Started again...

...although today it took me until about 9 to finally wake up (luckily, no incidents that I know of happened while I may or may not have been thinking in an extended manner at the desk). But from there, I read an e-text of a book. Funny enough, I might just go out and get the dead trees version of it, because it was that good. Judge for yourself as to the skills of this author, who has put a few texts available for free through a Creative Commons License. The text I read today was Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town. There are other works available as well, none of which I have yet read. This is kind of like those CDs that come packaged with books - the ones with fulltexts of several books on them. So far, so good.

While you read, if you need something for your hands to do, why not mix up a batch of Playdough and use that? Better use of your money than purchasing some Spray-On Mud, wouldn't you agree?

I seem to recall a very long time ago a User Friendly sequence about a cute little daemon who tried to convince A.J. that he wanted to run BSD. Well, it's not in UF, but that daemon is back again, and he's managed an audience in Forbes, no less. I think I'll be able to make a few S'mores out of the resulting heat.

The best link for tonight for you all, however, is a columnist who not only "gets it" when it comes to issues the Left wants changed, he's processed it and presented it in a format that even the Cross-Eyed Knuckle-Scraping Morons can understand. While the article itself is only about gay and lesbian affairs, the methodologies can probably be expanded outward to most, if not all, of the Left's goals and the Right's resistances to them. Definitely worth a read.

The potentially worst link is the (now-old) realization that MasterCard credit data may have been filched to the tune of forty million cardholder accounts and numbers. Amazing what someone and their computer can do, isn't it?

More work tomorrow - only two weeks to go before I have to find another job or hope that I'll get really rich by putting work into trying to publish my thesis as an article (ah-hah-hah...) Well, if there's no work available, that will be a project worth re-taking up. If I'm motivated to do it, and don't spend my time playing Evil Genius or something like that.

And I had late-night fun tonight - got to see D.C. Simpson play and sing tonight and meet another of the Order of Jubal - Darth Paradox was at the locale and I chatted with him for a considerable amount of time. I think I'm going back next week, too. Because I'm probably going to buy his CD. And then beyond that, possibly even more stuff, but related to the comic strips he does. Most of my money, now that I think about it, is mortgaged to various people and places that I said I would buy from once I had stable footing. I hope they eventually remind me of it.

Introspection - be aware. Possibly a repeat, too.

...I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Well, okay, I've been seeing the pattern for a while now, and this is just another extension of an idea already forumlated... or maybe an example of it, or something. Anyway, the material's been hinted at, at the very least already.

For once, the premise, while of the same nature, perhaps, as my usual introspections, does not begin with me. It is elsewhere - I'm a part of it, and I'll get there eventually - but it's a pattern that lends itself well to observation rather than cognition. It's the pattern of people complexity.

This is going to sound like common sense, but it seems like there is a point where most people transcend their associations. It's probably about this point that a character begins to obtain the third dimension so crucial to their believability. In people, I think it does much the same.

Normally, when a being is being described (by tse-self or by others), there are categorizations used: gendered, transgender, non-gendered, high intelligence, low intelligence, liberal politics, conservative politics, spitirual, not, et cetera. Those categorizations can then be refined further into their various compartments and departments - male, female, genius, idiot, savant, socialist, anarchist, fundamentalist, and so forth. The description by category allows the recipient of the description to fill in the base colours of the described being.

As we find out, though, description by category is incomplete. A more detailed picture usually starts with categories and adds exceptions - liberal but fiscally conservative, pro-life except for cases of rape and incest, bisexual but preferring XX or XY. By taking away certain aspects of the categorization, a more complete picture develops.

Even this, though is insufficient to make a good description. At some point, the categorizations become hindrances to making effective description. (At least, in some people it does - there may very well be plenty of people who fit their categories and do not deviate from them in the slightest.) The exceptions pile up to the point that either a new cateogry must be born, the categorizations must be redefined, or the whole thing is chucked, flaming and screaming, out the sixtieth-story window of the Empire State Building (or an eqivalent).

At some point, people step off the map - maybe because the map has become too limiting for them. They're tired of having people outside judge them on stereotypes and they're tired of people on the inside judging them on stereotypes (the two sets may not line up at all, but there's often some overlap here and there.) We go from "X, but not Y" to "not really X, but it's close." The explanations get longer, but the picture becomes more accurate. I think this is the point where the third dimension that's been there all the time suddenly becomes really visible.

So what prompted this idea coming firmly to the front of my mind? Stuff - you know, watching inter-fandom fighting, or seeing people rail against the constraints that certain labels try to impose or the expectations that certain descriptors drag along with them. I've always thought that I defied description, just because of my eccentricities (and I work damn hard to keep myself indescribable, thank you.), and now I'm getting examples proving that everyone else is the same way, too. Not that this is a shock to me (I've been of the opinion that people shoud be treated like people, not like collections of categories for a while now), it's just a justification that thinking that way is profitable - if a bit long-winded.

My American Culture professor repeatedly spoke on the idea that once a being allows another being to define tse, the definer gains power over the defined. His exhortation was that we continue to define ourselves, rather than let others do it for us. It might just be the only way we manage to accomplish anything in this world.

(If this is a repeat, my apologies. I suppose some things bear repeating - but if it is, could you let me know?)

The regular stuff.

After that philosophical outburst from earlier today, there's still some other things to be commented upon. As with all things in this journal, however, be sure to read the warning labels before using.

Like that it rained outside my window for about as long as the nap I took. Seemed to help my eyes become a little less bloodshot and sore, but I dunno if I should be worried about something else or not. Maybe if I get good sleep tonight, we'll know.

First, greyweirdo, got the return feed from you - looks like there's some tracks I'll be liking quite a bit. Let me know what you thought of the stuff when you're finished digesting it. Although I need better visualizations for Media Player. The stuff I have sucks. I want stuff that looks more like the magic camera's pictures. Now THAT would be visualization. Although that camera might be confiscated for fear it took consciousness-expanding drugs.

The phenomenal political rage continues from place to place, picking up along it's way some gems like the troops might still not have enough armor, grazing permit restructuring (towards making sure that land that might be left alone stays grazed. Unknown whether or not the effects will be detrimental, but there's potential for problems), but most importantly, a sampling of the government's "edits" of reality. This is a few instances of the whiteouts, retcons, and general reality editing that the current Administration is engaging in. (There may have been previous Administrations that liked to do this as well) Still, any time the government edits things that don't have immediate and easily explainable security reasons, it's cause for alarm. Especially for someone going into my profession. I wonder if librarians will be politely but firmly asked to take down the reality books and replace them with the fantasy ones and then told they can't tell anyone about the visit.

I don't like that frontier. But that's where I could be headed. Maybe I should buy some of that Marine battle gear. Or learn some painting and drawing skills and take the fight to the nation's billboards. Or maybe not - maybe I'll just do a cartoon.