suspected)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_he_me/gene_free_traits_1

Spiny lobsters practice quarantine. More surprising to me is the claim that this is the first observation of healthy animals avoiding sick ones in the wild.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060524/sc_nm/science_lobster_dc_1

Video games reduce surgical errors in drills
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060524/sc_nm/videogames_dc_3