Mar. 5th, 2014

silveradept: A squidlet (a miniature attempt to clone an Old One), from the comic User Friendly (Squidlet)
What excuse does the gaming industry have for excluding fully half of their possible player base right off the bat?

Before getting too far into the weeds, take a short rest and look at how quickly and adorably pets grow into adulthood.

Librarians are not immune from being blinkered on social justice issues. Kyle Cassidy photographed a bunch of librarians as a project of showing that the profession looks nothing like what people think it does. The response to that, though, was a lot of complaining. The photographer was confused about this response.

Elsewhere, The American Library Association adopted a code of convention conduct for attendees to their professional conventions. Which is frankly, freaking awesome. The responses split among the privileged claiming it wasn't necessary and those with experience knowing it was. A sampling of responses, including analogies to book banning. Mr. Scalzi links to an incident where a policy was in place, and the complaint under the policy was handled swiftly and efficiently. Also effectively.

The Librarian in Black points out all the reasons why the responses to both of those elements complaining about them were very, very wrong.

The Ada Initiative offers a HOWTO on designing your own convention code of conduct.

So, there's a gigantic history of racism and race relations that goes unacknowledged in societies that think removing de jure discrimination removed the de facto as well.

Research indicates that the practice of solitary confinement does not rehabilitate those who are subjected to it, but instead exacerbates a host of mental issues (or potential mental issues) in those subjected to it.

Trying to document the Troubles in Ireland is difficult - not just because the IRA doesn't want people talking, but because gathering history potentially runs into still-open investigations.

Mindfulness and a push to disconnect from always-on technology has become a marketing ploy, as The Corporate State continues to co-opt anything that might be resistant to its touch. Best to let it pass and then return to it when it stops being a fad.

After his ouster as the President of Ukraine, Russia offers protection for Victor Yanukovich from the protestors. And then sent soldiers into the Crimea region of Ukraine, ostensibly to protect Russian citizens and interests in the region, a move that has drawn significant criticism and threats of "consequences" for Russia This could be quickly reminiscent of the Georgia war almost a decade ago.

South Carolina legislator proposes retaliation against universities for including books involving LGBT issues in their required freshmen courses, flatly denies he's a [REDACTED]. Apparently, "teach the controversy" is selectively applied. Arizona came within a governor's veto of passing a bill that would have allowed citizens and government to discriminate about what services they provide to anyone, based on their religious convictions, a decision that conservatives are aggravated about, even complaining that such bills are totally okay because they don't specifically say to discriminate against specific groups. And then Texas had a federal judge declare their same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, which the state has appealed.

This pales entirely to Uganda, which passed a bill that will imprison gay people for life if reported, to the absolute consternation of the State Department. I'm hoping the United States follows through with others in cutting off aid to the government of Uganda.

El Paso, Texas, seems to have found a good solution to immigration issues - it tries not to have anything to do with Customs and Border Patrol, and the CBP there actually appear to have a commitment to being open. The rest of the area, and the border crossing stations, however, still have much work to be done.

In previous years, Texas had money to spend on family planning, but chose to let clinics close anyway. Because Texas's legislature and government hates women. Georgia hates the poor, though - faced with the problem of rural hospitals closing because uncompensated emergency care was bankrupting them, rather than allow for Medicaid expansion and other parts of the Affordable Care Act that would give hundreds of thousands of people health insurance, Georgia's governor would prefer to repeal the law that says emergency rooms have to treat everyone, regardless of whether they can pay for it. So, in Georgia, the governor believes you must be at least this rich to get health care. That will certainly help fix the problem, if nobody poor needs care...or if all the poor people are dead because they couldn't get care. Way to deal with the problem, Deal.

Have a ground-level view of what happens outside of clinics that provide reproductive services. In New York. Elsewhere, a nationally syndicated columnist gives kudos to police in Washington that arrested a rape victim to ensure her cooperation in the prosecution. Which induces an Oh Hell No reaction from feminist corners because it doesn't make sense to restrict someone's autonomy after they've suffered a trauma regarding their autonomy.

New Jersey continues to be a hotbed of scandalous scandal. A mayor had to be forcibly removed from office after his conviction on federal corruption charges, because he did not feel like his corruption warranted resignation. The current scandal now has the chair of the Port Authority voting for a lease reduction for a client of his law firm without recusing himself, although he did later manage to retroactively recuse himself. And more information released on the bridge scandal has more callous jokes and abuse of powers.

In what was likely an attempt to cover up its own violation of laws in obtaining evidence against Megaupload, New Zealand's spy agency deleted critical evidence that would help with their case. In trying to cover up their wrongs, NZ may have allowed the right result for their case to happen.

The first of a series of seven reasons why a paleontologist might commit murder, none of which are the stated reasons in the Elementary episode Dead Clade Walking.

Giant, beautiful horse head art in Scotland. And morally ambiguous honey badgers, with valentines.

Copyrights are funny things - and when copyrights get transferred, publishers jealously guard them, even from the original authors.

All things are more complex than they appear. An important task of our existence is realizing all things can be both and.

A simple game appeared, became viral, rose to immense heights, attracted a strong share of haters, death-threat makers, and critics, and then was yanked by its creator because the pressure and the negativity was too much for a single person. Such is the Internet in its excesses. Anonymous is only one expression of that dynamo.

Setting a drama in a particular period of time requires paying attention to all the details, including slang and the way people sound, which is not always achieved. Sometimes there's an explicit handwave, sometimes not.

A call for interest for disabled writers to write fantasy stories with disabled characters. Stop by if interested and examine the submission guidelines.

The difference between Ask Culture and Guess Culture are not insignificant, and having a clash of methods often results in hurt all around.

Finally, Take a tour inside DuckDuckGo, a search engine built on the principles of privacy, giving instant answers, reducing spam, and letting people hack it to their own ends. I use DuckDuckGo myself for searching, and it is excellent at producing good results without lots of useless things.

Useful advice on securing your system, whether as part of a library or as your own individual system.

And mountain lions in Los Angeles, photographs of houses that do more to warn away buyers than entice them, and the selfie as a revolutionary statement about presenting your own authentic self.

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silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
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