Dr. Memnus Lagbane Soultooth the Mad

Today is National Coming Out Day. There are many things that I am, and that I have no particluar wish to hide. In honor of those that could lose more by being open - be it jobs, family, health, or even life - than I would, I say this is what I am. I am not the only one.

I am polyamorous. I reject love and partnership as a matter of possession, or a zero-sum game, and ask no exclusivity of my lovers. My partner has a girlfriend on the east coast, and she and I are slowly becoming lovers as well. I have dated and loved others even as my partner and I build a lasting life together. I don't believe in a single "right" way to organize a relationship: there are many ways people can exist together, as friends or partners or lovers or anything else or any combination thereof; only some of them are mutually incompatible. It is work, it is negotiation and communication and empathy and scheduling, but it is worth every minute and every month.

I am sex-positive. I believe that every act of pleasure, when there is no harm done and everyone involved gives enthusiastic informed consent, is a joyful thing to be celebrated. Nobody should be condemned or shamed for who they love, or how they lust. Over and over again, we've seen what happens when they are - and for every one you hear about, how many go invisible? Furthermore, I refuse to restrict sensuality and pleasure to certain acts performed with particular organs.

If the theme is not yet clear it is this: The only thing it is wrong to do is to do harm. To bury and deny your own desires is to harm yourself; to forcibly shape another into someone they are not is to harm them. That is how I live, and that is who I am.

I have been privilieged in that I could grow this way, truly into myself, without fear or shame. I strive to pass that onward into the world now, and hereby ask that you do the same: if a boy would rather play dress-up than baseball, if a girl wants to help change the oil in the car, if a child refuses to be boy or girl at all: LET THEM. There will never be enough convenient boxes to fit everybody into. The harder you try, the more people will only be broken against the corners.

Go in peace.

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EDIT: The code in question seems to be removed or disabled, or is somehow no longer in effect. People that care a lot more about this than I do are working on it at Internet-speed. Even still, it's not clear how long this went on.

No really. Stop, right now.

Except this one: Here's why. Arguably, that's a link within Livejournal, so you can still click on it. But just stop. It looks like Livejournal is stripping out affiliate codes, silently redirecting through an invisible third site, and otherwise not being good internet citizens.

I've watched Livejournal pull a bunch of stupid shit before, and shrugged, but this breaks it for me. My paid membership will expire, I'll happily upload all my favorite icons to Dreamwidth, and probably start sending money over there too. I may even start posting again, but don't get your hopes up on that one.

If anyone has found the magic recipe for piping memnus.livejournal.com/friends to memnus.dreamwidth.com/read, including all items that the viewer should be allowed to see, I'd appreciate it, and I imagine others would too.

I hope that this will all get reversed, and maybe even we'll get an apology ambiguously-worded news post saying they hadn't thought through all the consequences of their actions. But I don't think even that will bring me back. This move crosses a line. All the previous shit has been sketchy, whether in privacy, or abuse of power, but not measurable. This time, it's outright theft.

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My team actually released something to the Android market today! It's called Neocore and it's a graphics benchmark that uses some of the shiny effects you should can see in games. The entirety of the market so far has been full of stuff that could have been written in flash, and the comments really reflect it (oh god it's only been five hours there are 385 reviews). The comments boil down to two things:

- That looks awesome! (Subcategories: suck it iPhone, this is why I got a G1, why aren't there games that look like this?)
- WTF is the point of this? (Some people don't understand the term 'benchmark')

Rating is sitting at 4.5 starts. This makes a lot of the lamest, geekiest parts of me happy.

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The Livejournal website is hideously mobile-unfriendly, did you realize? I'm trying to post from my new G1 and have to zoom out to the point of illegibility just to see the entire text box.

But more importantly, I have a G1. This means I also have a real @phone contract, including free weekends, so no more hesitating to call me! I also now get my email intravenously, among other things. I could also be on IM intravenously, but some idiot has decided that IM should go over SMS instead of data, so that would burn up pretty quick. Will probably not be on that much until there's an app for it that does use data.

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My phone decided to give me a scare today. I spend 22 hours out of each day in low service zones (zero or one bar), and if I leave it in the house overnight without plugging in it'll shut off, but normally when it does it'll at least wake up again long enough to tell me its battery was dead. Not this time, though -- it shut off while I was at work (weirdness number one) and didn't respond at all when asked (weirdness number two). It's now plugged in and thinks it's charged. We'll see.

It did get me thinking about finally getting an actual phone plan, though. I've been playing a lot with Android, and it's gotten me warm to the idea of having a smartphone Mobile Computing Platform. That would have me waiting at least another six weeks, or more if I want to go with a company I can get a discounted plan through. How much more is not entirely clear.

Ok, on to the actual point of this post. Frances and I have decided to go to the zoo on Sunday. If anyone's interested in joining us, you'd be more than welcome. There could be dinner and stuff too, whatever, it's a long weekend right?

Oh man it's after midnight.

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Dear CS[5|6]966 lecturers,

The singular of the word vertices is vertex. There is NO SUCH THING as a 'verticee'. I don't even know how you're trying to spell that word you keep saying. It hurts me every time you use it, and you have been doing this for long enough that you really, really should know better. The correct word even shows up on the screen in Maya every time you switch selection modes. Please read it as written.

Thank you,
Brian

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It's the last week of school before fall break. Somehow, I don't have any major homework - just a meeting after HCI today to hammer through the latest assignment in that class - but I feel antsy to Do Something. I want to go climbing, I think. Or I want to throw some rope, tie something up. Or I want to take down the new riser I've had my eyes on and start setting it up (nothing like being told a week before a tournament that your hardware needs replacing). Something, anything but sitting around school all day.

Office hours are going to be crazy busy today. Not only do people have their first threads assignment (with STL thrown in for the hell of it) due tomorrow, but they also have a midterm on Thursday to add to the panic! I might also have a midterm of my own coming up; I honestly don't know. Would be good to be warned about it.

I'll be in the LA area next weekend. Anyone going to be bored?

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Going off the radar for the weekend. If you'd like to get in touch with me before Sunday, feel free to do so out-of-band.

Especially if you're in Claremont.

Take on me, bitches!"

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There's finally a date available for the Golden Chalice: February 11th. That's three weeks from now, a Sunday, at 1 pm (at least, the line I'll be shooting). Registration forms aren't up, yet, but have you ever known me to miss a chance to come down to Claremont and shoot? No. I'll be there. Still no word on the LA Indoor.

Claremont people, can I ask a favor? Could you find out if anyone's planning on going, and put them in touch with me so I can negotiate for a ride? My going rate is a batch of cookies, and I take requests.

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I don't get it.

I'm not content, right now. It's not even the discontent that I've been fighting since June; I know what that is, from whence it comes, and that there's not a damn thing I can do about it. No, this is something very different. Somewhere within me there's a stash of unfamiliar restless energy that's sick of sitting ignored, and now begging for attention. Unfortunately its cries are not particularly coherent, and I haven't the faintest clue what I'm actually supposed to do with it.

I finished my graphics final, this afternoon. It's not perfect - it's distressingly unstable when dealing with foreign bodies, and lacking the two fancy interface options I'd considered - but it's still pretty. Once I go home, I headed out looking for ski clothes.

For those not from around here, the LDS church gets very into the Christmas decorating thing... and they're good at it, too. Apart from the several different Nativity scenes in the styles of cultural scenes, Temple Square is actually quite pleasant to trek through at night this time of year. Add to that fact that today was unseasonably warm, and a Saturday, and you get pretty thick crowds. I pushed through them, headed for the upscale-bland shopping district a few blocks west. (I know that I should have headed for local businesses instead. I did - two, on the way to school to do work earlier. Neither had a decent selection of helmets, or jackets anywhere near my price range.)

I normally balk at crowds, but apparently not tonight. As I wove my way between families, dodging small children and stepping around photo shoots, I felt nothing but a detached calm and bemusement. Even digging around in Homogeneous Sporting Goods, in a state where the War on Christmas wasn't so much fought as laughed at and the music in retail was much more than just Secular Holiday Boredom, I didn't feel my usual instinct to escape, to flee. I had the task at hand, but the rest of my consciousness was too far away to be bothered.

It still hasn't reported back, or let me know what it's been up to this entire time.

Meanwhile, those two webcomics that I was raving about however long ago continue to show me just why they're worthy of me actually owning their print compilations. I recently acquired On the Origin of PCs, and put in an order for the now-back-in-print Narbonic: Volume 2, which will complete my collections of the two... until Narbonic 4 comes out next year.

I suppose on that note I should make it plain now, and please, please, please do not take any offense at this: Now that it is That Gifting Season, I will humbly request that you do not buy me anything. My reasons for this are many, and not particularly coherent. I'm not very good at accepting gifts graciously, and even worse at giving gifts, and it's a whole section of social politics that I simply prefer to remain outside of.

For those that haven't heard, my little phone was having screen issues, so I finally went and got a new one. Unfortunately, Virgin Mobile doesn't have any tool besides The Hard Way for transferring phone numbers between phones. I copied what I believe to be the important ones, but if you feel like I ought to have yours, let me know:

[Poll #885639]

Whew.

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