switchbladesis | Entries tagged with more interesting things on the internet

I have internet at home!

Okay, so I've had internet at home for about a week now, but then I came down with the plague and spent all of my time sleeping. Or explaining things to people on the internet, but I'm pretty sure I argue with people on the internet in my sleep these days.

I'm working at walking away. The problem is that I tend to walk away into a new conversation, which then involves someone else getting into an argument.

(This is all non-anon, so if you're really curious, you can probably find it. It's pretty predictable stuff.)

Anyway! I also watched TV, too! And now I will tell you all about it.

( Revolution )

Also, there was a spoiler clip for Supernatural released, and I will now explain my feelings thusly.

( Supernatural 8.1 )

So, what'd the rest of you think?

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/34750.html

Doing this in a numbered list, because.

1. Most of the reason why I've been gone is that I haven't had a computer with steady internet access at home since mid-June. I was busy moving, and then I moved, and now I just don't have internet access in the study. Working on that!

2. Before I start talking about me, I should point out that Rocksalt-recs is still looking for a D/C reccer for September. So. Are you the sort that likes reading D/C? Do you like telling people what to do? Now's your chance! Fanfic, fanart, fanmixes, podfic, amigurumi, it's all okay. I'm going to be reccing minor character stuff in September, so I can't do it myself.

If I'm too late, then you should totally sign up for October. Or November! Rec things, people.

3. Also, if you have any recs for minor character stuff that you think I should read and then maybe rec, go for it! I promise nothing (and if you want to sign up to rec minor character stuff in the future, that's also a good idea).

( More on me )

That's it for now. But... hi guys! How are all of you doing? Still checking lj/dreamwidth? How's that going for you?

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/34326.html

LINKS TO DECLUTTER MY TABS:

*On the making of the Game of Thrones Opening Credits. Also, the heavy metal version of the Game of Thrones theme, over the opening.credits: AWESOME

*One Hundred Articles You Should Read Available online.

*On The Doctor, Influence, and Violence.

*Watch Mark Sheppard through the ages

And not a link, but a random thought: If Balthazar decided to envessel Tyrion Lannister, would anyone notice the difference? Up to and including the point where Balthazar-as-Tyrion angel-teleports away. My guess is no.

( SUPERNATURAL 6x20 OMG OMG OMG )

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/18864.html

Joanna Russ died yesterday. She was one of the people who is responsible for turning science fiction into a genre that I would want to read, both with her own stories and her essays on the genre. She was one of the first to take slash seriously as porn written by women for women, analyzing the tropes and themes found in slashfic (and she sounded really excited when she wrote about it). Her writing isn't perfect -The Female Man is kind of gross about transwomen, which Russ later apologized for-but it's a hell of a lot better than a lot else that was going on at the time. And I think more than any of the other scifi writers at the time, she wasn't afraid of being that Angry Lesbian Feminist and call scifi on some of its bullshit. And a lot of that bullshit is still going on today, if in a slightly different form (okay, some of it in the exact same form), so it definitely needed to be done.

It's surprisingly hard to find stuff by her on the web-she did most of her writing in the pre-internet era, but I managed to dig up at few links, at least.

"When it Changed" (1972)
A discussion of the reaction to "When it Changed" and The Female Man
The first chapter of How To Suppress Women's Writing (what it says on the tin)
Someone else writing about Joanna Russ writing about slash
An interview between Joanna Russ and Sam Delany at Wiscon a few years ago, where Joanna is pretty much like 'I don't know what's going on in contemporary Scifi or Fantasy these days, but Buffy is awesome'
Thoughts and Reminisces on Joanna Russ at Making Light (be sure to read this one and this one)

So yeah, all of you, go out and read The Female Man or some of her short stories. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but it's definitely worth reading.

This also seems like the appropriate place to post this: PSA: Girls Watch Porn Too

Writing this all out has depressed me more than I thought it would, I'm not really in the mood to capslock about SPN right now. Needless to say, I liked it, am looking forward to next week like whoa. My thoughts are pretty much

whynot 's thoughts, only instead of wanting Narnia from Susan's point of view, I'm still sad about the way Dark!Willow was portrayed in season six (it should have been about her lack of self worth leading to an abuse of power, not that magic is drugs and drugs are bad, mmmkay?). Show is actually giving me what I usually go to fandom for, and I am very happy if a little confused.

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/18010.html

One of the local coffee shops in has gone from being an combination anarchist bike shop/coffee house to a place that serves bacon infused lattes. Does that raise or lower the hipster quotient in my neighborhood? Discuss.

Also: links. I think I have more of them somewhere, but these are the tabs I have open.

The Big Map Blog: Old maps with high resolutions and a decent zoom interface. Pretty, yo.

Also: Graphs of population change in US Urban areas from the 2010 census. Meaning: OMG 2010 CENSUS DATA IS OUT AND READY FOR US TO PLAY WITH SO EXCITE. Look, I like these things, okay?

China Mieville writes a pitch for Iron Man. Why am I not living inside his brain full time? Plz be letting me know.

Castiel, the motion picture: Just in case anyone hasn't seen this yet.

SPEAKING OF CASTIEL THE MOTION PICTURE: ( SPN 6x17 )

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/14107.html

Yes, yes, I know, LJ is still shaky and I still need to reply to everything in my last entry, but. . .

FIFTEEN MINUTE PREVIEW OF A GAME OF THRONES!!!

OMG.

OMG.

OMG.

I get kind of excited just reading the warning for explicit content, not gonna lie.

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/13934.html

I just found out that Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas is available for both the Nook and Amazon Kindle for 99 cents. I haven't read it yet, but it's one of those books people periodically throttle me for not having read yet, so it's probably worth checking out.

Also, Barnes & Noble's Free Friday book, God's War, is still available for free. There's been a lot of low-grade buzz about it lately, and again-free. I'm not that far into it, but so far seems to be a light read with an original world.

This is all to say: If I've promised you my thoughts on Palimpsest any time soon, it might take a little while. I seem to have gotten distracted by other shiny things.

In other literary news: I refound the bookslut's blog the other day. It's amazing-I used to check it religiously my senior year in high school: it was one of those things I thought that I should be into, that I should read all of these books and be able to talk about them at length and know the temperament of every critic employed of the New York Times' book review (all four of them now). Literary fiction and I had a bad breakup my freshman year of college-it's gotten better over the years, we're friends now, and we get along for my parent's sake, but it's been at least six or seven years since I read Bookslut. It looks exactly the same, layout and all. Anyway, they do have good links in their blog section, especially about writers, writing, and trends in the literary world-so if that's your thing, check it out.

I went to a two-part lecture on the Munsingwear underwear advertisements (you know, these guys) from the early 20th century-pretty much talking about the changing social mores of the first decades of the twentieth century, but also a lot about the homoeroticism in a lot of these advertisements, and how much of that would have been coded as homoerotic by their contemporaries, and why these ads would include homoerotic content. Now, when I think vintage homoerotic underwear ads, I think my friendslist. So I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on the internet looking for more information on this to share with you guys, but mostly, I keep on finding the same ad over and over again: I think it's important to note that there were multiple series of them, stretching between the 1930's to the 1960's, and with various shades of homoeroticism. The best thing I could find was the author's book trailer, here and someone else's writeup of the same lecture I went to, here. Ah well, maybe one day they'll actually update their website with more information.

The other half of the lecture was on Gil Elvgren, the Norman Rockwell of cheesecake pin-ups, who is mostly notable for being the first famous cheesecake pin-up artist to have a boring personal life. He was the sort of pin-up artist you could safely introduce to your mother. You know, if that's what you look for in a pin-up artist.

In something that has nothing to do with reading whatsoever OMG NEW DOCTOR WHO TRAILER (stolen from zeitheist) OMG OMG OMG OMG

(eee!)

Other thoughts on other things (spoilers)!

( The City & The City )

( Downton Abbey )

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/13712.html

So, I was planning to make a 'it's gotten above freezing-it's a heat wave!' post, but then we had an actual heat wave. For a week. The igloo's roof collapsed. The ice sculpture has gone from this five feet tall unwitting homage to beekman tower to a couple of six-inch high spikes. The mannequin heads have been brought back inside (apparently my downstairs neighbors made a decision not to move them around, so they got covered by layers of snow and then slowly rediscovered-random bits of flesh exposed as the snow slowly melted.)Yesterday I thought 30 degrees felt cold.

It's still mid-February. That's just not right. I'm almost glad for the temperature plunge and the next round of snow coming up.

I'm apparently four months late in reccing this, since apparently it was everyone's twitter-darling around Halloween, but if you like horror and aren't allergic to comics, check out His Face All Red by Emily Carroll. If you're more interested in romance, there's also Anu-Anulan and Yir's Daughter, which is super cute.

So apparently google has a lot of neat gadgets to help you create fancy-looking interactive charts with not that much work. I don't have enough time to play around with this now-but I'm leaving it here just in case any of you do. I'm expecting you to use your powers for good. Or at least for lulz.

The American Festival Project- Photo essays of America's lesser known local festivals. I really hope they add more to this-it's a great idea.

Alan Taylor, the guy who used to do the Big Picture (my favorite news photoblog that I keep on linking to because it's pretty damn awesome) has moved to here. Now with a 1280 px option for extra pretty! The Big Picture is still going on, with a revolving set of editors.

Felicia Day as an elf in a webseries spinoff for Dragon Age. Hi, my name is Switchbladesis and I am a giant fangirl. Interview with Felicia Day about this can be found here.

Speaking of which-apparently there's going to be a walking dead game? Considering this is telltale games making it, I'm guessing it's more of a point-and-click adventure than a first person shooter. The same release mentioned a fables game (like the comic-not fable 4), which means I'm reimagining Snow White and Bigby as Sam and Max.

( Thoughts on SPN 6x13 and 6x14 )

Crossposts: http://switchbladesis.livejournal.com/12258.html

New York Times takes census data from 2005-2009, uses to map income, education, race, same sex households, and other interesting tidbits.

Much in the same vein as Bill Rankin's map of Chicago based on race and income, but covering all of the US.

Soo much fun to play with. ETA: And then I spent my afternoon playing with this. Map word usage through history in six different languages.

And since this is the day I apparently link the fuck out of Metafilter: Question about alternatives to Delicious. Pretty much: Pinboard, Diigo, or Google Bookmarks. Pinboard's cost is going to rise as more people sign up (it was at $7.25 the last I saw), don't know anything about the other to.

Yes, yes, I realize that linking to It Gets Better videos is passe at this point, but still watch this.

Like Pixar needed yet another way to a) convince me that they were wonderful and b) make me cry.

First, the fandom related one: Cosmic Love, song by Florence and the Machine, vid by

affablyevil Awesome song, awesome clip selection, Cas-centric.

Random links on Chicago (it's been coming up a lot lately. Not just on the internet, but coworkers asking me for sightseeing ideas, friends asking me why I think Daley's stepping down, other friends asking me to explain white sox fans . . you get the idea)

I am Chicago is a series of street portraits grouped by neighborhood. Not all of the neighborhoods are covered (most of them seem to be on the north/west sides, but it's an interesting mix.

Vivian Maier was a street photographer in Chicago from the 1950's-1990's. Here's a selection of her pictures.

So this project was making the rounds a few weeks ago, based on this image of segregation in Chicago by Bill Rankin. And while the racial segregation was interesting, I'm a lot more surprised at the income tab (on the Bill Rankin site, click on income). Sure, there's still large blocks of mostly-blue (and one large block of mostly-red on the north shore), but it's far more integrated by income than it is by race. I was saving this one for a while, trying to figure out what to do with it-but I'm not sure where to go.

The first link's nice too-a little less detail, but it's a nice way to compare the makeup of various American cities. Unsurprisingly, Minneapolis/St. Paul is pretty damn white, but still in need of a Native American tag.

Via Jewcy of all places, a New York Times article on Rahm's chances for becoming mayor. I personally think that he's not likely to win-the ties with the President are more likely to hurt than help him (liberals blame him for giving away too much to the Republicans, conservatives think he's a bully, and the people in the middle are largely machine voters). I'm still really excited to watch this. A real mayoral election! In Chicago! the last time something close to that happened, I was four.

Also on Jewcy: Schmekel is your friendly neighborhood transgender jewish polka-punk band. Look, if you're going to have a shtick, you better make it good. Here's a song called Pharaoh/Moses slash. Yes, it's what you think it is.

In other music related news, this makes me die a little inside. D: Oh, Moe. No. No, Moe, No!

And now for something completely different: How to degauss a cat.

If that's not enough, here's a dog that will do the dishes, the laundry, and start the coffee for you.

Other Youtube Videos You've Probably Already Seen, but Just In Case:

GROVER AS THE OLD SPICE GUY.

The It Gets Better Project. Just in case you've somehow missed this, it's been everywhere, but it's worth linking again.

REAL ENTRY SOON. UNTIL THEN, HAVE IRON MAN WITH THE ELECTRIC GUITAR ON TESLA COILS

. . .

boyfriend just informed me that I'm like, two months late with this shit. Whatever. I'm still posting.

( SHARKTOPUS )

( THE GRAVES )

Things I learned from these movies:

1. If you are in a horror film, remember to dress wisely. If you’re male you’ll get most of your survival powers from your six-pack-try to have your shirt open at all times. If you’re female, you’ll want some sensible ‘science’ gear. Cargo pants and a tank top are also acceptable-remember, you want to show off one, but not both, of your assets (T or A, not T&A). Wear a bikini at your own peril.

2. A stick is a much better weapon than a knife, crowbar, scythe, AK-47, or grenade launcher. If the stick fails, try a different stick. Or a set of aluminum knitting needles.

3. Government contracts can be negotiated poolside in Mexico-no signatures required. This might require the presence of a magic sombrero.

4. All civilians should be visibly drunk when meeting with high-ranking military officers.

5. SHARKTOPUS CAN CLIMB TREES. SCIENCE IS AWESOME.

6. There is nothing more important than the comic book convention. Go to the comic book convention.

7. If you want to kill someone, go for the leg. People can survive multiple head wounds and getting stabbed in the chest with few ill effects, but one jab to the leg will get anyone. Or just tackle them.

8. If you suspect that you’re being hunted down by an entire town of crazed cultists, GO TO THE NEXT TOWN FOR HELP. Don’t ask someone else from the same town!

9. 90% of the resort-goers in Puerto Vallarta are women aged 18-25. Unless sharktopus only attacked the young lesbian beaches.

( Butterfly Mittens )

THE BETWEEN SEASON CASPARTY

Don't know if there's anybody here who isn't already involved, but figured I'd spread the word. It's everything you think it'll be and more!

Currently Knitting: Butterfly Mittens. I figured what I wanted to do with the pattern-I even did a gauge swatch up for a number of different options! But while doing the gauge swatch, I kind of. . . forgot to check my gauge. Starting over with 40 stitches instead of 44. . .

Currently Reading: Still working on Perdido Street Station. I’m starting to realize that reading long passages on fake esoteric philosophy of science theories might require more concentration than I have when I’m on the elliptical. Perhaps I should try reading those while sitting down.

Currently Watching on Netflix: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Rayguns! Jetpacks! Sky Pirate Angelina Jolie! I can’t say I’m too fond of Polly, but it’s an awesome little bit of fluff.

Currently Open in Other Tabs: Anomie, a Sherlock vid.

Also on the Sherlock angle: John and Sherlock Make a Baby (From Stuff they Find Around the Flat) Yes, it's technically kidfic. It's still good!

Night of the Living Trekkies: Three different people have linked me to this book trailer. Do you think they’re trying to tell me something?

The Newest Hyperbole and a Half: I know, I know, but this one literally had me wheezing with laughter!

The Complete Brioche Website: I’m trying to decide if I want my next large project (you know, after I finish the mittens, a pair of socks, maybe a beard balaclava and probably some Christmas presents) to be a 2-color brioche blanket or the brioche sweater. I know the sensible answer is ‘neither, are you crazy?’ . . . but it’s so tempting. . .

I can't believe it's taken me a week to get an episode reaction post up . . . work's been kicking my ass lately, working six days, 50-60 hour weeks.

And then I went and spent a sizable chunk of my overtime pay on comic books and ice cream, like a sensible adult.

So: Episode Reactions! Right! Spoilery bits separated by seed art, because what else am I going to do with pictures of seed art?

( Merlin (Spoilers for 3x01 and 3x02) )

( Ex Machina (Trade Paperback Vols. 4 and 5) )

( Mad Men (Spoilers for The Summer Man) )

. . . and now it's time for me to download the next episode.

In which I shill for google:

Step 1: Go here.
Step 2: Type in a random word and start pressing tab.
Step 3: See how long it takes for Kanye's meme to show up.

The same thing done for 'we didn't start the fire' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'

Geography Related:

A Buddha found in Sweden, dating back to the Viking Age. Over the course of 300 years this tiny statue made its way from India to Sweden.

Rare and Antique Maps, some of which are more accurate than others.

Inception:

See also: Dora the Explorer does Inception (warning: commercial before viewing)

And another clever little aural cue from inception.

Time Travel

101 years ago, someone predicted that today would be the day cars were finally banned.

Youtube Time Machine. I might have just wasted ten minutes of my life watching commercials from 1986.

( Homemade Nutter Butters )

( Layering Shrug )

( The Duchess )

What I learned from this film:
1. Living with your abusive rapist of a husband and his lover is totally a happy ending, because you get to still have contact with your children (except for the one, but it’s a bastard, so it doesn’t count).

2. A corollary to number 1: sleeping with your best friend’s abusive rapist of a husband is totally ok, if you do it for the children.

3. It’s not a lesbian makeout scene if one of them is thinking about a guy. Or, I guess, if you’re doing it for the children.

Currently watching on Netflix: Top Gear! I don't know if my complete lack of understanding of cars or car culture is making this show better or worse.

Currently knitting: Butterfly hat in malabrigo. I might have a few more ends to weave in the layering shrug, but . . . malabrigo. It's so soft, and squishy, and ooh. . .

Currently listening to: Romantica, America This is shaping up to be one of those purchases that seemed like a good idea after an awesome set, but isn't actually anything I want to listen to on a day to day basis,

Currently open in other tabs: Somewhat old article about what it's like to be black in Utah. It came up earlier.
Clothes on Film A collection of essays about. . . clothes on film.
The political implications of fast vs. slow zombies.
A dozen job applications I said I'd finish this weekend. Whoops.

( Sherlock (why yes, I'm late) )

( Dragon Quest IX )

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switchbladesis

October 2012

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