dragonlady7 | Sep. 10th, 2016

Sep. 10th, 2016

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that post going around about the World Nomad Games– now my dude wants to go, he’s already looked up airfare to Kyrgyzstan.

I just think it’d be keen to go look at yurts and horses.

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sashayed:

Mariachi Flor de Toloache | “Let Down”

UM ps how come none of you guys alerted me to these insanely talented mariachi megababes? How come I had to hear about this from my MOM, of all people?? Get it together, internet! Get on the ball!

oh my gosh. they have an album out. it’s super good. it contains a phenomenal rendition of Cucurrucuru Paloma, among other things.

They are currently in the studio recording a second album on Daptone Records and I am pumped.

My favorite thing about the video above, though. Is the relative scale. The three women on the right, are they normal-sized women, and the woman with the guitarrón is just really giant? Or is she a normal-sized woman, and the other three are just really petite? A tragedy of that video is that the possibly normal-sized, possibly one and one-third scale woman with the one and one-third scale guitar is far from the microphone so you can’t really hear her playing.

I love mariachi. It’s one of those things I have never really examined too closely. But what’s odd is… I know a lot of the words to a lot of the traditional songs, and I’m not really sure why. My mother was a high school Spanish teacher, and so she probably had tapes and things, and I know we listened to stuff, I just– I don’t remember ever paying attention. Why would I? But I know a lot of the words, way out of line with how much actual Spanish I know.

Anyway. It looks like most of the album is on YouTube. So go listen to it. It’s also on Google Play if you use that app.

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taraljc:

quendergeer:

obsidianmichi:

ohsoromanov:

2016 World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan

World Nomad Games are an international sport competition dedicated to ethnic sports practiced in Central Asia. The first two World Nomad Games were held in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. This years the games are underway from 3 to 8 September. Fifty three countries are participating in the event. Sports include eagle hunting, bone throwing and kok-boru, a Central Asian form of polo in which two teams battle for control of a decapitated goat carcassSource

@vir-ghilani

why the fuck isn’t this televised instead of an infinite amount of football

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

apparently it’s biannual and a tourism thing and i cannot think of a thing i want to see more. there’s competitive yurt-putting-up. The contenders were in the 13-minute range for a full set-up. that’s insane.

Crossposts: http://dragonlady7.livejournal.com/1550720.html

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etrogim:

Breaking: Obama administration has halted construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline indefinitely following several weeks of peaceful protest by indigenous activists.

petition to permanently reject the Dakota Access Pipeline

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I personally love the idea of Spymaster Finn, because there’s Finn in the medcenter on D’Qar, his whole spine throbbing, expecting one of the Knights of Ren to walk through the door any second and start poking around in his aching head. (He knows Major Calonia said “debriefing” but he also knows he’s an enemy defector and that means “interrogation”. He doesn’t have any other definition for that but pain, and guilt, and fear.)

So he’s—sort of surprised when a short human with a tangle of dark hair walks up to his bed and takes a seat. “Hello,” she says, shaking his hand warmly. “I’m Rishy Niser, with Intel. How’s your back?”

They have a conversation. She’s easy to talk to, she laughs a lot. After a few hours she gets up, and stretches. “Well, I think that’s it for me. I’ll get someone to bring you an official misrep form tomorrow, if you could fill that out—“

Finn blinks. “Isn’t someone going to interrogate me?”

“What do you think that was? Sleep well, Finn.”

Finn stares after her for a long time. He stares even harder when he pressures Poe into bringing him Intel’s report. ”I didn’t…say any of the stuff in here!” Finn says indignantly, scrolling through the document. “I mean, none of it is incorrect, but I—we were just talking.” He definitely hadn’t mentioned the trooper capacity of the Finalizer, but there it was in blue and white. He hadn’t said that. Had he?

“Intel,” Poe says solemnly, “are tricky bastards.”

Intel, Finn thinks, is magic.

So when General Organa approaches him about perhaps contributing to the Resistance—“Intel,” he says quickly. “I mean, I would like to be assigned Intelligence, if I could. General.”

And I love this idea specifically because to take this kid who has been brainwashed to think he’s just muscle, and give him access to a crappy holonet connection and some satellite feeds and the frequency freighters transmit over, and have him show up at the morning meeting yawning, with the location of the primary First Order shipyard—

“I’m sorry, this is what,” Admiral Akbar splutters.

Finn fumbles with the input drive, but finally a hologram of the system flickers into being, overlaid by bright lines. “Here,” he says, pointing to a tangle of bright red strings. “Talked to a bunch of freighter captains last night. It’s interesting, they were all complaining about the demand for vanadium ore. Apparently, there’s a buyer who can’t get enough of the stuff, and they’re feeling pressured to cut parsecs, stay in hyperspace longer.”

“What does that mean?” Statura asks thoughtfully, gazing up at the map.

“Nothing on its own. But once the vanadium ore guys were done, the carbon freighter captains just had to complain about their own runs,” he says, pointing to the lines of yellow light cutting across the map. “Now, it’s probably normal that vanadium ore and carbon are bought by the same parties, they’re both common in alusteel smelting for starfighters and other spacecraft.”

“But?” General Organa asks. She’s almost-smiling.

“But, if you take out Mon Calamari, Kuat, and the other commercial shipyards…” Finn keys in a code, and a number of planets ringed with red and yellow go dark, until there are just two planets still tied with those threads of light. “And only Cheenthi is ordering commercial shipyard quantities of alusteel components. Not to mention that they’ve stepped up demand—recently, and with urgency.. The planet is near a major hyperlane, which makes shipping convenient, and has been seeing levels of cronau radiation inconsistent with usual traffic. Um, I got that from the old Republic database,” he adds with a shrug. “You want to know where the First Order is building its star destroyers? I’d look to Cheenthi.”

General Organa smirks and raises her eyebrows meaningfully at Intelligence Director Niser. Niser sighs, and transfers fifty credits to the General.

Keep reading

via http://ift.tt/2c7w05u:deputychairman replied to your post “the five self-recs thing”

I love The Spectrum of Bad Ideas SO SO MUCH you have no idea. Or maybe you do have some idea.

<3

Maybe someday this epic will get to a conclusion such that I can write the sequel that’s the thing I really started out to write.

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tygermama:

sailaweigh:

engrprof:

reignofcoffee:

knitmeapony:

infiniteeight8:

Keep in mind that all of this communication is happening in e-mail, which means they can read and re-read it at their leisure, if needed.

E-mail conversations I have actually had many, many times at work:

Me: I need things A, B, and C. Don’t do X.Them: Okay.Me: How are things, A, B, and C coming along?Them: Oh, I thought we were waiting for X. We’ll get right on that.Me: How are those things coming along?Them: *delivers things D, E, and F*Me: …Me: I needed things A, B, and C.Them: Oh, right. We’re on it.Them: *finally delivers things A, B, and C*

Me: Here’s my understand of our status. *gives list* And here’s a question. *asks question*Them: Yeah, that sounds right. *asks question*Me: *answers their question*Me: *waits*Them: *silent*Me: *repeats question from first message*

Me: Here are instructions on how to do the thing.Them: *does the thing, skipping three steps*Me: Hey, so you skipped steps 2, 4, and 7. Those are necessary.Them: Oh, sorry about that.Me: *waits*Me: Have you done the thing with steps 2, 4, and 7?Them: Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you wanted it re-done.

Them: I need thing X.Me: Here it is.Them: Thanks.Them: *two weeks later* Hey, we need thing X.Me: …Me: Here it is. Them: Thanks.Them: *two weeks later* Hey, we need thing X.Me: …Me: …Me: Here it is.Them: Thanks. *uses the thing*

I don’t understand it, I really don’t. I keep going back and re-reading my messages to see if they’re confusing somehow, but they aren’t. They are totally clear.

It’s infuriating, to the point that I had to call my dad, who has ~50 years of high level business experience, and ask him what to do about this shit. He said that he tends to be like me, but that the best manager he knows gets things done right the first time by his people because he micromanages the shit out of them. Like, every day asking where they’re at, have they done step A, do they remember that step B comes next, etc. I’m working on developing both this skill and a tolerance for using it.

So if you ever wonder why someone you work with is (a) micromanaging the shit out of you and (b) treating you like you can’t read, it’s because some of the people they work with just can’t be trusted to understand things the first time. Or the second time. Or sometimes the third time…

Ways I write emails when I need things:

Bullet point everything. EVERYTHING. Two-thirds of my emails are a series of introductory sentences with clear, short bullet points. So for your first email, it’d be:

Good morning!

I need the following:

A

B

C

I do NOT need the following:

X

Thanks!

Judicious use of formatting. When I need a more complex list of things, or I want to ask a question, I make sure that I bold what I need. I also break up every possible separate thought into small paragraphs. So your second email would be:

Here’s the current status of the project: things A, B and C are done. D is scheduled to be done next week.

Before D can be completed, I need to know the following: why is the sky blue?

Copying and pasting – and calling attention to it. People get embarrassed pretty easily. When you point out that they’ve missed something, or that they already had something, no matter how gently, they realize they don’t like getting called out. So, for the last email:

As provided in the email sent 8/15 (third down on this email thread): here is X, again: [copy and paste from original email].

Very very explicit directions and deadlines. People assume they do not have to do work, even if you report an error. If you tell them they did something wrong, they will assume you are saying you will correct the issue. So, for your second to last email:

What you have provided me is incomplete. You did not provide the following:

Step 2 Step 4 Step 7

Those must be completed. Please complete this process again, following the instructions provided to you in the previous email:

[obvious copy and paste of the instructions]

Please notify me when you have completed this process with all steps. This must be completed by [date] for my work to be completed on time.

I hope this helps!

Oh my god. Teach me your ways

Good advice. Also:

I have learned that even when emailing highly educated people, ONE THING PER EMAIL.

If I have two questions, I use 2 emails. Three things for them to do - three emails.

I think since so many people are looking at email on their phones, if they do one thing they think they are done.

That last point. One of the people I support relies on her iPhone heavily. Many of my e-mails are so truncated on the screen, she can’t see more than the first line or so, plus, she has a really, really bad habit of not scrolling down the fucking page. One point per e-mail and screw any attachments. In her office is fine, but if I get an e-mail that’s sent from her iPhone, KISS.

I am going to reblog this and keep it and print it out to keep at work

And like. Not to. I dunno. Derail. The original things are really annoying, I get it.
But. Some of us have attention problems. We can’t actually digest that whole email.
I have excellent reading comprehension. But whether out loud or in writing, if you give me more than four things to remember, I will forget literally every single one of them. I will come away from that meeting/email filled with Drive To Succeed, and I will go forth, and I will rah-rah my way through something that you probably did not ask for.
And like. I can come up with coping strategies to minimize how much this happens. But. I can only do so much of that. And if I am busy at my job, and stimulated, and using my whole brain, etc., the tasks where I don’t have to do a shitload of extra work to break down the requests into things I can understand and follow are going to get done. (If I’m too busy, the first thing to go are the coping strategies we come up with to minimize our disabilities. Because there’s so much pressure to Be Normal and you internalize it and you think, even with thirty years of evidence to the contrary, “i’ll just remember that, I don’t have to write it down”, because everyone says that.)
The third bullet point in your second paragraph is not going to get addressed unless I’m in Super Competent mode and have literally printed out your email and highlighted it and like. Gone spelunking for what it was you really wanted. Made my own chart. Etcetera.
I learned this from writing fic– don’t bury the important thing in the middle of a paragraph. But it’s true in professional situations too.
People aren’t ignoring you to be shitty or because they’re incompetent.
Even many people without diagnosed attention disorders are going to have these problems.
Just, for some of us, it’s a lot worse, and it’s not because I’m stupid or I hate to work.

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etrogim:

etrogim:

Breaking: Obama administration has halted construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline indefinitely following several weeks of peaceful protest by indigenous activists.

petition to permanently reject the Dakota Access Pipeline

Important clarification from Kelly Hayes’ Facebook page:

Hayes’ running commentary on the ruling can be found on her twitter.

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Oh, it’s a prequel. All of it so far is set before Poe is born. So there’d be no spoilers that direction.

Some of the events/revelations in NWAL make more sense or are more poignant if you’ve read the Lost Kings stuff, because they’re the explanation of who that person was or what this event they’re referring to is. Some of the events in the Lost Kings stuff might be more resonant if you know what’ll happen later, but none are actively foreshadowed or predicted or anything.

Hope that helps! I’m only writing them intertwined like this because it’s a good way for me to bypass writer’s block kind of stuff– if I go into more depth in one, I can think about what I want to set up in the other, and so on.

via http://ift.tt/2clTK3k:meanderings0ul replied to your post “animalasaysrauer: Bed thoughts Writers, when you sit down to write…”

I hadn’t given this any conscious thought in so many years, but I feel like I used to write in Third Person Omniscient most of the time and now I’m almost always Third Person Limited and past tense. I don’t even know where I’d start with anything else!

I used to write in a lazy Third Person Semi-Omniscient Head-Hopping style, in like, 2000, but I very deliberately trained myself out of it by writing a novel in 1st person with the full intention of rewriting it in 3rd, in about 2003. So.

At this point I have no idea how I’d even try to do Omniscient. I don’t know. I don’t think I could. Point of view is like– the entire framing device from which I consider fictional events, now. I often genuinely don’t know what the non-POV characters are seeing or feeling. I don’t know how I’d even try.

I could research it, but at this point I just– I feel like my energies are better expended just writing like I do, for now?

But i feel you. I don’t know how to do other than I do. I feel like I’m past that kind of stylistic experimentation. I did present tense and second person and shit like that when I was Trying To Master The Craft etc., and now I’m really just drowning in trying to tell a dang story and I don’t have time to think about that stuff.

More power to the people who do, really, but.

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s75:

kylorens-lightside:

oscar-isaacs-eyelashes:

kylorens-lightside:

dizzy-redhead:

Today I got a reply to a comment saying that the author had been so discouraged by the lack of response on the last two chapters that they had decided not to finish it, but that they had changed their mind and were now thinking of finishing. Just because I took 30 seconds to comment on each chapter.

It doesn’t matter if the fic is years old

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to say (“I loved this” is always music to an author’s ears, no matter how many times we hear it)

The author will not think you’re a creeper if you’re commenting on every single one of their fics

The author WILL cuddle your comments close to their hearts like the precious gems that they are, even if they’re only one word.

Comments and feedback matter. I’ve written in fandoms and for pairings that have very active, vocal fans who comment a lot, and I’ve written for ships that are not terribly popular and don’t get much reaction. The difference in my attitude is incredible.

Your feedback matters to authors. Click the kudos button, but please, take the time to leave a comment. Even if it’s just one word. If you like the writing and want to see more, let the author know

/rant

I always feel like I bother people 😭😩 like oh that one again 🙄

Sorry author friends????

No no, you don’t. Trust me. Like seriously, the most discouraging thing is when there’s not even a hint of discussion. It doesn’t ever need to go into depth either. Just, like oh ok. They liked the thing and look they left a comment that they liked it. Like even if it’s just a smiley face.

I’m a big fan of replying to people - I just hate to be a jackass about it haha.

Thanks!

I appreciate every person that puts themselves out by sharing their creativity. Writing is so personal, and it takes balls to share it, because you really want people to like it. I try to leave a comment, share it, or like it, because there are some very talented writers on Tumblr. I have been writing since I was in middle school, but I have never shared any of it. I’m too chicken, lol!

and i’m worried my earlier rant about how impossible it is to just fucking Feel Good About Yourself as a writer makes it seem like I don’t appreciate those comments on old fics. But I do. The point might have gotten buried, but– sometimes I am so ashamed of having abandoned a WIP, and getting a comment on an old abandoned WIP gives me, like, a little spike in that shame– but it also reminds me that even if I didn’t finish it, what I did mattered. And sometimes even if it doesn’t make me resume work on that old WIP, it makes me feel like in general, what I write matters. It really does.