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Saturday, May 17th, 2008


siderea
[psych/soc] Status affects efficacy of executive function
Saturday, 17 May 2008 at 02:19 am
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Via [info]pysorg_med: "Having less power impairs the mind and ability to get ahead, study shows"
New research appearing in the May issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that being put in a low-power role may impair a person's basic cognitive functioning and thus, their ability to get ahead.

In their article, Pamela Smith of Radboud University Nijmegen, and colleagues Nils B. Jostmann of VU University Amsterdam, Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Wilco W. van Dijk of VU University Amsterdam, focus on a set of cognitive processes called executive functions. Executive functions help people maintain and pursue their goals in difficult, distracting situations. The researchers found that lacking power impaired people's ability to keep track of ever-changing information, to parse out irrelevant information, and to successfully plan ahead to achieve their goals.

In one experiment, the participants completed a Stroop task, a common psychological test designed to exercise executive functions. Participants who had earlier been randomly assigned to a low-power group made more errors in the Stroop task than those who had been assigned to a high-power group. Smith and colleagues also found that these results were not due to low-power people being less motivated or putting in less effort. Instead, those lacking in power had difficulty maintaining a focus on their current goal.

In another experiment, [Tower-of-Hanoi task used to test planning, same results there.]

[...] Additionally, their work illustrates how hierarchies perpetuate themselves. By randomly assigning individuals to high and low-power conditions, they demonstrate that simply lacking power can automatically lead to performance that reinforces one's low standing, sending the powerless towards a destiny of dispossession.


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ajollypyruvate
Exhausted.
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 10:53 pm
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( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )


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pleonastic
moss creatures and their minions
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 10:07 pm
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walklog:

05-16 ladysmith, holland creek trail (upper) 5.62 km 2:35 elevation gain 927m. oh, this is huff 'n puff'n trail; up and down and up and down and... also, we're having a heat wave (yesterday the heater was on at night, today the fan is). but i went anyway, though i waited until the late afternoon. waited a little too long, actually, since i decided partway in that i wasn't going to be able to make it a loop before darkness unless i really wanted to power-hoof it. which i didn't. so i just turned around. which leaves the rest of the trail and the falls for another day.

lots of ferns shooting new fronds: sword, lady, deer, licorice, maidenhead. many, many fringecups (tellima grandiflora) and springbeauties (claytonia sibirica). some coltsfoot (petasites frigidus palmatus) at the bottom of the creek, before it flows under the highway. a lovely beige-grey gilled mushroom group on a tree which i had never seen before. lots of light playing in the forest.


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leora
Various Things
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 10:09 pm
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I am really pleased about the ruling for gay marriage in California. I hope we get to keep it. I don't have much to say other than I'm really pleased.

We have a water shortage. They're rationing water. We are supposed to use 90% of our average water consumption for the past three years. As we haven't lived here for three years, I assume they'll just average it for how long we have been here. I have a lot of problems with how they set up the system, and it does reward those who have been wasting water and can thus more easily cut back. Although I am pleased that golf courses and other less vital uses for water are being rationed much more extremely. They put a floor on it, if you use 100 gallons a day or less, you aren't required to reduce further. That might sound easy, but we don't do a whole lot of water heavy things, yet we use far more than twice that. We wash clothes, dishes, we take showers, we use the toilet, I have to take baths, and we have a yard which gets watered briefly three times a week and fruit trees we water once or twice a month. Nothing extreme, yet it all adds up. Water rationing and extreme heat... this is going to be a stinky summer. I really hope it rains.

I'm planning to take shallower baths and reuse some of the water for the trees. It's so hot and dry, I bet the fruit trees could use a good batch of water. And the lemon tree produces huge lemons. The orange tree produces orange-sized oranges. The lemon tree often produces lemons bigger than oranges.

Today I helped a 4 year old build a fort; she's sleeping in it now. It's an indoor fort made from a table and some chairs and sheets and blankets. I think she now considers me to be a friend. The way to a person's heart may well be to help them build a fort. Although we also played games and talked. Spending time with people is just generally good for friending.

And that's pretty much what I've been up to.


Moooood: busy
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siderea
[book review] Steven Bury's Other Book
Saturday, 17 May 2008 at 01:19 am
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Neal Stephenson teamed up with a bloke named J. Frederick George to write under the pseudonym Stephen Bury. Stephenson has gotten so big, that these to books have now been re-released under the joint byline.

The books are near-future/present SF-ish political thrillers. With a Stephensonian sense of black humor. Better known is Interface, which concerns a US presidential race, gets compared to "The Manchurian Candidate" a lot, but which is a black comedy with a lot of scathing things to say about US politics. I recommend it highly, especially in election years.

I recently picked up the other Bury book, The Cobweb. It's about foreign terrorists and biological weapons on US soil during the first Gulf War -- and criticism of the Federal government's ability to cope with terrorist threats because of internal politics.

It was written in 1996. It's a little freaky -- no, a lot freaky -- how well this book is surviving the test of time.

It sounds pretty grim, but it's actually very engaging and entertaining. This is Stephenson in his Snow Crash style, not in his Baroque Cycle style. It zips right along, and it's clever and witty. I give it three and a half, maybe four stars out of five.


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siderea
[book] Someone Comes to Town, Someone Puts Up Wireless
Saturday, 17 May 2008 at 12:40 am
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OK, I've just read Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. (Porter Square Books sold out* of Little Brother. [*Actually, the computer said there was a copy and it was gone. "Sold" may not have been the right verb, but there you go.] I'd been meaning to pick up SCtTSLT for a while, so decided I should do that to support my local independent bookstore ya ya ya. My bookoholic rationalizations a well honed.)

Man, that was weird. And creepy. I wasn't so much with the creepy. But I rather like weird. I think this is the thing I've liked best by Doctorow so far. But I'm not an enormous Doctorow fan. He should do more surrealist stuff like this. I approve.

I didn't have the slightest trouble figuring out what was going on, until the last two pages, whereupon all of a sudden he gets elliptical and coy.

Anybody who's read the thing want to take a crack at answering ( my question about the ending? (And another spoilerish question.) )


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siderea
[current events, law, tech] Lori Drew indicted in fatal MySpace hoax
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 11:59 pm
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Via [info]twistedchick: Woman indicted in MySpace hoax suicide:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 49-year-old Missouri woman accused of pretending to be a love-struck teenage boy on MySpace and driving a 13-year-old girl to suicide with cruel messages was indicted on Thursday on federal charges.

Prosecutors say Lori Drew and others created the fake MySpace persona of a 16-year-old boy to woo neighbor Megan Meier for several weeks, then abruptly ended the relationship and said the world would be better off without her.

[...]

Lonergan said Drew was charged with accessing a protected computer to obtain information, a statute typically used against defendants who hack into government computers. [...]
Innnnnnneresting. Allow me to sum up the issues: on one hand, it's widely agreed that if Lori Drew did in fact do what she is represented to have done, she should not only burn in hell but be given an all-expenses paid head-start there; on the other hand, the precident a guilty verdict would set would make one criminally liable for an online speech act.

ETA: I'm avoiding the word abuse because of something which was hammered into me in my ethics class: before the law, "abuse" is the misuse of a custodial or other authority/power/responsibility/trusted/privileged relationship, and that when a stranger does it, it's not abuse, it's assault or other similar crime. Lori Drew had no authority or formal relationship to Megan Meier, so this would not qualify as child abuse. Interestingly, this implies a category, by parallel construction, of emotional assault.


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syllopsium
Laplink's PC Mover free today (for not much longer)
Saturday, 17 May 2008 at 01:39 am
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PC Mover is free until 11:59PM today in honour of their 25th birthday.

Of course, Laplink is US based, so it's anyone's guess whether they mean EST, EDT, PDT or whatever (they don't mean BST or GMT, because I've recently downloaded it...)


PC Mover seems to move settings and data from an old PC to a new one (or even a PC to an Intel Mac), so could be useful. You'd better hurry up if you're interested!

I can't say I've used laplink much, but at one point it was one of the very few reliable file transfer programs out there and certainly has one heck of a legacy.


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redbird
Gall bladder recovery: continuing to improve
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 06:46 pm
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I basically worked a full day today (left maybe 20 minutes early, but took only half an hour of lunch break), much of it creating an answer key for a sixth grade math book. This mostly meant spending the day solving the problems in said book; I was able to use a calculator on some, but some had to be done as fractions rather than decimals and thus worked by hand. Many, of course, were simple enough, at least for someone with a head full of memorized relationships, not to need a calculator. And some weren't numerical, but things like naming triangles. In the course of this, I found and marked some errors in the copy (they may already have been caught, since I'm working from a photocopy of the page proofs and corrections may have been made on a different copy). Along with the usual trivia of one-sentence paragraphs without periods (annoying if noticed, but not getting in the way of understanding), I caught a misuse of the distributive property (trying to make it a + (b x c) = (a + b) x (a + c)) and a metric to customary equivalence table that got some things backwards. This is, of course, why we proofread.

The pain has diminished, though I didn't have another suitable dress, and the waistband of my pants did press on the still-healing areas. Fortunately, I have the percocet; also fortunately, percocet and ibuprofen are not cross-tolerant, so I was using both. [Ibuprofen may not be as good for post-surgical pain, but it's much better for menstrual cramps.] I expected to be wanting extra caffeine to make up for the percocet, but in the end managed on only the usual four cups of black tea. I have green Darjeeling next to me as I type, which is partly for alertness and partly because it's damp and chilly outside.


Moooood: tired
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adrian_turtle
Why Industry Is A Good Thing
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 04:22 pm
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"Under this heading the boy had written: 'Industry is a good thing because it is better to work in a carpet factory than to be out in the rain with nothing to eat.' Having written these words he had stopped, wondering to himself 'Is that true?' and had turned to look out at the rain-swept park." (Midnight Is A Place, Joan Aiken)

Perhaps not the most encouraging book a person could possibly read, on a rainy day right after accepting a job in a textile mill. At least I have a job, though. (The contracting agency, in an Aiken novel, would probably turn out to be working for the Hanoverians. Here, I think they're klutzes on a much less spectacular scale.) I'm to start 5/27, which gives me a bit of time for the emotional transition from looking to work to working. I hope it helps.


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blue_mai
mary mungo and midge
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 07:12 pm
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http://www.davethewave.co.uk/mary-mungo-midge/
i recognise the characters but didn't know much about the show. curious. interesting that it aired a year after the Ronan Point disaster.


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rysmiel
got a song for me ?
Saturday, 17 May 2008 at 01:11 pm
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I have an unsettled stomach, which I think is mostly stress. Damn it.

Had a quite productive meeting with $intern2 this morning, though. Also, the editor of the textbook for which I wrote much of a chapter, many moons ago, says it is going to the publisher next week, so that may become a physical publication soon.

49th Parallel is really good and very very weird. It has some of the best supporting parts ever; Laurence Olivier's French-Canadian trapper would be a caricature if Olivier were not so good an actor, also Anton Wolbrook's Hutterite elder, Raymond Massey's Canadian soldier, and Leslie Howard's decadent author. I'm still mulling on it; for all that it is, particularly in the opening sequences, much more conventionally filmed than much of Pressburger and Powell's later work, there are clear early signs of the directions in which their visual style would go.


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Friday, May 16th, 2008


friend_of_tofu
Sun-be-gone!
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 01:04 pm
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Wow, my rain dance really worked! *relief* This is much less stressful - am hoping sun stays away this w/e but will probably survive by hiding indoors if not. Only a bit sad that the hayfever's been so bad, but you can't have everything.

This week's been mostly interesting, though very tiring. Was on another union training course, but it was much less good. Venue was fairly crap (though so close to home!) and I was less impressed by the tutor - I disagreed with him very strongly when he said that going to an employment tribunal was really difficult and that if you weren't a union member or wealthy enough to afford a lawyer, then you shouldn't bother. Way to disempower! Yes, it's a damn sight easier if are a member and are getting free assistance, but plenty of people do represent themselves and win. This really pissed me off and certainly didn't endear me to him. Also, I found the course too slow, too drawn-out and lacking in depth & detail. IOW, I was bored for quite a lot of it. And it was wanky - round of applause for completing a 3 day course? Puhleeease.

Went to BU on Tues, it was very busy (lots of new folk) and good fun. It was also cathartic in some important ways.

On Wed, went round to hang out with [info]voodoo_canape. We ate vegan ice cream cornets and watched 'Stranger Than Fiction' (the Will Ferrell/Maggie Gyllenhaal/Emma Thompson comedy drama). It was OK, but a bit too knowing in places for my tastes, though ET did very well as the rather unlovely author. Queen Latifah & Dustin Hoffman were bloody good in their supporting roles, and Maggie's tattoo was nice.

Yesterday, I went to a really good short course about planning appeals. It was fascinating, and the two guys running it were friendly and very informative. I was sorry I could only attend the first morning, but since I returned to find 28 files on my desk awaiting visits and repots, it was probably a good thing I didn't.
I then spent my whole evening having a frustrating conversation with my mother. I'm perpetually amazed by her (presumably) wilful obtuseness about everything outside her immediate range of interests, and many things within it.

Today, I am busy & my feet are tired, but I did manage to find a copy of Foucault's 'History of Sexuality' in a charity shop for £2.50, so WINNN!
Later - PUB! Specifically, the Lord Nelson in Southwark. Then tomorrow, we're off to [info]alextiefling's union conference in Torquay, where he will be speaking and no doubt Being Clever in ways I don't quite understand. We'll be there til Tuesday. Don't know if there'll internet access though. I am anticipating fun, though there's no doubt it's a bit of a busman's holiday. But hey, seaside!


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rho
Glitter and rainbows, oh my!
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 01:54 pm
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Following a vaguely surreal conversation on IRC, I commented jokingly that I should write to the Zimbabwean embassy and ask them if Robert Mugabe farts glitter and rainbows. Regrettably, though unsurprisingly, I am now being encouraged to actually do so. What's worse, is that I'm actually feeling tempted to do so.

Poll #1188793 Mugabe farts
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Should I troll the state of Zimbabwe in this manner?

View Answers

You even have to ask? Of course you should!
23 (69.7%)

You even have to ask? Of course you shouldn't!
10 (30.3%)



Please, someone encourage me down the route of sanity.


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papersky
Thud: ILE
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 08:05 am
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Words: 1305
Total words: 67785
Files: 4
Tea: Jasmine
Music: NMPA
RSI: Ubuntu contains a version of Isotprog/White Worm called Nibbles. Do not play this game, it could not be worse for the repetitive strain if it had been designed by desperate and evil physiotherapists who get paid by the hour. On the other hand, the people who wrote it have clearly thought a lot about what makes the original game fun and what could make this cleverer, and it has some astonishing levels.
Reason for stopping: that's that bit, need to work out the next bit.

[info]janetmk is arriving some time this morning.


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friend_of_tofu
Pub today!
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 09:07 am
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Further to my post yesterday, it appears we will be at The Lord Nelson, Union St, Southwark this evening. Not sure when I'll finish work, probably 5ish, but will have to cross Central London), so don't expect I'll be there much before 5:30.

All welcome! Looking forward to seeing you there.


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megamole
Tunnel of Luuurve?
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 08:57 am
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http://www.dhnet.be/infos/societe/article/207459/la-conductrice-qui-jouit.html

Translation (by this mole)
AMSTERDAM

Amazing happenings on board a train which was travelling from Zwolle to Leeuwarden in the Netherlands a few days ago. Travellers were surprised by the, shall we say, erotic message broadcast through the PA system.

The female driver had forgotten to disconnect her microphone as she decided to, um, visit Mrs Palm and her five lovely daughters. The passengers were thus able to listen to the driver's orgasm directly through the train's intercom. Cue a moment of real happiness and crazy laughter; nobody could believe their ears.

The session lasted about thirty minutes, and will probably be shared with a huge number of people since a slightly voyeuristic passenger had the indecency - bad man! - to film the incident and publish it on the most famous video-sharing site, Youtube. Full steam ahead!


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pleonastic
ever SO helpful
Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 11:59 pm
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well, we had seen some relatively fresh bear shit earlier, so it was probably a warning for "today".

walklog:

05-15 nanaimo river regional park 5.45 km 2:29, lying altimeter because that wasn't 571m of ascent/descent. wow, we have spiffy new signage in that (heretoforth undeveloped) park. i don't know what's up with those humongous entrance signs; they look just a wee bit ostentatious and i'd prefer to have that money spent on trail development.

anyway, it's a nice walk, though not a loop, but in summer one can make it a nice loop if one wades/swims across the river. lots of plants i tend to confuse, such as clasping twisted-stalk (streptopus amplexifolius) (which i always mistakenly think is solomon's seal), and the false solomon's seal (these common names DO NOT HELP) (maianthemum racemosum), and the star-flowered false one (maianthemum stellata). vanilla leaf (achlys triphylla) is blooming now. also saw something with big leaves that are headed towards becoming much much bigger, but it's not devil's club. maybe a gunnera. also saw a laburnum tree, but the racemes weren't in full bloom yet (that tree isn't native here, but hey, it's pretty -- also poisonous).


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zdamiana
Last Minute Concert Announcement
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 12:30 am
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Tomorrow night Tonight will be this year's concert at Davies Symphony Hall with The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus for my orchestra. I didn't post an announcement about it earlier because I honestly wasn't that enthusiastic about most of the music this year, and didn't want to invite people and then have them disappointed. However, in light of today's yesterday's CA Supreme Court Ruling, I'm expecting the chorus and audience to be incredibly happy and excited, and expecting the concert to actually end up being a really fun night (for me and for anyone who decides to come listen). So, come to the concert. It'll be fun. The concert repertoire will be particularly timely - one of the big pieces we are playing is "Testament of Freedom" - a setting to music of writings of Thomas Jefferson. If you are impressed by big names in the Bay Area classical music scene, you might care that we'll be conducted by Vance George for one piece in the show. Also, Cecil O'Neil Johnson, my favorite SFGMC soloist, will be singing a gospel solo which I expect to be spectacular. He's been saving his voice in rehearsals, so I haven't heard him sing this piece all out yet, but every time I hear him perform, he knocks my socks off, and I don't expect him to disappoint tonight. In fact, I'm pretty worried that I'll lose my place in my music swooning over Cecil's performance. Come see if I fall out of my chair!

Friday May 16th, 2008, 8:00 pm
Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
Call (415) 865-2787 for tickets

Added Bonus: Davies Symphony Hall is Air Conditioned!


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ajollypyruvate
A tiring and trying day.
Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 08:58 pm
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( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )


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cartesiandaemon
Who should have led Angel investigations?
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 01:33 am
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( Spoilers for Angel series 1-3 )


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beckyzoole
Quick Update
Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 06:39 pm
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I have not been updating much at all recently. I started a new job at the beginning of March that has quickly become extremely time-consuming. This on top of my volunteer and family obligations have left me little free time.

To make matters worse, I have been suffering from springtime allergies, so all I want to do most evenings is take an antihistamine and go to bed!

In other news... My delightful daughters took me out to get manicures and pedicures together for Mother's Day. We ate lunch at House of India, and I got to enjoy their company for hours. It was great.

I saw my cousin Brian for the first time in 20 years last Monday night. He's moving back to Missouri from Las Vegas, so I hope I'll get to see more of him.

We are sad because [info]transplantmom is moving back to Chicago. How can she bear to leave us, simply because her husband and son and furniture and yarn are all someplace else? Wah! (Congratulations to her daughter Jenny, whose new lungs are breathing beautifully.)

It has been raining, and raining, and raining here. I like the rain, but I am ready for it to stop for a few days. The damp is making the mold count very high. My sinuses don't like that. Maybe I ought to move to Las Vegas and take cousin Brian's place there?


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blue_mai
<untitled>
Friday, 16 May 2008 at 12:05 am
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 my selections out of this week's LeCool selection:
Independent Exhibition - photos of Soho record shops. http://blog.jumpgallery.com/ (scroll down to 30th April) CR review here
geeKyoto - conference of various bods trying to fix world-brokeness http://geekyoto.com/

and coming up at the Scala: Jens Lekman (to check out), Santagold and Joan as Policewoman are maybes


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Thursday, May 15th, 2008


redbird
gall bladder recovery
Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 06:52 pm
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Today was better than yesterday, despite the bits where the incision in my navel hurt; some of that seemed to be the result of getting up and walking around at lunchtime, but that was also long enough after I took the morning's painkillers that they'd probably worn off.

This morning my boss said she didn't really expect me to work a full day until next week, and indeed, I left the office around 4:15. The difference is that yesterday, I left at 4:00 because I was in significant pain. Today, I left at 4:15 because I was feeling warm and vaguely out of focus, which isn't nearly as bad from the inside (though both states are detrimental to working accurately and carefully).

[info]julian_tiger just spent about 15 minutes sitting on my lap. He hadn't done that since before the surgery: the day after I came home from the hospital, he tried to get on my lap, stepped on my then-very-tender belly in the course of trying to get settled, and I had to push him gently off. He hadn't tried since, until today.

I suspect that one reason today went better is that instead of pants, I wore a dress with only a vaguely defined waist, so no constriction anywhere on the abdomen, and all the weight supported from the shoulders. It's also a very bright, colorful garment, and got quite a few compliments. (If I wear a dress tomorrow, I doubt it will be as praised; I think the next option is a sort of cream-colored thing. I don't own a lot of dresses, because most of the time I much prefer pants. This is not much of the time.)


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pleonastic
it's about time
Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 03:40 pm
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unexpectedly (at least for me), the california supreme court ruled today that california law as it currently stands may not discriminate against homosexual couples when it comes to marriage. this is a conservative court, with 6 of 7 judges republican appointees. the ruling went 4:3.

OMG, yay!

SF mayor gavin newsom said, "It's about human dignity. It's about civil rights. It's about time." indeed.

i know this might be short-lived because of the bloody ballot initiative, but wow. so good, at least for now.

ETA: i've now had time to read the judgment (pdf), and that explains why this court decided as it did, despite being as conservative as it is. it really is "just" a decision over whether california's law as written can define the very same rights for two different groups, but call them different things; ie. it's about allegedly "separate but equal" not actually BEING equal.

Accordingly, the legal issue we must resolve is not whether it would be constitutionally permissible under the California Constitution for the state to limit marriage only to opposite-sex couples while denying same-sex couples any opportunity to enter into an official relationship with all or virtually all of the same substantive attributes, but rather whether our state Constitution prohibits the state from establishing a statutory scheme in which both opposite-sex and same-sex couples are granted the right to enter into an officially recognized family relationship that affords all of the significant legal rights and obligations traditionally associated under state law with the institution of marriage, but under which the union of an opposite-sex couple is officially designated a “marriage” whereas the union of a same-sex couple is officially designated a “domestic partnership.” The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution.

this is actually _very_ good, i think (but i am not a lawyer, yadda yadda). it raises the bar for new marriage laws being written to discriminate against gays (because we know this won't stop that), because equal protection will be hard to beat.

ETA 2: i remain as always not in favour of state-sponsored