Ch-ch-ch-changes

This is a bit of an update for all the friends and relations who will get grumpy that I didn't tell them what was going on. Some of you already know all or some of this, and if you don't know me in real life, you probably won't care about most of this. Anyway, onward:

1) School. After a week and a half of class I realized that being a paramedic was not for me. Not even as a fallback if I don't get into medical school. I realized that if that happened, I would work for a couple of years, get bored, and go back to school so that I could do research or something. So why not just cut out that middle step? I've switched to a program in human biology, which a) means I get to do all sorts of exciting courses like Evolution and Ecology and b) means that I'll be in a position, in 3 years, to apply to both med school and grad school, and while I do have some doubts about my ability to get into and survive med school, I have no such doubts about grad school, and except for biochem, I don't think there's a field of biology I wouldn't be ultimately happy working in.

2) Hair. eek.

I do this about once every five years. It starts with a general feeling of malaise concerning my hairstyle. A deep ennui with the long, straight-across-the-bottom cut that I've had now for 13 years. I start toying with the idea of doing something with it. I consider shaving it all off. I consider going to a stylist and telling them to go wild. It continues into a realization that my unwillingness to spend time daily (or even weekly) on my appearance and a deep loathing for all things styling-product are major obstacles to having a cool and interesting hairstyle. But, since it's been about five years since I last put scissors to my hair, the split ends are kind of out of control, and I really really really am sick of the status quo, it culminates (after months of agonizing) in me going AAARGGGH NO MORE SPLIT ENDS!!! and calling on some available person (usually my mom, once a friend, this time Dave) to CUT THEM OFF, DAMMIT!! Then, once the cutting commences, I agonize about how short it's gonna be and I start to wish I hadn't done it. This time it's even shorter than usual for these episodes, just barely past my shoulders. I keep exclaiming about how I have short hair now, and Dave keeps trying to tell me that hair past your shoulders isn't short, but he's wrong. This is how much of a loser I am: cutting six inches off the end of my hair is a traumatic experience for me.

Anyway, I have some ideas about colour, but I'm not going to say anything unless/until I decide to actually go through with it. I'll update a picture of the new cut as soon as I can get the camera to talk to the computer.

Oh Sure, Expanding This System Make Perfect Sense.

UPDATE: Apparently when I wrote this, the Halton Catholic School Board hadn't actually made its decision, it was just considering it. They have since voted 4-3 to allow the vaccines, which is uncomfortably close for something that shouldn't even be an issue, but nonetheless worlds better than the alternative.

Via Pharyngula: Apparently the Halton Catholic school board is banning their school nurses from administering the HPV vaccine. I thought this sort of "What about the children" sex-panic was limited to those morons south of the border*, but apparently we have our share of home-grown morons.

If this were a case of parents opting out of the vaccine I would almost be able to sympathise. To be convinced that your daughter is too sweet and pure to possibly have sex until she's married (to another virgin, natch) is stupid, but sort of understandable. Parents are often stupid about their kids' sexuality. But it's not conceivable that a school board is that deluded about all its female students. If the administrators are not aware that teenagers have sex, then they are not qualified to do their jobs. And since the only way to get the HPV vaccine for free in Ontario is to be an eighth-grade girl and get it through school, and since the cost of the vaccine is prohibitive if you're not in that group ($450 all told), and since condoms don't offer very good protection against HPV, what this amounts to is the school board saying that if you're a girl and you have sex then you deserve to get cancer.

And the Tories think we need more of this?
.

*Said with sincerest sympathies for those non-morons who are also south of the border

Today I Learned... for Monday, September 17

Today I learned:

- What squamous, cuboidal, and columnar cells look like. I can identify simple and pseudostratified columnar, and stratified squamous fairly reliably, but the rest need some practice.

- About action potentials in neurons. If the graded potential* is still at -55mV or higher by the time it reaches the axon hillock** then it will trigger an action potential, which involves the opening of voltage-gated Na-channels, allowing Na⁺ to enter the cell down its electrochemical gradient, causing the membrane potential (Vm) to spike as high as +30mV. This triggers the closing of the Na-channels. At some point during all this the voltage-gated K-channels open, allowing K⁺ to leave the cell along its electrochemical gradient. The K-channels stay open after the Na-channels close, causing the Vm to drop until it's below its resting potential, at which point all the voltage-gated K-channels close again, leaving onoly a few K-leak channels open to let a bit of K⁺ in until the Vm is back to its resting point (~70mV) and the cell is at rest again. Two things I'm not entirely clear on:

1. When do the K-channels open and what triggers it?
2. At the end of the process the voltage across the membrane (Vm) is restored to its rest state, but the chemical gradient is not. There is too much Na⁺ and not enough K⁺. Maybe that's what the K/Na pump is for? But since the K/Na pump exports 3 Na⁺ for every 2 K⁺ it imports, using that to restore the concentrations would change the voltage, wouldn't it? It's all very confusing.

- If you're a Psychology prof then you're a Real Scientist(TM) and are entitled to cast aspersions on any scientific theory you want, like for example the big bang, whether you understand it or not.

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*Not entirely clear what that is.
**Why hillock? Why not?

Ow! Update

1mm inuration. I do not have TB. Go me.

x=moron, {x|x ε [Tory], x ε [Tories]}

I'm sure most current and former Ontarians remember the horrors of our last Tory government. Remember that asshole whose funding cuts to health care and education ran into billions of dollars? Remember the Education Minister who never finished highschool? Remember how no one in that government gave a shit what the people they were governing wanted? Good times.

Well, in case you had forgotten, or weren't here for it, or were too young to remember, or just got dropped on your head too many times as a child, and were thinking of voting PC this October, they've just stepped up with an excellent reason why you shouldn't. Not only have they come up with the worst possible solution to the problem of Ontario's publicly funded religious schools (make more of them!), their leader, John Tory, put his foot firmly in his mouth by saying that these brand new public religious schools he wants to fund would be able to teach creationism. Of course he's backpedalling like crazy now, and to be fair, I believe he is sincere in saying that he believes in evolution and meant that creationism would only be taught in religion classes,* as is apparently already the case with Catholic Schools.** But isn't it nice when they shoot themselves so squarely in the foot like that?

And, while we're on the topic, is anyone else annoyed that the Liberals and NDP are a bunch of chickenshit pansies, and the Green Party is the only party with a sensible position on this issue?

I'm actually really annoyed with the Libs and NDP right now. I'd almost rather they agreed with the Tories than take their namby-pamby no-boat-rocking status quo position. Maybe I'm naive, but I expected better from both parties. The status quo is both idiotic and discriminatory. The Tories are at least doing something, and their position does eliminate the discrimination (on the other hand it increases the idiocy, so I'm calling it a draw). Sticking with an bad situation because you'll offend some morons by proposing change is nothing but cowardice.

I'll keep an eye on these pages of The Star to see what's what, but I may end up having to vote Green this time around.

Oh, and this isn't the last time I'll say this before October 10th, I'm sure, but whether you agree with my post or not, if you're a Canadian citizen and an Ontario resident, and you're over 18 years old, please, please, please vote next month. Democracies only work when we participate.

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*Which is all well and good but ought to be a moot point since public funding should not be fucking going to religion classes in the first place.

**Did you know this? I didn't know this.

Ow!

Word of warning to those hoping to work in healthcare or child care fields: TB tests hurt!

Anyone Else Sick of this Story?

It's a regular on cop shows, and it goes like this:

A crime is committed in Chinatown.* The locals don't want to go to the police, but you can't really keep a death/explosion/kidnapping secret, so they find out anyway. The cop assigned to the case suspects the local Chinese organized crime group (LCOCG), but since no one who witnessed or knows about the crime will talk to him**, he's blocked at every turn and the LCOCG continues to threaten and harm and generally cause mayhem until finally, out of desperation, someone close to the original crime victim agrees to talk to the cop, whereupon she is rewarded for her wise trust in the police by seeing all the leaders of the LCOCG arrested and, if applicable, all kidnapped people returned unharmed. Unless, of course, she waited too long, in which case the mob bosses are still arrested and she is sternly reminded that if only she had come forward sooner poor Nathan Wu would still be alive and what has she learned from all this?

Does anyone else feel like they're being forced to vicariously act like a patronizing asshole when they're watching these sorts of things? Cuz I do.

You know, just once I'd like to see a story where a crime committed in Chinatown is not committed by the Chinese Mafia, the victims and/or families thereof cooperate with police as much as the details of the story allow, and cooperating with the police is not a deus ex machina for getting the damn crime solved. I feel like that's not really a lot to ask.

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*Extra points if Torontonians can identify the streets they're shooting on.

**Even more points if a woman on the police force makes some halfhearted comment about the Chinese people's fear of white cops being justified on account of a history of institutionalized racism, which comment is promptly forgotten by all.

I'm That Guy

When your math-studying, RPG-playing, comic book-reading, SF-reading and -watching, computer-programming, Buffy fan of an SO says you're too geeky, well, you know something ain't right. Here's a conversation Dave and I had last night:

Me, coming out of shower: So, I've discovered a major continuity error from seasons six and seven of Buffy.*
Dave: Oh?
Me: Okay, so, you know how there's that episode towards the end of season six where Spike tries to rape Buffy?
Dave: Yeah.
Me: And Buffy had already told Xander that she and Spike had been sleeping together, but that she'd broken it off, right?
Dave: Yeah.
Me: So anyway, in that episode, after Spike takes off, Xander shows up at Buffy's house, and he sees Spike's leather jacket on the railing, and he mutters to himself something about "oh yeah, it's over is it?" and grabs the jacket and heads upstairs, but when he sees Buffy in the bathroom he just dumps the jacket aside to help her.
Dave: Okay...
Me: And the next time any of the Scoobies see Spike, it's season seven and he's insane in the school basement. And later in season seven he goes back to the basement to get his jacket, so we know he had it there.
Dave: Okay...
Me: So, I wanna know how he got his jacket back.
Dave: ....
Me: In fact, I think, later in that same episode in season six, when he's taking off for Africa on his motorcycle**, he's wearing his jacket. So, how did he get it back?
Dave: looks at me like I'm a freak
Me: What?
Dave: keeps looking at me
Me: What!?
Dave: still looking at me
Me: Oh my god, I'm that guy!
Dave: Uh huh.
Me: I'm the comic book guy from The Simpsons! Oh shit.
Dave: Uh huh.
Me: Damn

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*To fully appreciate the geekitude here, you have to understand that it's not like I'd been watching Buffy really recently or anything.

**This motorcycle thing led to a tangent that I didn't want to allow to break up the flow above, but it was actually kind of funny:

Me: ...when he's taking off for Africa on his motorcycle -- which, wtf?
Dave: He must have gone via Bering.
Me: Or ocean liner.
Dave: I guess.
Me: Dude. Who the hell would go from *California* to Africa via Bering? By motorcycle? Do you know how long that would take?

Shit, I Missed Something Else!

I totally meant to blog it, but it slipped right by without a whisper, and now, nearly a month late, I have to announce that July 18th was my second bloggiversary. I r teh blogzorz!

It May Just Work

It all started with this strip from Penny Arcade. I don't get about 75% of the gaming-related jokes on PA, so I just figured this was another one of those, laughed at the non-reference aspect of the joke and moved on. Until this past Sunday, that is, when my sweetie pointed out that Chore Wars is real! Dude! Anyway, we set up a team and created a bunch of adventures and it's already started. This morning I yelled "No! Don't touch! I'm gonna wash those dishes!"

I think we may have found the solution to our lazy-assedness problem.

Nature, The Artiste

It's raining. Over the course of the past few minutes the light level went from comfortable-for-reading-don't-need-any-lights-on to holy-shit-where'd-the-sun-go? as a huge grey cloud moved overhead. Then the rain started coming down so quietly that it took me a few seconds to notice. The air was thick with raindrops, none of this couple-drops-a-second bullshit, but the individual drops were so small it felt more like falling mist at first. I've never seen that before.

Now it's a more normal storm, with thick drops and lightning and thunder and nothing but grey in all directions.

I was sitting with my laptop on the well-sheltered balcony, enjoying the cool air, but the wind picked up, so now I'm going to leave y'all inside with Pixie and go watch the rain fall.

I Think This Pretty Much Sums It Up

At The Primate Diaries via Pharyngula.

*snrk*

In Which I Learn That Spending My Days Undressed May Not Be So Wise After All

While washing my mug at 3:15 this afternoon, I all of a sudden heard the most awful piercing scream. At first I thought it was the pipes, and when turning the water off didn't make it stop, I turned to glare accusingly at my laptop, don't ask me why. Finally it twigged that this sounded alarmingly like the smoke detector, which I of course immediately glared at, until I realized that a) there was nothing in the apartment that could possibly be setting it off and b) there was a second tone sounding, almost as loud but slightly lower pitched, and sounding like it came from elsewhere in the building. Shit. It's not real, I told myself. Just a damned drill or something. I fancied I smelled smoke, but I knew that could be psychosomatic. Either way, it seemed that going out was unavoidable. Let it never again be said that one shouldn't leave one's clothing lying around. I was already wearing a sarong and slippers, and it took me but a split second to grab and put on the first top at hand (quelling irrational thoughts of "but it doesn't match!") In the time it took me to do that, I considered and rejected bringing my laptop, and remembered that my keys weren't in my purse. Fortunately they were in the first place I looked, so I grabbed them and my purse and headed out, locking the door behind me. In the hall there was no longer any question about the smoke.

Entering the stairwell, I joined a woman from the floor above me, also leaving the building. As we descended in silence, the smoke was getting thicker, and I was trying to remember what I had learned in school about what you do if the fire is between you and your exit. The only clear thought I had was "walking into fire = bad idea."* This continued until we reached the third floor landing, where we saw a woman sitting on the step, crying. She saw us and said "It's in my apartment. All my stuff is in there." "Okay," I replied, sympathetic sweetheart that I'm not, "we have to get out of the building. Come on." The other woman and I each took one of this woman's arms and coaxed her up and moving. Another floor down and another person, this one all panic-faced, asking "Where's the fire?" "It's on the third floor," I told her, "let's just get out of the building." This seemed to baffle her a bit, but she moved, and finally we were outside.

Everything is fine (except probably for that poor woman whose apartment it was), there was no damage to me or my place, and the fire fighters let us back in the building after about 25 minutes of watching first smoke, then water, pour out of a couple of third-floor windows. And that was my little adventure for today.

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*While I know that fire alarms are designed to be rattling to get people moving, there's got to be some frequency/volume combination that has that effect without also seriously impeding cognitive function. Loud, high-pitched noises just make me stupid.

Racist Fuckheadery Alive and Well in Toronto

Warning to Toronto's Ward 7 residents. Your city councillor is a racist fuckhead. I heard on the CBC yesterday, I think on Here and Now, that Mammoliti wants to make bars' and clubs' liquor licenses contingent on a commitment from the owners/managers that they will not allow entrance to people wearing gang colours, or play gangster rap. Mammoliti's justification is that the music glorifies violence, specifically violence against women and cops*, and that it is therefore a legitimate question of safety.

The interviewer at least seemed to recognize the racist fuckheadery and challenged the councillor by a) pointing out that violence in clubs is bad for business, so club owners already take steps to discourage it by installing metal detectors and often banning gang colours of their own volition and b) asking the councillor if there was any evidence that listening to the type of music in question actually increases the incidence of violence. Mammoliti succeeded in avoiding this question, among others about whether the club owners themselves supported the new rules, and whether he was worried that this might constitute an unacceptable level of censorship.

At one point during the interview, Mammoliti showed his true colours by admitting that part of the point of the rule was that if clubs weren't allowed to play "music that glorifies guns and violence," then "those sorts of people" would be less likely to go to the clubs and cause problems. I kind of thought that everyone knew what "those sorts of people" meant, to the point that it had stopped being a useable euphemism for racist fuckheads who don't want to appear racist. Using that phrase in a discussion about rap music is about equivalent to using the phrase "money and the ethnic vote" in a discussion of Quebec elections, isn't it?

I have a question for Mr. Mammoliti. Sir, if you're so fucking worried about violence against women that you're willing to ban a music style to help prevent it, may we assume that you'll soon be banning The Beatles as well? After all a little glorification of stalking was not exactly uncommon in their lyrics, and stalking victims are often in serious danger from their stalkers. Or if we're talking generally dangerous, how about banning most American country music? I mean surely, in the long run, nationalistic pride and American exceptionallism are more dangerous than a few individuals with guns or knives, aren't they? Because, after all, this is about increasing safety, and not about keeping Black people out of bars, right?

Mr. Mammoliti, you're a racist fuckhead.

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*Not usually a natural class

Ew.

Children are officially fucking gross. If you don't agree with me then you clearly didn't spend your day doing end-of-year locker-clean-out.

Just, ew.

OIC

Thoughout this third season of Doctor Who, although I enjoyed many of the episodes and Martha was starting to grow on me as a character, there was one thing that absolutely drove me crazy. That was the way Martha pined after the doctor from day one, long before he'd shown himself to be deserving of it. With Rose it was different. She initially signed on with the Doctor not because of who he was, but because of where he could take her and what he could show her, and as they spent time together, their friendship grew stronger until they became inseparable. Martha, on the other hand, although she enjoys and participates fully in the adventures, seemed to initially be signing on so that she could be near the Doctor, and I just didn't see what was motivating that. But now I think I do. I was rewatching the beginning of the season because I had missed what this year's Bad Wolf/Torchwood equivalent was and now that it seemed to be coming to a head, I wanted to go back and find it. So I was watching the first episode and in the beginning Martha is kind of unsure of the Doctor, but thought he might know what he was doing, which was a sensible position given the evidence. Then, in order to save the world and for entirely non-romantic reasons (which he stresses), the Doctor kisses her, whereupon she gets all melty. Now with most people this wouldn't make sense, but since, as we all know, the Doctor is made of magic, I can see how being kissed by him might cause a person to fall immediately and completely in love with him and want to follow him to the end of the universe. It's still a cheap plot device that they could have done without, but it's better than no motivation at all.

Perfect

Everyone knows that the Sex Geek is a genius, right?

Well if you don't, this should convince you:

So I told my aunt that I never really figured out I was queer. I just figured out, over a period of many years starting in early childhood, that everyone else wasn't.

Damn, I missed it!

Sitemeter was down for a couple days, and by the time I got around to looking at it again, the milestone was passed. But sometime during the week before last, I got my 10,000th visitor. Cool beans, dudes!

Oh Noes! Teh Intartubes Are Danjerus!

Via Pharyngula, I found this news report about the companies DefamationAction.com and ComplaintRemover.com, which promise to remove unsavoury things posted about you or your company on the internet, for a fee. When I first read about this I figured they used legitimate legal threats against people who were committing libel, or at worst sent nastygrams. I was not expecting this:

This letter is being sent to you in the name of more than 500 businesses. No matter where you go, we will cause you a problem. Your life is in danger until you comply with our demands. This is your last warning.

Your neighbors already know about your criminal dealings and how you are making many people loose (sic) their business. You will soon be beaten to a pulp and pounced into the ground six feet under with a baseball bat and sleg (sic) hammer. You will soon be sorry not just from what I am capable of doing to you, but what other members will do as soon as they know exactly where you are. Its (sic) just a matter of time until I get to you.

Here is what you can do to save your life. But you must act imidiatly (sic). Make what ever deal it takes, you must comply.

I mean, what? No, seriously. *This* is what companies pay, apparently, hundreds of dollars a year for? Badly spelled extortion? I have to say, if it weren't for the sheer hilarity, I'd be sorely disappointed. I mean, this is the online equivalent of a guy showing up at your door with a baseball bat. Except he's two feet tall and it's a Nerf bat.

Fucking dumsnuts

You People Are Assholes

I was at someone's house this evening watching So You Think You Can Dance (aside: yes that show is every bit as stupid as you expect it to be) and the girl half of a couple that was supposed to perform collapsed in rehearsal and had to be rushed to hospital, so in order for the boy to nonetheless get to perform they partnered him at the last minute with the choreographer's assistant. She was a woman of well over 200lbs and, knowing that the people outside of my lovely Montreal bubble can be ignorant jerks about size, I expected some awkward silence and nervous giggles. I was not remotely prepared for what did happen. Immediate hoots and hollers, cries of "ooh, that poor guy!" "Ew, he's going to have to touch her again!" "Oh, he's way to hot for this!" And of course when the choreography was remotely sexy the screams doubled. As if, because she's fat, her mere presence was somehow damaging to him. I mean the raw hatred and disgust emenating from my fellow guests was soul-shattering. How people get filled with that much hate and manage to go on with their lives just baffles me*.
I was inclined to just bitch about how much I hate it here outside my bubble, but the fact is that the worst, most discouraging part of the whole experience was me. Because I said nothing. I sat in silence as this fountain of hate erupted around me and did nothing. How could I? How could I have failed myself so utterly? Because I was worried about my relationship with my host. Because I didn't want them to see my tears. Because I knew that if I did speak up they would look at me and dismiss my words, forgetting that I felt the same way when I was 30lbs lighter and still worthy of respect.
There's still a lot of distance between me and the sort of woman I want to become. The terrifying sort of woman in front of whom people are afraid to speak, lest they say something stupid.
In the mean time, this is what I can do in my cowardice. Too scared to speak aloud when it mattered, I can now sit at my keyboard and type.
You can find the details and sources here and here, but this is what I have to say:
1) Being fat is not bad. Fat people live longer, have lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, and (among women) reach menopause later than thin people.
2) Being fat is not something people can help. Fat people have the same diet and excersize habits as thin people. The only reliable way to acheive and maintain weight loss is to go on a lifelong starvation diet.
3) Losing weight is bad for you. Losing and gaining weight repeatedly is really fucking bad for you.
Someday I will have the courage of my convictions. For now I have a blog.

Update: Thanks to parodie in the comments for pointing me to this video:

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*Just so's we're clear here, this woman was a trained dancer. She knew the steps and she moved well. She was strong and, in order to pull off some of those moves, in excellent shape. The ONLY thing people were laughing about was her size