so many satellites

I have an extended 'family' from a camp I grew up attending - both with my family in the lodges and campgrounds and as a camper in their wilderness camps. I worked there, spending three summers there during high school, and it's one of those magical places where people connect with so much love and generosity on a daily basis. I haven't been back in a while, as my life has taken me elsewhere, but I found out today that one of the members of that family has a very serious medical condition - she needs a lung transplant because she has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. She's 20 years old.

A Lung Story from Elisabeth Levesque-Mumford on Vimeo.

Hélène is one of the four Campbell 'kids', and she is exactly as wonderful a person as she is in this video. Sunny, loving, funny - the kind of person who's presence makes everything brighter! I suppose that's what people always say in posts like these, but you don't have to take my word for it - you can see for yourself in the video.

At any rate, Hélène, like me, is Canadian, so there are presently (as everything is happening in hospitals) no health care bills. But because she needs to move to Toronto to get access to their lung transplant efforts and can no longer work, and because her mother will be taking time off work to go with her, this will not be an inexpensive process. If you have anything from a good thoughts or prayers, or a few bucks and feel so moved, there's more information and paypal links on their website, A Lung Story.

<3

I don't know where I've been for the last two years on this, but I just started reading ST:XI fiction over at AO3, and wow, are there some seriously wonderful gems. Seperis' Reboot Duo - especially the second one, War Games, because as much as I love mind-meld-transferred-pon-farr-made-them-do-it, I love epic sci fi political intrigue even more, and the shear brilliance of the characterization of pretty much everybody killed me. And then I read Leave No Soul Behind by whochick and was blown away for the second time in the the space of the three or five days it took me to read both of these fics. (Both of them do marvelous things with female characters, as well, original or expanded, which made me happy because Uhura is kick-ass but not enough.)

Reading both of those helped me pinpoint what had been growing in my mind as a definition of my favourite type of story, because while these stories are completely unique, they had something in common that drew me in beyond my standard level of enjoyment: they were plotty, yes, but more than that they were sci-fi action-adventure stories with love, humour, and best of all political intrigue. That's the kind of fic I will get into a fandom for - I'm the girl who went out of her way to watch the first three episodes of SGA and read the wikipedia pages on the show in order to read Written by the Victors.

In some ways, ST:XI is the perfect canon for, well, fanon. On one hand the movie was an opening move, a prologue that set the stage and thus leaves endless room for exploration once the credits roll. On the other hand, is there a more massive canon that Star Trek? There are endless details a writer can grab and use for inspiration or worldbuilding, but at the same time everybody's trek is different so (at least in the fanon I see) it's okay if there are conflicts. And now it's practically sanctioned, since they, well, rebooted the universe.

Anyway, all of this is to say I am drafting a story. Who knows if it will get written! Not me. But I've got plot, and Issues and Conflict and maybe something that's beginning to resemble a Narrative Arc, so there's more to this than "hey how can I make a threesome with the same character twice happen?"* My problem at the moment is I have so many subplot and character arc ideas that the trick will be weaving them together coherently. I need a theme or something, some sort of motif or overreaching thread tying everything together...

*Ah, A Matter of Time, my old friend. You started off so innocently simply. I have half a very self-indulgent post written on that story right now, but it's so self-indulgent I haven't posted it. It's not good enough to warrant such a post, but it's such a personally important story for me that there's a lot to say.

Random request: does anyone know of any good books on the history of New York city? I'd like something that at least worked up to the near-present, though I don't mind if it starts from the beginning. I'm going to get to visit for the first time in the spring, and I find I get more out of traveling if I know more about the history of the places I'm visiting. It doesn't need to be rigorous academic history; I'm looking for a holiday read, too.

I'd totally accept fiction requests for novels that encompass the spirit of the city, too! Bonus points if its available as an ebook.

Title somewhat irrelevant but from a Maclean's news article which is essentially a post of the Canadian Association of University Teacher's complaints about the recent Canada Excellence Research Chairs 19 "coups" of international, established scientists at 10 million a piece over seven years, plus whatever the individual universities offered on top of that (my university, for example, added another 15 million to get an American expert in nonlinear optics and photonics).

Oh, and by the way, all 19 were men. 18 were white men. All 36 scientists on the short-list, in fact, were men. Better yet? These were all the scientists named at all - programs were nominated first, and if accepted, the university nominated one or more names - were men. Not a single woman scientist was mentioned in the whole process. And by better, by the way, I meant worse.

Bullet points of my scattered thoughts on the positives:

• Funding for science is a good thing. Our government doesn't do enough of it.


• Big name researchers are necessary for a university's research program: they draw bright grad students, more funding, and other productive researchers to the university. I do believe this also benefits undergraduates, and am skeptical of the cries of "but you need to improve universities for the students and this is sucking money away!" This is not a zero sum game, and good research has to be good for a university's finances.


• Accepting that some of these minds are not Canadian, and going out of the way to bring them here? A-okay with me. There are existing sources of big-time grants for people already in Canada. This isn't decreasing that amount. Again, not a zero sum game.


• The government can't actually steer research. However, I think focusing on a few (very broad) research areas is a good thing. We are a small country, and most of these universities cannot be cross-spectrum powerhouses, at their sizes and with their locations. Picking focuses, and saying, "let's be the best at this", that's good. Trying to pick focuses that the government thinks will be patentable or money-makers? Not awesome, but these categories are really too broad to be guilty of that: environmental sciences and technologies, natural resources and energy, health and related life sciences and technologies, and information and communications technologies. All things I think Canada should be awesome at.
  
  For example, the I&CT category? Take a look at the recipients. Quantum Nonlinear Optics, Quantum Information Processing and Quantum Signal Processing? Yeah, okay, quantum means this isn't "hey let's make Nortel work again" type research, this is primary research. Only the third scientist's research chair title sounds anything like it's application centric, and application research is not evil, hi.

However:

100% male is not "we didn't want to engage in affirmative action". 100% is not "hey, look, we were taking established scientists in fields that, 30 or 40 years ago when they went into them, women weren't going into". 100% is not "every university independently submitted men, what were we supposed to do?" 100% is not "it was a competitive process so women suffered" (WTFWTFWTF). 100% is this:

The academic “old boys club,” also was a factor. With limited time to find and court top researchers, universities resorted to “informal processes” to find candidates, the study finds. “These informal outreach processes may have involved senior researchers identifying potential nominees from among their international peers,” it says.

Ding ding ding. Look, I could have accepted 70% male. I probably could have accepted 90% male. I'm in a field that is, top to bottom, 80% male, and while that isn't awesome, I can see that whatever causes it starts before 18-year-olds pick their majors. But this quote is so freaking illuminating as to why there's a big fat ZERO in this outcome.

Look, it's all circular. We get this idea that men are better at "excellence" in research because that's who we see, again and again, in the forefront, being highlighted as being "excellent", so no wonder we - men and women alike, I firmly object to the idea that you can fight this kind of sexism by simply having women on the panel - have an instinctive preference for men, and thus give them the opportunities to excel, by giving them publications and publicity and reputations and above all, money. I don't "like" the idea of affirmative action or quotas or equality for equality's sake, but the fact is, this is not choosing the best and the brightest of everyone, this is choosing the people we're told are the best and the brightest. How is that putting excellence above gender equality? It's putting excellence above the difficulty of confronting our long-trained biases.

Can I say that clearer?

If we have a precedent of highlighting male excellence, we will continue to do so because that is who we believe are capable of excellence, because that is who we let be excellent, call excellent, and see being excellent.

If I tell you that red smarties are the tastiest, and then only give you red smarties for a year, and then hand you a box of them all? I bet you'll eat the red ones preferentially. This is not complicated psychology. This is not about "men just prefer science", because prefer does not equal "all scientists are male", so even if that argument holds water, there should be at least one woman on the bloody short-list. But the fact is, give a bunch of scientists an opportunity to say "hey, let's pick who we want to work here from around the world", and all of them will pick a man.

It's not rocket science to see that this isn't just the power of statistics.

ETA: Icon sadly inappropriate.

... which operate in single-longitudinal-mode-operation with narrow linewidth and limited mode-hopping due to large free spectral range and are suitable for high-resolution spectroscopy.

AKA, why all words are beginning to blur.

I have three sections (broadband operation, q-switching, and mode-locking) left to write for my paper on rare earth doped fibre lasers for my photonics course. Plus the intro and conclusion. It is due tomorrow (whenever, though, hurrah!) I have actually never written a research paper before - essays for English and philosophy classes, yes, but not research papers where there is no particular argument. I like communicating concepts, but it means I may be fucking it up without realizing it. Fortunately our prof presented this to us - in our split grad/undergrad class - as a learning opportunity for us hapless undergrads, so I'm thinking he won't be too harsh. And he likes me and I didn't fail his final.

I got up at 6am to study for my ODEs exam, which was from 9:30-12:30, took an hour for lunch, and have been writing this paper ever since. Tomorrow, I have to get up early to study for my much neglected statistical mechanics final (which isn't til 2, thank goodness), then turn this paper into a presentation, with slides, that are happening all day tomorrow.

AND THEN I'M FREE. FREE! And I think I have a not negligible chance of acing this semester, even though I took six courses, including the always-draining labs and three fourth year physics electives. Take that, sucky-ass CGPA! I will overcome your determined efforts to defeat me!

I also tried taking two Concerta for my ADD today, since I started so early and usually can feel them wear off by four on a good day. Result: great, great success, my focus has been vastly better today than all exam period, despite the twelve hour stretch. I'm glad I know now it does help, though I think I'll save it for the Really Intense Days.This shit is expensive, and I think if I'm always taking double doses I'll max out my university plan.

My province has unrolled the first overhaul to its sex ed curriculum since 1998 (is that really twelve years ago?), and this stood out to me as being awesome (and thus is also the most contentious part for all those conservative objectors who think telling a kid about sexuality will result in them being sluts.)

Some of the most controversial changes are in the Grade 3 curriculum. In a discussion on human development and showing respect for people’s differences, for example, teachers are invited to discuss “invisible differences,” including gender identity and sexual orientation, in an effort to reflect the fact that more and more students have same-sex parents.

I liked boys enough I wasn't troubled by also liking girls until the middle of high-school, but so much of the pain I read about queer kids growing up is that nobody tells them they exist. This is grade three, so I'm sure it will be couched in pretty light terms, but there will be terms with which to talk about not just sexual orientation but GENDER IDENTITY. In public school! To ten year olds! Go Ontario.

(The suggestion that this is too early is clearly laughable - I want to hit that Reverend over the head for thinking (a) it's going to make kids want to be transgendered or (b) that clearly these things aren't an issue for ten-year-olds.)

Why climb Mount Everest? Because
there is physics there.
There can't be a person who doesn't
want physics found straight away:
physics is where the
high temperature limit
is a cold day in
Yellowknife.

If I lived in Yellowknife, I would
be reassured knowing that liquid
helium will not crawl up
the sides of my beakers and into the room
on its own accord.

TOTALLY GOT AN A+ IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS.

That course was hardcore, man, and I went into it with really crappy math skills - and the course is essentially mathematical tools for physicists, fourier and complex and differential analysis.

It was curved, and like whoa, but I put twenty hours a week into that course more often than not, so that was definitely earned. And the three people I worked with, Joseph, Jeff, and Zack, all got A+'s too, which is awesome, because that course was such a team effort.

Just thermodynamics left, and I realized today that if I get 56% on the final, I get an A- in the course. Everything after that is just gravy! Awesome.

While I take a break from packing camping gear...

1. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
2. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
3. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( cut for pic )

Also, while browsing in a shoe store at the mall, I overheard a girl say "those are so eighties", to which her mother cracked up and demanded to know how she possibly knew that. Turning around and looking revealed the girl was maybe, at best, born in 1999. It was pretty funny.

The last two movies I've seen in theatres have both been really enjoyable. I'm not a particularly critical movie watcher, in that I generally can get into most any movie that isn't a Will Ferrel comedy (sorry B, and your epic love for Talladega Nights) without worrying too much about anything in particular, but these two stood out as more than just good times.

( District 9 spoilers, though nothing plotty, totally readable before watching )

( Julie & Julia, again not really spoilery except for one early scene )