S E r y n

Gaack.

I'm pretty sure there's a clause in any relationship which dooms only one person to the hell that is doing your own networking setup. Right? Or any sort of understanding that means, "Seryn doesn't have to fucking know her computer's MAC address and it's completely okay for her not to know hexidecimal counting."

#00 The LAN password is written on a piece of paper from a non-sticky stickynote pad. It's under the salt shaker on the table. There are a couple dozen of these sheets there. All these pieces of paper are covered in cryptic alphanumeric vomit. Phone numbers, IP addresses, catalog numbers for ordering gadgets, map coordinates, MAC addresses for devices unspecified.... and once you find the right paper, it has the MAC address for the original device (TiVo) interleaved with the LAN password and they're both hexidecimal. And written in pencil.
#0 Knowing the LAN password doesn't make it go.
#0.5 oh yeah, we have restricted access to only specified MAC addresses.
#1 The MAC address is not printed on a handy sticker included with the laptop.
#1.5 Windows doesn't know its MAC address and if you open Help and ask about MAC address, it suggests you might want to configure a new printer. (WTF?)
#2 I had to be online to find out how to look up my MAC address so I could be online. I guess if you're buying your first computer, you'd better really really really know what you're doing because this would be extremely difficult to bootstrap.
#3 After logging into the router. Which, because I had to do my Kindle wifi setup too I actually left myself a clue about.... it says "routerlogin.net user admin password [clue]" (([clue] is not the password, it's indicating that I wrote a clue to the router's password ON THE ROUTER.)) So I was able to login to the router. I was able to find the part that explains the problem.
#4 I was able to add the MAC address to my new laptop but when I went back to the laptop and told it to try connecting again, it still fails. No explanation. Maybe I mistyped the LAN password?

The new powerstrip I bought, however, is excellent.

You know what I really dislike? The perpetuation of the stereotype that all murderers are "loners".

Magically, as soon as someone does something horrific, they retroactively become anti-social and friendless. People who were captains of football teams or head cheerleaders or debate club presidents or PTA volunteers or scout leaders or lay clergy or just social bimbos of either gender.... as soon as they kill someone, the news says, "The police have arrested ____, a [negative adjective] loner."

I'm not saying that loners and introverts do not ever snap under the demands of society to homogenize and be just like everyone else. However, I am really tired of the assumption that extroverted social people aren't ever tempted into nefarious acts; therefore someone who commits a nefarious act must have been a loner.

This morning corrvin sent me a link to a Threads article wherein a woman had made itty bitty dolls of herself representing her annual self from birth on. It's a visual autobiography. The link was given with one of those *squee* type comments, but I was completely appalled. (Corr, don't take it personal-like, I'm not complaining about you. And I know you liked it for the sewing.)

WTF. It's a self-aggrandizing depiction of a woman no one would care about unless they knew her personally. She's not Thomas Jefferson or Hillary Clinton or LeBron James or Taylor Swift. There's really no reason this woman should have an autobiography. At least not while a single person bitches about how idiotic blogs and Twitter are because they talk about things no one cares about.

The fact that this project took the woman person-years of time to complete astounds me--- not that the amount of effort wasn't demonstrative, but that anyone would bother.

It's ugly.

I can spend 3 years of my life hand-dyeing macaroni pieces for a collage recreating my cat's best vomited upchucks, but it's not going to be worthwhile.

I know it's supposed to be art made from craft. But it's not elegant like a piece of handmade furniture. It's not useful like a dress or blanket.

All autobiographies are self-aggrandizing, inherently. But if I were to write one, there would be people asking who did I think I am? And that's how I feel about this.

Recently I came across someone who claims to do a lot of programming and who was listing his favorite monospace fonts.

The first one listed is Courier. Pretty much this is the default monospace font everyone uses. It's okay. It has serifs. It's readily available.

All 9 other fonts listed were sans-serif. I loathe sans-serif. There is very little reason for its common existence since it decreases the differentiability of many letters.

In the 1970s, portable typewriters only had the numbers 2 through 9, because you were supposed to use the 'l' for 1 and the 'O' for 0. Now, today, in Courier (which is what the DW composition window defaults to using), those all look different to me. I can easily see the difference between a and o. (a, o) There is never the dreaded rn=m business that is the hallmark of Arial. Obviously monospace fonts have no kerning issues, which minimizes the run-together issue, but why not take advantage of the serifs which distinguish things more clearly?

I still have very little respect for someone who claims to be a coder who honestly believes a sans-serif font is a viable choice for coding, ever. When you are looking through 300,000 lines of code written by a decade's worth of crack-driven Russian and Chinese code-monkeys looking for the idiotic mistake that is making your employer lose millions every hour, there is no reason to use a font where "1" and "l" and "|" look the same. ( 1, l, | )

I am attempting to watch the DVD of the newish movie Sherlock Holmes. The one with that actor who's always getting arrested for something, Robert Downy something. He's not very British.

I say I am attempting to watch this, but it's a struggle. It's filmed in the fucking dark. We've turned the brightness up to max where the subtitles glow like they've been irradiated by several nuclear blasts and you still can't see shit of the details that Holmes (during that scene specifically) was saying are so very crucial.

There really is no excuse for this. I cannot imagine how watching this movie in a theater would be anything other than a snooze fest because I can't hear what they're saying (only understanding because of the subtitles) and I can't see anything that's going on. Movie theaters do not stop and turn up the brightness.

If the production company cannot afford decent lighting so things show up in the recording, then maybe they should hire cheaper actors or wait until they have appropriate financing.

I went to Target and spent less than $100. Since I normally go every 3, 4, or 6 months, my total is usually significantly higher. I made a stranger laugh. Two women were arguing about whether they should buy pre-filled plastic Easter eggs or fill them themselves. I suggested that filling them myself meant all the remaining M&Ms were for me, so I had the incentive.

I want outside furniture. I sat in some at Target, but it was all terrible. And I think they build it for people who want stuff to put on their grass because I wouldn't want the sharp metal feet resting directly on concrete. I keep thinking I should have a cafe table and stools for the drinking of morning coffee. I would also really like a rocker or glider chair for outside.

Currently my outside space is shared with a bechilded family. Not only do I personally dislike children, but this particular family has no bloody clue how to raise a decent human being. I usually feel very Grinchly, especially on weekend mornings with all the noise, Noise, NoIsE, NOISE. It's strange how a child who screams loud enough to attract the Bogeyman when awakened on a weekday would be so different on weekends. He is willing to get up before dawn's alarm goes off and certainly before dawn's arrived at work and pushed the sun into the groove of day. Children really have no decent cartoons anymore. All the Saturday morning cartoons are puerile. I, unfortunately, have to listen to them through the wall, but its parents cannot detect its airhorn-esque screams of glee over the animated moron parade.

But ranting aside, I don't know that I want to buy nice outside furniture when the child who takes his mother's prize possessions from inside and throws them around until they break on the concrete balcony can touch my stuff. He's clearly demonstrated that he is sub-human and destructive, but my only recourse is not to leave my things where he can reach them. I find it too bad that these people felt like they had to keep the child they accidentally created (there's no way they could have wanted it if they let it act like that). Surely there's someone who would have liked to adopt it. Someone who doesn't live next door to me and who has a clue how to raise a child from the unceasing morass of infancy.

Whenever I am ready to write off The Daily Show as just fluff, there will be an interview with someone real, like the astronomer dude from "yesterday".

The show "today" had the guy who plays Edward on Twilight. I'm thinking it's just fluff.. but Jon Stewart had the guy sounding high (dopey like Toby "I'm Spiderman" Maguire) and assholish from the second question. Without that appearing to be caused by the question but an inherent quality of the guy. I know it would suck to be famous in a world where people mob celebrities, but if you're on a highly rated program saying that after a while you learn to ignore it and the fans are just background noise.... you don't deserve to have fans. No one has been saying that the acting in Twilight was stellar-quality. (I have not watched it; the first movie is in my Netflix queue, but even at one movie a week, I won't see it until 2012.)

I think it would suck a lot to be famous because you happened to be there while someone else's work shines. But to be the dress hanger in Christian Dior's workroom while acting like you're the dress that hung on it.... that makes you a jerk. To be that kind of jerk and not appreciate it, to blame other people for their adoration, that is beyond the pale.

I'm thinking I won't bother renting the Twilight movie at all now. It's got that asshole in it. My time would be better spent writing my own stuff than in something that gets Twilight boy any residuals.

If your toddler has hit someone with the door to the dryer in a public laundry facility, DO NOT COO at it like that was a GOOD thing. Bitch.

After a dozen thwacks with the dryer door, I held it while I finished loading my dryer. (I was there first and there is no need to open the door all the way.) Any adult would either have waited for me to step away (like 30 seconds) or would have been careful about how far the door was opened.

We need laws requiring parents to do their damned jobs or failing that which allow other people to press assault charges.

I saw a friend's review of Avatar. I'm not going to see that in the theater.

The main reason I'm not going to see it in the theater is because I went to see the last big thing in animation innovation, Titan A.E. That sucked so much!

If a movie touts its technique, then it probably is lacking in all the other aspects. Technique is supposed to be invisible to the viewer. Saying a movie created a ground-breaking technique is like hearing your blind date has a great personality... you don't bother saying that unless the date is ugly or the movie has bad acting and a lousy story.

I also don't go to see movies in theaters because it's $15 per ticket and that's more than the DVD cost for several recent releases. Plus the theater is so loud I can feel it in my bones and chest. It feels like it causes arrhythmia and it definitely causes migraines. I'm not masochistic. I don't pay to be tortured because I can't live without being in pain.

I have no idea whether Avatar is actually a good movie. The commercials didn't entice me to risk it. I'll probably watch it when it comes out on DVD, after the hoopla dies down and there's no Netflix waiting list.

I can say that the people who made Titan A.E. owe me an apology before I would even consider shelling out big bucks to see another "new techniques" movie. Hardly anyone else feels that way because there was a line around the block at the nearby theater.

On my LJ flist, there was a post saying there's going to be an evolution discussion in a church in Berkeley. The comments are all about hey look how tolerant churches really are but how scientists and academics are all bitchy and intolerant of religion!

Um. No.

Phelps. Heard anyone naysay him who actually goes to church? Nope. Never happens because Christians believe anyone who says they believe in Jesus is a Christian and it's not up to them to complain.

Heard about Texas and Kansas public schools?

Scopes Monkey Trial.

Teaching evolution is illegal in some places of 2009 America.

Evolution is a fact. There is molecular proof. We can watch evolution happen (in microscopic creatures). Want to know where antibiotic resistance comes from? It's fucking evolution. Scientists have hosed themselves by calling it a "theory". But GRAVITY is a theory and even the most god-ridden folks cannot fly. Theory is one of those words which means something different within the scientific community than it does in the vernacular and scientists really should choose another word that means "Our current best explanation as to why this demonstrable event happens." Evolution HAPPENS. All the time. It is not some sort of mythology.

Christianity, is, however, some sort of mythology. It's a currently popular mythology. But if anyone stands on a college campus and says they think we should sacrifice a bull to Zeus, they get laughed at and jeered and people think they're crazy. Belief in Jesus Christ as some sort of savior is the same thing. Christianity didn't start as a religion until after Jesus was dead and it's not about worshipping Jesus, it's about spreading hatred of people who don't worship Jesus. It's the Amway of religions.

So being in a place where study and investigation and experimentation has taught us how to find our place in the world and how to understand something that actually happens... that should treat someone who spouts off about mythology as fact as if they need help for their mental illness.

As for why a Berkeley church is hosting this evolution discussion, I think the functional part of that is the adjective. It's Berkeley, not church, and I think it's awesome that there are churches who remember the reason they get tax breaks is because they are supposed to be meeting places for the community. Churches which refuse to allow community groups to host respectful-of-property meetings should have their property tax bye stripped. The state can use the money.

Finally. I agree that scientists and academics are sometimes disrespectful of religion, but I think 95% of the country being overtly religious needs an active sort of rebellion in order not to swamp everyone in its tide of unthinking hate-mongering. I do think it would have been a lot more polite if the evolution discussion did not take place in a church because churches are supposed to be safe places for religious people to feed their delusions. As much as I appreciate the irony, I do think it's mean.

I would much much much rather the country be that everywhere is safe to discuss evolution, schools, workplaces, stores, parks, restaurants, beaches; and the only safe places to discuss Christianity are in secret enclaves hidden from the public view. But in practice, knowing several people who have been beaten by Christians for their belief in evolution, having seen people's cars demolished for footed-fish logos, and never having seen a school actually ban Christian-focused events (until the courts step in) despite the amended Constitution of the country, having watched the courts say that public schoolchildren can be required to pray (Pledge of Allegiance's "Under God")... I don't think Christianity needs any defense. I think it is the defacto and dejure standard by which all Americans are judged and I think it should not be any surprise that there is violence between citizens since the scriptures require it.