Links...worth commenting on...

[shadowkat]

1. Hmmm..this article sort of comments on what I was talking about in my previous post but in a different way...

Caitlin is not Groot: Finding Proper Communication Adaptations in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Why is the need for communication adaptations so rarely applied to human characters in SF/F? It is not an uncommon experience for us as a family to have folks talk to us, and not to Caitlin. As her parent, I can see how decidedly easy it is for other folks to (consciously or not) unperson a kid like Caitlin, to remove her agency, as much as she works daily to make it very clear that she is there, and she has opinions about whatever’s going on. This is in part because there are so few models in SF/F for communication adaptations. It’s easier to talk to us, her relayers, than to include her directly in the conversation—and that’s a problem, because Caitlin makes her own decisions, thank you very much. Our job is just to relay them.

(She has a very particular response to people that are condescending towards her. She has spent years learning over and over that these people are not worth her time, and she treats them accordingly.)

Luckily, there’s at least one TV series out there that might help a bit to push back against the notion that communicating differently means one is not quite human. As much as I have joked about showing her Buffy to prepare her for entering high school, we’ve been enjoying Speechless very much of late, and it’s probably a much better analogue for her upcoming experience. Speechless is new and unusual to us: before this, she rarely saw kids like herself on television or in movies outside of Sesame Street and a small handful of Sonic the Hedgehog episodes.

So do writers have a responsibility to do this?

2. Reading Between the Lines Church -- wow, just, wow.

3. Five Mythic Eclipse Monsters Believed to Have Messed with the Sun and Moon -- hee. The US is in full eclipse mode.
My brother is journeying to Kansas to see it with an old high school friend.

I really don't care that much. But bought glasses at a cheap price in case I end up being in a situation where I'm looking at the sky.

[Above three links are courtesy of conuly.]

4. Sigh. The political stuff in the US ranges from the frighteningly comically absurd to the just plain old frightening. And it's completely divisive and triggering no matter how you look at it. The country is even more divided than it was last year at this time, the two sides HATE each other. The only way to remain sane is either to avoid completely, or to poke fun.

So...one group has decided that maybe sharing a meal with the other side will help...

Sharing Dinners with the Opposing Side for peaceful and uniting political discourse.

5. View on Nudity Grin and Bare it

The veteran German leftist politician Gregor Gysi wants his compatriots to take off more of their clothes. He is angry that the long German tradition of therapeutic nudity in the open air is being undermined. Only this summer the nudist portion of one of the beaches in Berlin was brutally shortened by the authorities, and the mostly elderly users are furious. They are right. Mr Gysi argues that public nudity can be much less erotic than a bikini and that the beaches he remembers his mother taking him to in his East German youth were places where women of all shapes and ages could enjoy their bodies for their own sake.

It was, he says, the “pornographic gaze” of westerners after reunification that destroyed the pleasure of nude bathing, which had always been more widespread in East Germany and – he claims – something promoted more by women than by men. Of course the east was then a tyranny in which there was little frivolity or choice on offer. For all but the most confidently young and gorgeous it is more fun to choose a bathing costume than to make do with what nature has provided, so in a consumer culture this is now what people do.

But there is a useful lesson in humility and in the appreciation of life as it is when you let it all hang out, even in some cases flop out. It is neither concealment nor display but simple acceptance of who and how we are; something valuable has been lost with the sexualisation of nudity, and you do not need to be German to see this.

I did notice this when my family briefly visited Berlin (east and west) in the 1980s, before the wall came down and during the Cold War years. The Germans seemed to have no issues with nudity, while the British and Americans, really do. Also noticed that the French had no issues with it -- women bathed topless on beaches in France, but in the US you receive a fine. (I personally blame the Puritans...)

Also neither German nor French films have issues with explicit sex, at least they didn't use to as far as I could tell, while US and British did. This may have changed, overseas, not certain.

But as a teen visiting France in the 1980s, I picked up science fiction mags covered with nude photos. And many of my French girlfriends went topless.

Thanks to oursin for the link.

6. I apparently can't metabolize sugar well. Had a bowl of ice cream, okay two bowls, and a cookie and my nerves feel frazzled, I've broken out in hives, and felt a bit sick. Seriously?

7. The Great British Bake-Off As We Know it is Over

And apparently PBS isn't picking it up. Damn. Just, damn. Also PBS has no plans to show more than one more season of the series. It's shown four of the seven seasons. The last four. It may pick up one of the first three.

Oh well, we do have the Great American Baking Show spun off of it...

Thanks to petz for the link.

8. Norwegian Site That Makes Readers Take a Quiz Before Commenting...here's an update on how it is working

When my former colleague Joseph Lichterman wrote about a Norwegian news organization that makes readers pass a quiz on the article before they can comment on it (one of the most-trafficked stories in Nieman Lab history, by the way) the site — NRKbeta, the tech vertical of Norway’s public broadcaster — was lauded for its creativity. But NRKbeta’s editors and journalists said it was too early to tell if the program was a success.


But now, five months in? NRKbeta’s team says readers may have treated the quizzes on 14 articles more like reading comprehension games than as a gateway to the comments section.

Hmmm...sort of wish we employed that on fanboards.

(Thanks to yourlibraian for the link)

9. Most Watched Television Series Around the World in 2017 according to Parrot Analytics

Actually wasn't that surprised by the results if I think about it -- since all of them have been mentioned by people on social media sites. Vikings is amazingly popular with people online as is Suits. I honestly don't know why. The other ones, I sort of get, for the most part.

[Thanks to yourlibrarian for the link)

Comments

[shadowkat]

It worked, thank you muchly.