Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
This is the third time I’ve taken this test, though it’s been a few years — the first time was in 2002, the second in 2003, and now, nine years later, comes the third time. It seems I’m moving ever further towards that bottom left corner…
2002: -6.12/-5.90
2003: -6.62/-6.41
2012: -7.12/-7.33
Things I will not do, in no particular order (a list that can be revised at any time, though such revisions are likely to be additions, unless there’s a very good reason for removing an item):
Use “bitch” as a generic term for women. I reserve the right to occasionally describe someone as “a bitch” or “bitchy” when appropriate, but women in general are not “bitches” (or sluts, hos, or any other demeaning term).
Share any cute, funny, poignant, political, or any other kind of image on Facebook that uses improper grammar. Not that I share many images, but if they’re made without proper use of the English language, they’re not getting shared (with occasional, very rare exceptions for obviously intended humorous butchering of the language by people who know what they’re doing and why it’s funny).
Share any image that denigrates one body type in favor of another. I find skinny women attractive, I find curvy women attractive…basically, I find women attractive. No one body type is better than any other. As long as someone has a body, I’m good with that.
I’m sure this list will grow over time. These just popped into my head this morning based on things I’ve seen posted recently.
So I noticed something that amused me while watching Big Bang Theory the other night — apparently Sheldon has a holographic display on his laptop.
Obviously, some evidence in the form of screenshots is in order (all from Season 4, Episode 15, “The Benefactor Factor”, though I noticed this in Episode 14, “The Thespian Catalyst”, as well).
First up, a shot of Sheldon videoconferencing with Amy. This is mostly to set the scene, there’s nothing much to see here.
Next, a POV shot of what Sheldon sees while sitting directly in front of the computer.
Finally, here’s the shot that caught my eye — a shot over Sheldon’s shoulder.
Compare those last two shots. In the first shot, from Sheldon’s POV, we see Amy from directly ahead. She’s looking directly into the camera, as would be expected. However, in the second shot, she’s turned slightly to her right, giving us a slight profile shot (and while it doesn’t really translate in still shots, this isn’t because she was shaking her head or momentarily turned her head for some reason — she holds her head in this position through the entire shot).
The final impression is that as the camera switched from Sheldon’s POV to the over-the-shoulder shot, the perspective changed in our view of Amy, so that we see her from the same angle as if the two characters were speaking face-to-face rather than over video chat…but the only way that could happen would be if Sheldon’s computer had a holographic display!
With our normal, flat, non-holographic computer screens, of course, even when moving to the side of a computer screen, we would still see the other party looking straight into the camera…so we’d see the image something like this:
Of course, in the visual language of television, that looks odd. We expect characters to look at each other, and we know that Sheldon and Amy are looking at each other, so the technically correct shot seems a little odd, as Amy is still looking directly out of the screen, apparently at the viewer instead of at Sheldon. The solution, then, is to have her turned slightly to her right when filming those sequences so it still appears that she’s looking directly at Sheldon, even though it gives the somewhat amusing impression that Sheldon has a laptop far more advanced than any currently on the market (as does Amy, as she’d have to have a laptop that can both film and broadcast 3D video chat streams) — but then, would we really expect anything less from Sheldon Cooper? ;)
I have no idea how often this technique is used on other shows, as this is one of the few times I’ve noticed it. In fact, the only other time I can think of that I noticed this technique being used was in Star Trek (TNG comes to mind, though I can be relatively sure that it was also done this way in DS9, VOY, and ENT). However, in the Star Trek universe, it’s known (at least to the more geeky technobabble obsessed fans) that the main display screen on the bridge of the Enterprise is a holographic display, and it’s not that far-fetched to believe that the smaller displays might be as well, so the conceit was never as jarring when I noticed it there.
So…there’s my ridiculously over-analyzed geek moment of the day.
First off, the gorgeous new trailer for the first part of The Hobbit has just been released:
Now, a slight digression. Back when the internet was new (and I’m not entirely exaggerating with that), the Jargon File was created as a living encyclopedia of words, phrases, terms, and events common to the geek communities of the day. In that document are the original definitions for the term “troll” as used in the electronic world.
- v.,n. [From the Usenet group
alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase “trolling for newbies” which in turn comes from mainstream “trolling”, a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT.n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand – they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, “Oh, ignore him, he’s just a troll.” Compare kook.
Where today, “troll” is almost universally understood as the second of the above quoted definitions — a person solely out to provoke annoyance — I’ve always preferred the first definition. In that sense, a properly constructed troll is something I’ve always respected.
The comments for yesterday evening’s io9 post about the Hobbit trailer contain a beautiful example of trolling in the old sense (“…a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”). This comment gave me a good laugh this morning:
Yawwwn, sequelitis strikes again.
Hey Hollywood, how long’d it take you to come up with yet another unnecessary backstory?! Do we really need to go with Frodo’s dad on his quest to find the ring?
I bet they’ll dumb it down and make it all kiddy too. Hard R or I ain’t watchin!
How much you wanna bet they’ll figure out a way to shoehorn half-a-dozen giant spiders to compete with the one they had in LOTR2.
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a troll is supposed to be done.
Gawker: ‘It’s a Food Product, Essentially’: Fox News Starts Spinning Pepper Spray Cops
“I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” O’Reilly says, “particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” God forbid! We’d never want to question Lt. John Pike’s decision to generously and indifferently dust peacefully sitting protesters with pepper spray from only a few feet away. Especially given that Davis is, you know, a liberal campus! And, gosh, even if we were going to Monday-morning quarterback the police, shouldn’t we remember, as Megyn Kelly tells O’Reilly, that pepper spray is “a food product, essentially”?
Scientific American: About Pepper Spray
…commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.
Amazon: Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray
Accept no substitutes when casually repressing students: Whenever I need to breezily inflict discipline on unruly citizens, I know I can trust Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray to get the job done! The power of reason is no match for Defense Technology’s superior repression power. When I reach for my can of Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray, I know that even the mighty First Amendment doesn’t stand a chance against its many scovil units of civil rights suppression.
More than just pepper spray!!!: First, this baby has everything you would expect from Defense Technology brand pepper spray. It burns like hell. Whether you’re spraying directly into eyes or mouths – this will cause excruciating pain.
Second, and I know it’s not explicitly listed as one the uses on the can, but it’s also an amazing human arm de-linker. So if you have this gigantic public space and a dozen people are sitting there with their arms linked – this will really help in your effort to de-link those arms.
The #MegynKellyEssentials tag is worth watching on Twitter. It seems to have grown out of the comments to the Gawker post linked above. Some choice bits snagged from the Gawker comments:
Megyn Kelly on fire hoses: “It’s a sports beverage, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on rubber bullets: “It’s a pencil eraser, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on hand grenades: “It’s a Fourth of July firework, essentially! God bless America.”
Megyn Kelly on nightsticks: “It’s an olive branch, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on waterboarding: “It’s a Neti Pot, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on genital mutilation: “It’s a Brazilian wax, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on zip-tie handcuffs: “It’s a Livestrong bracelet, essentially.”
Megyn Kelly on HIV: “It’s a common cold, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on the rack: “It’s a chiropractor, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on mustard gas: “It’s a hot dog condiment, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on nuclear weapons: “It’s a microwave dinner, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on sound weapons: “It’s a boom box, essentially!”
Washington state is expecting a 47% turnout in this election — and people bitch and moan about how nothing ever changes.
I support the #occupy movement. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that if every one of the #occupy protesters actually voted, there are a lot of races that wouldn’t be as close as they end up being. If every #occupy protester told their friends to vote — and not just, “you should vote,” but “no, seriously, YOU SHOULD VOTE, we’re going to the polls/filling out our ballots now,” a lot of races wouldn’t even be close.
Yes, protests are important. Yes, we need to make our voices heard. But we also need to remember that shouting in the streets isn’t the only way to make our voices heard. Fill out your ballot. Put it in the mail. Put it in a drop box. If you don’t live somewhere where you can vote by mail, then take the hour out of your day to go to the polls.
But don’t ignore your right to vote, then bitch because nothing ever changes.
And don’t whine that “my vote doesn’t make a difference,” or “it’s just one vote.” Over the past couple decades, we’ve seen too many elections, national and local, where recounts were triggered because the final tally was so close. A few more votes — those tiny, insignificant, single votes — all of a sudden aren’t so minuscule.
I’m looking for some help from those who are a little more familiar with (computer) networking than I am.
Until now, our home network has been relatively simple, running off of an Airport Extreme base station, which has three physical LAN ports.
WAN }---> [cable] }---> [AE] }-\---> iMac (wired)
[modem] . \--> iMac (wired)
. \-> printer (wired)
.
......> various WiFi devices
(two iPhones, one iPad,
one MacBook, one Roku)
One of the fun things about our new house is that it’s actually fully networked with Cat-6 cabling, with six two-port jacks on each of the two floors. All the cabling runs into an upstairs closet. In the closet, a 24-port patch bay is set up so that the lower port of each jack leads to an open data port, and the upper port is hooked into a POTS patchboard. Since I’m not hooking up a POTS line, I can easily disconnect the POTS patch cords, opening up a total of 24 network jacks around the house (serious overkill, I’m sure…but damn it’s cool to have this built in to my home!).
On the basic assumption that whenever possible, wired is better than wireless, I’d like to be able to physically wire in as many devices as is possible. At this point, that’s four (two iMacs, the printer, and the Roku). However, I can only currently get three wired in at a time (by running cables from the AE’s three LAN ports into three ports on the patch bay). Since all of the above devices (save one old iMac) are WiFi capable, this isn’t a critical issue — I can just leave one to run wirelessly, and wire the other three in — but I’d like to get all four on wires…and if possible, allow for possible future growth or configurability.
What I think I need to do is add a switch (like this) to the network. However, I’ve not played with switches before — just home routers.
If I were to add this switch, could I just plug the AE into one port, all my other devices into other ports, and have everything still “just work” (to borrow Apple’s language)?
WAN }---> [cable] }---> [AE] }---{ [switch] }-\-----> iMac
[modem] . \----> iMac
. \---> printer
. \--> Roku
. \-> (theoretical
. future devices)
.
....> various WiFi devices
In the current setup, the AE acts as DHCP router, assigning internal IPs to all my devices. Would the switch recognize this and still shuttle traffic around without my having to do anything? Or would I need to switch my internal wired network to assigned IP addresses so that the switch knows where to send traffic? Am I even asking the right questions? Am I overthinking this?
Help! I have new toys, and I don’t know how to play with them!
From Ding, dong, DADT is dead! – Boing Boing:
On September 20, 2011, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” will officially become past tense. More: Washington Post. Here’s the document (PDF) memorializing the transition.
From Tiger Beatdown › “Elitism:” Now, It Basically Just Means “Not Having Sex With Everybody”:
We get a lot of sexist narratives about love, but none of them are more pernicious and subtle than this: The Frog Prince story. You could call it “Beauty and the Beast,” too. Or you could call it “Twilight,” or “Knocked Up,” or “Rory Williams Won’t Stop Whining;” it’s always the same story, anyway. Girl meets guy. On the surface, this guy is unappealing! Because he’s a frog! Or he’s not sexually attractive to her, or he treats her badly, or he’s immature, or he’s Rory Williams and he won’t stop whining; all of these are frog-like states, generally considered unkissable. But only a bitch would think that frogs don’t deserve our sweet, sweet kisses, so the woman doesn’t leave. Instead, she looks for the guy’s good qualities. She lowers her standards; she changes her expectations. She gives up on her silly little “ideas” about “attractiveness” or “compatible lifestyles” or “having fun with her partner.” Finally, she loses touch with her own desires to the point that she winds up making out with a fucking frog. At which point he becomes a prince. Or a loving husband, or a responsible person, or a whiny little Roman Centurion; the point is, in these stories, once you give up on wanting things from men, men magically become what you want.
Here’s the secret, though, if you are the girl in this particular story: That guy never became a prince. At all. He’s still the same guy; he still possesses all those qualities you initially found unappealing, for all sorts of valid reasons. People don’t go from frog to mammal overnight, and they particularly don’t do so because you ask less of them; you are still making out with a frog, in the long run. The only reason he looks like a prince nowadays is that you lowered your standards to the point that you literally could not tell the difference between frog and mammal. It’s not that you got what you wanted; it’s that you settled for wanting what you got. And that is the precise opposite of a happy ending.