an impressive looking scalar

typecast in the wrong ways

[animpressivelookingscalar]

my friend is dead.

a bit over two weeks ago, my friend ian died. he was only 25.

i have a tattoo commemorating our birth years, since we had the same birthday, just on different years. we have the same name, we worked in the same industry, we moved to the same neighborhood at the same time, and we were both regulars at the same bar for months before we met.

this past weekend, i saw his casket lowered six feet under in a suburb of nashville, TN.

he had a large impact on our community.

i can't handle this at all. i am currently drinking at our bar, talking with other regulars about him after attending his funeral. i can't fucking get over this. i can't fucking deal with this shit. after the service, talking with his family, touching his casket... i still feel like there's no closure. maybe there will never be closure... after all, i still think about my friend, sparrow, who died at least a decade ago when i was still living in seattle. shit never gets easier - the only thing i think that happens is either getting better context to remember the person in a different light, or you... just forget about them. i will never forget ian, though. and i will never forget my other friend, sparrow.

it's always the most empathetic, intelligent, intuitive folks who speaks truth to power who die the earliest. those who are absolutely great at listening who have no one else to turn to - those who bear the burden of everyone else's problems, but have no one to bear theirs. fuck. i was so close to the same fate at several points of my life so far, and I've made it somehow, but i also can't ever live up to the name that my friend ian exemplified - i am absolutely certain that i am going to be honing myself to be half the man he was.

fuck, ian. i love you. i saw myself in you somehow, and i wish i could've taught you the lessons that i've learned, maybe hoping that i was right somehow and that it'd help you with your journey. i hope i had more time to chat.

RIP, ian rutledge, june 8th 1993 - july 25th 2018.

[programmingisterrible]

John P. Looney, USENIX Login, Winter 2017

Think of a team you work with closely. How strongly do you agree with these five statements?

If I take a chance and screw up, it will be held against me.

Our team has a strong sense of culture that can be hard for new people to join.

My team is slow to offer help to people who are struggling.

Using my unique skills and talents comes second to the objectives of the team.

It’s uncomfortable to have open, honest conversations about our team’s sensitive issues.

Teams that score high on questions like these can be deemed to be “unsafe.”

[animpressivelookingscalar]

too fucking real

[dailymarx]

Man is a political animal in the most literal sense: he is not only a social animal, but an animal that can be individualised only within society. Production by a solitary individual outside society – a rare event, which might occur when a civilised person who has already absorbed the dynamic social forces is accidentally cast into the wilderness – is just as preposterous as the development of speech without individuals who live together and talk to one another.

Marx - Critique of Political Economy 1859 (via dailymarx)

one cannot simply be unpolitical -- everything about being a citizen in a system is a reproduction of that system's aims

[amroyounes]

Blame the algorithm

[tashabilities]

The Twitter ones are so accurate, OMG

[dynastylnoire]

Google fucking maps

[eastiseverywhere]

G. E. Tolentino Ang Wika at Baybaying Tagalog Philippines (1937) Vargas Museum Photo by myself, open source

Looky here—it’s a text on the precolonial Filipino alphabet of Baybayin, comparing its calligraphy to Japanese, Chinese and Hebrew traditions!

[ohdeargodbees-blog]

I won.

Oh boy it’s another totally unedited blog post about my legal proceedings because apparently I don’t learn!

Last time I wrote about my legal entanglement with Eron Gjoni, the man who started GamerGate after I walked away from him, it was after asking the DA to drop the criminal harassment charges that the state wanted to bring against him.

I touched on the ongoing appeals process for the restraining order, and how it ironically tied me to my abuser even more, and became another tool for him to control my life and send the mob after me. The detective on my case had warned me that this might be an outcome with someone as chronically abusive as he is. While I had successfully persuaded the DA to drop criminal charges because the courts involvement was making everything worse, his appeal was still going. Despite his flat out refusal to abide by it (he actually started actively siccing people on my partner at the time immediately afterward), and despite my move to vacate my own restraining order to get him to finally fuck off, he was determined to milk it for everything he could - both the attention from GamerGate, the renewed harassment against me and my family, and the money he was soliciting. 

What this meant for me is that for the last year or so, despite having relocated and completely reorganized my life to keep him and his new friends away from me, I’d have to deal with the legal proceedings. This essentially turned this man I had spent two years trying to get away from into a pop-up ad in my life. This is really bad news for someone with PTSD who has to take pills to stop having nightmares about their abuser. It constantly interrupted any kind of recovery or closure I could make for myself, and a call from a lawyer about some new bullshit he was pulling, or a flood of gross links to his diatribes on Kotaku in Action from his new best friends in my mentions would hamstring whatever I was trying to do. Just before I had to take the stage at XOXO, I had to talk with my lawyers about asinine legal moves that he was pulling. I was on the other side of the country and I still couldn’t get away from him. 

I’ve been in a holding pattern since the appeals court heard oral arguments on a restraining order that had not only been destroyed, but would have already expired on it’s own months prior. My pro-bono counsel was optimistic, since the courts seemed to see that my ex was using them as a talking point since he had long since had any legal relief they could have granted him. I was told to expect a phone call, probably, in the next 3 months, though sometimes courts take longer. I’ve been holding my breath ever since.

The good news is that it’s finally over. The courts ruled that I acted within my rights, and dismissed his appeal as moot. I had gone into this asking that the court drop this and let me move on with my life, and they reassured my legal right to do so. My ex wanted to use me to set first amendment case law - what happened was a ruling that reassured the rights of domestic violence survivors to modify and terminate their restraining orders if they’re causing more harm than good. This was the outcome I wanted - not just for myself, but for anyone else that’s tried whatever they could to get away from their abuser without fully realizing how the legal system might make everything worse.

Quoth the court:

“We agree with Quinn’s argument that this rule does not apply in the sui generis context of c. 209A abuse prevention orders. Pursuant to statute, an abuse prevention order that has been issued can be modified “at any subsequent time.” … This provision serves to protect victims of abuse by allowing them to tailor the terms of abuse prevention orders as (often rapidly) developing circumstances may warrant… “A victim of [domestic] abuse is in the best position to decide what course of action will provide more safety. At a given time, an abuse prevention order might exacerbate the plaintiff’s danger”. With the parties having a recognized statutory right to seek modification of existing orders, it follows that a pending appeal of a 209A order does not deprive the trial court of its ability to modify the order.”

The courts found the “deluge of harassment” to be “uncontested”, that despite my ex’s constant bullshit claims “nothing in the record suggests that Quinn committed a fraud on the court”, and that my ex still has to obey court orders even if he doesn’t agree with them.

I’ve uploaded the court’s opinion here. It’s not too heavy on the legalese, and has a pretty good tl;dr of this last of the legal battles.

Naturally, his fan club is trying to spin this as a win because of a single footnote that lower courts should generally care about free speech, despite the court stating that the entire appeal is moot. I find my ex and his ilk clinging to a single footnote as a victory in a 12 page document detailing his complete failure to be nothing more an apt metaphor for his role in the last two years. 

They’re trying to claim it a a loss because I’m choosing to walk away from a legal battle that hasn’t protected me, but an end to this is all I’ve ever wanted from the beginning.

I cut contact with Eron because I wanted an abusive creep out of my life, so he launched GamerGate. I didn’t retaliate against him because I wanted an abusive creep out of my life, so he invaded every digital space that I occupied to spread his hate & yell at my friends and fans. I got a restraining order because I wanted an abusive creep out of my life, so he used it to solicit funds from GamerGate while promising them more nonsense about me while “joking” in their raid IRCs about breaking into my house while I couldn’t go home. I dropped charges and gave up on having to see or hear him ever again because I wanted an abusive creep out of my life, and he doubled down in spite of that. 

Now that the courts have said “no thank you”, I’m hoping that this is finally the end, and that maybe we *both* can move on with our lives. I’m hoping that I finally have the abusive creep out of my life, even if it won’t undox my friends and family, cure my ptsd, undo the harm caused to my friends and the industry, or fix the fact that to this day, strangers still claim that I fucked a writer at a press outlet that I *already had written for* simply to obtain coverage (that never existed) of a free game about mental health. 

But it’s a pretty fuckin big milestone in the healing process. 

By all signs, this marks the end of nearly two years of having to bag and tag my ex’s abuse against me for courts, judges, and law enforcement officers who have a loose understanding (at best) of what they’d even be looking at, and a seeming lack of resources to obtain any of that themselves. I don’t have to plan my life around court dates anymore, or get calls about what new stunt the man who ruined my life is pulling this time that I absolutely have to respond to or face legal repercussions. That alone is a tremendous weight off my shoulders. The Abusive Ex Popup Ad feature on my life is hopefully disabled - or at least this aspect of it is. His abuse is still a perpetual motion machine, and the threats and harassment is still the background noise of my life and likely always will be. I still have a way to go before I’m what I’d consider out of the woods, both in terms of unfucking my personal situation, healing the mental and emotional scars the last two years have left, and fully being able to talk about GamerGate in a past tense way. Creep Throat can still file for additional appeals, and after the last two years I’m not going to assume anything is impossible.

I can’t unfuck the last two years, not for me or anyone else he’s hurt. But this is at least one win. This is regaining control over my life and being able to finally ignore bargain bin Kilgrave. This is me being able to joke about how shitty my ex is without being afraid of how his lawyers will use it to justify what he’s done to me as they have previously. This is reaffirming the rights of domestic violence victims to walk the fuck away when they choose to. This means more energy for Crash Override and my ridiculous comedy games and the people I love.

Finally, I can move on from this ridiculous legal battle and focus on my energy on my ridiculous unicorn smut games. 

What more could I possibly want?

[animpressivelookingscalar]

on one of the best albums from the 90's, in my opinion. excellent documentary detailing the thought process behind each track in souvlaki

[seattlish]

Seattle U students have been occupying the school for three days

Since Wednesday, students and supporters have been occupying Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College. Their list of demands includes resignation by Dean Jodi Olsen Kelly—who’s railed unionization of adjunct professors—as well a substantial overhaul of the school’s curriculum. 

You can read their full list of demands—which include a call to decenter whiteness in the humanities program, advanced training for professors in the college, and more transparency and accountability for students, particularly surrounding recruitment processes—here. 

“We, as students of Matteo Ricci College, deserve and demand a radically changed undergraduate program. It is unacceptable to maintain the status quo. We recognize the information and demands provided may be challenging to internalize and process,” reads the statement from the protesters. “However, given the time of the university-wide Campus Climate Survey as well as Matteo Ricci’s current Program Review, we anticipate a timely response from the college so as to further explore ways to collaboratively address damages already done and improve our college for future and current students, staff, and faculty. This simply cannot wait.”

Using the hashtags #DearDeanKelly and #MRCHurtsMe, students have also taken to Twitter to express their frustration with the school’s leadership and curriculum.

Seattle U students are not the only ones who are demonstrating and demanding change within higher education; Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday that hundreds of students walked out at the University of Washington, calling on the UW to “sell holdings in any hedge funds that invest in private prisons.”

At a time when student debt is at an all-time high and college students continue to graduate into an economy where there’s no room for them to succeed, these demonstrations are a crucial component of the conversation. As much as free college for future students would be a game-changer, students who are currently in schools and receiving educations that may not serve them—or who are funneling their money both current and future into schools with a  stake in organizations or institutions with which they don’t agree—can’t really wait for federal policies.  

We support the occupation and the students of Seattle U and the University of Washington in their efforts toward a higher education system that actually benefits students and the greater community, and which broadly includes the narratives of everyone, not just the people (read: the white people) most often associated with academia. 

You can keep up with the occupation on Twitter and on Facebook. We’ve also reached out to the organizing group to ask how regular folks can help out and stand in solidarity. 

[animpressivelookingscalar]

the uphill ascent

special thanks goes to joy, kerri, paige, luke, and my parents. i wouldn't have been able to see a cliff wall to climb without you guys. huge thanks to everyone else who has helped me through this journey, through darkness and pointing skyward toward the light.

i was in a rough spot on tuesday. thankfully, i was able to hang out with kerri and her friend jason, and was able to distract myself from what i nearly did earlier that day.

wednesday rolls around, and i go to my weekly meeting with my therapist. i tell her everything: attempted suicide, twice, within two weeks.

she’s required to send an ambulance and have me check into a psych ward.

i checked in. it was about 3:00 PM. i had no idea what i was getting myself into: i just wanted to talk to someone, anyone, about these issues i’ve been having lately. instead, i was met with the cold, hard bureaucratic elements of a tightly run ship, ran by folks who seemed to not really give a shit about any particular person. nurses ran around and took vitals, nightwatch ensured that folks didn’t do anything stupid to themselves or each other, and psychiatrists are stretched thin across about twenty patients. if you imagined ER but with head-sick folks with all kinds of psychological ailments all in the same room, you get the psych ward.

i think all i wanted at that point of realization was a dosage of zoloft, a prescription, and my discharge papers. ASAP.

6:00 PM. i finally talk to the staff psychiatrist. i tell him the truth about everything, the carefully constructed mechanizations in my head that lead to me to conclude that suicide was a way out, the contexts in which these thoughts were able to brew, and why i realize now that all of that is bullshit, that really, the best remedy was for me to join my friends on wednesday for trivia and that my remedy is to be around my friends.

i was placed on overnight suicide watch. they expressed that it was for my own good, that they can reevaluate and choose to hold me for up to 72 hours.

i felt frustrated. completely defeated. i wanted to rant against this system that seemed to be barely held together by duct tape, the same system that didn’t recognize that i was actually quite well!

9:00 PM.

i forgot to mention that we were stripped of all our possessions before entering the psych ward unit. i’ve been without my iphone for several hours now. i had no idea what was happening in the outside world.

i asked if i could log a bunch of phone numbers down from my cell phone, so i could have folks call me back at the psych ward.

they obliged. i jotted down folks who i thought i could trust... first, joy, my ex-girlfriend. then luke, my best friend over in seattle. paige, my friend that i’ve really started to fucking appreciate over the past few months. and finally, kerri, someone i’ve dated for a little while here in NYC, someone who i thought could really just... understand me for a sec.

i text everyone about where i am and the number where they can reach me.

i put my phone away and head back into the ward.

immediately, i start getting phone calls back to back - everyone’s starting to call in. i decide that full disclosure was probably the best course of action here.

11:00 PM.

i think i stop using the phone at around this point. i’ve had conversations with all of the folks listed above, but also with my parents, who i decided to ring up as well. it was a bit of a pain trying to get some of these calls through, since they still operate with ‘long distance calls’ for some reason. it didn’t help that most of the folks i wanted to chat with are across the country.

in any case, i realize, between 9 and 11 PM, how... much people actually care for me. that i’ve something to look forward to every time i meet with folks, that i’m not alone in all of this, and that we gotta fight against this shit.

i couldn’t sleep the whole night. bright lights, loud TVs, nurses who called for people’s names when someone called them from the outside, etc.

by 5 AM, i start sketching. i’ve been thinking long and hard about all the things that matter to me. i’ve got seattle, a flawed town but one that’s incredibly beautiful, with imperfection built into the ethos. and i’ve got my friends and family, the ones telling me to fight on and to keep my spirits up. there’s a whole lot of other stuff there as well, but these two things were anchors that felt especially strong to me throughout the evening of half-sleep and contemplation.

i decide to write the following on the note above (sorry for repeats of themes in advance, but i’m mostly just wanting to be faithful to what i’m thinking now and what i wrote back in the ward):

6:50 AM, 05/12/2016

being in this psych ward, i’ve been humbled several times over. when i came in, i didn’t understand the system: no one seemed to care that i felt like a seemingly fit person in a system that just wanted to keep me in with no recourse. i’ve been stripped of all my possessions, the most naked and vulnerable i’ve been to myself.

but now, after about seventeen sleepless hours, i witnessed two nightwatches and a nurse console a lady experiencing... night tremors perhaps? i’m not exactly sure how to describe it. all three expressed a type of empathy that i couldn’t believe was possible within the system. then it all clicked into place - these folks ingest a lot of cases and have to be present for each and every one of us sufferers of some phantoms flanking us on all sides. they don their armor and get these phantoms away from each of us, just enough for us to pick up our sword and deal the killing blow.

these mechanisms, not being able to leave, being stripped of my possessions: this has been the best thing to happen to me. i could not identify my allies otherwise; my mind was too clouded to realize what’s important. and these workers: they’ve got a heart of gold. they have to deal with real shit day after day.

i’m renewed. i know what to live for now. friends and family called, even folks i’ve only really known for months, and they all have related to this despair and negativity i’ve held onto with a vice grip. and now i can say for a fact that they’re all rooting for me to live.

8:37 AM

samples, finished, now just need coffee and need to chat with the staff psychiatrist about heading out.

this sounds really dumb, but looking at those sketches of WA state and some crappy sketches of some of my friends telling me that ‘i got this’ is... something that brought me back i think.

i’m still climbing this rock face, but now i’m oriented in the right direction.

[animpressivelookingscalar]

posted my OKC profile on reddit for a critique. this could only go one way

i haven't had the best luck in dating - lots of missed opportunities, terrible fucking timing, and just loads of bad matches. i've had my OKC account laying around forever, not really seeing any luck with shooting out tons of personalized messages to every person i thought i'd have a chance with. so i figured, 'hey, maybe my profile sucks. i'll submit it to reddit.'

big fucking mistake.

for the most part, i've listed stuff on my OKC profile that was intimately tied to things i'm exploring today: issues in racism, dipping my toes ever so carefully in critical theory, and how i fit into the grand scheme of things. if there's anything i could really say about myself, it's that i'm incredibly unapologetic about myself: an incomplete, always-work-in-progress, asian american. and i think i was trying to portray that in some way on my OKC profile - is it unattractive? maybe. but it'd be great to see what folks think about it.

well, the feedback rolled in:

"you look gay and effeminate, and probably also a red piller"

"post-colonialism? ugh. you're probably a racist"

"well, i mean, you DO look asian, so calling out the fact that people think you're chinese isn't unique nor interesting"

"maybe you should be a lot less negative"

(the last part is probably the only useful feedback i got out of that entire tire fire of a thread)

i'll admit, i took the feedback a bit more harshly than usual. i started wondering if this is really what folks thought when they see me for the first time, and that me being full-blooded filipino and looking a certain way because of that genetic stew is making people retch and wonder whether i'm actually "a man" or whatever the fuck that means.

this is also somewhat related to how i felt when i stepped into a hipster bar a few nights ago, where it was the only place where meeting a half-black/half-filipino, a full-blooded filipina with bleached skin and blonde hair, and a white dude completely exemplified colonial mentality - a night where the half-black/half-filipino was more interesting than a full blooded filipino, the full blooded filipina was more interesting than him, and the white guy showing his dominance via uttering of plain facts about philippine politics.

and there's this: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/10/date-asian-men-less-frequently-than.html

so, yeah. i deleted my OKC account. why bother? either i'm going to be fetishized by women because they're "into asian guys" as if it was breaching some kind of taboo, either because they're "enlightened" or because they just fucking love japanese or korean culture (even though i have nothing to do with either.) so yeah, fuck it. i'm done for a while.

[animpressivelookingscalar]

? : turned 1 today!

ternary operators continues to live on.

[animpressivelookingscalar]

a short lived dream

being back in seattle is a bit bittersweet for me. i've been incredibly lucky to have incredibly supportive friends in seattle - i've had a real good past few days with them and everything has started to be a bit better after seeing them. but i'm heading out again on sunday - and i'll be back in NYC. NYC is a much more comfortable city for me - i don't have to explain race politics nearly as much as in seattle. but the comfort of all my friends just ain't there, and i've no partner over in NYC. lots of folks almost always say that the proper way to handle this is to be okay by yourself, but i'm going to be honest here: I'm not okay by myself. a good life for me involves community and a good conversation, but that all requires two-way engagement. i begrudgingly do things by myself and hope to god i don't do anything fucking stupid. i don't know - i'm just quite bitter about how things have turned out so far. i hope i can deal with this shit more effectively in NYC than here in seattle...

[animpressivelookingscalar]

i'm screwed up. and maybe that could be okay (eventually)

i wrapped my belt around my neck today. i was attempting to figure out a good knot for the other end. i was close to the edge. i tested everything against my door knob. i was god damned determined. i found out that i can't do a god damned knot worth shit. i couldn't fucking do it. i undid everything - i thought immediately of my nephew, my family, and i just couldn't do it. i can't say that i'm anywhere closer to dealing with my shit, but i think it's been a bit of a wake up call...

[animpressivelookingscalar]

jumbled

i am just all kinds of fucked up right now. i've still got feelings for my ex, and now that she's gone, i've realized how much i've kind of closed myself off during the relationship. i am starting to develop my deeply cynical distrust in being vulnerable, like way back in the day when i couldn't talk to people worth shit. we met earlier in seattle, talked about things, and i just... blew up. again. all in response to her already having another guy. i clearly don't have anything together. i should be happy for her, but really, i just wanted her to be with me. she's gone. another relationship down the tubes. the one thing that's fucking killing me is that she's finally *getting it* in terms of racism and is actually listening, and she's starting to appreciate stuff I've been into. it's always after the relationship ends. and all i have to show for it is being marooned in a city as large as NYC, just for some semblance of being comfortable in my own skin, whereas dreams are made for whites in my hometown, where i was never really welcomed. i'm clawing my way through by myself with nearly no grounding... i can't get things back. i can't convince her to join me in NYC to fucking cut through that whole other mess...

[animpressivelookingscalar]

the roots - lighthouse

[animpressivelookingscalar]

visiting woodside, queens

it was interesting. i am clearly a stranger - i don't have family here, i can't speak a lick of tagalog, and i'm only armed with my PNW accent and a sense of nostalgia for foods that my parents can prepare. even though i barely exchanged words with folks in the neighborhood, it felt... comfortable. i felt like i was back in my grandmother's house in ballard, seattle, with all of us kids running around while the aunts were helping with food prep and gossiping about the latest news with family matters, and the uncles sitting by the TV, drinking beer and watching whatever was on. it was always lively, filled with conversations in tagalog, english, and taglish, and with my grandparents, being the generous anchor in the middle of the house, serving as much food as they could for about twenty or thirty of us. it's the catholic prayers before we eat, the scent of adobo and lumpia, and the seared salmon, and of the nudging from all the uncles on whether we found our girl yet or not, and all the aunts reassuring us that we were the favorites, the cutest of the bunch. my grandmother sold that house on cleopatra place when i was about 15 or 16, a house that's housed about two or three different families at a time, with coconut shavings scattered on the kitchen floor, almost as if it was blessed in the one way they knew - via food. a few short years later, my grandmother died - and then not too long after, my grandfather faltered as well. we've tried to create these large gatherings during christmas in a church venue about half a mile or so from that house, but it doesn't have that waft of seared salmon and adobo - all of us have grown up and have our own matters to attend to as well. we're always catching up year after year... i ate some adobo earlier today in a filipino restaurant on roosevelt ave. i heard the familiar filipino accents, i watched some news casts in taglish on TFC, and while it wasn't exactly what i remember while growing up (my family insisted on us americanizing as fast as possible), it was... relatable. i felt a wormhole open up between that restaurant and that house with the awful popcorn ceiling and its nooks and crannies. i... was home. i said "thanks" in my PNW accent, somehow forgetting (or being embarrassed to say) that the word for thanks in tagalog was "salamat." i will have to go back again.

[animpressivelookingscalar]

a story about a man named samir

he’s a wonderful person.

he's an alcoholic that was 86’d from café allegro for many reasons - he was an asshole and would start shit with folks for no real reason. but man, if you sat with him for a minute and indulge him, he’ll welcome you as a brother.

he was absolutely normal when he’d go back to libya - he’s a civil engineer by trade. he’s libyan. he had a support network back home - nothing could go wrong. even after kaddafi was overthrown, it was still his home.

but every time he’d be back in seattle, he’d sling back 40’s as though it was 95 degrees and that bottle was filled with water. he has a daughter in seattle - she wants nothing to do with him. he holds on hope as tightly as the bottle in front of him. all he wants is to have a normal relationship with her - all he wants is to indulge further in his drink.

i wasn’t super close to him. but I’ve always found him fascinating - he’s, in some sense, living that knife’s edge. but now he’s home, and now things are all good…