Bjorn

She's amended her post, and said that Baldwin did accept her invitation to talk and that she missed it in the deluge of messages, so that might still happen. But fuck Milo's questions and his tweets/posts bitching about it. Wu did end up in a segment on MSNBC, watching that now. Giant Bomb actually wrote something about gamerghazi. Wu actually specifically calls out GB on MSNBC as being an all male site that's not talking about the gaters and criticizes them for not covering it. Not quite clear when each piece went up.

My wife and I went and did something we've never done before tonight, we volunteered to do some phone calling to drum up support for pro-choice candidates for Planned Parenthood for the upcoming mid-term elections. I've never really done any political activism, I've typically maintained a kind of journalist's distance from the proceedings, paying a lot of attention but not doing anything. My wife was near panic levels of anxiety as we drove in. She's dyslexic, and the thought of reading from a script about politics to a stranger on the phone was terrifying to her, mortified she'd make an embarrassing mistake. But she cares a lot about this, and wasn't going to let her fear stop her. I'm super fucking proud of her for going through with it, and committing to go back again in a week to do it again. I've never been in a Planned Parenthood office before. It's a bit surreal. They have a security guard, we had to be buzzed in, as they can't just leave the doors unlocked even at 6 p.m. in the suburbs. We had to have a little security briefing that all volunteers are required to go through (it was minimal, but fucking still, volunteering to do make some phone calls still requires that). Out of dozens of calls, I only had two where people pledged their support for our candidates, so I don't know how much good this stuff does. But it was a really educational experience to go do it, meet some other volunteers, meet some of the office staff of the PP. Both of us have been pro-choice for as long as we can remember, but doing this made it hit home a lot more the amount of work that goes into just maintaining the line where it is for women to have access to abortion, a variety of birth control and other services. The calls weren't as awkward as I expected. Most people who didn't want to talk either hung up, or I had time to politely thank them and say goodbye. The few who did want to talk were all supportive. Theoretically the list we were using are all people who should be pro-choice in the first place, and we're just informing them about the candidates, but it's always possible to end up with someone's who's anti-choice. I got one of those, but even she wasn't rude. I'm not convinced that phone banking like this is the most effective way to do political communication in the 21st century, but I'm at a loss to identify a better way to do it either. It's one thing when a candidate has a big budget, but when you're talking about some local and state offices, the candidates don't have the resources to reach people as easily. The whole thing has given me a lot to thank about.

Hey, whaddya know, we already have a Farscape thread! We started watching it this week, have got 4 episodes into Season 1. I haven't seen any episodes since around the time it was airing new. This is a trip. Is that a fucking spray painted trackball they are using for manual steering in a couple of episodes? Also, I swear I heard a sampling of a 2NU song towards the end of episode 3, that or 2NU sampled a song from Farscape for their second album that came out around that time. I'm going to have to listen to those albums tomorrow and see.

I've never tried it, November has been a notoriously busy month for me for most of the last 15 years, so I never feel like I'd be able to give it the attention it would deserve. That said, I met a young woman a couple of weeks ago who was wearing a NaNoWriMo t-shirt and I asked her if she had done it. She giddily launched into telling me all about it. It was really awesome, her enthusiasm and joy at having set a goal and achieved it just radiated out from her as she was talking. It had clearly given her a giant confidence boost and was an all around great experience for her. So it helps at least a few people.

I think another thing you can do is engage with people in your personal life about it. I've made some posts on Facebook, which introduced some people to this shit. In one case, a former co-worker who has a teen son ended up having a talk with him about gg, feminism, misogyny in games, etc. Some of it was stuff that she already tries to talk to him about, but this gave her a new entry point to that conversation. And I have rl gaming friends who pay little to no attention to online gaming culture, and I've introduced them to the works of Sarkeesian and Quinn, increasing their audiences. One of those guys pointed me towards this Kickstarter (Girls on Games, a book edited by someone my friend has met, as he used to be in the tabletop industry). While I missed the pledge deadline, now I've got it bookmarked to pick it up once it's out. It's all little stuff, but I guess I hope that it ultimately helps keep both myself and people I know informed and taking positive steps in all the little ways we can.

Tons there to talk about, but I want to pull this quote out from Quinn, from this question. This reinforces something I've been trying to communicate for a long ass time. Women are consistently painted as the "emotional" gender, and yet I often see so many more men being irrationally emotional. It's just that the emotions they show are almost always anger, rage, jealousy, etc. Men (#notallmen) tend to be incredibly blind to certain emotions, perceiving them as being rational reactions when they are emotional reactions, which is one of the things that makes actual rational discourse near impossible with some people.

All I can think about looking through those is Brutal Legend: Eddie Riggs: Ever feel like you were born in the wrong time - like you should have been born earlier, when the music was... real? Roadie: Like the seventies? Eddie: No. Earlier... like the early seventies.

Yep, you're remembering the right book, that's it exactly.

#NotYourPizza :clap: :clap: :clap: Fucking TJWs -- Topping Justice Warriors I'm dying reading through this. They is also why SJWs from outside the "gaming" community are jumping in. It actually makes me sick when I think about it.

Watched Paranorman tonight for the first time ever. I highly recommend it for some good Halloween watching! Good stuff, and it surprised me in several ways with its themes. I expected something that was just purely goofy kid stuff.

I ultimately think Limbo may have been over-hyped for me, resulting in me having a pretty poor opinion of it. After the tsunami of love it got, I just went in with expectations that it couldn't possibly meet. I think I would have had a better reaction to it if I had gone in not knowing anything about it.

Awesome!

Feminism: Threat or menace - Amazing

Summary of the memes and tweets that are relevant to Brianna and her husband leaving their home last night.

From a couple of MIT grad students, this thing is super cool, lets you make a "controller" out of anything.

That's something I've been trying to find the words for. There is a rubbernecking element to things like this that I'm distinctly uncomfortable with, and I mean that in regards to my own behavior. On one hand, I think it's important to pay attention to this stuff, discuss it, and if possible, take some action. But on the other, do these types of things become a kind of emergent entertainment for me? Am I in part paying attention to it for the same reason I might tune into a daily soap opera if I was into those? For the drama, the emotion? Is some part of my animal brain getting kicks from my own emotional reaction to these things?

Thanks for pointing that out, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. Good thing that this isn't a movement connected to right-wing political thought in any way.

Wooo, triple post! Sorry, but I keep finding stuff. I'm both happy, and terribly saddened, about the Escapist running all the female dev essays. They're terrific, and I'm glad they were published. But it's crushing that the people running the Escapist, and much of the readership, apparently doesn't value their opinions enough to give some actual fucking credence to their accounts (I made the mistake of looking at the comments). Also, Brendan Keogh wrote something good that's worth reading.

Woooo! Actually though, I went down a bit of a white supremacist rabbit hole today (which is something I haven't looked at in a long time), and at least for the moment, my usual unwavering support of free speech is not just wavering, but flat wobbly.

Holy oblivious bigot Batman! I kind of wish there was video of that interview. I was sure it couldn't get any worse, then I'd read the next paragraph.

Will Tuttle of Microsoft is also online tonight, kind of condemning the Escapist for that piece, and the anonymous MS employee who was included. Most of the interesting stuff is in his replies timeline.

Arthur Gies of Polygon decided to call out Twitter and GG tonight. An excerpt:

The Royals are a freaking heart attack in baseball form. 5 post season games, 5 wins, 4 in extra innings. I've never seen anything like this before. And this is worth reading for any fan, of any sport. Chris Plante (of Polygon/Verge) tells the heart tugging story about his birth, childhood and his relationship with the KC Royals.

Good lord, take a few hours to watch a baseball game and the Internet explodes again. It's like this shit will never end. Though it looks like between the Escapist and Wu, a lot more people are speaking up tonight? I think, just scanning Twitter. And fuck the Escapist. I was already mostly avoiding them (though I am reading the female devs responses right now, but that'll be the end of it), but their update to the male game dev story is pure bullshit. If it hasn't been linked, this Storify gathers a bunch of useful stuff, including Greg Tito of the Escapist saying that RogueStar's opinions are valuable and worth printing even when confronted directly with evidence about his role in gg. (The Storify is by @alexlifschitz fwiw). It also points out that devs who were super vocal against GG were not invited to participate in the Escapist's little essay panel. Also, I had no idea that Revolution 60 was out. Downloading that now.

Right! I actually saw that comic awhile back, but didn't connect the dots.