he said, "I am not fighting for you any more."
May. 19th, 2013 10:30 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musesfoolYesterday afternoon, I saw Star Trek Into Darkness with a bunch of fangirls and... okay. the movie itself is moderately entertaining (especially if you don't think too hard about it), and quite often hilarious, though not, I think, in ways it was intended to be? Also, there was nowhere near enough Karl Urban. I JUST WANT TO LOOK AT HIS PRETTY FACE AND LISTEN TO HIM BE SASSY AT PEOPLE OKAY? BONES IS MY FOREVER FAVORITE AND I JUST WANT MORE OF HIM AT ALL TIMES. And okay, if you enjoy Chris Pine getting punched in the face, this movie has a lot of that. But overall, wow, this movie is a big old mess. I can tell JAbrams doesn't like Star Trek (he finds it "too philosophical"), because this movie apparently has no idea what makes Star Trek awesome. (And I am not even a huge Trek fan; it's just been there my whole life, so I guess I have a lot of feelings about it.)
Spoiler: It isn't lens flares.
I guess I will do things I liked first, and then things I didn't like? So you can separate them out?
( spoilers: things I enjoyed )
And now the much longer list of things that I didn't like, or made no sense:
( spoilers: things I did not like )
I actually have a lot of thoughts about why this movie was like bad fanfic - or possibly a bad remix - in that it wanted to piggyback on the emotions of the original but never did so in a way that allowed it to stand on its own as a story (or even, in this case, make a lot of sense as a story) but this post is already long enough and my thoughts are still inchoate, or possibly I've already said everything I needed to say to make that point.
Hi, I'm victoria p. and I apparently have a metric fuckton of thoughts about Star Trek. Who knew?
***
Spoiler: It isn't lens flares.
I guess I will do things I liked first, and then things I didn't like? So you can separate them out?
( spoilers: things I enjoyed )
And now the much longer list of things that I didn't like, or made no sense:
( spoilers: things I did not like )
I actually have a lot of thoughts about why this movie was like bad fanfic - or possibly a bad remix - in that it wanted to piggyback on the emotions of the original but never did so in a way that allowed it to stand on its own as a story (or even, in this case, make a lot of sense as a story) but this post is already long enough and my thoughts are still inchoate, or possibly I've already said everything I needed to say to make that point.
Hi, I'm victoria p. and I apparently have a metric fuckton of thoughts about Star Trek. Who knew?
***
Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor
May. 19th, 2013 02:40 pmselenakIn which the Moff indulges his fondness for creepy fairy tale rhymes again, and also I'm ever so tempted to use an icon making a complicated joke about roles of actors in other shows, but for plot reasons, a River Song icon it has to be.
( Spoilers, sweetie )
( Spoilers, sweetie )
ah, technology
May. 19th, 2013 06:39 amsynecdochicthe good part of visiting the eye doctor for my first eye exam in four years (yeah, i know, i know): getting a prescription for new glasses, since according to the eye charts my vision (usually correctable to 20/15) had slipped down to about 20/30 with the current prescription.
the bad part of etc: having to wait for the lenses for the new glasses to be manufactured, since they don't keep my prescriptions in stock :D
i also got a box of contact lenses for the first time in ages; the eye doc i had as a child put me in lenses at a pretty-much-unheard-of-at-the-time age 10 or 11, since my eyes were degenerating so rapidly he thought that maybe the lenses would keep them from continuing to degrade. (and it mostly worked! my eyes kept getting bad after that, but nowhere near as quickly.) i wore contacts for about 18 or 19 years until i got too lazy to keep up with them, and i was a little afraid that having gone back to the glasses would start the downslide back up again, but nope, still correctable to 20/15, in glasses at least. (i could get better correction with the contacts if i were going to wear them more often and thus could justify spending more money on the more expensive ones that will also correct the astigmatism, but since the contacts are only going to be for occasional use, it's definitely not worth it.) although the eye doc says that i've probably only got another few years before i'll need bifocals, whee.
i'm trying the new "high definition" lenses they've developed, for the new pair of glasses. i am very interested, since i've always had refraction problems and they're supposed to be good for staring at computer screens for long periods. i will report back.
i've also finally bitten the bullet and admitted that my damn arms are not getting better from rest/ice/steroid shots/etc, so i dropped a bunch of money on technology that's hopefully going to make things better. including giving up and admitting it's time to try to work with dictation software, despite the fact that is the exact fucking opposite of how my brain works and is probably going to be a fucking nightmare. i'm hoping that just using the voice controls for things like page down when reading long documents, dictating short bursts of things, making my notes-to-self, doing a few emails, etc, will be enough to address the problem, especially when combined with the new two-piece, super-split keyboard i ordered so i can stop reaching inward to type and exaggerating the pronation and deviation, will help enough that i don't have to use the dictation software for extended bursts of composition or creative writing, since i absolutely cannot do that verbally. (i've tried before, but at least one of the meds i'm on gives me minor-but-significant verbal aphasia and that is no place to go for a good time.)
on the bright (?) side, at least the new adaptive tech means a new laptop to go with it. this one i'm using now isn't that old, not old enough to have a ton of problems running the software or whatever, but a faster laptop will help, and i'm getting a 13" MacBook Pro instead of the 15" i have now; i'm hoping the smaller, lighter laptop will help, and it will mean i can just put the two pieces of the split keyboard on either side of the laptop more easily.
(plus, i ordered the retina display model. i mean, why not, right?)
the bad part of etc: having to wait for the lenses for the new glasses to be manufactured, since they don't keep my prescriptions in stock :D
i also got a box of contact lenses for the first time in ages; the eye doc i had as a child put me in lenses at a pretty-much-unheard-of-at-the-time age 10 or 11, since my eyes were degenerating so rapidly he thought that maybe the lenses would keep them from continuing to degrade. (and it mostly worked! my eyes kept getting bad after that, but nowhere near as quickly.) i wore contacts for about 18 or 19 years until i got too lazy to keep up with them, and i was a little afraid that having gone back to the glasses would start the downslide back up again, but nope, still correctable to 20/15, in glasses at least. (i could get better correction with the contacts if i were going to wear them more often and thus could justify spending more money on the more expensive ones that will also correct the astigmatism, but since the contacts are only going to be for occasional use, it's definitely not worth it.) although the eye doc says that i've probably only got another few years before i'll need bifocals, whee.
i'm trying the new "high definition" lenses they've developed, for the new pair of glasses. i am very interested, since i've always had refraction problems and they're supposed to be good for staring at computer screens for long periods. i will report back.
i've also finally bitten the bullet and admitted that my damn arms are not getting better from rest/ice/steroid shots/etc, so i dropped a bunch of money on technology that's hopefully going to make things better. including giving up and admitting it's time to try to work with dictation software, despite the fact that is the exact fucking opposite of how my brain works and is probably going to be a fucking nightmare. i'm hoping that just using the voice controls for things like page down when reading long documents, dictating short bursts of things, making my notes-to-self, doing a few emails, etc, will be enough to address the problem, especially when combined with the new two-piece, super-split keyboard i ordered so i can stop reaching inward to type and exaggerating the pronation and deviation, will help enough that i don't have to use the dictation software for extended bursts of composition or creative writing, since i absolutely cannot do that verbally. (i've tried before, but at least one of the meds i'm on gives me minor-but-significant verbal aphasia and that is no place to go for a good time.)
on the bright (?) side, at least the new adaptive tech means a new laptop to go with it. this one i'm using now isn't that old, not old enough to have a ton of problems running the software or whatever, but a faster laptop will help, and i'm getting a 13" MacBook Pro instead of the 15" i have now; i'm hoping the smaller, lighter laptop will help, and it will mean i can just put the two pieces of the split keyboard on either side of the laptop more easily.
(plus, i ordered the retina display model. i mean, why not, right?)
Dork dork dooork is my cry
May. 19th, 2013 12:07 amstaraniseI am having marvellous fun playing with my self-indulgent NCIS crossover. It's just for fun so the sentences can be as long as I want and I get to talk about shoe-shopping for paragraphs at a time.
Anyway, tonight I felt like taking a related frolic through my school's databases.
Two articles I have full-text access to:
"Undercover agent assessment centers: Crafting vice and virtue for impostors" by M. Girodo, 1997, in Social Behavior and Personality volume 12 issue 5 pages 237-260.
"Dissociative-type identity disturbances in undercover agents: Socio-cognitive factors behind false-identity appearances and reenactments" by M. Girodo, T. Deck, and M. Morrison, 2002, in Social Behavior and Personality volume 30 issue 7 pages 631-644.
Two articles I do not have access to, aside from abstracts:
"World War II Never Ended in My House: Interviews of 12 Office of Strategic Services Veterans of Wartime Espionage on the 50th Anniversary of WW II" by C. Susan, in Psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorders: A decade of progress edited by R. Yehuda, 463-471, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
"Illuminating feminine cultural shadow with women espionage agents and the dark Goddess" by D. E. Rickards (dissertation abstract, 2006)
Anyway, tonight I felt like taking a related frolic through my school's databases.
Two articles I have full-text access to:
"Undercover agent assessment centers: Crafting vice and virtue for impostors" by M. Girodo, 1997, in Social Behavior and Personality volume 12 issue 5 pages 237-260.
The government agent's personality is one of the principal instruments of an undercover operation. This paper provides an overview of long standing problems in assessing essential job-related abilities in undercover agents, and some solutions which have been implemented over the last 20 years. ( Read more... ).
"Dissociative-type identity disturbances in undercover agents: Socio-cognitive factors behind false-identity appearances and reenactments" by M. Girodo, T. Deck, and M. Morrison, 2002, in Social Behavior and Personality volume 30 issue 7 pages 631-644.
The uncontrolled dissociative-type reappearance of a fabricated false identity in undercover agents was investigated in 48 federal police officers (male and female; aged 26-41 yrs old) undergoing 3 wks of undercover field exercises in 2 separate classes. ( Read more... )
Two articles I do not have access to, aside from abstracts:
"World War II Never Ended in My House: Interviews of 12 Office of Strategic Services Veterans of Wartime Espionage on the 50th Anniversary of WW II" by C. Susan, in Psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorders: A decade of progress edited by R. Yehuda, 463-471, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
The author conducted sociological interviews of 12 OSS spies (7 male, 5 female) who were operatives in France during World War II ( Read more... )
"Illuminating feminine cultural shadow with women espionage agents and the dark Goddess" by D. E. Rickards (dissertation abstract, 2006)
This research is an exploration into western feminine cultural shadow through the interviews of eight women from Belgium, France, Holland, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, and United States, who volunteered for espionage work such as couriers, weapons specialists, and saboteurs in the Second World War. ( Read more... )
Your Pregnancy: Week 87,213
May. 18th, 2013 10:02 pmmetaphortunateCongratulations! You're almost halfway through your pregnancy - only 91,422 weeks to go!
At 24 inches and 73 pounds, your baby is about the size of a widescreen TV. He's got a long way to go - remember, a healthy full-term baby will be about the size of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale major metropolitan area. However, all his major systems and organs are already formed! Your baby has the ability to kick, roll over, wallow in his own urine, suck his thumb, and whine for crackers. Now his organs just need to grow larger and mature. And you may ask yourself, if everything is basically formed, why does he have to mature on the INSIDE of my abdominal muscles? I can totally create a warm and welcoming environment on the outside of my body, I will order some cute goddamn wall decals from Etsy or something. And the answer is, ahahahahaha sucks to be you, that's why.
Incidentally, if you ever plan to be pregnant and you want to keep that shit under wraps as long as possible - which you shouldn't have to, that's totally up to you, but especially if you plan to keep working people do treat you differently once they know you're pregnant and there can definitely be some advantages to keeping it to yourself, like for example not getting demoted from something like project manager to something more like head of stationery organization - do not even mess with empire waist blouses and crap like that until you are in your third trimester, when you won't have much choice anyway. The reason being that they make you look like you're in your third trimester when you're not even pregnant. What you want are some long loose cardigans of the kind that don't fasten at all but just have drapes in front. Basically you want to look like you have enormous labia down the front of your entire torso. You can totally hide a three months' belly behind that.
I went to the Junebug's daycare on Friday and like half the mothers of kids in his cohort are pregnant. The other half already have more than one kid. I guess it's that time - about two years apart. Nice to be painfully predictable, but at least we can greet each other with a grim fist in the air and a "Be strong, sister."
At 24 inches and 73 pounds, your baby is about the size of a widescreen TV. He's got a long way to go - remember, a healthy full-term baby will be about the size of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale major metropolitan area. However, all his major systems and organs are already formed! Your baby has the ability to kick, roll over, wallow in his own urine, suck his thumb, and whine for crackers. Now his organs just need to grow larger and mature. And you may ask yourself, if everything is basically formed, why does he have to mature on the INSIDE of my abdominal muscles? I can totally create a warm and welcoming environment on the outside of my body, I will order some cute goddamn wall decals from Etsy or something. And the answer is, ahahahahaha sucks to be you, that's why.
Incidentally, if you ever plan to be pregnant and you want to keep that shit under wraps as long as possible - which you shouldn't have to, that's totally up to you, but especially if you plan to keep working people do treat you differently once they know you're pregnant and there can definitely be some advantages to keeping it to yourself, like for example not getting demoted from something like project manager to something more like head of stationery organization - do not even mess with empire waist blouses and crap like that until you are in your third trimester, when you won't have much choice anyway. The reason being that they make you look like you're in your third trimester when you're not even pregnant. What you want are some long loose cardigans of the kind that don't fasten at all but just have drapes in front. Basically you want to look like you have enormous labia down the front of your entire torso. You can totally hide a three months' belly behind that.
I went to the Junebug's daycare on Friday and like half the mothers of kids in his cohort are pregnant. The other half already have more than one kid. I guess it's that time - about two years apart. Nice to be painfully predictable, but at least we can greet each other with a grim fist in the air and a "Be strong, sister."
My kratom experiment and Tennessee's proposed kratom ban.
May. 18th, 2013 04:48 pmsnarpI've been trying out an herb called kratom as an antidepressant for the past week or so, out of frustration with the prescription drugs I've been put on. I was talking about the experiment under a lock, because I've been trying not to post too much in public about my personal gloom-and-doom, on the basis that most people are here for the nerd stuff.
But Tennessee is talking about banning the stuff, which is something of which I really disapprove. I live in Kentucky, so the legislators in question don't really have any reason to listen to me, but I thought I should make these posts public so that they're google-able for Tennesseans doing research. Also, obviously, in hopes of dissuading Kentucky from following suit.
I've read a lot of stories of people who can't afford prescription drugs using kratom to manage depression, chronic pain, and exhaustion - that's why I decided to try it in the first place. And I've also seen stories, like this one on Reddit, of people addicted to dangerous opiates like prescription painkillers and heroin, using it to taper off their use, because it acts like an opiate and helps them with withdrawal symptoms. Its own withdrawal symptoms are comparatively really mild, too.
This is a really big deal, because kratom seems to be nearly impossible to overdose on - as anyone who reads my blog knows, I'm pretty paranoid about taking even over-the-counter meds, so I did a lot of research before ordering the stuff. I really haven't found any stories of anyone hurting themselves with it; the only thing close is a news article about a guy ending up in the ER because he was vomiting. And that doesn't sound like an overdose to me. The stuff's well-known to cause nausea in high volumes.
If kratom is really as safe as it appears to be, and it helps people with addictions to drugs that can actually kill them, banning it would be unbelievably stupid. Opiate addiction, particularly prescription painkillers, is a terrible problem in Appalachia; I've dealt with a lot of addicts through work, and I've seen how hard it is to get off that stuff. Keeping people who genuinely want to get clean from accessing an inexpensive tool to help them would be really irresponsible.
And frankly, barring the stuff without having any good evidence that it's dangerous doesn't make any sense. Louisiana chose to deal with kratom by requiring that it not be sold to people under eighteen; that makes sense to me. A ban doesn't.
Okay, there's enough of me blogging at legislators who aren't reading this. ( Under the cut I'm going to talk a little about my medical history and explain why I've been doing this, as context for people who haven't read my depressing locked posts. )
But Tennessee is talking about banning the stuff, which is something of which I really disapprove. I live in Kentucky, so the legislators in question don't really have any reason to listen to me, but I thought I should make these posts public so that they're google-able for Tennesseans doing research. Also, obviously, in hopes of dissuading Kentucky from following suit.
I've read a lot of stories of people who can't afford prescription drugs using kratom to manage depression, chronic pain, and exhaustion - that's why I decided to try it in the first place. And I've also seen stories, like this one on Reddit, of people addicted to dangerous opiates like prescription painkillers and heroin, using it to taper off their use, because it acts like an opiate and helps them with withdrawal symptoms. Its own withdrawal symptoms are comparatively really mild, too.
This is a really big deal, because kratom seems to be nearly impossible to overdose on - as anyone who reads my blog knows, I'm pretty paranoid about taking even over-the-counter meds, so I did a lot of research before ordering the stuff. I really haven't found any stories of anyone hurting themselves with it; the only thing close is a news article about a guy ending up in the ER because he was vomiting. And that doesn't sound like an overdose to me. The stuff's well-known to cause nausea in high volumes.
If kratom is really as safe as it appears to be, and it helps people with addictions to drugs that can actually kill them, banning it would be unbelievably stupid. Opiate addiction, particularly prescription painkillers, is a terrible problem in Appalachia; I've dealt with a lot of addicts through work, and I've seen how hard it is to get off that stuff. Keeping people who genuinely want to get clean from accessing an inexpensive tool to help them would be really irresponsible.
And frankly, barring the stuff without having any good evidence that it's dangerous doesn't make any sense. Louisiana chose to deal with kratom by requiring that it not be sold to people under eighteen; that makes sense to me. A ban doesn't.
Okay, there's enough of me blogging at legislators who aren't reading this. ( Under the cut I'm going to talk a little about my medical history and explain why I've been doing this, as context for people who haven't read my depressing locked posts. )
Outsourcing Ownership
May. 18th, 2013 11:02 amfinchWhen I logged in to Google Music today it offered me a popup - apparently it now has a service like Spotify where you can listen to EVERYTHING EVER for like $8 a month.
I'm doing the free trial right now. I'm not sure how I feel about it; I mean, I like the idea that I can listen to something that's stuck in my head without necessarily having to buy it, and the Pandora-type matching with unlimited skipping and no ads is nice, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about not actually owning anything new.
But then, I have Netflix, and I don't think I've actually bought anything on DVD since we started subscribing to that. (No, wait, I got Brave on DVD. And I want to buy Wreck-It Ralph, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.) But suffice to say I haven't bought much, and I've rented even less (ie nothing), and I don't seem to be bothered by that. So maybe it makes sense to do it this way?
I don't know, so I'm asking you guys if you have opinions on the subject and, if so, can I borrow them?
I'm doing the free trial right now. I'm not sure how I feel about it; I mean, I like the idea that I can listen to something that's stuck in my head without necessarily having to buy it, and the Pandora-type matching with unlimited skipping and no ads is nice, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about not actually owning anything new.
But then, I have Netflix, and I don't think I've actually bought anything on DVD since we started subscribing to that. (No, wait, I got Brave on DVD. And I want to buy Wreck-It Ralph, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.) But suffice to say I haven't bought much, and I've rented even less (ie nothing), and I don't seem to be bothered by that. So maybe it makes sense to do it this way?
I don't know, so I'm asking you guys if you have opinions on the subject and, if so, can I borrow them?
(no subject)
May. 18th, 2013 12:41 pmmaevelemy life is actually a series of very odd blessings right now. I can't say much else, but it is sincerely good.
she holds the hand that holds her down
May. 18th, 2013 12:40 pmmusesfoolI opened my laptop this morning and kept getting an Internal Server Error 500 when I tried to load Dreamwidth, but downforeveryone kept telling me the site was up! Even though I couldn't get it to work in Firefox or Chrome, and there was nothing on the DW Twitter to indicate the site was actually down. So I closed the laptop and watched the season finale of Elementary instead.
( spoilers, but mostly incoherent squee )
Now I can go read all the posts I bookmarked yesterday morning and take Elementary out of my Tumblr Savior.
***
( spoilers, but mostly incoherent squee )
Now I can go read all the posts I bookmarked yesterday morning and take Elementary out of my Tumblr Savior.
***
(no subject)
May. 18th, 2013 08:45 amstaraniseSummary from the encyclopedia post: I hang out with GINORMOUS NERDS. :D Some of whom also read the dictionary as children.
I'm up early and have completed all my Internet browsing. Now I actually need to find the get-up-and-go to clean, or cook, or write, or shop, or research, or something.
I'm up early and have completed all my Internet browsing. Now I actually need to find the get-up-and-go to clean, or cook, or write, or shop, or research, or something.
