Category: Geekitude

I Now Know What True Exhaustion Feels Like

By:  TempestGeekitude

Last week I covered the consumer electronics show with my co-workers which was awesome but also completely tiring. We’d be up until 1 or 2 in the morning writing posts then get up early to attend press conferences, go to meetings, walk the floor looking for cool stuff, and try to grab food and rest when we could.

I only survived because I kept getting those small bottles of energy drinks. They kept me going but made it so I completely exhausted myself by the end of the week. Monday I slept 12 hours then I stayed up all night to catch up on work. Thursday I was up until 4 am doing work. Friday I stayed up all night so I wouldn’t miss being on Hour of the Wolf.

I have never been so exhausted in my life.

Good thing I have no more free energy drinks to tempt me. I had the last one Friday night.

Dollhouse, Mary Sue, And Trying To Figure Out Just What Is Wrong With Whedon

By:  TempestGeekitude
Dollhouse, Mary Sue, And Trying To Figure Out Just What Is Wrong With Whedon

I’ve had this swirling around in my head since the last Dollhouse episode aired but haven’t had a chance to make it solid, so I want to discuss. I’ve been thinking about the whole concept of Echo being “special” and how this keeps being repeated over and over and hammered in, but we’re never really given a reason why. The show upped the ante with the recent revelation that Caroline (the pre-Echo) did something horrible to this Bennett individual which caused her to lose functionality in her arm and also to hold a very deep grudge. Bennett said something about how Caroline always charmed people and such, and that inate awesomeness apparently still comes through even though she’s Echo.

Thing is, I really just don’t buy this.

Not even just because Eliza Dushku’s acting doesn’t convey all this awesomeness terribly well. Beyond that, this whole concept feels really contrived and pushed on us by the writers instead of something the audience actually experiences. It’s very much like a Mary Sue plot, but whose Mary Sue is Echo?

You could say she’s Eliza’s since she is an Executive Producer and must have some say over plot elements. I don’t get that feeling, though. I feel like this is all coming from Whedon. That doesn’t disqualify this trope from being Mary Sue-ish (after all, Stephen Moffett just loves his female Mary Sues), but I wonder if something else is going on. Like, this is some weird male-centric fantasy that has the Mary Sue flavor but behind it is not some fantasy about being awesome and loved but a fantasy deeply centered in the male gaze and psyche.

Am I making sense? Are you seeing this, too? WTF is this all about? I am sure I’ve encountered all of this before but damned if I can remember a specific show, movie, or book.

More Proof That I Am Actually A White Person

By:  TempestTechnology
More Proof That I Am Actually A White Person

That headline will be massively funny to those who were up ’til all hours Sunday night at World Fantasy. For the rest of you:

Have you seen the video where the store employees show that the Face Tracking software on HP’s computers don’t track black faces? If you haven’t, go look now, it is really funny. When I saw that I wanted to test if it was true for other HP webcams, so I pulled a system from our testing lab and tried it out. The Face Tracker easily tracked me, but it also tracked a darker-skinned co-worker. I then turned the backlight correction off (which made the picture darker and more like the video linked above). The Face Tracker could no longer track my co-worker, but could still track me.

So forget the pencil test, the brown bag test, and the one-drop rule. Technology has given us a far better way to determine who is black in these times, and it is the Face Tracking algorithm in HP MediaCenters!

Aren’t you glad we live in the future? I am.

*facepalm*

Click here to see the video evidence of my shame.

A Cold Day In Hell: I’m Actually On FOX’s Side For Once

By:  TempestNon-Fiction Publications
A Cold Day In Hell: I'm Actually On FOX's Side For Once

Over on Tor.com I’ve got a piece up priasing FOX for its decision to cancel Dollhouse. I know, a bunch of you will disagree. A whole bunch of you won’t, though! I hope you’ll join me in supporting FOX at this difficult time. I wonder if I should grab up the URL dontsavedollhouse.com? Because there are already campaigns to save it. For once, I think we need a strong anti-campain so FOX won’t start to second guess itself. Down with bad television!

Gamer Geeks, help a sistah out

By:  TempestGeekitude

I need to put together a list of blogs and news sites for gamers, but I have scant knowledge of the field. I know a lot of my friends are into that scene, though, so I’m asking for your help. I’d like to gather as diverse a list as possible, so I’m looking not just for the major gaming sites and blogs, but the individual or group blogs about games and gaming that you love. I’m also definitely looking for sites that focus on gamers of color or female gamers. This is for work, so sites that cover exclusively console stuff won’t be useful, but basically anything else you can think of to suggest, please add to the comments.

Thanks!

Update: Because of my spam and moderation settings, long lists of links are putting comments in moderation, even from those who’ve been approved previously. Don’t worry, I am on it! I’ll fish you out as I have the chance.

Sci-Fi Hate

By:  TempestRants
Sci-Fi Hate

Apparently there are still people deeply scarred by the term SciFi and will jump on any poor soul who dares to ask: is this term really still derogatory? Jump on him and whip out the claws, apparently. Wow.

I have never really understood the vehement hate this term generates in people. SciFi or Sci-Fi (sometimes pronounced skiffy) has certainly been used by those who look down on our genre. But shortening it to SF and calling that more acceptable merely injects a rather nasty and unnecessary layer to the issue. With SF, you’re kind of hiding what you’re talking about except for those in the know. Does SF stand for San Francisco? (Don’t think people would be so silly as to assume? You’d be wrong.) Or, more importantly to us, does it stand for speculative fiction or science fiction? At least with Sci-Fi you know what one is talking about, as Jason said in his post.

At the risk of having Nick Mamatas say nasty things about me, I have to say that this whole Sci-Fi is derogatory/marks you as an outsider ish has always struck me as a bit of in-community snobbery. Like: “We don’t call it Sci-Fi. Pfft. That’s for clueless newbies!” with a full dose of huffiness and noses in the air. Thing is, if you’re a new person to the community and run across that attitude, why the fuck wouldn’t you just turn around, walk away, and never deal with the likes of SF fans again? Who the hell needs that level of bitchassness in their lives? If you’re going to be shunned for something, at least make it something important, like preferring Star Trek to Star Wars.

Also, I have noticed that the majority of people who raise hell about Sci-Fi vs. SF tend to be folks who are older or have been in the community for a while. Snobbery and disdain from the literary community about science fiction was, if I understand correctly, a lot more virulent in the past than it is now. I can see how that dismissiveness can hurt and make people feel really bad. Alan Bostick says Sci-Fi was used as a “nasty slur”, which is excessively sucky.  But there’s no need to infect newer folks with that same mindset.

All other considerations aside, I like the term Sci-Fi better than SF for a simple reason: it’s easier to say and sounds better. Sigh-fie rolls off the tongue, EssEff is all angles and hard edges. So from now on I’m using it all the time and anyone who tries to claim that I’m not really part of this genre because of it will earn themselves a shrug. I’ll be sure to mention their objections every time I moderate a panel at a Sci-Fi convention. :P