Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in hédonisme libertaire's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
4:25 pm	"Birds flying backwards" weather... ...or maybe I should call it "giant sandblaster" weather. From the National Weather Service: The High Wind Warning is now in effect until 11 am PDT Wednesday. Very strong and damaging west to northwest winds will continue across the Antelope Valley through Wednesday morning. The northwest winds are expected to peak in strength this afternoon and evening... with sustained winds of 30 to 45 mph with damaging gusts to around 65 mph likely. With the strong winds... areas of blowing dust and sand are likely which will reduce visibilities to less than a quarter mile at times. Had a couple of split-second blackouts, but power is still basically on. My cat has been freaking out since about 2am. Since I'm on the edge of town (nothing upwind but a lot of sand and scrub) I'm getting the full force of it; and the badly-installed front door (on the upwind side of the apartment) has been leaking dust all morning. Will see if I can get out to pick up duct tape and plastic sheeting, but right now it's in "visibility less than a quarter mile" conditions. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
10:16 pm	Internet is back! And what the hell am I going to be doing academically... So, while I was sick my calculus prof dropped me. Just what I needed -- this class was actually easy (what they don't tell you is that vector calculus is much easier to wrap your head around than basic calculus -- it builds on the single-variable stuff in what are usually the most intuitive easiest-to-predict ways, so once you've learned the basic calculus it's almost fun). This means I'll have to take two classes instead of one at Riverside Community College in the spring while I'm finishing up my undergrad lit/rhetoric work at UCR; I might be able to justify setting up an independent-study program, though (hooray for a formal diagnosis!), and finish the semester in a month or so. At the same time...I'm starting to think that I'll have to drift towards an academic slant even with the medical-physics/biophysics stuff. Maybe as a sideline to practice/research (because I don't think my tendency to only be able to stay on track when I'm working face-to-face with other people will change any time soon), but there's just so much that I could do with the overlap between the literary and critical/cultural/cyborg studies side of things and the science/science-studies side. If there were an accredited medical-physics grad program in the SF Bay Area, I'd already be sending out letters of intent to the History of Consciousness department at UCSC regarding a dual enrollment ( because, dude, Donna Haraway! not to mention Angela Davis, Teresa de Lauretis, and being part of the program that Huey Newton got his PhD through...). Tomorrow I get to try to talk through the interface between general relativity, differential geometry, and semiotic space with a rather rhetoric-challenged physics professor. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 28th, 2009
5:22 pm	No nets for the moment... Internet at home is gone, probably for the rest of the year. The current landlord (Racist Douche #1) is on his way out and trying to wring a bit of extra cash out of the proposition by demanding all of October's rent even though he only holds the lease until the 12th; he has some scheme to take advantage of a recent court order to extend his hold on the place. In the meantime, he's stopped paying the bill for cellular internet, which was the only service available where I'm staying. It also looks like I may want a good hiding place if the owners and the landlord decide to have a prick-waving contest about who's in control of the property; I think I've arranged something, though. In the meantime, I've been leeching internet access from friends, but only on my ailing laptop; my desktop comp will probably be without its series of tubes until I move to Riverside. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
8:25 pm	U.S. Politics...or what passes Every day I seem to hear more and more of the unhinged frothing wingnuts who pass for an opposition party here screaming about how "Obama is a socialist", or about "the socialist policies Obama keeps ramming down our throats." I can't help but think: If only. I mean socialist? Really? And here I thought that a socialist would actually be supporting things like tearing down the corporate state-capitalist system, or at least pitching social-democratic compromise measures like single-payer healthcare. A socialist, I was sure, wouldn't be all about pitching even more money to the CEOs than the Bushies and hiring crowds of theocrats as "advisors" on matters of "faith" (and how to shovel public money to reactionary religious groups at home and abroad). But what would I know about the policies of socialists? I'm just a socialist, after all -- certainly can't take my word for any of it. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
10:09 pm	I'm going to have to teach a class someday... So, in some gestures towards my potential thesis (which is looking less "potential" and more "ZOMGIHAVETODOTHIS" as I'm getting through the texts), I've been reading through Samuel Delany's "Informal Notes Towards the Modular Calculus" books (i.e. Trouble on Triton and the Return to Nevèrÿon series). Now, it's fun in the narrative-as-ideology sense that I went into it thinking of, but it does stand out in terms of something Delany stated as an intended function of the series -- it seems like a wonderful introduction to semiotics in a not-overly-technical, not-overly-abstract, doesn't-make-me-want-to-bang-my-head-against-the-wall-as-much-as-that-class-I-took sort of way. (And it's framed in a particularly queer-and-feminist-theory-friendly sort of way, without making it obvious that -- oh my god, it's Babel-17!) My thesis might be looking at it in terms of framing queerness as a semiotic space, but I think I'd love to spend a quarter or semester just teaching the books as an easy way in to some of the fun parts of philosophy (and humanities academia generally). I'd be tempted to assign reading each of the books twice (in a quarter, that would mean a book a week, but they're all pretty readable and none are too long); the process of re-reading is there enough, though (and enough of the good bits are in towards the end which really change how some of the earlier parts can be read), that taking a whole class through it twice would be fun. I've suggested that my mother read at least Tales of Nevèrÿon as a low-jargon way to get a sense of what people are talking about with semiotics; I think she'll like "The Tale of Old Venn" in particular, partly because after having to sit through so much Freud in grad school she'll enjoy the Take That, partly because Old Venn kicks ass. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 7th, 2009
12:23 pm	More thoughts on the "where to work after grad school" issue... Now, I'm a big Californian. I wasn't born here, and didn't move here until just before I turned 6, but it's still usually where I imagine myself living. (Even outside California, other than some flirtation with the idea of living in Vermont or France, I always seem to have the Pacific coast of North America in mind -- because I've never lived anywhere else, it just feels like my home base.) But currently, doing medical physics in California (or anywhere else in the U.S.)? It means I'd have a career devoted to expanding the gap in life expectancy between those who can afford health insurance and those who can't. If we had some sort of universal coverage here (like, y'know, almost every other late-industrial or post-industrial democracy), I wouldn't worry -- and a lot of the more physics-based medical programs (like radiosurgery) offer huge advantages for universal-coverage systems in which being able to use the treatment for everyone who needs it instead of everyone who can afford it (or who can get approval from their insurance bureaucrats) can mean an extreme reduction in both the invasiveness and the cost involved in treating, say, brain or lung cancer. Right now, though, this just really makes me more inclined towards a move to somewhere I could be working for everyone. (This is one of the main reasons I've shifted from engineering to medical physics as a living-making application of my Mad Math Skillz -- it's one thing to be good, it's another thing to go to work knowing you'll actually be saving people's lives on a daily basis.) Hopefully we'll have universal healthcare in the U.S. in another 10 years or so (despite Obama's efforts to ensure insurance-company profits will remain a higher priority than people's lives). Eventually, then, I might move back to San Diego, or maybe the bay area; but in the meantime, I'm still eyeing Canada. Less than a thousand medical physicists currently working in the country, yet the number of medical-physics grad programs per capita is about five times what it is in California; which tells me that there's an effort being made there. And, y'know, British Columbia is certainly within my "Pacific coast of North America" headspace. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 31st, 2009
5:58 pm	Things I've learned from OgiFail: Fandom has higher academic standards than Boston University. ETA: I've also learned that, especially if you happen to be a team of two men, especially if you're writing a book called Rule 34, condescension towards a mostly-female and slash-writer-heavy group of people on the internet is asking for it. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
4:36 pm	About those L.A. fires... The light here is spectacularly different. The fire isn't dangerously close to here (though the 'trying to keep the fire inside this line' zone includes our main route to L.A), but a good portion of the sky has been covered with smoke. On the drive back over the mountains this afternoon, the major source of light (bright enough to cast shadows) was the scattered light from the blue sky visible to the west; with the rest of the sky an orange produced by both the fire reflecting off the smoke and the sun shining through it, the whole landscape was a muted orange with bright highlights. The green of bushes and the whites and blues on the west sides of vehicles punched through the gloom with what looked like unnatural brightness. My lungs hate it, but the combination of colors is fabulous in its way. Would be wonderful if it weren't for the danger to landscape and living spaces alike. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
4:24 pm	RE: Babylon 5, season 4, episode 14 ( Cut for spoilers on Minbari politics ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
4:30 pm	Ambiguous Heterotopia? As part of my project to work my way through Samuel R. Delany's "Modular Calculus" stories, I'm now about halfway through the novel (vs. the metafictional epilogue) part of Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia. I'll be able to talk about it in more depth later (and yeah, I'm going to be working some thesis action on Delany), but I think I might be starting to understand heterosexual men better than I had before. That's not actually right, though -- I think I'm understanding how to make sense of heterosexual men in a particular set of ways that I hadn't before. Of course, given how involved this novel is with how language and representation relate to desire, it'll take quite a bit more reading and discussion to really come up with a better way to phrase that. In any case, there are things about heterosexual-male-ness that I think could only be passed from one gay man to another. I know there are things about race and class that I'm only partially comprehending here, too, as someone much whiter and less man-identified than Delany... (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 16th, 2009
1:00 pm	More Hulu So, while I'm waiting for my order of Delany books to get here, I've gone through the second season of Babylon 5 on Hulu. Yeah...I'm just going to call myself disappointed at this point. Yeah, the writing has been cheesy as hell the whole series, but I was willing to sit through it -- but the Great Cosmic Struggle is between the Randroids and the fascists? Piss-poor set of options, there -- I understand that it ultimately gets better, but damn. ETA: And...y'know? I really don't think I'd like to live in any country with a system of governance approved-of by the people writing B5. Or be in the same room with any of the writers. In the latter case, I'd be too likely to start a fight, and in the former I'd only escape summary execution by behaving in ways I'd like to think I or any other halfway-decent sentient being would refuse to behave in. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
7:19 pm	About this whole "career" thing... I've been thinking about how going back to college to work towards a degree that'll actually let me make a living will relate to the things that are more interesting to me personally. The fields I'm looking at are interesting, sure, but the jobs also tend to definitely be full-time commitments. Yeah, plenty of novelists really don't get off the ground until their 30s; but it helps to have the time to write without having to turn into a complete hermit. So I'm remembering the plan that a few friends of my stepbrother and stepsister have tried. In this case it was med school, but any other sufficiently-similar grad- or professional-school program (and the related post-grad career) might also work. Basically, a couple people who might be inclined to accept somewhat lower income in exchange for much more free time would get in touch during grad school, and then look for a full-time position which they could split. For the M.D. types this usually meant splitting rotations at a hospital, with a lower-stress half-time work schedule and a still-quite-comfortable-for-one-person income; other options would be trading months or several-month chunks while still being available to consult while not working full-time. The patient cycle for medical physicists is shorter than for M.D.s (a couple of weeks for a radiosurgery session, an hour or two for some of the imaging procedures), so it should be even easier to share hours -- and grad school for medical physics is on the academic-degree "we'll cover tuition plus a token stipend towards living expenses" model rather than the med-school "all your debt are belong to us" model, so that's less of a concern. There's always the option of going to a traditional full-time schedule later, but I'm really starting to think that when I get to grad school (looks like 2 years from now) I'll probably start putting out feelers for other students who might be into a more laid-back lifestyle. (Because really, while I'd like more income than my semi-broke-college-student current status, my actual material goals really aren't that extravagant. Hell, I barely use all the space in my current apartment, which puts the "junior" back in "junior 1-bedroom".) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
6:02 am	Fic recs requested... So, on the recommendations of a few friends (hi hauen!), I'm working my way through Babylon 5 on Hulu. Now, yeah, a lot of the writing is cheesetastic and I had to skip the patronizing militarist quasi-anti-union episode, but I have one major impression so far (I'm towards the beginning of season 1, episode 17): I need some Ivanova/Winters. Yeah, yeah, normally I'm all for the male/male, but these are the two characters who piss me off the least, the two I actually care about (OK, the doctor has his moments, but for some reason I can't picture him as straight and I have nobody to slash him with but Lennier; I'm not even going to go into Londo/G'Kar until a later season, though they're already slashtastic). After the first episode I was hoping for much more of the evolution of the dynamics between them (and they led to the passing of the Bechdel Test in the first episode, which not many TV series -- let a lone SF series with Harlan Ellison as an advisor -- manage in the first season if ever), but I've been sadly disappointed. (At least Ivanova has gotten a good bit of screen time, some attention as a character, and more depth and development than anyone else in the cast up until this point.) Now, it looks like they'll start to get some interaction in episode 17, but I'm afraid that it's going to be made of sexism and fail, so I'm putting out a pre-emptive request: I need some femmeslash here. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
9:18 pm	Writer's Block: I May Be Crazy What does this Rorschach blot look like to you? View 548 Answers It's a wolf with little granny glasses pushed way down its nose so it can glare sternly at whoever's looking at the picture. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
4:19 pm	An HP fan trend I might have to jump on board... So, there are still a few groups of people getting together and performing as "wizard rock" (or "Wrock") bands at HP fan gatherings. I think there really, really needs to be a late-60s "psychedelic rock before that concept developed some dignity" wizard-rock band complete with paisley robes and peace-and-love songs about Nargles. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
12:12 pm	I don't have the right math for this... So, here's a description of a puzzle: You have 16 square "tiles", each with a different combination of red and blue "sides". Since the same side is always up (no rotating the tiles), the 16 tiles represent all 16 possible combinations of "sides". Now, these 16 tiles are to be placed in a 4x4 square, such that touching sides must be of the same color and all exposed sides around the outside of the square must be blue. From one set of relative placements of the all-blue and all-red tiles (all-blue in a corner, all-red diagonally adjacent; rotations and reflections cover all variations on this), I've come up with 56 solutions. It took awhile to completely exhaust the possibilities, though, with much note-taking and backtracking, so I don't especially want to just brute-force the other six relative placements of all-red and all-blue. Unfortunately, I don't really have the right math to take a more analytic approach. One weird pattern I noticed -- in making the "tiles" (er, pieces of paper), instead of making the whole side a color I just had basically a dot at the center of each side, with all sides of the same color in a given tile connected (so all-red has a red + taking up the whole square, the tile with a single blue side at the top has a red T-shape, the one with red on the sides and blue on the top and bottom a -, etc.). Each solution has a different "pattern" of the red "channels" this way (and you could actually put the tiles together based just on this pattern if you have it written down), but all 56 solutions I have so far have exactly two "loops" in the red channels. Going to poke around a bit and see if this might have something to do with solutions to this puzzle corresponding to 4x4 normal magic squares. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
2:00 am	Victory! And a weekend Bay Area trip: The "truffle trifle" came out pretty well. Next time I'll use more ganache -- and I might put the whole thing together in a soufflé dish and invert once it's all together and chilled (especially if I can trim the crepes so that they just fit inside). The ganache was actually quite delicious once it set; and layering inside a form (a springform pan would also work, but the one I have is 9 inches, and I'd like something more like 6) would mean I could still apply the ganache while it's pourable without worrying about the whole cake falling apart. Now, as for this weekend: Azkatraz 2009. 3:30-4:30 on Sunday. "Dreaming the Magical Cyborg". This is actually part of my critical-theory magnum opus, Being Material, which goes in all directions at once instead of following a more "normal" (pun alert!) form and is actually vaguely intended for people who aren't already cyborg-theory geeks. This particular Harry Potter-focused part happens to deal mostly with Harry/Draco fanfiction, though that's almost a coincidence. I'll also have plenty of free time in the Bay Area -- due to my current budget, I'm only paying for one day's registration at Azkatraz. The Bay Area portion of my flist is also the "people I really need to do coffee and catch up with" list. I'm driving up to SF tomorrow, staying with family (the most fabulous part of my family, I might add -- not counting me, of course -- even if they're all straight), and will have both a car and (cellular) internet. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
11:48 pm	...in which failcake may still be tasty My first attempt at a mille-crêpe came to an early end tonight. If I'd stuck to the traditional pastry cream filling, it would have been fine -- and the pastry cream came out quite well (not very sweet, but the chocolate and raspberry will make up for it). Unfortunately, I used too much cream in making the ganache, leading to a gooshy-at-room-temperature mix which would have been great on ice cream but couldn't hold its place in a large number of layers. As I was prepping the last three-crêpe set for addition to the top of the cake, more than one of the chocolate layers gave up and the uppermost already-stacked section made a run for the edge of the counter. Fortunately, I caught it before it made it over the edge, but several more layers took the opportunity to head out in different directions; the only thing preventing a complete all-over-the-kitchen spill was transferring the whole stack to a saucepan. Now, here's the bright side: When your ingredients are crêpes, ganache, pastry cream, and raspberry jam, it's almost impossible to have a complete failure. So while the intended form of these ingredients isn't happening, and while the presentation will be a bit off, the resulting crepe-layered chocolately vaguely trifle-esque abomination should still be quite acceptable as a dessert. I'm really tempted to try this whole thing again; it should be quite doable with a much firmer ganache (about 3 parts chocolate per part cream instead of 2, and it should probably be manipulated cold instead of cool). (3 Comments |Comment on this)
6:54 pm	Recipe in progress... The crêpe batter and crème pâtissière are chilling in the refrigerator. Later tonight I'll make the crêpes. Tomorrow morning, I make ganache, spread it (along with raspberry preserves and the crème pâtissière) in between the however-many-layers-of-crêpe-I-can-manage, chill the whole stack, then make another batch of ganache to cover the whole thing. I've never done a mille-crêpe before, but I couldn't resist adding chocolate (and rasperry, in honor of the so-rich-it's-almost-inedible ganache-and-raspberry-filled "truffle cake" my family gets from the local cake place for most of our gatherings). Maybe another time I'll do the more "normal" (pastry cream only) version. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 10th, 2009
11:33 pm	Chop chop... It's official -- my hair (well, most of it) is being made into wigs for cancer patients. What I'm left with is...well, basically chin-length, and about the same length all around; but it mostly stays behind the ears and looks vaguely Oscar Wilde-ish. Unless it hangs down too straight, in which case I look like I've borrowed He-Man's haircut (the extra-dorky version) and dyed it dark brown. (5 Comments |Comment on this)