1) Hilariously creepy Windows 95 “tips”
2) Develop A Strong He-Man Voice. Not just for dudes, obvs.
3) The anti-capitalist history behind the game Monopoly.
4) Why Authors Are Crazy (for gif lovers)
5) How readers discover a first novel: A case study. Also a commercial for Goodreads.
6) Tired of women coming into your recreational spaces doing things they like? Now you can buy an app of a cute girl watching you adoringly.
7) Raymond Carver’s OKCupid Profile. via @warrenellis
I was going to write something about the latest misogynistic asshole behavior in the con-going “geek” community (Nick Mamatas has a good blog post about it here, but then I remembered that I don’t go to cons, don’t cosplay, don’t do any of that community stuff. Whenever I read about one of these problems, my initial response is I hope those people can fix that shit, because that sounds awful. As far as I’m concerned, it has nothing to do with me.[1]
However (you knew there’d be a “however’), it does make me think of a single-panel cartoon I read when I was a kid. Here’s the setup: a pair of hippies are standing in the street with their frayed cut-off jeans and jacket, looking at a store window display showing those same clothes for sale at substantial prices. I don’t remember the joke written beneath but I can still see the dismay on those characters’ faces. The things they valued had been co-opted for the mainstream.
We’ve seen it over and over, from rap songs in McDonald’s commercials to dreamcatchers for sale in home decorating stores. Have a subculture? Does it seem cool enough to break out into the mainstream? Soon your cultural identifiers will be for sale at Hot Topic.
This doesn’t seem to work the same way within the geek community, largely because it defines itself primarily through the type of mass media entertainments it consumes. I never see geeks upset about their favorite thing for sale: Tardis bookshelf? Enterprise tree ornaments? Lord of the Rings Lego set? Awesome! They snap up their credit cards.
That’s because geeks are a marketing category that thinks of itself as a subculture. Their communal activities center on movies, books, TV shows–whether they’re made in this country or another–and seeing these consumed by non-geeks as well as geeks isn’t a co-opting. It’s conquest. “We won,” I heard Greg Bear say at the NW Bookfest some years ago, and to prove it he cited box office figures.
And yet they still feel co-opted. They still write the screeds Nick talked about.
The surprising thing isn’t the misogyny. That’s rampant in every part of our culture and I look forward to the day that we shame it out of existence. The surprising thing is the talk about “attention” especially the idea that good-looking women are attention whores who just want geeks to look at them. Anyone who wants to see THE AVENGERS on opening weekend is welcome. Come spend your money! Geeks will have their credit cards out, too.
But their attention is the most precious commodity they have. Attention is the coin of the realm. Attention confers ownership.
It shouldn’t surprise me that a certain segment of the population is wedded to the idea that the time and energy they spend looking is incredibly valuable, but it does.
[1]Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t hate cons or look down on them or whatever. I’m just not interested. It’s great that other people like and value them, but I’d rather be at home with my family.
1) http://hackertyper.com/ is awesome. via @BarrSteve
2) Secret doors hidden behind bookcases.
3) DRAGON BABY!
4) 12 ways to get the best glamour shot.
5) Advertising professionals make poster art out of their worst client feedback.
6) Guy takes pregnancy test as a joke and gets his life saved by reddit and a rage comic.
7) IMDB Top 250 in 2 1/2 Minutes. Video. A musical mashup and a movie mashup.
1) Why was that cave troll in the Mines of Moria so angry? A new perspective. Video
2) Unfortunate product placement.
3) Twelve year old uses D&D to help his dad advance science.
6) Jane Austen’s manuscripts, digitized.
7) Causes of Death You Won’t Want on Your Death Certificate
Amazon pulls fan’s review of favorite author’s book. When fan questions why, Amazon rep accuses him of being a paid shill and says “I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.”
Sound familiar? Fan sends followup email explaining that he is just a reader; his review is legit.
Amazon tells fan that if he emails them about the review again, they will stop selling the author’s book on their site.
Hey, I guess it’s possible that this story has passed through a couple levels of Telephone before it comes to us, but is there anyone that doesn’t find this story believable on some level?
As a followup to yesterday’s post about Amazon’s bully tactics, I want to point out a link that Laurel Amberdine posted on my LiveJournal. Here’s the big surprise: the story of the woman who had her Amazon account closed for reasons they refused to divulge was a little more complicated than the original link made it seem. You’d think I’d learn to expect this by now.
However, it really doesn’t make things better, as far as the company’s behavior is concerned. That’s why I’m glad to see the updates to that link saying they reopened her account and let her have her books back.
This time, I hope she backs them up on her computer or something.
1) I still like riding on the train, despite some of the later points here.
2) During the trip, I went back to every bad food habit I have. I ate without planning. I ate because of stress. I ate when I wasn’t hungry to be social. I ate my son’s leftovers because I didn’t want to waste them. Yowch. Bad habits might go but they never go far.
3) This trip was wall-to-wall Pokemon. On Thursday during the train trip he found another player and stayed up until midnight playing in the observation lounge. On Friday he met some other kids in the hotel lobby and he played until after dinner. After the tournament on Saturday he played all evening until midnight again. On Sunday, even though he didn’t make the playoffs, he went right back to the event to hang with is friends and play pick up matches. Then we caught the train on Sunday night and he kept playing late into the night and all the next morning until the other kid’s stop arrived. Who knew there was so much Pokemon to be done?
4) One downside of riding the train is that there is usually one person who’s had too many. It doesn’t normally get too ugly, but sometimes people can be loud and obnoxious. On the way down, for example, I was sitting across the boys while they played a match, and a man walking the aisle fell flat on his face. He was in his 50’s, kinda tattered, and I had the powerful urge to Not Engage.
Someone else in the room asked, reluctantly: “Are you okay?” As the guy tried to get up, he answered “Of course I am. I’m tough.”
Since then, that line has become something of a joke around here, along with (no context) “Trees are made of cells. Your argument is invalid.”
5) The long, long train trip left me with a screwed up back. I’m moving like an old man, stretching my legs and back as much possible, slathering on the Topricin, and gulping acetaminophen. At the moment, it’s mostly better which is good. The bad thing is that I’ve completely lost the thread of the Twenty Palaces short story I was going to write. The POV was supposed to be from a predator instead of Ray Lilly, but with the way I feel I just can’t find the voice.
So it’s shelved for now. EPIC SEQUEL WITH NO DULL PARTS opens with a scene where someone recovers from terrible injuries, and that’s coming along just fine. I just wish I had more places outside my home where I could write while standing.
6) The Coast Starlight offers really beautiful views. Not Oakland, but northern California and southern Oregon were gorgeous: mists blowing through evergreen valleys, stands of dogwood with golden leaves, broad rivers and lakes with pelicans, herons, ducks and even an eagle. Even a rainbow. It’s a lovely country, if you get the chance to see it.
2) Economists study/work to regulate online video game economies.
3) It turns out that “Christ, what an asshole” isn’t just for New Yorker cartoons.
4) Can Dungeons & Dragons Make You A Confident & Successful Person? | Idea Channel | PBS Video
5) Comparing Photoshopped Victoria Secret pictures with their unretouched originals.
6) Catch the Ice, Dude. Video. omg, so funny.
So! The new J.K. Rowling novel The Casual Vacancy has hit the stores, it has nothing to do with Harry Potter and it’s for adults. There’s no doubt at all that it will top the best seller lists.
It’s also racking up the one-star reviews!
If you’re like me, those reviews are like candy: unhealthy in the extreme but irresistible. They fall into four basic groups, and if you’re at all like me (which I doubt) the first three groups will make you want to pick up a copy.
Screencapped Amazon reviews behind the cut. I’m not sure how well they’ll turn out in this format, but you can click through to read them if you want.
First we have the most predictable group of all: the alarmists who are terrible unhappy that a child might read a book meant for an adult (My God! It’s like Romance novel trash!) Continue reading
1) “Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life. How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.” Warning: That could be triggering.
2) In Plain View: How child molesters get away with it.
3) Are you at a hipster wedding? A flowchart.
4) Thirteen congressional candidates with interesting ideas.
5) How to make the perfect ice cube.
6) Interested in giving up masturbation? Try 50 Cent’s four-step plan.
7) i09 calls this “The worst death scene ever comitted to film.” I was doubtful until I watched it.
