Absolutely open thread

TBAT is putting this thread up as a place to talk about things that don't fit on / might derail other threads.

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[ZMiles]

Webcomic recommendation time!

Magellan . A webcomic about an Academy for superheroes. The main character is Kaycee Cross, the only non-powered student in the school's history, and the comic begins with her starting her first year. I love the art, find the story smartly written and engaging, and appreciate that there's a ton of worldbuilding (but never to the point of 'let's stop for several pages to infodump').
Bardsworth. Goofy webcomic about a guy who finds a portal to a magical land in his closet. He signs up for Bardsworth college, where he learns about magic and music. Some standard fantasy tropes are in evidence (elves, fairies), but others are nicely averted (the 'Elves are Just Better' trope is averted, for instance).
Not A Villain. After the end of the world, humanity is huddled in large fortress-like cities. The only recreational activity is an extremely immersive MMORPG, which everyone plays obsessively to escape from their hopeless lives. The game is so important that winning games-within-the-game, or earning virtual money, is the only way for advancement in the real world (or to pay for things like, say, vital medical treatments). The story follows a reformed infamous hacker (who would be executed if anyone learned her history) as she tries to be a better person, survive, and even prosper in the Game. Currently #3 on topwebcomics.
Order of the Stick. A parody and homage to D&D. The comic follows a group of quirky adventurers as they struggle against the evil sorcerer lich Xykon, who wants to take over the world. Originally a gag-a-day strip, the comic began to explore much more serious and interesting issues while maintaining its humorous feel. A couple notable deconstructions of various fantasy tropes, most notably the 'Lawful Stupid' alignment, the 'Required Evil Teammate', and the idea behind the 'Always Chaotic Evil' species that seem to pop up in a lot of D&D material.
Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD). This one follows four graduate students -- three engineers and an anthropologist -- as they try to navigate through graduate school. As a graduate student, I can personally confirm the existence of many of the phenomina postulated in the comic, like the baroque qualification exams and the 'Advisor Bubble.' (where, no matter how well the thing was working five minutes ago, it breaks as soon as the advisor walks by).

[ZMiles]

I think I got spamtrapped.

(Also, I think I may have borked the PhD link. It should be:

[ZMiles]

Frack. The link is this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php. Apparently I fail at Internets today.

[Froborr]

Have not read the others, but I have to second the recommendation for Order of the Stick, it is one of my favorites. I find it works better in occasional binges than something I read every day, but that may just be me.

[MercuryBlue]

Thirding Order of the Stick. And a PhD-student friend of mine has recommended Piled Higher and Deeper; I have not had the time to read it myself.

But I don't want to be sick. I want to go square dancing tonight. *curls up* Also my Spanish II homework is giving me a headache. To no one's surprise but mine, the instructions are all in Spanish.

[truth is life]

OoTS and PhD are good choices, indeed (PhD is especially good if you are actually getting a PhD, perhaps unsurprisingly). More good comics:

Freefall (TW: Uplift, mild Transhumanism): It's a sci-fi story about a semi-uplifted/semi-artificial intelligence dog, an alien spaceship captain, and their robot partner. More or less; it is much more complicated than that (well, it has been running for a number of years). At first it was relatively unserious with uncomplicated goals motivating the main characters, but lately it's gotten much more complex and interesting.

Digger (TW: Domestic violence, cannibalism, on-screen violence): If you haven't read this yet, you really, really should. It's fantastic, also complete. A wombat (the eponymous "Digger") makes a mistake while digging a tunnel and ends up far away from home, stuck in a quasi-Hindu temple (venerating Ganesha, thus quasi-Hindu). She ends up having to complete a quest to kill a (nearly) dead god and the demon that's stuck to him; along the way, there's an interesting (to say the least) cast of characters she meets. The author is, IIRC, an anthropologist, and that clearly comes through in some things...well, I won't spoil you, but you really, really should read this.

Since this is an absolutely open thread, I'm just going to go ahead an say something that's been bugging me for just about forever--why do all space advocates aside from myself (and a relatively small number of others) seem to be conservative? Especially the particularly prominent ones. You just don't seem to see liberals who are in favor of actively exploring, much less colonizing or developing, space. It makes me sad. :(

[MercuryBlue]

You just don't seem to see liberals who are in favor of actively exploring, much less colonizing or developing, space. It makes me sad. :(

My impression was that space exploration was entirely a liberal thing, and it's been not getting funding recently because the Overton window is so far right.

[cjmr]

Actually, I don't think if you asked Ursula Vernon (who wrote Digger) she'd self-identify as an anthropologist. She studied anthropology, but I don't think she has a degree in it, and certainly hasn't been a practicing anthropologist as long as I've been reading her blog/buying her art. (In addition to doing Digger, she's written seven young adult books (text with some graphic novel scenes), a couple definitely NOT young adult books and she does some very delightful art.)

[cjmr]

You don't see many liberal POLITICIANS in favor of space exploration. I know lots of liberals who are very interested in space exploration--and they don't all work for NASA.

[Mmy]

@cjmr: I know lots of liberals who are very interested in space exploration--and they don't all work for NASA.

Raises hand.

Raises hand for mmySpouse.

Raises the gripping hand for the many liberals I have known who were very interested in space exploration. In fact for much of my life every person I knew personally who was interested in space exploration was a liberal.

When/where I grew up non-liberals who were interested in space exploration were just people on the TV and people who wrote books and articles.

You don't see many liberal POLITICIANS in favor of space exploration.

QFT

[Froborr]

You don't see a lot of liberal politicians, period, these days.

[truth is life]

My impression was that space exploration was entirely a liberal thing, and it's been not getting funding recently because the Overton window is so far right.

While I am relieved to know that I'm not alone (strictly speaking I knew that already, since my brother is as ardent a space nerd as I am and is more or less liberal), this is actually not true. Even leaving aside the legions of right-wing (especially libertarian, cf. Jerry Pournelle) space exploration fans, Republicans have a very good history of supporting space exploration; in particular, even though they were unsuccessful, most major space exploration initiatives since and along the lines of Kennedy's have been Republican (actually the Bushes, though Reagan made something of a go at it, as did Obama, sort of). It helps enormously that most of NASA's centers, and all of the core human spaceflight centers, are located in the South, which of course has been solidly Republican pretty much as long as I've been alive (~20 years and a bit). In fact, this leads to a rather odd phenomena, where it's the Democrats (such as and particularly Obama) who support "privatizing" space (ie., encouraging the SpaceXs of the world and moving NASA away from procuring and operating its own vehicles in some regards) and the Republicans who support focusing on NASA.

If you look at historical funding levels, and exclude the anomalous Apollo levels, too, the best funding levels for NASA ever (in terms of % of federal budget) were under Bush I (narrowly edging out those under Ford). Reagan wasn't too friendly to NASA per se (he did like military space, of course, but not so much the NASA-specific stuff in the early '80s). Under Clinton they started a gradual, constant decline which has pretty much continued to the present day. The reasons for this are somewhat complicated, but they certainly don't have anything to do with the Overton window. I would say that they have more to do with a general lack of interest from the public (courtesy of Roger Lanius; I read an article by him a while back which basically points out that Americans have historically never been especially enthusiastic about spaceflight), which leads to essentially maintaining a constant budget level. The (perceived, and somewhat actual) inability of NASA to do anything with this level is then a combination of not wanting to force a budget increase* past those levels and NASA and Congressional mismanagement within those levels.

Space history is about the only thing I could actually write an intro post on, it's one of my biggest nerd things :) I actually wrote a decent size essay at some point about why we haven't done all that much in space, completely of my own accord, so yeah. I think about these things.

It probably doesn't help that on other forums I'm on, opposition to space exploration tends to be couched in very liberal terms, always; usually along the lines of "we should spend the money on Earth," sometimes other things, and the opponents (where I have an idea of where they sit on the ideological scale) are very much on the left. The space oriented forum I visit tends to be dominated by the Right, so that kind of skews my viewpoint, I suppose.

* This is actually thought to be one of the reasons behind the Outer Space Treaty; the Johnson administration did not want to commit the US to an expensive, permanent expansion into space. Similarly, the NERVA nuclear rocket program was canceled largely because the only use it had would be in a beyond Earth orbit exploration program, ie. an expensive, open-ended commitment to space that was extremely unpopular in the early '70s.

[truth is life]

Also, Nixon was a huge fan of spaceflight according to what I've read; this simply didn't translate into dollars, because Nixon had other priorities, was (understandably) not operating on the principle of "what the nation should do is what I think is cool!," and had a significant (mostly Democratic, eg. Mondale or Proxmire) contingent of Congressmen and women opposed to any plans to expand space exploration

[storiteller]

Webcomic recommendations of mine:

TW: Transhumanism
Narbonic and Skin Horse: Both of these are associated with the same author, Shaenon Garrity, who occasionally comments over at Slacktivist. (I'm suspicious that the Internet is a very small place and all of the trolls are actually one person. Or the Internet itself. Also, Skin Horse is co-written with Jeffery Wells.) Narbonic is about a mad biologist and her merry band of lab compatriots, including a hapless computer scientist, an evil intern in law school, and a talking gerbil. Skin Horse is set in the same universe and focuses on a tiny and secret government agency devoted to helping the cast-off victims of mad science, whether they are webcomic writing lions or Alaska werewolves. The team itself includes an easily distracted zombie, a talking dog, a cross-dressing ex-Army guy, a formerly rampaging windup machine, and their boss, a swarm of bees. Skin Horse does a great job nailing the absurdity of bureaucracy.

TW: fhvpvqr, qrngu bs n cnerag (I know it's weird that I rot13ed the Trigger Warning, but it would give away a major plot point)
Questionable Content: To quote the author, it's a webcomic about romance, indy rock, little robots, and the problems people have. It has a very large cast with a lot of well-developed, interesting female characters in particular. Not every strip passes the Bechedel test, but a large number of them do.

TW: General crime-show activities (murder, arson, etc.)
Bad Machinery: A clever and quite British strip by John Allison, who previously wrote Scary Go Round and Bobbins. Wee adorable children having wee adorable adventures, many of which involve aliens and solving crimes.

TW: Kidnapping
Spacetrawler: Great SF script involving a group of humans picked from Earth to help a revolutionary group working to free the Eebs, super-intelligent aliens held in slavery. Great, funny cast of characters and gorgeous art. This one is by Christopher Baldwin, who previously did the vastly different Bruno and Little Dee and I've followed him from project to project.

Girls With Slingshots: A funny, slice of life comic about two best friends, their friends, and their misadventures.

There are a ton more, but I'll probably break the spam trap with all of these links anyway.

[storiteller]

Hmm, looks like I got caught in the spamtrap, because I know my comment posted and I didn't just miss the captcha.

[chris the cynic]

I've been thinking about possibly doing a series of posts at Stealing Commas on .hack//SIGN (an anime) one episode at a time. (So that would be 25 or 27 posts depending on if it included two "bonus episodes".) It wouldn't be a deconstruction, it would be more of, "I like this, let me talk about it to you." It might end up being nothing more than episode summaries. I don't actually know.

I have no idea if anyone would be interested in reading such a thing. People talking at length about things they're fans of isn't always the most interesting thing.

Would anyone like to read something like that?

I've also pondered doing a similar thing with a video game I like called Deus Ex, with the same uncertainty about whether it would be something anyone would be interested in reading.

[ZMiles]

Re: deconstructions.

I've been thinking about trying my hand at some. I'm mostly trying to find something where I have relevant background knowledge or experience, so that I can do more than just read/watch something but instead try to link it to stuff in culture or politics or whatnot.

One option I'm considering is deconstructions of various Law and Order episodes. Just completed Season 9, so I own/have watched 15 of the 20 seasons. Plus the 1 season of Trial by Jury, and half or so of SVU (never got into LA or CI). Given how the show tries to deal with social issues and famous cases, there would seem to be a lot to talk about. I try to follow the actual histories of the cases the show uses, so that might be something I could actually work into it. Plus, I know enough of the show that I can critique continuity stuff and can analyze/recognize common tropes used on the show.

[truth is life]

I've also pondered doing a similar thing with a video game I like called Deus Ex, with the same uncertainty about whether it would be something anyone would be interested in reading.

You mean like a Let's Play or After-Action Report? Go for it, people have done Let's Plays on just about anything under the sun (and gotten plenty of readers, too). You might want to read some of those to get a feel for it if you haven't already. There's all sorts of fun things you can do with those.

Also, book recommendations! I've wanted to do some of those since forever:

War Plan Orange by Edward S. Miller. A must-read if you're interested in the Pacific Theater of World War II, particularly the American side of it. As the name indicates, this is an entire, fairly large book all about the series of war plans generated by the US Navy (primarily) for the defeat of Japan in a hypothetical war. The author makes a fairly compelling case that the planning so carried out had a great deal of continuity with what actually happened in World War II, and thus was of some value in the prosecution of that war. Furthermore, a number of the officers who actually had to fight the war had cut their teeth on Orange. All in all, as I said, an excellent book for anyone interested in the Pacific Theater or war planning in general.

(It has quite good maps, and a number of them, always useful in military history)

Anyone have one or some of their own to share?

[cjmr]

ZMiles, I'd read a Law and Order decon.

[sarah]

@storiteller: I love QC!

[Nenya]

@storiteller & sarah: Me too--Questionable Content is one of two webcomics I follow these days, the other being xkcd.

(An odd thing: It's actually somewhat unnerving that several of the romance plotlines in QC have coincided with things that were happening in my life at the time the strips came out--for example, there was a major breakup last year (you'll know who I mean if you've been following it) which happened juuust as I was splitting from my ex. If I believed the universe was speaking to me through comic strips, I'd think Someone was trying to reassure me that I wasn't crazy to be leaving the relationship.)

Irregular Webcomic is also pretty awesome, though I've gotten pretty far behind with it. David Morgan-Marr sets up scenes with Lego people and various other small figurines, and photographs them, then adds dialogue to make comic strips. It's really very clever. There a huge number of storylines running (from Jane Goodall and Steve Irwin, to a parody of James Bond, to parodies of Ancient Rome and Star Wars, to the adventures of a tabletop roleplaying adventure team, to the story of the various Deaths and their infinite bureaucracy on the Infinite Featureless Plane[tm]). You can read the stories by thread--just the ones about James Bond, or whatever--or read them all. There are notes with each comic, and he often does asides about whatever the joke in today's strip was, explaining the math or history behind it so you get it or get to geek out on it. But you can turn off the notes if you don't want to read them.

[cjmr]

Irregular Webcomic is finished.

DMM's now re-running from the beginning, with new commentary Mon-Sat, and on Sunday is running long explanation essays of various things like some of the longer original commentaries were. Today's, for instance, is called "Looking Down" and appears to be about spelunking and paleontology and stuff like that. (I won't get to actually read it until later when the kids are in bed.)

[hapax]

My personal favorite webcomic is The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, but it's a bit frustrating to those who like regular (or even frequent) updates.

But nomnomnom FOOTNOTES!

(That link goes to the first comic, btw. It's a series of more-or-less self contained short stories)

[Kish spamflagging]

In any thread but a completely open thread, I might not think "seo training in multan"'s comment is spam.

[chris the cynic]

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

My first thought on reading that was, "Ada Lovelace and Whatshisname Charles Babbage?"* And I see that yes, yes it is.

I may have to read this comic, in spite of always being short on time already without spending time on it.

-

*Yes, my first thought included a strikethrough, at first I couldn't think of Charles' name, thus I went with "Whatshisname", but it came back to be before the thought had been finished.

[Will Wildman]

Regarding QC: I am hard-pressed to think of anything that I would enjoy more than hanging out with Hannelore and Marigold for a week, and I am saddened that I cannot vacation in comicland to visit them.

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For my own webcomic recommendation, I'll toss in the somewhat unusual prose of A Softer World (various trigger warnings apply, including death, abuse, and suicide). It generally consists of three panels of photos taken by one of the creators and laconic remarks/captions thereby inspired from the other one. It's kind of inherently joyful, due to the magnficent work by the photographer, but the writer clearly takes a deep joy in "making people sad in the feelings", so it's definitely not going to be for everyone.

The latest comic (#759) is a reductionist takedown of those guys who randomly and creepily command women to smile.

---

I've been thinking about taking on a deconstruction myself - I was considering James Bond novels, on the basis that they are one of the only 'stereotypical male fantasies' that do appeal to me on some level, and it could be fun to look into where that comes from and how it's put together and whether the whole archetype is inextricable from sexism and/or misogyny. Anyone who has read James Bond novels is welcome to make recommendations about where to start.

[AnaMardoll]

If it's an open thread, I just want to say hi. *waves* I think January/February is the worst time of year for me, so I'm especially grateful for online communities like this one where I know I'm not alone in the Big Ol' World. :)

[sarah]

[[Will: Regarding QC: I am hard-pressed to think of anything that I would enjoy more than hanging out with Hannelore and Marigold for a week, and I am saddened that I cannot vacation in comicland to visit them.]]

If you ever find a way to comicland, let me know so that I can join you in hanging out with Hanners and Marigold. And the rest of them, too. Faye's snark makes me happy.

[Mmy]

To everyone who likes tennis -- play is starting soon in Melbourne. Roger Federer refers to the Australian Open as "the happy slam." Everyone I know who has ever been there says that Melbourne is one of the truly great sports cities to visit.

And when they were building the current facility, the story goes, people came over from Australia to see what the American had done in Flushing Meadows in order to determine how NOT to do it.

[Deird, who isn't even that sporty]

Everyone I know who has ever been there says that Melbourne is one of the truly great sports cities to visit.

We so are! We have the MCG, for one thing...

[MercuryBlue]

*eyes quagmire, refuses to step in*

So what writing projects do people have going on right now?

I'm four thousand words into a Supernatural/my-friend's-novel crossover for sncross_bigbang, and I may have to rethink my strategy of writing a couple hundred words per episode of Supernatural, because I am four thousand words in and that only covers eight episodes. Minimum word count for this fest is 15K. I've also signed up for queer_bigbang, which is minimum word count 10K, and I'm hoping a similar strategy will be effective there. In both cases I'm basically rewriting the whole series; for sncross_bb my premise is 'Jess has fire magic, and therefore Jess survives the Pilot', and for queer_bb my premise is 'the death closing the Pilot is Sam's boyfriend Brady, not Sam's girlfriend Jess'. Haven't worked out how that affects things yet, since I'm focusing on sncross_bb at the moment. I've got a couple more months on queer_bb anyway.

And I really should be doing my law office management homework.

[Mmy]

What everyone I know who has been there says is:

a) compared to most other major tennis centres it is easy to get to walking or using public transportation

and

b) that it is an incredibly diverse city with people (and foods and music) from a wide range of cultures. Apparently Melbourne is the second largest Greek city in the world.

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: So what writing projects do people have going on right now?

I have a deconstruction of the movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House that has been on hiatus because of the kerfuffle that shall remain nameless.

I have three book reviews that are already far too long and which call to me to be longer.

I am at the beginning of writing up an analysis of a set of approximately 500 books which I feel represent a cross section of ordinary popular culture among the middle of England and US from 1910 to 1935.

[sarah]

[[mmy: b) that it is an incredibly diverse city with people (and foods and music) from a wide range of cultures. Apparently Melbourne is the second largest Greek city in the world.]]*

*Sigh* Someday, when I have the time and money to travel...

Slightly different topic: I went to this family-owned Mexican restaurant the other night with my cousins. Awesome food, and what's more awesome is that the woman who owns the place used to be an opera singer, so she'll randomly come out and sing for the customers. (She reminded me of my grandma, actually, except she's Mexican and not Italian.)

[Deird, who loves the Melbourne cafe culture]

Foods, especially. We have a huge Anglo-Saxon culture, mixed with a huge Chinese culture, mixed with a huge Greek/Italian culture. Put it all together, it makes for some really interesting cuisine. And every time we get new immigrants, they add their food into the mix...

[Deird, who is intimidated by your awesome]

On the subject of deconstructions...

I'd love to do one, but wouldn't have a clue how to start. Those of you who do them: do you tend to find something you like, or dislike, or know a lot about, or what?

[Will Wildman]

Deird, there was an excellent deconstruction primer by Ana Mardoll (who currently runs great decons of Twilight and Narnia) right here on the Slacktiverse back in November. I have yet to put my own into practice, so I can't provide expert advice of my own, but Ana's works have been great.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2011/11/running-a-deconstruction.html

[MercuryBlue]

My expert advice, from the lofty position of having done one deconstruction, is pick something to deconstruct that your readers might possibly be familiar with. Nobody gave a damn about my deconstruction of A Dream of Christmas Eve, and I suspect it's because nobody'd heard of it before.

[AnaMardoll]

So what writing projects do people have going on right now?

1. I'm trying to finish proofing my novel, which I hope to release into the wild in March.

2. I'm trying to write another novel, for which I'm 5/40 chapters done at the moment.

3. I'm eyeing my collection of Disney movies thinking how much I'd like to deconstruct them and wondering where I'll find the time.

And I did nothing this weekend expect write a post on Lisbeth Salander and play Virtual Villagers. Because Mom says I'm working too hard. :)

[ZMiles]

I'm currently working on a couple pieces of Magellan fanfiction, after which it will be time for round 2 of the NaNo novel. And also maybe deconstructions of some kind (l&O, maybe).

[hapax]

I have five more reviews (not in depth criticisms, but book-trade reviews) due by the end of the month, and I haven't even read all the books yet. :-(

I have a LJ post on "Why I don't want to be a writer" drafted out, but waiting for an emotional safe time to post.

I have a deconstruction of TILL WE HAVE FACES in the hopper, but waiting for me to actually, y'know, start writing it.

And hapaxdaughter was nagging me over the weekend, "You still owe me Chapter 9 of the Engineer story!"

[MercuryBlue]

hapax: get to reading! :)

[Lonespark]

Hello, I am sorry for mucking up the non-open thread with my Toddler Injury story and then leaving internet access.

I have just read American Gods and want to ramble about it.

Also continuing to read Steam Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk stories and be amazed at the wonderfulness.

[ZMiles]

Ooh, American Gods. Loved that book.

[Nick Kiddle]

I have a couple of character chasing me round looking for a plot. I think they're going to squat in an abandoned warehouse and find something frightening there, but thus far all I have is copious backstory and a very definite sense of attitude.

[Deird, who writes short things]

I need to get back into fanfic writing.

Anyone know of somewhere that I could get useful prompts to start me off? (My old prompt community has died.)

[MercuryBlue]

http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/ or http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/ --first one is generic prompts, second one is fandom-specific pan-fandom (so luck of the draw) with a few author's-choice ones thrown in.

[Lonespark]

I'm going to be blogging (quasi-coherently) about American Gods, so I'd love folks to come over and discuss.

I...didn't love it. I bet most people who know me could have guessed that. But at least now I am ready to have an opinion about the miniseries when it comes out.

[Amaryllis]

Oh, American Gods.

Tried three times to read it, and bogged down in the first chapter each time.

So I'm looking forward to your reviews, because I know a lot of people loved it. The discussion should be interesting!

(I trust that the toddler has completely recovered? Also that her parents have recovered: those toddler years are hair-raising!)

[Lonespark]

Toddler is fine, if three staples more down the road to Unstoppable Cyborg-dom, but those are supposed to come out Friday.

[Lonespark]

When we hear about Haiti from the US media, we tend not to hear from Haitians. That's who we should be hearing from, but so many other people seem to claim the right to speak for and about Haitian people.

Along those lines: Important stuff I found in the newspaper:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-15/ideas/30626741_1_alex-dupuy-haitian-people-port-au-prince

and more from the Wild Hunt:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2012/01/haiti-and-vodou-two-years-after-the-quake.html

[storiteller]

I have a deconstruction of TILL WE HAVE FACES in the hopper, but waiting for me to actually, y'know, start writing it.

I would love to read that. I remember wishing I could talk to someone about it after I finished reading it a couple of years ago.

[Froborr]

On writing projects:

I am in the position of the proverbial donkey caught between two piles of hay.

On the one side, Katsucon is in a month and Mysticon the weekend immediately after. I have a guaranteed panel at Mysticon and somewhere between zero and five panels at Katsu, I don't actually know yet. All but the Mysticon one are completely new, the Mysticon one is a revision of the My Little Pony panel for an audience that doesn't already watch the show--less analysis of the show, more explaining why it's found the audience it has. Anyway, point is, I really really REALLY need to start working on those.

However, the other pile consists of a pair of short stories, one of which I started a long time ago and want to get back to, and the other of which is an idea I just had, but it requires some rather unpleasant research. I want to finish both by Small Press Expo; my fiancee and I are getting a table to sell her minicomics, and it would be nice to have something of my own to [probably fail to] sell, too.

Also I want to revive my moribund episode-by-episode analyses of Avatar: The Last Airbender and write a deconstruction of Metroid: Other M and post some short thoughts on my issues with Disney's Beauty and the Beast... Gyah.

[storiteller]

I want to finish both by Small Press Expo; my fiancee and I are getting a table to sell her minicomics, and it would be nice to have something of my own to [probably fail to] sell, too.

I'll buy it! It's almost guaranteed I'll be at SPX. I wasn't last year because both it and Intervention overlapped with my vacation, but I've been to SPX the two years before that. I live only a couple of Metro stops down from the location.

I too would love to read an American Gods deconstruction. It was a wonderfully entertaining book, but I could see why people have issues with it.

[MercuryBlue]

When we hear about Haiti from the US media

We hear about Haiti from the US media? When there hasn't just been a quake, I mean.

[truth is life]

So what writing projects do people have going on right now?

Well, me and a friend from another board are continuing to work on our epic saga of the American space program gone right...ehem, I mean, our alternate history story about a world in which NASA and the Nixon administration decide to do a space station program first, then go for Shuttle, rather than the other way around. It's even got the Atomic Rockets Official Seal of Approval, which is pretty nice. Part I (roughly the '70s) has about 20K words, Parts II and III ('80s and '90s, respectively) will probably be a bit longer (20-30K) but haven't actually been (completely) written yet...which is a bit of a problem, because we're almost done with Part I.

[Mmy]

Cool things about "living in the future" -- when I first started to follow tennis it would be hard to even get the results of tennis tournaments let alone matches.

So tonight I will be watching hockey, live, on one screen, while watching tennis, live, on another screen. I can listen to the Australian Open Tournament Radio on my computer and read, in real time, things written by people who live on other continents.

[Lonespark]

Also I want to revive my moribund episode-by-episode analyses of Avatar: The Last Airbender

I want this too!!!
But I can wait.

[Deird, who misses them]

Also I want to revive my moribund episode-by-episode analyses of Avatar: The Last Airbender

PLEASE DO.

[hapax]

me and a friend from another board are continuing to work on our epic saga of the American space program gone right

Link?

[Lonespark]

I have no intention of doing a formal deconstruction of American Gods, but I have put up two posts on Dreamwidth about it and there will be more. (Click my name.)

And now I'm thinking about some posts about what I have learned about life and faith from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I've wanted to do that for a while, but the conversation pursuant to Froborr's post makes it seem like the time is now (well, soon. Ish.)

[MercuryBlue]

our alternate history story about a world in which NASA and the Nixon administration decide to do a space station program first, then go for Shuttle, rather than the other way around.

WANTS

[chris the cynic]

So I'll be trying to do the things I mentioned earlier, not-really-deconstructions of Deus Ex and .hack//SIGN.

For Deus Ex I've written two sort of pre-starting posts.

The first was intended to be a general introduction to the topic but ended up spiraling off into arguing against a distressingly common misconception about the game that most people probably don't care about, then switched over how references found in Deus Ex should be handled when it comes to interpretation and the tendency to interpret things in light of what you already believe thus making you fail to notice when they theories you hold lack support, and finally came back to the misconception for the close. It can be found here.

The second was about Deus Ex's backstory, by which I mean a general overview, including spoilers, of what happened in the game's setting before the game took place. It stayed largely stayed on topic. It is here.

Today I played through the optional training mission of the game, not a lot there (it's mostly used this key to preform this function) but by the end I had a few pages of notes in a notebook, maybe I can make them into a post tomorrow. I don't expect to do much of anything on .hack//Sign until Friday at the earliest.

[Froborr]

Not sure if anyone else is following what is happening with SOPA/PIPA, but Wikipedia just blacked out.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Yeah, boingboing.net is going dark for the day -- as are some other sites. They are working really hard to educate people as what is going on.

[Anonymous]

if you absolutely need wikipedia for something, there are always the foreign language wikipedias, or you can access it by turning off javascript in your browser, using a smart phone, or by using a text only browser like elinks. I recommend going to wikipedia with javascript turned on first and clicking through to read what they have to say about it, though.

[Lonespark]

Craigslist seems to have a splash page with SOPA/PIPA info up. It is driving the people here in my job search/job training program for folks on welfare crazy. They are confused and annoyed. Well, at least the ones commenting.

(It's ok, I'm on break. I will go do computer training again soon.)

[Deird, who can't navigate her local news sites]

Mmy, since you're watching the Open...

Have there been rainbow flags at Margaret Court Arena? I know people were planning it, but not sure if it's happened.

(Margaret Court, former tennis player and current pentecostal minister, has been saying nasty stuff about gay people. Hence, people have been planning to put lots of rainbow flags and so forth in the arena named after her.)

[Mmy]

@Deird: The coverage I have been watching has mostly been of matches on other courts (Melbourne has a lot of show courts) but what I have seen of the coverage on MCA has not shown much of the audience at all. The only direct comments made have been downplaying the entire issue ---- mmySpouse has watched a couple of matches on MCA and the cameras were not showing wide shots of the audience so there could have been banners.

[Anonymous]

@Deird: from an article about a tennis player wearing a rainbow headband:

"However the Rainbow Flags Over Margaret Court Arena campaign failed to garner much of a following with only a few of the banners on show during the opening round matches."

[Froborr]

@Anonymous: Bravo to the young woman in that article, though.

(Don't read the comments, by the way. The very first one is discussing the player's looks.)

[Timothy (TRiG)]

It's the Daily Mail. What do you expect?

TRiG.

[Froborr]

Not everyone is familiar with British newspapers.

[Deird, who wants to kill her boss]

Allow me to rant unrelatedly for a minute:

1) I have ADHD. I am a slightly excitable person when I talk.
2) This does not mean that my normal talking style presents as "upset".

Despite this, my boss took my normal, slightly fast, upbeat talking as reason to REPEATEDLY tell me to "calm down", "stop interrupting", "listen", "calm down", and, oh by the way, "calm down".
It gets INCREDIBLY frustrating when someone asks you a question, you get two words into answering, and they say "Look, CALM DOWN. I'm not asking you anything tricky." and then you try answering again (in a slightly calmer voice) and get three words in before they say "Look, you keep doing this. It's not that complicated." and then you apologise and sit back and listen calmly, and they ask another question, and you start to answer and get told "LISTEN, would you? You keep interrupting, and you can't find out what I want to know."
...and even though you were fine going in, after repeated exhortations to CALM DOWN, you find yourself struggling with tears and wanting to yell back, and know that anything you say in your defence will be taken as proof positive that you're taking it too emotionally and need to calm down.

AAAAAARGH!!!!!!!

*DESTROYS THE WORLD WITH FIRE*