beccastareyes

Debating on getting a tumblr for art posts. I'm not really sure what tumblr is useful for besides as a picture/image macro delivery service. (You can share short bits of prose, but I'm not really sure if it is good for sharing my writing.)

So, have some fail that has nothing to do with whose butts are in the chairs in DC (or Florida writing racist laws).

Fiction Ally, a HP fanfic archive, writes a grant for charity Includes such lines from the admins as "I've done the research and I'm here to tell you that there are far more sources of funding available to starving children in Africa than there are to fan-oriented websites." (Later edited out because most people were like 'Yeah, that's because feeding the hungry is more important than (over)-paying for your webhosting'.)

DeviantART displays massive ignorance about genderqueer/intersex folks... on Spirit Day Basically an almost willful misunderstanding about why someone might not want to choose 'male' or 'female', and that even the 'don't show gender' option still shows as pronoun usage. Someone seriously needs training on gender issues. (Also, seriously, it does not take much coding options to program in an 'Other'/'Unspecified' and have some (ugly) 's/he's and 'him/her's -- no one's asking to go down the list of third-gendered pronouns on Wikipedia. A small thing that creates goodwill with folks outside the gender binary.)

Cooks Source Magazine are Copyright-Violating Content Thieves Basically, writer writes an article on apple pies for her SCA site. Cooks Source takes it and publishes it, without permission or payment. Then the editor claims that anything on the interbutts is public domain (hint: it isn't unless it says it is) and she should be grateful for the exposure and that they didn't just slap on someone else's name (hint: you can't do that, even for public domain sources).

And, as a palate cleanser, have a story about my mother's cousin, who coaches high school football and is up for Boston.com's Coach of the Year. Because having his football team mentor a kid with Downs Syndrome is happy-making. I can also find you some kittens and bunnies, I guess...

So, I mod a DeviantArt group -- it's a small group mostly set up as a fanclub for a certain series, specifically 'shipping certain characters. Aw, hell, naming names -- I mod the Slayers-TRAD group which is mainly geared towards Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia, but allows for other ships that do not conflict with these two*. I recently affiliated our group with other Slayers fans-clubs on DevART, so we got a bit more attention.

Today I log on and have to clear out ten pictures, three or four of which are 'Here is my original character, who is Zelgadis's true love, and here is their child together'. Which... you know what? That's great if you want to draw your character, but she's off-topic for this group. And of course, because I am but a single mod, other members notice before me and I get a polite 'um... what?' from one of them.

And most of the rest of the new pictures posted today are single character shots, which are nice, but there are other spots to archive them.

* No one's asked about polyshipping that doesn't break up one of these two pairings. If someone draws or write this, I'd be for posting, but I'd probably agree to abide by a vote.

Okay, I've got Invoking Urania over on DW (here. Mainly because I decided I prefer a place where all my friends are for blogging, and I can tell it to crosspost things to InsaneJournal anyway -- overall, since more people use OpenID to leave comments, since IJ is a bit of a ghost town, it doesn't make much difference. If things work out, I'll get a paid account and start crossposting to Invoking Urania on LJ again.

Plus, there's nesting tags. Look at this. Snazzy. (Yes, I still have a default layout. Give me time, folks.)

I still miss my icons, though. I care less in fic journals, though.

All the content over there is stuff I've already posted to the Internets. Except a trio of fanart pieces, which have been up on DevART and Elfwood and my site and various LJ comms and... okay, I don't know if anyone's seen them, but here . (I'm not gonna start posting my massive backlog of original and exchange art there, but I'll do it as I go.)

In other news, I have taken custody (legally -- I was sworn in on my Slayers Premium DVD and everything) of the CJAS anime archive. This means I have half a closet (a big closet) of anime, mostly from the 1980s to mid 2000s. (About when people started downloading anime). Plus a VHS and Laserdisc player. Yes, you need that to watch some of the stuff in the archives. There's also stuff like several projectors, a table and chairs, the Weekly Get Rid of It! box*, raffle (well, ROFL) prizes, and our banner.

* Filled with free stuff anime companies send us that we regularly give away to members.

Star Trek tonight! Yay for Star Trek!

So, I'm trying to think of a Halloween costume. Here are my criteria, in order from strongest to least strong:

1. No wigs. Hats are okay, and makeup is okay, and I might even go for hair extensions, but I don't feel like putting down the money for a quality wig. (And I don't want to deal with a cheap wig -- someone else can tell the story about how Integra Hellsing suddenly developed short, dark hair because my cheap wig gave up the ghost around lunchtime of Day I of AnimeIowa)

2. Something I can wear to CJAS's cosplay contest. Which means anime or manga character. Maybe video game. Probably not anything from Western fandoms or webcomics.

3. Something that is recognizable as something* by the mundanes, in case I go out with my work friends, or decide to wear the costume to campus or something. By which, I mean, they might not recognize Kenshin Himura, but the sword and outfit look like 'samurai'.

* Something reasonably specific, not 'what the hell costume is that?'

( Current Ideas )

Also, I found this blog post by Mike Brown that pretty much sums up the whole planet debate. It makes the point that scientists had two classifications: 'round & geologically varied (plus the gas giants, which are round and atmospherically varied with interesting interiors)' versus 'not round and & impact-dominated geology' and 'single objects in distinct orbits' versus 'clouds of similar objects in similar orbits'. Both are useful, and a scientist might deal with one more than the other (a geologist cares more about the first, to the point of even throwing in moons, while a dynamicist the second), and asking 'which is a better classification scheme' is silly, because they are both good and useful things. The IAU wasn't asked that -- they were asked, which classification scheme should be used as planet versus not-a-planet. Which is really a judgment call.

I was thinking the same thing, but this post explains it better. I was thinking about it because I noticed Dr. Bell (Martian geologist) has a 'Save Pluto' bumper sticker pinned to his bulletin board. In retaliation (I assume), Dr. Margot (asteroid and Kuiper Belt dynamicist) put up a 'Save Pallas' sign on his bulletin board. (Guess what both of them think of the IAU's definition? Go on, guess.)

We also have a new official dwarf planet -- Pluto, Ceres and Eris can welcome Makemake (mah-keh-mah-keh) to their numbers. First dwarf planet named after a non-Greco-Roman god, also! (Makemake was the creation deity of Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) -- Makemake was discovered near Easter, and informally called Easterbunny.)

So, I bit the bullet and bought a permanent account. I'll come up with a snazzy layout later. And maybe a moon theme.

But, hey, this means I can do polls now. ^_^ I'm trying to figure out what of my writing I should work on next -- I want to write at least a chapter on a longer fic before going back to shorter fics. I've got two WIPs, and some stuff in planning.

( Read more... )

I am tempted to start a non-journaling blog for my various political/philosophical rantings -- mostly because I don't know how much you all care, since this one is mostly fandom + real life. I guess it seems like everyone has a blog. I mean, my dad has a blog. Granted, it's mostly the birds he's photographed and rants about how he's not sure which he dislikes worse -- those darn liberals, the crazy fundies*, or the University of Nebraska's administration + athletic department.

(My father is an agnostic Republican. For those not familiar with American politics, this makes him very lonely, as the Republicans have discovered that evangelical Christians make a nice stable voter base. Also, Nebraska = big footballl school.)

I also got a Facebook. Since I've been trying to keep my fandom and real life separate (it's mostly failing), I'd prefer not to link it here, but people who care can look me up. I'm still not sure what the point is.

It says something about me that it takes me a half hour to get from Lolcats on Journalfen to looking for free fractal-generating programs, and all the steps involved made (some degree of) sense. I blame Wikipedia.