cpolk

I have a hypothetical situation. it caught me flat footed because I cannot imagine being this person in this situation. I don't even know where I'd start, and so I ask for your opinion.

Say there's someone who is fairly isolated, has particular strong interests around a particular subject - could be anything. could be psychology. fly-fishing. Man from UNCLE. pizza. a particular country. world politics. tube amps.

and it's suggested that the internet is a way for them to connect to people who share their interest and create social networks...

but they've never used the internet before. they never had a computer up until now.

what advice would you give them? what would you want them to know before opening that web browser?

this is a free form question. whatever springs to mind.

if you want to link this or pass the question on, that's cool but not necessary.

I love Pannekoek. OMG. Flapjacks have nothing on this fantastic, egg-rich dutch pancake made sweet or savory depending what you cook in it.

thanks to facebook, i have found a recipe!

Basic Pannekoeken

Makes about 2 dozen without filling; 1 dozen with filling

Serve with sugar, syrup, whipped cream, or one of the accompanying suggestions.

* 4 eggs
* 4 cups milk
* 2 teaspoons coarse salt
* 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* -- Butter, for cooking

Instructions: Whisk eggs until slightly foamy. Add milk, whisking constantly, until combined. Add a pinch of salt, then slowly add flour, whisking or beating with a handheld electric mixer until batter is almost completely smooth.

Heat a 10- to 12-inch nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add about 1 teaspoon butter, and swirl to coat bottom of pan. Add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup batter, and tilt the pan to swirl the batter around the bottom. You may need to add a bit more to make them thicker depending on how thick the batter turns out and the size of the pan.

Cook on one side until browned in spots, about 3 minutes. Flip pancake, and continue to cook until browned on second side, about 3 minutes more. Place on a plate, and cover with a large pan lid. Keep stacking the pancakes, then covering, and they will stay warm.

Per pancake: 122 calories, 5 g protein, 20 g carbohydrate, 2 g fat (1 g saturated), 41 mg cholesterol, 208 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

with the high eggs and milk content, i'm thinking that a GF flour mix might prove a decent substitute - this is an even higher egg to flour ration than cakes, so I'm thinking it might work out pretty well. I'm dreaming of being able to quarter this recipe and enjoy an old favorite. Which flours should I try using? I'm thinking rice and tapioca starch, but is there anything else i should be looking for?

Interesting.

Some of you know that I am a fan of a particular kind of cosmetic - hair and skin care products, bath stuff, and good smellies. I make some things myself, and i have tried some of the offerings from companies who market to appeal to my approach, like LUSH and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.

one store i've never patronized as a customer is Bath and Body Works, but i have heard their names tossed around by other people who share my interest. Well today i discovered that one of their former employees was fired from her job with that company because of her religion.

here's a really basic timeline: Gina Uberti books the week surrounding October 31 2008 for vacation "nearly a year in advance." those of you who are corporate drones might guess that she booked during Vacation Grab Week, which might have been in january 2008. That week's vacation was approved way back when.

Gina takes her vacation, and after she returns, her boss Sandra Schibelli complains that she took that vacation and wasn't available to her employees, and wants to know why. Gina explains that she took the time off so she could observe a religious holiday.

(I have my own opinions about having to book vacation time in order to observe religious holidays - but whatever, she asked for and recieved that time off well in advance of the date.)

Sandra Schibelli wants to know what kind of religion has a holiday around that time, and gina explains that Samhain is a wiccan holiday, one of the major ones, and that it's the new year of her religion's calendar.

Gina Uberti gets fired, because Sandra Schibelli "will be damned if I'll have a devil worshipper on my team."

As of this writing, Sandra Schibelli is still employed by Bath and Body Works.

Gina Uberti is suing Bath and Body Works, and demanding a jury trial on her suit. you can see the complaint here.

some people are moved to boycott bath and body works over this violation of Gina uberti's civil rights. Bath and Body Works is actually owned by Limited Brands, and is one of a number of companies held by limited, including victoria's secret.

"There is one question that demands an answer – a straight answer – from those who would seek to lead this nation and its people. It is a simple question: Will you use the notwithstanding clause to overturn the definition of civil marriage and deny to Canadians a right guaranteed under the Charter?

This question does not demand rhetoric. It demands clarity. There are only two legitimate answers – yes or no. Not the demagoguery we have heard, not the dodging, the flawed reasoning, the false options. Just yes or no.

Will you take away a right as guaranteed under the Charter? I, for one, will answer that question, Mr. Speaker. I will answer it clearly. I will say no.

The notwithstanding clause is part of the Charter of Rights. But there’s a reason that no prime minister has ever used it. For a prime minister to use the powers of his office to explicitly deny rather than affirm a right enshrined under the Charter would serve as a signal to all minorities that no longer can they look to the nation’s leader and to the nation’s Constitution for protection, for security, for the guarantee of their freedoms. We would risk becoming a country in which the defence of rights is weighed, calculated and debated based on electoral or other considerations.

That would set us back decades as a nation. It would be wrong for the minorities of this country. It would be wrong for Canada.

The Charter is a living document, the heartbeat of our Constitution. It is also a proclamation. It declares that as Canadians, we live under a progressive and inclusive set of fundamental beliefs about the value of the individual. It declares that we all are lessened when any one of us is denied a fundamental right.

We cannot exalt the Charter as a fundamental aspect of our national character and then use the notwithstanding clause to reject the protections that it would extend. Our rights must be eternal, not subject to political whim.

To those who value the Charter yet oppose the protection of rights for same-sex couples, I ask you: If a prime minister and a national government are willing to take away the rights of one group, what is to say they will stop at that? If the Charter is not there today to protect the rights of one minority, then how can we as a nation of minorities ever hope, ever believe, ever trust that it will be there to protect us tomorrow?

My responsibility as Prime Minister, my duty to Canada and to Canadians, is to defend the Charter in its entirety. Not to pick and choose the rights that our laws shall protect and those that are to be ignored. Not to decree those who shall be equal and those who shall not. My duty is to protect the Charter, as some in this House will not.

Let us never forget that one of the reasons that Canada is such a vibrant nation, so diverse, so rich in the many cultures and races of the world, is that immigrants who come here – as was the case with the ancestors of many of us in this chamber – feel free and are free to practice their religion, follow their faith, live as they want to live. No homogenous system of beliefs is imposed on them.

When we as a nation protect minority rights, we are protecting our multicultural nature. We are reinforcing the Canada we value. We are saying, proudly and unflinchingly, that defending rights – not just those that happen to apply to us, not just that everyone approves of, but all fundamental rights – is at the very soul of what it means to be a Canadian.

This is a vital aspect of the values we hold dear and strive to pass on to others in the world who are embattled, who endure tyranny, whose freedoms are curtailed, whose rights are violated.

Why is the Charter so important, Mr. Speaker? We have only to look at our own history. Unfortunately, Canada’s story is one in which not everyone’s rights were protected under the law. We have not been free from discrimination, bias, unfairness. There have been blatant inequalities.

Remember that it was once thought perfectly acceptable to deny women "personhood" and the right to vote. There was a time, not that long ago, that if you wore a turban, you couldn’t serve in the RCMP. The examples are many, but what’s important now is that they are part of our past, not our present.

Over time, perspectives changed. We evolved, we grew, and our laws evolved and grew with us. That is as it should be. Our laws must reflect equality not as we understood it a century or even a decade ago, but as we understand it today.

For gays and lesbians, evolving social attitudes have, over the years, prompted a number of important changes in the law. Recall that, until the late 1960s, the state believed it had the right to peek into our bedrooms. Until 1977, homosexuality was still sufficient grounds for deportation. Until 1992, gay people were prohibited from serving in the military. In many parts of the country, gays and lesbians could not designate their partners as beneficiaries under employee medical and dental benefits, insurance policies or private pensions. Until very recently, people were being fired merely for being gay.

Today, we rightly see discrimination based on sexual orientation as arbitrary, inappropriate and unfair. Looking back, we can hardly believe that such rights were ever a matter for debate. It is my hope that we will ultimately see the current debate in a similar light; realizing that nothing has been lost or sacrificed by the majority in extending full rights to the minority.

Without our relentless, inviolable commitment to equality and minority rights, Canada would not be at the forefront in accepting newcomers from all over the world, in making a virtue of our multicultural nature – the complexity of ethnicities and beliefs that make up Canada, that make us proud that we are where our world is going, not where it’s been."

--Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, February 18, 2005, Addressing the speaker of the house upon the introduction of bill C-38, now the Civil Marriage Act - a law that legalized same sex marriage across the country less than six months after its introduction

seriously, i know we've degenerated so quickly since this bill was passed. Such an awful country, with its free health care and folks not getting freaked about shit that ain't their business.

I have the most BRILLIANT idea for a neckwarmer/cowl.

yes, using noro. it's Brilliant. you folks are going to be like OMG CHELS GENIUS IZ U!

back in a couple days. :)

i keep telling myself that i should be learning how to spin, but i am intimidated by it, so i've taken a bit of a break to moonlight on a freestyle sweater project with the Noro Yarn of Drama.

the project i take my inspiration from is called Klaralund (that's a ravelry project page, and i suspect you need to be a member to see it)

basically it's an incredibly simple sweater pattern. You knit up four rectanagles. two of them form the sleeves and the shoulder saddle/yoke and the v-neckline, and then the other two rectangles are the body. the self striping yarn makes for colour interest, and this is a project thati think is as suited to noro as things made from squares.

but I didn't dig where the yoke fell on most of the women. it worked best on ladies without a prominent bust - and while I cannot claim any sort of abundance in the bosoms department, i felt i could do better for my figure if i just... messed with it a bit.

and now it's not simple. :)

I came to knitting construction from sewing construction. so i address the challenge of wrapping a three dimensional figure with a 2-d surface in knitting in the ways that I would do with flat fabric. so I wind up creating things with very obvious visual shaping - but because I prefer to work in the round, on the fly and seamless, i find some crazed ways to create this shaping. ihave a lot of fun doing this, i and i think it lends a distinctive air to things that i make. ( here's an example of what I mean: )


now i'm going to talk about knitting in my own personal kniting jargon. i'm sorry, non-knitters. :) i'm sorry, knitters who aren't me. :) this is me recording an overview of my project notes, and i just decided to share it for no real reason other than whim.

i hate seams, so i decided to avoid back and forth knitting and seaming wherever i could. So i cast on 60 stitches on my wee 16" 6mm circ, knit a few rounds garter, and then 60 rows of stockinette - and decided that i much preferred the reverse stockinette side and the way it treated the colour changes of noro kureyon.

this sleeve length is just a wee bit past my elbows. i decided that with that amount of sleeve fullness i'd find the sleeves much less cumbersome if they were draping elegantly off my elbows rather than dragging in my meal at my wrists.

When i got to the shoulder saddle/yoke, i decided that I wanted it to be the bodice as well. so i crocheted a chain of waste yarn, picked up 15 stitches to make a provisional cast on, and started gartering back and forth. I wound up with a bit of a stockinette ditch at my cast-on points, decided that i didn't mind it, and then discovered that it was vital to my shaping.

i proceeded from that ditch for 13 ridges of garter, trying the sleeve on as i went, and then short rowed the front for bodice shaping - vertical bust darts. i wrapped the first 2 rows as every stitch, and then wrapped back every other stitch for four more. I don't need a lot of front on my front, and then symmetrically wrapped back to create the dart. (if you've done horizontal front row shaping on a sweater at the bust, or perhaps for a sock heel, that's what i've done here, except vertically, and only on one end..)

i gartered plain a bit - only three ridges, and realized that my center back was in the right spot, but I still needed some coverage in the front - so I short rowed the front in order to slant the neckline and get more yarn in the front where i needed it. when I'd gotten the coverage i wanted i just knitted along the whole row, past my wraps, because the short rowing was to create a \ shape and not a 3d shaping as for the bust, and bound off.

my right hand sleeve is the same, except mirrored at the bust shaping to be the right hand sleeve. once it's don, i will seam up a couple stiches at the center back and do a fitting to decide if i've got it right for the bust, right for the shoulder drape, how far to seam up the center back and the center front. when i'm happy with the bodice fit, i will pick up stiches along the bottom edge for the bodice, garter in the round for five ridges, and then mindless stockinette (to show reverse as the right side) while fitting to adjust for waist shaping... and then hem the bottom in the round in garter at a length suitable for wear with low rise jeans.

i prefer making sweaters top down in this way because I *can* fit them to me as I go. Which means that I'm a good craftsman, but i'm not who you want writing knitting patterns!

this isn't a pattern so much as it is a method that each knitter would have to adjust for themselves. when i say that I knit for 13 rides of garter, that is an incredibly personal measurement, meant to fit me. if you were to try the same sweater, even if you used the same yarn and got the same gauge, 13 ridges might not be enough. or too much. doing a provisional cast on at the underarm for 15 stitches to make the bodice might be too short, or too long. i'm going to shape the body as an hourglass to fit my figure, and because I can do a bit of fit and flare with this yarn - but i can see how a drapier yarn could be much better suited to an a-line drop from the underbust band. I can see a way to do this so the body stripes run vertically, and wouldn't that be fun? but i think if i tired to explain how to do that i would fail miserably.

Anyway, I'll post pictures of this sweater when i'm done, and show you what happens when I decide to modify an existing pattern.

and then take another crack at explaining it again. :)

I know it probably took me longer than it should have to figure this out, but i'm very definitely in a depressive phase.

and i'm badly off enough that i can't figure out what i can do to make it better.

and yeah. the leaving the house thing? not so much. :/

So I once again have microsoft word - first time in years, and

CURLY QUOTES ARGH TEH CHELS SEZ NO

but I can't find where I can set my documents to NOT use stupid curly quotes, elongated dashes, and the like.

I really wish microsoft had a style setting that was Traditional Manuscript format - courier new 12 point, double spacing, 25 lines per page, no widow or orphan control, 50 characters per line, 5 character indent, no elongated dashes or "smart quotes" - It's chock full of layouts i do not need and never use, and I always spend days fighting with it to do something as incredibly simple as "look like I had typewritten this, please."

it's true - everything I write, everything I draft, from fiction to grocery lists, I write it in SMF. if I need to change it to look fancy AFTER the fact, then I will do that. manuallly, since I never use style templates. and if an expensive program like microsoft word won't make it simple for me to make a document do what I want - be utterly plain and unadroned, then I will eschew it in favore of Notepad.

I do a lot of writing in Notepad. Notepad never irritates me.

Edited to add: SOLVED! Hooray!

Okay, I need computer people to riddle me this

I just got a new computer. A new gaming system. It may as well be a doorstop.

When I connect to my wow server on the Big Machine, I never get a latency better than 700 MS but it is usually more like 3000 MS - and it won't stay connected for more than a couple of minutes.

when I first got it, it worked. then suddenly, late last night, it just...stopped working. and I can't figure out why.

meanwhile, my little laptop works just fine - wirelessly - for wow. I can get on no problem, latency is always good - around 200 MS, which is playable, unlike 700 and definitely unlike 3000.

when the big machine quits, sometimes I can't get a web page to come up. other times, google loads in just fine.

the desktop is hard wired, so I would expect it to be even faster than the laptop. he's what I have tried:

Power cycle the modem (useless. The laptop never ceases connection.)
power cycle the router (doesn't help the desktop, laptop still continues to function)
changed ethernet cables to the router (no change. and the laptop still works just fine.)
pulled the router out of the connection and connected the desktop ethernet directly to the modem (still doesn't work, and neither does the laptop, since it's wireless - but as soon as I put the router back in the works, the laptop works again.)

The desktop is running on Vista home pro (I have a free windows 7 upgrade offer)
the laptop is running on windows XP media edition

I used the Big machine to post this message.

okay, anybody have any ideas? I know I have some computer jocks on this f-list. Don't hate me because I have a humungous monitor. help a druid out!

So my announcement is a few days late, but I have joined the team for Shadow Unit! I am writing a future Very Special Episode. Well I will be. I have a TON of background material to go through here, guys, it's amazingly voluminous.

If you've joined my LJ lately, hi! good to see you. It tends to get dusty around these parts, but I'll be working on tracking in some content.

Biographical Information you may or may not wish to know: I have written SF stories in the past - the most recently published is a few years back. I enjoy:

Reading (I better, with the friends I keep)
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (favorite note: vetiver. yes, vetiver. I adore it.)
Knitting (I'm a sweater knitter, I'm fond of cables, socks drive me bananas but I enjoy the socks of others)
Cooking (Alas, I have abandoned my baking hobby, as I am gluten intolerant and haven't gotten over my sulk yet)
World of Warcraft (Horde. RP servers. Paladins. RAWR. I am trying to have one of every character class, however, so I may randomly hold forth on classes that are not paladins. I spend a HECK of a lot of time in Azeroth.)
Criminal Minds (I'ma tell you right now - Bear's love of Criminal Minds? All. My. Fault. You're welcome. we even committed fanfic together once.)
Rock Band (OMG BEATLES EXPANSION WAAAAANT TO PLAAAAAY)

I also have embraced natural hair, and have grown it quite long since giving up the lye. Surprisingly, That post is released for the first time on LJ - I'd private locked it, and never realized, so enjoy!

You know, I spent a little while staring at this page, not writing anything because I don't have an LJ icon that reflects this particular fandom of mine.

That's how deep and how far I've repressed talking about a major part of my life for more than two years. I don't even have a fucking LJ icon that represents it.

What is "it?"

( I'm a world of warcraft player. )

but could you all take a look at these pages, and tell me who is paying higher federal taxes?

USA, 2009

Canada, 2009

$52,000 / yr, net, income from an employer. here's my fast sketch on the math:

Canada:

$6108.90 (15% tax rate to $40,726)
$2480.28 (on the portion taxable by 22%: 52,000-40,726)

$8589.14

USA
$835 (10% tax rate to $8,350)
3840 (on the portion taxable by 15%: $33,950-8,350)
4512.5(on the portion taxable by 25%: 52,000-33,950)

$9187.50

you can even fiddle around with exchange rates, if you like, but by my math, Americans pay more federal tax than canadians do, assuming a net income of a thousand dollars a week, and no deductions for any reason at all.

and actually... the canadian tax bill *is* less than this, because the first 8000 odd dollars of your income are tax exempt, no mater how much money you make. but that's not on the website form you see there, you'd have to actually get a T1 do calculate the exemption properly.

Americans pay nearly six hundred dollars more in taxes than their northern "socialist" neighbors, and there's no federal health care system in place?

what the hell are you people paying for?

....and because I totally think Uranyx and arcadiax should do it too. >.>




this was like the coolest damn thing.

I love things that cause joy, and this did it for me.

I'm trying to get something to pop up when slice and dice is up.

WHY IS THIS NOT SIMPLE.

Is there a user guide for this mod?

And it's this.

( I call it the void zone. )

So I got the place. I signed for it today, and got to go upstairs and have a look at it.

And I know what you want to know. After all that anxiety, hyperventilation, and worry - does Chez Chels have a teeny useless little fridge? Does it? ( WELL, DOES IT? )

I will be back again tomorrow, but after that it is hard to say. I don't know when I will have internet hooked up there. or telephone. the building isn't on the grid yet...

amount of days before I actually get to see what my new home looks like: > 2

amount of stuff I have for my new kitchen:

Four Dish drying Towels, black and white
Two Hand-Knit Pot Scrubbers, green cotton, see pattern "Tribbles"
One Hand knit Dishcloth, in progress, green cotton, see pattern "Chinese Waves"
one pair rubber dishwashing gloves, Black

OH MY GOD I had no idea that I needed cookware to quell anxiety. But I'm about to move into a new place and I have No dishes, no pots and pans, no bakeware, no kitchen utensils, no silverware, no coffee mugs, no glasses, no small kitchen appliances. I have the ability to purchase these things (thanks to YOU!) but I haven't gone to do it because:

( Anxiety babbling turns into a much calmer plan: LJ ranting as problem solving )

okay, that's better. It's not nailed down, but I can see it more clearly, at least!

A True Story:

you don't know what J. O'Barr's comic series The Crow is about from its cover. Now you know that this is an old tale that happened many years ago, when I was younger, and my comic book store, knowing that I liked to collect short run mini series, put The Crow #1 in my file. I bought it, along with everything else, and decided that I wasn't going to read it until I had the whole series.

Did it trigger me?

FUCK YES. for those of you who never read the comic, this is a violent masturbatory fantasy at its most repugnant. The violence that it displays against women, and the gory carnival of revenge thinly justified by that familiarly horrible bit of popular misogyny - a woman violated, tortured, and killed for entertainment - and it hooked right into my particular stream of consciousness and tapdanced around my visualization center for YEARS.

I didn't get past page 8. I closed it, I put it away, and it seared my brain. it was truly awful and I hate the series and I hate the work and I think that it's horrible, pointless trash.

Did I have the right to whine at J. O'Barr for that? NO I DID NOT.

And you guys, puling and whining about not getting warnings on fanfic?

You don't have the right to whine either. NONE OF YOU DO.

You have the right to decide to stop reading, and you have the right to discontinue reading an author if you do not like what they write. you can decide not to read something, based on the opinion or information given from someone else whom you decide to trust. You can decide to tell the whole internet that you never finished reading a particular work of literature because it made you ill or really really angry or it was just boring.

Just like the books you buy from bookstores, guys, that don't come with warnings.

You don't get warnings on published works of literature. you don't get warnings on Twilight. you don't get warnings on Harry Potter. You don't get warnings on the Story of O. You don't get warnings on Of Mice And Men. You don't get warnings on Huckleberry Finn.

so demanding them on fan written literature, citing triggers as a reason? Come on. You are your own expert on dealing with your trauma. if you know that there are certain subjects that you can't encounter without them raising anxiety, then you deal with that the way that works for you. But why do you want fanfic treated differently? Why do you think it's your right to treat fanfiction in one way, and published book fiction in another?

WHY? It blows my mind. And it makes me mad, because the message I get from it is that Fanfiction writers do not need to be accorded respect as creative artists. It's acceptable for consumers to tell fanfic writers what to do in a way that would be outrageous if you were to do it to - say, Neil Gaiman. I mean think about that for a second! if you saw a fan haranguing Neil for not warning for "female nudity" in the book Who Killed Amanda Palmer, we'd be /facepalming hard enough to light up newark for fiften minutes. We'd wince at the gauchery. It would be Not On.

but the right to holler about warnings on fanfic? sacred and undeniable right. Why not? it's not like they're *real* writers. Producing *art.* HELL NO!

I have to make a phone call in the morning to discuss a move in time and date.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


OH MY GOD YES I CAN HAS SWINGIN' BACHELOR PAD

I went for my interview on friday for housing - a double shot, as I was seeing the intake worker *and* the program director at the same time, when usually you see one, then the other one afterward.

there are still spaces available in the new building, and I think the interview went pretty well - I never got a moment where I felt like I'd lost them.

And I feel like I'd been given information about the program, and caught certain nuances of language that revealed a decision already made - you know how that is from job interviews, right? where the interview gives the slip that they've already decided to hire you by what tenses they use and how offertory they are with their pronouns, even though you're not officially supposed to know yet.

So I'm hopeful. But because I'm hopeful, I'm also scared. I'm imagining my life in this place, and it's like my house dreams of all these years, where I imagine myself living somewhere *great* and on my own, imagining things like cooking, watching my budget roomba do its thingworking, washing dishes, putting my feet up and getting my aura all over everything. And in the midst of all these notions and fantasies, the question "but what if it doesn't happen?" haunts me. way to curdle my tummy, anxiety disorder!

I'll be having another appointment tomorrow with my T, and we'll just see if she has any information for me, to get me through the anxious limbo that I dislike so much.