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Everything posted by Nephil Thief
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What have you been reading recently?
Nephil Thief replied to Emmisary of Immanence's topic in General
Hi all, it's been a while Currently I've got Light entertainment: The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman, which is the first James Bond pastiche I've actually been able to tolerate. Heavy entertainment: Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan, which reads like an M. John Harrison novel written by Jodie Scott. It's good and weird and I like it a lot so far. Nonfiction: Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction by Annalee Newitz. I loved their SF novel The Future of Another Timeline, so figured why not? (I very very wholeheartedly recommend said novel by the way, it hits all the right notes for a Joanna Russ fan.) -
@sylae it's kind of vaguely on my to-read queue, in part because Dreadnaught seems to borrow from it a bit. However, its priority in said queue is going to suffer, because the author appears to dude, and I have a ton of other known good writers ahead in line this year. (Note that this isn't deliberately political. It's more just that I'm tired of novels that alienate me with in-your-face sexism just after they start to get interesting.) Edit: wait really? Okay, it's inching up in priority then.
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*cough cough* Hulk *cough* Or, well... Doomsday. The Incredible Thing. Juggernaut. The Blob. Doc Samson. Abomination. Colossus. This type of character is almost invariably male. Which usually makes sense IRL, but we're totally not talking IRL here. (And also, being really strong IRL doesn't entail being physically invulnerable like in comics, or in Hollywood movies for that matter. Random musclebound dudes are not capable of taking bullets, knife wounds, and other serious injury and heavy blood loss without feeling it or caring about it; and I frankly despise how Hollywood has indoctrinated people to assume this is the case. It seems to me at times like 90% of entertainment media are dedicated to teaching the oppressed to not see their own potential strength.) Edit: I think a lot of this though is also that comic writers/illustrators are really averse to creating major female characters who they perceive as "ugly", because for some reason anything and everything female has to be objectified.
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@Edgwyn, re "sex sells". There's no need for a conspiracy, only systematic bias: people in the industry don't think nearly as much about a "sex sells" approach aimed at the giant potential audience of straight women. That's just for starters though. The pop culture way of doing sex appeal for straight men is IMO brokenly specific, and tailored for guys with some often pretty toxic preferences. (Domineering, savior and/or martyr complex, Nice Guys, that kind of stuff.) Everything down to the camera work, which is usually designed very specifically to emulate male gaze - something I found extremely cringe-inducing even when I was a teenager, before feminism and dysphoria and all that. Basically it's always seemed, to me, to be all geared towards a fetish for rescuing vulnerable women and then having power over them. Which is damn toxic IRL (trust me, I know that from experience); but also something I've always found incredibly offputting and bizarre. And I know I'm not the only person who feels that way, and strongly doubt that only other queer people and women feel that way. Again going by my own experience, I would bet there are real straight, cisgender men out there who find it completely bizarre and repulsive; and (like me when I was nominally male) cannot fully articulate it, or are embarrassed to say it publicly with their names attached. IDK, sorry if the above is beyond what's appropriate for this forum. Anyway yeah, I don't believe in a Giant Hollywood Conspiracy. More just that broken standards of manliness and womanhood are reflected in broken standards of entertainment. See also, why Wonder Woman has to look like this person instead of like this person or, heaven forbid, this person.
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@Iffy Yes that's definitely true for me. Most of my friends now either know my girlfriend some way, or are people I met at political protests. @Wrath, @Randomizer I suppose it might just be that kind of "critical mass" thing. IDK. Neither of the two roguelike forums I'm (sometimes) active on have much trans representation (and the guys there tend to be casually sexist). Edit: BTW, kosher dill pickles are amazing. Like seriously, AMAZING. I don't remember them tasting like that before I started taking Spiro...
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Yeah, I suspect something about SW games attracts closeted trans folks. Not sure what it was for me; I think the escapist worldbuilding/fantasy tourism aspect of BoE, and maybe the freedom to build gender nonconforming characters, something something escaping from reality something something being a dork when I was a kid. Edit: also almost every trans person I know has some kind of autism diagnosis, and some aspects of SW games seem tuned to that? IDK.
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@Didolatry: true, OTOH I've already seen some ridiculous insurance hijinks pre-Chump. One time when I was on COBRA, the provider cut off my insurance without reason or prior notification. Left me completely unmedicated for a week, and I had to switch one of my meds to make things affordable without insurance. It was a REALLY close call, and I still don't know what happened. @The Almighty Doer of Stuff: Charlie Baker may be relatively liberal but he's still dreadful, even if he did eventually turn against the AHCA. (And I'm formerly known as Tevildo, and before that as Miramor. Avatar is Lacey, one of my fluffbabies. <3 )
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And thanks, Lilith. Yeah, it's been interesting, and disturbing, seeing some of the common threads in how The Closet messes people up, as I've talked with and befriended more trans folks. (And might as well mention, a certain recent SF novel helped a lot. Though almost as much from a "wow the protagonist's relationship with her dad is just like mine" validation standpoint, as from "yay the protagonist is trans and feels a lot like I do".)
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Thanks all (and anyone else who comments). Mmm, pickles sound good, I may have to go and get some. When the thunderstorm here peters out... And yeah I'm also very glad I'm doing better, though it would be nice if my country didn't despise my guts oo many different counts. I resent that so much of my life got buried by dysphoria, and hope I can survive long enough to make up for it, but am not greatly optimistic. Oh, re hormones. From what I've seen, even old off-patent drugs tend to be unreasonably expensive without insurance. I suspect some heavy duty price fixing going on. Ordering overseas is something I've considered if for some reason my clinic decides to dump me. But I worry A LOT about quality control, and how to tell who is legit vs who is selling filler if not actual poison. Also, ordering prescription drugs overseas is still go-to-jail illegal IIRC, and I expect more enforcement of such stuff coming down the pipes...
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Today I am two months into HRT. Also I came out to both my parents during the week. My dad took it well, which I would consider a minor miracle if I were religious. No way am I ever going back if I can help it. *shudder* I have no idea how I survived up until now, and I've had it (and continue to have it) pretty easy vs. most of my current friends. Hope insurance keeps paying for hormones so I can be functional, ha ha. I beseech thee oh Demons of Capitalism, please don't take away my lifeline... And, uh, to everyone else here traveling this path. Thank you for existing, and being visible, and talking honestly about things the mainstream doesn't want to believe in. It helps. ... Okay. That's all. Back to reading books, tampering with software, and failing to actually play Spiderweb games.
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What have you been reading recently?
Nephil Thief replied to Emmisary of Immanence's topic in General
Recently finished: Company Town by Madeline Ashby. I loved it... up until the end, whereupon it started getting incredibly preachy with magical Free Will stuff and a heaping side of normative sexism. It almost completely lost me on the latter, because the whole "women need to personally rely on men" thing usually makes me too furious to keep reading. I did like the protagonist a lot though. Also, it's now clear to me that cyberpunk is the most stereotypically Canadian SF genre ever. -
Five-Dimensional Political Compass
Nephil Thief replied to Punctuation rains from the heavens's topic in General
TBH I don't really like this test due to severe lack of nuance. e.g. I had to answer "no" on taxation because I don't believe governments have the right to punitively tax people who can't afford it. IMO one of the central purposes of taxation is to redistribute wealth. -
Oooh this new board software is pretty!
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Hiya! I haven't been around much lately, everything kind of exploded. Hmm. I've kind of given up on scenario design by now, writing prose is much easier. However, I would be willing to offer ideas/suggestions and do some programming. I'm lousy at C++ (never mind the functional C++11/14 stuff) but should be able to manage something useful. Might be better writing documentation though. (Am familiar with that from my time in sysadmin jobs.)
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What have you been reading recently?
Nephil Thief replied to Emmisary of Immanence's topic in General
Just finished The Power by Naomi Alderman. I love this book, and wish it had existed when I was 16. -
@Edgwyn At this point, if you can look at Trump and his cabinet in all their cumulative awfulness and just say that they continue a bad trend, you are in denial far beyond anything I can help with. @Goldengirl Agreed. I want to say I fault Pres. Obama in part for failing to curtail this, but it goes waaaay back and a lot of people share responsibility. (Including people like me, for failing to make enough noise about it.) But, I think that a Trump administration is a qualitative change, not just a quantitative one. Trump is a guy who doesn't even pay lip service to rule of law, and his cabinet will consist mostly of people who make the Bush Administration's worst look like Isaac Asimov protagonists. Trump's only detailed policy item during his campaign was ethnic cleansing. Various forms of bigotry are the only positions he's been consistent on. If the worst thing he does is stuff the political system with billionaires and make us all peons, I will be astonished.
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So, it didn't work. Lately I've been hearing stuff about how the Supreme Court could throw out Trump's Presidency. If this is legally possible though, I think it doesn't matter; the Republicans would probably ignore SCOTUS, because they could get away with it and they know it. Also, anyone notice how Trump has his own private security force in addition to the Secret Service? I do not think we have rule of law on a federal level any more. On a local and state level, in some places, but not federal. Good luck and best wishes to everyone here. Please try to keep your anger, if nothing else. I'm forcing myself every day to keep mine.
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Falling Stars has some hidden rooms that don't show on the map until you find them, even if you use the Char Editor or debug commands. I don't know exactly how that works, but suspect it involves terrain transformation nodes; i.e. when you open the secret door, a special node turns an area of wall into floor, producing the room. Edit: actually I'm not sure if terrain transformation would cover this, since it's not just floor - also book shelves, treasure chests, and other stuff. But it definitely works.
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Edgwyn - I'm just going to link this. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/magazine/a-time-for-refusal.html?_r=0 If you think the country will come through okay when left to its own devices, you are rationalizing. Please try not to let the normalization get to you. ... I think I'm gonna stop posting in this thread for a while. Need to actually be functional, which has suddenly become a lot harder than it sounds.
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Edgwyn, I think it's not realistic to deny the role of sexism, considering the rhetoric both from Republicans *and* from anti-Clinton guys on the left. Even if it ultimately played second fiddle to racism. I agree about the foibles of the Democratic party, but also think that's mostly irrelevant now. Once Trump is in office, with his buddies ruling Congress and a friendly judicial branch, the bigots will have carte blanche to oppress whoever and however they like. Now is not a good time for retrospective analysis paralysis.
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@Alex You might want to actually talk to some of the "self-styled progressives". And maybe pay attention to their living conditions. It's not just straight white people who can't make ends meet; and seriously, if you think that money is the only form of privilege and independent of anything else, you are either in some serious denial or have been living in a cave your entire life.
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Cumulatively, I've spent as much time devising and tweaking weird character builds as actually playing them. With Angband variants, I hack at the game, or fiddle with preexisting skill systems... But abandon my characters out of boredom 90% of the time. I barely ever play my own Angband variant. With BoE, I waste inordinate amounts of time on modeling PCs and parties, even though BoE's bugs and design flaws make most of it not matter. ... I don't want a game where you are an adventurer. I want a game where you train adventurers, and then send them out to do stuff. Or maybe an RPG that is all plot, dialog, and skill allocation, with fighting managed by the game AI. Like, Blades of Exile meets Oregon Trail. I wonder if this is just me being weird, or if there's actually a demand for such games.
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Heh. In belated response to the OP: I love Jethro Tull. Including "Aqualung." 1. I don't have any songs that make me uncompromisingly happy. Generally, I don't do pure happy; hopeful is the best you'll get... But for that, I always have Delain: 2. I once picked up a heavy metal habit from someone I knew. I left her behind a while ago, but the habit didn't leave me. And in those times when I feel emotionally overwhelmed, I usually listen to an album: "Hope" by Swallow the Sun I'm not linking it here because it's... pretty hardcore. But it's still the album that takes my hand and says, "I know the world sucks, but you're going to make it through this time." (And no, I have no idea why I find emotional solace in doom metal. I'm weird.) 3. Jan Garbarek does serenity well. I should probably start listening to him again; it might help. Not sure I'd call it calm, but definitely serene. 4. I, uh... yeah, I don't think I've got anything there. On we go. 5. That would be by Within Temptation. Because, you know... actually get out and doing stuff, instead of moping around and kvetching. 6. Interesting compositions by Pain of Salvation are... not exactly uncommon, but my favorite is probably "Enter Rain" which I'm not linking because of disturbing lyrics. But, it hits me really hard on both musical and lyrical levels. It also helps that Daniel Gildenlow is gorgeous: http://i.imgur.com/5sgOLCI.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8n0A1rZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FYoZHFY.jpg Seriously, tell me the guy doesn't look like an angel. 7. "Starships" by Nicki Minaj Well, maybe not "really enjoy", but it has its heart in the right place. and *. I found out that an old acquaintance is actually doing okay, despite my worries.
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Awesome. Congrats and good luck!
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Time for updates! For some reason I recycled the sulfras designation for a new router. This is an Optiplex GX620 (slimline) with an extra PCI ethernet card, running OpenBSD. Performance is better than the old Cisco router I was using for a while, and the pf firewall is great for stuff like this, much simpler to configure than Linux's iptables. Source-based updates are a bit annoying though. The original netbook sulfras is now grayarea again, this time with a 250 GB SSD. (The main benefit of this is fast boots; overall speed benefit is not impressive with a 32-bit Atom processor, and battery life is not in any way improved.) I'm waffling between grayarea and hoatzin (formerly defiant) for mobile needs; hoatzin has more CPU power, 64-bit support, and is astonishingly fast with the SSD, but is also very heavy and bulky (especially with the gigantic new battery pack I bought for it). And its large size makes it feel disturbingly flimsy vs. the netbook. So for now, grayarea is the one I take to coding meetups and stuff, even though it takes 2-3 times longer to compile stuff. harvest-lore is still basically the same, in terms of hardware. And that's basically that. Oh, and my Linux machines now run Void Linux. I was using Debian Stable with backports for a while, but there's just not enough stuff backported.
