Be Me For A Day

From spectrumcaferss. See also:


http://nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/07/10/2009-07-10_chaz_bono_shows_off_girlfriend_at_outfest.html

Chaz Bono shows off girlfriend Jennifer Elia at Outfest
BY Joanna Sloame
DAILIY NEWS WRITER
Friday, July 10th 2009, 11:59 AM


Chaz Bono (R) and his girlfriend Jennifer Elia (L) live together in West Hollywood. (Vazquez/Getty)

Who knew Chaz had a hottie girlfriend?

Chaz Bono, who usually keeps his personal life private, showed off gorgeous galpal Jennifer Elia Thursday night at Outfest in Los Angeles.

Outfest is the largest film festival for gay/lesbian/transgender-themed flicks in the country.

The son of Cher and the late Sonny Bono recently revealed he is undergoing a sex change to become a man, and has changed his name from Chastity to Chaz in the process.

A political and social activist, Chaz lives in West Hollywood with the brunette beauty. Bono began the sex change process in early March shortly after his 40th birthday.

"I am excited for Chaz that he will now be able to live life the way he wants to and in a body that is more comfortable for him," Kristen Schaffer, the executive director of Outfest told RadarOnline.com in June. "Chaz's 'coming out' as transgender is wonderful for the LGBT community as it not only increases transgender visibility, but also shows that we should never compromise our own identity."

http://examiner.com/x-16330-Philadelphia-Transgendered-Relationships-Examiner~y2009m7d9-To-disclose-or-not-to-disclose

To disclose or not to disclose
by Joe Ippolito
July 9, 3:21 PM

Disclosing to a potential dating partner can be an anxiety producing experience for many "passing" transgender people. Passing is the ability to present oneself as a gender other than one assigned at birth and to live in an unrecognizable state in society as this new gender.

For some, the notion of being rejected because of their transgender identity is so terrifying they opt to remain "in the closet," and end up not dating at all. For others, telling a potential dating partner may not be something they ever do. However, if disclosing is something you personally feel is important to you then it might be helpful to keep these few points in mind when deciding to open up in this way. For starters, you may want to feel the person out first to see exactly where they stand on similar political and social issues, such as gay and lesbian concerns, and/or determine how they relate to certain gender roles? Is this person more politically conservative then you expected? Do they think lesbians are really women who have merely not "landed" a good man? Do they think it is wrong for men to wear pink and women to wear blue? Depending on what the answer to these questions are, you may want or need to reconsider who this person is and if they really make a good dating partner for you. However, if you decide to go forward with the dating relationship you will then need to figure out a good time to talk with them about your gender identity.
( Read more... )

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=98499677130

UPDATE on June 24: We've received some questions in the comments about default privacy settings for this beta. Nothing has changed with your default privacy settings. The beta is only open to people who already chose to set their profile and status privacy to "Everyone." For those people, the default for sharing from the Publisher will be the same. If you have your default privacy set to anything else — such as "Friends and Networks" or "Friends Only" — you are not part of this beta.

Today, we're launching a beta version of an improved Publisher — the main place to add content such as photos, videos, and status updates on your home page and profile. The new Publisher has been streamlined a bit, and its most significant improvement is the new Publisher Privacy Control that gives you the opportunity to answer the question, "Who do you want to tell?" as easily as you answer the question, "What's on your mind?"

You may have some posts you want to share with a wide audience, such as whom you voted for or how great the weather is today. Other times you may have more personal updates like your new phone number or an invitation to join you at your favourite restaurant for dinner that are meant for only close or nearby friends.

If you have access to this beta version, every time you publish content into your stream you are able to control which people can access that specific piece of content. After writing a status, uploading a photo or creating other content from the Publisher, use the lock icon in the lower-right corner of the Publisher to access the drop-down menu. From there, you can then choose to make the post visible to:

• Everyone: Anyone, on or off, of Facebook can see it.


• Friends and Networks: People you have confirmed as friends and people in any school or work networks that you've joined can see it.


• Friends of Friends: Anyone who is friends with a friend of yours can see it.


• Friends: Only people you have confirmed as friends can see it.


• Custom: Choose any friend or Friend List to include or exclude from seeing that piece of content.

For example, you might be comfortable with anyone enjoying the video you took at a concert, but only want your family to see photos from your family vacation. So you can choose to share the video with "Everyone" while selecting "Custom" for the photo album and choosing your Friend List for your family.

Additionally, when you add a new friend, you'll begin to start seeing posts they have set to "Everyone" before they have confirmed you as a friend.

People who had previously set their status updates and profile privacy settings to be visible to "Everyone" are included in this beta launch, but we hope to expand this to more of you soon.


Ola, an engineer at Facebook, is publishing his thoughts to everyone.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/16/rose.transgender/

Commentary: Transgender people are everywhere
By Donna Rose
Special to CNN
updated 3:20 p.m. EDT, Tue June 16, 2009

Editor's note: Donna Rose is a speaker and advocate for transgender and transsexual issues. She is the author of a memoir, "Wrapped In Blue: A Journey of Self-Discovery." Her Web site is http://donnarose.com/ .


Donna Rose says transgender people don't fit the stereotypes society often tries to impose.

(CNN) -- It was only a matter of time. The real-life drama of being transsexual has come to Hollywood. Chastity Bono, the impossibly cute little blond girl who, for many of my generation, remains frozen in time as the sweet, chubby-faced cherub closing many a Sonny and Cher show in the arms of her doting parents, recently announced that he is transsexual and will be transitioning from female to male. He will go by the name of Chaz.

As shocking as this news may be to some, it is yet another reminder that all is not necessarily as it appears and that each of us is more complicated than simply the skin and bones of our bodies. Rather, it is our heart and spirit that defines us.

Transgender people -- that is, people who may not experience or express their gender in ways that are necessarily typical for the physical sex of their body -- have been part of the fabric of cultures for as long as history has been recorded.
( Read more... )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8129836.stm

Gay sex decriminalised in India

A court in the Indian capital, Delhi, has ruled that homosexual intercourse between consenting adults is not a criminal act.

The ruling overturns a 148-year-old colonial law which describes a same-sex relationship as an "unnatural offence".

Homosexual acts were punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.


Rights groups have long campaigned for a repeal of the law

Many people in India regard same-sex relationships as illegitimate. Rights groups have long argued that the law contravened human rights.

Delhi's High Court ruled that the law outlawing homosexual acts was discriminatory and a "violation of fundamental rights".

The court said that a statute in Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines homosexual acts as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and made them illegal, was an "antithesis of the right to equality".
( Read more... )

http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/article/11/gay_marriage/

Gay marriage legal from today in Hungary, but gap in rights persists
By: Hungary Around the Clock
2009-07-01 11:16


Marchers in the 2007 Budapest Pride parade. Today marks the first day gay couples can form legal partnerships in Hungary.

Homosexual couples can forge life partnerships before public notaries from Wednesday.

These life partnerships will be guaranteed the same tax, employment, social and immigration benefits as heterosexual marriages. Gay couples will be barred from adopting children and taking their spouse's name, however.

Constitutional Court spokesman András Sereg told Magyar Hírlap that the Act, which was passed in March, can only now be challenged at the Constitutional Court.

The MBTA is prepared for the 04 July festivities with an increase in service for the thousands of people traveling to the Esplanade. Along with more service, MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas announced that bus, subway and commuter rail fares will not be collected from 10:30 pm to the end of service on 04 July.

Encouraging folks to take the T on 04 July, Grabauskas shared the T’s plan. “As in past years, we are increasing service throughout the system; and to ensure customers get to their destination safely and on time, T personnel and Transit Police officers will be deployed throughout the system assisting customers,” said Grabauskas. “Get the most up to date information on T service to the Esplanade at http://mbta.com/ or call the T’s Customer Service Centre at 1617 222 3200.”

Below is the MBTA’s operating schedule for Saturday 04 July.
( Read more... )

From tommytesto. Minors, please do not take offense at the fact that a signed permission slip from your parent or guardian is required. The campout is held on private property - Raven Kaldera's farm - and if your parents suddenly decide they don't like where you are, or if you just go without telling them where you're going, they could cause legal trouble for Raven. The permission slip is about legality, not your maturity. If you will not yet be 18 before the campout starts, you must have a signed permission slip. Contact Raven to get a copy for your parent or guardian to sign. Much younger attendees - the youngest person to ever attend was 11, but generally the youngest folks are in their mid- to late teens - should plan to stay through Friday night rather than Saturday night, as workshops on Saturday may be of a more adult nature. Contact Raven if you have questions about that.

The Northeast FTM Campout is fast upon us -- July 16-19 -- and so I wanted to send a reminder and info about the event. Please read the following information carefully, as there are some changes from last year. Please note - this is not the La Garou BDSM Campout; this is in rural MA, and is for FTMs only. As the host says, 'This event is open to anyone who self-identifies as FTM, regardless of where you are with regard to physical transition. We are not the gender police; we will take your identification at face value.'
( Read more... )

Do you read and write well, or even fluently, in a language besides English? T-Vox needs your help!

As ever, T-Vox is striving to be as internationally accessible as possible. The wiki admins are based in the UK, and the overwhelming majority of contributors are English speakers living in predominantly English-speaking countries. This, obviously, leaves out a huge percentage of the world population. While we have managed to translate a small handful of pages into French or German or Italian or Spanish, the majority of pages remain untranslated, and obviously there are many other languages that haven't been introduced at all.

If you can help at all, whether by translating one very short page or a huge amount of content, or by checking the existing translated pages for translation errors, the community will benefit hugely, and those of us who would love to translate but aren't able to will be forever grateful!

See T-Vox: Languages for instructions on how to create a new, translated version of any T-Vox page. You will need to create an account on T-Vox to be able to create and edit pages; it's free and painless, and your e-mail address is never shared with anyone.

Pages that particularly need translating at the moment: Trans 101; Transsexuality; Main Page; A guide to transition (and the pages linked from there); Legal issues

Please cross-post this wherever you feel it's appropriate!

http://theage.com.au/national/transsexual-takes-to-the-footy-field-20090606-bz7v.html

Transsexual takes to the footy field
Jill Stark
June 7, 2009


Will, 25, who has been living as a man for two years, hopes to play competition football. Photo: Simon O'Dwyer

LIKE many young Victorian males, Will loves his footy. He dreams of joining the thousands of men who lace up their boots every weekend and play in amateur competitions. He's just like them in every way but one — he was born female.

When the 25-year-old takes to the field he will become Australia's first female-to-male transsexual to play competitive football in a men's team.
( Read more... )

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/06/25/for_philanthropy_courses_students_become_the_givers/

For philanthropy courses, students become the givers
By Tracy Jan
Globe Staff / June 25, 2009


Laura McNulty, who works at the Somerville office of National Student Partnerships, said goodbye to client Maria Selamoglu after she helped her locate a permanent residence in Somerville. (Maisie Crow for The Boston Globe)

WALTHAM - College students, many of whom spend the little extra cash they have on pizza and laundry, don’t fit the typical profile of a wealthy benefactor. But in a growing national movement, students enrolled in newly created philanthropy courses are steering thousands of dollars to local charities.

At Tufts University, students decided this spring to give $1,500 to expand English courses to immigrant parents in Medford. Northeastern University students donated about $2,500 to a Boston after-school program promoting cross-cultural tolerance through cooking. And students at Boston University distributed $7,500 to help local at-risk teens land jobs in the financial sector.

At least 10 New England colleges, including Brandeis, Holy Cross, Boston College, Wheelock, and Lesley, will offer similar courses next school year, using seed money donated by corporate and family foundations. In the classes, students draw up mission statements for makeshift foundations, research nonprofits in their communities, and decide how to allocate the pot of money.
( Read more... )

'But I will not give up because I won't give the mainstream gay organisations the satisfaction of keeping us down. If we give up, they win. The reason we right now as a trans community don't have all the rights they have is that we allowed them to speak for us for so many damn years and we bought everything they said to us, "Oh let us pass our bill, then we'll come for you". Yeah come for me. Thirty-two years later and they are still coming for me. We can no longer let people like the HRC speak for us. It is not my pride, it is their Pride. I have nothing to be proud of except that I helped liberate gays around the world ... before I die, I will see our community given the respect we deserve.'
-- Sylvia Rivera, a tireless Trans activist who fought at the Stonewall riots in 1969 and passed away in February 2002.

Quote found in Pinned Down By Pronouns (2003, Conviction Books), edited by Toni Amato and Mary Davies.

Sex, not gender. Pop will make Pop's gender known pretty clearly at some point, whether or not it aligns with Pop's sex. Either way, this reminds me strongly of Baby X - A Fabulous Child's Story, which I think is fantastic.


http://thelocal.se/20232/20090623/

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret
Published: 23 Jun 09 16:24 CET

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
( Read more... )

http://baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=92846

Local activists among 40 ’transgender heroes’ honored at Stonewall bar
by Ethan Jacobs
Bay Windows staff reporter
Thursday 25 June 2009


Stonewall’s legacy: (from left) Gunner Scott, Nancy Nangeroni and Grace Sterling Stowell will be immortalized as ’Transgender Heroes’ at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. (Source: Marilyn Humphries)

Historians have long credited poor and working class drag queens, bull dykes and other transgender and gender-non-conforming people as key participants in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, but within the wider LGBT community that defining moment is all-too-often remembered as a gay, rather than LGBT, milestone. The International Court System and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force hope to change that. On June 25, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the riots that marked the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement, the two organizations will hold a dedication ceremony at the fabled New York City bar to unveil a plaque featuring the names of 40 transgender heroes past and present.

The plaque will go on permanent display at the bar, and Bay State visitors will likely recognize a few familiar names on the list. Among the 40 heroes are Gunner Scott, director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC); Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of the Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth (BAGLY); longtime activist Nancy Nangeroni, former president of the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), former co-host of GenderTalk Radio and current host of GenderVision; and Cole Thaler, an MTPC founder who is now the transgender rights attorney for New York’s Lambda Legal.

"It will be permanent, so people going into the Stonewall Inn will be able to see this plaque and see the names of these, to me, true heroes of our community," said Nicole Murray-Ramirez, a longtime San Diego-based activist who presides over the International Court System as Empress Nicole the Great. The International Court System was founded in 1965, four years before Stonewall. Member courts in the United States, Canada and Mexico, including the Imperial Court of Massachusetts, hold events in which members don campy and outrageous costumes and adopt royal titles, all while raising money for LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations.
( Read more... )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8118426.stm

Screen star Fawcett dies aged 62

Actress Farrah Fawcett, who became an icon of 1970s US television, has died of cancer in Los Angeles aged 62, her spokesman has confirmed.

Fawcett is best known for starring in Charlie's Angels, and in later years for hard-hitting TV and stage roles.

Her battle with illness was chronicled in the television documentary Farrah's Story earlier this year.

Her partner Ryan O'Neal said: "After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away."

He was said to be by her beside when she passed away in a Los Angeles hospital.

Obituary: Farrah Fawcett
( Read more... )

A raccoon lives under my deck. This is not a good thing, but the silver lining is that I get to see her babies. This is the second year that I've got to see her out with her babies. Last year there were four; this year there are five!

We do need to have them removed because they're damaging the house - if they were just on the property I wouldn't care, but having them in the house is not okay. But as long as they're here - and last night I got to see the babies for the first time this year, all five happy little scampery raccoon babies - I'm going to take pictures!

( 7 pictures, all 640x480 )

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/entertainment/NATL-Ed-McMahon-Dead-at-Age-.html

Ed McMahon Dead at Age 86
Updated 8:21 AM EDT, Tue, Jun 23, 2009

Ed McMahon died at a hospital in Los Angeles this morning, his agent said today.


The 86 year old TV personality died this morning at Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center.

The 86-year-old TV personality and former "Tonight Show" host died this morning at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, his agent said today.

McMahon, who is best known as Johnny Carson's sidekick on the late-night show, was hospitalized in February with pneumonia and other illnesses.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/12/chastity.bono/index.html

Commentary: Chastity, 'Good luck, brother!'
By Jamison Green
Special to CNN

Jamison Green is an educator, adviser and advocate on transgender issues, and the author of "Becoming a Visible Man" (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004).

Welcome, Chaz!

Before the word "transsexual" had been coined in English, an intrepid young person whose family belonged to the British nobility set out to transform herself from female to male. He received a medical school education, obtained hormones -- relatively new substances that were poorly understood at the time -- and independently began living as a man in the early 1940s.

Eventually, he found a plastic surgeon to help him, and his physical changes were complete by 1949, but his family rejected him. The British tabloids hounded him. To escape publicity, he was forced to carve out a life for himself virtually alone. He became a Buddhist monk, and died in Tibet in 1962 at the age of 47.

His name was Michael Dillon, and he one of the Western world's first transsexual people, that is, someone who changes sex and/or gender by medical means. His extensive writings were suppressed and destroyed by his family -- only fragments survive.
( Read more... )

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7827428&page=1

Chaz Bono Gives Voice To An Often 'Invisible' Community
Trans Activists Say Chaz Bono Could Be Rare Face for Transgender Issues
By LAUREN COX and RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
June 13, 2009

Transgender men fighting for legal protections say Thursday's announcement by Chastity Bono, child of Cher and the late Sonny Bono, that she will be transitioning from female to a male as Chaz Bono is a welcome break from an all too common "invisible" paradox.

For reasons that are part biology and part society, transgender men say in some ways they have an easier time being accepted and recognized as masculine than transgender women have being perceived as feminine.

Yet at the same time, there has been a virtual black hole in public awareness of female-to-male transgender people.
( Read more... )

From q_transphobia.

Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman are co-editing a new book, “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation“, which aims to:

[...] collect and contextualize the work of this generation’s most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world’s most respected mainstream news sources.

Kate and Bear have issued a call for submissions from “non-normatively gendered/sexed voices” but add that they will “include all the good stuff we can, regardless of current identifiers of the author”.

The deadline is 01 September, and payment will be $50 and two copies of the book on publication by Seal Press later next year.

The full text of the call for submissions may be found over at Bear’s LJ – link here.

From transgriot.

TransGriot Note: This news is courtesy of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition, and it's less than 24 hours after several Shelby County Commissioners loudly said there was no need for an anti-discrimination ordinance in Memphis.


We were contacted by a reporter with Channel 3 (WREG-TV) who provided a copy of an affidavit of a shooting that occurred in South Memphis on Wednesday, May 27. The man arrested for the shooting, Terron Taylor, told police that he did it because the victim “misrepresented his gender.”

The victim, identified as Kelvin Denton, is in critical condition after being shot in the nose and throat.

At this point, we do not know any details about Denton’s life, but regardless, we abhor this sort of violence for any reason. Our thoughts and prayers of everyone in the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition go out to Kelvin, family and friends, for a speedy recovery.

We urge Shelby County authorities to prosecute Taylor aggressively and not permit the use of the trans-panic defense.

We also urge members of the Tennessee General Assembly to pass HB0335 by Rep. Jeanne Richardson (D-Memphis) and 21 others, and SB0253 by Sens. Beverly Marrero (D-Memphis) and Ophelia Ford (D-Memphis), as soon as they return in January. This bill would add “gender identity or expression” as a hate crimes sentencing enhancement factor to Tennessee Code Annotated 40-35-114. Passage of this bill will make it easier for state and local authorities to track and prosecute hate crimes against all LGBT Tennesseans.

If you do not know the names of your state legislators, go to http://capitol.tn.gov .

Federal Legislation:

In addition, we urge swift passage in the United States Senate of S.909, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The House of Representatives has already passed this legislation, which is supported by President Obama, by a vote of 249 to 175.

Please contact both of Tennessee’s Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and tell them you want to them to support S.909.

We also ask everyone to continue talking to both Representatives and Senators about the importance of the fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We anticipate that ENDA will be introduced in the coming weeks. It is time to end job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. If LGBT people can find, and hold, decent paying jobs, then we are less likely to end up on the streets where we become vulnerable to hate crimes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8080630.stm

Weekly curry 'may fight dementia'

Eating a curry once or twice a week could help prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, a US researcher suggests.

The key ingredient is curcumin, a component of the spice turmeric.

Curcumin appears to prevent the spread of amyloid protein plaques - thought to cause dementia - in the brain.


The key ingredient appears to be turmeric

But the theory, presented at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' annual meeting, has been given a lukewarm reception by UK experts.

Amyloid plaques, along with tangles of nerve fibres, are thought to contribute to the degradation of the wiring in brain cells, eventually leading to symptoms of dementia.

Professor Murali Doraiswamy, of Duke University in North Carolina, said there was evidence that people who eat a curry meal two or three times a week have a lower risk of dementia.

He said researchers were testing the impact of higher doses - the equivalent of going on a curry spree for a week - to see if they could maximise the effect.
( Read more... )

From an e-mail.

Hello,

Megan Rohrer and I are putting together a book: Letters to my Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect.

We are making a number of strategic asks to get some of the most respected members of the Trans community in this book and we invite you to send a submission. The book will feature essays from respected Trans men mentors who share the wisdom they wish they would have known at the beginning of their journey into manhood. More specifically, we are inviting you to write a public letter to yourself (the you before you decided to transition) for the book.

Proceeds: 30% will be divided among the authors, 20% will be given to the National Centre for Transgender Equality (NCTE), and the rest will enable us to ensure more stories can be told in the future.

Full details of the call for submissions is posted at http://wilgefortis.com/submissions/brothers/

While we are probably familiar with many of the same members of the Trans community, please feel free to let us know the names of individuals you think have a diverse, humorous or unique story that we may not know about.

Zander Keig

A week or two ago, my computer decided to crash and not boot. Some troubleshooting established that the motherboard* seemed to have spontaneously fried itself - it was clearly receiving power, but wouldn't POST**, no matter what I did. Since I needed a new motherboard, I decided this would be a good opportunity to upgrade my CPU*** as well. I spent some time at http://newegg.com/ , as is my wont, and came up with a very nice motherboard for $65. At the recommendation of a friend, I checked out and then bought a very nice CPU for $168. And then, as a treat for myself, I got some RAM**** for $21. I love how cheap things are getting. Did you know you can get an 80GB hard drive for under $40?

I was also pleased to see that computers are going a bit green as well. Both my new mobo (motherboard) and my new CPU have Energy Star logos on them. My new CPU is about twice as fast as my old one, but uses the same amount of power. Sweet!

Geeky specs:
Old CPU - 1.6GHz dual core Intel
New CPU - 3.0GHz dual core Intel
RAM before upgrade: 1GB
RAM after upgrade: 3GB
Old motherboard's maximum supported RAM: 4GB
New motherboard's maximum supported RAM: 8GB

I love my speedy, shiny new system!

*The bit that everything plugs into and connects through - all your drives, your CPU***, your RAM****, the PSU (power supply unit), graphics and video cards, etc. When you plug your monitor or printer or ethernet (internet) cable or microphone or speakers or USB stuff or whatever else into the back of your computer, you're plugging it into the motherboard.

**Power On Self Test. You know when your computer beeps when you first start it up? If you have a floppy drive, the beep often is right after the floppy drive makes its noise checking for a disk. That beep is your motherboard POSTing and saying that everything's okay.

***Central Processing Unit. The bit that does the thinking.

****Random Access Memory ('memory' for short). The bit that allows you to run multiple things at the same time. The more memory you have, the more your computer can multitask without freaking out.

What: Queer Collaborations is a national queer conference. It's full of educational and activist-y fun, with something for everyone.

Who? All Trans, intersex, lesbian, bisexual, gay, etc. people are welcome. Usually about 90% of the delegates are university students.

Where? Canberra

When? July 13-18

How much does it cost? $45 + accommodation + food + travel

Is it really that great? Yes! You will learn cool stuff in the workshops, and meet lots of interesting young people from around the country. It's super fun.

For more info, contact qc09@anu.edu.au.

If you are coming, please register by July 1st. If you're travelling far, you should book your travel tickets really soon, because airlines charge way too much if you leave it to the last minute.

Please pass this on!