Dan, Me, Sex And Marriage
Last week, my old friend Dan Savage and I sat down for an extremely ill-advised public chat about, well, a lot of things. We were at the New York Public Library at a sold-out event, promoting Dan's typically funny, moving, enraging, provoking, uplifting series of essays, now collected as American Savage. Here's the full program. Enjoy:
Happy Second Birthday to My Failed Anthony Weiner Tumblr!
I got an e-mail from Tumblr today:
I am Anthony Weiner turned 2 today!
We hope it was a great year, and we look forward to sharing many more!
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I wrote about this a couple years ago, but just in case you missed it:
My Failed “I am Anthony Weiner” Project. What I Learned about Social Movements.
Basically, I tried to start a “I Am Bradley Manning” Tumblr, expect for Anthony Weiner and with crotch shots: http://iamanthonyweiner.tumblr.com/
I thought there was a chance it might blow up. There was another crotch pics for Weiner website that pretty much copied me.
Both websites turned out to be epic failures.
I was thinking about opening it up again since Weiner recently came back to life with a bid for mayor of New York City. But now I feel like it’s too late. I made the Tumblr before the drama in which he came out as a liar.
If you’re a couple years behind on the Weiner news, Wikipedia has your back:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandal
I don’t feel like Anthony Weiner has a huge shot right now anyway. He probably could have survived the dick pic scandal on pride alone if only he hadn’t freaked out and and then lied about being hacked. So RIP, “I am Anthony Weiner” Tumblr. You had potential, just like Anthony Weiner himself.
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Full disclosure:
I am a registered NYC voter now. (I was an NJ resident before. But now am a Brooklynite.) I am actually voting for Christine Quinn, but for reasons other than dick pics.
Free Science Summer Courses Online: Mental Health, Gene Expression, Virology
Hat-tip to Paul Gilmartin via The Mental Illness Happy Hour for the mental health class tip.
I thought this would be good follow-up to the Cara Santa Maria post.
Coursera is offering a bunch of free summer courses that you can enroll in today and start a bit later.
The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness starts June 24th and lasts 6 weeks. I was looking at it, but then, while browsing other courses, I found Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression from the University of Melbourne. And then I found Virology I from Columbia University. Score! Free learning!
The Gene class starts July 1 and lasts 6 weeks. Virology starts August 1 and lasts 11 weeks.
I couldn’t decide which one of two I wanted to do more, so I signed up for both. It’s only a two week overlap. I’ve never taken a Cousera class before, but I’ve heard good things.
I’ll post reviews for the classes on here in a couple months.
#nerdlife
My Inspirational Person: Cara Santa Maria
If you watch The Young Turks, you’ve probably heard of her. If not, well, you have now.
She is my favorite scientist-turned-writer-turned-TV-personality.
Cara Santa Maria.
I’m going to put the phrase “Cara Santa Maria hot” in here just because I know that’s a phrase people are going to be Googling to find this page.
CSM was the senior science correspondent for the “Talk Nerdy to Me” series for The Huffington Post until April 2013.
According to wiki, she has a Masters in neuroscience and dated Bill Maher (Ugh, well, I don’t envy her taste in pretentious men.) for two years. She has done a lot of neuropsychology research including, “clinical psychological assessment, the neuropsychology of blindness, neuronal cell culture techniques, and computational neurophysiology.”
She is now pretty much a full-fledged member of the TYT cast.
So, she gives me inspiration for science jobs beyond research monkey.
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Another one of my favorite scientists that became a writer is Dr. Robert Sapolsky over at Stanford. He wrote Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress Related Diseases, and Coping. Sapolsky did not trasnsition out of academia, but you can see in his Ted Talk that he is awesome at breaking complex topics down into highly accessible language.
I’ve blogged about him before.
He is arguably much less adorable than Cara Santa Maria.
Man, “senior science correspondent.” That’s a nice title.
A blogger can dream.
Lana Del Rey – Born to Die (Ghosts of Paraguay Remix)
Pop and dance music this year has been really disappointing in my opinion. (Seriously, what else is there besides “Get Lucky?”) So lately I’ve been listening to dubstep and house remixes of stuff from 2010-2012.
Favorite Lana Del Rey remix so far:
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It has less hits than some of the other remixes, so I thought I would give it a plug. (Even though I’m not sure it counts as dubstep.)
Ghosts of Paraguay on SoundCloud here.
The “Rat Park” Drug Addiction Comic
Stuart McMillen is a comic artist from Australia who uses comics as a medium to explore deep, often philosophical topics.
This month he writes about the experiment that purports that well-socialized and stimulated rats will actually choose opiate withdrawal over giving up their normal interactions. The rats in isolation cages do not.
Read the entire comic here.
Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
Despite all our rage, we’re still just underfunded rats in a cage.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Liz Katz and the Cosplay Controversy
I never knew crowdfunding could get so bitter before today. Especially for something like this…
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Liz Katz is a model and actress based in LA and is very active in the nerd /gamer community. Petite modeling, booth babe gigs–she’s a perfect pick for an elf or a faerie photoshoot. She recently set up an IndieGogo page for a “Sexy Princess Peach Cosplay.”
It’s exactly what it sounds like. Funds would go to props, lighting, cameras, etc. Her goal was $650, but she managed to raise $4,690 between 52 backers.
It seems like an example of using social media to do a successful project funding. But amazingly enough, people are pissed off about it.
Nerd Reactor has an article titled “Is Fundraising a Cosplay Outfit Wrong?”
The top comment by James Campbell:
Hah. This sounds like the type of person who would slut-shame someone and then jerk off to them at the same time.
First of all, if you’re getting paid, you’re not a wannabe. If you’re getting paid AND getting press coverage, then you’re definitely not a wannabe. For a model, “free exposure” is a good thing.
Have these people not been to LA? Have they not seen the iconic costume photo hustlers on Hollywood Boulevard?
There is nothing wrong with using an image to make money. Intellectual property can get tricky, but nobody is arresting the guy dressed like Superman for hitting up tourists for a photo op.
There are definitely issues with the videogame industry oversexualizing nearly every female character. Don’t get me wrong. Feminism in videogames is a complex topic. But if the fans start bullying each other’s interpretations of fandom and sexual expression, then they are failing to make an inclusive community.
And that violates the very spirit of cosplay.