this is not a journal title

Trigger Warning: vague categories of things which I find triggery right now due to current events are mentioned below. Due to current events, even this vagueness might be triggery for others.

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Do not make me give up LJ/DW for the weekend too, or I'll be really pissed and probably cry. So yeah, use trigger warnings, cut-tags, or filters.

Edit: Damnit. I can't go entirely FB-dark b/c I'm coordinating getting tickets to an event on Saturday evening via FB. Fuck.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comments there. Comment here or there.

So those of you on Facebook probably saw a long gobledygook email about changes to the Terms of Service. Many people are in an uproar over FB getting the right to use your stuff, but that isn't anything new. What they should be in an uproar over is that right now the TOS gives users veto power over future changes to the TOS. The proposed changes removes that veto power.

As much as FB is continually making shitty changes, this one would be even worse than usual.

• Full text of proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities changes
  
  • Note original and unchanged is in black, original and proposed to be removed is in red and struck out, and new proposed to be added is in red and underlined.
    
  • There appear to be no changes to the ways FB can use your information or content - you still own it, they still have a license to use it as they wish without charge. (Art 2, page 1)
    
  • Art 14 (pg 5-6) is where they remove the veto power of the members.
  
  
• Full text of proposed Data Use Policy
  
  • There seem to be some good points where they remind people that "hiding" is not the same as "deleting", and other clarifying language.
    
  • The bad point is on the top of pg 14 where they say (if approved) that they can now share your info with their affiliates. Even credit cards let you opt out of sharing your info w/ affiliates, but apparently FB wouldn't.
  
  
• Here's where you can respond
  
  • Note that many people are going for the following phrase to show a unified front: "I oppose the changes and want a vote about the demands on www.our-policy.org"
    
  • You have until Nov 28 to comment if you wish to do so.
  
  
• CNN article which tipped me off to the changes

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comments there. Comment here or there.

Anne McCaffrey was my first introduction to Sci-Fan, or at least the first one that stuck in my memory. Lessa and the Rowen were role models for me, showing me strong women who didn't let men stand in their way. Damia working through her pregnancies instead of being forced into some protective feminine seclusion, continuing to work alongside her husband as they raised their children together, this was the norm. Even Menolly's situation was shown as being a throwback to an older and worse time when men didn't think girl children were worth anything, a backwards and backwater way of thinking. I didn't need to be a feminist in my youth because McCaffrey showed me that it was completely normal for women to work alongside men.

And I knew I had finally come of age as a feminist when Kristin Bjornsen's meek acquiescence, nay welcoming, of her own date rape disgusted me and made me turn away from McCaffrey's works.

For a short period of time. I cannot stay away from her works forever. She is -was- the product of a more backwards age, and like Menolly she was always struggling to leave it in her writing. I hope for her sake that she has found a better and fairer place.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comments there. Comment here or there.

Bad Astronomy (Phil Plait)'s post on the subject

House Committee on Appropriations post on the subject

Write your own letter to Congress (site via the National Education Association, but you'll be writing your own content and can opt out of sending a copy to the NEA or getting on their email lists)

( Model letter to congress on the subject )

q10 and seekingferret, you'll want to read this.

The US State Department is proposing a new Biographical Questionaire for everyone applying for a passport. The form would require all citizens to provide the name and contact info of all previous employers, the address of all previous residences, and addresses of all immediate family members (parents, step parents, siblings) and their citizenship status. In addition, naturalized citizens will need to provide the address of their place of birth, and anyone not born in a medical facility will also need to provide their mother's residence a year before and after your birth (presumably so the government can track those citizen children of fence-hoppers who wish to travel abroad), and contact info for witnesses (presumably so the government can strip your citizenship if you don't provide the info or if they're illegal immigrants who the government can bully into recanting the story of your birth in the US).

A lot more info is available here, including the full form and links to submit comments:
http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/03/18/state-dept-proposes-biographical-questionnaire-for-passport-applicants/

The comment I submitted:
The information requested by this document is ridiculous, and the gathering of the information is prohibitively difficult to obtain.  I am only 33 years old, but I have had six employers in five different states and it would take me around an hour to track down all their contact information. In addition I have lived at somewhere between 10 and 20 different residences and it is not possible for me to find all those addresses.  This high number of jobs and residences is primarily a result of my being in academia, and this form is systematically biased against academics and will stifle international cooperation and research as a result.  In addition, it will seriously hurt naturalized citizens and US-born citizens with foreign parents.  There is no need for this level of detail unless the government is deliberately attempting to prevent the movement of it's citizens, in violation of the UN charter of basic human rights.  

Edit: There is some question about whether this policy might only apply to people unable to provide traditional forms of proof of US citizenship, or whether it would really be all US citizens looking for a passport. There is also some question about the validity of the supposed form hosted at the above link. Unfortunately the .gov website doesn't actually contain any information about what it is we're supposed to be commenting on - what is the form, who would it apply to, etc.

NASA's big press release today was that a new form of DNA was discovered in a type of bacteria living in Mono Lake, California. DNA usually requires phosphorus to hold together the different "rungs" of the "ladder". On the periodic table of the elements, phosphorus falls directly above arsenic, meaning they have the same number of electrons in their outer shells, and therefore act similarly in forming molecules. This is the very reason that arsenic is well-known as a poison: it is easily incorporated into human (or animal, or plant) chemistry, it replaces the phosphorus, but it does a crappier job than phosphorus and even though it can form similar molecules they easily fall apart.

Apparently this bacterium has not only overcome that - there are many bacteria that can live in an arsenic-rich environment - but it even uses that fact. This bacterium can apparently switch between using phosphorus, and using arsenic, depending upon which is available in its environment.

NASA press release

A very slightly more technical article, including a description of tests used to determine that the arsenic is actually incorporated into the DNA.

And a couple blog posts, one from a science writer Ed Yong, one from astronomer-turned-science-writer Phil Plait.

A fascinating Newsweek editorial on gender in US politics.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/12/whitman-unable-to-benefit-from-whore-comment.html

Yay Prescott AZ is letting the kid's faces stay unwhite! http://bit.ly/9N8moy

What do I need to know about the version passed last night? And what happens next to make it law?