soukup | recent doings

current mood too busy to wig out like this

I'll be going out of town early tomorrow with spotty internet access, and I'll be gone until roughly the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth. I believe everyone who might need it for writing-y and other reasons has my alternate contact info, but if not, drop me a message or leave a comment here and I'll put you in the loop.

Also, and unrelatedly: wow, why did I have IP logging turned on? *scratches head* I have no idea when I hit that button, but just so y'all know, it was not intentional! I really apologize, and it's turned off now for logged-in users. I give you my solemn word that I still have no idea where any of you live (excepting those of you who have personally told me).

Lastly:

*curls up like a hedgehog, retreats under bed*

(ETA: Wouldn't this be a nifty question to turn into a meme? Feel free to revise/reblog, all.)

Some of you may have noticed that I've deleted my Livejournal account in response to a serious security lapse. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can take a look at my entry here on the subject. If you still have an account over there, I'd recommend clicking on that link.) And that choice has got me thinking about online privacy in general, and I'm pondering a sneaking suspicion that I've had for a while now.

Everyone's "voice" is a little bit different. Even online, we're each of us unique; our word choices, our rhythms, the idioms we use, the ways we punctuate and even our little netspeak tendencies (*g* vs <grins> vs _grins_, /o\ vs :_(, ROFL vs rofl, etc) are all highly individual. And some people -- I'm sure you can all think of several off the top of your head -- are more easily recognizable than others. Some people just talk in a way that you can spot from a mile off and identify, in a voice that's distinctive enough that even if you met them under a different name, you'd know immediately who it was.

So my question to you all is: I have a feeling I may be one of those people who are just plain unable to blend in. Am I imagining that? If you were reading this post under a different username, would you suspect it was soukup? Would you be certain, or would you have doubts, and how much of me do you think you'd need to read to be sure?

I'm far less concerned about anonymity than I used to be, and also I'm feeling much safer online now that I'm off of LJ, so this post is brought to you less by any lingering paranoid feelings than by my academic fascination with how people talk. I don't especially hope or fear that my voice is unique; I'm just curious, and I'd like to know what the rest of you think, both about my personal voice and about the topic of online idiolects in general. For fun, if you post a comment telling me your thoughts, I'll reply with as many traits I can think of that I associate with your individual voice, things I've noticed about how you talk that are unusual or distinctive.

Go!

current mood angry
current music Bird Up: the Charlie Parker remix

ETA: Oh my god, this JUST HAPPENED TO ME. As I was editing the LJ version of this entry, I was redirected to an edit page for someone else's private entry. It was a user I don't even know. WHAT THE SHIT, YOU GUYS.

Reblogged from

starlady : PSA: Massive LiveJournal Privacy Breach

There are multiple reports out that LiveJournal's latest code push has created a bug wherein users can, at random, view and edit other users' entries.

This includes private and screened entries, by the way. People are also reporting being given access to the edit pages for other users' profiles, icons, account settings, etc. For more information, click that link and the others it gives you -- there are links to the actual bug reports in lj_releases, and links to journal entries by other users who are trying to analyze the shape and scope of the problem.

This was clearly an accident on the part of LJ. But the fact is that as of now, LJ has made no official statement to address this. They haven't apologized or explained what happened, they haven't told us what steps they're taking/have taken to correct the problem and/or prevent it from happening again. I don't know the extent of it or whether it's been resolved or not. They haven't even acknowledged that it's happening.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some Dreamwidth users are having trouble with importing stuff from LJ, or crossposting to it. DW staff was quick to make a post addressing the problem and apologizing for the delay. They've explained what's causing the trouble, and assured us all that they're in the process of adjusting the code that facilitates these tasks to accommodate the changes LJ has made. Whereas the LJ staff has been very occasionally responding to its users' (generally panicked) comments and questions by telling people to go open a support request so that the Support people can deal with it (read: it's not my job to help you with this), DW's staff has been responding to comments and questions in a sensitive and human way that shows actual attention. And they've done all this without ever once criticizing Livejournal.

When I grow up I hope I'll be that classy. In the meantime, I will be deleting my Livejournal account (I'm leaving it up for a day in the hope that some of you will see this entry, but taking down all my other entries). If you see the sense in this choice or are at least into considering your options, dw_codesharing is choc-a-block with free codes. The staff are awesome, ads are nonexistent, site glitches are rare, and the water is warm. Hope to see you there.

ETA II: It now appears that LJ staff are dismissing and actively lying about the problem, almost in the same breath. Per the latest post in lj_maintenance , the official word is that a) the problem was only happening for about three minutes and has long since been resolved; and b) okay, yeah, a lot of people were able to access private and potentially sensitive information they weren't supposed to see, sure, but the staff haven't heard of any instances where site content was actually *tampered* with, so really the problem "had no effect on security." Those are their exact words. In my eyes this couldn't be clearer: the Livejournal staff just don't care that their users' privacy was compromised. Protecting our private content is no longer something that this company takes seriously. For more info, see all the ETAs at the end of this post by

eruthros.

current mood missing you already : (
current music Johnny Cash

As of today I no longer have the internet at home. This state of affairs is likely to continue for at least the next few months. I will be checking my gmail at work most days, and dropping in as often as time permits via libraries/coffee shops with wifi, but there's a chance that if someone in here tries to reach me I won't notice it as promptly as I ordinarily would. If you're writing something and I'm involved with it in any way, we've probably already discussed how you can reach me when I'm offline, but if not then please PM me. I'm always within easy walking distance of a wifi signal, so when I have a specific reason to come back it's no trouble to get here.

current mood pleased

It was when I said,
“There is no such thing as the truth,”
That the grapes seemed fatter.
The fox ran out of his hole.

You . . . You said,
“There are many truths,
But they are not parts of a truth.”
Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.
We were two figures in a wood.
We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,
“Words are not forms of a single word.
In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.
The world must be measured by eye”;

It was when you said,
“The idols have seen lots of poverty,
Snakes and gold and lice,
But not the truth”;

It was at that time, that the silence was largest
And longest, the night was roundest,
The fragrance of the autumn warmest,
Closest and strongest.

current mood indescribable

I have no words. Really, I have none, because every descriptive term I consider falls totally short of what I'm feeling right now. This is beyond creepy, beyond eerie, beyond uncanny or freakish or terrifying. This short video clip has surpassed every other scary thing that I have ever been exposed to, and this is just the trailer. When the actual movie comes out I'll probably have a heart attack or something in the theatre and quietly die midway through. That is, if I don't slit my wrists first out of sheer nervous panic, or simply stop breathing because for serious. For SERIOUS, you guys. I CANNOT DEAL.

(Oh my God, would you look at the way she waves! AAAUGH.)

current mood giddy

You guys. You guys.

I know I don't generally post about politics. And I know I don't live there. And I know I don't even personally care about getting married in any legally recognized way, in New York or anywhere else. And of course this is only one small step in the right direction. But you guys.

Marriage passed in New York.

current music Psapp, "Eating Spiders"

Please comment here telling me which one you've taken so I can cross it off the list and no one else will try to use it.

WHKE3YM52NX6YAAARLK7
VEDBBDB2WT4GTAAARLK8
6T9MFBP7BZMBEAAARLK9
~~4CKAX88H7CQ7EAAARLLA~~
SXTSVZ5ZSATYCAAARLLB

current mood curious
current music "Crazy," Gnarls Barkley

Of all the stories you've absorbed -- written, oral, filmed, acted, drawn, etc; fictional and nonfictional -- what villains have most strongly affected you? What characters gave you nightmares as a child, and which ones give you nightmares now? Whom do you remember most clearly or think of most often? Who's gotten under your skin or stayed with you the longest, and what do you think you find so compelling/memorable/terrifying/awful about them? A name by itself is absolutely fine, but if there are any specific details you can remember really getting to you, I'd love to hear about them. Morally grey characters are more than okay, too. Or anyone; really I'm just interested in which characters have managed to really viscerally creep you out, in whom you found scariest or most disturbing. So if that's Tinkerbelle for you, then she's welcome here. Everyone's welcome.

(Speaking of which, by the way, if your darkest fear is somebody out of a Disney movie or other children's media, you are not alone and I promise I will not laugh. I asked a bunch of my RL friends this question and a large number of the replies they gave came from media intended for children or young adults. Or if you have a personal fear/phobia that one of your villains plays into -- clowns, for instance -- that's also totally fine, and I still absolutely want to know about it.)

Unrelated: I'll be going mostly off the grid from roughly 3 - 9 May. The last time I did that I passed out my alternate contact info to everyone who I thought might need or want to reach me about fiction musings/editing/etc, so I *think* we should all be good to go. But if any of you have lost said contact info or didn't receive it before and there's even a slight chance that you'll want to be in touch about something during that time, please PM me or e-mail me (soukuppish at gmail) before the third and I'll hook you up.

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

current mood dizzy

So, when I watched the above video, my initial response was Wow -- I've never noticed before what pretty eyes he has. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if he were ever to do it right and take it seriously, he could pull off femininity quite well. Huh.

(Don't you give me that look. Wait until he takes off the wig.)

After which I scolded myself for being shallow when that was clearly not the point of this very serious and thinky video, and told myself to stop lezzing out over weirdly pretty guys and try to absorb what it actually meant. But on reflection, I am starting to realize that maybe this line of thought is exactly the point.

I mean, I love that he did this. And it feels deeply ungrateful of me to wish that he'd done it differently, because it's certainly useful to take stock of what's wrong with how people treat women, and I'm glad that this video calls attention to some of the symptoms of the problem. But the irony is that because his cross-dressing is meant to be read as silly (his dress/jewelry/wig would be hideous even if I weren't comparing them with that sleek suit I'd just seen him in), the humour behind the joke actually relies on and reiterates traditional essentialism: Look, isn't it funny, it's a man in a dress and a wig. Doesn't he look ridiculous, dressing up as something he's not.

And the thing is, if he had made an honest effort to look attractively and genuinely (as opposed to comically and inauthentically) feminine, if he had taken it seriously and done it well, that kind of earnest subversion (particularly of a masculinity icon like James Bond!) would have made this so much more effective. Because the more I think about this, the more I feel like what we need now is not just a way to empower women, but a way to reclaim and redefine femininity and change how we react to it. And like maybe a crucial step along the way toward correcting the problems this video lists is for us to start trying to figure out why femininity is so marked and so narrow a thing in the first place.

Or maybe I just want to see more pretty guys in the media. That's probably what I'm really after.

current mood chipper
current music Etta James, "At Last"

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

current mood enthralled

Lately I keep getting these very sweet, mildly anxious PMs from folks in here asking me if I'm alive, and today I realized why: because it's been literally months since I last made a public post in here! Where does the time go? Yes, I'm alive, if a bit distracted. Sorry if I've made anyone seriously start to worry.

But more importantly, it turns out that some people called the Uri Caine Ensemble make a mean Gustav Mahler.

Guh. It's one of those recordings you feel like you can just climb inside of. Also it gets my brain going about how tones work in spoken language versus music. Anybody else ever wonder how Mozart talked?

current mood Wagga Wagga! Eeeeee.

Remember the old dot-matrix-style printers? Remember how much noise they used to make, and how odd and rhythmic it was? Did you ever wonder what it would sound like to get a whole bunch of the enormous industrial-sized ones all in a room together and get them going all at once?

I know you did. Well, wonder no more, because so did someone else. The following video is about a person who has done just that, and used the weird screeching/thumping/stuttering/groaning/thudding sounds to make music. Even weirder than that, it's actually kind of good.

Wow. I'd almost compare it to Animal Collective, especially the album "Person Pitch."

current mood busy
current music Radiohead, "Weird Fishes"

I'll be going out of town early Thursday morning (21 October) with very spotty internet access and likely no chance to check my reading page. So if you post something in your journal which is meant for my eyes, I will not see it right away. I'll be back on Saturday night. Be good for the sitter, all right? If you have a story which is actively in the works and I'm involved with it on any level, you should see a message from me in your DW inbox -- PM me if you don't.
PSA: Do you know where your cayenne is? Good. Now, do your flatmates also know? Is it labeled? If you answered "no" to either of those two latter questions, you should probably learn from my mistake and do something about that before someone gets hurt. Labels are good things. Capsaicin burns are not.
Lastly, I rarely have this type of reaction. But.

( They're SMIRKING. )
They remind me of some goats I used to know. Look how they fold their legs like deer!

current mood full
current music Pink Floyd, "Mother"

Do you ever find yourself full of the urge to feed people you really like? Well, I do. And I frequently find myself full of the urge to feed people who randomly do nice things for me, like creating excellent fanworks and sharing them on the internet free of charge. Which means, flist, that I am frequently full of the urge to feed someone in here something really tasty. And because this is the Internet, I can't, and that's a very frustrating and a difficult thing for me. So as a way of getting this out of my system (and also, perhaps more importantly, as a way of ordering my hopelessly messy index card system), I have decided that from time to time I will post my favourite recipes in here. Nothing I make is very fancy, but I can promise that it will all taste good. Unless otherwise indicated, all of the recipes you'll see here are original.

For those of us living in places which are getting cold weather right now (or for anyone who's just feeling carnivorous today), here is my very favourite meat sauce recipe. If I do say so myself, I think it lives up to its name.

( Awesomesauce )

Serve on pasta, preferably with some steamed greenstuff or a big salad. Awesome. It also freezes really well, if you're like me and need to put something aside for exam week.

current mood uncharitable
current music Amy Winehouse, "In My Bed"

My regular barber is sick. And today, in a little shop which frankly smelled like all of the furniture had been soaked in acetone, a total stranger treated me to an edifying and carefully-reasoned judgment of nearly every lifestyle choice I've ever made. Counterarguing seemed mostly to provoke her, and I always feel it's best not to provoke a person who's using clippers on my head, and I was tired, and I think she'd had a little too much caffeine. All of which meant that I mostly sat there like a stone while the following monologue was being delivered.

No matter how certain I am right now that I will never, ever want to have children, I am definitely going to change my mind when I turn thirty. She said the same thing when she was my age, and look at her now!
There is no way I will get a boyfriend if she cuts my hair the way I have requested.
Chinese is a "funny" language for "someone like me" (???) to want to learn. Also, people who speak it always sound angry, did I ever notice that? It's almost as bad as German that way. But French is "much nicer."
(After noticing the bag of groceries I had brought along and asking what I planned to make for dinner) She doesn't see how I can stand to eat that stuff [tofu]. There must be something in the water in this town, because it seems like nobody here eats like a real human being -- it's all granola and veggie burgers instead of red meat. She doesn't know how they do it, she really doesn't.

*I should mention that said hairdresser is obese in that way that people are who live exclusively on empty carbs and corn syrup. She also tells me she's feeding three children on her earnings at the shop. In order to get her to cut my hair as short as I wanted it ("like a boy's hair" was her phrasing), I had to outright lie and tell her I was playing a male part in a play. The whole thing was compounded by her shirt, which was -- hand to God, I am not even making this shit up -- pink with rhinestone letters spelling out "material girl." She looked about thirty-nine.

What's the worst "captive audience" experience you've ever had?

current mood joyous

This article has been linked to me twice today, and I'm passing it along because I find it very smart and honest. It's all about the neuroses that can come from being a very well-intentioned and naturally gentle person with privilege, and how not to make a doofus of yourself when someone politely calls you out on being clumsy.

(Just so you folks know, I'm not posting this because anyone in here has been defensive or neurotic with me lately! I happen to live in a place where there are lots and lots of very neurotic white people who have pretty short fuses about this stuff, so I think about guilt and privelege a lot.)

And now for something much less knotty:

current music Bob Marley, for some reason

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If you grab it, please comment here to let me know so I can take down the entry -- that way no one else will try to use it and be sad when it doesn't work.

current mood jubilant
current music "Suffer for Fashion," of Montreal

I feel so ridiculously pleased with myself for sorting this out all by my lonesome! (Well, not entirely all by my lonesome -- baggers said the magic words that got my brain storming.) If my method works for you, share it around, and feel free to link to this post.

Log into Livejournal and go to the following page, subbing in your username for mine at the end of this URL: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/opml.bml?user=soukup
You will see a list of RSS feed URLs, one for each person on your flist, and each community you've joined or watched. Go through the list and pick one -- choose someone who has not joined Dreamwidth, or a community which does not exist in DW.
Copy the URL using ctrl+C.
Open Dreamwidth's homepage in a new tab and log in. Under the drop-down menu labeled "Read," select "Feeds," and scroll down to the section "Add Feed by URL." Paste in the URL using ctrl+V.
Dreamwidth will ask you what you want to call this feed. I used my friends' usernames -- I really don't know if it matters what you pick. Check the box for "subscribe" and click on the button to finalize the add.
You're done! Within a day (mine took half an hour) you should start to see posts from your brand-new RSS-friend showing up on your Dreamwidth reading page. I'm still waiting to see if friendslocked entries are visible -- so far the trend seems to be that they aren't -- but even so, I think this was well worth my while. (ETA: apparently items placed under an LJ-cut show up sans cut in your Dreamwidth reading page. For this I have no solution. Something to consider if you plan to read your page at work, or simply don't like long-ass entries clogging it up.

Also, I should mention (and this detail is especially relevant to you, Nic): If you have a paid Livejournal account, you can actually create a single RSS feed for your entire Livejournal flist, and then subscribe to it on your Dreamwidth reading page. A shortcut for a few lucky folks to take!

If this doesn't work for anyone, comment here and I'll do whatever I can to help you sort it out. (Not that I'm that technically savvy or whatever, but I'm happy to try.)

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Theme: Hula Hoop by Musyc

the monkey trial

recent doings

See you later

Indulge me for a moment

Massive breach of privacy on Livejournal

Not that I'm around that much anyway, but

Verse spam: "On the Road Home," by Wallace Stevens

There's a very real chance that I will never be able to go to sleep again.

"Ayes thirty-three, nays twenty-nine."

Dreamwidth invite codes, free to good home

A question about villains (well, scary/creepy/repulsive characters in general)

Peanut butter-molasses-chocolate chip cookies. Also, go play in the Femmeslash Porn Battle!

International Women's Day: my fuzzy thoughts about something fuzzy. Also, Daniel Craig.

(no subject)

My ear chocolate du jour

Curiouser

PSA and miscellany

Awesomesauce, literally

The World According to My Hairdresser

Pimping. Also, glass harp!

One DW invite code, freshly baked and free to good home

How to get your LJ friends' and communities' livejournal entries to show up on your DW reading list

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