Seattle-area nifty knitting workshop
Eee! http://feralknitter.typepad.com/feral_knitter/2010/06/next-stop-the-rainy-northwest.html

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snow snow snow snow snow
Going out barefoot/barelegged in six inches of snow is fun, but should be done in short stretches. Anybody want a snowball?

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Huh
Go look at this artwork (NSFW???) I really disagree with the artist as to what it depicts. The difference between what I see and what the artist sees fascinates me.

Further context, including the artist's title for the artwork. All his pictures are interesting.

(I'll put my interpretation of the artwork in a comment.)

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there's controversy over "cis"/"cisgender"/"cissexual"? Really?
I'm a little freaked out that people who don't identify as anti-trans-people are freaking out over the "cis*" words. It makes sense that the others would -- they don't like transgenderism or transsexuality, and so aren't particularly interested in words that make those concepts easier to discuss or words that don't other the people affected by them. But theoretical allies?

Besides the fun quasi-punness of it all, it makes sense. I was identified at birth as a girl, and now live as a woman[1]. My hypothetical imaginary twin brother[2] was identified at birth as a girl, and now lives as a man. He can be said to be on the opposite side of the gender-presentation barrier from where he started, and I, inasmuch as a baby girl and an adult woman can be said to be the same gender[3], can be said to be on the same side. Trans, cis.

I don't generally think of myself as cis, any more than I generally think of myself as white. Part of my {cis,white} privilege is that I can not bother to think of those.

[1] I am putting this footnote in place of a complicated argument that's more nuanced than that, because if it's reduced to a simple question, that's the best answer for it. Shut up, complicated self who's trying to complicate things.

[2] He's useful for so many things.

[3] Shut up, complicated self.

Current Mood: sheesh

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urgh
I have the plague. If any of the twelve and a half lungs I've coughed up over the last few days are yours, I can arrange to get them back to you. If not, don't expect a ton of usefulness from me.

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Boneses!
( Is this gross? My gross-out sensors are miscalibratedCollapse )

Current Mood: home sick

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parody time!
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/338932.html

(And of the two characters, I rather think she's the mature one.)

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hair
In watching Target: Women before bed, I am reminded that "50% More Volume!" is supposed to sound like a good thing to provide for one's hair. When I got up this morning, I had 50% more hair volume... in points on either side of my head. Clearly I am insufficiently femme to understand true beauty.

Current Mood: folliclicious

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no, really, things look different from other people's perspectives
Star Trek has never really been my fandom of choice, but I've picked up a good deal of information about it from cultural osmosis and dabbling.

I watched the new movie. I've read a few (heated) discussions about whether the Uhura-Spock relationship added to the women-exist-to-be-girlfriends trope and whether it was a sop to fans, given that Spock may be the most lusted-after sf character of all time. What I didn't see expressed, until now, was this point of view. It makes a shit-ton of sense.

One of these days I'll get better at seeing this sort of thing for myself, instead of needing people to spell it out for me.

(In honor of IBARWeek, a few more links:

• the cost of anger
• accidental insults are still insults
• an analogy that reminds me of my current favorite philosophical paper, The Ethics of Belief, from the perspective of the sailors instead of the boat-owner

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language geeking!
This post is a wonderful example of language-geeking to try to remove offensive language from one's own usage-set.

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ICFP!
It's nearly that time of year again! Even if the contest organizers are a little vague about start time, and don't provide much information, it should still be fun. (jes5199 and I spent a little time yesterday figuring out whether the contest started at 10, 11, or noon local time).

As a member of the laptop age, I intend to spend good portions of this contest in the park. Other lessons learned from previous ICFP competitions are: sleep, eat, make sure to get some time all to yourself, and sometimes you think better if you put the computer down.

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Leave it to Beaver is not the only applicable model
I get...frustrated by the arguments made in the name of evolutionary psychology. Some of you around me may have noticed this. (The next person to spout the 70% waist-hip ratio notion that was based on Playboy models and a few actresses of the same country and time period will be beaten about the head and shoulders with a horse-hair bustle and some flapper beads.)

This essay is a brilliant takedown of a number of those ideas. Sample sentence: "That is, men may genetically tend to be more interested in sports, dance, fashion, and make-up."

(I wish, I wish, I wish I could find the essay where someone pointed out that three behaviors (two being female dress-to-impress behavior and gender disparity in child-raising) are not seen together in any other animal on the planet, speculated on what that meant, and postulated that it had to do with the human habit of older relatives picking mates for their juniors. It was a fabulous and thought-provoking essay and I can't remember anything more about it.)

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zombies drink caffeinated 6.001
I have no idea if this is a good idea or not, but I'm going to work through this course. (Unless it's too easy, or too boring, or I get distracted, or what have you.) I'm still coasting on the serious CS theory course I took at the age of thirteen, and I'd like to a) know whether/how much catch-up I should do, b) get formally reintroduced to concepts now that I have a serious practical background to go with them, and c) play with fun stuff.

(This is the idea I've been asking people about informally for the last few days.)

There's no set schedule, and I expect I and others will be dropping in and out as commitments happen. I'll try to update this journal occasionally with my progress.

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on simplicity
http://xkcd.com/592/

Current Mood: laughing

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plague
If you were at our house last night, you may have caught the gastrointestinal godawful. Sorry about that. Drink lots of broth and juice, and get someone to keep an eye on you.

Current Mood: waiting to catch the ick

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"where black will not be asked to get back"
Last night keystricken and I (and others? It was a crowded kitchen) were talking about the part of Reverend Lowery's speech at the inauguration that sounded like silly doggerel if you didn't know the reference: "we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." I knew it was a reference to a previous song/poem/saying/bit of doggerel, purposefully turning words describing a bad situation into words describing hope for a good situation. What I didn't know is that it's a reference to what looks like a family of related sayings. I can't tell is what the root source is. My haphazard scholarship (google; thirty seconds) makes me think that the song Black, Brown, and White was the original source. It's plausible to me that red and yellow would have been added in later in the life of the meme, but have commonly-agreed-upon values by, say, the end of the seventies. I think I actually know of this saying from its presence in the sixties/seventies, since I'm much more familiar with the concepts of that time than the concepts of post-WWII.

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I want to live in this story
Best substring (contiguous!) of a google-search highlight ever: "planet kate, sentient household objects, simulating life, the mushroom kingdom"

The search string was "kingdom of loathing genetic engineering". The page found is utterly boring, or I'd share it.

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A B Computer
Making Light is having a doggerel contest in one of its open threads. Said interchange contains the line "H is for Hopper, the first to debug!"

All attempts on my part to explain my emotional reaction to this include comparisons to the cement structures of freeway overpasses, so let me just say: I really like this line. A lot.

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event
The Portland library is hosting a Keep Portland Weird event on the weekend after this upcoming one. Various people may be interested for various different reasons.

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brought to you by the nth installation of "it's time to go to SLEEP already"
"'Cause my grimoire is made of win"

(Also, I would like automatic spellcheckers better if their vocabulary included most of the words I knew by the age of fifteen. This is also my problem with most "college-level" dictionaries. Harrumph.)

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