fishlifter | Reading

Oh, relax, it was only $50; but nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I've never seen a description of what actually happens when you do, so I'm writing about it here.

At Easter, our niece passed out scratch-off lottery cards as a kind of party favor. I got two of them. One of them I couldn't figure out the instructions for, so after scratching off most of its surface in a futile attempt to understand it, I threw it out. The other made sense, though. It had two 4x4 squares showing various occultish tokens - The Rooster, The Mermaid, The Hand, The Cello, etc - and another section which you'd scratch off to reveal a list of 14 more tokens. Match those up with the ones in the squares, which you could scratch off to keep track, and if you got four in a row on a square you win the amount printed at the end of the row.

According to the lottery's website, 1 in 44 tickets in this game win $50, so it isn't that rare. The instructions say take a small-win ticket to any lottery agent to redeem. So Monday morning I went to a local 7-11 that sells lottery tickets.

What would they do? Would they painstakingly verify that the tokens I'd scratched off on the square matched the ones in the list? Would they demand to know where I'd bought the ticket? (I don't know where she bought them.) Would they make me fill out the name/address/phone/email form on the back of the card?

No, none of those. The guy scratched off an unmarked section of the card, which I guess confirmed it was a winner, and also revealed a barcode which he scanned, probably to let the state know he was on the hook for the money, and then he handed me $50 in cash from the register. That's it. No ceremony, no Bob Barker or anything like that. I gave some of my largess to the homeless guy on the stoop outside.

I've never bought a lottery ticket, but I'm willing to try one if it's given me. This is about the fourth time that's ever happened, and the first one that's come up a winner however petty. These tickets cost $10 each, and I'm sure our niece spent a lot more than $50 to acquire her stash. So that explains where all that lottery money comes from, and that's why I'm not buying any tickets.

andrewducker

In the future all zoo trips will look like this.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

calimac

Most weekends that my days are both busy are because of concerts. Not this last weekend. No concerts. But Saturday was the last night of Pesach, and my friends who invite a bunch of their friends to their family Seder did that on this date this year. Sunday was Easter, and B. and I always spend that with her family. So I get two holidays for the price of one.

Pesach and a family Easter are both food-oriented celebrations, and my contribution to both is usually to bring along my trademark and favorite veggie, broccoli. The question is how to cook it. At home for a dinner side dish I usually just steam it, and I've done that for holidays. But usually I look for something fancier. Most of my specialty broccoli dishes are roasted, and have rather complicated recipes. So when I do those I usually make them in advance and bring them along to be heated by microwave just before serving. The problem is that reheated roasted broccoli is a rather sad thing compared to the fresh stuff.

This year, however, browsing through my recipe collection I found one which uses steamed broccoli and also cashews, which both B. and I like a lot. And the recipe was not complicated to prepare. So I made it twice, putting all the sauce ingredients together at home and packing everything up, altering the procedure for circumstances.

At the Seder, the hosting couple split duties this way: the wife organizes the invites and the table seating, while the husband and one of the sons do all the cooking. They're really well organized and prepare lots of dishes, so (with prearrangement) I figured they could add this in. When I arrived, I gave them the instructions:

This is a four-step recipe.

One, steam the broccoli. [Holds up large storage bag full of cut-up broccoli pieces.]

Two, melt 1/3 cup of margarine or butter or whatever you have in a small saucepan.

Three, stir this in - it's mostly soy sauce and garlic - and bring the mixture to a boil. [Holds up small sealed container of the sauce ingredients I'd mixed at home.]

Four, remove from the heat, stir in the cashews, and pour it over the broccoli. [Holds up small bag of cashew pieces.]

And I left them to it. They did a splendid job, and the dish got raves around the table despite being served following three other excellent veggie dishes that others had brought.

For Easter, where prep is more relaxed and there's much more room in the kitchen, it seemed best to steam the broccoli beforehand and bring it in a serving dish - steamed broccoli reheats in a microwave better than roasted broccoli does - and asked our niece who hosts for a small saucepan, cooking spoon, a free burner on the range, and the butter, and did the cooking myself. Also a successful dish.

Plans to repeat this next year are definitely on.

andrewducker

Pop stars in the making.

(Pretty sure the one on the right has been up for three nights in a row and the drugs are now wearing off.)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

calimac

I crammed a lot of detail into my review of this concert, enough to make me feel disappointed in the roughness and lack of sophistication in the writing. For me, the hardest part of concert reviewing can be finding the right words to describe the strong experience of reacting to the specific performers' styles and abilities.

I wasn't sure if my editors would let pass my rather cheeky comparison of this concert's repertoire with that of the previous Ariel concert I reviewed, but it got through. However, though I provided one, the published article has no link to that earlier review.

The big difference between those two concerts was something off-topic enough for this one that I didn't mention it this time. The previous concert had been held to show off the Violins of Hope, instruments rescued and restored from the Nazi Holocaust. As I mentioned in that review, being played by such excellent performers pushed against the limitations of the Violins of Hope's limited qualities as musical instruments.

After this week's concert, I got a chance to talk about this a little with the group's cellist. She said it was so much easier to play this time on their own instruments, whose natures and capacities they know well. And the extreme aptitude of the performance confirmed that.

Another thing there was no room to mention was the pre-concert masterclass, something I don't always have time to attend. At Kohl, the guest artists usually hold a masterclass with local high-school students. This time the ensemble was a string quintet rather than quartet, playing the scherzo from Schubert's work for that ensemble. The most interesting part of the teaching was the request that the students sing passages from the music, to help them appreciate matters of balance and flow.

andrewducker

1. In Gaza, we are seeing the normalisation of evil: (tags:gaza Israel Palestine )
2. On language and trans people, some tips: (tags:transgender language )
3. Life before the Equalities Act 2010: (tags:transgender gender equality rights UK law history )
4. The lead civil servant on drafting the Equality Act says the aim was to include trans people.: (tags:equality lgbt transgender OhForFucksSake law uk )
5. The Minister who introduced the Gender Recognition Bill in the House of Lords in 2003 made it clear that "a transsexual person would have protection under the Sex Discrimination Act [the predecessor to the Equality Act] as a person of the acquired sex or: (tags:transgender lgbt law uk history )
6. Settlers of Catan - Globe Edition: (tags:3dprinting boardgames SettlersOfCatan )
7. Thousands of trans rights protesters on Edinburgh streets following court ruling: (tags:Edinburgh transgender protests )
8. Musk to Force Pentagon to Build and Then Pay Him to Use Network of Killer Satellites: (tags:ElonMusk corruption space )
9. Hungary's Orbán urges Hungarians to vote against Ukraine's membership of EU: (tags:Hungary Ukraine Europe OhForFucksSake )
10. The UK is going to have to start making choices about Europe and the USA: (tags:UK USA Europe )
11. Fusion power plants would require titanic amounts of lithium.: (tags:materials fusion )
12. "Masking Is Life": Experiences of Masking in Autistic and Nonautistic Adults: (tags:autism society psychology )

andrewducker

The Gender Recognition Act was brought in in 2004 because the UK lost a court case at the ECHR in 2002.*

The court said:
"In the twenty first century the right of transsexuals to personal development and to physical and moral security in the full sense enjoyed by others in society cannot be regarded as a matter of controversy requiring the lapse of time to cast clearer light on the issues involved. In short, the unsatisfactory situation in which post-operative transsexuals live in an intermediate zone as not quite one gender or the other is no longer sustainable."

This is under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to a private life.

Placing "trans women" in a generally** different category than "women" is definitely putting them in an intermediate zone. And expecting them to make their assigned gender public is definitely taking the "private" out of "private life".

The UK is still a signatory to the convention. Cases can still be taken to its court. Leaving it would mean a *major* falling out with the EU. I suspect that if the UK tries to nudge things far at all that they will find the court takes a dim view.

*Fought, and lost, by Labour. Because they have never been onside in this area.
**It is possible to carve out exceptions in the current system. But they have to be justified on a case by case basis. A general finding that trans people are not of their legal gender is almost certainly not that.

calimac

As long as I was going in to the City for the Isidore String Quartet concert on Wednesday, I decided to add a little extra time so that I could see the piece of public art that's currently roiling the place in controversy, "R-Evolution" by Marco Cochrane, a 45-foot-tall statue of a giant (did I say that?) naked woman planted in the plaza in front of the Ferry Building. Photos I've seen of it there don't seem to capture it very well, but it looks sort of like this:

Apparently it's supposed to "transcend outdated perceptions of the female body and celebrate it as a symbol of strength, beauty and empowerment" or something like that, but perhaps it could convey that message a bit more clearly if it had a few appropriate clothes on. And was not quite so gigantic.

This is not (fortunately) a permanent thing. It's going to be there for six months. Apparently it's been going around on a world tour for about ten years now. Here's a bunch more photos in various locales.

The giant naked woman is made of a steel inner structure with a wire mesh framing to give her a female shape. That makes her fairly translucent. She has short hair. She has very long fingers. She has toenails, which I mention because you can get close enough to see that. She has no sign of any genitals whatever, which is relieving but a little dishonest.

There are a number of rude comments online - "dumb" "disgusting" "inappropriate" etc - but she's there and I didn't regret the little extra time it took to see her.

calimac

This is the group that won the latest Banff String Quartet Competition, three years ago. I only saw videos of that, which is not at all like being there in person, so I was eager to hear this group live and up close.

A very light, bright, and chipper sound, I thought. Normally we think of Beethoven as the big brusque composer while Mozart is smooth and graceful. This was almost the other way around. Beethoven's Op. 127 was delicate, even hesitant at times, while Mozart's K. 465 was more robust - if only by contrast, for it was certainly also graceful, and there was no attempt to make anything horribly modernist out of the work's infamous 'dissonant' introduction - which is unlike anything else in the piece.

There was one small bit outside of the classics, a brief recent quartet by Billy Childs, one of a contingent of jazz players who also dabble in classical. Nothing jazz-like about this piece which was largely of the 'four voices wandering around' school of composition. Isidore played a different quartet by this composer at Banff and I didn't find it very interesting either.

calimac

The Tolkien Society (the UK-based fan organization of which I've been a member for many years) has announced the final ballots for its annual awards. Any member of the Society is eligible to vote; the deadline is April 25.

This year the Society has introduced a new method of picking the finalists out of the long list of initial nominees: panels of 5-6 expert jurors, one for each award. And I, perforce, was on the panel for Best Book, the books being full-length scholarly monographs or collections of articles.

The eligibility winnowing process (a complex matter in itself) had left ten candidates to be considered. The 5 of us on this panel were sent links to PDF copies of all the nominees (arrangements having been made for this with the publishers), and to a Google Docs spreadsheet to cast our votes on. We were given about a month to read them all and make our choices, by putting checkmarks in cells under our names on the spreadsheet.

I'd already seriously browsed through 3 of the 10 books in hard copy, but I had a lot of reading ahead of me. I loaded the files onto both my desktop computer and my tablet, and did a lot of the reading on the tablet while taking transit to and from concerts. Still, I pushed the deadline pretty close, but at least I had strong clear reactions, positive or otherwise, to all the nominees.

The panelists were asked to cast between 3 and 5 votes for the worthiest books. In the end, all of us picked 4. Our choices were not all identical, but there was a general consensus. There were 6 books which received 2 or more votes, and those became the finalists. I'm pretty pleased with the list: everything I picked is on it, and even the ones I didn't pick I thought were decent and worthwhile books.

And that's what we're presenting for the members to vote on.

calimac

We signed our tax forms - prepared by our accountant - electronically on Monday. There was a notation that the money we owed the IRS would be withdrawn by it on Tuesday from B's checking account - which we've used for that purpose and for refunds for many years.

But it wasn't withdrawn on Tuesday.

At this point I got slightly worried. Maybe the IRS was just running slow, but also: B's bank had been eaten by another bank (a common thing with banks) and the routing number was changed. They'd told her that the old number would still be valid, but what if something had gone wrong?

I tried contacting the accountant on Wednesday, without success - maybe he was still recuperating from tax season - and was going to do so again Thursday morning, when B. checked again and the withdrawal had been made. It was just the IRS being slow.

At any rate I've put a note in the folder where I'm keeping documents going into next year's taxes, to inform the accountant of the routing number and have him change his records.

andrewducker

I've read throught the judgement and written up a summary of the judgement. I've linked each point to a quote from the judgement.

As you might be able to tell, I'm furious about this.

1) The Gender Recognition Act (GRA) means your gender changes unless (1.1) a law specifically say it doesn't.
2) They knew that when they wrote the Equality Act.
3) Nothing in the equality act specifically says that the GRA doesn't apply.
4) Aaah, but can we say that something *indicates* that?
5) Everyone knows what "sex" means.
6) We can't think of a good reason why the politicians who passed this would want rights to apply to trans people. Even if they didn't say they didn't.
7) Particularly if we assume that every example in the Equalities Act has to apply to a person for it to work.
8) Therefore they *must* have meant biological sex.
9) Therefore a GRC doesn't apply, even though the GRA says it does.
10) Oh, and by the way trans people shouldn't be allowed to use any services at all that are for their lived gender.
11) Also, particular thank you to the lawyer for the transphobes who explained all of this.

*1* "the effect of section 9 of the GRA 2004 on the meaning of the words “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010. Section 9 (set out at para 75 above) provides both for a rule that on receipt of a GRC “the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender” (subsection (1))"
*1.1* "If section 9(3) does not apply, then the section 9(1) rule does apply and sex in the EA 2010 must have an extended meaning that includes “certificated sex”. "

*2* "There is no doubt that the EA 2010 was enacted in the knowledge of the existence of the GRA 2004"

*3* "There is no provision in the EA 2010 that expressly addresses the effect (if any) which section 9(1) of the GRA 2004 has on the definition of “sex” or the words “woman” or “man” (and cognate expressions) used in the EA 2010. The terms “biological sex” and “certificated sex” do not appear anywhere in the Act. However, the mere fact that the word “biological” is absent from the EA 2010 definition of “sex” is not by itself indicative of Parliament’s intention that a “certificated sex” meaning is intended. The same is true of the absence of the word “certificated” in the definition of “sex”."

*4* "The question that must therefore be answered is whether there are provisions in the EA 2010 that indicate that the biological meaning of sex is plainly intended and/or that a “certificated sex” meaning renders these provisions incoherent or as giving rise to absurdity"

*5* "The definition of sex in the EA 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man" - "Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman."

*6* "We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the EA 2010 should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group."

*7* "a strong indicator that the words “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010 have their biological meaning (and not a certificated sex meaning) is provided by sections 13(6), 17 and 18 (which relate to sex, pregnancy and maternity discrimination) and the related provisions. The protection afforded by these provisions is predicated on the fact of pregnancy or the fact of having given birth to a child and the taking of leave in consequence. Since as a matter of biology, only biological women can become pregnant, the protection is necessarily restricted to biological women. "

*8* "The interpretation of the EA 2010 (ie the biological sex reading), which we conclude is the only correct one"

*9* "The meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010 is biological and not certificated sex."

*10* "There are other provisions whose proper functioning requires a biological interpretation of “sex”. These include separate spaces and single-sex services (including changing rooms, hostels and medical services), communal accommodation and others"

*11* We are particularly grateful to Ben Cooper KC for his written and oral submissions on behalf of Sex Matters, which gave focus and structure to the argument that “sex”, “man” and “woman” should be given a biological meaning, and who was able effectively to address the questions posed by members of the court in the hour he had to make his submissions.

(I should note at this point that no trans representative group or transgender person was allowed to talk to the judges. They took evidence only from the various transphobic groups, the Scottish Government and Amnesty, not from anyone who would actually be affected on the other side by this ruling.)

andrewducker

Plot me a route to my destination, taking into account that I am *already* on a bus.

tamaranth

2025/059: Agent Sonya: Mother, Lover, Soldier, Spy — Ben MacIntyre

Mrs Burton of Avenue Cottage drank tea with the neighbours, joined in their complaints about the shortages and agreed that the war must soon be over... Colonel Kuczynski of the Red Army, meanwhile, was running the largest network of spies in Britain: her sex, motherhood, pregnancy and apparently humdrum domestic life together formed the perfect camouflage. Men simply did not believe a housewife making breakfast from powdered egg, packing her children off to school and then cycling into the countryside could possibly be capable of important espionage. [loc. 4269]

Another of MacIntyre's entertaining biographies of 20th century spies, this is the story of Ursula Kuczynski, a German Jew and communist who spied for the Soviet Union before and during WW2, and was instrumental in the USSR's acquisition of 'the science of atomic weaponry'.( Read more... )

Current Mood: curious

andrewducker

I grabbed Planet of Lana out of my backlog because I fancied something with a bit of a challenge, a bit of a plot, that looked gorgeous. And I got exactly that!

The art is painted, and looks it. It's set on a luscious moon where everything looks beautiful, and everything is just fine:

Well, maybe not *fine*:

Shortly after The Bad Thing happens you set off with your trusty friendly cat to Save Everything.

And then it's a lot of side-scrolling adventure as you head relentlessly rightward, climbing over things,distracting robots, avoiding being eaten by wild animals, until you find the source of The Bad Thing and Save The Day. If you've played Limbo or Inside then you know exactly the kind of thing you're in for. Only more Ghibli.

There's almost no dialogue, and what there is is in an alien language. But it's enough to pull you in. The plot is told through the things you encounter along the way. And it's explained as much as it needs to be, which isn't much.

The different environments work very nicely, whether you're trying to keep your cat dry:

or you're exploring underground caverns:

Or trying to prevent hordes of robot spiders from giving you an unfortunate hug:

The game lasts about 5 hours, but as it's on sale for over 50% off right now (£7.65 in the UK) I can happily say it's well worth picking up.

The challenge is fairly light - there were two puzzles I had to check walkthroughs for, but generally I could work my way through them, and it required very little in the way of reflexes.

Oh, and the music/sound design is gorgeous. You can listen to it over here.

Overall, highly recommended.

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fishlifter

April 2025

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Page Summary

andrewducker - Interesting Links for 22-04-2025
calimac - I won the lottery
andrewducker - Photo cross-post
calimac - traveling broccoli chef
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 21-04-2025
andrewducker - Photo cross-post
calimac - concert review: Ariel Quartet
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 20-04-2025
andrewducker - A thought about the transgender court case - and the ECHR
calimac - to see the giant woman
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 19-04-2025
calimac - concert review: Isidore String Quartet
calimac - Tolkien Society awards
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 18-04-2025
calimac - crisis averted
andrewducker - A brief summary of the Transgender/Equality Act court case
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 17-04-2025
andrewducker - A thing I wish Google Maps could do
tamaranth - 2025/059: Agent Sonya: Mother, Lover, Soldier, Spy — Ben MacIntyre
andrewducker - Review: Planet of Lana

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