Norwescon is coming up, and Tony and I are wondering who’s going. Are you? If so, what panels are you going to? Where are you staying? Mainly we’re just trying to find out what other people’s plans are, because ours (so far) is exceedingly simple: Find Friends -> Spend Time With Them -> Socialize/Dance/Hot-Tub/Sleep.
Author: foxtongue
the internets are serious business
a friend’s baby
I just bought a white topped IKEA table desk at a very steep discount off Craigslist to replace the desk I sold several years ago. This, for a multitude of reasons, is far more exciting than it has any right to be. Lung helped me bring it home and wrestle it upstairs to my apartment and even into my room, for which I am deeply grateful. The desk, more of a table, really, is not very big, but my room is smallish, so almost every piece of bedroom furniture had to be moved to accommodate it. My entire body hurt from how much work it took, but it’s so amazing to finally have a workspace again that all the hassle was completely worth it. (Even the bizarro Trial Of The Talking Computer, which apparently complains out loud of overclocking failure when it needs a new BIOS battery.)
My next big step will be to get my website up and running again, this time with a focus on photography, with a page, too, devoted to the various Thread of Grace projects. I am slow with websites, though. I begin to have a general design figured out, then find myself lost among the apparently endless methods of developing a gallery backend. Realistically, I don’t much care what it looks like, as long as what I end up with is easy to update and allows people to link to each image. Simple, understated, a bit of text with each picture. Uncomplicated. (I’ve started looking for that pop up gallery everyone’s been using for the last couple of years, where the image slides up over the page, and there’s tiny little > and < for right and left). In the world of fanciful imaginary land, however, I'd also like an automatic flickr feed widgety thing in a sidebar somewhere, thumbnails that offer a preview when a mouse hovers over them, and a significantly prettier interface than most templates offer. An overnight degree in graphic design, plane tickets to somewhere tropical and warm, and an oceanside horsie ride wouldn't hurt, either.
Consider Role Reversal for International Women’s Day
Penny Red: Objectification: what if the world were different for a day?:
Picture this. Every one of the men and boys whose images you see repeated thousands of times a day is impossibly perfect, hewn from some arcane piece of rock on the platonic plane. Not one of them is over thirty-three. In the shadow of their hard, robotic masculinity, the possibility of paunches and puppy fat and male-pattern balding is unthinkable. They rarely speak, and when they do speak, they ventriloquise; they implore you to look at them, to understand their silent semiotics of commercial masculinity; they threaten and seduce you in a boring parade of billboards, adverts, music videos.
…
What is the response of the government, of the media to this trend? They say nothing. These silly young boys don’t know any better than to copy what they see. And anyway, women have to worry about what they look like too! Granted that it’s the men, not the women, who are judged on the basis of their appearance in public life – but then, there are so few men in politics and in business that we’re bound to look at them a bit funny, aren’t we? It’s all in good fun, isn’t it?
Link via Alasdair.
pictures of a good night out
Shane‘s going away party.
a familiar complaint
Typography, a poem by Taylor Mali, put to video by Ronnie Bruce.
wtf computer problem
I just got the weirdest error message of my life. I just unplugged my computer and all of its components and moved my computer across the room to my new desk and attempted to turn it on after plugging everything back in. Instead of booting up, a pleasant woman’s voice said SYSTEM FAILED DUE TO SYSTEM OVERCLOCKING. I replied, “buh?” and tried again, to the same result.
Please, internet, explain this to me! Talking computer? What the heck!
people I should visit more
Visiting with a friend and her still relatively new small child.
uncanny
The Onion: Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology
“We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you,” announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company’s Googleplex headquarters. “Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we’ve seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we’ve carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust.”
…
Acknowledging that Google hasn’t always been open about how it mines the roughly 800 terabytes of personal data it has gathered since 1998, Schmidt apologized to users— particularly the 1,237,948 who take daily medication to combat anxiety—for causing any unnecessary distress, and he expressed regret—especially to Patricia Fort, a single mother taking care of Jordan, Sam, and Rebecca, ages 3, 7, and 9—for not doing more to ensure that private information remains private.
HIVE3 is coming up soon! Volunteer for free admission.
Tickets available through: vancouvertix.com. $25 Adults, $20 Students/Seniors.
Pricy, but oh, so deliciously worthwhile. Tony and I are going for his birthday on the 19th. I can’t express how glad I am of that particular coincidence. Along with the Eastside Culture Crawl, HIVE is one of my very favourite Vancouver events. (We don’t have too many here, no Nuit Blanche for us yet, not with the harsh reality of our arts funding cut.) Luckily, for those without monies, HIVE is still looking for volunteers to fill some positions throughout the run but in particular, Thursday March 11 and Thursday March 18. Volunteers are asked to commit to one or two shifts totaling 4 hours or more. In return you get an invitation to a HIVE3 dress rehearsal, to see the HIVE shows on the same evening you volunteer, and free entrance to the live music portion after the HIVE shows.
Volunteer Positions include:
Bar Ticket Seller or Busser (6pm-10pm, 10pm-2am)
Box Office / Main Door (6pm-10pm, 9pm-2am)
Door / Security (6pm-10:30pm, 9pm-1am, 10pm-2am)
Clean Up (12am-3am)
*Please note that times and positions may vary depending on need.*
If you’re interested in volunteering, please contact Kenji Maeda at associate@bocadellupo.com.
Please indicate your full name, email, phone numbers, availability (dates & times), and preferred position.
EDIT: My friends at Felix Culpa are also looking for volunteers! And if you (meaning anybody reading this) are looking to volunteer on the 12th or the 20th, contact him at david at felixculpa.bc.ca.
apparently a friend’s codename for me is ‘barefoot’
Trying to find the house was a trial. First the bus was the wrong bus with the right number. Then the stop was the wrong stop with the right street name. Sixteenth masquerading as sixteenth. Tricky, painful, miles later, a dead end. Logic deciding direction, deciding course, turning back, scaling the blocks, my twisted ankle less reliable with every step. Hours of this, my shoes removed and put in my bag as a way to stop the blisters, an attempt to save my feet. The brace I wear snaps, broken. With a wry internal smile, I know I’m lucky. The day before this, there were not even buses.
Tony and I downtown, carried by the tides of the celebrating city during the Olympics Hockey win, were caught, Kafka-esque, as transit was shut down. For weeks the government had been shouting, leave behind your cars!, even going so far as to last-minute blockade two of the three major bridges going downtown, but at that final, critical moment, there was a failure somewhere and, though they told no one this, the buses could not get through. Unless you had a home on the skytrain route, (a four hour wait at some points), there was no way out but to walk.
If it wasn’t for the air cast Michelle gave me, there were several points where I would have quite simply collapsed, folded into an ungainly heap, an adult in the familiar shape of a tired child who cannot, not for the life of them, keep up even one more step. My heart goes out to everyone else who was stuck, I am not old, nor even terribly infirm, and our escape from downtown was crippling.
Yet, in the midst of my thanks, I am reminded of the rebound effect discussed in conservation technologies, as when new logging facilities become so much cleaner that the companies that own them can build six times as many yet stay within the pollution laws, thereby offsetting potential energy and environmental savings by chewing through more land while maintaining the same waste rate. In my case, like a more efficient car being driven twice as much, extra support meant extra time on my feet equaled further metaphorical trees being chewed through leaving me with clearcut purple bruises, only the barest ability to stand, and a hamstrung gait.
Truly, I an unable to be too sad that I have already walked through the bottom of it, wearing apart the linen with the venn diagram of persistence vs. gritted teeth vs. places to be. Having it for the last two weeks likely saved my ankle’s life, yet conversely, I did only seem to be saving it for slow suicide. With the Olympics exacerbating my desire to be out of the house, I was out every day, telling myself through the pain it would all be okay. I am flesh, I will heal, this too shall pass. Losing the air cast keeps me from that mantra, keeps myself safe.
Perhaps, I will now try to say, optimism to the fore, nights behind in my sleep, this will all be for the better, and I will remember to keep my walks tidy, tiny, and neat.