closing tabs (in no particular order)
-- politics-fandom-fail: WTF PEOPLE ARE UPSET BECAUSE A BLACK CHARACTER IS PLAYED BY A BLACK ACTRESS? Are you kidding me with this shit, Internets? #thehungergames.
-- politics/fail: Of course in a world like this, where you can just shoot people in the street without the expectation that the police will, you know, care, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I am. Speaking of not caring, I don't care, btw, if Trayvon Martin actually did punch Zimmerman in the face, or whatever. (I don't believe it, but I don't care AT ALL if it did happen.) You know what? Facepunching, burglary, thuggitude, whatever -- NOT AN EXECUTABLE OFFENSE. Stop the world, okay? I want to get off.
-- more politics: On the killing of Shaima al-Awadi, Basic facts on clothing and murder for American bigots. I love this guy so much! And what's more, to cheer us up after the horribleness he catalogs, he generously provides links to this Tron-dance masterpiece from Japan:
-- fic rec: Don't Show, Don't Tell by abbichicken is one of the hottest stories I've ever read in this or any fandom. Mind the warnings though, kidlets, it's NOT vanilla. But it is X-Men First Class Charles/Erik awesomeness with blood and pain and cigarettes! Which, you know, of course Erik smokes. It's the SIXTIES.
-- physics-math nerdity with a slight hint of fandom: An article on Emmy Noether, the most significant mathematician you've never heard of, who I've adored to bits for a long time. Noether's theorem shows, among other things that "a symmetry of time - like the fact that whether you throw a ball in the air tomorrow or make the same toss next week will have no effect on the ball’s trajectory - is directly related to the conservation of energy, our old homily that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but merely changes form." Like I said, I've always loved her, and in fact, in Rach's and my Rose/Jack/9 story, I gave Noether's theory a guest appearance in the TARDIS fireplace:
"This is nice," she said, ignoring the way that the Doctor stiffened a bit at the contact, and not, as far as Jack could tell, in any useful way. "I never asked. Is that a real fireplace?"
"Define real," the Doctor said.
"Wood burning. Smoke. If I touched it, I'd get burned?"
"Yep," said the Doctor.
"Is there a chimney?"
"No."
"Where does the smoke go?"
The Doctor smiled. "What happens to footprints in the snow, after the snow melts?"
"That doesn't make any sense, Doctor."
"D'you think if I explained it, you'd understand it any better?"
Rose laughed. "You could have a go anyway."
"It's probably a Noetherian thermodynamic converter. Continuous symmetry of energy in an invariant system. Smoke gets reabsorbed into the fuel, and the whole thing cycles."
Both Rose and the Doctor stared at Jack, who grinned. "What?" he asked. "Thought I was just a pretty face?"
See, I've got my bona fides. Anyway, check out Emmy Noether, she is awesome.
-- booktalk: In my epic quest for more epic fantasy (gritty, awesomely well-written, sense of humor, not misogynistic, racist, or heternormative -- good luck with that, kali!), I think I'm about to start reading K.J. Parker. This looks promising (will keep you posted!) but in the linked interview, I saw this in answer to the perennial "where do you get your ideas?" question:
TH: Now I’m going to ask you the question that always makes me want to shed blood when I get asked it. Where do you get your ideas from?
KJP: I see pictures in my mind, and they intrigue me, and then I try and figure out the story behind them. That gives me a central character, if I’m lucky, or a group of characters. With the Engineer books, I had this mental image of a man who really wanted to go home. That was all; an overwhelming longing to go home, but it was impossible, but he refused to accept it. From that I gathered that he had to be a patient man, a builder of mechanisms to achieve a very difficult objective. That meant he had to be an engineer. Then I was reading about mechanical toys in Alexandria, and also the legend of Weyland the Smith. That gave me enough to feel confident there was a book there, and I started looking around for auxiliary characters. Then someone was telling me about hunting wild boar in Germany, and I remembered there were a whole lot of medieval handbooks on hunting, and that gave me Valens, though I got his face, so to speak, from somewhere else.
TH: Where?
KJP: An extremely fine example of Harry Potter fan fiction I stumbled across on the Internet. Actually, the character in that which I liked so much turned into a different character, Miel Ducas; and my friend the boar-hunter got roped in as his cousin, Jarnac. But these clues I get from different sources are just starting points. The characters only really start to grow once they get talking to each other.
LOVE, right? It's awesome to see fanfiction cited as just another literary reference, though it would've been great to hear what the story was.
-- politics/fail: Of course in a world like this, where you can just shoot people in the street without the expectation that the police will, you know, care, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I am. Speaking of not caring, I don't care, btw, if Trayvon Martin actually did punch Zimmerman in the face, or whatever. (I don't believe it, but I don't care AT ALL if it did happen.) You know what? Facepunching, burglary, thuggitude, whatever -- NOT AN EXECUTABLE OFFENSE. Stop the world, okay? I want to get off.
-- more politics: On the killing of Shaima al-Awadi, Basic facts on clothing and murder for American bigots. I love this guy so much! And what's more, to cheer us up after the horribleness he catalogs, he generously provides links to this Tron-dance masterpiece from Japan:
Click to view-- fic rec: Don't Show, Don't Tell by abbichicken is one of the hottest stories I've ever read in this or any fandom. Mind the warnings though, kidlets, it's NOT vanilla. But it is X-Men First Class Charles/Erik awesomeness with blood and pain and cigarettes! Which, you know, of course Erik smokes. It's the SIXTIES.
-- physics-math nerdity with a slight hint of fandom: An article on Emmy Noether, the most significant mathematician you've never heard of, who I've adored to bits for a long time. Noether's theorem shows, among other things that "a symmetry of time - like the fact that whether you throw a ball in the air tomorrow or make the same toss next week will have no effect on the ball’s trajectory - is directly related to the conservation of energy, our old homily that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but merely changes form." Like I said, I've always loved her, and in fact, in Rach's and my Rose/Jack/9 story, I gave Noether's theory a guest appearance in the TARDIS fireplace:
"This is nice," she said, ignoring the way that the Doctor stiffened a bit at the contact, and not, as far as Jack could tell, in any useful way. "I never asked. Is that a real fireplace?"
"Define real," the Doctor said.
"Wood burning. Smoke. If I touched it, I'd get burned?"
"Yep," said the Doctor.
"Is there a chimney?"
"No."
"Where does the smoke go?"
The Doctor smiled. "What happens to footprints in the snow, after the snow melts?"
"That doesn't make any sense, Doctor."
"D'you think if I explained it, you'd understand it any better?"
Rose laughed. "You could have a go anyway."
"It's probably a Noetherian thermodynamic converter. Continuous symmetry of energy in an invariant system. Smoke gets reabsorbed into the fuel, and the whole thing cycles."
Both Rose and the Doctor stared at Jack, who grinned. "What?" he asked. "Thought I was just a pretty face?"
See, I've got my bona fides. Anyway, check out Emmy Noether, she is awesome.
-- booktalk: In my epic quest for more epic fantasy (gritty, awesomely well-written, sense of humor, not misogynistic, racist, or heternormative -- good luck with that, kali!), I think I'm about to start reading K.J. Parker. This looks promising (will keep you posted!) but in the linked interview, I saw this in answer to the perennial "where do you get your ideas?" question:
TH: Now I’m going to ask you the question that always makes me want to shed blood when I get asked it. Where do you get your ideas from?
KJP: I see pictures in my mind, and they intrigue me, and then I try and figure out the story behind them. That gives me a central character, if I’m lucky, or a group of characters. With the Engineer books, I had this mental image of a man who really wanted to go home. That was all; an overwhelming longing to go home, but it was impossible, but he refused to accept it. From that I gathered that he had to be a patient man, a builder of mechanisms to achieve a very difficult objective. That meant he had to be an engineer. Then I was reading about mechanical toys in Alexandria, and also the legend of Weyland the Smith. That gave me enough to feel confident there was a book there, and I started looking around for auxiliary characters. Then someone was telling me about hunting wild boar in Germany, and I remembered there were a whole lot of medieval handbooks on hunting, and that gave me Valens, though I got his face, so to speak, from somewhere else.
TH: Where?
KJP: An extremely fine example of Harry Potter fan fiction I stumbled across on the Internet. Actually, the character in that which I liked so much turned into a different character, Miel Ducas; and my friend the boar-hunter got roped in as his cousin, Jarnac. But these clues I get from different sources are just starting points. The characters only really start to grow once they get talking to each other.
LOVE, right? It's awesome to see fanfiction cited as just another literary reference, though it would've been great to hear what the story was.