Blogs and Blogging: I’m behind the times again!

November 30th, 2008 by Brianna

I managed to fall of the face of the earth this week, but I have a good excuse – I’ve been building a USB mouse.

Don’t ask.

Anyway, today I ran across this article via autowin. Basically, the author of the article claims – half tongue-in-cheek – that blogs are dead. The popular ‘blogs’ are actually online magazines written by professional writers, and the individual blogger can’t compete. Nor would she want to – the popular blogs are too impersonal to satisfy the spirit of blogging. Instead, the author claims that the discerning wannabe writer should turn to Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter for an outlet.

Of course, he was promptly dismantled in the comments – but I think that all of those people missed the point.

Here’s the thing: I hate Twitter. I hate Flickr. And I fucking hate Facebook. (I’ve seen far too Facebook breakups, not to mention the general ‘friend obsession’ and overall waste of time). I despise all of those services.

But I’m glad that they exist.

I think that the author of the Wired article is absolutely right – blogging is dead for people who use it in the way that he’s describing. Blogging is not for personal communication! It fails miserably at that task! (Besides, we have Email and IM for personal communication) Blogging is a publishing technique, not a social network. To be sure, networks certainly develop around blogging, but the purpose of a blog is to publish information, not to make friends.

Back when blogs were the ‘next big thing’ I hated them, too. If you had something to say, I thought, you should say it on a static webpage! Blogs were for people who wanted to talk about the weather/a party/random personal stuff, post pictures of their cat, bitch mindlessly about their pitiful lives, tell everyone how cool they were, generally display their ignorance, or, most importantly, try and get more readers (aka friends) then the next person.

Guess where all of those people have gone?

Now that I have realized that blogging is a wonderful form of publishing, I glad that most of the self-involved attention seekers have moved on to another medium. It just means fewer distractions for those of us who actually have something to say.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in random musings | No Comments »

The Spells: Bat vs. Bird

November 21st, 2008 by Brianna

Carrie Brownstein (rock goddess extraordinaire), several years ago, was in a little duo called The Spells with Mary Timony. They released an EP, and then ran out of time and never got anywhere with it.

Apparently, they recorded a few more song than were on the EP, and Carrie just released them on her blog. According to Carrie, they were just sitting around so, “…why not?”

I suppose this means that The Spells will never release an album now, but I’m certainly not going to complain. Four songs is infinitely better than nothing! And the songs are pretty darn cool, so go and listen now – they’re only available for two weeks.

Thoughts on the individual tracks:

Bat Vs. Bird
Punk rock style riffs plus a really beautiful melody plus sound effects! Timony has a very unique singing style, moving through the odd intervals in the opening easily. The hissing s’s are a nice touch, and the ‘fall’ (for lack of a better word) at the end of the chorus “listen to the birds… as they call”

The song is delicate, almost a ’springtime’ song, with just a touch of sadness. Being chased by a vampire bat never sounded more appealing!

Viola
Starts out with… a violin? I can’t really tell, but something just doesn’t sound right with the opening! That’s just a minor difficulty, though. The guitar playing is excellent, and the singing is absolutely haunting. I have a real weakness for women singing in a low register!

Very good, though not as good as Bat vs. Bird.

Champion Vampire
Almost sounds like an early Sleater-Kinney song! They both sing simultaneously throughout, and due to my inability to understand lyrics easily, the only time I can tell what they are singing is the unison “You’re the best thing I never had!” (Let me know if you can make out the rest, would you?)

This song sounds cool, in the most specific sense of the word.

Antarctica
Begins with generic angry background noise, almost like a Pink Floyd song. I’m not crazy about the singing on this one – and I still can’t understand the words! The ‘oo hoo’ sound is a bit silly, and overall the song is rather boring – just like Antarctica, I guess! I do like the guitar vibrato at the end of the phrases.

So, Bat vs. Bird is the best, Antarctica is the worst, and my primary reaction is, “YAY! Something new(ish) from Carrie!”

She should do a solo project, or something.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in entertainment and art reviews | No Comments »

Gunfights and Stickfights

November 18th, 2008 by Brianna

I’ve been watching a lot of old Charmed episodes lately. It’s not Buffy, it’s not Xena, it’s not even the L Word – but I like it. It has (usually) strong female characters, decent writing, and fair production values. But something about Charmed always bothered me, and it’s not that they had a penchant for making the occasional ‘Very Special Episode’ – (or that they killed Prue, though I wish they hadn’t!)

I think I’m bothered by the mechanics behind the magic.

Let me explain: I’m not usually given to fanboy tendencies (You know the type. “Spiderman is way cooler than the Incredible hulk, and here’s why!”, or “The Enterprise could totally beat the Battlestar Galactica,” or “Here are all of the different types of Pokeman, organized by color, personality and intelligence.”) I do care about realism, though. Not of the ‘that couldn’t really happen’ type, but of the ’suspension of disbelief’ type. So despite all of Xena’s crazy physics, random messing with the show’s mythology, and out-of-character comedy moments, it still suspends disbelief, because at the end of the day, Xena and Gabrielle are still soulmates – and that makes sense.

The plots of Charmed revolve around various magical events. Those events usually involve some random new demon with some random new ‘power’ who is stopped by the sisters’ reciting a silly rhyme! The extant of the sister’s power are never really explained. The way by which the spells work are confusing, and seemingly made up for each given plot. What saves the show is that whatever demonic threat they face,it makes sense to them, and helps them grow as people/overcome some personal problem/generally serve some emotional point. So, you just have to go along with the cheesy magic, and enjoy the characters! Or so I thought…

I noticed something, oddly enough, while watching Bound the other day. Several people get shot in Bound – but curiously, the victor in the fight is not the strongest, the smartest, or even the best prepared. When Caesar kills the mafia bosses, he wins, simply because he got his gun out first. It was three against one (I think), and he was rather whimpy – but he shot the others without much difficulty because he made the first move. This, of course, is a feature of most movies that contain violence, but which are not action movies., In an action piece, it takes forever to kill someone – giving lots of time for explosions, taunting, and cool poses. Buffy, for example, alternates punches with quips, faces reoccurring trouble without any sense of closure, and generally seems to be in one continual fight. Xena comes back from the dead whenever she pleases. Even your random cop show has extended gun fights for coolness’ sake. But that’s not how real violence usually works. It only takes one moderate wound to incapacitate a person for days. Most serious fights – gun fights in particular – are over before they begin. And the person who was goes first usually wins.

It’s gunfights vs. stickfights. In an action piece, the character’s might as well be fighting with sticks, for all the damage they do – but we like it, because it looks cool and doesn’t remind us of real violence.

Real violence isn’t pretty, it’s sudden and horrible.

And that was my problem with Charmed. I expected another Buffy-type show. It’s magical, it’s semi action oriented, and the character’s generally kill (demons, of course!) without compunction.

But Charmed is really more realistic than I thought. Sure, the rhymes are still cheesy, but the suddenness, the thin line between being killing and being killed, the fear of the moment that the sisters exhibit, is perhaps more realistic that the vast majority of shows. The real fight of the show, is to be ready for the actual fight.

Either that, or they cut fights short because their effects budget really sucked…

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in essays | No Comments »

Update on the gun nut chick

November 15th, 2008 by Brianna

A while back, I wrote about these gun-crazy families that I know.

Today, the oldest daughter (the one who’s hot for Sarah Palin) asked me what I thought about the election results. I responded – vaguely – that I was happy about some things, and unhappy about others (I didn’t mention what I was unhappy about…)

She was obviously very unhappy about the election, and informed me that she celebrated election day by buying a Glock!

Lovely.

Now, most of the ultra right-wing conservative types I know don’t like Obama for one of two reasons. Either they don’t like his position on abortion, or they think he’s a socialist.

Not gun-nut-chick! She doesn’t like Obama because she thinks that he’s going to take everyone’s guns away. Of course, Obama doesn’t really think that, but try to tell that to her! She ended up asking me what I thought about gun control, and I replied that I thought it was okay if people owned guns for hunting and self-defense (properly licensed, of course), but that it really didn’t affect me personally, because I didn’t feel like I could ever take a human life, even in self-defense.

And she came completely unglued! She just couldn’t believe that anyone could possibly not want to defend herself with lethal force. She couldn’t fathom the idea, that perhaps her life is no more or less valuable than someone else’s! And she can’t even began to understand the complexities of real self-defense. (Trying to explain to her that most sexual assaults are committed by someone known by the victim, for example, only leads to angry denial or blank stares!)

So, now, she’s mad at me – because I don’t want to kill someone!

Sigh…

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in random musings | No Comments »

Music Genre Diagram Update

November 14th, 2008 by Brianna

My ‘little’ chart is a lot bigger than I thought it would be!

And, it’s a lot harder to make, too – I’m not anywhere near done, but I thought I’d upload the rock portion, as it’s farthest along.

Things I Have Learned While Making This Chart:

1. Wikipedia is a mess.
2. Allmusic is a mess.
3. There aren’t any good book on popular music as a whole (At least, not that I can find!)

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Lesbian Podcasts!

November 13th, 2008 by Brianna

I’ve been having serious Internet writing block lately. It seems like everyone else is too – most of the blogs I read are have been pretty much post and comment free lately. I guess it’s post-election burnout! I’m still working on my gigantic Xena analysis, but I’m starting to feel a need to actually publish something, so how about:

Random podcast reviews!

2 Homos:

A podcast made by a couple who lives in LA. It is very, very clever. 2 Homos is a typical podcast – short episodes, with one specific topic for each podcast. And while they do usually have interesting things to say, the real reason to listen is for the interaction between Roxy and Virginia. They bounce off of each other in a very funny manner. Sometime they are a bit disgusting and weird, though!

Denise and Donna:

Is one of the big name, professionally produced podcasts – and the one of the few of those worth listening to! The Lesbian Lounge is more like a regular radio talk show. It’s two hours long, and they get big name guests, and have regular features. The end result is, that it often kind of boring. So I just recommend listening to the cool guests, and ignoring the everything else. They do seem to have a regular interactive chat community that runs live with the show – participating in that might make it more interesting.

The Lesbian Mafia:

Is usually quite offensive. Sandy (the podcaster) is very opinionated, and spends most of the podcast swearing at people and groups and concepts that she dosen’t like. It’s still entertaining, if completely random. The only part that I don’t like are the prank calls – but that’s because I don’t like prank calls in general! That, and Sandy has an irrational hatred for bisexuals.

The Planet Cast:

The best of the L Word themed podcasts – KC and Elka are very funny, very witty, and have lots of entertaining L Word related thoughts. The also encourage their listener to drunk dial into their hotline – the result is weird, but also lots of fun.

Girls on Girls

Here! TV’s attempt at podcasting. Both of the hosts are excellent comedians, and they manage to cram a awful lot of entertainment into a half hour. They talk about sex far more than is healthy for any human being, though! (And I mean that in the best possible way.)

Surrender Dorothy:

If you are reading this, you MUST go listen to this now. I found it by a random search, and I don’t think they have very many listeners, so LISTEN! And they definitely have one of the best podcasts on the web! They don’t really have a subject – it’s supposed to be about their ‘obsessions’, so they end up randomly talking about TV shows, video games, and musicals. Perhaps I just like them because they have cute Aussie accents (yes, yes, I’m a typical American!), and because I like almost everything that they do. That’s good enough for me, though – Surrender Dorothy is just plain fun to listen to!

Tags: ,
Posted in entertainment and art reviews | No Comments »

Meditation on Real Programmers

November 8th, 2008 by Brianna

Despite my claims of randomness, I was actually going to try and keep programming topics off of my blog (At least until I release my overly complex computer game – maybe someday!). But my latest pop-culture masterpiece is turning into a monster that I’m not going to finish today, so rather than write nothing…

We had a quiz in Java class today. It was easy – I already know 99% of the material – but the test was on objects. This made me think about OO programming in general, which made me think about C++, which lead to yet another search for information on the efficiency of Vector objects, which led me to the C++ FQA, which finally convinced me that my inability to learn C++ was not because I’m a stupid idiot, but rather because C++ is a stupid language. (See, how I’m working my link theory in here…)The C++ FQA lead me through a string of usenet post, blogs, and finally to a wiki, which had a link to the story of Mel – a Real Programmer.

I wish I knew somebody like that. Somebody who has the capacity and focus to keep that quantity of logical information in their head. Even the best professors in my CS department don’t even come close. Really, the only person I know who even comes close to that kind of insane intelligence, is not even a programmer! (she’s an activist type, and her ability to manipulate huge annoying organizations while simultaneously have a perfect understanding of individual interpersonal relations – that sentence was intentionally complex – is strikingly similar to Real Programming. It’s Real Human Programming, if you will.)

Anyway, Mel is completely obsolete. He was obsolete when the article was written in 1983, and his few replacements are widely scattered. It’s not surprising. Even I, with my mostly self-taught student programming skills, could write a blackjack program, with full color graphics, a selectable win percentage, and a computer opponent that hurls insults at the player, in less than an hour! The skills Mel required to develop perfect software has long been made useless by faster computers, shorter deadlines, and a greater tolerance for software that ‘almost works’ (thank you Microsoft!) Even hardware development is dominated by huge test suites, complicated CAD tools, and large teams of people working in a well-lit environment, where they have weekly meeting to discuss goals and throw around buzzwords like ‘Agile’ and ‘Extreme Programming’. Mel is gone, and his replacements are faster, ‘happier’, and more like ordinary businesspersons.

In a strange way, though, I still want to be Mel. No, I don’t want to program a RPC-4000. I don’t want to use machine language. Heck, I don’t even want to use assembly any more than I can help! But I want to do clever things in ways that nobody can understand. Fuck documented, elegant, happy interfaces! I want to have loads of obscure knowledge in my skull, confident that I am doing things in the best way possible, regardless of appearances. I want to be the woman who hides in the dark back room of some company, performing vital, yet inscrutable tasks, who doesn’t have to explain to some manager why she’s doing it that way – just producing results. I want to accomplish things that couldn’t have been done any other way! It doesn’t even have to be a programming thing, or even a computer thing – it’s really about the sense of gruness, if you will.

I don’t suppose this will ever happen. Everybody wants accountability. Most cool things are too big for one, or even two people to build. And I have far too great a sense of community, of sharing, of teaching to ever really pull it off. But the appeal still remains.

I want to be a Real Programmer.

Tags: ,
Posted in software and computers | No Comments »

Well, the election is over…

November 5th, 2008 by Brianna

And now, we’ll find out that the government is still broken, Americans are still in debt, big corporations still run the world, people are still suffering and being exploited, and the president can’t really do anything about most of it.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m very glad Obama was elected – but an election always seems to be far more important than it really is. Congress is still the same weird inefficient mess, lobby interests are still far too important, the voice of the people still ignored. People are still stupid and ignorant and biased. Obama likely won’t be able to pass most of the legislation that he really wants to, and four years from now, the US will still be in about the same place it is now. I hope it will be better, but that remains to be seen.

It’s just another election.

A couple of important things happened, though. One is very bad, and the other very good. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad:

The bad: California’s Proposition 8. It failed. The effects from this will last far, far longer than almost anything else in this election. It’s just incredibly depressing. I still can’t believe it passed – in fact, my conservative parents were surprised it passed! The message is clear. If California can’t defeat a marriage amendment, nobody can. I’m guessing Massachusetts and Connecticut will both pass amendments as soon as they can. (Side note: I have this theory on ballot measures. It seems like it is much easier to pass them than to defeat them, almost as if a certain number of people just vote ‘yes’ without actually reading it first! I think that some LGBT rights organization should get an amendment started somewhere that allows gay marriage – it just might work! I have no real evidence to support this, though…)

The good: We just elected the first Black president! Irrespective of any policies, legislation, judiciary appointments, or other actions that Obama and the new Congress might make, this fact alone will have a wonderful effect. I can’t count the number of times that I heard someone say how “terrified” they were of Obama being President. When pressed, they would always say that they thought that Obama was a socialist. That wasn’t it, of course. Most people don’t have an irrational fear of socialists – and Obama isn’t any more socialist than other Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter!) anyway. Heck, Teddy Roosevelt was a socialist! No, people are scared of Obama because he’s Black, pure and simple. And I’m excited about the effect that having a Black president will have on the country, on rights for people of color, for women, for any marginalized group.

Bigoted people will see that they were fools. People with latent and subconscious racism or sexism will be pushed toward a better viewpoint. Everyone will realize that the country is better when it’s not just being run by White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants. And most importantly, when people say, “In America, anyone can try to accomplish whatever they want. Anyone can be elected President.”, it will not just be an expression, a legal technicality.

It is now the truth.

(Crossposted at Fourth Wave Feminism)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in essays | No Comments »

Concerning the Dishonest Vote…

November 4th, 2008 by Brianna

Well, I guess I’ll be voting dishonestly this year! If I could instantly elect anybody I wanted to, it would probably be Cynthia McKinney. Her views are much closer to mine than any other candidate. But I’ll be voting for Obama, because McKinney (or any other third party candidate, for that matter) doesn’t even have a trillionth of a chance. It’s not ‘voting for the lesser of two evils’ – I like Obama, don’t get me wrong – but I wish I could, in good conscience, vote for the candidate that best represents my views.

Voting is a funny thing. As it turns out, it is impossible that a vote for more than two candidates be fair. (Consult any political science text for an explanation of this, if you are curious). In the case of our system, where the candidate with the most votes wins, the unfairness is, that a candidate could be elected of whom the majority actually disapproves of! So we rectify this by voting for the candidate for one of the tow big parties that is closest to are views. And, thus our two party system continues, without even a minor challenge to it’s dominance.

I really don’t like this. I feel bad about not supporting the candidate that I really like the most, but I don’t know what else to do! I think the situation might improve if we had runoff elections. (A runoff is a second vote for only the two most popular candidates). I know, I know, runoff elections have their own problems – particularly when one group votes for a candidate that everybody hates in order to ensure their victory, but I feel that it takes more thought, more of a conspiracy to cause unfair results in a runoff election.

Perhaps the best solution would be to change voting systems every other year, but I guess that would just confuse people.

In any case, I’ll be glad when I’m done with the candidate portion of the ballot tomorrow – and voting for the amendments and propositions and questions is fun! It’s just YES or NO. No chance for dishonesty there.

Everybody VOTE!

Tags: , ,
Posted in random musings | No Comments »

Some Disconnected Thoughts on the US Economy

November 1st, 2008 by Brianna
  1. The economy is not really about money. Or jobs. Or Banks. It’s about the distribution of goods and services.
  2. Americans have been receiving an unfair share of those goods. We have been for quite some time. We’re exploiting the rest of the world. This is going to have to be fixed.
  3. The federal debt continues to increase. That can’t continue forever.
  4. The current federal debt is enormous. The current consumer debt is obscene, too. That can’t be fixed overnight.
  5. We can talk all day about reducing spending, cutting or raising taxes, etc., but the reality is, money itself is worthless – it’s what it buys that counts.
  6. X goods are produced. The fairest distribution is X/Population.
  7. If a good or service is being produced, and it causes greater unhappiness than it creates happiness, the effort spent creating it is completely wasted. The prime example? War.
  8. Broken Window Fallacy. Broken Window Fallacy. Broken Window Fallacy!
  9. Americans aren’t more important than other people. We are just going to have to get used to a lower standard of living.
  10. It’s possible that some people might not be able to be employed at some point – thanks to machines, there may someday be fewer jobs available than workers. This may happen sooner than later – and would create an partial economy of abundance. So, we really do need to think about providing basic needs for everyone.
  11. It is impossible to drastically cut government spending without negatively impacting many, many people. It is impossible to quickly create new programs to replace old ones without negatively impacting many, many people. So, we must ignore any sweeping claims made by anybody.
  12. Usually, politics trump economics.
  13. Economic change doesn’t happen overnight – the stock market notwithstanding. The current situation is not Bush’s fault. It’s not Clinton’s fault. It’s not Reagen’s fault. One could even argue that it’s even FDR or Lincoln’s fault, but it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s a collective problem of society.

So in reference to the election, I think that voting for a candidate based on their economic policy is pointless at best, and idiotic at worst. The same things are going to happen, regardless. Instead, vote for the candidate with whom you agree on social, foreign, energy, or any other criteria, because the economy is an enormous, long term mess.

Tags: ,
Posted in random musings | No Comments »