memevector

"no to age banding on children's books" campaign

memevector — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:58:36 GMT

Of interest especially to people who love reading, people who as a child loved reading, people who have children, etc:

http://www.notoagebanding.org/

Internet Explorer 7 web design problem

memevector — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:34:51 GMT

Long time no post here... have got some stuff cooking for my other blog though.

In connection with that, I have a request for help from the web-design enthusiasts/experts among us (if any are reading).

The problem I'm having is that in IE7, some of the links on my other-blog pages don't work. (Thanks to Annie for pointing this out!)

It's everything in the "content" div, basically the right hand side of the page. Header, footer and sidebar are OK. (Pretty sure that IEs 5, 5.5 and 6 deal with the page OK, though wouldn't swear to that at this precise second.)

Further examination shows that it's not actually the links themselves that are malfunctioning. If you tab to them, and use "Enter" to activate them, they work.

What it seems to be is that the cursor seems to think that the right hand half of the page is empty. Within that right-hand area, it never displays the text-cursor, only the arrow which it would normally be showing over empty space. So if you just go straight to the right hand side, you can't select text for copy & paste either, although you can if you start at the top, hold the button and drag down. That highlights first the header, then content, then sidebar, then footer, which is the order it appears in the HTML. (It's a "float" in the CSS which puts the sidebar apparently ahead of the content on the visible page.)

My HTML and CSS validates OK. Googling does reveal various vaguely-similar-sounding problems with IE7, but I haven't seen this one described. I can't help wondering if it's IE7's fault via one of those classic Microsoft failures to comply with standards - maybe hasLayout, which I only heard of today and haven't grasped at all.

I would be very grateful if someone can tell me "It's probably THIS! and the fix is THIS!"

Other clues also welcome :-)

Thanks for any help!

a plug for my other blog, which now has some content

memevector — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:23:45 GMT

I did mention already my "new" blog - not so new any more now - but at the time there wasn't much on it. It's since acquired three posts which aren't "blog meta" - two about aspects of time management type stuff, and one on sexual politics. So you can get more of a flavour of where it's going now (though I'm not making any promises that it'll stick to that territory :-) )

Also someone has kindly set up an LJ syndication thingummy, http://syndicated.livejournal.com/uncharted_world/
(oddly, not "worlds" - according to 36 the name was probably truncated due to LJ's character limit). So you can subscribe via LJ if you want. Thanks to whoever organised that, and to 36 for letting me know.

See some of you "there" maybe :-)

grump

memevector — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:25:22 GMT

I don't want to do any of the things I supposedly "ought" to be doing. And I don't know what I do want to do.

Boo.

amused

memevector — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:31:59 GMT

laughed out loud at:
http://xkcd.com/327/
(work safe)

new blog / old blog

memevector — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:11:07 GMT

New blog.

I will keep this one as well, at least for now. The new one will be more of a writing-for-the-world-in-general type thing and this will be more a way of keeping in touch with people I know in 3d, and with bi/poly social stuff. (Which is what it's mostly been lately anyway.)

I might go more friends-only here at some point, not sure yet.

petition: national archives not to rely on Microsoft products

memevector — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:00:08 GMT

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ODFinNA/

a worthy cause I thought...

government consultation on consultations

memevector — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:14:51 GMT

Now the government are doing a consultation on how they do consultations!

Press release:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/news/2007/070614_consultation.asp
Main page:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/consultation/policy_review/index.asp

I think I might put in something on this and say some pointy words about how blatantly biased that "consultation" (a.k.a. propaganda exercise) was on the possession of "extreme" porn.

Deadline is 28 September.

government consultation on hitting children

memevector — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 20:39:37 GMT

If you live in the UK and you think smacking children is a bad idea, you might want to respond to this consultation:

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/conDetails.cfm?consultationId=1494

Deadline 10 August (next Friday).

You can do an online response and you don't necessarily have to fill in all the questions, so it needn't necessarily take long.

More info/background at:
http://www.childrenareunbeatable.org.uk/pages/info.html

BiCon update

memevector — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:54:52 GMT

I'm not going to BiCon after all. Long story - not sure how I'll feel about it all in 6 months' time.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my "who's going to BiCon" post a few weeks ago, and hope everyone who's going has a good one.

Recycling lithium-ion batteries

memevector — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:23:20 GMT

On behalf of a friend...

"... have you ever found somewhere to send these batteries (eg from a laptop) for recycling. The net advice I can find, is contact your local authority (no facilities here, or in most places I don't think) or send back to the manufacturer (which might work as pressure if everybody did it, but I suspect us sending a single battery back will probably lead to it being dumped in the bin... which defeats the object)."

Clues/comments, anyone?

BiCon 2007

memevector — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:43:40 GMT

Thinking a lot about BiCon. I'm thinking I'll probably go, but not sure yet. It's kind of odd to be questioning myself when in so many other years it was something I didn't really have to think much about - I'd just book :-)

Haven't got time (or at least not now) to post all my many thoughts about it, but just wondering who else reading this is going...? or thinking of it and not sure yet?

Transtastic Men Calendar launch event

memevector — Mon, 28 May 2007 22:00:23 GMT

"The exhibition event to launch the Transtastic Men Calendar is on Saturday 2nd June at the Workstation in Sheffield. It is open from 2pm until 10pm, with good access.

"There will be nibbles and a bar from 4pm and we have arranged for 3 speakers, which will begin at 5pm. These include Dan - one of the models, Christine Burns - Press for Change, and Rennie Brown - South Yorks Police LGBT Liaison Officer."

Venue is the Workstation - very near Sheffield railway station.

Event is open to all trans-friendly people. As I understand it, admission is free, and you can buy a calendar for a tenner if you want to.

More details from Lee at T-boys, tboysuk@yahoo.co.uk. And a bit more background here (although note that the times quoted on that rather old post have evidently been superseded).

I'm thinking of going up to Sheffield on the day and going to this for an hour or two in the afternoon, probably around 4pm/5pm. Anyone else around in Sheffield this weekend? If so might see you there...

Ubuntu is go!

memevector — Thu, 17 May 2007 22:48:03 GMT

Just had the new computer running Ubuntu off the Live CD, after getting a tipoff on the Tekheads forum from someone else who'd had the same problem with identical mobo & CPU. Hurrah!

It was indeed a BIOS related problem (as observantly suggested by lovingboth). I'd had the OK from Tekheads to send the mobo back to be updated, but thanks to this last-minute info I didn't have to after all. The obscure and rather inexplicable trick was to disable Cool 'n' Quiet. This allows an OS to boot, and apparently you can turn it back on again once you've got the up-to-date BIOS.

Now I need to flash the BIOS and then carry on with getting together the less barebonesy bits of the new machine.

lovingboth, I could potentially install Win98SE any time now, as dual boot system setup is supposed to work best when you put the Win on before the Linux. What's the likelihood of your spare copy turning up soon do you think? If you can't find it, my fallback plan is to look for one on eBay, which is fine, but I don't want to do that if you're about to send me one :-)

computer problem details

memevector — Sun, 13 May 2007 12:01:23 GMT

Thanks oilrig, topbit, cryx & lovingboth for the computer suggestions. Here's a more comprehensive review of the whole scenario...

Motherboard: ASrock ALiveNF6G-DVI
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 dual-core 3600+ (Brisbane)
Memory: Kingston ValueRam 533MHz DDR2 240pin Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2)
Case: Antec Solo P150 Tower Case
Power supply: Antec NeoHE 430 Watt Quiet Power Supply (comes with P150)
2 hard drives: Samsung 80GB 2.5" HM080HI SATA
Optical drive: the one I bought is the NEC AD-7170S-0S (SATA), but this failed to be recognised, so right now it's an old Pioneer drive (IDE).
Floppy drive: basic Sony one.

Yes I had looked at the boot sequence and set it to CD/DVD first. (In fact I'd also set it to Floppy first when I was trying the floppy drive instead, even though my understanding is that shouldn't be necessary as it would keep looking if it didn't find a bootable thing at the first location.)

I have tested the Ubuntu Live CD on my old machine (the one I'm writing this on now), and it does get to an Ubuntu screen on that (although reports that Linux won't run, due to something or other on this machine being too old, but that's probably irrelevant as that's not what I'm trying to do :-) ). Haven't tested the Rescue CD on this machine yet, suppose I could do. I should say however that the Windows setup floppy is a pretty old one and that's the only floppy I've tried.

I've tried two different CD drives (not counting the brand-new SATA one which wasn't recognised), the second of which had only just been transplanted out of the Mac and was the very same one used to burn the two Linux Live CDs. This has its jumpers set to "master", and indeed the computer appears to be recognising it as such. I've now (re-)detached the floppy drive and HDs. I then tried three different IDE cables on the CD drive, inc the one it had in the Mac.

In each case it spins up and the computer recognises it and announces it on screen. I was wrong to say that the "working" LED doesn't light; it does, but only for a second or so, then the CD player spins for a short time without lighting the light, then it settles down and the whole thing just sits there from then on. (I suspect that's default power-on behaviour for the CD player.)

When I say the SATA CD drive failed to be recognised, I mean that when only that one was plugged in, the BIOS showed no SATA devices and there was no sign that the computer knew it was there. Using the same SATA lead and the same SATA header on the motherboard, the computer did recognise one of the SATA hard drives. (It will also recognise the other hard drive.) A bit more swopping of leads and headers produces only results consistent with the new SATA CD drive being faulty, so I'm leaving that alone for now and sticking to the older CD drives which have been known to work and are recognised.

When I say the IDE CD drives have been recognised, I mean that the computer knows not only that they're there but what they are. So the IDE connection could be faulty but is not entirely dead.

Here is the screen on startup at the moment, give or take a few spaces:

AMIBIOS(C)2005 American Megatrends, Inc.
ALiveNF6G-DVI BIOS P1.30
CPU : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 DualCore Processor  3600+
 Speed : 1.90GHz    Count : 2

Press F2 to run Setup
Press F11 for Boot Menu
Dual-Channel Memory Mode
1984MB OK
Auto-Detecting Pri Master..ATAPI CDROM
Pri Master: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-109  1.40
            Ultra DMA Mode-4

plus, in the bottom right hand corner, what looks like 2 digits of hex, not always the same. Sometimes it's 75 and sometimes it's something else (I think it was A1) - can check if anyone thinks this is important.

When the SATA HDs are plugged in then it announces them in similar terms too, though it didn't announce the floppy at this point when that was plugged in.

Pressing F11 for Boot Menu gets a message saying something like "Popup boot menu selected", but not an actual boot menu. I'm guessing this refers to something you have to set up before it's usable.

Pressing F2 does get you the BIOS screens.

This is the main part of the Boot screen:

Main  Advanced  H/W Monitor  Boot  Security  Exit

Boot Settings

Boot Settings Configuration

1st Boot Device   [CD/DVD:PM-PIONEER ]
2nd Boot Device   [1st FLOPPY DRIVE]
3rd Boot Device   [Hard Drive]
> Removable Drives
> CD/DVD Drives

It also has a right hand column which gives you contextual clues and decodes the shortcut keys. When "1st Boot Device" is highlighted, the right hand column says:

Specifies the boot
sequence from the
available devices.

A device enclosed in
parenthesis has been
disabled in the 
corresponding type
menu.

That second paragraph looks a bit perplexing and suspicious to me, because it talks about devices being disabled. But all the variables throughout the Setup screens are in square brackets - so surely it can't mean that? And what is the "corresponding type menu"? So that is one mysterious possible-clue.

Any of that ring any bells with anyone? Anything else obvious I should try?

Thanks!

computer not entirely working...

memevector — Sat, 12 May 2007 20:49:51 GMT

Well I quite enjoyed building the computer, inasmuch as it is built (some inessential bits not added yet). And it's not dead and you can get into the BIOS setup and it can see its drives. But it won't boot from either an Ubuntu Live CD or a Linux Rescue CD or a Windows 98 boot floppy. Booo. (At the point where you'd expect those to be happening, the CD player does spin up but doesn't light up its "working" light, for what that's worth, and the floppy doesn't make vvv vvv noises either.) Tried different CD player, same thing.

More experiments tomorrow I expect. Any bright ideas v welcome.

new computer

memevector — Sat, 12 May 2007 08:32:09 GMT

I've now got all the bits of my new computer here, and today I plan to start building it!

Eeeeeeee!

The Antec case (P150) is v shiny :-)

bi health politics

memevector — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:39:50 GMT

Been pondering the politics of so-called "bisexual health", and looking at relevant research (such as it is, which isn't a lot when you come to specifically bi stuff).

1. a) It seems to me the short summary of current bi health, in terms of measurable outcomes, is "Very similar to lesbians and gay men in equivalent cultural/circumstantial situations, with a few differences in degree".

(E.g. referring to populations rather than individuals, the Mind report shows that LGB people have worse mental health results than straight people, and bi people's results are broadly similar to L/G people with some better scores and some worse. What I'm suggesting is that, for example, we're unlikely to find an area where behaviourally bisexual people as a group are healthier in some way than straight people, while gay people are less healthy.)

b) And the short summary of bi health needs is "Everything that (some) lesbians, gay men + straight people need, but without the biphobia and monosexism, please".

c) What do you think of this hypothesis, peeps?

2. How many behaviourally bisexual people might we estimate there are in the UK and based upon what evidence? esp. yer actual scientifically valid & preferably peer-reviewed & published type stuff. (And not simply reliant on Kinsey, who didn't start with a representative sample even of US people.)

Thanks in advance for comments on all of this, which would be most useful just at the moment.

Linux

memevector — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:22:52 GMT

Thanks to a couple of nudges in the right direction by lovingboth, I'm now seriously looking at having Linux as my main OS on the new PC. Hurrah!

::exuberant metaphorical happy dances::

I am now part way up what feels like a fairly enormous, though exhilarating, Linux-centred learning curve.

I will shortly have a choice to make of which flavour, and I would welcome clues and opinions!

Factors I have in mind:

1) Hardware communications. This is a bit of a two-way thing: as I'm yet to buy the bits for the PC, I can choose a Linux distro and then check which hardware works with it, as well as having my eye on which distros work best with the hardware I'm thinking of.

However, good cooperation with wide varieties of hardware would certainly be a plus. In particular, is there much of a variation in their ability to cope with SATA hard drives or DVD-RWs?

Under the same heading, Printer drivers. We currently have two printers, a HP LaserJet 4P (parallel port) and a Canon BJC6500 (USB1.1). As is probably obvious, they're both ancient in computing terms. Is there much variation among Linux distros in terms of which has the drivers for what? Or is that only an issue for new devices just out?

2) Possibility of same Linux version on different machines. Ideally, I'd pick a version which is also available for PowerPC Mac. Then we could use the same one for W's Mac laptop (which we plan to switch at the same time), for economy of learning-curves.

There's also a chance I might one day bother setting up a Psion 5 to run Linux. This site says Debian Sarge works for that. But the Psion idea is only a minor factor, mainly because I might not ever even get around to doing it.

3) oXygen. It's a strong possibility that I'll get that as my new main writing app.

(because XML is the future!! Or not as the case may be. But at any rate I'm a big fan of it, partly because it's designed to be transmutable into whatever is the future.)

oXygen wants, I quote, "An official and stable Java VM version 1.4.2 or later from Sun Microsystems". (Some other Javas might work but aren't officially supported.) I'm not quite clear yet whether that has any implications for the Linux distro. It evidently doesn't have major ones, as you can add the Java bit afterwards, but I don't know if some Linuxes would arrive with that Java VM already, which seems like it would be handy.

4) An inclination towards stability and "Things that work properly" as opposed to "New toy that's so poised on the narrowest cutting edge, it falls over".

5) Which versions you lot are running, in case I'm back here asking for more clues later :-)

Comments welcome, on any of those factors or any other crucial ones which I in my newbie stage have completely missed.

Thanks in advance again, o wise readers!

Eeeeeee! (::excitement::)

software question

memevector — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:02:38 GMT

Cheaper-than-usual XP Home.

What do you think, o wise friends-list people? Is there likely to be a catch?

monitor connections

memevector — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:07:54 GMT

Could use some help with what I suspect is easy stuff to more geekly-knowledgeable peeps than I...

"As regular readers may know" I'm planning to get a new computer - a quiet one. Having been around the houses and back again a few times on how exactly to obtain it, I seem to have come to the conclusion that I'm building it myself and it can't be all that hard. So now I am in the process of inventing my spec.

Well, at the moment I have a CRT monitor which still works OK. So I'm not planning to buy a new monitor to go with the new computer. But, if and when this one fails, the next one will probably be flat screen, so I need to think ahead about connections.

I know there is this thing called DVI which is Digital Video Interface which is the best one for flat screens. And I know that CRT ones use VGA which is Video Graphics Array, which is analog.

I see there are such things as DVI to VGA adaptors, so providing I've got a DVI output on the new computer, I could presumably use one of those to connect to my current monitor (?)

In terms of building the computer, I was thinking it would be simplest if I could get a motherboard with onboard graphics rather than a separate graphics card (as I don't have any graphics-heavy uses in mind for the computer). But as yet I don't seem to have found any motherboards with DVI. Are there any? Or are they all (if they have graphics at all) and they just don't say so?

Other comments/advice welcome...

thanks!

independent midwives

memevector — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:55:45 GMT

Vital feminist issue coming up here...

Most midwives in the UK work for the NHS and are therefore constrained by NHS shortages and policies. E.g. it's fairly rare under the NHS to actually get to know your midwife before the birth (even if the midwife themself would prefer to work that way) and midwives may change shift in the middle of the birth (even if the midwives themselves would prefer not to). And since you can't choose your midwife, it's pot luck whether you get one who's in tune with what you want. (E.g. some are un-confident about home birth, even though statistically it's safer, and would really rather you gave up the idea.)

There aren't many independent midwives, but i.m.e. they are a beacon of good practice and a huge resource of experience and expertise, inc for women-centred practice in general, waterbirth, VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarian), natural breech birth, and other skills which the NHS ought to provide but generally doesn't.

If independent midwives get made illegal it would be a v v v bad thing.

Couple of links...
1. How independent midwifery in the UK is under threat
2. A petition

Thanks for reading... please propagate...

BiFest / home-based education

memevector — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:52:11 GMT

LJ seems quiet with so many of my friends in Brighton yesterday for BiFest!

It did sound rather fab and enticing, but I've been pootling along quite productively at home.

Are any of you lot doing or considering home-based education for your offspring? Because there's a Government consultation coming up about it that you might want to know about if so. See Education Otherwise site for a briefing type thingy (there's a link on the front page to the briefing PDF).

Actually, that's probably of potential interest to anyone, as it involves the prospect of some rights being taken away from parents and children, and given to the state. And it involves some questions about the right to privacy which also have implications for everyone and certainly for every parent. But it's the home-ed families who would feel the immediate effects.

(Please, nobody go down that tunnel whereby home education = teeny classroom in a house, only chosen by obsessive religious people who don't want their offspring to know about evolution. That's the equivalent of "bi people are all confused and immature" in its stereotype rating.)

Yeah, while I'm on the subject anyway, another link: Speech by John Heppell MP which is a nicely constructed intro to elective home-based education (although I don't think the figures quoted there for the number of home ed families can be right - either there are more families or fewer children).

building a quiet PC

memevector — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:58:51 GMT

Any of you lot want to build me a PC? for money? or know someone reliable who might?

I want something of similar intentions to this. I.e. virtually silent, but not necessarily the fastest of the fast.

I'm somewhat tempted just to get that one, and the exchange rate's in my favour it seems. But it seems a bit silly to pay 300 dollars shipping to get it over here, and then have my warranty done from somewhere I'd presumably have to pay about 300 dollars to get it back to if necessary.

Building one myself is kind of a back-stop possibility, but I don't really want to, because I've got enough learning curves and unfinished things going on at the moment already :-) It seems much more sensible to ask someone who's put a PC or two together before, or at least done more upgrading and hardware-poking-about than I ever have.

I was thinking of getting one built by this person, who seemed very helpful and nice initially. But now ze's not replying to my emails or even to a snail mail letter, and it's scared me off: even if I did manage to get back in touch now, I don't want the risk of someone going incommunicado in the middle of the process.

That would have cost parts plus 50 quid, which I thought was good value.

I wouldn't mind paying someone a bit more than that for the putting it together, but you'd have to want to find out about the quiet-PC-enthusiasts' methods if that isn't something you already knew about. Lots more info about quiet PCs here. Probably the best person to do it would be someone who was intrigued by the challenge!

One advantage of either doing it myself or getting a friend or friend-of-friend to do it is it opens up the possibility of (a) using second hand stuff (e.g. there are pretty quiet hard drives which have been around long enough to come up second hand on eBay sometimes) and (b) doing a sort of "in stages" thing where we can add more things later if I find I need them. Or whatever.

Any takers? Any thoughts?

bi identity article now up on web

memevector — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:27:13 GMT

I've just finished converting my talk from the Health Summit into a web page.

It is here: http://www.uncharted-worlds.org/bi/biidentity.htm

I've also made available a Powerpoint file in case people want to do their own similar talks using my graphics. (see end of page for details).

Getting that finished has been on one of my lists since June. Yay. And several months later I'm still rather amused at some of the graphics I drew.