Author: amichopine

  • I ate dirt

    Well, actually, tasted it. I read that it was what farmers used to do to test pH. It was just a bit sweet, which means my soil is the pH I thought it was: fairly neutral but slightly alkaline. My basil seedlings just germinated! I went to a class today on starting seedlings, and I…

  • Starting a garden, and a garden journal

    March 16, 2012 I’m starting a garden. It’s been a few years since I grew one, not counting the container tomatoes last year. All of my efforts have met with limited success. Lack of experience, lack of keeping up with daily tasks, and a lack of long term commitment. A few years ago I just…

  • The Wizard of Real Life

    I was talking to some friends today while doing my weekly school volunteer stint, about what it is like to be an adult. We weren’t being particularly serious or philosophical. Mostly joking about how we used to yearn to be an adult, and how the things we saw adults do seem magic. We used to…

  • Molecular Me

    In honor of the new book I’m writing, I’ve started a new blog! It’s about molecular biology, which I love. But I will keep it pretty narrow to that topic and probably not start musing about writing or mothering, or knitting (have I mused about that yet? Don’t think so). You can find it here:…

  • Information Pollution

    Driving down the road one day, I was thinking of things to use in a story when a billboard caught my attention. It had nothing of real use to me, but now my thoughts were on what kind of events radio stations put on and who goes there and why. My mind had gone completely…

  • Opening up Science

    I love science. I don’t have time to do it, really. But I do like to write about it. As I’m getting back into blogging, (realizing that for me it’s work rather than play so I shouldn’t feel guilty about it), I’ve been looking at science blogs. And the first things that have gotten my…

  • Transhumanism and Mormonism

    I’ve been doing some developing of a novel that will feature a devout Mormon family, faced with questions of personhood, the singularity, etc. Writing it in reaction to such novels as Accelerando by Charles Stross. I’m a little tired of cynical, secular (and somewhat anti-religious) singularity novels. That fact is, devout religious people will still…

  • Storytelling more effective than preaching

    Ran across an interesting article at Science Daily Ironic Effects of Anti-Predjudice Message The summary is that after reading literature (controlling language) that told people they shouldn’t be predjudice, talking about all the negative consequences, people were MORE likely to engage in predjudism later on. But if they read literature describing a person’s positive experiences…

  • The changing culture of jobs

    Besides running Geekatplay, Vladimir is a UI geek. He’s a good one too. One of the few that keeps up the art and the programming side of things. The programming sides of things is constantly changing. Technologies improve and grow and the programmers have to follow. A big indicator of how up to date a programmer or…

  • Domestic women writers

    Feminist Science Fiction Writer I guess that’s what I am. I believe in equality for women, and I write science fiction. I think we need to celebrate women who write science fiction and fantasy. But I’m also a stay at home mom, with four kids. Four brilliant, gifted children. This takes time from my day. I’ve been married…