Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

Phobic

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I’ve mentioned my fear of flying in the past. Earlier today, Steven Frank wrote about his battle with the same phobia — and from the sound of it, he was hit by it far harder than I was. If you’re phobic or know someone who is, this is well worth reading.

This part, in particular, sounded very familiar, describing perfectly what I’ve gone through every time I’ve gotten on an airplane in the past few years:

With no apparent rhyme or reason, my own brain conspired to make me absolutely terrified of flying. Not like those fakers who say they need a glass or two of wine to unwind before boarding. No, I’m talking clenched to the armrests, heart pounding, stomach doing pirouettes, and jumping in unconditional horror at any sudden noise or movement, with no rest or respite until back on solid ground.

I was also immune to statistics and facts. You could explain to me until blue in the face that I was 23,000 times more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport, or that there are better odds of being struck by lightning than being a fatality on a commercial airline. It wouldn’t make any difference. They call them irrational phobias for a very good reason.

Steven was eventually unable to fly for about five years, and has only now just made his first flight since the phobia hit its strongest point. As another person battling this same fear (as I mentioned briefly in the last paragraphs of this post), I can identify with his situation all too well — forcing yourself into confronting a phobia head-on is not an easy thing to do. Congratulations, Steven…and best of luck for the future.

iTunes “Father Lucifer (Sylkscreen)” by Amos, Tori from the album Jackie’s Strength (1999, 4:32).

LiveJournal readers: help!

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Okay, here’s the situation. Right now, there’s 29 of you reading my stuff (or at least skimming it occasionally) through the LJ syndication account woody_eclectic, which I think is great. There’s just one little issue, though…and it’s one that I can’t (easily) fix on my own. Update: Never mind…looks like there’s no simple fix after all. More info below…

The big issue is that comments are turned on for each of the syndicated posts. Since I wasn’t the one to set up the account, though, I don’t get notification when someone leaves a comment though LiveJournal. So, if someone comments on one of my posts — as has happened here, here, here, and probably other posts in the past — I’m generally not likely to see it. Additionally, LiveJournal only stores the last twenty or so entries, so once they disappear, any comments associated with them disappear as well.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about this. I asked in a syndication-specific LJ community today, and it appears that while there is an option to turn comments on or off for syndicated posts, only the person who originally set up the syndication account can do that according to this comment, comments are on no matter what, and there’s no way to change that.

So…could whoever set up the syndication feed (assuming you’re still subscribed to it) do me a big favor and turn off the “allow comments” setting? Everyone reading my feed will still be able to click through to the original post on my weblog to comment there along with all my non-LiveJournal readers, so this won’t be entirely removing the ability to comment — it’ll just consolidate all the comments into one place, where they won’t disappear, and where I’ll actually see them.

I’ll give a few days or a week or so to see if this works (it may not, as it’s entirely possible that whoever originally set up the feed got bored with me and unsubscribed, leaving it orphaned and without anyone to change the settings). If it doesn’t, I’ve got a backup plan…it’s just one I’m not looking forward to implementing…but it looks like I’m going to have to go forward with a variation of this:

Read more

A long, long time ago…

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…no far away galaxy, though. Last night I got an e-mail from Kathleen, who’d stumbled across my Gigs photoset while looking for an old friend of hers. She was kind enough to send me an old photo from Gigs and said I could go ahead and post it along with the rest of my pictures from the club.

The picture was a fairly low-quality scan (a 216k 318×226 .bmp), but I’ve done what little I could to clean it up in Photoshop, enlarging it 200%, tweaking the levels, and running an unsharp mask filter on it. It’s still not pristine, but I’m still thrilled to have this drop in my lap.

Update: Kathleen was able to find the original photo and re-scan it at a higher resolution, so it’s much easier to see now. Turns out I was at a point where I was going through an ill-conceived attempt to actually grow out my beard….

Gigs Music Theatre, Anchorage, AK

I’m guessing this was taken sometime in 1997 or so. That’s Ray (DJ Happyjack) sitting in front. From left to right on the couch, we’ve got Lydia, Kathleen, me, Kate, and Rebecca (who was going by Apple at the time). Casey‘s lying across the back of the couch. I’ve got no clue who the guy on the far right is.

Thanks again, Kathleen!

iTunes “If I (Alien Trauma Edition)” by Lizette & from the album & So… (2001, 6:41).

Dissonance in Liability

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Ganked this one straight from Daily Kos, via Boing Boing:

WARNING: Severe Cognitive Dissonance Ahead!

Hollywood wins Internet piracy battle
The U.S. Supreme Court rules against file-sharing service Grokster in a closely watched piracy case.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled [last month] that software companies can be held liable for copyright infringement when individuals use their technology to download songs and movies illegally.

[Hollywood’s] victory [last month]…dealt a big blow to technology companies, which claim that holding them accountable for the illegal downloading of songs, movies, video games and other proprietary products would stifle their ability to develop new products.

“We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,” Justice Souter wrote.

Wait for it… wait for it…

Senate Moves to Shield Gun Industry

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved the National Rifle Association’s top priority ahead of a $491 billion defense bill, setting up a vote on legislation to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes.

“The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “We look at it from a standpoint of stopping lawsuit abuse.”

The bill would prohibit lawsuits against the firearms industry for damages resulting form the unlawful use of a firearm or ammunition.

[Senator Larry] Craig said such lawsuits are “predatory and aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry,” unfairly blaming dealers and manufacturers for the crimes of gun users.

Got that? If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally copy a movie, that company is liable. If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally kill a human, that company is not liable. What’s the common logic holding these disparate concepts together? Massive corporate special interest money. Welcome to your government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, where a pirated copy of “Hollywood Homicide” is bigger threat than an actual Hollywood homicide.

This is such a crock. How soon until I can afford to bail from this bass-ackwards country?

“

iTunes “No One is Fax Exempt” by Rollins, Henry from the album Think Tank (1998, 19:28).

Profile Pages

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In the course of updating my about page, I spent a little time cleaning up some of my profiles on other sites that I’ve picked up memberships in at one point or another over the years. Most of them I haven’t bothered to do much with after initially signing up, so it was interesting coming back to them and seeing the changes that have taken place.

The two most altered from what I remember are my Tribe.net and Yahoo! pages. Tribe has apparently undergone some rather major updates since I was there last, and Yahoo recently introduced their Yahoo 360 service. Amusingly, the two services now offer enough similar features that I’ve been able to nearly duplicate my profile on each one — everything from recent weblog posts to my del.icio.us links to my Flickr photos, all collected together on one page. Must admit, while I’m not likely to become a heavy user of either service, all the new fancybits are nice to see, and should be quite handy when connecting to other people who use them.

Feel free to check out my profiles and add me if you use either of the services. Or not. Y’know…whichever. ;)

iTunes “Da’Ale Da’Ale (Remix)” by Haza, Ofra from the album Just Say Mao (1989, 6:05).

Choices

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The Leaky Cauldron has been running an interview with J.K. Rowling over the past week (in three parts: one, two, and three) with questions posed by Emerson Spartz of Mugglenet and Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron. The whole interview is very worth reading — though full of spoilers, so I don’t recommend reading it if you haven’t finished the latest book yet — but one section stood out to me when I read it.

JKR: …because I think there’s a line there between the moment in “Chamber of Secrets” when Dumbledore says so famously, ‘It’s our choices that define us, not our abilities,’ straight through to Dumbledore sitting in his office, saying to Harry, “the prophecy is significant only because you and Voldemort choose to make it so.” If you both chose to walk away, you could both live! That’s the bottom line. If both of them decided, “We’re not playing,” and walked away… but, it’s not going to happen, because as far as Voldemort’s concerned, Harry’s a threat. They must meet each other.

ES: I remember thinking when I read “Order of the Phoenix,” what would happen if Harry and Voldemort just decided to —

JKR: Shake hands, and walk away? We’ll agree to disagree!

[Laughter.]

ES: What if he never heard the prophecy?

JKR: And that’s it, isn’t it. As I said, that’s what I posted on my site –

ES: I’m glad you put that up.

JKR: It’s the “Macbeth” idea. I absolutely adore “Macbeth.” It is possibly my favorite Shakespeare play. And that’s the question isn’t it? If Macbeth hadn’t met the witches, would he have killed Duncan? Would any of it have happened? Is it fated or did he make it happen? I believe he made it happen.

MA: If everyone would just shake hands and play a round of golf, everything would be fine.

[Laughter.]

Obviously, nothing necessarily mind-blowing in and of itself, but it’s a theme that I’m quite happy that Rowling has been using in the books, and expanding on in interviews. So many of the troubles people face, both on a personal and on a global scale, all just boil down to happening because one party or another want them to.

Obviously, the solution to all the world’s woes, then, is never to want to cause any sort of conflict whatsoever, so I’ll shortly be embarking on my daily routine of laudanum and thorazine to ensure I can do my own small part in making this world a calmer, less embittered place.

Erm.

Well, okay, maybe not.

iTunes “Movin’ On Up (Demrocked!’s Movinunbelievable)” by Primal Scream from the album screamixadelica (2005, 5:00).

Bad Timing

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There’s a guy who works in the mailroom just down the hall from me who greets me every time he sees me by calling my name out in kind of a sing-song fashion — “Mi-chael…!” It’s a little odd, but not really a big deal.

Unless he does it as he enters the restroom, while I’m standing at the urinal. Suddenly, my name is echoing from tile wall to tile wall, and, well, as delicately as I can put it, all bodily functions immediately cease. That’s just not a good time to be startled.

Shmoe.

What’s your funny?

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Another online quiz — though this one (unlike many others), actually gave me a result that seemed pretty accurate: the three-variable funny test.

The Wit

(60% dark, 30% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean you’re pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty–after all isn’t that ‘the Simpsons’ philosophy?–but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion.

Also, you probably loved The Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart – Woody Allen – Ricky Gervais

Humor Test Result Graph

My test tracked 3 variables. How you compared to other people your age and gender:

   
You scored higher than 54% on dark
   
You scored higher than 0% on spontaneous
   
You scored higher than 9% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

(via James)

(And, once again, I’m driven up the wall by the mind-boggling horrible HTML code that these quizes generate. I just don’t have the time to clean it up any more than I already have right now…grrr!)

Bite of Seattle 2005

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End of the Rainbow, International Fountain, Seattle Center, Bite of Seattle, Seattle, WA

A small photoset of shots from wandering around Saturday at the Bite of Seattle. Not my usual onslaught of pics this time…I just wasn’t as into it on Saturday as I am sometimes. Still managed a few decent shots, though.

Housekeeping

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I’ve finally gone in and made a few slight tweaks to my about page, adding a short list of other sites that I participate in and a few other bits and pieces here and there.

One change that is more major in my head than anywhere else is the addition of a paragraph about my identity as “the Microsoft blogger”. I’ve resisted this until now, as I’ve always felt that: one, it’s a very small part of who I am, and I’ve never been entirely comfortable with looking like I’m trying to capitalize on the fracas; and two, it was a dumb mistake on my part that I keep hoping will evetually disappear into the great bit bucket of ‘net lore.

However, given that the three primary posts about that event (the picture, the day I was let go, and my wrapup from a few days later) are consistently the most heavily trafficked pages on my site — lately, they’ve been getting a boost every time new information on the Xbox leaks out, as one person or another feels compelled to point to me during the ensuing discussion — I figured it was time to just shrug my shoulders and admit that yeah, that’s me, and point to the pages in question.

I’m still not entirely comfortable with that, but ignoring it in the hopes that it would go away hasn’t done much, and I’m not so determined to get away from it that I’d actually delete the posts in question…so, there they are.

At least I didn’t end up inadvertently coining a new term for getting fired — ‘djwudi’d’, ‘michael’d’, or ‘hanscom’d’ just doesn’t roll off of the tongue like ‘dooced‘ does, anyway. ;)