Robyn Paterson's Blog, page 34

Feeling Social Again

Hi All,

It seems that when I updated WordPress at the end of December, there was a glitch and the tiny little “allow comments” checkbox under each post was now unchecked by default instead of checked, so my last few posts couldn’t have comments. I’ve re-installed WordPress and got back and rechecked those previous posts, so the issue seems to have been fixed. Sorry about any inconvenience!

Thanks to Jack Ward for pointing it out, or I might have just assumed I freaked everyone out with that Opi...

How Powerful Are Algorithms? | Idea Channel

Information Determinism. Scary stuff! Sadly, it sounds pretty reasonable. Think about it this way- we become like characters in a console RPG like Fable where every choice we make is locking us into a path because the Algorithms that are looking for key data indicators are channeling us this way and that.

Every time we make a choice, or a search, we’re slowly building a giant pile of data that will be used in certain ways to determine what we’ll be shown and where we’ll be sent online. Faceboo...

Boys and Reading – Is There Any Hope?

Boys and Reading – Is There Any Hope? – NYTimes.com is a great article about the issue of getting boys reading in an industry dominated by women from top to bottom. I recall in high school where one of our English teachers (a middle-aged woman going through menopause) made us all read The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence (about a middle-aged woman going through menopause reflecting back on her life) which as you can expect all we 15 year old boys completely related to. We related to it so wel...

The Art of Sam Yang

Holy Crap is this guy good! His “realistic” Pokemon sculpts are amazing.

Check Out Sam’s Impressive Gallery Here.

This post is from my blog at robynpaterson.com.

The New World of Publishing: How to Keep Your Writing Going for All of 2014

Dean Wesley Smith has written a great article about keeping your writing going that everyone who wants to be a writer should take the time out and read today. Like most things, succeeding at writing is about planning, hard work and perseverance, and the start of a new year is the start of a new chance at making it work!

Some basics to start:

Any business and production plan you decide to set up for yourself is made up of goals that can be attained with work.

The focus of the goals you set is to...

Fun with Opiliones!

Opiliones (which we call Daddy Long Legs in my neck of the woods) are a species that most people mistake for spiders, but which are actually their own whole classification of insects. They are a fascinating (if creepy looking) genus that have a number of odd habits, including doing this…

Mathew Cobb has more videos and a great writeup on what makes Opiliones different from spiders on which you can find here. In the links below that article, I also found a great Flickr page with images of Harve...

Year in Review- Most Popular Posts of 2013

So, what did people read on my blog in 2013? Here’s the list of the twenty most read posts. (my own thoughts follow)

Keys to Writing a GoodStory

841


Naruto creator has gay endingplanned?

834


Korean Period Dramas ILove

581


Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss Have a Throwdown about Manned vs Unmanned SpaceExploration

435


Thoughts onNarration

411


How To Use A Samurai Sword Properly ~www.popgive.com

353


New Three Kingdomse-Book

331


Novelty – Visual novelmaker

315


FacialReconstriction

272


SamuraiHorses

266


Korean...

Happy Holidays!

I want to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 2013 has been another interesting year, and I’m sure 2014 won’t be boring or quiet either. I hope all of you have a great holiday, and enjoy good times, wealth and health in the coming year!

Robyn Paterson

This post is from my blog at robynpaterson.com.

Why Feminists Need to Stop Using “Misogyny”

Words have power. Power given to them by their social and cultural context.

Different words have different strengths and will produce different reactions from people; for example, if I call someone a “dummy” they generally won’t get too upset, but if I call them a “f*cking idiot” there’s going to be a strong reaction from most people. The reason these two words produce different results is because of how often they’re used and when they’re used. The receiver understands the weight these words...

Local History Matters

Tonight, I attended a lecture at my local community center by a local historian on the largely ignored Eastern half of the city of London, Ontario. My city, as I learned tonight, was originally two- London Proper (what I know as Downtown London) and East London (where the factories and working class people lived). These two halves, divided by Adelaide Street, would amalgamate at the dawn of the 20th century into a single city, but those lines still exist over a hundred years later in class an...