yes, I do mean to use that icon

Looks like Tor is doing a giveaway for A Star Shall Fall on their site. All you have to do is leave a comment on that post there. So if you're looking to pick up the book, go forth and comment! (They're actually giving away three copies, it looks like.)

Also, in Fate-related news, this in from the Romantic Time review: "Appealing characters, a fully realized historical setting and more than a touch of steampunk flavoring collide to create a book that is difficult to put down." So that's pretty good.

And now I go back to preparing for my trip.

clearing the browser decks for the trip

If five things make a post, I think I have several posts here.

LAN party for a new game bars women rather than make the men behave -- money quote: "Why are you protecting the assholes among you, gentlemen? Why do you value their participation so much that it’s worth creating a space so “dangerous” for women that they must be banned from the premises? What do the assholes bring to your experience that is so irreplaceable? Is the game better when you can throw around vicious descriptions of rape and sexual assault? Does winning feel more awesome when you can hammer your opponent with anti-gay slurs?"

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy -- I think there's some definite truth to the notion that trying to make childhood perfectly happy just creates problems later on.

JSTOR "theft" and problems with academic publishing -- I learned about fiction publishing before I got anywhere near the academic side, and was appalled to discover I'd be expected to give up my copyright.

Why Is Fantasy Always in a British Accent? -- I admit I fall prey to this, too. Regardless of the actual linguistic reality of what, say, an Elizabethan accent sounded like, in my head, "American" accents didn't exist before a couple hundred years ago at most, and therefore it's weird to use them for settings older than, say, the steampunk era. (Also, not unrelated: have you noticed that in American film, British accents can stand in for pretty much anything foreign? Italian, Arabic, whatever. Though I was fascinated by the way that Enemy at the Gates gave the Russian characters British accents, and the Germans American ones.)

Teaching About Race: 101 -- so, if you scroll down a ways, the post includes photos of people born before 1930, and asks you to assign a race to each one as if you were a census-taker back then. (The answers and explanations are in the first comment, further down.) It's a fascinating glimpse into how those categories were and are constructed.

The Decent Human Being's Guide to Getting Laid at Atheist Conferences -- which of course applies to a lot of other contexts, too. Posted in light of the Dawkins flap.

The Republicans Exit History -- Roger Ebert sums up a lot of my thoughts.

News Redux -- some very, very good points about the crappy layout of the New York Times website, and news sites in general. I don't agree with everything there, but it's a good start.

Boobs Don't Work That Way -- the first Tumblr I've felt compelled to subscribe to. Lots of horrifying failures of anatomy, like this one, with the occasional bit of useful instruction or gender-flipped examples. (If that last one makes you want to spork your eyes out, well, that's about right.)

Tropes vs. Women #5: The Mystical Pregnancy -- if I could find a place to link to that showed the whole video series, I'd do it. Lots of good points about the way women get depicted in narrative, and the problems with same.

A reminder that an artist friend of mine does good work.

Also, shveta_thakrar is more than two-thirds of the way to her goal for Sirens, and is offering up some stories.

Okay, I think that's enough to keep Firefox from crashing out of sheer overload. (Your brains may be another matter.)

save me from my "friends"

So I fear it may have been lost in the DDoS attacks on LJ, but I'm looking for suggestions as to what costume I should wear to the Sirens masquerade ball. The theme is "monsters," and so far, the only idea proposed -- by some people who claim to be my friends <g> -- is that I should dress up as Sarah Palin. I therefore look to you, oh Other LJ Readers Besides Those Two, to give me some better alternatives.

I like costuming a lot; I just don't have any good ideas right now. And depending on what I settle on, I'll need some lead time to prepare it, hence asking now. Any thoughts?