Q

I frequent Bicon, and many people there have self-identifying labels which, if I use them in the outside world, are rejected or laughed at by even my closest friends. This upsets me. I am often told that “label x” just doesn’t mean that, it means this, and therefore the person doing the self-labelling is wrong. I can’t agree. What I can say is that if their label is obscure or badly understood by the general populus, most people aren’t going to get it, and perhaps it is therefore a useless label.

What I would prefer is that when a minority group comes up with a label that against all odds most of them agree on the meaning of, the wider world would do well to accept it and its meaning as a shorthand for what it represents.

An example, to make this all a lot less vague:

Sex
What chromosomes you have, and what primary and secondary sex characteristics you have. It is possible for even these to be “mismatched” for want of a better word, either through having a different set of chromosomes from XY/XX, or by your body developing in different ways that the expected (given the chromosomes), or by surgery.

Gender
Gender is an individual’s self perception as male or female or both or neither or something inbetween. It may or may not line up with what their chromosomes or physical characteristics are. It is possible, for example, for someone to have female genitalia and be brought up female, and identify as female, and yet have XY chromosomes. Many combinations are possible. There IS NO EASY WAY to say what someone’s gender is by simply looking. Take the difference between perhaps a transwoman and a transvestite - both could appear identical, and yet one identifies as a woman, the other as a man (very often). The point is that gender is not a black and white issue, and gender and sex do not mean the same thing.

Statistically, in the ‘real’ world, you’re not going to get it wrong very often. Most people who want to be thought of as male do all the things society expects of men, and vice versa for people who want to be seen as women. Thus, even the least convincing (physically) male transvestite or transwoman is going to be called “she” or “her” by all but the most insensitive souls, as long as she’s put on a bit of makeup and a dress so you know what to do. Likewise, any transman wanting joe public to treat them as a man will don typical male clothes, maybe somehow achieve a bit of stubble, short hair etc. because it makes it easier for everyone else to guess the right pronoun.

There is no easy solution, however, for those people who reject gender labels entirely, or believe themselves to be in the middle. You can’t dress like someone with no gender, because society doesn’t have a blueprint for that. Whatever you do, people are most likely to go on your physical characteristics and plump for one thing or the other. And it’s hard to blame them. Thus, such people find a term to describe themselves, so that people who know them can at least be sensitive to it. Usually that term is genderqueer or transgender.

If someone said “I am a couch, not a person” I could refute it, because being a couch is not a social construct, it is a physical description of an object. I think it’s different when you are referring to your place in society, and that is pretty much all gender refers to. The trouble is the same words are used at the physical level as at the social level. Thus, a genderqueer person who e.g. feels they have no gender, and yet was “born” a woman, can reasonably state “I am female” (sex characteristics) and also “I am not female” (identity). What do we do about this? What about if we could magically make all words gender neutral, so you could only be referred to as a person, never as a woman or a man? Would different people be upset at that? It is all compounded by some people feeling very strongly about gender whilst others don’t believe it exists at all.

Here’s a completely different example: What if someone says “I don’t believe there’s a God, but I’m a Christian?” Is that concrete enough that we can say “No you aren’t”? What about if they say “I’m a Jew” instead? Now it’s a race too, but which is meant, the race or the religion? What about “I’m a Catholic”? Dara O’Briain manages that one, though I’m not sure how seriously he means it.

I don’t have an answer, but I wish there was more respect given from all sides. There isn’t an obvious solution for every situation. I identify as an atheist but by some logics come out agnostic. That annoys me because of connotations *I* make when someone else says they are agnostic (e.g. that they don’t care, or are 50/50 on the matter). I want to assert my right to be called atheist, even if society in its entirety thinks I’m agnostic! And that is no use to me, or to them. Therefore I am inclined to think that the more people who understand a label the same way, the more useful it can be. Maybe we should just talk more instead of giving one-word answers to everything and hoping that the other person has made the right assumption.

Wikipedia’s article ‘transgender’ was really useful when writing this post.

And thus, today’s xkcd is particularly funny.

Though I have a feeling cowbirds in love already did it, but I can’t find the comic in question. Let me know if you do.

Also:

A man goes to a doctor of physics. He says “doctor, doctor! I keep hearing Gaussian noise! Is this normal?”

This rant by an employee sums up my thoughts on the above sentence better than I can probably put them. Tshirt Hell sells the funniest shirts on the internet, IMHO, and they are going out of business. Not because of the economy, but because of a constant barrage from people who can’t take a joke. This makes me sad. I was hoping to buy a few when I start buying clothes again in April.

[Edit]It was all a nicely executed joke! I will be able to buy more shirts! Hurrah!

Because it’s as good a time as any to set some goals. In the spirit of S.M.A.R.T. objectives, (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely):

1) Get a bit fitter. The specific goal is to be able to get up the hill without being out of breath. I think this will take about 3 months, and I plan to use Wii Fit when we can find a copy to hurry this along a bit.

2) Record some music. Specifically, get at least one song to completion (recorded, mixed and put somewhere public on the internet) within the next 2 months. I have 3 candidate songs so this should be achievable.

3) Improve my credit rating. It’s a bit crappy at the moment but with a proper regular income I should be able to fix this. Target is to have a rating in the green (experian) within 6 months, using powers of “paying things off on time” and “setting up direct debits on the right account” and even “not using credit cards unless absolutely necessary”.

4) Over the coming year, cook for myself at least twice a week. Cook for someone else at least once a month. (This second part gives me the fear like you wouldn’t believe. The first part I have already achieved this week.)

5) Contact my Dad every week, whether it be by phone, email, SMS or IM.

Regarding the last challenge I set myself on here, I’ve only once broken my “no buying clothes rule” which times out in April. I bought 2 bras for £6 when I was back in the fens, because I needed new bras, and they were too cheap to pass up. I hope you can all forgive me. I think this “no buying clothing” rule will slide into a generally frugal sense of purchasing afterwards. There’s an outside chance it will instead result in a massive spending spree at the Trafford centre. Bet now!

The current worst problem is that I don’t really have a pair of day to day shoes that aren’t a) full of holes, b) have big heels and look like school shoes, or c) cheapo white trainers that make me look like a chav. I’m sure I can last out the next 3.5 months with these 3 pairs, though. If not, I could start wearing my hiking boots everywhere…

This is not chronological. Let’s just say they range from about the age of 3 to now, in no particular order. All are things I have at some point believed, however briefly, but no longer do.

1. Everything happens for the best.
2. I cannot die or be severely injured.
3. The most efficient solution is always the best.
4. Everything has a reversible effect.
5. Everything can be most usefully explained by science rather than emotional or personal reactions.
6. I am perfect as I am and will always be the same me
7. Eventually I will have a job where I will be doing something I always enjoy that is exactly easy enough at all times, and it will pay me lots of money, in a location that is desirable and close to home.
8. Learning will always come so easily for me that it will never require work, let alone hard work.
9. I am the cleverest person I know
10. I can get along with anyone
11. I will never be jealous of metamours.
12. Any kind of sex is good sex.
13. Love is enough to keep any relationship together.
14. I never want children.
15. It will always be easy for me to stick to my principles and I will always do so.
16. Men make more sense than women.
17. Eventually, people will be satisfied with what I have achieved and stop expecting things of me.
18. I will be normal height one day
19. I will never have to think about what I eat or jhow much I exercise.
20. People below a certain “level of intelligence” are not worth conversing with and will never amount to anything.
21. I should always speak my mind freely, whatever the consequences.
22. I am capable of complete objectivity.
23. Doors will not close for me as I get older.
24. I will always be judged on my merits, without prejudice or assumption.
25. I have no prejudices and I do not make assumptions.
26. Things that I hold important should be held important by everyone.
27. No-one will ever want me sexually because I am too much of a nerd.
28. Everyone who fancies women wants to sleep with me.
29. If societal norms were removed, everyone is bisexual enough to sleep with people of any gender.
30. The world will never deteriorate to the point where western-style living is impossible.
31. I am a lesbian.
32. Drinking is always a good idea.
33. The wind will change and I’ll stay like that.

For those who have just joined us, that was a list of things I don’t believe. But I did, once. Just making sure you are paying attention.

I highly recommend this as an exercise whether or not you choose to share your list. It was very therapeutic just to sit and think of all the ways in which I have changed as a person over the years, and to realise that it is an ongoing process that has long distant and recent elements and will continue to happen throughout my life. It pleases me to know that I have not yet stagnated, or set, in my ideas and ideals.

MOT: £44.95
Full Service: £109.05
Car parts and extra repairs:563.75
Insurance: £232.80
Tax: £120
Total: £1070.55

Not having to use public transport: Priceless?

And that’s not including petrol.

So I’ve been thinking, do I really need a car? I *like* having a car, and my Dad very kindly bought me this one, but there clearly are alternatives to it that might work out cheaper. Everybody stand back: I’m going to use MATHS.

miles a year: 10′000
miles a gallon: 44.8
litres a gallon: 4.546
pence a litre: 118.9
pence a gallon: 118.9 x 4.546 = 540.5
pence a mile: 540.5/44.8 = 12.065
pence a year: 12.065 * 10000 = 120651
pounds a year = 120651/100 = £1206.51

As you can see, the maintenance of my car has this year cost nearly as much as the petrol, the total being 1206.51 + 1070.55 = £2277.07. The combined pence per mile is conveniently (because I do ~ 10000 miles a year) 22.77p. Obviously some of these costs would not go away even if I didn’t drive the car, but let’s leave that for the moment. (y= 0.177m+506.8 if you really care) Let’s also ignore depreciation, because I didn’t buy the car.

One common journey I make is to Preston with Dan to visit his family. Let’s take this 300 mile (round trip) journey and work out the cost of travelling it in various ways. I tend to only be able to go on a weekend, so that’s what tickets I’ll look for, and I’ll try to get the cheapest possible, so I’ll try a few weekends varying distances away, and factor in a railcard if one might apply. I’ll account for there being 2 of us.

Car: 22.77 pence per mile = £68.10

There are no railcards which apply to Dan and the young person’s railcard I can only get within the next year (*sob*). I’ll try it with me having one, anyway. Costs £24 a year, so pro rata that would be 72p for this trip if I still did 10000 miles a year.

Train: 1 adult (£46) + 1 16-25 (£30.35) = £76.35 (ignoring railcard cost)

Ok, so what about buses? There must be some buses to Preston, right? Yes, you can get there from Aber with only 1 change in Birmingham using National Express. Take in a couple of hours shopping, because that’s how long you’ll be waiting. There exist such things as Young Persons Coachcards, which again Dan is too old and decrepit to have but again I’m just within range. They cost £10, which is 30p pro rata for this trip , so I’ll ignore that again as it’s tiny.

Coach: 1 Adult £61.50 + 1 young’un £43.40 = £104.90

I’m surprised the coach is more money than the train, so I’m going to look for more bus-like buses. Nope, because the best chance was the X32 linking with the X94 and onward, but the X32 doesn’t run on Sundays.

No other form of transport I can think of (do suggest one if you can) allows you to pay a visit to Preston from Aberystwyth over a weekend. So far, so car.

What if Dan travels alone? Well, he hasn’t got a licence, so he’ll have to get the train anyway. What if I travel alone? I think I might just buy that railcard.

What if we travel a lot less? How much less would it have to be to not be worth the static cost of owning the car?

y= cost in £
x = distance in miles

Car: y= 0.1771x + 506.8
Train: y= 0.2545x + 24

0.1771x + 506.8 = 0.2545x + 24
0.1771x + 482.8 = 0.2545x
482.8 = 0.0774x
x = 6237 miles (and y turns out to be £1611)

Phew, that took me right back to high school. So, what we’ve discovered is that (based on many many assumptions, not to mention rounding errors and plain old mistakes) If you live in Aber, and you travel more than ~6000 miles a year as at least a pair, it’s probably worth owning a car if you don’t have to buy it yourself. If not, get the train. Third option: stop travelling so far for such lengths of time.

Well, now that my car works and its brakes are better than “it broke when we took it off, that’s how bad it was” I shall continue to own it for the foreseeable. Hopefully maintenance will be a lot less next year, anyway.

In about a month’s time I will graduate as Claire Q, MEng Software Engineering. Up until this point, I have felt that title to be mostly inappropriate. The parts of Computer Science which I have found most interesting have always been the more theoretical, conceptual or scientific bits, to the extent that I had assumed I was no good at the actual engineering and presumed I was simply so able at examinations that I had passed the relevant modules on that strength alone.

However, I currently have 2 jobs that are highly software engineering involved. Both are in academic departments, but in both cases I have been brought in as the “coding familiar” party to a more research-based set of colleagues. Finally, I have found use for all those modules that didn’t interest me much at the time.

As it turns out, I’m actually good at this. I know how to avoid security holes, how network layer interaction happens, how to properly specify, design, implement, test and maintain software, how client-server architecture works, how to design a database, how to implement many software design and architecture patterns, how to use a programming reference book, how to plan a project and use an established development process… And what’s better, is that I have actually applied this knowledge to real-world, used systems.

What’s worse is that I’m starting to find engineering interesting for its own sake. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always considered it useful, and certainly more important than science in the short-to-medium term, it’s just that I never really wanted to do it myself, until now.

My dissertation was very research heavy, and that has taught me a lot about how my PhD “understanding the beauty of music through machine learning computation” is going to be. I really do enjoy research and I expect it will be interesting and fulfilling. It’s just that lately, just sometimes, fully controllable, you understand, I have this urge to create a really well designed and documented program that will be truly useful to actual people in my lifetime. I know, I know. I try to keep these wrong thoughts at bay, and strive for the purity and safety of theoretical discovery. It seems, though, that despite my best efforts to ignore them, the principles and practices of software engineering have imprinted themselves in my brain. I can delude myself no longer.

Since high school I have considered myself a scientist. Today I am proud to say I am also an engineer.

NOTE: If you were unaware that JTA and I were together, please visit Dan’s post about the quad before you read anything else…

It has been said, and I’m not sure by whom, that the beginning and end of relationships can be found by their awkward silences. JTA remarked just after we broke up that it was amazing how quickly you can lose the ability to have comfortable silence with a person. It’s an unpleasant sensation.

JTA and I broke up some days ago. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the whole problem can be summarised as “incompatibility”. There’s probably little point in unpicking it all right now, especially in a public forum, but it’s definitely over between us and it was amicable, mutual (although he brought it up because I was putting off doing so) and we hope our friendship will continue as before. At the time I felt a bit sad and a bit relieved in roughly equal measure, then I went through a bit more sad, then a bit more relieved, and now I feel pretty much normal. I’m not sure how he’s doing, but I hope it’s been at least as easy as that. He hasn’t blogged because a lot of his friends don’t even know we were going out, and I suspect a few people will be surprised by this entry of mine, though I’ve dropped hints on my blog in the past.

What I especially wanted to mention, though, is that all the other relationships are fine. Dan and I, JTA and Ruth, and yes — Dan and Ruth, are fine. The logistics of who sleeps where, when have been affected, and the need to comfort us a bit has arisen, but otherwise nothing has changed.

You may have thought, at the start, that if one of the new relationships broke up then the other would go with it. We could have come to such an arrangement, but we did not, and we expressed this publicly at the start. You may have thought “that’s all fine and dandy, but when it actually happens, they’ll switch back, won’t they?” You’d be forgiven for thinking that. Still, no. Ruth and Dan’s relationship belongs to them, I hope they continue to be close and have as great a partnership as they have now for many years to come.

Whilst I’m addressing assumptions, it’s possible people think that me, or JTA, or both of us, are now considering a return to monogamy (at least on our respective ends of the bargain). You’d be wrong. I’ve never gotten on well with monogamy, and I see no reason to try it again. Dan and I have had some sort of non-mono arrangement from the very first time we talked about such things, and I don’t think that’s about to change. JTA apparently isn’t looking to go back to monogamy either, which surprises and yet for some reason slightly pleases me.

Some people might even use this break-up as evidence that non-monogamy doesn’t work. This is a fallacy. The failure of a relationship does not mean there is a problem with the relationship’s format. If a monogamous couple break up you don’t go around saying “monogamy doesn’t work!”. It’s possible depending on the situation to stretch it to “monogamy doesn’t work for him/her/them“, but no further.

You’ll notice I’m feeling a little defensive. The reason being, I anticipate a lot of backlash from people, and I’m trying to make a bit of a pre-emptive strike, as it were. Feel free to rip into my beliefs, but have a proper argument ready, if you don’t mind. If you’d rather offer your commiserations over my having one fewer boyfriend, that’d also be appreciated.

In reference to JTA’s post about middle-class-ness…

Herein, a list of examples of things I have heard about or seen people do, that confuse and infuriate me. I’ve tried to make it a list of middle-class-isms, but I may have strayed somewhat to more general forms of stupidity. Sorry.

• Boasting about giving money to charity whilst not ever doing voluntary work or caring about people
• Giving money to the most useless charities first, e.g. Donkey Sanctuary before Save the Children, National Heritage before Terence Higgins
• booking the cheapest holiday you can find to an in vogue place just so you can say you’ve been there, rather than using the same amount of money to go somewhere else more interesting and less well-travelled in better accomodation.
• having a complete dining set that you never use, displayed in a cabinet in the dining room
• The feeling that ketchup is wrong and you have to have, I dunno, sun-dried tomato salsa instead.
• The need to redecorate a room of your house every 6 weeks.
• The kind of gardening that never produces food.
• The idea that manners can replace true care for others’ feelings.
• Thinking anyone who hasn’t read and understood shakespeare is an idiot.
• Thinking anyone who went to a comprehensive must have had a shit education.
• Shopping at charity shops and at Debenhams, but never at Matalan.
• building a conservatory that you know you won’t ever sit in, just so your house price goes up.
• Buying a fondue set you know you’ll never use, because it looks good on the dining room table.
• Caring which fork you’re supposed to use.
• Thinking of people who run restaurants you frequent as friends, even though you’ve only ever spoken to them to order your food or complain that your steak is too rare.
• Buying organic food because a TV chef says so.
• ORNAMENTS.
• Thinking that culture is something you can buy in Borders.
• Doing a job you hate so you can afford to pay a maid to do the cleaning you hate.
• Trading in your car for a new one every year.
• Buying personalised numberplates to hide the age of your car. Or for any other reason.
• Buying fabric softener.
• Reading books about other people travelling and never going travelling yourself.
• Deliberately cultivating a neutral accent. (yes, I’m guilty of this!)
• Thinking boarding school and nannies are a good way to bring up children without having to, you know, get involved.
• Polishing furniture.
• Becoming unable to eat takeaway food.
• Reading the Guardian/Telegraph but secretly agreeing with the Mail.
• Insisting on eating a different meal every night.
• Owning a bidet.
• Reading particular literary classics so that you can tell people you have read them.
• Thinking it’s important to know about wine.
• Refusing to buy anything that’s “Tesco Value” or equivalent.
• Not visiting people whose houses are untidy
• Keeping your house completely spotless, so it appears that it’s a showhome and that no-one lives there.
• COMPLAINING about how your house only has 17 rooms, or how you don’t even have a gardener for your 20 acres of land, or any other complaint that would make any normal person go “hang on a minute, are you just saying this so you can tell me how well off you really are?”
• Thinking that swearing is *always* inappropriate
• using really long words just because you like showing off that you know them, rather than because they make the meaning more clear.
• Having lots of dogs but still determinedly removing every last hair from the furniture.
• Having house cats that aren’t allowed in the garden because they’ll ruin your dahliahs.
• Delighting in pointing out mispronunciations by interrupting the speaker
• name-dropping celebrities or rich people who you’ve not really actually had any contact with
• owning a piano when no-one in the house plays
• Having an open fire in a room so big you need the central heating on as well

Ok, that’s quite long. Any more suggestions? I have a few more, but abnib’s going to creak as it is.

My last blog post was a bit too hippy so I’ve got to flip back to the opposite side for a bit… or do I? I’ve been wanting to look into this for a long while, because all I have really had to go on is gut feeling before finding time to read about some of the issues.

I just read this article from the Independent. It’s quite old now I suppose, but I thought it was interesting. I’ve always been suspicious of organic farming, because it feels like a backwards step, rather than fixing the problems with the technology we’ve created, we decide to throw our hands up in the air and say we should have left it to nature all along, and live like the Amish. Who, by the way, you can insult on the internet as often as you like.

Basically organic farming varies wildly in whether it is better or worse for the environment, depending upon what is being farmed (and where, and when). I’ll pull out some stats from the article, but it doesn’t have any “good” ones so you’ll have to put up with only one side of the argument I’m afraid.

• Organic tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses in Britain generate one hundred times the amount of CO2 per kilogram produced by tomatoes in unheated greenhouses in southern Spain.
• Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land to produce per unit than conventional milk.
• The depletion of natural resources is measured at 99 for organic birds compared to 29 for battery or barn hens.

I don’t really want an animal welfare discussion but my basic view on this is that the free range specification is good enough for chickens. Nor do I want arguments against GM foods — that’s a separate and (mostly)unrelated argument. Really I’m interested in what is good about organic farming for humans, especially from people who are keen to save the environment (I agree it’s important to try to maintain a human-habitable environment). We couldn’t actually feed the population of the world if all food were organically grown. Sometimes it produces more greenhouse gases or uses more energy. Sometimes the by-products are worse for soil and water courses. The taste and nutritional value can be worse than conventional production.

So, the question is, do you investigate every kind of food and buy the most efficient version? Do you make a sweeping generalisation one way or the other? What is most important in the growing of food: space, biodiversity, CO2 emissions, energy input, feeding everyone, treating the animals as nicely as possible, taste, price? Here’s my personal list of priorities:

1. Feeding everyone — I don’t think the solution to overpopulation is to provide less food to humans in general. I don’t think we’ve solved it yet, but making less food isn’t going to help.
2. less space — forests are good, they eat CO2 and provide biodiverse habitats. They also eat space, so we should minimise space use for other things.
3. less CO2 emissions — Most of the human effects on climate change that we have a chance to reduce come from CO2 emissions.
4. less energy input — whilst our energy is produced mostly from fossil fuels, this is as relevant as the point above.
5. more biodiversity — Benefits listed on the wikipedia page especially disease resistance.
6. better animal care — I don’t like when we engineer or selectively breed animals such that they are too fat to breed normally or move at all. I would happily pay a bit more for a better cared for animal, up to a point. This point in my list, in fact.
7. better taste — You should actually want to eat the food, I don’t want some sort of communist gruel serving going on. But, if that’s the only way to affordably feed everyone whilst saving the planet, then… maybe.
8. lower price — this matters, but not a lot, it only has to be affordable for the poorest people. This can be a tall order for some things, actually. I don’t really know where to put this one, because I would happily pay more money for any of the above, but presumably something that satisfies all of the above will price the poorest out of the market. Free market economics is tricky that way.

With that, it’s pretty obvious that I shouldn’t be buying organic veg out of season, or chicken and milk at any time. It is in fact my feeling that people who buy organic chicken are effectively putting the welfare of chickens above the welfare of the entire planet. If it’s not chicken or milk or out-of-season veg, I’ll consider it, probably by trying to find out relative values from the list I’ve just made. Buying food shouldn’t be this complicated. I’m hungry. I’m off to make lunch.

PS: if you’re reading this on Facebook, please comment on my actual blog at blog.nowebsite.co.uk or I may not notice.