Tag Archives: internet

Geek Social Fallacies

These are pretty important imho and should be played forward in all subcultures. I first read this when it was published 14 years ago, more people need to know about the Geek Social Fallacies. Examining our own behaviours and social circles for GSF is important the whole article is a damn good read

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

GSF also inspired other articles like this one on Geek Social Fallacies about Sex (may not be SFW)
http://pervocracy.blogspot.ie/2012/02/geek-social-fallacies-of-sex.htmlhttp://pervocracy.blogspot.ie/2012/02/geek-social-fallacies-of-sex.html

and Geek Relationship Fallacies. Also it’s not just Geeks/Gamers/ect who do these things
https://captainawkward.com/2012/04/16/geek-relationship-fallacies/

GSF can allow for shitty behaviour to become accepted & normalized be by a person or a whole group of people.
Subcultures are for all people who are passionate about the things they do/read/watch/create.

I do want Irish Fandom/Geek/Maker/Activist spaces to be generally inclusive but intolerant to shitty behaviour, esp repeat shitty behaviour. Tolerating shitty behaviour in Fandom/Geek/Maker/Activist spaces is the broken windows of those spaces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

Geek social fallacies make dealing with such behaviour difficult & allows for too many ‘missing stairs’ to develop

http://pervocracy.blogspot.ie/2012/06/missing-stair.html (may not be SFW)

‘missing step’ is the shitty behaviour of a person which has become normalized, people adapt to them, being them, take safety measured but Sooner or later a new person will encounter this & suffer, cos we let it become normalised, & they don’t know the risk or history.

Honestly if I had my way I would have the Geek social Fallacies on the Jr Cert Social Personal and Health Education Curriculum SPHE.

“Feminism is nonnegotiable.” Margaret Cho

Twitter is something I use just about every day, I enjoy the engagement, the information streams and the sharing of things which I think are important and need changing. I usually ignore the number of followers, cos frankly if I think about it, I get self conscious. Often blogging and being on twitter for me, is something I do in the ‘dance like no one is watching’ mindset. Now and then things happen which make me go, woah! one of those things was happened last night and this was it.

Capture

But I don’t know if many people here in Ireland are aware of Margaret Cho, her work, her comedy, music, writing and activism. For me she is a like minded soul and someone who has made me feel less alone in the world. On the surface it would appear we have very little in common, she is after all Korean American but it was her bawdy sense of humor as a comedian, brought her to my notice, and the shared narrative of being a fat, feminist, sex positive, queer outspoken woman has me me revere her. She is the first person I think of when people (usually guys) say women aren’t funny or good as comedians.

Her comedy breaks down barriers, it is kick ass, sex positive, feminist, taboo breaking, queer, irreverent. Every tour is about what is going on in her life, as she strives to be who she is, not who the world, or her cultures or media says she should be. Her last tour in Dublin was 2003 it was the Revolution tour. Her current tour is Mother but there doesn’t seem to be plans for her to come and play here unfortunately.

There are feminist comedians which I think are wonderful like Joan Rivers and Lily Tomlin but I would not consider them to be of a same generation as me but Margaret Cho is. She also grew up in a Gay bookshop in San Francisco so the fact she is openly bisexual (and will make the point of saying so esp due to the fact she has a husband) and is a LGBT activist/advocate is not surprising.

There is a wonderful series of short interviews with here here:
http://on.aol.com/video/margaret-cho–sexism-still-exists-518011313

I know she is not everyone’s cup of tea, there are people who don’t understand why she would do a burlesque act tour or that would not be comfortable about how explicitly she talks about certain topics, but there is no way for me not to adore her, esp as she wrote my favorite song about oral sex called “Eat me out” which she preforms unabashedly.

 

http://margaretcho.com/
https://twitter.com/margaretcho
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Cho

School code of conduct amended to include ‘cyberbulling’.

We got a note home to day stating that the school’s code of conduct has been amended.
It’s a brave move, not sure how it will be implemented but it’s certainly drawing a line.

Online privacy and code of behavior.

Circulating, publishing or distributing (including on the internet) material associated with school activities including but not limited to material in relation to staff and students were such circulation undermines, humiliates or causes damage to another person is considered a serious breach of school discipline and may result in disciplinary action. As part of such disciplinary action the Board of Management reserves the right to suspend or expel a student or students where it considers the actions to warrant such sanctions.

That is the amendments and then letter goes on further to state.

At this point the Board of Management have ratified it and now staff parents and pupils have been informed that rull will come into effect immediately and will included in our official school Journal when the next set are ordered.

I think it does read to be heavy handed but having heard of some of the incidents which have inspired this, including the Photoshopping of pupils and students I can understand it.

While part of me is thinking of the rights of teenagers, rights come with responsibilities and in my experience the majority of parents don’t know how to teach their child to be responsible online and what is and is not acceptable. The best way to teach kids how to behave is to model that behavior and if parents aren’t doing that online, other people are, and often those other people are their peers and that can be problematic.

Having read the letter, again I am glad neither of my kids have a Facebook account, and long may that last.

When do opinion pieces in newspapers become masturbation?

I think I have found a new and sterling example.
This made me laugh so much there tears rolling down my face and I just could not help myself, it certainly says more about the author then those, they are passing comment on.

A particular corner of online Ireland seems to have it in for Ryan Tubridy. Boards.ie, a site that hosts a variety of special-interest forums, is buzzing with Friday-night haters who reckon the best way to end the week is watching The Late Late Show with a bottle of wine and the laptop next to them on the couch.

If their negative comments on the site are anything to go by, they sound like they are sitting there in leather bondage gear, with a pool ball tied into their mouth, the remote control just out of reach, being whipped by a dominatrix in a Ryan Tubridy mask. They take incredibly perverse pleasure from watching Tubridy every Friday. The worst thing you could do to them is cancel the Late Late. Except, of course, they’re masochists, so they’d probably enjoy the pain.

Read more: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/celebrity-news-gossip/irish-online-hate-wars-2866351.html#ixzz1X7QT28pm

A slight case of transference maybe? Oh no the laughing has started again.

MineCraft and my brats.

This has been a huge hit in our house and with a lot of my gamer friends.

Both kids have their own accounts and work together and with others to build, mine and explore. It’s been my daughters first foray into online servers for a pc game and it’s going well. Yes she has discovered asshats but is learning that as with real life if you don’t like how people are playing there comes a point where you walk away.

She has been playing that more then online games for the xbox as chat is the norm on xbox live and she no longer wants to be in a situation where she gets hassle for being a girl and young and playing on xbox live.

This doesn’t happen with Minecraft, both my brats know well how to stay safe online and not to give out info and how to quit any conversation they are not happy with and how to block people who are annoying asshats and to be careful they aren’t the annoying asshat.

Notch/Markus Alexej Persson (the creator of minecraft) currently is the desktop picture on my son’s pc. It seems that he may have replaced Peter Molyneux as the person he wants to be when he grows up. Yes Santa is bringing Fable 3 but the indie start up of Minecraft has certainly captured his imagination and at almost 13 he has already decided that he wants to do Computer Applications in TCD and then the MA in game development in DIT.

Minecraft is giving them both a chance to have control and crate the virtual environments they play in. They have both toyed around with level editors for games, usually race track games but the scope of minecraft is something they keep coming back to.

And they are not alone, they are reading the wikis and sharing knowledge on how to make and create things with others who log on to the sever to share the experience. I guess I have to face up to the fact my kids are pretty much immersed in gaming culture esp when I dragged from the kitchen to
watch this.

Minecraft and country music, my daughter is thrilled and is doing her best to learn all the words, I guess that will join Jonathan Coulton‘s song ‘Still Alive‘ from portals as a sing along in the car song.

I guess I don’t write that much about the types and amount of gaming we do esp as a family, I guess I should. So be warned there will be more posts.

Body armour based on brain plaque.

One of the many reason’s I follow Warren Ellis on twitter and the feed from his blog www.warrenellis.com is the intresting stuff he shares.

http://inhabitat.com/new-printable-armor-is-hardest-organic-substance-ever-designed/

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest of places. Case in point: scientists have just created a new super strong material based on the plaque found in Alzheimer’s patients’ brains. The new substance isn’t exactly the same as the plaque that causes the tragic disease, but it has a very similar chemical structure that is then coated with an additional protective layer. The tiny spheres that result are microscopic and when put together, form a printable substance that is tougher than steel, twice as tough as Kevlar and the hardest microscopic organic substance on Earth.

Read more: New Body Printable Organic Body Armor is Twice as Strong as Kevlar | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

Every now and then it’s nice to be reminded the world is a little bit stranger then I had thought.

A resurgence in Feminism in Ireland.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/1012/1224280865598.html

Younger sisters: say hello to the new feminists

Feminism is having an extraordinary resurgence, and it is young women who are at the forefront of the change. FIONOLA MEREDITH meets some of the bloggers and other activists at its heart

FEMINISM HAS BECOME a dirty word for many young women, an unfashionable agenda tainted by its populist caricature of man-hating, bra-burning and regulation hairiness. Feminism, it seemed, was to be treated with disdain, hostility or amusement, or simply ignored as a redundant historical project, while young women got on with their emancipated post-feminist lives – with, perhaps, a weekly visit to the pole-dancing class for good measure.

But the past few months have seen an extraordinary resurgence of feminist activism in Ireland and beyond, and it is young women who are at the forefront of this change. Blogs and Facebook groups are proliferating, and clubs, societies and grass-roots groups are springing up across the country. Hordes of angry, impassioned young women are locating their inner feminists. Many have come up sharply against unexpected discrimination, sexism and inequality. It has given them a painful jolt, and they want the world to know about it. In the words of one veteran activist, surprised and delighted by the sudden interest, “it’s bursting out all over here!”

Last month the Irish Feminist Network was launched in Dublin with the aim of destigmatising feminism and making it more relevant to a new generation. It was a success: 100 people attended, and its 22-year-old spokeswoman Madeline Hawke says the group, which will focus on the media and the political representation of women in Ireland, has big plans for the future. “We’re going to have a book club, a film club, a discussion group and ‘feminism in the pub’. We want to reclaim feminism, to challenge the preconception that feminists see sex as evil and men as bad. We want to give women the tools they need to go out into the world, to develop a strong sense of self.”

Cork Feminista is another new feminist group, set up a few weeks ago by Linda Kelly and Jennifer deWan. Having moved home to Cork, Kelly, a 24-year-old former Union of Students in Ireland equality officer, was keen to set up a casual, feminist-focused social space that was appealing to women of all ages and persuasions, including those with no interest in politics. “I was worried no one would show up, because we only advertised online,” says Kelly. “I said to Jen, if one person turns up apart from us, that will be a success. But 22 people were there on the first night, including six guys.”

In May, Belfast Feminist Network was launched, spearheaded by Kellie Turtle, a 30-year-old blogger. Turtle had already run a successful campaign against sexist billboards in the city, including one particularly gratuitous advert for a used-car magazine that showed a pair of scantily-clad breasts and the slogan “nice headlamps”.

So why are young women flocking to feminism? “A lot of it is to do with realising the illusion of the post-feminist age,” says Turtle. “Young women have been sold an idea of equality that they are not actually receiving.” Turtle’s feminist awakening came in part through her experience of living in a house with five women, three of whom had eating disorders.

Linda Kelly believes that young women often don’t see the barriers that hold them back, at least at first. “Maybe they don’t think that feminism is relevant, or maybe they buy into the stereotype that feminism is for old, fat, hairy women.”

Madeline Hawke says: “People suddenly realised that we had stopped moving forward. The momentum of the 60s and 70s has gone, and the realisation has dawned that things aren’t getting better – they’re getting worse for women in some cases – and these issues aren’t going to just fix themselves. For instance, women make up less than 14 per cent of the Dáil. That is just ridiculous in 2010.”

Hawke believes sexism can be much more subtle today. “Legislation prevents anything overt, but sexualisation and pornography have become normalised, which makes it harder to explain and articulate exactly what the issues are.”

The well-known feminist activist and educator Ailbhe Smyth, a convenor of the Feminist Open Forum, says we shouldn’t be too surprised by this new interest. “These young women are their mothers’ and grandmothers’ daughters. They have grown up with those histories and experiences of feminism in a way that I definitely didn’t.”

Several of the new activists believe the surge is part of a wider cultural phenomenon. Periods of financial crisis are historically worse for women, and Linda Kelly says this brutal recession has focused minds. “People become more politicised when they see things being taken away from them.”

Kellie Turtle says that “there is more of a place for social movements than there was 10 years ago: the antiglobalisation and environmental movements opened it up. It was the same in the 60s, when second-wave feminism was galvanised by the socialist antiapartheid movements”.

There’s no doubt that these young women are full of fresh blood and fresh anger, and they’re proud to call themselves feminists. “A year or two ago I would have been quite uncomfortable about calling myself a feminist,” says Kelly. “But you have to do it, or you just sell out. You have to name it, say what you mean, start a discussion.”

Her fellow activist Jennifer deWan has described herself as a feminist since she was 15. “I think it has a lot of power, and that scares people who benefit from the status quo. People wouldn’t be so afraid of it, or afraid to use it, if it didn’t.”

But the old question of just how radical or political it’s necessary to be hasn’t gone away. Very few people seem to be talking about dominance and oppression here. The Irish Feminist Network has said it wants to have a mainstream appeal to a broad range of young women, including those who don’t identify themselves as feminists, as well as to established older feminists. Madeline Hawke says that, for her, feminism is about “allowing women to be whoever they want to be”, and Linda Kelly of Cork Feminista speaks of converting apolitical women “slowly but surely”. She says it’s issues that matter, not labels.

But Kellie Turtle believes it’s important not to pussyfoot around – and she’s ready to use not only the F-word but also the P-word. “There’s lots of talk about not wanting to offend women, or about women being free to choose what they want to choose. I’m not comfortable with that. I think our choices prop up the patriarchy. I’m more and more coming around to the idea that feminism is quite simply about smashing the patriarchy. Look at the pro-prostitution lobby. We need to start being honest with ourselves: smashing the patriarchy is more important than defending someone’s right to sell sex.”

Ailbhe Smyth says the real challenge for the new feminists is how to get off Facebook and on to the streets. “It’s up to all of us to work together to sustain and support them, and to make the word revolution writ large.”

About bloody time tbh, been waiting for this to start happening having seen it kicking of over the last five years in the usa and uk.

Sqweel: a new type of sex toy!

When was the last time you saw an ad for a sex toy? For a lot of people it would be never. While you may have thought this was an ad for Civ 5 it’s for a different type of sex toy.

Most sex toys are usually things which vibrate or used to be penetrated or to penetrate someone with, this one is different and I have to say I do like the product design and how it comes apart for cleaning.

Lovehoney has been around from 2002 and has done well to make buying toys over the internet a none sleazy enjoyable experience and they do listen to feedback about the products they sell and they provide a community space for people to talk about sex, sex toys and to share experiences which many would not talk about to friends face to face.

In 2007 they launched the recycling program for vibrators (which I mentioned in the post ecogasm) and now the Sqweel. I wonder what will be next.