sundries

[rm]

Trying more of this hyper-focus thing today. Yesterday I got scads done, cleaned all the things and got to have a nice night with Patty. I may also have solved the cruise conundrum (anyone have feelings about Celebrity as a line?).

I may also have solved the dress conundrum. Yes, I say I don't like one-shouldered numbers and worry black is too sedate, but this is a good dress-up/dress-down dress and it's not about the dress anyway, it's about my neckline and my tattoo. I don't want people to be looking at the dress. I do worry it's too safe, or that it won't fit right, but I suppose, order now, have time to solve issues later (because, among other things, I might want to get it shortened so it's just above my knee instead of just below it).

How and why false confessions happen.

Report cards from the Manhattan Trade School for Girls. Weirdly enough, I used to live across the street from there in the Russell Sage building. During the years I lived there there was one shop room on the first floor with frosted windows that someone had leaned a big teddy bear up against on the inside. I can't tell you how many times I walked by their at night with friends who were startled by this shadowy figure and, then, after noticing it that first time, never, ever stopped being creeped out by it.

Vodoun, stigma and status in Benin.

The next steps in the marriage equality battle in New York.

theferrett has something on real names vs. usernames. I cannot speak to the developer-related aspects of this, but one of the valuable things about usernames are that they make engagement with pseudonoymous identities explicit, as opposed to the murky world of "yes, you can just lie about you real name if you need a pseudononymous identity." Being out, about all sorts of things, is a privilege, and I think it's more generous to users and better for online culture, when we can say "here is my mask or shield and I stand by it as my identity and my brand" as opposed to "here is my real name I may or may not be lying about."

Last night on Angel: Monster of the week episode; girl gets turned into a werewolf, plot stolen from half-a-dozen places. On the other hand, I feel like in my ongoing "OMG, RTD, I see what you did there!" tirade, this is the most important episode yet.

There's the end -- where we have this gorgeous team, chilling out, awkwardly, in their fearless leader (to whom they can't quite connect) pad overlooking the city. There's Spike and his struggle against hell (is something moving in the dark, Blondiebear? That's what I want to know). There's the discussion of Angel and his ability to have relationships. There's the mistrust of Gunn and his enhancements (don't use alien artifacts for your own amusement, kids). There's Wesley inability to say anything without sounding slightly smarmy (is that intentional in the performance or just an awkward side-effect of my having seen Torchwood first and the way Denisof sort of smirks his way through every line?) There's the way Angel's like "fine, eat the other guy, I don't give a shit."

All the brutality and love hung on a sort of pointless frame that I think of as so emblematic of the first two seasons of Torchwood is all so right here.

Comments

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I cannot see what the heck theferrett's point is (and I am a software engineer for what it's worth).
People get upset that they can't get "their" handle on some site, and it's hard to tell who people are across sites or if you "really" are xxMyNiftyHandlexx.
So to solve this problem, people should use their real names. But wait-- some people don't want to use their legal name on the net! And now the solution is... just make something up, so long as it resembles a "real name".

...Huh?

Using real names, or things that look like real names, does not get you out of either problem in any way. Suppose my name is "John Smith"-- the land grab problems with that should be obvious. I can try to disambiguate by location, userpic, or some other identifier but that gets clunky depending on what the particular site supports and how much PII I want to publish.
Or as theferrett suggests I can try to pick an alias that is likely uncommon ("Englebert Foobar") but now there is nothing to tie my "real identity" with my user identity, unless I start calling myself Englebert Foobar in public.
An alias is an alias so far as the technology is concerned, regardless of whether the site's culture encourages handles or use of "real" names.

[citrinesunset.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the logic baffled me, too. I think he was suggesting that you use the same name everywhere to limit confusion, but that doesn't explain why it's better to use a fake name like Englebert Foobar than, say, a username like "theferrett." And besides, I kind of like that I can use different names on different sites/types of sites.

And even though he says it's okay to use a fake name, he does seem to be saying that using your real name is best. So yeah, I'm not sure what he's getting at, but I'm pretty sure I don't care for it.