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| Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 | | 4:37 pm |
Update time
1. Unemployed. 2. I've replaced imeem with youtube. Somehow I still can't find some of the stuff that was posted to imeem on youtube, but I'm sure it'll show up there at some point. I'm just about as organized with my youtube playlist as I am with anything else in my life. I've got 1 growing list of songs. I'm currently expanding my electronica tastes. I'm cavernio on youtube too if you care to look at my selection. | | Monday, May 10th, 2010 | | 11:01 am |
| | Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | | 3:45 pm |
My internets is dying! Oh noes!
In the past couple of months, 2 websites I've actually frequented on a regular basis that I took for granted for being permament fixtures, are no more. The first one is imeem. Imeem was taken over by myspace, and still exists in some shape there, but I haven't really bothered to explore it much, except to find that more obscure artists to north america aren't on it :-( For those of you who have no idea what imeem was, I can't really help you much there except describe my experience with it. I have no idea how long imeem itself had been up for, since I had only frequented it for 6 months at most. I'm not sure how I found it, but I must have been looking for torrents where I could download music. I remember not being all that impressed with it when I first saw it, but as I began to use it as my music source for, well, pretty much anything I wanted to listen to that I didn't have already downloaded (which is really not that much), I fell in love with it. I guess I still haven't said what it was yet: it streamed music, and would make suggestions (if you wanted) about other songs you might like upon knowing you've listened to the song you were listening to. The content on it also seemed largely user inputted. (As an aside, I found it quite neat that if on occasion when I just let it auto play for hours, it would often get into a set of songs I wouldn't really like, but then move onto stuff which I did like, which was a totally different genre from what I originally had started with. Maybe it's not THAT neat, maybe that's standard for each individual.) Individuals could create accounts and could upload music onto it. Me, being lazy, never uploaded anything, but I certainly thought of a few things that I could which weren't on there that I owned. With so much user uploaded content, you might expect a lot of poor quality, misnamed songs. There were surprisingly not too many, for whatever reason. Also being lazy is why I began to use the site so much. I could create playlists but instead just chunked all the things I liked together. I could also rate songs and favorite songs. The easy thing was to just open in up on the background of whatever I was using. The site presumably made money off of adds which were largely audio and would pop up every 3 songs or so and last about 10s. You couldn't skip them. I didn't mind...they were giving me free music and a free place to store it. It was also kinda funny how they would mix in adds that they thought would appeal to the type of person who liked that type of music. When I'd listen to dance, they'd tell me where to find sexy black singles (with sexy black male voices). But if it were rock or metal, they'd tell me where to find tatooed hotties. Not sure they really hit the mark with either of those adds :-p Any artists on imeem who didn't want their work put up for all to see DID have some control over it. They could just choose to put up 30s clips, and presumably stop anyone who would try to put up full length versions from that artist or something. I had favorited some songs which then ended up getting censored a few weeks later, sadly. Perhaps that's part of the reason why it went under. I actually don't know why it went under, but I do believe the music community online was quite aware of it. I suppose it's not really dead, but again, I do know that there are some artists who just aren't represented on the myspace music page. I haven't bothered making an account with them (yet). Artists like Onoken weren't there. Which brings me to the other website that died over christmas, flashflashrevolution.com, or colloquially known as FFR. This is much more saddening to me. Ever since one of Georges friends showed the DDR game played with the arrows on your keyboard that had its own songs, I'd been hooked. Yes, it was back in 2003 I believe I made an FFR account. Since joining it, the site grew immensly due to the efforts of what appeared to be a very small group of people. The site's owner was known to FFRers as Synthan, who for some reason or another, probably failing health, mental or otherwise, (my speculation), had let it fall aside to neglect. (Perhaps Jordan can find the tasselhofs blog about it again and post it in a comment if anyone cares to read it.) When I first saw it, I think there were a dozen songs to challenge yourself to. When I was last there, there must have been more than 200. The songs were submitted by users and stepfiles for them were made by users (once it got big enough to have people who wanted to do that), and they were selected by management. Throughout the years, I've gone through phases of playing it (like any good arcade-type video game), but I sadly confess I had become a member of the forums which got added to the site. (Not just any forums, the critical thinking forum...as if I could expect much smart discussion from a bunch of FFR players.) The forums had been pretty much dead from good discussion for a few months now, but I hadn't stopped checking up on them until the site said it was going to be back up. Now it simply doesn't exist. I bought a t-shirt from them. My username's on it, along with 999 other ones. I had an overall top score on that site, got up to like 600th or something, only because I had been around for so long. I discovered artists on it like Onoken, who's apparently 'big' in Japan, and other artists made a name for themselves through it, like cornandbeans, even if small. It was an original DDR ripoff, not a newfangled guitar hero ripoff, and it rocked my electronica world. I miss my FFR. Come back to me! Go back in time and sell to Konami if you have to!! Give me back my fav moderator Devonin! Current Mood:  crushed | | Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 | | 12:59 pm |
Too many people are on facebook now that I know. It's intimidating going on there and seeing that people at least look like they have active lives of some sort...or at least take photos of themselves and friends. I'm just filling this out because I want to occasionally update. I was gonna say I have nothing to talk about, but that's not true. I haven't made a post about my most recent excursion into being employed! I'm working pt at UPS right now, but that could be over pretty quickly. I'm a broker. I was put back on probation (just like half my training class) for underachieving the goals (goals which absolutely no one in the training class has been meeting until like, a week ago, and that only because how they measure quality pretty much only depends on if they doublecheck your work), but I really think it was because I 'have a bad attitude'. Each week, we go into meetings that discusses our progress, and we meet 1 on 1 with someone. Me, treating the place like it has an open door policy or something (something they like to point out all the time), was dumb and decided to say how it was frustrating that the majority of my 'mistakes' were coming from the fact that they're totally inconsistent in what the rules are for shipments that are low value. And of course its me, so I don't word things well, and I must have said that they were being 'too picky' because a week later some manager shows up and I have a meeting with them saying that everyone who's in charge in the place knows that my attitude is not where it should be, and asked me if I wanted to continue working there. The week before I was supposed to get off probation, my quality and quantity improved a lot, but I was still put on probation for apparently not meeting my goals (which, I will say again, no one was). And in the meeting when they told me I was put on probation because of the previous 3 weeks, not the most recent 3. Apparently improvement didn't count for much. Especially seeing as I was doing better than some people who weren't put on probation. Since the incident, I haven't said shit to anyone who wasn't in training with me about anything, and they never said anything else about me, so its not that I did something else to show a bad attitude. I have so much shit to say about them that I'd probably meet the character limit for a single post. It'd really be too bad if I got fired though, because besides that their policies are whacked, it's part time (which means I can handle it), its regular hours, no shift work, 4 hours go by in a snap, and I actually am getting to know people who work there and like going on my breaks so I can socialize. (This is big for me, I may be social, but I don't often get a long with people.) Right now in my life, I could not ask for a better job. If I knew I were going to get fired in a week, and I were a guy, I'd totally grow a beard. (oh yeah, they don't allow men to have beards...beards are new-fangled and scary, like tatoos.) | | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 6:46 am |
I hate the flu
Both jordan and I have the flu or possibly the swine flu. I got it first and am almost better, but i still feel like crap. Jordan, being a dear and looking after me, went out and bought some flu pills since we were low. Apparently the pharmacy was ravaged for the things, and he could only find buckley's flu pills, daytime or nighttime. Not really knowing the difference, and checking to see if there was caffeine in them (because I complain about drugs that are non-drowsy often just having caffeine thrown in them), which there wasn't, bought them. I've taken a couple myself and didn't notice anything odd with them. (albeit at half the dose since they were extra strenght) However, yesterday morning, Jordan decided he should go to work even though he was starting to feel sick, and took 2 so he wouldn't feel bad for a good chunk of the day. So he did that, and of course after they wore off he felt absolutely terrible. He was also super talkative on the phone, and way too happy that tomorrow (today I guess) he's off work because he says he feels like crap. When he got home he immediately took 2 more pills and proceeded to yammer my ear off in bed. He regaled me with a story that he typed out an email to his boss saying he was gonna go home sick but upon reading it over it was so full of typos that he just deleted it. I was getting worried that his fever was so bad that it was affecting his personality, like he was gonna start yammering gibberish instead of what seemed like his usual random thoughts, just out loud. I called the nurse hotline concerned about it, and she said it could be something in the pills, which I hadn't thought about at all. Sure enough, when I go online, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, namely just pseudophedrine, is not sold over the counter in many countries, as people use it to get high, and is a precursor or an isomer or somesuch thing to the actual banned drug methamphetamine. Poor Jordan couldn't sleep all night. | | Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | | 3:16 pm |
| | Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 | | 11:37 am |
Nothing new
I've been not posting in my journal because either nothing interesting's happened, or else the things that have happened are things that I'm ashamed of. If anyone's worried about me, don't. I'm fine. Besides that I can't keep a job or stay in school or commit to anything. I suppose I raid in WoW a couple times a week...that's committment, right? Except that I don't even show up there all the time. And I have joined the choral society. We're doing Mozart's famous requiem, which is apparently less than half-written by Mozart. Can't figure out the name of the other composer the conductor keeps saying though. My voice is definitely not in great shape, but just a month of singing and already I'm much better at it. I spend my time playing WoW, keeping mine and Jordan's appartment clean (well, clean by my standards), and sitting around thinking about god know's what. I find that I spend hours at a time sitting still, just thinking. I also get into the occasional arguement on the critical thinking forum of FFR, that flash version of DDR for my fingers. My FFR skills are improving slowly actually. Surprisingly even, because years ago I hit the dreaded 'wall', and I didn't get better despite playing more than at any other point in my life. Now I play maybe a couple times a week for 20 min or so, and I find myself playing harder and harder songs, with decent results. Perhaps that the song list has grown so much and that I don't keep up, and that I find myself playing new songs that I don't know, it's making me get better at 'sight-reading', rather than me keeping practing songs and patterns I probably learned incorrectly in the first place. I've discovered imeem.com, where I haven't so much exposed myself to new music, but redicovered old music I had lost. It's like the new napster. I go through fits of watching certain shows on TV. Got really into law and order, the original ones, although my interest is waning. Got into What Not to Wear and Family Feud too. Now they're terribly boring, as they should be! Haven't gotten into watching soap's tho, don't think I ever will. I suppose the good thing about not having watched much TV in the past 5 years is that it's all brand-new. Everything except for those daytime adds on tv targeted at people just like me where some ditsy, way too-good looking and over-make-upped person says things like "If I got a degree and now have a satisfying career being a dental assistant, you can do it to!". Congratulations TV adds. You show me how people dumber than me make infinite more money than me, while making me want to NOT get one of your unsatisfying degrees. Yes yes, I'm actually fine. I like waking up in the morning and not being so upset about having to do some stupid task that takes over my thoughts and makes me terribly guilty when I know I just won't do that thing. I'm a leech. I can live with that. | | Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 | | 10:06 am |
Why I love electronica
http://www.imeem.com/alluring1/music/lz-ZJESv/the_flashbulb_beaker_sunset/With the word 'sunset' in the name, I imagine a landscape. On Mars maybe. It's red, barren, flat, cold, and dusty. Maybe one of the mass effect planets. I'm most fond of the beginning I suppose, which is also the part that evokes this image in my mind. The rest of it is actually a tad too...exciting or generic to make the song totally awesome. That hollow sound that's semi-pervasive throughout the track makes the wind. Make sure to listen to it with headphones to catch the panning. I love panning in music, which is kinda odd but neat in that placement of sound is a part of music too. Also, speaking of mass effect, the map music is also great. I've sat there and just listened to it a good many times when I was playing it. That's probably be even better in full stereo too. I also seem to love music that has beats in 3/4 and 4/4 at the same time, (there's a word for a song that has 2 time signatures that run simultaneously, but I can't think of it) which this piece has. The 3 beat kicks in at 17s in this link, shortly followed by a few other off-beat rhythms. Right before it loops again is where the 3/4 (6/8?) vs. 4/4 is the most obvious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-19bl4_SDfI | | Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 | | 7:14 am |
Go see walle
I thought about leaving my post at that, since I think it'd be pretty funny to not actually make a post about anything, but I've got stuff to say about it. It was the best movie I've seen in theatres in a few years I think. I'm actually drawing a blank to any movies I've seen in the past few years in theatres though. It was totally original and very unexpected. Kim, I agree with you that 'cute and rather dystopian' fit, but that just makes me think of the 3 blind men and the elephant. I also suggest going to see it in theatres if it's still around, if only because of all the nice little detail that's in CG movies these days. If you've missed your chance, keep it in mind for your 'to see' list. Ok, not that much to say. Go see walle. | | Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 | | 3:15 pm |
plan? learning
I have no excuse for not updating, especially since I've had plenty of stuff going on in my life, lotsa ideas floating around in my head, and for at least a few months, tons of time. As many people know now, I've begun another undergraduate degree, this time in Computer Science. It was a very spur-of-the-momeny decision, (I barely made the deadline) encited by my lack of a) a job (I quit the co-op job. It was driving me nuts, and also paid a pittance) b) available jobs that I actually wanted and c) thoughts about the glamourous job of becoming a prof. So, I had basically decided that I needed to go back to school, but I didn't have an idea as to a degree. CS seemed the most practical one, where I could easily get a decent job I'd likely like, that would also give me some useful skills/knowledge for cognitive psychology, if I so chose to go down that path. So here I am, exams a couple weeks away, me feeling stressed and overworked, yet ultimately happy with my decision. That said, I recently had a proposal from Prof. Voyer, the professor who hired me on some grant money to help him with research, that I apply to do a PhD with him. He also said I might have problems getting into the program because of my low GPA for my psyc degree, which is the only reason I've not applied here or elsewhere for a masters, but I've so far gotten excellent grades this term, so maybe they'll help. But, he ultimately wanted me as a student. Part of me thinks I'm stupid to not jump on this. Another part of me thinks that through my CS degree, I may want to get into a slightly different field of research, one which ultimately seems like it'd more useful/productive. (There's so much guesswork and theory, and so little concrete support for anything in psychology, even cognitive psychology.) When I mentioned my plans to fully finish my CS degree, Voyer mentioned something about cognitive psychologists with CS degrees currently being in high demand, and he said something about him never being able to get who he wants to work with him. On a slight downside, it looks like the funding that's paying me won't be renewed for next year, so I'll be out of a job. However, I was thinking it'd be hard to juggle 15 hrs/week of (sometimes) very brain-intensive work on top of a full set of 2nd and 3rd year courses. I also might be able to be a TA or something in the CS dept. Deadlines for applications for the PhD are looming for next fall right now. Plus I'd have to write GRE's (why is it that anyone I know who's been to grad school didn't have to write these things?? Stupid psychologists.) Onto other news, I'm moving out of my parents house in the next couple of days. I was going to hold out until after christmas, but not anymore. I think I detest my parents 90% of the time. I'd like to say that moving out will cool things down for me, but I'm not sure it will. I've begun holding grudges ever since highschool against each of them for various reasons. They're utterly dumbfounded by this, and its clear that whenever I explain why, they just think I'm overly emotional, am on the 'wrong' side of an argument, am being childish, am acting crazy, etc. In any case, I don't mean to rant about this. My new home for at least the next month or so is the same house Aiden lives in. I'm renting a room on the top floor that has 2 cats and hopefully no fleas. | | Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 | | 9:56 pm |
Wow. I haven't updated in a long time. I've also not checked out other people's blogs much either, but Jordan assures me that no one's really updated. My job at the co-op's starting to grow on me, for better or worse. I have no idea how standing around can grow on you, but it has. I supposed you just get to start to know everyone, especially when it's your job to recognize as many people as possible. I'm also getting benefits now. They're also giving me all the time off I ask for, which is good, especially since I'm still making up hours that I was paid for but didn't actually work through the school year. I'm far from content to work at the co-op the rest of my life, or even a few years though. I want to DO something with myself, but I'm at an impass as to what to actually do, and there's still this problem that I'm terribly lazy. I tried getting into a grad level psyc course at UNB, but I wasn't allowed in since my marks don't meet UNB's grad school requirements. Boo. There goes any plan of being able to tell any possible supervisors "Look, I know my marks aren't the greatest, but I can do grad level work!". There's still the possibility of boosting my average. I could take some 3rd and 4th year psyc courses here, do my best to get A+, and get my average to an 80, or close to it. Or I could get some music courses under my belt and do the same thing, cept UNB or STU doesn't offer enough in terms of what I'd like to have. Or I could go back to almost scratch and get a useful degree, ie, one which could get me a job. I still don't know what I want, except that I don't want to let the situation wait for another year, which, uhhhmh, isn't all that helpful. I've been mulling about what to do with myself constantly for the past couple of months, and I've gotten little nearer to deciding what I want. My computer's fixed (again), hopefully for longer than a day or month this time. So that's what's going on with me these days. Nothing terribly exciting. Perhaps I'll get around to posting some pictures from my trip to Toronto in April. | | Friday, March 16th, 2007 | | 9:59 am |
What size is your travel mug?
So I was just buying myself a coffee at the now Starbucks at the Harriet Irving Library. I go there often when I want a coffee and I'm on campus because it's the closest place for me just a walk in the underground passage away. I also try to bring my own coffee mug, to save a tree and all that jazz. Well, that and the fact that I can't seem to drink a beverage with the lids they have there, the sippy-cup style ones, without dripping all over myself. The problem with bringing my own mug is that there's the question about what size it is, and the thing with my travel mug at least, is that it's pretty tall, and the outside is fairly wide, but the sides are pretty thick, so it looks like it holds more than it does. Soon after Starbucks opened up there (sometime last semester; the other coffee shop there used to have much smaller styrofoam cups), I tested to see how much a small there filled up mug. They're 12oz cups, and it basically filled the entire mug, albeit leaving a little more room for milk/cream than the paper cup. I'm pretty sure I showed the lady at the cash at the time, although I might've just done it showing myself how much it was. Regardless, whenever I do use my coffee mug, I leave the lid off and put it down on the counter so that they can see inside how high I filled it. Since determining how much a small is, whenever I get coffee using my mug, I always try to make sure to fill it up lower than what a full 12oz one did, regardless of whether I'm getting milk or not. Well, at first, I wasn't sure how much it should come to with tax for any size, and I'm pretty sure I'd been charged everything under the sun for it. I figured out eventually though that a small coffee with the 10 cent discount for my own resuable mug comes to $1.77. And today was the first time I noticed that I was getting charged more. I saw the 10 cent discount, and realized that she charged me for a larger size coffee. I said something like "Oh, I always get charged 1.77 for it." I dunno if I would've said anything anyways, (probably) but a definite factor in me saying anything was that I had only brought a toonie, and the total was 2.04$. She gave me a look but without any fuss lowered the total. I felt kinda bad then, and I offered to show her that the coffee in my mug only made up a small. She said 'no, that's fine', but still had a look on her face, and I think I said again that I don't mind showing her that the amount of coffee I got was only 12oz, and I said I wasn't getting any cream for it either. I didn't show her, and I didn't insist beyond that though because I wasn't sure if that'd make her more or less upset, and there was a line-up behind me. It's sad that because she got mildly peeved, and understandably so, it got me mildly peeved, and I didn't leave my usual tip of 23 cents. Current Mood:  blah | | Monday, March 5th, 2007 | | 3:23 pm |
While perusing for articles which might be of interest to my boss, I came across an interesting sounding one about sex differences in persuasion in person compared to online. Although the experiment itself was pretty neat, the introduction was actually the most interesting part for me, firstly because, unlike every journal article I've read for the past 6 months, its about a topic which I've learned nothing about, and it doesn't rehash the findings of articles which I've already read myself. Secondly, I found a theory discussed in it pertained to me in a particular fashion. Essentially, it says that for in-gender'dyads' (I take it this mean for groups of 2 people), those people will act more stereotyipcal for that sex, as compared with a man and a woman. The stereotypical way for men to act, apparently, is to be more competitive, whereas for women it's to be cooperative. Now, usually, I find that I don't feel like I fit into stereotypical ways of acting, but the more I think about it, the more this seems to ring absolutely true for me. I would say that I'm a fairly competitive person. I like debating/arguing, and I like games. And I also often feel more comfortable around men than women for many things, and when I think about it, those are largely competitive things. I find myself worrying about making women feel stupid or hurt if I state my mind about things which they don't agree with; I'm worried they'll take it too personally or something. And I suppose that this leads me to probably being more pleasant to be with when I'm with women, but also makes me feel a little less like my actual self I think. This also made me think about why I often make male characters etc. online. I suppose I like being able to openly compete with someone, and I've definitely gotten the impression that men are more likely to do that when they think I'm a guy. I know that I come off as masculine on-line too, because there's been a couple of instances where people have sworn that I'm a guy, even though I've played a female character and said I was actually female. I've never used Vent or other verbal means of communication to game before, (family and friends aside: they know I'm a woman already) and although being able to communicate through speaking is definitely a plus, I think it's a little disappointing that people know your actual gender when using those things. I used to go into chatrooms and not announce my gender purposefully and I'd start ranting about "It doesn't matter what sex I am" and it'd piss people off. Once, people started saying I was a transvestite, which is kinda funny because at that time, I wasn't actually sure what a transvestite was. I'm definitely a fan of the anonymity being online gives because of the removal of so much stereotyping, and I'm a little saddened when I see the internet becoming a place where people put up pictures of themselves all the time. | | Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | | 2:04 pm |
Law
I think I should rename the title of my journal to something like "Complaining Vern". It seems suitable. Yes, I'm going to complain about more things in this entry. On The Current, on CBC radio (no, I'm too lazy to link anything) this morning, I listened for about a minute before turning it off because of what this one lady who was being interviewed had said. I'm not even sure what the premise of the interview was, but I think it was something along the lines of how punishment should work. This lady had been raped at some time in the past (no tears or blubbering from her), and the guy had been put in jail for 20 years. She was asked about her involvement in the guy's sentencing, and she said that she let the courts do their job. I'm fine with everything up until now. She then made a comment which essentially said 'It's not my job to decide what happens to him, the law's the law. You can't/shouldn't try to worm your way around or through it.' And she made it very clear that she was referring to law in general, that it didn't just apply to her case. What on earth does she think the purpose of the law is? Law is law because it's supposed to help and protect people. If a law isn't doing that, or if you think it's being unfair, unjust, or uncritical about any given situation, then it's not doing its job and it should be fought. I know I'm way far left on this issue in that I almost think that law shouldn't exist, and people should just use their heads about situations where a higher council needs to intervene. I think maybe what my ideal is to have Common Law? (I'm not even sure what that is, but I think it might be what I'm talking about. I don't think people should be running around in anarchy.) This lady purposefully didn't intervene and said that people shouldn't intervene in situations where one's been wronged, and that's just the opposite of the way I think things should be. Gah, why do people think that they always have to concede to a higher power? What, your parents weren't strict enough when you were a kid? (Don't read that I actually know psychology about that, I'm just giving a low-blow.) I mean, the law's made by someone or some group, and there's no guarantee they've thought about your specific situation. Grrr, even the 'law' gave her the opportunity to intervene because it's been made to do so because most people aren't idiots who think that every situation is the same. I hope that she just thought that the law did exactly what she wanted it to do, nothing more or less, to her rapist, and she's adopted that stance only out of sheer ignorance. That said, and with all the whining I go, please don't be offended if you happen to carry a differing viewpoint than I do about stuff. I'd even like to debate stuff, but that tends to end with the other person pissed at me well before I've gotten myself fueled up enough to even give the benefit of being angry myself. | | Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 | | 10:21 am |
neuro-typical
I'm neuro-typical since I'm not autistic, apparently. While looking up grammar rules for the fairly unimportant control condition task for the mental rotation study I'm about to start testing for, I came across a blog that seemed to be focused on autism. The entry in particular had little to do with autism except that it had been used as an example for an essentially, 'are fetuses living' discussion. http://partprocessing.blogspot.com/2006/10/changing-into-versus-being.htmlA couple of times, NT is used, and only near the end is it apparent that it stands for neuro-typicals. I've heard the term used before online, and I thought it was just that particular person or a fairly small group of people who used that term, and I'm kinda shocked and definitely disappointed to find that it's accepted to the point of abbreviation such that anyone in the blogosphere about autism will apparently know what it means. I dislike the term. A lot. The very words mean that unless you're autistic, (probably largely those diagnosed with Asperger's specifically anyways, since I'm assuming that those are the autistic people who have entered the blogosphere ARE) your neurons are 'typical'. I'll give it that they probably think they're arranged typically, and that people with Autism have neurons arranged atypically. It ignores completely that neurons control waaaaay more than the relatively small differences in function between autistic people and non-autistic people. You could call people who don't have ADHD or depression neuro-typical too. Hell, you could call all right-handers NTs. It's a terrible, blanket term which I suspect some Vulcan-like person with Asperger's came up with to make themselves feel superiour. The first time I saw someone use it was in a post saying that people with Asperger's were superiour to those who don't have it, because they're more intelligent and don't have to worry about emotions and sex getting in the way of their thinking. And maybe that initial use of the term has scarred any further use of the word for me in that I can't shake the rest of the implication that that particular person put with it. Maybe only people who think Asperger's or autism is better than not having it use it as a term. Afterall, the blog, although not focusing on it at all, said they heard examples of people who say "Selecting an embryo with genetic markers for autism over an embryo without such markers is the same thing as making a nonautistic child autistic!", and it seems a really, really odd for people to select for autism, or even suggest that they might/do. Regardless of any 'that means I'm better than you' connotations used with the word though, it's still a very poor term. | | Friday, January 19th, 2007 | | 11:09 pm |
I'm not going to bother hiding anything behind a tag, but if you've just started reading Diana Gabaldon's series, or are planning on reading Gone with the Wind, then there are a couple spoilers. I talk about Catch 22 also, but no spoilers there. I got a bunch of books for xmas this year (actually, I only got books for Jordan and my aunt), but its enough to tide over my reading for the next few months. I'm a slow reader, and I'm surprising myself by actually taking time to read, because I had practically all-out stopped reading for pleasure through most of my undergrad life. And when I did read, it wasn't all that enjoyable, although that could've been my selection in books. For instance, I don't like Diana Gabaldon's series. Each individual section and mini-story makes sense and is often well-written, but the plot as a whole seems poorly tied together, and I simply wasn't drawn into the main character. She goes back in time and tries to stop some Scottish uprising, and she doesn't think at all about consequences of altering time (worse is that the idea is mentioned and immediately brushed off), and then when she discovers that she probably can't alter past events whatsoever, they just keep trying foolishly at it. Furthermore, although it IS the main plot, it got paid so little attention to it that it's infuriating. And then she gets all uptight about finding her dead husband she marries while in the past's grave, and gets all upset that he's dead and about the circumstances of his death, but only because she wanted to stop it. The storyline has a lot to it to drive the novel forward, but I kept feeling like things were just happening, and after one event was done, there was nothing to look forward to, and you had to forceably read through until another incident, with nothing to hold suspense or make you look forward and think 'Ohhh, I want to read about what's coming next!', and the adventuresome nature of the book invariably cries out for such techniques to make it to work. I don't know, it's been over a year since I read the first book and a half, and I forget a lot of things, but all these supposedly meaningful things weren't made meaningful to the reader, despite what seems a huge effort to make them so. I dunno, maybe I just didn't like the main character at all because I didn't understand her at all. Grrr, unless you've already read the first book and liked it, don't bother with them. They're trash. Moving along. I finished Catch 22 not too long ago, which Jordan got me for my birthday, which is a pretty good book. I found I couldn't devour it though in that I couldn't take reading more than a couple of chapters at a time. Too much...something, too much of that style of writing would make me go crazy, and I think I'd lose a lot of what the book has to offer if I passed that certain point of 'I've had too much.' The entirety of the book would become...hmm, what's the word...frivolous! that's it, which would include the parts that aren't supposed to be (seeing as a lot of it IS frivolous.) It's definitely a good book though, whose writing and style lends itself to not needing a driven plot (unlike the books written by Diana Gabaldon.) I've been told that the sequel isn't as good, and I would say that ANY sequel to that book simply couldn't be as good. It definitely has its own style and charm which I've vaguely seen attempted in the crappy writing of internet novelists (SO much garbage out there), and it involves a very skilled writer to make the style of the story work, and Joseph Heller does. The book is over-the-top, but is written oppositely, and it hits off. The characters are awesome. The other book I just finished reading is Gone with the Wind. (Yes, the one I got at the garage sale when me, Mon, Nathan and Jordan went down to St. John in August. Ha ha! I used 'me' not 'I') That was also a good read. Most of the incidents leading up to the ending seemed rather abrupt, possibly only because the rest of the book was very long-winded, however, I would've preferred if some of the scenes were actually 'lived' instead of described. For instance, Rhett's relationship with his daughter would've been more powerful I think if they had actually gone into a couple scenes involving her, rather than, still very aptly, describing his relationship with her. However, don't take this as a huge flaw -people seem to denounce movies and books who's endings aren't as good as the rest of the story, even though this ending is very, very fitting- it certainly isn't, and it is actually a very small role in the novel as a whole. I was immediately drawn into the book with an amazing setting. It rivals the setting quality of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World, which I happen to absolutely love. The story starts to develop, all the while keeping in mind that necessity of getting a solid background and cultural understanding. In both stories, the setting was unknown to me (well, all fantasty settings are unknown, and woe to the fantasy author who doesn't develop their setting well, for I shall not finish their book!), and I immediately fell in love with the Southern US before the American Revolution, all the while seeing its faults. Most of the novel is spent describing society and the changes it undergoes, which is itself a main theme of the story, and every single action Scarlett, the main character, takes is put into proper cultural perspective. Now this is an example of what some guy whose nebulous psychological metatheories were alluding to when he said something along the lines that all people are psychologists in that we have enough understanding of ourselves such that we can make up a characters and plots and everything else which follow all the 'rules'. Margaret Mead follows the rules to a T and successfully creates a masterpiece; Diana Gabaldon, although understanding these rules or else her novels wouldn't work out at ALL, seems to not understand how to implement them properly in her writing. It's odd; I didn't have any plans of anything I wanted to write about tonight, except that its been a week and I wanted something to talk about, and out of my head comes something which seems could easily be turned into an English paper with a little (or lotta) work. My God I'm boring. | | Sunday, January 14th, 2007 | | 9:58 pm |
Culture FTW
Tonight at dinner I tried to explain to my parents what L33T 2P3@K was. (I don't even know if I 'spelled' that correctly, but whatever). Well, as I suck at explaining things, I don't think I made a good point at all, but it made me think about the internet culture in general, and how my parents aren't a part of it at all. It made me kinda sad. There's so much out there that they're missing. And this is coming from someone who knows that she's not knowledgeable about a good deal of it, or rather, is probably only passingly immersed in it. (Maybe don't take that too strongly; this is a livejournal afterall.) It also reminded me about when me and Damian tried to explain to Mom the concept of farming in MMORPG's and we had to start from the very beginning with the general basics about how games like that work in general, something which I ignorantly didn't really think about having to explain before. It probably made me slightly sad because I know I don't know as much as I'd like to, and me, in my early 20's with little obligations, already feel like I'm falling behind in our ever-advancing technological-driven culture. And I wish I weren't. Maybe I'm not, and maybe I'm only doing as much as humanly possible in that I have to pick and choose sub-cultures to partake in and I just see other ones passing me by. I wish I knew more about 'things' in general, but it takes a concerted effort in me to do things like that. In fact, the only reason why I'm even partially knowledgeable about news is because my parents turn on CBC radio all the time, and I'm living at home. I never turned on the radio except as an alarm when I was away from my parents (which I could easily blame on the shitty radio reception in the entire Guelph area, but that'd be a lying and saying I actually tried), and I quickly was enveloped in the university student 'bubble'. I wasn't in any activist groups of any type at university either, which in a way surprises me a little, but that's something else. I'm not really exiting that bubble though. That's sad. I should. I want to. I like being knowlegdeable. I like being able to have an opinion, and I really don't like having poorly backed-up opinions, and so my lack of knowledge leaves me 'at sea' about a lot of things. Maybe that's the reason why I don't particularly care so much that I know nothing about pop culture-pop culture almost by definition doesn't involve 'discussion', although that also seems to be changing as discussion itself seems to be becoming very chique. That's a good thing, although it certainly puts me lower on some scale because I'm not up on a lot of discussion topics. Despite what Jordan thinks about my parents being cultured in their classical music preferences, (although as I've said before, my parents rarely just 'listen to music'-when I think about it, I think I got a lot of my like for music from church, but that's another topic) CBC listening, fancy clothes wearing, home-made meals and well-paying, white colored jobs, I still think he's more cultured than my parents in that he's living and partaking in more events and going out there and exposing himself to far more ideas and art in a day, through the internet, than they probably are in a week or even possibly a month. And more culture than I expose myself to too. But I guess that's not going to change until I stop living in my head and spending hours a day in loosely directed thought. But I like doing that too much, and it seems the only way to get me to stop doing that is to force myself into action through things like having a job, so I think I'm just going to stay an uncultured clout and watch as more and more of the world passes me by. | | Sunday, January 7th, 2007 | | 12:55 pm |
The Dip
The world seems to be going topsy turvy or something, because I ordered a chinese dish at the Diplomat last night, and it was actually good. The dish I ordered (I forget the name) was ever only so-so before, and I just ordered it because there was nothing else I really wanted and I wanted chinese food. It wasn't great, but I'll give it good. I hope they've changed other menu items too. | | Thursday, January 4th, 2007 | | 9:14 pm |
Sleep
My pitiful excuse for a livejournal or blog or whatever you want to call something that's supposed to be updated on a regular basis is becoming even more pitiful. I guess that's what happens when you get a significant other and there's holidays so you actually get to see most of the people who might read your blog anyways. Anyways, on CBC's Ideas tonight, there was the first of a 2 part thingy about sleep. I missed most of it, but probably caught most of the last 20 minutes of it, in time to hear that different cultures have different sleep patterns, but that its hardly been studied at all. The guy doing the narrating had apparently undergone some sort of sleep experiment which I'm guessing was essentially just spending his time being focussed on sleeping and recording stuff. At some point in the experiment, he'd wake up in the middle of the night first only once, and then a few times afterwards, and be completely and utterly relaxed, and he'd drift in and out of dreaming while being in this relaxed state. It seemed that it was a very novel experience for him, which is a little surprising because this seems to happen to me all the time (although perhaps I'm not quite as relaxed as he was.) It happens if I get to sleep in, for instance, especially when I know its perfectly fine for me to be sleeping in that day. Actually, I think the times when it's been the most relaxing are the times when I've foolishly decided to screw life and all obligations, usually after going through the terrible feeling of, you know, having to DO something. It's actually kinda amazing how I managed to do that, go from a state of despair to one of utter relaxation, which I was probably only be able to do because I truly did throw off absolutely all cares and troubles and meanings; I certainly haven't developed this state in the past while. (Anyways, that entire section should be in parentheses, and not just this sentence-I do that all the time, nest thoughts into other ones. Wasn't there a UNB prof who did that while lecturing all the time?) As I was saying, I've entered into states which I'm sure are very similar to what the narrator/presenter was talking about, and I do recall the moment where, for awhile, I became quite good at entering that state from waking, as opposed to waking up and entering it. I thought it might've been something akin to meditation, because it happened after I had listened to 1, fairly short song, over and over for at least an hour. The little I know about meditation, which I'm sure is largely stereotype, is that people often hum or chant to enter themselves into that state, that the repition of sound helps something out. I wonder if what the guy was talking about is akin to meditation. I also wonder about the EEG readings (he must've been hooked up to EEG), and I wonder if the pattern is close to the one when people meditate. It probably is, and is probably already known to be so, and I'm just too lazy to look it up; there are only a handful, 4 or 5, categories of brainwaves. I also heard on Ideas that not only sleep but resting as well is correlated with increased levels of prolactin. Not minute increases, but apparently something fairly strong as well. Not that this means much in and of itself, (random chemical x increases when you're sleepy and sleeping, who would've guessed something like that would happen!), but it made me think about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS is exactly what it says, and is one of these disorders/diseases which apparently know one knows of a cause or anything, and I hadn't heard about prolactin when I'd read about CFS before, but apparently, there is research out there showing that people with CFS respond stronger to some chemical which causes prolactin release than others. As I've said before on my livejournal I think even, I like sleep. I don't quite like it as much as I did a year and then some ago, but its still very enjoyable. Tomorrow night, Ideas will play part II of the series, and they said it would involve stuff about lucid dreaming. I've had lucid dreams myself, but mainly to the extent that I know I'm dreaming. In fact, I've had lucid dreams where even though I've figured out I'm dreaming, the dream still takes over, like my conciousness is too lazy or doesn't care of the fact that I'm dreaming, and I often lose or forget that it was a dream, yet I realize what actually happened when I wake up. Partially on the topic of lucid dreaming, awhile ago Nathan said he was able to fall asleep while remaining concious, and felt his body shut down and said it felt awful. From other people's ramblings on the internet, that seems the general consensus when they've done that or that happened accidentally before. I tried for awhile there to fall asleep and remain concious, but I couldn't do it. I dunno, unless I had heard of it, I would've said that you just can't 'fall asleep' unless you DO lose conciousness, that they always go hand in hand, but I guess I'm wrong. It certainly seems that my conciousness slips into random thoughts before my body enters into sleep often. I had actually forgot to keep trying to do that, and I'll probably try and fail again tonight. People say the counting method, where you keep yourself conscious through counting, is a good way to do it, but I can count in my head without me being conscious of it, the same way there can be a song in my head without me really being conscious about it. In fact, years ago, when I walked home from school all the time, for the heck of it I once decided to count while walking. I did that for a few days, and it quickly became second nature to me, and at times when I didn't mean to be doing it, I'd find that I'd be counting in my head and could be as high up as in the 300's before I realized. This I think has put a black mark on the counting method for me. However, from the only Richard Feyman book I'd read, he talked about him counting in his head not aloud like most people do (ie: normal people hear the numbers), he saw the numbers. (What I believe he was talking about in the book was something which psychologists have done for years and still do now in an attempt to figure out how things work in the mind, is that when doing multiple tasks, if one requires the same 'resources' as another, the task will become harder and more time consuming, whereas if the person can multi-taks while taking no loss to accuracy or time, the 2 things are then called separate processes). I tried doing that, counting through seeing, and that still failed, but I think its got a much better chance at working for me because that is very much not automatic. I think the main thing is, is that I'm not fully sure of HOW to fall asleep while remaining conscious. It just seems that if I focus on doing something, I'm just going to stay awake, but that if I don't focus, I'm just going to let my thoughts trail into oblivion. I have no idea how it feels, and I have no idea if I'm close or not. There's been times where it kinda feels like I might be falling asleep, and then I start focussing on the feeling of it, and then I'm just awake. Or else, I can almost feel different levels of consciousness, and I'm not really sure what 'level' I should be in. Apparently, I keep choosing the 'sleep' level :-p In anycase, I still want to experience remaining conscious while being awake, and will probably try sporadically at it for quite a long time. Well, that's my un-pre-written, un-proofread rambling for now. | | Friday, December 8th, 2006 | | 7:54 am |
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