http://www.psmag.com/blogs/time-machine/radio-gender-women-technology-sector-52050
Is it comforting that this “girls aren’t allowed in my tech-geek club” thing has a long and prestigious history? I mean, radio, that thing changed the world!
It does make me question how deep the gender hegemony rabbit hole goes, however. And more I see the righteous indignation about this “fake” geek girl, the fear that she has infiltrated our precious exclusive club and the rage at her presumption, the more I wonder about the gender-based implications of this. I have heard nothing of the “fake geek boy”. Is he a thing? Because I have seen no such memes on Tumblr yet— maybe I’m following the wrong individuals.
That said, let’s pan out a bit and look at this from a broader perspective. Let’s talk about the fake-geek versus the real-geek and ignore gender entirely for a moment. I know that this group was once fairly small and exclusive, founded on the precepts of liking-something-odd, liking-that-thing-too-much, and not-much-caring-about-the-effect-it-has-on-my-popularity-ranking. And our numbers have swelled to much larger than I ever assumed we would. We found the coolest things ever, but no one else got it and we couldn’t understand why. And then we were shunned, became social pariahs, banished to the far end of cafeterias across the nation and forced to surreptitiously sneak into unoccupied classrooms to roll new characters for the weekend’s campaign. Before it was a subculture, geekery was a clique, and not one you wanted to be in. And it was painful, but we wore that shit with pride when we got on the other side. WE SURVIVED.
But now more people are recognizing how cool those things are. They are joining us in our liking-it-too-much sort of way, and wanting to talk about it and learn the cannon, and write fanfic, and omg did you hear that Joss Whedon is coming to SXSW to discuss Much Ado? We broke that ground for these up-and-coming geeks and now they can like the things that we like and share it with this giant, (usually) accepting community. We should be happy how far we’ve come and be proud that we carried these precious relics through the metaphorical Dark Ages until the rest of the world caught up and saw it for how awesome it is. We helped promote share this with the world and that is ridiculously fantastic! And clinging to the pain-that-was, the exclusionary concept of if-you-didn’t-go-through-real-ostracism-you-aren’t-a-real-geek is the most negative and undeserving way to characterize ourselves. Geeks and geekery is too mindblowingly fantastic for that to be our defining characteristic.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Husband on: Calendars
Me: You want to go to this party on Saturday?
Husband: Sure.
Me: I'm going to make a create a calendar event so I don't forget. I'll add you to it. Which calendar do you use?
Husband: The Julian Calendar...?
Me: /loses it
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Internet Personalities
I was one of those that backed Ze Frank's A Show project on Kickstarter. I'm a fan of both of these things so their union was a beautiful melding of not-dissimilar worlds. I chipped in as much as my student budget would allow, and did some sort or wiggle-shimmy hybrid dance in anticipation of having a consistent dose of Ze again. Not long after, I received an email giving me links to my goodies and asking me to send a picture so that it could be posted on his Wall of Thank.
Right.
A picture.
This is going to be a thing.
Whether intentional or not, the nature of the internet allows for crafted personalities. We post pictures we want people to see, tweet things that we want others to think that we think are interesting. When a friend posts an embarrassing photo of us on Facebook, we experience that very special panic that never existed prior to the advent of social networking and photo tagging. Factual example: I once did a bit about 85+ days of heat. I did not have that information hiding out in my brain anyplace. If you look at my original draft, it says that the Season of the Heat was divided into 14 different eras based on the ruling families and technological advancement during that time. Once husband assured me that this was not true and (based on the amount of time that actually passed) could only theoretically be possible for strains of bacteria, I came to accept my need to Google a bit. But I sounded like I knew precisely how many days had passed. I portrayed myself as the sort of person who pays attention to temperature trends. Or who reads weather statistics. Or makes a tick on the wall every time there is another day of blistering heat like some sort of post-apocalyptic survivor searching for anything meaningful to keep her sanity.
This leads to interesting possibilities of turning a personality into art form. Finely controlled content diffusion, each piece being formed and shaped to support the whole. Like a mosaic. Or collage. Except instead of glossy magazine cutouts, it's photos of your vacation, and tagged body bits at a party, and tweets about your day, and bits of speech that would have been brilliant and cutting if only you had thought of it in the moment.
And let's be honest here-- it's not just the internet. Human beings are always posing for the persona camera. People meeting for the first time often list what they want the other person to most pay attention to. Because we attribute various values to different life achievements. A Harvard graduate "wins" over being community college degree holder. A chef is "better" than a customer support representative. A doctor beats everything because DAMMIT, THEY SAVE LIVES. Rarely do we describe ourselves on a first meeting as having failed fourth grade or as currently suffering from IBS. That said, the internet is uniquely capable of giving us fine control over this natural tendency. We gain control not only of what we choose to say, but craft precisely how we want to say it, in what venue, and how we look while we do it.
(I'd love to datamine FaceBook to see what the things we post actually say about ourselves and our culture. I would make charts. They would be in fantastic colors.)
So I was asked to provide a picture and there was nothing that I already had that felt like it portrayed who I really am. Or rather, who I think I really am that I want the everyone to see and think I really am. I go through this every time I have to upload an account picture. I'm get scared of random non-issues like what-if-I'm-the-only-one-with-a-serious-picture. That's like showing up to a beach party in formal wear-- I have no idea how to play that off. (And then I get self-conscious and awkward and then no one asks me to dance.)
So I thought about doing the classic phone-camera-in-the-bathroom shot-- I could say I was being ironic. Or that I was trying to craft a postmodern homage to 2005 social networking. (But then I don't think it would stand up under critique.) I do have a lot of sillyly pretentious hipstamatic photos, I suppose I could use one of those. But is that still cool? Or is it not cool? Has it become so cool that it's not cool now? Can it be ironically cool to like a thing that was once cool but isn't cool anymore? If I pretend that I don't care that it's cool, is that cool? (I never actually fully understood the science of cool-- any cool that I might have displayed in my life cannot be claimed as purposeful, so I am abandoning it.)
But then I remembered that I just got my fancy new camera thus providing the excuse to play around with it. I took many many photos of myself exhibiting different facial expressions, none of which I am certain any human creature makes in real life.
Have you seen these faces?
I eventually settled on the photo I've currently been using on social networking sites. Maybe it's not the honestest picture ever, but at least it says something about how I currently feel about how I think I should be portrayed. And that's some sort of meta-level of honesty, I suppose.
Right.
A picture.
This is going to be a thing.
Whether intentional or not, the nature of the internet allows for crafted personalities. We post pictures we want people to see, tweet things that we want others to think that we think are interesting. When a friend posts an embarrassing photo of us on Facebook, we experience that very special panic that never existed prior to the advent of social networking and photo tagging. Factual example: I once did a bit about 85+ days of heat. I did not have that information hiding out in my brain anyplace. If you look at my original draft, it says that the Season of the Heat was divided into 14 different eras based on the ruling families and technological advancement during that time. Once husband assured me that this was not true and (based on the amount of time that actually passed) could only theoretically be possible for strains of bacteria, I came to accept my need to Google a bit. But I sounded like I knew precisely how many days had passed. I portrayed myself as the sort of person who pays attention to temperature trends. Or who reads weather statistics. Or makes a tick on the wall every time there is another day of blistering heat like some sort of post-apocalyptic survivor searching for anything meaningful to keep her sanity.
This leads to interesting possibilities of turning a personality into art form. Finely controlled content diffusion, each piece being formed and shaped to support the whole. Like a mosaic. Or collage. Except instead of glossy magazine cutouts, it's photos of your vacation, and tagged body bits at a party, and tweets about your day, and bits of speech that would have been brilliant and cutting if only you had thought of it in the moment.
And let's be honest here-- it's not just the internet. Human beings are always posing for the persona camera. People meeting for the first time often list what they want the other person to most pay attention to. Because we attribute various values to different life achievements. A Harvard graduate "wins" over being community college degree holder. A chef is "better" than a customer support representative. A doctor beats everything because DAMMIT, THEY SAVE LIVES. Rarely do we describe ourselves on a first meeting as having failed fourth grade or as currently suffering from IBS. That said, the internet is uniquely capable of giving us fine control over this natural tendency. We gain control not only of what we choose to say, but craft precisely how we want to say it, in what venue, and how we look while we do it.
(I'd love to datamine FaceBook to see what the things we post actually say about ourselves and our culture. I would make charts. They would be in fantastic colors.)
So I was asked to provide a picture and there was nothing that I already had that felt like it portrayed who I really am. Or rather, who I think I really am that I want the everyone to see and think I really am. I go through this every time I have to upload an account picture. I'm get scared of random non-issues like what-if-I'm-the-only-one-with-a-serious-picture. That's like showing up to a beach party in formal wear-- I have no idea how to play that off. (And then I get self-conscious and awkward and then no one asks me to dance.)
So I thought about doing the classic phone-camera-in-the-bathroom shot-- I could say I was being ironic. Or that I was trying to craft a postmodern homage to 2005 social networking. (But then I don't think it would stand up under critique.) I do have a lot of sillyly pretentious hipstamatic photos, I suppose I could use one of those. But is that still cool? Or is it not cool? Has it become so cool that it's not cool now? Can it be ironically cool to like a thing that was once cool but isn't cool anymore? If I pretend that I don't care that it's cool, is that cool? (I never actually fully understood the science of cool-- any cool that I might have displayed in my life cannot be claimed as purposeful, so I am abandoning it.)
But then I remembered that I just got my fancy new camera thus providing the excuse to play around with it. I took many many photos of myself exhibiting different facial expressions, none of which I am certain any human creature makes in real life.
Have you seen these faces?
I eventually settled on the photo I've currently been using on social networking sites. Maybe it's not the honestest picture ever, but at least it says something about how I currently feel about how I think I should be portrayed. And that's some sort of meta-level of honesty, I suppose.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Spousal Argument #1
Husband might be drunk. Or I might be tired. Or I just might have questionable tastes on hilarity, I have no objective knowledge on such a thing.
clears seconds from the microwave
Husband: Did you just clear unused seconds?
Me: I did.
Husband: I was saving those seconds, you just wasted them.
Me: They were stale seconds. You can't use stale seconds, I won't allow it in my house.
Husband: Millions of seconds go unused everyday, orphan seconds!
Me: Not orphaned, these are not cute Shirley-Temple-seconds, these are parasite-of-society seconds. What were you even going to use those seconds on? They won't go on anything, they are useless, leech seconds. Loitering around my microwave timer-- loitering is not permitted on the premises.
Husband: Greatest culprit? Popcorn seconds. People fear the popcorn seconds. They play a game of chicken with the popcorn seconds. Caught in a devil's choice of over-irradiated popcorn and teeth shattering kernels.
clears seconds from the microwave
Husband: Did you just clear unused seconds?
Me: I did.
Husband: I was saving those seconds, you just wasted them.
Me: They were stale seconds. You can't use stale seconds, I won't allow it in my house.
Husband: Millions of seconds go unused everyday, orphan seconds!
Me: Not orphaned, these are not cute Shirley-Temple-seconds, these are parasite-of-society seconds. What were you even going to use those seconds on? They won't go on anything, they are useless, leech seconds. Loitering around my microwave timer-- loitering is not permitted on the premises.
Husband: Greatest culprit? Popcorn seconds. People fear the popcorn seconds. They play a game of chicken with the popcorn seconds. Caught in a devil's choice of over-irradiated popcorn and teeth shattering kernels.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
MMO Factioning and the Allure of the Evil
Star Wars: The Old Republic (called TOR from here on out because I am lazy and do not want to type so many words the next 70 gadgillion times I mention it.) launches on December 20th. But since every one of my gaming friends already knew they would play it, they preordered it. (Early access for preorder customers started December 13th.) That was far too much planning for me. I pride myself on my spontaneity-- I'm never completely sure what I'll be doing later in the day, much less in later months. Planning that far ahead uses too much brain space that could be dedicated to whatever instant gratification I'm courting this very moment. So I showed them. I'm sitting at my computer reading all their updates on Facebook about it instead of actually playing the thing. Yeah. That makes me the winner.
Invariably, my conversations with these individuals have been turning to the game. What's great, what's frustrating, what their character progression is. In TOR, you choose a faction (determines your "side" or group in a game) and a character class (determines your powers and abilities) just like in any other MMO. As per usual, the faction you chose affects the story you're told throughout the game. Factions are usually portrayed with a difference in art style-- there is usually a "light" and a"dark" side to choose from. This provides players with a choice in what sort of style they would like their character to have. The background story to these factions have traditionally been lore-rich but ambiguous in terms of which side is the correct or the "good" one. Motivations for factions have spanned political, religious, and economic disagreements.
Not so in TOR! The two factions presented are the Empire and the Republic. Never before has there been such a blatant non-moral gray area in MMO factioning. Anyone who has briefly popped their head into the realm of western pop-culture knows the moral implication of these sides. In their creation, every stereotypical good vs. bad trope was used. The Sith have billowing cloaks and bloodshot eyes and a fondness for black. The Jedi have light robes and fresh-faced youths and far more sage old men than are truly necessary.
Honestly, I don't think there is any real argument as to the "goodness" of the Empire. Which leads me to wonder who would want to play Empire? This is the side that explodes planets full of people, burns farmers alive, and only wins in one out of three movies.* (I'm fairly certain that there is puppy-kicking, balloon-popping and candy-stealing antics off-screen as well.) The Empire isn't just evil, it's eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. It comes complete with a cackle and a rasp and a dramatic turn in an elaborate office chair-throne.
And yet, even with the pure evilness of the faction, I could still see reasons to play Empire. There's the allure of going rogue, for example. The character who becomes impatient, or fed up with the establishment and the rules and hoops to jump through, so decides to take a more volatile path. But that's not what happens here-- the Sith is "The Man" and is fully embracing all that comes with it. Or maybe if the game was the path to evil. (Like in those movies about Anakin Skywalker which were never made.) Where you start off and you just want some extra money, or if you cheat it's slightly faster to achieve your goal, or rationalizing that it's okay to kill just this one perso--whoops! I accidentally became evil. But again, this is not what happens. The steps to the Empire are:
So when I ask "who would want to play Empire?" it turns out the answer to that question is "the majority of my friends," which has me seriously questioning the choices I've made that have lead me to this social group. When I tell them I just cannot come to terms with playing pure, undeniable evil I am informed that I need to come to terms with MANNING UP AND GET TO THE MURDERING.
Of course I understand choosing Republic-- I'm sure most of us who saw the only three Star Wars movies that matter played Jedi at some point with large sticks that inevitably ended with someone being punctured or dinged. But why Empire? Is it the desire to act out things you would never do in real life? Is it the darker art style? Is it a backstory pre-written in a player's head? Are the stories more interesting? Is it the lightning? (Actually, I would totally understand if it's the lightning.) The only way to find out, I suppose, is to try it out. I hear you can be a light-side Sith-- is that even a thing?!
*Edit: Husband tells me that the Empire technically is winning in A New Hope, to which I countered "Yeah, but they weren't winning the BATTLE that was portrayed in that film." And he replied, "That's correct, the Empire did not win the Battle of Yavin" which sounded like he was saying that I won, but it doesn't feel like winning should and I think it may be because he out-nerded me, but I'm going to ignore that feeling since it doesn't suit my needs at this juncture.
Invariably, my conversations with these individuals have been turning to the game. What's great, what's frustrating, what their character progression is. In TOR, you choose a faction (determines your "side" or group in a game) and a character class (determines your powers and abilities) just like in any other MMO. As per usual, the faction you chose affects the story you're told throughout the game. Factions are usually portrayed with a difference in art style-- there is usually a "light" and a"dark" side to choose from. This provides players with a choice in what sort of style they would like their character to have. The background story to these factions have traditionally been lore-rich but ambiguous in terms of which side is the correct or the "good" one. Motivations for factions have spanned political, religious, and economic disagreements.
Not so in TOR! The two factions presented are the Empire and the Republic. Never before has there been such a blatant non-moral gray area in MMO factioning. Anyone who has briefly popped their head into the realm of western pop-culture knows the moral implication of these sides. In their creation, every stereotypical good vs. bad trope was used. The Sith have billowing cloaks and bloodshot eyes and a fondness for black. The Jedi have light robes and fresh-faced youths and far more sage old men than are truly necessary.
Honestly, I don't think there is any real argument as to the "goodness" of the Empire. Which leads me to wonder who would want to play Empire? This is the side that explodes planets full of people, burns farmers alive, and only wins in one out of three movies.* (I'm fairly certain that there is puppy-kicking, balloon-popping and candy-stealing antics off-screen as well.) The Empire isn't just evil, it's eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. It comes complete with a cackle and a rasp and a dramatic turn in an elaborate office chair-throne.
And yet, even with the pure evilness of the faction, I could still see reasons to play Empire. There's the allure of going rogue, for example. The character who becomes impatient, or fed up with the establishment and the rules and hoops to jump through, so decides to take a more volatile path. But that's not what happens here-- the Sith is "The Man" and is fully embracing all that comes with it. Or maybe if the game was the path to evil. (Like in those movies about Anakin Skywalker which were never made.) Where you start off and you just want some extra money, or if you cheat it's slightly faster to achieve your goal, or rationalizing that it's okay to kill just this one perso--whoops! I accidentally became evil. But again, this is not what happens. The steps to the Empire are:
- Purchase the game
- Choose an account name
- Choose a subscription plan
- Choose evil
So when I ask "who would want to play Empire?" it turns out the answer to that question is "the majority of my friends," which has me seriously questioning the choices I've made that have lead me to this social group. When I tell them I just cannot come to terms with playing pure, undeniable evil I am informed that I need to come to terms with MANNING UP AND GET TO THE MURDERING.
Of course I understand choosing Republic-- I'm sure most of us who saw the only three Star Wars movies that matter played Jedi at some point with large sticks that inevitably ended with someone being punctured or dinged. But why Empire? Is it the desire to act out things you would never do in real life? Is it the darker art style? Is it a backstory pre-written in a player's head? Are the stories more interesting? Is it the lightning? (Actually, I would totally understand if it's the lightning.) The only way to find out, I suppose, is to try it out. I hear you can be a light-side Sith-- is that even a thing?!
*Edit: Husband tells me that the Empire technically is winning in A New Hope, to which I countered "Yeah, but they weren't winning the BATTLE that was portrayed in that film." And he replied, "That's correct, the Empire did not win the Battle of Yavin" which sounded like he was saying that I won, but it doesn't feel like winning should and I think it may be because he out-nerded me, but I'm going to ignore that feeling since it doesn't suit my needs at this juncture.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Sickness, Science and Superheros
I'm sick and sorely disappointed about it. It's a violation of all the rules. And that probably needs some explanation.
Two years ago, I attended PAX for the first time. And not being one to miss anything, I was sure to hit every party, panel and playtest I could. I was a flurry of movement across the convention floor. I wanted to experience everything PAX had to offer. This even continued well into the week after PAX-- when I realized that I had also picked up H1Nerd1. I considered it the cooldown for the epic awesomeness that was PAX. But I was confined to a bed for a week, and barred from work for two.
Months later, I was devouring my morning knowledge when I read that Swine Flu survivors were less likely to get the flu. What I thought was a cooldown was actually a quest. A horrible, mucus-ladden, cold-sweat-inducing quest, but it awarded the phat purp of being immune to the flu! I became a superhero, able to stop viruses in their tracks. In fact, every time I told the story about the new finding, the resulting effect became more incredible-- last week when I told this story, I informed my listener that I could now be ressurected by the mucuses-that-never-were, surrounding me like a cocoon and absorbing whatever it was that killed me. Pretty cool, I know. But I can't take the credit. I am an unwilling hero, but with great power comes great responsibilty. The responsibility of keeping up the legend by never getting sick.
So I woke up this morning with a tickle in the back of my throat. I'm hoping it goes away by tomorrow, so I can continue working on my 270-verse ballad called "Cy's Amazing Battle with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and His Henchmen Prions, Which She Won and Then She Threw a Party" (working title). To affect me with even a slight tickle must mean that this is a fearsome opponent. B tells me that what I thought was a epic was a green at best. Only providing a 20% resist to rhinoviruses and orthomyxoviridae and, if the status effect is applied, a 25% reduction in effect and duration. I suspect he is just jealous of my superpowers and wants me to live a normal life, but such a thing cannot be, and I will not be convinced. The only explanation is that someone is cheating, it's a violation of the rules and I demand retribution.
He did also say, however, that eating ice cream will help heal any virus-related throat-tickles. I've decided that I do believe that and I hearby resolve to eat a pint for good measure. Just until this grevious oversight is righted.
Two years ago, I attended PAX for the first time. And not being one to miss anything, I was sure to hit every party, panel and playtest I could. I was a flurry of movement across the convention floor. I wanted to experience everything PAX had to offer. This even continued well into the week after PAX-- when I realized that I had also picked up H1Nerd1. I considered it the cooldown for the epic awesomeness that was PAX. But I was confined to a bed for a week, and barred from work for two.
Months later, I was devouring my morning knowledge when I read that Swine Flu survivors were less likely to get the flu. What I thought was a cooldown was actually a quest. A horrible, mucus-ladden, cold-sweat-inducing quest, but it awarded the phat purp of being immune to the flu! I became a superhero, able to stop viruses in their tracks. In fact, every time I told the story about the new finding, the resulting effect became more incredible-- last week when I told this story, I informed my listener that I could now be ressurected by the mucuses-that-never-were, surrounding me like a cocoon and absorbing whatever it was that killed me. Pretty cool, I know. But I can't take the credit. I am an unwilling hero, but with great power comes great responsibilty. The responsibility of keeping up the legend by never getting sick.
So I woke up this morning with a tickle in the back of my throat. I'm hoping it goes away by tomorrow, so I can continue working on my 270-verse ballad called "Cy's Amazing Battle with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and His Henchmen Prions, Which She Won and Then She Threw a Party" (working title). To affect me with even a slight tickle must mean that this is a fearsome opponent. B tells me that what I thought was a epic was a green at best. Only providing a 20% resist to rhinoviruses and orthomyxoviridae and, if the status effect is applied, a 25% reduction in effect and duration. I suspect he is just jealous of my superpowers and wants me to live a normal life, but such a thing cannot be, and I will not be convinced. The only explanation is that someone is cheating, it's a violation of the rules and I demand retribution.
He did also say, however, that eating ice cream will help heal any virus-related throat-tickles. I've decided that I do believe that and I hearby resolve to eat a pint for good measure. Just until this grevious oversight is righted.
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