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This one is way more addictive.

As mentioned in Open Bar, I just had a marriage. Will post stuff in this hurr thread about it and provide pics when they arrrive in the next few days. This is the bridal party:



This is the story we used to explain our meeting to our guests, many of whom were kind of expecting a traditional wedding in a church (it was at a wildlife sanctuary and someone read a poem during the ceremony about one of us travelling back in time to have a three-way with past us.)

Now this is a story all about how
These two cats wound up exchanging vows
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
and check out our introduction unless it's TL;DR

The Fringe Bar, corner Cuba and Vivian Street
Was where Josh and MJ happened to meet
They saw each other at the bar and it was instant attraction
To be fair, though, they were pissed, so maybe that's the reaction

Then a cougar in the corner who was up to no good
Started making trouble in the neighbourhood.
Flirted for a moment and then MJ declared,
"Okay, he can walk you home, but don't take him upstairs!"

MJ fell into a taxi, to Josh's great sorrow,
But she called out of the window, "Come meet my mother tomorrow!"
Both of them delighted with this invitation
They proceeded with a weekend of constant inebriation

Seven weeks later they were living together
And two months after that, they said "let's make it forever!"
So they're planning a shindig and it won't be a flop,
Because Beastie Boys know when to let the beat...


...drop.

Highlight of the day, besides the getting married part, was our skilfully edited first dance which opened with slow dance in the same key as Never Gonna Give You Up, which it progressed into. Like, five out of fifty guests understood they were being rickrolled.

This is Signora and I, along with my parents and sister. You can WOMP any of us.

Has anyone heard of this? I've just started putting together instructions for it.

It's an android app by microsoft which allows you to set up "recipes" in JavaScript to program your phone to recognise events and respond with behaviours, examples being "When one of my contacts calls during a meeting, txt them with 'I'm in a meeting'" or "When my battery reaches 15% txt my wife 'My battery is about to die'" or "When I am driving, turn bluetooth on and connect to my car" or "When I am within 200 metres of a location FourSquare identifies as 'mexican food' and it is the evening, alert me."

Seems like it could be made to do some pretty handy stuff and you don't need to know how to write the recipes, you can give existing recipes your own conditions to customise them.

Read this today about issues with feminism being exclusionary to newcomers which touches on a number of "WELL FINE I WON'T BE A FEMINIST IF YOU WON'T LET ME" issues that we've run into in conversations here.

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/09/guest-blog-reflections-on-contemporary-feminist-censuring/

So I'm thinking today about how to communicate feminist ideas and encourage communication of those ideas without tone policing or running afoul of the trope in which people rejecting the "women should know their place, be polite about things or shut up" meme are told to present their objections in a polite way or shut up.

My full response to the person who Faceblag'd this follows but contains a lot of hierarchy explanation which is already pretty well covered here. Also, I made a nod to PD but overstated the existence of hierarchy here to support my point (as well as making up what PD's purpose is). Don't freak out.

I think it's an issue you run into in any community/discipline. And excuse me if any of this long ramble accidentally mansplain feminist concepts, I'm trying to just focus on conflict within disciplines. As soon as a subject has enough specialist knowledge, jargon, memes which are only accessible to those who are well read on it, it becomes very easy for a hierarchy to emerge within it based on who knows, or seems to know, the most.

There are hierarchies in Atheism, hierarchies in Anarchism. I contribute to a community whose purpose is, superficially, to identify bias and status hierarchies and modify how we communicate ideas taking these into account and there's a "who is best at observing hierarchies" hierarchy.

Especially within intensely academic contexts, *it feels good to show that you know lots of stuff* and I think eventually it naturally follows that you can use things others don't know to highlight the knowledge you have which is extra valuable. You build a little collection of tidbits that you can share with people who don't have those facts in their collection. It's an adversarial way to interact with one another, but in most cases IRL that conflict is disguised under layers of civility. Less so on the internet. And this is where, I think, the appearance of knowledge becomes important because if you can effectively shut down another speaker on the subject, you can improve your perception of your own status and coax from your brain the pleasant chemicals which come along with that... and feminism has an arsenal of opportunities to tell someone they're using the wrong word or not taking an affected minority into consideration which, while very important subjects for education on, can also be used destructively.

Feminist discussion has had a lot of time to build up a history that newcomers may not be aware of. There are a number of feminist tropes which are based on common reactions to feminism and there's a danger that because the more educated party has dealt with these so many times and is well-learned on the reasons why certain reactions are inappropriate, for them to react with frustration at people who don't seem to get it because they aren't working with the same knowledge-base.

I think it's especially upsetting in feminism because criticisms based in "why didn't you already know this thing I know" ignore the fact that we're talking about a system which is largely invisible to those we're explaining it to and that if your first experience learning about the impact of this system is a hostile interaction on the internet, you're likely to be less receptive to it in future. There's the added complication of needing to be careful not to tell people who are negatively impacted by patriarchy every day to present their opinions of it in a user-friendly way. It's a matter of finding a balance between (totally justifiable) outrage and communicating the reasons for it to those for whom these effects aren't their lived experience.

[Self-assembling swarmbots]

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-inventor-unleashes-hundreds-of-self-assembling-cube-swarmbots

The experts said it couldn't be done. But research scientist John Romanishin of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has created  M-Blocks — cube robots with no external moving parts.

Despite that, they can magically climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, snap together into different shapes, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces.

Self-assembling swarmbots

Imagine hordes of swarming microbots that can self-assemble, like the "liquid steel" androids in the movie "Terminator II."

Armies of these mobile cubes could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during emergencies. These cubes could assemble into different types of furniture or heavy equipment as needed. And they could swarm into environments hostile or inaccessible to humans, diagnose problems, and then reorganize themselves to provide solutions.

They could even be special-purpose cubes: containing cameras, or lights, or battery packs, or other equipment that the mobile cubes could transport.

How M-Blocks work



The trick: a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute. When the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. And on each edge of an M-Block and on every face, cleverly arranged permanent magnets allow any two cubes to attach to each other.

To compensate for its static instability, the researchers' robot relies on some ingenious engineering. On each edge of a cube are two cylindrical magnets, mounted like rolling pins.

When two cubes approach each other, the magnets naturally rotate, so that north poles align with south, and vice versa. Any face of any cube can thus attach to any face of any other.

The cubes' edges are also beveled, so when two cubes are face to face, there's a slight gap between their magnets. When one cube begins to flip on top of another, the bevels, and thus the magnets, touch. The connection between the cubes becomes much stronger, anchoring the pivot. On each face of a cube are four more pairs of smaller magnets, arranged symmetrically, which help snap a moving cube into place when it lands on top of another.

A cube army

The MIT researchers are currently building an army of 100 cubes, each of which can move in any direction, and designing algorithms to guide them. "We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand," Romanishin says.

Romanishin, robotics professor Daniela Rus, and postdoc Kyle Gilpin will present a paper describing their new robots at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Japan in November.

Here's the bad news, Slim... and I hate to be the one to reach up into the fluffy white cloud in which your dreams play out but you can be as smart and rational and RIGHT as you damn well please but you're not going to convince anyone who doesn't already want to believe you.

You can have the facts behind you and a little bag of proofs that you're no doubt mighty proud of but unless you can tell a man of God that God's not watching in that secret little language that believers use to speak to each other, you haven't got a chance of being heard.

You can have a notebook full of observations and a commitment to the notion that scientific language communicating scientific evidence is the proper way to display the veracity of scientific notions but climate change denial is a POLITICAL POSITION and nobody is going to trust the kind of dodgy "science" that supports left-wing crackpottery.

These people are immune to your attempts at persuasion, making such attempts mere gestures of outrage and impotence at a target which is more often a decoy. A convenient approximation of your enemy image, an appropriate recipient for your pre-rehearsed disagreements and slogans and dismissals; all more designed to effect in you a happy self-righteous buzz than change in your target's worldview... and all the while you build yourself up into a frothing rage at the idea of a person who gets so invested in their stupid idea and their need to assert dominance to coax a high from the primitive dispensary built into their skulls... a frothing rage which contains, packaged within, an implication of superiority which fulfils your own needs as a primate by dismissing those of your foe.

But unless you can learn how to talk to these people in the secret little language they use to talk to each other, these ideas, whose propagation you believe necessary for the continuation of our species, are going to die with you.

Have you ever tried talking to someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum? Sweet merciful fuck those people are stupid. It's impossible to communicate with them and what they forget when they try to score points against US it that it was THEM who were responsible for all of the issues they're bringing up. I can lay out for these fuckers exactly how I've taken their position into consideration in forming mine so as to be fair about the whole thing and these silly pricks just ignore all of that and blurt out their one-sided arguments without regard for whether I've already successfully countered their points.

They're all totally drinking the kool-aid. It's unreasonable to expect me to maintain a polite approach in dealing with these shitnecks day in and day out. They're totally unwilling to compromise, so yeah, I'm a bit past being respectful of their stupid fucking arguments.

I'M NOT LISTENING TO THEM ANYMORE BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS.

They're liars and they're to blame for all of our woes. Fuck those people.

xkcd has got your number.


                                                                            ^You are this one^

http://imgur.com/a/eYOql

That is all.

They should just drink organic juice.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1309/S00864/fresh-and-local-to-get-through-poverty-challenge.htm

Fresh and local to get through poverty challenge

As hundreds of Kiwis embrace a spartan diet of lentils and rice for the Live Below the Line challenge this week, Ella Rose will be enjoying a wide variety of nutrient rich, locally sourced meals for her 5 days of living on just $2.25 a day. The artist, musician and campaigner has opted to work with Lyndal Jefferies who runs rEvolution juicing on Waiheke to prepare a comprehensive selection of energizing meals and healthy juices.

The Live Below the Line campaign is designed to focus the national spotlight on the hard choices faced by 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty. Participants spend 5 days below the poverty line as an act of solidarity and to raise funds for a range of leading charities.

Jefferies embraced the mission to prepare 5 days of food for just $11.25. rEvolution has built a loyal and growing base of customers with its model of fresh raw food & juices delivered to their homes. For Rose, the highly nutritious organic juices seemed an obvious place to turn to get through the extreme poverty challenge.

"Once I committed to taking the challenge, I knew I needed to work with rEvolution to get the right balance of healthy foods " said Rose, "The juices are so full of life and so energizing, I really welcomed the chance to benefit from Lyndal's extensive knowledge of affordable local food sources."

While highlighting the plight of the world's poor is a top priority, Rose says the challenge for her is about much more than starving yourself for a charity.
"We live in a world where the numbers of obese people now are greater than the number of people starving, a world where over a billion people are barely surviving on less than NZ$2.25 a day, and where 70% of the extreme poor are women and children," she said. "I see the challenge as an opportunity for me to make intelligent food choices and to reflect deeply on our relationship to health, nutrition, and our global food production and distribution systems."


For Rose, the challenge embodies the "Think Global, Act Local" motto and offers a chance to discuss positive ideas that challenge the status quo.
"I believe that our planet really is in need of a revolution, a revolution in consciousness about food, about health, and about fairness and resources," Rose said. "There is something seriously wrong in a world where mass obesity and malnourishment live side by side, where people with too much are killing themselves with food, and people with not enough, are trapped in a cycle of desperation."

Over 1500 people across the country have signed up to take the Live Below the Line challenge. Their experiences will prompt hundreds of conversations about extreme poverty and raise over $500,000 for 23 anti-poverty organizations.

Every day Ella will eat tangelos, apples, smoked fish lettuce wraps, apple pulp truffles and grain and seeds balls along with a daily Green Juice made from organically grown Kale, Cavolo Nero, Spinach, broccoli leaves, mint and apple and green smoothies made from Waiheke grown bananas.

Like Rose, the challenge has forced Jefferies to examine some of the wasteful elements of the food system.

"Plants like broccoli produce so many dark green nutrient rich leaves and they are usually thrown away," she said. "We can eat so much more of our plants than we realise."

Rose is raising funds for the Global Poverty Project, the organization that coordinates the Live Below the Line challenge.

"Extreme poverty can feel like a problem that is so far away and that we can't help solve," said Rose. "This experience of working with Lyndal, reflecting on industrial food systems, the resulting health problems and talking about local alternatives, these are insights that can have a huge impact in the developing world."

For Jefferies, who already runs her business with an ethical 'zero waste' policy, our whole relationship with food production and consumption is out of balance. She works closely with the local community on Waiheke to source her organic fruit and vegetables and to step away from supermarket food systems that consume expensive 'food miles' and often sell cheap food with little or no nutritional value. She is passionate about the health benefits of juicing and says that even on a limited diet that reflects the fiscal restrictions of the Live below the Line challenge, Rose should feel the benefits of not eating processed foods, refined carbohydrates, coffee, chocolate and other staples of the 'modern' diet.

Ella Rose will be living on just $2.25 a day for all food and drink from the 23rd-27th of September. To support her, please go to livebelowtheline.com/nz and search for her name. To find out more about rEvolution, please find them on Facebook: waihekejuicerevolution

APPARENTLY.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/the-first-gear-discovered-in-nature-15916433

Code Select Expand

:mybad:

For use when someone flips the fuck out and then realises they misinterpreted and want to go back to the conversation.

Before Discordia I was a mess of bad signal and conflict. I didn't know why I wanted truths, but I wanted them, and I was looking for them in all the usual places, by gathering up armfuls of books at my local library and then reading Carlos Castaneda in the parking lot while zonked out of my mind. The truths I found undermined my search for truth, questioned the utility of learning further and I didn't have the tools to give a good enough answer. This left me unable to justify further investigation. Solipsism set in and every day was absurdity, though I didn't have a name for it then. I had a little bit of Eris but I was suffering from a failure to grok and so could only unlock the most trivial functionality of Discordianism: word salad and tinfoil hats.

The world, as a whole, was overwhelmingly indifferent to me and my every action was a futile gesture that the world gave no acknowledgement to. On the hardest days, I couldn't recognise myself in the mirror and was distracted from sleep by how dissociated from myself I felt.

Starting in September 2007, through PD, I learned a series of lessons which I came to collectively consider "Discordia". The Black Iron Prison put the responsibility for maintaining my memeplex back on me. Still stuck on hippie shit and nihilism, I stepped sideways by adopting parts of Buddhism, addressing the misery of "nothing is real" by making it more peaceful than distressing. "Nothing is as it appears. All suffering is based on illusion". It's not quite right, but it was a step closer to being a functional person again.

PD introduced me to Areté and the idea of virtue. Some of the introductions PD was responsible for were as simple as book recommendations but the PD commentary has always been critical to my process for determining how to apply new information and models. This concept really resonated with me and through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, this was tied in quite nicely to Eastern ideas about virtue which I had already been exposed to. It reinforced the idea that I was responsible for my own evolution, finding balance.

PD also introduced me to Camus and Absurdism, which further reinforced the Areté meme through Camus' exploration of "men of measure" who beyond above all know their own limits. It also offered a bit more of a scientific background to these ideas, providing resources on the biological source of happiness and how that is informed by perception of social hierarchies, status and success.

Because of Discordia, which is the product of my interactions with all of you, I have the tools to recognise whatever status hierarchy is most useful for me to recognise in order to coax happiness out of my brain. In the early stages of my escape from bad signal, Discordia let me subscribe to a "whatever fucking works" set of beliefs and patch this as I outgrew these systems. These specifics were lessons Discordia taught me on top of the usual suspects of TFY,S and similar.

Despite the truth of every testimony we add to the newsfeed, this is really the healthiest and most rewarding community I've ever been a part of and my being a functioning person can be attributed to associating myself with the people that make up this Discord thing, even if sometimes it was only as a lurker.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6910934/15-hottest-sideboobs-at-the-vmas 

SO I TUMBL THROUGH THIS TUMBLR REMEMBERING BACK BEFORE THE INTERNET SOLD OUT
http://oneterabyteofkilobyteage.tumblr.com/

WE NEED A GIF OF ROGER TWERKING.

IF YOU HAVE TO ASK WHY, SPARKLE MOTION DOESN'T WANT OR NEED YOU.



THIS GIF NEEDS ROGER'S FACE ON IT.

THE OTHER FACE IS UP TO YOU.

IF YOU'RE A WIZARD, YOU WILL KEEP THE GORILLA'S MOUTH INVOLVED.

YOU HAVE TWENTY FOUR HOURS TO MEET MY DEMANDS.

http://gawker.com/a-stoned-sir-patrick-stewart-teaches-his-girlfriend-how-1213919634

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqW5upASa-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnE3uyj9Grg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lmF5b_t3PjA

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/people-who-highlight-minor-grammar-points-are-amazing-2013082378916

THE ability to spot a minor grammar error is proof that you are amazing, it has been confirmed.

Researchers at the Institute for Studies found that people who loudly exclaim about apostrophes and 'who versus whom' are actually better than everyone else.

Professor Henry Brubaker said: "In no way are any of these people vain, arsey pedants.

"Grammar perfectionists are both intellectually and morally superior to other types of human.

"The way they selflessly dedicate themselves to correct punctuation, for example by pointing out to the staff of a chip shop why the term 'chip's' is a sloppy obfuscation, confirms they are bold and righteous individuals.

"If grammar people just learned to let things go sometimes, where would we be as a civilisation? Just fighting in mud, probably."

56-year-old Roy Hobbs said: "Heaven forbid that my scrupulous attention to linguistic detail should be driven by intellectual vanity.

"The reason I loudly vocalise my frustration about a writer confusing 'that' and which' is because of my passion for good English.

"It's not that I want a crowded room to know how clever I am."

43-year-old pedant Mary Fisher said: "So we are 'generally better'? Better than whom? Better is a relative term.

"But perhaps you didn't know that."

That's what the reviewers are saying about...

ALTY: THE MOVIE

If I share the org structure of our intelligence service on Twitter based on all of the job descriptions attached to vacancy notices and (soon) LinkedIn and similar? Am I a terrorist now?

http://i.imgur.com/XPGsto2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/n1yPVuL.jpg

I've started a couple of threads intending to track my progress in developing with one programming language or another but I get easily distracted when, in the documentation for one language I've half learned, I see information about another language I'd like to learn more of, so these threads don't go anywhere useful.

In this thread, I am going to jump from one development topic to another with reckless abandon.

My only formal education in HTML/CSS was at intermediate school when I was 13 when I co-developed our school website with a friend of mine. I've made do with the knowledge from then with all web development efforts since but in approaching HTML5 and CSS3 figured I'd better put a bit of time and effort into learning what's changed and what is best practice now that we have to write pages which work on phones, tablets, smartwatches, laptops, widescreens, televisions and more, so I've jumped into code academy and finished their web fundamentals track, their javascript track and their jQuery track. I think I might start playing with HTML5 game development so I'm looking at what kind of game I might like to put together as a demo.

I've got this idea that I'm working on with a bird's eye view game where you play a person moving about a square (or a city if the game could handle such an increase of scale) which is populated with very basic NPCs who also just kind of wander about. Every character in the game carries with them a collection of beliefs. There will be background logic in the game dictating whether belief a is compatible/in conflict with belief b.

So you approach and NPC and engage in conversation with them. Depending on the compatibility of your beliefs, one of you might come away with a new belief, have one of your existing beliefs strengthened, or (more rarely) begin to question one of your beliefs. I'd also like to include a mechanic by which beliefs can be compared to reality as a randomly scripted event, where the character either increases their attachment to their belief, keeps their attachment and finds some way to explain away the evidence, or challenges their belief.

The dynamic I'm imaging is a system whereby if you manage to convert a bunch of characters to your belief, you can all just kind of mill about together and reject any intruding belief carriers, strengthening your beliefs by bouncing off each other in an echo chamber... and if you want to break down existing groups like this you have to approach those most susceptible to your character's combination of beliefs and start to convert the group from there.

While I keep thinking on that, I'll be reading into HTML5 game dev with a minimalist demo of this idea in mind, probably a bunch of circles bouncing off each other in a box... and post in this thread as I think more about it or if I get distracted by something else.

I'm temporarily entertaining the possibility that I'm wrong to dismiss people who identify as fairies or rocks or whatever and found this article interesting: http://gawker.com/5940947/from-otherkin-to-transethnicity-your-field-guide-to-the-weird-world-of-tumblr-identity-politics

Like a lot of teenagers and 20-somethings, "Eric Draven" used to keep a Tumblr. The microblogging platform has a strong community aspect, and it's easy to find people who like the same things — or are undergoing the same struggles — as you. There aren't many people undergoing the exact same struggles as Draven (a pseudonym taken from goth classic The Crow), though: unlike most teenagers and 20-somethings, Draven isn't, he claims, human. He might present as human, yes, but really he's a "fictive and otherkin who, in previous lives, has been a Deku Scrub and a dark elf." He's also "transethnic(Japanese) and andrognous [sic]."

What does this mean? An otherkin is a being born into the wrong body. Not just with the wrong parts, but as the wrong species: people who identify as otherkin believe that they are a wolves, or elves, or really any kind of being, born into a human body. (Furries, who focus on anthropomorphic animals and are known for dressing up, aren't the same thing as otherkin, many of whom don't dress up or change their appearances at all.) A fictive is like an otherkin where the true, internal identity is a fictional character — deku scrubs are tiny creatures from The Legend of Zelda series of video games. Transethnicity is this same phenomenon applied to ethnicity.

Draven, in other words, is a Japanese wood creature from The Legend of Zelda who was born into the body of a regular white kid.

The community of people who identify as otherkin is more than 30 years old (the term itself dates to 1990), but over the last decade or so, it's undergone an interesting shift, one that's put it in the spotlight and made it one of the most controversial communities on a number of online social networks — not just Tumblr, but Live Journal and the message board TV Tropes. Where the first generation of otherkin, birthed in the post-60s hippies-read-Lord of the Rings rise of nerd-dom (not coincidentally, the same psychic space that birthed phone phreaking and, in turn, computer hacking), seemed to align along the crystal-healing-Elfquest-comics axis of outsider subcultures — less about a biological or psychological identification than a kind of mystical or poetic connection — this new set of otherkin (or those claiming to be otherkin) has grafted the academic language of identity politics and social justice activism onto their experiences. In doing so, they've transformed what Nick Mamatas' 2001 Village Voice story, "Elven Like Me," saw as a kind of new-age Burning Man-style subculture into a semi-politicized identity group. (For more on the early history of otherkin here's a fascinating, extensively documented and footnoted "Otherkin Timeline".)

Being otherkin, to this group, isn't just about resisting technology or being in touch with nature (though these, and other fantasy and new age elements, still form a large part of otherkin culture) — it's about being marginalized, ignored, laughed at, and oppressed. It's like being transgender. And as this otherkin group has transformed its language and its focus, so too has its scope widened. Otherkin identities can encompass fictional characters. Or nonliving, inanimate objects. Or even multiple identities — some fictional, some animal, all of them occupying a single body. Out of this widening comes new words: cisspecies. Transethnicity. Transablism. Transfat.

The Best of Tumblr.TXT

"trans privilege is having sex reassignment surgery be a real thing, while nowhere offers 'species reassignment surgery' for otherkin" — 7/21/12

"You know what? The fact that I identify as a member of an alien species from a webcomic is the least of my problems" — 7/13/12

"this kind of gets my goat(sorry goatkin)" — 8/15/12

"if somebody does genuinely identify as a pizza, then yes, that identity is valid" — 7/4/12

"My parents don't understand that I'm not always in control of my body. A toddler and a flying dog CANNOT do work intended for an adult human" — 7/27/12

"when privileged folks feel the need to talk about their offline and local friends, there is a problem. that's bigoted against cyberculture" — 7/8/12

"[re: otherkin oppression] i would most certainly be denied a job in most if not all places, especially if i meowed" — 7/28/12

"When you limit us to only 250 posts/day you will find that you have gone too far in your autocratic methods of controlling your bloggers" — 8/10/12

Tumblr, which has a huge, passionate social justice community — thousands of people interested in feminism, gay rights, trans rights and other interrelated issues — is a natural fit for this group of otherkin. (Other, similar communities exist on LiveJournal and the TV Tropes message boards.) Like other Tumblr users who are members of marginalized groups, otherkin start their own blogs and write about their identities and the axieties and injustices of daily life (one says she was fired for being otherkin, others talk about coming out to their friends and family). They trade support and sympathy. And they fight with people who don't buy it — more often than not, people who they think should be broadly sympathetic to their goals.

"If you follow any blogs that have anything to do with leftism, feminism, etc., there's probably someone that's going to reblog someone else that feels the need to pay lip service to people who identify as inanimate objects," the guy behind Tumblr.TXT, a Twitter account dedicated to reproducing some of the site's most outlandish claims, told me over email. (He asked not to be identified by name: "I'm mocking people who belong in insane asylums and don't want to end up being tortured in a basement by people in fox costumes.")

As anyone who spent time at a liberal-arts college knows, communities oriented around openness and acceptance can have trouble figuring out exactly where the boundaries are. "The relationship between legitimate social justice activists and delusional weirdos is ever-changing and gives fascinating insights into how activist communities work," Tumblr.TXT says. There's a sharp division between the activists who believe their ethical and ideological commitments require them to accept to be open to any professed identity — and those who think that in the absence of structural oppression, cisgendered white people claiming to be gay Korean cats aren't just playing fantasy games but also undermining the strength of the movement by taking it to a bizarre conclusion.

It's an interesting argument. (For the record, I admire the balls it takes to claim that distinctions between species, or between fiction and non-, are socially-constructed in the same way gender is.) But it's also kind of a moot point. A search of the "otherkin" or "transethnicity" tags on Tumblr reveals a lot more social justice bloggers complaining about otherkin than actual otherkin. The Tumblr otherkin subculture is pretty small, and seems to be made up mostly of teenagers and 20-somethings who, if they'd never read bell hooks, would be casting spells in the woods behind the 7-11. Some of them are clearly sick or hurt in other ways: Kavita, whose legendarily long list of identity categories listed her as "human privileged for all of the following: nonhuman, non/human, otherkin, furry, cat, catkin, catperson, catbeing, cathuman, humancat, cat, ostricat, catostrich," deleted her Tumblr earlier this week and wrote "I'm not really okay, but I'm trying to get help and figure things out and be better."

And then there are the trolls. "I've seen people identifying as tubes of toothpaste or as Eva Braun, but you never know if you're looking at an elaborate troll," says Tumblr.TXT. "Tumblr user prince-koyangi, a 16-year-old Canadian white girl who identified as a Korean cat, turned out to be a troll account co-run by three people. They had me convinced it was a real person and a lot of transethnic otherkin pledged their support as the character got bombarded with anonymous messages accusing her of being a delusional racist. There really is no limit to what people are willing to accept as a valid identity and that makes it hard to determine which accounts are real."

"Eric Draven," I'm pretty sure, is real; he has a long, uniquely weird history across several different sites, and has posted pictures of himself. He's one of the Tumblr's (and TV Tropes') most notorious otherkin, and a figure of controversy even within the unbelievably tolerant otherkin community. (His entry on AnOtherWiki, the otherkin wiki, writes that he "has attracted significant negative attention to the community.") Draven claimed to be a pedophile (but said he'd never act on his attraction to young girls "unless I was warped to some anime world where lolis [Lolitas] totally had sex all the time or something"), for a while insisted that he'd fought in the Sino-Japanese war as a kobold (a kind of goblin), and apparently told people that a classmate, Stephanie, was the reincarnation of a "willing slave" he'd taken in a past life.

When I first came across Draven a few months ago, I emailed him several times in the hopes he'd answer some questions. He never responded. (Neither did many of the otherkin I asked to interview.) Last month, he took down his blog; what's left of it is mostly text snippets scattered across Tumblr in the posts of people yelling at him for being an antisocial or stupid or misogynist. Which he was. But like a lot of Tumblr users, he's also young, and silly, and stupid. When you feel like your identity, or your life projects, are under attack, it's easy lash out disproportionately. But Draven mostly just seemed like a weird kid. "I no longer believe I am a kobold or time elemental. Rather, I think I am a fictive who's lived multiple lives, and certain things from those lives were in my subconscious and gave me the ideas I previously had," he wrote in July. "I feel so silly. I am not yet entirely sure..."

A Field Guide to Otherkin on Tumblr

Otherkin
Definition: An otherkin is someone born into the wrong body. Not just slightly wrong, like a few wrong body parts, but completely wrong: into the wrong species entirely. Therians, an otherkin subgroup, for example, are wolves born into human bodies, but the scope is fairly wide; some people identify not just as non-human but non-animal, or even as inanimate objects, natural and unnatural. That being said, "[t]he mechanism for a non-human soul ending up in a human body is supposedly random," a popular, anonymously-written glossary reads, "but people always seem to end up with an animal or mythical creature heavily featured in TV shows and video games."
Quote: "I'd been awakened as a therian for almost three years and I had gotten my first job at the local superstore. [...I was exhausted and] I experienced strong feelings of fight or flight, which resulted in some vocalizations, particularly growling and snarling, and a stooped, digitigrade posture as I continued to fight with myself as best I could internally to regain my composure and finish my job (I was just too tired to fight my instincts). It really felt like my human mask was crumbling through my fingers. [...] I told [my manager] about my nonhuman identity and the basics of what shifting is [...]. She didn't really ask me any questions about it, but gave a look that I can only interpret as an 'I'm not so sure you're well' look, and then she suggested to me that maybe this job wasn't the right one for me.'" — Not Quite There

From Otherkin to Transethnicity: Your Field Guide to the Weird World of Tumblr Identity Politics
"Me in my full form. I think it turned out fairly good." [from Le Maison de Violettes]
Fictive
Type: Fictives are like otherkin, but their true identity is a fictional character, often from a series of fantasy novels or a Japanese role-playing game.
Quote: "This is a blog about what I feel and experience as a fictive singlet ('singlet' as in not a headmate; it's just me here). [...] anyone wanting my personal definition or education as to what 'fictive' means to me will only be redirected to this page. (It's a term that I dislike; 'out-sourced' is acceptable but doesn't feel right either and is less well-known. If I did choose a label, it would probably be 'mediakin'.) Whatever you want to call it, I am a person who identifies as Orihara Izaya of the light-novel/anime/manga series Durarara!! despite it being a 'work of fiction'." — Heads or Tails?

Multiple Systems
Type: "Multiple systems" is the phrase used by people who believe their body contains more than one identity — several human identities, or several otherkin identities, or a mix. Often their Tumblrs are written from several different accounts, each one representing that particular identity.
Quote: "We refer to ourselves as Raychel's Library. We all share an otherspace called The Library! My front is a cisgendered female who shares a queerplatonic bond with her soul partner, Starrkat, who is also a multiples system. My system currently includes 3 members: Raychel (my lovely front!), Tonban (an older, wise, cisgendered male merkin... We turn to him for advice all the time), Asbiorn Snorrason (a genderfluid male-bodied Norse peasant, who is sometimes possessed by Loki. Ze's typically quite mild-mannered, but occasionally the impish Trickster god comes out to play!)." — Le Maison des Violettes

Transethnicity, Transablism, Transfat
Type: Transethnic describes people whose race is "wrong" in the same way that a transgender person's biological sex is "wrong." Transablism and transfatism describe the same identity formation for ability and, uh, size.
Quote: "since a plethora of individuals have produced questions on the legitimacy of my identification (whom the majority are ironically claiming to be post-constructionists), i intend for this to give you all a better insight into my identification as a "black woman". [...] in this case, the pre-englightenment philosopher rene descartes statement 'cogito ergo sum', "i think, therefore i am", is an important contributing factor to my identification, aided with internal feelings of belonging and similarity." — Black Women Values

Demisexual
Type: Demisexuals are people who cannot feel sexual attraction to someone until they have an emotional connection with that person.
Quote: "They will likely never understand where we come from because they don't know what it's like to be demisexual. I know everyone experiences sexuality differently, but for me, I have only ever been sexually attracted to one person in my entire life. And even then, it took a hell of a long time to develop, and a LOT more than just us having a few nice conversations and sharing a couple of things in common. Does that sound normal to you? Does the fact that, no matter what ANYONE looks like, I will never be able to find them physically sexually attractive in the least?" — My Life as a Teenage Fantroll

Soulbonding
Type: In the words of Soulbonding.net, "soulbonds are souls that are not your own with whom you either share your own mind or interact with mentally in some way." In practice, soulbonds are a lot like otherkin and fictives and multiple systems with a less of a commitment — your soulbonds aren't you, they're just... souls.
Quote: "I'm perfectly sane, not possessed by any "fairy tale" beings that I know of. Perhaps you should read some of my earlier posts. First of all, I use the word "soulbond" because I don't like explaining. Second of all, my primary soulbond is Layne Staley. I trust you've heard of him. And I have evidence to back it up. [...] For about three years now, I've been a latent fan of Alice in Chains. Had "Dirt", never really listened to it much. Until about a year ago, that is. About a year ago, I was looking for something to listen to, and I saw "Dirt". Now, at the time, I knew about six Alice in Chains songs. Rooster, Angry Chair, Them Bones, Man in the Box, Down in a Hole, and What the Hell Have I. I put the CD in my player, and listened to 13 tracks of grungy goodness. I knew every song. Same thing with Unplugged. And the self-titled release. And Jar of Flies. And now Facelift. I know every song Alice in Chains has released, most of them before I'd even heard them. Not to mention the fact that I cried when I heard the news about him passing on. Of course, there is more. There's always more. The number 19 is significant to me. And I was born exactly six months, to the day, away from Layne's birthday. The only difference was the year. And how old was Layne when I was born? 19. Not to mention the fact that I've been told I sound like him, just with a deeper speaking voice. My natural singing voice is roughly the same as his. And let's not forget my favorite thing. Reality is subjective." — Gaia Online

Corrections: An earlier version of this article referred to deku scrubs as "elves" and kobolds as "fairies." In fact, deku scrubs are "essentially tree people" and kobolds are "weird little goblin things." We regret the error.

http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/equivalent-of-13-white-people-killed-in-egypt/

A government crackdown on protestors in Egypt has resulted in the death of 278 Egyptians overnight, a number that One News reports is roughly the equivalent of 13 white people in western media terms.

The Egyptian military has cracked down on what it claims have been violent, unruly protests by supporters of ousted President Mohammad Morsi, but those crackdowns were fiercely resisted and have resulted in mass casualties.

New Zealanders and other western nationalities were shocked to learn that approximately 13 white men and/or women had died as a result of the military action.

"Thirteen is a lot of white people to die," said Greymouth resident Samuel Cooper. "We lost 29 at Pike River, and the Queensland floods I remember killed 38. So while not quite so big as all that, they're probably still feeling it, I imagine."

TVNZ Head of News John Gillespie said it was important for western media outlets to convert foreign death tolls into numbers that better reflect their significance to those receiving the news, and to help ascertain how much priority to give stories on an evening bulletin.

"Generally speaking, in terms of news value, the death of 21 brown or foreign people is equivalent to the death of one white male or half a white woman," said Gillespie. "Obviously that's just a general guideline; the calculus can get quite complicated sometimes. For example, in New Zealand, the death of a Maori individual is nearly a one to one conversion, whereas, in Australia, you're looking at about 30 aborigines for one top notch bloke."

Gillespie said that when several white people die, particularly in an unusual circumstance such as the Boston Marathon Bombing, it was important that any news item about it go at the top of the bulletin.

"But when 20 to 30 die in a car bomb in Iraq, that's really only about one white person, so you could run that at 6:20 or 6:25pm."

He noted that this also made it acceptable to ask challenging questions or write satirical articles on the subject, something that would not be acceptable had the casualties been white or from New Zealand.

Gillespie said it was important not to offend white people because they have access to Facebook.

"People in Syria largely don't," he added.

He wanted people to understand it wasn't that the lives of brown people were worth less, but just that viewers "don't care as much," which he said was "only natural" because "whatever."

Gillespie said that events that happen less frequently are "more significant" and require "more urgent action."

"If something happens every day, such as the death of thousands of African children in poverty, there's really no need to do anything about it," he said. "But if something happens once every ten years, it's important that governments act swiftly and without legal boundary to ensure whatever it was never happens again.

"Our job is to hold them to account on that."

Today's death toll may be revised upwards to 14 after it was learned that an actual white person was killed during the violence.

Come back.

This thread was previously called "Reviews of Discordian Publications" but nobody read it so now it has a better name.

In this thread we share any reviews and testimonials for "Discordian works" that we "find online".

I'll start.



"I couldn't put this book down. Literally, it has welded itself to my hands and it takes all of my strength to keep it at arms length as it struggles towards my face. My wife has to bind my hands before I go to bed and I cannot share the room with her because the book's violent resistance keeps her up and once or twice we've had close calls where she woke up just as the pages were closing around her head.

I fear she will leave me." - New York Times

"Before I read A Plurality of Nigel, I was a respected Portland businessman. I knew after the first few pages that this book would change my life forever. I marched my three children, single file, into the sea and scolded them every time they came up for air. Previously, I lacked the courage to pursue my dreams but now I have made my dreams a reality. I spend my days wearing my wife's face and burgling convenience stores. AND YOU CAN TOO." - Harry Grant, former business-schmuck.

"This is the book we all deserve. Praise be to Nigel" - President Obama

Details should be contained in letter but story here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9023655/Phil-Goff-slammed-for-sexist-comments

Posted here while I wrote it in case people had feedback, but mostly people were sleeping.

To Hon. Phil Goff, MP

Hi Phil,

I write with concern regarding the comments made in yesterday's (08/08/2013) parliamentary debate which have gained some social media attention and media coverage. I understand that in response to this upset, you have been quoted as explaining "This is a beat-up ... I think it's drawing a long bow" and wanted to attempt to engage with you on why I do not believe this is so. Certainly you have political opponents who are quite happy to exploit this opportunity but please do not let the need to defend yourself prevent you from honestly examining the situation.

In the course of your comments towards The Hon. Chris Finlayson it is my impression that you progressed from making fun of him for being defeated to making fun of him being defeated *by a girl*. The distinction between defeat and defeat at the hands of a woman, with the latter being the most embarrassing, is a trope with a significant presence in our culture and is based on the assumption that the woman is inferior. Typically, the taunt "you were beaten by a girl" is an assault on the opponent's masculinity and contains within it the implication that a woman should not be able to gain success where a male competitor does not.

You are quoted as further explaining "It was just a statement of fact. I could have said 'beaten by a Labour MP on three occasions'. I didn't really think about it."

I think it's important that you think about it. We're all afflicted by biases but where these biases perpetuate harmful stereotypes, it is our social responsibility to reflect on them and consider their origin, especially if our decisions, beliefs and statements have a national audience.

You *could* just as easily have said replaced "woman" with "Labour MP" without having an impact on the validity of the statement (if we were evaluating the sentence on a purely logical level) but you didn't and this is more significant that you seem to imply. The gender of the MPs is not relevant. By mentioning it, you assert its relevance. Comparably, I could say that "I was visited by my neighbour" and give a different impression than if I said that "I was visited by my black neighbour". By making a reference to an attribute of the subject which superficially appears unrelated, you give that reference a great deal of meaning. The way your audience will interpret "beaten by a girl" is informed by how this trope is commonly used, leading to the appearance of an "assault on masculinity" which I referred to earlier.

Sure, it is disappointing to see a member of parliament casually throw away a comment like this, but it's an understandable slip, given the prevalence of this idea in our society. What is most disappointing is the reaction to being called on the inappropriateness of the comment. Something like "I have considered the criticisms levelled at me, understand how I caused offence and will endeavour to keep this in mind in future" would gain a lot more respect and set a much better example than does an immediate rejection of the possibility of wrongdoing.

Please give some thought to your motivations for including a reference to gender in these comments.

Your sincerely,

Paes's real name.

i.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/9022631/Killer-posts-photo-of-dead-wife-on-Facebook

Wut.

[for now]

We scoff at this cliché, especially when we hear stories about law-abiding citizens being subject to visits by Men in Black after a series of unfortunatel Google searches. Cardinal Richelieu said "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged".

The reality of the situation is that we cannot, in any way that is practical or sustainable, hide. The world we live in is moving ever closer to taking neural impulses as input and it is inevitable that Big Data will be there to record, analyse and relate these neural impulses to one another. Too often we forget that encrypted data is private for now and that the "ten thousand years to crack" standards are based on modern brute forcing methods. There is a key to those locks hidden somewhere in the future and it's much closer than advertised.

Once, this frightened me, but it does no longer. I'm no longer interested in the collection of the data. They have the data and if they do not, it is trivial for them to acquire it. What needs to be evaluated is how this data is used. My concern on hearing that Googling "pressure cooker" + "backpack" can lead to a visit from the feds is that this is not sufficient evidence to justify such a visit. If searches for pressure cookers and backpacks can be reliably linked to terrorism (with further supporting evidence and accountability for wasting time), go forth and use them to predict crimes. What makes this information dangerous is that there are no systems capable of using it effectively or responsibly and we absolutely must ensure that these systems improve... but I do not know that a person in a position of power is much more dangerous with Big Data than without. Justification can be fabricated as well as it can be extrapolated from my activities.

I read a chilling prediction on this forum once, of a man summoned to speak with his superiors to explain his private actions, buried in Kafkaesque requirements for documentation and justification for his actions, betrayed by a vast surveillance program.

I am beginning to suspect that the reality is something else entirely. We fear that the sum of our vices may defame or incriminate us but I suspect it more likely that the sum of our vices will be used to identify us as potential consumers for products which market themselves as indulgences in one perversion or another. Big Data has more to gain from exploiting me than it does from betraying me. Cardinal Richelieu's observation would, today, be better phrased "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something to sell him."

The future is not going to be shocked by your Hedonism™. As we demand greater openness we will receive and the Spider will wait on our Facebook feed to learn that we are satisified with that. We will cry for freedom and be given and the Spider will watch us check into Burger King on FourSquare and sate this hunger.

The Spiders do not feel threatened by subversives who do not interrupt the Spectacle so given the full history of your movements and feelings, your conversations and your rallying cries for revolution on Facebook, even your detectable attempts to subvert the surveillance with Bad Signal, the most you're going to do is inform them which finely tuned demographic you belong in... and you have nothing to fear and nothing to hide.

Mike was born at Disneyland. His parents, enamoured by the magic of the park conceived him through rhythmic thrusts to the tune of "It's a Small World" and the community came together to support them, giving the pair jobs as Disney characters and allowing the family to live at the park.

Mike was raised at Disneyland and had never left. Why would he? The park was designed to meet all of the needs of its guests and combined so many varied environments and themes that he could never tire of it.

Mike thought he knew the park pretty well, but one day, when he was well into his teens, he came upon a tall metal fence that he had not seen before. Cautiously, he approached. On the other side of the fence was a quiet street, not a soul in sight save one man sitting in the gutter with his head in his hands.

"Ho, you there!" cried Mike, gaining the man's attention. The man picked himself up and approached the fence. "How are you today, friend?"

The guy scowled, suspecting he was being mocked. "Not too well, actually. I'm pretty down."

Mike was puzzled, "Have you tried riding the cup and saucer ride?"

The guy narrowed his eyes and bitterly responded in the negative. "I can't ride the fucking cup and saucer ride."

Mike canted his head to one side. That didn't make any sense... though perhaps the dude was allergic to tea. "Have you been on the roller coaster today?"

Once again, the guy outside the fence seemed displeased. "No. I can't afford to ride the roller coaster."

Mike frowned. The roller coaster only required two tickets... so he suspected that this guy had simply been greedy and spent all of his tickets on other rides. "Well, you could track down your favourite characters and get their autographs? That doesn't cost anything."

"Yeah, it's that fucking simple. Maybe if my life were as carefree as yours and I could actually get into the park," in a voice which was increasingly hissing at Mike.

Mike was upset, now. His life wasn't carefree at all! In fact, he didn't know anyone with more problems than he had. Sometimes he ran out of tickets a day or so before his parents gave him more and he had to stop going on the rides. Sometimes the weather was bad and he couldn't find his favourite characters exploring the park so well as usual. Worst of all, Mike had to spend a lot of his time waiting in lines! Who was this guy to say his life was easy? And why did he think we wasn't in the park?

It seemed to Mike like the guy outside the fence was just using the fence as an excuse to feel bad for himself and justify his unwillingness to put some work into making himself happy by going on the rides, so he told him so, flipped him the bird and returned to line up for one of his favourite rides.

There's some beautiful stuff going down at the moment in upside down land. I'm going to post a quick ramble about it here because it's a clusterfuck.

Loads of controversy and rage about our involvement with AMURRICA's intelligence gathering as our gubbamints attempt to rush through a bill making it legal for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB, one of our two intelligence agencies) to spy on NZ citizens. This is seen by many as an attempt to retrospectively legitimise the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom back when MegaUpload was shut down and his mansion here was raided, which the government has caught a lot of shit for and much of which has been ruled as an illegal operation.

The head of the GCSB assured us that nobody else had been illegal spied on

A report into this group was conducted after the Dotcom fiasco and leaked to journalist Andrea Vance and it found that the legislation describing the GCSB's power isn't understood by anyone which results in the GCSB just doing whatever because, hey, they're spies and who is going to ask? It found 88 cases since 2003 in which the GCSB may have acted illegally (across a variety of laws), and says there are systemic problems with how the organisation works. Poor performance is tolerated because anyone they let go poses a security risk.
This is a brief breakdown of the report.

A formal inquiry into how this leak occurred was set up and this formal enquiry asked MP Peter Dunne for his emails. Peter Dunne's vote is the one set to let the GCSB amendment bill pass, giving them GREATER POWERS despite their total failure to observe any of the legal limits currently imposed on them. Peter Dunne declined this request, there was drama, he resigned. His emails were shared anyway! Andrea Vance's phone records are somehow provided to the inquiry. This has recently come to light and we've gone from "The records were requested but I assure you they were not provided" to the next day "I have learned that the records were provided but not requested, a low level contractor misinterpreted the request" to the next day "The head of Parliamentary Services authorised it" and "No he didn't" from different sources. There's no disagreement on the fact that her swipe card records were provided to the inquiry to establish her movements around parliament, despite assurances that the press have free movement around the government buildings. Most recent update is that emails between the MP and journo were accessed also, but "they had a weird file extension so we couldn't open them", because our forensic IT investigators are totally tech savvy.

Anonymous DDOS MP's websites in protest. MPs take to twitter with lines like "Hackers bringing down websites proves what they could do your bank accounts", "This is why we need this bill", justifying turning our country's intelligence apparatus on the people because of cybervandalism. Prime Minister John Key realises that this seems like poor justification, so tells the media "AL QAEDA IS OPERATING IN NZ, OKAY? THAT'S WHY WE NEED THIS. AL QAEDA IS SCARY."

NZ's political academics lol hard.

At the same time! It comes to light that journalists are classified as subversives and military threads in a Department of Defence manual, leaving the media feeling pretty unsafe. There's also a bunch of stuff going on at the moment about US intelligence along with NZ Defence Force spying on a journo working in Afghanistan.

So basically there's lots of illegal spying going on amidst attempts to legalise all of the frenzied spying. I love the future.

We need more threads about this guy, so I'm going to give a few snapshots of his history here. I had a quick look back through his posts because, like all of us, I can't get enough of reading about him... and I couldn't help but wonder whether he was always like this and some communal bias protected him from judgement.

So here we have it! My forum viewing settings give the guy 1100 odd pages of posts, so I'll pick up a post from every hundred pages or so to chronicle his time here!

RWHN, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

although it does have th ebest acting out of hte whole newer trilogy...

That's through the process of elimination.  Jar-Jar doesn't utter a bloody word.  So automatically that's an improvement.  However pretty-boy Anakin talks more so that's a detriment to the movie.  Man, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Darth Vader was once a whiny Backstreet Boy!

The answer, I believe, is that they work hand in hand.  What you are talking about, or at least how I'm interpreting it, is environment vs. individual.  It is clear there are environmental factors that can exist and exert influence just as there are individual influences within.  I'll use the example I am familiar with which is substance abuse.  There are two schools of thought to address substance abuse.  Environmental Strategies and Strength based strategies.  I think it's clear which one adresses which factors.  An environmental strategy for substance abuse would be to target retailers who don't check ID's or to try to impact parents through forums, parenting classes, etc.  A strength based looks at factors inside.  The "Whys" if you will.  A void within. 

Aha! but right there you see a link to the environment.  Perhaps the void is caused by bad parents or bad family experience.  Right there you have the environment and individual inextricably woven into one situation.

So, the short answer is that, well, it depends.  But you can't lose sight of one over the other because then nothing changes, ever.

Enlightenment can be a tough road.
Having an open mind does not mean an open highway bereft of tribulation and conflict.  Indeed, so it would seem, it can increase both of those.

The knowledge and understanding of how limitations can choke.  But yet, when others do not share or recognize this, one's societal world, one's social circles, can quickly become very limited.  Or at the very least, strained.

This has become apparent to me as a parent.  Watching my little girl, eager and wide-eyed with the world.  A thirst to experience all that she can experience.  No shame in sillyness.  No inhibitions for idiosyncracies.  Yet, when amidst others of her age, who have already begun to develop their blinders, it can be painful to watch.  Because I remember what it was like, to be just a little different then all of the other straight and narrows.  I remember the giggles.  I remember the pointing.  Being comfortable with myself, yet lonely as others decide that they are not.

And so I see it beginning with my little one, before she has even entered the public school system.  To be sure, kids still like her, and play with her.  To be sure, she still enjoys that which is deemed normal and traditional for a kid her age, and of her gender.  And to be sure, I can see in her playmates the happy anarchy of childhood innocence is still there, and viable.  But I can also see where they are being introduced and indoctrinated to the typical paths that so many others unquestioningly navigate.  The hard and fast rules of what boys do and what girls do.  The mantras of how to properly experience the universe we are in. 

And so the tricky part comes.  How to maintain integration without fostering isolation.  How to cherish and champion individuality, and at the same time, teach companionship and comradery.  To impart that though others may not jive with parts of the personality that their friendship is still valuable and vital. 

It's an odd thing.  We are invariably social creatures.  It is undeniable that at some level we all want to belong to something.  To be a part of a collective of characters.  At the same time, there are parts of our identity that will cause clashes, and sometimes, with those we most want to be friends with, or partners with, or lovers with.  As an adult this is easy to understand and rationalize, and so too with time will it become obvious to my little one and others like her who are growing up now. 

In the meantime, I make it my duty to keep that which may dull to not lessen her shine.

The following is a rant I posted on a Political Form.  I share it with you

For sinking to a level of vile filth.  Last night, at the convention the following 9/11 "tribute" was shown. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw1vEzqld0I

This was no "tribute" to those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.  This was the organizers of the RNC using those innocent lives as a shameful political prop to win votes.  It was a fear mongering, propaganda video, complete with imagery of one of the explosions from one of the planes impacting the trade towers.  Complete with the graphic imagery of watching one of the towers collapse.  It was a horrid thing to watch last night, and the complete rage that filled me, watching how the suffering and death of innocents was being used as a political pawn, I can't begin to explain to you how angry this makes me.  It's bad enough that Gov. Palin and other Republicans have decided to mock my profession, now they are going to use the dead to win their election.  It is shameful.

Anyone who filmed, edited, spliced, signed off on this video is a stain of an American.  To think, to actually think that using these horrific memories, the dead of 9/11, as a political ploy, to think that is acceptable is hard for me to imagine.  This was no "tribute", this was taking a wound, reopening it, pouring salt into it, and then holding a knife to the necks of Americans and saying, "Vote for us or this will happen again!" 

And it is people from this side who dare, who have the unmitigated gall to question Barack Obama or anybody else's Patriotism.  Is it "patriotic" to use the deaths of the 9/11 victims as a means to win votes?  Is it "patriotic" to use the fear conjured by the 9/11 attacks to scare the American people into voting for you?  Is it "patriotic" to spit on the survivors and loved ones of 9/11 victims by using their grief for their gain?  If this is the "patriotism" you want, count me the fuck out.  This is vile, awful, and has NO place in America.  The people responsible for this video are refuse-stained holes.  I don't want to be a part of their America. 

This, of course, is not going to get ANY play in the media.  You all think this is a liberal media.  No, it isn a corporate media, and they are ALL cowards.  This should be an issue.  The heartlessness and callousness on the part of some in the Republican party will use the deaths of the 9/11 victims for their gain should be an issue.  If we really want to live in a "land of the free" we need to act like it.  This kind of reprehensive BS needs to be decried and we need to stand up and DEMAND that this crap cease.  Debate issues, debate policy, hell, go ahead and sling mud at each other.  But I will be damned if I am going to sit and watch people in our country use the innocent dead and the living victims of the horrific attacks on 9/11 as a means to their political ends. 

If you don't have the same gut reaction that I and many others have had to this piece of slime belched forth on the RNC stage, I don't know what to say.  You obviously have a different set of values that I can't begin to relate to.  If you can't see how these poor excuses for humanity have denigrated the lives that were lost in those planes, and in those towers, and in the Pentagon, then I don't know how to convince you otherwise.  You clearly have a different set of lenses that allow you to accept this kind of sick propaganda.  And that's fine, I have no quarrel with you.  But this is just completely sick.  I'm not a religious person, I don't believe in heaven and hell, BUT, if I did, I would expect that there is a very special place made just for those who allowed this travesty to unfold on National Television.

To me it boils down to the idea that those armed with themselves have the best shot at surviving in this world.  I of course don't mean, literally, surviving.  In fact, I think those armed with themselves would tend to be more apt to have a sense of humor still intact as well. 

And the bits about reality grids speak to that idea.  Nonsense as Salvation, the Sermon on Ethics and Love, Starbucks Pebbles.

It's about raising awareness of your awareness (or lack thereof).  And yes, absurdity and the holistic nonsense are one of those tools.  They are the crowbars that pry open the box you are in, to let a little sunshine in to illuminate those corners of your cell you may have been missing or ignoring. 

It then becomes all too obvious.  How can one seriously think they have any control over where they are going when they don't know that they are letting someone else drive the bus?

I hate to get elitist here, but if people don't understand what the data says, what's the point in showing them?

I am all for transparancy and freedom of information, but if all we're going to get from it is political "he said, she said" grandstanding, I think that detracts from science in the long run.

I have to agree with this.  Data is a double-edged sword, especially when you have lots of data on any particular subject area.  I think it's important for actual scientists and researchers to have access to all available data, because they know what to do with the data.  They know how to put data together.  They understand how one data set relates to another data set.  Joe Schmoe sitting on his couch watching American Idol simply does not have the mental faculties to process that data and gleem a proper meaning from it.

I'd say about 70% of my job involves data.  I have to constantly assess what data I'm going to share in any particular situation based upon the audience.  While I want to educate parents on the dangers of substance abuse, throwing a glut of data from SAMHSA does me no good.  It is too much for them.  It is my job, as the professional social scientist, to package the data in a way that is digestible by the general public.  And the data around substance abuse is by miles, easier to comprehend than global warming data.  Fuck, when I see that stuff I start scratching my head.  And I fancy myself a pretty intelligent guy (not to get too DK on everybody). 

And LMNO's right.  When the public gets their mitts on this stuff, politics gets involved, and when (more) politics gets involved in scientific research, the process becomes tainted.

I agree with your statement. Isn't there more we could do, legislatively, to combat abuse and addiction at the base level? Because I have a feeling that the current caffeine+/alcohol+21/everything_else--  isn't optimal.

I think there needs to be more of a shift away (but not completely mind you) from law enforcement and towards prevention.  Prevention is getting the short straw and there are some programs out there, like the federal grant I'm working on, that do some great work.  But it's drops in the bucket.  You really can legislate behavior, but you can legislate policies that make it easier for parents and kids to get the support they need to either prevent their kids from getting hooked, or to help them once they are.  If we had a better network of prevention and care in this country, we'd make better inroads.  Until that happens, our successes are limited to the margins. 

Who are we?  We're the people waiting for you to go first.  We talk a good game but never throw down.  We praise your good ideas and exhalt your plans.  We'll be right there behind you!  Well, actually, right after we wash our hair.  Then we're right there with you!  Oh, well, no, we have to renew our gym membership, I mean, it's gonna be a new year, we're going to hit the stair climbers for sure this year!  Then, we'll be ripped and ready to fight the good fight along side you...oh wait, we just remembered we need to clean up the hard drive.  That shouldn't take too long, and then, holy fuck are we ready to rumble!!!  Well, we probably should get a new bottle of asprin first.  We might get a headache while trying to fight The Man.  Go on ahead, we'll be there eventually, really, trust us, who are we?

But I don't agree with your assessment as to the harm posed by marijuana.  Certainly alcohol and tobacco are very damaging to youth.  But they are legal now and my personal view on that IS one of pragmatism.  They are legal and that's that.  So my work focuses on how to deal with that reality and do the best I can help prevent youth substance abuse even though the legal status of the product creates many challenges and barriers to that work. 

But marijuana IS illegal now.  And so I draw the pragmatic, and yes, arbitrary line that it should remain illegal.  As I said before in this thread, when it comes to alcohol and tobacco, the toothpaste is out of the tube.  I am of the opinion that it is best for our communities to keep the marijuana toothpaste in the tube.  Because the mess we have is big enough as it is.  We don't need to create an even bigger mess.

I believe that RWHN once implied that he has an MPH, back when he was telling me that my public-health-expert friend was "misinformed" about drugs and public health.

I'm not asking where it's from because it doesn't matter, and any notion that the information could lead to your personal identity information is nonsensical. But, because you have so often strongly based many of your arguments on your status as an expert, and have asked us to accept them based on your credibility as an expert, I would appreciate a direct answer to the question about your education and credentials, RWHN.

What degree do you hold?

I don't hold my degree, it's on a wall. 

I got it from Klown University. 

Maybe you'll not answer her seriously, but I'm interested. Considering I have taken a great deal of what you've said on word due to your stated education and experience. And from a fellow graduate degree holder to another. Because my credentials have always been clear, and I would post my CV here if I wasn't sure an employer turning up things I've said here in a google search of my name would make me unemployable. And if you won't answer me seriously, I'll stop taking you seriously, despite your history here. That's all there is to it. Because I've taken into account you are on the defensive against multiple people, but keeping that in mind there are still some weird things going on in your argument. All I want is a confirmation of a graduate degree in [whatever it was you got it in] from [region of North America]. I'll go first: I have a MS in Entomology from a university in the Southeastern United States. With my initials and a bit of searching you should be able to find out my legal name, my professional blog, and everything else about me (it's not like many first names start with 'z'). You can confirm mine, and I'm not asking the same of you, just that you state it for the record.

Check your PMs.

Unfortunately, BabylonHoruv is my fault.  He followed me here from Political Crossfire.

Eh, I CAN be a bit of a pill at times.  There is definitely a strong stubborn streak that runs in my family.  Must be the French-Canadian blood.

I'm not hear to provide riveting reading.   


I'm here to make you dance.


Which I've done for 120-something pages now.


That's MY Discordia. 

Denial that there is a new you and an old you. This has nothing to do with your views on public health but rather your personality and how you interact with us. To say that youre the same guy that you were when i joined isnt true. It seems to of that that is also the general consensus.

Oh, sure, absolutely my interaction has changed, when it became clear that I was being reviled solely because of my position on drug policy.  It spilled into anything else I posted about.  TGRR illustrates that perfectly with his summation of my threads in the PD subforum, or you with my puns.  So yeah, I figured if I'm going to be reviled no matter what, I might as well go all in.

So I ask you again, why are you still here?

My reasons are my own.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

IDK, but I after putting that together I feel like I've been listening to the same record for long enough that the needle has worn it to shit and all that's left is screeching and whining.

DON'T WORRY GUYS. ALL IT NEEDED WAS TO BE GIZOOGLED.

NOW IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

http://pastebin.com/ZCnatkSG

During the day. At night, the force-feeding comes.

I'm teaching myself to make Android apps.

ITT: Suggest terrible ideas for apps and some of them may turn into actual things. I'll also post as I go about how my learnings are doing and am thinking of making Android versions of things like the choose your own adventure wiki as simple starter projects, maybe bundle Discordian reading materials into a single app.

Does anyone about these parts have experience with developing for Android? I'm at the stage where I plug my phone into my computer and make HELLO WURLD appear on the screen. IT'S ALIVE!

I always find out about tumblrs well after they become well known so I don't know if this is old news, but this thing is pretty cool.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

I want to see humansoftuscon.

Are you tired of the hassle in finding a container for your doctor-ordered stool sample?



Are situations like this leaving you frustrated and confused?



Even if you find a container, something always seems to go wrong...



Are you constantly leaving scenes like this behind?



But find the menacing taunts and jeers of your laxative cupboard excruciating?



Is your condition having an impact on your employment?



SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED ERIS



Laughing. Can't stop laughing.



Buy it.

I've been away for a while, playing DUST 514, which is the FPS tie-in to EVE Online. These games have a massive metagame behind them, where political scheming, embezzlement, scams and the like are all encouraged by the game developers as valid means of achieving victory.

Do you have any recommendations which might be described as "Psychological Warfare for Dummies", "How to Destabilise Communities and Influence Uprisings" or "Trolling for Fun and Profit". Are these things available on the internet? I have suspicions regarding these spaceship pilots' ability to jump high enough which I would like to experiment with.

MARKED ALL AS READ.

WHAT NOW, BITCHES?

Oh, by the way, it's midday on Friday the 21st of December here and everything is fine. Thought I'd let everyone know in advance.

Oh, by the way, it's midday on Friday the...

Oh, by the way, everything is fine.

No apocalypse.

Everything is fine.

EXHIBIT D: Personal testimony of [name redacted due to safety concerns]; a neighbour.

Dear sir,

I write with further information regarding Mr [redacted] also known as "The Good Reverend" to provide yourself and your associates with information which may be of use in the investigation into his affairs which I believe you are undertaking.

HE IS A RESPONSIBLE FAMILY MAN.

I do not know why I wrote that and somehow cannot bring myself to erase it. Please disregard and consider it symptomatic of the psychological effect that living near the man, if he is merely a man, has had on me and my family. I must apologise for the incompleteness of my testimony. Detailed logs of his activities were taken but I recently discovered them missing from the drawer in my upstairs study, replaced with a hand-bound notebook full of the most unsettling images and short stories. This testimony will be written in small parts, so great is the trauma of some of these memories.

I suspect but cannot prove that [The Good Reverend] is behind my missing logs. It would not be the first time that the walls of my home have been proven insufficient to keep him away. June last year I discovered the man in my pantry, wearing a fur coat and drinking from a bottle of cooking oil. He insisted that he had to "fuel myself up if I'm going to reach escape speed and then, oh, then it's time for orbital bombardment." It was evident that he had been in there for some time, though I cannot understand how as I had been home all day and made frequent use of the area, but receipts for no less than 17 takeaway orders to a local Indian restaurant were lining the floor. Upon later inspection, I discovered that these meals had been delivered to my house, though there was no additional evidence of them.

I shut the door on him and ran to phone for help but on the arrival of the police, the cupboard was found empty. Totally empty. There was no evidence that he had ever been there, nor that it had ever held any food. Also, my kitchen taps had been removed. (I would, of course, later discover that these were being used to represent nipples on a sculpture he referred to as a "prototype companion" which he "accidentally catapulted at your house because the spring was wound too tightly, settle down, you'd think you'd welcome the company... ungrateful...".)

END OF RECORD.

We sit in fifteen rows of ten on twelve floors, typing in unison. We are hit by the force of those typing above us and pass it on to those below as the building jumps with every keystroke. We tap out the quick march of a nearing army. People walking past our building unconsciously meet our rhythm and change their course to come in and apply for work.

With the completion of every page, we print and our printing is transferred to trolleys by casual staff who are never seen at the water cooler because they follow their trolleys into the incinerator. We turn time into smoke, here. We take the excess UNLIMITED DATA and we turn it into heat and light and a dense, dark fog that sits near the ground and hides us from one another.

We turn time into wages into food into keystrokes. And keystrokes, we turn into electricity to power the pumps beneath the building which turn water into sludge and the harbour into ink. We turn the ink into printing into smoke.

And at the end of the day, we look upon all of these things and know that we have a purpose. And we turn fulfilment into a good night's sleep so we're ready for tomorrow so The Office remains productive.

What's wrong, cobber?  Did you think I'd gone away? No such luck, oh no. I'm not going anywhere. Not while I have a Voice-with-which-to-Holler and a MESSAGE, god damn it. A holy message to share with you. Because I care about your wellbeing and shit. I'm going to rant my lungs up and then I'm going to tuck them under my arm and play myself like bagpipes until you get the MESSAGE. I'm...

I'm... I'm going to... I'm...

Sorry.

Forget I said anything.

I don't know where that was going with that. I'll, er, I'll come back to it later and flesh it out. I'll think about it for a bit. Just watch and think about it. Just watch. For a little while. I'll just sit here, hands resting on mouse and keyboards, fingers twitching, struggling desperately against paralysis. Just watch. Absorb. Skimming and chunking, briefly processing. Refreshing. Just watch. Refresh. Just watch. Gaze tracking text, scanning, left to right, carriage return. Just watch. Fingers twitching, responses forming. Refresh. Rant, rising in my throat. My sore throat. Is it still sore? Best not risk it. Might not have my voice back yet. Just watch. For a little while. Refresh.

It's the silly season and we all know what that means!

First, the bells. The rising bells born as an electric buzzing in the ears, gradually taking form as a primal fear struggles between recognition and terrified suppression of ancient memory. Parents hurry their children to bed, desperately investing their hope in the wisdom that "if you don't see them, they don't see you".

"You'll be sorry if you're awake when Santa turns up!"

Traditions of forgotten origin ensure that the shopping is done, the house is stocked up, there is no cause to leave the comfort of the home as The Good Holy Man rides into town atop a horse which some say has eight legs and four heads... and on every street, children are seen darting about in the snow, their faces blackened with soot. Nobody asks why the bad children, the curious children, are delivered coals in their beds or where they are on Christmas morning or why sometimes there are teardrops on the packages that materialise beneath the tree.

And the toys, opened early, then dropped at the mouth of the fireplace are quietly tidied away. And the fading bells, gradually losing form as a primal fear rejects recognition for terrified suppression and dismissal of the notion that at its peak, that cacophony may have had a voice pleading "Won't somebody please cancel Christmas?"

Hello.

Because not everyone can see avatars or cares about minor differences in name, there is a Signor and a Signora Paesior. To those who it appeared that I had changed the gender I identify with before telling you about feminism and privilege, it's kind of cool how well that was taken.
I'm still talking about those things with a guy's perspective.

I might change my name sometime for clarity, but she likes them matching, so she might find a way to steal the new name too.

It's raining in Wellington, so nobody sees Tawera walk across the face of the sun. I'm three floors up, watching the doorman outside the department store across the road. Twelve people in since they opened a few minutes ago. No other exit. Yesterday there should have been nineteen people still inside when they locked up.

If Ben were here, maybe I'd ask him "under this new sun, will people start to see the ugliness?" but he's not here because the city ate him. Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Ben was a prophet. And if he wasn't a prophet, then he was something else. Whatever he was it was what the city made him.

If Ben were here, maybe I wouldn't have asked him anything. Maybe we both would have just known that things would continue to fall apart and nobody would do much of anything. Ben knew about the ugliness. He'd lie on the street and curse the cars and buses that swerved to avoid him. He was a man, once, and had tried to be a man again but the city whispered to him and told him to come back.

And then it killed him.

I'm three floors up because I don't trust the elevator in my building. There's this pause just before the door opens where it considers dropping me and I have to dart through as it opens to avoid giving it a chance. And when it rains, the tiled streets use the opportunity to secrete an oil, while all the corners get sharper, trying to catch those of us who are less careful.

This city killed Ben but it's not going to get me.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10804206

Luckily enough, WINZ are known for their uncompromising integrity in their presentation of the available options and never attempt to pressure anyone into the WINZ preferred choice by misrepresenting the facts. People asking for financial assistance have equal power to those they are asking, right?

Poor women gonna be empowered like WOAH by all the choices that are only available to them and not at all aware of the specific class/gender requirements for making reproductive decisions.

Ignoring of course that this originated from the suggestion that women on any form of welfare would be receive compulsory contraception. That doesn't factor into this AT ALL.

And it certainly won't be used to justify not supporting children who ARE dependent on benefits. NO SIR.

WUT UP?

I miss you dudes. I haven't been around here at all lately. Partially this is because I don't have much in the way of internet access, though that will probably change now that I have access to school computers at the makeup artistry course I've just started. (Which is totally bitchin'.)

Mostly though, I've been rocking the shit out of life and the fucking the hell out of the burger or whatever it is you spags do.
I've moved much closer to Wellington, ze capital of New Zealand, so it's a lot easier to spend time being a social animal and, without fail, every time I get a moment to access the net or take a break or go to sleep, someone rocks up and suggests another awesome way to spend time. Been bouncing all over the place between art galleries and nights at the theatre (reading a few scripts to consider auditioning) comedy clubs (will start doing some stand-up once I've got a bit more material) and circuses and fire spinning events (which I'm finally networking for and organising paid gigs).

HOW THE FUCK ARE Y'ALL?
WHAT IS DISCORDIA DOING WHILE I AM AWAY?