I really miss Jem tonight.

Conversation on IRC tonight is following the same train of thought that’s been on my mind all evening. What books influenced your view of the world? Especially gender roles came up today — The Berenstein Bears in particular came up negatively, but nightlarke mentioned Dragonsinger, which was overwhelmingly positive for me, as were the characters of Killashandra in Crystal Singer, Sassinak in Sassinak and Generation Warriors and Petra in Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

Stereotypes are something I’ve always been highly sensitive to, and had my own perceptions of. I definitely grew up in a post-feminist era, but in a house with my dad bringing home the tofu, so to speak, for most of my life. Mom was an at-home mom, perhaps so enlightened as to believe in mothering-as-an-important-job, not the post-feminist we-can-work-too. My sister (whom I’ve looked up to as I might an older sister, despite her being younger) is very much can-do, as well. There’s no notion of “feminine weakness” in my family. I was exposed to a very healthy (in my mind) idea of femininity early on — not sheltered from negative versions, as one might expect of homeschool-socialization.

The characters of Sassinak and Petra were both amazingly strong, wonderful, rich characters without making the characters around them weak — male or female. They didn’t carry the manipulative, nasty stereotypes that female characters have so often in science fiction.

My {office,home} is

{overflowing,drowning,brimming} in a

{sea,ocean,river,torrent} of {disused,rejected,ancient} {computers,monitors,printers}.

It dreams of {rest,death,collapse}

There is no love.

They are cast off, from a {corporate,greedy} world.

Rejected.

Torn.

Alone.

I just got off the phone with my old employer Aaron! Really good talk about the world and stuff… and wow.

The world is a really tiny place.

I remember after the sweat-lodge at Camp, coming out, and even though I was covered in dirt from sitting on damp ground for hours, looking up at the sky, and having a water-bottle dripped on my face, on my body, and the feeling was that of being utterly new, pure and clean inside, and the sensation so intense it was as if I’d never felt rain or water-drops or grass under my back before.

nightlarke pointed out that the Dragonsinger book by Anne McCaffery is a powerful coming-of-age piece. It influenced my life a lot, and even more so, Sassinak shaped a huge piece of my identity.

Pictures of Jem is Love

The dock now supports workspaces intelligently. This makes me pleased.

angry_otter mentioned this flash animation, and it made me happy too.

If I had a spare lifetime, I would save a bunch of money and put together a recording studio in a big warehouse building where you wouldn’t expect it at all. More likely, I’d take up the huge space with all sorts of projects: A recording studio, an art workshop, perhaps a wood and metals shop, too.

All the Rammstein in my music collection was given to me by anandabrat, whom I fell in love with talking about Classical music. Almost all the soft soothing music was given to me by a grouchy curmudgeon who I respect a lot. See a pattern here?

I got tagged by, surprise to me, tsunobrat. Here goes.

Total number of books owned

Two hundred or so — I’ve always been the sort to read things borrowed, rather than owning them. At age 13, though, the circulation count on one of eight stickers on my library card was 2,500.

The last book I bought

“Programming Ruby”, by Andy Hunt, Dave Thomas, et al. At the same time, “The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed”, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet, and promptly loaned to a friend.

The last book I read

And had time to finish, “The Left Hand of Darkness”, by Ursula Leguin, I think.

I keep starting “Quicksilver”, but I keep getting distracted just before it gets good.

Five books that mean a lot to me

1. “The Left Hand of Darkness“, by Ursula Leguin. It deals with gender identity issues quite gracefully, without being entirely about them;
2. “Ender’s Game”, by Orson Scott Card, because in addition to being really good, reminds me of someone who goes by the name Petra on occasion;
3. “Speaker for the Dead”, by Orson Scott Card, for being among the most juicy philosophical books in existence — enough so that a book reading club of mostly old ladies who hate science fiction can read it, enjoy it, and have the best discussion of the year about it;
4. “Winnie the Pooh”, by A. A. Milne, also for its philosophical qualities, not to mention the wonderful memories of reading it with anandabrat. Honorable mention to ”And Now We Are Six” for good childhood memories. Contrariwise, I did not enjoy “The Tao of Pooh” very much, since it ends up talking about philosophy more than simply illustrating it.
5. “Wonders, Inc.” for best childhood book. It’s where my sense of punnery developed from, aside from my father.

Infect five people

• lypanov,
• horseygurl88,
• raijna,
• kindrom,
• and since zinniazayda has already done this, ladyjausserande since her list is great.

Also waiting for pseudomammal and julieclipse but I dun tag them because vruba already did. doni_dyke01 is also sure to have a good list.

I just read a very insightful article on statistics and programmers. Go Zedas.

This on AIM, via the Jabber gateway:

myfriend@mygateway: Hello. This is an Aim control setting. We’re sorry to bring to you that you have deleted from one of our clients buddy lists. We would like to being fact that we are now advertising new movies a music. Our website features all the latest artists. Have a wondeful day. http://www.aol.com

Has anyone ever seen this before?

When forced to use windows, at least it’s possible to make it look okay.