HUPOMNEMATA

Kengo Miyazaki is running a nice weblog where he posts links to the new releases from netlabels that he likes (most releases under explicit creative commons licenses). He “picked the labels that are dealing with minimal, techno, abstract, experimental, ambient, noise and stuff like that.” There is also an RSS feed so you can be kept posted. New stuff added everyday.

(update : and here is the linko to acowo that i forgot to put yesterday… how stupid can you get?)

Comicsworthreading is a great ressource for those who don’t feel like reading thousands of pages of bad american comics but are interested nonetheless in the rare hidden gems. It looks like Johanna over there reads everything, from small independent to superheroes.
To give you an idea of the kind of reviews you can find there, here is a short extract :
“I wish there was a way to ban Chuck Austen from writing female characters. (I wish there was a way to ban him from writing comics, but one step at a time.) In Action Comics #819, Superman is hurt and Lois is missing, so Lana takes the opportunity to hit on Clark and talk down Lois while wearing short cutoffs and a tight belly shirt. (The artist apparently doesn’t know what a laundry basket looks like, either, drawing something that looks like a serving platter full of clothes.) ”
As an extra, each and everyweek you can find over there a chick check of DC comics and Marvel comics, i.e. a rundown of female creators credited during the week (usual week : not a lot, some writers, no penciller, no inker, a lot more assistant editors…)

For a while now I have been following the blog misbehaving.

I copy paste: misbehaving.net is a weblog about women and technology. It’s a celebration of women’s contributions to computing; a place to spotlight women’s contributions as well point out new opportunities and challenges for women in the computing field.

Just putting this on the weblog, as it could be interesting for certain people, that is, if and when they don’t know this blog already….

And then, just because I sure “like pretty pictures”, v(^o^), I did a google “images” with as entry: “women and technology”.
(google images sometimes is extremely funny and bizarre, funny to see how the search engine system works)

These were my favourites (out of 20 pages of thumbnails):

And there is always some extremely absurd search results: This one wins!

Women and bizaaromundo pants!!!

arrghgh

fashion police?

Come save me from these pants….
( (+_+) )

Rumour is one of the characters in the brand new Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell: Innocence is named after Donna Haraway. (haven’t seen it yet)

Tuesday, from my appartment.

Saturday, we tried Singstar. It’s a Playstation game, looking at first like a simple karaoke. Except here you have to hit (and hold) the right note if you want to win (you can also score with an approximation of the right note). So it looks also a bit like an horizontal shooter where you aim with your voice. It could be great, it has the potential to build a new link between your body and the game but there is not really anything more than what I just said. After two hours of really great fun, you come to realise that it would require a good deal of other wild ideas to be more than a gimmick. So now the technique is there, maybe it’s time to find a game designer?

Luc is very good at singing “Take on me”. The worst score of the evening was me and Jean-Michel singing “YMCA” (and it’s only because of me, Jean-Michel is a very good singer)

Six sci fi writers were interwiewed about the future: here you can read their views.

(courtesy them again)

It’s been a long time without a robot in this blog, but this one deserves all the attention it gets :
“To survive without human help, a robot needs to be able to generate its own energy. So Chris Melhuish and his team of robotics experts at the University of the West of England in Bristol are developing a robot that catches flies and digests them in a special reactor cell that generates electricity. ”
article from New Scientist.

On the Elspa’s website you can find a pdf version of their white paper about women and videogames, titled chicks and joysticks. It is written by Aleks Krotoski (she’s also writing about games in the very good Guardian gamesblog.)

“The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards were created in 1998 by the Gaylactic Network to honor works in science fiction, fantasy and horror which include positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues… The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are juried with an open nomination process and are presented in a variety of categories each year, with works released in the previous calendar year eligible for consideration. Categories for 2004 are Best Novel, Best Short Fiction and Best Other Work. In addition, each year a handful of works originally released prior to the creation of the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are inducted into the Hall of Fame.”

And the award for the best novel went to Nalo Hopkinson for her excellent Salt Road, which makes us really happy. Nalo was one of our guest during the project Stitch and Split in Barcelona. It was a real pleasure to meet her and she did a great lecture (you can download it in mp3 or ogg).

More details about the awards can be found on the gaylactic spectrum site. (note : Buffy was shortlisted in the other works category!)