Minecraft 18 - Strip update and Creative World

I've taken a mental health holiday.

I've got my new computer. And michelle bought me a copy of the game, "Minecraft," which runs on her personal server, for her friends to play.

In most of the versions of the game, one begins with rudimentary, survival. One can work up to some rather elaborate, powered mechanisms, adapted from parts that were originally designed to move mine carts about.

BrianJ and michelle have been expoiting these devices to create such things as automatic wheat harvesters, roller coasters, defenses against monsters, elevators and even a small computing machine.

In this video, michelle tours her museum of these devices and takes viewers on a tour of creative world, in which resources are unlimited and people can not only fly, but are immortal. It's here she shows some of my fantasy landscapes and architectural designs. http://youtu.be/wZ_MLaTGxro

Rachel, you will find the rail technology interesting.

I'm very impressed by the artificial intelligence of "mobs:": interactive creatures in this world. Some are monsters. Some are livestock. There's even a race of very passive, ugly humanoids called "villagers."

I've been spending many hours here, in 3 versions of the world of various degrees of difficulty.

"Blue Lagoon" is an area in which I was playing as a single player. michelle brought the area to Creative World, damn near crashing her server in the process, as it was a substantial chunk of data. Two of the mountains in the Lagoon are named: Monte Michelle and Calamari Hill (I accidentally had my finger pressing the right mouse button, as I got into bed, while the thing was set to spawn squid. Problem was, my character was on top of a mountain. I got in bed, looked at my screen, and saw several dozen spawning squid at my feet. BrianJ and michelle had to kill them for humanitarian reasons.)

I used to die all the time. Monsters would get me as I fell from the surface, through holes, into unworked mines. I now have a beautiful, glass house with precious stone floors, indoor gardens, underground wheat farm, indoor water features and an underground livestock pen, complete with its own pool.

I've learned many game skills, all based on real chemistry and physics, with only slight modifications into the fanciful.

The graphics are simple, three dimensional blocks, stacked into sculpted terrain, landscapes, flora and fauna.

The music is wonderful. The adventures are endless. The options for how to play are not limiting.

I have 4 dogs, 4 cows, 5 pigs, who knows how many chickens . . . My house sits atop a mountain that is riddled with deep, dangerous caves, full of vast mineral deposits and "red stone," the energy source that makes mechanical devices work.

I'm slowly mining my way in from the sides, as falling down holes is wearing me out and triggering some pretty nasty emotional episodes. Rather than fall from above, I've covered surface holes with glass. This way, sunlight penetrates the mines. Monsters can't grow in light, and I can see well enough to work below.

michelle is a wonderful game companion. BrianJ is a brilliant inventor and monster slayer. A few new people have shown up recently. Mostly, they're trying not to fall in lava, be attacked by wolves or eaten by giant spiders. They're also designing flat, corporate logo-inspired "billboards," as I describe them, in Creative World (which dismays me, but ....)

I will return to responsible, adult life soon. michelle was given another week off from work, as she's having serious struggles with stress. So, she's working a lot in minecraft. She's video taping how the game is played. She dug a "strip mine" so players will have access to raw materials when they come into the most dangerous, full-survival mode of the game. As she is Welsh, and my people are Appalachian hill folk, we've had serious discussions about the ethics and impacts of strip mining and how our ancestors would disapprove, even in this game, of the destruction of strip mining.

So, I'm playing with michelle until she goes back to work. It's been wonderful to get inside her head about computers, circuitry, alternative realities, self esteem, skills sharing, running a server. We sing songs and tell each other stories and jokes, audio calling via skype in real time, six thousand miles apart, both killing the same monsters, sharing the same foods, building the same structures, sleeping the ten-minute "night" in "double" beds, telling each other our lives.

BrianJ spends much time with us,as his disabilities keep him at home a lot. He and michelle have adventures, mostly in technologies. He runs the game on another server and his Mincraft world is called the YouTubeiverse, as most of his game players are friends from YouTube.

It's been wonderful to build secret sanctuaries of obsidian, lapis lazuli, spider webs, cake, gold and diamond.

Mostly, it's been amazing having so much uninterrupted time to learn who michelle is and show her who I am. Yesterday, a monster called an Archer turned up in my bed as we chatted. Later that ten minute "day," I headed for bed and said, "Hope there are no archers." She replied, "there'd better not be! I don't want you two-timing me. We haven't even hugged yet!" I, of course, nearly melted right onto the floor.

So, I think she wanted us to have some way to be together in real time, from six thousand miles apart. It's a very rich environment and lends well to intimate conversations between us. Plus, we help each other and cooperate on projects, so we're learning how we work as a team. We work very well. We like how each other thinks, reasons and feels about events in our lives. We respect each other. And we're creating memories of squid massacres, lime-green lambs and ice palaces. It's amazing.

So, when she goes back to work, I'll go back to being a struggling, low income exile in the wilds of rural New Mexico. Until then, I'm the bumbling, but charming and somewhat dashing, tender, supportive, teasing playmate of a very wonderful woman six thousand miles from me.

It's a most interesting way to bond, to be in each other's heads, to be children, women, heroes and playmates together.

I told her today, "You know, michelle, if we were living in the same house, we'd probably be doing exactly what we're doing right now: each of us on her own computer, chatting via skype, plotting mayhem and masterpieces on this game." She agrees.
http://rogiriverstone.com

whore Whore WHORE

Uploaded by Divinity33372 on Feb 15, 2012

This video is directed at those who were defending Cenk's stigmafying use for the word "whore." For those who got it I appreciate it.

http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Prostitution-Sex-Work-Volumes/dp/0313329680

Cenk's stigmafying rant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL9zA3KQUGw

Not Glass, Bell. Mu bad http://wonkette.com/425271/congressional-candidate-regrets-sucking-reindeer-d...

Category:

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Tags:

• prostitution
• whore
• Cenk
• TheYoungTurks
• sex work
• sex-negative
• sex-positive
• stigma

a little erotica, anyone?

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this whole British reserve thing

You lived ONE dream. One. Maybe you found It. Maybe there isn't anything more/different/bigger/sweeter. Maybe there is. I've got the different down.

Maybe I'm on to something. Maybe I'm telling you something new, but you just haven't learned how to hear the language yet. Maybe I know something you don't, just like you know something I don't. What if that's true?

chicky, I get moist just from thinking about you in a grocery store, if I smell a leather purse go by.

Loosen up that straight jacket on your swollen, warm, wet brain and feel me. Take your time, but develop the habit, baby steps, of letting yourself feel me.

If you can get angry and frustrated with me from six thousand miles away, you can FEEL ME!

Let me in, m. You can feel me. You don't want to, but you can feel me.

I'm right next to that cold, hard, empty place you keep shut down. I'm already warming the shell.

You can feel me. You like me. I make you happy. I tell you things about yourself you need to hear.

You already feel me, m. I'm a present in your life, over here, loving you, pestering you, pushing you.

You're glad I'm here. You're glad I'm working so hard to get to you. You smile when I'm around.

Hell, once, you even noticed, in your monitor, the headphones had messed your hair up, so you brushed it for me.

We're already changing each other. We're bonding. You feel me even when you'd rather not.

If I can't get you to love me, I can at least drive you mad.

PS: you don't have to touch someone to love her. You just let go and float. I love Rachel from half a thousand miles away. I love kate from over a thousand.

You're only six thousand miles away. It just means I have to love stronger, more often and with greater determination.

I'm studying how to make these & other jewelry

Some stuff I was GONNA send by email, but think is better here, in our space.

You should see what I can do with warm spaghetti. I'll curl your toes. hope you have a good supply of drop cloths, vinyl table cloths and rubber sheets, grrl. u gonna get so messy.

yeah, it's pasta

And I can't wait to hear the lame ass reason you'll give them at work for the blackberry stains around your neck and down your chest.

I'm coming to England. You'll be more than a yogurt bowl when I get there.

Don't cut your hair TOO short, but do mind the split ends. I intend to use every strand of that stuff, between my fingers and braided in rope. You'll get a free face lift til u permanently look 25.

Keep away from those donuts. I'm building my strength, and I like you plump. But I ain't hoisting no Krispy Kreme whales. You need to fit into some good jeans, if I'm gonna dude u up as my cowgirl pin up, y'know?

Every time u want a donut, let a little of me leak in to warm the cold spots.

you be wearin some lace under them coveralls in the snow, chicky? I want them nipples taut and raw from cold air and lace. your breasts need to burn, so they'll want my warm, moist mouth on them, soothing and healing the chapping, as I lick the slight iron taste of a hint of blood, as I put cool butter in my mouth and suck it onto you and massage it into the sting.

Ah! I can't wait to feel your voice in your chest, humming a happy moan when I kiss them back to soft. you're gonna b so glad u a grrl, by the time I get on this.

Imma fuck u up all grrly & weak inna knees. u c.

u whimperin softly, tears glittering your eyes.

lace.

tight.

rubbing.

abrading.

sting.

cold.

nipple.

hard.

sting.

under the coveralls.

in the cold.

back in the warm car, lick your palm, rub the pain out.

feel the heat.

think of me.

I want my pony.

that's my grrl

breast cancer?

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 imaging center left voice mail: Call us right away. No other message. My computer's dying. Only phone is MagicJack, on PC: terrible connection. I must speak very calmly and slowly: why did you call me?  DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER? Who are you? what's your birthday....blah blah DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER?. please hold. What what what what did you say DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER? what.....seventh time, I say DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER? Please hold. what what what DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER? who are you? what's your date of birth what what  DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER?what please hold DO I HAVE BREAST CANCER? I have a copy of your mamogram results. You're fine; it came back negative. We only called to update your mailing adddress. That's it? You couldn't have left that in the message? You scared the SHIT out of me! FUCK YOU! And I hung up. fuck em if they can't find my mailing address. bend over and MAIL THIS!

Christian Is The New "White"

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Uploaded by Divinity33372 on Feb 7, 2012

Hear it from their own mouths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LENZ4pohEbg

Sorry for the audio fails. I need a new camera.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• prostitution
• colonialism
• poverty
• maternal colonialism
• paternal colonialism
• antis
• pros
• sex trafficking
• atheism
• sex work
• Mexica

Popular Android App Calls Abortion Murder, Cites Exodus

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If you thought Siri was bad, wait until you meet Iris!

  

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/siris-evil-twin-sister-iris-popular-android-app-calls-abortion-murder-cites-exodus

Siri’s Evil Twin Sister Iris: Popular Android App Calls Abortion Murder, Cites Exodus

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on February 7, 2012 - 2:44pm

Apple’s electronic personal assistant Siri made headlines back in November for drawing a blank when asked for the location of the nearest abortion clinic. If you thought that was bad, meet Iris, Siri’s evil twin sister (or fundamentalist cousin).

Iris – Siri spelled backwards – is the popular electronic assistant available for Android phones. It’s been downloaded over 1 million times and is powered by ChaCha, the Internet’s “leading answers service with more than a billion questions answered.” In other words, Iris may be a knockoff, but it’s no joke.

That’s why we were surprised when we heard the Family Research Council crowing about the Android being “as pro-life as they come” and watched their video. We've posted the video and radio segment here:

After swimming through a sea of iPhones and Blackberrys, we found an Android and tried it for ourselves – sure enough, Iris did everything but condemn us to eternal suffering in hell.

Iris’ answers are drawn from ChaCha, which provided a string of anti-choice answers to our questions:

It must be said that Iris isn’t all fire and brimstone. Iris failed to quote scripture in response to questions about adultery, birth control, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, and eating shellfish (which is an “abomination before the Lord”). And if you ask Iris whether she is “pro-life or pro-choice,” you get this far more reasonable response:

Verizon and Android certainly have a right to provide a right-wing personal assistant, and ChaCha has the right to provide slanted answers, but that surely isn’t what the companies had in mind. This appears to be the work of a single employee with an agenda. ChaCha should take appropriate action to ensure that its service isn’t being used to inappropriately foist the views of certain employees on the public. 

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Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved In Komen Strategy On Planned Parenthood

Fleischer confirmed to ThinkProgress that he would receive a fee from Komen when the search is complete. Fleischer did not specify the amount of his fee but said it would be “substantially below the normal placement fee charged by executive search companies” because “they’re a charity I believe in.”
Fleischer’s high-level involvement with Komen further complicates its image as an apolitical cancer charity. Fleischer is a prominent partisan commentator and a longtime critic of Planned Parenthood. In his book, Taking Heat, Fleischer criticized Planned Parenthood as a partisan, ideological organization that receives undeserved positive coverage in the press. In 2001, Fleischer said that the Clinton administration verged too far to the left on family planning efforts because “if Planned Parenthood wanted it, the previous administration favored it.”
 

Feminist Atheism: Koman for the FAIL!

Uploaded by rriverstone1 on Feb 3, 2012

Komen Foundation withdraws funding for Planned Parenthood Mammography
Where have all the atheists gone?
More on this story at my blog http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/

Press Release, 02/03/12: We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics - anyone's politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public's understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern. http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/02/komen-apologizes-for-rece...

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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Bloomberg to Give $250,000 to Planned Parenthood

By MICHAEL PAULSON and KATE TAYLOR

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to the controversy over a breast cancer advocacy group that cut off most of its grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening, said on Thursday that he would make up a large part of the missing money.
Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire with a long-term interest in public health, said he would give Planned Parenthood Federation of America a $250,000 matching gift — he will donate $1 for every new dollar Planned Parenthood raises up to $250,000.
“Politics have no place in health care,” he said in a statement. “Breast cancer screening saves lives and hundreds of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for access to care. We should be helping women access that care, not placing barriers in their way.”
The controversy erupted this week when the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation said it would not renew most of the grants it had been making to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening. The Komen foundation had been giving about $700,000 a year to Planned Parenthood.
Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued a statement saying, “On behalf of hundreds of thousands of women nationwide who rely on Planned Parenthood for breast cancer education and screening, we are enormously grateful to Mayor Bloomberg. This contribution will help ensure that politics don’t interfere with women having access to health care. People all across the country have stepped forward in the last 48 hours to offer help and support, and the mayor’s donation will help ensure that no woman is denied breast cancer services because of right-wing political pressure campaigns.”

Komen also ending stem cell research funding?

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http://www.lifenews.com/2012/02/01/komen-also-stops-funding-embryonic-stem-cell-research-centers/

As LifeNews reported last July, Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer spent time examining Komen’s 990 Forms for the IRS for 2010 and she found that Komen has active relationships with at least five research groups or educational facilities that engage in embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of unborn children in their earliest days for stem cells that have yet to help any patients.

The return showed donations from Komen totaling $3.75 million to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, $4.5 million to the University of Kansas Medical Center, $1 million to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, $1 million to the Society for Women’s Health Research, and $600,000 to Yale University. All of them have embryonic stem cell research programs.

On November 30, 2011, Komen quietly added a new statement to its web site stating that it does not support embryonic stem cell research but supports the kinds that do not involve the destruction of human life.

“Komen supports research on the isolation, derivation, production, and testing of stem cells that are capable of producing all or almost all of the cell types of the developing body and may result in improved understanding of or treatments for breast cancer, but are derived without creating a human embryo or destroying a human embryo,” Komen says. “A priority in our research funding is to quickly find and deliver effective treatments, especially for the most lethal forms of breast cancer, while seeking effective preventive strategies, enhanced screening methodologies, and solutions to disparities in breast cancer outcomes for diverse women.”

The Komen Foundation Pinkwashes Anti-choicers, Punks Planned Parenthood

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The Komen Foundation Pinkwashes Anti-choicers, Punks Planned Parenthood

Katha Pollitt on February 1, 2012 - 6:52pm ET

Remember when anti-choicers got LifeWay Christian Resources to pull its pink-covered Here’s Hope Breast Cancer Bibles from Walmart and other stores because one dollar of every sale went to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation? The antis were upset that the wealthy and influential breast-cancer charity made grants to Planned Parenthood for breast exams and mammograms for low-income women. And remember when Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, told his flock to stop raising money for Komen because someday in the future it might endorse stem cell research? Crazy, right?
The anti-choice movement can be so clumsy, and so weird, we forget that it is also smart and strategic and busy busy busy. Because while you were shaking your head over pink Bibles and stem-cell futurology, Komen was hiring Karen Handel as senior vice president for public policy. Handel is not your typical philanthropy administrator. She is a Republican pol, a former Georgia secretary of state, who ran in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, with endorsements from Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and anti-immigrant finger-pointing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. At that time she described herself as “staunchly and unequivocally pro-life,” opposed to stem cell research and a fan of crisis pregnancy centers—places that have repeatedly been shown to use scare tactics and misinformation to dissuade women from seeking abortions. She vowed to eliminate from the state budget pass-through grants to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings. Interestingly, she had previously supported these grants, using the exact arguments defenders of Komen’s PP grants are making now: PP is the only organization capable of doing the work—reaching low-income women, for whom the PP clinic is often the only medical care the get—and the grant money does not fund abortions. Handel’s turnaround shows you how quickly the anti-choicers have claimed formerly neutral turf: in only a few years a relationship deemed normal and good—in Georgia!—and the only existing way of providing needed services was branded with the mark of the beast.

Queers Cause Abortion

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 Wow, I knew we Queers get blamed for a lot of stuff (earthquakes, floods, 9/11, AIDS & the economic collapse), but how'd they stretch that to blaming us for abortion? Wow.

http://metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/anti-gay-politics-figure-into.html

quote:

UPDATE @ 7:45PM - In a newly released statement, National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell said:

"How sad, destructive and unconscionable for Susan G. Komen for the Cure to turn its back on the very women it pretends to help. When self-interest and wealth accumulation become your primary goals, the first casualties are integrity and values. The only action Komen can take to restore some shred of dignity is to reverse this tragic decision."

http://rogiriverstone.com

Komen Foundation Races for the Cuts

Komen Foundation Races for the Cuts

Anna Clark

February 1, 2012

The breast-cancer awareness group caves to anti-choice groups and pulls its funds from Planned Parenthood.

. . . If the Komen foundation is sincere in its desire to see a world without breast cancer for all women, cutting off support for care in Planned Parenthood health centers is nonsensical. One in five American women will visit one of Planned Parenthood’s nearly 800 clinics at some point in her lifetime, typically for the preventive services that makes up more than 90 percent of its work. It is a primary care provider to low-income women in particular, who have few other places to go. Komen’s funding was specifically designed to make sure that money was not a reason why women didn’t get the breast cancer screenings that would be crucial in saving their lives. To see Komen decide that this was a purpose less worthwhile than appeasing the pressure of anti-abortion groups is to feel disappointment at their cowardice.

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