Commonplace Book

links for 2009-11-08

Custom Postcards: Create and Send Them Worldwide with HazelMail!

More postcard mailers from your own postcards

(tags: photos postcards lifehacks)
Postful: The Web's Printer

Another place that lest you send postcards of your own pictures.

(tags: lifehacks snailmail postal postcards)
AmazingMail - Product Selection

lets you send your own pictures as postcards.

(tags: photos postcards)

links for 2009-11-07

Knitting Pattern Central - Free Toy Knitting Pattern Link Directory

Ideas for the giant stash of yarn Stephanie picked up for a song.

(tags: patterns knitting toys)

links for 2009-11-06

MYTH BUSTED: Internet Use Doesn’t Lead to Isolation

cool.

(tags: research media internet socialnetworking)
Website Maintenance Tips for Front-End Developers - Smashing Magazine

(tags: webdev webdesign resources)

links for 2009-11-05

DavidMixner.com - Enough, No More, Enough

"Call this campaign against us what it is - Gay Apartheid. Refuse to allow any of our fellow Americans, President Obama or our allies to view this as a political issue who time hasn't quite come. America is in the process of creating a system of Gay Apartheid. We will not quietly sit and accept it. All over the place, this nation is creating one set of laws for LGBT Americans and another set for all other Americans. That is the classic definition of Apartheid. Either our political allies are for Gay Apartheid or against it. If they are against it, they must fight with us and no longer duck like President Obama did in Maine and Washington. There is no half way in fighting Apartheid."

(tags: marriage lgbt equality rights Obama maine)
Tommy's Pack Fillers

WW1 Reproductions, Great War Period Reenactors Equipment, WW1 Reenactments

(tags: images props theatre)
Books, Books Everywhere

Suppose you read four books a week every week for 70 years. Allowing for a day here and there where you’re unable to read, we can call that 200 books a year, and 14,000 books over the whole three score years and ten. It’s a lot of books. But relative to all the books there are, it’s a tiny, tiny fraction. According to the guy who manages the Google Books metadata team, at the latest count the books in the world now total 168,178,719. Your 14,000 books are just 0.008324477724 per cent of that.

(tags: books reading literature)
Maine Gay Marriage Law Repealed - ABC News

The idea that equality is only okay when a majority agrees on it is counter to every civil rights battle ever fought. This is the tyranny of the majority over the individual, and it's counter to everything America stands for.

(tags: maine homophobia equality marriage rights lgbt)

links for 2009-11-04

The App Garden on Flickr

(tags: api flickr photography webdesign applications development)
flogr - Project Hosting on Google Code

(tags: flickr gallery software)

Things I've Learned on the Internet

The long and involved commented I posted on this Cute Overload post, just because it's one of those things I've finally figured out after being on the internet for over 20 years.

When I'm walking down the hall and I accidentally step on someone's toes, I apologize for it and take a moment to make sure that I haven't seriously hurt the person whom I stepped on.

I don't get up in arms and protest that I didn't intend to step on their toes and that there was nothing malicious about it -- of course that's true, but it doesn't change the fact that I caused an injury, however slight.

I also don't blame the person for feeling pain when I stepped on them. It's not their fault they were there; they have just as much right to be there as I, and just because I didn't happen to see things from their point of view when I was walking doesn't mean that their point of view is invalid or shouldn't be considered, just that I wasn't aware of it until they yelped.

And sometimes their yelps of pain, being surprised ones, take a tone of accusation at first. I don't take offense to that; it's easy when one is surprised and hurt to suspect that malice is intended, even when it's not. Usually after some apologies and expression of concern, the person I stepped on understand that what happened was an accident on my part and that I am genuinely concerned about their well-being. We exchange mutual pleasantries and move on.

That's probably what should have happened here, but it appears that it didn't. For that reason, I probably won't be back to visit Cute Overload -- I really don't want to interact with people who say things like "walk somewhere else, you're not welcome here" when they've trod on someone accidentally. The first trodding on may have been accidentally, but this post is quite clearly stomping on someone's toes on purpose. It seems to me to be juvenile and rude and unnecessary. Just because you aren't face to face with the person whose toes you injured doesn't mean you have license to go on without apologizing, or to claim that their toes weren't actually trod upon at all, and it was all in their head.

links for 2009-11-03

Prairie Lights Bookstore

Iowa City's premiere independent bookseller in Iowa City. I'm bookmarking with the intent of visiting when we're in Iowa for family thanksgiving.

(tags: bookstore iowa reading books shopping)
Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award

Who will be the next Kurt Vonnegut or James Whitcomb Riley? The Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award is looking for the next generation of great Indiana authors.

(tags: Indiana writers local writing authors)
One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1) - You’re the Boss Blog - NYTimes.com

(tags: etiquette restaurants guidelines reference)

Current TV on the recent "no homo" trend

Steph Mineart http://www.commonplacebook.com/ steph.mineart@gmail.com Jokes / Funny Videos Current Events / GLBT Issues

links for 2009-11-02

Bobbs-Merrill Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(tags: education reading)
20th-Century American Bestsellers: House of a Thousand Candles

information about the Indianapolis written novel.

(tags: ideas Indiana novel MeredithNicholson)
The House of a Thousand Candles (1936) - Overview - MSN Movies

Synopsis of the movie, which seems much different to me than the book I read, although they credit Indianapolis author Meredith Nicholson.

(tags: movies authors Indiana MeredithNicholson)

links for 2009-10-31

Home — Second Story

Second Story is a non-profit writing project serving kids, schools and community organizations in Indianapolis, Ind. Programs include in-class writing instruction at local schools, as well as after-school tutoring, creative-writing workshops and other events.

(tags: writing creative children eucation fun)
The Secret Headquarters

Dr. Fredric Rinehart has been credited with developing the first Secret Headquarters in 1932, in the city of Los Angeles. His breakthrough in concealment technology met with suspicion from the local authorities, because of which the project, then known as "SHQ", was shelved. It was suspected that SHQ technology could be used to generateunrest in the city. The original purpose of these hidden facilities is unclear to this day. Some believe, as the government-backed authorities did, that the Secret Headquarters were used as housing facilities for the growing espionage network in Southern California.

(tags: inspiration art bookstore geek comic losangeles)
826 National

826 National is a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing.

(tags: literature writing children creativity culture nonprofit eggers)
Writers' Center of Indiana

Founded in 1979, The Writers' Center is Indiana's only comprehensive community-based literary service organization. The Center's outstanding roster of classes offers writers at any level new approaches and ideas to further their journey in writing.

(tags: indiana writing local)

links for 2009-10-30

GOOD.is | The GOOD 100, or so

GOOD Magazine's list of the most important, exciting and innovative people, ideas and products making our world better. The list is made up of of projects, people and ideas nominated by a combination of the extended GOOD team, and its readers. It's a great and inspiring list; Good Magazine just earned a place in my feed reader.

(tags: inspiration culture sustainability awesome)
The American Scholar » Living on $500,000 a Year » Print

Fascinating article on F. Scott Fitzgerald's tax returns. Yeah, you wouldn't think so, but it is really interesting.

(tags: economics writing writers finances history)
Welcome - The Bold Italic - San Francisco

Wow.

(tags: webdesign inspiration designCool)
Bayh Might Help Block Health Care Reform | TPM LiveWire

And I may block Bayh's next election if he does. Get back in line Senator, and do what your constituents are telling you.

(tags: Bayh healthcare Indiana)

links for 2009-10-29

Get Great Gadgets. And Keep Them. - Last Year's Model

I can take the pledge - I still use my generation One iPhone, even after I stepped on it and cracked the screen

(tags: sustainability gadget funny lifehacks consumerism frugality)
Alt Text: New Cult Spares Members From Early Adopters’ Pain | Underwire | Wired.com

This works for us; we often skip movies in the theater and wait for the second generation electronics -- "It seems to me that the best way to instantly raise your standard of living is to live in the past. If you subsist entirely on two-year-old entertainment, and the corresponding two-year-old technology used to power it, you’re cutting your fun budget in half, freeing up that money for more exciting expenditures like parking meters and postage."

(tags: sustainability consumerism entertainment lifehack)
Obama Set To Sign Bill Widening Hate Crime Laws : NPR

Awesome - the first piece of legislation from the Obama administration that aids the LGBT community. "At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden Wednesday afternoon, President Obama plans to sign a bill into law that was more than a decade in the making. It is an update to the federal hate crimes statute that Congress initially passed in 1968. For the first time, the law that had previously protected people from attacks motivated by race, religion or ethnicity will include gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people. "

(tags: rights equality lgbt awesome crime)
My son has cancer. He can't go into day care because of unvaccinated children. - By Stephanie Tatel - Slate Magazine

Why getting vaccinated is important - and why you don't and shouldn't have the "right" to opt out.

(tags: health science drugs vaccination disease society)
Police: As many as 20 present at gang rape outside school dance - CNN.com

"Investigators say as many as 20 people were involved in or stood and watched the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a California high school homecoming dance Saturday night." - I'll say what others have said in reference to this - I don't want to live in a world that produces people who can do such a thing.

(tags: rape women violence crime horror feminism)

links for 2009-10-28

A Rolling Stone Leads to Rome - Schott’s Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com

All’s fair in love and lemonade. If life gives you lemons, make war.

(tags: english vocabulary)
Story Structure & Plot - Novel Writing Tips

(tags: plotting novel NaNoWriMo)

links for 2009-10-23

Plus size clothing at Ulla Popken. Women's plus size clothes.

Hmmm. This is relevant to my interests.

(tags: clothes shopping)

links for 2009-10-22

How Photographers Created Rock And Roll - The Picture Show Blog : NPR

Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955-Present. Want.

(tags: photography)
Localwashing: How corporate America is co-opting “local”

This new variation on corporate greenwashing—localwashing—is, like the buy-local movement itself, most advanced in the context of food. Hellmann’s, the mayonnaise brand owned by the processed-food giant Unilever, is test-driving a new “Eat Real, Eat Local” initiative in Canada. Frito-Lay’s television commercials use farmers as pitchmen to position the company’s potato chips as local food, while the poultry giant Foster Farms is labeling its packages of chicken “locally grown.”

(tags: advertising fraud local consumerism)