- Geek Girls: The changing demographics of Comic Con -From Michael.
- HPV vaccine infographic – Information is Beautiful does another great job. From jes3ica.
- The ol’ switcheroo: Gender-bending in geek culture – “Geek culture thrives on the question of “what if?” There are few questions that get us more excited. When we engage in our favorite fandoms, what we’re really doing is putting an extraordinary amount of cognitive power into the suspension of disbelief. In doing so, we open ourselves up to a whole new realm of possibilities.”
- What is Generation Rescue selling now? – Jenny McCarthy is now shilling the “rescue bullet”, a small blender, that raises money for Generation Rescue. Huh.
- Cute Animal Friday! Judy sent in some photos of baby bandicoots that she works with, lucky her. Maria brings us the six million dollar tortoise.
Hmm,
I always figured that ant “bullet” Jenny McCarthy might be selling would have an entirely different use.
What happens when the Six Million Dollar Tortoise goes into slo-mo?
Does it travel backwards in time?
The tortoise is The Doctor! *dramatically slowed-down TARDIS sound*
Doctor?
Doctor who?
COTW for that combo of comments
I admit it: I clicked the sidebar ad that says “Ass”. Not what I thought it’d be.
Give him a few more wheels, strap a couple of Roman candles to his back, and that tortoise could really start living up to his name.
Just a question for the Brits among us.
Does anyone in the UK object to vaccines being called a “jab”? (It seems to be a British thing)
I ask because, to my American ear, it sounds painful and like just one more obstacle to getting vaccines accepted.
Or is it just one of those things where it is what it is called and nobody questions it or is bothered by it?
Really just asking.
Americans call them “shots”. How is that better, other than we’re used to the term?
If I knew nothing of the procedure and was going by the dictionary meaning alone, I’d rather be jabbed than shot.
Actually, I usually hear vaccinations referred to as vaccinations and other medicine refered to as shots; I think mostly because nobody really likes to get a shot.
.
But point taken.
On the crossdressing cosplayer (crossplayer?) article:
One obvious issue is that most women’s outfits in geek fiction often look… well, absurd on real women (hey, look, DCU is rebooting, and Starfire is even MORE naked!), and would look completely grotesque on most men. Some very androgynous men can pull the look off, and there’s probably a few female characters who could be played by a guy without an issue (Firefly’s female cast, for instance, could at least have attempts made by guys with no beards).
Okay, ran across an article today that I think speaks to the community here:
Rape in War: No More Excuses.
I urge folks to read the whole article, and really hope the html tags work. To hedge my bet on that last point:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0722-rape-20110722,0,933457.story
I liked the article on women at cons. I haven’t been to a con in years. It wasn’t manga, but gaming that attracted me. I’m an old D&D geek from way back, and I hit GenCon for the huge RPGA tournament there. I stopped going when they moved it out of Milwaukee. I’m glad to hear that the ratio of men and women is evening out, and glad that more women are going to cons.
I admit, when I was single, I loved cons because I could pretty much have my pick of any number of geeky boys. I eventually kept one and took him home, but the puppy turned into a downright dirty dog, so I tossed him out.
Will I go back to the big cons? Maybe. I like my local fandom shindigs just fine.