Day of Silence + Amazon

April 17th, 2009 by Brianna

A couple of random thoughts….

Firstly, I felt rather moved today at seeing several dozen other students observing the Day of Silence today. Apparently some people actually care, even amongst the hyper-conservative environment we have here here.

Second, I really hope someone gets to the bottom of this whole ‘amazonfail’ debacle. I find it very hard to believe that they would ever intentionally derank LGBT books. (Especially when they didn’t derank many other, extremely vulgar books, both gay and straight) This has all the markings of an attack. It happened over easter weekend, for goodness sake! They’re calling it a glitch – but they won’t really know what happened until they go through all the logs, which could take weeks. For that matter, the logs may not even exist at this point, and if it was some ‘report as offensive’ feature that is responsible, it may be impossible to ever really know. Amazon is an enormous website, after all. It might even be nothing but a typo in a script somewhere, unbalancing an automated flagging spider.

And yet, there’s this. Which, if accurate, means that they’ve been ignoring the problem for a while. And that amazon is understaffed with lazy bums. Which is expected, but disgusting. I don’t think it’s worth boycotting them at the moment, but I’d really like to know more.

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Enjoying Music – Country, Electronica

April 13th, 2009 by Brianna

I like to complain about art snobs on occasion. And I like to think that I’m not one. But I’ve been having a minor problem lately with regard to two things: electronica and modern country. Here’s why:

I listened to a bunch of older country this weekend while digitizing some vinyl (and wrote a FWF post about one song), and I think I’m learning to enjoy it, just a little. I’m concerned though – the songs I like best are the most ‘rock’ like and the most ‘folk’ like. I still can’t stand the stereotypes. And I still think that modern country is unbearably whiny! Perhaps it’s just not my aesthetic. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it… Then again, I have noticed that the ‘bored’ aspect of country heightens the impact of some songs (think calm and soothing), so maybe I just need to listen until I get understand the ‘whiny’ aspect too.

On to electronica – I actually like electronic music as a whole, I really do. It’s just one particular aspect that’s driving me nuts: the highly altered voices. It’s those effects that sound rather like a voice is being used to set the pitch for another instrument, together with just enough of the original voice to still form words. I assume it’s done with some kind of complex comb filter, etc., but it sounds to me like somebody’s being tortured! Which is not a nice musical sound. At all.

Gah. I’m getting the shivers just thinking about it. Maybe I’ll never learn to like it. Maybe that’s okay…

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Sluggy vs. Dollhouse

March 17th, 2009 by Brianna

I never thought of this until just now, but Oasis in Sluggy Freelance could be a character in Dollhouse!

It’s kind of uncanny. And here I thought that Dollhouse was really original… Oasis has a sort of weird past, involving strange operations. She has her mind altered by a creepy corporation. She can’t control herself when it comes to the thing that are put into her head. And now, apparently, she’s trying to break free of the mind control, via meditation. If the guy who knows how to do the mind wipe died on Dollhouse, it would be almost exactly the same.

Hey – why don’t they make Sluggy into a TV show? That would be pretty cool.

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Something I learned today…

March 11th, 2009 by Brianna

Connecting the output of a chip to two inputs, where the chip doesn’t drive enough current for both inputs, may cause undefined behavior. Even if one of the input chips is fried.

I just love debugging hardware.

(The fried chip in question was bonded to the PCB – I couldn’t remove it, so I just cut the traces. Everything worked fine after that!)

Why is the chip fried, you ask? It’s because I’m an idiot, and connected Vcc and ground in reverse.

I’m trying to come up with some deep philosophic insight from this experience, but I’m mostly just frustrated…

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More Sugar Rush Thoughts

March 3rd, 2009 by Brianna

At some point, I’m going to have to write a full comparison of Sugar Rush and South of Nowhere.

On further watching – Sugar Rush really is SoN on acid. I still don’t feel like rooting for any particular couple, but Kim is much more identifiable than I thought, and I do want her to find love. But the really interesting bit comes at the end of season 1, when they decide to run away from home. SoN did the same thing, only… not.

In SoN they ran away, the car ran out of gas, they hid in a restaurant, called the dad, and were threatened by a conveniently placed pervert (or was it an imaginary pervert?). It was all very after-school-specially.

Moral: Don’t run away from home.

In Sugar Rush, they run away, drive like idiots with no apparent repercussions, rent an obscenely expensive hotel room with the mom’s credit card, and have sex all night before the police manage to track them down.

Moral: Uhh…. Credit card theft rocks?

Yeah.

Honestly, I wouldn’t want my kids (should I ever have them) to watch Sugar Rush before they turn at least 17 or so. SoN is obviously more teen-appropriate. Still – there’s no denying that Sugar Rush is more realisticish (relatively speaking), and much more exciting.

Moral: British People are Crazy (and mildly cool).

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Thinking About Internet Media Again…

February 18th, 2009 by Brianna

I find the subject quite fascinating! First, a little story you already know:

Once there were ordinary websites (okay, there were other things first, but that’s beside the point). After a while, the media people caught on, and made sites about their products. But by this time, media pioneers and bored teenagers had started blogging. Blogging was different for a while, but soon many of biggest blogs were written by corporations. So the bored teenagers et al moved to myspace and facebook, but the media companies followed them there, too. Around this time (roughly), online video caught on, and the line between producer and consumer began to blur.

Anyway, myspace wasn’t so cool anymore, or at least was too much trouble. So the bored teenagers moved to text messages and twitter. And now, twitter is being adopted by online and offline mediaish personalities. And the president. Not to mention every celebrity ever. Since I thoroughly hate twitter, this makes me sad… but I guess I’ll have to get used to it.

The latest twist: Anyone but Me, the best web series yet is twittering live from the set. And I’ll bet others are doing it too. Which is… cool, I guess, but I can’t help but feel we’re a long, long way from those ‘making of’ segments on the tail end of VHS movies. Or even from, say, Lord of the Rings special features. Where will it end? How close will the media get to the consumer?

I can see it now:

autowin: @MamaC: thefarmmakeup just said Betty showed up on set. Make them leave!

MamaC: what does everyone else think?

The Entire World: DO IT!!!

Okay, maybe that would be rather awesome…

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Sugar Rush

February 13th, 2009 by Brianna

I should probably rename this blog, “Brianna talks about TV”. Or something. But writing about politics makes me depressed and bored, writing about music or computer stuff takes too much effort, and all my other writing ideas are being taken up by a class I’m taking. Beside, [insert random mumbling about how TV is a primary culture-shaping force, thus engaging it is important]

I’ve been watching Sugar Rush, since it just got imported into the US. In many way, it’s everything South of Nowhere refused to be. It’s trashy, explicit (perhaps a bit too much!) and generally crazy. But as much sense as the show makes, I just can’t seem to fall in love with the characters like I did on SON. I think it’s all the fault of ‘Sugar’ – she’s just such a mess. As a result, there’s no reason to really want them to get together. I keep thinking, “Kim, find a different girl to obsess over.” On the other hand, her accent is really cute, and the show is rather funny at times.

So, it’s worth seeing, at least if you need something to help you procrastinate!

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Music, Videos, Ethics, and Content Removal

February 4th, 2009 by Brianna

Warner Music Group just screwed up big time. It seems Youtube had a contract with WMG to allow users’ use of WMG music in their videos. Also, WMG put their catalog of music videos directly on Youtube. The contract expired, WMG was greedy, and now they want all of their content deleted.

Idiots.

Everybody’s mad about it. From artists who had their videos removed, to people using WMG music in the background of a video, to the EFF, to everybody else.

Now, I’m not going to say much about the publicity/creativity stupidness of this decision. Everybody else has covered that rather throughly. (I would like to point out – the ethics of ‘content sharing’ and copyright in general is still an open question. 800 years ago, an author would have been honored that someone would want to make copies of their work!)

No, here’s why this decision is so incredibly bad: You don’t delete web content. Especially not mass amounts of web content. By rendering millions of videos useless, either by removal or muting, a large chunk of the web just went dead. And who knew – the Internet is a big place, with lots of distractions. Users who find a dead link, just drop that line of inquiry and do something completely different (Something they can actually find!) In other words, if that Beyonce video, or even, say, the hamster dancing to Metallica goes away, guess what? Ooh… shiny podcast in the next tab. Close this one! That means we’re not going to be listening to WMG content. At all. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what they wanted.

Once again – Idiots.

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Will unemployment help reduce pay equality?

January 31st, 2009 by Brianna

Mild speculation alert!

According to the latest statistics, due to men being laid off at higher rates women now make up almost 50% of the workforce. (Thanks to Girl w/ Pen ) Now, as the Gw/P post pointed out, this is not necessarily a good thing, either for women or society as a whole.

But I do think that something very interesting could happen here. While much of the reason for this gender-unequal decrease is due to an overall decrease in male-dominated sectors (construction, etc.), there are many, many jobs being lost in other areas. Now, we know that women are paid much less on average than men. Furthermore, this pay inequality is not only caused by a larger percentage of men having jobs in higher paying fields, rather, the inequality holds true in almost every field (PDF).

If an employer is forced to lay someone off out of several who hold similar jobs, who are they going to choose – the higher paid person or the lower? Given similar work output (which is reasonable, I believe), most employers should choose the higher paid worker, who is statistically more likely to be male. This, will lead to a decrease in the gendered pay gap, at least temporarily.

The real test will come when the economy improves, pay rises, and unemployment drops. Will the men who were let go for having higher salaries be hired back at similar salaries to the women who remained? Will women’s salaries be raised? (increased relative seniority, etc.) In other words, whereas historically women have been entering, at a lower wage, into a male-dominated workforce, at some future point significant numbers of men might be entering into a (slightly) female-dominated workforce. I’m certain pay won’t become equal overnight, but hopefully things will improve.

On the other hand, non-whites are being disproportionately affected by rising unemployment. I’m not sure what the causes are, but I imagine it’s related to social inequalities. So, it comes down to: a (potential) step forward, and an (immediate) step back.

(Crossposted at Fourth Wave Feminism)

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Random: The L Word Episode 6.2 Music

January 27th, 2009 by Brianna

So I just watched episode 2 of the latest (but not greatest) season of the L Word (I want more Lucy Lawless!) It was weird, stupid, and (partly unintentionally) funny, but the music was – good, for once.

For one thing, there wasn’t so much of it as there usually is. Are they out of money, or something? Still – less is more here! And the little bit they did play were rather nice. The little brass riffs during the proposal scene (Yay! For Jane Lynch) were perfect, and the electronic music for the final Shenny scene was even better.

Did ezgirl get an ear transplant? Or am I delusional from lack of sleep?

Now, if only we could get rid of that damn theme song…

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