May 2012
28 posts
The Bigass Things I Hate In Fantasy Maps Post
Most fantasy maps are really, really horrible. Here’s some of the worst offenders:
Eragon-world: The At Least One of Everything Fantasy Map.
Goodkind-land: The All the Borders Perfectly Follow Geographic Features Fantasy Map.
Kushiel-world: The Not Trying Hard Just Like Earth Fantasy Map.
Middle-Earth: The God Made It Fantasy Map.
Narnia: The Inconsistent Travel Distance Fantasy Map.
Valdemar: The Place Names Sound Really Made Up Fantasy Map.
Westeros: The Conveniently Paper-Shaped Continent Fantasy Map.
Randland: The Copying Stupid Things Tolkien Did Fantasy Map.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: The Fantasy Maps Are Mainstream Fantasy Map.
“
I also wonder how many people thought I was cold and unfriendly when I was still learning to shake hands. I never shook a hand until I was 17. It probably took me the next ten years to figure out the in and outs of doing so. I can do it now… Except for the whole timing thing. I can never, ever tell *when* a hand shake is needed. Ever. No fucking clue.
This latter standard of etiquette is especially important for things like job hunting and in your career. These seemingly small and insignificant aspects of life are so very, very important. Because if you live in a white dominated area and you don’t play by their rules? You will always suffer consequences. They may not be overt like the Filipino boy getting in trouble at school. You can loose opportunities. People will judge, and use these judgements to cement stereotypes they may have about your people.
” —On manners, etiquette, and the white man’s rules (via biyuti)
A good article and important things to think about.
I just want to talk about my personal experiences. I can relate to this a lot, from a Thai angle. I am still not entirely sure of hand shaking. I can usually but not always tell when to wai at people, because it does not involve bodily contact. But hand shakes… they are odd to me.
And knives and forks I can’t really handle that well as they are “meant” to be wielded. I always swap them round and fortunately nobody has said or done anything negative about it; I would be grateful if they just kept any negativity to themselves, because in the end I am still shovelling food into my mouth with relative grace using a pair of utensils. That is all.
(via torayot)
I’m still pretty clueless about handshaking - I’ve developed a checklist I run through to work out if a handshake is required (based on what the other person is doing), and if I’m still not sure, I default to handshake. I used to be especially inappropriate at this in work situations in Australia, though in China I’m way better - I default to no handshake, unless the person I’m meeting is someone I’m totally sure isn’t Chinese.
April 2012
24 posts
'Robbers called us Asian dogs'//EastDay →
english.eastday.com
contains graphic descriptions of racist violence.
The 24-year-old student calling himself “Xuanhao” wrote on his Weibo microblog that he and his friend were on a train heading to the Wolli Creek in the south of the city at about 11:45pm on Sunday when a group of Australians rushed into their compartment, trying to rob them.
“They wanted money so we gave them money. But then a caucasian woman sitting opposite told the robbers she just broken up with her boyfriend who had taken her purse,” the student wrote.
“She pointed to us and shouted to the robbers: ‘Rob them, they are Chinese, they are rich’.”
The student said the robbers then started beating them, breaking his nose and the jaw of his friend and repeatedly calling them “Asian dogs.”
…”It was the second time that I took a train in Sydney. I thought there were policemen in each compartment so I tried to run and screamed loudly for help, but the robbers pulled me back and beat me,” he wrote.
“There were no policemen in the train, but there were many other people and even train crews.” He said no one had offered help.this is all-around horrifying, but I particularly want to highlight just how dangerous the idea that “international student = rich” is.
“Since “Pulp Fiction,” it seems safe to argue, Jackson has been the busiest actor on the planet too. This year he has four movies — his annual average since 1994 — coming out, including “The Avengers” next month, based on the Marvel comic book. (Jackson has a nine-picture deal with Marvel Studios.) He’s been in big-budget films like “Jurassic Park”; low-budget movies like “Black Snake Moan”; blockbusters like “Star Wars” and bombs like “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” He’s been the star, played the sidekick, filled bit parts (“A Time to Kill,” “Patriot Games” and “Iron Man,” respectively). His acting has been critically acclaimed (“Jungle Fever,” “Pulp Fiction”) and panned as “lackluster” (“Twisted”). But one thing remains constant: Samuel L. Jackson works. It’s all but impossible to turn on a TV set any night of the week without happening on one of his movies (and sometimes two or three). Hence his anointment by Guinness World Records as “the highest-grossing film actor” of all time. His movies have taken in more than $7.4 billion, most of which, he pointed out, “didn’t end up in my pocket.” Maybe not, but the residuals alone earn him about $300,000 a year. “I get paid all day, every day,” he said — “which is almost too much for a sensitive artist.”
—
How Samuel L. Jackson Became His Own Genre - NYTimes.com (via thedisgruntledgradstudent)
looooove
(via isabelthespy)
i will not hear a single fucking word against The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Video shows bloody ending to teen joyride
http://m.news.com.au/TopStories/pg/0/fi1171757.htm
A POLICE officer unleashed a series of savage blows to the head of a teenager bleeding from a bullet wound to the neck during a brutal arrest early yesterday.
Moments after he was pulled from a mangled car wreck in Kings Cross, Sydney, shocking footage shows police repeatedly striking Troy Taylor before dragging his limp body across the street.
An officer then places a knee on the teen’s blood-soaked back to handcuff him.
The 18-year-old, one of two teenagers shot by police during a dramatic chase, is then left lying in a pool of blood as dozens of stunned bystanders look on.
The teenagers, one just 14, were in a serious condition in St Vincent’s Hospital last night.
—-
All of the boys and young men are Aboriginal. Yep they did the wrong thing by driving the car onto the pavement but also they seemed to be frightened of the police and there was no need for the cop to bash the kid after the car crashed.
This is what Mick Mundine had to say:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/mick-mundine-horrified-by-video-of-arrest-of-shooting-victim-troy-taylor-in-kings-cross/story-e6freuy9-1226335217914
“ABORIGINAL elder Mick Mundine was shocked and stunned by the way police arrested shooting victim Troy Taylor, 18, describing it as “pathetic.”
“It’s very wrong - this has to stop,” Mr Mundine said.
The respected Aboriginal community leader watched the dramatic and disturbing video footage in the offices of The Sunday Telegraph yesterday.
“I mean, how are they training them? What’s the training for? Where’s the commonsense?” said an emotional Mr Mundine, who is working with respected Redfern police commander, Superintendent Luke Freudenstein, to calm tensions in the inner-city suburb.
“They never had guns in the car, so why did they even shoot the kids?”
White Australia has this baffling conceit this is not a racist country.
HOLY FUCK
you know the story I heard on Twitter from the mainstream media?
Their line is that these teen’s struck a 29 yr old woman, then was revving the engine with cops telling them to get out, with the woman still under the tyres, and so they were shot at.
Obviously the video shows otherwise.
I hate mainstream media.
Hi everyone,
Via the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on Facebook, more info and rally:
“Via Raul Bassi
THIS TUESDAY 24TH AT 1.30 NSW PARLIAMENT HOUSE
Dear friends:
Indigenous Social Justice Association is calling for an emergency rally this Tuesday, the 24th, at 1.30, at the NSW Parliament House to demand two points: first, stop the police investigating police and second, organize a credible independent investigation to start to give justice to the victims of police violence. The footage of what happened has been publicized in couple of the papers and is graphic enough. (See at the bottom.) The way that these young aboriginal people have been treated by police is anything but human. They were injured people, couple with bullets, incapable of offer any resistance, let alone been of any danger to the officers. Never the less couple of them, already bleeding, one in coma, were thrown from the car as a sack of potatoes, handcuffed and in some cases repeatedly beaten.
The police, even that has presented different versions, is justifying all, the Assistant commissioner said yesterday that the shootings were justified because there were people in danger with the car running on the footpath. The Police Association has said that they will be backing the police offices regardless. The police also, have said that they recognized the suspects. So quick questions arise. Why instead of shooting people 13 and 14 years old, that they knew, they didn’t try to stop the car shooting the tyres?
So, even still none has die and is our heartfelt wish none will, are we confronting another similar situations to TJ or Roberto Laudiscio Curti?
So came on Tuesday to tell the government, the parliament and the police, that we had enough and we demand justice.
Family members of the people involved, have invited to participate of the rally.
More information Raul Bassi 0403037376”Also these young people are from western Sydney.
“Some Nickelodeon executives were worried, says Konietzko, about backing an animated action show with a female lead character. Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won’t watch shows about girls. During test screenings, though, boys said they didn’t care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome.”
—
‘Airbender’ Creators Reclaim Their World in ‘Korra’ (via meggannn)
I don’t think some people realise that this attitude is something that is taught by society—people teach boys they shouldn’t care about anything feminine, people make them play with toys that are gendered as masculine, people berate them when they do anything feminine, society essentially tells them that anything masculine is better, then people produce literature and film and TV that reinforce this mindset. It’s obvious that. it. doesn’t. have. to. be. this. way. Sexism isn’t inherent. Literature and TV and film don’t have to reinforce this mindset—entertainment can go against the grain; if people create well-rounded characters, kids have the capacity to accept them, whether they’re male or female.
(via watermeloncholy)
