bloggable bits

[rax]

Random things:

• This morning Krinn convinced me not to write a mail client with the most effective threat I have ever had made to me. (Recently our office mail server upgraded, and while in theory getting new webmail and access to Apple Mail and Outlook 2012 should make things better, each of those three clients has some critical flaw I can't chase down that makes me have to run a minimum of two of them at all times. I now understand why people write mail clients.) She said: "If you try to write a mail client, all of your Shaymins will stop smiling." I think I actually gasped. The image is SO SAD. Good work, Krinn. <3
• I dreamt last night about being part of a band that did abstract process-as-performance shows where we dragged beanbag chairs on stage and had shitty rehearsals at various venues. It was awesome. I think the other members of the band were punk kids from our Pokemon league and from Albuquerque's. If no one has done this schtick yet, someone should. *finger on nose*
• rushthatspeaks 's blog (and in particular this book review) got me thinking about generation ships --- which, if I understand correctly, are giant spaeships meant to serve as a habitat for many generations of human as they go off to colonize some new planet. I mean, I have never actually read a book or really consumed any media that used generation ships, because I'm a very sporadic consumer of science fiction, but the idea in and of itself makes sense and has some plausibility benefits over AND THEN THEY WOKE UP FROM CRYOSTASIS ON "EARTH, BUT WITH CAT PEOPLE" or what have you. What it did get me thinking about was Lyotard's essay "Can Thought Go On Without A Body?," which I am pretty sure is in The Inhuman. He talks about the difficulty of producing machines capable of thought, with the idea of sending them outside of the sphere of influence of the sun so that  thought will persist after the sun explodes/implodes/whatever. The reason he thinks it wouldn't work is that machines don't have gender --- that is, some difference between some fo them that has an almost religious inscrutability and implies the imbrication of the other with the self. Or something, I'm butchering his argument. The point is, if I take that argument at face value, I actually think generation ships could be the cure for gender, if that inscrutable difference as expressed in the people on the generation ship was the difference between the people who did and didn't stay on Earth. Maybe? I dunno. Been chewing on it, figured I'd share. (Also: Does gender need a cure? "Curing gender" is not unproblematic, but boy are there some interesting thought experiments and maybe stories in here. Haha. "Boy." GENDER WHY)
• It turns out I can make fairly spicy lentil curry by just milling good black pepper into it until my arms are tired and then asking someone else to do the same. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I have been trying and failing to make reasonable curry since losing nightshades from my diet, and apparently the trick was to start from an Ethiopian recipe and modify, rather than starting from an Indian one? Once I've got it at "I know what I'm doing" I will post a recipe or something.
• I hate to do anything that even comes off as complaining about weather when I know a number of my friends are still stuck under snowdrifts, but on Sunday Rik and I walked for five miles or so and it was cold enough with the wind that my legs were covered in hives. Stupid cold allergy, and arguably, stupid me for walking five miles in shorts in February. It seems mostly better although my calves are still itchy as all get out, and while this is mostly not a huge deal I scratch in my sleep. :( I think as fashion disastery as this is, the best solution I have without spending money might be shorts, leg warmers, and sandals. ... ... ... how does one go about selecting good hiking pants? I don't know how to garment.
• There's still a long-form life update email... coming... soon... ish? Hope y'all are doing well!

Comments

[ranyart]

On the subject of hiking pants, I find that ones with a lot of knee room or that are otherwise baggy are important (so they don't get tight in the knee or thigh when I'm clambering up something), and something that's a lighter/more breathable fabric is preferrable to denim. A lot of outdoorsy places sell pants that are all or mostly cotton but are a thinner material. Some have ridiculous numbers of pockets, which may or may not be a plus for you.
Of course, I went hiking a bunch this past week in jeans and jean-like things, so clearly I'm not really following my own advice. But if I was up for clothes shopping more often vs. cowering in fear at the thought I'd probably go to an outdoor supply place and get something a bit more appropriate. Some of them even zip off into shorts, which can be helpful.

[pseudogeek]

On subject of machine not having gender, I'm a bit confused because aren't most AI created with a gender in mind, named with a gendered name and given a body or avatar of said gender? Humans usually don't create genderless AIs. This means the machines, having a gendered mind, would have a gender. Unless it's the few genderless ones. And it's not even that imbrication of self with another requires the existence of gender? All it requires is a desire and a capacity for said imbrication. What did he think of bacteria sex between two (presumably) genderless bacteria? Some bacteria have no sex as we know it and probably no gender, but has this thing where they form a bridge between themselves and exchange genetic codes. They don't have two types of shapes where one shape can only exchange with another shape. Gender isn't required for this kind of thing. Plus we have homosexual relationships, and the imbrication happen between them without the need of plurality of gender.

...What does gender do, anyway? Is there a purpose to it? Is it merely a by-product of having two sexes? Is it for diversity?

(Now I'm tempted to revive my abandoned sci-fi novel project. If only to play around with ideas.)

[pyrrhocorax]

I often wonder what gender actually is. It feels much more important and fundamental than just a preference like a favourite colour, but why? Even people who identify as not having a gender are usually very firm about their un-genderdness. It's a big deal to us and I have no idea why. ??GENDER??

[3rdofjune]

WRT artificial intelligence, the sticking point that I keep returning to is that thinking/intelligence/mind don't actually exist in themselves; they're metaphors we use to describe an aspect of embodied life. So a "machine that thinks" would be a kind of artificial body, rather than a program simulating an aspect of brain activity, which might reveal a lot about the way our own brains work but wouldn't have a sense of their own existence.

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

Dust, by Elizabeth Bear, is about a generation ship that sort of got lost, so it turns into a fantasy story. Recommended, with warnings for incest and a frustrating ending. I think I remember it engaging a bit with notions of gender and identity differentiation. (I feel like race/caste has had some association with trumping gendered sorting in the past, but always in otherwise-problematic ways that seem to make things worse and leave the gender differentiation of the hegemonic un-questioned, but that shouldn't discourage future explorations of alternative non-gender differentiation schemes.)

Good hiking pants are soft enough not to chafe and sturdy enough not to fall apart. Softer cargo pants are classic, as is long-underwear-under-other-pants, so the pants rub against the leggings instead of one's legs.

[crankycoyote.livejournal.com]

how does one go about selecting good hiking pants?

I like hiking pants that are durable and baggy, and I tend to avoid cotton because it doesn't dry quickly and that can be bad in the mountains when you fuck up. For the desert, I use REI convertible pants in the summer, or cargo/tactical pants in the winter. I like my 5.11 Taclite Pros because they have lots of pockets and reinforced knees, and the knees are the first to go on all of my pants. I've never needed long underwear in the desert except overnight, but the newer synthetic long underwear (you'll hear it called a 'base layer' in outdoorsy stores because people like fancy new things) is quite comfortable, either underneath something or just by itself if it's a calm day.


The reason he thinks it wouldn't work is that machines don't have gender --- that is, some difference between some fo them that has an almost religious inscrutability and implies the imbrication of the other with the self

That reasoning seems to me to be based on a highly anthropocentric view of sentience and sapience, but there's a lot of assumptions there - especially regarding what gender is and isn't - that I'm not sure I have the background to properly unpack.

Charlie Stross had some blog posts that I thought were interesting on the viability of generation ships though:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/designing_society_for_posterit.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/on_the_road_yet_again_and_agai.html

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

generation ship book suggestion: Wolfe, "The Book of the Long Sun". Assuming you have the time in your life for a BIG HONKIN' TETRAOLOGY.

Also the cliche for generation ships is "slow descent into savagery and complete forgetting of the Original Mission."

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I have recently been interested in the SeV stuff from ThinkGeek, and finding the original source led me to: http://www.scottevest.com/v3_store/Convertible_Travel_Pants.shtml

I am grumpy that none of the women's sizing goes anywhere near my size and I don't know how you feel about gendered pants. I wish I could get one of those cute trenches that hold ~everything. But I can't. So I completely can't vouch for this brand at all and have no idea, but I love clever pockets. Also the jacket to vest that uses magnets, that's interesting.

Probably you should get cheaper cargo pants, though, at least to start.