I hate Appointments…and the reminder phonecalls, don’t get me started!
Oh god, that is the worst. Amirite?
I hate when that happens
Second City, First Line of Defence
Chicago Frankfurt Montreal protests
Things have been quiet around the ol’ raincoaster blog lately, mostly because I tried to update Ubuntu like a good little open sourcer and the feculent motherfucker has now stuck my computer in an endless reboot cycle, thanks SO much. Dear Hive Mind: watch your back.
This is because I downloaded Suelette Dreyfus‘s book Underground, isn’t it?
In any case, this is a good time to get back online, even with an outdated, borrowed computer that I can play X’s and O’s on just by writing in the dust of the lid. Because while I was doing nothing much at all but whining at the computer and seeking out home remedies for my (unending) toothache, people in Montreal, Chicago, and Frankfurt were real busy.
Black Bloc Cop
I think this guy got his uniforms mixed up. He should be a hit at NATO duty, when he wears the Guy Fawkes mask with the dress uniform. Black Bloc Boy is giving him total side-eye.
Cops in Chicago
Chicago el protesto
That caption? Not real Spanish, y’all.
We TOLD you to expect us!
This one is almost certainly British, because David Cameron simply doesn’t register outside of the UK. I can see one Anonymous flag, but can’t make out anything else except much nicer architecture than we have in Vangroover.
And, finally, Anonymous has re-posted its guide to secure browsing. The typos are glaring, but the advice is good, and you do not have to actually understand the instructions to follow the instructions. Like a lot of technical things, it makes more sense the more you use it. I mean, you don’t really know how your car engine works, do you? But you can drive, right?
=== The Ultimate Guide for Anonymous and Secure Internet Usage v1.0.1 ===
Table of Contents:
- Obtaining Tor Browser
- Using and Testing Tor Browser for the first time
- Securing Your Hard Drive
- Setting up TrueCrypt, Encrypted Hidden Volumes
- Testing TrueCrypt Volumes
- Securing your Hard Disk
- Temporarily Securing Your Disk, Shredding Free Space
- Installing VirtualBox
- Installing a Firewall
- Firewall Configuration
- Installing Ubuntu
- Ubuntu Initial Setup
- Installing Guest Additions
- Installing IRC (Optional)
- Installing Torchat (Optional)
- Creating TOR-Only Internet Environment
- General Daily Usage
Since I’m starting from scratch anyway (reminder to self, do not trust Ubuntu One, those are the assholes who fucked up self’s computer in the first place, back up to USB, then give to Cthulhu for safekeeping) and it’s a stat holiday tomorrow in Canuckistan (surprise, American bosses!) I might as well work my way through this list and report back. Although if it works, how will you ever know it’s me? EH? I ask yez.
Twitpic O’ the Day: If You’re Not Helping, You’re Hurting
If you’re not helping, you’re hurting
This post was inspired by a rather heated (40 or so comments) discussion on Facebook about whether misogyny within the ranks is holding back the Occupy movement. Make no mistake: it is. If you chart the flamewars on FB alone, the male individuals against female individuals flamewars are running about double the rate of the male on male flamewars, and this is AFTER the most sensitive women left the group altogether. This came as a huge, and saddening, surprise to me; I was raised in the era of Equality, when fighting for the rights of women was as accepted as fighting for the rights of black people or the handicapped. Apparently, when we were resting on our laurels and telling ourselves we’d come a long way, baby, things slipped backwards.
But silence is a form of collusion, as this image from AnonCircle points out, and it’s time to speak out.
One of the most telling signs of the backsliding: despite that thread being prominently featured in my friends’ news feeds and in various Occupy Vancouver Facebook groups and pages, I was the only woman who commented on it publicly. In a depressing version of “the lurkers are with me” I received many private messages of hearty support from women.
I, naturally, challenged them.
“If you think that, why do you not post it? Why are you telling ME that women deserve equal respect? I already know this.”
“Because I wanted you to know I support you.”
“Then support me. Take my left flank. POST.”
Result: one comment. One is an infinite times greater than zero, so I’m counting this as progress. Courage and support are not courage or support if they melt away like a vampire in daylight.
Operation Global Media Domination: The Bubble Bath Situation
Bathtubs of Glory
One hates to begin a blog post on a tangent, particularly when it is a blog post about one’s self, but sometimes one’s self’s gotta do what one’s self’s gotta do. In this case, one’s gotta point y’all to the amazing web ad copy for this loverly, New Agey bathtub, for lo, it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, unless you like the English Language, that is.
The Florentine company realizes, thanks to skilled craftsmen, the tanks that are works of art to decorate your bathroom with a unique touch.
Baldi, the company made in Italy, proposes luxury furnishings in addition to producing high-value and visual impact has also introduced some time to create baths that are sculptures. Built from blocks of precious rock crystals found in the Amazon, the ultra-luxury tubs signed Baldi become protagonists of the bathroom and create a refined and unique moments of relaxation.
“Protagonists of the bathroom.” I’m pretty sure that was a scene in the Satyricon, wasn’t it?
Where was I? It was a blog post about me, wasn’t it? Oh, right.
Baths. Let’s just say that there was a day last week that was particularly “Fridayish” even though it was not technically Friday. I’d done another of the “stay up all night working after staying up all day working” things that I do from time to time. Like, now. Anyhoodle, I had also gone for a long walk, and was pondering…a bath, certainly. But a bubble bath or a scented epsom salts bath? These are important questions, so naturally I took them to Twitter. One does not make raincoaster soup without adequate research.
To my surprise, the consensus was that both, simultaneously, were not only permissible but positively desirable, and therefore I signed off and took their advice literally, and although it took ten hours for my fingertips to unwrinkle, it was worth every moment. I never used to love baths, but that was before I spent four years in an apartment that only had a shower. I got very good at offering to help around the houses of such friends as had tubs, and availing myself thereof.
A kindred soul is Holistic Sailor, who lives on a sailboat which also lacks a proper soakage receptacle, and who therefore feels my pain. She not only felt my pain, she prescribed for it, and created this fabulous raincoaster bath blend which I intend to try just as soon as I don’t have a mere $1.65 to my name. So THIS, people, is how you make raincoaster soup:
So in honour of @raincoaster’s appreciation for the bath, I offer this aromatherapy blend. Blend the essential oils together first and then add them to 1 1/2 – 2 cups of epsom salts. We all know what happens when you mix water and oil, so add the essential oils to the salt first before adding to the bath.
@raincoaster Bath Blend
- 4 drops lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
- 4 drops rose 10% (Rosa damascena)
- 2 drops jasmine 10% (Jasmine grandiflorum)
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups epsom salts
Enjoy.
Tasty!
In other Operation Global Media Domination news:
Someone wrote a song for me!
My last major article for the Daily Dot, a report of Anonymous taking the Kremlin offline, got retweeted 54 times, including once by the former Ambassador to the UN of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In somewhat more mysterious news, somebody mentioned my ManoloFood blog on the media in New York last Wednesday. Five times the normal hits, all going straight to Manolofood.com, meaning it was on tv, radio, or in the paper somewhere. No idea who said what about me, but I wish they’d held off till I’d gotten some fresher posts up. Ah, well.
And in related and even more dignified news, I was profiled in Ayoudo’s House of Splendour, and you just know I’m all about profile roundups with grandiose nomenclature!
Sure, Bobby Flay AND Angry Bobby Flay may both be evading me on Twitter, but do they live in a House of Splendour? With mysterious media shout-outs? with their OWN BATH MIX?
I think not. I very much think not.
raincoaster 