a wolf angel is not a good angel

An article today about how some researchers wanted to test how much impact X/Y chromosomes had on behaviour. So they created XY mice with ovaries and XX mice with testes and tried to teach those two, plus normal male and female mice, to find the door with food from a bunch of doors. The XX mice all learned faster.

But the article headlines how this means XXers are more likely to have addictions and form habits more quickly. No, it’s not that they recognise patterns better or learn more quickly, of course.

I finally got everything on this computer set up to my liking (and getting the display to work was a huge pain), and was just going to fiddle with some scheduling crap, when my other computer suddenly returns. Which is wonderful, of course, because there are certain things (update itunes, play some games[1]) that don’t work so well on this computer. And yet I feel almost sad and wistful about going back to it, because though sure, I don’t use mostly the command prompt stuff, I *could*. I am less wistful because they replaced my keyboard (full of cat fur), ac adapter (full of broken wires) and motherboard (full of not working right) and now it is working again, so hey, two functioning computers! Right now I am vaguely thinking I should use the windows one for entertainmenty stuff, and the linux one for basic web browsing and office stuff (bonus: watch movies while using the computer more easily). We’ll see, I’m not sure I can really pull off multiple computers that well.

Right now, of course, I’m having intermittent internet issues. Computers have been hating me lately.

[1] Web browsing and office applications work just fine here, and it’s way easier to make a pdf on this computer than Windows. I don’t like the video playing as much, but it works. I know that most of my use is goofing off, but goofing off is fun.

My cold is worse today than it was yesterday, and I can’t breathe right so I cannot sleep right, but on the bright side, my screen resolution is right, and WPA works. (I’ve never been able to get WEP to work on XP computers, so I refuse to have my routers go WEP.) I know that some of the games I’ve installed are changing my screen resolution, but I don’t know how or why, so I’m going to back up my config files and then I will be forced to play computer games until I figure out where the problem is. (Alas, alas.)

I am, however, tempted to just cut my stupid head off because it hurts so much. I know it is somewhat extreme as a solution, and that the cutting through my throat would hurt more than my sinuses do, but damn, this is unpleasant.

I hate colds. My whole head hurts and my sinuses are blocked and I am coughing and I really, really, really hate having a cold.

After trying a half dozen things, I notice that the next Ubuntu release, currently available in 4 days, should have native WPA support. Currently I’m debating whether to try the release candidate (seems stable) or just suck it up for 4 days, when installation will be clicking one button instead of writing one line in the terminal.

Probably this will end up depending on if I get bored in the next few days.

Update: what the hell. I’m going out, I might as well allow my computer to do some downloading work while I am not there. Since I just installed 7.04 twice in three days, I can always re-reinstall it if things go bad.

Figure out linux. Quickly. I got the most important thing (web browser) to work, but I also would like to figure out why I can’t get some Perl modules to install (others work fine) and why some package installations just fail. Also I suspect that my file organisation sucks and I will soon run into problems with it. This is very irritating.

Apparently reasonable accommodations now mean that we need to say that gender equality is more important than religious freedom (except for Roman Catholics). Charest, in a desperate attempt to buoy support in the rural areas, is planning on tabling a motion to say that gender equality trumps religious freedom, which will mean — well, I don’t know what.

Will I be allowed to say I prefer a female gynecologist? Maybe, but only if I say it’s a personal preference and not a religious requirement? Will I be allowed to wear a hijab, but only if I think it looks cool? Will men be allowed to wear them? I can’t see exactly how this will go, but I look forward to seeing people suing the Roman Catholic church for not allowing women to do something that men are allowed.

It seems to focus on whether you can make a request for a woman/man to test you when you want a driver’s license, which is an oddly specific problem. The other question seems to be whether you can wear obvious religious symbols as a public employee, where obvious religious symbols seem to mean anything other than a cross on a necklace. I look forward to being able to complain if public servants have pictures up with Santa, or wish me happy religious holidays.

Of course, the quotes are always “we want equality, but to not lose our Roman Catholic heritage”, or “we don’t want to see any overt signs of religions, but we’ll just exclude ours and call it culture”.

Like every Canadian, I gloated a bit when Conrad Black was found guilty, even not all on the charges. (I’m also amused that they’re considering revoking the Order of Canada. And that he actually is probably not allowed into Canada at all anymore, what with being a convicted felon.) This rather ruins his social superiority schtick, I should think.

Now, I’m not a fan of his wife, Barbara Amiel — I quite clearly remember the last editorial she had in our paper, where she explained that women rather liked being hit, so why all the fuss about spousal abuse? But still, I don’t think she coerced some poor, innocent, foolish man into using company funds for personal expenses, unlike Christopher Hitchens.

By all accounts, the great real-life tycoon was the merest putty in this dragon lady’s hands; a factor that—for me, at any rate—paradoxically weighs in his favor. He would have been happy enough writing his history books (the one on FDR is by all reports pretty good) and convincing himself that he was advising and influencing those in power. But always the incessant demands, always the cry for newer and better baubles. Who cares about the shareholders when there is a lovely woman’s whim to be gratified? Bourgeois values be damned!

Uh huh. Sure. He ran scads of newspapers with an iron fist, owned large companies, but just couldn’t resist his wife. Poor him! How terrible, to have been forced to break the law! What a horrible woman she is, to an innocent husband like him.

My mother does not read the Harry Potter books. She does watch the movies, so she’s now up to Order of the Phoenix (Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was phenomenal, incidentally, and entirely worth the movie, though other than the ending — from the time Harry et al get to the Ministry — I thought it was rather well-done). She did not know the ending of Half-Blood Prince, though I’d've thought she guessed who died, but not who killed him. Did not, because on the front page of today’s newspaper there was a huge article asking if Dumbledore is really dead, and if Snape is really bad, and if Harry is actually a Horcrux. Then there was another enormous article on the front page of the opinion section, asking a bunch of people what they thought would happen, which recapped in greater detail the story of HBP, and now she is irritated. You cannot forget these things.

This explains why I will go offline at midnight London time until such time as I have finished the book, just in case. Well, this and the “I am leaving at 5 am Saturday, and need to read the book from midnight to 5, so I will need to be packing Friday night anyhow” issue. But mostly it’s the fear off assholes who intend to spoil the book for everyone else.

Someone stole my wallet tonight. Someone else returned it, but it is missing the credit card (cancelled, no unusual charges on it), cash (of course), maybe some bus tickets, and the pickup slip for my Harry Potter preorder, which was hiding behind some business cards (conveniently left in the same slot). Who carefully looks for a preorder of a book and steals that? It just seems so stupid and petty.