Below are the most recent 7 friends' journal entries.

Friday, November 6th, 2009
timmypowg	9:52p	Weird Ingredients? NAAAAAH! http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143560/the_10_weirdest,_grossest_ingredients_in_processed_food I provide this link for two reasons: 1. To gross you out and prevent you from eating anything out of fear that it'll have disgusting ingredients like these. 2. To alert you to the fact that seemingly gross things are inside normal foods, and therefore there's nothing wrong with eating them. Pick whichever reason you like best. (: You could become a vegetarian.  On the other hand, Hitler was a vegetarian.  DISGUSTING!  Heh, there, see?  I used the same logic that the article does in arguing against eating those foods.  The first one: ammonium sulfate is used in bread.  But did you know it also FERTILIZES THINGS?  And do you know what ELSE fertilizes things?  BULLSHIT!  So you should go vegan and not eat the bread!  Basically, it's a dumb argument that plays to people's prejudices about eating things.  It conjures up disgusting images of things and associates them with harmless ingredients of harmless foods.  If any of them were *actually* dangerous, they wouldn't be in the food. (3 red flag waves |join in our crusade)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	1:15p	LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest The empire strikes back In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal. RSS feeds again If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience. Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests! c_s_i If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here. Enveloped in postcards Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits. Photos of the week If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too! ( Read more... ) (182 red flag waves |join in our crusade)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
timmypowg	5:36a	Fuck You, Maine Apparently gay marriage was overturned in Maine.  Also, apparently, my roommate is against gay marriage, because it's just not how he was raised -- how a math grad student can come up with this bullshit excuse is beyond me, but he was insistent on it.  So, I spent a shitload of money $6.90 ordering a 3'x5' rainbow flag.  Not sure what I'll do with it yet.  Maybe hang it up on the window behind my desk that I never open anyway?  On the door outside my room?  I'm pissed off about this.  I'm glad that I live in Massachusetts, where this shit doesn't happen. I still don't understand why people are so obsessed about semantics.  My roommate is opposed to two things: gay marriage and gay couple adoption.  The latter is wrong but understandable -- you could have an opinion (not actually supported by research, obviously, but an opinion nonetheless) that children are better off in an orphanage or foster home than adopted by gay parents.  What will he/she say to the other children?  How will he/she understand the concept of a family?  The former, however, is a semantic issue: allowing gay couples to marry (keep in mind we're talking about *other people's* very real rights here) requires *redefining* the word "marriage", and we just can't do that.  WHY?  Why can't we do that?  What is up with these dictionary worshipers that we can't put a marriage(2) after the first entry?  My roommate -- a math grad student, I repeat -- will not accept redefining "marriage", but he would accept a new concept -- call it Q -- which, restricted to the space of opposite-sex couples, would equal "marriage".  (Q = civil unions, obviously.)  Is the dictionary that sacred? A main argument against gay marriage is that if they become commonplace, children would learn about them in school, think nothing of them, and experiment with their own sexuality.  I can buy that one -- I can see why some misguided souls might somehow see this as a *bad* thing.  But really, it's too bad for them.  How is that a good enough reason for denying *other people's* rights?  Again, we're not talking about you and I making vows to never marry someone of our own sex; we're talking about prohibiting other people from doing what they want. This gay marriage thing really pisses me off, because it's just pure discrimination -- at least on some level -- and it's a deeply moral issue.  I would consider myself a "values voter" if I could vote (soon!).  I don't believe any reasonable person can actually be against gay marriage.  If that includes *you*, I'm not afraid to say it; personal religion is no excuse for limiting the rights of others.  Just...  What should I do with this flag I bought? (4 red flag waves |join in our crusade)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
timmypowg	11:31p	Avernum 1 -- Gaming from the Other Side A lot of media has satirized videogames by looking at them from the point of view of the mook -- what's it's like to be a goomba, a koopa-troopa, one of those blocks that will never actually get destroyed because there's no point in it.  So it's interesting, now that I'm replaying Avernum 1 (REALLY great series, by the way, of shareware computer games; go to www.spidweb.com and try them), to see how ridiculously liberal Jeff Vogel, the creator, is.  This is a good thing, obviously! The basic premise is this: the fascist Empire, which rules the entire world, has discovered a gigantic subterranean set of caves.  It has decided to use it as a prison so that any undesirables who don't get executed get teleported there instead, and they called it Avernum.  The NPC's all have plenty of dialogue (all branching; you usually have several dialogue options), so there is ample opportunity for good characterization, and it becomes quite clear who lives in Avernum: liberals.  Gay people, dissidents, hippies, anyone a little different.  These are the good guys.  The bad guys are other races -- cat people and lizard people, mostly -- and more obvious monsters, demons, undead, human brigands, and at the very end, the Empire itself. However, these bad guys don't just spawn randomly like in Final Fantasy; they walk around on the map like your PC's.  What map?  If you're assaulting their fort, then, hey, they're in their fort!  Their fort, which contains living spaces, kitchens, a bit of a farming area, libraries, temples, defenses, and sometimes even nurseries.  Indeed, it's obvious that you're fighting against people of a different species who are people, too.  If you pay attention.  When the enemies' leaders talk, they mention retribution for what was done to their brothers and sisters.  They're certainly *evil*; they just happen to also be people. Interestingly, Avernum 1 doesn't *force* you to think about this.  There's no reward for not killing the bad guys.  But if you pay attention, you can see the subtext.  It doesn't humanize ALL the enemy, but you definitely get the feeling that those guys were minding their own business making war against your country when you came and slaughtered them; they weren't just there as fodder for your swords. (join in our crusade)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ dwell ]	5:17p	Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side. Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station. Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be. --- Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in. Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :( Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work. ( tech details ) status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D bt (50 red flag waves |join in our crusade)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
news [ theljstaff ]	10:53a	LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases. Super-tweak for Yandex search Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here. Postcards from the edge Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time. Conquer Writer's Block Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day: If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up? I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ... Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done. I punch them in the balls. With my mind. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't... Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly. For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this! Spotlight community of the week We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern. halloween_fan Photos of the week We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful! shutter pancetta ilya_gorokhov Curtains Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week. (696 red flag waves |join in our crusade)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
stuck_in_ma	10:35p	recipe time i postponed meat buying another day. here's what i ate in the interim: let's say about 24 oz chicken broth (plain, unsalted, unanythinged). i'm never exact about 2-3 tbsp deli mustard (with the grains in it) chopped spinach (or, frozen and crushed, same effect since it's getting cooked anyway) - about 10-15 leaves or so. normal portion of bowtie noodles (about 3-4 ounces dry) and that was really it. i figured the mustard would add flavor. omg i never want to stop having this in my mouth. so many levels of good. i cooked the noodles in the soup so they'd soak up the flavor too. i made enough to have a lunch portion left over. :D (1 red flag wave |join in our crusade)