Media consumption! I read various books recently: a bunch of Courtney Milan, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (my first Austen!), Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal, and the whole run of Gotham Central (Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, et alia). I've been bookmarking links via Pinboard and sometimes making a short comment or highlighting a particular excerpt, but I haven't blogged much recently about interesting stuff I've seen; here's a delayed update.

seekingferret recommended and analyzed my vid "Pipeline" and I'm honored! I met seekingferret by happenstance at a scifi/fantasy reading in Brooklyn, having already appreciated his vids and his vid analysis online, and asked him to beta my vid; within about a day, I had such detailed, thoughtful feedback that I nearly cried with gratitude. You should also see his Iron Man vid, which also premiered at WisCon. "Cassavetes", in just a minute and a half, wittily assays fannish conversations about Tony Stark and reminds you to listen to more Le Tigre. And thanks to sasha_feather for WisCon vid party notes!

Beatrice Martini's "An intersectional take on technology, rights and justice" includes some nicely summarized lessons for us as individuals and as organizations, including "evaluate when it’s the case to go beyond short-term single-issue funding".

I also thoroughly appreciate Martini's "Menstruation Matters: A Guide to Menstrual Hygiene Day". I've been browsing the Net since the mid-90s, and Martini's link roundup wows me, because there is so much more information available about menstruation than there used to be!

Tinsel is a necklace that "will have the complete functionality of headphones built into it, without compromising a woman's style." It looks marvelous and I may well buy one, depending on the price and depending on the labor conditions under which it's manufactured. I bet several folks I know will also find this appealing.

An "On Diversity" roundtable by several makers of speculative fiction, poetry, and art gets at some interesting thoughts, particularly about the flattening effects of the "diverse" label. I made inarticulate surprised noises upon seeing Zen Cho refer to Randomized Dystopia!

If you're interested in reading more translated stories, check out Read Paper Republic and look at Ben Rosenbaum's translation offer.

I have a note here about a "flattening effect" discussed in Leigh Alexander's recent piece but I'm not certain why. I do recommend reading it.

Mel Chua, once more, shares a fascinating perspective on her experience of grace and of community-building: "There are three stories that join into the way I understand the flames of Pentecost: Babel, the summer lake, and Cana...." Gordon Atkinson's Foy Davis stories also speak to the burnout of community managers (specifically the clergy) in a way I've found insightful.

I'm curious whether any of my readers have used DevonThink, and if I ever embark on another big vidding project, I am thinking of using something like it to track my notes and clips.

Seriously, Slashdot?

Eleanor Saitta writes: "Silicon Valley companies must recognize that the law won’t do this work for them, and that if they want to avoid undermining freedom globally, it’s time to ditch the dated and dangerous ad model and start building decentralization and content and metadata privacy into everything they create." Relatedly, Cory Doctorow makes an interesting argument about the free and open internet as the meta-fight crucial to all others.

A list of unsayable things has some interesting thoughts about death, abuse, menstruation, and various other topics; I like Nalo Hopkinson's very short thought experiment best.

The "rando" article, Not One Of Us, from the New York Times Magazine, provoked thought about trust boundaries, about defaulting to open or defaulting to closed.