Spotted in the 30 April 2008 issue of New Scientist:

Imre (Friedman) (p45) + (Brian) Bergamaschi (p34)

Coincidence? I don't think so.

From a comment regarding me writing and speaking about my rape and the subsequent stuff:

I'm glad I can talk about it. I didn't for years... til one night I barricaded myself in my then-boyfriend's bedroom (no drama with him, it's just where I was when the need overflowed) and wrote about it, longhand, page after page in brutal detail.

And then I stashed that and didn't talk about it for...maybe a year?

But by then people knew it had happened... and people started telling me "It happened to me, too." And I got more and more open about it, because me being open about it meant that people knew they could come to me, that

a) it was safe to talk to me about it, and
b) it was safe to talk about it in general.

And then there was LJ, and me standing up in front of hundreds of people in a virtual sort of way and telling my story, and the ripple effect from that... continues to touch me.

And I'm finally in a position where I can talk about it in person, as part of my local rape crisis center's Survivor Speakers' Bureau. And... there is so much power to that. To standing up in front of 50+ people and saying what happened. And how it felt. And how I have healed and am healing. And then taking half an hour of questions that start general ("Did you tell your parents? How did they feel?") and circle in til there are other people saying, during or, privately, after: "It happened to me, too."

So,loooong story short: I am glad I can talk about it. Because it means you know you're not alone. It's hard and it's awful and it leaves landmines scattered all over your life, but you know you're not alone.

Mine'll be 14 years this June. Sometimes feels like yesterday, sometimes feels like forever ago.

------

Three more things:

1. I have long since lost count of how many of you have disclosed to me, told me about your rape or sexual assault. But I know I've driven three of you to rape crisis centers. And.I am honored that you trusted me. All of you. I am honored that you knew you could tell me, that you asked me for help, that you knew I would give it.

2. I did a ritual a few years back for survivors of rape and sexual assault; I posted a poll asking people to check the tickybox if they wanted a candle lit for them. There were over 200 candles.

3. It is never easy, doing a speaking engagement. It is always terrifying, breaking myself back open for a room full of strangers. But it is always rewarding. I have yet to come away from a speaking engagement with the feeling that I have not done something tremendously good and right.

Actually, four more things.

Open thread.

Tell me about it. If you want to disclose, disclose. This is a safe space. You are safe and understood here. (Not screening comments, because people can track even comments that are screened. If you want to talk about it non-publicly, you can e-mail me: shadesong AT gmail.com.)

And I'm willing to do that ritual again - to light a candle for each of you, my attempt at alchemy, sending you peace in exchange for that shared pain. But I'm gonna need a bigger boat somewhere outside to do it, I think. If any locals have any ideas, let me know. The rape was June 5, 1994. Could do candle ritual the evening of the 6th (Friday) or 7th (Saturday).

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/291204838/kick-n-go.html

My kids and I have been having a lot of fun with our Kick N' Go, a $100 scooter that's propelled by a chain-driven lever you press with your foot. Unlike Razor-style scooters, which send you flying over the handlebars whenever the tiny wheels hit a pebble, the Kick N' Go's wheels are big enough to roll over small obstacles without a mishap or the ensuing application of Hello Kitty band aids to skinned knees. Link

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/291183223/chicago-sleepwalks-i.html

Ryan sez, "Chicago is touting their new 'intelligent' 700+ camera network as being able to flag suspicious activity without human intervention, based on operator-defined criteria within the video frame. Video is archived for 30 days in a 60 terabyte storage vault. Great."

They're everywhere. They're multiplying. Several thousand cameras are now capable of sending live pictures into a room - the operations center at the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communication.

There's no way that human beings can effectively watch all those feeds, so enter video analytics. By programming algorithms, you give the camera intelligence.

"We actually can tell the camera, 'This is precisely what we're looking for.' The camera will watch for that circumstance, and when that circumstance occurs, comes back to the human being whether they're watching that camera or not - with an alert," said OEMC director Jim Argiropolous.

Someone needs to come up with a name for this fallacy, the "untouched by human hands" fallacy: "the computers are impartially finding the bad behavior -- there's no human bias or prejudice at work -- we just program it and then it proceeds with perfect platonic precision to catch all the bad guys." Link (Thanks, Ryan!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/291183225/new-yorker-conferenc.html

From “Stories from the Near Future,” the 2008 New Yorker Conference -- Yoky Matsuoka, the director of the neurobotics laboratory at the University of Washington, discusses how brain signals can control prosthetic limbs, and other advances in the hybrid field of neuroscience and robotics.

Link | Subscribe to all New Yorker Conference videos on iTunes

I've worked in the software industry in some form or another for the last 8 or 9 years, but I have to admit that this is far and away the best place I've ever worked.

Reason #47:

Smart people.  I like to spend my time with smart people -- I'd guess that the lion's share of people on my flist fit that category.  But even at Microsoft, it wasn't universal.  There are lots of smart folks there, but there are also lots of average ones, who don't get my interest in science, or who wouldn't send me links to YouTube videos featuring astronomical filk sung by someone at an observatory in Chile.  You know, that sort of thing.

Today's example:  I got to use the word "pernicious" in a sentence in casual conversation.  And the person I was talking to didn't even start to think that was unusual.



Of course, there's the added bonus of being a writer surrounded by a bunch of engineers and scientists.  They already assume I'm bat-shit crazy, so why disappoint them?

And the democratic Pit bull that just stepped up to the plate is Joe Bidden. In response to Bush's ugly "hitler Appeaser" comments about obama in isreal, Bidden has this to say:

“This is bullsh**t. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.

“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”

He quoted Gates saying Wednesday that we “need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them.”

I'm hooome.



There are no more ports, lines or tubes coming out of my body, except for the expected naturally occuring ones. My wound is healing well. The dope is good. lasirenadolce has been a champion beyond reason, and I am surrounded by the love of my family and friends.

I'll be on opiates for the next week or ten days, so expected intermittent and not fully coherent communication, but by Ghu I am back.

This morning, six days after being admitted to my hospital room, I happened to be in the bathroom and looking at ( the nurse's call there. )

Somehow I read "PULL FOR HELP" as "PULL FOR HEEP", and was promptly very impressed that OHSU had an emergency supply of Uriah Heep.

As my dad pointed out, this train of thought was not the least bit out of the ordinary for me.

...wake me when it's time for Artdecopunk.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/291170583/scary-sign-for-giant.html

Photoshop disasters posted this ad for humungous "wings." The Monty Python sketch below is a good fit:

Customer: What flavor is it? Man: It's a bird mate, it's a bloody bird, it's not any bloody flavor. Albatross!

Customer: It's got to be some flavor, I mean everything's got a flavor. Man: All right, it's bloody albatross flavor, it's bloody sea bloody bird bloody flavor. Albatross!

Customer: Do you get wafers with it?

Man: Course you don't get bloody wafers with it, it's a bloody albatross innit. Albatross!

Link

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/291159107/man-loses-money-tryi.html

In Norway, a French gentleman (F) told a Vietnamese gentleman (V) that he could double his money using a special liquid solution. V gave F $35,000, hoping to turn it into $70,000 overnight.

This unidentified man was told by a 32-year-old Frenchman that if he mixed the real cash with blank bills and then marinate them in a special liquid for one night, he would have double the amount of the cash.

The gullible Vietnamese believed the Frenchman's story and gave him 180,000 kroner (35, 000 U.S. dollars). But when he prepared to collect his money the next morning, both the cash and the Frenchman disappeared.

Link (via Arbroath)

California's top court has ruled that a state law banning marriage between same-sex couples is unconstitutional.

I wonder if the marriages have begun down at city hall?

I am an animation fan.

Always have been.

Not a fan of all things cartoon, but rather a fan of animating, in all it's forms.

Which is why this video blew me away:



MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

[65] Animated icons:
[50] Atonement
[15] Maroon 5 - Wake-up call

Teasers:

[[ Come back to me ]] @ vol4itca

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=761

The excellent folks at io9 do me a solid and link to my AMC column on Speed Racer today, but some of the folks commenting there don’t appear to have actually read the column before commenting, because a fair portion of the comments boil down to “John Scalzi is completely wrong about this because [insert point actually discussed in the column].” At least one of them was nice enough to note he/she didn’t read the column before trying to disprove my point using information I specifically note in the column, though.

Lesson: It’s always a good thing to read what you’re commenting on. Just sayin’.

Got home from a wonderful massage to an uh-oh voicemail from the pharmacy: "Your doctor won't refill your prescription without an appointment."

I call back. "Um, hi. Which prescription? There were six in that batch."
Pharmacist: "Let's see. These were all fine - Toprol,Robaxin,Lyrica,Lunesta, and Allegra."
Me: "So it's the Celebrex."
Her: "Um. Yeah."
Me: "Okay.I'll call the doctor. ...hey, can you check the Lunesta for me, see how many are there?"
Her: "Ten."
Me: "Prior authorization was faxed to the insurance company last week - can you double-check?"
Her: *double-checks* "Yeah, sorry - ten."
Me: *begins to stress out* "Thank you."

Me: *calls rheumatologist, gets busy signal*

Me: "Hi, insurance company - neuro faxed you prior auth last week."
Insurance company: "We don't have anything."
Me: *pause* "Okay. I am on my last pill, and I'll be significantly unwell if I don't get the refill. How can we expedite this?"
Her: "Have them fax it to me directly."
Me: "Thank you."

Me: *calls rheumatologist, gets busy signal*

Me: "Hi, neuro - insurance company never got prior auth."
Neuro receptionist: "Okay, leave a message on this voicemail and she'll send it."
Me: *pause* "Okay. I am on my last pill, and I'll be significantly unwell if I don't get the refill. How can we expedite this?"
Her:"Oooh. Even if we get it in today, they can't authorize that quickly. I'll leave some samples at the desk for you."
Me:"Thank you."

Me: "Hi, rheumatologist. I called you on Monday, and you said you didn't call prescriptions in anymore, that the pharmacy should fax you something. They did that. You told them you wouldn't refill the prescription. So... what's up with that?"
Rheum receptionist: "You missed your last appointment. We told you last time. Can only give you a one-month supply."
Me: "Um. No I didn't."
Her: "Yes you did."
Me: "I was just there." *checks calendar* "April 3."
Her: "You didn't show up."
Me: "Yes. I. Did."
Her: "You didn't."
Me: *deep breath* "How do we resolve this?"
Her: "You need to make an appointment, and then we can give you a one-month supply."
Me: "Why only one month?"
Her: "Because that's what we can give you."
Me: "You give a six-month supply on everything else."
Her: "You missed your last appointment. You need to make an appointment, and then we can give you a one-month supply."
Me: *deep breath* "O-kay."
Her:...
Me: ...
Her:...
Me: "...well? Can I make an appointment?"
Her: *makes an appointment*
Me: "And will you now call in that prescription?"
Her: *noncommittal noise*

AAGH.

Things I did not say:"You're lying" and "Can I please talk to someone smarter?"

So. Where things stand: I have a voicemail in at the neuro to fax to the ins. co. re: Lunesta. On last pill. Must get to office tomorrow for samples. Like I didn't have enough to do. Idiot at rheumatologist's office will hypothetically call in my Celebrex. I have a few more of those.

This all took up a solid hour.

Like I said. It's a goddamn miracle when I have a day without this crap, let alone a week. And now I have a rheum. appointment for next week, a week that I'd tried to leave medical-crap-free.

So. It was a great massage.Hour and a half. I actually fell asleep, which I never do. But... then I had to deal with this crap,and stress is undoing all of my massage therapist's hard work.

EDIT: Yes, I'll bring the co-pay receipt from my April 3 visit next week. Good suggestion. Also, we will have nummy takeout tonight. *nod*

Yes, you can check out http://community.livejournal.com/bsffc/

I have no idea if it's a good idea or not.