Larry’s Pretty Good Journal

Repeat After Me, a comic by Maki Naro about psychology's reproducibility problem. (via)

The Saga-Steads of Iceland, a blog documenting reading the Icelandic sagas in the locations where each is set. (via)

I really want a Finnish-speaker's opinion on what it's like to read The Song of Hiawatha in Finnish. (Did the translator use the Kalevala meter that Longfellow was imitating, or did they imitate the imitation? And what would THAT sound like?)

---L.

Subject quote from "Life Less Ordinary," Carbon Leaf.

“When you’re trying to change the world, sometimes the roof collapses,” [Pasternak] said. “It’s normal. It’s absolutely normal.”

As quoted in "Helium Dreams," a profile of modern airship builders.

Viking ships had woolen sails -- large woolen sails specially woven and treated, which required a lot of sheep. Without sheeps, no ships. (via)

Tiny origami on fingertips for scale. More, including "nano-origami" (spoiler: is really more milli-origami). (via)

---L.

Subject quote from "Calls from Springfield," Hillary Scott.

"SF Clichés: A Sonnet Cycle" by John M. Ford.

Extreme commute: From New Zealand to Rural Iceland. (FWIW, Scots and Scandinavian butchers also do this.) (via)

It takes a little less than 5 and a quarter hours to travel the Nozomi Shinkansen from Tokyo to Hakata/Fukuoka. You're welcome. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798," William Wordsworth.

A photo-essay of lavatubes in Iceland with formations not found in limestone caves. (via)

Death and Taxes points out the proposed budget that McDonald's suggests for its minimum-wage employees requires working two full-time jobs and doesn't include food, gas, heating, and healthcare (or not at that cost). (via)

"It's Finally Ironic," fixing the lyrics of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" to make the situations, yanno, actually ironic. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from "Merry-Go-Round," Antje Duvekot.

As you may have noticed, I dislike memes that are all about me!me!. I want to hear people, not talk about myself -- I do far too much of that anyway. But with this one, at least I get something out of it: Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ/blog and explain what they mean to you.

These words were given to me by rachelmanija. They ended up being more interconnected (inter-tanka-nected?) than I suspect she knew.


Iceland

In the furthest north
sustainability's edge:
vikings held on
with their only luxuries
landscape and the spoken word.

Sagas

Grandparents talk of
love, law, loss, blood, and revenge
in the winter night;
a storyteller listens
and runs howling to his art.

Poetry

Against truth's harsh light
we shade ourselves with small lies,
softening shadows;
a writer listens to his lies
and runs howling to his craft.

Terrible science fiction

The future isn't --
we fill up that empty time
with comforting hopes;
a liar takes them for truth
and runs howling to his crap.

Tall

Tall tales are needed:
they show the limits of truth.
Tall coffees as well:
sometimes, they are just enough.
Tall people are excessive.

It need not be a yell, or a howl -- a simple request will do.

---L.

Like most people, I keep a file of draft posts. Some of them have been sitting around for a while.

Subject of post	Reason for not posting
Sample entry from a supposed elven version of The Pillow Book.	The dough has not finished rising.
Notes on teaching myself how to wet-fold origami.	Still learning how.
Comparison of three anthologies of Romantic period poetry.	Still reading and making notes.
Report on my attempt to fold a thousand cranes from a rebranding notecube.	Haven't finished counting how many cranes I folded.
Review of The City of Dreadful Night.	Again, dough hasn't finished rising. Nor has the oven started heating. The pan has been prepared, at least.
Review of Yotsuba&! volume 6.	English edition still not out. Curse you, ADV!
Review of Please Save My Earth.	Need to buy the last half-dozen volumes.
Review of Daniel's The Civil Wars.	Still haven't finished reading.
My new time-management policy.	Too stupid to post.

All of which is my explanation for this GIP.

---L.

Remember the hub of Reykjavík? Probably not, as even I didn't until we were at the street-corner, a couple weeks ago. "Wait, this is where ... !" And yes, it was still there, tho' missing a couple letters.

And now, at last, the mystery is explained. (link via janni)

---L.

There's a restaurant in Reykjavik that's supposedly Mexican. It is, though, more of a Danish interpretation of Mexican. Enchiladas should not be crunchy, nor should they be filled with nacho cheese sauce.

Tasty, but not really what's advertised.

---L.

One year I'll get the hang of learning a language without interference from a previous language. With Icelandic -- not that I'm trying to learn it, beyond ye phrasebook material -- once again* I find German getting in the way: when reaching for a word, if I don't know the Íslenska, the Deutsches pops in its place.** This is especially disconcerting for prepositions. Asking for a bus ticket nach Stykkishólmur, instead of til, will only confuse the nice salesperson. Especially if I've already established myself as an English speaker.***

* Our last visit did wonders to my conversational German. Favorite moment: three young Germans in a hostel kitchen, befuddledly watching a low-budget Icelandic knock-off of The Dating Game as they cooked dinner. Finally one figured out what was going on, and explained it to her friends -- or tried to, for it took several go-rounds. The confusion was great fun all around, but left my Icelandic even worse the next day.

** I have the same problem with Spanish invading my Latin.

*** We got the distinct impression, last time, that Icelanders want to know straight off which language a conversation will be in: starting with a cheerful "Góðan daginn"**** then switching to English seemed to disconcert many.

**** GŌ-dhahn DIE-in -- soft g is a glottal stop. And in conversational Icelandic, many word endings get slurred into a shusch. This is disconcerting, but helpful when you're not sure what's the case taken by nouns after til.

---L.

I mentioned Dimmuborgir ("Dark Fortress") a couple times in my Iceland posts, but failed to describe it well -- a vast field of gnarly black volcanic pillars and ridges and shelves. The sort of rocks that look like trolls who didn't get home before sunrise. Nor did we take particularly good pictures.

Here are some better ones, from strangie23's vacation/wedding/honeymoon photo album. Yes, they got married in Dimmuborgir. In a lava tube cave. I'm jealous. That's even better than getting a marriage license at the bail window of the county jail.

(Link from iceland_pix.)

---L.