Daphne Xu's blog

Ozone

I first learned this about molecules in fifth grade: a molecule is the smallest amount of a material that has the properties of that material. The textbook ended a discussion on oxygen telling us, "Oxygen atoms travel in pairs. Two oxygen atoms form an oxygen molecule. The oxygen molecule is the smallest amount that has the properties of oxygen."

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Yet Another Milestone

A story of mine has finally reached 200 kudos! And it was not the story I would have expected, possibly a year ago. My top three stories have inched up kudo by kudo, but "The Bridge" (third place at one time) began inching up a little faster than the others.

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Norton -- The Irony

From Norton's latest log of resolved security risks:

7/20/2023 9:11:43 PM,High,Norton Internet Security 2006 Password Manager setup.exe (Heur.AdvML.B) detected by Virus scanner,Quarantined,Resolved - No Action Required,Threat Actions performed: 1

 

7/20/2023 8:28:37 PM,High,Norton Internet Security 2006 Password Manager setup.exe (Heur.AdvML.B) detected by Virus scanner,Quarantined,Resolved - No Action Required,Threat Actions performed: 1

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^W vs. ^X

In Emacs, a text editor originating in the 1980s, the command equivalent to ^X (the cut in cut and paste) is ^W.

Today in writing a comment, not once but twice in a row, I used ^W instead of ^X to cut something preparing to paste it elsewhere.

I'm losing my mind.

EDIT: It occurs to me, I should have said that both times I typed ^W, my screen disappeared with my editing.

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Another Couple Milestones

The opening salvo (parts 1-4) to my original "A Bikini Beach Summer" just recently surpassed 10000 hits. It's still a distant second to "John's Living Nightmare" at 14500. Similarly, my standalone BB story, "BB: A Boy's Visit" has broken through 6000 hits.

"The Bridge" might hit 3000 sometime this year; I don't know.

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Heads I Lose

... Tails, you win. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. This post might spoil a little bit.

It's been over two months since my previous posting of "A Bikini Beach Late Summer". This is what I didn't want to happen. The alternative, unfortunately, had already happened: it had been years, and I hadn't come close to finishing the story.

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An Electron as the USS FTL0476

A photon scatters off an electron. Or perhaps an electron scatters off a photon. Or perhaps an electron and photon scatter. Whatever you choose to call it, the electron absorbs the photon and a little later, emits a photon. This is the diagram:
Sane electron-photon scattering.
The horizontal axis is meant to be the time axis, although one may imagine the figure has having two spacial dimensions.

The above is the sane process.

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BB Late Summer -- Sorry

I'm sorry that I'm leaving readers on a cliff-hanger. I need to rewrite what follows for Lucy, and I need to add more of Glenn's story. I don't have anything on Glenn's story before a climactic episode.

I have several isolated episodes of the clique, including one thoroughly scrambled, but nothing continuing the story.

Therefore, I won't post the next part of the story for a while. Sorry about that.

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Editing, Revision, Writing

The further I post in "A Bikini Beach Late Summer", the more I'm going to have to edit, revise, and even write new material. At some point, it's going to be mostly writing. That means that there will be more time between postings, and more opportunity to procrastinate and stall.

Sigh... I'll see what happens.

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Too Late

I think that my BB sequel depends on the reader not only having read the first, but also caring about the characters -- the clique in particular -- and wanting to know what happens to them, and hoping that they can get back together. But seven years after the story was originally posted, readers have forgotten the story, forgotten the characters, or at least don't care any more about them.

Big, heavy, depressed sigh.

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Was I Wrong?

I hit upon this blog entry: Muse Wrestling from 4.5 years ago. My own problem is similar, although not identical. During my years here since my first posting ("A Bikini Beach Summer") I've begun many long stories, but I've only finished two even moderately long ones.

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Sequences

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, ... -- What's the pattern of this sequence?

2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, ... -- What's the pattern of this sequence?

In a contest, such as "Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?", you might be asked, "What's the next number in this sequence? 2, 3, 5". Can anyone figure out the answer?

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More Milestones

I looked through some old posts about milestones and kudos, and found this one of my own from 4.5 years back: https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog-entry/62570/milestone. It seems almost quaint, talking about pushing over 100 Kudos and such. My latest off-dashing, Still Another Dress Code, posted last Tuesday, zoomed up to 100 Kudos in a couple days, and is now at 126.

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Snort

Just now, I had reason to search, "cowgirls don't get mad". Along with the (single) result that I was looking for, the search system offered this suggestion: "cowgirl donut get mad".

I was surprised that the single result was a Bru story. But it had the sequence I was looking for.

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Morning Sky

Early morning -- before 6am.

Rising before the sun: a bright Venus. The first time I saw it, it was next to the moon. At 7am, the sky was possibly still twilight, but definitely blue. I saw the moon, and Venus in the blue -- not nearly as bright or big, but a distinct white point.

High in the sky in the other direction, almost opposite the sun. A *very* bright pink Mars. The first time I saw it a few days ago, I'd gone outside for something, and spotted that very bright pink dot. Did something go supernova? No, just Mars.

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The Suffix -age

Electric potential is also called "voltage" as in the number of volts. Electric current is sometimes called the "amperage". Power, especially electric power, is sometimes called the "wattage". Area when measured in acres is sometimes called "acreage". Have I ever seen "poundage" as in weight in pounds?

So what is "garbage"? There's also "suffrage," by the way. "Universal Suffrage".

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