Stripped Down

advice columns - the reckoning

2020-02-26T01:24:01Z

A decade ago, I did an entry on why I read advice columns and that it was for the crazytrain: the people in insane sitches who seem to be asking the entirely wrong question. I have been on that train, and I like to get updates from people still there.

Okay, so I still hold by the four types of people who write to advice columns (excluding most fake letters):
1.) ones that want confirmation of something they already plan to do (and will do even without confirmation) or already did (and want reassurance)
2.) people who just really want attention
3.) really dumb.
4.) WTF people. They aren't writing in due to being stupid, wanting attention, or just confirmation, though they can be all of that. They are literally stumped on how the fuck they got to this, because they feel this isn't normal, but they don't know at what point they boarded the crazy train, because they've just been on it that long.

I was in group four: no, I never wrote an advice column, but man, I probably should have. But not for the columnist.

Ask a Manager is more or less universally right, mostly because she's advising for sitches related to work and never deviates from using professional metrics and strict professional ethics. Which is an accomplishment, honestly; very few people can keep that kind of ethical standard to their advice that consistently; her only weak point is marijuana use (she's very pro, and honestly, so am I), where some of her advice felt--not wrong, it wasn't, but not my 100% sure reaction. Her, I trust absolutely. She also differentiates clearly between 'wrong', 'bad idea', 'prob not recommended', 'should be fine but be careful', and 'cool'. I literally can't think of a columnist who does that, but there may be a reason for that.

Dear Prudence, Captain Awkward, Dan Savage, et al: not so much. All have a moral standard and relative moral standard: none have a consistent ethical standard. When they talk about ethics, it's only when it matches their morals (as of, apparently, right this second). Which is actually my biggest problem; even in relationships--maybe especially--morality is in flux constantly, is a spectrum, and can be squiggly as hell, but ethics shouldn't be. Something can be immoral (by some standards), but it can still be ethical. And honestly, I'm not sure most of them know there's a difference or care.

(It's not that there aren't good reasons to be unethical--there are, many of them--but the first step is to admit that and then why the deviation is necessary compared to other actions. That's kind of the basis of being a thoughtful person that does more good than harm. It also helps to have an ethical framework, yeah.)

However, that's not about that: this is about the reason I dropped Captain Awkward to 'maybe read if I'm really bored and want to re-read favorites' from 'sometimes when I'm bored': her comment section. Now granted, she already heavily moderated against any dissent whatsoever (any kind, even the kind that agreed in the wrong way which is apparently dissent?) to the point I felt like I was reading what she said over and over and over and over (and over, dear God), so she wasn't on my regular list, but she started closing comments at random on most posts, and I don't read for the columnists, but the comments and discussion. Why?

Well, its like reading a hundred advice columnist who don't need to worry about ad revenue, but also, the discussions are where I see the ethical--again, not moral/immortal nonsense--hashed out in detail. What is ethical in general --> what is ethical to this situation --> what is ethical to this person. And that's where you see the best advice come out; sometimes, it agrees with the columnist, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes, I don't agree with columnist or commenters, but the arguments and even individual comments as a whole do a really good job of chasing down the bits and pieces that define right versus wrong. And as a normal human being who struggles like a lot with differentiating 'this is right', 'this feels right', 'this feels right to me right now', it does help solidify my own internal action check and often adds nuance.

Also, they're funny as shit.

Just as good: communities that comment on those columnists like agony_aunt.

In closing, my favorite Captain Awkward post of all time and an example of how the crazytrain gets you: My Partner Keeps Inviting His Ex Girlfriend to Stay With Us

I can work out how this happened and around that age? It could have easily happened to me. I, however, would be asking shit like "should she be paying like, rent for the time she's here?"; this woman is doing better on that front.

(Yes, I deliberately left out part of the title: I wanted it to be a surprise.)

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anyone awake? need a reality check

2019-08-14T03:26:07Z

This survey showed up on my dash: Right Wing Authoritarian Survey

My--possibly utterly insane and/or ultra-dense tumblr response: read here

Alternately, I'm putting the text of my response under the cut.

( survey on right wing authoritarianism )

Like, yeah, I get this is a right wing authoritarian tendency survey but...to answer half these questions with any kind of accuracy, you have to already be in a very narrow (very white) Christian Protestant demographic that already is right wing authoritarian (the atheist question alone was ridiculous, but 'homosexuals' and 'gays' gave it that 'oh God what' touch). I'm a white Christian and I can't answer several of the questions as written with any degree of accuracy because of the base assumptions of the questions which is either a.) utterly foreign to me or b.) repulsive is an understatement like you have no idea.

So those familiar with surveys: am I just not getting the methodology here on what it's doing?

Note: I took the Dark Triad test and I'm glad to report my psychopathic tendencies are in the bottom two percent, my narcissism in the eleventh percentile, and my Machiavellian is around the 66th which seems not too worrying but to be fair, I really liked The Prince.

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watching another life on netflix and--huh

2019-08-13T04:29:52Z

Spoilers if you haven't watched, but for the record ,I have yet to work out what that title is supposed to refer to.

( another life: a brief slightly spoilery intro if you're on the fence )
( another life, warnings, spoilery )
( another life, really spoilery about ep one but up to ep six )

I'm not willing to promise anything--The Magicians broke me of that shit--but it's definitely interesting sci-fi and I'm liking the characters. If you're jonesing for some spaceship disaster, this is for you. And you know, the earth stuff might get interesting? It could happen.

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it's saturday and no, I have no intention of doing anything remotely productive

2019-05-18T14:40:21Z

When I first found Ask a Manager, I sent it to my manager and Sysadmin V because they're--well, managers. Their response: "So it's Dear Abby for work?"

Which is true, sure, but that's not why I read it. Most of my working life has been in public service, like my mother and grandfather before me, so some parts, like salary negotiation, are utterly alien to me, as it really doesn't happen outside very specific and very rule-oriented circumstances and usually that means executives (aka the governor's appointees of course). Salary, for the most part, is intensely transparent for us--as in, not only do we have strict payscales, all state employees and their salaries are published yearly in the newspaper because public and reasons. So there's a lot of 'so that's how that works in the private world' going on.

But mostly, I read it for the same reason everyone reads advice columns: the drama. If you haven't ever read AMA, a sampling. You're welcome.

In no particular order (links to updates when applicable):

Original Post: The One With the Car Accident and Birdphobia
- Update 1
- Update 2

Original Post: The One With the Guy Who Ghosted His Live In Girlfriend and Now She's His Boss
- Update

Note: satisfying.

Original Post: The One With the Poorly-Conceived Prank and Consequences
- Update

Original Post: The One With the Poorly Conceived Surprise Foot Tickling and Consequences
- Update

( Note )

Original Post: The One With the Manager Who Thinks Beer Runs During Work Are Super Millennial and That's the Least Questionable Behavior As It Turns Out
- Comments: It Gets Worse
- Update 1
- Update 2

Original Post: The One With the Duck Club Except There Are No Ducks and I Pity the Copier
- Update

Original Post: The One With Master Pete and a Poorly Conceived Comparison to Gay Rights (No, Really)
- Update

It must be said, all of these have epic comment sections. And yes, this is an easy way for me to finally bookmark these. Feel free to tell me your faves!

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Signal Boost: Nifty Neti: Why & How I Rinse My Nose

2019-04-28T09:21:15Z

jesse_the_k posted: Nifty Neti: Why & How I Rinse My Nose

For anyone who has heard about neti pots or thought about using one: really good breakdown, read it. I also actively recommend it; it is not woo nor is it an instantaneous fix. You may notice immediate benefit in feeling clearer for a short time, but don't worry if that seems transient the first few times; this is accumulative. It becomes really noticeable in your daily life after about three to five days of use and you're noticeably less congested. I was still on the fence about it being more than a nice few hour solution until around the fourth or fifth day when overall improvement was obvious in my daily life.

(You may also notice this: your gums and teeth are less sensitive/swollen/sore/weird, the roof of your mouth is less randomly sensitive/less sore, your mouth may taste less crappy in the morning, and your overall sense of taste may change somewhat for the better.)

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there's something about procedurals

2019-03-18T07:29:31Z

I was watching Law and Order: SVU (it's weirdly soothing) and abruptly realized I am the kind of weird-ass person Munch would inexplicably know.

Fin: Now why are we seeing her again?
Munch: There's a good chance she knows where are perp hangs out online these days; they run in the same circles. He might have changed his name, but he hasn't changed his pattern; she'll know him.
Fin: How do you know her anyway?
Fin: Usenet. Ran across this Trek group a couple of decades ago when I was moderating a couple of conspiracy boards; got to know her when a fight broke out in the group. Just so you know, we may need to make a quick exit; it got pretty heated.
Fin: ...you think she's still mad about a fight you had on the internet twenty years ago? Seriously?
Munch *tersely*: It was a ship war involving James T. Kirk. We were on different sides. *sees Fin's baffled expression and shakes his head* Nevermind. You wouldn't understand.

(disclaimer: was never in a ship war on usenet involving the shipping of James T. Kirk. It was an entirely different flame war. Or maybe two. Three at most and I only observed. Mostly.)

...yes, I kind of do ship Fin and Munch, what of it?

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question about tv resolutions and old shows

2019-01-22T04:44:46Z

I need a sanity check.

Anyone else with an 4K TV really notice the make-up everyone is wearing on TV shows from the eighties and nineties? I mean, the skin tones are eerily solid and way too flat (consistent?) for Troi, Guinan and even Worf, whereas Data and the Borg now really look like they're wearing pancake makeup.

...or am I going crazy?

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i almost forgot about the smoking thing!

2018-12-05T01:00:55Z

Oh! So I stopped posting on DW a month before I quit smoking: October 2016. So that's two--TWO--years smoke-free!

...with vape*. Yeah. In fruity flavors, even. I literally did it over a weekend with half a pack of cigarettes left and never wanted to go near a cigarette again. Yeah, you could say it worked.

And because I am a vapevangelist: I literally buy vape pens for smokers among my friends and tell the good news that you can quit and vape will change your life and also you will smell like, amazingly good and people will ask you what bodywash you use. I am like a street corner and small box away from starting some kind of fruity-vape religion, no lie.

Okay, done.

So its possible I may review my latest vape acquisitions. I went the hipster route by accident and ended up with Smok, not Juul, and so buy my vape locally. But if you vape and like to hear about that kind of thing, I am that person who talks about it. And my primary shop also ships over the greater US, so I can also link directly when I find something I like. They're also the shop where no one is visibly stoned while mixing my vape, which is a plus.

So, context: I get my vape from The Vapor Studio and tend toward the house blends, not necessarily because I want to be this goddamn hipster but because my nic is 18 MG (I just stepped down from 24) and premium blends don't go that high.

...yes, my vape is handmixed in shop and it's like I don't even know myself.

* yes, I am aware of the research, the lack of research, the various problems that have been found in specific brands of vape as well as the potential dangers and risks; I discussed it with my doctor. Having pneumonia twice, bronchitis yearly, and my father diagnosed with COPD did not help me quit. Vape did it in three days; it tastes good, it smells good, and after less than a month, I couldn't even stand the smell of cigarettes. At minimum, this is a reducing harm while I step down to a nicotine free life and my apartment constantly smells of fruit and candy.

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these are the days of our lives

2018-12-04T18:34:54Z

...right, so if I appear in your entries capslocking like a crazy person, it's--you know when you're at a party and then you realize everyone there is all your best friends you haven't seen in years and want to cry and hug them?

I'm doing that. I'll calm down, like eventually, I guess?

For anyone who is new to DW or only knew me in Tumblr; I don't keep such tight control over my DW as I do my Tumblr, so I am opening access to more people here. It's a slow process, because I curate like fuck as that is my way. However, if I have you added on Tumblr, there's a better than good chance I'll want to add you here, so tell me. If you changed names, seriously, tell me; I will not catch onto this on my own.

...seriously, tell me. I am slow about this because un-Accessing/unfriending makes me so deeply uncomfortable I used to create entire filters around people I didn't want to read just because I was terrified of hurting their feelings by unfriending them. I don't pretend that's not crazy, but it is my way.

I feel like I should post fic here. Like, obscure fic from a fandom that barely exists for a super problematic and creepy pairing or something, idk.

OH GOD I FORGOT I HAVE LIKE SO MANY ICONS TO EXPRESS MY FEELS.

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my relationship with food is fraught with selective amnesia

2015-06-06T21:32:02Z

Case in point:

Wandering through Central Market looking for Candycots (where are they? IT IS TIME) and bubblegum grapes, and satisfied myself with brie, pretentious bread (because Central Market), apriums, champagne mangos, and cherries were back and oh.

Okay.

When I was growing up, cherries weren't delicious, they were crappy at the local grocery store, tiny and hard and vaguely blandly sour. Then I grew up and lo, the grocery stores had the good ones, the plump dark red ones with a sheen that you'd happily sell your soul for a lifetime supply (or maybe that's just me), and just as importantly, these go on sale during the summer to the point where it's a crime not to buy them. We're on the leading edge, so they're still not hitting 'five pounds of cherries every time they enter our line of sight', but suffice to say, time to get started.

Which is fine, but I always forget you kind of have to pace yourself after months without them. And by "I forget" I mean no matter how many years I've spent on this earth, I forget every time the cardinal rule of 'do not fucking buy a pound of cherries and eat them half of them on the way home after a multi-month-long dry spell waiting for cherry season.'

Body: You sure about this, Sep?
Me: *sucking cherry off the seed* Fuck off.
Body: We'll talk later. Have fun with that.

Later:
[redacted]
Body: I told you so.
[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]
[expunged]
Me: *gets rest of cherries*
Body: ...you're kidding, right?
Me: *sucking cherry off the seed* Fuck off.

Repeat ad infinitum.

As I once realized to my horror, I could be the first documented case of someone killing themselves disgustingly with prunes, for given a bag of them, I will eat them all; given a warehouse, I won't survive and I pity the person who finds my body. I don't just like them; I will eat until they're gone or I am.

I have very selective and stupid fruit weaknesses. I can live without apples, most citrus, pears, whatever. But Turkish apricots (dried), bubblegum grapes, east Texas raspberries, blueberries, cherries, candycots, locally grown Texas peaches, cloudberries, figs, dates, currants, prunes, I treat like Schedule One drugs. I will walk over your body after stabbing you to get to them, and given an unlimited supply, I won't ever move again from my fruit paradise.

If I were a supervillian, this is how I'd be caught; the stupidest trap in the world baited with a fruit medley. Take me to Arkham, fine, but I got a metric ton of fruit to finish and I will cut you if you disturb me before I'm done. Throw in some fried plantains in the Arkham kitchen with honey mustard and honestly, I might not want to leave.

Reference:
Candycots - they're as close as you can get in this world to processed sugar in fruity apricot form and what the gods really want while miserably chugging nectar and ambrosia. These are amazing, is what I'm saying, and in Texas, they're sold in ridiculous sets of twelve in plastic because wisely, Central Market with coffee bean bar get it yourself and leaves open containers of other, lesser fruits in the fruit section for snacking knows those Candycots would all be gone--all of them--in under fifteen minutes (if I'm there, five, after considerable bloodshed, for the Candycot gods sometimes require a sacrifice to prove your love).

I'm going to warn you now; if you taste these, think the White Witch and the disappointment of Turkish Delight. If she'd offered Edmund Candycots, everyone on earth would not only completely understand but approve of Edmund's actions because Candycots.

You won't recover from this, and nothing in your life will ever satisfy you like these will; you will spend the rest of your life vaguely unsatisfied with all things for you have seen perfection and what's the point: Monet, Picasso, David, Statue of Liberty, Taj Mahal, the Wonders of the World, nice, I guess, but does the taste of them make you believe for a moment you're a god on earth and all you see is your demesne? Does spacetime warp around you and you understand the perfection which man has strived for over endless generations; did they give you a glimpse of infinity in all its vastness?

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. <--Corinthians speaketh of Candycots.

You can't taste paint and rock, you say? So the answer is no.

And by the pound, they cost more than heroin, which is no surprise at all.

These go on sale in San Francisco at the Farmers market next weekend, and by the way, fuck you San Francisco.

...someone there send me some? Please?

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moment of zen

2015-04-25T10:41:06Z

Fortunately, my job and how television portrays it (Quality control, aka program testing) isn't a subject for television because generally one hour drama doesn't focus on the minutia of a company building a program step by step because come on, that can be a multi-year process.

....with one exception.

I once ran across the dramatization of the dev process (montage-like) on TV and watched because it's kind of soothing to watch developers suffering (they're like a floor away from me and I've had a bad week, okay?) until we got back to real time and I promptly lost my mind.

A Summary of the Horror:
They're like "almost there after weeks of (montage) work, oh noes there's a null character mcguffin plot reason thing must get it out like right now tonight no waiting!" or something like that, how do you even know this you just finished the last line and haven't compiled it...hold up, where are the design docs, I haven't seen any since this started, how are they--and they're all scanning the source code--scanning a million lines of source code with their eyes ON SINGLE MONITOR WHY, not even using a search algorithm--who does that, what kind of fucking IDE are you using, why don't you have color enabled to make this easier, wait, that looks like microsoft notepad with the background painted black-- "OH FOUND IT FIXING IT NOW" wait, no, did you erase something and then hit enter that's a new line, but go back, problem, the mcguffin wouldn't be in there, that's in a class file, why are you--hold up, what language is this-- "Okay, compiling now!" holy shit did you just-- "Almost done!" wait, what, no, you can't do that, you don't fly edit your code (that did like magic or word processing, they weren't clear) have you ever heard of debug or like-- "Okay, done, send it--" IN TEN SECONDS REAL TIME THAT WASN'T A MONTAGE "--to whothefuckever we can start distribution like next week awesome going to hawaii!" WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU DIDN'T EVEN RUN IT-- "Everyone go on vacation now bye!" NO NO YOU UNIT TEST SYSTEM TEST USER ACCEPTANCE LAST HAS TO CHECK FOR MEMORY LEAKS AND LOAD AT LEAST RUN SOME AUTOMATED SCRIPTS WHAT ARE YOU DOING DID YOU EVEN CHECK TO SEE IF IT EVER WORKED IN A REAL-TIME ENVIRONMENT BECAUSE YOU MACHINES ARE SET TO IDEAL CONDITIONS NOT THE WILDS OF PRODUCTION--

I'll spare you the rest--they say when the trauma becomes too much, the memory's blocked so sanity can be retained--but one thing's really just bothering me here.

In this ultra-tech, totally pro too many coffee cups suspiciously unstained and without chips or being shattered against the wall and no crumpled up design documents because the analysts are sadistic fucks and will give you three contradictory rules and don't understand how to use Visio or the concept of driver flow...all the super-cool computers only had one monitor each.

I get it now.

This is about a desperate dev team torpedoing the project due to hideous working conditions, inadequate equipment, lack of support personnel, and no design documents because they were set up to fail by an evil CEO who wanted to cut corners and get rid of the entire dev department to bring in an alien design team from Mars (who secretly plan to conquer the world because even aliens wouldn't agree to this nightmare unless they had another motive entirely) and now it all makes sense!

( this is totally what happens next )

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ancient times - when no womb was safe (and sometimes, you didn't even need to have one)

2015-04-24T04:50:44Z

Because mythology and why not.

A List of all Zeus's kids.

It makes me wonder--again, that's just Zeus's shenanigans (or his and two other gods' divine urine on a blanket and create Urine AKA Orion, are you fucking with me?)--if there was a point in Ancient Greece where there was a greater than fifty percent chance one parent, your spouse, half the kids, and a number greater than one of your herd of sheep were your half-siblings and you just had to roll with it because Zeus.

Seperis: I'm imagining how visiting ancient greece there were warnings when you crossed the border
Seperis: Like "Do not have sex with the animals, it's always Zeus."
Seperis: "Do not have sex with the insects; it's probably Zeus."
Molly: Do not lie out in the rain...
Seperis: "Don't sleep--Zeus might get you, or Aphrodite just might like looking at you young forever."
Seperis: "Don't pet anything: it's definitely Zeus."

You are about to say "why would you think anyone would have sex with animals or insects and therefore need to worry about being knocked up by Zeus?"

I say "Have you read Greek mythology? There was a fifty percent chance you'd randomly turn into an animal yourself because Greece invented the deus ex machina, possibly inspired by Zeus's sex life."

If you're wondering why petting something would be on this list, see above.

Also, might want to stay out of the sun, any body of water, away from stiff breezes, any freshly tilled field, and blankets covered in urine. Also don't have a picnic, because ants.

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this is a week of lowered expectations (and fuck tumblr lifehack gifs)

2015-04-23T06:31:52Z

Expectation of the Week: I will get through the day without sending a group of mobile developers an email stating my fucking cat could do a better job at integrating web services. It's not true; my cat would fuck it up deliberately, rather than by sheer incompetence, because he's a goddamn cat.

Also, would it kill them in some unspecified way to have error messages that have meaning? All of them have the same text because they're still working on creating pop-up error messages that say what's actually wrong, and do it three times in a row sometimes. I'd take a goddamn random-ass number-letter code.

Playlist of the Week: May Kicks Ass, created from the songs used on several Women of Marvel vids on youtube. Setting May kicking Ward's ass forever to empowering music does things for me.

Note: All the TMI. I'm posting this at one thirty in the morning after three days of work related wtfery and pretty much nothing is a bad idea at this point.

( so, about your masturbation habits, menstruation, and tmi like it's the end of the world and why not )

In closing: yeah, I shouldn't have stopped when I was writing this post (around playlists, to be specific) and checked my dash. That never ends well, though to be fair, it's not like anyone sane saw this coming.

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rest in peace, leonard nimoy

2015-02-28T01:42:07Z

I don't know what to say.

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for flowerbeds are like conversational death traps

2014-10-11T03:49:35Z

Personal and cultural awareness thought, via FFA:

I was a cultural awareness class (nothing to do with Poles specifically) that had an example of the 'spaces' differences leading people awry. There was a hotel that had people constantly falling into their flower beds, till they investigated some and found out that it apparently occurred when persons accustomed to wide space interaction and persons accustomed to small space interaction met. The wide space people backed away to get more space and the small space people kept following to maintain the close connect. Eventually the wide space people ended up in the flower beds. - Nonny, FFA

I'm trying to decide if I'm Person Who Falls Into Flowerbed or Person Who Pursues Person Into Flowerbed and it's a toss-up. I think I would be Falls-Into-Flowerbed, but social anxiety can and does nail me into position every so often (it's random) where an earthquake wouldn't move me and you might crawl in my lap (not that I'm against this) and I won't move to save my life.

I'm also from the South, so I'm used to small space interaction to the point I have no idea if I naturally like it only that my body automatically assumes that position and God help me. The South (or Texas) also has the time-honored tradition of gossiping at the correct decibel so the person beside you (ie Gossip Subject) cannot hear, so there's that.

Currently, I'm breaking into hysterical laughter at the idea of watching this in action at this hotel. It's like everyone's in an unwitting horror movie lead-up, and half of them don't realize they're Michael Meyers slow-stalking the person who has no idea they're the latest victim until flowerbed dive.

So are you Flowerbed Michael Meyers or Flowerbed Victim One (or are you the Flowerbed of Retreat??????)? It's Friday and I literally cannot think of anything more useful to do with my time than get an answer to this pressing question.

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oh wow, so that was a surprise - irish and I

2014-09-06T03:25:37Z

Duolingo added Danish, Dutch, and Irish to the beta language list for English speakers (for non-English speakers, there are others as well). As Irish sounded interesting, I decided to test it and see what happened.

Here's what I learned:

1.) Spanish infiltrates English speakers in Texas like you have no idea.

I didn't have any idea how much until I began on Irish and failed so utterly when in Spanish I did the first ten sections in like, a day, including repeats when I inexplicably didn't get full hearts in every lesson and I was anal about that. I'd go back and redo ones just to get full hearts and sulk if I missed something. Yes, I do that. Even the most rampant English-only speaker living in a border state cannot help but absorb the principles of the language at least in basic vocabulary.

(Interesting note: you're more likely to pick up a lot of it if you're lower/working class than middle class, due to migrant and undocumented immigrant labor. My dad wouldn't admit it to save his life, but he understood more Spanish than I did since he worked construction and I heard him talking to his coworkers, so come on. My mom didn't pick up much as a caseworker because she worked in a small town, but when I was a clerk and then a caseworker in Austin, my Spanish went high conversational within six months, and I could interview in it fairly well when needed.)

I tested this in French and Portuguese as well: French I can get two sections without noticeable effort (letter combinations start hurting me here), Portuguese three or four (Portuguese sounds to me like Spanish spoken at the back of the throat, and that's the part that throws me off). Irish--three repetitions for one lesson (One. Lesson) to get full hearts and honest to God I sweated through it.

2.) Irish is really different.

Yes, all languages are different, but this is a different-different for me as a primary English speaker and my language familiarity. If you dropped me in Mexico, I could likely fairly quickly get myself food, lodging, a bathroom, and directions to anywhere, and could make some very sketchy jokes with my new friends and probably carry on a fair conversation about my life and times (you'd be surprised how much you know when that's your only language option). If you dropped me in Finland, I could do the same but less conversation and more profanity because my host brother and boyfriend were good about teaching me that. My French would fail, no lie, because French, but I could eventually work out what I needed to say.

In Ireland, should I be without English speakers, Ithim úll, I eat an apple. Ithim an úll, I eat the apple. And I know the 't' will be silent. So I'm good for describing my action with the apple. That's it, and I'm currently I'm on the fourth section. Unless I happen to have a pad of paper and I can totally write out my drink choices sú úll and sú oráiste, apple or orange juice and uisce, water. Go me. I can't say any of them to save my life.

My first cousin is a linguist and polyglot, but all hers are the Romance languages, though she has a working understanding of a few others. If I remember correctly, her waterloos were (forgive generalities), South Asian (specifically I think it was Chinese that threw her off the most, but I can't be more specific). She adapted, but that was where she hit her first serious wall on comprehension, and as this is a woman who was trilingual before she began college and finished her degree in two years, yeah.

If I'm right--and I'm pretty sure I am--mine is anything that uses the alphabet I know in ways I don't understand (goddamn phonics). I still have the entire Cyrillic alphabet effectively memorized and never had a problem reading or understanding Russian at the level that Irish is bothering me. My roommate in college was Syrian-American and was bilingual in Arabic and English, and I never had a problem with what she taught me--this shape makes this sound and those sounds make this word, I could read it later and recognize the word without a major hiccup. (I can't do it now, but at one time I could say several truly indecent things and ask for a beer or water.)

It's like French (fucking French): those letter combinations that don't sound like I think they should (I wrote an essay about me and French) why do you hate me? I blame this on phonics.

3.) Retention is a problem written.

Not Irish to English; that I nail every time. English to Irish is giving me problems, which makes sense. Ithim, itheann, I eat, (he or she) eats isn't hard to recognize. In fact, none of the verb conjugations are hard to recognize and translate, it's just remembering the root and adding the conjugation is because of the slim/broad rule.

This is where I discover I don't like things that are too regular too soon (blame English, we don't do regular, we do exceptions). I don't trust last root vowel matching to get the ending, and I go through, not kidding, a three point series of questions to myself before I finally accept yes, this is a regular freaking verb why are you doing this to yourself? I don't know, but I still have to stop and go okay ith has a 'i' therefore slim ending 'eann' Itheann move on now after point one "what ending goes here, it can't be that simple" and "no, really, it can't be that simple".

This is the 'to eat' verb, for goodness sake. This is how I get an apple in Ireland.

4.) Retention is a huge problem listening.

This is where my phonics training fails until I internalize the letter combination pronunciations (this will take a while, I don't do well at this in my native tongue for fuck's sake)(for which we can blame English stealing all the words)(why didn't English steal more Irish?????????????????).

The secondary problem with this is that this is in beta, and while all the oral uses a real human voice--which is fantastic for clarity, btw, you can easily hear and repeat what they're saying, no problem at all--not all the oral parts are added yet, as this is, again, in beta. So sometimes, you get the word leabhar but not the pronunciation for maybe several questions after that (or a different lesson). Hint: for an English speaker, it sounds nothing like it looks, except that it definitely starts with an 'l' and ends with an 'r'. Uisce, no matter how many times I hear it--and I listened to the same sentence with it in there about a dozen times straight--will not register when I hear it again. Unless it's a sentence about drinking and then I know if it starts with a 'b' it's milk, an 'f' is wine, and the other one is uisce.

5.) My reading retention is shockingly good.

This shouldn't surprise me, but it always throws me a little to realize how textual I really am. And that has been a problem; I can pretty much force-pass the lessons on guesswork on the strength of translating Irish to English and slide by the rest with short-term memorization, but finishing with four hearts every time means I have to pass every question both written and oral and the difference is painfully obvious on how long I spend listening to the same sentence over and over until I can work out the words by more than first letter and context guessing (which also works). Or slowly, painfully pushing English to Irish. And honestly, retention of the sounds has to be a priority, which is annoying me. I'm used to flying through basics and I keep going back to re-run all the early lessons before I start a new one to retain the sounds correctly.

Why I like the beta languages innovations:

The Irish language has portals (this was not there for the other English to X courses) and when you start a new section, there are notes relevant to the lessons below, not limited to the explanation of the slender/broad conjugations, a complete list of pronouns, and some very useful grammar and terminology. I read it, did the lessons several times, read it, did the lessons, and slowly it came together but far better than if it left me on my own (Spanish I don't need it; Irish oh God yes, please). It's super useful once you accept in your heart that no, those letters will not sound like that and live with it.

I wish--desperately--that US schools did more foreign language training, though I do get historically why we didn't and why it's become a thing only recently to start pushing it earlier (Child's school starts in primary, I think).

I will say this: I reward myself with Spanish lessons and boy, I feel smart then. Four hearts, listening, speaking, reading, writing, watch me get all the hearts. Several times, even.

So anyone else try the other beta languages yet? I'm curious about Dutch and Danish. Also, if anyone else ends up in Irish, tell me! Especially how you nailed uisce. Seriously, this is haunting me Why won't it stick?

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you will see what i did there (springtime for seperis)

2014-08-23T21:14:35Z

I got the most realistic, coolest, most meaningful spam ever and it had everything; atrocities, evils of wealth, illness, dead husbands, life insurance, cancer (ovarian, even), children, one of the south Africa country (yes, really), and adoption (ha! didn't see that coming, did you?).

At my work email. So no penis enlargement today.

My duckling at work is from Cameroon, and every once in a while he breaks into evangelism on his country of birth, and therefore we look at Google World at every inch of Cameroon while he finds youtube videos because he thinks it's funny to start me off with Cameroon English that unexpectedly breaks into French (I automemorize lyrics and he told me once I was the best he'd ever heard at mispronouncing French so well that it sounded like a whole new (very sad) language, so you know, I win for that).

This is related; this is neither talent nor skill, I've mentioned this before, it's not even useful, but more like having the ability to spit Guinness World book record--I realized the probable reason why I never had a problem spelling anyone's names on our work board if I saw it once (our developers are from India or Nepal generally, so very few Western-oriented or Korean or Vietnamese, the latter two were communities in the right zip codes for my office to handle when I was a caseworker, yes, it's that random) or--historically--always got my written Russian homework flawless in class even if Russia itself might cry if it heard me speak the language. Also, given a list of any number of words and meaning once, I could use them perfectly in context and never miss spelling them by a letter, but if you do not tell me right then how to pronounce them--I mean right then--I will never pronounce them right in my head and this will follow me forever when I say them.

Not many of you probably know or care much about the education of children in the US being a thing that is debated hotly when it comes to teaching them to read; or you might, so you know every few years, they switch between Fun With Phonics and whole word learning. You want to watch a bloodbath, get any group of educators together and throw that out; if these were the days of duels, gloves would be slapping everywhere and dawn would be the new prime time for drama viewing.

My class was very Fun with Phonics (this changed and changed back every few years) and because of that I will shove a glove in your ass if you say it's not the best forever, but there's a price to be paid for teaching kids to sound out shit first.

1.) You learn adults are fuckers who fuck with you very early with 'the'.

That's the thing about phonics as reading; almost all the word at primary level are fine, but that's an article and you cannot get away from it. A lot of teachers roll with it, and some have to have taken that into consideration early on, but my most vivid memory of the kindergarten education process was going over and over to my teacher because I trusted her and I couldn't believe she meant it when she said 'the' did not sound like 'tuh-huh-eh'.

She just told me the entire alphabet, letters have sounds, sounds have meaning (there was a blackboard and a pointer), this can be expressed on a page beneath the cute picture of a girl (blonde, always fucking blonde) playing with a dog (brown, very). I nailed that shit, and it was true, all of it...except 'tuh-huh-eh' was not 'the', what is this bullshit?

Once I accepted 'the' into my heart as my phonics betrayer (it took a full year and we won't talk about how much that delayed literacy but again, a year), it got better; all the 'th' and 'ch' were allowed in my soul and eventually silent 'e's would join them along with all the others, but the scar of betrayal never really healed, Mrs. Figueroa.

2.) Your spelling will forever be fantastic except for all the ways it won't be and it's because of France.

Spelling was easy kindergarten through third grade, because again most words are phonetically consistent at that level, or so close that visual plus audio once and you're fine. Except.

You meet 'beau' and fuck everything ever. Buh-eh-ah-uuuuuuuthefuckisthis that is nothing like 'bow', that's buh-oh-wuh and we have one of those b-o-w bu-oh-wuh not b-e-a-u buh-eh-ah-uuuuuutheydon'tdothis, Mrs F didn't lie that much, did she?

...French, you say? Really.

Xenophobia is terrible and American exceptionlism is very wrong, but ask yourself; how many kids were perhaps influenced by getting a 99 but not a hundred because the French language exists and didn't get a golden star but a silver one--a silver one--on the paper when they got it back and an 'x' by that word? Not that I'm still bitter, just saying.

It might be the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066 causing the English language to be supplanted by Norman French, not even real French because fuck French we got the discount edition, causing only the lower classes to use English for centuries while French, being so very (discount) French, stuck its words helter-skelter into every conversation until Chaucer existed, married John of Gaunt's sister-in-law, and set the world right with many tales, and French--fucking French--eventually went away but those words stuck. English needed those because its development had been slowed, we had to catch up fast (German was mocking us with its vocabulary and Spanish was grinning very Catholicly), so we needed words and fast. What to do?

Fine, English said, picking up a sword, righteousness, a Revolutionary War, and a future Webster's dictionary, unrevised: shit just got real. Time to level the fuck up.

English takes all the words, all of them, the ones you wanted and the ones you didn't, sorry, but like a wolf who tastes the hot blood of a fresh kill for the first time (language is tasty indeed, nothing like it), it wants more.

B-o-w and b-e-a-u are 'buh-oh-wuh' and discrete plus discreet because Latin or Greek same meaning different context mostly, watch English laugh at your protests, bring it on, we have the 'c' and the 'k' and we like it, same sound but sometimes not, a-e-i-o-u and sometimes y because fuck you English does what it wants with consonants and vowels. Fish and fiche sound the same but mean different things, you want more? English does, too. Did you see phonics is ph but sounds like 'f'? We even have 'q' right there in the alphabet and it needs to get laid by 'u' to make a sound but fuck if we care, it's our letter and have fun with it. 'X' took many sounds for its own and uses them all and we let it because we like rebels.

Also, Latin? I split an infinitive every day just for you. And English told me to say 'hi' and fuck you.

Silver star. One. Word. Wrong.

3.) You will realize quite early that writing is better than talking for a lot of reasons and fuck everything.

Phonics works for many words and most kids will roll with it, but that doesn't change the severe cognitive dissonance that will haunt some few. Among that group will be those that can deal, and then there's the ones that have to live life with oral readings where you will be constantly translating b-e-a-u to 'buh-oh-wuh' because William the Conqueror was a douche but with many different words and that wears on you and sanity may not hold out long.

Reading and writing become havens of wonder because pronunciation wasn't fucking with us, which is why certain essays are college level vocabulary (content hilarious) while long division is still a mystery Mrs Young stop fucking with me you want me to carry what?

Writing is the perfect medium when you learn sarcasm as well (once you learn the definition of subtlety and forgive the b for being inexplicably silent and even now often forget), and a generation met the internet--all text, all the time--with the advanced tools necessary to troll the fuck out of it.

So I can spell anything I see at most twice (three times over five syllables, phonics is fun but also set to a four four beat to learn), but English/French youtube videos autolyric memoriation means I will sing things I can't pronounce and my duckling French speaker thinks it's funny because I can't pronounce fucking French.

People say they want to go to Paris all the time; oh, so do I, you have no idea.

I fly into that country, mispronounce 'Bien' awkwardly beneath pitying smiles, tell a cab driver three times where to go while he rolls his eyes at Americans because I took French while in Finland and I still couldn't get it right, go to the Eiffel Tower and climb to the very top.

And I will say: "William the Conqueror was a douche, I will split every infinitive I see, and b-e-a-u is not fucking 'buh-oh-wuh'!"

And give myself a gold star.

Next: Normandy. I can't wait.

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both long and has thematic symbolic trees who aren't plants and have legs

2014-08-22T08:42:04Z

You know, this isn't right I'm sure, but a thought exercise on why in the movie Splash in the eighties, Madison met a woman who told her one, Annie Hall was so passe and two, her daughter was so lucky because she was anorexic started this. believe it. or. not.

( ruben, gout, mcdonalds, sugar, and the working woman in time and space: a reflection on the meaning of organ meats in the western hemisphere above the equator is that too vague? also, wal-mart. and thematic not-trees )

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so you think the world is weird?

2014-07-29T04:39:03Z

In case anyone missed this:

Satanic Temple seeks Hobby Lobby-style exemption from anti-abortion laws

Thank you, yahoo news; I can state with perfect honesty that I didn't see this coming.

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AO3 - related works thing

2014-07-17T00:16:54Z

A general apology--I was answering a comment in AO3 and checked my related works link because it's there and awesome, and there were several items that weren't approved. I approved them all and I apologize for the weirdness to those who were wondering what the hell.

Also! Because this is so cool I share these things:

Adjustment, War Games, and Domestically Inclined, translated by Loquor into Chinese. My Star Trek reboot series in Chinese; it's amazing.

Being monolingual--my Spanish isn't nearly good enough to even qualify for half a point there--translation is miraculous to me in general.

While working in Duolingo on my Spanish, I translated part of the Minecraft player's guide into English, which now qualifies me to upgrade the art of translation to magic. It has to be; there's no other explanation, and boy, I feel like a loser feeling all exhausted after translating some really simple paragraphs of a Spanish article on hockey. God I hope it was hockey, now that I'm thinking about it.

...I'm going to go check now. Just in case.

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no, i haev no idea why i thought this was a good idea

2014-07-03T13:36:21Z

Currently reading Top Ten Most Venomous Snakes, where in an unsurprising turn of events, Australia holds five slots including one and two. Because Australia.

(Africa wins as Most Terrifying Snake I Have Ever Obsessively Read About My God Twenty Minutes????? WTF Evolution WHY?)

My only real comfort here is that, should I be near one of these snakes at any time, I don't have to worry about dying within twenty minutes or less (thanks, Black Mamba!); I will have a heart attack right there and die. So you know, there's that.

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oh god, google

2014-07-01T05:45:13Z

Google Now on my phone just gave me an update card on how much I walked in June, based on my device's location. In so many ways I find this upsetting and weird, not least of which is the realization I don't walk much. Though that's still below "GOOGLE IS WATCHING ME WALK?"

....level with me, anyone else starting to wonder if The Matrix was actually a documentary and the next two movies in the series were released just to make us dismiss the entire convoluted plotline and not realize that is our lives?

I'd say this was bad, but then I just realized--

1.) I can fly and do kung fu.
2.) A full length leather coat is in my immediate future.
3.) There's a very good chance Laurence Fishburne will show up soon.

Dear Robot overlords,

THANK YOU.

(also: seriously, watching me walk? Why?)

Love,
Seperis

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this is rant, for the record

2014-06-21T06:07:20Z

The Coming Gay Marriage Witch Hunt - this really is nothing new at all, but hilarious quote from worried homophobe:

Same-sex marriage is, of course, not the first issue to divide Americans. Slavery, segregation, and abortion led to civil war, vigilante violence, and massive protest movements.

But opponents of same-sex marriage say that even in those instances there was détente after passions cooled. One-time segregationists remained in the upper echelons of American public life through the 1990s. This time, opponents of same-sex marriage fear that supporters will not be happy until their side has been run out of polite society and forced to retract their previously held views.

I want to go on the record here, correct my interpretation if I'm reading this wrong: segregation/racism was a much better social movement because racists got to keep their social and political power for, count it, over a fucking century (according to the article). In polite society.

Jesus Christ, this is a crisis; people may not be invited to fucking tea because they're obnoxious. Let me weep.

Something struck me about this that's bothered me: it's the much touted right to be heard. It appears most often when people speaking Bullshit-esque are pouting about the language barrier that prevents people from caring what they have to say.

Much like the rights of trees who fall in the forest to make a sound, there is no fundamental right to be heard, because that would necessitate violating my God-given right to not have to listen. Free speech your ass out among the leaves, sunshine; I'm not hanging around the forest to listen.

I've spent the last two weeks learning Medicaid policy for the aged and disabled in which a sample case I worked allowed a man to enter a nursing home facility and receive Medicaid without even having to make a copay despite the fact his resources were upward of two hundred thousand dollars, while a woman who receives less than 1100 in RSDI total has to pay nine hundred dollars a month for the same thing.

When rich politicians talk about cutting welfare, they talk about welfare queens and single mothers and eighteen thousand kids each, but for some reason, they're very silent, very silent indeed, when it comes to the legal basis of how the wealthy can hide their money using special clauses in policy created specifically for them so when they need nursing home care or community care, they don't have to pay a thing toward it while a man or woman who have worked their asses off all their lives sometimes get denied the help they desperately need at the most vulnerable and fragile point of their lives.

Is this polite society?

You know, sorry, I ran out of tears; see, I'm worrying about actual real things, like my kid having the ability to get married and not be killed for being who he is, my mother being safe and well in her old age if God forbid she becomes fragile or ill, the current nightmare that is the job market, paying down my student loan and my credit report, and unnumbered elderly, disabled, and poor people who get denied help.

I don't understand the priorities of a life lived that can possibly, by any stretch of hte imagination, give a flying fuck about what a woman does with her own body to the point of trying to outlaw their access to it, about what people who you will probably never meet who may or may not be of the same sex entering into a legal union, how the color of someone's skin, their ethnicity, their country of origin, or their sex has any bearing whatsofuckingever on what kind of person they are, much less care so much that PACs and societies are created to combat it.

But all of that--all of that--makes more sense than an article where a homophobe is deeply, sincerely worried they won't get invited to the best parties.

Find a fucking forest and talk until you go hoarse, I don't give a shit; you want to be heard, say something worth breath.

Note: This has been a very enlightening two weeks of my life.

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for the record, this has been bothering me

2014-06-19T05:54:21Z

For reasons that don't need to be explored at this juncture, I am in need of someone who really likes academic communication theory--or possibly metacognition theory and cognitive neuroscience--who can tell me what this is and where to find it.

It's a theory that the act of writing is sometimes more than simply the expression of a thought in textual form, but the equivalent of the brain outsourcing some of the thinking process. There are thoughts that cannot be thought or even exist without the intervention of the written word. Writing isn't just organization, memory storage, or even clarification of thoughts that are already there; the act of writing is a requirement for the thought to even exist.

I remember reading about it in college (I don't remember the discipline it came out of, but I think its birth was out of cognitive theory and how the brain works), but there was an implication that once the ability to communicate with the written word is acquired, it (theoretically) increases the capacity for abstract thought because (possibly?) it's a way for the brain to communicate with itself that it can't accomplish without it.

I found some articles that hit on some of it, but the focus in most of them is the use of writing to expand existing thought and make connections between disparate ideas that are already there but require refinement, or the development of critical thinking skills, but not idea that the brain uses writing itself in the creation of thought process.

...Christ, I swear this is not the result of a mescaline and tequila night, though admittedly, I'd love the excuse.

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it has a soundtrack

2014-06-15T20:41:26Z

As my nieces got Frozen, I've involuntarily watched it about three times due to the fact that, as kids do, that goddamn movie was on repeat on the bluray player for like a week. Which is why against my will, Let It Go ended up on my playlist so I can massacre a C above high C when automemorization kicks in. Luckily, only the neighbors have been the victims of my need to express my freedom to create ice sculptures (in my mind) in the far north while actually living in Texas at ninety-one degrees in the shade. Because that's how I roll these days.

Other news: my other repeat-one song of the month:
UNKLE ft Moby - In a State/God Moving over the Faces of the Waters - it was part of a documentary vid on youtube and I hunted it down to get a clean copy, which this one is, for downloading-related purposes.

Training tomorrow. This is my idea of decompressing: sitting outside while surfing youtube and Wikipedia. If I end up reading about the cat genome project again something's gonna give.

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