shadowspar

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

Another post I'm writing reminded me of this. Best breakup song in the history of evar, hands-down.

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.

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.

Linked by marina.

1. Respect their need for privacy
2. Never embarrass them in public
3. Let them observe first in new situations
4. Give them time to think; don't demand instant answers
5. Don't interrupt them
6. Give them advance notice of expected changes in their lives
7. Give them 15 minute warnings to finish whatever they are doing
8. Reprimand them privately
9. Teach them new skills privately
10. Enable them to find one best friend who has similar interests & abilities
11. Don't push them to make lots of friends
12. Respect their introversion; don't try to remake them into extroverts

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.

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.

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.

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.

<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. =)

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.

The ever-wonderful zarhooie has just posted one of them there friending memes. Go check people out! Get some new friends! (Erm...)

Checked in on LiveJournal just now on account of their latest security fail, and elected to delete my account there rather than keep it hanging around. I don't use it any more, so it doesn't represent anything more than a potential liability anyway.

I'd considered doing so (and really should have done) a while back when it was pointed out to me that they'd started running really obnoxious ads, like full-page / interstitial ones, or banners with scantily-clad imvu anime icons. No, I don't see that stuff myself (I've not touched the site in the past 18 months, and I run NoScript anyway, which means most of the crap doesn't load), but it still bothers me when they put stuff like that next to my smiling face and the words I wrote. I still like the people on LiveJournal, but the antics and long history of fail of LJ Corporate, not so much.

Thanks for coming out, LJ.

Home sick today. (No, not that kind of sick. Strongest thing I drank yesterday was root beer.) Thankfully only "stay home from work and don't make everyone else sick" kind of sick, not "flat on my ass incapacitated" sick.

As much as I was tempted to curl up in bed and try to get into reading h/c fic, closing up the computer and sleeping through the morning probably did more for my aching head, throat, and stomach. =)

I posted this recipe a while back in a comment to an entry in omnomnom. Now that it's Thanksgiving weekend and we have a bunch of beets from the last week of our CSA for the year, I've been looking high and low for it, so here it is for future reference.

I'm not a huge fan of beets, but these are really nice and really simple. They go well in a salad, or you can use them as a side. It's a fairly large recipe but it halves. We get tiny beets from our CSA, so we just peel them and cut the larger ones down to 1cm/½" cubes.

Orange-glazed beets
(from Vegan With a Vengeance)

• 1½lb / ¾kg beets (3-4 average sized); peeled, quartered, sliced ~¼"/½cm thick
• 1 cup / 250ml orange juice
• 1 tsp / 5ml orange zest
• 1 tsp / 5ml maple syrup
• 1 tsp / 5ml salt

Put everything into a large pan, cover, and bring to a low boil. Simmer for around 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover & reduce to give a nice glaze.

Audrey Tang is far and away the most awesome hacker I've ever had the privilege to have worked with. She's best known for creating Pugs, a perl6 implementation in Haskell. Though it's now semi-retired in favour of the newer implementations that it had a role in inspiring, it represented a huge leap forward and a quantum shift in Perl6 development at a time when enthusiasm around Perl6 was sorely flagging. She was the first CPAN contributor to have uploaded 100 modules. She's the key figure behind Perl 5's internationalization, as well as the i18n of many, many other individual pieces of software. She was part of the committee that designed the Haskell 2010 standard, and has made innumerable other contributions to the open source community.

I never got seriously involved with Pugs, but many of the things Audrey did with it shaped my thinking around open source, community, and how we should collaborate. First was the idea that a project should be optimized for fun (-Ofun¹), not for control, or strict adherence to the founder's vision, or anything else. Second, whereas many open source projects keep a very tight rein on who has commit access and make getting a commit bit an arduous process, Audrey aggressively gave out commit bits to anybody who happened to wander by in the general vicinity of Pugs. Got a great idea? Here's a commit bit, go implement it. Notice something missing in the docs? Here's a commit bit; go add it. Ranting in IRC that something's not working? Here's a commit bit; go fix it. Extending this trust makes people feel welcome and want to contribute. It fosters an air of community instead of making prospective new participants feel as though they are looking at climbing (or worse, building) a pyramid.

Audrey would likely demur at my calling her brilliant, but it's a fitting descriptor for her. She has a unique and penetrating insight into code and an uncanny knack for encouraging the people who write it. I count myself as fortunate to have been able to work with her and to be part of a few of the communities she's had such a profound impact on.

¹ -Ofun: -O is the compiler option that tells it how you want your code optimized. Audrey's presentation on -Ofun [pdf] talks more about how to maximize the amount of fun in your software project.

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging about women in science and technology. You can find more information at the Finding Ada website.

Grant loaves: super-easy to make whole wheat bread with a super-dense texture (almost muffin-like, with a crisp, substantial crust). No kneading. Minimal time commitment - scratch to bread in 90 minutes.

This is a dense bread that goes well with butter, jam, or a nice cheese. Also great with soups, stews, and the like. Won't fit in a garden-variety toaster, but toasts up nicely in a toaster oven. Definitely not sandwich bread.

The original recipe appeared in a British cookbook published in the 1940s, written by Ms. Doris Grant. It's exactly the kind of bread recipe I'd be looking for if I were working shifts at the munitions factory but still expected to bake fresh bread for the family every day.

The recipe as I remember it, cut down to one loaf instead of the original batch of three:

• 1⅔ cups warm water (yeast-friendly; ~95-100℉ or ~38℃)
• 1 tsp brown sugar (the darker the better)
• 1 tsp yeast
• 4 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt

The temperature of all ingredients is key, so if you should happen to keep your flour in a coldroom or some such, bring it into the kitchen and let it warm up a bit.

Grease a loaf pan.

Stir the sugar into the water until dissolved, then add the yeast. Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl, or if you're like me, dump them both into a bowl and run a whisk through them a few times to mix. After about ten minutes or so, when the yeast is foamy and happy, make a well in the middle of the flour and pour the yeast & water in. Stir with a wooden spoon, working the dry outsides towards the center. Mix for about a minute. Again, if you bake like I do, you'll get annoyed with the stirring process after about 30 seconds and mix in the remaining dry bits with your hands. ^_^;

Form into a loaf and dump it into the greased loaf pan. Let rise in a warm place for ~30 minutes, until the loaf has increased in size by about a third.

While the bread is rising, preheat your oven to 400℉. Bake for 40 minutes. When done, the loaf should have a substantial crust and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Mock if you want on account of it being John Denver, but I think this is a really beautiful song. One day I will play it on viola.

One of my favourite classical numbers. (This video includes No. 6 as well, which is also nice, though I'm not over the moon about it.)

When I hear this piece, it is punctuated in my head with words that cannot be repeated in polite company.

Some who live deserve death, and some who die deserve life -- can you give it to them? Then be not to eager to deal out death in judgement, for even the very wise cannot see all ends.
:Gandalf

Armies of darkness:

Forces of light: