More links, enjoy. - February-March 02019
Mar. 6th, 2019 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptHi! Let's start with this: how do you envision books when you're reading them? As it turns out for me, the answer is "Not much, you?" Even though when I construct writing, I try to visually block and imagine the things that are happening, I don't actually do it when I'm reading other pieces of prose. At least, not consciously. Unless, perhaps, there's something about the prose that fires my brain, but many times, that's a result of confusion or a suspicion that the action doesn't actually play out as smoothly as the narrative wants to believe it does. My visual sense kicks in as a critical component, not as a fannish one, necessarily.
The use of the Mx. honorific is gathering acceptance (and backlash) about being used in education settings. And in other settings as well, where there's an expectation of gendered language as the norm.
A quick Twitter Thread about the idea of pursuing and recommending excellence instead of becoming obsessed with the best. Which is a much shorter form of the bit I posted earlier about corruptions of fannish experiences. Because if we're all pursuing and recommending excellence, there's room for all of us, but if we're going for "the best," at a certain point, that becomes finite. Witness a list that wants to be the best books of all time in the science fiction genre, but instead is actually a list that provides a good tour of the genre from its beginnings to the present day. There are several authors on there that I would dispute their inclusion for, but I don't doubt that they have importance as signposts of what the genre can do and is capable of. (And possibly even, as warnings of false starts and prejudices and other things that we eventually figure out don't belong.)
Many people who posit they are logical beings as a way of asserting their superiority are neither logical nor superior, but you'll have a hell of a time convincing them of that, because they've invested in their "logic" and "rationality" in the same way that they might sneer at your "beliefs" and "emotions" that supposedly make you inferior to them.
Perhaps a useful set of examples can be found here in fashion trends that men hate, which are captions of reasons that men supposedly hate various fashion trends accompanying pictures where that trend is done really well and looks good on the person wearing it. I personally am of the opinion that clothing and makeup that produces the effect that the wearer wants is correct, regardless of what an observer's opinion is on the matter.
SweetXheart, a game about microaggressions, and how you can respond (or not) to them. And how sometimes you end up not having the greatest of times because of things outside your control.
This article claims tp know behaviors that are tells for misogynists, but also makes a very curious argument that many misogynists are reacting unconsciously to a trauma inflicted on them by a woman in their past. I guess the thinking there is that if you can work through the traumas, you can create men who aren't misogynists? the tricky part about that is those tips essentially amount to "If he's a jerk toward women, or prioritizes men over women, he's probably a misogynist." Which is an oversimplification of the article, sure, but that seems to be the heart of it, and those things aren't generally "unconscious bias" but definite action, and they probably have conscious, if unexamined, thought behind them.
This piece about first date danger signs is much more practical in nature, and focuses on the behavior of the date with regard to the waitstaff, the stories they choose to tell, and how much they respect your boundaries (and their own) as being likely indicators of what they'll be like when they're not trying to charm you. And this assumes, essentially, that you're going on a traditional-ish first date. Lots of people meet and greet in situations outside of that, where you don't get to see those particular behaviors, and where a lack of experience in everything can make you advertise your vulnerability to people who want to prey upon that. (For a lot of communities, I would certainly recommend an "ambassador" role, where it's someone's assigned duty to talk to the people who look new, ask them some pertinent questions and generally make them feel both welcome and informed, and, as much as possible, stick with them as they get settled in to things. Or to have a specific event that's geared toward new people with trusted ambassadors and monitors to make sure that the new people have a good time and are safe.)
It might also be me, but this set of reasons to dump a "non-committal, emotionally unavailable guy" reads a lot more like suggestions that your relationship might be turning (or has already turned) abusive, rather than "reasons why you might not want to waste more energy on someone who doesn't want to commit to the same kind of relationship as you." (And, of course, it assumes monogamy is your intended goal and that you're cishet.) Well, okay, it starts out with some reasons why you migh not want to invest more energy in someone who isn't reciprocating, but around #5, it really does start reading more like a list of warning signs that your relationship has crossed a line into an abusive territory and you should have your exit plans in place. But I might be hyper-sensitive to those signs and ideas when they show up in other places.
the_future_modernes has a concise roundup of the United Nations declarations regarding human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the rights of the child, and other statements of the UN. Many with accompanying video to illustrate and explain those declarations and the rights that all signatories to the United Nations should be granting to their people.
Monetizing a hobby is not the ultimate goal. It doesn't even have to be a goal. It can just be something you enjoy doing.
Minimalist design should be taken as a base, rather than as a complete idea. Because minimalism does do two things well, in that it tends to create accessible spaces as a default and that it tends to be cheap to create such spaces. Yes, there's joy in color and style and ornamenation, and spaces deserve those things, but if your primary concern is about making accessible, inexpensive spaces for people, then minimalism is usually going to win. Because ornamentation and the useless is often expensive to build and maintain. So, perhaps the best strategy for trying to bring back ornamentation and buildings that look like they have character is to make it so that people have enough money that they can think about architectural ornamentation and giving character to the outsides of their houses as well as the insides.
Speaking of character, we learn a lot about previous cultures through their graffiti, even as we condemn our own taggers, painters, and graffiti artists, and sitting with that contradiction is a good idea in figuring out what you think about the practice of writing in places that weren't expected to have it.
A member of the armed forces had a plot to create a white-supremacist paradise through the use of violence and terror. An actor said that the hate crime he claimed to have experienced didn't exist. And yet, neither of these actions is going to move the dial on the questions and divisions that are already there with regard to race, privilege, and the actions of famous and prominent people to fan those flames. Even if they should.
A black man obtained control of a white supremacist corporation from its previous leader after convincing the previous leader that the loose cannons in the group weren't worth the legal risk, and is now planning on essentially holding on to the corporation and using its space and website for education about anti-Semitism.
The science fiction genre has always had lots of women in it, at least until someone got it in their head that science fiction was for men only and tried to scrub any trace of the women in it. Which only worked until the women who were always there became visible again. And now we need to pull from the past to make sure the narrative doesn't get distorted again. For example, there's a lot of weird that's just taken as the norm in Madeline L'Engle's stories, for what your opinion is of them as narratives, and whether you agree with their theologies or not.
Some dos and do-nots with regard to the use of pseudonyms and personas as an author, which admittedly sum up to Wheaton's Law, but really, if you're using a thing to deceive people, you're probably doing it wrong. If you're using it to protect yourself from malign influences, that's probably right.
Suggestions on making your book that has teenagers have actual teenagers instead of cardboard cutouts.
Short pronouncements with regard to the profession of editing, many of which are about the realities of getting paid.
Even in a state society that wants everyone to believe the same things, little pieces of culture and boundary-breaking still manage to slip in.
A plagiarism scandal asks more questions than it answers about the methods employed (ghostwriting) and to what degree people are willing to prioritize outcomes over processes. Especially in a genre where creativity is the thing you're expected to bring to the table, even if there's somewhat of a formula you're going to be expected to follow.
The realities of being chronically ill are often that you get used to it...and how everyone else doesn't quite get used to it.
Anger and irritability should be considered as possible signs of depression. That seems to have been how a lot of my negative feelings came out in the last decade or so, and it's pretty obvious to anyone who I've described that decade to that I was depressed.
France is adding a lightsaber discipline to the fencing arts, which uses a circular arena and specific target zones for maximum point accumulation. I'd like to see it at work. (And also, I'd like to see it take off, because really, this is the kind of sword combat that might spark widespread interest, rather than the more traditional disciplines. Then again, Miraculous Ladybug.)
GQ asked a world-class rock climber to critique rock climbing scenes in various movies. He has a lot of fun.
Men, as a group, aren't doing a lot of studying abroad. The article positions it as men not wanting to leave or exert themselves for study, and touts the benefits of studying abroad as the possible precursor to living and working abroad, but I also know that we're not quite a generation into the idea that the old contract of "son inherits father's union job / son inherits father's business and continues to run it" is not even a whisper of a guarantee any more, and college is sort of being used as a way of trying to delay the onset of too many people into too few jobs, so studying abroad is never in their ability to do or pay for, and other sorts of things. It's complex, but there's still the possibility that, all things being equal, there wouldn't necessarily be much call for studying abroad in the United States if you believe that the U.S. is THE BEST AT EVERYTHING.
Suggestions on what the changing colors of bruises mean with regard to their healing process.
One of the cat actors for Captain Marvel got their own livestream of doing cat things. A video of a stray kitten helping a pit bull find a better home. A wolf that went to the vet, carried by some men who thought it a large dog. The breakup and aftermath of two tortoises.
Ramen's popularity in Japan is thanks to a necessary underground market that sprang up in the aftermath of the Second Great War. A greedy merchant sent back things that were not pepper, but that he wanted to pass off as peppers, because pepper was all the rage at the time and frightfully expensive.
In technology, the Perkins School has a very large globe, meant to teach geography to the blind and low-vision students by allowing them to touch and feel the contours (and political divisions) of the planet. Since it's an old artifact, of course, the history of the thing, and the ways in which it has had to be repainted and reworked to reflect the changing geopolitical situation is likely a great story all by itself, and is hopefully catalogued and kept by the historians and archivists there.
Designing and diagnosing around the idea that a particular man is the default and everything should fit him is dangerous, harmful, and potentially deadly.
(Not that we're surprised it happens, because there are plenty of people who will confidently hold forth in their ignorance.)
The variety of clubs that qualify as putters and conform under USGA rules is...starkly interesting. And also looks a bit like a science fiction idea gone weird.
A museum about robots and science that will be built, in at least some part, by robots and 3D-printed designs.
As White people rediscover the benefits of living in major metropolises, the residents of otherwise-undesirable Chinatowns and neighborhoods are subjected to the terrible pressures and community-destroying impulses of gentrification, rendering what used to be affordable housing in a culturally familiar place into a caricature of what it was at prices that can't be afforded, even with methods attempting to prevent residents from being priced out of their rental units.
A proposed bill in Arizona would demand that any person who needed to be fingerprinted as part of a background check would also have to submit a DNA sample, and pay for the privilege of being added to a database.
A bill in Kansas would mandate all Internet-capable electronic devices sold in the state have filtering software installed on them that could not be removed without paying an appropriate fee to the state if you are of age to view such material.
Human trials of a gene therapy intended to stop age-related macular degeneration. We'll see how effective they are.
The suggestion that sunlight exposure and its associated processes are the primary health benefit, rather than the vitamin D production as a product of sunlight exposure. Which is not a new idea, in that entities such as The Sunlight Institute have been advocating for more sun exposure for a while. What's definitely true is that the regulations regarding sunblock haven't been looked at since the last millenium, and so more research is definitely useful.
Research continues on what benefits blankets provide in regard to sleep.
A Congresscritter asked the Equifax CEO whether he would be willing to disclose the same data that was leaked in the data breach. And when he said no and why, she pointed out that his reasons were the reason why his company should accept the responsibility of injury and harm created by the company's data breach. Say hey, Mr. CEO. The new people are not interested in bullshit.
The reach of Amazon and/or Jeff Bezos is exceedingly long, but because they have their fingers in a lot of different pies, instead of trying to eat one whole, there's nobody necessarily trying to make sure Amazon doesn't end up owning at least some part of everything.
Last for tonight, there may need to be more world-building in your story than you think, because culture, social space, and anything that's not a shared default is worth mentioning, even if it's not a plot point. And you may need to put those pieces in if you want your reader to assume something other than their shared default. Or you may end up looking like A Cool Guy, who exists to perform their commitment to social justice, and is in it for the making it about themselves, rather than for the advancement of others, which is often a much less fanfare-laden (and sometimes, remarkably less difficult) activity.
And Buzzfeed pitted eight roast chicken recipes against each other, and it turns out the simplest one turned out best, at least in the department of "stands on its own without saucing or any additional flavors poured onto it or dipped in it."
And finally, nobody can figure out what the Nepalese flag is the way it is, but it does make the flag a standout among all the others in the world.
The use of the Mx. honorific is gathering acceptance (and backlash) about being used in education settings. And in other settings as well, where there's an expectation of gendered language as the norm.
A quick Twitter Thread about the idea of pursuing and recommending excellence instead of becoming obsessed with the best. Which is a much shorter form of the bit I posted earlier about corruptions of fannish experiences. Because if we're all pursuing and recommending excellence, there's room for all of us, but if we're going for "the best," at a certain point, that becomes finite. Witness a list that wants to be the best books of all time in the science fiction genre, but instead is actually a list that provides a good tour of the genre from its beginnings to the present day. There are several authors on there that I would dispute their inclusion for, but I don't doubt that they have importance as signposts of what the genre can do and is capable of. (And possibly even, as warnings of false starts and prejudices and other things that we eventually figure out don't belong.)
Many people who posit they are logical beings as a way of asserting their superiority are neither logical nor superior, but you'll have a hell of a time convincing them of that, because they've invested in their "logic" and "rationality" in the same way that they might sneer at your "beliefs" and "emotions" that supposedly make you inferior to them.
Perhaps a useful set of examples can be found here in fashion trends that men hate, which are captions of reasons that men supposedly hate various fashion trends accompanying pictures where that trend is done really well and looks good on the person wearing it. I personally am of the opinion that clothing and makeup that produces the effect that the wearer wants is correct, regardless of what an observer's opinion is on the matter.
SweetXheart, a game about microaggressions, and how you can respond (or not) to them. And how sometimes you end up not having the greatest of times because of things outside your control.
This article claims tp know behaviors that are tells for misogynists, but also makes a very curious argument that many misogynists are reacting unconsciously to a trauma inflicted on them by a woman in their past. I guess the thinking there is that if you can work through the traumas, you can create men who aren't misogynists? the tricky part about that is those tips essentially amount to "If he's a jerk toward women, or prioritizes men over women, he's probably a misogynist." Which is an oversimplification of the article, sure, but that seems to be the heart of it, and those things aren't generally "unconscious bias" but definite action, and they probably have conscious, if unexamined, thought behind them.
This piece about first date danger signs is much more practical in nature, and focuses on the behavior of the date with regard to the waitstaff, the stories they choose to tell, and how much they respect your boundaries (and their own) as being likely indicators of what they'll be like when they're not trying to charm you. And this assumes, essentially, that you're going on a traditional-ish first date. Lots of people meet and greet in situations outside of that, where you don't get to see those particular behaviors, and where a lack of experience in everything can make you advertise your vulnerability to people who want to prey upon that. (For a lot of communities, I would certainly recommend an "ambassador" role, where it's someone's assigned duty to talk to the people who look new, ask them some pertinent questions and generally make them feel both welcome and informed, and, as much as possible, stick with them as they get settled in to things. Or to have a specific event that's geared toward new people with trusted ambassadors and monitors to make sure that the new people have a good time and are safe.)
It might also be me, but this set of reasons to dump a "non-committal, emotionally unavailable guy" reads a lot more like suggestions that your relationship might be turning (or has already turned) abusive, rather than "reasons why you might not want to waste more energy on someone who doesn't want to commit to the same kind of relationship as you." (And, of course, it assumes monogamy is your intended goal and that you're cishet.) Well, okay, it starts out with some reasons why you migh not want to invest more energy in someone who isn't reciprocating, but around #5, it really does start reading more like a list of warning signs that your relationship has crossed a line into an abusive territory and you should have your exit plans in place. But I might be hyper-sensitive to those signs and ideas when they show up in other places.
the_future_modernes has a concise roundup of the United Nations declarations regarding human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the rights of the child, and other statements of the UN. Many with accompanying video to illustrate and explain those declarations and the rights that all signatories to the United Nations should be granting to their people.Monetizing a hobby is not the ultimate goal. It doesn't even have to be a goal. It can just be something you enjoy doing.
Minimalist design should be taken as a base, rather than as a complete idea. Because minimalism does do two things well, in that it tends to create accessible spaces as a default and that it tends to be cheap to create such spaces. Yes, there's joy in color and style and ornamenation, and spaces deserve those things, but if your primary concern is about making accessible, inexpensive spaces for people, then minimalism is usually going to win. Because ornamentation and the useless is often expensive to build and maintain. So, perhaps the best strategy for trying to bring back ornamentation and buildings that look like they have character is to make it so that people have enough money that they can think about architectural ornamentation and giving character to the outsides of their houses as well as the insides.
Speaking of character, we learn a lot about previous cultures through their graffiti, even as we condemn our own taggers, painters, and graffiti artists, and sitting with that contradiction is a good idea in figuring out what you think about the practice of writing in places that weren't expected to have it.
A member of the armed forces had a plot to create a white-supremacist paradise through the use of violence and terror. An actor said that the hate crime he claimed to have experienced didn't exist. And yet, neither of these actions is going to move the dial on the questions and divisions that are already there with regard to race, privilege, and the actions of famous and prominent people to fan those flames. Even if they should.
A black man obtained control of a white supremacist corporation from its previous leader after convincing the previous leader that the loose cannons in the group weren't worth the legal risk, and is now planning on essentially holding on to the corporation and using its space and website for education about anti-Semitism.
The science fiction genre has always had lots of women in it, at least until someone got it in their head that science fiction was for men only and tried to scrub any trace of the women in it. Which only worked until the women who were always there became visible again. And now we need to pull from the past to make sure the narrative doesn't get distorted again. For example, there's a lot of weird that's just taken as the norm in Madeline L'Engle's stories, for what your opinion is of them as narratives, and whether you agree with their theologies or not.
Some dos and do-nots with regard to the use of pseudonyms and personas as an author, which admittedly sum up to Wheaton's Law, but really, if you're using a thing to deceive people, you're probably doing it wrong. If you're using it to protect yourself from malign influences, that's probably right.
Suggestions on making your book that has teenagers have actual teenagers instead of cardboard cutouts.
Short pronouncements with regard to the profession of editing, many of which are about the realities of getting paid.
Even in a state society that wants everyone to believe the same things, little pieces of culture and boundary-breaking still manage to slip in.
A plagiarism scandal asks more questions than it answers about the methods employed (ghostwriting) and to what degree people are willing to prioritize outcomes over processes. Especially in a genre where creativity is the thing you're expected to bring to the table, even if there's somewhat of a formula you're going to be expected to follow.
The realities of being chronically ill are often that you get used to it...and how everyone else doesn't quite get used to it.
Anger and irritability should be considered as possible signs of depression. That seems to have been how a lot of my negative feelings came out in the last decade or so, and it's pretty obvious to anyone who I've described that decade to that I was depressed.
France is adding a lightsaber discipline to the fencing arts, which uses a circular arena and specific target zones for maximum point accumulation. I'd like to see it at work. (And also, I'd like to see it take off, because really, this is the kind of sword combat that might spark widespread interest, rather than the more traditional disciplines. Then again, Miraculous Ladybug.)
GQ asked a world-class rock climber to critique rock climbing scenes in various movies. He has a lot of fun.
Men, as a group, aren't doing a lot of studying abroad. The article positions it as men not wanting to leave or exert themselves for study, and touts the benefits of studying abroad as the possible precursor to living and working abroad, but I also know that we're not quite a generation into the idea that the old contract of "son inherits father's union job / son inherits father's business and continues to run it" is not even a whisper of a guarantee any more, and college is sort of being used as a way of trying to delay the onset of too many people into too few jobs, so studying abroad is never in their ability to do or pay for, and other sorts of things. It's complex, but there's still the possibility that, all things being equal, there wouldn't necessarily be much call for studying abroad in the United States if you believe that the U.S. is THE BEST AT EVERYTHING.
Suggestions on what the changing colors of bruises mean with regard to their healing process.
One of the cat actors for Captain Marvel got their own livestream of doing cat things. A video of a stray kitten helping a pit bull find a better home. A wolf that went to the vet, carried by some men who thought it a large dog. The breakup and aftermath of two tortoises.
Ramen's popularity in Japan is thanks to a necessary underground market that sprang up in the aftermath of the Second Great War. A greedy merchant sent back things that were not pepper, but that he wanted to pass off as peppers, because pepper was all the rage at the time and frightfully expensive.
In technology, the Perkins School has a very large globe, meant to teach geography to the blind and low-vision students by allowing them to touch and feel the contours (and political divisions) of the planet. Since it's an old artifact, of course, the history of the thing, and the ways in which it has had to be repainted and reworked to reflect the changing geopolitical situation is likely a great story all by itself, and is hopefully catalogued and kept by the historians and archivists there.
Designing and diagnosing around the idea that a particular man is the default and everything should fit him is dangerous, harmful, and potentially deadly.
(Not that we're surprised it happens, because there are plenty of people who will confidently hold forth in their ignorance.)
The variety of clubs that qualify as putters and conform under USGA rules is...starkly interesting. And also looks a bit like a science fiction idea gone weird.
A museum about robots and science that will be built, in at least some part, by robots and 3D-printed designs.
As White people rediscover the benefits of living in major metropolises, the residents of otherwise-undesirable Chinatowns and neighborhoods are subjected to the terrible pressures and community-destroying impulses of gentrification, rendering what used to be affordable housing in a culturally familiar place into a caricature of what it was at prices that can't be afforded, even with methods attempting to prevent residents from being priced out of their rental units.
A proposed bill in Arizona would demand that any person who needed to be fingerprinted as part of a background check would also have to submit a DNA sample, and pay for the privilege of being added to a database.
A bill in Kansas would mandate all Internet-capable electronic devices sold in the state have filtering software installed on them that could not be removed without paying an appropriate fee to the state if you are of age to view such material.
Human trials of a gene therapy intended to stop age-related macular degeneration. We'll see how effective they are.
The suggestion that sunlight exposure and its associated processes are the primary health benefit, rather than the vitamin D production as a product of sunlight exposure. Which is not a new idea, in that entities such as The Sunlight Institute have been advocating for more sun exposure for a while. What's definitely true is that the regulations regarding sunblock haven't been looked at since the last millenium, and so more research is definitely useful.
Research continues on what benefits blankets provide in regard to sleep.
A Congresscritter asked the Equifax CEO whether he would be willing to disclose the same data that was leaked in the data breach. And when he said no and why, she pointed out that his reasons were the reason why his company should accept the responsibility of injury and harm created by the company's data breach. Say hey, Mr. CEO. The new people are not interested in bullshit.
The reach of Amazon and/or Jeff Bezos is exceedingly long, but because they have their fingers in a lot of different pies, instead of trying to eat one whole, there's nobody necessarily trying to make sure Amazon doesn't end up owning at least some part of everything.
Last for tonight, there may need to be more world-building in your story than you think, because culture, social space, and anything that's not a shared default is worth mentioning, even if it's not a plot point. And you may need to put those pieces in if you want your reader to assume something other than their shared default. Or you may end up looking like A Cool Guy, who exists to perform their commitment to social justice, and is in it for the making it about themselves, rather than for the advancement of others, which is often a much less fanfare-laden (and sometimes, remarkably less difficult) activity.
And Buzzfeed pitted eight roast chicken recipes against each other, and it turns out the simplest one turned out best, at least in the department of "stands on its own without saucing or any additional flavors poured onto it or dipped in it."
And finally, nobody can figure out what the Nepalese flag is the way it is, but it does make the flag a standout among all the others in the world.
