More silencing tactics aimed at Anita Sarkeesian and Tropes vs Women in Video Games
A short while ago Anita Sarkeesian published another video to her Feminist Frequency YouTube channel. Within an hour it was taken down by YouTube because it had been flagged as containing objectionable content. Feminist Frequency appealed the takedown, and it was quickly restored. Good on YouTube for restoring the video so quickly, but why doesn’t YouTube have a better mechanism for immunising known target accounts against vexatious complaints?
Spacecraft exploring the Solar system
Last week’s news of plans to clear up humanity’s space-junk, aka orbital debris, currently cluttering up Low Earth Orbit, alarmed quite a few folks. In better space news, the many non-junk bits and bobs we’ve got floating around up there are busy gathering data so that we can learn more about our planetary and stellar neighbours.
*waves extravagantly at the internet* We’re back!
We seem to have lost the last few days of posts/comments, at least for the moment (thus the choice of ‘meh’ image to accompany this post). So if something you said recently is still moving you, by all means repeat it here.
!["The beginnings of the [redacted]!"](http://hoydenabouttown.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HilaryTh1-150x150.jpg)
Friday Hoyden: Nieceblogging – what’s she making?
Here she is bonding with her Dad over the Christmas break by doing a little gadget construction. Bonding with your daughters doing electronics, woodwork, mechanics or baking: A very feminist thing to do over the holidays and there should be a lot more of it.
Some Thoughts on Transhumanism
My biggest problem with transhumanism as a movement is it seems to be largely about the extremes of techno-neepery on the part of a lot of IT and engineering nerds. Now, that would be fine, except IT and engineering nerdery share a couple of rather crucial traits which make them, and the resulting transhumanist movement, somewhat dodgy.
Tool of the Day
Ratcheting Pruning Shears! Since it’s December, let’s use my new pruners as the kick-off for our first 2012 in retrospective thread – what’s the best tool/gadget/gizmo/hack you’ve found this year?
Matt Honan on the End of the Age of the Password
Times have changed. We’ve entrusted everything we have to a fundamentally broken system. The first step is to acknowledge that fact. The second is to fix it.
Conroy backs down on internet filter
It’s good to see Stephen Conroy finally face the facts: his filter proposal was about as clever as equipping a blue whale to pursue a vulture.
Privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, outing, accountability: where are the boundaries?
There are competing ethical imperatives, and there’s a balance to be found. It is basic courtesy to respect a pseudonym or some in-confidence knowledge about a person generally, but should that expected courtesy take precedence over the protection of other people from harm which could be avoided if they knew what you know?
Friday Hoyden: Ada Lovelace Day roundup
It was Ada Lovelace Day on Tuesday this week, celebrating women’s achievements in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. There’s lots of excellent weekend reading. Did you go to any Ada Lovelace Day events this year? Tell us about it if you did.
ObFreeFallSpaceJump post: a little detail I was glad to discover
Because I obviously haven’t been paying enough attention, I hadn’t realised that Joseph Kittinger, the USAF officer who previously held the record for highest/fastest freefall parachute jump after the 1959-60 Project Excelsior research into high-altitude bailouts, was part of the team for Felix Baumgartner’s successful attempt on those records.
Helpful Hint of The Day: being *on the internet*
A Handy Test for Reddit Users: Are You on the Internet Right Now?
This week on Feminism 101 Blog: Cyberbullying 101/Book Recs for Teens/Privacy 101
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