Linkfest
Good Advice
haikujagur talks about the three arduous rules for human interaction and the importance of gratitude. I found her words touching, eloquent, and philosophical while being extraordinarily respectful of her audience. Good reading, and good thinking.
Scary news
Remember the SCOTUS case about warant-less wiretapping? Congress has now approved a law expanding allowable cases for bypassing warrants, and Jefe Bush has signed it into law. This is the closest scenario I can think of: A robber comes into the store you own, points a knife at you, and says, "Give me all the money!" In response you hand him the keys to your store and say, "Can you watch this for just a few minutes? I need to go next door to take care of a few things. Back soon!" fully expecting to come back to the same inventory you left, but organized like you never had time to do. And the floors spotless. Meanwhile the employee in the back is gesturing wildly that you ought to just call the cops and for Pete's sake that's a robber not a hired help!
Late last week, the editor of the Oakland Post was gunned down outside the courthouse in what appears to be a hit rather than a random shooting.
Gay bits
Jim Burroway finally has posted Part 5 of his series on the Love Won Out conference, A Candid Explanation for 'Change'. There are unflattering discrepancies between the shame and hope combination they sell families of gay people and the reality ex-gay leaders admit to experiencing. Peterson Toscano, a man who left the ex-gay movement to realize his fuller self, elaborates on how for him and many others change was not possible.
Gender/Science
A sensory organ, not the brain, determines male or female behavior in many mammals
NY TImes Magazine: What autistic girls are made of described the particular problems of girls with autistic spectrum disorders, especially social anxiety and difficulty relating to other girls and exacerbate a lack of female companionship.
Technolust
Forget the iPhone. I want one, but it's far out of reach for my tiny graduate school wallet. There's a new version of iWork out, with new layout features in Pages that I remember from layout programs back in the day and Word still cannot manage. Keynote gives a shout-out to your mother from the lecture hall of science while Powerpoint plays with melty crayons in the sand box. You can record voice with the presentations now, so you can send that shout-out straight to her without having to pay for the plane ticket. A spreadsheet program to compete with Excel has been released, and they've also introduced track changes. It's had to believe this Pages and Keynote have only been in development for 5 years, whereas MS Office has been around for 20 and is so much clunkier and less efficient. Bonus: iWork is $79 for a full-price license, whereas MS Office is $130 for the cheapest educational discount license. My copy will likely be cheaper, a I recall paying $40 for mine a few years ago. So this, my friends, is within reach. And I impatiently await my University's stocking of the precious install DVDs. Oh, and all y'all who have made fun of me for switching to Mac in the last 4 years can bite me because you cannot have my shiny new toy unless you get one yourself. :p
Entertainment
An excerpt from "Jihad: The Musical", presented by Edinburgh Fringe, has me wanting to see the whole thing. The 2.5-minute song "I wanna be like Osama" had me rolling on the floor.
haikujagur talks about the three arduous rules for human interaction and the importance of gratitude. I found her words touching, eloquent, and philosophical while being extraordinarily respectful of her audience. Good reading, and good thinking.
Scary news
Remember the SCOTUS case about warant-less wiretapping? Congress has now approved a law expanding allowable cases for bypassing warrants, and Jefe Bush has signed it into law. This is the closest scenario I can think of: A robber comes into the store you own, points a knife at you, and says, "Give me all the money!" In response you hand him the keys to your store and say, "Can you watch this for just a few minutes? I need to go next door to take care of a few things. Back soon!" fully expecting to come back to the same inventory you left, but organized like you never had time to do. And the floors spotless. Meanwhile the employee in the back is gesturing wildly that you ought to just call the cops and for Pete's sake that's a robber not a hired help!
Late last week, the editor of the Oakland Post was gunned down outside the courthouse in what appears to be a hit rather than a random shooting.
Gay bits
Jim Burroway finally has posted Part 5 of his series on the Love Won Out conference, A Candid Explanation for 'Change'. There are unflattering discrepancies between the shame and hope combination they sell families of gay people and the reality ex-gay leaders admit to experiencing. Peterson Toscano, a man who left the ex-gay movement to realize his fuller self, elaborates on how for him and many others change was not possible.
Gender/Science
A sensory organ, not the brain, determines male or female behavior in many mammals
NY TImes Magazine: What autistic girls are made of described the particular problems of girls with autistic spectrum disorders, especially social anxiety and difficulty relating to other girls and exacerbate a lack of female companionship.
Technolust
Forget the iPhone. I want one, but it's far out of reach for my tiny graduate school wallet. There's a new version of iWork out, with new layout features in Pages that I remember from layout programs back in the day and Word still cannot manage. Keynote gives a shout-out to your mother from the lecture hall of science while Powerpoint plays with melty crayons in the sand box. You can record voice with the presentations now, so you can send that shout-out straight to her without having to pay for the plane ticket. A spreadsheet program to compete with Excel has been released, and they've also introduced track changes. It's had to believe this Pages and Keynote have only been in development for 5 years, whereas MS Office has been around for 20 and is so much clunkier and less efficient. Bonus: iWork is $79 for a full-price license, whereas MS Office is $130 for the cheapest educational discount license. My copy will likely be cheaper, a I recall paying $40 for mine a few years ago. So this, my friends, is within reach. And I impatiently await my University's stocking of the precious install DVDs. Oh, and all y'all who have made fun of me for switching to Mac in the last 4 years can bite me because you cannot have my shiny new toy unless you get one yourself. :p
Entertainment
An excerpt from "Jihad: The Musical", presented by Edinburgh Fringe, has me wanting to see the whole thing. The 2.5-minute song "I wanna be like Osama" had me rolling on the floor.