Speaker for the Diodes

QotD

2009-11-28T10:26:40Z

Dvorak: "I'll keep an eye on things here."

Qwerty: "Unless you get distracted by a new idea or something shiny."

Dvorak: "New ideas are shiny. That's why they're so hard to resist."

-- from Freefall by Mark Stanley, 2007-01-03

Well, that sucked

2009-11-28T05:55:03Z

How brown do you let tomato catsup turn before you start to worry about safety rather than just aesthetics? (I'm thinking about those leftover fast-food catsup packets that I occasionally pull out of my fridge, never being sure what colour I'll find inside until I open one.)

I specify tomato catsup because the only other kind of catsup I have any experience with is mushroom, and the mushroom catsup was already brown when I first saw it and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be that colour. Which suggests a follow-up question: how many of you have eaten non-tomato catsups?

I had a thoroughly wretched day. Woke up coughing badly and spent the rest of the morning that way, then crashed again, woke up just before the HCB gig in the evening, still at home, un-showered, and in so much pain it hurt even to push the buttons on my phone. So, a missed performance, womdigious pain ... but one encouraging sign: no coughing from about 20:00 to 23:30! A little tickle now, but down in the "maybe I can squash this with albuterol and menthol" range. Now if I can convince my body to get back to sleep again in time to wake up early enough to throw instruments in the car and head up to Darkover for the Playford dance in the morning, maybe the next twenty hours won't such as much as the last forty.

Still not really sure about playing woodwinds -- will have to see just how well I'm breathing tomorrow -- but if other melody instruments make it, I can stick to guitar and bass.

If I'm not coughing in the morning then I'm probably also not contagious, right?

QotD

2009-11-27T10:26:39Z

"Don't think of documentation as time taken away from developing a product; think of it as time spent figuring out what exactly you're developing. Documentation is as much part of the final product as anything else; without documentation, a product is inaccessible to users." -- Peter Seebach, 2004-02-10

Up and Down

2009-11-27T09:11:37Z

The flu roller-coaster continues. After a somewhat promising Wednesday (I didn't feel well enough to go to rehearsal, but if the next day had been as much better than Wednesday as Wednesday had been better than Tuesday, Thanksgiving dinner might have been doable), my Thursday was rather worse. Coughing more often and more uncomfortably, sleepy, achy, and queasy. Didn't make it to family Thanksgiving in Montgomery County (where there'd be at least one person whom it would be Very Bad to infect with what I've had). Didn't even make it next door -- fell asleep around the time things were starting up there, and was probably coughing too much to reasonably go be around a bunch of other people. I was feeling rather out-of-it most of the day anyhow.

So today and Saturday remain uncertain. I'll have to see how I'm doing this afternoon. If nothing else, I'll need to get out to buy more cough syrup again.

I've found more cat vomit (last night, Perrine threw up on my camera -- eww -- this after I found a chunky puddle in the hallway and vomit over the side of the litter box; now I found dried mess on the stairs). Either she's got a tummy bug, or the different brand of cat food disagrees with her; not sure which. (She acted as though she liked this food, before she started throwing up.) Wondering how many more messes I haven't discovered yet. Bleah. (She hasn't sneezed since the day I posted about her having multiple sneezing fits, FWIW.)

Playford@Darkover

2009-11-27T08:44:31Z

I have set lists for the Playford and Regency dances at Darkover. The Regency music will be the same as the last few years; if there's a chance you'll be able to play for the Playford dance (11:00 Saturday morning), email me and I'll send you the PDF of this year's music. Likewise if you can do the Regency ball (5PM Saturday) and don't have last year's music handy.

I'm not sure I'll get a chance to print copies, so the more folks who can print the music and bring a copy, the better.

QotD

2009-11-26T10:26:44Z

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" -- Charles M. Schulz (b. 1922-11-26, d. 2000-02-12)

To those celebrating it today, Happy Thanksgiving!

QotD

2009-11-25T10:26:43Z

"Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they're just privileges. And privileges can be taken away." -- quixote @ Shakesville, 2009-11-08 [ thanks to realinterrobangfor pointing it out]

Recruiting Darkover Musicians

2009-11-24T21:22:20Z

This coming weekend is Darkover. As usual, I'm looking for musicians who'll be there, to play in pick-up bands for the Playford dance (11:00 Saturday morning) and the Regency ball (17:00 Saturday evening). I don't have a set list yet. (I'll post again when I do.)

In other Darkover news: The Homespun Ceilidh Band will be playing for the costume(optional) ball on Friday night, and a concert Saturday at 16:00.

Breathing better but not yet up to a woodwind solo

2009-11-24T11:54:17Z

Doing better; still weak, still coughing, not needing cough syrup quite as often, and sleeping more than an hour at a time. Hoping this is really the final stage of this ick, since I've already had a couple rounds of "I'm starting to feel better; oh no, I'm worse" already over the past couple of weeks.

Having lynsaurus and Sheepie bring me supplies helped a great deal. (Some overlap, but no waste as a result of the duplication -- though I was startled by the intimidating number of eggs Sheepie left in my fridge when I woke up and saw what she'd brought. I thought the second loaf of bread might be an oops, but I've been craving bread the past few days and toast is pretty easy on the stomach, so that turned out to be a good thing.) I am grateful to both for the help, and hope I infected neither of you.

I don't usually bother with whole oranges, most often dealing with that fruit in the form of juice. Gonna have to remember this for next time: orange slices are a lot less harsh on an already sore throat than gulping OJ is.

At some point I should figure out what the key ingredient in Tic-Tacs is that helps open up my airway (at least in the original flavour and the wintergreen ones).

If I'm up to it, I've got a lot on my plate this week. HCB rehearsal Wednesday, probably a family thing Thursday (though I've not heard anything yet), then performances Friday and Saturday at Darkover. I've been warned that if what I've had really is hamthrax, it'll be a while before I get much stamina back (and given my perpetual spoon-deficit anyhow, that'll likely be true for me even if this has been Ordinary Flu), so I'm rather nervous about trying too hard on the first bits and falling down on the later bits. But first things first ... and first is to see whether the next twenty four hours show as much improvement as the last fifteen or so, or whether this is just another undulation in the symptom roller-coaster that I'm sick and tired of.

So: still breathing, thanks (to a rather significant degree) to medicines brought by dear friends; and hoping to be well enough to perform at Darkover this coming weekend. Wish me luck.

QotD

2009-11-24T10:26:37Z

From the BBC television program Waking the Dead, episode "Deathwatch: part 1" (written by Stephen Davis):

Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd: (played by Trevor Eve)	"History as conspiracy or cockup. For you it's conspiracy."

Graham Barker: (played by William Armstrong)	"I'll tell you what my theory is ..."

Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd:	"Oh, the Barker theory of history!"

Graham Barker:	"It's both. It's always a conspiracy to conceal a cock-up."

QotD

2009-11-23T10:26:39Z

"To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.

"Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized."

-- Thomas Paine (b. 1737-02-09[*], d. 1809-06-08), Agrarian Justice (written 1795, published 1797)

[*] In the calendar in use at the time: 1736-01-29. The Gregorian calendar was adopted by Great Britain and her colonies during Paine's lifetime, in 1752.)

QotD

2009-11-22T10:26:39Z

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2008-04-17:

"Fifteen per cent of the population believe the Moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona and somewhat fewer still believe the Earth is flat. I think they all get together with the global warming deniers on a Saturday night and party." -- Al Gore, former U.S. vice-president and environmentalist, in an interview with Metro.

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/interviews/article.html?in_article_id=19734&in_page_id=11]

(submitted to the mailing list by Z.D.Hora)

QotD

2009-11-21T10:26:46Z

"The word 'Internet' has been officially changed to 'Cat Video Delivery System.' CVDS is fine on second reference." -- FakeAPStyleBook on Twitter, 2009-11-09

[Thanks to geekchick for pointing out this usesr.]

Recycling a line that got a chuckle on the phone

2009-11-20T20:15:41Z

That scratchy feeling in my throat tells me that it's time to refill my bladder from the tea-kettle.

QotD

2009-11-20T10:26:37Z

[Today is the eleventh annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. It's a long list.]

"In an interview with Edge News, Lt. Brett Persons, LGBT liaison for the Metropolitan Police Department, denied that the nation's capital has seen an increase in antitransgender violence, but added that trans individuals 'tend to be a community at risk for victimization all the time -- and that's a sad statement.'" -- from "Trans Violence Up in Nation's Capital?", The Advocate, 2009-09-17

Last night on Twitter, Lila Kittleman pointed out, "Every three days, someone is murdered for being transgendered. That's a sickening statistic," and vos-latina clarified that a bit with, "actually, its more than one murder of a trans woman every two days. that we know about. That somebody even noticed."

"Underreporting from official statistics leaves the issue in the hands of media outlets, which have historically been known for problems identifying victims' genders through using incorrect names and pronouns." -- Joseph Erbentraut, "Violence Against the Transgendered Only Getting Worse", 2009-09-29</a> [An example: in the first case Erbentraut mentioned, the broad-daylight murder of Ty'lia Mack and wounding of another trans woman (not named by the police to protect her as a witness), the victims were initially described in news reports as "transgender men", and Ms. Mack was referred to mostly by her (male) birth name, the opposite of what the AP Style Guide dictates. One news outlet, after being criticized for this, claimed that they had simply copied the wording the police had used; the police emphatically denied that they had ever described the victims that way.]

"As in the case of Paulina Ibarra, the lives of transgender victims are often ignored until a more culturally sensational aspect of the crime surfaces, as it did in the August stabbing death of the East Los Angeles Latina transwoman when a known parole jumper surfaced as a 'person of interest' in the investigation. Until then, Ibarra's brutal murder was largely neglected, even by the LGBT press, and her life has been reduced to a string of seamy innuendoes and a few glam photos." -- De Sube, 2009-11-18

"The victims are often viewed as not worthy of the level of attention that they deserve, and that's where activism needs to come in." -- Michael Silverman, quoted in "How the Gay Community Is Complicit in Trans Violence", by Joseph Erbentraut, 2009-10-05

Taking all of this out of the abstract, statistical, legal, sociological, and political spheres, to look at it in a more personal way, here are two tweets from Allyson Robinson, 2009-11-19:

"Waiting for flight, guy chats me up. Asks me to call him. Undeterred when I say I'm married; tells me he is too.

"...and all the while I'm thinking, 'This is how so many anti-trans hate crimes start.'"

And finally:

"Stop killing us. Hate us if you must, ignore us, don't talk to us--look the other way. Just stop killing us." -- Matt Kailey, Tranifesto, 2009-11-19

QotD

2009-11-19T10:26:40Z

"The personal is the political. Even if some people born with transsexualism or transgenderism can hide it and stay in the closet at great emotional cost and in doing so amass a lot of male privilege there is very little in this world to compare with coming out trans for hitting the down button on the mobility elevator." -- Suzan, 2009-07-09

[Yes, I realize this quote by itself glosses over the existence of trans men. The essay it was taken from is specifically about women.]

QotD

2009-11-18T10:26:39Z

"I always felt like no one understood me and when I ran away to Hollywood I found other [trans] kids who were like me and faced many of the issues and hardships that I was dealing with, A lot of us had to do sex work to put a roof over our heads and food in or bellies. In this cycle, I met a few people who later became good friends of mine.

"So imagine how traumatic it was for me to hear one of my friends screaming for help as someone chased her down and brutally slashed her throat and killed her. Imagine how saddened I was to hear years later that another one of my girlfriends who was so kind and childlike was shot in the head and dumped on the side of the road like garbage."

-- Stefanie Rivera, 2009-11-17

QotD

2009-11-17T10:26:39Z

"Let's make the record clear: there is virtually no women's space extant today. Michfest is not women's space, nor would it be even if trans women were allowed -- it's cis, white, middle class, able women's space. When one group controls a space or institution, when only its members' voices, concerns, and perspectives are relevant to the determination and organization of that space -- that is to say, when that group 'owns' the space -- it is their space, regardless of who else may enter. So when allies to trans women demand our inclusion without simultaneously demanding that that space be accountable to us -- including that trans & cis women be equally in charge of what constitutes women's space and feminism -- they are not demanding fundamental change, only a softer supremacy." -- Cedar, abstract of "Beyond Inclusion", Taking Up Too Much Space, 2008

Checking In

2009-11-16T21:08:08Z

In the wee hours the throat pain and coughing diminished enough that I could stop gargling with spirits and just use very hot, very lemony tea to sooth it. (Basically piping hot strong lemonade with a token trace of other flavours, really.) Today I'm in much less pain but still breathing very shallowly and trying not to yawn lest I start a coughing fit, and cannot lie on my back. So I guess I'm back to about where I was late Saturday. Might manage to drag myself out for more cough syrup (and lemon juice!) later, depending on how I feel about standing/walking/driving.

One thing about sugar substitutes is that they don't seem to have any throat-soothing effects -- sugar-free cough syrup works well enough anyhow because of the drugs in it (and since the regular stuff tastes so vile to begin with, I don't see making it taste a little worse as being a big deal), but sugar-free Ricola cough drops don't work quite as well as the with-sugar ones, and the hot-lemonade trick works better with sugar or honey (though when it comes to flavour alone, I make lemonade sweetened half with stevia and half with sucralose). So between sucking on a lot of cough drops, sugary hot homemade throat-soothers, and consuming about as much whisky yesterday as would normally last me a month, month and a half (more than 400 ml I think, looking at what's left in the bottle), my blood sugar is staying a bit high. At the moment I'm considering being able to breathe a higher priority, but I'll be happier when I can breathe and swallow comfortably and bring those blood glucose numbers down, all at the same time.

I haven't heard Perrine sneeze today, so maybe yesterday was just random after all. *whew*

I'm used to having strength available but at the cost of pain if I use it: I can lift that but it's going to hurt; I can carry all of these but I won't be able to move tomorrow or the day after; that sort of thing. Being really weak, not being able to exert force no matter how hard I push, even when I decide it's worth the pain, is awfully frustrating. Looking forward to that symptom going away, as well.

Still absolutely no clue what the shooting was about on Friday, whether anybody was hurt, or whether the police have a suspect. Took a closer look at the bullet hole in my neighbour's fender, and had the urge to mount funky lighting in it so it'd look like a peephole into a furnace ... or a laser diode so on foggy days it'd look like a gun port for an energy weapon. Pretty sure that neighbour would think I was nuts, so not going to mention these ideas to her.

QotD

2009-11-16T10:26:49Z

[Because of what's coming up on Friday, I'm going to lean on a theme this week.]

"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society." -- the Supreme Court of Nepal, ordering that country's government to enact laws to guarantee the rights of gay LBGT people, 2007-12-21

[And yes, I'll permit myself the obvious editorial comment here. That's the entire 'agenda' right there in a nutshell: that we're people and deserve to enjoy the same protections of our human rights as other people do, and to not have governments or societies sanction discrimination against us merely for being or appearing G, B, L, T, I, or Q.]

Chapter N+1, in which I complain about still being ill

2009-11-16T03:22:26Z

Thought I was doing better yesterday; am doing much worse today. Didn't see downturn coming, and bought too little cough syrup. Cough is somewhat 'productive' but feels like course-sandpaper-coated-with-Tabasco dry cough. Whisky somewhat effective as throat-anaesthetic, a little less effective as cough-suppressant; drunk-dizzy every bit as uncomfortable and unwelcome as flu-dizzy. %bleah% *pout* [Typing sucks; backspacing a whole lot; wonder how many typos will slip past anyhow. YUCK. Don't like feeling like this.] Worried about Perrine: multiple sneezing fits between 15:00 and 19:00; know H1N1 is transmissible to cats ... not convinced that's what I have (timetable matches but a bunch of symptoms missing), but worried I may have given her whatever I do have. Hoping very hard that that's not the case -- no clue what to do about it if so, short of asking someone to driver to the vet and begging for donations to cover the bill; really really want this to just be winter-dryness related random sneeziness and not a serious kitty infection. No sneezing since 19:00, therefore hopefull.

Frustrated as all hell. Got stuff I want to do and other stuff I need to have done. Between sick-dizzy and whisky-dizzy, most ain't happening. And since drunk-dizzy feels just like fever-dizzy to me, this is a seriously unfun sensation. (No fever apparent on very-well-washed darkroom thermometer, but dizinness appeared well before application of spirits and temperature sensation has been intermittently wonky.) And can't just retreat into sleep, as coughing keeps waking me. Not expecting solutions, nor a big pity-party, but did feel a need wto whine to an audience with a larger English vocabulary and understadingof Grammar than my darling kitty Perriner can muster.

Anybody nearby feel like dropping off a care package? Priorities are cough syrup (with dextromethorphan, without pseudoephederine, don't care one way or the other about guifenesin), cat food (Nutro indoor preferred), Chloraseptic (or store-brand equiv.) throat spray, lemon juice, whisky (medicinal use, so this is not the time for wish-I-could-afford-it stuff like Balvenie or Oban; go for Canadian Mist), vegetable bouillon (is there any other brand than Knorr locally?), Tic-Tacs (wintergreen best original-flavour okay; they seem to help open my windpipe a little and my sinuses a little more), and Zone bars, from most to least urgent. If so, I've got about $40 in my checking account to repay you with. (I'm okay for tonight; tomorrow night is when things start looking a little iffy. Though the cough syrup would come in handy whenever.)

Perrine is currently stretched out on my waist, left hip, and left thigh, not sneezing. This is a good thing. Except that I need to get up soon to pee.

And then, to make another cup of cofee, tea, or broth (ain't decided which yet). And see whether that calms the soreness in my throat enough to let me fall asleep instead of feeling like I'm choking.

Does this smell right?

2009-11-15T12:41:41Z

A question that came to mind this morning: if Federal authorities tried to subpoena a newspaper's subscriber list and all records of newsstand sales for a particular day, would that be considered legit? Would it kick up a storm of "WTFingF?" reactions? Would it be treated as a fairly ordinary event? Or would it be calmly fought in a barrage of motions and countermotions as folks tried to pin down exactly where the line of reasonableness is?

(I honestly don't know the answer. I was going to start out by using that question as a rhetorical device, but then I realized that I don't actually know what the response would be if the Washington Post were ordered to turn over the names, addresses, SSNs, and bank account numbers of everyone who'd bought a copy of yesterday's paper or so much as checked the headlines on washingtonpost.com. Clues, please?)

The reason I'm wondering:

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

[...]

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Is it just me, or does the idea of shipping every single packet by way of the onion router and using anonymized payment methods wherever possible and pseudonymous email accounts, seem just a bit more reasonable than it did a week ago? Maybe not because I expect my own government to find anything they'd bother to use against me in this kind of fishing expedition, but just to frustrate such attempts in the future (uh, assuming a large majority of other Internet users adopted the same habits, that is).

Maybe all of this will look very different to me after I've slept (or after my body finally vanquishes this damned virus and I can breathe properly again). Or maybe not. At the moment I'm finding the idea of serving a news site such a broad subpoena somewhat disconcerting.

I should probably disclose that I haven't read that PDF yet and am going on the description of it at the site I linked to.

QotD

2009-11-15T10:26:38Z

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2008-02-16:

"Il y a plus affaire a interpreter les interpretations, qu'a interpreter les choses, et plus de livres sur les livres, que sur autre subject: nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. Tout fourmille de commentaires : d'autheurs, il en est grand cherte." -- Michel de Montaigne, Essais III 13 (published in 1588)

[The submitter's translation: "There's more activity interpreting interpretations than interpreting facts, and more books about books than on any other subject: all we do is footnote one another. Everything is teeming with commentaries: there's a great shortage of authors."]

(submitted to the mailing list by Jean Rogers)

QotD

2009-11-14T10:26:40Z

"Kids are so incredibly resiliant, and they are willing to be pushed if you can figure out the right strategies, and you know your content well -- because you can't [...] kids know a phony. But when you're real with them, and when you push them to be the best they can be, and when they get it, it is the most satisfying professional moment in life. When you see that -- when you see a sparkle in a kid's eye, when you see one of your kids making that connection, there's nothing better. And that's what I loved about teaching." -- Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, interviewed on the PBS television program, In The Life, episode, "Lifesavers" (aired, at least in my area, in the wee hours of 2008-11-10).

A Few Minutes After Thirteen O'Clock

2009-11-13T18:48:27Z

I was asleep. Then suddenly I wasn't. I was unasleep in a distinctively "did I just hear a loud *bang* or did I dream it?" manner. Which was quickly resolved as I heard s succession of additional *bangs*^[1], a pause, and then several more, with curious !tinks!^[2] between some pairs of *bangs*.

I wasn't sure what I'd heard, but I knew it wasn't an empty semi going #boom!# over the dip in the intersection. And was -- am -- a bit disconcerted that ... well, I haven't spent much time around firearms and haven't heard many spent cartridges hitting the ground, but my musician's ear says that if I wanted to reproduce that particular !tink! in a recording studio, I'd start by dropping hollow brass cylinders about a quarter inch by an inch, onto concrete, and then start varying the size and material based on how close that first attempt was.

Unsure of whether what I heard was gunfire or some other explosipercussive sound, I was concerned enough to decide that the police ought to figure it out, and called 911. A few minutes later, there was a police car stopped slantwise in front of a mobility-services van; a few minutes after that, an ambulance appeared, and a minute farther on, folks bunched up on the sidewalk at the corner, watching. I don't see any brass from my window -- if it was spent casings making the !tink! sound, would I have heard those from around the corner? They sounded much closer than that.

Anyhow, I'm awake now (far too soon, since breathing difficulty kept me awake until three hours ago). I need to fetch more cough syrup and a few other things, but I don't think I'll try to get moving just yet. Maybe after the police/medical vehicles are out of the way. (Not that I really want to get dressed and go out at all.)

This particular kind of excitement, I really don't need any day.

[1] Well, more of a *po'angp* or maybe a *pANGop*.

[2] Most definitely !tink!, about halfway between !tik! and !tingk!.

ETA @ 13:50 -- Removing any lingering uncertainty as to what I heard ... now yellow tape surrounds the whole intersection, a police car blocks my street at the far end of the block as well, and a bunch of uniformed officers are walking up and down in the street and on the sidewalk, staring at the ground. So I guess the !tink! sounds I heard were from my street, not around the corner, after all. (*Bangs* echo too much to really be sure anyhow, in the city.) I guess the brass just isn't shiny enough for me to spot it from a second-floor window on an overcast day.