Author: Alex

Categories
movie

[Movie] Frozen, I feel guilty for not liking you more

So…Frozen.

Full disclosure: I’m one of only a handful of human beings who hasn’t seen Rapunzel sorry I mean Tangled haha that’s right these movies totally aren’t about women. At all. Anyway, I haven’t seen that movie. I keep meaning to, and then don’t get around to it.

I’m honestly not sure if Frozen makes me want to give Tangled a chance or not. I have really, really mixed feelings about this movie.

So, spoilers coming if you care about those.

Continue reading “[Movie] Frozen, I feel guilty for not liking you more”
Categories
fandom rants this shit is fucked up you need to do better

Dear Interviewers: Please Refer to Wheaton’s Law, Re: Fanworks

Wheaton’s Law: Don’t be a dick.

So this happened. It’s just part of a long pattern of interviewers basically trying to embarrass both actors and fan writers/artists by bringing them forcibly together. (See also: people showing Tom Hiddleston pornographic fanart during interviews.) These people are dicks. Dicks of phenomenal magnitude. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but the very fact that they’re doing this kind of bullshit pretty much shows that they have no shame.

This is the thing about being a fan writer or artist: your creative space is implicitly under the radar, made by the creators of the original work willingly turning a blind eye to give fans room to play. I wrote fanfiction for years and years (and still do, to be honest, very occasionally) and for the most part you do so on the understanding that the creators of the original work will never see what you’ve done. You’re writing for yourself, and for other fans. That’s what makes it fun and joyful. It keeps fan communities strong, which for the most part is a good thing, since yay loyal fan base. No one gets hurt (outside of shipping wars casualties), no harm, no foul, everyone is happy.

Now, it’s different if a creator (or actor) asks for fanworks to be sent to them (like the amazing Trollando Jones asking for fanfic!) or if, say, you come up with something beautiful and tasteful and want to send it as a tribute*. It’s also different if someone actually goes looking for work on the internet. It’s the internet. Enter at your own risk.

But this pattern of taking fanwork and shoving it in the face of people involved in the original movie (etc) is beyond gross. It’s mean-spiritedly shitting in someone’s sandbox for the sake of being a dick. And I shouldn’t even have to say that it’s gross to force something embarrassing on unsuspecting people in public, and megagross when it’s pornographic.

And it’s gross to search out fanworks just for the purposes of publicly mocking them. I feel like I hit my head and woke up back in high school, when the mean girls were stealing my notebook and staging dramatic readings of my horrible teen angst poetry. Fuck you for trying to make the act of creation feel unsafe. Fuck you for punishing people for loving something. No, really, fuck you guys.

And for good measure, fuck everyone who thinks what is basically cruelty for the sake of being cruel is funny.

(Don’t be ashamed of your fanfic.)

 

*-I shouldn’t even have to say this, BUT: sending pornographic work to someone who hasn’t asked for it is never, ever okay. Kind of like sending other people pictures of your genitalia is never okay. Same principle. Including someone in your sex life non-consensually is never okay.

Categories
books

10 Books That Have Stuck With Me

Since it was a meme some of my friends were doing today, and I thought well why not. This would make a darn good blog post.

  1. Alanna: The First Adventure (Tamora Pierce) – I cannot begin to tell you how much this book has affected me. It was one of the first real YA books I ever read, and it was the first that had a female character confronting and triumphing over institutionalized sexism using her wits. (Well, once you get into the rest of the series.) Alanna becomes the first female knight of her country, and becomes one of the best because of her determination. She changes the world because she refuses to give up, and then later she continues to become a knight but also decides she wishes to be a wife and mother–but only is willing to marry a man who doesn’t expect her to give up everything she’s worked so hard to achieve. All of these were incredibly powerful messages, particularly coming out of the age where it was basically all Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High all the time. (This book is also why, when someone tries to tell me that representation isn’t important, that seeing women be the heroes of their own stories isn’t necessary, I I know they’re full of shit.)
  2. The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) – my mother used to read to my brother and me, and one of the books she read to us contained all of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Sometimes it would be one or two a night, and the novellas were stretched over several nights. This book (and the character) was the reason I created Captain Ramos.
  3. Dragonflight (Anne McCaffrey) – This was one of the first proper grown-up science fiction novels I read, and it had a huge impact on me. Written by a woman, and with a main character who was a fierce, cranky, imperfect, and driven woman. That Lessa is the one who figures out how to save civilization made this book stand out. I loved it, and it made me want to write science fiction.
  4. Night Watch (Terry Pratchett) – This book taught me that the best comedy has pain and marrow beneath it. The next book, Thud!, made me laugh out loud, and then it made me cry three times. There’s just such an emotional core to them. It’s meant that every time I have written something even mildly silly, I first think about what’s behind the silliness so that the story has a proper skeleton. I just wish I could write like this.
  5. King Henry V (William Shakespeare) – My favorite play ever. I read it out loud to my cats regularly. Stop judging me.
  6. On Writing (Stephen King) – “Kill your darlings.” Best piece of advice ever. And like everything Stephen King has ever written, it’s very fun to read.
  7. The Black Unicorn: Poems (Audre Lorde) – Audre Lorde taught me how to love poetry, and for that I will be forever grateful. There’s just so much beauty and rage and love in what she writes that I can’t help but come back to it again and again.
  8. History of the Kings of Britain (Geoffrey of Monmouth) – I cannot begin to tell you the number of ways I love this book. Obviously it made a huge impression on me because I love telling people about it. But it’s basically a completely fictional “history” of British kings, where Monmouth makes some amazing things up out of whole cloth, like the Britons repelling a Roman invasion, and then counter invading and sacking Rome. (It’s also likely the literary origin of Merlin as a character.) It was assigned reading in my British history class, and I loved it to pieces. The professor assigned it because she wanted us to really start thinking about the biases of people who wrote primary source material. It’s a strong lesson for that.
  9. A Man With No Talents (Oyama Shiro) – This book provides a view of modern Japan that I wish more people would read. It’s also an incredibly beautifully done translation.
  10. Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri) – If Audre Lorde taught me to love poetry, Jhumpa Lahiri taught me to love literary short fiction.
  11. BONUS (if you can call it that): Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs – I randomly quote from this book. It makes me laugh uncontrollably. It’s got an entire chapter about MacArthur Park.
Categories
movie

[Movie] The Hobbit 2: Alternate Titles

Considering you don’t actually see the titular desolation until over halfway through the movie, I thought perhaps some alternate titles would be more appropriate. [Spoilers]

Continue reading “[Movie] The Hobbit 2: Alternate Titles”
Categories
geology

Deep Time

In perfect Rachael World (you know, the same place where my best friend Kat will be Minister In Charge of Hot Forking People Wot Deserve It) everyone will be required to take a basic geology class. And not be allowed to escape until they have at least a rudimentary grasp of the concept of Deep Time. (That thing that involved metaphors about if the life of the Earth was a football field, humanity’s entire existence would be the last blade of grass, etc.) Once you’ve had your mind completely blown by the immensity and longevity of the universe, you end up with two contradictory but true conclusions:

  1. The world is immense and old, and we are tiny and brief. What happens today is less than the blink of an eye in the grand scale of mountains and planets and stars. Whatever happened? It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. The stars are still there, the Earth still turns. In ten billion years it’ll all be dust anyway. Let it go.
  2. The world is immense and old, and we are tiny and brief. And yet somehow in this moment that is less than the blink of an eye to the universe, you have sat next to someone, you have fallen in love, you have hated, you have laughed, you have cried. You stand at the confluence of infinite rivers carrying sand without number, and yet somehow you have plucked one grain from the flow and licked it from your finger. This will never be repeated. This single, beautiful heartbeat is all you get.

    Make it count.

Categories
Christmas holiday music

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas actually is my favorite holiday. It always has been. I grew up atheist, so for me it is all awesome dinners and family and presents and eating cookies until you collapse into crumb-covered torpor. I think I love it just a little more now that I’ve gotten to spend Christmas-time in the UK, even if my in-laws get me so drunk I don’t question wearing a silly paper crown until later when I’m looking at the pictures and wondering what is up with that again?

My favorite part of Christmas though, is actually the music. I think this is because I’ve been lucky enough to never work retail during this holiday, so it isn’t part of job PTSD for me. Though I will admit, hearing The Little Drummer Boy over and over on the radio one year kind of killed that one for me, not that I liked it that much to begin with. But here are my five favorite carols–they all also fairly uncommon ones, which is why I think the relentless creep of retail Christmas has spared them.

O Holy Night

Just something about “Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices!” gives me chills, every time. Every time.

I Saw Three Ships

Holly Jolly Christmas

I think this one can be entirely blamed on the number of times I watched the claymation Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a kid.

Carol of the Bells

This has got to be one of my new favorite versions. Though I love it when sung as well. And it’s actually not the easiest song to find a good vocal arrangement on…

The St. Stephen’s Day Murders

Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer ain’t got nothin’ on this song. I love it. I love it love it love it. I cannot manage to sing the whole thing through without busting out laughing. Maybe I just need to be drunker. (Hey kids, Christmas tip–if you give Rachael enough wine, she WILL sing this song. With a horrible fake Irish accent.)

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Secret bonus sixth song, Song For Ten

I love this song with all my nerd heart.

Categories
charity

Lighting a candle instead of cursing the disturbing internet circlejerk of hate–the conclusion

Okay, so remember back in February when I said I’d join in Scalzi’s awesome idea and donate $1 per time Theodore Beale got his creepy internet hateboner wank on? THE DEBT HAS COME DUE.

I pledged $1 per time, so that will total $154! I chose to give the full amount to RAINN.

Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 10.53.31 PM

And done. It felt wonderful.

Categories
ask a geologist geology

[Ask a Geologist] Evidence of a Nuclear Winter

Andrew asked:
Given a rough Earth analog that experienced a major nuclear war about 1 Ma, would there be any evidence of in the rocks in modern times?
All right, so I can think of two major potential lines of evidence off the top of my head when it comes to nuclear weapons:
1) Radioactive isotopes: Most of the radioactive isotopes in nuclear fallout are incredibly short lived, with half lives ranging from minutes to hours to days. (None of the common ones seem to have a half life that lasts more than a year.) So the blasted nuclear hellscape probably wouldn’t still be glowing in a million years, from what I’ve read. If nothing else, consider the fact that it’s safe for people to go to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Trinity test site.
On the other hand, nuclear fallout does cause isotopic shifts that can be traced by chemists. For example, there are different calculations you have to do for pre-industrial and pre-nuclear samples in various kinds of radioactive dating (particularly carbon-14) because it’s caused the amounts of various atmospheric isotopes to shift. Strontium-90 levels also changed due to nuclear testing and that change is recorded in teeth, for example. However, 90Sr and 14C are both short-lived enough isotopes that I don’t think they’d be all that useful for the chemists in a million years. Presumably all the isotopes will have decayed away, though maybe there’s some magical chemistry that could be done looking at relative proportions of daughter isotopes. At this point we’re way outside my comfort zone; geochemistry was never my strong suit. But there is potential there, and if you want to go that route I’d suggest finding a geochemist to ask.
2) Sedimentary evidence. Probably more useful, if your future people have some geologists among them. If you had a worldwide nuclear holocaust, you’d end up with mass extinctions, large-scale fires, and presumably the collapse of civilization. So at the very least, your future explorers would find these signs. Paleontologists would see the evidence for mass extinction, and more damning, would potentially find massive boneyards in multiple locations all dating to the same time, that would indicate a single cataclysmic event. You’d also get charcoal layers associated with the extinction from worldwide fires, and occurrences of “nuclear glass” like the “Trinitite” found at the Trinity test site. All those could be geologically dated to the same time, which would be some pretty damning evidence.
Of course, since it’d be evidence preserved in rocks, they’d have to dig for it or find outcrops. But you should find that kind of stuff around. Heck, you could probably even find buried portions of cities (concrete is pretty hardy stuff; it’s already a rock) and maybe some shadows would be preserved on it, things like that. The trappings of civilization don’t necessarily weather away that fast, particularly not if they get buried in ash and sediment.
As a note, you’d see this kind of evidence preserved both on land (anywhere sediment is aggrading rather than eroding) and in the ocean. Ocean sediment cores would probably show some very strange things going on, an abrupt shift in sedimentation followed by a slow recovery.
Andrew later clarified that he was talking about a slushball Earth, with the global ice age touched off by the nuclear holocaust.
Now, I’m not entirely certain that a global nuclear war would set off global glaciation to begin with. I did some reading on the snowball Earth for a grad class, and I didn’t find most of the proposed mechanisms all that convincing other than lesser solar output and/or change in ocean circulation. The worldwide disaster from a nuclear war might throw a lot of particulates in to the air (and we know those will cause cooling) but they’ll fall out of the air fairly quickly, and consequently dirty up your snow.
But anyway. The slushball Earth isn’t something we need to debate here.
Even with global glaciation, you’ll still end up with geological evidence getting deposited in your oceans, even if at a different rate–but it’s something you’d be able to see with, say, a core drilled into ocean sediments. There’s a reason these kinds of corse get used often for paleoclimate research. In the slushball, there’s still open-ish water at the equator, which can allow for some sediment settling (such as say, the big ash layer) and input. Or if suddenly you’ve got what looks like normal sedimentation that has an ash layer than shifts to something odd like banded iron formations, that’s a big glaring clue that something weird and catastrophic happened.
Thoughts from other geologists?
Categories
tv

Almost Human, I am THIS close to breaking up with you

So I finally watched episode number 5 (Blood Brothers) because I was doing a…thing…last night and missed it then. You know, Almost Human, I want to like you. But after that turd of an episode I am so close to breaking up with you it’s not even funny. I’d rather spend the time running on the elliptical.

Karl Urban plays Murdery McMurderson John Kennex the worst cop ever, with Michael Ealy as Dorian the sassy black robot who is 1000% done with Kennex’s shit. This sounds like an excellent setup, really, except for the part where every episode reminds us that these cops are apparently going to SAVE US ALL from this terrifying future where everyone wears blue. No other colors JUST BLUE. THERE WILL BE ONLY BLUE.

Considering the rate at which Kennex casually kills people (and robots) without consequence, I don’t want him to be in charge of saving anyone. Look, I don’t have a problem with cops being the hero of a show. I’m a faithful devotee of several incarnations of Law & Order, after all. But you notice what happens in Law & Order when one of the cops shoots someone? SOMETHING HAPPENS. IT’S A BIG DEAL. 

I am trying so very hard to suspend my disbelief because Karl Urban. And Michael Ealy. And Dorian makes everything worth it. But then this episode. This. Fucking. Episode. Thoughts as they occurred to me during this episode:

  • Of course there is a joke about the black guy having an enormous wang. Admittedly, the whole scene is amusing and Dorian puts the burn on John as fabulously as always, but REALLY? REALLY?
  • “On good days I’m a petite psychic.” HAHAHA because yes it’s totally funny to make women joke about their size! (Also, you DO realize that petite means short,right?) And just the entire psychic thing to begin with his megabarf through and through. YOU HAVE FUCKING ROBOTS IN THE FUTURE WHY ARE WE PLAYING WITH PSYCHIC BULLSHIT.
  • Seriously did the creepy serial killer just insult Captain Maldonado’s LOOKS? And she just kind of took it? “You’re a son of a bitch” is the best she could do? For fuck’s flying sake. I AM SO DONE WITH THIS EPISODE.
  • Oh, glad to know the only reason the police are going to rescue Valerie is because she is important to Kennex and not because, I don’t know, she’s a fucking police officer.
  • So then at the end, Moldanado gets her own back from the serial killer and walks away with her chin held high, and that’s kind of awesome… and then we FUCK IT ALL AWAY with the guy telling her she’s pretty BECAUSE THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

I feel like those pretty much sum up everything that has bugged the shit out of me about this show since the get-go, but I was giving it a chance and enjoying the sass. I was already kind of done in the sexbot episode where 99% of the sexbots were women. (Yes, there were some male sexbots kind of around, which I did appreciate, for the three seconds they were on screen.) And now in this one, the two female cops finally get to do things, and basically…are entirely ineffectual. Moldanado gets schooled by the evil serial killer because she isn’t pretty or something. Valerie is out of the station just long enough to end up as the damsel in distress, and it’s made clear that the only reason she’s important is because Kennex has a thing about her! She’s important to him! Glad we got that covered.

COME ON. Seriously, it’s like the women in this show could be replaced with post-it notes that have smiley faces drawn on them. (Or frowny faces for when someone tells them they aren’t pretty and no one wants them.) And maybe I wouldn’t be so critical except you know what comes on right after this show? Sleepy Hollow. Which gave us Abbie Mills, Jenny Mills’s right eyebrow, and Jenny Mills’s left eyebrow. AND DO I EVEN HAVE TO MENTION TROLLANDO JONES

I want to love you, Almost Human. But you are making it so very, very hard.

Categories
ask a geologist drunk post flowchart geology

[Ask a Geologist] When Geologists Get Funky

Andrew asked:

What DOES happen when you get a bunch of geologists drunk?

For ease of answering, I have prepared this handy-dandy flowchart:

drunk geologist flowchart