So said one of my students about the depiction of gender roles and sexuality in advertising. To which my response was, “We don’t have to think about anything, but is there any reason we shouldn’t? Do you think people should have fewer critical reading skills when it comes to media?” I put it in slightly different words, so I’d sound less, er, irate that I do there. But really, it was a strange moment. I know that, “I think we don’t need to think about it,” isn’t probably intended in the way it comes across — this was a comment …
Category: GENERAL
From an email
Yes, this is from a real email: Ha, I love saying, “hack my way into JSTOR”: it’s so mildly subversive and so painfully academic at the same time. Like painting academic graffiti (with in-text citations) on a library wall or something. If you’d shown me this when I was in high school and told me I’d written it, I’m not sure I would even have understood it, let alone gotten any enjoyment out of such a glimpse of my future self. As an undergrad? Oh my, I can imagine how dumbstruck I would have been. And now? Muhahaha. My, how …
RIMPAA Sues Whole Nation of Somalia in a Major New Lawsuit Aimed at Ending Piracy
Reuters (HOLLYWOOD) Jimmy Felching, the official representative of the RIMPAA (the new organization formed by the merger of the RIAA and the MPAA) announced this morning that the new organization has filed a claim against the entire nation of Somalia in their renewed war against “piracy.” Indeed, Felching urged President Obama to “help bring and end to piracy, even if violent means are necessary.” On being informed by a reporter at the press conference that this was “real piracy, not just downloading crappy flicks and tunes,” Felching turned red and left the room amid a chorus of laughter and jeers. …
Marslympics?
Kate Baker called this “Your WTF Video of the Week“, with good reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZl165WDjDA It is definitely the background soundtrack I’ll be listening to when I finally get around to writing that Marslympics story I’ve been thinking about the last few years… the video? Heh. WTF?
Linky Stuff Part Deux
Some poems by my friends Maura and Neile are in the recent, excellent offering by Goblin Fruit. (And a review here.) Fascinating talk at TED by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who had a stroke. Observing a stroke from the inside: chilling, but fascinating. My friend Charles is a bad, bad man for noting that South Park can be watched online. Not that I’ve seen more than one episode there — no time — but, gaaaaaaaaaah.
It Carefully Proofreads Its Work…
… or else it gets the hose again. Ah, yes, I’ve been editing articles for the English Magazine, which is now a course. Actually, a lot of them are pretty good. But I just wish we’d had more time for proofreading, editing, and so on. However, I have stumbled on a near trick I’m going to get students to try. That is, I’m going to have them take the edited files and do “compare files” using MS Word or whatever word processor they use. Then they have to pick out all the edits and formulate a checklist that can double …
Launch Pad, Here I Come!
I’m just trying to get tickets booked — it’s harder than I thought! — but since Mike Brotherton has announced the list of attendees for this year’s Launch Pad Workshop, and since I’m one of them, I figured it would be remiss if I did not include an expression of heartfelt glee here as well. We weren’t asked to keep it to ourselves that we’d be going, but I figured I’d wait until the announcement went out, just the same. Also, I’ve been pinching my arm to make sure it’s real. If you take a look at the list of …
Campbell Interviews
Mary Robinette Kowal, last year’s Campbell Award winner, is posting a series of interviews on her blog with this year’s nominees. This week is my turn, and you can read the interview here. There are links to the other interviews in the series at the bottom of the post, and I recommend checking them out, as they’re quite interesting. I’m, looking forward to the last two as well. Thanks for posting these, Mary!
Hey, Google!
Is it just me, or is Gmail having problems? I’m gonna go for a hike. I sure hope this is better when I get home!
Get Yourself Some Free Diet Soap and Shimmer (and Apex For Cheap)
One thing that sucks about living so far from North America is how hard it is to pick up magazines and just check them out. While I recently discovered that Realms of Fantasy was being carried (on the shelf) by Whatthebook in Itaewon, I found this a shock: genre fiction mags are pretty much the last thing one can sample in Korea, so you generally have to subscribe to find out what they’re like, or stick to what you know, or read online fiction magazines. But there’s a new trend of giving magazines away in PDF form, to allow people …