A review submitted today for one of my fics:

I do think that you need to do a little more research in to your subject matter ands the star wars universe in general.

For instance, Nar-Shada has never been and imperial world, it has always been controlled by the huts, and Myn new that Lara was alive. At the end of the wraith books he is in Wedge's office with Tycho, and together they listened to the message she left because they needed Myn's opinion on her message. In the message she basically let him know that she was alive and going by the name Kernney.

My response:

A couple notes: There's no indication as to whether Donos actually read the message or not at the end of Solo Command. The message was intercepted by Han Solo and Wedge Antilles while in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon. They forwarded the message, but it was never stated whether Donos read it or not. There was never a scene in that novel where Donos, Celchu, and Antilles reviewed the message in Antilles' office. 

Second, there were passing mentions of an Imperial shipyard over Nar Shaddaa's orbit leading up to and during the Galactic Civil War. This suggests that the planet was in fact under control of the Galactic Empire during the time Darvix would have lived there.

(What I should have added: Your spelling and grammar is atrocious and you should be ashamed of yourself)

Research that, sucker. 

Current Mood: amused

( Halloween costume under the cut )

To preface, I'm taking a database theory class in a community college. In this class, the median age of the students is something like 38. I, on the other hand, am 21. Yesterday in class my group is trying to pick out entity classes from a project proposal so we can diagram the relations between them. This should be fairly easy, because entity classes are just general nouns like "Student" or "Advisor" or "Teacher". Should have taken maybe thirty minutes to diagram the relations, but no, it took us two hours.

My group couldn't get past the little details. Student names, Advisor names, class IDs, other identification numbers.  Note that these things are not general nouns that could be construed as entity classes. They are attributes of entity classes.

This isn't what really bothered me. No, this was nothing.

Whenever I pointed out the fact that my group was getting caught up in the little details and missing the bigger picture, their response to me tended to be along these lines: "Thanks for your input, son, but I've been in the workforce for thirty years. I think I know a thing or two about project proposals. Now you just nod and smile while the grownups talk." 

This is the point where I facepalm, ignore them, and finish it all myself in ten minutes. 

miraxcorran  ! Go buy some dry ice and make dry ice bombs or go gamble! 

Well, this quarter has been very, very bad for my writing. I just haven't had time to do much. I did make a bit of headway on one of my fics and got past a really big stumbling block, so that's good. Anyhoo, here are updates in bullet form.

• I just finished uploading all of X-Wing: Rise of a Rogue to FFN. The one-chapter-a-day Monday-Friday schedule worked well. Only four people reviewed, but I was averaging about 30 views per chapter. At the very least, I know people were reading it and that's a nice feeling. 
• I just uploaded the dramatis personae, prologue, and first chapter of Redemption of the Exiles to FFN. I'll be following the same Monday-Friday update schedule.
• I am once again stalled on my HP fic. I just can't break my writer's block on this fic for some reason and that's really bugging me.
• I did make some progress on my Weird Fic of Doom (The Transcendental Force). Got past a section that was holding me up for weeks, so hopefully futher progress will go better.
• I still owe Myra the Luke/Mara fic I promised her in exchange for the laternate ending to Resurrection she promised me. I swear I'm going to write it.

From Nathan Fillion's Twitter:

"Johnathan Frakes is directing. Yesterday, he called me Number One. My heart made a noise that sounded like awesome."

Heeee.

Current Mood: amused

was the best episode of House since CTB died.

I now understand why people have a love/OHMYGODIWANTTOKILLYOU relationship with Joss Whedon.

All you need to know is that I watched Serenity.

Paul DePodesta is a smart man.

A lot of people have a hard time moving away from results-based analysis to process-based analysis.

Process-based analysis is great. It's fair and it correctly identifies why something went right or why something went wrong. It's rational above all else. Really, though, Process-based analysis can be summed up in one easy-to-understand matrix. Originally, this chart was designed by DePo to address the results of major league baseball's first year player draft. Really though, it's got applications to all walks of life.



What does this chart tell us? Four things.

1. Sometimes you take a stupid path to a solution and wind up with a wonderful result. Don't expect it to happen again.
2. Sometimes you take a smart path to a solution and wind up with disaster. Your process was sound, keep at it.
3. Sometimes you take a smart path to a solution and come out smelling like roses. Congrats, you deserved that victory.
4. Sometimes you take a stupid path to a solution and reality slaps you across the face and chastises you for being a damn fool.

Good news, everyone! /Professor Farnsworth

I don't have Swine Flu. Hooray!

I've had to urge to write or read a crossover fic. And it's a crossover fic concept that I think could be just damn awesome.

Doctor Who/Firefly

So to the fic readers on my flist who read more fic in a week than I possibly could in a year, does a fic like this exist? 

So as I've told a few people, I was at PAX* last week. A few days later, I got sick.

Turns out there was a Swine Flu outbreak at PAX! So yeah, I got tested for it about an hour ago and I'm waiting for the results. Yay.

*Despite that, PAX was totally awesome.

No rant this time.

www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/10/obama.heckled.speech/index.html

It's crap like this that's made it so I have no official party affiliation. I've gone from being a 70/30 voter favoring conservative politicians/issues (and a registered Republican in primaries) to a 50/50 Independent in the span of TWO FREAKING YEARS. Good God I hate politics and politicians. Watching Congress is ten times worse than all the drama wars in high school.

To every member of Congress who can't get over the little R or D listed before your name on the official roll, I have a message for you that I've borrowed from the wise and illustrious Jon Stewart:

BE A FUCKING PERSON. 

PLEASE! Please I beg of you, get over yourselves and your petty little party wars and find some room in your hearts to be compassionate, rational, caring human beings. Also, if I could implore you to do just one more teeny, tiny thing...

DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS AND FIX HEALTH CARE.

...okay so there was a bit of a rant in there. I promise, I'm off the political high horse now and we'll be back to regularly scheduled trips into Lane's Deranged Mind tomorrow.

Current Mood: aggravated

Before I continue, I'll just preface by saying I think the healthcare system is broken and something really needs to be done. I don't know if a public option or co-ops are the answer, but something needs to happen. Drug prices are wildly out of control (and I really mean this, my Remicade would set me back about $20,000 a year if I wasn't insured and even with insurance I have to pay $4,000 out of pocket on an annual basis), there aren't enough primary care physicians out there and too many of the ones that do exist are woefully incompetent at their jobs.

The system is broken, something needs to be done. However...I think Congress may have found the one option worse than doing nothing.

Is fining a family that doesn't have health insurance $3,800 really the answer here? 

Some consider this akin to the compulsory driver's insurance. Well, if I wanted to get out of the driver's insurance the option is simply not to own and drive a car. If I wanted to get out of a fine for not having health insurance I'd have to...Well, you get the idea.

Don't get me wrong, I want something to be done about the health care system. I just can't help but feel that this current proposal is absolutely insane to be discussing right now. Whatever the reasoning is, I can't fathom how these fines can possibly move the health care debate forward at this point. I'm in favor of reform, but there are a lot of people who aren't and those people are going to go apeshit when they hear about this proposal.

Fining individuals who don't have health insurance as a means to fund or promote health care reform is not helping the cause. To a certain extent I agree with what this proposal would do, and that's crack down on people who can afford insurance, refuse it, and take advantage of emergency services. However, now really isn't the time to be murmuring about 4-digit fines.

Get a non-compulsory public option going, then you can discuss fining people without insurance.

Edit: Thank you, President Obama. Here's the magic solution as described on CNN. The "Trigger" Option:

Obama just might have his finger on something that can get him through this health care showdown: the "trigger" option.

The idea would give insurance companies a defined period to make changes in order to help cover more people and drive down long-term costs. If those changes failed to occur within the defined period, a trigger would provide for a public option to force change on the insurance companies.

Again, I'm so sorry it took me years to watch Firefly. I will purchase this shirt as a penance for my sins.



Also, I am madly in love with Kaylee Frye.

This was written up a month or two ago right after Resurrection finished up in order to tie up some loose ends. If you followed the link from TF.N here, welcome and feel free to add me to your LJ friend list! 

At My Side is a fic that takes place between the last chapter and the epilogue of Resurrection of a Rogue. It's a bit of an experiment fic in which you see me dabble in writing in the first person perspective.

Anyhoo, fic under the cut

( At My Side )

I WANT COLLEGE TEXTBOOK REFORM NOW! MY WALLET WEEPS IN PAIN OVER THE MONEY I JUST SPENT! 

1) Why didn't I start watching Firefly sooner!?

2) FUCK YOU FOX FUCK YOU