Category Archives: media

Crumbling infrastructure

First the exploding steam pipe in New York City, now a problem with electrical power in San Francisco that caused a transformer to explode under Mission Street. This latest power outage has taken out many websites, including LiveJournal.
Our urban infrastructure is crumbling around us, and nobody wants to pay for it. I’m also [...]

Sigh.

Melissa over at Shakesville posted an entry yesterday about a Brazilian yogurt ad that featured three larger women in sexy poses from movies (one was the famous Marilyn Monroe pose) but communicated the message that these women will never meet men’s preferences unless they eat that yogurt and get rid of that weight. Yes, [...]

The latest fannish hoo-ha

Just my US$0.02:
I figure anybody who tapes bacon to his cat as a work avoidance tactic and lives to blog about it has fannish nature. Let the Nippon2007 voters decide about the latest manifestation of fanwriting.

Make the harassers own their misbehavior!

I’ve been thinking about the extreme harassment Kathy Sierra has gotten ever since Liz Henry brought it to my attention. It’s been burning up electrons on one of my mailing lists, and it’s made the technology blog of sfgate.com.
My response to trolls in the past was honed in the Usenet days; it was best [...]

Some students at my alma mater need a clue by four upside the head ASAP

Recently, some Santa Clara University students thought it would be fun to have a “South of the Border” themed party. Things rapidly devolved and controversy ensued. I was disgusted to read the story in the San Jose Mercury News a couple of days ago.
Fortunately, it seems like some Santa Clarans aren’t afraid to [...]

Wingnut pressure on the Edwards campaign

The John Edwards campaign is getting pressure from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League to fire Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon) and Melissa McEwan (Shakespeare’s Sister) due to postings they have made on their weblogs.
I just sent this message to the Edwards folks:
Keep Amanda and Melissa working on your web presence. The people most enraged [...]

Remembering Carl Sagan

Today is the Carl Sagan blogathon.
I wanted to add my own short appreciation of his work; Cosmos was one of the first hardback books I bought myself that wasn’t a textbook; The Dragons of Eden was another early addition to my library.

My first scientific love as a child was astronomy; I moved on to chemistry [...]

Hm, not *everything* has to be knit…

Despite her nom du blog, the closest the Yarn Harlot gets to NC-17 stuff is when she comes across some wonderfully soft yarn that she just wants to wallow in and rub all over herself. I can’t blame her for that, I’ve gone all nuts over a big stash of Malabrigo, or baby alpaca, [...]

Oh. My. Goddess.

Found on AustenBlog:
There’s a proposal out for a manga adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Check a sample out.

I want this with an absolutely unholy passion. September 2007 cannot come quickly enough.

Some things should not come out of a Muppet’s mouth, ok?

There’s a little video of Martin Scorsese sound bites dubbed into the Sesame Street gang’s mouths up on YouTube called “Sesame Streets”, and even though it was funny, I did need to revisit the classic Steve Wonder performance of “Superstition” on Sesame Street back in ‘73 to get the video’s bits with Bert and Ernie [...]