Something else I'd like to see in a romance

For whatever reason, I don't like conventional romance novels, even though there are some love stories (McKinley's Sunshine, Bujold's Komarr) that romance readers like that I like very much.

For the most part, though, romance novels seem to be about falling in love with someone you have good reasons to mistrust, and having it all work out anyway.

Some of this crystalized for me when I read Durgin's A Feral Darkness, an otherwise pretty good science fiction and horror mix. The heroine even has a small business, which is always a plus for me. However, she's in love with Scary Infuriating Guy. This is more annoying because Scary Infuriating Guy has a younger brother who doesn't withhold important information from her. (All this is from memory.)

I want stories where the heroine figures out that a romance hero is more trouble than he's worth, and chooses someone who is better news. One time when I was ranting about A Feral Darkness, a woman told me she'd lived my preferred version.

I realize that what I want is probably not crackfic for the general public, but I've never seen a example of it at all.

Something else I'd like to see in a romance

For whatever reason, I don't like conventional romance novels, even though there are some love stories (McKinley's Sunshine, Bujold's Komarr) that romance readers like that I like very much.

For the most part, though, romance novels seem to be about falling in love with someone you have good reasons to mistrust, and having it all work out anyway.

Some of this crystalized for me when I read Durgin's A Feral Darkness, an otherwise pretty good science fiction and horror mix. The heroine even has a small business, which is always a plus for me. However, she's in love with Scary Infuriating Guy. This is more annoying because Scary Infuriating Guy has a younger brother who doesn't withhold important information from her. (All this is from memory.)

I want stories where the heroine figures out that a romance hero is more trouble than he's worth, and chooses someone who is better news. One time when I was ranting about A Feral Darkness, a woman told me she'd lived my preferred version.

I realize that what I want is probably not crackfic for the general public, but I've never seen a example of it at all.

Taking descriptivism to a higher level

smallship1 is a proud proscriptivist.

I prefer to get outside the system--here's my comment:

Alternate theory: Language keeps changing, but needs to be kept stable enough to be useful.

It's both good and natural to have people pulling in both directions, according to what usages feel plausible to them.

I'm not sure how much language change comes from great writers, how much from slang, and how much from mainstream drift.

Second thought: I'm not sure how much the important resistance to change comes from people who invoke rules and stability and how much is from people who just don't use the changes they don't like.

Taking descriptivism to a higher level

smallship1 is a proud proscriptivist.

I prefer to get outside the system--here's my comment:

Alternate theory: Language keeps changing, but needs to be kept stable enough to be useful.

It's both good and natural to have people pulling in both directions, according to what usages feel plausible to them.

I'm not sure how much language change comes from great writers, how much from slang, and how much from mainstream drift.

Second thought: I'm not sure how much the important resistance to change comes from people who invoke rules and stability and how much is from people who just don't use the changes they don't like.

Adaptive chemotherapy

From orac:

Cancers are made of heterogeneous cells, and under the challenge of chemotherapy, there's selection for resistant cancer cells. However, resistance is biologically costly (cool details at the link), so it might be worthwhile to try to manage the cancer rather than destroy it.

This is all very experimental (just mouse models and one promising study on actual mice), but it seems plausible that fine-tuning the chemo to the state of the cancer instead of following a pre-set schedule could work well.

Adaptive chemotherapy

From orac:

Cancers are made of heterogeneous cells, and under the challenge of chemotherapy, there's selection for resistant cancer cells. However, resistance is biologically costly (cool details at the link), so it might be worthwhile to try to manage the cancer rather than destroy it.

This is all very experimental (just mouse models and one promising study on actual mice), but it seems plausible that fine-tuning the chemo to the state of the cancer instead of following a pre-set schedule could work well.

Jane Jacobs?

I mentioned that I think Jane Jacobs is better known among libertarians than elsewhere in the comments here, and then it occurred to me that I don't really know. Unfortunately, lj doesn't offer a good way of getting correlations among different answers, and this isn't a random sample either, but I hope to get a better-informed vague impression.

[Poll #1418345]

Jane Jacobs?

I mentioned that I think Jane Jacobs is better known among libertarians than elsewhere in the comments here, and then it occurred to me that I don't really know. Unfortunately, lj doesn't offer a good way of getting correlations among different answers, and this isn't a random sample either, but I hope to get a better-informed vague impression.

[Poll #1418345]

Advice on cell phone plans?

I'm planning at being an occasional user at this stage (Verizon?) and eventually getting rid of the land line.

Advice on cell phone plans?

I'm planning at being an occasional user at this stage (Verizon?) and eventually getting rid of the land line.