i had a post here, but i lost it when the internet went out and i had to reboot. this chromebook won't let you save a file, believe it or not. yeah.
remember: i'm pretty sure the guy upstairs is a cop, and i'm pretty sure he has some reason to want to stop me from posting to the internet. which i don't really understand...
but, i've been dealing with freezes on this machine all day. there's nothing on the device, so it's just an annoyance. but, it is annoying..
so, the post that was lost was thinking out loud about what to do next, after realizing that the time lag didn't fix the formatting issues at smashwords.
at first, i decided that it wasn't worth it, but then i thought to myself that i could probably fix it, if it's just empty white space, which is what i think it actually is.
i had some fruit this morning, but i didn't have an actual meal. i wanted to get this done before i ate, did dishes and ultimately went to sleep. well, when there's nothing to do, i'd rather sleep in the evening. i'm a night owl...
i may be back at this a little later, but i'm probably done for the night and will probably need to wait to get back to it in the morning.
i have a better concept of what i want to do, at least. and, i think the end point will be positive...
Saturday, June 6, 2020
no.
the site (smashwords) is breaking the formatting. ugh.
again: why is this so hard? it's daft, truly.
no, get your head around this.
first, it insists that i upload a doc file instead of a pdf file, and then insists on converting it to pdf (you can't download it in word format). then, it breaks the pdf in conversion. but, i converted it to pdf for them.
so, i can upload a working format, which it won't let anybody download. and, i can give them a working conversion of the file format they want to use, which they won't let me upload. instead, they demand i upload a format they won't let anyone download, convert it badly and then only offer the broken conversion.
i don't want to ask people to pay for broken files (especially considering that i have to boost the price to pay the taxes), and if i'm going to put them up for free, you'd might as well just go to a drive share, where they're not broken.
so, is this middle point worthwhile to have available archived?
there's just one thing, and it's a hunch that they may be on to it. the file hasn't been published to my page, yet. are they actually reading through every single file? is that why there's a delay? if they are, they should catch the error.
should i give it a bit, then?
but, this is absurd. why not just let the user upload their own converted pdf file?
the site (smashwords) is breaking the formatting. ugh.
again: why is this so hard? it's daft, truly.
no, get your head around this.
first, it insists that i upload a doc file instead of a pdf file, and then insists on converting it to pdf (you can't download it in word format). then, it breaks the pdf in conversion. but, i converted it to pdf for them.
so, i can upload a working format, which it won't let anybody download. and, i can give them a working conversion of the file format they want to use, which they won't let me upload. instead, they demand i upload a format they won't let anyone download, convert it badly and then only offer the broken conversion.
i don't want to ask people to pay for broken files (especially considering that i have to boost the price to pay the taxes), and if i'm going to put them up for free, you'd might as well just go to a drive share, where they're not broken.
so, is this middle point worthwhile to have available archived?
there's just one thing, and it's a hunch that they may be on to it. the file hasn't been published to my page, yet. are they actually reading through every single file? is that why there's a delay? if they are, they should catch the error.
should i give it a bit, then?
but, this is absurd. why not just let the user upload their own converted pdf file?
what i'm looking for is a site that allows pdf previewing. payhip is not that site.
however, it seems to have a 5 gb file maximum, meaning i can upload 4.7 gb isos.
i have these aleph-discs up that are basically torrents, but i've been forced to try to sell them as physical media due to their size, which i recognize that few people want. i've been waiting for a site that i can essentially upload an iso to. this might be it.
one thing at a time, but let's not forget that.
smashwords wants me to file a tax sheet and take 30% of any "royalties", like i'm some kind of corporation selling a product, rather than a peasant selling art on the digital street. i don't even have tax information to conduct commerce in the united states.
(it's not like i'm going to sell a lot of these things, anyways.)
so, it's looking more and more like it's not worth it.
let me see if i can find a better site, and let me think it through a bit more.
as i don't have a tin number and don't really want to get one, and i'd have to double the price in order to make it worthwhile (in order to pay taxes), i'd might as well just put it up for free, if i do this.
but, i'm leaning more towards just sending you to bandcamp for the monthly entries. the big files are available at the google drive site, so there's no access issues.
that's a shame. this is the kind of thing that shouldn't be taxed. we're talking about $5 transactions at most a few times a year, going to a disabled person.
(it's not like i'm going to sell a lot of these things, anyways.)
so, it's looking more and more like it's not worth it.
let me see if i can find a better site, and let me think it through a bit more.
as i don't have a tin number and don't really want to get one, and i'd have to double the price in order to make it worthwhile (in order to pay taxes), i'd might as well just put it up for free, if i do this.
but, i'm leaning more towards just sending you to bandcamp for the monthly entries. the big files are available at the google drive site, so there's no access issues.
that's a shame. this is the kind of thing that shouldn't be taxed. we're talking about $5 transactions at most a few times a year, going to a disabled person.
if the basic point being made here is that the soviets deserve the real credit for defeating the nazis, then that is very much correct. even with the importance of the lend-lease program acknowledged, the soviets remain the force that did the heavy lifting, with no help from the ukrainians or balts.
but, what an article like this is truly obscuring is the reality that the germans had already realized they'd lost, and had made a secret pact with the west to try to stop stalin before he got to madrid.
i remember the way they tried to teach this in the eighth grade as being this baffling, confusing thing that nobody understood. why didn't the germans fight back? why did they just let us walk in?
it's really the economic realities that clarify the incomprehensible, more than anything else; it was really american capital that stepped in, in it's refusal to lose germany to communism.
i cite world war two as almost the only war i've ever supported. the only threat the world has seen since that is comparable to nazism is fundamentalist islam, which is why i point to eradicating isis as being the only military operation that we can legitimately compare to eradicating the nazi state, even if there's a difference of scale.
but, we don't understand wwII very well at all.
justified or not, today's a special day. this was a war worth winning, and this is the day we celebrate it.
don't forget about it.
https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-operation-bagration-was-the-real-d-day-1.1127733
but, what an article like this is truly obscuring is the reality that the germans had already realized they'd lost, and had made a secret pact with the west to try to stop stalin before he got to madrid.
i remember the way they tried to teach this in the eighth grade as being this baffling, confusing thing that nobody understood. why didn't the germans fight back? why did they just let us walk in?
it's really the economic realities that clarify the incomprehensible, more than anything else; it was really american capital that stepped in, in it's refusal to lose germany to communism.
i cite world war two as almost the only war i've ever supported. the only threat the world has seen since that is comparable to nazism is fundamentalist islam, which is why i point to eradicating isis as being the only military operation that we can legitimately compare to eradicating the nazi state, even if there's a difference of scale.
but, we don't understand wwII very well at all.
justified or not, today's a special day. this was a war worth winning, and this is the day we celebrate it.
don't forget about it.
https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-operation-bagration-was-the-real-d-day-1.1127733
here's the first link:
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html
but, as mentioned, i'm eating first.
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html
but, as mentioned, i'm eating first.
ok.
so, when i started publishing chronological versions of these blogs at noise trade, i only had a few files to deal with, and i wasn't sure how this thing would turn out. it seemed like the best option at the time because it allowed for a free download with a suggested price; if the site had ads, i don't remember it...
i don't actually know what paste did to my account, but i kind of don't really care. the site has so many ads on it nowadays that i kind of don't want to direct any traffic there anymore, anyways. i mean, i've gone to such great lengths to keep ads off of my pages; why would i then direct people to a site with ads that somebody else profits from? i don't know if the site will come back or not, but if it does i'll delete it, and they can write that down in their ledger - it simply has too many ads to maintain artistic credibility.
further, i now have a series of large files instead of a couple of small ones, and the initial logic of periodic, sequential release periods has largely collapsed. i almost deleted half of the files the other day, and then decided not to. if i'm redoing this...
so, i'm going to be moving to a combination of lulu & smashwords instead, but i'm also going to be reevaluating how i'm presenting the information.
i initially decided that presenting the downloads in a monthly journal format, a trimesterly format and a series of other compilations would provide for maximum consumer choice. ok, i didn't say it like that, exactly - those are crude words, in truth. but, i made an attempt to present the downloads in as many ways as possible, so that people could decide what they wanted to download.
i'm no longer seeing the value in this. there's too many options, too much overlap, and a lot of it seems pointless, like i'm sticking to a formula for the sake of it.
i have monthly music journals up at bandcamp and have tried to avoid posting compilations there in order to avoid overlap, and also because there isn't a lot of conceptual meaning in posting a yearly or a semesterly music journal if i'm presenting the information by month. rather, it makes more sense to arrange the information by phases, of which there is currently only one, the first reconstruction phase. but, that won't come up to bandcamp until i get it up in the iso, which doesn't even have an aleph-number, and i'm still apprehensive about overlap, in the form of added costs to the full discography download (which nobody has bought yet, but will ultimately be the right way to donate funds to me, once the discography is truly done). so, i don't want to do it like that...
rather, we're going to use lulu for large files, as it seems like the best way to do it. it doesn't allow for previewing, which is a defect, so i've got the files up here, and they will stay there: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit
however, i'm going to avoid lulu for small files in order to minimize the clutter and instead use smashwords, but i'm going to be strategic about it when i do by trying to squeeze the files between the 15 mb upload limit and the $0.99 minimum price tag. that functionally means that the files are going to need to be more than 100 pages and probably less than 500 pages, although that will depend on the nature of the data in the file. so, instead of having strict monthly journals at smashwords, it's going to be a mix of monthly (music, politics) and semesterly (deathtokoalas), and for the travel blog will only have one entry in the end - for now. these files will also be fluid, rather than static, changing based on what actually makes sense.
if you want the monthly journal, go to bandcamp; if you want the full phase document, go to lulu. if for some reason you want something in between, go to smashwords.
and, after thinking that through and working that out all morning, its what i expect to do for the afternoon - as soon as i get something to eat, first.
this is going to probably take all day to switch over, as i'm going to need to update all of the links across four blogs and two facebook pages. but, i'm done with noise trade. so long.
so, when i started publishing chronological versions of these blogs at noise trade, i only had a few files to deal with, and i wasn't sure how this thing would turn out. it seemed like the best option at the time because it allowed for a free download with a suggested price; if the site had ads, i don't remember it...
i don't actually know what paste did to my account, but i kind of don't really care. the site has so many ads on it nowadays that i kind of don't want to direct any traffic there anymore, anyways. i mean, i've gone to such great lengths to keep ads off of my pages; why would i then direct people to a site with ads that somebody else profits from? i don't know if the site will come back or not, but if it does i'll delete it, and they can write that down in their ledger - it simply has too many ads to maintain artistic credibility.
further, i now have a series of large files instead of a couple of small ones, and the initial logic of periodic, sequential release periods has largely collapsed. i almost deleted half of the files the other day, and then decided not to. if i'm redoing this...
so, i'm going to be moving to a combination of lulu & smashwords instead, but i'm also going to be reevaluating how i'm presenting the information.
i initially decided that presenting the downloads in a monthly journal format, a trimesterly format and a series of other compilations would provide for maximum consumer choice. ok, i didn't say it like that, exactly - those are crude words, in truth. but, i made an attempt to present the downloads in as many ways as possible, so that people could decide what they wanted to download.
i'm no longer seeing the value in this. there's too many options, too much overlap, and a lot of it seems pointless, like i'm sticking to a formula for the sake of it.
i have monthly music journals up at bandcamp and have tried to avoid posting compilations there in order to avoid overlap, and also because there isn't a lot of conceptual meaning in posting a yearly or a semesterly music journal if i'm presenting the information by month. rather, it makes more sense to arrange the information by phases, of which there is currently only one, the first reconstruction phase. but, that won't come up to bandcamp until i get it up in the iso, which doesn't even have an aleph-number, and i'm still apprehensive about overlap, in the form of added costs to the full discography download (which nobody has bought yet, but will ultimately be the right way to donate funds to me, once the discography is truly done). so, i don't want to do it like that...
rather, we're going to use lulu for large files, as it seems like the best way to do it. it doesn't allow for previewing, which is a defect, so i've got the files up here, and they will stay there: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit
however, i'm going to avoid lulu for small files in order to minimize the clutter and instead use smashwords, but i'm going to be strategic about it when i do by trying to squeeze the files between the 15 mb upload limit and the $0.99 minimum price tag. that functionally means that the files are going to need to be more than 100 pages and probably less than 500 pages, although that will depend on the nature of the data in the file. so, instead of having strict monthly journals at smashwords, it's going to be a mix of monthly (music, politics) and semesterly (deathtokoalas), and for the travel blog will only have one entry in the end - for now. these files will also be fluid, rather than static, changing based on what actually makes sense.
if you want the monthly journal, go to bandcamp; if you want the full phase document, go to lulu. if for some reason you want something in between, go to smashwords.
and, after thinking that through and working that out all morning, its what i expect to do for the afternoon - as soon as i get something to eat, first.
this is going to probably take all day to switch over, as i'm going to need to update all of the links across four blogs and two facebook pages. but, i'm done with noise trade. so long.
i'm looking into different e-book hosting sites and everybody wants to convert the file.
i spent a lot of time formatting this. i don't want you to convert it, and i don't want to follow your rules - i just want you to host the file. i'm the creator, not you - i want to be in control. i don't want your convenience. i don't want your advice. i don't want your convention. i just want a server to upload the data to, and a transaction wall attached to it.
also, i want to avoid amazon, which looks like it's going to be hard. i don't see any use in smashing it up, but it would be nice if they could be prevented from buying anything else out. i don't want a baby-amazon, i want an independent service, like bandcamp.
strangely, these services seem to promote putting your book up on amazon as a benefit. what? no...i'd rather not have anything to do with the major labels...
i'm taking a closer look at paste magazine, and the site is clearly supported by intrusive ads. it wasn't like that when i signed up for noise trade, or at least it didn't seem like it was. i don't know what they've done, but i think i'd really rather find somewhere else. it's caught up to me by stealth, but it's actually the kind of site that i usually try to strenuously avoid.
what else is there?
i could upload directly to amazon, but i don't want to.
smashwords has a size limit, amongst other things. i don't mind uploading in doc format, but my files are too big for them, apparently - and they're only going to get bigger. they insist on converting to pdf themselves, and it's doing weird things to the formatting that i don't like. further, they're going to distribute it to the major sites, too. if i could find something that's very much like this, but more hands-off....
kobo wants to convert to epub explicitly, and while i don't mind if you try to convert to these weird formats for your own use (at your own risk), i don't use them myself and don't officially support them. i support .doc and .pdf. it's just going to create a broken output file...
scribd charges a monthly fee, which is a nonstarter.
lulu is...
maybe what i want.
hrmmn.
i spent a lot of time formatting this. i don't want you to convert it, and i don't want to follow your rules - i just want you to host the file. i'm the creator, not you - i want to be in control. i don't want your convenience. i don't want your advice. i don't want your convention. i just want a server to upload the data to, and a transaction wall attached to it.
also, i want to avoid amazon, which looks like it's going to be hard. i don't see any use in smashing it up, but it would be nice if they could be prevented from buying anything else out. i don't want a baby-amazon, i want an independent service, like bandcamp.
strangely, these services seem to promote putting your book up on amazon as a benefit. what? no...i'd rather not have anything to do with the major labels...
i'm taking a closer look at paste magazine, and the site is clearly supported by intrusive ads. it wasn't like that when i signed up for noise trade, or at least it didn't seem like it was. i don't know what they've done, but i think i'd really rather find somewhere else. it's caught up to me by stealth, but it's actually the kind of site that i usually try to strenuously avoid.
what else is there?
i could upload directly to amazon, but i don't want to.
lulu is...
maybe what i want.
hrmmn.
it may have been psychological....
but, i could have sworn i felt my eyes refocus as i was eating the first red pepper, as though my body was saying thank you for getting me the nutrients you've been denying me. i'm sorry, ocular system; i'm sorry, brain. i didn't realize it. really.
your eyes are really a window into your brain, literally. it's like your brain burrowed out into the world through your skull and tried to eat the light...
i understand that it won't fix my broader vision problems, which are....this is a very sad story, actually....
i had surgery for a "lazy eye" when i was a kid, which was something my parents got into a heated argument about. basically, my mother decided that i should get the surgery because she had the surgery. that was the extent of her logic - she had it, so therefore i must have it. i don't know if this is a result of how alcoholics anonymous destroys your brain or if she was a genetic determinist to begin with, but she has little concept of the stochasticism and randomness that defines modern science, including modern genetics - she seems to think, essentially, that dna is some kind of god, and we have almost no ability to overturn it. in her estimation, we are entirely predetermined at birth, and that's all there is to it.
she had a lazy eye, therefore i have a lazy eye. qed.
as mentioned, i think the root cause of this weirdness is not some kind of calvinism, or at least not explicitly, but the 12-step program, which has brainwashed her into thinking that she has a genetic disease called alcoholism that she has no free will over. she has extrapolated that exceedingly widely, in absolutely absurd ways, and this is really just one example of it, however extreme it is.
my dad insisted on some kind of evidence and this is the crushingly sad part of it - he took me to doctor after doctor and they all actually told me that i don't have an eye condition. that's right - i saw roughly ten doctors, and they all told me my vision was great.
she finally found a doctor that would do it, and the result is that my eyesight has been relatively poor ever since.
i was too young to really put up much of a fight. and, the court gave my mom custody, despite her history of substance dependence and mental illness, because a child should be with their mother - my dad had no legal ability to stop it.
so, the vitmain a won't undo a surgery that should have never been done or fix my eyesight that was ruined at the end of a knife blade.
but, i swear that i felt it sharpen in focus. for a minute.
it was getting pretty bad for a bit. really. i can handle being near-sighted, but i'd like the distance before it clicks in to be more than a foot. if it helps even a little, that's welcome.
but, i could have sworn i felt my eyes refocus as i was eating the first red pepper, as though my body was saying thank you for getting me the nutrients you've been denying me. i'm sorry, ocular system; i'm sorry, brain. i didn't realize it. really.
your eyes are really a window into your brain, literally. it's like your brain burrowed out into the world through your skull and tried to eat the light...
i understand that it won't fix my broader vision problems, which are....this is a very sad story, actually....
i had surgery for a "lazy eye" when i was a kid, which was something my parents got into a heated argument about. basically, my mother decided that i should get the surgery because she had the surgery. that was the extent of her logic - she had it, so therefore i must have it. i don't know if this is a result of how alcoholics anonymous destroys your brain or if she was a genetic determinist to begin with, but she has little concept of the stochasticism and randomness that defines modern science, including modern genetics - she seems to think, essentially, that dna is some kind of god, and we have almost no ability to overturn it. in her estimation, we are entirely predetermined at birth, and that's all there is to it.
she had a lazy eye, therefore i have a lazy eye. qed.
as mentioned, i think the root cause of this weirdness is not some kind of calvinism, or at least not explicitly, but the 12-step program, which has brainwashed her into thinking that she has a genetic disease called alcoholism that she has no free will over. she has extrapolated that exceedingly widely, in absolutely absurd ways, and this is really just one example of it, however extreme it is.
my dad insisted on some kind of evidence and this is the crushingly sad part of it - he took me to doctor after doctor and they all actually told me that i don't have an eye condition. that's right - i saw roughly ten doctors, and they all told me my vision was great.
she finally found a doctor that would do it, and the result is that my eyesight has been relatively poor ever since.
i was too young to really put up much of a fight. and, the court gave my mom custody, despite her history of substance dependence and mental illness, because a child should be with their mother - my dad had no legal ability to stop it.
so, the vitmain a won't undo a surgery that should have never been done or fix my eyesight that was ruined at the end of a knife blade.
but, i swear that i felt it sharpen in focus. for a minute.
it was getting pretty bad for a bit. really. i can handle being near-sighted, but i'd like the distance before it clicks in to be more than a foot. if it helps even a little, that's welcome.
Friday, June 5, 2020
they're going to be waiting until the fall with those criteria.
the reality is that ontario has no idea where it is at all in this because the data is so poor. at least quebec seems to have a handle on what's happening; in ontario, they give these numbers to the media that have no reflection on reality at all, due to a combination of out of date technology and purposeful manipulation. we know that they're weeks behind in reporting, and we know that they have thousands of tests on backorder, but the extent of it is really unknown. it's a conspiracy of the obsolete and the incompetent.
so, i've decided not to bother.
but, if this is the condition? you'll be lucky to get a beer before labour day, as they're still counting deaths from july in september.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid19-reopening-stage-2-doug-ford-1.5598072
the reality is that ontario has no idea where it is at all in this because the data is so poor. at least quebec seems to have a handle on what's happening; in ontario, they give these numbers to the media that have no reflection on reality at all, due to a combination of out of date technology and purposeful manipulation. we know that they're weeks behind in reporting, and we know that they have thousands of tests on backorder, but the extent of it is really unknown. it's a conspiracy of the obsolete and the incompetent.
so, i've decided not to bother.
but, if this is the condition? you'll be lucky to get a beer before labour day, as they're still counting deaths from july in september.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid19-reopening-stage-2-doug-ford-1.5598072
i just find this so horribly frustrating. it's enough to make me want to just go out into the woods and hack them off with a fucking machete, then call an ambulance and let them deal with the blood loss, and then send the bill to the "specialist" that refused to do it.
and, as it is, i lost a week looking for hormones that should really be available over the counter to try and fight off a hormonal imbalance that should have been corrected eons ago. ugh.
so, what's happened since tuesday morning?
as mentioned, i went to an appointment on tuesday. my vitals are great, but my testosterone is...it's not as wonderfully low as it was previously, and it's been creeping up, which i need to put a stop to, immediately. the doctor suggested i move to spiro and i tentatively agreed without really looking into it. i also picked up some generic estrogen on the way home, after realizing how hard it's going to be to get the brand name product, which i later learned is on back-order for the foreseeable future.
i also picked up some red peppers when i was out, as i mentioned i would, to try to get the A up. but, it otherwise wasn't a very exciting day.
i was hoping to get a start on the court stuff overnight, but i got lost in researching the different anti-androgens, instead, and ended up sending a lengthy fax to my doctor, requesting we go back to cyproterone and boost the dose to try to stop the testosterone from creeping up further and potentially detransitioning me (which would be a deep existential crisis that probably would make me suicidal). in the afternoon, i ended up calling every store in town and finding 30 estrace pills at the furthest possible store.
how far? this far:
it actually wasn't that long a ride, and i found myself disappointed by the fact that i didn't even break a sweat. i'm not exaggerating - my brow was bone dry, after biking in the heat for an hour in either direction. a big part of the problem was that there was a cool breeze running the whole way. so, i was hoping for a nice sweaty ride in 40 degree humidity - exercising in sauna-like conditions - and instead ended up in a situation that was more like biking in an air conditioned room, which is pointless. in fact, it was sort of depressing. i didn't start to feel the heat until late in the afternoon, when it went over 30, but by then i was about to come in....
the doctor did reverse the prescription for me, but he didn't immediately boost the dosage. so, i picked up a refill for thirty days that is only going to last me 15, and i asked the pharmacy to fax the doctor, asking him if he got the dosage right.
i was at least tired when i got in, but, if anything, it seemed like i'd gained a few points from the mountain dew i was drinking as a pick-me-up. and i'm sort of distraught about it, as i may hardly get any exercise at all this summer, if they don't let me out to do stuff. i don't want to go out and ride my bike around in circles like a fucking retard to get my heart rate up; i'd feel like i'm wasting my time. and, i'm not interested in protest politics that aren't fundamentally about class, which seems to be out of fashion right now (i'll wait.). but, if i can get out to go to concerts and stuff, i can get a lot of exercise just by using my bike as a means of transportation. that's what i've been relying on for years. yesterday was my chance to sweat it out, and i feel it was wasted by the cool weather.
i mean, i could have picked up the pace, and that would have potentially got me sweating a little, but at the expense of building muscle. i'm interested in cardio; i'm not interested in weight gain. so, i don't want to do exercises designed to build muscle, which is what biking hard in a cool wind is. that's actually why i've been avoiding the bike all year - it's been too cold, and biking in the cold leads to weight gain, not weight loss.
*shrug*
i slept until early in the morning, and i've been kind of doing loose ends kinds of things since - putting away fruit, doing dishes, eating, cleaning up the blog, etc.
i got the replacement noise trade site up last night when i got out of the shower, and before i crashed. still no word back from them. and, it's still up. for now. i dunno....i really want them to write me some kind of essay, so i understand.
what's next?
well, i wanted to get a handle on the court stuff this week, but i guess that's done, now. it looks more like that's going to be a weekend thing. and, i should probably give paste another few days to respond before i give up on them and set up shop elsewhere.
as of right now, i should be in for another 15-20 days, until i need to get out to find more estrogen. so, let's hope i can get these things done with in that space, and get a good start on the last batch of liner notes to close the first reconstruction phase.
and, as it is, i lost a week looking for hormones that should really be available over the counter to try and fight off a hormonal imbalance that should have been corrected eons ago. ugh.
so, what's happened since tuesday morning?
as mentioned, i went to an appointment on tuesday. my vitals are great, but my testosterone is...it's not as wonderfully low as it was previously, and it's been creeping up, which i need to put a stop to, immediately. the doctor suggested i move to spiro and i tentatively agreed without really looking into it. i also picked up some generic estrogen on the way home, after realizing how hard it's going to be to get the brand name product, which i later learned is on back-order for the foreseeable future.
i also picked up some red peppers when i was out, as i mentioned i would, to try to get the A up. but, it otherwise wasn't a very exciting day.
i was hoping to get a start on the court stuff overnight, but i got lost in researching the different anti-androgens, instead, and ended up sending a lengthy fax to my doctor, requesting we go back to cyproterone and boost the dose to try to stop the testosterone from creeping up further and potentially detransitioning me (which would be a deep existential crisis that probably would make me suicidal). in the afternoon, i ended up calling every store in town and finding 30 estrace pills at the furthest possible store.
how far? this far:
it actually wasn't that long a ride, and i found myself disappointed by the fact that i didn't even break a sweat. i'm not exaggerating - my brow was bone dry, after biking in the heat for an hour in either direction. a big part of the problem was that there was a cool breeze running the whole way. so, i was hoping for a nice sweaty ride in 40 degree humidity - exercising in sauna-like conditions - and instead ended up in a situation that was more like biking in an air conditioned room, which is pointless. in fact, it was sort of depressing. i didn't start to feel the heat until late in the afternoon, when it went over 30, but by then i was about to come in....
the doctor did reverse the prescription for me, but he didn't immediately boost the dosage. so, i picked up a refill for thirty days that is only going to last me 15, and i asked the pharmacy to fax the doctor, asking him if he got the dosage right.
i was at least tired when i got in, but, if anything, it seemed like i'd gained a few points from the mountain dew i was drinking as a pick-me-up. and i'm sort of distraught about it, as i may hardly get any exercise at all this summer, if they don't let me out to do stuff. i don't want to go out and ride my bike around in circles like a fucking retard to get my heart rate up; i'd feel like i'm wasting my time. and, i'm not interested in protest politics that aren't fundamentally about class, which seems to be out of fashion right now (i'll wait.). but, if i can get out to go to concerts and stuff, i can get a lot of exercise just by using my bike as a means of transportation. that's what i've been relying on for years. yesterday was my chance to sweat it out, and i feel it was wasted by the cool weather.
i mean, i could have picked up the pace, and that would have potentially got me sweating a little, but at the expense of building muscle. i'm interested in cardio; i'm not interested in weight gain. so, i don't want to do exercises designed to build muscle, which is what biking hard in a cool wind is. that's actually why i've been avoiding the bike all year - it's been too cold, and biking in the cold leads to weight gain, not weight loss.
*shrug*
i slept until early in the morning, and i've been kind of doing loose ends kinds of things since - putting away fruit, doing dishes, eating, cleaning up the blog, etc.
i got the replacement noise trade site up last night when i got out of the shower, and before i crashed. still no word back from them. and, it's still up. for now. i dunno....i really want them to write me some kind of essay, so i understand.
what's next?
well, i wanted to get a handle on the court stuff this week, but i guess that's done, now. it looks more like that's going to be a weekend thing. and, i should probably give paste another few days to respond before i give up on them and set up shop elsewhere.
as of right now, i should be in for another 15-20 days, until i need to get out to find more estrogen. so, let's hope i can get these things done with in that space, and get a good start on the last batch of liner notes to close the first reconstruction phase.
ugh.
my doctor doesn't want to increase my dosage of cyproterone. so, i'm going to have to find a way to get around him.
i sent him this today, and we'll see what he tells me, but i'll order it from out of the country if he doesn't prescribe it, that's fine.
===
hi.
i feel it's my responsibility as a patient to let you know that i began doubling my dosage of cyproterone yesterday, and will be continuing to take 200 mg a day until my next bloodwork. i have enough supply to last me until the end of june and will find some other way to secure a sufficient amount of t-blockers if you won't prescribe it.
i was also able to find enough brand name estrogen to take me until the end of june, and was consequently only on the generics for 24 hours. we'll have to see if i can secure a larger supply of the brand name after that.
i do not want my testosterone to continue to increase, or to continue suffering any of the side effects that seem to be associated with the creeping testosterone levels. i will let you know at our next appointment if the increased dosage of cyproterone has ameliorated any of the side effects i was associating with it, and we'll have to see if it takes it back towards 0, where it was before.
i do not want a male sex drive.
i do not want penile function, in any way at all.
i am not interested in sex, in any context.
i do not want to masturbate. at all.
i do not want muscle mass.
i do not want body hair.
i do not want testosterone. at all.
my doctor doesn't want to increase my dosage of cyproterone. so, i'm going to have to find a way to get around him.
i sent him this today, and we'll see what he tells me, but i'll order it from out of the country if he doesn't prescribe it, that's fine.
===
hi.
i feel it's my responsibility as a patient to let you know that i began doubling my dosage of cyproterone yesterday, and will be continuing to take 200 mg a day until my next bloodwork. i have enough supply to last me until the end of june and will find some other way to secure a sufficient amount of t-blockers if you won't prescribe it.
i was also able to find enough brand name estrogen to take me until the end of june, and was consequently only on the generics for 24 hours. we'll have to see if i can secure a larger supply of the brand name after that.
i do not want my testosterone to continue to increase, or to continue suffering any of the side effects that seem to be associated with the creeping testosterone levels. i will let you know at our next appointment if the increased dosage of cyproterone has ameliorated any of the side effects i was associating with it, and we'll have to see if it takes it back towards 0, where it was before.
i do not want a male sex drive.
i do not want penile function, in any way at all.
i am not interested in sex, in any context.
i do not want to masturbate. at all.
i do not want muscle mass.
i do not want body hair.
i do not want testosterone. at all.
i sent a third letter to paste magazine about my noise trade site.
my author account (death.to.koalas@gmail.com) appears to have become inactive at some point over the last few days.
the following page is just blank:
https://books.noisetrade.com/j
further, links to the books create 404s:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/
while i am the type of writer that enjoys being offensive and will continue to do so on purpose, i have received no communication from the site around any concerns about the contents of the blogs. they just disappeared. as such, i do not know if you've decided to censor me, if there is a glitch in the site or if i even got hacked.
i would appreciate some clarification before i decide to give up on paste magazine as a hosting solution and move my files somewhere else, instead.
thanks,
j
the second upload hasn't been taken down yet.
i will continue to pester them until they respond.
my author account (death.to.koalas@gmail.com) appears to have become inactive at some point over the last few days.
the following page is just blank:
https://books.noisetrade.com/j
further, links to the books create 404s:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/
while i am the type of writer that enjoys being offensive and will continue to do so on purpose, i have received no communication from the site around any concerns about the contents of the blogs. they just disappeared. as such, i do not know if you've decided to censor me, if there is a glitch in the site or if i even got hacked.
i would appreciate some clarification before i decide to give up on paste magazine as a hosting solution and move my files somewhere else, instead.
thanks,
j
the second upload hasn't been taken down yet.
i will continue to pester them until they respond.
if somebody is smoking a foot from your window and you ask them to stop and they refuse (because they're too shit-faced drink all of the time to form a cogent thought process), what do you do?
if you're going to tell me they have the right to smoke and i have the obligation to accept it, i'm going to disagree with you, and call you a moron.
i asked nicely, and they just swore at me and told me i use "big words". this woman was probably clinically retarded, from however many years of heavy alcoholism, and who knows what else. she could not be reasoned with. and i did try.
so, what do you do?
i'm an activist, and i resorted to direct action; what i did was what i could in that legal grey area between protest and technical illegality, and i was in the right to do it, and she was in the wrong to resist it.
i would have been happy to fight this in court, and i would have won.
if you're going to tell me they have the right to smoke and i have the obligation to accept it, i'm going to disagree with you, and call you a moron.
i asked nicely, and they just swore at me and told me i use "big words". this woman was probably clinically retarded, from however many years of heavy alcoholism, and who knows what else. she could not be reasoned with. and i did try.
so, what do you do?
i'm an activist, and i resorted to direct action; what i did was what i could in that legal grey area between protest and technical illegality, and i was in the right to do it, and she was in the wrong to resist it.
i would have been happy to fight this in court, and i would have won.
and, if you're curious, the "medical" marijuana user that i called the police on to get a report to take to the landlord & tenant board was very white. i'd guess she was polish, or otherwise of eastern european extraction.
she looked a lot like andrea horwath, during one of her between-elections fat phases:
the woman that called the police on me for "harassing" her when she ignored me when i asked her to smoke away from my window, however, was black. i was blaring loud music out my window whenever she sat outside (it was merzbow.) and otherwise making her smoking experience uncomfortable as a disincentive for her to smoke there, so she called me in for bothering her. i don't think i had an obligation to sit there and breathe in her filth, and am not sorry for making her life unpleasant, as she was polluting my living space and refused to adjust to requests not to.
when the cops arrived, i argued that my behaviour was justified by her insistence on smoking near my window and told them point blank that i was trying to chase her off, and i wasn't going to stop. i was willing to take the fight to court; if she didn't like what i was doing, she should smoke somewhere else. i also suggested that they file charges against her for causing a nuisance, which is defined in canadian law as follows:
Common nuisance
180 (1) Every person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction who commits a common nuisance and by doing so
(a) endangers the lives, safety or health of the public, or
(b) causes physical injury to any person.
(2) For the purposes of this section, every one commits a common nuisance who does an unlawful act or fails to discharge a legal duty and thereby
(a) endangers the lives, safety, health, property or comfort of the public; or
(b) obstructs the public in the exercise or enjoyment of any right that is common to all the subjects of Her Majesty in Canada.
i don't know who, in 2020, can argue with a straight face that second-hand smoke is not endangering the health of the public. however, i was unable to convince any of the officers to file charges against her.
as she continued to smoke in a way that bothered me, i did threaten to take the issue directly to the justice of the peace if she didn't smoke somewhere else, but this was after she called the cops on me for trying to chase her off with the merzbow. in the end, my threats do seem to have been effective in coercing her to smoke elsewhere. for the last several weeks of my tenancy in the unit, she smoked in the front of the house, away from my window.
so, i did a lot of things to piss this woman off, and i also attempted to get bylaw involved under anti-smoking regulations, but i did not call the police to deal with the smoke complaint, as i realized they had no actionable cause without clear evidence of intentional harm. and, i had actually decided to bypass the cops (who are useless.) and go directly to the judge. but, i didn't have to, in the end - she realized what she was doing was wrong and modified her behaviour. eventually...
it should not have taken weeks of yelling and screaming to get her to react responsibly, but she did the right thing in the end.
however, if i thought they could have done something, if there was a law around second-hand smoke in residential areas that they could actually enforce, then i might have called them, sure.
my preference was direct action against the smoker, and that's what i did, and, in the end, it did work. she called them on me, not the other way around.
and, while the issue is not cited in the harassment charge against me that was eventually dropped (i was charged with repeatedly applying for housing. i kept applying because i claimed the property owner was discriminating against me. the property owner, who is rich and powerful and therefore a friend of the police, essentially argued that my claims of discrimination were harassment. because she was upper class, she got the cops to go for that very stupid argument, which was instantly laughed at by the court, and eventually retracted by the prosecutor. conversely, my much stronger legal argument for criminal nuisance around secondhand smoke was not accepted by the police, because i'm poor. do you see how class is important, here?), it is clear enough that it had a lot to do with the illegal arrest that eventually happened, as it was the same officers involved. and, i have in fact cited the officer's behaviour, in context, as reasoning for my request that he be charged with harassment, for repeatedly coming to my house and bothering me.
just in case that's unclear.
she looked a lot like andrea horwath, during one of her between-elections fat phases:
the woman that called the police on me for "harassing" her when she ignored me when i asked her to smoke away from my window, however, was black. i was blaring loud music out my window whenever she sat outside (it was merzbow.) and otherwise making her smoking experience uncomfortable as a disincentive for her to smoke there, so she called me in for bothering her. i don't think i had an obligation to sit there and breathe in her filth, and am not sorry for making her life unpleasant, as she was polluting my living space and refused to adjust to requests not to.
when the cops arrived, i argued that my behaviour was justified by her insistence on smoking near my window and told them point blank that i was trying to chase her off, and i wasn't going to stop. i was willing to take the fight to court; if she didn't like what i was doing, she should smoke somewhere else. i also suggested that they file charges against her for causing a nuisance, which is defined in canadian law as follows:
Common nuisance
180 (1) Every person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction who commits a common nuisance and by doing so
(a) endangers the lives, safety or health of the public, or
(b) causes physical injury to any person.
(2) For the purposes of this section, every one commits a common nuisance who does an unlawful act or fails to discharge a legal duty and thereby
(a) endangers the lives, safety, health, property or comfort of the public; or
(b) obstructs the public in the exercise or enjoyment of any right that is common to all the subjects of Her Majesty in Canada.
i don't know who, in 2020, can argue with a straight face that second-hand smoke is not endangering the health of the public. however, i was unable to convince any of the officers to file charges against her.
as she continued to smoke in a way that bothered me, i did threaten to take the issue directly to the justice of the peace if she didn't smoke somewhere else, but this was after she called the cops on me for trying to chase her off with the merzbow. in the end, my threats do seem to have been effective in coercing her to smoke elsewhere. for the last several weeks of my tenancy in the unit, she smoked in the front of the house, away from my window.
so, i did a lot of things to piss this woman off, and i also attempted to get bylaw involved under anti-smoking regulations, but i did not call the police to deal with the smoke complaint, as i realized they had no actionable cause without clear evidence of intentional harm. and, i had actually decided to bypass the cops (who are useless.) and go directly to the judge. but, i didn't have to, in the end - she realized what she was doing was wrong and modified her behaviour. eventually...
it should not have taken weeks of yelling and screaming to get her to react responsibly, but she did the right thing in the end.
however, if i thought they could have done something, if there was a law around second-hand smoke in residential areas that they could actually enforce, then i might have called them, sure.
my preference was direct action against the smoker, and that's what i did, and, in the end, it did work. she called them on me, not the other way around.
and, while the issue is not cited in the harassment charge against me that was eventually dropped (i was charged with repeatedly applying for housing. i kept applying because i claimed the property owner was discriminating against me. the property owner, who is rich and powerful and therefore a friend of the police, essentially argued that my claims of discrimination were harassment. because she was upper class, she got the cops to go for that very stupid argument, which was instantly laughed at by the court, and eventually retracted by the prosecutor. conversely, my much stronger legal argument for criminal nuisance around secondhand smoke was not accepted by the police, because i'm poor. do you see how class is important, here?), it is clear enough that it had a lot to do with the illegal arrest that eventually happened, as it was the same officers involved. and, i have in fact cited the officer's behaviour, in context, as reasoning for my request that he be charged with harassment, for repeatedly coming to my house and bothering me.
just in case that's unclear.
i haven't killed any cops yet. but, i've dealt with this twice, and i need to plead with people.
stop calling the fucking cops on people that you love. it's beyond fucking stupid.
when i first went back on hormones in 2009, i just bought a bunch of hormones from india. when my dad found out, he had a fit because he was concerned i might accidentally buy something like fentanyl (a concern tied into experiences with his own recreational drug use in the 70s). in a technical sense, he was sort of right - i wasn't testing the drugs. i didn't really know that the pills that said 'estrace' on them and that came in the estrace package were really estrace; they could have been heroin. but, i told him he was being paranoid.
he called the cops to try to convince me to go to a doctor. they treated it like a drug investigation, showed up at my front door, violently cuffed me and physically forced me to go to a hospital. when i got to a doctor, he was shocked. i told him that the cops had no right to do what they did, and he completely agreed with me. he did suggest i call a gp about the hormones. but, it was a thirty second doctor's appointment.
at the time, dr. barwin had a virtual monopoly on trans patients in ottawa. i did call him. i believe he's in jail now on a fraud conviction, due to mixing up sperm donations.
the second time, my mother called the cops on me for posting the following article to facebook:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/julian-baggini-suicide-can-be-a-rational-choice-1912358.html
the article is an argument in favour of assisted suicide which, as it happens to be, is actually legal in canada, now, after a series of court rulings
my mother - who is a heroin addict and an alcoholic and was probably shit-faced drunk at the time - called the windsor coast unit because she was concerned i was suicidal due to posting that link. which is ridiculous...
when questioned, my mother denied making the call, but i knew it was her (because she was the only person in my friends list with my address), so i deleted her from facebook for it. it otherwise seemed rather benign at first - until it showed up in the disclosure for the illegal arrest that i'm currently fighting, as justification for holding me.
unless you are rich and powerful, the police are not your friends. the police are a relatively recent human invention that was created and continues to exist for the sole and precise purpose of controlling working people. they are there to protect the rich from the poor; that is what the police were invented to do, it's what they're trained to do and it's what they actually do.
don't send them after your loved ones, under the idea that they'll help. they won't; they're not supposed to, and you're wrong to think otherwise.
so, i don't know what happened here, but i know that when my parents (on separate occasions) called the police on me, it left me feeling violated and angry. the second time, i had marijuana on the premises, before it was legal. her reaction may have been foolish, but was perhaps not irrational - i may have liked to go after the ones that showed up at my door with a knife, too, even if i knew better, and didn't.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/edmundston-police-shooting-fatal-1.5597994
stop calling the fucking cops on people that you love. it's beyond fucking stupid.
when i first went back on hormones in 2009, i just bought a bunch of hormones from india. when my dad found out, he had a fit because he was concerned i might accidentally buy something like fentanyl (a concern tied into experiences with his own recreational drug use in the 70s). in a technical sense, he was sort of right - i wasn't testing the drugs. i didn't really know that the pills that said 'estrace' on them and that came in the estrace package were really estrace; they could have been heroin. but, i told him he was being paranoid.
he called the cops to try to convince me to go to a doctor. they treated it like a drug investigation, showed up at my front door, violently cuffed me and physically forced me to go to a hospital. when i got to a doctor, he was shocked. i told him that the cops had no right to do what they did, and he completely agreed with me. he did suggest i call a gp about the hormones. but, it was a thirty second doctor's appointment.
at the time, dr. barwin had a virtual monopoly on trans patients in ottawa. i did call him. i believe he's in jail now on a fraud conviction, due to mixing up sperm donations.
the second time, my mother called the cops on me for posting the following article to facebook:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/julian-baggini-suicide-can-be-a-rational-choice-1912358.html
the article is an argument in favour of assisted suicide which, as it happens to be, is actually legal in canada, now, after a series of court rulings
my mother - who is a heroin addict and an alcoholic and was probably shit-faced drunk at the time - called the windsor coast unit because she was concerned i was suicidal due to posting that link. which is ridiculous...
when questioned, my mother denied making the call, but i knew it was her (because she was the only person in my friends list with my address), so i deleted her from facebook for it. it otherwise seemed rather benign at first - until it showed up in the disclosure for the illegal arrest that i'm currently fighting, as justification for holding me.
unless you are rich and powerful, the police are not your friends. the police are a relatively recent human invention that was created and continues to exist for the sole and precise purpose of controlling working people. they are there to protect the rich from the poor; that is what the police were invented to do, it's what they're trained to do and it's what they actually do.
don't send them after your loved ones, under the idea that they'll help. they won't; they're not supposed to, and you're wrong to think otherwise.
so, i don't know what happened here, but i know that when my parents (on separate occasions) called the police on me, it left me feeling violated and angry. the second time, i had marijuana on the premises, before it was legal. her reaction may have been foolish, but was perhaps not irrational - i may have liked to go after the ones that showed up at my door with a knife, too, even if i knew better, and didn't.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/edmundston-police-shooting-fatal-1.5597994
Thursday, June 4, 2020
i'm still hoping this is temporary, as i don't understand what's happened to the existing site. it seems to continue to exist, but i can't log into it. so, is it frozen? disabled? i've received no communication from them at all...
did i get hacked?
in the mean time, i've set up a new site. this is a sort of a test. i suppose that if the site ends up frozen like the other one, i'll know that noise trade has frozen it. but, if it doesn't, i'm going to start to wonder if i got hacked.
there are fake deathtokoalas out there, and some of them seem to be unhealthily obsessed about it.
http://books.noisetrade.com/jj/072013-012014-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja
did i get hacked?
in the mean time, i've set up a new site. this is a sort of a test. i suppose that if the site ends up frozen like the other one, i'll know that noise trade has frozen it. but, if it doesn't, i'm going to start to wonder if i got hacked.
there are fake deathtokoalas out there, and some of them seem to be unhealthily obsessed about it.
when i search for myself, it comes up. the files are there, but they're inaccessible.
so, i changed the email address associated with the user account to something else. this seems to have decoupled the accounts, at least. i then tried to create a new account with my old email address, but it then told me the address was still associated with another account. i tried to change the password again, and i got the same error.
so, i think that what i've figured out is that it acknowledges that my account exists, but it won't let me log into it, which firms up one of two situations: either the site is experiencing some kind of broken logon server, or i'm essentially banned from logging in.
i sent them a follow-up. we'll see what happens.
so, i changed the email address associated with the user account to something else. this seems to have decoupled the accounts, at least. i then tried to create a new account with my old email address, but it then told me the address was still associated with another account. i tried to change the password again, and i got the same error.
so, i think that what i've figured out is that it acknowledges that my account exists, but it won't let me log into it, which firms up one of two situations: either the site is experiencing some kind of broken logon server, or i'm essentially banned from logging in.
i sent them a follow-up. we'll see what happens.
so, what seems to have happened is that my account was converted from an "author" account at noise trade into a "user" account at paste.
which is, like...no thank you.
should i just delete the account and start over? i have absolutely no interest in paste magazine, at all.
did somebody steal the account, even?
hrmmn.
which is, like...no thank you.
should i just delete the account and start over? i have absolutely no interest in paste magazine, at all.
did somebody steal the account, even?
hrmmn.
this is temporary, but i don't want the files to be unavailable while i figure out if i'm being censored, or if there's some kind of systems glitch.
i wasn't on noise trade very long before they got bought by paste, but i'm not a fan of paste, and don't particularly like the fact that they're hosting the files on amazon. so, it's not exactly my preferred hosting solution. the question is whether there's anything better out there or not.
i'm not going to whine and bitch and fight with the server mods, i'll just post somewhere else, and encourage people to follow me there. it's just that they haven't communicated with me in any way at all, so i don't actually know what's even going on.
for now, the files are here. enjoy.
and, buy something at bandcamp if you want to throw me some cash.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing
i wasn't on noise trade very long before they got bought by paste, but i'm not a fan of paste, and don't particularly like the fact that they're hosting the files on amazon. so, it's not exactly my preferred hosting solution. the question is whether there's anything better out there or not.
i'm not going to whine and bitch and fight with the server mods, i'll just post somewhere else, and encourage people to follow me there. it's just that they haven't communicated with me in any way at all, so i don't actually know what's even going on.
for now, the files are here. enjoy.
and, buy something at bandcamp if you want to throw me some cash.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing
i tried to create a new account, and it told me the account already existed.
so, i tried to reset my password and it let me do it but then still refused to let me log in.
so, i've sent an email to noise trade requesting clarification.
again: if there's an issue with the content of the blogs, whatever, i'll find somewhere else to post it. but, like, tell me that. don't just delete it....
for the short term, as i feel i'm being censored, i'm going to put all of the links up at a google drive account for free, temporarily. this is a tip-based service, anyways. the product is essentially free...
so, i tried to reset my password and it let me do it but then still refused to let me log in.
so, i've sent an email to noise trade requesting clarification.
again: if there's an issue with the content of the blogs, whatever, i'll find somewhere else to post it. but, like, tell me that. don't just delete it....
for the short term, as i feel i'm being censored, i'm going to put all of the links up at a google drive account for free, temporarily. this is a tip-based service, anyways. the product is essentially free...
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
i found 30 tablets at the furthest store in the exact opposite end of town.
it's a week's worth...
so, i'm going for a very long bike ride in the morning :)
it'll be good for me - some exercise. i'm overdue.
what's next, though? well, i've literally called every store in town. that was the last one in the list. so, what's next is that i'm going to need to keep calling around and see what i can find. i've at least ruled out a lot of places.
i guess i can start calling places that are a little further out. and, if i can find another week or two's worth somewhere, maybe i can get out to detroit near the end of the month.
it's a good excuse for a bike ride in the heat, and i'll take it for that alone.
it's a week's worth...
so, i'm going for a very long bike ride in the morning :)
it'll be good for me - some exercise. i'm overdue.
what's next, though? well, i've literally called every store in town. that was the last one in the list. so, what's next is that i'm going to need to keep calling around and see what i can find. i've at least ruled out a lot of places.
i guess i can start calling places that are a little further out. and, if i can find another week or two's worth somewhere, maybe i can get out to detroit near the end of the month.
it's a good excuse for a bike ride in the heat, and i'll take it for that alone.
oddly, the brand name estrogen has largely been removed from most online websites - they're only selling the generics. and, the few that are willing to sell the brand name are doing so at what seems like very high prices, but that might be more of a consequence of the low canadian dollar.
i wish i could just go over to detroit, but the border is closed until at least mid june.
i wish i could just go over to detroit, but the border is closed until at least mid june.
well, i contacted somebody at the company that resells this in canada, which is called acerus, and they explained that the supply issue is actually in europe. he doesn't think it's virus-related, because the issue precedes it. but he has no date of re-availability...
i don't know how seriously to take the response, but what he told me suggests that there's a relatively high demand for the product and he realizes that there's a lot of people looking for it. he's apparently getting a lot of calls about it.
there's some chance, i guess, that the company in europe is ultimately sourcing it from china, who of course had the virus earlier. the issue seems to have started around january or so, apparently. but, if that's the case, it's not clear. what's clear is that the supplier does not know when it's going to be available again.
what i want is to get around the hemi-hydrate, so i don't have to buy this specific brand of the drug, but it appears to be the only supplier in this province, so i might have to order it from out of province, or maybe from a different country, which i'm willing to do.
let's call some local pharmacies and see what's out there.
but, i'm ready to order.
i don't know how seriously to take the response, but what he told me suggests that there's a relatively high demand for the product and he realizes that there's a lot of people looking for it. he's apparently getting a lot of calls about it.
there's some chance, i guess, that the company in europe is ultimately sourcing it from china, who of course had the virus earlier. the issue seems to have started around january or so, apparently. but, if that's the case, it's not clear. what's clear is that the supplier does not know when it's going to be available again.
what i want is to get around the hemi-hydrate, so i don't have to buy this specific brand of the drug, but it appears to be the only supplier in this province, so i might have to order it from out of province, or maybe from a different country, which i'm willing to do.
let's call some local pharmacies and see what's out there.
but, i'm ready to order.
it's a known issue with a lot of drugs.
and, it makes you wonder why they even manufacture it at all. what's the point?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211383515001069
and, it makes you wonder why they even manufacture it at all. what's the point?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211383515001069
no. i'm weirded out about this. i'm taking the first pill and it's not dissolving, which is what the literature says - this formulation isn't water soluble. so, you can't absorb it through your digestive tract.....
but, i'm super sketchy about fucking with my existing estrone levels. like, i've been taking this every day for 11 years. what happens if i just stop? i don't want to know.
i'm going to double dose for today - i'm going to take it orally and sublingually. and, i'm going to call around and figure out what's going on.
i'm going to actually call the manufacturer directly, first, and see what they say..
but, i'm super sketchy about fucking with my existing estrone levels. like, i've been taking this every day for 11 years. what happens if i just stop? i don't want to know.
i'm going to double dose for today - i'm going to take it orally and sublingually. and, i'm going to call around and figure out what's going on.
i'm going to actually call the manufacturer directly, first, and see what they say..
so, i got the fax out.
i couldn't find any brand name 2 mg estrace yesterday, although i had to get to the appointment, as well. so, i got some generics. i'm about to try the first dose right now.
the issue with the generics is that it's bound to a different delivery agent that doesn't make it through your stomach acids, so you basically have to take it under your tongue or it's useless. sublingual administration results in higher spikes but lower plateaus. so, i might be a little bit moody for a while, until i get back on the brand name drugs.
i may notice a slight increase in feminization, but it will likely be at the expense of my mental health. i don't need or even want giant breasts; i have an athletic body type that is more slim and lean than curvy. i find curvy women to just look fat and gross; i'd rather look like a swimmer than a porn star. sorry.
but, this is what i have for at least the next week whether i like it or not, so i'm doing this experiment against my will (and definitely against my better judgement). i've got bloodwork papers for when i want to test, which i'll do before i switch back.
my estrogen levels were at 396 pmol/L when i tested on the 20th of may, which is about 110 pg/ml. the oral administration route plateaus, so this is all around a little bit low. based on what i'm feeling, i suspect that this is a little low because it's being counteracted by creeping testosterone levels, and it's the latter issue that i feel is a more pressing concern that i want to correct.
at the end of the day, i'd rather have zero testosterone and zero estrogen than ignore the creeping testosterone, or try to overpower it with estrogen. at this stage of my life, emasculation is actually more important to me than feminization - i want my testosterone annihilated more than i want my estrogen boosted.
but, we'll see where the sublingual experiment takes me. here i go...
in the mean time, i'm going to call around and see what i can find.
i couldn't find any brand name 2 mg estrace yesterday, although i had to get to the appointment, as well. so, i got some generics. i'm about to try the first dose right now.
the issue with the generics is that it's bound to a different delivery agent that doesn't make it through your stomach acids, so you basically have to take it under your tongue or it's useless. sublingual administration results in higher spikes but lower plateaus. so, i might be a little bit moody for a while, until i get back on the brand name drugs.
i may notice a slight increase in feminization, but it will likely be at the expense of my mental health. i don't need or even want giant breasts; i have an athletic body type that is more slim and lean than curvy. i find curvy women to just look fat and gross; i'd rather look like a swimmer than a porn star. sorry.
but, this is what i have for at least the next week whether i like it or not, so i'm doing this experiment against my will (and definitely against my better judgement). i've got bloodwork papers for when i want to test, which i'll do before i switch back.
my estrogen levels were at 396 pmol/L when i tested on the 20th of may, which is about 110 pg/ml. the oral administration route plateaus, so this is all around a little bit low. based on what i'm feeling, i suspect that this is a little low because it's being counteracted by creeping testosterone levels, and it's the latter issue that i feel is a more pressing concern that i want to correct.
at the end of the day, i'd rather have zero testosterone and zero estrogen than ignore the creeping testosterone, or try to overpower it with estrogen. at this stage of my life, emasculation is actually more important to me than feminization - i want my testosterone annihilated more than i want my estrogen boosted.
but, we'll see where the sublingual experiment takes me. here i go...
in the mean time, i'm going to call around and see what i can find.
i will fax this to the doctor in the morning.
========
hi.
========
hi.
so, the short of this is that i'm requesting a reversal of the switch to spiro that we did yesterday and an increase in cyproterone to 200 mg/day, instead. while i tentatively consented, i didn't expect the order to come in so quickly, and didn't have time to do any kind of research of my own before i picked it up yesterday. after reviewing some research, i've decided that the switch to spiro would not be consistent with my transition goals, at this time. further, i would like to reiterate that i really should be looking at an orchiectomy, and not an increase in cyproterone, but my testosterone levels have been doubling yearly since they were at 0.1 (from 0.1 to 0.2 to 0.4 to 0.8), so it is past time to increase my dosage. i would appreciate it if you could send that request to the shopper's at university mall and contact me to let me know about it.
the long of it is...
the long of it is...
i first came in and asked to get my testicles out in 2017, when my t-levels were still almost zero. however, i was noticing an unwanted increase in male libido (no reason boners) that, after so many years of absolutely no male sexual activity, came in as exceedingly unwanted. i'd been on t-blockers for eight years at that point and had experienced almost no male libido for essentially that entire period. i had entirely stopped masturbating, even - i just had no penis at all, sexually speaking. so, after many years without it, i had absolutely no interest in a return of a male libido at all and wanted to stop it from happening before it started. after looking into it, i decided the orchiectomy was a better option than an increase in t-blockers, due to concerns about liver functions with high levels of cyproterone. while that seemed a long ways off, i decided that fighting an arms race with my testicles was pointless and it was time to go to the next step, instead.
within a few months, i saw a specialist in windsor, who denied my request for an orchiectomy. he was not explicit about it, but it seemed to be a rejection on religious grounds. while i found this deeply disappointing, the reality is that my t-levels were still so low as to be almost undetectable. further, i found myself in a fight with my landlord over the space of 2017 that was mostly about second hand smoke and made it impossible to put aside money for things like trips to toronto. i ended up moving at the end of 2017, and came back for my yearly in 2018.
i was in an even bigger fight with my new landlord, at that time. i was told the building was moving to nonsmoking, but i ended up directly on top of a 10 g/day "medical" marijuana user, in an old building with no flooring. i was experiencing frequent contact highs and a general level of unpleasantness that i associated with the second-hand marijuana smoke. but, i was also experiencing a range of symptoms that included random bouts of anger, frustration and anxiety - what are, in hindsight, "male emotions" that could be associated with an increase in testosterone. i also found myself sleeping more and having difficulty concentrating and focusing on day-to-day tasks. on a hunch, i had myself tested for meth, thinking maybe i was inhaling fumes from downstairs, and that came back negative. however, i tested positive for thc, apparently from the neighbour's habit - a reflection of the sheer bulk of smoke coming into my apartment. i did not, in the end, get tested for increased cortisol levels from the marijuana smoke (something that is a well understood consequence of marijuana use), but i was tested for heavy metal poisoning, which also came back negative. when my t-levels came back at .2, it didn't click that that was twice as much as .1 - it was still so low that it could just be error. however, given that my living situation was so unstable, i requested that we put off the issue for another year, until i could figure out what was going on. empirically speaking, .2 is still very low; i realize that. but, it seemed to be moving in the wrong direction.
over 2018, i also started to notice that my skin was getting rougher, that my facial hair was getting thicker and that my hair was knotting up more easily. i actually initially assigned most of this to the second-hand marijuana smoke, but when it didn't get better i became more suspicious. my male libido was also incrementally, if slowly, continuing to return, which remained deeply unwanted.
when i came back for my yearly tests in 2019, my living situation had stabilized enough that i was willing to look at booking an appointment in toronto for the orchiectomy, so we went through the process. we also increased my estrogen a second time from 6 mg/day to 8 mg/day, after noticing it was a little low. we also noticed that my testosterone had increased again to 0.4, which was still low, but twice as much. i still decided it was better to have a surgical than a chemical solution at this point, so i waited on the dose increase. but, i've been experiencing many of the same symptoms over the last year, and it's really just been getting worse and worse, even as the increase in estrogen has led to renewed breast growth, which had stopped for a while. are the creeping t-levels adversely affecting the estrogen levels?
when i came back in 2020, my t-levels had skyrocketed to 0.8, which is confirming to me that all of these symptoms i've been having are a result of unwanted testosterone levels. more frustrating, my estrogen levels are still low, after having been doubled over the last few years. and, there has been no progress on the preferred surgical solution.
if we were to plot the curve of t-levels since 2017, we would realize they've been doubling every year since. so, should i expect them to be 1.6 this time next year? that would be a 16 fold increase in four years, and i will no doubt have a list of terrible symptoms to look forward to. while i understand that 1.6 is still low, it is these symptoms that i am tying to the creeping testosterone that i want to reverse. this is, after all, ultimately a quality of life issue, right?
while what i want is the surgery, it doesn't seem likely that this will be available in the next 12-24 months. so, we decided to make a treatment option to move to spiro.
my research into the topic indicates that if i want to get my t-levels back under .5 and pushing towards .1 - or even an absolute 0 - then spiro would be the wrong decision, as spiro is less effective at blocking testosterone than cyproterone. a recent study is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6612061/.
while spiro may have comparable feminizing effects overall, it would seem that a reasonable expectation of t-levels would be around 2.0, which would actually be an increase. as my goal is very specifically to reduce the side effects associated with creeping t-levels, this would appear to be counter-productive. i've seen no research anywhere that suggests that i should expect the spiro to take me to the t-levels i want, which i admit is perhaps lower than most transfemales experience or even want.
i am also concerned about what spiro may do to my heart health. i eat a very large number of bananas and an unusually low level of processed foods (so i don't get much salt), so i would be a bad candidate for a drug that increases potassium levels. i survive largely on fresh fruits and vegetables. i would expect that my potassium levels are already high, as it is, and that my sodium levels are probably a little low. i also have low blood pressure, as it is, from diet and exercise, so i probably shouldn't be taking drugs that are likely to decrease my blood pressure - it could lead to dangerous hypotension, which is what i need to actually be concerned about.
this study also suggests that spiro may reduce my hdl, while cyproterone may increase it:
i know that it's easy enough to look at my cholesterol levels and tell me i have nothing to worry about, but i need to dissent. my father died of a brain tumour in his mid-50s, but he had already had several heart attacks by the time he turned 40, which i will do in january. his youngest brother died of a heart attack in his early 30s, and his father died of a heart attack in his early 50s. my cholesterol levels are low due to great amounts of effort on my behalf to keep them low with diet and lifestyle, which seems to be working. my genetic risk factors are so frightening, that i am very adverse to doing anything at all that might increase them. if my cholesterol is so great, maybe the cyproterone & estrogen is actually helping, and maybe i should keep at it.
lastly, i'm also dealing with an unwanted change in my estrogen delivery systems over the upcoming months that i want to isolate for testing. if i switch from cyproterone to spiro and my estrogen comes way down, i won't know if it's the switch to generics or the switch to spiro that's at fault. i'm also looking at switching back to prometrium, soon. i want to do one thing at a time to ensure that i can properly isolate and understand the effects.
my concern with cyproterone and liver functions was less immediate and more long term. i fully understand that i can't win an arms race with my testicles, in the long run, and that i'm not supposed to be in this situation, in the first place. 11 years on t-blockers is bizarre. my testicles should have been removed ages ago, and i shouldn't be in this mess. however, cancer patients can take up to 300 mg/day of cyproterone before they begin to suffer adverse effects and there is apparently essentially no risk of actual overdose:
https://pdf.hres.ca/dpd_pm/00022190.PDF
this isn't the right answer in the end, and it didn't seem necessary before, but it does now and it's not all that scary for the short term.
this isn't the right answer in the end, and it didn't seem necessary before, but it does now and it's not all that scary for the short term.
so, for all of these reasons, i am proposing that we go to 200 mg of cyproterone instead of switching to the spiro.
however, what i really want is to get them out and, while i understand that elective surgeries are not available right now, i would request some urgency be attached to the matter, as much as is possible. i think i've laid out my case, here.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
the reason i didn't ask for a dose increase last year was that i decided to get the orchiectomy, instead. so, i waited. and waited.
he didn't even fucking mail it.
i should have just asked for the dose increase; i'd probably have avoided the year's worth of difficulty focusing. and, i'm almost certain that's what i'm doing.
he didn't even fucking mail it.
i should have just asked for the dose increase; i'd probably have avoided the year's worth of difficulty focusing. and, i'm almost certain that's what i'm doing.
i had a doctor's appointment today after getting my blood taken a few weeks ago.
my vitals are, as usual, outstanding. but, the t-blockers are decreasing their effectiveness in an increasingly worrying direction, and i found out that he didn't even send the fucking letter to the surgeon, yet.
i noticed this intuitively, to start with, and i actually think it's at the root cause of the problems i'm having with drowsiness and focus. i was feeling anxious and angry and frustrated, and thought i was dealing with cortisol issues or even lead poisoning. but, then i realized my testosterone was going up.
it was at 0.1 four years ago, .2 two years ago, .4 last year and .8 this year. this is the wrong direction!
but, it's not surprising, either. i'm developing a tolerance to the cyproterone acetate, which is a well understood reality of it.
so, if i'm developing a tolerance to the drug, i can either increase the dosage or i can just cut my testicles out. i desperately want my testicles to be put through a fucking incinerator. i want them gone. forever. but, i can't get a doctor to do it.
it's covered. it's simple. it's fast. but, they won't do it.
i was concerned about increasing the cyproterone due to eventual strain on my liver.
so, the doctor suggested i switch to spironolactone instead, and i said "ok", and i even filled a prescription today, but i'm looking into it and i think this was a stupid suggestion.
to begin with, clinical studies seem to suggest that the spironolactone is less effective than the cyproterone acetate, at the dosages i've been prescribed - with the spiro only reducing levels to 2.0, and the cyproterone generally coming in around the 0.8 i'm currently at. so, if i'm trying to get my testosterone back down to .1, the spiro seems unlikely to do it. it's probably going to actually increase it, from what i can see.
second, the spiro seems to reduce hdl, whereas the cyproterone seems to increase it. the doctor is consistently amazed at my cholesterol levels. the cyproterone - which he doesn't usually prescribe - may have something to do with it.
worse, the spiro is often prescribed for heart conditions, which is something i'm not sure i want to fuck with. the cyproterone is simply a safer drug at high concentrations. so, if i'm concerned about complications from high concentrations, moving me to spiro is backwards.
i'm going to do some more research, but i'm leaning heavily towards tossing the spiro and asking him to just boost my cyproterone instead. i'm only taking 100, which is usually considered a maximum dose for trans patients, but appears to be substantively below levels where liver complications are a serious problem.
my vitals are, as usual, outstanding. but, the t-blockers are decreasing their effectiveness in an increasingly worrying direction, and i found out that he didn't even send the fucking letter to the surgeon, yet.
i noticed this intuitively, to start with, and i actually think it's at the root cause of the problems i'm having with drowsiness and focus. i was feeling anxious and angry and frustrated, and thought i was dealing with cortisol issues or even lead poisoning. but, then i realized my testosterone was going up.
it was at 0.1 four years ago, .2 two years ago, .4 last year and .8 this year. this is the wrong direction!
but, it's not surprising, either. i'm developing a tolerance to the cyproterone acetate, which is a well understood reality of it.
so, if i'm developing a tolerance to the drug, i can either increase the dosage or i can just cut my testicles out. i desperately want my testicles to be put through a fucking incinerator. i want them gone. forever. but, i can't get a doctor to do it.
it's covered. it's simple. it's fast. but, they won't do it.
i was concerned about increasing the cyproterone due to eventual strain on my liver.
so, the doctor suggested i switch to spironolactone instead, and i said "ok", and i even filled a prescription today, but i'm looking into it and i think this was a stupid suggestion.
to begin with, clinical studies seem to suggest that the spironolactone is less effective than the cyproterone acetate, at the dosages i've been prescribed - with the spiro only reducing levels to 2.0, and the cyproterone generally coming in around the 0.8 i'm currently at. so, if i'm trying to get my testosterone back down to .1, the spiro seems unlikely to do it. it's probably going to actually increase it, from what i can see.
second, the spiro seems to reduce hdl, whereas the cyproterone seems to increase it. the doctor is consistently amazed at my cholesterol levels. the cyproterone - which he doesn't usually prescribe - may have something to do with it.
worse, the spiro is often prescribed for heart conditions, which is something i'm not sure i want to fuck with. the cyproterone is simply a safer drug at high concentrations. so, if i'm concerned about complications from high concentrations, moving me to spiro is backwards.
i'm going to do some more research, but i'm leaning heavily towards tossing the spiro and asking him to just boost my cyproterone instead. i'm only taking 100, which is usually considered a maximum dose for trans patients, but appears to be substantively below levels where liver complications are a serious problem.
this is the end of this for a while, as i pivot back into period three.
but, here is the complete readable archive of this blog for the first reconstruction phase, from july, 2013 to january, 2014, and for the other three, as well.
the second reconstruction phase ran from february 1, 2014 to the end of june, 2015, when i looped back around to remaster the inri material from source. while the politics and music journal sites are largely reconstructed over this period, i do not intend to get back to rebuilding the travel or dtk blogs in any systematic matter or doing music journal releases until (1) i am in a comfortable flow with the alter-reality and (2) i am finished with period three, which ran roughly from the time i got back from bc in 2003 to the time i moved into the apartment on bronson in 2007. journal releases for the foreseeable future are going to be dated from 1988 or 1989 forwards.
so, that's what's coming up.
but, i need to get through another 11 liner note releases, and update at least inri022, probably others. the coming re-releases are inri031-inri034, inri036-inri041 and inri045.
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-012014-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-012014-music-journal
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-012014-travel-blog
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-012014-deathtokoalas
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-travel-blog/ebook/product-nm4jeq.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-deathtokoalas-blog/ebook/product-zrgr94.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-music-journal/ebook/product-p5v576.html
but, here is the complete readable archive of this blog for the first reconstruction phase, from july, 2013 to january, 2014, and for the other three, as well.
the second reconstruction phase ran from february 1, 2014 to the end of june, 2015, when i looped back around to remaster the inri material from source. while the politics and music journal sites are largely reconstructed over this period, i do not intend to get back to rebuilding the travel or dtk blogs in any systematic matter or doing music journal releases until (1) i am in a comfortable flow with the alter-reality and (2) i am finished with period three, which ran roughly from the time i got back from bc in 2003 to the time i moved into the apartment on bronson in 2007. journal releases for the foreseeable future are going to be dated from 1988 or 1989 forwards.
so, that's what's coming up.
but, i need to get through another 11 liner note releases, and update at least inri022, probably others. the coming re-releases are inri031-inri034, inri036-inri041 and inri045.
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-travel-blog/ebook/product-nm4jeq.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-deathtokoalas-blog/ebook/product-zrgr94.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-music-journal/ebook/product-p5v576.html
i was extra thorough, but i am now satisfied with it.
here are thenoise trade smashwords links to the readable versions of the january, 2014 archives of each of the four blogs, including this one:
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/012014-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/012014-music-journal
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/012014-travel-blog
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/012014-deathtokoalas
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026654 (music)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026655 (politics)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026658 (deathtokoalas)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026660 (travel; full first reconstruction phase)
here are the
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026654 (music)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026655 (politics)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026658 (deathtokoalas)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026660 (travel; full first reconstruction phase)
the actual g7 is:
1. united states
2. china
3. japan
4. germany
5. india
6. france
7. united kingdom
the countries that don't belong there are canada and italy. but, italy can get in with the 8th seed if you want to be more generous.
8. italy
is canada next? no. it's brazil.
9. brazil
then canada.
10. canada
11. russia
however, russia is growing at a much faster rate than we are and will pass us within a year or two.
so, keep trying to exclude others, canada - you're just ensuring your own irrelevance, in the long run.
1. united states
2. china
3. japan
4. germany
5. india
6. france
7. united kingdom
the countries that don't belong there are canada and italy. but, italy can get in with the 8th seed if you want to be more generous.
8. italy
is canada next? no. it's brazil.
9. brazil
then canada.
10. canada
11. russia
however, russia is growing at a much faster rate than we are and will pass us within a year or two.
so, keep trying to exclude others, canada - you're just ensuring your own irrelevance, in the long run.
it's been years since we've had a nice, hot summer in this area of the world.
and i'm going to have to spend it sitting inside fighting with the fucking a/c :(.
with the return of the sun, let's hope the oscillations flip and it's even more humid next year. i want it to hit 20 degrees on april 1st and stay above it nonstop until nov 1st, even overnight.
it seems like i'm just going to have to postpone my 40th birthday until next year, i guess.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/canada-2020-summer-forecast
and i'm going to have to spend it sitting inside fighting with the fucking a/c :(.
with the return of the sun, let's hope the oscillations flip and it's even more humid next year. i want it to hit 20 degrees on april 1st and stay above it nonstop until nov 1st, even overnight.
it seems like i'm just going to have to postpone my 40th birthday until next year, i guess.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/canada-2020-summer-forecast
as usual, dion was right, and his leadership is sorely missed in this dark time of dubya lite.
when am i going to give up on the liberals and just accept that they're gone forever?
but, this was not a long time ago, and it makes you long for better days with more intelligent leaders.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dion-foreign-policy-russia-1.3510941
when am i going to give up on the liberals and just accept that they're gone forever?
but, this was not a long time ago, and it makes you long for better days with more intelligent leaders.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dion-foreign-policy-russia-1.3510941
i agree with trump on this point, and think the decision to expel them in the first place was foolish.
canada's longterm interests are best realized by expanding ties with a country that probably has more in common with canada than any other country in the world, has been there for centuries and isn't going anywhere any time soon. i thought the russians were in trouble around 2014, but they surprised me.
the russians are not our enemies, and do not want to be our enemies. it's time we stopped pretending they are, and started focusing more on containing countries with truly alien, hostile, incompatible cultures - like the saudis.
aimlessly flailing against moscow is simply not acting in our self-interest, and never was.
Monday, June 1, 2020
from what i've heard, the people on the street right now neither sound like anarchists, nor like nazis.
what they sound like is islamists.
what they want is to punish the sinners.
and, i'm growing more and more concerned about the general situation, as we're being forced to wear masks and being coerced to yell biblical slogans, like dark age barbarians.
what they sound like is islamists.
what they want is to punish the sinners.
and, i'm growing more and more concerned about the general situation, as we're being forced to wear masks and being coerced to yell biblical slogans, like dark age barbarians.
you don't have to agree with me completely; it's ok if you don't.
the united states is unusual in the modern world in it's continued embrace of retributive justice. it's a broader social issue in your country, and we're not likely to see eye-to-eye on it. you're likely to want to pluck mine out over it, too.
but, let's all sit down and read through some historical approaches to the question "what is justice?" before we go back to yelling for blood on the streets like a bunch of barbarians. i'm sure we can find some kind of consensus...
the united states is unusual in the modern world in it's continued embrace of retributive justice. it's a broader social issue in your country, and we're not likely to see eye-to-eye on it. you're likely to want to pluck mine out over it, too.
but, let's all sit down and read through some historical approaches to the question "what is justice?" before we go back to yelling for blood on the streets like a bunch of barbarians. i'm sure we can find some kind of consensus...
justice isn't more thuggery, or reverse thuggery, or enlightened thuggery.
justice is putting an end to the thuggery.
justice means reforming the police services to expunge the teaching of thuggery, not tracking down the bad apples and parading their heads around on stakes.
no. shut up. you're wrong. deal with it.
justice is putting an end to the thuggery.
justice means reforming the police services to expunge the teaching of thuggery, not tracking down the bad apples and parading their heads around on stakes.
no. shut up. you're wrong. deal with it.
stop.
my opposition is to judeo-muslim (christians are actually a little better, here) concepts of retributive justice, and the opposition is foundational and deep. i will never side with any political movement calling for increasing punishment of anybody.
i wrote an essay about this a while ago:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/essays/pauchay.html
...but it's actually a constant thread through the site, even if i get a little angry from time to time.
so, in a situation where a cop by all apparent means accidentally kills an unarmed civilian due to his own overwhelming stupidity, what is justice? is it enacting as much retribution on the individual as possible? is it punishing everybody in sight at the highest degree possible?
i must adamantly dissent - no! this is not justice! this is merely a continuation of the cycle of violence. it is barbarism, not justice.
justice is reforming the system so that stupid people are no longer taught stupid things at cop school, and then let loose on the general population to be idiotic thugs with guns. that's justice.
and, that's the movement i'd support, if it was out there.
you people calling for blood and retribution and punishment and think that that's "justice" can do so without me.
my opposition is to judeo-muslim (christians are actually a little better, here) concepts of retributive justice, and the opposition is foundational and deep. i will never side with any political movement calling for increasing punishment of anybody.
i wrote an essay about this a while ago:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/essays/pauchay.html
...but it's actually a constant thread through the site, even if i get a little angry from time to time.
so, in a situation where a cop by all apparent means accidentally kills an unarmed civilian due to his own overwhelming stupidity, what is justice? is it enacting as much retribution on the individual as possible? is it punishing everybody in sight at the highest degree possible?
i must adamantly dissent - no! this is not justice! this is merely a continuation of the cycle of violence. it is barbarism, not justice.
justice is reforming the system so that stupid people are no longer taught stupid things at cop school, and then let loose on the general population to be idiotic thugs with guns. that's justice.
and, that's the movement i'd support, if it was out there.
you people calling for blood and retribution and punishment and think that that's "justice" can do so without me.
this is the last one of these for a while. when i started this project several years ago, i never expected it to take this long. i thought it would be something i could do to blow the time as i weaned myself off of a physical nicotine addiction. as it is, it's taken me longer to compile these journals than it did to write them. it's really been absolutely absurd.
i still need to finish the liner notes for the series of rereleases attached to this journal - inri031-inri034, inri036-inri04 & inri045. these will come up in due time. that will end the first reconstruction phase, which documents my move from ottawa to windsor and the initial series of re-releases that happened as soon as i got here. the first release of new recordings (of old material) was in june, 2014. after realizing how time consuming this is, it could be a while before i get back to the second phase.
i need to put this aside asap and get back to actually finishing the recordings. period 3 starts soon.
======
the seventh entry in the music journal series, which is the month of january, 2014 and is 189 pages long. i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2014/01/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that occurred around me over january, 2014. it includes facebook posts, google+ posts, youtube comments discussions and emails with acquaintances, strangers and family members, in an attempt to document the first reconstruction phase of rebuilding my discography, including remastering and (re)publishing inri031, inri032, inri033, inri034, inri036, inri037, inri038, inri039, inri040, inri041 and inri045. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest, as well as 57 separate txt documents (all html files) that are referenced in the journal.
the events documented in this journal occurred in january, 2014 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2020. journal completed, released and finalized in doc and pdf format on june 1, 2020. doc201401.
credits
released February 1, 2014
j - editing, participant
nick austin - participant
jonathan jaeger - participant
uncle elvis - participant
arod13arod - participant
Nickelpitts - participant
DatzWhatsUp - participant
TheStory SoFar - participant
TrulyHorrifying Productions - participant
Erik Paulson - participant
kurtless guhle - participant
danny shuddup - participant
cklin114 - participant
Matt Gaub - participant
Memphis. Methods - participant
Evanya Parker - participant
Nowell Kishimoto - participant
George Porte - participant
Bearslikejaimie - participant
Adam Moscinski - participant
nana - participant
the oldest aunt's wife - participant
mom - participant
jeff - participant
sister - participant
stepmother - participant
the surviving uncle - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/01-2014-music-journal
i still need to finish the liner notes for the series of rereleases attached to this journal - inri031-inri034, inri036-inri04 & inri045. these will come up in due time. that will end the first reconstruction phase, which documents my move from ottawa to windsor and the initial series of re-releases that happened as soon as i got here. the first release of new recordings (of old material) was in june, 2014. after realizing how time consuming this is, it could be a while before i get back to the second phase.
i need to put this aside asap and get back to actually finishing the recordings. period 3 starts soon.
======
the seventh entry in the music journal series, which is the month of january, 2014 and is 189 pages long. i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2014/01/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that occurred around me over january, 2014. it includes facebook posts, google+ posts, youtube comments discussions and emails with acquaintances, strangers and family members, in an attempt to document the first reconstruction phase of rebuilding my discography, including remastering and (re)publishing inri031, inri032, inri033, inri034, inri036, inri037, inri038, inri039, inri040, inri041 and inri045. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest, as well as 57 separate txt documents (all html files) that are referenced in the journal.
the events documented in this journal occurred in january, 2014 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2020. journal completed, released and finalized in doc and pdf format on june 1, 2020. doc201401.
credits
released February 1, 2014
j - editing, participant
nick austin - participant
jonathan jaeger - participant
uncle elvis - participant
arod13arod - participant
Nickelpitts - participant
DatzWhatsUp - participant
TheStory SoFar - participant
TrulyHorrifying Productions - participant
Erik Paulson - participant
kurtless guhle - participant
danny shuddup - participant
cklin114 - participant
Matt Gaub - participant
Memphis. Methods - participant
Evanya Parker - participant
Nowell Kishimoto - participant
George Porte - participant
Bearslikejaimie - participant
Adam Moscinski - participant
nana - participant
the oldest aunt's wife - participant
mom - participant
jeff - participant
sister - participant
stepmother - participant
the surviving uncle - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/01-2014-music-journal
just to clarify/reiterate/remind what the problem is.
i'm creating these documents in word 2003 because i like the program, because i have a copy of it and because it works just fine. word processing isn't the kind of thing you should have to pay for over and over again. i don't remember where i got the version i have, but somebody paid for it, and that shouldn't expire.
but, i never got used to the office 2007 interface. i was supposed to eventually deal with it, i know; i didn't, and i don't want to now, and i'm never going to. but, they changed the format at the time from .doc to .docx.
this was a substantive change in the way that office files are created. i don't know how the old office files work, but the new office files are using an xml-based architecture that appears to be dramatically different.
unfortunately, converting from .doc to .docx is something that everybody has massive problems with. google, adobe, the free sites and microsoft, too. it breaks the formatting, every time. sadly, the standard way that doc is converted to pdf seems to implement the conversion to docx as an intermediary step. so, if i go to google docs, it will convert my doc file to a docx file first and then convert it to pdf after, which leaves me with a slew of broken formatting, essentially undoing everything i spent the last month doing.
but, i was able to find a workaround at the microsoft cloud that converted directly from doc to pdf. it's the only free site that has that option, that i'm aware of.
this broke on me this morning, and then righted itself, and then broke again, and then fixed itself again. but, i think i squeezed what i need out...
the issue could of course be resolved by fixing the conversion step. i'm labeling it as unnecessary and trying to just avoid it, but if they'd just fucking fix it, it wouldn't be a problem.
regardless, that's something that should be made clear - any .doc file that you download from me will lose it's formatting when converted to .docx format, so you should try to open it in a version of word that lets you open it natively, without having to convert it to xml.
i'm creating these documents in word 2003 because i like the program, because i have a copy of it and because it works just fine. word processing isn't the kind of thing you should have to pay for over and over again. i don't remember where i got the version i have, but somebody paid for it, and that shouldn't expire.
but, i never got used to the office 2007 interface. i was supposed to eventually deal with it, i know; i didn't, and i don't want to now, and i'm never going to. but, they changed the format at the time from .doc to .docx.
this was a substantive change in the way that office files are created. i don't know how the old office files work, but the new office files are using an xml-based architecture that appears to be dramatically different.
unfortunately, converting from .doc to .docx is something that everybody has massive problems with. google, adobe, the free sites and microsoft, too. it breaks the formatting, every time. sadly, the standard way that doc is converted to pdf seems to implement the conversion to docx as an intermediary step. so, if i go to google docs, it will convert my doc file to a docx file first and then convert it to pdf after, which leaves me with a slew of broken formatting, essentially undoing everything i spent the last month doing.
but, i was able to find a workaround at the microsoft cloud that converted directly from doc to pdf. it's the only free site that has that option, that i'm aware of.
this broke on me this morning, and then righted itself, and then broke again, and then fixed itself again. but, i think i squeezed what i need out...
the issue could of course be resolved by fixing the conversion step. i'm labeling it as unnecessary and trying to just avoid it, but if they'd just fucking fix it, it wouldn't be a problem.
regardless, that's something that should be made clear - any .doc file that you download from me will lose it's formatting when converted to .docx format, so you should try to open it in a version of word that lets you open it natively, without having to convert it to xml.
ok.
i think i got it. i had to mess around with a few things, and i may have even just gotten it to avoid the conversion by accident. !.
it's going to be an extra slow process of double checking, so i might not have these finalized for a few more hours, but i think i got what i wanted downloaded and it's just a matter of time before i get these links up.
finally.
i think i got it. i had to mess around with a few things, and i may have even just gotten it to avoid the conversion by accident. !.
it's going to be an extra slow process of double checking, so i might not have these finalized for a few more hours, but i think i got what i wanted downloaded and it's just a matter of time before i get these links up.
finally.
ugh.
microsoft has undone my trick. it won't convert directly from doc to pdf. and the other site i was using wants a credit card, now, because i'm browsing incognito (and can't turn it off).
i don't have access to a newer version of ms word and don't want to pay for it. on top of that, i just don't like the user interface in the new word.
we might have to just not have pdf files, anymore, if nobody is going to let me convert from doc to pdf.
but, why is this happening? i had a method worked out, and they broke it. twice...
microsoft has undone my trick. it won't convert directly from doc to pdf. and the other site i was using wants a credit card, now, because i'm browsing incognito (and can't turn it off).
i don't have access to a newer version of ms word and don't want to pay for it. on top of that, i just don't like the user interface in the new word.
we might have to just not have pdf files, anymore, if nobody is going to let me convert from doc to pdf.
but, why is this happening? i had a method worked out, and they broke it. twice...
i would, in the end, expect the courts to side with speech advocates; i don't think that repealing s. 230 would lead to less legal protections for speech.
the concern is that the companies might not want to go through the process of litigating, and would just ban hammer everything on the slightest complaint, instead.
and, you neo-fascist progressive-conservative brownshirts need to take heed - you'll be the first to go.
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/30/865813960/as-trump-targets-twitters-legal-shield-experts-have-a-warning
the concern is that the companies might not want to go through the process of litigating, and would just ban hammer everything on the slightest complaint, instead.
and, you neo-fascist progressive-conservative brownshirts need to take heed - you'll be the first to go.
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/30/865813960/as-trump-targets-twitters-legal-shield-experts-have-a-warning
Sunday, May 31, 2020
again: i slept all day. and, i wish i knew why i'm so physically exhausted recently.
it's cold in here and it's cold outside, and i think that's a big part of it. i felt better last week when the humidity briefly peaked, and i feel better wrapped up in a hot blanket where i can sweat. so, that's really what i've been doing all day - trying to escape the cold by hiding in a hot blanket. it's going to warm up tomorrow, finally.
but, whether it's the weather or something else, i feel tense and frustrated and depressed and angry, and it's been constant now for weeks and i don't really understand it. i have a lot of work to do, but i'm not able to do it because i'm not able to mentally focus.
the best way to describe the situation is that i feel like i'm on drugs, but i'm not doing any drugs, so i don't understand.
let's just hope it gets better.
i'm going to try to wake up, take a shower, get my hydration up and get to finishing this up.
it's cold in here and it's cold outside, and i think that's a big part of it. i felt better last week when the humidity briefly peaked, and i feel better wrapped up in a hot blanket where i can sweat. so, that's really what i've been doing all day - trying to escape the cold by hiding in a hot blanket. it's going to warm up tomorrow, finally.
but, whether it's the weather or something else, i feel tense and frustrated and depressed and angry, and it's been constant now for weeks and i don't really understand it. i have a lot of work to do, but i'm not able to do it because i'm not able to mentally focus.
the best way to describe the situation is that i feel like i'm on drugs, but i'm not doing any drugs, so i don't understand.
let's just hope it gets better.
i'm going to try to wake up, take a shower, get my hydration up and get to finishing this up.
it's mostly young & healthy people; if it speeds this thing up, it's probably good news.
although there's that diabetes issue to be concerned about with black americans with poor diets.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7008473/george-floyd-protests-coronavirus-outbreak/
although there's that diabetes issue to be concerned about with black americans with poor diets.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7008473/george-floyd-protests-coronavirus-outbreak/
i'd actually rather they brought back the cheaper rates overnight. previously, i could plan my hydro use for off peak hours. now, i'm stuck paying higher rates, whether i like it or not.
but, it's easy to see what the next step is - expect the rates to skyrocket, and for there to be no escape from it.
we probably just lost time of use pricing for good :(.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7007471/coronavirus-ontario-hydro-rates-2/
but, it's easy to see what the next step is - expect the rates to skyrocket, and for there to be no escape from it.
we probably just lost time of use pricing for good :(.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7007471/coronavirus-ontario-hydro-rates-2/
the difference in opinion here comes right out of engels, and i could understand it being confusing to somebody that doesn't have a basic understanding of marxist theory. i hinted at this previously. but, let's talk about the flip side of limited liability, which is corporate personhood.
unlike most of the faux-left, i don't have any particular opposition to the concept of corporate personhood. if anything, i'd like to take the issue to its logical conclusion, although i've been frustrated by that in canada, which separates "legal personhood" from "natural personhood" and allows for different rights protections based on it. so, we can't tax corporations like people, because they're not natural people. alas.
but, this really is right out of engels.
if you haven't read this, do it. i cite it all of the time. it's so very important:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
Before capitalist production — i.e., in the Middle Ages — the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor — land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool — were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day — this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. In the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in detail how since the 15th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these puny means of production into mighty productive forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means of production of the individual into social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men. The spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmith's hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom, the steam-hammer; the individual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands of workmen. In like manner, production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the production from individual to social products. The yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the factory were the joint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successively to pass before they were ready. No one person could say of them: "I made that; this is my product."
when we speak of corporate personhood, we need to put it into this context of the socialization of production eliminating the ability to separate the specific roles of individuals in a corporation. as nobody can claim that this is their product, nobody can assume liability for it; the product is owned only by the corporation, and only the corporation can be held liable for it's defects. this is corporate personhood, regardless of what else you've heard about it.
but, how does the internet work? am i more like the worker on the production line, engaging in but one of a series of social acts that is bringing a product to market? or am i in truth more like the medieval guildsperson, engaging in an act of individual production? i would argue the latter and, as such, would argue against the idea of sharing liability for the product. i can truly say these words in good faith: i made this; this is my product.
so, we're back to the provider as publishing house again, except to point out that the great conflict that occurred in the medieval period was over the commons, and the question of whether there should be private property or not. there were wars and revolutions fought over this question, ending in the conversion of feudalism to capitalism. so, are we going to relive this conflict, as the technology hits a breaking point? should we have publishing houses that buy and sell copyrights or otherwise offer their services for a fee, or should we hold it all in common and provide free and unfettered access to all?
we will need to figure this out.
but, read the engels pamphlet. it's not esoteric; it's meant for workers. it gets the point across very clearly, as to why it is that i'm approaching these things so differently.
unlike most of the faux-left, i don't have any particular opposition to the concept of corporate personhood. if anything, i'd like to take the issue to its logical conclusion, although i've been frustrated by that in canada, which separates "legal personhood" from "natural personhood" and allows for different rights protections based on it. so, we can't tax corporations like people, because they're not natural people. alas.
but, this really is right out of engels.
if you haven't read this, do it. i cite it all of the time. it's so very important:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
Before capitalist production — i.e., in the Middle Ages — the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor — land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool — were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day — this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. In the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in detail how since the 15th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these puny means of production into mighty productive forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means of production of the individual into social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men. The spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmith's hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom, the steam-hammer; the individual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands of workmen. In like manner, production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the production from individual to social products. The yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the factory were the joint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successively to pass before they were ready. No one person could say of them: "I made that; this is my product."
when we speak of corporate personhood, we need to put it into this context of the socialization of production eliminating the ability to separate the specific roles of individuals in a corporation. as nobody can claim that this is their product, nobody can assume liability for it; the product is owned only by the corporation, and only the corporation can be held liable for it's defects. this is corporate personhood, regardless of what else you've heard about it.
but, how does the internet work? am i more like the worker on the production line, engaging in but one of a series of social acts that is bringing a product to market? or am i in truth more like the medieval guildsperson, engaging in an act of individual production? i would argue the latter and, as such, would argue against the idea of sharing liability for the product. i can truly say these words in good faith: i made this; this is my product.
so, we're back to the provider as publishing house again, except to point out that the great conflict that occurred in the medieval period was over the commons, and the question of whether there should be private property or not. there were wars and revolutions fought over this question, ending in the conversion of feudalism to capitalism. so, are we going to relive this conflict, as the technology hits a breaking point? should we have publishing houses that buy and sell copyrights or otherwise offer their services for a fee, or should we hold it all in common and provide free and unfettered access to all?
we will need to figure this out.
but, read the engels pamphlet. it's not esoteric; it's meant for workers. it gets the point across very clearly, as to why it is that i'm approaching these things so differently.
and, what about this issue of liability and s. 230?
well, i went through the long version of this previously - either the platform owns the content, or the user does, and this kind of in between reality is sort of muddling it up.
as a heavy user of these services, my primary concern with this discussion is the potential outcome that i may lose ownership over my content. i'm happy to take full responsibility for what i'm posting, for better or worse. just don't mess with my content.
i've argued against the concept of limited liability in investments rather heavily, but i actually don't see the parallel, here, and kind of take exception to the language as it was used in the executive order. limited liability allows shareholders to invest in unethical corporations without being liable for the crimes they commit, which could include genocide, rape and environmental desecration - the worst things that humans can do, and they're done all the time by resource & extraction companies. these are terrible rights abuses that need to be ended and i am quite confident that eliminating the shield that shareholders have from the actions of the companies they invest in would have a huge effect on their investment decisions.
are we going to compare posting a mean tweet to burning down a village in guatemala, or the deepwater horizon oil spill? it's a difference of scale that is so tremendous as to be bluntly comical to even consider.
so, do i think that we should make these companies liable for the content of their users in order to stop them from being so mean on the internet? would this eliminate the profit motive in hosting the content? well, broadly speaking, i'm not sure there'd be a lot of liability in most cases, anyways, so long as users own the content, but it would give the hosting companies a greater excuse to take down content they don't like, and more of a prerogative to be proactive in policing speech - which is a bad thing to anybody that believes in free speech, even if this creepy new breed of progressive/conservative seems to think it's so important for some reason. i actually don't think that the law as it exists is really making much of anybody much of any extra money (just about the only thing you could actually prosecute is libel), but it is allowing for a more open internet by preventing the companies from acting like actuaries.
that said, if people feel that laws against things like libel are not being strongly enough enforced, then steps should be taken to better focus actions against the specific actors being accused of breaking the law.
further, i would support a greater role for the courts in determining what kind of speech is acceptable and what kind of speech isn't. decisions should be subject to appeal and rooted in precedent, not made on the whim of some faceless corporate executive in an empty suit, based on opinions about ad revenue.
limited liability is a major problem in existing capitalism. we shouldn't be allowed to invest in companies that we know do bad things, and be shielded from the consequences of it. but, i just don't see the connection between the need to reign in investor rights and s. 230 of the communications decency act in the united states; the former is a pressing concern that should be at the front of the political agenda on the left, whereas the latter is largely a triviality, except in it's negative implications for the intellectual property rights of internet platform users.
go after the users, not the companies.
well, i went through the long version of this previously - either the platform owns the content, or the user does, and this kind of in between reality is sort of muddling it up.
as a heavy user of these services, my primary concern with this discussion is the potential outcome that i may lose ownership over my content. i'm happy to take full responsibility for what i'm posting, for better or worse. just don't mess with my content.
i've argued against the concept of limited liability in investments rather heavily, but i actually don't see the parallel, here, and kind of take exception to the language as it was used in the executive order. limited liability allows shareholders to invest in unethical corporations without being liable for the crimes they commit, which could include genocide, rape and environmental desecration - the worst things that humans can do, and they're done all the time by resource & extraction companies. these are terrible rights abuses that need to be ended and i am quite confident that eliminating the shield that shareholders have from the actions of the companies they invest in would have a huge effect on their investment decisions.
are we going to compare posting a mean tweet to burning down a village in guatemala, or the deepwater horizon oil spill? it's a difference of scale that is so tremendous as to be bluntly comical to even consider.
so, do i think that we should make these companies liable for the content of their users in order to stop them from being so mean on the internet? would this eliminate the profit motive in hosting the content? well, broadly speaking, i'm not sure there'd be a lot of liability in most cases, anyways, so long as users own the content, but it would give the hosting companies a greater excuse to take down content they don't like, and more of a prerogative to be proactive in policing speech - which is a bad thing to anybody that believes in free speech, even if this creepy new breed of progressive/conservative seems to think it's so important for some reason. i actually don't think that the law as it exists is really making much of anybody much of any extra money (just about the only thing you could actually prosecute is libel), but it is allowing for a more open internet by preventing the companies from acting like actuaries.
that said, if people feel that laws against things like libel are not being strongly enough enforced, then steps should be taken to better focus actions against the specific actors being accused of breaking the law.
further, i would support a greater role for the courts in determining what kind of speech is acceptable and what kind of speech isn't. decisions should be subject to appeal and rooted in precedent, not made on the whim of some faceless corporate executive in an empty suit, based on opinions about ad revenue.
limited liability is a major problem in existing capitalism. we shouldn't be allowed to invest in companies that we know do bad things, and be shielded from the consequences of it. but, i just don't see the connection between the need to reign in investor rights and s. 230 of the communications decency act in the united states; the former is a pressing concern that should be at the front of the political agenda on the left, whereas the latter is largely a triviality, except in it's negative implications for the intellectual property rights of internet platform users.
go after the users, not the companies.
i mean, what twitter is essentially doing is providing a filtering service and then forcing it down on users, who may or may not appreciate it. that's kind of what's being lost, here. we're all arguing about first amendment rights and private property, but what about user choice?
if they feel this is important, that's their prerogative. fine.
but, users should be given the choice as to whether they want their feeds filtered or not, and maybe they could even open it up to different types of filtering that different users would have more interest in.
that's a workable compromise, isn't it?
if they feel this is important, that's their prerogative. fine.
but, users should be given the choice as to whether they want their feeds filtered or not, and maybe they could even open it up to different types of filtering that different users would have more interest in.
that's a workable compromise, isn't it?
what do i think twitter should do?
well, it needs to be able to allow the user to determine whether it's interested in it's opinions or not, to start. as a user, i don't care what twitter thinks. i didn't subscribe to twitter, and i'm not interested in having them interfere with the content i did subscribe to. so, to begin with, as user, i should have the ability to tell twitter that i don't care what it thinks, and i don't want it to interfere with my feed, ever, at all. that is to say that it's warnings and what not should be a user-configurable setting, rather than a site-wide decision.
that would mean that doing things like disabling comments and shares should never happen, ever.
second, any opinions that twitter wishes to express should be presented in parallel to those expressed by it's users, rather than on top of them. so, rather than put a disclaimer over top of a feed item, they should present a second item in the feed for people to interact with, if they decide to - or not interact with, if they don't want to. as mentioned previously, this should be user-configurable. and, maybe you could even granularize it; i might not be interested in twitter's opinions on what is true and what isn't, but i'd be happy to remove any posts from my feed that have to do with the proselytization of any type of religion.
something like this would be a proper balance that would allow twitter the ability to express it's views without stifling the views of it's users, and while allowing it's users to decide which views it feels are more worthwhile.
well, it needs to be able to allow the user to determine whether it's interested in it's opinions or not, to start. as a user, i don't care what twitter thinks. i didn't subscribe to twitter, and i'm not interested in having them interfere with the content i did subscribe to. so, to begin with, as user, i should have the ability to tell twitter that i don't care what it thinks, and i don't want it to interfere with my feed, ever, at all. that is to say that it's warnings and what not should be a user-configurable setting, rather than a site-wide decision.
that would mean that doing things like disabling comments and shares should never happen, ever.
second, any opinions that twitter wishes to express should be presented in parallel to those expressed by it's users, rather than on top of them. so, rather than put a disclaimer over top of a feed item, they should present a second item in the feed for people to interact with, if they decide to - or not interact with, if they don't want to. as mentioned previously, this should be user-configurable. and, maybe you could even granularize it; i might not be interested in twitter's opinions on what is true and what isn't, but i'd be happy to remove any posts from my feed that have to do with the proselytization of any type of religion.
something like this would be a proper balance that would allow twitter the ability to express it's views without stifling the views of it's users, and while allowing it's users to decide which views it feels are more worthwhile.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
the lieutenant governor of minnesota is claiming that the riots over the death of the black man are being instigated by white supremacists.
let's just think that through for a minute.
but, you should recognize that this is reflective of the level of much of the discourse coming from the democrats, nowadays, who see themselves as so utterly reliant on black voters that they're willing to bend the truth in any direction possible. and, in a state like minnesota, which is overwhelmingly white, it makes you wonder if that narrative came down from head office.
she then claimed that the white supremacists were working with anarchists, which is an equally ridiculous claim. you might not like us, but try to understand us. we reject any sort of hierarchy - including hierarchies of race - on first principles.
it's literally a suggestion that communists and nazis are working together to burn down the city.
but, what's going on, here, in the wider context? there have been similar deaths recently, but these things only seem to happen during economic recessions, don't they? is this happening separately from the fiasco with the virus?
there's two ways to parse this.
1) this is some kind of disaster capitalism, and it's going to be used as an excuse to bring in martial law. i would have argued loudly against this as recently as two months ago, but i told you to read the handmaid's tale. is this the next phase of this?
2) this is what happens when you have millions and millions of unemployed young people. maybe you sent them checks, but they're still unemployed, and they obviously have nothing better to do.
frankly, i could think of worse ways to waste your time than burning down the police station, but that's only a start. and, i wonder. should i be out there on the street? what kind of revolutionary potential is building right now? and how controlled is it, in the sense of being generated to justify an increasingly draconian lockdown on our civil rights?
let's just think that through for a minute.
but, you should recognize that this is reflective of the level of much of the discourse coming from the democrats, nowadays, who see themselves as so utterly reliant on black voters that they're willing to bend the truth in any direction possible. and, in a state like minnesota, which is overwhelmingly white, it makes you wonder if that narrative came down from head office.
she then claimed that the white supremacists were working with anarchists, which is an equally ridiculous claim. you might not like us, but try to understand us. we reject any sort of hierarchy - including hierarchies of race - on first principles.
it's literally a suggestion that communists and nazis are working together to burn down the city.
but, what's going on, here, in the wider context? there have been similar deaths recently, but these things only seem to happen during economic recessions, don't they? is this happening separately from the fiasco with the virus?
there's two ways to parse this.
1) this is some kind of disaster capitalism, and it's going to be used as an excuse to bring in martial law. i would have argued loudly against this as recently as two months ago, but i told you to read the handmaid's tale. is this the next phase of this?
2) this is what happens when you have millions and millions of unemployed young people. maybe you sent them checks, but they're still unemployed, and they obviously have nothing better to do.
frankly, i could think of worse ways to waste your time than burning down the police station, but that's only a start. and, i wonder. should i be out there on the street? what kind of revolutionary potential is building right now? and how controlled is it, in the sense of being generated to justify an increasingly draconian lockdown on our civil rights?
this is not a conspiracy theory.
this is reality.
the tactic was invented by bismarck and has appeared in virtually every public protest for the last 150 years.
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-protesters-social-media-users-suspicious-of-umbrella-man-2020-5
this is reality.
the tactic was invented by bismarck and has appeared in virtually every public protest for the last 150 years.
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-protesters-social-media-users-suspicious-of-umbrella-man-2020-5
so, i'm not going to tell people to stay in. go riot.
but, i will ask you to pick your targets more carefully, and question your leadership if they seem to be trying to distract you.
why are they inciting you to burn down a mcdonalds, or a local clothing store? are the people doing that perhaps what is called agents provocateurs? i don't know; i'm not on the ground. work out your own deductions.
instead of burning the shopping district down, why don't you burn down a police station or a city hall, instead?
but, i will ask you to pick your targets more carefully, and question your leadership if they seem to be trying to distract you.
why are they inciting you to burn down a mcdonalds, or a local clothing store? are the people doing that perhaps what is called agents provocateurs? i don't know; i'm not on the ground. work out your own deductions.
instead of burning the shopping district down, why don't you burn down a police station or a city hall, instead?
mike is making what is a common error in reactions to these events - he wants retribution, which he calls "justice". so, he wants to go after the prosecutors. he wants to send these "bad apples" to jail. it's the same response you see over and over...
but, what is the point of sending these cops to jail if the academy just replaces them with four more that think exactly the same way?
this is systemic, and you have to go after the root causes, which are in the way that police are taught to act. it's not an accident that this happens over and over - it's the system. they're not "bad apples". it's by design.
i know you don't want to think of it like this, but sending these cops to jail isn't any more useful than sending some low level crack dealers on the street to jail. it addresses something emotional, it expresses something religious, but it is an absolutely useless step in actually solving the actual problem.
but, what is the point of sending these cops to jail if the academy just replaces them with four more that think exactly the same way?
this is systemic, and you have to go after the root causes, which are in the way that police are taught to act. it's not an accident that this happens over and over - it's the system. they're not "bad apples". it's by design.
i know you don't want to think of it like this, but sending these cops to jail isn't any more useful than sending some low level crack dealers on the street to jail. it addresses something emotional, it expresses something religious, but it is an absolutely useless step in actually solving the actual problem.
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