Tag: Venting

Oops! [en]

[The joke “sorry” page has been replaced by a real one. My apologies for my lack of sense of humour, but this is how I reacted.]

I’m certain I’m not the only person who felt a little surge of panic a moment ago. Was it really a good idea?

I mean, it’s fine when you know Steven Den Beste personally and go out for dinner each week with people who post on MeFi. But when you live on the other side of the world (almost) in a little village up in the Alps (so to speak), and that your web of belief has already been seriously shaken up by the KC affair, Matt’s post can very well be understood in the line of what was written on the sorry page. And we’re not all IA geeks who can see through the technical aspects of what is exposed there.

Yes, I’ve already been told I take things much too seriously. Online and off. And I guess I lose my sense of humor completely when I’m tired, under quite a lot of personal stress, and when I’ve just been through a few emotionally disturbing days (KC).

Maybe I need to pull the plug for a while.

Violence [en]

On my walks with Cali, I meet a lot of other dog-owners. I’m often shocked at how many dog owners will actually hit their pets when they disobey. I mean, isn’t it an established fact for everybody here that praise-training works 100 times better than stick-training?

I was already appalled at the number of dogs I saw in Chennai which had most obviously been stick-raised, but I kept thinking “this is India, in Switzerland nobody would ever dream of hitting a dog – or in any case, those who do it are badly violent people”. Not so.

There is a double absurdity in stick-training. First, it is the “punishment” vs. “reward” thing. You will do something better if it is for a reward than if it is to avoid punishment. That goes for human beings as well as animals. Second, people who hit their dogs often do it after the dog has disobeyed and they have caught it. The poor dog doesn’t associate the punishment with the wrongdoing, because it is delayed. It will more probably be associated with the owner himself. Just think of how that must damage the relationship.

And somewhere, I suspect that people who find it right, or even “good” to hit a dog when he has done something wrong will be more prone to hitting children too. I mean, it’s just a question of education philosophy, isn’t it?

People… [en]

…sometimes really disappoint me.

Not all of them, of course. Not you. But most people – sometimes.

Sexisme et Majuscules [en]

Je viens de faire péniblement le tour du dernier numéro de L’auditoire, le journal des étudiantEs de Lausanne. Je ne parlerai pas des articles, dont certains commencent franchement à  ne plus valoir le papier (recyclé) sur lequel ils sont imprimés, mais des abérrations typographiques supposées faire avancer la cause de la femme.

Il s’agit, vous l’aurez compris, de l’introduction de majuscules au milieu des mots comme dans “étudiantEs”, et de l’utilisation systématique d’expressions comme “il·elle” ou “attentif·ves” – procédés qui en plus de déranger la lecture (je vous mets au défi de lire un texte ainsi traité sans que vos yeux tressaillent à  leur contact), m’irritent profondément par leur inutilité.

La féminisation des noms de professions m’est déjà  parfois pénible. Lire “professeure”, “auteure” ou (pire) “cheffe” me fait en général sourire. D’autant plus que l’on ne s’amuse pas à  dire d’un jeune homme qui fait son service militaire qu’il est “un recru”. Appelez-moi conservatrice si vous le voulez.

J’ai déjà  abordé il y a quelques semaines la question de l’égalité des sexes, et des places respectives de l’homme et de la femme dans la société. C’est une évidence qu’il y a à  l’égard des femmes préjugés et discrimination. C’est une évidence aussi qu’un homme et une femme faisant le même travail devraient gagner le même salaire.

Mais c’est une évidence aussi que les hommes et les femmes sont différents, et que lorsque l’on postule pour une place de travail, on ne peut pas dissocier son “moi professionnel” de son “moi personnel”. Les frontières ne sont pas étanches. On est engagé pour qui l’on est aussi bien que pour ce que l’on fait. Et si je suis une femme, je ne suis pas un homme. On ne peut pas faire abstraction du sexe d’une personne.

Revenons-en au langage et aux majuscules à  l’intérieur des mots. Je suis la première à  dire que le langage influence la pensée et qu’on sous-estime souvent sa force. Mais il y a des limites. Les règles d’accord du français voient la dominance du masculin sur le féminin. Clairement, on peut y voir l’héritage d’une culture patriarcale. Mais est-ce vraiment en forçant la langue hors d’elle-même que l’on fera avancer la cause féminine?

Je pense personnellement que c’est plutôt en mettant en place des structures sociales telles que des crèches, l’assurance maternité, le congé paternité et que sais-je, en encourageant le travail à  mi-temps et en insistant sur le dépistage et la lutte contre le harcèlement à  la place de travail (qu’il soit sexuel ou moral) que les choses bougeront.

J’attends vos remarques sur le coup de gueule de la journée!

Chat and Standards [en]

Do you ever get caught up on heated discussions in chatrooms? It happens to me all the time – well, when I do chat. I don’t chat half as much as I used to.

I usually feel strongly for what I believe in, and I have the (annoying) habit of trying to dissect my opponent’s arguments into little bits and pieces, turn them around and counter-check them until I reach the lowest common premisse from which I can rebuild my point of view, dragging my discussion partner with me through each step until we finally agree. So I guess I’m a real pain in the neck to argue with ; )…

Well, yesterday I had a fiery discussion about web standards in one of my favourite chatrooms. The person I was talking with saw web standards not as a common base on which greater freedom, creativity, accessibility, and efficiency can be achieved, but as a quasi-totalitarian attempt to dumb down the web to a set of arbitrary regulations.

It was very frustrating. I don’t know if he didn’t understand me, if I didn’t understand him, if my fierceness in discussion put him off, or if I simply didn’t have the right arguments, but we ended up in a dead end.

I have a strong belief that even if it is not possible for everybody to agree on everything, two people with different opinions should be able to come to a point where the discussion allows them to understand why and how the other thinks like s/he does. And it usually comes down to diverging premisses – or “hypotheses” on the world, if you prefer.

After all this, if you understand French and would like to see how irritating I can be, view the log …awaiting comments!

Forgotten and Lost [en]

Hell… last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought of two things I should write down and post on my site. Two good ideas. Of course, now I’ve forgotten what on earth they could have been.

And I’m a person who has paper and pencil in her night-table specifically for those occasions. I have no excuse 🙁

Crashing Macs [en]

What’s the point in filling the university with iMACs, if they crash as much as PCs?

For the first time in ages, I decided to check my mail before going to class. It took me 15 minutes to find a computer that would allow me to move the mouse over the screen.
I’m better at coping with crashed PCs than crashed MACs, I guess.

Class is going to start soon, got to run!

Sérénade [en]

Le travail chez Orange est très chouette – mais il y en a beaucoup. Je devrais normalement avoir trois personnes pour m’aider (l’une d’elles est déjà  en place, et fait vraiment bien avancer le schmilblick).

Mes examens de français approchent à  grands pas, et avant eux, les deux séminaires qu’il me reste à  faire.

Quant au chat, il insiste. Après avoir chanté une sérénade aux chattes de la “dame au balcon” – à  dix heures du soir bien entendu, pour qu’il puisse la tirer du lit – il a encore récidivé cet après-midi après que j’ai péniblement obtenu du concierge la mutilation du buisson coupable (coupable de permettre à  Bagha de pénétrer en territoire interdit).
Tout ceci s’est donc accompagné d’un téléphone peu agréable qui contenait menaces de tribunal et suggestion d’abandonner mon chat à  la SPA. Ah oui, et ce serait aussi un bonne idée que je déménage. Heureusement que la dame de la gérance n’avait pas l’air de prendre toutes ces plaintes trop au tragique: “non, mais vous inquiétez pas pour ça…”

Kitty Kitty [en]

If you want the news, you’re going to have it.

Bagha has been going balcony-climbing quite regularly – or so it seems.
Thursday ten p.m., he even did a bit of singing up there. Unfortunately it woke the lady up. She was quite irrate. I guess I would have been too.
Friday morning, phone call. Summary: if things don’t get better, she will file a lawsuit against me. She recommends that I get rid of my cat or move somewhere else.

Guess what state I was in.

The woman at the flat rental agency was nice, told me not to worry, and that I could go ahead and cut off the branch that helps Bagha get on the dear lady’s balcony.
This afternoon, I had a rather tense conversation with the caretaker, who was unwilling to let me mess around with his bushes as he hadn’t received any clearance from the authorities above.

With all the stress and tiredness of this first week of work, I ended up bursting into tears, and he ended up finally cutting the branches off.
I don’t approve of using tears to get results – but I must say they changed the situation dramatically.

So I let Bagha out after 48 hours of confinement.

And when I came home a couple of hours later, he was up on the damn balcony again. There was an alternate route.

New Phone [en]

Today I recieved my brand new Nokia 6210 in the post.
Thank you Orange!

Apart from that, there were complaints about my cat – behind my back, again. I’m really really tired of that kind of stuff.