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Sex Swing | Type II | Rocket Recordings
This sprawling best of list was intended for publication in January 2021 but other priorities got in the way and I had written about many of these in brief in my year end best column for the December 2020 print edition of Birdy magazine in December. Others I wrote up for Birdy throughout the year. All of that text is here hopefully not in a form with my errors edited back in. At any rate it begins with what I’m going to call the album of the year, Type II by UK post-punk experimentalists Sex Swing. It not only stretched post-punk beyond the usual boundaries these days and it articulated the conflict, the outage and confusion of a world coming to terms with the great shortcomings of modern, international capitalism, the inadequacy of the conservative/far right and neoliberal government to address the needs of people across decades and most painfully and poignantly in the moment. That agony and anomie can be heard throughout the album but even separate from that context it’s just a great, experimental rock album. The original verbiage for the Birdy piece reads “An uncomromisingly mind-altering psychedelic noise rock ride through 2020 hell.” With any luck we’ll see the band in North America sooner than later and see for ourselves if the live show delivers. What follows is the rest of the best of list for 2020.
A.M. Pleasure Assassins | Careless Laughter | Self-released
This latest EP from Fort Collins-based, math-y post-punk band A.M. Pleasure Assassins sounds like it was written after a long period of contemplation and self-imposed exile from one’s usual social activities. “Said Yer Outta Gas” is imbued with a rush of exuberance reflected in its words about emerging from winter into a period of new beginnings. “Get It Right” finds the band waxing into the warped garage punk territory like something one would expect out of Memphis, Tennessee the past two decades — raw and ragged yet bracing. “Cain Was Killing Abel” strikes a more contemplative tone and the sprawling “Pretty Dead Beat” creates a beautifully hypnotic pulse of sounds with bell tones processed through reverb and distorted drones for an effect like a late 90s Yo La Tengo track. The four songs give the impression of nostalgic reflection, but one where you see and feel deeply the joys and pains of a good time in your life that you are wise enough now to know to enjoy in its full measure rather than through the lens of selective romanticism.
Abrams | Modern Ways | Sailor Records
Adulkt Life | Book of Curses | What’s Your Rupture?
ADULT. | Perception Is/As/Of Deception | Dais Records
Darkly urgent industrial dance anthems to purge today’s desperation, confusion and chaos.
Angel Olsen | Whole New Mess | Secretly Group
A tender yet bracingly fragile portrait of the realization that you can never adequately prepare for everything life might throw your way.
Anna von Hausswolff | Sacro Bosco | Southern Lord
A Shoreline Dream | Melting | Late Night Weeknight
With its first release since 2018’s Waitout EP, A Shoreline Dream presents a set of songs that seems less ethereal than their previous output. From opening track “Turned Too Slow” to closing song “Atheris Hispida” the progressive shoegaze duo has seemingly focused its attention on the texture and physicality of the music. One is tempted to say the guitars are more like hard rock, but only if your idea of hard rock is more in the vein of Swervedriver. But “Downstairs Sundays” has more in common with folk music in its intricate guitar interplay though threading through an uplifting, introspective drone. A Shoreline Dream still gives us its usual transporting melodies, but this time its astral realms are more focused and vivid as though coming out of its musical dreamstate into a phase of making those dreams real.
Autechre | Sign | Warp Records
Cleanses the mind with textural tones and hypnotically immersive, abstract rhythms.
Bambara | Stray | Wharf Cat Records
Bestial Mouths | RESURRECTEDINBLACK | RUNE & RUIN
Bison Bone | Find Your Way Out | self-released
Black Wing | No Moon | The Flenser
blackcell | Burn the Ashes | self-released
Denver-based EBM/IDM band Blackcell returns with its first full- length album since 2013’s In the Key of Black. Matt Jones’ processed, distorted vocals sound as ever like a dispossessed human resisting an ever increasing mechanization of life. These dark dance songs articulate so well the struggles of the human condition and seem so resonant for today as meaningful choices and control over your own life are leeched away into increasing labor defined by a gig economy, subscription and streaming services in the modern equivalent of pay-per-view, and a failing political and economic system that has channeled all the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands, nickeled and dimed to death and expected to take it like it is or not to streamline the technocratic wealth pipeline. Blackcell offers no answers but this time, its Gary Numan-esque end of the world techno feels particularly cathartic right now.
BleakHeart | Dream Griever | Sailor Records
Body Double | Milk Fed | Zum
Vignettes of personal psychological horror expressed as seething, angular post-punk pop.
Body Negative | Fragments | Track Number Records
Bootblacks | Thin Skies | Artoffact Records
Soaring synths and guitar sketch a vivid image of a deep yearning for personal transcendence and rebirth.
Boris and Merzbow | 2R012P0 | Relapse Records
Alien soundscapes of stunning immediacy that challenge preconceptions of all artists involved.
Botanist | Photosynthesis | The Flenser
Cabaret Voltaire | Shadow of Fear | Mute
Camila Fuchs | Kids Talk Sun | Felte Records
Avant-garde, psychedelic synth pop for tropical vacations in parallel dimensions.
Causer | Hellebore: Demos | self-released
Chicano Batman | Invisible People | ATO Records
Un-ironic, un-corny psych Tropicalia love songs for an inclusive future of unified humanity.
Choir Boy | Gathering Swans | Dais Records
Every song is an introspective Goth R&B ode to radical self care.
Church Fire | Some Lonely Wip | self-released
This collection of “unfinished/unmixed/unmastered/instrumentals” bridges the gap between Nine Inch Nails and Crystal Castles with their raw, lo-fi, maximalist glitch. Without the highly emotive and cathartic vocals that have been part of Church Fire’s signature sound we are invited to visit the soundscapes that give those vocals a powerful musical context. What is obvious here is the band’s playfulness and gift for pairing dark tonal choices and buoyant rhythms anchored by spare textural elements. On “pixie death tickle” there are wisps of voices but they serve as more a musical aside from the strong, bright, urgent main passages. The “wip” in the title may refer to “works-in-progress” but these songs would work as mood pieces in a soundtrack to the inevitable English language Inio Asano manga film in mirroring that artist’s talent for simultaneously expressing melancholia and joy.
cindygod | EP 2 | Fire Talk
Clipping. | Visions of Bodies Being Burned | Sub Pop
Brooding, seething, menacing industrial hip-hop horror stories from an all too near future.
Cyclo Sonic | Pile of Bones EP | self-released
Damn Selene | Nobody By That Name Lives Here Anymore | self-released
Dan Deacon | Mystic Familiar | Domino Records
Dead Voices On Air | Stone Cross Shuttle Worn | self-released
Deafbrick (Deafkids + Pet Brick) | s/t | Rocket Recordings
Death Bells | New Signs Of Life | Dais Records
Atmospheric post-punk brimming with an infectious sense of hope after a time of struggle.
Death Valley Girls | Under the Spell of Joy | Suicide Squeeze
Acid jazz flavored garage psych with an ear for emotionally rich infinite horizons.
Deerhoof | Teenage Cave Artists | Joyful Noise
Reliably Beefheartian, lo-fi No Wave-esque, boundary-breaking avant-pop.
Down Time | Hurts Being Alive | self-released
Drew Danburry | Icarus Phoenix A Sides and B Sides 2020 | Telos
Drew McDowell | Angalma | Dais Records
Dyad | Dormant | self-released
Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt are perhaps better known for their participation in acts like Howling Hex and Esmé Patterson’s live band respectively as well as their production work for Echo Beds. But DORMANT from their long-running collaborative project DYAD showcases their mutual knack for genre-bending IDM-esque soundscapes. DYAD freely blends elements of non-Western polyrhythms, intricate and textured instrumentation, luminous jazz keyboard progressions and tasteful electronic arrangements that convey an eclectic and international flavor. Imagine music equally influenced by Herbie Hancock, 80s Ethiopian synth pop, Daft Punk, Warp Records artists and informed by a deep sense of play, and you will have some idea of the soothing and imagination stirring quality of this music and its brilliantly new age downtempo future jazz sounds.
eHpH | Infrared | self-released
This Denver-based electro-industrial duo minces no words on the opening track “Idiot” in its introductory sample “I’m gonna say one thing, fuck Trump.” And then on to choice sampling of 45s words and those of journalists cataloging some of his offenses against humanity. The menacing descending synth bass progression and minimalistic percussion puts the focus on the words. The rest of the album is less explicitly and specifically topical but it is the band’s most fully realized and focused effort yet. The pulsing pace and Fernando Altonaga’s distorted vocals draw you into meditations on the perils of creeping authoritarianism on “Tarnished.” The pastoral pace and deep melancholy of “Forever Haunted” resonates with the artfully despairing tones of the Closer period of Joy Division the way its circular guitar line and synth melody rides a wave of personal revelation and the contemplation of an unrelievedly bleak future. EhpH has long been one of the more interesting modern EBM bands but Infrared demonstrates that the group of Altonaga and Angelo Atencio have fully integrated those roots with a more contemporary post-punk and darkwave sensibility, thus never sounding stuck in the past.
Emerald Siam | Inventions of Ascension | self-released
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou | May Our Chambers Be Full | Sacred Bones Records
Emmy The Great | April / 月音 | Bella Union
Entrancer | Decline Vol. 4 | Multidim
In constructing this latest installment in Entrancer’s Decline series Ryan McRyhew utilized Rob Hordijik’s DIY synth, the Benjolin, as well as the Make Noise Shared System. Though both are modular synthesis devices and visually look complex, McRyhew, in naming the equipment on the Bandcamp page, takes some of the technological mystery out of music making with synths and puts the emphasis on the creativity end. For twenty-seven minutes forty-four seconds of the single track of this album, “Decline XVI,” we travel with McRyhew through the sonic analog of the distorted ebb and flow of civilizational decay that we seem to be experiencing right now. Yet at the heart of the piece we hear a separation of more industrial sounds and those more organic like the inevitability of nature reasserting its primacy in our own consciousnesses and in the entire world.
Equine | Light Wa/orship | Noise Pelican
Eve Maret | Stars Aligned | White Supulchre Records
Eyebeams | It Means Trouble | Hot Congress
Eyedress | Let’s Skip to the Wedding | Lex Records
Eye of Nix | Ligeia | Scry Recordings
Uplifting, psychedelic, blackened noise doom journey to a pagan underworld and back.
Facs | Void Moments | Trouble In Mind
The post-punk equivalent of crime jazz’s subterranean menace.
Faim | Hollow Hope | Deathwish
Fearing | Shadow | Funeral Party
Fire-Toolz | Rainbow Bridge | Hausu Mountain Records
Flaming Lips | American Head | Warner Records
Overflowing with compassion and musical salves for the pain and despair of the fractured American psyche.
French Kettle Station | Spirit Mode | Slagwerk
Future Islands | As Long As You Are | 4AD
A soulfully soothing and transporting examination of the roots of one’s melancholic impulses.
Galleries | Resolve | self-released
Ganser | Just Look at That Sky | Felte Records
Incandescent yet contemplative post-punk dense with conceptual content and poignant social commentary.
Gold Cage | Social Crutch | Felte Records
Hard to Be a Killer: A Tribute to Ralph Gean
In an alternate universe Ralph Gean is a beloved rock and roll hero widely known for his brilliantly unique and off-beat songwriting. But the British Invasion derailed that trajectory and Gean instead has since become a bit of a legendary figure with a cult following in Denver music who has periodically played shows and championed by figures as politically disparate as Boyd Rice (who compiled a collection of Gean’s work in 2007) and Jello Biafra. That fandom is reflected on this sprawling tribute album assembled by Arlo White of Hypnotic Turtle Radio and bands like Deadbubbles and The Buckingham Squares. Every interpretation of Gean’s songs is a worthy listen and a fine showcase for his sheer breadth as an artist. Contributions from local, experimental eccentrics like Little Fyodor & Babushka, Claudzilla and The Babysitters lovingly capture Gean’s essential appeal as an artist with an unvarnished charm and humor. Eric Allen of The Apples in Stereo fame highlights the science fiction cowboy persona that Gean could convey while White’s band Diablo Montalban with the late, great eccentric DJ and Denver cultural figure Frank Bell give “Switzerland” a real dark exotica treatment reminiscent of weirder moments in Tom Waits’ catalog. A fascinating portrait of an important yet often overlooked artist.
H Lite | Green Youth Heattech | self-released
Anton Kruger has been known for his inventive, hyperkinetic electronic and experimental music. But for this new EP he took a deep dive into contemplative realms of sound. Elegant, heavenly strings, luminous swells of tone and crystalline percussion embody the title of the song “Light Language.” The spacious sound design aspect of all the song’s on the album are reminiscent of Plaid in the enigmatic playfulness and the stretching consciousness to find inspiration through creative work. Every song brings forth a singular and imaginative portrait of tone, texture and rhythm that takes you on a journey to alien spaces that strike one as familiar and ultimately comforting like a dream. It is post-glitchcore IDM that dispenses with the anxiety in favor of a soothing spirit.
Houses of Heaven | Silent Places | Felte Records
Gloomy street tribal dance anthems fortified with dark, minor chord melodies.
Human Impact | s/t | Ipecac Recordings
In The Company Of Serpents | Lux | self-released
In the Company of Serpents has long been a band that has aimed to infuse its music with its interest in cinema, esoteric knowledge, literature, and with all of those come out of directi human experience, emotion and an attempt to make sense of life and imbue it with meaning. Lux is the fullest manifestation of those aims written into its most sonically dynamic set of songs to date. The crushing yet fluid heaviness of its sound is paired perfectly with elements of song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Spaghetti Western soundtrack. “The Fool’s Journey” opens the record as a sort of map for the path set before us ending with the enigmatic “Prima Materia.” It’s a musically diverse and rich album that places In the Company of Serpents apart from a mere doom band and more in the realm of Swans’ and Neurosis’ own heavy explorations of the human psyche.
IDLES | Ultra Mono | Partisan
Pointed yet loving politi-punk built on a hip-hop framework.
Insect Ark | The Vanishing | Profound Lore Records
A seething and entrancing hybrid of a Junji Ito manga and industrial psychedelic doom.
Jarv Is | Beyond the Pale | Rough Trade Records
jOoHS UhP | Big Glasss | Records
This record is so irreverent and self-deprecating it uses the swagger language of much of hip-hop to make statements that are the opposite of anything some other artists would brag about. The irony runs so deep even the elements of the music sounds like swagger. There is a song called
“NoWeDon’tWannaMakeGoodMusic.WeTriedAndIt’sBoring.” The glitchy, industrial beats are so unconventional and eccentric you would never confuse this duo with anything resembling traditional hip-hop. It all has more in common with Renaldo & The Loaf and The Residents than even a weirdo like Kanye. Though often confrontational and obnoxious there’s no denying the relentless creativity of the production and glorious seeming lack of regard for how a song is supposed to sound.
Juliet Mission | Surren | self-released
Surren is the third EP from Denver-based post-punk band Juliet Mission. As with previous releases the trio’s command of blending layers of atmosphere with strong rhythms and a contemplative melancholy is impressive. The short title track actually has three movements that flow from existential introspection to passages of dark realization to a mood of uneasy acceptance. All four songs in their brooding beauty demonstrate, as have the most recent albums from The Church, that you can write vital and engrossing rock songs from an adult point of view with elegance and grace, and without defaulting to an adolescent, and thus thematically limited, perspective.
Jupiter Sprites| Holographic | Jupiter Sprites Records
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith | The Mosaic of Transformation | Ghostly International
Killd By | Neotropical (tape reissue) | Noumenal Loom
King Krule | Man Alive! | Matador
Like The Fall gone hip-hop chillout lounge post-bad trip horror movie dreaming.
Klara Lewis | Ingrid | Editions Mego
Distorted melancholic cello drones like the glitched image memories of past life regression.
KoKo La | Curriculum Vitae | self-released
Koko La has long already established herself as an artist of note as one of the MCs and producers in the hip-hop group R A R E B Y R D $. Her soulful voice and presence often draws out subconscious emotions and gives them form in the music and performance. Curriculum Vitae finds Koko La exploring the experiences that have shaped her. Aided by Machete Mouth and Kitty Opinion$ on a couple of tracks, Koko La excels here with shining a light on those experiences that challenge you in various ways, while at the same time, giving you a better sense of self and the boundaries you must draw the border for people who might seek to dismiss you as a human or otherwise put you in your place. The trap beats and hushed atmospheres provide a fascinating listening experience, like you’re honoring the subconscious thoughts and feelings that affect your waking life by giving them an identifiable form that also allows you to comprehend, embrace and reconcile the wounded sides of yourself.
Lazarus Horse | Oh the Guilt! | self-released
Lithics | Tower of Age | Trouble In Mind
Surreal, minimalist post-punk funk disintegrating into disorder like American democracy.
Lone Dancer | Temporal Smearing | Multidim
Mamaleek | Come and See | The Flenser
Many Blessings | Emanation Body | Translation Loss Records
Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man renown returns to his ongoing noise soundscapes with the enigmatic and forbidding Many Blessings. In typical fashion this set of five pieces stretches beyond what McCarthy has done with the project in the past. Throughout this album there is not the harsh noise and deconstructed drones of some earlier work. Rather, it is layered collages of sound that give voice to the raw angst and anxieties that sit as a background hum of modern civilization eating away at our collective unconsciousness. The concluding track “Harm Signal” is like a symbol for the whole effort — a flow of sounds, a frequency, that we usually ignore but which causes untold destruction to our existence. These songs identify and give expression to energies and forces we’ve bypassed our whole lives but which are now impossible to ignore, like a sound art metaphor for the social and political forces that have come home to roost of late.
Marissa Nadler | Moons | self-released
Melkbelly | PITH | Carpark Records/Wax Nine
Memory Bell | Solace | self-released
Metz | Atlas Vending | Sub Pop
Midwife | Forever | The Flenser
Madeline Johnston wrote Forever during one of the darkest times of the Denver DIY music and art community. Her community was scattered and challenged in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire with so many lives seeming to be on hold with no hint about when thatdespairing period would end. And the 2018 death of Colin Ward hit everyone whose lives he touched so deeply that it seems like the kind of hurt that will never fully heal. Johnston’s almost ghostly, delicate and vulnerable vocals and distorted, ethereal guitar seem to drift together in an effort to make some sense of those feelings with a nuance and sensitivity that always comes across as emerging directly from those places of acute pain and ache and loss, and honoring the need to just feel all of that whenever the need strikes and for however long into your life it lasts even if that is, indeed, forever. An especially touching and evocative tribute to a uniquely restless and creative yet sensitive and emotionally refined person in Colin Ward, Forever is a tender and heartbreaking, healing catharsis in the listen.
Mild Wild | Mild Wild, Vol. 1 | self-released
Intensely personal, imaginatively lo-fi aural snapshots of daydreams and poetic observations.
Mint Field | Sentimiento Mundial | Felte Records
Dream pop slow burner illuminating and warming the inner regions of the melancholic heart.
Moby | All Visible Objects | Mute Records
Retro rave and chillout lounge songs mourning our collective loss, yearning for a hopeful future.
Molchat Doma | Monument | Sacred Bones Records
Introspective, elegantly minimalistic, lo-fi, Belarusian gloom pop.
Mong Tong | Mystery | Guruguru Brain
Moodie Black | FUZZ | Fake Four
Moon Pussy | Hurt Wrist | The Ghost Is Clear Records
Guitar riffs like swarms of angry insects sweeping through. Syncopated percussion like start- and- stop jackhammers. Bass lines like a half- ton coil being struck and emitting a menacing fluidity. Tortured vocals erupt with Brutalist, post-hardcore poetry. All of this helps to make this latest Moon Pussy record the perfect companion and reaction to a radically uncertain world seemingly in perpetual crisis mode and on the verge of we know not what. Fans of bands on the Amphetamine Reptile imprint or Touch and Go will be thrilled with the band’s seemingly endless supply of inspired, aggressive and savage noise rock riffs and the ability to articulate directly from a place of desperation and outrage. “Fail Better” should be the theme song of these United States.
Mr. Bungle | The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo | Ipecac
Mr. Gnome | The Day You Flew Away | El Marko Records
Mrs. Piss | Self-Surgery | Sargent House
Napalm Death | Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism | Century Media
New Standards Men | I Was A Spaceship | self-released
Night of the Living Shred | Return of the Night of the Living Shred | self-released
The name of this album of course invokes the title of the 1985 horror comedy Return of the Living Dead. And the Colorado Springs-based metal group has taken the opportunity to give us an unusual and eclectic record that not only reflects its members’ broad taste in music but a deeply healthy sense of humor about the world and themselves. “Shred Shoppe Quartert” is an a cappella song in the style of a barbershop quartet. There are rap, punks, death metal, doom and grindcore songs. All of it performed with a charming exuberance even though the entire track list reads like something out of a heavy metal version of Mad Magazine. “We Get it, Mike Patton Is a Musical Genius” with screaming like a cover of something by Naked City with lyrics mocking that? That’s genius. Even though the record is largely a put on in one way or another, the fact that it has so much variety makes it eminently listenable.
No Age | Goons Be Gone | Drag City
Of Feather And Bone | Sulfuric Disintegration | Profound Lore Records
Oneohtrix Point Never | Magic Oneohtrix Point Never | Warp Records
Otzi | Storm | Artoffact Records
Emotionally intense post-punk at the intersection of Sleater-Kinney and The Cure.
Perry Weissman 3 | Backlog | self-released
Plack Blague | Wear Your Body Out | self-released
Plague Garden | LEFT IN THE GRAVE | self-released
Pod Blotz | Transdimensional System | Dais Records
Pole | Fading | Mute Records
Primitive Man | Immersion | Relapse Records
Princess Dewclaw | Wild Sugar | Glasss Records
On the Wild Sugar EP Princess Dewclaw has reinvented itself as a gritty, industrial darkwave band. That element was there on its 2017 album Walk of Shame (in fact the songs “Walk of Shame” and “Into the Words” have carried over in a significantly different form), but there seems more of an edge here. The vocals come more directly from channeling anxiety and pain into catharsis. Rather than acoustic drums the electronic and programmed drums sync more closely with the cutting synth work. The effect is like a caustic and politically charged take on a pop song with mainstream appeal. In that way it has an appeal similar to that of Alice Glass’s emotionally raw solo offerings.
Protomartyr | Ultimate Success Today | Domino Records
Burning poems songs evoking a Jim Thompson-esque modern America in slashing/clashing post-punk.
Public Memory | Ripped Apparition | Felte Records
If Tarkovksy and Jarmusch could team up to make a cyberpunk movie this would be the soundtrack.
Rafael Anton Irisarri | Peripeteia | Dais Records
Raspberry Bulbs | Before the Age of Mirrors | Relapse Records
Reverb And The Verse | RESONATE | self-released
Since 1999 Reverb & The Verse has been developing and writing some of the most imaginative hip-hop out of Denver. The groupput their songwriting on this ninth record through a rigorous process of experimentation and weeding out the material deemed not quite there. Though steeped in classic MC wordplay, the beats and expertly crafted synth work and rhythms seem as informed by the likes of Minneapolis alternative hip-hop that came out of the 90s as it does 80s and 90s synth pop. All of these elements make for a sonically rich and diverse listen a bit like a cross between Clipse and Meat Beat Manifesto.
Riki | s/t | Dais Records
Goth synth pop for skate rink parties in abandoned malls.
Run The Jewels | RTJ4 | Jewel Runners
Shabazz Palaces | The Don of Diamond Dreams | Sub Pop
Shitkid | 20/20 | PNKSLM
An unlikely and fascinating hybrid of garage rock and soulful synth pop.
Shocker Mom | The Mediocre Depression | self-released
Sightless Pit | Grave of a Dog | Thrill Jockey
Sublime and caustic, often claustrophobic, soundscapes of terrifying and transcendent beauty.
SNAD/Jackson Lee| Jargon/Syntax Error 12” EP | Deep Club Records
SPELLS | Stimulants & Sedatives | Snappy Little Numbers
This record is raw even by SPELLS standards. But it’s perfect for 11 songs about the messiness of adulthood with lyrics that frankly go for the jugular. This isn’t new for this pop punk band and its anthemic choruses, but it’s always interesting to hear the contrast between the primal pop of the songwriting and incisive portraits of American life that dispense with the soul-destroying niceties. “We Can’t Relate” is a pointed declaration of the disconnect between the culture of the wealthy and the working class. “I’m Sorry I’m Not Sorry” is something of an apology song for being how you have to be in a world that demands essentially unacceptable compromises. Imagine an amalgam of Blatz, Stiff Little Fingers and The Replacements and you have an idea of the sound, the vibe and the sentiments expressed throughout.
Spice | s/t | Dais Records
Sprain | As Lost Through Collision | The Flenser
Colossal, sprawling, slowcore deep dives into the catharsis of anxiety and rootlessness.
Spunsugar | Drive-Through Chapel | Adrian Recordings
Squarepusher | Be Up a Hello | Warner Records
Stay Tuned | Remote Control | self-released
Brilliantly sampling from American media and entertainment culture, both musically and thematically, Stay Tuned has produced not just a signature song with this arc of eleven tracks but a signature album. Dense with content each song uses the format of autobiography to comment on aspects of society like the shallowness of celebrity culture and the way we formulate our dreams and aspirations in terms and frameworks taken from preexisting constructs like television shows, movies, video games and other media — of course expressed through the corporate controlled channels we most often use to communicate with one another. But in free associating musical and other media references in a collage of sounds in the beat, Stay Tuned uses media tropes and collective myths and imagery to showcase how we can subvert the prevailing power relationships and the monopolistic paradigms of our time.
Stephen Malkmus | Traditional Techniques | Matador
Studded Left | Sidewalk Vitamins | Girlgang Music
Stūrī Zēvele | Labvakar | self-released
An endearing indie pop manifestation of the essence of close and warm friendships.
Sumac | May You Be Held | Thrill Jockey
Suo and Data Rainbow | s/t | Multidim
SUUNS | FICTION EP | Joyful Noise
Syko Friend | Fontanelle | Post Present Medium
The Drood | Totally Comfortable | self-released
The High Water Marks | Ecstasy Rhymes | Minty Fresh
The Microphones | The Microphones In 2020 | P.W. Elverum & Sun
The Paranoyds | Pet Cemetery EP | Suicide Squeeze
The White Swan | Nocturnal Transmission | CockThermos
Through Flames | Through Flames | self-released
Riveting, radical experiments in political poetry and sound design.
TI-83 | Demo | self-released
Time | These Songs Kill Fascists | Dirty Laboratory
Hip-hop artist Chris “Time” Steele displays a true gift for fusing autobiography and lived experience with historical context and knowledge of political theory on this album. He’s always been a brilliant lyricist whose expert wordplay has seemingly effortlessly combined his sharp sense of humor with a wide ranging curiosity about the world and a growing body of knowledge of history, culture and politics. On These Songs Kill Fascists, Steele works with Daiba, Mick Jenkins, long time producer AwareNess, Giuseppe, Ron Miles, JXSHYB, Cat Soup and Psalm One to create a jazz-inflected story cycle commenting astutely on social issues now getting some focus. While a riveting listen purely as a well crafted album, These Songs Kill Fascists does not function as merely socially conscious entertainment, it seems to have been crafted as a form of praxis that challenges artist and listener in a dialectic of critical pedagogy that mutually encourages ongoing personal growth and social transformation.
Tobacco | Hot, Wet & Sassy | Ghostly International
Bright, bombastic, noisy synths paired with darkly humorous musings disrupt the album’s aesthetic of nostalgic comfort sounds.
Torres | Silver Tongue | Merge Records
Uniform | Shame | Sacred Bones Records
Scorching and thrillingly diverse industrial hardcore inspired by noir literature.
Usaisamonster | Amikwag | Yeggs Records
Vivian | The Warped Glimmer | self-released
Voight | s/t | self-released
Maybe it’s Chase Dobson’s treatments and mixing and mastering after Adam Rojo and Nick Salmon wrote and recorded this album, but the self-titled Voight album is the closest the duo has come to sounding like it’s blurring the line between its rock and electronic aesthetics. Guitar chords burn and shimmer out, percussion flurries and traces out a minimalist beat and Salmon’s vocals float through the songs like a person who was once lost but is now rediscovering his ability to feel and to express those emotions with a coherent self-awareness. Every song has an expansive quality reminiscent of Clan of Xymox and The Twilight Sad. The tone of the album perfectly walks the line between urgency and introspection without ever compromising an underlying delicacy of spirit and emotional refinement.
Wayfarer | A Romance With Violence | Profound Lore Records
Wetware | Flail | Dais Recordings
White Rose Motor Oil | You Can’t Kill Ghosts | self-released
Windy & Carl | Allegiance and Conviction | Kranky
WL | ADHD | Beacon Sound
Wolf Parade | Thin Mind | Sub Pop
Yves Tumor | Heaven To A Tortured Mind | Warp Records
Futuristic, effervescent, downtempo, synth pop-inflected, R&B informed non-binary funk. | {
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|Publication number||US5040179 A|
|Application number||US 07/396,418|
|Publication date||Aug 13, 1991|
|Filing date||Aug 18, 1989|
|Priority date||Aug 18, 1989|
|Publication number||07396418, 396418, US 5040179 A, US 5040179A, US-A-5040179, US5040179 A, US5040179A|
|Original Assignee||Loral Aerospace Corp.|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (12), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (61), Classifications (5), Legal Events (7)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
The subject disclosure contains material to which a claim of copyright protection is made. The owner of the copyrighted material has no objection to the facsimile reproduction of the copyrighted material as it appears in the disclosure but reserves all other rights whatsoever.
This invention relates to encoding of data suited to error detection and correction, and more particularly this invention relates to encoding of data with a linear code or with selected linear cyclic codes whose generator polynomials can be factored. A primary example of a suitable code is a BCH code.
A BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem) code is an example of a code which can be used for correcting error bits in input data. These and other complex and powerful codes find use in satellite communication links and the like where error correction can be employed to mitigate the effects of noise interference. Such codes, however, require complex encoding and decoding algorithms. The complex encoding and decoding algorithms have typically been implemented by special-purpose computers which perform computations in real time.
As the need for very high-speed encoders has developed, the limitation of the computation technology has become apparent. Even with the most sophisticated high-speed digital logic circuits, the highest achievable data rate appears to be less than about 500 MBPS. There is nevertheless a need to develop encoders capable of supplying information in real time at rates in excess of 1 GBPS.
In order to understand the complexity of the problem, a brief explanation of the background and theory of the underlying encoding scheme is helpful. Reference may be had to works such as Berlekamp, Algebraic Coding Theory, (McGraw-Hill, 1968) or Lin & Costello, Jr., Error Control Coding, (Prentice-Hall, 1983).
A binary Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem code (or simply a BCH code) is a class of error detecting and error correcting codes having a code word length of N=2m -1 where each symbol has m bits. The generator polynomial g(x) is given by the form:
g(x)=1+X2 +X4 +X5 +X7 +X8 +X13 +X15 +X16 +X17 +X19 +X20 +X21 +X23 +X24
for a basic code having a code word or block length of 255 bits, of which 231 bits are information bits and 24 bits are parity check bits. The minimum distance of this code is D=7. The generator polynomial is a product of the minimum polynomials M1 (x), M3 (x), and M5 (x) of the roots α, α3, and α5, as specified by the BCH code construction. The α is the primitive element of the Galois field, which in the case of this basic code is the Galois field GF(28).
While the invention applies to linear error correcting codes and in specific embodiments to selected linear cyclic invariant codes whose generator polynomials can be factored, in order to simplify the explanation of the invention, the invention will be described specifically with respect to a triple-error-correcting binary BCH code. There are also special cases of BCH codes, such as Reed-Solomon codes, to which the concepts of the present invention may be applied.
The inventor wishes to call attention to the following references by way of background for the present invention. Not all of the references herein cited are necessarily prior art to the present invention.
______________________________________Author U.S. Pat. No. Issue Date______________________________________Howell et al. 4,030,067 06-14-77Takezono et al. 4,064,483 12-20-77Chen et al. 4,142,174 02-27-79Berlekamp 4,162,480 07-24-79Ahamed 4,312,069 01-19-82Koga 4,468,769 08-24-84Kuki 4,502,141 02-26-85Olderdissen et al. 4,556,977 12-03-85Patterson 4,623,999 11-18-86Koga et al. 4,694,455 09-15-87Ozaki et al. 4,719,628 01-12-88______________________________________
Heretofore, virtually all BCH encoders have been based on an algorithm first described by Berlekamp, as noted in the above patent. The Berlekamp algorithm is a computation-intensive algorithm which was originally developed for relatively low-speed encoders.
The first step in the encoding computations is to compute the syndrome, or in the case of a triple-error-correcting BCH code, the three syndromes, referred to as S1, S3 and S5. There may be 24 bits in the syndromes in a typical example, which are the result of computations according to 24 parity check equations. The three syndromes are the remainders after the generator polynomial is divided by the polynomials M1 (x), M3 (x) and M5 (x).
The syndromes are the values which contain the information needed to identify and locate any errors, and the syndromes are usually computed by dividing the received polynomial by the minimum polynomials using feedback shift registers.
Implementation of an encoder circuit at high speeds of interest, namely, greater than 500 MBPS, is extremely difficult because the propagation delay of a typical flip-flop plus the propagation delay of an EXCLUSIVE OR gate plus the setup time of the next flip-flop stage in a combinatorial logic encoder must be less than 2 nanoseconds. With currently-available commercial technology, this is possible only using expensive high-speed digital GaAs circuitry. Integrated circuits operating at speeds sufficient to support computation for data rates of greater than 1 GBPS are considered impossible to realize given the current state of the art of both digital circuitry and digital microwave techniques. Even if such circuitry were available, the current state-of-the-art techniques would require that each be individually customized, thereby essentially precluding the commercial development and large-volume availability of devices incorporating a high-speed BCH encoder. Therefore, novel technology is needed to overcome the problems inherent in computation-based encoders.
The conventional technique in pattern generation for translating syndrome patterns into error locations is a two-step approach using as a first step the Berlekamp algorithm referenced above, which translates the three syndromes into three error locator polynomial coefficients, and as a second step adding an error correction word to the polynomial coefficients based on the syndromes.
The use of a Read Only memory (ROM) has been suggested by Patterson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,999 in connection with the realization of BCH encoders. However, ROMs have only been suggested for use in support of specialized feedback and specialized computations of the conventional encoding method without departing substantially from the conventional encoding procedure.
If all encoding computations of a 255 bit, 231 codeword (255,231) BCH code were to be stored in a Read Only Memory, the size of the memory would be 2231, or 3.4×1069 bits, which exceeds the storage capacity of the combination of all known computer memories. It is manifest that such an encoder is impractical. On the other hand, a computational system is far too slow for implementation at speeds in ranges exceeding about 500 MBPS.
Howell et al. describes a decoder which has an associated encoder employing a table of stored values corresponding to complete generator matrix and a complex EXCLUSIVE-OR tree. The circuitry includes certain computational tasks. The circuitry is by subsequent comparison highly redundant and thus requires the use of an excessive amount of circuitry.
Takezone is a decoder which uses cubic circuits employing Galois field arithmetic. There is no direct disclosure of encoding techniques or structures.
Chen et al. discloses a decoder for decoding Reed-Solomon codes, a special class of BCH codes. It does not disclose or suggest how to generate parity information.
Berlekamp '480 discloses a technique for generation of parity which teaches away from the invention as disclosed hereinafter. In the Berlekamp technique, the operation of multiplication, which is used to generate parity, is precomputed in Galois Field 25 (GF(25)) and then expressed as precomputed values in combinatorial logic, as described in Table I of the patent.
Ahamed discloses serial binary division for generating parity bits. This requires a relatively long time delay to produce the desired parity values. As a consequence there is a speed limitation based on the excessive propagation delays.
Koga and Koga et al. describe decoders. The only references to encoding are to the work of others, which appear to rely on direct computation of parity.
Kuki describes another feedback shift register approach for generating the parity associated with a BCH code. It is slowed by its propagation through a classical feedback shift register and therefore is subject to inherent speed limitations.
Olderdissen et al. describes encoding with a specialized BCH coding scheme wherein a plurality of Read Only Memory elements is employed, each of the ROMs serving unique functions. There are at least two levels of ROM-based decoding to obtain the needed parity information for encoding. The speed of the encoding process is limited by propagation time through a nibble-oriented tree structure similar to a shift register.
Ozaki describes a multiple-step parity generation technique for use in encoding a BCH code. As with other prior art, there is an inherent delay due to the multiple step processing required, thereby constraining the speed of operation.
It would be desirable to minimize the amount of memory required to solve the encoding problem without sacrificing speed of processing.
In view of the limitations in the conventional approach to the solution of the BCH encoding problem, it is apparent that what is needed is an approach to encode BCH and like codes at speeds which are not limited by the computation apparatus or conventional memory limitations.
In accordance with the invention, an encoder is provided for selected linear error correcting codes whose generator polynomials can be factored, such as a BCH code, and which uses relatively low-speed circuitry to determine syndromes. A parity matrix derived from the BCH generator matrix is provided as data to a generator vector whereby the generator vector is used as a logical shift function generator. When the logical shift function is applied to the rows of the parity matrix, columns of parity are shifted into an EXCLUSIVE-OR tree to produce the parity bit of the column. The parity bit of the column is then injected into a data stream forming the encoded symbol for transmission, attaching the parity word following the data word. In a specific embodiment, storage requirements of the parity matrix memory, which may be a Read Only Memory, are minimized, and simple shift operations are employed to speed apparent computation. The table look-up method avoids the complexity of error locating polynomials, algebraic root finders and real-time computation while reducing computation time. The apparatus may be constructed making maximum use of standard, commercially-available, relatively low-cost integrated circuits, but it is nevertheless capable of operating at speeds in excess 1 GBPS. Specifically, the invention is capable of generating code at the rate of a serial bit stream through a single bit shift register and is therefore limited only by the speed of the technology in which the shift register is realized.
This invention is suitable for use in an encoder for a BCH communication system using a decoder of the type described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/265,625 filed Nov. 1, 1988 and assigned to Ford Aerospace Corporation, the assignee of the present invention. The invention can also be used in connection with other BCH or like decoders.
The invention will be more fully understood by reference to the following detailed description in connection with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of an encoder according to the invention.
FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a first state or clock cycle.
FIG. 3 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a second state or clock cycle.
FIG. 4 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a third state or clock cycle.
FIG. 5 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a fourth state or clock cycle.
FIG. 6 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a fifth state or clock cycle.
FIG. 7 is a simplified block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention at a sixth state or clock cycle.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention employing column/row rotation.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram representing an encoder according to the invention employing a hardwired matrix.
FIG. 10 is a detailed block diagram of a specific implementation of a (255,231) BCH encoder according to the invention.
FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the formatting of a 231 bit long stream of a standard 8-bit serial-to-parallel converter.
Referring to FIG. 1, the encoding process, which in the past has required direct computation of the syndromes, is accomplished according to the invention by use of a syndrome generation processor (a computer program) which produces as a result a simple parity matrix whose values are stored in a Read Only Memory 12 of an encoder 10. The syndrome generation processor precomputes a standard set of values for the predefined code word format from which the parity can be computed in accordance with the invention. The ROM 12 is of the number of rows equal to the codeword size N and the number of columns equal to the number of parity bits P. Its address input is provided by a recirculating counter 14, as hereinafter explained, whose function is to "count" the P columns whereby each column is separately addressed, and its data output is fed through an AND gate array 16 to an EXCLUSIVE-OR gate tree 18. The AND gate array is equal in size to the number of bits N in the code word. The EXCLUSIVE-OR gate tree 18 consolidates the N bits by combinatorial logic into a single bit, producing as an output a serial bit stream corresponding to the parity word of the code word. The serialized parity word is fed one bit at a time into an output shift register 20 such that it is appended to the code word previously loaded into the output shift register 20 from a code word source input 22. The output shift register 20 produces as its serial output the desired encoded digital data stream with a parity word suited to be used for error correction. According to the invention, the parity word is produced by ANDing the input code word with a predetermined column of the parity matrix. For this purpose, an input shift register 124 captures the input code word from the code word source input 22 and provides a needed one word delay in propagation, and a latch 126 samples the parallel output of the input shift register 124 to provide parallel input to one input port of each of the two-input AND gates 28 in the AND gate array 16. Timing and logic control means 30 are provided to control the input clock speed, the output clock speed, and the multiplexing of the input to the output shift register 20 through a switch 32. The output clock speed is greater than the input clock speed by a ratio equal to the ratio of the differential size of the input code word and the output code with parity word.
In order to understand the operation and derivation of a structure of any encoder in accordance with the invention, it is helpful to understand a portion of the mathematics applied to this invention. The invention relies on the use of the parity matrix, which is generated from the standard generator polynomial.
Computation of the syndromes if in real time would be as follows. The BCH code has a characteristic H matrix describing the parity check equations which make up the syndrome calculations. Specifically, by definition:
where c is the code word and HT is the transpose of the H matrix. The received code is r, which is a combination of the code word c plus a linear combination of some error e, or r=c+e. The syndrome is given by:
S=rHT =cHT +eHT =eHT.
Thus, the syndrome error is dependent only on the error pattern and not on the encoded information.
The H matrix for the BCH code of this example is a 24-row by 255-column matrix. The first eight rows correspond to the eight bits of the first syndrome S1, the second eight rows correspond to the eight bits of the second syndrome S3, and the third eight rows correspond to the eight bits of the third syndrome S5.
The first row of the matrix represents the parity check equation for the first bit of S1, the value of the first bit being given by the parity of the bit-by-bit product of the received code word and the first row of the H matrix, each of which are 255 bits long. The bit-by-bit product is the result of the Exclusive-ORing of the two. The received code word may be subdivided into sixteen-bit chunks, each of which may be processed in parallel with the corresponding sixteen-bit chunk of the corresponding row of the H matrix. After all sixteen partial parities have been computed (the 256th bit is ignored), they can be modulo-2 added to form the total parity, the result of which is the first bit of the first syndrome S1. The same process is carried out for all of the other syndrome bits.
According to the invention, a parity matrix derived from the BCH generator matrix is provided as data to a generator vector whereby the generator vector is used as a logical shift function generator. When the logical shift function is applied to the rows of the parity matrix, columns of parity are shifted into an EXCLUSIVE-OR tree to produce the parity bit of the column. The parity bit of the column is then injected into a data stream forming the encoded symbol for transmission, attaching the parity word following the data word.
Only the parity matrix without the identity matrix is stored such that the parity matrix is very small. For a 255 bit BCH coding scheme (255,231) which uses 24 bits of parity, only 231×24 entries are required in the parity matrix, which is 5,544 bits in size.
In order to better understand the principle underlying the present invention, it is helpful to review the currently-known methods for coding a message vector and then to compare them with the present invention.
The simplest way to describe standard coding techniques is to give an example of the typical matrix operations that take place to generate a coded "information plus parity" input vector.
Consider a (6,3) coding scheme, consisting of 6 total bits per coded word, 3 information bits and 6-3=3 parity bits. After conventional prior analysis has been completed, a generator matrix G is defined as: ##EQU1##
Given this generator matrix, consider transmission of the message m=(1 0 1). To assure that the message is transmitted error free, it is necessary to add the proper parity information to the message m prior to transmission. Thus, should an error occur during the transmission process, this permits reconstruction of the original message from the received error-ridden code word.
To produce a transmittable code word u, the message m is coded with the proper parity information defined by the generator matrix G. This is achieved by performing the matrix multiply and add operations as follows. ##EQU2##
The coding process is now complete and the code word u of the message m can now be sent out for transmission.
In more general terms, to produce a (n,k) code word u, the message vector m, and generator matrix G, operations take the following generalized form. ##EQU3##
If it is desired to produce a (255,231) code word as herein, the matrix coding operations would analogously take the following form. ##EQU4##
These coding operations can be performed as described by using a microprocessor or feedback shift register, but as described above there are speed limitations to these approaches which are addressed by the present invention.
As described above, a fast, convenient way to perform the coding operation is simply to store all combinations of the message vector and its associated parity equivalent in a ROM for future look up. Using the first (6,3) code word example, the lookup table is fairly tameable, i.e., the maximum probable combinations of the message word is 23 =8 and therefore the total number of combinations to store the generator/parity matrix equivalent would require 8×3 bits=24 bits of ROM.
If extended to application of type intended for this invention, the (255,231) code word would require 2231 =3.45×1069 combinations of 231 bit message words and therefore requires (3.45×1069)×24 bits=8.282×1070 bits of table look up ROM. Aside from the speed issues of using e.g. CMOS technology, this is a prohibitive amount of memory that makes this approach highly impractical.
In order to understand the method according to the invention, the following example is presented. Thereafter is presented a hardware implementation.
According to the invention, an encoding system uses the "1's" and "0's" of the message vector m as a switching arbiter to enable the rows of a parity matrix to be "pushed out" and combined by a simple EXCLUSIVE OR function. These operations produce parity information which is concatenated to the message vector and then sent as part of the message on the communication channel. An example follows to clarify the operation.
Using the same example above, FIG. 2 represents a coding system 10 having received the message vector m=101. The message vector is copied into a switch column buffer 24 along parity matrix 112. For the sake of the example, a "1" in the switch column buffer 24 implies that the same row in the parity matrix 112 will be "pushed" out by one column at a time to be evaluated by XOR gates 128, 228. A "0", conversely, disables the row pushing action and none of that particular row is sent to the XOR gates 128, 228. Specifically, the message vector m tells the switch column buffer 24 to enable the shifting outputs of rows 1 and 3 and to disable the outputs of row 2. At the same time the message vector m is loaded into switch column buffer 24, it is also loaded into shift register 20. A switch 121 is closed and a switch 122 is open.
On the next clock cycle, as in FIG. 3, the first bit A having value "1" of the message vector m is sent out to the channel from the shift register 20. The switch logic pushes the first bits of the parity matrix row onto the XOR array 128, 228 but inhibits the connection for row 2. The XOR function of column 1 bits of rows 1 and 3 produces a value "0". This is the first parity bit B of the message vector m. It is loaded through the switch 121 into the shift register 20 as bit B to be sent out onto the channel following the message vector m.
On the third clock cycle, as in FIG. 4, the second bit C having value "0" of the message vector m is sent from the shift register 20 out to the channel. The switch logic pushes the second bits of the parity matrix row onto the XOR array 128, 228 but continues to inhibit the propagation or connection for row 2. The XOR function of column 2 bits of rows 1 and 3 is "1". This is the second parity bit D of the message vector m, which is loaded into the shift register 20 to be sent to the channel following the message vector m.
On the fourth clock cycle, as in FIG. 5, the third bit E having a value "1" of the message vector m is sent out to the channel. The switch logic pushes the third bits of the parity matrix row onto the XOR array but inhibits the connection for row 2. The XOR of bits of column 3 of rows 1 and 3 is "1". This is the third and final parity bit F of the message vector m, which is loaded into the shift register 20 to be sent out onto the channel.
On the fifth clock cycle, as in FIG. 6, the first bit B of the parity word having value "0" is sent out to the channel. The switch logic of switch 122 is turned OFF so that no row pushing operation takes place while the switch column buffer 24 accepts a new arbitrary-valued message vector m=XXX. In the first position a bit G in the shift register 20 has a value X which is of no consequence to the previously-transmitted data stream.
On the sixth and seventh clock cycles, and more specifically at the seventh clock cycle, as shown in FIG. 7, the last bits D and F, having respective values "1" and "1", of the parity word, stand sent out to the channel. New message bits G, J and K are stored in the shift register 20. After the seventh clock cycle, switch 122 is turned ON again and the row pushing operation is enabled to begin computing parity information for the new message vector, m=XXX. The entire process repeats itself for each successive message word thereafter.
The above description provides a complete description of a representative operation according to the invention with a small number of bits. It illustrates the combining to produce the proper parity information without having to resort to massive ROM look up tables or complex buffering circuit schemes.
An encoder 100 (FIG. 8) or 200 (FIG. 9) in accordance with the invention can be implemented either by rotating the generator/parity matrix columns/rows within a ROM or by hardwiring the matrix. Both embodiments are illustrated. The basic principles may also be applied for hybrid architecture implementations.
FIG. 8 represents an encoder 100 following the example using the column/row rotation. In this example, a parity ROM 12 contains the 3×3=9 bits of generator/parity matrix information. A column counter (COL CTR) 14 is a n-k state generator/parity matrix counter. Upon each count the COL CTR 14 addresses the generator/parity matrix ROM 12 to present the appropriate column of matrix information at the ROM outputs. The effect is equivalent to shifting and pushing the matrix rows through the AND gate switches 28, in the AND gate and switch latch 126 combination, and onto the XOR tree 18. Upon computing the proper parity information by this technique, each parity bit is serially shifted into a parity shift register 120 until all the parity bits have been computed. Thereafter, the parity shift register 120 changes to parallel shift mode and both the parity shift register and a message shift register 220 parallel shift their contents to a parallel-to-serial converter (PtoS) 320. A serial-to-parallel converter (StoP) 420 is provided at the input to receive the incoming serial bit stream and convert it to parallel data. At the appropriate time this parallel information is loaded and held in the switch latch 126 and message shift register 220 during the parity computation. All computations take place in real time prior to the block of information comprising the next incoming data input word.
When this architecture is extended to the (255,231) BCH code according to the invention, the resultant structure is a maximally fast yet compact encoder. More explicitly, the (255,231) code word design requires only (231 bit message×24 bit parity word =) 5544 bits of generator/parity matrix information to be stored in ROM. The ROM information is sequenced through 231 AND gates and latch switches and 460 column XOR gates. The residual circuitry entails a StoP and PtoS converter, a 255-bit holding latch and minimal timing components.
FIG. 9 illustrates an encoder 200 according to the invention embodied in a hardwired matrix apparatus. In this configuration it is still required to store the (3×3=) 9 bits of generator/parity matrix information. However, in order to take full advantage of an encoder 200 according to the invention, the information inputs of the AND gates 28 of the switch are tied to a logical "1" or "0" corresponding to the column/row information of the generator/parity matrix. Therefore, no clocking of the ROM columns is required, and the speed at which the parity information is generated is strictly dependent upon the propagation delay of the XOR gate array. Once again, the input data stream enters through a serial to parallel converter 420. The outputs of the StoP 420 connect to the AND gates 28 which form a switch which has the equivalent of permitting or inhibiting the row information fed to the XOR array. Simultaneously, the StoP 420 outputs are latched into a message shift register 220. The parity information is thereupon computed by allowing the message word to propagate through the bank of XOR gates 18. Once the propagation is complete, the parity information is loaded into the parity shift register 120, and the contents of both the message shift register 220 and the parity shift register are shifted out to the PtoS 320.
Extending this architecture to the (255,231) BCH code according to the invention requires (231×24=)5544 bits of generator/parity matrix information or 5544 AND gates, ((460 XOR gates/column)×24 parity bits)=11,040 gates, which is readily realizable in current technology. The residual circuitry entails a StoP converter and a PtoS converter, a 255-bit holding latch and minimal timing components.
It is clear from both of the embodiments of FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 that the (255,231) BCH code used in this fashion produces a sufficiently low gate count to allow it to be easily integrated onto silicon.
A prototype of an embodiment of the invention was built of emitter coupled logic (ECL) components. A block diagram of the prototype is shown in FIG. 10. A serial to parallel converter 420 receives as input a single bit wide data stream. A timing block 421 provides an end of frame or sync pulse signal on line 422, an initial low rate input clock (for clocking the data without parity added) on line 423 and a bit-slip command signal (to account for the end of a code word which is not a multiple of the converter size, e.g., eight bits) on signal line 424. The converter 420 shifts 8 bits at a time into a first byte-oriented shift register 425. The register 425 may have its bit locations numbered 0 to 7 for the first byte up to 224 to 231 for the 29th byte. The timing block 421 provides a 1/8 frequency clock as input for an 8-bit wide shift register via signal line 425.
Once the first shift register 425 has been fully loaded, the frame sync signal 422 directed to second shift register 427 and through an inverter 428 to a third shift register 429 causes alternately the second shift register 427 or the third shift register 429 to be loaded with the entire content of the first shift register 425 via 231-bit wide bus 430. Thus, either the second shift register 427 or the third shift register 429 contain an image of the content of the first shift register 425.
As soon as the second or third shift register 427 or 429 is loaded, its parallel content is directed via a third bus 431 or a fourth bus 432 to a multiplexer 433 whereby one or the other of the 231-bit wide words is sent to address inputs of a ROM (Read Only Memory) 434 on a bus 435. The ROM 434 contains the data comprising the parity matrix having been precomputed according to the invention. A data output bus 436 (which is effectively 208 bits wide) is provided from the ROM 434 to a tree 18 of EXCLUSIVE-OR gates. The ROM 434 in the prototype is constructed of components which require that the output be multiplexed internally and pipelined to shift out 208 bits in three cycles into the tree 18. The output of the tree 18 is directed via an eight-bit wide bus 438 to a multiplexer 441 to either of two parallel/serial hybrid shift registers 439 and 440. The purpose of these two shift registers is to capture eight bits at a time and then to add serially any excess bits to the data group to match the desired code word length for the parity portion of the output code word. Timing from the timing block 421 controls the parallel loading of three bytes and the serial shifting to add a single bit to account for the odd code word length and the parallel output shifting in eight-bit byte-oriented groups to the shift registers 427 and 429. The bytes are propagated alternately through the second shift register 427 or the third shift register 428 to a parallel to serial converter 320 through the 255th bit, after which a single bit shift adds the 256th bit. The second and third shift registers 427 and 429 load and shift according to complementary timing based on the end of frame clock on signal line 422. This is a so-called ping pong mode of operation which speeds throughput.
The first shift register 425 is optionally to be omitted where is more convenient to load input data alternately directly into the second or third shift registers 427 or 429. The entire device can be built in a custom integrated circuit, thereby eliminating the restriction to byte-oriented hardware. However, if it is further desireable to eliminate bit slipping to add odd bits, the shift register structure of FIG. 11 could be adopted. This would allow a designer to built a device which is limited only by the inherent speed limitations of the underlying technology.
As is apparent for a (255,231) code, the word sizes are non-binary and therefore cumbersome to use when constructing hardware using complex byte-oriented (8-bit unit) standard components. For example, an attempt to convert data serial-to-parallel using an incoming 231-bit stream, or to convert parallel-to-serial using an output 255-bit stream becomes quite awkward when using standard 8-bit serial-to-parallel or parallel-to-serial converters, particularly due to the nondivisibility of the large word size by 8.
To solve this problem, a common denominator was found for both the 231 and 255 bit streams. For example, consider an incoming 231-bit data word. The number 231 is divisible by 11, i.e. 231/11=21. This means that a 231-bit word can be represented as twenty-one 11-bit words shifted serially. Since it is preferable to use standard 8-bit serial-to-parallel converters, 8-bits must be able to divide 231 equally or it will be quite difficult to trace the beginning of each 231 bit word. Since 8×11=88 is divisible by 8 and 11, and 11 can divide into 231 evenly, a solution follows. The cost of such a solution will be 88-bits of buffering.
Referring to FIG. 11, which illustrates a converter 500 constructed of 8-bit units, 8-bit parallel information is continuously fed to eleven 8-bit wide shift registers 400. Once the 11×8 shift registers 400 are full with 88-bits of incoming information, that information is immediately (flash) dumped to an eight by 11-bit wide 88-bit shift register bank 402. The Serial to Parallel converter 420 continues to load the 11×8 shift register bank 400 and the above process continues.
Eventually the twenty-one 11-bit shift registers of bank 402 are filled with a full 231 bits of information. Once this occurs the 231-bit word is dumped and latched to compute the parity information as described by the techniques suggested in connection with FIG. 8 or FIG. 9.
If a 255-bit output is desired, then 15 divides into 255 evenly, 255/15=17, and it is noted that 8×15=120. Therefore, to deformat back to a standard 8-bit parallel-to-serial converter, the newly coded word ((231 message bits)+(24 parity bits))=255 bits, is translated to seventeen 15-bit wide shift registers. When the last 120-bits or 8×15 bits of an eight by 15-bit wide shift register bank is full, the resultant 120 bits are dumped to a 15×8, fifteen by 8-bit wide shift register bank that can now be shifted out to a standard 8-bit parallel-to-serial converter. It should be understood that a complementary structure, augmented to accommodate the increased word size as a result of the appending of the parity, is needed in the system in order to reformat the word prior to its output to the output data channel.
Although this procedure appears quite simplistic, it is vital to making the entire system feasible for use with odd code sizes, and it eliminates the need to slow down the StoP or PtoS converters which would otherwise be required to perform complex odd-sized bit slipping operations without breaking the incoming real-time bit stream.
The specific embodiment of the invention as described above has been built and tested at data rates in the range of 1 GBPS. Substantially higher rates could be achieved by increasing the size of the data chunks from sixteen bits to thirty-two bits, for example. Conventional CMOS, TTL and ECL integrated circuits have been employed, with GaAs circuits used only for the serial/parallel conversions.
Attached as Appendix A is the source code for a syndrome generation processor for a (255,231 BCH code. This processor is used to generate the syndrome used in the present invention.
The invention has now been described with reference to specific embodiments. Other embodiments will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. For example, the invention has been described with respect to a particular type of BCH code. The invention can be modified to apply to special cases of error correcting codes having similar characteristics, such as Reed-Solomon codes, which are nonbinary subsets of BCH codes. In addition, the invention applies to a wide variety of linear cyclic invariant codes whose generator polynomials can be factored. However, it is believed that less than all such codes can be decoded in accordance with selected embodiments of the invention. It is therefore not intended that this invention be limited, except as indicated in the appended claims. ##SPC1##
|Cited Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
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|U.S. Classification||714/759, 714/782|
|Aug 18, 1989||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: FORD AEROSPACE CORPORATION, 3501 JAMBOREE BLVD., N
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:CHEN, CARSON;REEL/FRAME:005111/0844
Effective date: 19890814
|Sep 25, 1991||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: LORAL AEROSPACE CORP. A CORPORATION OF DE, NEW Y
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:FORD AEROSPACE CORPORATION, A DE CORPORATION;REEL/FRAME:005906/0022
Effective date: 19910215
|Dec 22, 1994||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|Sep 3, 1998||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: LOCKHEED MARTIN AEROSPACE CORPORATION, MARYLAND
Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:LORAL AEROSPACE CORPORATION;REEL/FRAME:009430/0939
Effective date: 19960429
|Feb 16, 1999||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8
|Mar 15, 1999||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION, MARYLAND
Free format text: MERGER;ASSIGNOR:LOCKHEED MARTIN AEROSPACE CORP.;REEL/FRAME:009833/0831
Effective date: 19970627
|Feb 12, 2003||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 12 | {
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- DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
- preprocess/ (text preprocessing programs)
- count/ (Modify count.pl output from Text-NSP)
- matrix/ - (Similarity matrix constructors)
- vector/ (Represent contexts as vectors to be clustered)
- svd/ (SVDPACKC interface)
- clusterstopping/ (Cluster Stopping program)
- evaluate/ (Evaluate the results of SenseClusters by comparing to gold standard data)
- clusterlabel/ (Cluster Labeling programs)
README.Toolkit - SenseClusters Toolkit directory structure with links to all program documentation
This briefly describes the structure of the Toolkit directory, and gives a brief idea of what each program does. Directories are indicated with a / at the end of their name (preprocess/) while programs end with the .pl suffix. All of this is contained in the Toolkits/ directory. Note that these are organized roughly in the order in which they will be used by SenseClusters.
Please review the flowcharts found in doc/Flowcharts for additional information.
plain/ (processes input in plain text format)
text2sval.pl - Convert simple plain text into Senseval2 format
sval2/ (processes input in Senseval-2 format)
balance.pl - Balances sense distribution in a Senseval-2 input file by removing some instances
filter.pl - Removes instances associated with low frequency sense tags from Senseval-2 input
frequency.pl - Displays frequency distribution of senses
keyconvert.pl - Convert KEY file from Senseval-2 format to SenseCluster's format
maketarget.pl - Create a Perl regex for the target word by spotting all <head> tags in the given file
prepare_sval2.pl - Prepare Senseval-2 data for experiments
preprocess.pl - Tokenize and optionally split Senseval-2 input into training and test portions
sval2plain.pl - Convert a Senseval-2 input file to plain text format
windower.pl - Cut a window of context W words big around a target word in a given Senseval-2 input file
reduce-count.pl - Reduce the size of the Text-NSP output created with huge training data
bitsimat.pl - Create a similarity matrix for given bit vectors
simat.pl - Create a similarity matrix for given non-binary (integer or real) vectors
nsp2regex.pl - Creates regular expressions from Text-NSP output to represent features
order1vec.pl - Creates first order context vectors
order2vec.pl - Creates second order context vectors
wordvec.pl - Creates word vectors from Text-NSP output
mat2harbo.pl - Convert matrices from SenseClusters format to Harwell-Boeing format
svdpackout.pl - Reconstruct a matrix from its singular vectors as found by by SVDPACKC
clusterstopping.pl - Predicts the number of clusters that a given data should be divided into. Provides three such cluster stopping measures.
cluto2label.pl - Convert clustering output of Cluto to a cluster by sense confusion matrix for evaluation
format_clusters.pl - Display contexts that were clustered with assigned sense id, or display senseval-2 format with assigned sense id
label.pl - Assign sense tags to the discovered clusters for evaluation
report.pl - Report performance in terms of the precision, recall, and F-Measure, and show a confusion matrix
clusterlabeling.pl - Selects significant word-pairs from the contents/instances of the clusters and assigns them as the labels to the clusters. Also creates separate file for each cluster.
Ted Pedersen, University of Minnesota, Duluth tpederse at d.umn.edu
Copyright (c) 2003-2008, Ted Pedersen
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Note: a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License is available on the web at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html and is included in this distribution as FDL.txt. | {
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Bobbi Augustine Sand is the game designer and author of Knife Sisters, a visual novel published by Transcenders Media. In Knife Sisters, players assume the role of Leo, a non-binary twenty-something exploring BDSM relationships and the occult. Players navigate this black-and-white world by choosing who to spend time with, what kink to explore, and how to respond to new situations, all while safely negotiating power exchange and communicating consent.
Bobbi and I start this interview by reviewing the basics, such as what BDSM, edgeplay, and polyamory are, where gamers can learn more about these subcultures, and how people interested in kink can find each other. We discuss the different sexual cultures of Bobbi’s native Sweden versus my own in the United States, how the game’s adult content made it difficult to market internationally, and the resulting challenges for its Kickstarter. And, of course, we talk about Knife Sisters: the different ways Leo and Mo express consent; whether Naomi would’ve chosen to be childfree; how Dagger’s rituals fit into the theme of power exchange; and what exactly Kylo Zen is.
Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode. | {
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Lise Weil quotes Adrienne Rich: “I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence.” This approach to loving seems to be the exact conceit of Weil’s intimate memoir. Frequent references to H.D., Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly–as well as run-ins in with Audre Lorde–work to create a robust, and sometimes surprising, portrait of the second wave feminist movement. Throughout In Search of Pure Lust, Weil is driven by this intellectual, all-in loving. In her many relationships, Weil lusts for woman not only as partners and lovers, but as poets, scholars, and visionaries.
Judith Barrington’s Long Love is a collection of new and selected poems celebrating her impressive tenure as a writer. Drawing from Trying to Be an Honest Woman (1985), History and Geography (1989), as well as more recent works like Lost Lands (2008), this latest collection is anchored by Barrington’s stripped-back voice and generous poetic ear.
below is a selection of our prints. for the full selection, sales, and updates on art shows visit instagram @roman.pace
~ prints are 15$ each or 5 for $50 ~
about the artist
roman pace is a sapphic, non-binary artist living in the south. roman places their work within a collective conjuring of queer future. they use collage, photography, and craft to explore the relationship between madness and queerness. they are a co founding member of twiin flame art collective. reach out to them at [email protected] or check out their prints on instagram @roman.pace
all art reflects the collective’s values as leftist and loving.
want to connect? we love to chat with other queer artist folx!
send us a message on the Contact page | {
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Students at a UK primary school will now be told that boys can have periods too under new sex education guidance.
The advice to teachers was approved by Brighton Council in a bid to tackle stigma surrounding menstruation, The Sun reports.
The report states: “Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods”, adding “menstruation must be inclusive of ‘all genders’.”
It also orders that “bins for used period products are provided in all toilets” for children and that trans pupils and students should be provided with additional support from a school nurse if needed.
The council said it was “important for all genders to be able to learn and talk about menstruation together”.
“Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods”, adding “menstruation must be inclusive of ‘all genders’.”
The guidelines on tackling period poverty come just a few months after Brighton & Hove City Council issued a Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit to encourage sensitivity around student gender identity.
In the toolkit, teachers are told to be responsive to the needs of all non-binary and trans children and are reminded that intentionally not using a person’s preferred name or pronoun can constitute harassment.
It also recommends a non-gendered uniform so that children are supportive of all students, regardless of gender.
In 2016, Brighton College was thought to be the first to change its uniform policy so that transgender pupils could wear what they like.
But Tory MP David Davies told the Mail On Sunday it was “insanity” for teachers to be explaining the concept of transgender boys having periods to eight-year-olds.
“Learning about periods is already a difficult subject for children that age, so to throw in the idea girls who believe they are boys also have periods will leave them completely confused,” he said.
A council spokesman told The Sun: “We believe that it’s important for all genders to be able to learn and talk about menstruation together. We recommend including boys in our lessons on periods and opportunities for girls to discuss issues in more detail if needed.
They added: “We are working to reduce period poverty. By encouraging effective education on menstruation and puberty we hope to reduce stigma and ensure no child or young person feels shame in asking for period products inside or outside of school if they need them.
“Our approach recognises the fact that some people who have periods are trans or non-binary.”
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was republished with permission.
Originally published as School teaches ‘boys can have periods too’ | {
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The family of Harry Hains has released his first posthumous single “Good Enough.”The song, released under Harry’s artist name ANTIBOY, is the first track from his forthcoming concept album A Glitch in Paradise, due out later this year. A multi-dimensional and compelling musician, actor (most noted for American Horror Story and The OA,) artist, and model, Harry didn’t define himself by the constructs surrounding us. On the heels of PRIDE and at a time when society is rising up to break down old systems of oppression and demanding equality for all, Harry’s inclusive perspective and forward-thinking vision, found at the intersection of our conversations on sexuality, gender, race and self-expression, endures because of its cultural relevance.
Harry’s concept of ANTIBOY offers a portal into an age of existence where there is complete unparalleled freedom to live without preconceptions and societal labels. In a digital utopia where there is no inequality, prejudice, or toxicity, Harry (as the genderless transhuman being ANTIBOY) imagines a world in which the human mind and the bionic body merge. Harry lived this through his own identity, which was gender fluid, shapeshifting and open to interpretation just like his music. The focus on the merger of the human consciousness with artificial intelligence, of non-binary existence, and Harry’s robotic, neutral vocal delivery negates gender and labels, opening up a conversation about what the future of our species should and could be.
An amalgamation of rock, electronica and gothic pop that cannot be distilled into one type of genre or emotional palette, A Glitch In Paradise explores the virtual world of ANTIBOY as he re-lives his mistakes in order to try to correct them and find happiness. But ANTIBOY experiences glitches and gets stuck in an endless loop of heartache, inspired by Harry’s relationship with then partner Mike.
This is introduced in the lyrics of “Good Enough,” a track that questions being good enough for a partner and feeling incapable of moving on “You remind me how it hurts / Make me forget what I learned / Remind me how it hurts / Maybe it’s all too much / Maybe I’m not pure enough for you? / Maybe I’m not good enough for you / Maybe It’s too much force for you / You won’t tell me that you love me / Why do I try / You won’t tell me that you love me / It’s all a lie,” Harry sings gently over emo guitar chords and sparse beats.
Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Harry’s uniquely imaginative mind blossomed as a child. He created horror films on his camcorder and wrote short stories and countless poems inspired by Sylvia Plath and EE Cummings. His patch eventually led him to London for modeling and then to LA to pursue his passions for acting and music. He lived, ate and breathed music, film and art creation. For Harry, art should not be constrained to what it has been previously, just as human existence should be free to evolve. His songs are Trojan Horses packed with such revolutionary ideals. Although Harry isn’t here to speak for his creations, they speak for him, offering up the view he had for a limitless and more modernized world. | {
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Not to be confused with polyamory, polysexuality is a sexual orientation that just might be more common than you think.
By Amanda Chatel September 06, 2021
For those who don’t adhere to heteronormative, monogamous relationships, it’s a fantastic time to be alive. The notion of sexuality running the gamut is nothing new, having done so as long as human beings have been on the earth, but modern society has finally reached a place where, if you want, you can put an accurate name on any sexual orientation or gender identity.
Earlier generations didn’t have the same luxury. Although such terminology has been around for a while, many labels didn’t get the representation or respect they fully deserved — take pansexual, for example, which wasn’t really known to the general public until Miley Cyrus identified as pansexual in 2015. The same can be said for polysexual, a term that was first used in the 1920s, but didn’t make it to the mainstream until 1974, when Noel Coppage wrote an article for Stereo Review in which he references David Bowie, among others, as being polysexual. At the time, Coppage lumped this term in with asexual, bisexual, and pansexual, which isn’t exactly accurate.
There’s also a polysexual flag, which has three horizontal stripes of color: pink, green, and blue, going from top to bottom.
So what does it mean to be polysexual, really? Here’s everything you need to know.
What Does Polysexual Mean?
If you’re more familiar — or only familiar — with the term “polyamory,” it might seem like it goes hand-in-hand with polysexuality, but that’s not the case. The former is a type of non-monogamous relationship orientation in which someone engages in more than one relationship, while the latter is a sexual orientation.
“As with all sexual orientation and gender identity terms, the exact definition [of polysexual] may vary based on who is doing the defining and/or self-identifying,” says queer sex educator Gabrielle Kassel, co-host of Bad In Bed: The Queer Sex Education Podcast. “The prefix ‘poly’ means many or multiple. So, generally, someone who is polysexual acknowledges that they have the potential to be romantically, sexually, and/or emotionally attracted to multiple different genders.”
What polysexual looks like isn’t set in stone. It differs from person to person, based on whom they’re attracted to, which is also something that can shift over time. “One polysexual person might be attracted to men, non-binary people, and genderqueer folks,” says Kassel. “While someone else might be attracted to men, women, and non-binary individuals.” (See: What It Really Means to Be Non-Binary)
In other words, there’s no one way to be polysexual.
Polysexual vs. Pansexual, Omnisexual, and Bisexual
It can be a bit difficult to understand the difference between these terms. While they’re all sexual orientations and may share some similarities — namely, they all describe sexual orientations that mean a person is attracted to at least two genders — they’re still separate from each other.
Bisexual: Bisexuals generally center their sexual orientation within a binary to their own gender and another gender, says Tiana GlittersaurusRex, polyamorous educator and activist, and co-founder of The Sex Work Survival Guide. Bisexuality can be seen as a form of polysexuality since it describes the attraction to more than one gender.
Pansexual: Meanwhile, “pansexual implies sexual attraction to anyone regardless of their gender beyond the binary of male and female.” This attraction, explains Kassel, is for “people all across the gender spectrum.” For those who are pansexual, gender plays no role in their attraction to a person. Instead, they look beyond gender, finding that their attraction is based on one’s personality, their intelligence, how they see the world, their sense of humor, how they treat people, and other aspects of being a human being sharing this Earth with other human beings. Pansexuality differs from polysexuality because people who identify as polysexual may be attracted to some — but not all — gender expressions, and may factor those expressions into their attraction vs. being attracted to someone regardless of gender. (Related: The ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Moment That Made Emily Hampshire Realize She Was Pansexual)
Omnisexual: Although different, omnisexual (the prefix “omni” meaning “all”), is still similar to being pansexual. Where the differences lie for these two sexual orientations is “due to the full awareness of a partner’s gender, as opposed to having gender blindness,” says GlittersaurusRex. It’s this cognizance of gender that separates pansexuality and omnisexuality most of all. And omnisexuality is different from polysexuality in that people who identify as polysexual may be attracted to multiple — but not necessarily all — genders. | {
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International Wake Up* Retreat
for Young Mindfulness Practitioners 18-35
1 – 8 July, 2022
Dear beloved young friends,
We are so happy that conditions are sufficient for us to gather once more in Plum Village for time together in nature, to heal and to restore ourselves in this special retreat for young mindfulness practitioners aged 18-35.
We will have a week-long retreat from 1-8 July where we we will welcome many hundreds of you, especially from Europe, to enjoy live Dharma talks, sitting meditations, walking meditations, living together joyfully, simply, and happily. There will be time for hikes, listening to one another, bonfires, and touching a spiritual dimension in our life.
Please spread the word with your friends and be sure to book early as we still have to limit the number of places.
We hope to see you all for this legendary gathering of our spiritual family!
* The “Wake Up” movement
- Teachings will be in English with French interpretation
- There will be Dharma Sharing families in English, French, and Spanish
- To support the stability and collective energy of mindfulness, all participants are asked to stay the full week, and only arrive and depart on the designated days: Friday 1 July and Friday 8 July.
- There is an opportunity for experienced practitioners to join us and serve as volunteers supporting the retreat. Please apply here.
All retreat activities will be in the Upper Hamlet (except for one day), where the monks live. The Lower Hamlet is where the nuns live and is 3km from the Upper Hamlet (a 40 minute walk).
You can find more details about our accommodation and pricing here.
For friends who identify as being female
(limited space in the Upper Hamlet)
For friends who identify as being non-binary
For friends who identify as being male
For couples who wish to accommodate together
We ask that all couples be committed to refrain from sexual activity during the retreat. We encourage couples to stay in separate accommodation and fully offer the retreat to yourself.
Keeping our Guests and our Community Safe
We continue to be mindful of the situation with Covid-19 and have put in place a number of measures to ensure everybody’s safety.
Please review our Health Protocols thoroughly before registering.
More About this Retreat
As per Wake Up Retreat tradition, there will be a half-day of sharing circles in safe spaces on topics of sexuality. To welcome the LGBTQI+ community, we offer Dharma Sharing circles with experienced facilitators to create an inclusive and safe atmosphere.
We would like to ask all participants to be respectful of the peaceful and contemplative atmosphere of the monastery. This includes choosing appropriate, modest clothing, refraining from sexual activity throughout the retreat, and observing noble silence during the night. We reserve the right to require anyone who does not adhere to the retreat guidelines to leave the retreat without being reimbursed.
If you are physically or mentally impaired, or have other special needs, please communicate with us in advance during registration and we will try to accommodate your as best as we can.
The schedule will be slightly different from day to day but a typical day will look something like this:
5:00am: Wake Up
6:00am: Sitting Meditation
(followed by Sutra Reading / Touching the Earth / Slow Walking Meditation)
9:30am: Dharma Talk / Presentation
11:30am: Walking meditation
1:30pm: Rest / Optional Guided Relaxation
3:30pm: Service Meditation/Dharma Sharing
6pm: Light dinner
8pm: Sitting Meditation/ another collective practice/ Personal study time
9.30pm: Noble Silence begins
10pm: Lights out
There is often time in the early morning or late afternoon for personal exercise (eg. Yoga, Chi Gong, Tai Chi, Jogging) or, depending on the weather, group sports (football, volleyball, frisbee etc).
More information about Plum Village Retreats
You can find more information about visiting Plum Village for a retreat on this page.
For practicalities such as transportation, arrival and departure, what to bring and what to wear, please see our practicalities page. | {
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Hybrid Light: A Few Thoughts on the Future of Virtual Photography
John Szarkowski, who was in charge of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art from1962 to 1991, once called photography “flexible, intuitive, autographic, fast, cheap, tentative, and in some sense not yet understood, accurate.” It is the very simplicity, the very fact that most of us use photography every day, that makes it the perfectly contrasting way to try to engage with these complex virtual systems, which are otherwise only accessible by a tiny population of dedicated coders and engineers. It should be no surprise that artists are deeply intrigued and confused by these same seemingly limitless, but always limited, expanses of virtual places. What could be more natural for an artist than to leap straight into the heart of this mystifying complexity and make art about these place-systems?
After all, the great populist art critic John Berger said, “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” (His miniseries Ways of Seeing on BBC was a touchstone for anyone trying to understand the big picture of the forces that surround art.) It’s the very complexity, the very tension between original and fake, between public and private, between mediated and real, that comes from trying to make photography in these digital systems that makes this work so vital and so interestingly relevant in a world that seems every more virtual and mediated.
In an essay talking about Rian Dundon’s photography book Fan, which is a look at the Chinese movie star system, Erik Be had a fantastically radical but wonderfully simple thought, “Society is one big fandom, consisting of many smaller ones [including art!], often at odds with each other, using the others’ ‘fakeness’ as a weapon to wage their wars.” But he was very optimistic that art, especially art about subcultures, had something important to add in the midst of all this supposed fakeness precisely because, “By revealing flaws in the cultural mythology, we can find ways to create our own life’s meaning.” Whether that meaning is finding a new way forward in photography, trying to come to an understanding of the way the digital world shapes our selves and desires, or even trying to make the familiar strange and thus give those things we take for granted a new sheen of beauty, screenshot and virtual photography becomes a fertile ground for finding those liberating flaws.
In my first major essay on video games, titled “Virtual Light”, one of my first big revelations was that you had to leave your preconceptions behind and approach these new photographic methods in a non-binary way. Specifically, though we’re currently exploring virtual photography as art, all of these works all exist in a broad context of other virtual images being made and disseminated for a multitude of reasons: from sharing accomplishments in video games between friends; to covers of magazines; to proof for bug reports from QA testers; to ironic memes; to gallery walls.
To understand that virtual photography is used in so many different ways by so many different people is important because it ties directly into the entire history of photography. After all, the history of photography is primarily a story of exceptions, mutants, technological quirks, mistakes, and hybrids. 100 years ago most people, museums, and artists didn’t even consider any photography art. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the first commercial galleries showing photography started up, and even then color photography was considered anything but valid! The various tensions around virtual and screenshot imagery is seems like just one more step along the road of photography’s fraught story.
In a weird quirk of fate, I recently finished watching the recent and fantastic BBC4 documentary Synth Britannia. It was really amazing to see many similar complaints were leveled against the early synthesizer-based bands from traditional rock critics as are currently leveled against virtual photography from traditional photography critics: fake-ness, dilettantism, lack of “real” talent, inhumanity, and lack of machismo. But those bands, such as Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division, Human League, Throbbing Gristle, and Depeche Mode, were all ahead of the curve. They were trying to use new technology to make sense of a society that suddenly seemed both rapidly modern but also increasingly alien and hostile.
Which to me seems like a fascinating analog to the way that screenshot and virtual photography are harnessing new, often less-human-seeming techniques to probe the ways we show ourselves in our intensely conflicted context in late post-industrial society. Artist Arjuna Newman’s recent article on Afro Futurist music and art in Via Publication highlighted the need for these experiments to open up new possibilities of thinking about life: “The culture of today instructs the experience of tomorrow.”
My art working with video game worlds starts with a similar interest: in the ways that these virtual world systems function, specifically in relationship to photograph’s systems (art historically, optically, socially, technically) and to fandom. First, I was the last generation of photographers to learn primarily on analog gear, specifically intensive 4x5 view camera training, but I spent so much time hunched over in the darkroom that I started to get allergic to the chemistry. As someone who had primary been known for extravagant black and white printing I was spending a lot of time thinking about what it would mean to explore other ways of working with photography. Second, in 2006 I had just finished a five year photo-documentary project looking at the behind-the-scenes work that went into the early anime convention and cosplay scene, and so many of those people, who were also my friends, were getting super-involved in World of Warcraft (aka WoW).
Also I was in grad school at CalArts at the time, and those lessons from Alan Sekula about the constructed landscape and New Topographics were fermenting in the back of my mind earlier lessons from JoAnn Verburg and her involvement in the Second View project that went out the American West and rephotographed the contemporary landscape using the identically replicated framing and composition from old 1800s photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan, who were basically making glorified (albeit magnificent) real estate photos.
The more I watched my friends playing WoW, the more I got thinking about how curiously similar the that Azeroth (as the world in WoW is called) was both the most technologically advanced virtual world to date and almost totally designed to look like images shot on ancient cameras carried up mountains by donkeys. Both of these virtual places, the American West and Azeroth, had systems put in place that made them seem to be made for adventure, for you to sortie forth and claim fame and fortune. Not just that, but that it was built, by God or by Blizzard, for conquest, glory, and beauty.
I didn’t even have an account at the time, so I borrowed my friend’s level 32 Paladin and started making landscape shots just like a would if I was using a view camera. In the earliest iterations, I would then burn the images to film and make traditional chemical-process gelatin silver prints, just like the rest of my work. The finished project was shown at night, hanging from a small grove of trees, lit by lantern (with a dram of Scotch ideally). But as I got more involved with the game, complexity of both the fandom and the games systems started spawning new ways and subjects from which to make images.
Photography has seemingly always had an interest, albeit ambivalent, in making photographs of screens. Particularly in the way the screen stands in as a line of connection between larger social power and the individual (Robert Heinecken’s screen photograms, Friedlander’s televisions, Sugimoto’s theaters). But the way that these screen-spaces interact with the camera is as a layering device but also as something otherworldly, flickering, flat.
But given the rise of tablets and mobile devices; the coming flood of augmented reality products; the ubiquity of micro transaction games; and the increasing access to virtual production tools poses an ever more multifaceted idea of what might constitute virtual photography. As the desktop becomes less common and the tools to make and modify virtual landscapes (like Minecraft) become commonplace, it might be worthwhile to look for other contexts and other ways of thinking about what might grow out of virtual photography and screenshots.
Given that the boundary between the virtual and real will continue to get more blurred, it seems like we’ll see an ever increasing interest in the social, economic, and functional aspects of virtual systems. In fact, I would propose that many of the larger projects of the 70s and 80s of the so-called Pictures Generation and postmodern feminist artists, such as Nancy Burson’s computer composites, Sherrie s’s appropriations of other historically reified art, Cindy Sherman’s movie trope identity play, Barbara Kruger’s immersive advertising installations, or Jenny Holzer’s injection of subversive slogans into digital advertising space, all seem more relevant to the next step of virtual photography into the hybrid-mobile age than the more traditional photographic narrative.
The spaces and materials these forward-thinking artists chose as their tools and medium were the very backstage systems that generated and controlled representation in both art and society.
These days it feels like drawing connections between seemingly isolated or walled-off sections of culture is more radical than any extreme formalist move. Even the record label I help run, Orenda Records, has this philosophy, where the value of a record is yes, on the execution unique vision of the artist, but also equally on how that record comments on the rest of the catalog, and how it opens up new pathways to art and music that previously seemed discrete. Technology guru Seth Godin has called this a “node” based system of culture, proposing that now it’s not about how much attention you call to yourself, but how much value you add to things that pass though your node, that now determines how interesting an artist is.
As a node, virtual photography seems to embrace that role. One of the biggest challenges but also advantages of making art, is that we understand how interrelated the world is. Playing games or using VR technology with a different set of criteria than the system intends radically opens up the possible range of experiences. Rather than winning or losing, finding your way or being lost, these acts of meta-exploration are liberating and enrich our experience with both the systems and reality.
Special thanks to David Gilmore and Motherboard for taking an interest in my thoughts regarding screenshots which ended up prompting me to write this essay. | {
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WEDNESDAY 12 SEPTEMBER
$69, includes 2-course sit-down dinner
An invitation to female storytellers of all stripes: we invite you to this intimate salon gathering in celebration of word, storytelling and conversation. Spoken word artists, writers, performers, visual storytellers, take your place at the table.
In collaboration with YOKE magazine, this salon style evening encourages voice and words (spoken, written, signed, etc.) as the power behind our creative spirits.
Radical and rehearsed storytellers Gabrielle Journey Jones and Vanessa Lee will guide you through the power of word and process of arriving at an individual and collective rhyme. Share your truth: what’s it like to start difficult conversations; what happens when you break silence; and what’s inside of you that you’d like to share? What’s converged in your life to bring you to this moment?
All parts of you are welcomed. All women (trans, cis, etc.) and non-binary people are welcomed.
TICKETS VIA SYDNEY FRINGE FOR THIS SPECIAL EVENT:
Accessibility information for this event:
- This venue is not very wheelchair-accessible, apologies. Entry by the front door has a few steps.
- There is an accessible ambulant toilet.
- Seating is chairs with back support, and you’re welcome to bring additional comfort items along.
- Food will be vegetarian. With specific dietary requests, contact us.
- Alcohol will not be available, but you may bring your own.
- First Aid will not be available on site. | {
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Announcing the return to London of Trans*Code, the UK’s only hack event series focused solely on drawing attention to transgender issues and opportunities.
Open to trans and non-binary folk, and allies; coders, designers and visionaries of all sorts, Trans*Code is inspired by the groundbreaking Trans*H4CK events created by Dr. Kortney Ziegler. The event that aims to help draw attention to transgender issues through a topic-focused hackday. Community members not currently working in technology are also encouraged to participate.
If you have an idea, can code, can design, want to learn, or want to improve the situation of the trans and non-binary communities through technology, please join us.
When & Where
Friday 8th June, 2018
09:00 – 18:00
3 Queen Victoria Street
London, EC4N 4TQ | {
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BBZ BLK BK is showcasing a group show of recently graduated artists who identify as queer womxn, trans & non-binary people of Black Ancestry. Chosen by a panel of established artists, curators & cultural workers. Successful applicants receive an artist fee as well as install costs covered for the production of their work in the show.
BBZ in collaboration with sorryyoufeeluncomfortable believes that the commitment and passion of artists who are black and queer deserves to be celebrated. Their intention is to provide a space for artists to be their fullest selves in the presentation of their work, and for audiences to view their work in a space that does not pathologize or ‘Other’ their identities.
BBZ BLK BK: Alternative Graduate Show asks both what it means for the artists to identify as they do and also what the qualities of the work are beyond its Blackness and its Queerness.
“BBZ BLACK BOOK”, is a new online directory of Queer Womxn, Trans Folk And Non-Binary artists of Black Ancestry. BBZ BLK BK highlights the importance of the digital space and how it has influenced this community around the world, off and online. | {
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Devastating wildfires weren’t the only disaster that struck California during the early weeks of October. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a series of bills authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, that may turn the state into one of the fastest-growing and most-dangerous cultural cesspools in the nation — though some would argue it has already achieved this dubious honorific.
Wiener, an East Coast Jewish homosexual, told SF Gate, “There are times when you introduce legislation that you ruffle some feathers. If you don’t, you aren’t doing your job.” This Wiener has been working overtime to debase the state since his election in 2015. To give you a flavor of what Wiener is about, here was the campaign ad that apparently stole the votes of San Franciscans from his Democratic rival, Chinatown machine politician with ties to a convicted pedophile, Jane Kim.
The following five bills would likely be viewed as controversial among more traditional (non-liberal) Democrats — had they known about them. Fortunately for Brown, there was a mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 and one of the worst firestorms in the state’s history on Oct. 8 to distract the mainstream media. Rather than be highlighted, local news about the unwinding of laws designed to protect children, families and communities from degenerate predators was downgraded to mere briefs. Only those who benefit from and lobby for such bills chimed in via mainstream press, leaving the impression that there’s nothing to see here, move along. Au contraire. Let’s review.
Oct. 4: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ ‘Bill of Rights’
SB-219 seems innocuous at first glance. In short, it makes it unlawful for nursing homes to discriminate against people based on their sexual preference, gender identity or HIV status. Read further into the bill, however, and it becomes draconian. It also makes it “unlawful” if staff are “willfully and repeatedly failing to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.” That means that not using a resident’s preferred pronoun could lead to civil penalties of up to $1,000, loss of one’s professional license and up to a year in jail, according to CBN News.
Oct. 5: Sanctuary State Bill
SB-54 (dba “California Values Act”), simply put, bars local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration agents in the identification and capture of illegal immigrants. Police are no longer allowed to stop and question illegal immigrants about their status or share information with immigration officials. Trump vowed to de-fund California if it became a sanctuary state, but he also announced funds would be provided to help Californians affected by the wildfires. We will have to wait and see whether his threat materializes when it comes to non-emergency appropriations. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sought to cut off sanctuary cities from federal grants, but judges blocked the effort.
Oct. 6: HIV Criminalization Reform
SB-239 decriminalizes the act of knowingly and deceptively exposing another person to the HIV virus via unprotected sex or the donation of blood, tissue or breast milk. What was once a felony punishable by two to eight years in jail is now a misdemeanor on par with other infectious communicable diseases. It also repeals California laws that required people convicted of prostitution for the first time be tested for AIDS and increased penalties for sex workers who previously tested positive for AIDS. This bill to “modernize discriminatory HIV criminalization laws” is evil beyond the pale — but oh what a boon for the prostitution and porn industries!
Oct. 6: Sex Offender Registration Act
SB-384 will eventually purge California’s existing sex offender registry of 90 percent of identified sexual convicts. Pervert Justice Warriors (PJW), like this gal at Bloomberg, applauded this bill, citing a few rare instances in which the listed convict was threatened. PJWs argue we must embrace and integrate these demons into our community in order to normalize them. Damned be the children, apparently.
Press reporting on this bill is full of lies and misinformation, but there were two important things they all got wrong.
First, not all registered California sex offenders can be viewed online by the public. California has two registries: a limited one that the public can see via the Internet and a comprehensive one that only law enforcement sees. The one the public can see has been around for about 20 years and is run by Megan’s Law. It primarily consists of those convicted of crimes against children. The data provided includes basic identifying information, their crime and their residential area. It’s meant to allow families to make sound decisions about where to live — or even who to date, if you’re a cautious singleton. Many states have such databases in place, and most don’t limit listings to crimes related to children.
In California, even those who end up on the public/Megan’s Law database can apply to be excluded from Internet disclosure. Until today, it seemed to be a moot point because the public database produced nothing but spinners for well over a week. [Convicted sex offender and San Francisco Democratic machine politician Enrique Pearce still isn’t listed in the Internet registry. Maybe he never will be.]
Second, articles claim this new misnamed “Sex Offender Registration Act” (as big of a lie as the name “Affordable Care Act”) allows people to have their name removed from the law enforcement registry rather than be listed for life for some petty offense. As LGBTQ group Equality California put it, “The changes will help gay and lesbian people who were targeted by police for crimes like consensual sex among adults in a park.” Offenders can petition the court to be removed, and such petitions are granted.
So the difference between the old law and new law is that registration will be tiered based on crime level. Each of the three tiers represents an arbitrary bureaucratic window of time of two to 20 years rather than based on a more personalized review. The old system approached it from the standpoint of safety for the community. The new system approaches it from the standpoint of fairness to a convicted sex felon.
Oct. 15: Gender Recognition Act
SB-179 allows a person to change the gender on their birth certificate to female, male or non-binary without going through process of having a doctor certify to a court that a person has undergone a physical transformation — as long as it’s not for nefarious purposes. (Right, like somebody would admit to nefarious intent.) It also instructs the motor vehicle department (DMV) to allow people to just put whatever gender they want on their state I.D. card or driver’s license. There is no fiscal appropriation for this bill; however, the DMV estimates it will cost nearly $1 million in system updates.
So there you have it. What will tomorrow bring? More satanic drag queens
teaching training more children, it seems. This retweet comes from the aforementioned flamus extremus PJW State Senator Wiener himself.
‘LGBT’, Satanic drag queens are teaching our children. No joke. 😮 pic.twitter.com/fRHGe1b8Gr
— GRANT J. KIDNEY 🇺🇸 (@GrantJKidney) October 16, 2017
I ❤️ “satanic” drag queens. In honor of this idiot, two drag queens will be the celebrity judges at my annual children’s pumpkin carving. https://t.co/vDSfsCbuwR
— Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) October 18, 2017
This article originally appeared on The New Nationalist and was republished here with permission. | {
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Amid ambiguity, ISC, sororities examine rules for non-binary inclusivity
Over the past few weeks, Dartmouth sororities and the Inter-Sorority Council have begun examining how their bylaws include or exclude non-binary students. As of now, non-binary and gender non-conforming potential new members interested in joining sororities would have to visit all eight houses during formal rush — a requirement for all PNMs — despite some house bylaws potentially restricting them from joining.
Epsilon Kappa Theta president Megan Ungerman ’21 expressed concern over the implementation of this policy, asking, “How can you force someone to go to some house that they're not going to be accepted into?”
ISC vice president Megan Zhou ’21 wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that all PNMs must attend parties at all eight sororities during the rush process, but the ISC is having “continuous conversation to try and create a fair process for everyone.”
Currently, just one sorority at Dartmouth — EKT — has bylaws that explicitly accept non-binary and gender non-conforming individuals. Other sororities’ bylaws only state that they are permitted to extend membership to self-identifying women, although some of these houses may have informally allowed any non-male students to join.
After a series of emails and meetings between the ISC and sorority presidents, the ISC has asked Dartmouth sororities to discuss their own house policies regarding non-binary PNMs.
ISC sends mixed messages
The discussion started during the first week of spring term, when Ungerman expressed concern in a survey administered by the ISC to sorority presidents about the ISC's usage of language that was not inclusive of non-binary or gender non-conforming people. For example, Ungerman said that the ISC refers to its members as “sisters” during ISC meetings.
Ungerman also voiced concern to the ISC over the lack of gender-inclusive wording on a ISC slideshow presentation created for PNMs. Although the ISC’s campus-wide emails say that formal recruitment is open to anyone who is “a self-identifying woman or gender non-conforming or non-binary person,” Ungerman noted that there was no gender-inclusive language in the presentation.
Ungerman’s concern sparked several conversations about the inclusion of non-binary and gender non-conforming students in formal recruitment between Office of Greek Life program coordinator Jessica Barloga, ISC president Mahalia Dalmage ’21 and Ungerman.
On April 28, Dalmage emailed sorority presidents saying that “the ISC has decided to uphold the current bylaws which state that we are open to self-identifying women,” adding “these are not new bylaws, these are the ones that have always been in place.” The email did not indicate that non-binary or gender non-conforming individuals were permitted to participate in formal recruitment.
Ungerman said that after the initial email, there was “worry” among some sorority presidents and members “that non-binary people woud be excluded from the ISC,” which Ungerman described as “sad” because there are already non-binary people in EKT.
Dalmage’s email seemed to contradict the ISC bylaws, last amended on April 8. ISC bylaws state that “any Dartmouth undergraduate who identifies as a woman and/or gender non-conforming person may participate in Formal Recruitment, as long as the person does not self-identify as a man.”
A day later, on April 29, the ISC executive board clarified its stance in a second email to sorority presidents and inclusivity chairs. The message stressed that “people who identify as gender non-binary or gender non-conforming can participate in the formal recruitment process.”
Despite the conflicting stances presented in the emails, the ISC maintains there were never any changes to the ISC bylaws. Zhou acknowledged in an email statement to The Dartmouth that Dalmage’s original April 28 email “may have been confusing to some due to poor phrasing.”
The second email also added that while non-binary and gender non-conforming students are welcome to participate in rush, the National Panhellenic Conference states that it aims to “promote and advance the common interest of women’s-only sororities.” The NPC is the nationwide umbrella organization that hosts Dartmouth’s chapters of Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta, Kappa Delta and Kappa Kappa Gamma sororities.
The ISC wrote that consequently, despite the ISC’s inclusion of non-binary and gender non-conforming members in its bylaws, national houses at Dartmouth are “restricted to extending membership to only self-identifying women.”
Local houses are not restricted by the same bylaws as national houses. According to the ISC, membership processes for local houses are at each chapter’s discretion.
Bylaw confusion continues
However, discrepancies in — and confusion around — ISC and individual sorority bylaws remain.
Zhou wrote that houses that do not accept non-binary PNMs are not in violation of the ISC recruitment policy regarding non-binary people, as the ISC controls who can participate in recruitment, not who can be accepted into each house.
That said, Zhou stated that the ISC does not want PNMs to “falsely believe membership is attainable at all houses.”
She added that the ISC “cannot directly conflict or discredit existing national policies.”
According to current local sorority bylaws, Chi Delta, Kappa Delta Epsilon and Sigma Delta are permitted to extend membership to self-identifying women but do not explicitly state that they are open to non-binary and gender non-conforming members. EKT extends membership to women, non-binary and gender non-conforming people.
While national chapter wording varies, most include only self-identifying women.
The national chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma states in its bylaws that “[e]ach chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma has the final choice of its own members,” but also uses the word “women” when describing the organization. The national chapters of Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta and Kappa Delta all use the word “women” when referring to the organization members as well.
Sororities consider bylaw changes
As a result of Ungerman’s initial concerns and other conversations among sorority presidents and the ISC, the ISC has directed houses to have discussions about their policies around gender and membership.
Gigi Gunderson ’21, president of Sigma Delt, said that “Sigma Delt has always been open to self-identifying women, gender non-binary and gender non-conforming folks, to the best of our exec board’s understanding.”
Although this language is not in the official Sigma Delt constitution, Gunderson said that the house is “actively” reviewing its bylaws as a result of the ISC directive, planning discussions and aiming to vote on whether to change the language in its constitution to explicitly allow all non-male identifying individuals to join the house.
Following an online form sent to its members and a house-wide Zoom discussion on the issue, KDE members are voting on whether or not to change wording in their constitution. The vote closes on Saturday.
Despite conversations starting within some local houses, national sororities may remain bound by national policy.
Ungerman said that since it is clearly in the ISC bylaws that gender non-conforming people are welcome to rush, all sororities should strive to do what they can to welcome non-binary students in the future.
Ungerman acknowledged that “there are real concerns” with the national chapters having to abide by national policies, but said that the ISC should not “hide behind this idea that it’s the national chapters that won’t let [Greek life] be inclusive.”
President of local sorority Chi Delt Isabella Frohlich ’21 declined to comment on the issue, citing ongoing conversations within the house. The president of local sorority KDE Jada Brown ’21, as well as the presidents of national sororities — APhi president Bruna Decerega ’21, AXiD president Hayley Divers ’21, Kappa president Caroline Smith ’21 and KD president Svetlana Riguera ’21 — did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
As of now, non-binary and gender non-conforming students interested in joining sororities will have to visit all eight houses should formal recruitment occur normally this fall, despite some house bylaws potentially restricting them from joining.
While acknowledging the complexity of the issue, Ungerman stressed that it is likely that anyone who opts to go through the rush process “feels like they belong in a sorority.” Ungerman added that having non-binary people go through a different rush process as a result of certain houses not being open to them might be “othering.”
Ungerman emphasized the importance of having conversations about gender inclusivity within houses and throughout the ISC in order to work towards creating a more inclusive environment.
“When you humanize the problem, it’s not as big as a problem as some people are making it,” Ungerman said.
Zhou wrote that the ISC “encourages houses to have these important conversations as soon as possible.”
Alumni reflect on Greek life inclusivity
Although the topic has come to the forefront this term, gender inclusivity in Dartmouth’s sororities has been an issue for decades.
Valerie Price ’88 founded Alpha Beta — a sorority which no longer exists at the College — while at Dartmouth. She said that “the vocabulary used to define people’s gender was not even in existence” when most national sororities formed, adding that it is “strange” and unreasonable that people would rely on bylaws that could have been written at a time when gender inclusion was not a well-known issue.
When Dartmouth informed Price after 15 months that Alpha Beta had to affiliate with a national chapter in order to stay recognized and get funding, Price said that Alpha Beta affiliated with the national sorority Delta Gamma because it was the “least racist,” though “still not that great.”
Although she noted that there were often things in bylaws that she didn’t agree with, the College did not allow any local sororities at the time, despite several local fraternities existing, essentially forcing sororities to comply with national rules.
President of Dartmouth’s LGBTQIA+ alumni association D-GALA Mel Pastuck ’11 acknowledged the importance of female-dominated environments, but she said that she would “challenge [the ISC and sororities] to open their minds” to ask where non-binary people might find community.
She said that if by finding their own community, sorority members dismiss others trying to do the same, it is like “the pot calling the kettle black.” Pastuck said that being involved in a sorority at Dartmouth helped her “challenge and explore [gender roles] rather than affirm them.”
She said that welcoming non-binary people creates an “environment that is truly open and can explore what gender roles mean.”
A former Sigma Delt and OPAL student intern for the LGBTQ community, Pastuck said that while sororities typically “propagate traditional gender roles,” her experience with a diversity of views at Sigma Delt “helped people write their own story about what it means to be female identified.”
Over the decades, some sororities have chosen to “go local” and disaffiliate from their national chapters, often due to disagreements between local members and the national chapter. Sigma Delt — the first sorority to go local in 1988 — went local because “[s]isters and alumnae felt there were irreconcilable differences between the Dartmouth chapter and Sigma Kappa National, specifically religion in rituals and an emphasis on men in National songs and overall attitudes,” according to its website.
Amanda Rosemblum ’07, co-vice president of D-GALA, encouraged sororities restricted by national chapter rules to go local.
“If national sororities are limiting what the students want to do on campus, those students should be creating local chapters,” Rosenblum said, adding that EKT — of which she was a member as an undergraduate — did so nearly 30 years ago.
Rosemblum said that she found it “pretty shocking that these are still conversations” 15 years after her time at Dartmouth.
Correction appended (May 15, 2020): A previous version of this article stated that Ungerman raised concerns about language used in an PNM powerpoint through a survey administered by the ISC. The article has been updated to reflect that Ungerman’s concerns about the PNM powerpoint came after the ISC survey was administered. A previous version of this article also quoted Ungerman as saying that national chapters should not “hide behind this idea that it’s the national chapters that won’t let [Greek life] be inclusive.” The article has been updated to reflect that Ungerman was referring to the ISC, not national chapters.
Correction appended (Nov. 16, 2020): A previous version of this article indicated that Price is a member of the Class of 1987. The article has been updated to reflect that she is a member of the Class of 1988. | {
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People who learn they are autistic when they are younger may have a heightened quality of life and sense of well-being in adulthood.
That’s the finding of a new study, which also found that those who learned of their autism as adults reported more positive emotions (especially relief) about autism when first learning they were autistic.
Findings suggest that telling a child that they are autistic at a younger age empowers them by providing access to support and a foundation for self-understanding that helps them thrive later in life.
For the first time, researchers directly investigated whether learning if one is autistic at a younger age is associated with better adult outcomes. Many autistic people — particularly females, ethnic/racial minorities and people with limited resources — are diagnosed years after the characteristics are first noticed. In many cases, autistic people do not receive their diagnosis until adulthood.
The study was carried out by a team of autistic and non-autistic students and academic researchers. Seventy-eight autistic university students were surveyed, sharing how they found out they were autistic and how they felt about their diagnosis. Respondents also revealed how they felt about their lives and being autistic now.
One of the co-authors, Dr Steven Kapp, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, was diagnosed with and informed of his autism aged 13. He said: “Students who learned they were autistic when they were younger felt happier about their lives than people who were diagnosed at an older age. Our study shows that it is probably best to tell people they are autistic as soon as possible in a balanced, personal, and developmentally appropriate way. Learning one is autistic can be empowering because it helps people understand themselves and also helps them connect with other people like them.”
However, being given a diagnosis as an adult can often also be empowering.
Dr Kapp said: “Learning about autism at an older age is associated with more positive emotions about a diagnosis — especially relief. This finding makes sense, although emotional reactions are often very complex and unique to each person — there has been a lot of emerging research showing that relief is a common response to an autism diagnosis in adulthood.”
The study suggests that parents should not wait for children to become adults to tell them they are autistic. No participants recommended doing so, although most highlighted factors to consider when informing a child of their autism, including developmental level, support needs, curiosity, and personality. Findings also suggest that parents should tell their children they are autistic in ways that help them understand and feel good about who they are. One participant said: “I would tell my child that autism is a different way of thinking, that it can be challenging and beautiful and powerful and exhausting and impactful, that autistic people deserve to be themselves, to be proud of their identity, and have supports that help them meet their needs.”
Bella Kofner, co-lead author (24), who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 and informed of her autism at the age of 10, said: “This is the first study, to our knowledge, to demonstrate that learning at a young age that one is autistic may have positive impacts on emotional health among autistic university students. Hopefully, this finding may begin to address concerns parents have about when to talk to their child about autism. ‘When’ the conversation begins is particularly important. Our findings suggest that learning at a younger age that one is autistic can help autistic people develop self-understanding and access support, providing the foundations for well-being in adulthood.”
The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Autism, suggest that many aspects of identity, besides age, may contribute to how people respond to learning they are autistic. For example, more exploratory findings suggested that women and non-binary people responded more positively to first learning they were autistic than men did. The authors hope that future research will examine autistic identity development in autistic people who have often been overlooked, such as non-speaking autistic people and autistic people who are multiply marginalized.
This paper was a collaboration between the following people:
- Tomisin Oredipe (the manuscript was adapted from her honors thesis), Bella Kofner, Dr Ariana Riccio (study data was collected for her dissertation), and Dr Kristen Gillespie-Lynch, College of Staten Island &/or The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA
- Dr Eilidh Cage, University of Stirling, UK
- Dr Jonathan Vincent, York St John University, UK
- Dr Steven Kapp, University of Portsmouth, UK
- Patrick Dwyer, University of California, Davis, USA | {
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If you are standing in line at the grocery store, you may find yourself face to face with the covers of popular romance novels. Odds are, the characters on the covers of those grocery-store books and the authors who penned them are all white.
But if you take the time to look more deeply and more expansively in the romance genre, you will quickly discover a whole of literature from authors of color and novels starring characters of color.
“I wanted to put a book together that would be a timeless resource for survivors,” says Lisa Factora-Borchers, editor of new collection Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence (AK Press). “It’s not a book about trauma, it’s not a book about all the moving pieces of rape. It’s letters about survival.”
For the week around Valentine’s Day, writer Jessica Luther is writing a series of three articles about gender, race, and sexuality in romance novels. This is the first article in the series.
Romance novels are incredibly popular. Millions of people—mainly women—read them each year, generating billions of dollars in sales annually. Romance novels are the largest share of the fiction market. And the vast majority of these novels feature white, heterosexual, typically thin, not poor, educated, able-bodied protagonists.
But there is an exciting thing happening in romance these days: if you know where to look, you can find are a wide variety of novels that feature people of color, queer relationships, fat characters, and/or protagonists with blue-collar jobs.
Did you know the American Library Association has a Feminist Task Force? Of course they do. Each year, a group of people from this task force undertake a mission called the Amelia Bloomer Project where they name the best feminist books of the year for young readers.
Brooklyn-based literary magazine n+1 has a small new book out this month that chronicles 13 smart women talking about literature.
The slim No Regretsis a set of three transcribed roundtable discussions with 12 participants (all writers, editors, activists, artists, and academics) and moderator Dayna Tortorici about what the women recall from their lives and reading lists in their early twenties.
Read an excerpt from No Regrets about trying to read On the Road and other dude-centric books.
The literary world gained a valuable new addition last week with the launch of new literary journal THEM, which focuses on the work of transgender writers.
Debuting on December 13, THEM proclaims itself to be the nation's first literary journal to specifically focus on trans* voices. While there arenumerous literary journals that highlight LGBT issues and writers, and a couple trans*-focusedanthologies, THEM is the first American journal that publishes only the work of people who identify as "within the trans* umbrella" (using the term "trans*" with the asterisk to include who have non-binary transgender identities). The volunteer-run biannual journal features writers from around the country, seeking to create a space that amplifies trans* voices.
Grown women, if Tavi Gevinson makes you feel old and unproductive, take solace in the fact that you're not alone. The now–17-year-old founder and editor of teen-girl website Rookie has been an industry force since she started her fashion blog, Style Rookie, at the wee age of 11. Since then, Gevinson has mashed up her interest in style with Rookie's focus on friends, on feminism, on nostalgia, on culture, and on all manner of interests that, while targeted at a teen demographic, resonate soundly across the board.
The second edition of the Rookie Yearbook(which Gevinson edits and art directs) was recently published by Drawn and Quarterly, so this fall has found her on the road for a series of standing-room-only events across this Rookie-loving nation. Gevinson also found time to make her acting debut, in Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said—notable not only for Gevinson's lovely, natural performance alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but for being one of James Gandolfini's final film appearances.
Somehow, Gevinson manages to live a relatively regular life as a high-school senior, and last month, I met up with her for a post-class snack at a vegan restaurant in her home of Oak Park, Illinois.
On Sunday, November 17th, the British author Doris Lessing died in her home in London at age 94. Lessing’s writing and life were exemplary—she held herself and society to a high standard—and if you were searching for a woman writer who might serve as a role model, you certainly could do much worse.
Lessing was a writer who refused to let others define her, and insisted (much earlier than most) that women’s inequality was part of a larger, all-encompassing problem of inequality in the world. She is one of only 13 women who have ever received the Nobel Prize for literature. | {
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|Dear friends, |
We thought you would like to know about the Wages for Housework 50th anniversary three events this week. WinVisible will be joining the celebrations!
Info from the Global Women’s Strike:
Celebrating 50 years of campaigning to put unwaged caring work on the agenda: isn’t it time for a care income?
Throughout 2022, the International Wages for Housework Campaign (WFH) is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a programme of events online and in person. They will showcase organising done in different countries, evaluate what this has achieved and launch their archives. WFH Campaign founder, Selma James, who will be 92 this year, and her colleagues based at Crossroads Women’s Centre in London and in other countries, are available for interview.
For information contact:
Anne Neale: 020 7482 2496 Email: [email protected]
THREE EVENTS IN MARCH
Image: black-and-white photos of Selma and Margaret speaking passionately
· Thursday 24 March 2022, 6pm (Zoom online): Selma James and Margaret Prescod in conversation. Prescod co-founded Black Women for Wages for Housework and is with Women of Colour GWS. Originally from Barbados, she is an award-winning journalist with Pacifica Radio.
More information and registration here Live captions.
Image: Women holding a Global Women’s Strike Care Income banner in a crowd of people demonstrating
· Friday 25 March, 2pm (Zoom online): Empowering Women with a Care Income for People and Planet, UN Commission on the Status of Women. More information and registration here. Auto-captions.
Image: black-and-white photo of a woman outside the first Women’s Centre shopfront. Magazine cover of Power of Women, drawing of a Black woman nurse with her arms folded.
· Sunday 27 March 2-5pm: (in person): WFH Archives: Moving Forward by Looking Back, Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate London EC2M 4QH. Info here.
Clocks go forward one hour on Sunday morning, so it may be starting earlier than you expect 😊
Access: https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/visit/access-info-and-facilities Parking is very limited around Liverpool St Station red route. If Brushfield St Blue Badge bays are full, more spaces further away at 3-6 Steward St, London E1 6FQ via Commercial St. Contact us if you need more info.
The first event of WFH’s 50th anniversary was on 8 March—an international survey, What Mothers and Caregivers Want, with speakers from 13 countries. More information here.
Selma James put forward wages for housework for the first time in March 1972 at the second women’s liberation conference in Manchester. Since then, she has been a point of reference for a global network campaigning from the perspective of unwaged women who, with their biological and caring work, reproduce the whole human race—whatever else they do. This work goes on almost unnoticed everywhere, in every culture. It is not prioritised economically, politically, or socially, and women are discriminated against and impoverished for doing it. The WFH Campaign continues to organise in the UK and internationally. Since 2000, it coordinates the Global Women’s Strike (GWS) which has coordinating groups in Canada, India, Ireland, Peru, Thailand, UK and US. The autonomous groups which formed within WFH—of women of colour, queer women, sex workers, women with disabilities, single mothers—have worked to ensure that antisexism, antiracism and anti every discrimination are central to all WFH/GWS does. The network of men who share this perspective is integral to this campaigning.
The consistent work of the WFH Campaign and the GWS in a number of countries has spearheaded a movement to put unwaged work—in the home, on the land, in the community and for the planet —on the international agenda, including: · coined the word “unwaged” to describe the caring work women do; popularised “every mother is a working mother” and “women count, count women’s work” · popularised the 1980 ILO figure that “women do 2/3 of the world’s work for 5% of the income and 1% of the assets”
· United Nations decision to measure and value women’s unwaged work in national accounts at the Decade for Women conference in Nairobi (1985), confirmed and expanded at the follow up conference in Beijing (1995)
· time use surveys and legislation in several countries
court decisions that recognise the unwaged contribution of women to the family;
industrial tribunal rulings against wage discrimination based on caring responsibilities
· recognition that there is one continuum between the care and protection of people and of the planet—the care income proposed by the Green New Deal for Europe prioritises both
· guaranteed income proposals in a number of countries referencing time to care; waged workers winning time off to care · public debate on the “caring crisis” triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic
RECENT RECOGNITION FOR SELMA JAMES
Selma James received the Sheila McKechnie long-term achievement award for 2021. On 8 March 2022, City of Women London launched by Reni-Eddo Lodge, Rebecca Solnit and Emma Watson, renamed London’s underground stations after women or non-binary people who had shaped the city. Selma James was chosen to represent Kentish Town—the station closest to the Crossroads Women’s Centre where she and the WFH Campaign are based.
PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE Sex, Race, and Class: The Perspective of Winning—A Selection of Writings 1952-2011, Selma James, PM Press (Oakland, 2012) Our Time is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet, Selma James, PM Press (Oakland, 2021) Black Women Bringing It All Back Home, Margaret Prescod co-author, Falling Wall Press (Bristol, 1980) For other publications by James and others see: https://crossroadsbooksonline.net/
“As the planet burns and pandemics rage, Selma James’s work with the Wages for Housework movement shows that we ignore the labor of care at our own peril…If there ever were a moment for James’s feminist vision, surely it is now.” Emily Callaci, Boston Review
“Written in James’s characteristically accessible, whip-smart and defiant voice, this collection is an important resource for anyone interested in organising for social change.” Dr Julia Downes, LSE Review of Books
“Today, ‘intersectional feminism’ is a buzzword, and the value of caring is in the spotlight thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. But before that, James and her fellow activists were prominent campaigners for the rights of sex workers, lesbians, women of color, immigrants, asylum seekers, rape survivors, and working-class people, viewing all these as part of the same struggle.” Leila Hawkins, Yes Magazine
About Black Women Bringing It All Back Home: “So many apparently unrelated aspects of women’s lives are brought together in a powerful analysis. A fascinating book.” New Approaches in Multi-Racial Education
ILO, Women at Work (1978/1)
“The remunerated and, in particular, the unremunerated contributions of women to all aspects and sectors of development should be recognized, and appropriate efforts should be made to measure and reflect these contributions in national accounts and economic statistics and in the gross national product. Concrete steps should be taken to quantify the unremunerated contribution of women to agriculture, food production, reproduction and household activities.”
Paragraph 120, Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, United Nations, 26 July 1985, http://www.un-documents.net/nfl-2.htm
“(i) Conduct regular time-use studies to measure, in quantitative terms, unremunerated work, including recording those activities that are performed simultaneously with remunerated or other unremunerated activities;
“(ii) Measure, in quantitative terms, unremunerated work that is outside national accounts and work to improve methods to assess its value, and accurately reflect its value in satellite or other official accounts that are separate from but consistent with core national accounts;”
Paragraph 206, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN Women, September 1995. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/CSW
Trinidad and Tobago, spearheaded by the WFH Campaign there, was the first country to pass legislation: the Counting Unremunerated Work (2) Bill, 1995, was introduced by Senator Diana Mahabir-Wyatt. http://www.ttparliament.org/publications.php?id=398&mid=28
The 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela includes Paragraph 88, “The State recognizes work at home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces welfare and wealth. Housewives are entitled to Social Security in accordance with the law.” https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Venezuela_2009.pdf
In the US, the Unremunerated Work Act introduced by Representative Barbara-Rose Collins, October 24, 1991, was followed by time use surveys: History: Handbook of Methods: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov)
In Ireland, the GWS has been urging successfully for Article 41.2 of the Constitution to be reworded not deleted so the recognition of caring work in the home remains and is expanded.
Invisibility would undermine carers’ struggle for equity (irishtimes.com)
“Time to Care”, Oxfam 2020 https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/time-care
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/value-of-homemakers-work-same-as-hubbys-at-office-sc/articleshow/80125241.cms; Find out why housewives in Kenya might start getting paid | Pulselive Kenya
In 2014, a Sheehy Skeffington equality tribunal ruling noted that academic women applicants for promotion at NUIG seemed to be disadvantaged when they declared their caring responsibilities.
“Open Letter to Governments: A Care Income Now!”, issued by GWS and Women of Colour GWS with the Green New Deal for Europe, 27 March 2020: https://globalwomenstrike.net/open-letter-to-governments-a-care-income-now/ | {
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The relationship between the American church and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people has all too often been rocky, and conflict is inflamed by opposition by churches and Christian political institutions to equal rights for LGBTQ Americans. Opposition to equal rights for LGBTQ Americans is based on the belief among many Christian traditions, denominations, and sects that homosexuality and transgender identity are morally wrong, based on how they interpret a handful of Bible verses.
In Part II of a two-part series, Jaye focuses on the non-affirming position of many Christian institutions as it relates to gender identity. She makes the argument that while the non-affirming position on homosexuality is not conclusively supported by the Bible, non-affirming stances in regards to gender identity have even *less* biblical support. These positions also tend to conflate sex and gender, as well as sexual orientation and gender identity. Jaye discusses the immense harm done to transgender and non-binary people by non-affirming positions, many of which are grossly misinformed.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes discussion of transphobia, anti-LGBTQ bigotry and violence, depression and suicide. Listener discretion is advised. | {
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One of the best feminists podcasts, multiple award winner
About Masala Podcast
Masala Podcast is a show for South Asian women, where we talk about all those things that we’re NOT supposed to talk about in our culture. • Themes include: sex, sexuality, body shaming, periods, menopause, mental health, nipple hair, shame, sexual harassment and many more taboos. • Interviews with burlesque dancers, drag queens, mental health specialists, erotic novel lovers, acclaimed writers as well as queer & non-binary actors. • And personal stories from Sangeeta Pillai, about growing up as a South Asian womxn.
We got our chuddies in a twist! Masala Podcast was nominated for two British Podcast Awards 2020. Best New Podcast. Best Sex& Relationships Podcast. And we won silver in the ‘Best Sex & Relationships Podcast‘ category. Cue dupattas flying in the air… | {
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O'Reilly believes strongly in the value of increasing diversity at our conferences and creating a productive and inclusive environment for all participants.
To support diversity in the tech community, we're raising funds to send to Techtonica while Velocity registration is open, a nonprofit that offers low-income women and non-binary adults free tech training, along with living and childcare stipends, then places them in positions at sponsoring companies that are ready to support more diverse teams.
We ask that you join us in supporting this worthy organization by making a donation when you sign up. O'Reilly will match those donations at the end of the conference. We wouldn't usually make a financial contribution selected by default, but we hope this underscores how crucial we think it is to support diversity.
Thank you for considering this project. We welcome your thoughts about this or other successful diversity efforts you've encountered. Send suggestions, comments, and feedback to [email protected].
Tech insight, analysis, and research
©2017, O'Reilly Media, Inc. • (800) 889-8969 or (707) 827-7019 • Monday-Friday 7:30am-5pm PT • All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing on oreilly.com are the property of their respective owners. • [email protected] | {
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The Scottish Civil Service is pushing a range of controversial Stonewall policies, a freedom of information (FOI) response has revealed.
A number of new policies have been introduced in the last few years, as the Civil Service has applied for a place on Stonewall’s ‘Diversity Champions Index’.
These include a compulsory “Diversity Objective” for all staff to make the Scottish Government “a more diverse and inclusive place to work”, training on “intersectionality” and “unconscious bias”, and the use of gender-neutral language.
In the FOI response, the Civil Service said that most of its policies “were updated to increase inclusion of gender identities and same-sex couples because we believe firmly that it matters that our policies are explicit about everyone’s entitlement to use them”.
The paternity leave policy was one of those amended to remove reference to male and female colleagues, and changed terminology from “adoptive father” to “adoptive parent”.
The documents also state that ‘non-binary’ employees should be able to use the title ‘Mx’.
The Civil Service said it intends to revise its transgender and non-binary policies, part of which would involve collaborating with Stonewall Scotland and the Scottish Trans Alliance to draw up HR guidance for the Scottish Government.
It is also intended that guidance for members of staff who have a child who is transitioning or who identifies as non-binary will be co-produced by controversial lobby group Mermaids.
The Civil Service added there would be a ‘communications and engagement plan’ “to ensure knowledge of the policy and accompanying parental guidance is widespread throughout the organisation”.
Commenting on the policies, Simon Calvert, Deputy Director for Public Affairs at The Christian Institute, said: “The extent of Stonewall’s influence on the Civil Service is alarming, particularly given the controversial nature of some of its political aims.
“Stonewall’s stance on trans issues is strongly opposed by women’s organisations, medics and faith groups. Yet, the Civil Service appears to endorse it wholesale. How does this fit with the Service’s duty to remain politically impartial?”
He continued: “Staff are encouraged to attend training sessions on ‘intersectionality’ and ‘unconscious bias’. These controversial ideas are disputed in wider society. So it’s concerning that they are written into the training schedule for Civil Service employees.
“The compulsory ‘Diversity Objective’ also raises questions. What happens to staff members who hold religious beliefs about marriage, gender or sexuality which differ from those championed by Stonewall? Are they marked down? This could constitute direct discrimination on the grounds of religious belief.” | {
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Our Project Coordinator Janneke has written a powerful piece for us this Mental Health Awareness Week, which we have published below with her permission.Read More
Articles in Blog Posts
- Mental Health Awareness Week: Janneke’s Testimony
- Back in the Saddle – Update 26
- Moving Ahead With The Attitudes And Hate Crime Project
- Disabled People on Transgender Day of Visibility 2022
- Back in the Saddle – Update 25
- Back in the Saddle – Update 24
- Back in the Saddle – Update 23
- A busy week of Fair4All Card applications
- Back in the Saddle – Update 22
- Back in the Saddle – Update 21
It’s taken me a while, but I have now reached Loch Ness! Only 251km left of my mammoth exercise bike challenge, covering the virtual route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. Even better is that I’m now actually very slightly ahead of schedule to get to the finish before the new end date I set back in January.Read More
Transgender Day of Visibility 2022
One of our volunteers has written about five disabled transgender and non-binary people for this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility.
They talk about what it’s like trying to find role models as a non-binary and disabled person, especially on days like this.
Today I have managed to reach Edinburgh Castle on my exercise bike challenge – pedalling the equivalent distance of the route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. I’m nearly 3/4 of the way through too, and it feels like I might actually be able to achieve this goal. I never envisaged, when I started on 24 January 2021, that I would still be slowly pedalling away as we approach April 2022! However, I am still going, that blue ‘distance completed’ line is gradually getting longer and I will get there eventually. Every turn of the pedals gets me a tiny bit closer to the finish.Read More
I am really getting there – I’ve now achieved 2 pretty monumental targets on my virtual exercise bike challenge, pedalling the equivalent distance of the route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. I am 2/3 of the way through the journey AND I’ve reached the England / Scotland border!Read More
On Monday I reached the next checkpoint at Hadrian’s Wall, on my exercise bike challenge (covering the distance from Land’s End to John o’Groats). The route from Bradford took me through Penrith. Strange to think that in 2013 we actually cycled through there in real life on our family holiday cycling the Coast2Coast route. I remember cycling through there very well because there was a very steep hill. I’m glad I don’t have to tackle all those hills on my exercise bike! Life has changed a lot since 2013, but positivity, amazing family and friends along with determination are keeping me going.Read More
Cary talks about running the applications for a week
I’ve had a busy week sorting out Fair4All Card applications, so I wanted to take some time to talk to you about what I’ve been doing.
Last week was a bit strange as most of our team were absent for one reason or another, which meant that I had a lot of applications to keep going. I had to pick up some from part way through, and I had to take others through the entire process.
But what is that process? Read on to find out.
Today marks the anniversary of when I first started my virtual attempt to cycle the equivalent distance of a route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. When I set off, this time last year, I thought I’d be completing about 5km a day and that I’d be able to complete the distance in round about a year. Due to a major Chronic Fatigue flare, which started in March, 2021 really didn’t pan out the way I had envisaged. However, I am proud to say that despite everything, I have managed to get on the exercise bike every single day. Some days I only managed to pedal 0.25km but even these tiny distances add up and they each got me bit further along the route. The youngest woman to climb both sides of Mount Everest and also ski solo to the South Pole, Mollie Hughes, said a great thing in an interview recently. It was something along the lines of, when you are doing a challenge, it’s not about aiming to reach the goal, it’s about achieving the best you can each day. I wholeheartedly agree with that.Read More
I’ve made it one final checkpoint before my original predicted finish date for my Back in the Saddle exercise bike challenge. I am now in the Yorkshire Dales National Park! It’s a very long way to the next checkpoint at Hadrian’s Wall – 170km to be precise. Might take me a while to get there I think, even if I do keep managing to do 4-5km a day. Something between 34 and 42 days I reckon. Lots of pedaling to do.Read More | {
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A transgender teenager was murdered in Texas County, Missouri, in a horrifying case in which four have been arrested and charged. This is believed to be at least the 21st murder of a transgender person this year in the United States alone.
The body of 17 year-old Ally Steinfeld was found over the weekend, after a frantic search by her family that began earlier this month when she went missing. Her remains were discovered near a mobile home 24 year-old Briana Calderas.
Calderas has been arrested for the murder, along with Isis Schauer and Andrew Vrba, both 18. All three have been charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action, and abandonment of a corpse. In addition, a fourth suspect, James T. Grigsby, has been arrested and charged with abandonment of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
Steinfeld was last seen with Calderas, Schauer, and Vrba, and the family felt they were lying when they claimed not to know anything concerning her whereabouts. Police obtained a search warrant to look through Schauer’s phone, finding Facebook messages from Vrba telling her to “stick to the story” and “quit talking.”
Vrba admitted to police that he stabbed Steinfeld repeatedly, after first attempting to poison her, but offered no motive. He said he, Schauer, and Calderas then burned her body, and placed some of the bones into a garbage bag, placing it in a chicken coop near the residence.
Schauer and Calderas said Vrba told them he also gouged out her eyes and stabbed her genitals repeatedly.
Calderas admitted Steinfeld was killed at her home and that she helped burn her body. She led police to the knife used in the murder, as well as to Steinfeld’s phone.
Local authorities have so far refused to label the killing a hate crime, saying the motivation wasn’t Steinfeld’s gender identity. They refused to release a motive that could support such an rage-filled and vicious attack that wasn’t motivated by emotion.
“I would say murder in the first-degree is all that matters,” Sheriff James Sigman told the New York Post. “That is a hate crime in itself.”
Transgender woman Derricka Brown was murdered earlier this month in Charlotte by a man she met up with for a sexual encounter.
More recently, non-binary student Scout Schultz was shot and killed by police at Georgia Tech while holding a closed pocketknife and telling them to shoot. It has since been discovered that the officer who shot and killed Schultz had not received crisis intervention training. | {
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The number of lesbian, gay and transgender characters on U.S. television shows have reached record highs, and campaign group GLAAD said on Thursday that their stories were more important than ever given moves in the United States to roll back LGBT acceptance.
In it annual report on diversity on the small screen, GLAAD found 329 regular and recurring LGBTQ characters across all broadcast, cable and streaming TV platforms, including the first asexual and non-binary characters.
GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis said TV was a critical place for the portrayal of LGBTQ characters and their lives.
“At a time when the Trump administration is trying to render LGBTQ people invisible, representing LGBTQ people in all of our diversity in scripted TV programs is an essential counterbalance that gives LGBTQ people stories to relate to,” Ellis said in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump in July announced he would ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. The White House has revoked guidance on letting transgender students use the bathroom of their choice in public schools, and Trump’s administration has said that federal law does not ban discrimination against gay employees.
The GLAAD report found that LGBTQ regulars on the main U.S. broadcast channels in TV shows like “Riverdale,” “Empire” “Designated Survivor” made up 6.5 percent of all characters, making the highest percentage in 22 years of GLAAD tracking.
Netflix’s dark comedy “Bojack Horseman” and Freeform’s supernatural “Shadowhunters” brought audiences the first asexual characters on television.
Showtime financial drama “Billions,” Netflix and Family Channel teen drama “Degrassi: The Next Class” and Spike TV’s comedy “Heathers” all feature non-binary characters, a term used to describe those who experience their gender identity falling outside the categories of man and woman, the GLAAD report said.
The emergence of new stories reflects the real world, GLAAD said, citing its own research which found that 20 percent of 18-34 year olds identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer/questioning.
The GLAAD report examined original scripted series airing or which were expected to air in primetime between June 1, 2016 and May 31, 2017.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by David Gregorio | {
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Building Resilience In The Quake Of Adversity
03/25/2022 • 3:00PM - 3:45PM EST • Workshop Room 1
Simply Speaks is a non-binary trans speaker that ignites the passion in business owners to push forward despite the obstacles that may challenge their momentum. This presentation takes a bold look at the adversity small business owners face oftentimes alone and the resilience that it takes to bounce back from a setback. Simply is a powerhouse speaker that touches the core of attendees with their authentic presentation style. | {
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Posted on May 3, 2022
The National LGBTQ Task Force is fighting for full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people
Note from the CREDO team: This May, the National LGBTQ Task Force is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. As they approach a historic 50th anniversary in 2023, we hope they can count on your vote of support, especially at this time when the LGBTQ community, trans youth, freedom of speech, sexual freedom, bodily autonomy, communities of color and our very democracy is under relentless attack at both the state and national levels.
Read this important blog post from the National LGBTQ Task Force below, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com to cast your vote to help determine how we distribute our monthly grant to this organization and our other amazing grantees this May.
The National LGBTQ Task Force lives its values every day – fighting for a just and compassionate world for ALL. We understand that we have multiple, complex identities and full liberation for one means equality for all. Our organization continues to lead the work in Queering Democracy, Equity and Faith advocacy, which is carried out in close partnership LGBTQ and cross-movement partners. We do so by working hard to get out the vote for local and state elections, amplify the voices of our communities – your voices – and make sure to highlight what those with multiple marginalized identities need so that we have full nondiscrimination protections. We’re making sure that we see full representation of our communities across the country through participation in the Census and access to affirming care for our communities, our families and our loved ones. We all deserve to live full lives, have access to employment, and fully participate in our communities, knowing we have protection from discrimination.
The last 2+ years have been challenging, yet the National LGBTQ Task Force has kept fighting for all of us. We’ve helped to support efforts such as the Equal Pay Queering Equity Win earlier this year, where the world learned that the four-time World Cup champions of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won a $24 million equal pay and sex discrimination class action settlement and U.S. Soccer publicly promised to equalize pay and working conditions.
We continue to Queer Faith Communities through our Cross-Movement Leadership to create new messaging framework on non-discrimination in health care to shift the narrative towards bodily autonomy in health care, countering political extremists’ anti-woman, anti-trans and anti-queer tactics.
The National LGBTQ Task has also had a hand in registering thousands of new voters, and through our work in Queer the Census, we continue to partner with the Census Bureau to bring more focus to LGBTQ people, those people experiencing homelessness, and in reframing how it will communicate citizenship, race and ethnicity on survey questions. And we have been a key organization fighting for passage of the Equality Act, so there will finally be federal-level protections for LGBTQ people and people of color in employment, accommodations and many other areas.
Change is possible! Access to democracy, for everyone, depends on full representation in all our communities and census data, and the enforcement of LGBTQ civil rights depends on nondiscrimination protections. Today and always, we fight to better the lives of LGBTQ+ people, especially those most vulnerable in our community, Black and Brown people, transgender and non-binary folx, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty.
You can learn more about our work at www.thetaskforce.org and vote for us today at CREDODonations.com! | {
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A TRANS and Non-Binary Guide to Intimacy, Pleasure and Relationships
LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2019
'Queer Sex is simply phenomenal' - Bitch Media. 'A gift to anyone looking to open their minds and fall in love' - CN Lester. In this frank, funny and poignant book, transgender activist Juno Roche discusses sex, desire and dating with leading figures from the trans and non-binary community. Calling out prejudices and inspiring readers to explore their own concepts of intimacy and sexuality, the first-hand accounts celebrate the wonder and potential of trans bodies and push at the boundaries of how society views gender, sexuality and relationships. Empowering and necessary, this collection shows all trans people deserve to feel brave, beautiful and sexy.
All items are delivered directly to your door in plain discreet packaging.
For UK deliveries we use Royal Mail Track 48 Hour Service. Quantities of stock are displayed on the product page. Items that are in stock will normally be dispatched within 1-2 working days, with the exception of bank holidays. Some items may be shipped directly from the distributor.
International delivery times may vary depending on that countries delivery service. Please allow 14 days before contacting us to chase your delivery. International orders may be subject to customs and duty charges at the recipients end.
For items displayed as Backorder Now, these will be dispatched once they return to stock. We will keep you updated on their progress. | {
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