Cooool dork stuff.

Ok, so, I said would be gone a lot lately. However, I just found out about a great way to make it WAY easier to post when I come home.

So, how many of you have two different google accounts, one for your real life, and one for your blogger, and you hate how you can't be logged into both at the same time? I don't like having two browsers open so I can have both accounts because of the RAM consumption, so in the end, if I ever wanted to post, I would have to go to blogger.com, sign out of my "real life", sign into my new life, and then go back to my gmail so I could still have that going on. Then, I could continue and blog if I felt like it. Like I said yesterday, after coming home from a long day of work, that just seemed like too much.

But today, I found out about two apps that could allow you to log into TWO google accounts at once (among other things, but I won't get into those right now).

On Windows: http://prism.mozillalabs.com/

On Mac: fluidapp.com/

Basically, you can wrap one of your websites into another app, so that it appears like a separate desktop app. So now, you can have a "blogger app", where you are logged in at Phizz, and a gmail app, where you are logged in as "Real Me". When I want to post, I can just open Blogger App, and off I go! Wow, how easy! That little difference may cause me to post just SLIGHTLY more, and it may help those who want to make a very strong distinction between work and home life like me.

Now, if you want to get slightly more geekoid, you should read the next part. So...one thing I have been increasingly uncomfortable with is how when I browse the web, everything on the web seems to know shit about me. Like, how come when I go to CNN.com, it knows that 4 of my FB friends liked that article. How do you know who my friends are? Why is that information kind of "in the wild" on the browser instead of confined to whatever tab my facebook account is on? Why does that persist even when I close my FB tab? How come my FB suggests friends for me where I don't have any mutual friends with them, and are just random people I have emailed with once in gmail? How do they know who is on my gmail contacts list? Why does Linked In suggest people for me as well, people that I don't understand how they know about?

Well, it's because you probably clicked something like "remember me" or "keep me signed in" on things like your google account and your facebook account, so that basically means they know everything about where you go on the web and what you click, who you know, and who you're friends with. I don't like that. So that's when I found out about these tools I linked to above, so that you can have, basically a protected box around your accounts where can stay logged in but they won't follow you around the internet. There you go - your web safety/privacy tip of the day.

A Bad Memory

I am back. I had a great time hanging with the JLK, then spent the weekend in BigNearbyCity while Mr. Phizz was away so I wouldn't die of loneliness. I hung out with friends, went to museums, and ate dim sum. I went shopping, spoke with my best friend IN PERSON, and it was just awesome. And now Mr. Phizz is back, and all is well. It's a good reminder that the Internet is just the Internet. I have a Real Life to attend to.

Anyhoo, recently an incident which occurred to me as a very small child came roaring back to me, for some reason. And it makes me sad, and it makes me mad. Because it has to do with some pretty heinous behavior directed at a child for her race.

I won't even pretend to know what it's like to be a different race. I only know what it's like to be mine, and it's not ALWAYS a picnic, though I will fully acknowledge that I believe it is a lot easier than being, say, black in America.

But when I was a little kid, I believe I was all of seven, a few things happened with a neighbor of mine. This man was father to two of my friends from across the street, and he always seemed pretty gruff and not especially friendly. But he was an adult. And adults always know what they are doing (that's what my seven-year-old self thought, anyway).

One day I was talking to this man for whatever reason, somehow the subject turned to presidents. I was probably telling him we were learning about presidents in school. He said to me, "Do you want to know who the greatest president in the history of America is?"

I surely did. I had a thirst for knowledge back then that kind of blows my mind right now.

He told me Harry Truman.

I tucked that piece of knowledge into my brain.

In school, I think the question was raised of who the greatest president was. Lots of people raised their hands, including me. I wasn't called on, but I was appalled to hear that no one said Harry Truman. After all, an adult had told me so. I didn't know what he had done and I had never heard of him before, but an adult had told me so. Therefore, everyone else had to be missing something, he must be greater than Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt...even though I had heard of those guys.

A few weeks later, his overstimulated son beat me up. He was a boy, and he wanted to fight, not because he was mad at me, but because he wanted to. He explained that he and his friend fight all the time and it was fun. I didn't want to fight. I had never been in a physical fight with anyone. He fought me anyway. My new pants got grass-stained. My head slammed into the wooden fence. I cried.

I ran across the street with two other neighbor friends (who were white boys) to "tell." I told him that his son had beat me up, my pants were ruined, and that he hit my head against the fence.

This man looked down at my little tearful self and said, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

I was shocked, I didn't know what to say. I explained again that his son had beat me up, had hurt me. He repeated, "So....WHAT do you want me to do about it??"

After a little while, it was clear he was not planning to mete out one iota of punishment, nor was he remotely sympathetic. Writing this is bringing tears to my eyes from the recollection. That this man could be such a jackass to a tiny little seven-year-old is beyond me. Even my other friends were surprised. I remember clearly, one of them said to console me, "He's not a very good father." The injustice was apparent to them, as well. They, like me, didn't know why he acted that way.

These are all just memories. I don't have a whole lot of memories from when I was this age, but these are very, very clear.

When I got older, I suddenly thought back to these events, and it struck me that this guy was probably anti-Asian. Probably, more specifically he was probably anti-Japanese but had never bothered to realize which Asian nationality I was, because I'm not that one. Not that how he acted would be ok if I were. After I got older and got a more complete vision of what all the Presidents were known for, I realized this: Harry Truman is known for his "The Buck Stops Here" sign, his excessive swearing, and dropping the Bomb. You know the Bomb I am talking about. Can you think of anything else you could possibly know about Harry Truman that would stand out?

Who knows. Maybe the guy hated little kids, except his own. Maybe he wouldn't have punished his son if he had beaten up anyone, whether they were Asian or not. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. But a large part of me, when you put it together with a lot of things I vaguely recall from childhood, feels sure that he just didn't like Asian people.

It still amazes me though, that he would treat a child the way he treated me. Well, suck it Mr. X. I rock.

To think that these days, this shit is probably happening to little Arab girls around the country breaks my heart.

The Internet is Crazy

And I don't feel like being on it for a little while.

Instead, I'll meet JLK IRL today.

And I'll leave you with the totally awesome webcomic to read while I take a hiatus of undetermined length. It could be only a day or two, or it could be a week. Anyway. Geek girls, check it out. It's seriously, seriously rockin'.

www.planetheidi.com/

Ada Lovelace Day Post - Corrinne Yu

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and I signed a pledge to blog about a Lady Computer Scientist on this day.

I chose to blog about Corrinne Yu, who is basically one of the most amazing people I had never heard of (until recently).

She is a GIANT in the field of game development. What do you think of when you think of computer games? Specifically, what do you think of when you think of the following?

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Halo

I'll tell you. You think of guys. Geeky guys. Well, guess what? Corrinne Yu is a big part of all of those games. She codes, she write the engines that support these games. She's a technical big shot. And this is her:

I can't believe I had never heard of her. I'm not really into games, but a hott Asian chick kicking ass and taking names in a male-dominated computing field? She's my freakin' hero(ine)!!! She is a dramatically different member of the game development community by stereotype, but not by skill or prowess, and that is what I really respect and admire. It's hard to kick ass and not fit in, and she does it. Kudos to her.

So, Corrinne was the Director of Technology at Gearbox Games (yes, Director of Technology), but was hired away by Microsoft to lead the Halo development team. Halo. Halo. Talk about SHE MUST KICK SERIOUS ASS. I love it. I don't play games, but I must say, I was blown away and excited by the knowledge of her existence, and I must share.

To read more about Corrinne, check out this interview with her: Linky.

My Absence

I meant to post right before I left that I was off to the Land of Eire, but I didn't have time, and my access was sooooo spotty out there.

Anyway, I'm back and I had a GREAT TIME!!!! I feel SO MUCH LESS STRESSED!!!! I highly recommend a holiday in Eire to get yourself to slow the fuck down.

More later. Missed y'all!

Pseudonymity and Paranoia

I am terrified of blogging too much sometimes. Because of this, I end up having to hold back a lot of information. Because honestly, in my field, it just might be that there is only one of me. I don't really know.

I was freaked out when I read this post over at Sciencewomen about getting "discovered" when blogging about the job search. I have a lot of stuff to kind of say, but I'm really not sure if I should say it, not because it would be bad about any institution necessarily, but because if I blog about the industrial labs I am considering, then my field my become obvious (or maybe I'm just paranoid), and then all my posts would be open to scrutiny.

I even wonder whether my icon/photo is too obvious - I look at it and it's clearly me (to me), but I realize that someone who knows my face less might not know it was me just from looking at it. After all, the logical side of my brain tells me it's really not that obvious.

Am I being too careful? Or does it not even matter? It's just that, with the Internetz, it's often one of those places where you really can't do "backsies" in any way....

ok, what the heck peeps?

recently when i was not so busy and eagerly checking google reader every day for posts from science chicks, there was nothing....

now, i am so busy i am not really checking google reader, but today i looked and i have 45 unread posts. 45!!!!!! seriously, i am not in sync with the blogosphere.

Email

I have just added an email contact to my profile.

Can you believe, phizzledizzle@gmail is TAKEN???? The nerve!!! ;) I almost want to email and just see who they are.

Instead, I had to settle for something else. Oh well.

Euphemisms

I was over at Ambivalent Academic's blog post, who was inspired by Dr. Isis's blog post, and has now inspired this post. See, because of the cornucopia of lady-parts discussions in the blogosphere today, I realized that today, I have used the following words:

• cooter
• vajayjay
• hooha
• twigs and berries

Why do I do that? I'm not a prude like Elliot from that show Scrubs, who can't say anything that she wouldn't say in front of her mother. My personal favorite euphemism of hers is "bajingo," her word for exactly what you might expect. Somehow, it just sounds right.

Anyway, I am not a prude. IRL, I am happy to say any sorts of real words in place of euphemisms.

I suspect that it is because of Candid's recent post about the search terms people got to her site with. I don't want people coming around because they are looking for ways to feed their porn habit. So....I guess I will stick with the euphemisms for now.

Because in all reality, I really do like the word "bajingo." Has a nice ring to it. I happen to like mine, and will never stick thumbtacks into it :).

Help?

How do I subscribe to comment stream for a wordpress blog after I've made a comment?

Blogger has a nice "email me followup comments" but I haven't noticed anything with wordpress, and I've missed some @PhizzleDizzles until I happen to wonder if anything happened and went to check on it.

Spanks! :)

Politics, Running, and My Dad

I've noticed many of my posts are kind of stream-of-consciousness. As I externally examine my "blogging process" what I will often do is make a title, and then proceed to write about something else entirely, and then eventually get around to the subject I originally intended. And then I might go back and alter the title so that it works.

Today, I am trying to make the title match before I start, but I have already failed and done exactly what I just described. HAHA!

Anyway, today's subjects are 3 (tenuously) related things.

1) Sarah Palin makes me want to poke red-hot poo-laden pokers into my eyes.

2) I read in Runner's World yesterday that she has done a 3:59:56 marathon. This IMMEDIATELY made me consider running a marathon for the sole purpose of kicking her ass, even though I have never done more than a half marathon. But the thought is percolating...Anyone else want to join the "Beat Sarah" brigade?

3) Yesterday my dear father called me to ask how I felt about the economy. What could I say? It sucks. Mr. PhizzleDizzle and I have lost a crap ton of our meager savings, though we are "staying the course" and riding it out. My dear wonderful dad then launched into a tirade about W, and how much he's a blithering idiot and how the damned GOP has fucked up all this shit. I am so glad. If my parents were Republicans I think I'd want stick red-hot poo-laden pokers into my eyes. Again.

4) I've been wondering this for days now - what the hell does it mean to "field dress a moose"? Seriously, who the hell cares if this is something she can do? Because I don't even know what poo it means.

The Blogosphere

I had read about the "blogosphere" in the media before, and this word always baffled me. But I have FemaleScienceProfessor to thank for helping me understand this world.

First, I found FSP through some google searching on some subject I don't remember, which led me to her wonderful site. I began reading it religiously through trusty Google Reader. Then, one day I found on Google Reader the "Discover" feature, which I had noticed before but never used.

When I clicked on it, there then was a long list of "chicks and science" blogs for my perusal. So I began to read a number of them. Then, I decided maybe I wanted to enter this "blogosphere" myself, which I did. And in recent days, I have discovered even more members of the "chicks and STEM" blogosphere, whom are all interesting and have significant things to say about the plight of our sex in this world and have been added to my "science chicks" blog list.

Basically, I am glad I am not alone. And maybe also glad that I have no future PhizzleDizzles yet. They sound like a lot of work.