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Short version: posts about race/gender/disability etc will for the most part now be at Dreamwidth account, under a stricter comments policy.

Something I try to balance in my lj is letting people honestly work through/express their opinions, and stopping people from feeling attacked or hurt by the things other people (or I!) say. Unfortunately, you can't easily do both of those things at the same time, especially since I lack the spoons to moderate very tightly. When I first started posting about race and gender on this lj I was working through the basic concepts, and found it useful to explain myself to people who weren't into the whole anti-racism/feminism etc thing. But at this point I'm sick of re-explaining the same basic ideas over and over again, and I've literally been afraid to post about disability issues because I'm worried someone will say something clueless and hurtful.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided I needed an opt-in filter, that way everyone who commented had agreed to abide by some basic rules without having to try to make everyone else change their behaviour unwillingly. But on the other hand I like having open posts so random people can wander by and I can link back from outside.

And then I went "Wait, I have this Dreamwidth account sitting around I'm not using, and since hardly anyone's friended subscribed to me yet.."

So I've set up some commenting rules (still in beta. It'll probably be a while before I post anything). There's also an lj feed for people with ljs who don't have accounts there but want to read what I'm saying. I'm also pondering an opt-in list for locked posts but will wait until after DW goes into open Beta and it's easier for everyone who wants one to get an account.

I will probably post about social justice type stuff here too from time to time, but only when I can be bothered dealing with the comments properly.

Before I forget: I want to remind people that the list of foods I can't eat is now pretty much longer than the list of ones I can, so you probably shouldn't get me food for my birthday. Gluten, soy, and dairy are just the most common problems. In case any of you are feeling brave enough to try here's all the stuff I can't eat but I may have forgotten something, and gluten and soy are sneaky.

O-day was fun, I ate waaaay too much free sugar and ended up with almost no voice at the_riviera_kid's going away thing. Met several adorable children (Quinn Basden and my supervisors(*) kids, who I haven't seen for so long it's like they're new people)

Wait, how is it 10:30 already?

And now, some topical humour. I'm quite proud of this one.

(*) No, not the one whose youngest has nearly finished his engineering degree :P

As I said this time last year in my blog:



I have decided to boycott major card manufacturers on holidays designed to sell greetings cards. Since the people who are affected by this are either members of my family or Cam, and thus used to my foibles, I should be able to get away with it :)
Acceptable sources of cards are charities (Such as Community Aid Abroad), small local companies/individuals (such as my local art gallerys hand-made cards) and of course ones own creativity.

An advantage of the anti-cards stance is it puts single people at a definite advantage, which I say they deserve after all the smug sentimentality they they have to put up with from we coupled folk.

Viva la Revolution!



This year (2006) Cam took me out to dinner(*) yesterday (he has roleplaying tonight), which was nice and happily free of those darn rose salespeople.

(*)I have $5 in the bank, stupid delayed pay+ automatic charity donation I forgot about.

This was my first blog post. My first lj post is over here.

Reasons for not having a typical livejournal/blog

I have for many years gone on about how I should never have a livejournal/blog. At the same time I keep coming across things that I would like to do with one. I have finally decided to succumb, but to avoid the "typical" livejournal/blog stuff that I think would be a Bad Thing in my case.

• Journal of events. My life simply isn't that interesting, there'd be like 3 notable things a year.
  
• Socialising- I don't get much emotional fulfillment from online interactions that aren't one-on-one (And even then would prefer real life ones) If I use up my anecdotes etc online I'll have less to say in person which would ultimately lead to loneliness. Bad.
  
• Getting things of your chest- Either I can talk about it to someone in real life, or I shouldn't be putting it on the internet. Anything I feel uncomfortable saying to someone I'd probably feel uncomfortable knowing they'd read on my blog.
  
• talking about myself- I do this enough already! Not to say I won't do it here :)
  

Reasons I still probably shouldn't have a livejournal

1. I'm tactless and have occasional alarming lapses of judgment. I'm also pretty bad at expressing myself. All this results in me deciding to say something I probably shouldn't, accidentally saying something different, and doing so in the worst possible way. This is a general problem with me and communication but the more people read/hear something I say the more likely I horribly offend someone, especially in a medium like this where it's so easy to forget exactly how large your possible audience is. Still, I've sort of got the hang of mailing lists/internet fora etc and this shouldn't be that much worse. Consider yourself warned, though. I HOPE to force myself to wait 24 hours before posting. We shall see.
   
2. Man, do I love talking about myself. This is going to be soooooo boring. But hey, noones forcing you to read it :)
   
3. I have this irritating tendency to write in numbered lists and bullet points after 3 years of doing a Phd in computational mathematics.
   

Past Flip-Flops
To the people to whom I have loudly railed against the possibilty of me ever getting a livejournal/blog, I can only say this: I am a big fat liar. It is actually not uncommon for me to loudly proclaim an opinion then all of a sudden change my mind quite radically. Some examples:

• Being atheist is stupid
  
• Vegetarianism is irredeemably stupid
  
• Vegetarianism is the clearly more moral than eating meat.(My views now are more complex)
  
• I am not going to do honours
  
• I am not going to do a phd
  
• Never go out with a unisfan
  
• Rock/popular music sucks (No, not just some of it. ALL of it)
  
• I'm never going to have children.(No, I haven't done this yet! But I intend to, one day)
  

The thing is in retrospect I can generally understand my reasons for having the opinion, at least to start with. Once I start to doubt the opinion I'm thinking about it a lot, and when I'm thinking about something I talk about it. So I say the opinion even more, until I decide I don't agree any more at which point I stop!

Uses for this blog

Things I would go around telling every person I bumped into except they'd get annoyed. Things I'm going around telling everyone anyway. Ideas, things that happen to me etc

Those 3 interesting life events a year.(For example...)

Little rants, questions etc that would be off topic and selfish to bring up in most conversations or mailing lists, but might be of interest to anyone foolish enough to go to a site devoted entirely to me.

The Golden Rule for things I put online
"Put unto internet that which you would have others put unto the internet"
This allows for a lot of weird personal obsessions like cheap stained glass substitutes but generally helps keep down things like me going on about how much I like radiohead. I shall try hard to apply that rule here.

Why I decided to succumb
The main thing I think was a number of my close friends getting them, so that I actually read some other than ones like Angriest which I'm just not going to be able to write, or random ones when I'm bored. It means I have an audience, I'd feel pretty weird writing and knowing none of my friends would read it.

Also I kept coming up with genuine things to put in one that obey The Golden Rule. Like site updates and questions I'd like peoples opinions on and stuff.

So there you go!