War is a catastrophic event and there are no more ardent peacemakers than those of us who have experienced it.
:Ian Townsend, Secretary-General, British Legion
Going to be on the road for Remembrance Day today. What'll be going through my mind? That, ironically enough, the pacifist folks who are often derided as being unpatriotic and anti-military oft seem to be the only ones doing one of the most benevolent things you can do for the troops -- namely, asking the questions, "Do we need to go to war?" "Is battle the appropriate solution for this problem?" "What do we hope to achieve by 'sending in the troops'?"
We honour our soldiers and our fallen heroes by refusing to allow their service and sacrifice to have been made in vain.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
synecdochic. skud wrote up an excellent blurb about such things over in the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
growstuff wiki. I've worked with computers and software almost all of my life. The tech industry has created a lot of amazing things, and we continue to crank out more of them every day. (I mean, we pretty much bumble through the actual development and testing process, but in the end we kind of get things to mostly work. Usually.)
One place where I truly think we are falling down, though, is bridging the gap between the technologies we create and humanity as a whole. We build social networking tools without considering what kind of behaviours and societal norms they'll encourage. From a place of relative privilege, we may be oblivious to how our creations can be turned to disturbing ends. The choices we make determine whether new technologies will work for the benefit of all, or deepen the many inequalities that exist in our world.
One day, I hope to engage in my own research, looking how people change when they're using or building software: how the norms set by technologies and technical communities influence people's behaviour; why people seem to so readily commit acts or omissions online that they might consider unethical offline.
I don't think I would know that this kind of research career was even possible if it wasn't for danah boyd.
If you've read much anything about online youth, especially when it comes to topics like bullying, social media, and privacy, you've almost certainly encountered her work. Her extensive writings span a dizzying number of facets of online interaction, identity, and culture. Especially on the topic of youth, Her research has often shown that the "conventional wisdom" surrounding how people use the internet is baseless and mistaken, with obvious ramifications for technologists and policymakers alike.
I really don't get the impression that academia in its current incarnation makes it very easy to engage in this kind of cross-disciplinary research -- inquiry that's not only valuable, but profoundly important if we are to build out the future in a way that makes things better for all of humanity. danah has shown not only that this work is meaningful and that it's worthwhile, but also that it's possible to make a brilliantly successful go of it, and that's something for which I'm very grateful.
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging about women in science, technology, engineering and maths. You can find more information at the Finding Ada website.
Something that dawned on me while I was writing this piece on bug chaining -- ever run into software where your experience was being controlled by bugs, and not the software's features? Sometimes things get so bad that you feel like you're being kicked from one defect to another instead of piloting your own way through the software.
To me, that feels almost exactly like the difference between the slings and the flippers being in control of your pinball. ^_^;
I got a pair of Merrel Waterpro Maipos way back in the day. While they were the most amazing shoes in the history of ever in terms of fit and foot comfort, they were the the worst ever in terms of durability; they started coming apart after I'd only worn them a couple of times. I kinda wonder if they were only intended for light/occasional use, like being worn while canoeing or some such? Anyway, ideally I think I'd like something similar except built to last. The breathe-y mesh sides were awesome for keeping my feet happy -- usually a full day wearing something like dress shoes is enough to make the footwear-interior-environment pretty swampy, and travel days where you're on your feet and in your shoes for like 18 hours at a go are even worse.
The runners I've been wearing since haven't really been cutting it for me in terms of fit, function, or fashion, and the latest pair is almost dead. So...time to muckle onto some new shoes. As per usual, the stores around here have little to nothing I'm interested in, and since I'm not making any shopping trips in the very near future, it's off to the internets we go. Here are a couple of candidates...
Que pensez-vous?
...when you finally figure out the name, and from thence the lyrics, of a tune you've been hearing since forever. Oftimes, the song turns out to be almost exactly unlike the mental image of it you'd formed in your head. Sometimes the two are so incongruous as to be completely absurd.
To wit: Funiculì, Funiculà. Here's Andrea Bocelli singing it. Assuming you don't speak Neapolitan, listen to the performance first, then head over to the Wikipedia page and see what this uplifting, noble tune is an ode to. =)
Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
Funiculì, funiculà, funiculì, funiculà!
Jamme, jamme jà, funiculì, funiculà!
If you're at all a science geek -- and quite possibly even if you're not -- this thread about lab mishaps is both profoundly amusing and profoundly edifying.
Couple highlights:
(Found via Maciej.)
marina
had mentioned a
while ago.
Pizza bissli == can haz. *crunch* *crunch* *reaches for a glass of water*
Well, the moon is broken / and the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see / is all that you lack
Come on up to the house
All your cryin / don't do you no good
Come on up to the house
Come down off the cross / we could use the wood
Come on up to the house
Brought to you by my discovery of the Transatlantic Sessions.
If you put a bunch of skilled, motivated people in a room together with a minimum of structure and organization, you can witness some amazing results. In tech we get a hackathon or an unconference. In music we get a jam session.
The Transatlantic Sessions are a project of BBC4 Scotland that brings together folk musicians from both sides of the pond. They've been called "the greatest backporch shows ever", and it shouldn't come as much surprise to see Celtic and American trad musicians gel so well, given the amount of crossover in the styles' origins.
Unfortunately the BBC site seems to be kind of shite when it comes to actually describing or showing what the whole thing is about, so instead I give you some starting points to browse on Youtube. There's a lot of really, really amazing music to be found.
Another post I'm writing reminded me of this. Best breakup song in the history of evar, hands-down.
![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark pushed out some neat new functionality that's at a rough test stage, so I'm just posting this to help poke at things. However, as a nice side-effect, you all get a neat little bluegrass jam I've been listening to as of late. =)
Alison Krauss & Union Station w/ Sierra Hull - Cluck Old Hen on Youtube.
I love the pointedly outlandish juxtaposition that's a not-uncommon feature of J-Pop and a lot of Japanese humour. The lyrics to this one are actually a rather touching love song.
This place can actually be extraordinarily beautiful. (When you're not choking on fumes from the steel plant or being suffocated by some of the small-town attitudes, that is.)
These were shot near the Roberta Bondar Pavilion, a huge permanent tent on the waterfront downtown, right next to the St Mary's River.
So, the extraordinarily mild/warm and dry weather we've had here in Northeastern Ontario and Northern Michigan means that it's our turn to have a summer of extraordinarily high forest fire danger.
Here in Ontario, we've been under a Restricted Fire Zone order since 16 May, which prohibits all open burning.
On or about 20 May, somebody decided to start a campfire in a popular recreation area near Kirkland Lake anyway. That fire is now Kirkland Lake 8, currently the third-largest fire in the province. It's burned 2,326 hectares (about 5,800 acres), an area around 12km long and 2km wide (7½ x 1¼ mi), and got to within 3km/2mi of the town of Kirkland Lake before Fire Rangers put the brakes on it.
That's not even the biggest fire in the province. This distinction belongs to Timmins 9, seventeen times bigger at 39,518 ha (97,651 acres). The fire season is just getting started and we've already seen twice as many fires as an entire average year.
On the other side of the border in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the Duck Lake fire near Newberry and Tahquamenon Falls is at 21,694 acres (8,780 ha). If the winds shift the right way you can smell the smoke from here. It's about 50 miles (80 km) to the west of us.
With all this going on, surely there is no way somebody can fail to be aware of the extreme fire hazard that the current situation presents. However, police have been laying a steady trickle of charges against people starting campfires, bonfires, and the occasional fool who burns down a couple of houses.
Thanksfully, rain has fallen over the last day or so, so things seem to be improving. Kirkland Lake 8 is Being Held; enough progress has been made in Timmins for them to lift their state of emergency, and the fire crews working on the Duck Lake fire should be able to make good headway today on account of the improved weather.
The town of Kirkland lake has some dramatic photos up, courtesy of one Perry Kong. More under the cut.
( Photos of Kirkland Lake 8... ) So, I was lucky enough to get Basia Bulat's CD Heart of My Own this past Christmas. It's awesome, she's awesome, and anyone who's been following along at home for a while already knew that I would say that. =)
Here are two tracks of hers that I hadn't heard before the CD made its way into my hot little hands.
( Vids behind the cut... ) Ok, so.
Last night, I put up a poll here about language. A dear friend took issue with it, so I've pulled it down.
My goal is always to use language as a tool for inclusion -- that is to say, to make it clear that everybody belongs; as something that will bring people together instead of dividing them along the same tired, hurtful fault lines.
I didn't manage to accomplish this, so I need to engage in some self-education on the matter until I can. I screwed up, and I'm sorry.
Going to enable screened comments on this one, so if you want to say something to me privately, please feel free. =)
I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.
:Shel Silverstein
I like this, as an introvert myself, and a parent of another.
Ok, so, I made this tonight: an interesting crustless cheesecake that doesn't taste anywhere near as much like white chocolate as one might think.
Cheesecake:
Topping:
Preheat oven to 450℉.
Beat cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice together until smooth. Add melted white chocolate, sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
Pour batter into a lightly greased 8½" springform pan. Bake at 450℉ for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 250℉ and bake 30-35min more. Beat together topping ingredients, spread over cheesecake, and return to oven for 5 more minutes.
After removing, run a knife around the sides of the cheesecake; let cool completely before removing sides of springform pan.
Refrigerate at least 5 hours and preferably overnight. Optional garnishes: white/chocolate curls, fruit, fruit coulis.
That being said, it was good, but nowhere near as fantabulous as this relatively-easy no-bake chocolate cheesecake we made earlier in the week. I used some leftover oreo crumbs we had on hand in place of the crushed-up digestives, and the result was highly awesome. That's going to be my go-to cheesecake recipe from this point forward.
Today marks exactly one year since the Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami (東北地方太平洋沖地震).
Even though I am a long way away from Japan, both in terms of distance and in time, I still think of the country as my second home, and I still shed tears to think about what befell the wonderful people of my adopted country that day.
While in the process of attempting to flood the backyard rink last night, I managed to hit myself in the face with the end of a garden hose hard enough to draw blood.
Yea, truly I am one to accomplish things which other people did not even consider possible.
I really wish all the story headlines, tweets, etc, floating around about how the administration at UofT and Western knuckled under to Access Copyright could be rewritten from
Canadian Universities Submit to Completely Dumbass Copyright Agreement
to
Two Canadian Universities Submit to Completely Dumbass Copyright Agreement
We are not all cowardly dumbasses, and in fact, I would venture to say that the majority of us are quite wroth with the doubtless small number of administrators who approved this deal at a small number of admittedly major Canadian universities.
Admittedly nowhere near as good as proper risotto, but also takes approximately 1% of the effort of making proper risotto.
So, a little while ago, CBC Radio's Q spoke with Clara Hughes about how she's been affected by depression. Here's the audio (38MB mp3).
For folks who may not be familiar with her: the inimitable Ms. Hughes is an Olympic cyclist and speed skater. With six medals, she is not only one of the most decorated Canadian Olympians of all time, she's also the only person ever to have won multiple medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games [cite].
Calling all assholes who think that people with depression are lazy good-for-nothing layabouts! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Booyah.
So, over the holidays, I was looking for a place to post my Christmas cards. Though I knew the location of a few mailboxen, and while I was sure that they are all over the place, I realized that I didn't pass one anywhere in my daily routine.
When I got a moment, I had a look on the Canada Post website, figuring they'd have a map or at least a list there. No such luck, which seems strange -- you would think for sure that they keep records of all of their mailboxes in some kind of GIS or other.
Happily, there is a collaborative Google Map where people can contribute in an attempt to enumerate all the mailboxes in Canada. For some reason, though, my additions didn't take -- maybe the map has hit the maximum number of placemarks or some such? Only one thing to do, of course -- make my own map of mailbox locations for Sault Ste Marie.
( Cut for those uninterested in postal trivia... )I have to hand it to my teacher; she manages to make every lesson productive even if life has prevented me from having gotten any practice time in the past week.
I'm actually starting to be able to play music in some semblance of proper time when sight-reading a new piece. Exciting! Also having the fledgling beginnings of being able to read ahead in the piece while playing, which is also Very Good News.
Still being gently reminded to grab hold of every tune and play it LIKE A BOSS. Music sounds better when played confidently, even with the occasional missed or slightly out of tune note! ^_^;
I realized something last week while chatting over in the #dreamwidth-bitch IRC channel. When it comes to things people share with me, I don't really have an overshare zone. I mean, I watch what I say & try not to expose people to stuff they don't want to find out about. But incoming? I can't remember the last time someone tripped my TMI-meter. I may have had one at some point but I think I lost it somewhere along the way.
Maybe this has something to do with having been on the internetz for 15 years or so and being exposed to the kind of frank honesty that a lot of folks evince online. Even back before the days of blogs, I remember some people displaying a combination of self-knowledge and frank honesty that I really envied. ISTR reading one person's homepage, whence they described their typical day; it began with something along the lines of "Wake up, have a wank, get out of bed, ..." and I did a double-take, not because I found the disclosure that they were having a wank shocking or upsetting -- I didn't in the least -- but that they were forthright & open enough to put that fact online in public for all to read.
People have sex, periods, gross bodily functions, sordid histories, inappropriate fantasies about the people in their lives, and embarrassing moments at the supermarket. That's life! In all of its bodily and erotic and sometimes unflattering and imperfect glory. While the specifics are going to vary, these kinds of things happen to all of us in some way, shape, or form. So while I respect that not everybody wants to hear every last glorious detail of my sinus cold or ice-cream induced digestive difficulties, if there's something you want to get out in the open, don't feel compelled to hold back on my account. I'm only human, and I'm willing to bet you're only human too.
The ever-wonderful dingsi
nominated me for the
love meme
that's currently going on courtesy of littlebutfierce.
If anyone feels inclined to add a nice blurb, I would certainly be
quite flattered, but even better, maybe you'd like to nominate someone
else or send them a bit of joy? jjhunter
has the
index if so. =)
<firestormink> Dear streetcar, whenever you are ready.
<@shadowspar> @firestormink don't worry; when the streetcar finally comes, I'm sure it will show its contrition by bringing three more with it.
<@firestormink> @shadowspar They travel in packs, for protection, and to hunt.
Also, like inoru_no_hoshi mentioned in IRC, we need
a qdb for twitter. =)
First thing. For those who use vim but might not have known about it: vim has a feature called digraphs which gives you a way to enter letters with diacritics (eg ä), symbols (eg ✓), and other characters that aren't on your keyboard. It does have its idiosyncracies, but it's fairly reasonable once you start to toy with it a bit.
How it works: first, enter the compose key, which by default is Control-K. Then enter the two characters of the digraph, and you'll get the single character that's defined in the digraphs table for that particular combination.
So, for instance:
The command :digraphs will show you everything in the digraphs table.
Last thing and the point of all that preparatory context above: there is a terrible problem with the set of digraphs as it ships with vim. Clearly the sequence < + 3 should compose to the character ♥, but it doesn't by default. To remedy this horrible shortcoming, add the line
digraph <3 9829
to your vim config file. (9829 is the unicode decimal identifier for the character ♥.)
I opted not to go to the Remembrance Day service today. Instead, as is my custom, I'll have a small private memorial wherever I am at 1100.
I remember that "supporting the troops" includes valuing and honouring them enough not to order them into battle save for the gravest of circumstances. War is a last resort to address an extraordinary problem when all other means are exhausted, and we do ourselves, our soldiers, and the rest of the world the gravest wrong should we think it otherwise.
I remember that "supporting the troops" includes doing everything in our power to help them and their families when they're injured or killed while serving. Just as sure as we put them into harm's way, we're responsible for what happens to them when we do.
I remember that "supporting the troops" includes making our military a supportive place for them to serve. Threats from without are enough to worry about without having to worry about threats from within.
I remember that the soldiers of old embarked on what they considered a noble enterprise, and were thrust into unimaginable hardship and suffering as a result. I honour their memory and their sacrifice by upholding the freedoms they fought for.
I remember that war is a consequence of us failing at the central tenet of basic humanity; at treating other people as fellow human beings; of recognizing our commonalities and reaching out to one another as equals and friends.
And finally I remember that Never Again is not just a catchphrase, but a call to action.
...and all that means so much more to me than a bunch of longwinded speeches by blowhard politicians who've never been there and likely never will.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
