The final episode of Battlestar Galactica? Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

My apologies for not approving this sooner.  GGWR

Today is Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada Lovelace, the infamous Lord Byron’s daughter, wrote the first computer program ever, for Babbage’s difference engine.   Ok, so the difference engine couldn’t be built because of  limitations in manufacturing technology, however, both the engine and Miss Lovelace’s program have since been analyzed and declared functional.

Ada Lovelace

Today we honor her by posting about women in technology (I’m stretching to include science as well).  Women have few enough role models in the sphere of science and technology, and I’d like to highlight a few and bring to everyone’s attention the need to address sexism in these areas.

First, my technology pick is Jade Raymond, the producer of Assassin’s Creed who has worked on many other games at Ubisoft.  She has made a place for herself in a largely hostile environment and thrived, in spite of multiple assheads claiming her success is due solely to her appearance.  I’ve blogged about her here before, and the bad behavior of fanboys towards her, blog posts #30 (linked with her name) and #29, I believe.

My current science pick is Sheril Kirshenbaum, who is now blogging for Discovery blogs.  The blog she writes with her blogging partner Chris Mooney, Intersection, has been a staple at Scienceblogs, but has recently been wooed away by Discovery.  I’ve not read many of their articles, but the few I have read have been interesting and insightful.  But what I want to bring your attention to here, is the response of male readers to Sheril’s picture.  PhysioProf covers this brilliantly. 

Seriously, guys, Sheril is not there to look good for you.  She is there to write insightful posts about the intersectionality of science and politics.  It doesn’t matter what she looks like.  And if the fact that she’s conventionally “hot” is what makes you read her stuff, you’re an idiot, regardless of what you learn from her. 

The fact is that for an awful lot of people a woman’s worth comes primarily in the form of her attractiveness to them, and this is broken.  When’s the last time you heard someone talk about how well Henry Kissinger was filling out those slacks before they listened to him speak?   Or heard someone complain that they couldn’t take Charles Darwin seriously because of the facial hair?  Or said Einstein couldn’t have been a decent scientist because he was slovenly and didn’t take care of his hair?  I could go on for days, here.  However, women who speak up on any subject are frequently derided and ignored either because they are too “fuckable” or considered unattractive.

The attractiveness thing is a double-edged sword.  For every person who only reads Ms. Kirshenbaum because she’s “hawt,” there will be dozens who won’t take her seriously for that same reason. 

So, today, remember that there are, have been and will continue to be women in the fields of science and technology who are there because they have busted their asses and put up with a lot of sexist crap to get where they are, regardless of hotness.   I raise a glass in their honor. 

Salud!

Syfy

Sci Fi Channel Aims to Shed Geeky Image With New Name

The new name is silly. Too bad the network isn’t announcing a commitment to more quality genre shows and an end to “reality” shows, wrestling, and telefilms that would make Ed Wood cringe.

And “TV historian” Tim Brooks is seriously an idiot.

It’s also insulting that one of the reasons for doing this is the network wants to appeal more to women. Apparently, they don’t realize that the Stargate franchise, Battlestar Galactica, and Doctor Who have huge female fanbases. Female genre fans don’t need silly network names to attract us, just give us some good genre shows.

Geek Girls Rule! #79 – Review of Mouse Guard rpg.

Ok, I’m coming at this from the angle of someone who has never read the comic.  The Geek Husband What Rules has, in fact we have both graphic novels.  He describes it as very Redwall-esque, only with mice and weasels as the only sentient characters.  Other animals are still animals.  However, I haven’t gotten around to it as of yet.   That said, I am really, really enjoying playing the Mouse Guard rpg.

I’ve played Burning Wheel before, and reviewed it here.  Mouse Guard seems to have taken most of what annoyed me about Burning Wheel, and eliminated it.   What Luke Crane’s done here is to streamline and simplify the Burning Wheel engine to make it more accessible to people who may not have played a role playing game before.  This makes sense since the game is being marketed to fans of the comic, who may well be younger and into comics, but not into RPGs as of yet.   Character creation is shorter and more simple than with Burning Wheel.  Granted,  you still script out combat in three attack rounds, but it seems to work more smoothly with this “lighter” system.*

In Mouse Guard, you play mice in the Guard, striving to protect mousedom from the evil weasels, ferrets, stoats that would victimize and eat them.  Your character creation includes choosing your mouse’s fur color, cloak color, parents, friends and role in the Guard.  Much as with Burning Wheel’s lifepaths, you decide what your parents did which gives you a skill and a trait.  Then you choose your mentor in the guard and what he did (and therefore taught you).  You also choose other skills based on your role in the guard.  By answering questions, you decide your mouse’s resources and circles, which is how renowned your mouse is.

As with Burning Wheel, you choose an Instinct and a Belief, that drive your mouse.  A Belief is your tell to the GM as to what you want your part of the story to be about.  An Instinct is an “always” statement.  “I always look up every few feet,” or “Life is short, play hard, fight harder.”   You are encouraged to change your Belief and Instinct as your character develops in the game.   Also, the way our GM runs it, your Beliefs and Instinct may change, but your Goals do change from session to session.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.  The system works well with the changes that have been made to simplify it for a less gaming savvy audience.  It’s a much cleaner, more streamlined version of Burning Wheel, and I think it will be very accessible to younger or newer players.

*I had to include a “Burning Wheel-lite comment in here, because the distant sound of Luke Crane’s grinding teeth warms the cockles of my coal black little heart.

Geek Girls Rule! Podcast #11 – The Wild World of Fanfiction

The latest GGR Podcast is up!!!

Fandom Savant (also called Frog) and I chat about fanfiction, the whys and wherefores, as well as talking about current issues in fandom like outing and copyright law.

Enjoy!  And if you like it, comment and maybe we can peer-pressure her into posting.

PS Look for my review of MouseGuard later this weekend.

Review: Watchmen

Watchmen – A graphic novel once labeled “unfilmable” finally arrives on the big screen. The result is breathtakingly good. It’s not quite another Dark Knight, but it’s easily one of the best films ever produced in the superhero genre.

In 1986-87, DC Comics published a twelve-issue comic book series called Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons. Later collected as a graphic novel, this series was a revolutionary and sophisticated take on superheroes with a heavy dose of social commentary. It also became the only graphic novel to be included on TIME Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.” After several attempts to adapt it into a film by directors including Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), and Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) all collapsed, it looked like it would never get produced. It was worth the wait.

After a retired superhero known as the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is murdered, the vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) believes that there’s a conspiracy to eliminate costumed heroes, and soon the other retired Watchmen–Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode)–become involved as events begin to spiral out of control, threatening the entire planet.

Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300) proves his critics wrong, myself included, by successfully translating difficult source material into such a strong film. He’s always been a talented visual stylist, so it’s no surprise that by using Dave Gibbons’ art as a blueprint, Snyder has quite literally and vividly brought the world of Watchmen to life, allowing fans of the graphic novel to feel like they’ve stepped inside them. He transforms each action scene into a slow motion ballet of carnage, and the opening credits montage that reveals the backstory is brilliantly executed. What’s surprising, at least to me, is that after 300‘s cardboard story and woeful acting, Snyder manages to tell a compelling story with good performances. Perhaps it’s simply a case of rising to the level of the material he’s working with.

The screenplay by David Hayter (X-Men, X2: X-Men United) and Alex Tse (Sucker Free City), with uncredited revisions by the team of Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Star Trek), is largely faithful to the source material except for certain events at the end, but it’s really only the method by which those events occur that has been changed rather than the events and their repercussions. The story that unfolds on the screen isn’t as deep as in the graphic novel, but the social commentary in Alan Moore’s works have always fared better on the printed page (see the film adaptation of V for Vendetta as another example). Still, the screenwriters deserve much credit for distilling such a complex tale into a two hour and forty-two minute film without losing the essence of the story or its characters, allowing it to be enjoyed by both fans of the graphic novel and a mainstream film audience. A three hour and ten minute director’s cut will eventually be released on DVD.

The contributions of cinematographer Larry Fong (Lost, 300), production designer Alex McDowell (The Crow, Fight Club), and costumer designer Michael Wilkinson (Babel, 300) are very important to realizing the story’s world on the screen. Fong’s bold use of color and lighting achieves the dramatic effect required, McDowell’s sets convey a sense of the real world with a twist in some scenes and a sense of the fantastic in others, and Wilkinson’s costumes, designed with an assist by comic book artists Adam Hughes and John Cassaday, look quite convincing on the screen. The sweeping score by Tyler Bates (The Devil’s Rejects, 300) captures the changing moods of the story, punctuated by several perfect songs (some of which were actually referenced in the graphic novel). The visual effects are outstanding, but rarely drown out the human aspects of the story.

Former child actor Haley (The Bad News Bears) dominates the film with his visceral and frightening performance as Rorschach. Crudup is chillingly aloof as Doctor Manhattan, a man transformed into a cosmic being and who seems to have lost his humanity, conveying so much through body language and subtle facial expressions. Wilson is a very believable Nite Owl, while former model Akerman is respectably solid as Silk Spectre. The Comedian is a nasty piece of work who, like many such people, is also superficially charming, and Morgan captures that perfectly. Although Goode isn’t a match for how Ozymandias was portrayed in the comics, he’s well-suited to the role of an arrogant genius for whom the ends justify the means.

The rest of the cast is solid, including Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre, Matt Frewer as retired villain Moloch, Stephen McHattie as the retired original Nite Owl, Robert Wisden as President Nixon, Frank Novak as Henry Kissinger, Danny Woodburn as Big Figure, and Eli Snyder (the director’s son) as a young Rorschach.

Watchmen the film lacks some of the complexity of Watchmen the graphic novel, but I suspect the former comes as close as possible to realizing the latter on screen as one could hope for. As a film, it’s excellent, offering a compelling story, quality acting, incredible visuals, and a visceral experience. Highly recommended. I watched it on an IMAX screen. If you have an opportunity to see it in IMAX, I recommend it.

Note to parents: yes, I know it’s based on a comic book and has costumed heroes, but Watchmen has an R rating for a very good reason. The film has graphic violence, profanity, nudity, extended sex scenes, and a violent attempted rape. Be aware of this before deciding to take your children to see it.

[4.5 stars out of 5]

- Danielle Ni Dhighe