Female Authors in SFF

Soapbox time.  You've been warned.

First, some relevant links:
VIDA: a look at statistics involving women authors, reviewers, and reviews.  (Lots of graphics for the not-statistically-minded.)
Strange Horizons: a look at the same in the science fiction and fantasy genre.
Author Keri Sperring on "Why I Started #womentoread": in which a sff author asks for recommendations of female sff authors to give to people who may be missing them because of a lack of marketing promotion.

Now that you're up to date, I hope we can all agree that there is a discrepancy in that data, namely that women are under-represented in reviews relative to the number of books they publish.  From my experience as a bookseller, there are two types of books: frontlist titles (i.e. those on display, usually easy to spot because you see the cover instead of the spine) and backlist titles (i.e. on the shelves).  In a brick & mortar store, frontlist titles are the overwhelming majority of sales.  A former manager of mine once quoted frontlist as 70% or more of the sales for the store; in the children's department I ran, that was definitely true (we were required to keep weekly sales logs, so I had the data to prove this).  So, if your books are only in backlist, your sales will be commensurately lower.  I know from 5 years' experience that simply putting a book or series on a display does increase its volume sold, regardless of price.

The internet and social media can be a powerful tool for equalizing the playing field between traditional marketing and deserving authors.  Marketing is all about an information disadvantage: the marketers or retailers know what you've been buying, how much an item actually costs to produce, and whether you can get it elsewhere.  They set their prices and displays to encourage you to think you need it right here, right now.  The internet can let you know that you do have a choice.  Your expenditures in retail are tracked and stores respond!

I don't have a twitter account, so here's my contribution to Sperring's #womentoread request.  I have read and enjoyed every one of these authors immensely.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Alternate history fantasy novels set in Regency-era England; her portrayal of that society and the characters within it are really exquisite.

Anne Bishop: dark fantasy, particularly known for her powerful characters.

Kate Elliott: epic fantasy, fantastic characters, and a serious look at the societal forces that shape a person.

Robin Hobb: epic fantasy, complex characters who change realistically with events.

Kate Forsyth: Celtic fantasy, sword & sorcery, great page turners.

Jacqueline Carey: alternate history/mythology fantasy, set in Europe (mostly...).  Great spy & intrigue novels.

Trudi Canavan: high fantasy, lots of magic, easy reading that really pulls you along.

Madeleine L'Engle: probably the first female sff author I ever read.  Mostly children's/YA work, magic-within-our-world plots.  A great entry point for younger readers.

Karen Traviss: I've only read her Star Wars work (although her own novels are on my to-read list) but, even by non-SW Expanded Universe standards, her books are excellent.  She fabricated a whole culture and populated with realistic characters who react and grow into it.

C. S. Friedman: Epic, high, dark fantasy; mind stretching sci-fi.  I cannot recommend her highly enough to fans of "traditional" sff.

These are just the ones I read and liked.  There are so many others that may speak to you!  Browse those bookshelves or use a dedicated reading site like Goodreads to find a recommendation!

College Cost Stats

College and statistics... what crazy games you can play with these two topics.  Today I read an article (short) and watched a film (long and best watched in multiple sittings) about the rising cost of college.  On the surface, these two seem to agree with one another, but their stats disagree tremendously, undermining their whole argument.

No one doubts that the cost of college is rising, although the relative rates (especially versus income) are hotly debated.  The film argues that college is no longer worth the investment; the article only opines that colleges are pricing themselves out of the middle class' ability to pay, with no mention of return on investment.

Both offer some interesting numbers:

• The film says the average cost of college is $27k per year, which must be some sort of public/private average (and, in my not researched opinion, not weighted for enrollment).  The article says the average public institution costs $6,500 per year.  There's an obvious choice here, in my opinion.  If the private school you're considering doesn't provide you a value equal to the difference in tuition, go to a public school.
• Both the film and the article claimed that the Department of Labor's statistic about college graduates making $1 million more than high school graduates over their lifetimes is bogus, but neither offered an alternative amount or percentage.  Whatever the difference, I have to assume that it's more than $26,000, the cited average cost of four years of undergraduate work.  This seems to make college worth it, financially speaking.
• Both the film and the article state that the median household income in the US is about $33,000.  This statistic (cited in the article) comes from the IRS's 2008 data.  Interesting, the US census bureau disagrees.  And by disagrees, I mean, wildly disagrees.  Their data says the median household income is about $52,000, a 57% increase.  I imagine $19k a year would make a difference in affordability for a lot of things, including that $6,500 college bill.
• Neither the article nor the film looked at grants or scholarships.  I've seen numbers that show how little they cover, but surely even a small cost offset should be mentioned.
• The film talked some about the total cost of college, including loan interest and lost income.  This is a worthwhile topic, but again, their stats are skewed (they assumed 6 years to finish an undergrad degree, taking the full 10 years to pay off loans, and no income at all while in school).
• The article starts with an incredibly misleading graph.  It has its axis on two different sides and makes it appear that college costs exponentially more than the median household income, when in fact it's about 19.7% (according to their numbers).

Statistics are a funny game.  Numbers never outright lie, but they can be incredibly misleading.  It's hard to accuse most sources of skewing numbers; these institutions probably just found figures that agreed with their values and stopped looking.  Opinion pieces like these two underlie the need for the public at large to understand the specifics of what a statistic says, its validity in making generalizations and forecasts, and where it is correctly (and incorrectly) applied.

Have you seen any funny statistics lately?  Do they bother you as much as they bother me?

Women Hurt Women

It has been a long running theory of mine that since our great-grandmothers fought for our right to vote and wear jeans and our grandmothers fought for our right to earn a living outside the home and go to college and our mothers fought for our right to earn equal pay for equal work, that our generation is working for our right to have an equal voice.  I also think that our biggest opponents in this fight are ourselves.  Women seem to have a natural self-effacing quality that shirks praise or the limelight.  We also have an innate, evolutionary need to camouflage ourselves in public; most women hate to be dissenters in appearance or opinion, at least when others can see.  Doing otherwise is very much a learned behavior.

So it makes me particularly happy to read the recent backlash against a New York Times' review of HBO's newest series, The Game of Thrones.  The series is based on a set of books by fantasy writer George R. R. Martin which have received rave reviews for their creativity, gritty realism, and intricate, genre-defying plots.  The NYT review of the show, however, seems to think this:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

As one of those women (apparently statistical anomalies) who "read books like Mr. Martin's", this rubs me the wrong way.  (I'm not even going to pretend to know who Lorrie Moore is.)  But what's really horrid about this review?  It was written by a woman.  Thus, I was going to write a little blog entry about why it's particularly awful that a woman was unable or unwilling to seek out diversity in her own gender.  But happily, I find that it's already been done and done well!  Any number of blogs that I follow, with both male and female writers, are up in arms about such a sexist, uninformed viewpoint.  Here are some of the best:

• Geekfemme: about how "woman" and "geek" are not mutually exclusive terms.
• Almost Diamonds: A quick personal story about why some people read fantasy.  Amazingly, for the strong female characters who get themselves out of tough spots.
• Bleeding Cool: A longer but very thorough piece on why it's particularly heinous that a woman wrote this review.  She says it in a more controlled and precise way than how I would have rambled from point to point.
• MSNBC: A regular article from the day before the NYT piece about how women are increasingly driving geek trends.  Guess we're not so anomalous after all. (Plus, the point that the article makes about women's shirts at the end is a pet peeve of mine.  I am not a small man.  If you want me to buy your merchandise (and why wouldn't you?), make it in my size!)
• io9: My favorite of all the responses; this piece asks why men would want to watch a show so obviously geared toward women?  The snark is great because she makes a relevant, valid point: it's all about perspective and individual taste... and it should be.

This comes off sounding like a rant about empowering geek women and maybe it is a bit.  But whatever your favorite literary flavor, here's why you should care: Anti-Bullying Starts in First Grade.  It's a very personal article about a little girl who was teased at school for having a Star Wars lunch box & thermos.  That sounds like a typical scenario (and kids will do this kind of thing in spite of what they're told), but what is important is the response.  The little girl wanted to change her thermos; essentially hiding her individuality, although at 6 years old she's just trying to avoid teasing.  I think her mom's response is spot on and it's why I'm pleased that so many writers responded to the NYT review's defaming and wrong characterization of women who read and watch fantasy.

As I think more and more about what I want my child to know, it comes down to this: the point isn't that teasing and bullying and narrow-minded people are facts of life.  Knowing that it's important to stand up for yourself every day is the lesson.  You can't appreciate the wonderful diversity of life if you don't promote it in yourself.  I hope my children grow up knowing that individuality should be approached with interest and wonder, both in themselves and others.

Random Findings

My post about our former debt free month is coming soon, but I ran across a few unrelated links today that I want to share before I forget:

• First, the most important one: Preeclampsia Fundraiser.  My sister works for the Preeclampsia Foundation in Florida and every year they host a promise walk, just like those cancer walks we've all been on.  Pre-eclampsia is basically a condition during pregnancy where a woman's blood pressure rises to levels dangerous for both her and the fetus.  Although there are some known risk factors, it can develop with absolutely no warning.  Even with modern medicine pre-eclampsia is dangerous (sometimes fatal) to both parties and generally leads to early labor induction (with all of early induction's risks) when it is caught.  Besides labor induction, there is currently no treatment or prophylactic available.  The participants try to raise some donations themselves, so if you could help out with even $15, you would be doing a great thing!  
• Second, a fun link: Suvudu's Final Cage Match of 2011.  Alright, so this is for sci-fi and fantasy geeks like me, but here's the scoop anyway: Suvudu runs a cage match of dozens of sf/f characters from different series each spring.  Each match also features a write-up of how the judges think it will go, but the winner is determined by an online voting poll.  The tournament is single elimination and eventually results in a final showdown: this year, Quick Ben from Steven Erikson's Malazan series is pitted up against a favorite character of mine: Vin from Brandon Sanderson's awesome Mistborn series.  You (yes, you!) can go vote for who you think would win in a fight between them; no registration is needed and you can only vote once, so no annoying reminders from me either.  And if you like me at all, you'll vote for Vin!  ;-)
• Lastly, an everyday life link: Thoughts on Tipping.  I think that pretty much sums up what I think on the subject (especially about auto-gratuities).  I will add two thoughts: one, a party of 6 is not a "group", even though I've observed more restaurants lowering this number.  It would be more effective to have a policy of "8 adults" or "more than two checks".  Two, when out with a large party, we let a waiter or manager know (before ordering) that tips will be higher if they are not automatically included; otherwise, they will get the 18% only or (if the tab includes the "suggested" tip and we can adjust down), 18% will be the maximum they get for great service.  This has worked the majority of the time, both to get rid of the "auto-tip" and getting us wonderful service.

Alright, off to do some quick homework and my beginning of the month financial update.  Then tutoring, class, a volleyball game, and hopefully back here to write that debt payoff month post.

Who Is John Galt?

Super exciting discovery!

One of my favorite books of all time, Atlas Shrugged, is coming to theaters this spring!  Its release date is April 15th (yes, tax day, and if you've read the book, you know why), but the trailer was released today.  So here it is in all its awesomeness:



The filmmakers thought ahead and broke it up into three movies.  Each one will cover one part of the book, which was originally broken into three parts anyway and divides the storyline at very natural points.  I think this will help enhance the talk surrounding the mystery of the story.

And yes, there will be an outing to see this movie, whether I have to drive all the way to New Orleans or not.  You see, it's an independent film, so the distribution won't be as wide as say, Transformers 3; but on the plus side, it will make you think, as opposed to killing brain cells by watching vulgar car-bots.  Thus, it will be worth the drive time.

Anywho, for those of you who are fans of Rand's work, there's a Facebook page for the movie as well as an Official Site.  Be sure to visit, "like", and repost.  Increased visibility for a movie like this can only help.

Women's Health: Anemia

I'm fascinated by information on women's health.  Well, really, medical science in general, but especially the medical science that applies to me.  I've recently added a few new blogs to my Reader subscriptions that are science blogs by women, a group previously unrepresented in my reading.

And, unsurprisingly, that addition has unleashed a goldmine of good articles.  My favorite one so far is this one about women and iron-deficiency.  It discusses medical bias in the treatment of anemia in female patients in a (mostly) non-medical-scientist-friendly way.  The article is about how medical practitioners assume that anemia is caused by women's menstrual bleeding when studies show that this is not the case.

Information like this is always fascinating to me.  Does it really indicate an anti-female bias in medicine?  Or is this one of those common misconceptions (like that stress causes ulcers... it's actually a bacterial infection) and doctors just don't question their assumptions?  I could make a case either way.  Ultimately, this just reconfirms for me that everyone should take an active role in their health care.  If you think something is wrong, insist on testing, not opinions.

What do you think?  Ever been on the wrong side of a diagnosis or treatment because of your age or gender?*

*Side note: It drives me nuts that every time I go to the doctor with any symptoms, they insist on a pregnancy test, regardless of my cycle timing.  Just because I am female and of a certain age, not all my symptoms are related to reproduction!

Impossible Things are Happening Every Day

It's a big, wide, interesting world.  Every day, my RSS feed on Google Reader brings me something strange and fun... often, several things that are strange and fun.  I have a huge backlog of TEDTalks to watch, but in the mean time I've been reading up on all sorts of other interesting topics.

These articles are all about how the world is improving:

• A History of Violence: All about the changing realities of mortality in every day life and how violence has decreased in the last hundred years.  Yes, with two world wars, decreased.  Fascinating stuff by an author whose books are rising on my "to read" list.
• Genetic tests for fetuses: A new, safer method that uses very sensitive maternal blood tests to check for genetic factors.  This article gives me serious Gattaca flashbacks, but modern medical science still amazes me.  I also feel obligated to point out that the writer does a very responsible job of explaining the time needed for commercial viability and the systematic drawbacks to diagnostics that reveal so much information.
• MRI of baby being born: The title sort of speaks for itself, but the image is amazing.  It apparently required a whole new set up for an MRI scanner, but this sort of imaging can provide a wealth of information never previously available.
• History of Life Expectancy and Wealth: I've seen this graph in a TEDTalk previously, but the 5 minute video and mini-lecture is a better explanation of the data itself.  A cool look at how life really is getting better for most people, dramatically so in the last 150 years.
• Recognizing Women in Science: A long article that I'm still working through, but so far it's fascinating and well worth the time.  The Royal Society of Britain is celebrating its 350th birthday this year, but women were not allowed to join until 1945.  The article takes a look at what the RS and other scientific societies lost by excluding women (who were already winning international prizes for their work!).

And these articles are about things we could be doing better:

• Creative Groups: A short list of things to do with groups of people to inspire creativity.  I think his points about group size are incredibly important.  And of course, it all runs back to my devout wish to run a 21st century Parisian salon or British coffee house...
• Building Your Own Personal Finance Manual: A cool idea, which would never have occurred to me because I'm innately horrified of writing in books.  I would use Smart Couples Finish Rich, if I were to do this.  What would you use?
• Terry Pratchett on Alzheimer's: An article that reminds us that there are still demons to slay.  If there were ever a reason to encourage your children to become thinkers and researchers and scientists, this is it.
• Science in the Public's View: I don't necessarily endorse everything this article says, but the overall point is a great one, as shown by the pathetic coverage of NASA's newly discovered arsenic-using life form.  The second bullet point in the article is the scariest to me: 44% of people surveyed could not name a scientist role model; the top three choices of the remainder were not scientists (Bill Gates & Al Gore) or not alive (Albert Einstein).  Stephen Hawking, anyone?  Neil deGrasse Tyson?  Brian Cox?  Brian Greene?  All of whom are regularly featured on news programs and TV specials.  And those are just physicists, for crying out loud...

And last but not least, for sheet entertainment value, this clip about a family dinner date (complete with the man who would go on to play Ward Cleaver), with commentary brought to you by Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Not for the easily offended (i.e. those without a working definition of sarcasm), but very funny for the rest of us.

What about you?  Discovered anything lately that just amazes you beyond words?

Holiday Charity

I posted a link to this before, but it got lost in the shuffle of a different post: Worldbuilders

Authors are becoming increasingly connected directly to their fans these days.  This is an attempt by an author to harness that power and do some good in the world.  It's hard to call Patrick Rothfuss a favorite author of mine, although I very much enjoyed his fantasy novel, because it's a small statistical sample.  But let's say that his book is awesome (because it is) and that he deserves adulation for setting this up year after year (because it's a huge undertaking and he does).

So what is Worldbuilders?  It's a drive to raise money for Heifer International, a global charity that is predicated on teaching poor and rural people responsible agricultural practices.  They have lots of great info about that on their site, so I won't repeat it here, but suffice to say that this is a charity with a strong systematic outlook.

But!  Worldbuilders is not just about "hand over the cash"!  There are prizes!  Good ones!  Specifically, a lot of rare and/or signed books, plus some miscellaneous items.  These are donated by publishers, authors, readers, and bookstores; the prizes can be seen on the blog linked above.  Most items are put in a lottery; a $10 donation gets you one lottery entry.  Some items are sold directly in their online store.  A few rare items (such as getting your manuscript professionally edited or a signed Brett Favre jersey) are put up for auction on Ebay.  And, thanks to the generosity of Rothfuss and some corporate sponsors, all donations are matched $0.50 on the dollar.  Last year, the final total was over $125,000, which was $190,000+ after sponsor matching, a mind blowing amount for such a distributed group of readers.

In any case, I think this sort of effort deserves a plug.  The lottery fundraiser portion is done on December 13th, but some of the auctions extend beyond that.  If you haven't decided where to put your holiday charity money yet, consider Worldbuilders, where your money is worth 50% more.  The latest blog entry by Patrick Rothfuss gives your odds of winning with a $20 donation at 1 in 8, which are good odds for such cool stuff!

Validation

Ten days since I posted last!  I hope that everyone had a happy Thanksgiving full of family, friends, and good food, just like I did.

After a very busy week (week?  month!), I had some downtime today to catch up on my Google Reader articles.  I've recently added several science blogs to my subscriptions, catching up on current science trends and discoveries.  Several articles and an email lead me to thoughts about validation through peer review.  It's a time honored scientific mantra that research isn't valid until it can be reproduced and subjected to critical review.  The underlying assumption, of course, is that the reproduction and review are done by other people.

Under certain circumstances, that is absolutely necessary.  Specifically, if you want other people to believe your science, your methodology needs reproducibility and peer reviewing.  But what if you don't want to publish your science?  Nothing in the definition of science says that it must be shared.

Regardless, that's largely a philosophical argument, the kind best done around dinner time with good food and wine available.  The practical implications of peer-reviewing are a little jarring to an introvert like me... maybe they are to extraverts, too.  For instance, this article, which describes a trial being started with autistic children.  It's a bit long but not dense and it rightfully points out that there are a number of unscientific and unethical aspects to this trial.  But the article also says this:

 There is no evidence, other than a non-peer reviewed paper Montagnier self published in a journal he edits, that this is possible.  This paper makes most extraordinary claims that remain unreplicated – a basic requirement for research to be considered worth responding too, much less accepted.

 If the science is wrong, say so.  If the evidence does not substantiate the conclusion, call it out.  But don't condemn the work just because you didn't have a chance to give your opinion.

Even that example is a little esoteric.  So let's bring it to the quotidian, shall we?  Let's say that you want to host a group event.  You check with a couple key members of the group, who green-light things (I did my social due diligence! screams the introvert).  You send the invitation.  You get good responses back until... The One.  Who says s/he is upset that s/he can't attend... but really means to say (and does a good bit of implying) that the real problem is that s/he wasn't consulted and her/his opinion was critical to this event.  Who has implied that their opinion is more valuable than yours, as is their time.  Peer review!  The opinions of the peer group (in this case, the invitees) is more important than the originator (the host), regardless of whether or not the original idea was quality or not.

In case it's not obvious, I'm very over this mentality today.  It does, however, remind me of a great quote by one of my favorite historical figures:

“Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.” ~Alexander Hamilton

I guess some things never change.

Used Books

Based on a comment from one of my book reducing blog entries, I thought I'd talk a little bit about my philosophy on used books.  Succinctly, I avoid buying used books whenever possible.  Before that sounds a little harsh, here's why: The author doesn't get credit.

I'm a big believer in honest free market trading.  I feel that if there's a way for me to help an author to benefit from their craft, I should do it.  Used book sales are not tracked and do not generate royalties for the author.  So I make every reasonable attempt to buy new copies of books that I read, in the hopes that the author makes enough money to continue writing books that I enjoy.

Yes, this is impactful from a financial point of view, but not as much as you'd think (see my previous post on my 66% book discount!).  Used booksellers are getting smart and comparing prices online.  Even in the last five years, the number of good deals I find are diminishing noticeably.  I completely understand that some people only buy used for financial reasons, needing to watch every single cent.  If it comes down to feeding yourself or buying a new book, I feel like the choice is obvious.  Realistically, I'm no longer in that position, so I can afford to stand on principle on this issue.

So when do I buy used?  When a book is out of print and no longer available new, of course.  Then there's no way for the author to receive credit, so I feel free to enjoy the book on whatever terms I can find it.  I'm very excited about authors who are working to publish their backlist as ebooks.  When I get an e-reader, that will be the first set of books I buy.

In the spirit of holiday bargain shopping posts, you might be interested in the best find I ever made in a used bookstore.  Six years ago, I found a hardcover copy of On Basilisk Station, which a friend had recommended to me.  At $0.25, it was much cheaper than a new paperback (this was in my college days when it really was a choice between groceries and books!). I bought it, read it, loved it, and started looking for copies of the next book in hardcover online.  I was shocked to find that because of limited printings (the early hardcovers for the series were published retroactively), the book that I bought for $0.25 was worth over $40 online!  I purchased the next few books new in paperback.  Years later, once I could afford it, I purchased all of the in-print hardcovers new and am only missing one of the out-of-print books.  I still have that original book... it was worth more to me as an enjoyable story than the $40 return on investment that I could have received.

What's the best book deal you've ever gotten?

More Randomness

Sometimes I feel like most of what I post is a round-up of interesting links, but I also feel like I can't help it.  Too much interesting stuff is going on in the world!  And the internet brings it right to me to share!

First, the best piece of the day: Karen Traviss' blog.  Karen Traviss is a British sci-fi/fantasy author that I follow.  Her writing is phenomenal (even if I have only read her Star Wars work; the rest are staying on my to read list) and I respect her views on many topics.  The entry linked above is about Remembrance Day (Britain's equivalence to Veterans Day, both coming from the Armistice Day holiday) and what we owe our veterans.  It's a long post and totally worth it.  If you don't read anything else from this entry, check out that blog entry.

Second, some interesting info about e-book sales from publishers, rather than retailers.  I've never seen hard data on market share for genres before this article (admittedly never having searched it out) and I'm surprised to learn that sf/f sells better than romance.  Go figure.

Lastly, I found this blog entry from a Freakonomics article about the same paper referenced in the blog.  I'm not a big fan of the climate crisis panic, but this is fascinating information about the effectiveness of female education.  TEDTalks has a lot of info on that topic and I'm slowly going through some really brilliant speeches by people who are making a huge difference in this field. I'll try to post some of them soon.

Today's Finds

While I'm waiting for my class' website to load, I'm happy to announce that I finished my final paper for my second class!  Yay!  I'd like to thank all the History and English teachers I ever had for giving me so much work that I learned to write a 4,000 word paper, complete with research and editing, in 10 hours.  And also for their unending patience with my stubborn reticence to improve my writing, despite their excellent teaching efforts.

Whew!  Now that that's done, let's move on to something more interesting.  Or rather, several somethings:

First up, yet another cool article from Get Rich Slowly.  This one is about how to make car dealerships fight over your business.  Or, at least, how to stop getting ripped off so horribly.  What I got out of this, besides how to make my introverted-self very happy if we ever buy a car from a dealership, was the writer's solution to a gender issue, namely that car salesmen offer better deals to men.  Because after all, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Secondly, a short article about natural versus human-made systems.  This one's particularly concerned with genetically modified food.  My favorite quote:

The fact that cross-species gene transfer happens without human intervention in nature, however rare, provides further justification for viewing transgenic technology not as a Frankensteinian intervention into the natural world, but as yet another method of trait selection, something we’ve been doing with heroic results since the dawn of agriculture.

Believe me, statistically speaking, you wouldn't be here without that intervention.  For info, look up the history of fertilized soil some time.  I'm reposting this article because the underlying lesson is a favorite philosophy of mine: That every choice, even making no choice through non-action, has consequences.  The point is not to avoid them, because you can't, but rather to engineer them to be positive consequences, something that human beings are uniquely suited to do.  In short, don't hate humanity!

Lastly, a few weeks ago I posted my review of Steven Johnson's new book, Where Good Ideas Come From.  As my review implied, I'm completely enamored by this book and have referenced it countless times since I read it just a few months ago.  This article from the UK's Guardian says everything I felt about this book, but in a more journalistic, readable way.  If I'd said it, it would have rambled.

And while I've been typing, my paper is officially submitted!  All done with my second class.  My third class, Project Planning Execution and Closure, starts Sunday.  Too bad I'll be at the Celtic Festival!

Narrators and Biases

I forgot to add this article to my earlier post about books:

Kate Elliott's Blog which links to this blog post: Michelle Cooper: Just a Girls' Book.

I know from experience that this happens all the time with children's and YA novels.  What do you think?

In for a Penny

This is the smartest article I've seen in awhile:

One Dunkin’ Donuts store is taking a stand against the penny.  A sign at the store reads “We will be rounding your change to the closest nickel. For example, if your change is $2.03, we will give you $2.05. If your change is $2.22, you will receive $2.20.  For any customer who still would like their pennies, please just ask the cashier and we would be happy to accommodate you.” The change is designed to speed up service. Here’s hoping the initiative goes viral. 

 In case you weren't aware, it costs more than $0.01 to make a penny (and more than $0.05 to make a nickel).  So basically, every time a penny or nickel is made, we lose money.  Lots of people have advocated for the U.S. to stop producing new pennies and nickels and Congress will review a bill to change the metal composition of coins to reduce production costs next year.  It may not sound like much, but think about the billions of pennies and nickels out there... yeah, it adds up (more info here).

Catching Up

As I said last time I posted, I've had many topics I wanted to post about in the last week.  But fate in the form of training orders arrived today and, consequently, my week just became busier.  So instead of doing separate posts about each, I thought I'd post the links to articles I've read and let you enjoy them yourself.

• Freakonomics: Pesticide Politics - The Freakonomics blog, by the authors of the bestselling book as well as other contributors, is one I follow and enjoy because of the wide array of topics and viewpoints presented.  This one discusses pesticide in produce and centers on a favorite topic of mine: the misappropriation of science to scare people who don't understand science.
• Reason: Of Mice and Men - An interview with one of the scientists cited in the Freakonomics article.  It's older (1994) but a great source for insight into a true scientist's mind.
• Wired: The Geek Syndrome - Wired is a magazine and online site for people who revel in technology and science.  I often find informative and largely unbiased articles on a variety of topics contained within.  This article, also a little older (2001), is about the increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) diagnosed in the children of geeks.  It describes Asperger's syndrome extremely well, so it's worth reading just for that, but it's more interesting when you consider that recent studies show that ASDs are increasing across the country, which was not known in 2001.  One day we're going to understand autism spectrum disorders better and we're going to look at our society as a whole and say "Duh.  Of course it's that way.".
• Wired: Autism-Spectrum Quotient - I include this even though it's not an article because anyone who is interested in personality dynamics will find it interesting.  It's a 50 question test designed to look for autism tendencies in persons of normal or above-average intelligence, i.e. to locate potential high-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome cases that may go unnoticed because of overall smarts and coping abilities.  I wasn't surprised by my own score... were you?
• TEDTalks: Temple Grandin - (19:44) Speaking of autism, one of the world's most famous autistic persons is Temple Grandin (there was a movie made recently about her that you can find on TV occasionally).  This is a speech by her about the need for all types of thinkers.
• TEDTalks: Steven Pinker - (22:39) Pinker has a couple of books out that I already wanted to read; after listening to this talk, they're going on my Christmas list.  If you've read Freakonomics or its sequel, SuperFreakonomics, you'll very much enjoy this talk about the brain and its characteristics.

There was more, but that's probably enough link-spam for one day.  Enjoy!

Why We Need the Explorers

Brian Cox: Why we need the explorers | Video on TED.com

This was just too beautiful not to post.  Brian Cox is a physicist who has a lovely way of explaining the wonder and magnificence in science.  This particular video is about the true value of science in response to government budget cuts of research and science programs.

I watched many TED Talks today but this one hit home.  Enjoy.

An Interesting Question about Story

Excuse my double negative, but I couldn't not repost this link from author Kate Elliott.  It's a wonderful piece that speaks to the timelessness of cyclic human history, with underlying suggestions about changing future history through family dynamics.

Kate Elliott is an American fantasy author whom I very much respect.  I've only read one series of hers, the Crown of Stars septology (I might have just invented a word...), but it was amazing and I look forward to reading her other work.  Her blog covers many topics, including writing, publishing, her books, her family, and pretty much anything that crosses her mind.  That last has led to a lot of interesting posts including my two favorites on the Bechdel test (very short) and epic fantasy (more complete).

If you haven't heard of it (and I hadn't before Elliott's post), the Bechdel test is a pretty simple sorting criteria for a story.  A story passes the Bechdel test if it:

1. Has two named women
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than men.

*Note: the original test only asked for two female characters, but increasingly those who are concerned with such things modify it slightly to require that those characters be named.  The original source also only applied the test to movies, but it can easily be generalized to any story-telling medium.

Obviously, we could have great conversations about passing the test in spirit or in letter and the fact that passing or failing doesn't mean a story is bad or good, and Elliott's second entry above discusses these issues in better detail.  But it is an interesting measure of how society perceives gender balance and what we allow to go unnoticed.  We women certainly know that we're named and talk to each other about a wide variety of non-male centric topics.  So surely our story-telling arts reflect that, right?  Right?

I've always felt that my preferred genre, science fiction and fantasy, was more gender balanced than general fiction tends to be.  Looking through the lens of this test brings me to the realization that the difference is not nearly as wide as I once thought.  John Scalzi, an author whom I have not yet read but who writes a great blog and is a creative consultant on Stargate Universe (one of my favorite current shows), demonstrated this pretty dramatically with movies from the past 5 years.

So go ahead.  Apply the test to your favorite movies, TV shows, and books.  See what you get.  Find anything interesting?  Any patterns?  I'm thinking of starting a blog page with a running list of stories that I watch or read and whether they pass, both by spirit and letter.  What do you think?

Some Perspective

I spent part of the evening catching up on my favorite finance blog, Get Rich Slowly.  I hadn't read it in awhile because I've recently been simmering over my own financial state (more on this to come, probably next week).  That's a big mistake, of course; one of the criteria by which I choose my financial guides is how inspiring they are, to help keep me motivated on my own path.

In any case, reading through the backlog got me to this little gem: Banker to the Poor.  It's a bit long, but well written and definitely worth the few minutes it takes to read.  Personal finance is a topic of interest to me anyway, but micro-finance is increasingly grabbing my attention.  I feel like it's a cause I could give to, helping people help themselves (I'll discuss my issues with charities some other day).  Based on the review, this title is definitely going on my to-read shelf on Goodreads.

NY Times Gender Article

This is a fascinating article on female gender roles in Afghanistan.  I almost have to smile at the extreme creativity of this "solution"... almost.

What do you think?