Female Viagra

I didn't intend to ever post about this, but I've just realised that everybody who reads this site is a woman who's mentioned a loss of libido at some point or another.

One of the sciencey podcasts I listen to has been covering Flibanserin (aka: Addyi), ever since it was rejected by the American Food & Drug Administration, back in 2010 (I think). Since then, Flibanserin has changed hands at least twice, and seems to have become something of a case study in how to bring a nearly worthless drug to market.

According to the analysis I have heard, Flibanserin is only marginally more effective than a placebo, and reacts negatively with both alcohol and the contraceptive pill.

As far as I know, it's only been approved in US & Canada so far, but if you or somebody you know is thinking of taking it, please do some research first.

Hightened Awareness

I've mentioned before that I listen to "ASMR" videos to get to sleep. Well, one of the women I listen to is a Scottish NATIVE who has moved to Spain because the weather in Scotland was making her DANGEROUSLY depressed.

Jesus, I didn't know it was THAT bad.

Squib, don't be afraid to give us a yell if you need anything, okay?

A Trump Retrospective

On Saturday, I decided to go back and look at some of the stuff I posted about Trump, prior to the election. I ended up getting sucked into spending the weekend streaming old news and commentary clips on YouTube; starting from before the election, and going all the way through to present day. Here's some thoughts I came away with:

Before the election, I boiled Trump's rhetoric down to a few key points:

1. Stop illegal immigration.
2. Roll back free trade.
3. Cut back on military spending/interference.
4. Stop antagonising Russia in their own back yard.
5. Lower tax rates, and supplement revenue by closing tax loopholes.

At the time, I said that he would probably lurch from one low-level scandal to another, creating a situation of perpetual rolling embarrassment for the US. I think that's been pretty well borne out at this point. However, I also said that if he had a proper go at achieving the things on that list, he would probably make a better president than Clinton.

When Trump killed the Trans Pacific Partnership, I was filled with joy and hope. However, what I've seen over the past year and a bit, is Trump's inner circle gradually expelled and replaced with the same sorts of dodgy cunts who were floating around during the Bush era. It also seems apparent that, at least up to a point, the defence/intelligence industry has worked out how to push the buttons on Trump's gigantic ego, in order to get him to do what they want. This has not been helped by the Democrats' (and the media's) manic insistence that Clinton only lost the election due to Russian interference. An assertion that carries about as much weight as the Republicans' claim that Obama was a Kenyan Muslim communist; which ironically, was a theory championed by Trump himself.

So, military spending has gone up, military involvement in Syria has gone up, and relations with Russia have gotten worse. And I would like to point out that a lot of the right/libertarian-leaning media that I follow has turned against Trump for this very reason. They voted for him because they thought he was their best chance at getting troops out of the middle east, and now they see him as a lost cause, completely captured by the unelected bureaucrats who work at the CIA and the Pentagon. I'm afraid they might be right.

As for everything else on the list, I did hear about tax cuts going through, but so far, I haven't heard anything about loopholes being closed. That's only going to make things worse. And his attempts at fixing immigration and free-trade have looked more like impulsive knee-jerk reactions than a coherent attempt at widespread reform. Honestly, the way things are going, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got talked all the way around into supporting the TPP before he leaves office.

What say youse all?

PS: During my YouTube binge, I came across these videos, which relate directly to the discussion we had earlier about the gas attacks in Syria. I'm not saying I blindly believe everything that's said in them, and I don't think you should either; but I did find them interesting.

One thing I hadn't given too much thought to is something that was touched on briefly in the second video; whichever side loses, their surviving fighters are most likely going to flee into Europe and claim refugee status. I dunno about you, but I'd much rather be taking refugees aligned with the brutal dictator of a modern, secular nation, than the followers of a barbaric religious philosophy from the fuckin' stone age. So I guess there's definite downsides to Assad winning after all.

WARNING: Broken Blog

Standards are a big deal in any field where your work needs to interact with other people's work. Imagine what it would be like working in the building industry if nobody could agree on how long a millimetre was supposed to be. Imagine the chaos it'd create if everybody had their own definition of how long a minute was. With computers, a lot rides on having published standards.

Say, for example, you wanted to have a world-wide-web, where a bunch of different companies created web-browsers, and they all had to render pages made by millions of different individuals from all over the world. Well, what you might do is publish a set of standards that everybody could work from. If you were clever, you might even call it "HTML v1.0". The clever bit about having that number on the end is that if technology progressed, and at some point you decided your HTML spec needed to be modified, updated, or added to, you could then publish a different spec called "HTML v1.1" or "HTML v2.0". That way, browser-makers could advertise which set of standards their browsers supported, and website-makers could include little sections in their web-pages that told the browsers what version of the specs they were working from.

Of course, in the real world, things rarely go that smooth. For example, there might be arguments over who controls a standard. This may result in two or more groups publishing competing standards. Some web-browser makers may find it hard to implement some parts of a standard, and so leave them out, while other browser makers may implement and promote features that aren't in the standard. You might even end up with a situation where you have a "living" standard, which means stuff is always being added and taken away, but no definitive versions are ever published.

Look, basically, this is my long-winded way of saying that I was going over some of my old posts today, and I noticed that some of the pages weren't rendering properly. This is because, a while ago, I started using some HTML stuff that web-browsers are apparently no longer supporting, and since I can't see myself being bothered going back through years of posts to fix everything, I just thought I should warn you guys, if you're going back to look for something, well, expect some weirdness.

That is all.

Podcasts

I said at the beginning of the year that I had over 300 hours of podcasts to catch up on. Today, I finally caught up. So I decided to download and listen to "S-Town", as recommended by Suze.

There's another podcast I've had recommended to me, called "My Dad Wrote A Porno". It's presented as, "three friends make a podcast about some dirty books that one of their dads is writing". I've listened to a lot of podcasts, and what immediately struck me about this one was that it sounded professionally narrated, recorded, and edited right from episode one. A quick internet search reveals that all three of them work in broadcasting, with the main bloke being a professional writer. You'll have to forgive me if I have serious doubts over whether or not his dad is actually the creative force behind said dirty books.

There's also a documentary out there called "A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures", or something along those lines. I reviewed it on here a few years back. There was something about it that struck me as "off", and I eventually found out that most of the "interviews" in the film were actually "re-enactments" filmed with actors. This did not ruin the movie for me. I love a good mockumentary, and I would still highly recommend this flick.

I can't put my finger on it, but there was something about S-Town that triggered my bullshit detector in the same way. I spent the first two episodes trying to figure out what was setting it off, but after that, I gave up and decided to just enjoy the show for what it was. And yes, I found it quite enjoyable. I don't know if I think it's worth seven hours of your time, but I think it's absolutely worth two and a half, which is how long it took me to listen to it at 3x speed. Make of that what you will.

Depressingly, I think I rather identify with the subject of the show, John. I think it's almost inevitable that I'm going to end up a deranged recluse, caring for my elderly parents, and pestering people by ranting about things that they neither understand nor care about. The only difference is, nobody will be referring to me as an eccentric genius. I'll just be that annoying old bag who kinda smells like stale piss.

*sigh* Anyone know where I can buy cyanide? Y'know, just in case.

Anyway, while I'm on the subject, I thought I might also talk a bit about podcasts in general. I've been listening to podcasts for more than ten years now (maybe more than fifteen), and for the past few years at least, they've been my main source of news and entertainment. This year, they've all been talking about the same thing. The fact that big, established media brands have recently decided to get into podcasting, and how it's affecting the advertising landscape.

Most independent podcasters rely on advertising to get by. This usually takes the form of embedded ads. This means that the sponsors pay the hosts a bunch of money, and part way through the show, the hosts will stop what they're doing and have a short semi-scripted conversation about how wonderful the sponsors' products are. That's it. Apart from the total number of downloads per episode, the sponsors don't really get a lot more data on how their ads were received. However, the big boys who are getting into the game now, are supposedly offering something more. Apparently, they're offering to serve their podcasts over streaming platforms which will allow advertisers to know exactly who's listening, at what time of day, when they pause, rewind, skip, replay, etc. The fear amongst the small fry, is that if they can't offer the same privacy-invading features, advertisers will desert them for big fish who will.

The other fear, is that a single dominant distribution platform will emerge, and much like Youtube for video, will become a sponge that soaks up all the advertising dollars. If you want to make any money podcasting, you'll have to sign up, agree to whatever terms they dictate, and hope they don't decided to demonetise you or kick you off the platform for some arbitrary reason at some point down the track.

But what about direct funding from the audience, you might ask? In the last few years, Patreon has established itself as a viable means of income for a wide range of creative types … or has it? In actual fact, I've heard a number of podcasters talk about how much of a horror show Patreon is. At least with advertising, you have a contract, which grants you a guaranteed income, so long as you follow certain agreed-upon guidelines. With Patreon, if you make one mildly controversial statement, your income can be reduced by two-thirds overnight. One technology podcaster I listen to reckons that when he happened to mention he was getting a divorce, his Patreon income instantly halved. So if you thought having big corporate sponsors was a recipe for bland "safe" content, that's nothing compared to what you can expect in a world where people are relying on direct funding from the audience.

I don't know what's going to happen with podcasting. Maybe things will sort themselves out, and everything will be great in the end. But I doubt it. More and more, the internet is being devoured by a handful of technology behemoths, and I fear that podcasting may just be the next course in the buffet. I dunno what I'll do if that happens. I can't see myself installing podcast streaming apps that monitor everything I do and report back to home base. Maybe I'll go back to listening to the wireless.

The sad story of cousin Jim*

*All names have been changed in an attempt to thwart Google.

I got a call from my cousin Jim last night. I get a steady stream of gossip about Jim over the family grapevine (and I assume he gets the same about me), but this is the first time we've had direct contact in the last few years. Jim was calling me for advice on how to tell if his computer is infected with malware. He was worried, because he's been spending a lot of time lately, chatting to single women in Belarus. Why has he been chatting to single women in Belarus, you might ask? To answer that question properly, we'll have to jump back about fifteen years.

For a while, Jim and I lived in the same town. He's a bit younger than I am, but we still pretty much shared the same circle of friends. One of the people in that circle was a bloke named Paul. Good looking, quick witted, life of the party, recreational heroin user. Not that he advertised that last one. Actually, he was the sort of bloke you couldn't help but love, until you heard his ex-girlfriends talk about what he was like when he needed money for a fix. Then he was the sort of bloke you got nervous being alone with.

Anyway, back to Jim. Jim settled down with Mary, whom I knew a little bit, but not too well. Jim got a job in the resources sector, working two-weeks on, one week off. He wasn't ever actually away from home, but when he was working, all he did at the house was eat and sleep. But the money was good. It allowed them to buy a little plot of land just out of town, where they could have a big shed, chooks, a veggie patch, fruit trees, a dam, and a motorbike track. Perfect for raising kids. And raise kids they did. Four of them. And since Jim was bringing in plenty of money, it meant Mary got to stay home, take care of the kids, and run the household. Which was perfect for her. Well, for a while, anyway.

Apparently, once the youngest one started school, Mary started getting awfully bored during the weeks when Jim was at work. So she started gambling online. Then she started driving into town every day to play the pokies. This led to her becoming close friends with Paul, who was at the pub for lunch most days. And then she and Paul started rooting.

So, one day Jim comes home from work and finds a note from Mary, saying she's left and won't be coming back. He later finds out that all their savings are gone and she's racked up thousands of dollars of debt on their credit cards. Now Jim finds himself in a situation where he can't afford to quit his job, and must live with the knowledge that his kids, including his teenage daughter, are spending two out of every three weeks under the same roof as a dangerous junkie and whatever dodgy mates he has around. Not only that, but whatever money he gives Mary for the kids is probably either going into a pokie machine or up Paul's arm.

His solution? Find a new missus who's willing to stay home and look after the kids while he's at work. "I can't find one out here", he tells me, "All the single sheilas out here are hooked on fuckin' ice. They don't even bother tryin' t'cover up the fuckin' track marks in their arms anymore. It's fuckin' shockin'. So I've started talkin' t'these Belorussian sheilas online, and they seem keen as". I listen as he fills me in on just how keen they are, and yes, they do sound very, very keen indeed. Perhaps a little too keen. "Look, I know I've gotta be careful with this stuff, there's like, scammers and that out there an' that, but mate, I've gotta do somethin', ay?"

In short, yes I think cousin Jim's computer probably has malware on it. But I also think that's going to be the least of his worries for the foreseeable future.

Eurovision 2018

This year, Eurovision kinda crept up on me. So this's all you get until I get around to doing a proper synopsis. In the meantime, feel free to post comments.

End of week whinge

Another fairly busy week this week, but at least I didn't have any rellie-related drama to worry about.

New version of Ubuntu Linux is out, and I've gotta say, it's the fastest and easiest setup I think I've ever done. All my setup scripts, (which I've accumulated over years of working with Ubuntu) ran flawlessly, with no unexpected hiccups. Very pleasantly surprised. Looking forward to working with this one in the future.

What's not so pleasant? Well, I haven't slept for basically the last two nights. Why not? Well the weather's turned really fussy here. If you sleep with just a sheet on, you end up freezing your tits off, but if you put even a light blanket on, you're sweating your arse off within twenty minutes. Wednesday night, I tried sleeping with a blanket over my torso and just a sheet over my legs. I woke up at about 11pm to find myself paralysed, with a freaky looking creature sitting on my chest. Turned out it was just a semi-conscious dream (I think there's a proper name for this, but I can't be stuffed looking it up). Suffice to say, it freaked me out so fuckin' badly that I never got back to sleep after that.

Then on Thursday, I pulled my trapezius muscle stretching. It's not too bad when I'm upright, but when I lie down, the weight of my head pulling on it is absolutely agonising. I tried sleeping in a sitting position, but no dice. And yeah, I know I could pop some pain-killers, but I'm weird about that sort of stuff. Things have gotta be really dire before I reach for the codeine.

Also, this is old news, but I don't think I've mentioned it here yet: My dad totally called the royal baby's name. He kept saying, "This one'll be named after Charley's uncle who got blown up by the Paddies, mark my words". My mum is filthy that he didn't put any money on it, considering how certain he was about it.

So whatta youse mob been doin' since I last spoke to yez, ay'?