The milieu through which we swim
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.
When you get to my age seeing the pearl-clutchers swoon angrily over dictionaries having the temerity to change something gets old, especially when it’s yet another round of people just showing that they don’t understand what lexicographers actually do.
Pay what you want and help charity, too.
The fourth pair of Life documentaries about Australian children is here: Life at 7. What do you think?
Yeah, I know that’s generally how the MSM coverage falls out most of the time, but it’s ratcheted up a few notches in recent weeks, hasn’t it? As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue (the theme of each edition is merely for discussion-starter purposes).
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.
A Handy Test for Reddit Users: Are You on the Internet Right Now?
I missed posting this yesterday, but I want to raise my bloggy hand to join the call for protecting the right of girls around the world to education. I want to honour Malala Yousufzai and her two schoolmates who were also shot while trying to shield her from assassins.
If you raise these issues when Gillard is riding high, you are accused of trying to bring her down. If you raise the issue when Gillard is trailing in the polls you are accused of trying to destroy her chances. If you raise these issues when everything is going smoothly then you are accused of rocking the boat.
The editors of We Will Not Go Quietly, a zine by survivors of sexual assault, have prepared a PDF version, but cannot afford to print as many copies as they’d like. They have set up a Pozible campaign.
Hoyden About Town 