The rest - 9 September - 27 September 02015

Starting up with care and compassion for those affected by a fandom coming to a close.

Then continuing with some of the bookstores of Jimbocho, a neighborhood in Tokyo.

Then the emergence of designed products to help trans bodies achieve their desired shillouette, although they have yet to be manufactured at a cost that makes them affordable to most trans people.

The information professional in me is really happy and really sympathetic to the Archive Corps, who have rescued a treasure trove of old technical manuals and now have to figure out what to do with them - send them to other archives, digitize them, or something else entirely. Then there will be all the additional parts of making those archives findable, accessible, and organized, which is normally where the archivists get consulted or hired. This could be a fascinating process to examine and see the inner workings of.

The information professional is also very unhappy that the Department of Homeland (in)Security spayed FUD all over a public library's intention to operate a Tor exit node. DHS said that criminals take advantage of anonymizing technology, and that could be a problem for the library's PR. Thankfully, the node returned quickly afterward. Operating a Tor exit relay seems like it should be more popular among privacy-enjoying librarians.

The information professional does not have factual answers to these questions. Snark, yes, but not facts.

Scripts for handling it when someone wants to add more work to your plate and you have no more space to give.

Music is too important a thing for us to not have teachers asking students what they want to do with it. If we assume everyone who gets into music intends to play in concert /orchestral settings, we do a great disservice to the students.

Spend a mental rename token and call it the Bechdel-Wallace test, to acknowledge the inspiration as well as the artist, says the artist that drew it first.

An index post for all the posts on the publishing journey by Zen Cho, whose individual posts we have linked to before.

We learn more about a story from the parts that aren't essential to the plot than the ones that are. Because everyone can tell the story about how Thor got married to a frost giant, but depending on what gets emphasised, the storyteller turns out to be bloodthirsty, or very much a dudebro, or someone who uses myths to let everyone else know that they're not on the binary, whatever binary it is.

Be My Eyes, an app that intends to allow visually impaired people to make a request for someone else to examine a thing and provide audio feedback about what they see.

A student with a Middle-Eastern-sounding name was arrested after bringing an electronic clock to school, after school administrators could not be convinced that the clock was, in fact, a clock. Nobody would admit to the factors that resulted in such poor judgment and embarrassment, instead doubling down on the idea that such paranoia was the correct response to a brown student with an electronic device. In the name of keeping the students safe, yet another school makes their building profoundly unsafe for students to do the growth and development necessary for individuation and finding their unique selves. The very least we can do in response is to invite such students to have an audience with the President and technology bigwigs and then let them change schools. Or maybe we could stop letting or stereotypes get the better of us, for once, instead of trying desperately to make up for a mistake.

The New York Public Library is digitizing many of the theater ephemera in its collection. Meaning pictures and Playbill and letters and more.

Even though everyone is complaining about the speed of our lives increasing, there is still time and money for journalism that takes time to develop the story before publishing it, and for stories that take months or years to complete.

I'm also going to leave here the part of writing that will stuck your nights up - revision, accompanied by the good things that come from getting to look at someone else's work, and the realization that bestsellerdom is always, always, always an outlier in the pool of authors.

The first sentence of your work is important, but not so much that it should stop you from writing the rest of the work, if you already have the rest of the work.

Once a white cop has decided you're Scary Black People, any excuse will do to arrest you, even if you're a well-known doctor in the community on the way to help someone. Here's another thing: it is entirely possible to have racism (and it's there), without there having to be racists, as biased people seeking desirable and avoiding undesirable things will draw bad conclusions about how to do that. When confronted on it, white people often look to their non-white friends for absolution from having said or been racist, even unintentionally.

Talking about race worth children is tough - even more so when their idol is Michael Jackson.

The government of Prime Minister Harper has committed several abuses of power to increase their own fortunes and power. Attempts to ridicule them, for example, by putting dildos in the hands of Prime Minister Harper, may be effective. More than that, though, the Harper government has been doing its best to destroy data collection and archiving in Canada, so that nobody can have facts and figures to challenge the government's claims or positions. Which is one step worse than the United States, which just tries to hide everything.

Tapping into your own passion makes many more things enjoyable, and might be easier than we think? Like much of mindfulness and meditation, somehow the trick is to find the way through or around the thoughts that interfere...which is apparently as easy or as hard as we want to make it. It begins with forgiveness. And, to some degree, not trying so damn hard. If you try too hard, you can't capture the foxes at rest. Which extends out, in a way, to the idea that specifically choosing to make time for the truly important things mama that important things will go by the wayside - which may help with that existential crisis thing. Assuming you have an idea of what's truly important.

Your unused frequent flyer miles may be put to good use as a charitable donation. Whether for refugee assistance (which seems to finally be starting to work) or other social good you want to support.

(UNHCR says refugees is correct terminology, as there isn't a while lot of "voluntary" in the movement of displaced persons. ProPublica offers a news story roundup.)

An app offers the victim of a asexual assault the ability to report and record the details, and then offers them a choice - to come forward and accuse, or to file the report and have it come out if someone else accuses the same person. The developers of the app are hoping that this will increase the number of reports by removing the necessity of scrutiny and the likelihood of public shaming coming from making an accusation, and then allowing for multiple distinct accounts to appear in support the moment someone is brave enough to come forward.

I don't know if that will be effective, mostly because there's still a lack of clarity about what constitutes an assault and if it should be reported, and it seems like the scrutiny and mechanism that kicks in to defend accused assault would just be deferred instead of deleted. Unless the number of accusations were somehow so numerous as to steamroll that mechanism (ha.). I wonder, though, whether showing how many other accusations would be unsealed would help make decisions in whether to accuse or not. Maybe not if there was only one other, but if it were up to five or more, that number would probably help someone feel less exposed in making their accusation. Or invoke a sense of solidarity and a need to get this person that has hurt so many.

There's still work to be done, though - dispelling lies about sex told to women and dispelling lies told about sex to men.

According to analysis of emergency calls, private conflicts may be the greatest predictor of crime in an area, suggesting the right training for policing is about resolving domestic disputes, landlord-tenant issues, and other potential issues before they spill out into public or acquire guns, which has a strong correlation of generating violence.

Fandom is not solely the province of the young. And, actually, is probably not even majority-young. Teenagers and the young are just making their declarations more publicly, and with more documentation to back it up. ("LOUDER!"..."yay.") For example, young fans don't get why people would be interested in Firefly trivia. Or, for that matter, in a wireless keyboard replicating the look and feel of a typewriter.

Pluto's place names may contain a significant number of dark or hellish beings and places. Which could end up being in contrast to the wealth of new pictures and analysis that will be possible from the New Horizons photographs and instrument readings.

A single-issue candidate enters the field on the Democratic side - Lawrence Lessig, who intends to pass one piece of legislation and then turn over the country to his running mate. While the proposed reforms may not actually be effective, the idea is interesting.

The transcript of a Liberty University graduate on why he supports a candidate that speaks about helping the poor and healing the sick. While that interpretation may not be popular in the Liberty circles, it does point out that allyship often involves talking to your in-group about the plight of those seen as outside of Other, so others ride your credibility to their own enlightenment. Here's a few ways to be an ally when someone gets fat-shamed around you. If you would like more proof, the idea of flat abs is working against biology for most women. Or deploy the analogy that poodles keep insisting other dogs have to be poodles to be their healthiest selves. Or the cancer survivor who could have had a much easier time of it if he entire medical establishment didn't assume her poor health was due to her size.

Despite the obvious presence of readers of all colors, the publishing industry can be remarkably blinkered about expanding into diverse markets, much like so, so many other media industries. Oh, and fashion lacks proper diversity, too.

By the way, More often than not, people thinking they're playing devil's advocate aren't, because they're insulting the person they think they're debating, and not contributing anything, either. And most likely engaging in one or more bias-influenced decisions as well.

Donald Trump is popular in the same way that the far right in Europe is popular, which means he could very well be a strong spoiler for the candidates the Republican National Party wants to field.

GQ does a cover story on Stephen Colbert, his comedy, and his new gig as the host that succeeds Letterman. Which I put in contrast to a porn performer talking about how most porn performers don't actively and openly talk to each other about what they get paid for their work. Even though, I suspect, the studios do.

There's an interesting thread running through several movies and television shows - a news anchor. Figure out how the universes mesh?

Perhaps the reason a person seems to get poor customer service all the time is because they are rude and abusive to all the staff. The people who work there know who you are, and they will give you the bare minimum of effective service because you won't appreciate anything more.

In San Francisco, a homeless shelter that provides a private room for more than a night is much more successful at getting people into more permanent housing than night shelters.

A sequence on effectively confronting a friend that you think may be abusing their partner.

Pay toilets in rail stations in the UK make significant money. Which are supposed to be reinvested so that the people who have to use them don't feel like they're being profited on for biological needs.

A design for a university in Ho Chi Minh City is the buildings in the context of a giant green space, such that air quality improves, shade reduces the need for air conditioning, and all the water the greenery collects will be used to feed all the green stuff. I like it.

Guns transformed into rebar, perhaps the more modern version of swords to ploughshares.

Ethical leadership comes from understanding the true nature of the Kobayashi Maru - sometimes you lose, despite your best efforts. What you do to try and win, and what you do next is just as important.

People often set up filters that encourage and reward transgressive behaviors against those filters, by not enforcing boundaries or by making being an ass a better and more effective way of getting things done.

A quandary I sometimes think about - it is wildly inappropriate to use other people as teachable moments or cripsiration or to do things with them they haven't consented to. Yet, we keep finding out that knowing someone personally is often the fastest way to get people to shed stereotype, and not many people are likely to attend panels or programs where someone is consenting to give education. How do we foster personal relationships without encouraging or rewarding this kind of inappropriate behavior? I like the idea of "check out time with someone different than you", but again, it runs the risk of rewarding the bad.

Science regarding the obtaining of tattoos. Which leads to the use of tattoo as anchor, ground, and reminder of accomplishments, whether using symbols, anime characters, Hayao Miyazaki characters, or Taylor Swift lyrics. Every tattoo has a story.

The stories of the First Nations say a lot about the land - including the possibility of big earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.

Language continually evolves - style guides are therefore only useful for the institution that published them or chooses to adhere to them. Elsewhere in subjectivity, an editor conned by a foreign-sounding name reacts by admitting to his own prejudices. Which means the next question is why one editor gets to create things that are called "Best Of".

Experiences from the city that existed in the space of a single city block. Much like that This American Life show I heard where the entire town is in one multi-story building. And then there's the opposite, a place statistically poor but otherwise quite nice to live in.

First Nations and Inuit tribes in Canada are building their own civic Internet access infrastructure, often spearheaded by teens, because nobody else is willing to lay the fiber and the towers needed to make the connections. Elsewhere, philosophers have found a working model of keeping a free online information repository both authoritative and up-to-date. They give it to experts for the prestige, and then require them to keep it updated or lose control over the article.

Digitized versions of research materials in the Smithsonian Freer|Sackler collection, now available through the Internet Archive.

The arcade games of the USSR, which play more like carnival games than video games, and were intended to help teach proper Soviet values. I'm going to put it next to an aria on helium and drawings that tell us that even monsters have issues, and let you figure out what sort of connections to draw.

When you apply the principles of design to things thought sacred, the idea that function is more important than form often creates more effective products. Which is why so many modern sex toys, especially those for women, don't have any sort of penile form at all - there are a lot of better ways to achieve pleasure from a device. And a lot of reviews taking about how assume of those devices failed entirely.

And in terms of removing misconceptions, the supposed benefits of circumcision aren't, plus there are additional possible issues to go with it. Hrm.

After reading about the saga of a person who won a replica of the Game of Thrones most iconic chair, but with dildoes instead of pointy things, I admit, my first thought was "but did they design it practically? What would the logistics of it look like to get a person for each one of those dildoes? And what would the resulting picture look like?"

Stories of those that use and design sex machines, focusing less on the potentially lurid aspects and more on the reasons people design and use machines.

Stepwells, an excellent way of providing water year round before the conveniences of later plumbing systems, which we put with nonstandard supplies that are worth keeping for the apocalypse and the need to keep your photovoltaics free of dust to operate at max efficiency.

The universe generates art in so many different places. Which sometimes makes our efforts, like a six foot tall and six foot wide atlas pale a bit in comparison. But then we can illustrate and dye and color or world more (assuming our chosen pigments aren't trying to kill us), and appreciate the detail and beauty in the smallest grain of sand or in having lanterns with the surface of Luna wrapped around their light source.

And then sometimes nature throws us for a loop - sponges are a really good example of nature doing weird things. Or the possibility that the microbes in our skin might also help us fight diseases that try to get in that way. Or new knowledge that says giraffes hum to each other at night.

Tinnitus might be the result of a malfunctioning noise gatekeeping system in the brain.

Toronto gets a cat cafe. So jealous. (Also, Toronto has a subtly Potter-themed bar. Perfect for when the illustrated version of Potter drops.)

A commercial for your older model felines. Who are usually needing good homes more than the kittens.

See some of Japan from the perspective of friendly cats, with tags to help with interesting places.

High end cosplay often means knowing or being a special effects laboratory. Sometimes those skills get put to work in great ways, like building great Halloween costumes for wheelchair users.

If you ever need the reference, the exists a book of photographs showing men in the process of undressing. Because drawing people and their clothes correctly is important.

Last for tonight, I am Halloween, a wall painting that takes on extra imagery under UV light (and is beautiful in both ways), realistically proportioned balloon animals, papercuts that shine best when backlit by the sun, a wolfdog and his humans out camping and on adventures, playful British Shorthairs, cute pet rats, dogs that smile and be happy, scientists showing off the cutest things they written with, a cat adopted by a biker, animals licking windows, the unicorn as household pet, miniature horses as therapy animals, fun bunnies, kittens from the junk yard, orange cats, examples of cat logic, and minifigure photography.

And it's decorative gourd season and flavored seasonal treats time. Which means there are lots of ways to keep your socks from falling and exposing your skin to the cold.