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Mykyta (Myck) Pohvalynskyi
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[18 May 2009|05:52am] |
I lol'd. :P Why must I get the character with the awful, awful hair... :(
Your results:
You are Deanna Troi
| Deanna Troi |
| 75% |
| Jean-Luc Picard |
| 70% |
| James T. Kirk (Captain) |
| 55% |
| Chekov |
| 55% |
| Beverly Crusher |
| 55% |
| Geordi LaForge |
| 55% |
| An Expendable Character (Redshirt) |
| 55% |
| Spock |
| 54% |
| Leonard McCoy (Bones) |
| 45% |
| Will Riker |
| 45% |
| Data |
| 29% |
| Mr. Scott |
| 25% |
| Uhura |
| 25% |
| Worf |
| 20% |
| Mr. Sulu |
| 15% |
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You are a caring and loving individual.
You understand people's emotions and
you are able to comfort and counsel them.
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Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz
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[31 Oct 2006|05:31am] |
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'Gestalt' is my favourite word ever. I've liked it long, but now I am fairly certain that it has no match. ^_^
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[28 Oct 2006|04:06pm] |
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In today's news: Harper is angry at the government Opposition for... opposing him! He's the Prime Minister, after all. How dare the opposition parties not agree with him on everything and rush his bills through!
The arrogance of that man is truly stunning. Not content to terrorise his own cabinet and caucus, he now wants to tell the other parties what to do.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1161985810380&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467
He also thinks aboriginal land disputes are provincial policing issues. On that I am not an expert, but it seems to me like reducing a treaty dispute to a "policing issue" is not a great thing to do. He is implying that the aboriginal protesters are basically just run-of-the-mill criminals for the province to take care of. (And aren't aboriginal issues ultimately the federal government's job?..)
The demands of aboriginal minorities = criminal acts! Huray. Another step towards Evil Conservative Shadow-Land!
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[25 Oct 2006|05:58pm] |
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Today I learned that my iPAQ actually CAN connect to the university wireless network. Huray! But it's really random, and only connects some of the time, at other times totally refusing to go online even if all the same settings are used. But still, excitement! I am, in fact, posting this from my PDA from the lobby of Robarts. My procrastination potential is substantially increased. ^_^
GAH it's a pain viewing normal-sized web-pages on this tiny screen though. !_!
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| Gasp! Our government is sexist. Surprised? |
[08 Oct 2006|10:42pm] |
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}(OO> Unpleasantly shocked |
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Newsflash of the day: The Conservative government doesn't believe in equality for women! Surprised? You shouldn't be, but now they're turning it into official policy.
"Bev Oda, federal status of women minister, told groups across the country this week the Harper government will no longer fund women's groups that do advocacy, lobbying or general research. It is also dropping "equality" from the goals of Status of Women Canada."
From this article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2006/10/06/lund-cuts.html
An elaboration from here: http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2006/10/05/1955962-sun.html
"Previous objectives such as helping women's organizations participate in the public policy process and increasing the public's understanding of women's equality issues have been eliminated from government literature."
The effects so far, reported by the NDP at: http://www.ndp.ca/page/4349
"As of Sept. 12, The National Association of Women and the Law, has closed their doors due to insufficient federal funding. The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) will shut down on Sept. 26. Organizations have put in applications for funding, but have heard nothing from the Minister responsible for Status of Women, Bev Oda."
A heated discussion in Commons followed. Frankly, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if there WASN'T one, but thankfully the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc are slightly less... horrible?
Oda responded to criticism:
""This government does fundamentally believe that women are equal" [...] She said equality was enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and there was no need to repeat it in the mission statement of Status of Women Canada."
(From http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=36c5e253-0db8-46e9-81cb-c49817673564&k=33019)
So see, the Conservatives aren't evil, it's just that things like The National Association of Women and the Law clearly have absolutely nothing to do with women's equality.
And as for the confused argument about the Charter already having a commitment to equality for women in it, even if the principle is already in the Charter, why NOT also have it in the mission statement of the agency RESPONSIBLE for women's equality?
Why CUT it? It was already IN the statement -- the Conservatives proactively REMOVED it! I mean, if you "fundamentally believe" in equality for women, why BOTHER to cut it out? It's not like it's costing taxpayer money to keep an extra sentence in the document!
Could there possibly be an actual, you know, reason for this change? Maybe it has something to do with sweeping program cuts for women's groups?
Could the motivation possibly be that the Conservatives don't WANT Status of Women Canada to work for equality for women, and that's why they cut it from their mission statement? Do you think that's a reasonable guess?
(Incidentally, the women's equality clause in the Charter is only there BECAUSE Status of Women Canada fought for it.)
So anyway, basically the Conservatives are both cutting funding for women's programs by 25%, and also shifting the surviving funding away from "feminist" (it's a dirty word!) initiatives in SWC and other groups, and towards for-profit and faith based groups. This move has apparently been influenced by the conservative REAL Women Canada, one of those groups that basically argue that firstly, women are already equal despite all the lower pay and negative stereotypes, so we don't need to fight for women's equality, and secondly, the government should probably encourage women to go back to being stay-at-home mothers because that's what *real* women are naturally good at anyway. So that might give you a hint as to what kinds of women's programs are probably going to be getting government funding from now on.
In conclusion, if you, the reader, have even a little bit of a feminist in you, you should probably be at least a bit depressed right now. I know I am. Is this even Canada anymore?
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| I Survived the Toronto Bomb Scare |
[31 Aug 2006|09:41pm] |
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There was a bomb threat in downtown Toronto today, and I was there. Baisakhi and I were spending the day at the ROM, and after seeing about half of the museum we decided to pop out and get some lunch. On our way back afterwards to see the rest of the exhibits, we found that the street along which we had walked just half an hour earlier (Bloor St.) had been cordoned off with police tape. At this point we bumped into Sheiban, an old friend of mine way back from junior school. He overheard someone say that a bomb threat had been reported, and there might be explosives in a taxi-cab parked further up along the road. We assumed the whole thing would turn out to be bogus and blow over, and decided to head back to the ROM together. To do so quickly we cut through a nearby building (which turned out to be the University of Toronto School) only to come across a door on the opposite side of it that happened to look out directly onto the cab that was supposed to have the bomb inside. It was ridiculously close; parked along Bloor just across a small adjoining street from us (it was Huron Street, to be exact). It was, I guess, about a hundred feet away. We could see the cab plainly, and police officers milled about cautiously outside. A reporter from Global TV walked in and set up his camera right next to us, looking out through the glass of the door at the cab. The reporter was ecstatic to find the spot and said he would get the "shot of the century." If it bleeds it leads, I guess. Yes. So we accidentally stumbled on the best place from which to see the goings-on. Perhaps foolishly, we assumed there was no actual danger (I mean, terrorist attack in Toronto? Come on!) and stayed along to watch. I took pictures.
( The cab! )
The cameraman was constantly afraid of attracting police attention because he was afraid they'd ask him to leave and he'd miss his 'shot of the century.' So it was all very exciting.
In a bit of time we decided to go find out what was happening around the block. We left the school building by another exit and saw an Emergency Task Force unit parked outside. They had guns. And a robot. I took more pictures.
( Guns and a robot. )
It was really only at this point I started to believe there might actually be something serious happening. But we didn't really 'feel' it, you know? It just seemed too... unrealistic a scenario to seem particularly worrying or threatening. So we basically remained spectators. At length we went back to the building and our reporter. The cab door was open! We could see someone inside, wearing jeans. The police were shouting something at them over the megaphone but we couldn't tell what. Again, I took pictures, although mostly they were more of the same.
( The cab opens. )
At one point the police noticed the reporter and an officer came and yelled at him (and, by extension, us) to go further back into the building. We did go back, but later on the reporter moved back to where he was before, just more cautiously. We went to a higher floor to peer cautiously out of small windows. Eventually, though, another officer told us the building was being evacuated, and we all had to leave. We went back to where we saw the ETF unit earlier. Now there were ETF officers sneaking up on the cab.
( The ETF advances. )
For a long time nothing happened, and we couldn't really see anything. Then there was a dull bang and people started shouting that "they shot him." No-one actually knew what was going on, so we decided to head elsewhere. We cut through some side-streets and came out onto St. George, where a huge crowd was gathered watching the goings-on. More officers and people in suits were running around. Eventually a buisness-y looking man came to the center of the street and got the press to pay attention to him. Sheiban and I were standing right nearby and we actually ended up being part of the press gang! The man's name was Detective Murray Barns. I recorded about 30 seconds of his speech with my little camera before I ran out of memory. Basically he told us the details that are now available on the news websites, and said that the perpetrator was shot with a BB gun, taken to a hospital, and arrested on "several" charges. He didn't give much info beyond all that, and didn't say whether or not any actual explosives were found (later on it was determined there weren't any). The driver of the cab was there too, trying to get the detective's attention. Baisakhi and Sheiban said he looked incredibly startled and agitated. Then the detective left and everyone started dispersing.
Baisakhi, Sheiban and I walked back to the ROM and then Baisakhi and I went in to see the rest of the exhibits. Here is Baisakhi in front of some pretty gates in the Chinese Civilization exhibit:
( Random ROM photo )
So that was a random and exciting event. I am struck by my seeming inability to actually take any of this as seriously as I should have at the time, a deficiency which I seem to have shared with pretty much all the other civilians on the scene. The end.
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| Taaandyyy, you taste like sugar caaandyyy... |
[18 Jul 2006|06:25pm] |
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I got my Tandy! It came in the mail and the box it came in has American stamps on it. Yay!
So now I have a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 Portable Computer. I got the machine from E-bay from someone who didn't really know much about it, but according to the labels on the front and back, the last person to actually use this computer was "Earle Eldridge, Correspondent." Awesome. I will now make up various stories about the adventures of Earle Eldridge, Correspondent and his trusty Tandy in my head.
The Tandy is absolutely gorgeous. Well okay, it's a rectangular slab of plastic with a keyboard and a screen, but it's a very neat and pretty rectangular slab of plastic. Using it feels like you're holding a book. (Love.)
The keyboard is actually very nice, smaller than a full-size PC keyboard, but bigger than a portable palm computer board. It's fairly quiet, and quite comfortable to use.
And that is where we come to the first (and so far, cross my fingers, only) problem: The J, M, U, and ./> keys don't work. At. All. So... I could write on this machine, but it wouldn't come out very well. A quick look at the technical manual reveals that all of these keys share the same connection to the rest of the computer, so I'm guessing this connecting wire broke somewhere along the way. On the plus side, this is likely fix-able.
However, looking at all these wire schematics and diagrams reminds me too vividly of my high school computer engineering class. That was the class where I made microprocessors explode (SERIOUSLY.) and where everything I touched seemed to short-circuit. So I'm probably not the best person to fix this. I know it's a cliche, but I haven't even quite figured out how to work the DVD/VCR player, so this is not my strong suit.
I am now searching for someone who likes working with electronic things that require soldering and complicated schematics, to fix my Tandy for me. ^_^
Heh. Yep. So other than that, things have been blah, some happy spots, some hard spots. My summer course is getting steadily more boring as we work our way to more and more mathematically-minded economists, and I'm kind of losing my motivation. Nonetheless, I intend to do a good job on my second essay.
I have also had course sign-up yesterday; I ended up on one waiting list, but I have a back-up for that course in case it doesn't work out, and from what I hear many people are even worse off than I am so I can't really complain. The courses I picked seem allright, and I'm pretty sure I've found the programs I will actually stick with (IR specialist, Economics major, and Psychology minor). By process of elimination, there just isn't really any other set of programs that will work for me.
So that's my life for now. ^_^ And now I will go and try to do something useful. Byes!
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| Breaking News: People are Depressing |
[04 Jul 2006|08:54am] |
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I have just read a dating advice column in a major magazine. A woman actually wrote in to say (while discussing disagreements she's had with her partner),
"I'm not sure I can respect a man who makes less money than I do."
She also used his lesser paycheck as evidence that the man in question is clearly lacking in ambition and *self-confidence* (the irony!) This is from a column that was published RECENTLY, as in NOT a million years ago or something. And what gets me is that the columnist actually didn't even respond to the woman's comment directly, instead asking her to consider that she herself has good and bad qualities and that no-one is perfect (which is easy to take as saying "yes, of course it sucks that he can't be a real provider like proper men are supposed to be, but hey, no-one is perfect!")
I might have instead pointed out that, you know, maybe there's something weird about being afraid of relationships where the man earns less than the woman in this day and age, and that this woman might be the one with the self-confidence issue.
Yep. Well, time to put the whole equal pay thing on hold, folks. Clearly, what progress has been made so far is just making men threatened by women, and making women incapable of respecting men.
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| Oh, Canada... |
[01 Jul 2006|11:41am] |
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Happy Canada Day. ^_^
<3
When our founding fathers lay the groundwork for our great nation one-hundred and thirty-nine years ago, they couldn't agree on anything and none of them had any idea of what they were doing or where they were going (except, like, maybe Cartier, but no-one even remembers him anymore). And today, for most of us, that hasn't changed.
That makes us, perhaps, the most honest nation in the world.
And, in some ways, the freest and the best.
Happy Birthday, Canada. You make no sense. And I love you for it. ^_^
<3
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| Stationery in motion |
[27 Jun 2006|01:20am] |
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I heart stationery. I like little pretty pieces of paper you get to draw and write on and I also like pencils and pens and other neat stuff you can write with. I don't actually USE these things nearly enough. But they are so wonderful. I can seriously wander around any decent stationery section at any store for many many minutes. And that is what I did today, at the U of T bookstore and then at the Aboveground art supply store, which I also heart although most of the stuff in there is very serious art stuff that intimidates me because I'm an economist.
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Economics can be good sometimes. I love the parts of my class when we talk about how society grows and changes over time from an economic perspective. Modern economists don't do that sort of stuff anymore, which is why my micro and macro classes weren't so much fun (well okay, macro would have been a lot more fun if I worked harder in it, wah). To modern economists, it's all *bam* -- take a derivative, plot a graph, and you're done! No history, no humanity, no context, just some disembodied economic laws that supposedly guide all the markets, now, yesterday, and forever. Modern economists just make a bunch of assumptions right off the bat -- people are rational! People maximize utility! And so on! -- and then off they go with mathematics. When what they really should be studying are those assumptions they made, whether or not they make sense, and what their human consequences are. If you ask me, the natural tools of economics are history and philosophy and psychology, not calculus and algebra.
And that's a lot of what the classical economists did. Cantalon, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, all looked at history, and at humanity, and at logic and philosophy, for the sources of their economic theories. And they used these theories to try and understand and chart the course of human society. That is truly fascinating stuff. As opposed to... you know...
Q = L^a * K^b, Q' = a * L^(a-1) + b * K(b-1), therefore we know exactly how firms act, yay.
We don't even ask WHY nearly often enough.
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Also, "The Producers" (the new version) is decently allright, I think. I mean, the beginning is pretty... bad, but then it becomes very fun to watch, for the most part. Not great, but... fun. I should see the original. I really like the "I Want to be a Producer" song and its "Unhappy, Unhappy" intro.
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I now have a tiny adorable stuffed toy giraffe named Leda. <3 (I found the name on the tag, eventually).
~~
Today's evening was... good, for the most part. One thing was very very missing. Really good on the whole though. ^_^ Good family moments, and a wonderful dinner, and I discovered how wonderful listening to Holst's 'The Planets' can be after a delicious meal and late in the evening. Yay.
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I have really really wonderful friends. ^_^
<3
~~
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| Mmm movies! |
[08 Jun 2006|01:21pm] |
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Sweet November is such a good movie. <3 I'm going to buy it on DVD someday.
Also, I am flu-ey. But meh, I've been through worse.
People rock. ^_^
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[29 May 2006|08:02am] |
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My gosh I hate the TTC.
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| Firefox! |
[10 May 2006|11:25pm] |
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So, I took the plunge and installed Firefox. So far it seems to be working great, and imported all my numerous bookmarks from IE perfectly. But out of order. I spent many minutes organizing those just the way I wanted them... ah well, too much to ask.
Otherwise, seems to work just fine, exactly like Internet Explorer. Except that some pages that broke down randomly in IE work fine here.
That, plus the numerous claims that it's "more secure" is enough for me to keep Firefox as my default browser now.
And I'm told it has other features, like "tabs," that I have yet to explore. Whee.
Yes. This was an unintentional unpaid advertisement for Mozilla.
In other news, I have some serious work to do on my rock-skipping technique. SERIOUS. Though I'd rather not talk about that.
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| Tulips. |
[06 May 2006|11:42pm] |
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P.S.
Also, everything outside is just SO beautiful. We were out for a stroll earlier and there are magnolia trees and flowers of all sorts and newborn leaves budding everywhere and everything is just so colourful. Even just a quick stroll through a suburban neighbourhood feels like a walk through some vast garden.
And it's tulip season. <3
We saw one yard where someone decided to cultivate a veritable forest of tulips. There was this thick band of tulips running around the entire perimeter of the yard. A LOT of tulips. Yum.
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| School's out for summer. Yay. |
[04 May 2006|08:42pm] |
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}(^^> / }(- -> happy/tired |
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I'm done.
The terrible painful year of terrible pain is finally over.
I thought I would feel more relieved. Ah well. I probably just need some time for summerishness to set in.
That, and a good night's sleep.
I'm dooone. Done done done.
I was less prepared for these exams than almost anything else I wrote before, probably. I'm hoping for my term work balancing them out. But anyway, no news on that for three weeks.
In the meantime I plan to relax. A lot. Relaze. Sleep. Nap. Read. Re-install Civilization III on my computer and play for a day.
This Sunday I'll compose a plan for the summer. With deadlines this year. Yay.
In the meantime, yay relazing!
Relaaaaaziiiiiing!
...
...
SUMMER! Woo!
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[21 Apr 2006|12:17pm] |
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According to this Reuters article, women in Iraq actually have fewer rights today than they had under Saddam Hussein's rule, and are facing more challenges to their equality.
Well, I mean, presumably that does not include women who were gassed to death by Hussein in Kurdish settlements.
But still, it is scary. What exactly does it tell us that millions of women enjoyed better protection of their equality and rights under the rule of a blood-thirsty dictator than they do under a government supported by Western nations and installed by a U.S. invasion? And how optimistic can we be that overthrowing dictatorial regimes will actually improve the status of women, if it can't even do so in this case?
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