Friends

Sez LJ Feedback to fleurdeliser:

Thank you for your feedback.
However, the code update that you refer to is not live and did not have any chance to go live. That was a beta release, we always push code to beta to see if everything works correctly. In many cases it does not and we either fix bugs or pull the code from the final release plan.
We were going to add a gender field to the sign up user flow, which is fine, but by mistake it became a mandatory "female/male" field for everyone. This is why this is not going live. And this is what beta releases are for, to see problems and solve them before any user faces a problem.

I would appreciate if you share this information with your friends that are also concerned. I am sorry that you were misinformed.

Uh huh.

Misinformed. Well, that's better than what it was looking like, but... I can't seem to shake a certain feeling of... ooh, it's like a million voices all backpedaling at once.

At least they ARE backpedaling. I hesitate to think what would've happened if we hadn't all jumped on them.

*headshake* You'd think they'd LEARN. Never ever ever ever EVER put untried code live, nevereverever, ESPECIALLY not when you are dicking around with things that affect your GIANT user population of LGBTQ people. We make noise.

But they know we're watching them... *ominous music* :D

Pip

via angelikitten, synecdochic lets us in on something:

* Gender will be a mandatory field at account creation, and it will be able to appear public on one's profile. (I can't tell if people with existing gender specification will be defaulted to "nobody can see it" or "everybody can see it".) (Subsequent changelog reading indicates that the public specificity has since been removed. It is unknown whether this is to require public specificity in the future or if it will remain private.)

* LiveJournal is removing the Unspecified option for the gender field. That's right: you get to be male or female. Period. That's it. (Source.)

If this pisses you off as much as it pisses me off, go to Edit Profile and select Unspecified for your gender option. Then, go to http://www.livejournal.com/contact/?dept=feedback and politely register your displeasure. (The people who read and process Feedback are not the people who make the decisions. They are often the people who are yelling internally about the decisions.)

(This will likely take place at the next code push, which given LJ's history will be either this Thursday or next, so spread the word fast, especially to the genderqueer community. After that point, you will no longer be able to pick "Unspecified" as your gender.)

I am so not all right with this. There are some more good suggestions of people to speak to in the original post. Please spread the word - LJ is our space, LJ has always promised us it would be a safe space, and the fact that they want to take that away from us to enable better ad targeting...

Fuck that, sez I.

Pip

Slogging grimly onwards, as one does. My last class is tonight, thank everything, and tomorrow if all goes well I will spend a slightly astonishing amount of time baking a truly astonishing number of cookies, which will then mean that 85% of my Christmas gifts will be 70% done. I still probably won't have anything ready to mail in time to get it where it needs to get to. But at least it will be done. That's kind of how I'm looking at this whole season, really. I'm going to fail entirely at the timing aspect and everybody gets the same generic gift, which does not make me happy, but at least they get something. Christmas cards may have to wait until next week.

I want everything to be over. *sigh* And people wonder why I've got no Christmas spirit. I don't have TIME for Christmas spirit. I'm too busy with Christmas WORK.

But my computer room has curtains now, because K and I hung them at midnight last night. I am holding onto that as my great success for this weekend. I may not have gotten nearly as much else done as I meant to, but at least I have curtains. Also, the room must be much less dusty, because I'm pretty sure at least two pounds of airborne debris are currently coating the inside of my lungs and throat. Either that or I am getting sick again, in which case Christmas is cancelled and this month is FIRED.

Pip

Last night I stayed up way too late. Tonight I might again, we'll see. I think it's a night for some quiet musing.

Or... y'know, not. I just deleted three paragraphs of self-indulgence. It mostly boils down to: I'm glad I hate myself less than I used to, but I really wish it wasn't so easy to feel so inferior all over again, like I haven't made any progress at all, when I know in some ways I'm almost unrecognisable.

Oh, and he wouldn't want me to be jealous, he doesn't like himself much either; she doesn't think she'll actually make it; he's vain and fragile and hollow; she's lonely. I can know all this. It doesn't help very much.

Fucking December. I'm so done with stress and exhaustion and all the shit that contributes to me being a waste of space, and it's so my generation to blame all my failures on everything but me actually sucking, except this is the second time in two weeks I've gotten to this point and I could quite happily never feel like this again.

Pip

Ahahaha, someone just asked one of my colleagues if there was a young man by the name of Pip in the choral department. Apparently they spoke to me late last week... :D :D :D

Continuing in the glorious tradition of Learning Things So You Don't Have To:

If you have the choice between taking cough syrup and watching new Metalocalypse, and taking cough syrup and studying something atrocious for an exam the next day, it may seem like the logical choice to study, but seriously, go with the cartoons. I did several days' worth of swotting with an unavoidable Benylin DMDE high - can't study if you can't breathe - and went in after the last gasp of revision yesterday to write the final.

I sat there staring at the paper, which was asking me the sorts of questions I do horrendously on at the best of times (list the exact ten things it says in the text on this subject, &c.), and I'd spent hours trying to memorise those exact lists, and could call up the exact visual pattern of text and highlighter lines on the page - I could SEE it. I just couldn't remember one damn word that was on it. Photographic memory; vaseline on the lens...

In conclusion, just don't bother. I probably passed it (gee, I sure hope so), but wow, will that not go down on the books as my greatest test performance of all time. Tonight's exam should be better, though. I am feeling well enough that I haven't had to have any vile syrup today. ("Haven't had to have". Ew, English. Why are you so full of fail.)

On a more positive note, hot fruit smoothies sound like a weird idea, but taste like pie.

The most positive note of all: high E! :D (Something along the lines of how D minor is the saddest key, you know.)

Also, in less than twelve hours I will be free to write all the fic my brain can generate. And a good thing too because I am on the third replot of the second scene in, and have the feeling I am just going to have to get stuck in and write it before I'll know how it lands.

Finally: re: Metalocalypse: ( possible spoilers )

Angry Tokis are my favourite Tokis, the end.

Pip

Let's mark this on the calendar:

I have called in sick!

For the first time in I don't know how long! My eyes and sinuses are BURNING. I can't really breathe. It sucks. And I am a grown-ass woman and can call in sick if I damn well want to, my mother's voice in my head be DAMNED.

Conscience still sort of wins though - I'm going in eventually. People are leaving work at four and I'm going to cover that couple of hours so I'll probably have to leave here at two-ish. Still, this gives me another two hours to sleep, and then a few more to revise revise revise before I drag my ass in for a little retail counter-therapy and a final exam. I hate my masochistic schedule.

Blgh. Bed. Again.

Pip

I may not be able to continue this relentless campaign of denial that I have a cold much longer. *annoyed sniffle* I can still happily and accurately deny that I have the flu, though, so that's good. I know what every single one of my various body aches and pains is from. Apparently my body was not as much on board with me voting myself Queen Of Disco as it led me to believe on the night. Still, I have complete mobility, even if it hurts, so it can't be that bad. (And I probably shouldn't blame the disco, I should blame the hip-hop. I hit that pretty hard. As one does.)

What is good to know is that the Kivilaakso Method of headbanging (do it all-out and do it every day) still works exactly as advertised: almost no whiplash! Despite headbanging hard enough that I almost fell off the stage at one point. I think that may have been what led to the most rockstar way I have ever left a stage: one of my colleagues rushed the stage, threw me over his shoulder, did a victory lap, jumped off, and then dropped me in a chair. I was laughing way too hard to do anything but make rock hands. Epic.

And apparently, if I can believe the gossip, most of the night I looked like I'd worked out choreography in advance. Natural genius? Nope. Honey lager and too many dance shows. Good try though. :D

I am sorry if I sound like I'm too proud of myself, but you have to understand that Sober Pip is the least coordinated, least graceful, most likely to start and end on the wrong foot, hopelessly-whitest dancer going, and it is as much a revelation to me as anyone else that I can dance. Also, I have no proof except the recollections of people who were equally beered, and I can't usually tell if they're praising my skill, my shamelessness, or my stamina. Frankly, that's the way I like it, because if I knew I still looked ridiculous I'd probably never dance in public again. However, I sat out the Electric Slide, so my secret's still safe.

Thank you very much for all the snowflakes! I am delighted to have been thought of. I think I may try to make their real-world counterparts as this year's Christmas cookies. If indeed I ever do get around to baking. Signs point to yes, but not yet.

And apparently I got my final Awful Class project done a week early, because... I don't know what week it is. Stupidity never felt so good. :D

Pip