permalink » comment? » 331 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

permalink » 1 comment » 356 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

permalink » 2 comments » 402 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

permalink » 2 comments » 414 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

1. Bumblebee is so Sam’s giant robot boyfriend. It takes Sam a whole movie to confess love to Mikaela, but he’s totes fine with throwing off-hand I-love-yous to Bumblebee in the garage. No wonder Bumblebee hates Alice so much.
2. PETER!!! CULLEN!!! LSKHDLHADAAA!!!!
3. About 60% of this film is the US Army going, “Ho snap! We’re in a movie! Quick, do some manoeuvres! Hut hut hut!”
4. HUGO!!! WEAVING!!! AKHDLNLKNLWNEE!!!!
5. Female Transformers, including Arcee.
6. Speaking of whom: Less twins, more Arcee.
7. I’m in love with Jetfire’s character design. Robot beard!
8. “Starscream, I’m home!”
9. It was long (really long), but I can’t say I was bored.
10. ROBOTS PUNCHING EACH OTHER!!! LKHSADLHALNNNDDSA!!!!
11. There were, like, 10,000 people there and we were right down the front. Popular.
12. Speaking of Alice, キスぷれ anyone?
13. I kept feeling that characters were getting “lost” during various parts of the plot. Like, what happened to Wheelie? He just kinda… vanished when all the big explosions started happening. But then I remembered that this movie was less about plot and more about GIANT ROBOTS!!!!! PUNCHING EACH OTHER!!!!!! KNLSADNLKNDDDD!!!!

So yeah. If you’re all, “Wot ho old lad, let’s go see a smashing good film with thoughtful dialogue and an intriguing premise. Toodle pip!” This film is not for you. On the other hand, if you’re all like, “LSKADHLNNDD!!! ROBOTS!!! PUNCHING EACH OTHER!!!! LKHSDNNNDDSALKDDJ!!!!!” Then a Ticket Is You!

permalink » 11 comments » 239 words posted in: Movies, movies:transformers, reviews, talking in caps

permalink » 5 comments » 357 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

Anyway, I’ve been going around trying to clean up void-star.net in the last couple of days, because it’s That Time of Decade again. Asides from the whole WordPress/sk.log rationalisation, one of the things I’ve been going around doing is cleaning up old cruft from the filesystem. You know, the detritus of projects that seemed like an awesome idea at 10pm on a Saturday night, but never really went anywhere.

One of the things that’s always annoyed me — and this will probably tell you a lot about the kind of person I am — is the fact that I have a really messy set of subdirectories. Each separate site lives in a directory off of /public_html, as do things like my media junk folder, Mint, sandpit and the main domain’s layout folder. In short, there’s no bloody structure to it! It’s messy! 32 subfolders of messy! Grargh!

After decided to install WordPress in its own directory to prevent root folder “cruft”, it occurred to me to see what else I could move around. I remember back a millionty years ago, Ye Olde CPanele used to freak out if you tried to direct a subdomain or an FTP account to something that wasn’t directly under /public_html, but this limitation thankfully no longer plagues us. I figured it would be totally awesome to create subdirectories called sites and hosted to collect, well, collective sites and hostees in.

One of the other things I’m oddly strict about doing is adding 301 and 410 redirects in for dead and moved sites. For dead subdomains, this results in a folder with a single .htaccess file in it, containing one or more mod_alias or mod_rewrite directives. Because I’m Like That, I figured it would be totally awesome to collate all these dead project directories into a single location; in this case, another directory under the hostees/collective directories. Then I just need to re-point the subdomain aliases, and…voilà!

So anyway, I plotted my Brand New Awesome Structure out in a text fileⁱ and, damn, went down from 32 root directory folders to just nine, plus one index file (for WordPress) and one .htaccess.ⁱⁱ

And then I was like, Damn woman! That is some fine rationalisation! So decided to tell the whole internet how clever I am.

Just, yanno. so you know.

1. Yes. Nerd. I know.
2. And some hosted services cruft. Damn you, Google Apps!

permalink » 4 comments » 405 words posted in: void-star.net, apache, apache:.htaccess

I’m going to assume there’s at least one of you out there who doesn’t “do” fen and doesn’t understand about warnings on fan produced content; fanfic, fanart, fanvids and so forth. Basically, it’s generally vogue in most of fandom to, when posting your fantext, include a standard “header block” of information. Exactly what this block contains varies from place to place, but you’ll usually find some combination of:

• The author.
• The fic/pic/vid/et cetera’s name.
• A “rating”, usually some variant on the US ratings system.
• A list of romantic pairings and/or other characters involved in the fic/pic/vid/etc..
• A pithy summary.
• Author’s notes apologising for the lack of a pithy summary.
• Warnings.

Warnings are, as with mainstream ratings systems, a supplement to a piece’s overall rating. They usually cover off things that are potentially unpleasant; character death, violence, swearing, sex and so forth. The aim, as with any ratings system, is to assist readers with informed consent. Sounds okay so far, right?

Of course, as with anything, some authors don’t like warnings. They don’t like the fact that warnings can be spoilers (”character death”), or cover stuff that to them seems trivial (Do I have to warn for ‘incest’ in my Supernatural fic if it involves Sam and Dean holding hands and eating ice-cream?), or infringes on some kind of perceived artistic licence (It’s supposed to be jarring!). Okay, seems reasonable, right? Many fan[fic|art|vid|*] archives and communities require warnings, but if an author doesn’t want to play she can just post her piece to her personal journal/archive sans headers, surely? There’re no Fandom Police who are going to come around and kick her head in.

Hah! As if.

Maybe there isn’t any such thing as the fandom police but there’s certainly such a thing as the Fandom Militia; it’s formed ad hoc, when needed, by whomever feels like joining. And when it gets going, the Fandom Militia is vicious.

Thing is though, the Fandom Militia is often sympathetic too. In WarningFAIL, it’s primarily lead by the survivors of sexual assault.

Yeah.

Here’s the deal. Say you’re an author who produces a “shock fic”. Adding warnings to your header would be a spoiler — like visiting goatse.cx after you already know what’s there — so you don’t. A reader comes along, reads your fic and hits the shock scene. Except instead of feeling squicked, or thoughtful, or whatever other “message” you were trying to convey, she has a flashback to her own experience with abuse. “Flashback” sounds kind of sudden, but in truth these episodes can leave survivors unable to function for days (or weeks, or months). What do you, the author, do? How do you feel, knowing you’ve triggered such distress in another human being? Sure, that’s sort of what you’d intended to do in the first place, but as a kind of… detached, academic exercise. Not this visceral, gut-wrenching hurt.

So. Warnings are good, right? As responsible human beings part of a community we don’t really want to hurt our fellow fen. So far, everything sounds reasonable.

Except, with fandom, it’s never reasonable. I’m not sure what it is, but fandom is observably very aggressively dichotic in the way it “discusses” issues. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, there is no middle ground; you’re either wit’ us (an “ally”) or ag’in’ us. Once didn’t make eye contact with a person of colour? Well, you may as well sign up for the Nazi party, because you’re a dyed-in-the-wool racist. Used the word “fag” as an insult? Here’s your baseball bat, you gay-bashing homophobe. Don’t like putting warnings on stories? Way to deliberately attack your readers, you rapist.

And this is where I have a problem. Because these sorts of extreme positions don’t help. No-one likes being accused of being a racist or a homophobe or a misogynist or (heaven forbid) deliberately perpetuating the abuse of others. Hell, even if it’s true, saying it isn’t going to win your cause any allies (and I learnt this one the hard way). And yeah, backing down to a more moderate position is very, very difficult because you’re dealing with such tremendous hurt and no, it’s not fair that you have to still make concessions after already having lost so much.

But you know what they say about “fair”.

And maybe I’m just endlessly amused by the fact that some of the people who had such a stick up their ass about RaceFAIL (or whatever) are the some ones who are getting dogpiled on over WarningFAIL. Sure, it’s the Bad Kind of amused, but still. Watching people flail around making over-intellectualised excuses and splitting hairs and derailing and doing back flips because, gasp! Someone had the audacity to tell them to Unpack Their Knapsacks and, damn, suddenly they don’t have an oppressed minority to retreat to.

It sucks, doesn’t it? Getting accused of deliberately perpetuating privilege and oppression when that’s really not what you were trying to do at all. Also, for the record: The “slippery slope” argument is stupid when it’s being used against gay marriage and even stupider when it’s used for warnings.ⁱ Stop it.

Anyway, the point is both sides have valid arguments and, when it comes down to it, aren’t asking for anything unreasonable.

The anti-warnings camp is saying that authors should have the choice whether or not to warn. This is reasonable from a censorship/private space/personal responsibility standpoint. In my journal (or community or archive I control), I’m going to post fic (or proscribe others to post fic) how I want to. If you don’t like it, you may raise the issue with me politely and I may or may not take your considerations on board, because this is my space and if you don’t like it, you may leave. For you, this may in fact suck, but see previous comment on “fair”. Either way, I choose to be non-conforming to a particular standard in a way I know may result in my being criticised or ostracised.

Meanwhile, the pro-warnings camp is saying that they’d really like it if authors could please warn for things that are “known triggers”, with rape (”non-con”) being the Big One, followed closely by self-harm. This is reasonable because, as human beings, it’s admirable to try and avoid causing distress to others and I really, really don’t have to be a genius to work out what the most likely triggers are.

Yes, survivors of abuse have a personal responsibility to try and avoid triggering situations. And they do; all day, every day, for the rest of their lives. Are you really — really really — saying you’ve no personal interest in making even a token effort to help them? Or is what’s actually getting your back up the fact that someone is accusing you of causing deliberate hurt — when you didn’t think you were — and it’s easier to throw that responsibility back on them rather than admit that, yeah, you are privilege-blind?

Me? I’m anti-warning ideologically but pro-warning in practice. I’d be very upset if someone had found a “surprise trigger” in something I’d written and try and take steps to ensure that doesn’t happen. Still, for good or ill, I don’t think warnings are or should be mandatory; they’re a conscious gesture of consideration for others made by individuals. Not warning in-and-of-itself doesn’t make you bad or cruel (sometimes, “the community” can go get stuffed) but I’d urge authors to closely examine why they don’t warn, and to think about the potential consequences. The actual, private consequences for individual people; not the Big Political Metafandom consequences of sticking to some kind of ideology. All the fancy mental chicanery in the universe isn’t going to change the fact that someone got hurt by your actions (or lack thereof).

In the same vein, I’d urge the pro-warnings camp to examine their language when advocating for warnings. Yes, they’re minimal effort for perceived maximum gain. Yes, people (quite possibly you) have been hurt and are still hurting. Yes, a lot of other people (quite possibly me) are frustratingly uncomprehending at best — and callously vicious at worst — of the fact that their stances are inflicting real damage. But here’s the thing: Loudly shaming them for it won’t help; backing someone into a corner doesn’t exactly open them up to dialogue. Neither will calling other people’s private journals — even the parts of them posted publicly — as your public space; it feels like an invasion (you can see my garden from the sidewalk,ⁱⁱ but that doesn’t give you right to trample all my flowers), and no-one likes being to Them to your Us.

And really, what’s the ultimate aim here?

I dunno. Maybe that’s my problem with these endless fen debates. There’s lots of talk about “raising awareness” but what it really feels like is a bunch of people getting angry on their high horses, firing shots at the other side and patting each other on the back when they draw blood. Or a race to see who can empty her knapsack the fastest; whilst simultaneously piling shit up in someone else’s. It’s divisive and, ultimately, unproductive. At the end of WarningFAIL, I guarantee you that the people who were anti-warning at the start will still be anti-warning at the end, and vice versa. The only difference is that now a bunch of people will also be nursing a bunch of hurt.

And we’ll be having the same fight in six months’ time.

As they say in Azeroth: gg dere, fandom.

1. Today it’s warnings for death and rape! Tomorrow it’ll be haircuts and ice cream. WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END!
2. Amusingly, this is personally not true; our garden is completely walled off. Go figure.

permalink » 17 comments » 1,670 words posted in: Fandom, fandom:acafen, fandom:meta:warningfail09

permalink » 1 comment » 390 words posted in: Links, www:google:reader, www:links

Rainy Day Blues

Urgh gods. I’ve had this cold/flu thing hanging around for about three weeks now. Not a fan. I was doing okay on the weekend but ended up going to the gym when I probably shouldn’t have and, well, hi dere relapse. Blergh. Oh, and before anyone says it; yes, we’ve had a team here quarantined on suspected swine flu. No, I do not have it.

Well, probably not.

The more I use the WordPress API the more I like it. It’s very awkward at first — it’s basically like learning a new language and the documentation is kinda scant in places — but the more I get used to it the more I enjoy the abstraction it presents above and beyond normal PHP.

Anyway, the medium-term plan is to get the last of the kinks rolled out of the converter (it’s having a few hiccups with JournalPress and Flock meta-data that I need to make behave), figure out some kind of Awesome 1337 New Layout and roll everything back up onto the “main” v-s.net domain rather than letting things rot in separate subdomains. It’ll be awesome.

My zombie space goat is like five quests off Loremaster of Kalimdor. That’ll be one continent down, three to go.

permalink » comment? » 324 words posted in: Gaming, Life, WordPress, void-star.net, games:world of warcraft, projects:sk.log, wordpress:plugins