Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Things I run across that I find to be interesting, but might not have the time or inclination to craft a fuller post around it. Generally, short little “go here, look at this, isn’t it neat?” posts.
This was an entertaining little quiz — identifying classic sci-fi from short sound clips.
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I received 86 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you? |
| Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz | |
Most were pretty obvious to me, but not all of ’em.
These people need to get together with these people so that Prairie and I can get a hypoallergenic glow in the dark kitten.
South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday.
In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.
Seriously.
This should happen.
Flying full-bore into the Season of Greed, I’m playing around with Wishlistr, a clean and simple site for tracking all those little (and, me being me, not-so-little) “I want” bits that pop up.
My wishlist is rather small at the moment, with an odd mix of trivialities and big-ticket items that will never actually randomly fall into my lap…but, as always, that’s the point of a wishlist, right?
Quite possibly my all-time favorite tabloid, the Weekly World News, is shutting down.
American Media has decided to suspend publication of Weekly World News, both the print publication and the web site. No reason was given at press time, although reliable sources do tell us that management turned down at least one offer to buy the publication.
The weekly supermarket tabloid—known as the home of “Bat Boy” and other less-than-probable stories—has long had staffing connections with the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields.
Apparently, this came as a surprise to the employees.
Bob Greenberger, an editor with Weekly World News, reports on his blog that he and the rest of the staff were called into a meeting about noon on Friday where they were “told the Board of Directors has chosen to close Weekly World News. The reasons given make no sense. We’re stunned and shell-shocked. We’re to stay on through August 3, finishing the reprint issues and then we’re done. A glorious, funny, odd publication, born in 1979, will go out with a whimper and all I can think is that something’s going on that they’re not telling us because it just doesn’t make sense.”
While I just put up random, semi-pointless babble, Prairie was typing away actually saying something that’s worth reading.
I wish more newscasters would do something like this. Kudos for Mika Brzezinski, and it’s a pity she has to work with shmoes like the two guys who just won’t let this drop and keep pushing it in her face.
On the one hand, I really like the new collections organization structure that Flickr just added. It’s not perfect, but it’s nice to have more control over organizing my photos.
However, the interface is getting…well, cluttered is about the nicest way to put it. By the time I’m looking at one of my sets, I’ve got no less than five different sets of toolbar/breadcrumb buttons above the pictures!
Line 2 (constant): The main navigation menu bar, where every option (save ‘Home’ and the search field) is a drop-down menu with more options.
Line 3 (appears when navigating within collections): The ‘breadcrumb’ trail leading from the user’s main page to the individual set.
Line 4 (appears when viewing your own set, not visible for other people): Set-level editing options. 3/5 of the items are dropdown menus.
Line 5 (constant): Set-level view options, available to everyone looking at the set.
It’s getting to the point where it’s UI overload — which is doubly grating on a site that’s normally incredibly well-designed and remarkably intuitive to navigate through. By the time all five toolbars appear, not only does it push the photos (which, I believe, are supposed to be the focus of the site) pretty far down the page, but I’m starting to lose track of which options are hidden in which set of menus or links!
Additionally, while the breadcrumb navigation (Line 3) is a necessary addition now that Collections allow you to organize your sets and collections up to five levels deep, it feels kind of abandoned — just shoehorned in somewhere — and quite possibly easily missed. Since that breadcrumb line is the only indication that a set is part of a collection and might have other, related sets ‘nearby,’ it seems that it should be better and more obviously integrated into the overall design. Perhaps somewhere around the set title and Line 5? Over the title, or either under or integrated with Line 5?
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what the best solution might be. This just strikes me as an area where there’s a lot of room for improvement.
It’s International Women’s Day today.
International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.
The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women’s and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation. Many from a younger generation feel that ‘all the battles have been won for women’ while many feminists from the 1970’s know only too well the longevity and ingrained complexity of patriarchy. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women’s visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women’s education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.
However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.
So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women’s Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.
So — hooray for women!
Your results:
You are Magneto
| You fear the persecution of those that are different or underprivileged so much that you are willing to fight and hurt others for your cause. |
If you haven’t run across PostSecret yet, check it out. The concept is incredibly simple: people write their secrets on a postcard and send them in. Every Sunday, a new batch of secrets is posted on the site.
They’re funny, sad, uplifting, heartbreaking — and incredible.
