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Some stuff from the weekend and more

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This entry is part 11 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’m running exceptionally later than planned tonight.

In between doing stuff at work during the day and up until about ten minutes before I’m typing this, I’ve been involved, on and off, in two completely awesome discussions over in my FB stream. One’s been about faith, religion, and atheists, the other has been on people trapped in low-paying (minimum wage) fast-food jobs.

And I’ve also been working on getting some promo stuff lined up for this year’s Taste the World in Fenton Village event (which is happening on May 4).

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time at the second annual Awesome Con. I didn’t take a lot of picture, but other people did… some of them are in the feed rundown below. Mostly, I just had a great time being surrounded by fantastically creative and energetic people who were deeply involved with things they absolutely love doing. It was a good and refreshing change from the daily grind.

But, now I’m way over due to go to sleep for the extra early meeting I have on Tuesday. Soooo… here, here’s a bunch of stuff to scroll through.

Dead Rock Stars (If They Weren’t), Sharknado 2 (If You Want To), A New Ax (If You’ve Got Wood), Permatemping (If You’ve Kind of Got a Job), Rockin’ Fire (Just Because), and Other Things (Since There Are)

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This entry is part 12 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

For a while it was looking like today’s theme was going to be “Gender Stuff”… but then some cool science and some other strange stuff showed up.

The “Gender Stuff”, though is really interesting and, for those who don’t soak in the wide variety of gender issues that I do (again, I credit my fantastically diverse group of friends), some of this can be a real eye opener.

Of particular interest, I thought, was the article about how the “sexual aggressive” role in society switched from being attributed to women to being attributed to men. This is something that I think is sliding back in the other direction now. And, with more free and open discussion of such topics happening now than has happened before, I think we’re on track to finally ending up in a sensible place where people (regardless of self-identified or outright identifiable gender) will be able to directly and openly pursue however much sex they want without the majority of society casting them a sideways glance.

I think that would lead to the bulk of the population being happier. And, eventually, it would lead to better relationships all around, as people would no longer feel pressured into behaviors that don’t suit them.

Of course, I also think we’re still a generation or two away from that playing out. (Much like the shift I see in the Religion/Faith/Atheist mix, which I also think will end up more amiable in a generation or two… and, yes, there’s likely a pretty strong connection between those two trends, in my opinion.)

Nail in the Net Neutrality Coffin, We Can Be Martians, Inside Mummies, American Dream Evaporated, and Pop Nightmares

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This entry is part 13 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The big discussion thread today was all about Avril Lavigne’s new video, which was pretty universally panned by my friends (and me). The meat of the discussion, though centered around a minor dust up over what “art” is for and how dedicated one should be to avoiding “fluff” in life. Really fascinating stuff… and a clear example of how most people I know can be completely passionate about their points of view, yet still clearly communicate their positions.

The other two important things, neither of which FB seems to have decided to really push in front of people all that much just yet, were the FCC decision about Net Neutrality and an hour-long podcast about the 60-word sentence that opened up the can of worms we’ve been dealing with when it comes to our response to the 9-11 attacks way back when. It’s that whole “by any means necessary” and “affiliated entities” bit that’s really the problem. I highly recommend everyone take the time to listen to it (links in the stream below).

Political Drift, Questionable Communications Decisions, A Classic Clip, History Online, Seal Snuggles, and Some SciFi Short Goodness

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This entry is part 14 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The situation with Cliven Bundy (the man who’s been grazing his cattle illegally for years on federal land) continues to get more surreal. Now that he’s got a speaking stump, all sorts of things are coming out of his mouth that are being made a big deal of. In some cases, like his recent musings on whether blacks were better off as actual slaves than as a bunch of people on public assistance now, possibly more of a big deal than they should be.

The problematic thing is, there seem to be some questions at the root of this story that are very worthy of discussion. Like bringing into question how much “public” land the federal government owns and what can (or should) be allowed to go on with it. Or how we should all feel about federal officials, working well within existing law, can be dissuaded from carrying out their duties by a group of ornery and armed citizens. Or how the media is actually covering this story–what gets hyped where, what details get lost, what words quoted out of context.

All fascinating and important things that will likely be swept away under the torrent of “Crazy Racist Guy Pulls a Gun on the Government” spin. (Well… it’s not completely spin, which is part of the problem with Bundy being at the center of this.)

The other big news is the FCC’s decision to more or less throw the concept of Net Neutrality under the bus. With the potential merger of Comcast and Time-Warner cable providers on the horizon, there’s no more important time to ensure that the Internet stay as low a barrier to entry as possible. With what the FCC just did, though, carriers like Comcast can (and will–it’s already started with Netflix) give preferential treatment to some businesses, putting them in a beneficial spot for getting their content to customers. The new ruling does include provisions that theoretically prevent an actual “fast lane” where data transfer rates could be modified based on business agreements… but those safeguards only work if the FCC enforces them in a meaningful way… and I haven’t seen a lot to indicate the FCC will do anything in a meaningful way when it comes to this issue. This is the second time they’ve dropped the ball–the first being when the poorly worded, but generally accepted, net neutrality ruling failed to be defensible in court because of that poor wording.

Birds, Bionics, reBoots, Balls, Batgirl, and a Bunch of things that don’t start with B

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This entry is part 15 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

What’s sure to eventually be the big news is that it’s been clearly stated now that the decades worth of stories, characters, and places built up in the Star Wars Extended Universe is not at all cannon. (Oh, but, Lucasfilm says, they’ll happily pillage what they want from it as they’re building their new continuity.)

This isn’t at all a big deal for me. I’ve read, I think, two of the Han Solo books and a few issues of the comic from the 80s. I know a whole lot of E.U. stuff, but only because so many people I know dig it so much. So, I’m not going to miss it at all.

I do, however, expect there to be raging battles in various geek circles about this. Maybe not quite on Jar Jar Binks level when it comes to vitriolic hate, but it’s going to be a rough road.

The other big (and more important to some) news is that Catholics are about to get two new saints… both former popes, including John Paul II, who is just shy of being the most fast-tracked saint ever (I think). It’s kind of neat to think that I now grew up during the same span of years that a couple of saints walked the earth. It has a bit of an anachronistic feel to it. Modern saints don’t seem as flashy or awe-inspiringly amazing as the old ones do. Miracles are more subtle things now than they are in the Bible and the “amazing” life is often equally subtle. A steady push to be better, to do better, to put oneself out there and bear the ridicule and hardship of others as your own. In some ways, it makes sainthood seem just that much more attainable. Which, I think, is a good thing… maybe more people will work toward it.