Pattern Ghost

She's trying to appropriate a tragedy for her unrelated cause. That's low. It's also a gross oversimplification of a serious problem that can't be summed up with a pithy buzzword.

She's trying to appropriate a tragedy for her unrelated cause. That's low. It's also a gross oversimplification of a serious problem that can't be summed up with a pithy buzzword.

While the vileness of her attackers disgusts me . . . she's a moron, and also a bit sleazy in trying to use a shooting to boost her cause.

Well, their police can do math.

I got so excited the wife looked at me funny.

After reading that paragraph I couldn't take anything this blogger said as having value.  How is this different from saying that hating is men is what feminism is, or saying that Islam is terrorism?

Recent ear worm "All About That Bass" done by a country a capella group called Home Free:
 

Made a robot for the upcoming archetype, haven't thought of a name yet:
 

Someone needs to not use an orange background and to learn where their shift key is.

As A Father Of Daughters, I Think We Should Treat All Women Like My Daughters 

http://www.mtv.com/news/1922858/gisele-bundchen-under-armour-commercial/

Even if we assume the victim is telling the truth (she probably is, I'm just pointing out that the allegations are still at the allegation phase), this is one comic book shop. It's a single point of data. A disturbing point. But it doesn't give us a wide enough view of comic shops in general to merit the title the piece is given.
 
I can list several stores here that have happy female employees, and a few in California. In fact, I could say that the majority of the comic shops I've visited in the last ten or fifteen years had female employees that seemed to be being treated well, the evidence for that being a postiive demeanor and low turn over rate of said employees.
 
I think it's good to bring this stuff to light, but the headline is clearly click bait, and points with a broad brush. Yes, there are clearly problems in all levels of the industry, and they should always be called out, but can it be done without sensationalistic headlines and hyperbole? 

I always thought the whole "cis" thing was just jargon made up lately by the gender/sex studies crowd to define variations of sexual self identity. (My understanding is that the word means your gender and your sex match up in your head. I could be wrong. (I'm also fairly certain that I'm a man trapped in a fat man's body. One of these days that fat bastard will let me out.)) I've seen it tossed around a bit in non-technical discussions, but just took it as some authors being pretentious. I've particularly seen it used in gender/sex related rants. Seems like it's pretty contained among certain crowds.
 
I've never considered it to be an attempt to infect day to day language with more political correctness. If I catch anyone doing that, I'll be sure to put a cis-shoe up their butt.
 
On the third hand, "cis" is a more polite word than "breeder." 

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities
 

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities
 

 
NO, it is NOT.
 
EMPHATICALLY NOT.
 
It is a grave disservice to paint advocates of crime prevention and avoidance training and self defense as victim blamers. In fact, it's ass-backwards. The reason for promoting awareness and self defense is to help people avoid being victims. PEOPLE. Not just women. Everybody should at least learn basic crime prevention and learn how to not look like a victim. Self defense is another matter. Many people don't have the stomach for physical conflict, and that's a personal issue.
 
However, when you say "It's not that easy for most women to fight back. Remember that most women are much smaller than the average male and not as strong," you are promoting a VICTIM MINDSET. You do not have to win to defend against rape. You should NEVER allow anyone to take you to a secondary location, because your chance of dying skyrockets; it's an almost certain death. No matter if you think you can win or not, you can delay and you can make noise, and possibly save your life. Do you know how many girls and women have died because of this mindset, because when threatened by a male, they gave in and allowed themselves to be taken to a secondary location???
 
You know what the sad part is? ALL of this is simple stuff. All of the required behaviors can be learned. They may not save you, but they can damned sure decrease your odds of becoming a victim.
 
I'm goddamned sick of people twisting the argument on preserving one's life and securing one's person to one based on gender. This is not about gender. This is about realizing that there are evil people in this world and learning to avoid them and prevent them from doing you harm.

Okay, three things:
 
1) The article on casual cruelty against women pointed to Anita Sarkeesian's latest video, and Ms Sarkeesian talks about how the depiction of violence against women in video games is different than the depiction of violence against men in the same games.  I'm not going to repeat or summarize what she said.  Go watch the video if you are curious.
 
2) The vast majority of AAA game titles center upon a male protagonist who is the most important character in the game.  Most of the time if he rescues or fails to rescue any particular female in distress the game goes on either way.  Only when the male protagonist dies is all hope considered lost and the game ends.  Most people both male and female would choose to be someone whose actions matter, but in video games this role is usually reserved for male characters.
 
3) Yes, men tend to be portrayed in games, fiction, and news reports as being kind of expendable.  There deaths aren't presented as being as tragic in and of themselves as the deaths of women and children.  So I would consider it a fair point ... if men's rights activist decried this point in games and fiction.  They don't.  They do what you did.  Instead of saying that the game, movie or book is terrible for displaying men's lives as meaningless and expendable, they say that feminist are terrible for failing to decry the depiction of men's lives as being expendable.  Don't complain about the fact that feminist aren't picketing outside The Expendables 3, go picket it yourselves.  Then I will believe MRAs are serious about the issue.  Otherwise, I'm just going to believe that they (and you) are trying to score rhetorical points with an argument that they really believe themselves.

http://lesstitsnass.tumblr.com/post/95253962172/its-a-two-fer-courtesy-of-dcwomenkickingass

It wasn't the pose*, so much as the quality of the art. That thing wasn't worthy of being a cover piece in the least. Aside from being boring as hell, the execution was lacking.
 
(Sorry for the long quote, but the new quoting thing is weird, so I'm not trying to edit in there.)
 
*Edit: Actually it is the pose, too. The ass-up pose works when the Spider-Person in question is crawling down something vertical, but when climbing over a ledge? Makes no sense whatsoever. That piece of art is trash.

Write a book.  Or kick someone in the head.
 
I know!  Kick someone in the head and write about it!
 
More seriously, if you were thinking of a career change, any kind of class or seminar related to the target field would be a good idea.  It would help alleviate the boredom, and might help with networking and resume-space-filling as well. 

Rise of the Machines!
 
A Nanotech-Powered AIDS-Killing Condom Is Closer than Ever

I'd like the trend to be more "competent" rather than "strong".
 
As for the new Tomb Raider, I've personally not played it (never played the original either -- my eye-hand coordination for those games ain't good).  But I wasn't comfortable with the reboot giving her a "nearly raped" back story.  That she had to be a "survivor" from that rather than just a kick-ass explorer.

SCREEEEEECH!
 
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
 
I would have told him "no" and pointed at the door. If that was a problem with the con organizers, I'd have packed up my things and left without running the game.
 
The old fashioned phrase "Didn't you parents raise you right?!" bursts forth. This isn't a male-female thing, or a sexism thing, or a privilege thing. Its a good breeding thing. Sheesh. Expletive huns.
 
Maybe my gaming groups were just a better class of loser, but there would have been beatings and expulsions. This issue of female PCs (players sex being irrelevant) having to deal with rape, STDs, or unwanted pregnancy wouldn't fly either.
 
My philosophy has been sexuality is PG-13 and "dress hits floor fade to black" unless the players *all* sign off. And, even then, it should be hot sexy cable sex rather than non-consensual sexual violence or petty prudish punishments.
 
Incidentally, the only character we ever had with rape in their back-story was a woman's character. And no one really wanted to touch that one with a ten-foot pole, either. Its a two way street -- not only should GMs clear this kind of crap with players, but players should clear them with GMs too.
 
You know, like normal decent thinking folk.