corvidary version 2: orange crush

   How to do fanfic right while breaking all the rules: +++ [ link this ]

Match the tone of the origional story *exactly* while presenting a story that, although the premise sound terrible and the pairing sets of all sort of bad-slash bells, is deeply touching.

The Sacred and the Profane - not, perhaps, the best Good Omens fic ever written, but right up there.

   new look! +++ [ link this ]

Corvidary version 2: Orange Crush. Stylesheets, but degrades gracefully.

Have fun, folks. Email Skimmer with any problems.

   nature and civilization part 4 +++ [ link this ]

Of course, one has to take into account the ideas of gender vs. sex. However, they are at heart supposed to be connected. If intellegence is often (more often than in the general population) linked to a degree of ambiguity in sex, ambiguity in gender is a natural consequence.

Meanwhile, the meme of gender-abnormality spreads through a population prepared well to recieve it - a population already set apart, without the absolute divisions between the sexes necessary to assure most people of their social roles. So even when it is not biological, it becomes social.

And spreads.

   Singing - +++ [ link this ]

   Since Sarah posted a recipie - +++ [ link this ]

   nature and civilization part 3 +++ [ link this ]

(Part 3 of 4, it seems.)

It's been observed that transsexuality seems to have its origins in the womb, specifically as a result of maternal stress. Reitz's 'little wild card' suggestion comes into play here. Maternal stress is nore likely to occur during difficult times; thus, transsexuals are born in order to take on whatever difficult circumstances have cuased it. The same argument applies, to a lesser degree, to homosexuals. In addition, a higher prevalence of homosexuals in a population results in a lower birthrate in the next generation.

High intellegence is also a survival tactic and very useful in times of difficulty. It's not suprising in the least that the two are connected.

TBC.

   Sweet dreams are made of these - +++ [ link this ]

   nature and civilzation, continued +++ [ link this ]

Not only, at CTY, did most people participate in Second Saturday, but notably *noone* said a word against it. It is Skimmer's suspicion that had a male student chosen to dress constantly in women's clothing it wouldn't have raised a single eyebrow, except possibly to suggest that the green shirt would have matched his eyes so much better.

Overall? It it Skimmer's contention here that gender roles are more fluid amoung people of higher intellegence. Not only are they more likely to have a 'nontraditional' gender role, but they are more likely to accept such roles. Why? ... that's where the crackpot theorizing comes in.

It's well known in biology that there are two major type of 'reproductive straegy' amoung animals. The one most popular amoung, for example, insects is to have many, many children all at once, who are then left to fend for themselves. Most die shortly, and only the fittest are left to generate a new generation. This is known as r-type strategy. The other direction is the one that human civilization follows: K-type. This means that fewer children are produced and more effort expended on each one, but almost all the offspring survive. (A Google search should turn up fifty lecture notes from elementary biology courses that will explain this idea more fully.)

To the careful observer variotions of this strategy will be obvious even within the human species. In developing countries very large families are still very much the norm. In contrast, in upper-class niches of society it is very common for a couple to decided to have only one or two children, because they do not believe themselves capable of properly caring for more (this is why Skimmer herself is an only child). However, for these couples, 'proper care' includes not only providing food and shelter to their young, but paying for their college education. The people who do this tend to be the most intellegent segment of the population.

Now think for a second about the possibilities of family life for homosexuals. These people will _not_ wind up with children 'accidentally.' No 'forgot to take the pill.' No 'I was drunk and didn't mean to take him home.' Homosexuals have to want kids. And once they have these kids, they're likely both from the difficulty of having kids in the first place and the aforementioned one-standard-deviation-high intellegence to lavish them with care. This is the K-type strategy carried to its extreme.

The point of this? That homosexuality enables humans to take full control of their reproductive futures - that by divorcing the sex drive from the conception of children, it allows humans to adopt this extreme K-strategy. However, there is also Rietz's 'wild card' theory. Homosexuals are differentiated from the population as a whole; they tend to see things in a different way. This gives them a 'leg up on life' personally as well. Their unique perspectives enabel them to innovate and generate benifits for themselves; they are not bound by convention.

As to the general tendency of the more intellegent to be less gender-bound? This gives them a similar advantage. Gender conventions are just some of the conventions that the highly intellegent often ignore. They're just more visisble than many of the rest. Gender conventions provide a way for people to make their way through life knowing what to expect. However, they quickly stop being practical. And for those people who have little use for the impractical, there's simply to reason to pay attention. Furthermore by ignoring gender conventions, they're sure not to repress their own abilites that are viewed as 'unconventional' for their gender.

Yet more later. La.

   nature and civilization +++ [ link this ]

Okay, this entry is going to touch on a fairly sensitive topic for some people, but not the kind of people who read this blog. It also contains asinine theories about subject Skimmer has no credientials or expertise excpet a hell of a lot of random reading about. You Have Been Warned.

Skimmer has recently read through most of Jennifer Reitz's site at www.transsexual.org and found it very interesting. (This is the same woman who does the Unicorn Jelly comic strip.) One of the things she mentioned was her theory on why transsexuals exist. Her theory was based on a few know facts: it has been statistically shown that transsexuals average two standard deviations above median intellegence and are significantly more creative, as a rule, and that the current medical theories on the causes of transsexualm suggest as a cuse stress-induced hormonal imbalances in the womb.

Putting these together, her conclusion is that transsexualism is an adaptive attempt to create a person with the capability to take a new approach to difficult situations whose loss, if such an attempt results in their death, will not damage the gene pool. As she puts it, "Nature's Little Wild Card".

This is certianly a very viable theory. Skimmer wishes to add some thoughts. In addition to noting that transsexuals average two standard deviations of intellegence above the mean Diane notes that homosexuals average one. This is in line with Skimmer's own informal observations.

When Skimmer was attending high school, she spent several summers at an academic summer program called 'CTY' - Center for Talented Youth. The atendees took college-level courses in highly condensed form. There were maany traditions associated with CTY, such as the Canon, a set of songs played at every dance, and a group known as the Eishans to which Skimmer still belongs. However, one of the traditions that must to an outsider have seemed the oddest was Second Saturday.

On Second Saturday, the tradition was for every camper to cross-dress. Usually the men were slightly more sucessful than the ladies (many of whom already spent much of their time in masculine clothing; at least one of the Eishans 'cross-dressed' as her own gender in an attempt to 'wear this ruddy skirt once this summmer.') However, what is notable is the level of enthusiastic participation. At least two-thirds of the male campers donned skirts. Elastic tape suddely became a valuable prize. Fingernail-painting parties were held on the lawn.

Skimmer challenges anyone to name a high school where two-thirds of the male students would put on skirts. *crickets chirp*

TBC.

   ahem. +++ [ link this ]

Raven, please. Cilantro is a wonderful thing. So is salsa. However, Dr. Pepper trumps either.

The more times Skimmer listens to Dead Man's Hill the more it implants itself in her brain. On the good side, the Sirius and James wallpaper is moving right along. Another drawing begun.

   Here, it's lemurs, there it's weasels, in the end, it's all in flames - +++ [ link this ]

   spring broken +++ [ link this ]

Ah, the one week in the year when lots and lots of college students go to Cancun for no apparent reason. Almost makes Skimmer feel strange for going to Oklahoma instead, to spend the week arguing with Raven's parents about cooking.

At least she's been able to catch up on her sleep. Nothing like spending fourteen hours in bed at a stretch to help you overcome your crankiness.

But it's pointless, renders one unable to get any productive work done, and generally makes one question the wisdom of having the damn thing.

   Kitchens should have windows so the outside can share. +++ [ link this ]

   ah, college +++ [ link this ]

... Heeeere, freetime! Here! Here!! Artbunny? Nummy carrot? Netsurfing? *Good* freetime. Good.

Kekkai is down; this is highly unfortunate.

Some people fail eniterly to comprehend backwards-compatible webdesign. These people should be dealt many blow with sharp object. News flash: some people have truned off Javascript on their browsers, but that doesn't mean they enjoy heving to read a paragraph in View Source because an image covers it up.

Nez-chan, Skimmer loves you very much and wishes to remind you of the fact at every availible opportunity.

   theoretical fellatio +++ [ link this ]

Here you go, D:

• 7:30 AM exams
• 7:30 PM exams
• Raven's roommate's soap operas
• Microsoft
• Programs that require the expert manipulation of a mouse to function optimally or indeed at all, with the exception of graphics editors
• The barely functional left mouse button on Computer 59 and CSS's continued failure to fix it
• Bigotry and discrimination, in general
• Conversely, lack of discrimination when it would serve a purpose, in order to placate feelgood managers
• Skimmer's boss, who would, admittedly, look very good on her knees with a swollen mouth
• The valuing of appearance over function
• The gradual decline of the US government from a revolutionary system founded on principles of universal liberty into what can best be descibed as a beauracracy with overtones of repuplicanism
• Programs that automatically highlight an entire word despite the fact that the user only wishes to delete half of it, and the users's subsequent necessity of perfoming the deletion by hand with five times the keystrokes
• Homophobes, specifically
• Noncompliant HTML design
• Skimmer's continuing inablity to use GCC on the school computers despite editings of all the associated path files and the technical assitance of several graduate students
• Proprietary software
• The fact that Skimmer will not be able to try installing Mandrake Linux on her beloved laptop Mithril until this summer
• Bad fanfiction
• The preponderance of impractical clothing in women's fashion (although this one is of solidarity, not personal experience)
• Popup ads
• Javascript-encrusted websites with no nowbrow version
• Censorship
• Influenza and its associate, the common cold
• Lack of privacy, in all its insidious forms
• People who ask what someone is reading, instead of, oh, reading the title

.... and that would seem to be a good start.

   if ( sleep < 5) { randomtopic(); } +++ [ link this ]

Ah, the joys of sleep depravation. Isn't it such a wonder the things you think? And being a college student, Skimmer gets to be sleep-deprived such a large portion of the time. It's a wonder, really, that she has yet to come up with any world-shattering insights. Perhaps it's because she's still getting lots of sleep on the weekends. Or perhaps it's her C class, which is gently simultaniously keeping her mind functioning in logical patterns and keeping her from actually thinking like a normal person. Or maybe it's trying to work out trade routes for a nonexistant planet and then abducting Nezumi to do her dirty work for her. Ah, that must be it. Yes.

So. We have one sleep-deprived college student, and one blog, and everyone know exactly how well those go together, yes? Perhaps this entry should be saved until Break 3? it being a Wednesday, Skimmer has four hours of classes, spread evenly over a seven-hour period, and three hour-long breaks of which this is the first. Ah, 7:30 classes. Just like middle school! Except in middle school she went to bed at ten and didn't have to wash her hair in the mornings. Instead of staggering back home at ten after getting off work and staying up until one to chat with Nezumi and Moonshine.

Which raises all sorts of questions. Like, is sleep really necessary? Does spending too much time typing C code in VI effect permanent change in the mental precesses? Is the blue girrafe hypersublimian to the birghtly colored machine tools?

But at last Skimmer has found her place in the vi/emacs debate. vi wins, for failing to add little ^M characters to the end of every line when its files are opened in emacs. Alas, the reverse is not true. Long live s://. And vi is far more elegant than emacs. Long live textbased operating systems. Of course, pico is also cool, if only she could open it or indeed any other program form the default terminal window. CSS? Please get your act together. Please.

   we write we love we write what we love we love what we write +++ [ link this ]

   And then the wind turns and I'm home - +++ [ link this ]

   flying till the ground runs out and there's nothing but sky +++ [ link this ]

First of all - I seem to have a lot in common with Renata Myst. She seems to like tea, she's going to Shoujocon, and she's an over all wonderful person. Anybody willing to talk with me about books is a great person in my world. So - I'm plugging her blog. Also, randomly, Sarah's version of Dias is a wonderful character who makes me smile. As does Mooncalf's Ashton.

Hmm - what else? I've been dead tired lately. Learning java for class and attacking Jewish Mystical Literature. Nothing like muddling through the Hebrew alphabet and then thinking about print statements and Strings.

Right now, my latest quest is to find a decent book about ranks in nobility and armies, which shouldn't be too hard. I need to know the specifics of the duties per rank, and the relative importance / prestige of them.

Other fun task of the month is looking for a decent source on the history of ecclesiastical clothing. Basically, the when and whys of specific parts of attire, and the names for them. I'm putting together a psuedo Pope type figure for a story, and I need to fill in the details a bit more. I tried the library up at the college, and the best source was something in Italian that was marked 'fragile' and was in the folio area. I didn't look.

I've been fighting html for a while on a < spoiler > and when it's done, I'll show it off. With any luck it should be done soon. And now, I'll go off an attack java some more.

Rav, who doesn't have tea yet
11:11 a.m. Saturday, February 9, 2002

   fame and glory +++ [ link this ]

... this blog is now on the reading list of a blog Skimmer has never heard of, vis this person.