Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2010 October 13

# 14 Oct 2010, 01:53AM AEST: The Hyperlinks I Forged In Life: Disregard the timestamp on this entry, which is leftover from a draft I began on the other side of the world, when the Elizabeth Moon controversy broke. Everything feels unfinished, uncertain, temporary. I finally upgraded my laptop to Lucid Lynx -- yes, half a year after its release. Leonard and I finished watching the first season of the new Reggie Perrin and like it, but not as much as the brilliant original Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Gordon Korman's new young adult novel Pop is the most moving thing he's ever written. I talked with my mother on the phone and she sounds happy in Mysore. I feel like I'm on a road trip on a conveyor belt.

Some links.

Roleplay scenarios to train concealed-carry weapons permitseekers.

Everything Scott writes, of course, but especially him and his readers discussing what's exhausting about running a web publishing organization.

Kate Beaton's Maurice "the Rocket" Richard for Kids made me cry with happiness.

A few weeks ago, speculative fiction author Elizabeth Moon wrote an essay arguing, among other things, that groups of minorities in the United States are responsible for assimilating and seeming non-threatening (a simplification, of course, since if she had written it that baldly maybe she would have understood how absurd her argument was). She then shut down the comment thread on her post and hid all the comments from public view, thus effectively deleting the conversation by which many readers were trying to discuss how and why she was wrong. Yasaman's response on civilization, the meaning of American citizenship, and pride spoke to me, and I thank coffeeandink and Jed for collecting several other of the many thoughtful responses from around the Net. My old Berkeley friend Shweta Narayan, in response, detailed her experiences of assimilation; I had a much, much easier time of it growing up, so hearing her experience is sobering and edifying. And, as usual, Liz Henry tries to build on our dismay to get us to contribute to relevant, productive causes.

Elizabeth Moon is currently one of two Guests of Honor at next year's WisCon feminist sci-fi convention, which has of late been a locus of anti-racist activity. Thus: additional controversy, which I am not attempting to cover systematically in this idiosyncratic selection of links. What can the organizers and participants do to mitigate the implications? Many ask: should she remain a GoH? And it's not like she's the first GoH in WisCon history to have held some abhorrent views, but it's not just about her words, but her actions: the attempted erasure of opposing voices.

I am, right now, deliberately making no plans regarding travel in 2011 so that I can stay free to make plans to take care of my mother. I might go to WisCon, and to other gatherings that honor people who have said or done some things I find breathtakingly wrong. Been there before, will be there again. I was at the GUADEC where Richard Stallman did the sexist emacs virgins comedy act, for instance. But I have my own reasons and needs and tolerances and trade-offs, and will aim not to proselytize others who differ.

On a completely different note, a tearjerking story about family and machines.

Filed under: Reading

# 13 Oct 2010, 11:32AM: Mirabai, Plover, and Common Spaces: I am so proud of my friend Mirabai Knight for many reasons, not least that she founded and leads the Plover open source stenography project. With a USD45 gamer's keyboard and her free software, you can try out the typing method that could get you double or triple your typing speed! You may not realize what a communications bottleneck your typing speed is till you've seen a stenographer in action.

On the occasion of its 2.0 release this month, Geek Feminism interviewed her. Excerpt:

When I was in steno school, I noticed something interesting. Even though the school had an overall 85% dropout rate -- meaning that only 15% of matriculated students passed the three 225 WPM speed tests needed to graduate -- nearly everyone got up to 100 WPM within the first semester or so, and it was in that 100 to 200 WPM window that people started getting frustrated and quitting. Steno is so ridiculously more efficient than typing every word out letter by letter that it's possible to exceed the average qwerty speed in a matter of months, once you've got the phonetic system in your muscle memory. Then, as people start to use steno for all their daily computing tasks, the speed comes gradually and inexorably. It might take years of consistent use to get up to court reporting speeds, or some people might permanently plateau around 160 or 180 WPM, but even so it's a huge improvement over qwerty, and there are significant ergonomic benefits as well.

Mirabai is amazing and I'm privileged to know her; for a taste, check out her recent essay How I Got Here.

Mirabai also introduced me to Common Spaces, a laid-back Brooklyn co-op coworking space. Everyone gets 24-7 access, flex space is only USD200 per month, you get free coffee and laser printer use, and there's a kitchen and a conference room and a phone booth and often free cake from the cakery on the same floor. It's near a bunch of subway lines. If you live in NYC and work out of your home, consider trying Common Spaces for a month and see whether adding this physical infrastructure helps you work, think, and feel better.