it's approved for some eye conditions, apparently.

i should probably bring it up with the doctor when he calls back about the surgery.

https://www.cnet.com/news/crispr-gene-editing-tool-used-inside-humans-for-the-first-time/

so, i'm in the same quandary as i am with my teeth.

if i can wait this out, converting my testicles into ovaries using gene editing is a far superior approach than cutting them out and staying on estrogen pills. that would literally turn my testosterone production into estrogen production, negating the need for further medication - and probably working far better than any other option available to me.

but, if i wait too long....

ugh.

could i even get an ovary implant? is that possible?

the science appears to be here, but clinical applications are still at the phase where scientific illiterates and religious zealots get together to try to decide whether gene editing is "ethical" or not.

i don't even fucking care if it's ethical or not...

but, it looks like i'd have to fly to somewhere like thailand to get this done, at the moment.

hrmmmmn.

https://scienceblog.com/504175/male-mice-grow-ovaries-after-single-gene-tweak/

that's got me wondering, though.

even better than removing my testicles would be to convert them to ovaries. how far are we from that?

the takeaway is that the chemistry facilitating sex reversal is not particularly obscure.

so, it's not immutable. deal with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0JwIQYvGw

you could potentially even do it with gene editing in a live human.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/one-gene-stops-ovaries-from-turning-into-testes

fwiw.

sex is not an immutable characteristic. that's where people go wrong with this - they don't understand the science properly. what they do is they get this religious idea that we're assigned a gender at birth mixed up with the science - which says no such thing - and then deduce it must be science because it's "common sense".

so, what does the science say, here?

i'd imagine most people will tell you that you're born with xx or xy chromosomes and that determines your biological sex, but that is actually biologically, scientifically incorrect. the chromosome is actually just a bit that codes for the hormone, and this is repeatably demonstrable and very well understood. so, if you take an xx embryo and flush it with testosterone, you get a biological male; conversely, if you take an xy embryo and flush it with estrogen, you get a biological female. so, let's put the question of chromosome editing off for a minute, because it's secondary to the point - biological sex is not defined by chromosomes, it's defined by hormones. and, from time to time, errors occur and you get exactly this outcome.

it follows that the definition of a biological male is an individual that is testosterone dominant, rather than an individual that is born as xy; likewise, it follows that a biological female is estrogen-dominant, and not somebody born as xx. 

and, once you get the definitions correct, it is easy to see that hormone therapy can, indeed, change a person's sex - which is a hormonal, chemical thing and not something embedded into the dna.

now, you can argue that while it may be true that embryos are not sex-specific, the introduction of one hormone or the other to the embryo produces an irreversible process. but, that position is incoherent in the fact of a set of surgeries that can, in fact, reverse it. i mean, if you want to be empirical, there's your evidence - the surgery that replaces one physical vestige for another.

but, it's missing the point in the broader context, about physical sex organs being consequence of the hormones and not definitions of biological sex, itself. if you have this flap of skin or that one, it's still just some flaps of skin - it says nothing of the chemistry defining the concept of sex. 

to my knowledge, we can't yet exchange testicles with ovaries or vice versa, but some species can, indicating how closely these structures are truly related. and, it's really just a matter of time. and, then what does empirical evidence state, clearly, in front of your face?

conversely, if there is a biological process to change one's skin colour, i'm not aware of it. but, i mean, it's a triviality regardless - and not defined by functional hormonal differences that alter how reality is experienced. sex is at least chemically, biologically real - race isn't.

the problem is that the server is constantly reformatting it in ways that are dumb, and there's simply no way to disable it.

so, i just need to get the data together in one place first and format it offline where they can't mess with it.

it does mean, unfortunately, that you'll have to wait until i'm done before i can post it.

i got through may, 2020 this morning for the diet build before the machine crashed, unfortunately. the microsoft servers are unreliable for the purpose to say the least, but at least the software actually works.

what i'm going to have to do is download it in docx format, convert it to doc format, format it properly in 2003 and then upload it as pdf.

i was hoping i could format it well enough in real time, but the server is just awful.

so, i'm now spending no time formatting it, and it should be quick.

i stumbled upon this randomly last night and i'm going to quietly watch and subscribe to it, as it's sort of interesting to see somebody like this put up a channel like this, and who knows how long it even lasts for.

it's clearly not intended to get into too much depth, so much as it's intended to present ideas for future research or thought, and the most common reaction i've had so far as "yeah, i do that too. huh.". but, i can't stumble upon something like this and not watch it.

so, we'll get back to the harvard thing after.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjLd6862BxCe7Dd6ukj3zEw/videos

i don't want this incarnation of the liberals to get their majority back until they actually do something to earn it. i haven't read the ridiculous budget yet, but i think the consensus is that it's a political document that promises everything to everyone in a desperate attempt to get a majority. let's force them to do a bit of it, first.

while the liberals could call an election before ford does, they'd have to engineer it. unless he cancels it in a fit of fascist domination (which is looking increasingly unalarmist week by week), ford will need to call an election on schedule about a year from now.

the federal ndp will also benefit from a reduction of anti-ford kneejerking.

so, it's in the opposition's best interests to just wait it out and prop them up until mid-2022 at the earliest, and the pandemic gives them the perfect cover to do it.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/05/10/never-mind-justin-trudeau-conservative-insiders-fear-erin-otooles-toughest-election-opponent-might-be-doug-ford.html

it seems to be the conservative political groups that are pushing for online schooling, and it's easy enough to figure out that it's mostly about getting rid of teachers. we know liberals wouldn't like something like that. what would socialists think about that?

at the end of the day, teaching is a shitty job - it's why i avoided it. you spend half of your time babysitting kids with useless parents that should probably be placed in foster homes and half of your time teaching them the most trivial, basic, boring bullshit - how to count, how to read. as you move to higher grades, it gets a little more interesting, but the necessity of ensuring that a teacher is advanced enough in a topic to teach it requires that they resign themselves to teaching trivialities, from the first grade all the way to graduate school. it's only researchers teaching post-graduate topics that have some opportunity to engage in something interesting to them, as a teacher.

so, teaching is a shitty job, any way you look at it - and most teachers are miserable, which is why most teachers are terrible. you'll find the odd one that really loves it, but the university is truly a sad place, full of people that settled for existences they didn't truly want. again: i got out for a reason. i saw myself in a bleak future, there - wealthy, perhaps, but horribly unhappy, helplessly in debt and with no escape mechanism. they're all enslaved to the institutions they exist within.

socialists are supposed to be about eliminating shitty jobs, and they should support anything that leads to the abolition of teaching, for that reason. so, if what they were doing would create less teaching jobs, that's something socialists ought to support. but, it's not clear that that's really the case - it seems more like they're getting ahead of themselves.

as an anarchist, i also always disliked the classroom/grade/group-learning model, where you stick a bunch of random kids in a group and expect them to advance at the same speed. most of the emphasis has always been on trying to help the slowest kids keep up to the group, as though they're going to end up astronauts if they just get enough attention, but i'm really more concerned about stopping the system from preventing the smartest kids from moving ahead. to me, that's the more functional part of removing the teacher from the process - you eliminate the group learning, and let kids move at their own pace, whatever it is. so, some kids that love sitting on the computer and reading ahead (ahem.) may get through the schooling at a much faster pace, whereas other kids would rather tune out and play video games - and i don't think that's a bad thing, or something that society should seek to prevent. to me, trying to smarten up the dumb kids at the expense of the smart kids is just an inefficient use of resources. let the smart kids run ahead, and let the dumb kids die young. that's fine.

but, they don't seem to really be doing that, either.

the existing models clearly aren't very good - both canada and the united states have terrible test scores for kids across the board, on science, on reading and on math. something needs to be done about this, clearly. most of it is about bad parenting, which is primarily a social problem. but, it's a cyclical one with few really good solutions besides letting the dumb kill themselves off, in whatever way they'd most prefer to. and, we really need to let the smart kids get out of the catastrophe, and maximize their potential as young as they can.

this is the biggest problem i had with school in the grades 5-10 years - i just got bored with it. i probably would  have finished high school well before i was 15 if they would have let me, and i probably would have approached the school system from an entirely different perspective, when i did. instead, the system restricted my development in order to push a concept of conformity, which slowed me down, tuned me out and left me looking towards music, instead. so, you ended up with a really smart kid with a ton of potential that was totally turned off by the groupthink in the school system, and couldn't be bothered with carrying through with it.

some people like the group learning. good for them. they shouldn't be discouraged.

but, as there should be a way for adults to escape the market, there should be a way for kids to escape the classroom, as well.

i'm consequently tentatively in favour of exploring options around the elimination of teaching, but i realize that these right-wing governments are more likely to just screw the whole thing up.

today's post is the absolutely ridiculous symphony of psilocybin induced madness.

did i really write this on a mushroom trip when i was supposed to be studying for a calc 101 test? yes. sort of. i mean, it's a little blurry - i actually spent most of the night sort of comatose, as one does on large quantities of magic mushrooms. the walls become very intriguing, stuff just kind of floats by in the air...

but, at the end of it, i really did have this collection of notes pasted together in noteworthy composer - albeit in a much less coherent way than ended up presented in the end.

as mentioned, the piano part was written much later, and without the aid of hallucinogens. and, this is fundamentally a piano concerto.

=====

the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs... 

it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate. 

around 2006 or so, i took a course in electronic music design that had a recorded component and pulled the score off of my hard drive with the intent of finally recording it properly. the dx7 i had available to me greatly improved the synth patches, enough that i'm willing to let the track rest that way. 

i've included midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own. 

i now consider this my fifth symphony. 

written in the spring of 2001. lent out for a different project in jan, 2004. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. released as a one track single on april 1, 2006. expanded with alternate mixes and re-released on july 23, 2014. the vst mix was added on jan 10, 2015 and the two guitar mixes were added on may 29, 2015. re-released on may 29, 2015. finalized as symph005 on oct 15, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of this track appears on my fifth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj (inri052): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 

the divine amoebas version also appears on my seventh record, ftaa (inri079): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2004, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released may 15, 2001 

j - electric guitars, programming, digital effects & treatments, sampling, composition, production. 

the rendered electronic orchestras variously include synthesizers, clavinet, kalimba, nylon guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, banjo, electronic drums, pc card, violin, cello, bamboo flute, flute, viola, soprano saxophone, tuba, trumpet, organ and music box.