Let's start with a great photo involving lava, kissing, and rain.
From there, a kit to help someone with the construction of an artificial language.
Here's a juxtaposition that I did not want to make in the light of all the other tragedies last post - it happened before I learned them, and I find it interesting. Coming through the list of checked in DVDs was this item, The Slumber Party Massacre, where we have women and a man with a drill bit menacingly over them. What did that remind me of? Night Trap, a video game about protecting slumber party co-eds from vampires that use drill bits instead of teeth to extract the blood they need.
Which both dates me, I suspect, and shows where a lot of my interests in my life have been. Unfortunately, I can't exactly explain this to my co-workers. Or anyone else, for that matter, excepting you, Interwebs people with knowledge of the history of video games.
In sport, Ichrio Suzuki will now be wearing pinstripes.
And that thing called the Games of the XXX Olympiad got underway. It was a treat to hear Brannagh use The Tempest and to have Jo Rowling read Peter Pan. And a legally blind man broke his own world record in a qualifying round in archery.
Not that these things are without their own problems - just take a look at the differences between uniforms...and how people talk about male versus female athletes.
Oh, and speaking of rampant sexism, someone believes they can determine whether or not any given female in a geek circle is a Real True Geek or just a poser trying to build their low self-esteem by appealing to a demographic that has no standards, often through the use of scantily-clad costuming. As one might guess, that does not go over well, because of the insult delivered to geeks of all stripes and the idea that geekdom somehow needs gatekeepers to keep the posers and unbelievers out ruins the idea that geeks are supposed to be sharing in the things that they love.
The Dead Pool Astronomical Society salutes Dr. Sally Ride, the first United States citizen in space, at 61 years of age, which leaves the world bereft of a female scientist far too early. As it also turns out, although she was never very open about it, Dr. Ride was in a lesbian relationship for more than 25 years.
A quick random tidbit - tips for cooking pasta correctly, which includes that you should leave some bite in your pasta so that it can properly cook in the bowl or the sauce.
In the United States, an appropriate way of handling what might be trademark infringement - asking them to politely change the cover of the book on reprint, and offering to help with costs if they want to do it sooner.
Richard Cheney does not like Sarah Palin, to the point of saying what was obvious in the 2008 election - picking Palin was a mistake.
A Mitt Romney adviser played up the idea that Mitt Romney, as a white guy, would be closer to the United Kingdom rather than President Obama - because he's white. Suffice to say, the campaign walked that particular remark back in a hurry.
After the Chick-fil-A company made explicit their stance on opposing marriage equality, the Jim Henson Company pulled their Creature Shop toys from the fast food chain's children's meals and donated what monies they have made from the partnership to GLAAD. Confronted with this conundrum, Chick-fil-A chose to lie about the true reason for the toys no longer being available. And then may have created flase Facebook accounts to spread the lie and try to give it credibility.
In technology, remember when Microsoft was actually a competitor to Apple and other technology companies, before the culture stifled their innovation and Microsoft tried to emulate IBM?
In opinions, the suggestion that guns are not the problem when it comes to mass shootings, but that if one wants to see less of those things, one must change the culture to be less violent. Elsewhere, Mr. Alexander points out that part of the Second Amendment talks about a "well-regulated" militia, and that most people who want to own assault rifles and other weapons of potential mass destruction do not qualify to own those items under that definition. Almost immeditately, the particulars of his argument were disputed, and the alternative framing mirrors the idea of change the culture, not ban the guns.
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xenologer points out that based on what the Aurora shooter said and did, you can reasonably conclude he has mental issues - and that such a conclusion is not ablist. Concluding that all people who commit crime and murder are mentally ill and saying that the mentally ill are more likely to commit crime and murder runs into ablism territory. The distinction is important.
Mr. Hedges reminds us of one of the lessons of our modern life - it is not the madmen at the top that make the institutions monstrous, but the bureaucracy that administrates things - most people will be too afraid of their jobs going away to protest that their jobs do more damage to people. On the other side of things, just because it's on-line doesn't mean it's not real - most of the time, there' another person on the receiving end of what you say and post about on the Internet.
Two perspectives on the question of why Susan is not present in Narnia at the end of the series - one that reads mostly what is presented in the text and draws a conclusion, one that draws context from the other texts written by Lewis and comes to a different conclusion. It's a very good read by two eloquent authors.
A couple different takes on Brave - one unsympathetic to the story because it has several unresolved worldbuilding problems that subvert the intended message or provide lots of Unfortuante Implications. Like, for example, the idea that masculine virtues are superior to feminine virtues, even though the embodiment of the masculine virtues is in Merida, a female character. The good thing about having a diverse blogroll is that they have a diverse blogroll and you get exposed to a lot of great viewpoints that make our media more complex.
Last for tonight, how to get people to stop telling sexist jokes - play dumb. (Ah, and a nice flowchart about whether it's likely your rape joke is going to be funny and welcomed. And how not being able to do the things you wanted to do adds up and crushes the spirit. So see if you can't get some of those things you've wanted to do done - sometimes the chores can wait for a bit.
Oh, okay, one cheery thing. Mister Tea, a tea infuser that looks like a gentleman taking a soak in your tea glass.
From there, a kit to help someone with the construction of an artificial language.
Here's a juxtaposition that I did not want to make in the light of all the other tragedies last post - it happened before I learned them, and I find it interesting. Coming through the list of checked in DVDs was this item, The Slumber Party Massacre, where we have women and a man with a drill bit menacingly over them. What did that remind me of? Night Trap, a video game about protecting slumber party co-eds from vampires that use drill bits instead of teeth to extract the blood they need.
Which both dates me, I suspect, and shows where a lot of my interests in my life have been. Unfortunately, I can't exactly explain this to my co-workers. Or anyone else, for that matter, excepting you, Interwebs people with knowledge of the history of video games.
In sport, Ichrio Suzuki will now be wearing pinstripes.
And that thing called the Games of the XXX Olympiad got underway. It was a treat to hear Brannagh use The Tempest and to have Jo Rowling read Peter Pan. And a legally blind man broke his own world record in a qualifying round in archery.
Not that these things are without their own problems - just take a look at the differences between uniforms...and how people talk about male versus female athletes.
Oh, and speaking of rampant sexism, someone believes they can determine whether or not any given female in a geek circle is a Real True Geek or just a poser trying to build their low self-esteem by appealing to a demographic that has no standards, often through the use of scantily-clad costuming. As one might guess, that does not go over well, because of the insult delivered to geeks of all stripes and the idea that geekdom somehow needs gatekeepers to keep the posers and unbelievers out ruins the idea that geeks are supposed to be sharing in the things that they love.
The Dead Pool Astronomical Society salutes Dr. Sally Ride, the first United States citizen in space, at 61 years of age, which leaves the world bereft of a female scientist far too early. As it also turns out, although she was never very open about it, Dr. Ride was in a lesbian relationship for more than 25 years.
A quick random tidbit - tips for cooking pasta correctly, which includes that you should leave some bite in your pasta so that it can properly cook in the bowl or the sauce.
In the United States, an appropriate way of handling what might be trademark infringement - asking them to politely change the cover of the book on reprint, and offering to help with costs if they want to do it sooner.
Richard Cheney does not like Sarah Palin, to the point of saying what was obvious in the 2008 election - picking Palin was a mistake.
A Mitt Romney adviser played up the idea that Mitt Romney, as a white guy, would be closer to the United Kingdom rather than President Obama - because he's white. Suffice to say, the campaign walked that particular remark back in a hurry.
After the Chick-fil-A company made explicit their stance on opposing marriage equality, the Jim Henson Company pulled their Creature Shop toys from the fast food chain's children's meals and donated what monies they have made from the partnership to GLAAD. Confronted with this conundrum, Chick-fil-A chose to lie about the true reason for the toys no longer being available. And then may have created flase Facebook accounts to spread the lie and try to give it credibility.
In technology, remember when Microsoft was actually a competitor to Apple and other technology companies, before the culture stifled their innovation and Microsoft tried to emulate IBM?
In opinions, the suggestion that guns are not the problem when it comes to mass shootings, but that if one wants to see less of those things, one must change the culture to be less violent. Elsewhere, Mr. Alexander points out that part of the Second Amendment talks about a "well-regulated" militia, and that most people who want to own assault rifles and other weapons of potential mass destruction do not qualify to own those items under that definition. Almost immeditately, the particulars of his argument were disputed, and the alternative framing mirrors the idea of change the culture, not ban the guns.
xenologer points out that based on what the Aurora shooter said and did, you can reasonably conclude he has mental issues - and that such a conclusion is not ablist. Concluding that all people who commit crime and murder are mentally ill and saying that the mentally ill are more likely to commit crime and murder runs into ablism territory. The distinction is important.Mr. Hedges reminds us of one of the lessons of our modern life - it is not the madmen at the top that make the institutions monstrous, but the bureaucracy that administrates things - most people will be too afraid of their jobs going away to protest that their jobs do more damage to people. On the other side of things, just because it's on-line doesn't mean it's not real - most of the time, there' another person on the receiving end of what you say and post about on the Internet.
Two perspectives on the question of why Susan is not present in Narnia at the end of the series - one that reads mostly what is presented in the text and draws a conclusion, one that draws context from the other texts written by Lewis and comes to a different conclusion. It's a very good read by two eloquent authors.
A couple different takes on Brave - one unsympathetic to the story because it has several unresolved worldbuilding problems that subvert the intended message or provide lots of Unfortuante Implications. Like, for example, the idea that masculine virtues are superior to feminine virtues, even though the embodiment of the masculine virtues is in Merida, a female character. The good thing about having a diverse blogroll is that they have a diverse blogroll and you get exposed to a lot of great viewpoints that make our media more complex.
Last for tonight, how to get people to stop telling sexist jokes - play dumb. (Ah, and a nice flowchart about whether it's likely your rape joke is going to be funny and welcomed. And how not being able to do the things you wanted to do adds up and crushes the spirit. So see if you can't get some of those things you've wanted to do done - sometimes the chores can wait for a bit.
Oh, okay, one cheery thing. Mister Tea, a tea infuser that looks like a gentleman taking a soak in your tea glass.
