Katze mit Wut

So which is the hottest of the "English" ones? Posh? Scottish? South Carolina?
Update: The votes are in, here goes!

It started out pretty simple. And with a real world case, too. I'm debating a new keyboard, as this one starts to act up — I'm sick of wireless, I'm sick of batteries, I'm sick of PS/2-to-USB adapters, and it seems the hardware starts failing me, too. That said, I was very happy with the ergonomic ("split keyboard") Logi — it was good to my wrists, it held up for ten years, and it certainly is one gorgeous keyboard —, and if the SafeType doesn't do the trick for me, I'll be looking to get a variant of the Logi that's not wireless. Anyway, the SafeType is also a split keyboard, but they mean it. It's like hacking a typewriter in two in the middle, and then putting both halves of the keyboard upright so they keyboards aren't horizontal, they're vertical. When you type, your hand are not parallel to your desk, but orthogonal to it. It did wonders for me when I tried the "upright mouse", so I think the keyboard may be beneficial, too. The rub is, you don't have cursor keys that way. So I needed to find a way to put the cursor keys on the main keyboard.

Markus Fisch must really love pie-menus. Not only did he give us the excellent PieDock, he also has a JavaScript in-browser demo for it! : ) Naturally, I couldn't resist another pie-menu, especially not such a good-looking one, so of course I installed it — and hacked it up!

So, I figured (Open-) Solaris and VirtualBox are both owned by Sun now, they should go together splendidly.

I opted for the Sun-offering rather than Nexenta etc. since I intend to test some things in a "Sun environment", that is, make sure things work with the on-board facilities. Otherwise "Sun-kernel and GNU userland" would likely have been my preference.

Now, there are two different offerings, mind. The freely available download of OpenSolaris "Indiana", for a start. At 686 MB, this comes without a compiler, any compiler, it seems, and that means, no Sun compiler and no GNU compiler. It seems nice enough otherwise. However if I wanted to install the Virtual Box additions so I could move the mouse-pointer in and out of the VirtualBox window (or even integrate the Solaris instance's windows with my linux host's), the keyboard went berserk (in the guest only, and in X only), so I had to click Install … to mount the image, and then kill X to cd /media/V*; pkgadd -d *.pkg really quickly. On the upside, it came with some sort of graphical package-manager (which possibly allows you to pull the GNU compiler collection).
Addendum: It seems like the keyboard situation can be avoided by connecting using RDP, see below.

Anyway, I needed the Sun compilers, so I had to opt for the Developer Express something offering (what's with these names?), which in theory requires you to register before download. The good news is, if you're already on the Sun payroll, your normal log-in credentials will do the trick. This image weighs 3.7 GB; the minimum disk requirements are in the region of 8 GB, with 20 GB recommended. It includes the compilers (and auto-tools) of course, but it's not just the other image, plus devel. GNOME looks subtly different, I had no trouble installing the VirtualBox additions, and if there is a graphical package manager I haven't found it so far. But then I haven't looked very hard since so far all I needed was to go to sunfreeware.com (or blastwave, whichever you prefer — blastwave and pkg-get actually handle dependencies, so that's probably what you want, more on that later) to install screen "so the pain will stop." Seriously, that should be their tagline. "Screen. So the pain will stop." But I digress.

Addendum: Since I was only changing config-files at first, I only used vim in the first hour. Yes, you know what's coming. Once you try to do real work, you'll find there is no emacs. No, no xemacs either. So I guess I want to install pkg-get after all. But seriously. A "developer-edition" with no emacs? WTH?? So pkg-get (or pkgadm, but PBA that there is another pkgadm in $PATH!) it is! pkg-get -i xemacs, add /opt/csw/xemacs/bin to PATH, then let the configuring begin!

Jemand names Charlotte Roche hat eine Erzählung geschrieben, wo die eine Hälfte "dramatisch überhöht" ist und die andere, was ohnehin jede tut. Das ist ein bißchen so wie, Alle kacken, aber nur Charlotte schreibt ein Buch drüber. Oder auch, Alle kacken, aber nur Charlotte hält sich deshalb für eine Feministin.

So, I'm in the middle of something. DSL goes down for no apparent reason. I don't see any WLAN I could share (and in fact NetworkManager has been behaving very weird since the update; if I don't kill -STOP it, it eats all my CPU — just plain killing it also tears down the net; this problem can be googled — a solution, not so much). So, UMTS. On this, pppd fails, giving unrecognized option '/dev/ttyUSB0'. This is the most obscure way they could find to say, You upgraded the kernel and haven't rebooted yet, so I can't find my shit. So, I reboot. Or, I try to. The upgrade from 2.6.25.3 to 2.6.25.4 plain broke my system (broke as in, EDD check, then BUG: INT14 CR2, dead before I get even the most basic boot messages). It is at this time that I notice that I haven't got a boot-manager installed that won't let me pass kernel options without excessive pain.

Kann Feminismus Spaß machen?, ist gefragt. Und ehrlich, ich finde das etwas merkwürdig gefragt. Macht Kampf gegen Sexismus Spaß? Das ist doch das selbe wie, Macht Kloputzen Spaß? Wenn mans nicht tut, erstickt man halt irgendwann in der Scheiße.

Way back, I got the Motorola RAZR v3, a very sexy phone. It had a stunning design, a nice display, and pretty good sound — and not much else. I've been hoping to upgrade for a while, but the next generation RAZRs took long to arrive, and did not entice me right away — the RAZR's design was so perfect that any change from it seemed to be for worse, while keeping it seemed more of the same. A rock, and a hard place. At the same time, the technology seemed OK, but not all that impressive, and the fact that the interesting features seemed spread out over a confusing trinity of next-generation rather products rather than being united in a single unit didn't help.

One contender was the LG Shine. I ultimately decided against it because its killer feature, its look and metal body, was offset by every review mentioning how it's "all fingerprints" after half an hour (give or take some complaints about the user-interface). I still think this might possibly be a great phone to have, especially if you wish to spend a little less.

Another contender from LG was the Prada-phone which in some ways anticipated the iPhone; with more up-to-date technology (or even just more memory), it might have likewise have been a serious contender. By now, it's sold on shop channel, so any exclusive air it may have possessed is gone.

Speaking of the iPhone itself, I'm pretty sure I'll want one. iPhone 2.0, iPhone 3.0, something like that. This one? Not so much — no 3G, no voice dial, no MMS, crap camera, no flash, no Java, no Bluetooth stereo, no video-recording, the list goes on. Add to that that it comes with a plan and I'm not sure I want one (I'm not even sure when mine expires), and that you can't change the battery yourself, and I'm put out.

Then came the Samsung Soul.

The Good

Well, for one thing, the SGH-U900 (video) is very chic, obviously. This is one seriously beautiful phone — the shell, the (brushed metal) theme, even the touchpad if configured right. The menus are more straight-forward than the RAZR's, the display's resolution is higher of course, and so is the camera's. It has more memory, and can be expanded further. Like the v3, it has the downer of some token plastic in that "full metal shell." And at first, it feels awkward to hold while making a call. But is it the "new RAZR"?

Below the fold: The Bad

OK, the title isn't all that clear, I'll grant you that. Is she talking about Yes Minister? you might be wondering, or did she mean Cracker? Very good guesses indeed; I see I'm writing for an audience with refined tastes. But no. I found in today's mail series 1 (all 22 episodes, 6 DVDs) of Picket Fences, a show that often made me laugh, sometimes made me cry, and often made me think. I can't think of higher praise.

Der Telegraph meint, einen Trend zur kleinen Brust ausmachen zu können.

Meh. British chic catches up with continental standards, 20 years late but moving fast. Film at eleven.

Man mag mal eine Ausgabe English Vogue, French Vogue, German Vogue und American Vogue ("bloody Abys- bloody -synian bloody Vogue, darling!" — Italian Vogue lassen wir mal außen vor, die hat sich ja inzwischen zum Schimpfwort unter Feministinnen gemacht mit ihren Gewalt gegen Frauen-Fotostrecken) vergleichen, am Besten aus dem selben Monat, das ist instruktiv. Ebenso ist es interessant, US BH-Grössen mit den deutschen zu vergleichen, sowie die Präferenzen unter den jeweiligen, haha, Herren der Schöpfung. Zum einem ist der "goldene Bruststandard" im englischsprachigen Raum nicht exakt derselbe wie in Kontinentaleuropa. Wenn dort also korrigiert wird, tangiert uns das nicht notwendigerweise. Erstens generell, und zweitens, wenn ohnehin nur in Richtung "unserer" Standards korrigiert wird. Zum anderem ist in Grossbritannien gerade eine Saison mit Lack und Latex und gewissen Schnitten usw. usw. durch, also das was böse Zungen hooker chic nannten — das ist schwer zu steigern, und ich bin nicht überrascht, daß jetzt etwas anderes dran ist, etwas mit weniger "display" z.B. — Mode ist ohnehin reichlich fragwürdig, aber dann eher "immer und überall," als nur dann wenn Frau B vom Telegraph gerade mal meint, nicht die Zielgruppe zu sein.

CD-baby, which I'm normally a fan of, now has MP3s for download. Good. You have to purchase entire albums though. Not quite so good. I like funk. There are, of course, pure funk CDs, but often jazzers, even those whose jazz I don't find terribly interesting, will have a good or even excellent funk track on their album. This makes the sales proposition essentially, buy our album for the single track you want, which is even worse than the usual, buy four good tracks and a lot of filler that the music industry usually offers us. I might still go ahead for an album that is 10 bucks or under, but most are in the $10 - $14 range, and especially in the jazz selection, there are actually $20+ albums, lo and behold. Now I know that the US dollar is essentially worthless these days, but still. $20 for one track is too much. I'm already paying more for CD-baby albums than I do for the few "normal" albums I still buy, since I purchase the latter via amazon "Used & new", which not only saves me money, but arguably also bypasses the bloody RIAA to an extent. Lastly, it'd be kinda nice if I could purchase the physical CD and the download in a bundle — essentially buy the CD so I'll have the media, and then pay a dollar or two on top of that for their bandwidth, that is, the privilege of downloading the music and listen to it immediately, rather than wait for international shipping. This doesn't mean pure download or "just the CD" should go away, it just means that there could be a third option which would make customers happy while not losing the baby any money. Or well, given that CDbaby's reply to that suggestion essentially was, yes, but you could buy both at full price!, maybe there are people who do that. Then the bundle option would lose the shop money. It's just that they've been so good in the "no evil" department so far. Finally, am I the only one weirded out by the download not being cheaper than the physical media in some cases?

To be fair though, mealmaster — I mean kegelmaster, nay, ticketmaster — managed to have my credit card number stolen, so I got a new CC, and bollocky amazon made it a total nightmare to update the data, especially for already existing orders. And then, amazon US won't send me my fridge magnets. (I have an urge to mix-and-match the Yiddish and the Romance ones, and if you can't see the hilarity of that, I really can't help you.) Now, if it were a used-or-new reseller, fine. But if it's called an "amazon webshop", it could bloody well go and be subject to the same principle that governs my other transactions with amazon, which is I send them money, they send me stuff. If they can't do that, they can at least put a special badge on shops that do deliver to amazon standards. But even so, I'm logged in. They know where I bloody am. How about just putting a big red warning on a page when I go to an article they won't ship to me, anyway? If they don't want my business, that's one thing, but they should at least have the bloody decency of telling me before I spend an hour shopping. By that token, CDbaby is still lightyears ahead.

Being a woman, I tend to find a half-dozen friend-requests in skype each morning. Aside from those who like my picture, I presume some are looking for free English lessons. Some also tell me about their private parts — goddammit, this is skype, not the bloody bananaphone, is that so difficult? —, and maybe some actually liked my profile. Yeah, a girl can dream. One thing though: guys, what are you thinking (well, are you?) sending me friend-requests when you don't have a picture, don't have a profile, don't even send a hallo to go with the request. Or in short, "Friend me." You've given me no reason to be interested in you. Or shorter still, "Friend me; I won't tell you who I am." What is it with those people?

I don't flag Skype me!
I don't flag Online.
I'm normally set away of busy.
That doesn't mean anything.

I never really thought much of it, they make an offer, I'm not interested, no harm done, can't blame them for trying. Right? Well, in fact I find it a little rude when the person's not flagged Skype me!, for one thing. But with at least one of a filled-in profile and a little something about you in the hallo-message (that should be both literate and not about your sexual prowess), I might relent. "Unsolicited" seems less bad when it's polite otherwise. And when it's not commercial.
article originally written on 2007/04/29

Way back when I wrote a paper called Pretty in Pain. ("Rape culture, by any other name —" You'll have to excuse the style; it was one of the first things I wrote at university, and if nothing else, I got some feedback from people in the "co-dependent scene" — and a lot from the BDSM scene, where they appreciated that I pointed out issues, but did not demonize them wholesale. That, and it predated the plethora of much better papers you'll find nowadays by several years.) Anyway. Back then I mentioned to some people that I'd love to ultimately write a treatment on porn, but given that "both sides" had studies and treatises and what-not, it would take quite some time to do the research — time I sadly didn't have. It's been years, and I still haven't found the time. And perhaps more importantly, better researchers than I am have. So I'll offer a — by now terribly biased — opinion instead.

One of the fabulous subversive words invented by the incomparable twisty — more on her in the "footnote" — is empowerful. Empowerful as in empowered, the prefix em-, like en- or in- denoting that the power is invested in her from without, lest somebody think that females might be naturally powerful. The distinction matters.

Empowerment is a rather fitting word though, as it is traditionally suggested that the power held by women is sexual power. In other words, sexuality grants women "power" over men who hold actual, real power. Women use that vile witchy power of sexuality to "control men" and channel some of those men's power into themselves, thereby empowering themselves. This obviously is quite different from finding her own power within, that is, actually being powerful by herself, rather than by proxy. It follows quite naturally that the more sexuality a woman can express, the more empowerful she is. It is for this reason that women aide in their own pornification. This pornification, some may say, is reaching new heights both in intensity (in the current fetish fashion and raunch culture) and extent (the pornification of preteens; "corporate paedophilia"). Enough maybe for some to think that it has come to the point where something's gotta give, where only a backlash can follow, but personally, I'm not so sure. That this will happen. That if it happens it will be a backlash that makes things better for women.

This of course means that there are women who don't get to be empowerful: those who cannot or will not conform to beauty standards; those who will not pornify themselves, the fat and the old and the butch and, oftentimes, the poor. It also means that if you end up in one of those groups — by gaining weight, getting old, getting bored with the effort of the performance that is beauty, or otherwise not being a feast for the male gaze and thereby neglecting your duties as a member of the sex class —, you fall out of favour, and lose "your" power, as it is only by power by proxy, and never was yours to begin with.

This is particularly interesting when considering how well we're told many 1^st world women do in school and uni in recent years. It would certainly be instructive to investigate to what degree this finding intersects with that that nowadays, we exist to the degree that we exist in the media. Which, if we stick to the modes of expression traditionally allowed to us, reinforces those stereotypes, of course.

Yes, Virginia, comic book physique is possible. Within reason. Thing is, who wants to be a comic book character these days?

Most of you have seen the I'm a Marvel / I'm a DC spots. I didn't even bother to watch them all, because they made DC look so bad, and, always having been a DC girl, that just put me off.

But maybe, it's time to take a closer look at things. Tally. On the Marvel side? Spidey dealing with child abuse and fighting people who want to give bad sex ed (I'm not making this up, follow the link! Issue includes some sex ed basics, advertised by Stan the Man himself, at that. The bit about homosexuality is certainly off, but hey, it's from the '70s — not an excuse, certainly, but an explanation.).

Meanwhile, what does DC offer us? The rape of Batman. The rape of Green Arrow — and his son Conner/Green Arrow 2 kissing daddy's rapist, because, you know, that's better than being considered gay — right? Right?

Sorry, DC, but you suck.

sincerely, your greatest fan