Links

Sometime between 09:25 and 16:56, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Is Science Fiction Feminized Or Is It Sexist? Both.: "Women are being welcomed into science fiction, but it's though the back door. Let's not start patting ourselves on the back because we can recognize rank sexism when we see it written by an anonymous guy on a radical right wing opinion blog. We can celebrate how far we've come from our sexist past when women and men are equally represented in the pages of science fiction anthologies. And when the next big, blow-em-up spaceship movie is written and directed by a woman. Until then, we have a lot of work to do. Work that involves challenging people who actually have the power to alter the course of SF as a genre. Work that is a lot harder than ridiculing an anonymously published blog post." Interesting, thoughtful response to the "women are killing sci-fi" blog post that I linked to the other day.
• Know Thy Enemy: They've introduced bigoted legislation, filed referendums, held rallies, and raised money—but they've never gotten around to explaining how gay couples actually hurt their marriages. They've also allegedly done things like failed to pay taxes, raised rents on the elderly, and beaten their wives. They say their battle is a righteous one, but these four crusaders are short on righteousness and long on catacombs in the closet.
• Photos: Rare Snapshots From Early Star Trek Conventions: A fun collection of old Star Trek convention snapshots, with accompanying audio.
• If God Had Wanted Me to Be Accepting of Gays, He Would Have Given Me the Warmth and Compassion to Do So: "I don't question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God's plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit–in His infinite wisdom and all–to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so. It's a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?" Oh, how I love the Onion.
• Hey, Marriage-Minded Teens! It’s Teen-Time!: "Teen-Time demonstrates a delightfully astonishing lack of understanding of its target market. Hilarious generalizations abound. The playing field centers around — where else? — a mall and a video store. But let's just cut right to the exquisite central absurdity of Teen-Time… the object of the game is to get engaged to be married before your fellow teens do. Seriously."
• I-1033 a Windfall for the Rich: "In August, the state Office of Financial Management estimated that in 2015, Eyman's initiative would force the state to refund $1.8 billion in property taxes. What the fiscal note didn't say — and which got no mention that I could find anywhere — is that the state only collects $1.8 billion in property taxes. It all goes to public schools. In Olympia they call it the 'state school levy.' What this means is that state economic forecasters have predicted Eyman's initiative would eliminate most if not all of the state school levy in five, maybe six years. That would be 25 percent of state school funding — gone."

Sometime between October 12th and October 14th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Dispatches From a Public Librarian.: "Libraries don't earn money for a city, but they do earn a city pride; they enrich lives; and most importantly, they help people get the skills they need to reenter the work force. In hard times, they shouldn't have limited service hours–they should have expanded services hours. When a person goes to a library to get help seeking employment, and they see a notice on the door that says that due to cutbacks the library is not open, it only adds to the persons frustration that there is no hope or places to go for the help that they need. […] Spread the word. If you approve this dispatch (or even if you hate it, but you like libraries) then start a Twitter trend—just tweet #savethelibrary."

• A Brief History of Gummy Bears: "In 1920, a poor confectionery factory worker in Bonn, Germany, decided that it was high time he struck out on his own. Armed with nothing but a bag of sugar, a marble slab, a kettle, an oven and a rolling pin, Hans Reigel began whipping up hard candies in his kitchen, which his wife would then deliver from the basket of her bike. The new company was called Haribo–a smash up of Hans Riegel of Bonn. After two years of middling profits, the Riegels realized that they'd need a gimmick and fast to keep competitive."

• Sendak, Ever-Untamed, Sees Wild Things Adapted: "'I advised [Jonze] to make more mischief, and he made more than most,' says Sendak. 'In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.' 'Maurice was our sort of mentor in this whole thing,' said Jonze. 'He was the one person that I really wanted to please. The thing that's so great about him is he wanted me, early on he said, `You need to make this your own. Don't worry about me, don't worry about the book, don't worry about what anyone else expects. You have to just make something bold and not pander to children and make something that's as dangerous for its time as the book was in its time.''"

• iTunesLP.net: "iTunes LPs are a new format introduced by Apple in version 9.0 of their popular iTunes software. The idea is to recreate the old LP experience by providing additional content such a lyrics, liner notes, photographs and other content. At this moment these iTunes LPs are available for a select list of new releases on the iTunes store. However we think it would be nice to have many older, out-of-print, obscure albums or albums on indie-labels to get the same experience; and with that in mind we started working on finding out exactly how this new format works, in order to share our results with the community."

• The War on "Real" Science Fiction: "…there is an undeclared war on real science fiction on TV and in movies. The former Sci-Fi channel, now 'Syfy', is a good example of what has been happening to science fiction on television. In 1998 Bonnie Hammer took over the Sci-Fi channel and declared that 'more female viewers were needed'. Over the next several years, the Sci-Fi channel became increasingly feminized losing many of its traditional male viewers in an attempt to go after women viewers. This included making the logos 'warmer and more human' because the logos before were 'too male and too dark'. The biggest change was in the feminization of the programming shown on the Sci-Fi channel." And that's just the beginning. Yup, modern science fiction sucks, and it's all the fault of the girls! Oh, and the gays, too! Girls and gays, ruining sci-fi for all us manly men, who just want to shoot aliens and each other. Girls should only be allowed when they're in peril, wearing skimpy clothing, waiting for us to rescue them.

• Kinder, Gentler Spider Eats Veggies, Cares for Kids: "Each of the world's 40,000 spider species survives by hunting and killing — except, that is, for Bagheera kiplingi, the world's first vegetarian arachnid. Found in Central America, the order-defying jumping spider eats nutrient-rich structures called Beltian bodies, which are found on the tips of Acacia trees. And that’s not all: It looks like B. kiplingi males help care for eggs and young — something entirely unprecedented in the spider world."

Sometime between October 7th and October 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Goodbye Halloween, Hello “Safety”: "'The bottom line is that I cannot find any evidence that any child has ever been killed or seriously hurt by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating,' says Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. The fear is completely unfounded."
• Eyman Initiative Gets an ‘F’ From Teachers: "'If this goes through, we will never recover money lost in this budget: We will never fund the class size initiative that voters passed,' said Meg Town, who teaches science at Redmond Jr. High. The teachers talked forcefully of what they do. It's a heckuva lot more than teach core classes five periods a day: The 'more' motivates students, opens up career choices, and keeps at-risk kids in school. The 'more' is what's getting whacked. The Legislature's budget is being felt now: The pains will be magnified and made permanent if voters approve Eyman's initiative."
• In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy: "The Nobel Committee announced Friday that the annual peace prize was awarded to Barack Obama, just nine months into his presidency, 'for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.' The award cited in particular Mr. Obama's effort to reduce the world's nuclear arsenal. 'He has created a new international climate,' the committee said."
• Toys"R"Us Scolded for Gender Discrimination: "Last winter, a sixth grade class at Gustavslund school in Växjö in south central Sweden reported Toys'R'Us to the Reklamombudsmannen (Ro), a self-regulatory agency which polices marketing and advertising communications in Sweden to ensure they are in line with guidelines set out by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). According to the youngsters, the Toys'R'Us Christmas catalogue featured 'outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive', according to a statement from Ro."
• An Open Letter to the Guy Who Put Just a Geek the Audiobook on His Website for People to Steal: "I'm Wil Wheaton. I wrote Just A Geek, and I created the audiobook you're helping people steal. You may not know this, but I 'm just one guy, without a publisher, so when you help people steal this copy of Just A Geek by making it available for download, you're basically stealing directly from me. You're not stealing from some big publisher with deep pockets who is trying to rip you off with overpriced stuff; you are stealing directly from me, an indie artist and publisher who counts on every sale to make a living. I have to tell you, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, what you're doing sucks. It sucks a lot."

Sometime between October 2nd and October 5th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• DropBox: "Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux." Just got this installed on the 'puters I'm using frequently, and so far, it's seamless and really impressive. Off to a good start.
• Can I change the frequency that google notifier (Mac OS X) checks my email?: You can adjust the interval by clicking on the mail icon and then holding down the Command and Option keys while clicking on Preferences. This will pop open a box for a key/value pair. Use AutocheckInterval as the key (case-sensitive) and then set the interval (in minutes) for it to check as the value.
• Gender in Pixar: "Even though Pixar puts a lot of effort into creating stand-out female supporting characters, it is far past time that they put that very same effort into telling the story of such a character instead of simply including her in someone else's. Girls, put simply, need to have leading characters that they can look up to just as much as boys do; they need to experience stories that are about a woman's dreams, struggles, and trials. At the end of the day maybe we're talking about animated children's films**, but such media in at least some small respect has a part in informing the way that a child develops and begins to think about the world around them."
• Can a Woman "Prong" a Man? Why it’s so hard to put sex in the dictionary.: "WARNING: This piece contains vulgar language—lots and lots of it—that may be inappropriate for children or the faint of heart." That said, if you are neither a child nor faint of heart, it's well worth reading — an interesting and often amusing look at the difficulties encountered when dictionaries attempt to deal with sexual matters.
• Dark Stalking on Facebook: "By far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they've completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you're a friend. They don't show up in search results. They don't show up on friends' lists. You can't send them messages. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find. However like dark matter, dark users are observable due to their effects on the rest of the universe. If a dark user comments on a stream entry, I can see that comment. More importantly, I can see their user-ID, and I can generate a URL to a page that will contain their name. I can then watch for their activities elsewhere. Granted, I can't directly search for their activity, but I can observe their effects on my friends. For want of a better term, I've been calling this "dark stalking"."

Sometime between September 30th and October 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• A Planet That Rocks: "The newly-discovered exoplanet COROT-7b has an unusual form of precipitation: rocks. Because it orbits so close to its sun, the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot enough for rocks to vaporize — not unlike water evaporating on Earth. And, like Earth, when the vapor cools in the upper atmosphere, it forms clouds and begins to rain. But instead of water, COROT-7b gets a shower of pebbles."
• No Thumbprint, No Money, Bank Tells Armless Man: "'They looked at my prosthetic hands and the teller said, 'Well, obviously you can't give us a thumbprint',' Steve Valdez told CNN on Wednesday. But he said the Bank of America Corp branch in downtown Tampa, Florida, still insisted on a thumbprint identification for him to cash a check drawn on his wife's account at the bank, even though he showed them two photo IDs."
• PCalc Prevents iPhone Profanity: "We are happy to announce that the latest version of our PCalc scientific calculator for the iPhone contains a new patent-worthy profanity filter. Simply enter a number such as '5318008″, turn the calculator upside down, and the offending word will be discreetly censored. Many common calculator words have been included as standard, and we plan to increase this over time via software updates."
• The Grand Unified Theory of Superman’s Powers: "Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics fame, asked his friend Ben Tippett to write a scientific paper-style analysis of Superman's powers after listening to Tippett describe his unified theory of the Kryptonian's abilities. Tippett, trying to understand Superman's powers from a physics perspective, has posited that Superman doesn't have multiple superpowers, but one amazing ability: 'It is our opinion that all of Superman's recognized powers can be unified if His power is the ability to manipulate, from atomic to kilometer length scales, the inertia of His own and any matter with which He is in contact.'" This link goes to Io9's overview, the actual .pdf file of the full theory is also available (.pdf link).
• why i am not afraid to take your money, by amanda fucking palmer: "for the last 10 years, i have been working my ass off…tirelessly making music, traveling the world, connecting with people, trying to keep my balance, almost never taking a break and, frankly, not making a fortune doing it. i still struggle to pay my rent sometimes. i'm still more or less in debt from my last record. i'll lay it all out for you in another blog. it's just math. if you think i'm going to pass up a chance to put my hat back down in front of the collected audience on my virtual sidewalk and ask them to give their hard-earned money directly to me instead of to roadrunner records, warner music group, ticketmaster, and everyone else out there who's been shamelessly raping both fan and artist for years, you're crazy."

Sometime between September 29th and September 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Poll: Eyman Initiative 1033 Looks Likely to Pass: "As I've said before, Eyman's initiative would fuck the state of Washington, even though the language seems innocuous. It would essentially limit the amount of money the government can collect from taxpayers based on how much it collected the previous year, adjusted for inflation and population growth. Any surplus the state collects would go toward reducing property taxes. But in practice, the measure would lock Washington into its current budget–the worst budget the state has had in decades, owing to the recession–and prevent the budget from expanding when the economy improves. So the state at its leanest–like right now, with a budget requiring the state to lay off roughly 3,000 teachers and cut basic health services for 40,000 people–would become the most robust the state could ever be."
• JK Rowling Lost Out on US Medal Over Harry Potter ‘Witchcraft’: "A memoir by George W Bush's former speechwriter claims that Bush administration officials objected to giving JK Rowling a presidential medal of freedom on the grounds that her Harry Potter books 'encouraged witchcraft'." Huh. I'd have figured it was because in the later books, she rather shamelessly and not very subtly mocked the Bush Administration and general U.S. post-9/11 paranoia.
• Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child: "Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in 'exile' (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.). […] Can we do that? Can we take a moment to think about all that, and about the fact that Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, before we start talking about what a victim he is? Because that would be great, and not nearly enough people seem to be doing it."
• Rare Important Instantaneous Photograph: "It became necessary, one day, at Willet's Point, to destroy a worthless mule, and the subject was made the occasion of giving instruction to the military class there stationed. The mule was placed in proper position before the camera and duly focused. Upon the animal's forehead a cotton bag was tied containing six ounces of dynamite….."
• Vikings ‘Were Warned to Avoid Scotland’: "Scotland is full of dangerous natives who speak an incomprehensible language and the is weather awful. That was the verdict of a series of 13th century Viking travel guides that warned voyagers to visit at their peril."
• Steampunk’d: Diana Vick’s Victorian sci-fi dream for Seattle.: "'IT'S MASSIVELY CREATIVE, insanely inventive, and extraordinarily unique.' That's Diana Vick (pictured) describing steampunk, which she's certain will be the next subcultural wave to hit the Emerald City. She's banking on that certainty as cocreator of Steamcon, a convention celebrating the hottest movement in sci-fi."

Sometime between September 22nd and September 28th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• IIHS Celebrates 50th Anniversary by Crashing Modern Malibu Into ’59 Bel Air: "Most of the time, we like to think of our old automobiles as tank-like hunks of metal with full frames and acres of dead space in front of the driver and the massive chrome front bumper. While that may often be the case, all those thick bits of steel don't automatically equal safety. This point is driven home by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which decided to celebrate its 50th anniversary by crash testing a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air into a 2009 Chevy Malibu. The results were eye-opening." Eye-opening indeed. See also the followup post with before-and-after pictures.
• Kiriko Moth’s Blog: Gorgeous art-deco inspired illustration.
• Largest Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Treasure Found in UK: "An amateur treasure hunter prowling English farmland with a metal detector stumbled upon the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered, a massive seventh-century hoard of gold and silver sword decorations, crosses and other items, British archaeologists said Thursday. One expert said the treasure would revolutionize understanding of the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic people who ruled England from the fifth century until the Norman conquest in 1066. Another said the find would rank among Britain's best-known historic treasures. 'This is just a fantastic find completely out of the blue,' Roger Bland, who managed the cache's excavation, told The Associated Press. 'It will make us rethink the Dark Ages.'"
• Jeffrey Thomas’s Portfolio: Twisted Princess: Incredible dark, twisted takes on the Disney princesses. Creepy and very, very cool.
• Sotomayor Issues Challenge to a Century of Corporate Law: Oooooh, I like this. "During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled. But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have."

Sometime between September 16th and September 21st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• The Rise of the Flapper: "Being a flapper wasn't all about fashion. It was about rebellion. In this article from 1922, a would-be flapper (but still a 'nice girl') explains her lifestyle choices to her parents. Flappers did what society did not expect from young women. They danced to Jazz Age music, they smoked, they wore makeup, they spoke their own language, and they lived for the moment. Flapper fashion followed the lifestyle. Skirts became shorter to make dancing easier. Corsets were discarded in favor of brassieres that bound their breasts, again to make dancing easier. The straight shapeless dresses were easy to make and blurred the line between the rich and everyone else. The look became fashionable because of the lifestyle. The short hair? That was pure rebellion against the older generation's veneration of long feminine locks."
• Microsoft Matches Snow Leopard Price With Windows 7, but Only for Students: "Microsoft yesterday launched a Windows 7 campaign website announcing a discount program aimed at college and university students, bringing the cost of Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional for eligible customers down to $29.99 to effectively match Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard pricing. The offer, which expires January 3rd, 2010 is valid for the download version of Windows 7, and users wishing to purchase a physical disk will be required to pay an additional $13.00."
• Photosounder Image-Sound Editor & Synthesizer: "Photosounder is a one-of-a-kind image-sound editing program. It is unique in that it opens images and sounds indiscriminately, treats and processes them as images, and synthesizes them as sounds. Sounds, once turned into images, can be powerfully modified to achieve effects and results that couldn't be obtained in any other way, while images of all sorts reveal the infinite kinds of otherworldly sounds they contain. Ultimately, knowing how sounds look and how images sound, you'll be able to create images that sound like what you want to hear, or like what you couldn't imagine to hear."
• MacRumors Apple Buyer’s Guide (Time-Ordered): "This page provides a product summary for each Apple model, ordered by the amount of time that has past since its last update, relative to the average amount of time that has passed between previous updates to that model, historically. The intent is to clearly indicate which products are most likely to see updates in the coming weeks and months. Disclaimer: This page is based on rumors and speculation and we provide no guarantee to its accuracy. We take no responsibility for purchase decisions made based on this information."
• Local Museums Rethink No-Photos Policy: "Sad you couldn't get a shot with the original Death Star on your last visit to the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum? Starting Sept. 26, you'll be able to strike a pose with the relic of a galaxy far, far away — not to mention Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock Stratocaster, Captain Kirk's Enterprise chair and every other object in the museum's permanent collection. EMP/SFM is about to change its photo policy. And if you ask staff, it's about time. "

Sometime between September 11th and September 15th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!: "1. Don't put drugs in people's drinks in order to control their behavior. 2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!" Etc.
• Violent Crime Decreasing in Washington State: "In Washington state, violent and property crime rates declined in 2008, according to the FBI's Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report. The FBI annually releases statistics on violent crimes like murder, rape and robbery and on property crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft. Not all agencies participate in the voluntary UCR program and therefore are not reflected in the data. Below you can search nationwide crime statistics, including 185 agencies in Washington. "
• If Lottery Tickets Told the Truth: Funny and sad, all at the same time — and an excellent antidote for those times when I think that must maybe I'll blow a couple bucks on a lottery ticket (something I've never, ever in my life done). Fun fact: I have better odds of being Tom Cruise than of winning the Lottery.
• The Muppets and Gnosticism: "The other thing about the Muppet movie that struck me as particularly gnostic was the way the characters recognize each other. In gnosticism some people have that 'spark' of god in them and these are your people — you have to find them, especially because as part of the fall into the mortal world they have forgotten where they come from and may not recognize themselves as chosen (think of how Morpheus finds Neo in the Matrix). Gonzo's 'There's not a word yet, for old friends who just met' is an absolutely gnostic maxim. You are old friends because the spark of god comes from the same ancient source, but you have not yet met in the fallen world. "
• American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins: "We're gluttons for infographics, and a team at Kansas State just served up a feast: maps of sin created by plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy) and STDs (lust). Christian clergy, likely noting the Bible Belt's status as Wrath Central, question the 'science.' Valid point–or maybe it's just the pride talking."
• Lost World of Fanged Frogs and Giant Rats Discovered in Papua New Guinea: "A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world."

Sometime between September 4th and September 10th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Tech Support Cheat Sheet: "Dear various parents, grandparents, co-workers, and other 'not computer people.' We don't magically know how to do everything in every program. When we help you, we're usually just doing this. Please print this flowchart out and tape it near your screen. Congratulations; you're now the local computer expert!"
• Facebook | Desktop Notifications: "For Mac OS X, Adds Notifications to your desktop, alerting you when interesting activity happens on Facebook! Note: This software is experimental and has only been tested on Mac OS X 10.5"
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: The Ars Technica Review: "Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard has landed. This time around, Apple goes light on the glitz in favor of some heavy work under the hood. John Siracusa dives deep into Apple's new OS offering to see what's new, what's still the same, and whether it's worth upgrading." I'm a little behind the curve — vacation, plus I won't actually get to play with Snow Leopard until I upgrade my hardware — but this is Ars' usual insanely in-depth (26 page) look at the new OS. All sorts of really geeky goodness herein.
• That Obama Speech, Or, Expunging the Stupid Use of Words: "Seriously now, how much longer do any of us have to pretend that the sort of people bleating about Our Socialist President aren't, in fact, ignorant as chicken, or mad as hatters, or as madly ignorant as chicken hatters? I've already noted that we're well past the point where anyone still barfing up the 'Obama is a Socialist' meme deserves a 'tool' sign over their head; I propose we go further and call them morons. Because, at this point, if you're still calling the man a 'socialist,' that's what you are."
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