 May 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm  Stephanie Zvan
There is no content here this afternoon. If you want content, go read Lyz Liddel’s hugely heartening post on the Secular Student Alliance and the work of all these wonderful student groups. It hews very closely to her speech at the Freethought Festival, but it gets me every time nonetheless. It heartens me to no end to see people organizing this way at an age when I had all I could do to sort myself out.
Read it. It will make you happy.
Now, the reason I don’t have content of my own for today is not for the squeamish. Thus, it’s tucked below the fold.
May 16, 2012 at 8:16 am Stephanie Zvan
It’s been a little while since we’ve had a Mock the Movie victim subject that was freely available to everyone. Tomorrow night, we fix that.
Night of the Demon (1980) –
Presented in flashback, the film tells the story of an anthropology class’s all-too-successful expedition into the American wilderness to find the truth behind the Sasquatch legend. Along the way, the team learns about the creature’s previous victims, uncover the squalid story of a hermit (Crazy Wanda) who gave birth to a mutation after being raped by the monster, and finally come face to face with the beast himself.
This is clearly going to be a horrid movie, requiring mocking. The only question is whether those of us watching will be in too much pain to be funny. (We add suspense even if the movie doesn’t.)
If you want to join us in our pain, the movie is available in full on YouTube. The instructions for playing along:
- Start following @MockTM on twitter.
- Start watching the moie this Thursday at 9PM EST.
- Once you’ve got the movie going, tweet your snarky comments to @MockTM. Directing our tweets to @MockTM will keep our followers from being overwhelmed with our snark!
May 15, 2012 at 3:09 pm Stephanie Zvan
…I am alive. That sounds hyperbolic, but bear with me.
About a week ago, Crommunist asked for submissions for a new feature that describes the difference atheism has meant to people, in their lives and their outlooks. He just posted mine, which starts with the paragraph above. Read the whole thing at his site.
May 15, 2012 at 8:12 am Stephanie Zvan
Or, The Stephen Colbert Defense
Yesterday, I covered Dell’s gross miscalculation on entertainment for one of their big company meetings. A reminder:
He continued the streak that day. Vejlo live-tweeted the event and Christensen’s comments as they unfolded: for example, his opening line, roughly translated as, “There are almost no girls in this room, and I am happy. Why are you here at all?” “Gender quotas are still fairly healthy in your industry,” he went on.
On innovation, the emcee who directly followed Michael Dell on-stage commented that “All the great inventions are from men; we can thank women for the rolling pin.” And he ended his comments by saying IT was the last bastion for men, and that they should let the mantra “shut up, b–ch” hiss out from between their teeth.
I’m happy to say it didn’t happen here, but in the comments on BoingBoing, on Dell’s apology on Google+, and on Reddit (interestingly, in the technology subreddit but not the business subreddit, if that tells you anything) people have shown up desperate for us to understand that this is an act. It’s satire, as we should all be able to tell. Really, we’d know this if we didn’t react to every little thing, like being told to get out of the room because it belongs to the boys.
Since this claim that something is satire and, thus, not objectionable keeps coming up, let’s take a good look at it, shall we? Yes. Yes, we shall.
May 14, 2012 at 2:56 pm Stephanie Zvan
Bora is trying something new on Saturdays at the Scientific American Guest Blog. This Saturday, I took part in that experiment with a reprint of an old post. A very few of you may have read it a long time ago, but it will be new to the rest.
Daria had insisted on taking this job. Now she had to finish it, even though the serenity she’d faked for the tests was gone. Eoin was counting on her. The success of the mission, his experiments, even her control of her project, hinged on her doing this right.
She made herself loosen her grip. She shifted from rung to rung, not letting go of one until she was holding securely onto the next. It was progress, but it was slow.
Finally, resting her forehead against the cool metal wall, Daria knew it wasn’t working. She was no more than halfway to her lab and still further from the generator. The fluctuations in the field were coming more frequently, and they were starting to ripple, turning the corridor into a shifting hillside.
Each heave left her shaking, weaker and closer to panic. The babbling doom in her head was louder. She had to do something while she and the field were still experiencing stable periods. She waited where she was through three more cycles, trying to shut it all out. She looked for a calm inside of her she wasn’t sure existed.
She let go and ran, using the adrenaline from her fear to power her legs. The corridor flashed by unseen as she concentrated on her goal.
Daria could see the door to her lab when the world heaved again. The floor tilted away and she was falling downhill. She knew she should let herself go, tuck up and concentrate on landing, but her panic-laced body had its own ideas.
Her outstretched arms, braced against the fall, hit first. Her left wrist gave with a stab of pain. She would have screamed if her chin hadn’t landed next. Then she was too busy trying to stay conscious.
Head on over to the SciAm Guest Blog to read the whole thing.
May 14, 2012 at 7:58 am Stephanie Zvan
Dell Computers recently held a company event in Denmark. It was a large and important enough event that Michael Dell himself spoke.
Dell’s Danish arm hired, as emcee and entertainer for the day, a performer named Mads Christensen, who is a well-known provocateur in Danish media circles. According to Vejlo and a few English-language Danish blogs, he’s primarily known for making racist, sexist, and other inflammatory comments in public.
He continued the streak that day. Vejlo live-tweeted the event and Christensen’s comments as they unfolded: for example, his opening line, roughly translated as, “There are almost no girls in this room, and I am happy. Why are you here at all?” “Gender quotas are still fairly healthy in your industry,” he went on.
On innovation, the emcee who directly followed Michael Dell on-stage commented that “All the great inventions are from men; we can thank women for the rolling pin.” And he ended his comments by saying IT was the last bastion for men, and that they should let the mantra “shut up, b–ch” hiss out from between their teeth. All to laughter and applause from that collection of some 800 IT professionals, overwhelmingly male. Dell’s Danish director, Nicolai Moresco, reportedly praised Christensen’s performance onstage as he thanked the emcee for his comments.
But there is totally no hostile atmosphere pushing women out of the computer industry. You can tell because of Dell’s reaction.
May 13, 2012 at 2:12 pm Stephanie Zvan
How old is the model in this photo?
And if I tell you your reputation and your freedom depend on the answer, does it change? Now how old is she?
May 13, 2012 at 8:44 am Stephanie Zvan
When the uncontrolled, unedited, “We are the internet” culture of Reddit does something incredibly anti-social, we talk about it here. It’s nice to be able to offer props sometimes as well. In this case, the founder of Reddit is standing up where few tech companies have been willing to.
May 12, 2012 at 9:34 pm Stephanie Zvan
Today I’m celebrating President Obama’s statement this week that he personally supports gay marriage. Yes, celebrating.
I’m a little late, I know. I wasn’t ready yet, not that soon after the passage of North Carolina’s Amendment 1. Everything was still too raw and painful. Even good news hurt. But I’ve rested and given myself time and put in a bunch of manual labor (which makes a difference). Now I’m ready, and I’m going to celebrate.
When I put up a post on Thursday mocking the idea that Obama’s statement would undermine heterosexual relationships. Someone came along then, decided I was celebrating, and told me it was “fucking offensive”. To those who would like to do that now: Knock it the fuck off.
May 12, 2012 at 1:41 pm Stephanie Zvan
Tune in this Sunday May 13th when we interview Ronald A. Lindsay, the president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. Ron Lindsay is a philosopher, lawyer and the author of Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas. He blogs on important current issues that affect the atheist and skeptical movements at No Faith Value as part of the Center For Inquiry’s blog network “Free Thinking”.
During Dr. Lindsay’s time as CFI’s president and CEO, the organization has been involved with campaigns that have garnered significant media coverage. In 2011 the CFI launched two phases of a popular billboard and bus ad campaign. They also submitted petitions to the FDA (which were authored by Lindsay and colleague Barry Karr) requesting that the FDA require homeopathic medications to be tested for efficacy.
Related Links:
Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to radio@mnatheists.org during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.
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