Dyepot, Teapot

Originally uploaded by spinnerin.

Between the fun of all those Vegas pictures, and ogling heyoka’s photos on Flickr, I developed a sudden lust for pinhole photography. This was taken using a modified disposable point & shoot camera (ISO 800 film).

Note: If you’re going to try this sort of camera modification, get the kind without a flash, if at all possible. People find it unsettling when they hear “ouch!” followed by a bright spark on the other side of the room. (I did have the sense to use a screwdriver to short the capacitor, but it was hard to tell where I could touch safely to hold the camera while doing so. My thumb is startled, but fine.)

I spent Thanksgiving in Vegas. A surprisingly large number of other people did too. Lucas and I went down there to visit his family, since they all relocated from Florida to Nevada and Arizona earlier this year, but we managed to work in a night each downtown and on the strip as well.

I think the best summary I could give would be my photos from the trip.

Highlights:

The Hoover Dam, breathtaking in scale and design.

Downtown, sort of a cross between an arcade and an open-air bar. Kids, guys wandering around with cheap beer in large football-shaped cups, trapeze artists, and a roof made from a screen that plays music videos with women in skimpy clothing several times an hour.

The Strip.
All the weirdness of downtown and then some. This is Disneyworld for drinkers. Pyramids, Roman statues, pirate ships.. and Venice. Indoors.

One thing I didn’t get a picture of (because it was late and I was exhausted and it was the last thing I was thinking of at the time) is the pimp-daddy in a huge silver and white fur coat, matching fedora, and lucite cane wandering around Caesar’s Palace. Lucas saw him a little later and reports there were also diamond-encrusted sunglasses. He had an entourage. Neither of us recognized him, but the whole thing screamed rap star.

I had a very good time, despite not being a heavy drinker or any kind of gambler (I spent a whole $12 on roulette and penny slots). The place is just absurd.

Getting a shiny new computer has really augmented my desire to play with all sorts of tech. [1] I picked up issues 1-3 of Make at Powell’s Tech last week. I’m eager to get a soldering iron and a Dremel and start trying some of these things out.

There’s a funny thing I’ve been noticing, reading Make. Most of the projects come across as being surprisingly accessible. This is probably the first time ever that I’ve looked at this sort of content and thought, “Wow, that’s really cool. I could figure out how to do that.”

So I’ve been trying to sort out why soldering or building circuits has always seemed intimidating and difficult, when I have lots of weird complicated hobbies already. And I think it comes down to this: no one ever stopped and told me, “Hey Audrey, let’s learn how to solder today.” Or “this circuit is just a little more complicated than that lab assignment you had in physics class”. And later when I talked to people who were tinkering with electronics, they tended to act like this was innate knowledge they just happened to have. [2]

It’s a fairly recent development that I’ve concluded I can learn pretty much anything I want as long as I start from the beginning, even if I have to dig to find out where to start. I’m sad it’s taken so long, I could have been making cute little blinky lights ages ago if I’d realized.

[1] The strongest evidence of this is that I’ve whipped through all of Learning Perl in just over a week. Fun stuff.

[2] When I’m around people who express an interest in knitting, I try very hard to do the exact opposite, to explain that all knitting is a variation on one simple step. If the kick-ass colorwork Lucas has taken up is any indication, this approach seems to be working.

I wonder if anyone’s using collections of iTunes playlists to give suggestions for music you might like. If you and someone else both have a certain song on your playlist, it suggests to each of you that you might be interested in the other songs the other person has. With a large group, it could pick the songs from lists that match yours most closely, and songs that show up most often on lists similar to yours. Seems a lot easier than Pandora, where they have complicated analyses of music structure that they match up. Sifting through actual peoples’ playlists would allow for the possibility that Weird Al fans will listen to anything as long as the singer has big hair, or some other kind of anomaly.

I’m also wondering if I’m going to get used to the way this Apple keyboard is about 10 zillion times more sensitive than the heavy clunky IBM one I’m used to. I’m getting double letters all over the place.

I’m a Mac user again and it’s pretty neat. I have an adorable little Mac Mini on my desk. I think the last time I had a computer that worked this well out of the box was… the last time I owned a Mac. Funny that. I’m having trouble deciding what to do next. Usually there’d be a day or so of tinkering with things, customizing, installing software, but this is more or less good to go. I even opened a terminal window and verified I can ssh into my (clunky) old computer. No problem. Now what? Find myself a good OSX power-user reference? Install extra doodads to the dashboard that I’ll probably never look at again? Play with Garage Band? Hmm.

I read Maureen Dowd’s article from this weekend yesterday, and it’s still bumping around in my head, making me want to talk about it with everyone. Probably this is because I got to the end and instead of feeling some sense of resolution, some deeper understanding of why feminism is such a bad word these days (identified solely with the sort of views you find on I Blame the Patriarchy [1]), I wound up feeling depressed at the recollection that it’s much, much easier to get people to show interest in you if you take your clothes off than if you try to impress them with your interesting ideas and hobbies (having weirdo interests like economics doesn’t help, of course). I did a stint of personal ad writing and answering a couple of years ago that bore this out well, but the even easier demonstration is to wear a low cut top and push up bra to the next event you attend and see how many more people are interested in meeting you, and whether you can get the same mileage out of wandering around in a turtleneck with a copy of Das Kapital. Or even The Great Gatsby or something. [2]

Which I guess could mean that all the skanky trendy clothing of the last few years is just pragmatism.

I have a pretty decent workplace, which doesn’t make me feel oppressed at all, and a super neat boyfriend who likes to talk with me about all sorts of interesting stuff, so day to day life is pretty good. I just feel really uncomfortable with the idea that lots of women come against that big flashing sign, the one that says you’ll get farther if you’re sexy than if you’re smart, and decide they’d rather take the path of least resistance. Because doesn’t that encourage everyone to see it as the default?

This is the sort of post that never gets me much sympathy, if anyone even responds, so it probably won’t do much for my desire for a good discussion. Likely responses: “What are you talking about? Women get to do whatever they want.” “Men are oppressed too! We don’t get any clothing choices at all!” “What’s wrong with wanting to be sexy?” (absolutely nothing… as long as it’s not mandatory.)

And now I’m going for a walk while there’s still a break from the pouring rain we had all morning.

[1] A blog I hoped I’d like for about five seconds before I realized it just grossed me out.

[2] There are exceptions. Notably, my mom attracted the attention of my stepfather by studying for the actuarial exam on the train to work. He was quite interested in getting to know that woman with all the math books.