I keep forgetting today is Tuesday. Also, I want more chocolate.
Mom got home good and late last night, so I sat around knitting while reading until I started thinking that the best thing for me to do would be to go for an early bedtime. Which is when she got home, and was disappointed to hear that I wasn't up for starting the second season of Downton Abbey (having finished our rewatch of the first season over the weekend, and no, I haven't watched s2 myself yet, via torrent or the episodes slowly accumulating on the DVR in recent weeks). So she did computer stuff, and I went to bed -- an hour later than I might have, due to time wasted screwing around on my Blackberry, but 11:20 still isn't bad for a work night.
Also, checking the LJ friends list before I start playing Tumblr catchup continues to be a good idea, and I've been catching up on webcomics I missed over the holidays, so. (These things are utterly unimportant, but they make me happy. Also, a significant portion of the existing traffic on my friends list consists of RSS feeds of various comics.)
Links from Tumblr / Twitter / Facebook:
Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous -- "At the time, we both remarked upon how interesting it was that we should have taken up the image right at the point where it was apparently being purged from the annals of English iconography. It seemed that you couldn't keep a good symbol down. If there truly was government unease about the mask and its associations back in the 1980s, these concerns had evidently evaporated by the first decade of the 21st century, when the movie industry apparently decided to re-imagine the original narrative as some sort of parable about the post-9/11 rise of American neo-conservatives, in which the words 'fascism' or 'anarchy' were nowhere mentioned. When the film was made during the peak period of anti-terrorist legislation the golden touch of Hollywood was, it seemed, sufficiently persuasive for the authorities to permit a massed horde of extras dressed as the nation's most famous terrorist to cavort riotously in Parliament Square. I don't think one need subscribe to any quasi-mystical theories about how the conceptual world of ideas can affect the substantial world of everyday existence in order to agree that, in retrospect, this could be seen as practically begging for it."
Oh, hey, Neverwhere on Kindle for $2.99, for probably only a day or two.
Also, in another browser tab I've been catching up on the yarnharlot's blog since I lost track in Novemberish. (This morning I adjusted my filters to reflect the lowered activity level of my default view on LJ and the amount of time it's been since I actually checked out my "Knitting" filter, so the RSS feeds for her blog and a few others will be showing up on my main view now.) And I just ran across this entry I thought worth drawing attention to: The way a knitter does it -- "I've almost finished a sock, and I nailed a few rows on the vest and... I think I'm starting to understand why what I think of as a relaxing afternoon doing nothing might be confusing to some. While it has taken me a long time to puzzle it out, I think now that for a lot of people 'relax' means 'do nothing' and for me, it means 'do what you like.' The end result is that people are forever telling me to relax, and I'm forever saying that I already am, and then they're forever sighing and shaking their heads a little sadly, because I just 'don't know how to relax' and am clearly destined to a lifetime of relentless, exhausting activity." (Now I can say it is another good one, that I can't really find a satisfying pull-quote from without copying half the entry, but it sums up with, "Clearly, my friends, we have much work left to do, but it wasn't done by me today. I find it hard to manage misogyny before coffee.")
Okay, back to Tumblr:
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich All Promise To Ban Porn -- "The top three Republican presidential candidates pledged a war on porn today which means that they have promised more action to ban porn than to create jobs." As apocalypsos noted when she retweeted the link, "Have fun storming the internet, boys!"
When Scientists Choose Motherhood -- "Women are not found in greater numbers in some fields, particularly math-intensive ones, due to a combination of factors. The two most significant reasons are that women are more likely than men to prefer other fields (such as medicine, biology, law and veterinary science, rather than mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science and physics), even when they have comparable mathematical ability, and that family-formation goals extinguish tenure-track aspirations in women more often than in men. The majority of child care, housework and household management is done by women, and women scientists are no exception in assuming this greater burden. Although this second factor affects women in all fields of science, not just math-intensive ones, the lower numbers of women entering graduate programs in math-based fields means that any factor that further reduces their number results in a dearth of tenure-track female faculty."
Tim Gunn Hasn’t Had Sex In 29 Years, And It’s None Of Our Fucking Business -- "I know this is bizarre to all those '90% of men masturbate and 10% of men are lying' people out there, the 'men evolved to be promiscuous' people, the 'men naturally have high sex drives' people. But men- people- are different. If you don’t want to have sex, you shouldn’t have sex. That doesn’t make you prudish or uncool, broken or sick, sad or pathetic or wrong. It makes you someone who’s making the right life choice for you at that very moment. Hell, even if Tim Gunn were the only man on the entire planet who didn’t want sex, assuming he was content with his lot, it is perfectly fine and awesome."
I have to quote this comment in its entirety: "See, by only providing content through locked down, time limited, location restricted methods, the studios are actually giving us a lot more choices in how we consume our content. Dirty pirates can only consume their content in one way: no encryption, HD, and worldwide. But the studios give us an unending stream of different choices that provide real value to their content. Maybe you want DRM that requires a constant connection to the internet. They have that. Maybe you DRM that limits you to only certain devices. They have that. Maybe you want content that's purposefully degraded. They have that. Maybe you want to be able to watch content only in the US. They have that. Canada? They have that too. Content that expires after 48 hours? No problem. Maybe you want to have to watch it in the theater? They got you covered. The depth and breadth of choices that the studios provide is something that the evil pirates just cannot cover. The other day I asked someone at the pirate bay for an encrypted copy of The Grey that would only play on my computer for a week and they couldn't do it!"
Okay, I'm not really done with what I wanted to finish, but I need to head on out and catch Grandma before she goes to bed.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Also, checking the LJ friends list before I start playing Tumblr catchup continues to be a good idea, and I've been catching up on webcomics I missed over the holidays, so. (These things are utterly unimportant, but they make me happy. Also, a significant portion of the existing traffic on my friends list consists of RSS feeds of various comics.)
Links from Tumblr / Twitter / Facebook:
Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous -- "At the time, we both remarked upon how interesting it was that we should have taken up the image right at the point where it was apparently being purged from the annals of English iconography. It seemed that you couldn't keep a good symbol down. If there truly was government unease about the mask and its associations back in the 1980s, these concerns had evidently evaporated by the first decade of the 21st century, when the movie industry apparently decided to re-imagine the original narrative as some sort of parable about the post-9/11 rise of American neo-conservatives, in which the words 'fascism' or 'anarchy' were nowhere mentioned. When the film was made during the peak period of anti-terrorist legislation the golden touch of Hollywood was, it seemed, sufficiently persuasive for the authorities to permit a massed horde of extras dressed as the nation's most famous terrorist to cavort riotously in Parliament Square. I don't think one need subscribe to any quasi-mystical theories about how the conceptual world of ideas can affect the substantial world of everyday existence in order to agree that, in retrospect, this could be seen as practically begging for it."
Oh, hey, Neverwhere on Kindle for $2.99, for probably only a day or two.
Also, in another browser tab I've been catching up on the yarnharlot's blog since I lost track in Novemberish. (This morning I adjusted my filters to reflect the lowered activity level of my default view on LJ and the amount of time it's been since I actually checked out my "Knitting" filter, so the RSS feeds for her blog and a few others will be showing up on my main view now.) And I just ran across this entry I thought worth drawing attention to: The way a knitter does it -- "I've almost finished a sock, and I nailed a few rows on the vest and... I think I'm starting to understand why what I think of as a relaxing afternoon doing nothing might be confusing to some. While it has taken me a long time to puzzle it out, I think now that for a lot of people 'relax' means 'do nothing' and for me, it means 'do what you like.' The end result is that people are forever telling me to relax, and I'm forever saying that I already am, and then they're forever sighing and shaking their heads a little sadly, because I just 'don't know how to relax' and am clearly destined to a lifetime of relentless, exhausting activity." (Now I can say it is another good one, that I can't really find a satisfying pull-quote from without copying half the entry, but it sums up with, "Clearly, my friends, we have much work left to do, but it wasn't done by me today. I find it hard to manage misogyny before coffee.")
Okay, back to Tumblr:
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich All Promise To Ban Porn -- "The top three Republican presidential candidates pledged a war on porn today which means that they have promised more action to ban porn than to create jobs." As apocalypsos noted when she retweeted the link, "Have fun storming the internet, boys!"
When Scientists Choose Motherhood -- "Women are not found in greater numbers in some fields, particularly math-intensive ones, due to a combination of factors. The two most significant reasons are that women are more likely than men to prefer other fields (such as medicine, biology, law and veterinary science, rather than mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science and physics), even when they have comparable mathematical ability, and that family-formation goals extinguish tenure-track aspirations in women more often than in men. The majority of child care, housework and household management is done by women, and women scientists are no exception in assuming this greater burden. Although this second factor affects women in all fields of science, not just math-intensive ones, the lower numbers of women entering graduate programs in math-based fields means that any factor that further reduces their number results in a dearth of tenure-track female faculty."
Tim Gunn Hasn’t Had Sex In 29 Years, And It’s None Of Our Fucking Business -- "I know this is bizarre to all those '90% of men masturbate and 10% of men are lying' people out there, the 'men evolved to be promiscuous' people, the 'men naturally have high sex drives' people. But men- people- are different. If you don’t want to have sex, you shouldn’t have sex. That doesn’t make you prudish or uncool, broken or sick, sad or pathetic or wrong. It makes you someone who’s making the right life choice for you at that very moment. Hell, even if Tim Gunn were the only man on the entire planet who didn’t want sex, assuming he was content with his lot, it is perfectly fine and awesome."
I have to quote this comment in its entirety: "See, by only providing content through locked down, time limited, location restricted methods, the studios are actually giving us a lot more choices in how we consume our content. Dirty pirates can only consume their content in one way: no encryption, HD, and worldwide. But the studios give us an unending stream of different choices that provide real value to their content. Maybe you want DRM that requires a constant connection to the internet. They have that. Maybe you DRM that limits you to only certain devices. They have that. Maybe you want content that's purposefully degraded. They have that. Maybe you want to be able to watch content only in the US. They have that. Canada? They have that too. Content that expires after 48 hours? No problem. Maybe you want to have to watch it in the theater? They got you covered. The depth and breadth of choices that the studios provide is something that the evil pirates just cannot cover. The other day I asked someone at the pirate bay for an encrypted copy of The Grey that would only play on my computer for a week and they couldn't do it!"
Okay, I'm not really done with what I wanted to finish, but I need to head on out and catch Grandma before she goes to bed.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.