Sprinkles Around the Web 2/4-2/17/11

Sprinkles from around the web

Links that I enjoyed around the web. No one else’s opinion but my own.

Me

Me, Tammy, and Jasmine at the APCC New Year Celebration. A great day with some wonderful and talented friends.
Me, Tammy, and Jasmine at the APCC New Year Celebration. A great day with some wonderful and talented friends.

Uploaded a ton of photos. Check them out.

Fandom

NBC casts Wonder Woman! ‘Friday Night Lights’ star lands coveted role I’ve never seen Adrianne Palicki act, however, I am so happy that this is going forward. For real this time.

What Superhero Comics Look Like A great little article breaking down how Osborn #3 by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios is scripted and put together art-wise, also how it applies to the very best of current comic books.

10 Reasons the Star Trek 2 Screenplay Still Isn’t Done

3) Everybody wanted Uhura to kick some ass this time around. But they couldn’t figure out how to have her kick ass in a teeny minidress, without needing a lot of strategically placed lens flare. The writers spent two months trying to figure out a plot reason why Uhura might have to put on some pants, or maybe some leggings, for part of the movie. What if they go to a planet of leg-biting monsters, and she has to put some protective leg coverings on? Or maybe Spock shows her a special Vulcan ritual, in which practitioners must wear pants as a sign of devotion to pure logic?

Andy Warhol, Nico, Robin And The Bats! Esquire Magazine Photoshoot 1967 This is an amazing. I’m such a Factory fangirl. If I could go back into time, I would go there and hang out.

Legend of a Cowgirl An amazing Firefly fanvid about Zoe. Just perfect. I love it. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 2/4-2/17/11”

Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11

Sprinkles from around the web

A collection of interesting links that I found around the web. Read and enjoy.

Me

Erica in her new dress
Because sometimes, I just need to buy and wear a pretty red dress.

Environment

Polar bear swims for nine straight days in search of ice Polar bears swim, but they don’t swim as far as this one. Why did this bear swim so far? It couldn’t find ice. Yep, the real effects of global warming.

Squirrels Around the World There are some freaking adorable squirrels out there.

Fandom

The Rape of Inara: On heroines, consent, and women’s sexuality

I am now gleefully happy that “Firefly” got canceled. Not that I wasn’t before, but now? I can almost forgive FOX for canceling all those TV shows if it means that Inara was never raped. Also, TV, can you stop having the women with sexuality be raped or otherwise punished for having it while pretending to be edgy for having women with ‘unconventional’ sexualities?

Resistance, a Star Trek: The Next Generation fanvid I love this video so much. It’s amazing.

‘Dark Knight Rises’: Anne Hathaway will be Catwoman, Tom Hardy is Bane Okay, she’ll actually be Selina Kyle as who knows if she’ll be Catwoman in this one… Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11”

Sprinkles Around the Web 9/24-9/30/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Yes, it’s back. Here are links that I’ve enjoyed in the past week from around the web. Your mileage may vary.

• First, go nominate @geekgirlcon for the best non-profit over on the Mashable Awards.

• Second, Happy Queer History Month! Or LGBTTIQQA (did I miss anyone?) History Month, if you prefer that.

Me

I bruised the heck out of my foot. Sprained it or something. I had to walk with a cane all last week. Ouches.

Books

A review of Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman have edited a book about young people who are transpeople and gender queer and RJ’s review just makes me want to read it more.

Writer Greg Rucka gives a preview of Chapter 2 of his new Queen & Country book. I love Queen & Country and am so excited that Rucka’s writing it again. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 9/24-9/30/10”

Sprinkles Around the Web 5/28-6/10/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Two weeks worth of links and other things I found amusing, insightful, or otherwise useful around the web. Your mileage may vary.

Me

• A photo of me on the set of ExOfficio’s Spring ’11 photoshoot. Yes, that’s how far ahead the fashion industry works. (I’m the one with the braid and my back turned.)

• Okay, not really me, but my good friend Steve. His Batman, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Sandman tattoos were featured on Geeky Tattoos.

BP Oil Spill

We Just Tore Up Our Contract with Mother Nature. Chuck does a good job at collecting all the various links about the BP Oil Spill. Warning: He does become ranty at the end, and he’s a horror/fantasy writer so things get graphic.

Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR. Why a fake Twitter account is a thorn in BP’s side and how they seem more concerned about their PR and stocks than the Gulf Coast being destroyed.

Fandom

• Apparently, there are people out there making shows for me, including RuPaul’s Drag U and Men with Brooms: Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 5/28-6/10/10”

Sprinkles from Around the Web 05/21-05/27/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Environment

Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion take hazmat dive into Gulf’s oily waters. Video of what the oil-and-chemical-filled Gulf looks like. Horrific. Sad.

Fandom

Come party with Lady Gaga: From her dressing room to a sex club, an exclusive interview in which the singer discusses fame, the paparazzi – and those health rumours. And the 12+ reasons why I love Lady Gaga. (Music video NSFW.)

The Weekly Geek: Proud to be a nerdy gay girl. Reasons why being a queer fangirl is awesome. Continue reading “Sprinkles from Around the Web 05/21-05/27/10”

Confessions of a Geek: No iPad, No Kindle, No iTunes

Erica and Winston in front of books
Me and Winston, my cat, in front of some of my books.
I didn’t order an iPad. I don’t have a Kindle or Sony e-Reader. I don’t buy TV or music off iTunes. I still trudge every week to the comic book shop to pick up my weekly stack. I still frequent used book stores to collect whatever trashy vampire book I’m reading next or cookbook I want to pillage for recipes. I still buy CDs and pay for my favorite shows on DVD. I still have freaking vinyl records.

Admittedly, I have a love for books — yes, the physical form in my hand. They never run low on batteries and only cost you page wrinkling or under $20 to replace when you drop them in the bathtub. However, I wouldn’t mind giving up my CDs and DVDs for digital copies. If for no other reason, I’d have more shelf space for books. (Oh, yes, I am that girl, the one you never want to volunteer to help move.) I’ll admit to owning an iPod, and how it’s much more convenient to have 128 GB of music at my fingertips when I need to tune out at work.

I don’t own an iPad or Kindle and I don’t buy from iTunes because of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

I don’t like the idea that Amazon could hit the kill switch on a book I paid money for. Same with iTunes. And how many generally technologically savvy friends have I had who’ve killed all the music on their iPods due to syncing issues related to DRM. I’ve also had several tell me that every CD they buy off iTunes, they immediately burn to a disc, which rather defeats the point of digital copies. The iPad premiered with a Marvel Comic Book app. It looks very slick. Besides some issues I have with pricing, how do I know these comics aren’t going to disappear when Marvel decides I can’t own them anymore?

Amazon tells the consumer how many times s/he can share books to different devices and with other Kindle owners. Marvel doesn’t allow sharing, unless you want someone to borrow your $500 iPad. iPods are set from the factory to wipe their entire harddrives when hooked up to a different computer.

I think I’ll keep my books, my CDs, my DVDs, and yes, my vinyl records until someone sorts out this DRM issue in a way that’s pro-consumer, not pro-corporation. I’m okay with being old fashioned here.

Save the Earth: Greenwashing or Going Green?

KermitThese days being Green sells. This makes me happy, moreover, this makes my inner nine-year-old happy who was campaigning to save the whales on the local news long before it was cool. However, as Kermit pointed out, being Green isn’t easy, and sometimes, it might not be as profitable as shareholders demand that it be. Especially since being Green has become lumped in with better labor practices and company ethics.

Say I decided that I wanted to start mass selling warming cat beds, I would need:

1. Investors to fund my project
2. Materials to make my cat beds out of
3. A design team to create the product
4. A marketing team to create the packaging and branding messages
5. A factory to produce the product
6. A factory to produce the packaging
7. A warehouse to store my packaged cat beds
8. Shipping to get cat beds to warehouse and then to stores/customers
9. Stores and web site to sell them in

(Okay, I’m sure I forgot something. But this is simplified.)

So, let’s say I make my cat beds out of 100% organic cotton and use an energy saving method to warm the beds. Great, my cat beds are Green, right?

Wrong, when they travel really inefficiently by jet from my factory in China because I have to meet deadlines. Wrong, when I use non-recyclable new plastics in packaging. Wrong, when I mass market them at Wal-Mart and pay my own design team substandard wages so they have to work at Wal-Mart selling my cat beds on the weekends to supplement their income.

While this is a massive simplification of how hard going Green actually is, it’s not an uncommon practice for companies to say they’re Green and then leave some pretty big carbon footprints in other areas or with other products. This is also known as Greenwashing and it all comes down to how much money a company can make by advertising it as Green.

Though my cat warming beds are trying to Green and hopefully getting incentives to become Green in other areas besides materials, they aren’t quite there yet. They aren’t completely Greenwashing, but the packaging needs to be clear that the materials in the product and it’s function are Green while the rest of it may not be.

Traditionally, Greenwashing was associate with more blatant profit mongering or anti-environmental acts being passed off as Green. However, there’s been a move these days to say, “Hey, but what about…” And sites like GoodGuide have popped up to help the prosumer make a decision about how truly Green a product is. Because alone we don’t have the resources to figure it out, but together, we can stand up and say that while being Green isn’t easy, it’s time to start.

Prosumer Presidential Matchmaking: Taxes

In my political matchmaking quest, I’ve found this graph from The Washington Post to be helpful about learning where I fall in McCain’s vs. Obama’s tax plans.

McCain v Obama on taxes

Personally, I fall into the $37k-66k. I kind of like this idea that I could almost buy a full-equipped new laptop with my tax return from Obama. McCain only gets me another iPod. Once a techie, always a techie.

Personal Accountability Starts with Education

I’m a news junkie. Okay, I’m an NPR-listening and blog-reading junkie. I’ve been listening and reading many different commentaries on the collapsing financial structure. I probably shouldn’t be. I think it’s adversely affecting my mood. (Also I really hate the term personal accountability because it sounds like I don’t think that anyone else should be doing anything to help out. Which…just read on.)

One of the most interesting segments I heard on my local NPR affiliate was a segment where people where asked if the federal government should be bailing out these major financial institutions. Most the people who spoke were angry and said that the CEOs should reap what they’ve sown all these years.

Of course, that’s nice and dandy, except for most people don’t realize how much they could be personally screwed over if the institutions failed.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for better regulations. I am all for better watchdog groups. I am all for prosecuting CEOs and others who’ve knowingly practiced predatory lending or broke the law in other ways. I do not think they should get huge severance packages that could feed me for the rest of my life.

The base question is Who thought it would be a good idea to run the economy on debt?

A lot of people have some finger-pointing, whether it’s Alan Greenspan, the Bush administration, greedy CEOs, bad auditors, home owners who took loans they couldn’t repay, etc.

One argument I’ve seen less of is how to make this stop from every happening again, and that, I believe, lies in personal financial education. Wall Street and a debt-filled, but bailing-us-out US government are no role models when it comes to finances. And, as a Gen-Y-er, neither are, for the most part, my parents and their fellow Baby Boomers who are currently by-in-large the movers and the shakers of this depressed economy.

Why isn’t there a required Personal Finance and Basic Accounting class for every high school graduate? You don’t just *know* how to set-up a bank account or get a mortgage. You aren’t born knowing how to buy stocks (like that dreadful commercial would like you to think) or invest in a sensible 401k. You don’t intrinsically know how to balance a checkbook.

I grew up with something of a home field advantage. Pre-divorce, my mother did all the accounting for the family business, and I helped her out since I was old enough to stuff envelopes and lick stamps. But even I was in for something of a shock when post-college graduation, I had a degree, about $700 to my name, needed a new place to live with my new roomie, and needed a job. Before my first paycheck, I almost didn’t know if I was going to be able to afford the gas to get to work. Granted, my family and friends were not going to be me starve or be homeless. It was a rough summer, but I did it and was even able to start saving money once my paychecks started.

But not all of us have the know-how to pull ourselves up by the financial bootstraps. A lot of us end up getting loans we can’t afford, end up defaulting, end up filling for bankruptcy, etc. Not to mention all the personal emotional and relationship consequences money can cause.

Currently, things are tight financially at Casa della Erica. Jason and I recently moved, and it was Jason’s birthday and someone (me) went a little over the top with buying him presents. We’ll weather the storm and we know that now is not the time to spend extra money at the comic store or go out to eat. What we’re not going to do is spend money we don’t have. I know I have miles to go when it comes to preparing for my future financially.

If we the people learn how to budget, learn how to search for the best loan options when we need one, etc., then maybe we’ll teach a new generation to have a better relationship with money. We don’t have to financial experts, but we did need to learn the basics and how to tell an expert from a phony when it comes to things we don’t know about. Or as Confucius said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” And maybe then we’ll have a stable economy and a better relationship with each other and our world.

And for our stability and money’s sake, make Suze Orman required reading.