MOOP!

There are fireflies in My Tree, and I find myself nostalgic for a year ago, when I remembered that there are places near here worth exploring, and sometimes I even get to spend time with someone who is worth exploring those places with.

And the only reason this entry sounds happier than the other is because I don't always write as well as I Feel.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Subject line ruthlessly stolen from rm)

Some stuff that has caught my eye lately:

*ms_hecubus went to the zoo! I found this report of hers deeply hilarious. Warning, it might not be safe for work, depending on how stringent your work is about animals fulfilling their biological imperatives. And pictures of thus.

*&y linked to this collection of ads speculating how modern technologies would've been advertised in 1977. Pretty stuff!

*As part of my regular discussion of everything in the entire world¹ with JoshZed, he mentioned that apparently Insane Clown Posse has declared war on science. Impressed by the concept that anyone could be so utterly stupid, I begged him to make a blog post. Highlights include the quote "We feel like these haters[scientists] are the big dumb, popular jocks ganging up on the little class clown scrub." I only laugh because if I think about it too hard, I'll start sobbing.

*Apparently the Vatican has endorsed The Blues Brothers as being a Catholic classic. I am not making this up.

*The first law of Rock-Em, Sock-Em Robotics: A robot may neither rock nor sock a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to be rocked or socked.

*And lastly, I've been following a parenting blog written by one of my math professors and her wife. They just had a rehaul, and have up an adorable new header. Go see! (And the best part is definitely that they do look more or less like those pictures, which is just so cute it makes me want to squee.)

~Sor
MOOP!

1: We seriously do talk about nearly everything there ever was in the world. This is why I've started writing down what our dinnertime conversations were later, because they cover such a broad host of subjects (okay, fine, mostly math and world domination, but a *lot* of math and world domination!)

I have apparently determined that listening to "Between"¹ on endless repeat is fun and a good idea! Doubly frustrating, because I was doing this a couple weeks ago, too --I don't like being in the same gloomspace twice in a month. I thought I had snapped out of this one already.

***

Went into my multivariate calc exam fully expecting to fail. Sat down to maybe scrawl some notes down for a study sheet, and realized that I hadn't actually learned anything all semester. It felt a bit like those stereotypical dreams² where you didn't know you had a test and so didn't study, except without the waking up part. Quite awful.

Luckily, I was able to pummel my memory into at least writing down something for every part of every problem, and I do think I had some idea of what I was doing on a few of them. I did manage to correctly remember what cross-product multiplication of vectors was, so, yay me I guess.

But yeah. Things I learned this semester: Parameterization. WoooooooooooowhydoIsuckatmath?

***

I am supposed to be packing right now, as today I move the rest of my stuff out and start on my grand gallivanting adventure that I really just *have* to get some e-mails out about. First though, I think I need to find somewhere in Porter Exchange to scavenge breakfast from. So yes, breakfast, then go home and throw everything into boxes, then commit seppuku, then...wait, spellcheck recognizes seppuku? I am astonished, I was just throwing that in to check if anyone was paying attention.

...today is one of those whiny days where I really want attention. I'm going to have to snap my mind out of that before I get annoying, since I'm painfully aware of the fact that me being all *cling, paw, paw, paw* at people is in fact, not charming.

(Today is also one of those whiny days where I somewhat want to hide forever. I'll see how well I can manage that once I've finished packing.)

***

Rackle is really really cool, and said some good words to me last night that I should reread at some point and remember.

***

(Calling Olsen, calling Memphis, I am calling, can you hear this?)

~Sor
MOOP!

1: By Vienna Teng. Good song, great waltz, really honestly kinda depressing as hell when you listen to the lyrics. Multiple depressing ways to look at it, too. It's *brilliant* or something. The fact that it's invaded my world for the moment might be a bad sign, not really sure. I think I prefer to sort out the problems that it expresses rather than collapse under the weight of them. Wooooo, cryptic!

2: I don't remember if I mentioned it when xkcd brought it up, but I don't have stereotypical dreams. I have only rarely dreamt myself naked, and never had my teeth fall out. I've never flown (though I would fall for a while, but not endless falling --just a ten-twenty foot drop half sliding alongside a wall). My dream tropes involve getting uncomfortably groped by people I'm supposed to be platonically fond of. Oh, and food. I have good food dreams unfairly often.

I should be accomplishing schoolythings, or at least packythings, but instead I'm being led off into tangents by rm's livejournal.

Background is that dramashit¹ hit the fan regarding a con in the SPN fandom. You can go read Rach's journal if you want the details on the mess.

Anywho, nancylebov, who I don't actually know in the slightest, made this comment, which I started to respond to, and realized it was going to get long:

Care to take a crack at rules for photographers? One of my most annoying con memories is of a photographer (large white guy wearing bear ears) who insisted that I stop working (I huckster) and look at him while he took my picture. He kept persisting past a number of refusals.

Or is "Your desire to take a picture does not override other people's desires to do whatever they're doing" plus a few rules about permissions and privacy enough?

Response:

Man, "your desire to take a picture does not override other people's desires to not model for you without recompense or choice, especially without knowing where those pictures will end up." ought to just be one of those common sense rules that people magically get. Of course, common sense isn't and all that, but wouldn't it be nice if it was.

(Said as someone who has both taken a fair number of pictures at cons and who has been asked for pictures at cons)

And I do take a fair number of photos at cons, especially animu ones, where you actually get a majority of everyone dressing up (seriously sci-fi fandom, can we fix this? Because that may just be my favourite part of dealing with the anime fandom³). If I want someone to not move, so I can get a nice, non-blurry photo, I ask them. It's an incredibly simple process, for those who don't get it, I provide a simple walk-through.

• Notice someone in a cool costume.


• Pull out your camera, and politely get their attention. This means you may have to wait a moment if they're in a conversation already with someone else.


• Ask "May I take your picture". Possibly add "I love your costume/that character" or "...for my website/blog/flickr" if it's appropriate.


• Wait for them to say yes. If they say no, thank them for their time, and walk away.


• If they say yes, wait for them to pose, and take a picture, maybe two. Try not to take up the entire hallway, especially if you're somewhere crowded.


• Thank them


• OPTIONAL: offer to show them the photo if you're using digital, offer to send them the photo if you're organized enough to do that, give them a moo-card with your flickr account if that's how you roll.


• Walk away and let them enjoy the rest of their con.

I have done this dozens of times, across multiple cons. It works pretty well, honestly, leaves me feeling happy because I got a nice picture, and generally seems to leave them feeling pretty happy because someone liked the costume they worked hard on. If it's an obscure enough character, sometimes you actually get them *really* excited --this girl started bouncing when I recognized her as Daria, and after I snapped the photo, we hugged (Oh hey, there's another thing you should ask permission for...)

On the occasions when they say no, guess what! It's not the end of the world. It's probably not even you --sometimes people are in a hurry, or chatting with their friends, or something messed up with their costume and they don't want proof, or they can't legally afford to be seen in this costume⁴, or the other half isn't here right now, or whatever. Or maybe it is you, and they think you're a creepster --the best way to make them think you're *not* a creepster is to thank them for their time, and go away. Asking why someone isn't willing to give up THEIR time for YOUR photograph is rude at best. They owe you nothing.

And that's me babbling some about photos at cons. If other people have other thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I was having a discussion with zombie_dog about this at NEFFA, namely the fact that I strictly make a difference between drama and just problems, be it in relationships, fandoms, friendsships, what have you. I usually tend to define drama as a strictly bad, and usually unnecessary thing. When something big happens, and lots and lots of discussions and arguments get started, and emotions get heated, that's not necessarily drama (or wank²). When people start acting like morons about it, and attacking each other rather than discussing the issue at hand, then it starts to get dramay.

2: They're a little bit interchangeable for me, but I am trying to break myself of using "wank" and "fuck" as pejoratives, because both wanking and fucking are awesome things, and I don't like the underlying idea that a sex act should be our strongest curse. That being said, this is going even more slowly than the not using "lame" thing, mostly because "fuck" is one of those words I use several dozen times a day, really. It just has a good *feel* to it, much like "cunt" --there is a power in the word that, say, "frell" just doesn't have. Hard syllables versus soft maybe?

3: And believe me, I have many *many* least favourite parts about the anime fandom, mostly in the form of horror stories told to me by future-rooommate distant_flicker.

4: I've been there --anyone who saw me at Arisia knows that I've worn things at cons that I really can't have pictures of me leaking out on, because I will lose my future job. That being said, a lot of casual crowd-shots get taken at cons, and the chances of you being able to control every photo of you is nil --all you can really do is limit the number of posed photos.

OHMAN, and I just remembered the last time I was at Rocky, and dolled up appropriately, this asshole journalist just pointed his camera at me and started to take a photo. I wound up blocking it with my hand, and totally going off on him for not asking permission. He seemed more amused than anything else (haha, look at the overwrought little slutty girl) but I felt better for bitching at him. (And he didn't point the camera at me again at least)

Comment Policy: (Eventually I will stop doing comment policies, but they entertain me): None, actually. I mean, if you go about being all "HURR EVERYONE NEEDS TO STOP FOR MY CAMERA AND ALSO TAKE THEIR CLOTHES OFF BUT ONLY IF THEY'RE A HOT GIRL" I'm gonna seriously reevaluate our friendship, but have at it.

Okay. We're gonna start this entry by pointing out that I am smart. Not necessarily in the traditional genius knowing a lot of things about a lot of highly complicated nuclear science etc things, but in the heaps of common sense and a pretty good ability at figuring out how things work, and understanding explanations, or at least knowing what I need further explanation on way. More Feynman, less Einstein is my general goal¹.

Being a smart kid, I tend to be interested in reading things that are also smart. I'm not saying I want to go pick up a half-dozen Highly Academic texts and plow through them, but when it comes to things like my fiction, the more I find myself saying "c'mon, *really?!*" to the characters, the less inclined I am to enjoy it. The whole horror movie "don't go in there alone, you moron!" thing? Yeah, that. I find characters with no common sense to be frustrating and uninteresting --in general, the more clever a character is, the more likely I am to enjoy watching them interact with their world.

Every once in a while, I find a character who has more common sense than I do. Not just pragmatism or enough common sense that I never go "don't do that, you moron!", but a character who I honestly feel would, if reading my story, have a fair number of moments in which he or she said "don't do that, you moron!" to me, --not just stupid moments, but things which I thought made perfect sense at the time.

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. Is one such character.

And he's still flawed as hell. There are multiple other characters in his universe who are just as or differently intelligent as he is, and they are saying all the "don't do that, you moron" things that I don't even comprehend because I just don't even realize that they're a "don't do that, you moron" thing in the first place!

Flawed characters are interesting. We want them to get better, to learn more, to become more intelligent, clever, closer to perfect without ever actually reaching it, because perfection is boring. And so, a flawed (therefore, interesting) character who is flawed in ways that don't make me want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them?

If HJPEV was a real person, it is extremely possible that I would be a little bit in love, and more than a little bit intimidated by that fact. Hell, just looking at the way I interact with the people in my life who *are* decidedly smarter, and I know that I would have just about the hugest crush possible you can have on an individual without ever speaking to them (because I wouldn't know what to say!)³

For those of you raising an eyebrow and going "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres??", ah. You must not follow me on twitter. You haven't had to put up with me for the last six weeks, throwing in quotes and lines and just *buckets* of squee about what really is, the single greatest fanfiction I've ever read.

It is called "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". The author's description on fanfiction.net is "Petunia married a scientist. Now rationalist!Harry enters the wizarding world armed with Enlightenment ideals and the experimental spirit... "

It was first brought to my attention by ncarraway when he twote the line "What part of 'get fitted for robes' sounded to you like 'please cast a Confundus Charm on the entire universe'!?" with a link, and I was intrigued. My first quote was from the fifth chapter, I wound up practically *devouring* all seven that were then up. By the end of the seventh chapter, I had decided that this was a hilarious way to look at the wizarding world, and was enjoying all the intelligent ideas floating around.

It was probably somewhere around the tenth chapter where I realized that the intelligent ideas were a part of it, but more importantly, I cared about the characters and wanted desperately to know what they did next.

The story is currently up to chapter 20, and while the intelligent ideas are still intelligent, and the characters are brilliant and wonderful, I now want desperately to know what the *plot* is going to do next. Especially after reading the spoiler-tastic author's notes for chapter 20, because the provide insight to a Voldemort who has actually read the evil-overlord list and is clever enough to understand it.

Oh.
My.
Gods.

So, let me just point out that I cannot recommend this fanfic highly enough. I love it enough that I actually went and reopened my account on ff.net, just so I could get e-mails whenever a new chapter was up --and believe me, my heart has soared every time one has. Foster and I just spent a highly enjoyable 20 minutes discussing the plot and ideas. I linked it to JoshZed, who has linked it to people, and at one point came to me with the ethical conundrum of "this has changed my thinking and the thinking of friends, is it wrong to link it to someone with the underlying plan of trying to change *their* thinking?"⁴. I gave it to @AlBri (SCD-Alex) one night, and he came to me the following Monday at dance to squee about how brilliant it was, and how he kept wanting to read more, rather than sleep.

This fanfic? Is really really good. I've been recommending it all over the place, to people in real life and on Twitter. Now it really is time I link it to all of you.

So go read. It really is worth the time.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Not that I'm ANYWHERE close to either, of course, but what I know of Feynman, means that I pretty much want to do his taxes free of charge², and yes, I don't *care* that he's dead now and doesn't have taxes to do.

2: Warning, feminism.

3: See also Sean the suitpunk boy who was in my math class and who rendered me utterly tongue-tied, because not only was he a form of gorgeous I really like (suitpunk: rumpled hair, multiple piercings, t-shirt, vest and jacket, also, skinny as a rail) but because he was not only smarter than I am at multivar calc, he managed to nerd-snipe our teacher for a class period, which was hotter than hell.

If he's somehow reading this, hello, want to go get coffee sometime? I promise I will try not to babble at you too much!

4: It was a little more complicated than that, but without permission, I don't think I feel comfortable going into details.

COMMENT POLICY: No spoilers, please. Feel free to link squee-worthy lines of dialog (that was almost what this post was, just dozens of those) but don't disclose plot elements in here right now. Catch me on IM instead.

ETA: Jesus *Christ* that got long fast. Sorry guys. But the fanfic is JUST THAT GOOD!

ETA2 (11:11, 2010 05 10): I forgot to point out (and I feel like a dick for doing so) that there absolutely needs to be a trigger warning for chapter seven of the fanfic --a bad guy talking casually about rape specifically.

I have been in one place I've never been before, and one place I haven't been able to be in a year and two places where I should be more often and all of it has been just *lovely*.

And this is how my weekend has gone. How're you lot?

~Sor
MOOP!

Oh damn, I missed the formal February third announcement by a few hours. I had better as sure damn hell get on that.

See, a couple years ago, it was 2008, I was goofing around with the Katters, and this happened:

Me: So, there was this kid Jake
Me: And he met a girl
Me: And they had really hot sexy sex
Jake: Well, that's usually how it starts
Me: And he put his penis in her vajeener
Me: VAJEENER!
Me: The end
Katters: That was the greatest porn ever
Katters: Ever

And somehow that spawned my single favourite use of this livejournal, now that I'm over eighteen and it's not creepy: The less than 31 words porn contest.

HOW IT WORKS!

You write a porn. You make sure that it is, at maximum, 30 words. If you need inspiration, you go look here(2008) or here(2009)

You then post it in a comment on THIS POST! Comments are screened, so no one can see what a naughty naughty little writer you are. If you wanna leave anonymous porn, go wild. If you wanna leave me a dozen stories, by all means, go wild. If you wanna be kinky, go wild. If you wanna be vanilla, go wild. If you wanna be funny, go wild. If you wanna be erotic, good luck, and go wild!

After a couple weeks, I will collect all the entries (plus any that got e-mailed or IMd to me, and post them all in a nice big anonymous post for everyone to read and enjoy. No one is revealed as a pervert, I get to read lots of clever porn, and everyone is happy.

SO GET WRITING, MY ILLUSTRIOUS WANKERS!¹

~Sor
MOOP!

1: "Illustrious wanker" may be my new favourite phrase ever.

Two years ago today, it was 2007. I had spent the weekend in Maryland. I flew home, then got on the train, and ended up at Porter Square station. If I dig through my e-mail, I can guess the time to be somewhere between ten thirty and eleven at night.

Porter Square has a lot of escalators. I was exhausted, and worn out, and just wanted to leave the station and walk back to my dorm.

And so I left the station. And stepped into a Cambridge dusted with snow, one that muted the sound of cars on Mass Ave, and swallowed people away, since no one would want to be out on a night like this. And so, when I left the station, I was essentially alone, standing there in a world becoming increasingly covered with snow.

And for just a short moment, my heart sang out.

Home.

~Sor
MOOP!

I am not crying anymore. You don't need to give me sympathy or hugs, though I won't especially mind them, especially if they're accompanied by an actual comment.

But sometimes I do cry, and when I do, I generally look like absolute shit. Tonight pretty much wasn't an exception. But if I shade my eyes and look away, there is beauty in all that pain. Because I'm human, and because crying is human, and humans are beautiful.

One of the things I feel in the back of my mind is that I don't post enough pictures to this journal. I think it would be nice to change that. I like this self portrait.

Not every picture I take is taken from before the walls¹. Every once in a while, I take one behind.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Behind the Walls is a term I've used for most of five years now. It is everything that is secret, and not for anyone but me to know. Sometimes I share it, a little. Theoretically, I've been getting better at sharing over the past few years. Before the Walls would, of course, be anything that anyone could see --most of this journal.

So, there's this really damn interesting person known as rm who posts a lot about things I'm interested in, like sexuality and gender. Especially gender. Lots and lots of very awesome gender things.

One of the things I have gathered from reading all this is that, occasionally, he sees fit to dress himself up as Ianto, from Torchwood. Not as a cosplay, specifically, somuch as a "it's time for work, and today I would like to look nice and smooth and stylish like Ianto". I mean, as far as I can tell, of course --I don't know his exact motives in the action, merely that it is something he does sometimes, and completely rocks.

Rach may have Ianto days. I apparently have Middleman days. At some point, my brain ticked over into "goddamnit, Sorcy is a bit of an irresponsible twit, but MM is about the most steadfast and responsible person ever. Let's be him today, instead, and get stuff done!"

And so, after lunch when I came back to the room...


...I redressed myself accordingly.

It's a fantastic outfit. The whole thing is designed to feel solid, accomplished, good about myself. Those are grade A boots of butt kicking there, the cargo pants are designed for girls, with actual pockets, the belt is in the least known of "my colours", the button down shirt and tie are just professional, and the jacket is made pretty much entirely of win, some more win, a little bit of awesome, and even more win.¹

Oh, but of course, I'm leaving out my favourite part.



Hey, at least if I'm a tremendous dork, it's for one of the better organizations out there. (It's worth noting that I'm also wearing boy scout socks...also that sometime I should write an essay detailing my thoughts and feelings on GSUSA and BSA)

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Okay, and a tad "needs buttons" but whatever. I can fix that.