Kate

please have a look at crayon physics deluxe

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:32:06 GMT

crayon physics deluxe

I want to play it now!

Channel 4 News is Homophobic - Attacks gay men for doing what hetrosexual take for granted

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:42:27 GMT

Channel 4 has rapidly removed this article but thankfully it has be saved for posterity - the related homophobic slurs may well be repeated on channel 4 tonight

Last Modified: 26 Mar 2008
By: Benjamin Cohen

Thousands of gay men risk getting HIV through internet organised "bareback" sex

More 4 News will tonight explore the downside of internet social networking as part of its dot.com decade series of reports by showing how technology has normalised extreme forms of sexual behaviour.

Gaydar and other gay "hook-up" websites were popular long before the launch of mainstream social networks like Bebo and Facebook boast millions of British members.

As More4 News will show, users are able to search for a partner based on a variety of criteria: hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, even penis size.
Dot.com decade reports

The frank nature of the site has had an impact on the gay scene, with bars and clubs scaling back, some even closing down completely as users opt to locate a partner online rather in real life.

As one user says:"It's like take-out pizza, you just order in sex."

The websites also allow users to search for people willing to have unprotected, so called "bareback" sex. Within minutes online, More 4 News was able to find thousands of British gay men willing to have bareback sex. On one website, 613 men said they only have bareback sex

Using language that can not be broadcast, users set their "status" with "adverts" such as "XX HUNG BARE BACKING PIG - CONDOM FREE ZONE" and "Lets get raw and bare"

One 19-year-old boy says he is a "boy for older daddy to use and abuse". Shockingly, an 18-year-old boy says he is looking to "BUGSHARE." Another 18-year-old says he is a "young teen poz bottom for poz top guys."

'It's like take-out pizza, you just order in sex'

As More 4 News reports, the Health Protection Agency are warning of a rise in a so called super virus where someone is infected with two strains of the HIV virus.

Gaydar director David Muniz told More4 News: "We don't dictate to individuals how they are going to change or how they are going to act. We work within the confines of the law.

The ability to search for and locate sexual partners who are willing to engage in the same forms behaviour has only been possible thanks to the technology of the web.

Despite the negatives, some believe that the websites have revolutionised gay life in a positive way. Labour MP, Chris Bryant was revealed a user of Gaydar in a tabloid frenzy in 2003.

He told More 4 News: "30, 40 years ago [for] most gay men and lesbians who lived in a rural area or a district like mine in the South Wales valley as soon as they knew they were gay they would disappear off to Cardiff or one of the big cities and nowadays they can go online and find one another on the internet"

Social networks aimed at the gay community were trailblazers, in technology terms laying a path that the mainstream social networks would soon follow. But they also stand as a warning to society as mass mainstream online social networks take off.

for a more enlightened repost see the inquirer

The 200 local super centres (polyclinics) to be run by Tesco, Virgin and American HMO's

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:30:10 GMT

the government is not only interested in selling our medical details to insurance companies(1), its wants to privatise us by selling us to private health companies such as Tesco's and Virgin, that will run these "poly clinics/super centres". A surgery I use has already been sold to Virgin!!

As vampwillow has just said an American HMO 'bought' 3 local surgies in kentish town. They didn't even put the highest offer in. Corruption anybody? I bet its the HMO that the adviser to Gordon Brown has just become head of?

Remember how there used to be a post office on every corner, and now you have to go into a big town? Who needs a local doctors surgery when people can travel to see a doctor in a big town's super centre? You can pick up your healthcare at Tesco's (healthcare), along with your prescription and your groceries.

Meanwhile companies like Virgin healthcare like any supermarket will reduce cost from suppliers i.e. doctors and nurses, by getting rid of experienced doctors. You'll still get a doctor, but who knows how they will feel about your sexuality, race, body shape, what if they refuse treatment say an abortion on religious grounds? As advertised by the government you will not have any regular doctor, it will be a cattle call like A&E who will rely solely on your notes, which we all know are always correct! We already have payment by results, pay linked to keeping medical cost down i.e. refusing care, will be here all too soon.

Of course if you want a regular doctor I'm sure you be able to BUY a PRIVATE doctor for a price! Think about getting a dentist now? Go watch Sicko if you want to see what we have to look forward too. As private health insurance become ever more 'attractive' - such as American style HMO's.

(1) If you need referring to another doctor or clinic all your details including medical details MUST be uploaded to a central database. These details are then sold on who ever will pay. So for example bloggs insurance knows your bisexual and thus your mortgages (because of life insurance) goes up - because of fears by companies that you will become ill.

Please tell others or repost it on your journal - this is entirely about the government privatising healthcare along American HMO lines. We need to tell the world before the government force this through.

a request for anyone who knows or uses spoon theroy to re-edit my wikipedia post

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:19:49 GMT

I just noticed that the article on spoon theory on wikipedia has been flagged for possible deletion.

If you know anyone who could re-write what i have put to make it clearer or or more fully explain spoon theory could you please follow the link above

thanks

geek food tricks and whipped cream machines [edited]

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:51:58 GMT

For kitchen geeks - very cool additives that let you produce Heston Blumenthal type tricks from Solegraells

also available from cream supplies are those really cool stainless steel whipped cream dispensers you see in cafes.

which are actually made by iSi, kayser, liss and Mosa

Obviously they also can be used to make 'solid' foams or 'esPumas' of various liquids - as seen on a cooking programme near you

bimbling in web tech space

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:40:09 GMT

whilst bimbling round wikipedia I was looking at twitter that i recently joined because I knew someone other than the_borderer who actually used. This lead me to pownce, i also found out about Xing which is a European competitor to linkedin which I thought about joining because of other stuff. Anyhew pownce looks rather cool since its supports file sharing. In its about section its listed its tie in with XFN which itself is a microformat and looks like a nice relationship mech that would be good to have implemented everywhere. So I just went across to mychores to see if they are linked into any of this stuff, it would seem logical if they were, where I have just found about Gravatar which is rather like openid and I just added an rss feed of the mychores blog

its amazing when your away for a bit the web evolves along at frightening pace it even has conferences (which was in London and i missed). I just found out about a us competitor for mychores called rememberthemilk, obviously I want MYCHORES to win and win BIG!

tranny code

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:13:57 GMT

I was trying to short form of my herstory etc and I was trying to use short form to explain it fast
now there is geek code, goth code, multiple code, what do we need for trans code?
any ideas

I was using things like PT17-FT@25
then there's GRC, GRS, BAS, so e.g. PT17GRC18FT18BAS19GRS20
what other short forms e.g. for suicide attempt, loud to parents, school etc
so any ideas?

happy birthday mentalbunny

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:52:10 GMT

happy birthday mentalbunny

The only good thing about Dairy Milk is their ads

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:57:08 GMT

I assume that you have all seen the cadburys gorilla ad I'm just wondering

View Poll: #1050289

what I do know is that remixes are already available

I want to be like you

eclipse of the heart

don't stop believing

skillz vz Gorilla remix

Also see

My Penis and I - BBC 3 Wednesday 11.15 pm

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:12:15 GMT

can I recommend a programme that's on BBC3 at 11.15pm Wednesday and 3.05am Thursday morning its called

My Penis and I _____(this is also a link to the after show discussion)

I think its important as feminists that we be aware of the effect that societies oppression around gender has on men. This film is one man's exploration about peoples fears around talking about penises and especially when they are smaller than average. It covers people obsession with men having larger penises, the industry that caters to this obsession, how the ancient Greeks viewed penises differently then we do today, his attempts to talk openly about penises in society, and the exhibition he held in Hoxton London in February 2007 where he displayed lots of pictures of flaccid penises sent to him anonymously by men. It shows that penises are diverse and are as different from each other as peoples faces. It also breaks the taboo that says women bodies can be seen naked but not men's.

In western society, there seems to be a growing presumption that all men are expected to be at least average in size and if not then they should be ashamed. For me this is part of a growing need for people to be as sexually dimorphic as possible, it also speaks volumes about peoples fears around feminism, and ideas that sex/gender/sexuality is something that is personally defined.

post chaos stuff

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:50:01 GMT

I still learning things that I wish I had known at chaos
for instance people could have rung into me onto my internal dect phone

i really wish it was possible to hire in eventphone everywhere but I assume the over head would be to great. I can see it would be amazing for a BiCon

N weeks on, the memory's of chaos is still blowing me away - I want to go back NOW!!!

I seem to have a new computer

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:12:12 GMT

I hopefully have bought a dual 1ghz ultimate quicksilver (2002) powermac G4, to run a cinewave HD system ( I already have the cinewave HD-SD box and the relevant breakout box) using RT 4.0 or (Final cut pro)

Its running the panther version of OSX. My only problem now is getting it to interface to a belkin KVM, and the small matter of never having run mac, knowing slightly more about BSD, and knowing nothing about running either FCP or RT.

other than that things are dandy

I know have two seriously high end editing suites
1. a Toaster VT4 (HD capable)
2. a Cinewave HD (mine is the breakout box on the left)

maybe I should actually go out and shoot some video now - with my betacam sp based Sony DXC325

um perhaps not - don't have the tuits/spoons

updated care and feeding and understanding kate 2007

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:52:40 GMT

for BiCon 2007, my care and feeding, understanding etc

Care and feeding of Kate at BiCon 2006

For most people BiCon is a big party, a chance to sit back, chill, hang out with your mates and play. And I hope that this BiCon will finally be that for me. But if it follow previous BiCon experiences I am likely to get very, very stressed.

Now people might ask why then do I come to BiCon, well the issues are complex and explained over the page but suffice it to say I find BiCon is helping me to slowly recover from the damage that I have suffered in my childhood. It is helping me to face my fears in a relatively safe environment. Somewhere I can open up amongst friends. Or at least I do until I start falling apart, and then I quickly stop being able to look after myself properly; hence this missive, of what to watch out for, and how to help me.

Whilst the issues have changed over the years, the current ones I am working through came to ahead about five years ago and I have been dealing with the fall out ever since. My current issues are centered on acceptance of my body by myself, and others. Whilst I used to love me the person inside my head, I now think of me as all of me, my body, my appearance etc and in that respect I still am deeply ashamed, this also effects my sexuality and how I look after myself. In the last year I have made a lot of progress whilst I still feel guilt and self hatred, I am starting to love my body, whilst I still getting better about being audio-visually feminine, but freaked by the implied sexuality associated with it. In the past I was numb and only able to challenge my ideas intellectually, now I’m beginning to feel and to explore but I still am liable to go numb very easily. Inside me I still feel hugely ashamed and shame filled about my body and appearance.

Currently I’m working on
Issues around sexuality and being sexual with people, especially my body hatred and other hatred of my body
My deep sense of shame, guilt about and hatred for, my body, appearance, etc.
My ongoing issues with being audio-visually feminine or perceived as such
My lack of safety, insecurity and fear of betrayal by others around these issues

I am hoping to challenge some of these issues over BiCon, by for example allowing myself to be more feminine (or what I perceive of as feminine) and see what happens. I also hope to have a good time and to just be with people
However if you find that I am:
Taking on or offering to run things
Being overloud and boisterous such that I am “standing on other peoples toes”
Over reacting to situations, for example taking teasing personally etc
Complaining of pain in my body
Having difficulty standing up

Could you please!
Get me to stop, and check where I am, if I am OK and that I might be getting ill
Remind me that I am safe
Hold my hand
Give me a hug
Remind me to notice the world around me
Mention NOW/HERE to me

Ask if I have taken my muscle relaxants recently, such as
Voltarol (Sodium Diclophenic)
Robaxin (methacarbanol)
Dihydrocodeine

If I am still over reacting etc then I probably need to go back to my room to chill down, if you come with me so much the better.
Thank you for your help in advance.
Hugs
Kate

Understanding Kate: why I am doing, what I am doing

BiCon has always been a place of work for me when other people have been out enjoying themselves in the past. I have either been distracting myself by running workshops, trying to keep BiCon going, running things.

My personal life history is fairly normal for a transexual: suicide attempts at 6 years old, deep depression at seven, sent to a boy’s school to make a man of me; seeing death as a friend somewhere warm against the cold and numbness of life. By 9 I was too depressed to be suicidal and just became utterly numb as I couldn’t even manage to cut bloody genitals off. I suppose I’m different in that I came out/loud to my parents at 12 and at my school 15. By 16 I was telling all and sundry that I was girl desperate for help but being told I couldn’t be because I was big, masculine and you can only be transexual if you fancy men! (A GIC psychiatrist at 17)

Initially being at BiCon was about being accepted as a woman and then it was about transexual inclusion especially as a lesbian. With the help of my friends, some of whom will be here today I managed to crawl across the threshold to womanhood and collapsed. Over time, both at BiCon and in the rest of my life I was slowly recovering from the room 101 torture of being forced to be a boy as a child. I learned to love myself, to take responsibility for myself, to recognize I had power and choice, to forgive myself to find safety and joy in myself, to learn both to like and love myself, to realise how wonderful I really am and how pleased I am to be me. But that was all inside my head. While I was doing this, I was doing nothing about my body, appearance, sexuality, lifestyle, and except where I became happier and thus easier to be with my interactions with the world. Those remained on the threshold. I carried on using the techniques I had used to survive to allow myself the time to rebuild myself and live, but about 5 years ago I decided that they had to go.

Somewhere in my head, when I was probably 5 years old I must have decided that I was somehow to blame for being male for having to be a man, and that being male and living as a man was my punishment. I sure there is a whole bunch of other broken logic in there. What is true today is that I have no idea who I am; I know that a lot of what I have been doing to survive such as being audio-visually masculine is a lie. I call it butch but it’s just an excuse to allow myself to avoid my shame. Similarly my flipping my shame into an idiot pride, I can be proud of being a slob. I can be proud of things I am deeply ashamed about. I then can make people treat me in way that I feel safe with. Either they reject me or they accept me as I am. But if people point out that I am being audio-visually feminine I have a problem, if I accept the compliment that challenges my security system, it also wakens the numbed pain in me, so I actively work to appear more masculine to move in the opposite direction and avoid the pain. I can now see myself at times as attractive and can even see myself as sexually attractive, but this is few and far between and I still find being visually feminine, or attractive as dangerous. I am frightened that I will be expected to supply sex etc and I don’t think I can say no. I still have no sense of ownership of my body but I’m still terrified of doing anything lest anyone see - me.

This fear, anger and pain, extends to my relationships with others. In the past I used to be like a little match girl standing freezing in the snow looking in at the people partying inside. I stood outside watching people, wanting to come in, but the heat from the walls burnt me and hurt me. I am so terrified of the pain; as it cut into the numbness and made me feel. I had been numb for so long, that I didn’t even realise I was numb. However in time I began to become secure with myself, and became more relaxed, people found that I was much easier to be with and I found myself in the warm being myself. However as I have said my issues with my body, appearance, relationships etc was still stuck in the numbing cold. I see myself as a social leper wandering around ringing a bell shouting unclean. Unclean! Thus when I’m at BiCon I become the last person most people want at a party especially a sexual party. It’s like having someone in the kitchen merrily carving themselves up with the knives – kind of puts a downer on the canapés!

Where I go from here, I’m not sure, I know that my ‘fear of men’ is more about my need to mould men in all the expectations of me, both mine and others from I had when I had to live as one. I know I’m frightened of the expectations of me as a woman, not only the conventional ones but also the feminist expectations of me. My sexual history is one of being repeatedly raped by people of both sexes. I can count my positive sexual experiences on the figures of one hand. I also have had partners and friends who rather than challenging my body hatred, told me how much they hated my body (but loved me). What I want now is acceptance as woman brain, body, appearance, etc but what I really want is to accept myself and not care what others think. What I really want is to love me, all of me, and my life.

I'm in heaven, I'm an angel and I'm in heaven, I'm in chaos

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:51:21 GMT

I am at the chaos computer camp.
And this is big hello to anybody who can read this.
my dect phone is 4268 (if your at CCC)
I'm in the big green tent in the lower field by the runway between the swiss and the swedes
and i am currently posting from angel heaven in the command bunker
why oh why didn't I come a week earlier and frankly I'd be happy to miss BiCon to stay longer
I am in geek heaven and i cant tell you the phone i have been having - actually i really cant :)
I been a herald and I ran two seminars today
one on GNU radio and a software peripheral built on fpga
the second on hacking gsm using, and various attempts to crack the A5 cipher - again using fpga's
some really cool fpga on a pcmcia kit

some more stuff in a friends post

Illegal and harmful activity a repost of burr86 on LJ_biz

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:48:25 GMT

Illegal and harmful activity a repost of burr86 on LJ_biz
In the comments to Barak's previous post, we've seen many people asking for more detailed clarification regarding the content that would be prohibited under our policy on illegal and harmful activity. We have spent many, many hours discussing these issues with the staff and volunteer team, taking into consideration the points you've raised, and we thought we'd take a minute to explain further.

The categories outlined in Barak's post describe the sorts of material that aren't allowed on LiveJournal -- either because it's prohibited by United States law, or because it's prohibited by our Terms of Service. To reiterate, though, we take a zero-tolerance stance on these sorts of material:

1. Material which violates United States law

Our servers are located in the United States, and so that means that LiveJournal is subject to United States law. This particular item in our policy covers content that inherently violates specific United States criminal statutes. (That is, the material itself is against the law.)

This includes threats of physical harm against the President or other executive officers, child pornography (photos or videos), or other material -- including drawings and text -- that explicitly depicts minors under the age of 18 (real or not) in a graphic sexual context. Or, in other words: Romeo and Juliet is okay. Teens talking about their experiences with sex is okay. Smut focused on a twelve year old is not okay.

These laws aren't unique to LiveJournal or even the Internet -- all media and publications in the United States are subject to them, and so we need to make sure that stuff on LJ doesn't violate these laws.

2. Material which encourages or advocates hate crimes, rape, or child abuse or pedophilia.

Stated differently, any material which indicates that these crimes are good or that they should be committed -- none of that is permitted. Effectively, you can't use LJ to promote these activities.

Again, though, we take things in context. If you're discussing the clinical diagnosis of pedophila, if you're discussing your experiences as a rape survivor, if you're discussing the actions that occurred in the Holocaust -- those are all fine. But content such as "Hitler killed millions of people, and someone should pick up where he left off" or "adults should be allowed to have sex with children" isn't permitted.

3. Material that asks for assistance in committing illegal activities that cause serious physical/economic harm to others.

Or, in other words, you can't use LiveJournal to plan, offer, or instruct others on how to commit serious illegal activities. The goal here isn't to prohibit every single illegal action. Rather, when we say "serious illegal activity", we're referring to activities that cause some sort of physical/economic harm to others.

Some of you were asking about things like speeding, gay marriage, jaywalking, purchase of sexual equipment, underage drinking, etc. None of those would be prohibited by this policy. But you can't post an entry asking for someone to help you beat someone up; you can't post entries asking if anyone knows how you can get around the anti-theft guards at an electronics store. That kind of thing.

We know there are grey areas and borderline cases, but there's no possible way we can make a list of what's acceptable versus what's not acceptable. (I've been reading Abuse complaints for three years, and someone comes up with something I've never seen before at least once a week.) When those cases come up, though, multiple people review them -- including members of our Abuse Prevention Team, LiveJournal and Six Apart staff, and our legal counsel. These sorts of decisions aren't made in a vacuum, nor are they made by just one person.

This should hopefully clarify most of the concerns that were raised regarding the specifics of our policies. As always, we'll be reading the comments here, but we can't guarantee that someone will be able to respond to every one.

CLARIFICATION: Not all content describing underage sexuality is in violation of our policies (or of United States law). Rather, using LJ to distribute "obscene" content (as defined by the Miller Test) is illegal. If it qualifies as obscene, and if it involves minors (people under the age of 18), then it's not allowed.

MORE CLARIFICATIONS
We're seeing a lot of confusion in the comments to our previous post. Our intention is to provide clarification, not to create concern. All it says is that things that are illegal under United States law aren't allowed here, either. (And as a note to our non-US users: yeah, we know since the laws are different, they can be really confusing to understand, and we're sorry.)

We hear the community asking for clarification on what's allowed and what's not allowed. People far smarter than us have been trying for years to wrap language around these definitions, and it's not possible. What we can do is tell you the standards that we will be applying when "questionable" content is reported to us.

Not all content involving underage sexuality is illegal -- but some of it is, and we can't allow that to be posted on LiveJournal. Rather than reply to every question, we (meaning our legal counsel and the LJ staff) would like to address some common themes:

First of all, child pornography is illegal under any circumstances and has no place in LiveJournal. We have zero tolerance for it and we hope that view is shared by all of the members of our community.

Some people have noted a Supreme Court case from a couple of years ago striking computer-generated images from the definition of child pornography and asked whether, as a result, drawings of children in sexual situations can be considered illegal. The answer is, yes, in some cases. Congress reacted to the Supreme Court's decision in that case by changing the obscenity laws to put back what the Supreme Court struck down from the child pornography laws. Those obscenity laws are still on the books today and still being enforced. As a result, our policy prohibits obscene images of minors in graphic sexual contexts.

Written material -- fictional or not –- is also subject to United States obscenity laws. There's been a great deal of discussion and argument about the role that the "Miller test" plays in determining what's obscene and what isn't. Nobody can dispute that it involves some very subjective elements, and raises some difficult-to-answer questions: Whose community standards? Who defines "literary, artistic, political or scientific merit"? This evaluation is subjective, forcing us to carefully consider everything in context.

An example of some of the questions we'll ask in order to determine if material falls into this category are: is this writing intended to eroticize the sexual abuse of children? Is the fact that someone's underage, a critical element of the work, or is it incidental? Is the language excessively graphic instead of suggestive? Is there context beyond the sexual situation, or is the material designed just to focus on the sexualization of minors and nothing more? Does the work have an overall message, or is it written only to appeal to an adult's potential sexual fascination with children? These are only some of the questions we'll ask, and we have to consider everything that's reported to us in context and as a whole.

Over the years, we've looked at thousands of reported journals and communities, and we rarely have come across a case of creative fiction or fanfic text that warrants review. If the content is similar in tone, context, feel, and level of explicitness to something that could be found on the shelves of a national chain bookstores, we'll take that into consideration as well.

We also wanted to clarify that we aren't proactively seeking violations of this policy, and require anyone who reports something to us, to provide specific examples of our policies being violated -- links to individual entries, rather than links to entire journals or communities.

We aren't making these decisions in a vacuum. Groups of people from various parts of the LiveJournal team are going to evaluate anything that's reported to us using a standard that we hope accommodates as many of the diverse views of our global community as possible, within the constraints placed on us by United States law.

We hope this is helpful and provides some reassurance. As always, we'll be reading the comments here -- and thank you to everyone for your feedback on the previous post -- but we can't respond to every individual comment separately. We'll be reading, though, and incorporating any other comments you have into our discussions.

DON'T COMMENT HERE PLEASE - THIS IS A REPOST

for a vonage tech support guy

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:16:57 GMT

everything is working
we put the dmz the other way around and its all rock and roll
if you happen to wonder this way, or happen to get an Lj add me
it would be good to talk to you some more
edit
looks like the vonage box is flaky
tried using it as our sole router
it has fallen over repeatedly
trying a backup option if it fails again
we know its the vonage for sure
edit

best wishes
kate

think bear

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:47:02 GMT

I did a reply on compilerbitch's journal but I wanted to repost it here. I think its important as whilst we are independent of the US, the old saying goes if the US sneezes - we catch a cold!

There are some significant issues in the us stock market right now. Mortgage rates are way up from sub 1% to 5+% that's in a few short years (the effect of debt financing a war whilst cutting taxes).

Due to increasing rates for savers, but also due to a rising house market there was a strong move in to subprime loans by the US. Sub prime is what you see on TV all the time - 'have you had problems paying debts' etc where the debt is financed against the increasing house price hence up to 125% of the value of your home available.

The reason that there was a strong move because of the application of collateralized loan obligations, that's where a bunch of loans are bonded together and slices are sold off according to the risk, the most risky slices are the ones where their value disappears if the house price drops. Things are fine when house prices are going up, of course. One small problem: is that it hasn't been just the high risk hedge investors who have been buying these - its pension funds.

This was all fine and dandy when interest was at 1%, now its quintupled and lot of people who took high rate subprime mortgages are having problems. Defaulting is going way up, prices are starting to fall, banks are taking people homes and selling them to pay back the loan. House prices are falling...

A few months ago some hedge funds tripped and defaulted, there was general bail out but people became aware of the issue. The risk rating of the AAA CLO had jumped 20 - 30%. AAA is the lowest bands of the CLO, least risky and having the lowest returns. Meanwhile the higher risk A stock has gone up more and BBB, BB stock has jumped up to over 100%. Now whilst hedges were set up to arbitrage, some have been investing in things like b grade CLO's to boost there apparent returns. As I said pensions have got into CLO and not just at AAA.

Because so much was washing into housing stock, the business market wanted some of it. They came up with covenant lite bonds. Think junk bonds for the noughties. They are bonds stripped of there covenants (the laws that protect you) and sold with a higher interest return. These are widely used by private equity companies and leveraged buyouts. PEC make money buy asset stripping and IPO's think the best /worst bits of eighties and nineties financing. One problem is that people who have invested in hedge funds and especially in private finance groups are locked in, these are assets that cannot be sold easily, they make good returns though.

Now for the real problem. US interests rates were at 1% for along time, they did this to try and get the economy going, this was fine as long as the debt wasn’t huge. The problem is that the debt is now huge. The government has two choices watch the value of the dollar fall as the debt increase or buy in money with higher rates of return i.e. interest rate increases. In the short term this is of course fine because there is lots of money washing round the economy since there is huge spending going on for the war industries. For political reason there are also tax cuts for the rich and super rich i.e. leading lights in the Republican Party. One advantage of the dollar not dropping is that you can park/invest your money overseas.

Because of the returns to savers was so bad a lot of people moved into the stock and housing market. People were making money, and investing it where they would see a gain. The cost of money was so cheap that borrowing against the increasing value of your home made sense, not just for luxuries bit also to invest in areas where you can make significant gains. Places like hedge funds, and private equity companies, people offering good rates of return.

For those of you who don’t know the reason why the 1930’s stock market crash was so bad was that people bought on the margin. They effectively took out cheap loans to buy stock. One example of a cheap loan is a sub-prime loan . With interest rates climbing the margin is getting tighter. People are finding themselves in negative equity. This actually ok as long as the loan can be financed, but subprime is called that because they have a high default rate. As investors move out of sub prime, sub prime liquidity dries up. This is partly due to the fact that investors have to now service higher rates on their own loans, a mortgage is basically a loan, most people have these loans. With less money around people look to help themselves out by getting a subprime loan, but the rates have jumped so they cant afford it, so they try to sell their investments, but nobody is buying or is only buying at reduced rates. This means that people in prime loans started to default…Price in the housing markets start to fall as people move to save money, to reduce their costs. The problem is of course the price they make at sale may not cover their debts, thus they default or move into negative equity.

Now people have a herd mentality, as prices drop, people stop investing fearing the future or looking to save money for when the market bottoms, Prices start dropping everywhere not just in the housing market, but in the stock market, companies are like individuals they can default as well, except they don’t default, they lay off staff and close down. Increasing the jobless, and putting people who were well paid into the streets as their job, savings/investments disappear. Liquidity in the market dries up. There is no money to be had except at very high rates. This means business cant expand to take on more labour, and banks are starting to circle looking hard at company liquidity, refusing to loan unless at high rates. Good companies start to go down, and default, good people default. We are now not only in a recession we could be looking at a depression.

Now it may not happen, but if it does, I wish I could call the bottom because it would make me very very rich.

Oh and one small thing stock market crashes have typically but not always been linked to high oil prices. Where are oil prices now??

just in case cinevate is looking in

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:22:30 GMT

I though I should post this from the brevis 35 adapter (which does look super cool)
again about 45MB download

beautiful, just beautiful

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:20:51 GMT

just saw this video on the (an image convertor for prosumer camcorders)
warning download is 43MB Quicktime using H.264

not quite what john lennon wrote - or meant

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 13:05:38 GMT

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away, across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my open mind
Possessing and caressing me
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Images of broken light
Which shines around me like a million eyes
They call me on and on, across the universe
Thoughts meander
Like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly
As they make their way, across the universe
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter, shades of joy
Are ringing through my open ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on, across the universe
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Transexuality and psychiatry

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:39:52 GMT

I have many ideas about transexuality some that I want to put in a book but some I think need to be spoke about in public. If you want to spread these ideas then please link back to me, I will be very hacked off if someone plagiarises my thinking. This is a public post - there is also a friends only post if you would feel safer posting there.

Many years ago I first read of Stanford prison experiment. However it was only recently that I recognised how similar it is to the position of transexuals and their psychiatrists. One of the key lessons of the Stanford experiment is that those in power are also traumatised by the process. They are asked to create rules and justifications, they are subject to crowd dynamics, I think this closely fits with what happens for psychiatrists especially in relation to transexuals.

Most people become doctors because besides the position, financial gain and career path they can help people. People become psychiatrists to help people, yet they are often faced with people who are severally emotionally disturbed. Psychiatrists are put in a invidious position by our society. They, unlike other doctors, are not allowed to just care for patients; they are expected to stand in judgement of them as well.

Historically this probably derives from the fact that their role was originally played by priests. When medical people took over the religious asylums they also took over the job of protecting the people within those establishments, to care for them but also to protect them from themselves. They also were given the job of protecting society from the inmates of these religious now mental asylums. However, am aspect of religious courts was lost when they moved from religious asylums to mental asylums; in religious courts the defendant was represented in the court. Ecumenical judges would sit on cases that were physical, social or religious states, and mental states were seen as religious states i.e. possession by devils. When the physical and social aspects of society were moved into civil courts, so was the idea of a defence and prosecution lawyers. However when medical people took over the handling of mental asylums from priests they became judge, jury and executioner! What this means in day to day modern practise is that psychiatrists are required by society to both care for people who are ill but also protect society, and themselves, from themselves.

The problem is that transexuals are not insane, or rather they are suffering from the trauma caused by others as a result of being transexual, but the transexuality itself is not an insanity. They are in fact functioning as participants in a Rosenhan experiment. Now if we draw these two things together we have a Stanford experiment where the inmates are pseudopatient's. The result of these process’s creates a specialised for of the prisoners dilemma where transexuals co-operate with psychiatrist to get a particular result. This is very similar to the business process of due diligence.

The problem transexuals face is the same as a start up business (or a person) – raising capital. It’s often easier to massage the figures to give a good light to the situation. In fact its not only start ups who have this problem, Most business’s find themselves having to lie to their banks or their customers about how their cash flow is going, they have to retain business confidence. If they were to co-operate and say how bad the situation was it would be seen as a defect tempting the bank to also defect and foreclose on the business. So what we actually have is not a standard prisoners dilemma but one where defecting can appear to be co-operating. What if there is an economic downturn, in this situation banks become hyper aware of bad debts and defaults. Banks become highly risk adverse and will even foreclose on a good business, if it shows any sign of problems. In this context a business has to show its diligently banking money, show its got strong financial stability, that its is co-operating fully lest it be seen as defaulting or defecting. In reality what happens first is that businesses (and people) are first warned by fines, but that can quickly move to court action. In effect, banks run a token economy. the privileges such as credit or free banking can be removed at any time

I am sure that you can see here the parallels for transexuals with psychiatrists. Things would probably be ok if psychiatrist believed that they were being told the truth by their patients, but they know they are not. Thus transexuals find themselves in the same position as a company in recession. The psychiatrists are hyper wary for defaulting/defecting, for example by showing poor emotional (financial) stability. By being showing due diligence, by repeatedly meeting the assumptions and criteria of psychiatrists the transexual can obtain their goal of raising the referral/surgery (capital). However any sign of defection will be met with removal of privileges and just like in a psychiatric hospital tokens such as hormones can be quickly removed.

Ok. So we know where we are but how did we get to a position where transexuals are treated in this manner, that also requires a ‘short’ history lesson. Originally matters of sex/gender were decided on my courts, in this case religious courts. They are numerous examples of these issues coming up in religious courts. Later these issues were also decided in civil courts, where for example being labelled as a boy could mean you inherit everything but being labelled a girl meant that you were a liability, or even a chattel. In these cases doctors would be called in to examine the person and to give evidence. Since hermaphroditism is actually quite common, this was relatively common occurrence in court. Equally courts would adjudge if surgery was to be performed to correct hermaphroditism, sometimes against the plaintive’s wishes. The important thing was that this surgery could only be performed in adulthood, but there were medical tracts on how such surgery could be performed to correct hermaphroditism so that girls and boys could be clearly distinguished.

As medicine took over from the courts in evaluating treatment and psychiatrists evaluated those in mental asylums so in the last 19th century a small group of men came to the attention of psychiatrists such as kraft-ebbing. These men had sex with each other some of which we would now call BDSM and transvestism; these men were thus thought to have some sought of mental hermaphroditism. As work on this was published more and more people were found to be suffering from this mental illness, so much so that they were labelled along with other hermaphrodites as the third sex. Equally women were found to be cross-dressing in men’s clothes (wearing trousers) or suffering from other delusions such as believing they were the equal of men. Other examples of masculine behaviour in women was being sexually promiscuous, as of course Darwin had proven women were designed to stay at home and protect their young, men were designed to spread their seed not women. Clearly psychiatrists needed to treat these diseases; and according to the accepted biological model of the time these people were degenerate i.e. these people were either too much fe/male or too little fe/male. The aim was that they fit into their social role, so women who be subservient to men, do women jobs, have sex with men and visa versa. In time of course in time it was recognised that feminism was not a thought disorder, nor was the wearing of men’s clothes, doing men’s jobs etc. However, the models of treatment carried on.

In practice these hermaphrodites were broken into different groups divided by whether it was physical i.e. the person had a problem with their body (also called pseudo-hermaphrodites) or a mental, These groups were also subdivided for example those who had sex with their own sex while first labelled as congenital inverts or later as homosexuals. Others were labelled as fetishists e.g. transvestites or sado-masochists. However, any surgery be it on mental, or physical, hermaphrodites could only be performed in adulthood. This changed in the nineteen fifties with better surgical techniques, with support from researchers such as Money, ethical committees agreed that surgery could be performed on babies to correct (pseudo) hermaphroditism. This group was relabelled as intersex. This soon left a rump of adult hermaphrodites who hermaphroditism was only recognised as adults, functionally they were in many ways to distinguish them from other mental hermaphrodites, thus they were recognised as transexuals as opposed to homosexuals, but could be treated in a similar manner happily accepting prescriptions of castration and female hormones. With homosexuality becoming seen as a not a thought disorder at all, and the desire by transexuals for body modification seeming more like fetish or a form of schizophrenia, the need for strict guidelines about who would be appropriate for surgery needed to be drawn up. Clearly treatment using existing mechanism and models worked, and there were some homosexual men who were sufficiently feminine in their outlook, desiring women’s jobs and a woman’s role and wanting surgery had been shown by Money et al to be a good risk for surgery. Similarly there were some lesbians who desired men’s roles etc. Meanwhile other heterosexually inclined men could be seen as transvestic fetishists, and so we have the model still used today, including the Benjamin Guidelines.

So where does that leave us? In a place we know well, with psychiatrists acting not as doctors, or even as psychiatrists, but as gate keepers. This is silly; it’s a huge waste of resources and human lives. Psychiatrist can’t treat patients who lie to them; in fact they have become barriers to exploration and recovery from mental illness. This is highly ironic since transexuals actually need significant psychiatric support both during the process of transition and of recovery from their earlier trauma; Transexuals need psychiatrists to be psychiatrists not gate keepers. I suspect that psychiatrist would like to be psychiatrists too. They defiantly don’t want the worry that people have had surgery on their bodies as a result of a thought disorder or by mistake. What’s the solution? Psychiatrist could accept that transexuals might be telling the truth? That they are the gender they say they are. That what their role as psychiatrist is, is to decide if the person is mentally competent. The same level of mental competency that is required of them to stand trial, be a member of general society etc, to not need to be locked away to protect themselves from themselves, and most important of all that even if they are incompetent for a while then they show competency again that is good enough for them to make choices about their lives - which of course, is the same criteria we give to anyone else.

why Oxfordshire is not funding transexuality - minutes of oxford pct

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:35:57 GMT

these are publicly available minutes and thus I don't see why these cant be reprinted here. The minutes are in regards of treatment for transexuals (gender dysphoria) and as usual charing cross is represented as a stalwart of care and results whilst everyone else is represented as giving a poor outcome

B3 Gender Dysphoria 86/2006

The Chair welcomed Dr James Barrett, Dr Chris Bass and David Roche to the meeting. This is the third time this topic has been discussed by OxPF this year. The Chair outlined the current situation in Oxfordshire whereby patients are NHS funded for referral and treatment to a specialist clinic such as Charing Cross. Some patients pursue private treatment and then emerge on the NHS pathway at the stage when they require surgery. When OxPF reviewed the policy in 2002, it was estimated that approximately two new patients would present and two patients would require surgery each year. The surgery remained of “unproven benefit”. Funding for surgery is always considered on an individual basis. Several patients were funded since 2002 (no specific budget was identified). However, the number of patients presenting with gender dysphoria has risen year on year. In the previous OxPF discussions, members agreed that published evidence was not compelling, but recognised that there are legal implications and an anomaly in funding patients only to a certain stage of their transition. It is essential that a policy decision is made today, as there are a number of patients waiting for surgery. Oxfordshire has also stopped referring new patients in the past few months, while PCTs await the revised policy.

Prevalence and incidence:
Dr James Barrett, confirmed that there is increasing number of new patients presenting for treatment. There are no reliable epidemiological data; one way to get a sense of the numbers is to count those who present for treatment, bearing in mind that many opt for private clinics. The number of new patients Charing Cross has dealt with per annum has risen in the past twenty years from 63 to 500. One private clinician has recently retired and there have been a number of patients from his clinic presenting for treatment at GPs’ surgeries. This is on top of the general trend of increased numbers, which could partly be explained by social factors and increased media coverage and awareness of the condition. This trend is reflected in Oxfordshire - Dr Chris Bass saw five new (Oxon) patients in July. It was noted that Buckinghamshire have seen five cases at CRC in the past few months. There are over 40 patients, known in Oxfordshire, in various stages of their transition; this does not include the recent new referrals.

Evidence of effectiveness:

Gender re-assignment surgery:
There is no published evidence of sufficiently high quality. RCTs are not really feasible. The recurring theme of published papers is that carefully selected patients can do well (although there is often no information about how patients were selected). The problem with the data is that they are surgically-derived and there is a mixture of selection criteria. The background OxPF paper provides an overview of published evidence and was previously debated by OxPF.

Charing Cross has an agreed patient pathway for all stages of treatment. Many patients have reported that living in their chosen gender role for a minimum of one year is the biggest step and surgery is the ‘icing on the cake.’ Patients who live in their new role for two years before surgery fare better. If patients are carefully selected, there is a high satisfaction rate. Charing Cross is a very large clinic with a long-standing reputation in the field; in twenty years of practice, they have only had three patients who reverted to their original gender, although there are many more such cases in the private sector where the selection process is less robust. Dr James Barrett, provided some definitions for ‘doing well’, such as the ability to work.

Vaginoplasty for male-to-female (MTF) patients: the Charing Cross treat 102 patients per year, at a cost of about £10k. These patients tend to do well afterwards according to studies from other countries, but the NHS has never carried out a quality of life study.

Female-to-male (FTM) patients: this is a very different area due to the cost-effectiveness – phalloplasty costs around £50K (depending on how many stages are undertaken), has around 50% chance of failure and a complication rate of 30-75%, depending on the type of phalloplasty carried out. In a study of 51 patients, improvement in quality of life was less than 20%, which is almost marginal for any surgical procedure. OxPF members noted that with that evidence, surgery would not be performed unless it was for a life-threatening condition. Only one third of patients are interested in phalloplasty, and a number of those tend to opt out once they find out more about the process and complications. It was noted that in Oxfordshire a higher number of patients than expected would like phalloplasty. After a bilateral mastectomy, patients report an 80% improvement in quality of life. This is considered a standard surgery which is not too expensive. In terms of bilateral mastectomy, it was suggested that patients should get the same degree of priority afforded to a man with chronic gynaecomastia. Patients understand that this is not the same as breast cancer, but they do not feel it is the same as a woman who doesn’t like the way her breasts look. Dr James Barrett, believed there might be less of a backlash if Oxfordshire decided not to fund phalloplasty, but undertook to proceed faster with bilateral mastectomies. Hysterectomies are essential to avoid the risk of cancer later in life due to the long-term hormones the patient must take.

Untreated patients:
Patients are well networked and can obtain hormone treatments out with the NHS and out with the normal vetting procedures. The cost of not treating patients could potentially be high, if costs of dealing with complications following private treatment are taken into account. A study comparing patients who were fast-tracked to surgery with those who were not showed that provided the patients were considered appropriate for surgery, speedily providing it produced better results. Dr Chris Bass noted that this is a group of patients which can use a lot of NHS resources in terms of psychiatric care and crisis team services. The recent freeze on treatment in Oxfordshire has made managing some patients particularly difficult.

A member stated that it is important to honour any commitments made to existing patients, but that given the evidence presented today, funding phalloplasty would not be acceptable when other clinically effective treatments cannot be funded. It was also noted that decisions should be made with reference to the Ethical Framework and Paper 88, which lists treatments recommended by OxPF which are not currently funded by commissioners. Dr James Barrett recommended that the Oxfordshire policy should be reviewed when the Royal College of Psychiatrists publishes its (long-awaited, now to be published in one year’s time) report; related GMC hearings may also change the landscape.

In conclusion, in terms of clinical effectiveness Dr James Barrett, would rate surgical interventions as follows: bilateral mastectomy for FTM as the surgery with the highest quality of life improvement; then vaginoplasty for MTF; then cricothyroid approximation for patients who have failed speech therapy; then phalloplasty as the area with the weakest evidential basis.

A member stated that it is important to honour any commitments made to existing patients, but that given the evidence presented today, funding phalloplasty would not be acceptable when other clinically effective treatments cannot be funded. It was also noted that decisions should be made with reference to the Ethical Framework and Paper 88, which lists treatments recommended by OxPF which are not currently funded by commissioners. Dr James Barrett, recommended that the Oxfordshire policy should be reviewed when the Royal College of Psychiatrists publishes its (long-awaited, now to be published in one year’s time) report; related GMC hearings may also change the landscape.

Legal framework:
David Roche stated that it is legal to have a policy which says that treatment of gender dysphoria is a low priority provided you acknowledge that there can be cases with overwhelming clinical need. David Roche acknowledged that this is a difficult area and LjS stated that the Herceptin situation showed the problems with ‘envisaging’ exceptional circumstances and demonstrating that one patient would benefit more than another. David Roche was asked if Oxfordshire could limit the number of patients it would fund, as is the situation with a number of treatments (e.g. cochlear implants). David Roche could not see a legal reason not to limit the number, provided Oxfordshire would still consider exceptional circumstances. There is a potential problem, however, with creating a backlog of patients, which would increase every year.

Agreed:

After a lengthy and full discussion of all the options and the legal implications,
• OxPF agreed to fund patients for diagnosis and hormone treatment
• OxPF agreed that all surgery for MTF and FTM patients is a low priority, and patients may approach the CRC if their case is exceptional
• OxPF will reviewing this policy in approximately one year’s time

Action:
• CCL to redraft the policy statement for the next meeting, removing the residency clause (which was not being applied for some years)
• LjS will draft a patient fact sheet for this policy

http://www.oxfordshire.nhs.uk/prioritiesminutes.asp September 2006

Intratransexual relationships as vehicle to the exploration of bisexual dynamics whilst transitionin

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:16:22 GMT

In a context where there is little access to the open bisexual community prior to transitioning it occurs to me that transition relationships with other transwomen can offer a safe vehicle to explore ones sexuality. That by being able to play with someone who has a mix of sexual characteristics, sexual object choice can be explored in way where your own body is not invalidated any more than it already is. This doesn't invalidate the strength of the relationships, merely that it is a secondary aspect of intracommunity realtionships.

In relation to this I do find it interesting that some transexuals and transexual groups see intracommunity relationships as less valid that extracommunity ones. That extracommunity ones have more social status/privilege and power. This has been reflected in previous low social status communities before. For example in the early 'homophile' community where a relationship with a closeted man was seen as better, by some homosexual men, than a relationship with a more open man in the homosexual community prior to gay liberation. Another more documented example is in the USA, is that of black men and women having a relationship with white people as a better relationship prior to black pride movement.

just to remind myself

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:05:43 GMT

gacked from auntyjen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knEIM16NuPg&eurl=

quickish update

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 01:59:08 GMT

currently smegged into the floor, lots of balls in the air and i'm trying to catch them all.
If all goes well I may be traveling to the middle of france next week.
I may also be contacting my dutch and german friends about the possibility of coming to see/stay with them if its ok?
this may be my only contact for now
otherwise actually quite well in a crashy sort of way
btw i not reading LJ much right now simply have to many balls etc
hope to talk to you all again soon
hugs
kate