Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie
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About the author: Elisabeth in early 2007, photo by Todd Belf
Elisabeth "Lis" Riba is an infovore with an MLS. This is her place to share whatever's on her mind, on topics both personal and political. [more]
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Thursday, May 19, 2005
Waah!
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:45 PM

I guess Simmons finally noticed I graduated two years ago, because I no longer have access to electronic resources thru their library website.

Nooooo!

Need my online OED! Need sneaky access to our competitors' products...

I love my husband and how he thinks:

My gut reaction upon realizing this was that I need a subscription to the online OED, but they're a bit pricy for my needs. [Where's the pay-per-use service?]

Ian's response was that I clearly need to take some more classes: I'll get access back if I'm a student again. I could enjoy that. :)

The company's tuition reimbursement doesn't kick in until I've been with the company for a year, but since I have been using my computer access directly to benefit the company...

[Or, somewhat between these two options, I wonder if I couldn't just petition Simmons for reinstatement of my computer access for a nominal fee...]

In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor inconvenience. But in the meantime, I'm missing my immediate gratification etymologies. Waah!

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Milestone
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:10 AM

Remember the SAT analogy format?

Pearl Harbor : 9/11 :: VJ Day : today*

That's right. According to Angry Bear, the same amount of time has passed since 9/11 as between Pearl Harbor and the victory over Japan.

Do you feel that we've made a comparable amount of progress as our predecessors did sixty years ago?


* Or maybe tomorrow. The online sources say it's today, but when I did the arithmatic, I came up with tomorrow's date. Either way, it's close enough to be worth posting now. [via Seeing the Forest]

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Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Commencement address...
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:05 PM

And given my previous post, why does this week's Free Will Astrology horoscope feel so worrisome?

It's graduation time for you, Cancerian. Maybe you're finishing up work at an actual school, or maybe your classroom has been in the streets, but in any case you're completing lessons you've been studying for many moons. Personally, I've enjoyed watching you work. It has been a pleasure seeing you evolve from an innocent amateur into a proficient veteran without losing your purity. As you journey on to your next challenge, I hope you'll find a way to use the expertise you've developed even as you cultivate maximum curiosity about the next frontier.

It's funny. Earlier today, I had reason to email one of my former coworkers at Lotus. I considered trying to sum up the last three years for him, but all I could think of worth mentioning was: (1) earning my Masters' degree, (2) my current job, and (3) this weblog, kvelling that I've obtained press credentials with several Shakespeare companies.

I started blogging when and because I left Lotus. Just over three years now. If you have the time and patience, you can probably see my evolution from innocent amateur into the veteran blogger I am today (I'll leave it to you readers to evaluate my proficiency). I'm not sure about "purity" -- I certainly feel more cynical, but that may just be advancing age.

At any rate, now I'm facing the loss of my computer, I wonder what might be the next challenge or next frontier ahead. I have no interest in podcasting, because I write better than I speak. And yet, my time for blogging has already been squeezed by work and other activities. So where do we go from here? Something I'll have to ponder.

[Another possibility for this horoscope that occurred to me is the fact that I've finally completed and posted online my first written fiction since college, but that doesn't ring true because I still feel in the middle of that journey.]

Any other suggestions for aspects needing this kind of self-examination?

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Carp.
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:30 PM

Among the things I've been planning to demand from insurance has been a thorough cleaning of all our computers. It's unlikely there was enough soot in our apartment to cause problems, but I figured better safe than sorry.

I considered it a low-priority task (less important than making our apartment habitable), but intended to get an estimate from Tech Fusion this week for insurance's approval.

This evening, I powered up my computer and instead of booting up, got the following message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

Lovely...

I tried Safe Mode, I tried "Boot Using Last Known Good Configuration" -- neither worked.

So, I guess the computer's going into the shop tomorrow for cleaning and full backup (I sure as hell hope I won't lose any data (and I include my installed programs and configurations in that statement)) and now repair as well. Or, depending how much cleaning and repair costs, maybe I can get insurance to spring for a replacement (assuming they can backup/mirror my existing drives: if they can't, expect some serious emotional upheaval). Too bad the sale/rebates on Ian's new laptop are already over.

Anyway, things may get (reluctantly) quiet around here for a while again.

I'm writing this on Ian's computer. And I've already missed my self-assigned deadline for completing my review of Julius Caesar by The Actors' Shakespeare Project (now playing in Central Square, Cambridge!)

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Beef or Possum? Or Bacon?
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 AM

Prominent rightwing homophobes are being exposed as closeted homosexuals again.

Dave Johnson puts it quite succinctly:

Frank Rich asks Just How Gay Is the Right?

I'll say it a little clearer: The rabidly anti-homosexual wingnuts are obviously gay and ashamed of it.

Why else would they be insisting that the presence of gay people risks "luring" straight people to become homosexual? This wouldn't even occur to a person who is not fighting such urges.

Why else would they be insisting that being gay is a "lifestyle choice?" These are people who think they can act straight, and are fighting their impulses every minute of their lives.

It's obvious. And it's why so any of them DO turn out to be gay and living double lives.

He then points to a very funny essay on what choices are... and aren't:

OK, let's say that you are sitting at a steakhouse. The waiter tells and shows you how fresh and marbled and great-looking the porterhouse and the New York strip are. You agree, and you go ahead and pick the porterhouse, although if you were served the strip by accident, you could happily eat it. [...]

When two or more things have significant and/or approximately equal appeal to you, but you take one of them, either arbitrarily or due to relatively minor differences, that is a choice.

All right, let's go back to the steakhouse. This time they bring out a beautiful porterhouse and a fresh road-kill possum. Do you see the difference? Only someone who was truly fond of possum and beef would see it as a choice. There is at least the chance that someone that fond of possum, would not care for the beef at all.

Makes an awful lot of sense. How can something be considered a choice if the alternative holds no temptation?

I don't perceive homosexuality as a choice, in general or for myself. Regarding my own orientation, I've considered the matter, had maybe one crisis of conscience moment of doubt when I was younger, but came away from it pretty firmly resolved that I'm het. My own orientation is a closed issue as far as I'm concerned.

For there to be real choice, though, there have to be items or issues of nearly equal appeal. So it would appear that if you believe that sexuality is a choice, it is because for you, it is. It is because both sexes are near equal in their appeal to you, and you are simply assuming that everyone else is like you are.

In other words, those most hung up on the notion of sexual orientation as choice are the ones struggling the most with it.

And all this makes me want to dredge up an old entry of Ian's that I posted last October. Pardon the rerun:

There's something that has struck me as really, really odd about how a certain segment of the right-wing talks about homosexuality. There are a whole bunch of comments that I'd been hearing for months which all have an underlying assumption that "homosexuality is incredibly attractive." I'm not going to mention specific quotes, mainly because I found them somewhat disquieting and I don't want to think about them, but there were about half a dozen quotes from Republican congresscritters and pundits which made no sense to me until I applied that filter to them, and they then started to make sense. Things like, "If you COULD sleep with men, why would you ever sleep with women, since men would understand your body better?"

And this finally gave me a way to think about and understand their position.

Y'see, I belong to a religion which forbids me to sleep with men and to eat bacon. As it turns out, I have done both.

Bacon is better.

I know perfectly well that not everyone feels that way. There are plenty of people who just plain don't like pork products. Some people are grossed out by them. Some are grossed out by meat in general, some just find pigs disgusting. And I know for a fact that there are really quite a number of people out there who rather like the concept of having sex with men. I've dated some of them. [In case it's unclear, he's talking about women. Mostly. -- Lis]

But for me, bacon is far more tempting than sex with guys is.

So, I started thinking. How would I look at the world if I really took my religion's prohibition against bacon very seriously, and as a universal law, rather than just as an odd little tribal taboo (which is how I do perceive it -- that doesn't mean I don't consider it important, but I consider it to be a rule that is just supposed to be applied to MY tribe, and not to everyone).

Well, if I didn't really like bacon, I'd just think of it as gross. I mean, pigs. They live in mud and filth. Pig meat has like fat and glop dripping off of it. Eeew.

And I might think poorly of people who ate pigmeat. I might want to avoid them, and I'd be upset by depictions of people eating pig meat. But that would really be the extent of it. It might be something I'd think about some, but, mostly, I'd avoid thinking about it as much as I could, and that would be that.

It would be far, far worse for me if I really loved bacon. Or, even if I'd never HAD bacon, if I loved the IDEA of bacon -- had smelled it, heard people talking about it. . .

Because I would see that as a failing in myself. It would be a temptation, and might even represent the entire CONCEPT of "temptation."

I would certainly be saying many of the same things that people who didn't like bacon would say. Mud, filth, glop. But I'd go further.

For people who didn't like bacon, well, they wouldn't much want to think about bacon, and wouldn't much think about bacon. But me, I'd have to DWELL on how gross it was, because I'd be trying to convince myself.

And I'd go much further. I'd certainly talk about how the Bible spoke against bacon, but that wouldn't even be the centerpiece of what I'd say -- it's not visceral enough. I'd talk about the health risks -- pigs carry trichonosis! Pigs have high saturated fat contents! And the impact on the world -- I'd have figures about the vast ecological damage that pig farms cause -- the lagoons of pig shit in commercial hog operations, the smell, the bacteria infestations in the drinking water. I'd talk about the vast number of calories that a pig ate, and how inefficient it was as a source of food, and how much that damaged the world as a whole.

So what would I do if my local supermarket started selling bacon? It would infuriate me. It would be an acceptance of the pig-eating lifestyle.

And it would infuriate me most strongly because it would be an ongoing source of temptation. Most anti-pork folks could just plain not buy bacon, and they might be annoyed, but they could mostly ignore it. Maybe they'd want to have the pork section separate from the other meat section so they wouldn't have to see it, but, well, as long as they could ignore it, they wouldn't worry about it. Even if they knew that people were eating bacon, as long as they didn't have to watch, it wouldn't bother them much.

But for me, someone who WANTED to eat bacon, it would be hell. I'd be trying to get the sale of bacon to be declared illegal. I'd be talking about the deviance of the people who ate bacon. I'd be picketing supermarkets, and trying to get court orders. I'd try to get the FDA involved.

And that realization helped me understand where some of the most vitriolic anti-gay rhetoric is coming from. Most of the anti-gay rhetoric is frankly not vitriolic. For the most part, most folks who are against gay marriage really don't care THAT much. They don't really want to think about it, but it doesn't make that much difference to them. But the people who are really vehement -- they keep talking about the great temptation that homosexuality represents.

And as far as I can see, homosexuality doesn't represent any sort of a temptation. I'm just not attracted to other guys. So there's no temptation for me. And folks who are gay, well, homosexuality isn't a temptation -- it's just who they are. Maybe a cute guy or girl they see, maybe THAT would be a temptation -- but homosexuality itself isn't a temptation, any more that heterosexuality or bisexuality is.

Thoughts? I'd be interested to hear what y'all have to think about my analogy.
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Four-chambered secrets
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:15 AM

With two months to go until the release of Book Six of the Harry Potter series, I am hardly alone in rereading the first five books.

And I have a minor question about events in Chapter 13 in Chamber of Secrets:

The scene takes place on Valentine's Day. Surly dwarfs dressed as cupids are playing message courier. In the halls between classes, one of the dwarfs stops Harry, in the process ripping Harry's bag and spilling its contents. Naturally, the commotion attracts a crowd, leading to the following exchange after the dwarf has finished reading its poem (exerpt from the British edition):

Harry, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry realised that he'd got Riddle's diary.
'Give that back,' said Harry quietly.
'Wonder what Potter's written in this?' sad Malfoy, who obviously hadn't noticed the year on the cover, and thought he had Harry's own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.
[Harry gets the diary back]
Malfoy was looking furious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled spitefully after her, 'I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!'
Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class.

Ginny has already been shown to have a crush on Harry, so Malfoy's interpretation of events seems quite rational on first reading.

However, by the conclusion of the book, it's obvious that Ginny's concern in this scene is primarily over the diary.

So who did send Harry the singing Valentine?

Who do you think it was?

Because it's increasingly clear to me that it wasn't Ginny.

[I'm sure some shippers have already conducted deep textual analysis of this passage. Links to those would also be appreciated.]

'His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.'
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Star Wars predictions
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:45 AM
Star Wars Horoscope for Cancer
You may whine at times, but you've developed a thick hard shell (like that of a crab).
You are strong willed and persistent - until you get what you want.
You never shy away from a fight, even when things get dangerous.
Mentally sharp, you are starting to master the elements of mind manipulation.


Star Wars character you are most like: Luke Skywalker

PS: Grumble. The hotel's net connection was down all last night. :(

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Monday, May 16, 2005
She who hesitates...
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:20 PM

Early 2000 I started informally studying models of search behavior.

It actually came out of some investigations I was conducting on an entirely separate topic, and got frustrated by the existing search log tools. Too demanding, and they distracted from my task, or too lightweight, and I had to keep revisiting pages unnecessarily. In order to build a better tool, I began by analyzing how I searched for information.

This soon expanded into reading external research on the subject. Much to my delight, my observations lined up quite nicely to the professional literature.

In brief, my own search behavior maps into a hunting metaphor: I broke it into multiple stages (I believe I labelled them "range --> refine --> read") and built a preliminary Lotus Notes database with a tree-like view to handle the branching trails I followed. There are other ways I perceive my searching as a hunt. For example, I experience a very literal thrill of the chase which is its own reward.*

I've wanted to write this up more formally for the past half-decade (I've still got a box of journal articles (photocopies and printouts) in the basement, and an equally long list of weblinks and citations) or possibly pair up with some developers to build better software for other researchers. This has been one of the subjects I've considered pursuing whenever I start dreaming about doctorate programs.

Unfortunately, it looks like somebody else beat me to the punch.

December 2003, Hunting and gathering on the information savanna: conversations on modeling human search abilities was published.

Not sure whether to <growl> or <sigh>.

On the one hand, if this is close to my ideas, I'm glad the notion is getting out there to be listened to. On the other hand, I've just lost a possible contribution I could make to the body of human knowledge...

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Source that quote:
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:15 AM

Question: Who wrote this and when?

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are [...] a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Answer: Former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 8, 1954.

I've seen this making the rounds, and frankly it sounded almost too good to be true. So I did a little checking, and Snopes confirms its veracity.

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Sunday, May 15, 2005
Poor design
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:54 AM

I'm staying in a hotel room with TV and a web connection. Why is it so difficult on HBO.com and HBO Family.com to find out what's playing right now, and what the next show will be? Don't you think that information should be prominent right on the front page, like WBUR does?

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See what a geek I am
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:15 AM

Indulged in a little retail therapy yesterday to buoy my mood, primarily at a used bookstore I hadn't previously known of in Central Square. Here are the books I found worthy of buying:

I seriously considered buying Andrew Gurr's The Shakespearean stage, but held off until I could be sure that the copy in the bookstore was the most recent edition (it was, but by the time I verified that, the store had closed for the evening).

Dunno when I'll have time to read any of these (I've been trying to work my way through the Harry Potter books again: both as comfort reading and something I've planned to do before Book Six in July) and I still haven't managed to finish the second book yet... But they'll make handy reference books, at least.

I also stopped at a Bath and Body Works and picked up a bunch of sampler-sized toiletries of a little higher-quality than what the hotel provides: two aromatherapy body washes (Relax eucalyptus spearmint and Energizing orange ginger), Better lather than never shower cream, Look ma new hands lotion, and a shampoo, though I was disappointed that they didn't have a travel-size of their minty shampoo...

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