Thursday, October 30, 2014

Truthiness

Stephen Colbert, heading for the home stretch of The Colbert Report's time on this Earth, reminding everyone why he is forever and always the hero Nerd Culture needs:


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Rebuilding

So. It's time to let fans, followers, readers etc know where things stand and are going with these blogs and my general web presence (after you check the latest update, of course)...

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Another Long Collection of Thoughts about #GamerGate

NOTE: This was originally a piece that was intended for publication elsewhere. Length, however, became an issue (a shorter, "to the point" version is in production). But I still wanted a "one-stop" source for my positions on the Recent Unpleasantness as a whole, because it helps make certain social-media interactions mercifully shorter.

I have a lot to say about the so-called “GamerGate” controversy, much of which I’ve already said but much of which I’d wanted the opportunity to say with more clarity. So to keep this from running too long (Spoiler Warning: I will almost certainly run too long, anyway) and losing your interest I’m going to forego the use of flowery “clever” segues between thoughts and lay this out categorically.

But if you’re impatient to get down into the comments and start debating what variety of heated-adhesive and which species of fowl would be best suited to my tarring and feathering and want the TL;DR version right-off? Fine: I think of GamerGate alternately as a joke that got infuriatingly out-of-hand and an outright campaign of hate and harassment either dense (or pretending to be dense) enough to think itself otherwise; and it’s goals (both stated and implied) are the exact opposite of the self-betterment that gaming desperately needs - and was (not accidently) right in the midst of achieving when this foolishness started. In short, I find it to be a wholly destructive thing with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

That’s the short version. If you want the long one, keep reading.