Sarah Pavis

November Kottke Posts

In advance of subbing this week for Jason, for my own reference and for anyone else who’s interested, here’s a round up the posts I did on kottke.org back in November. 

Guest editor: Sarah Pavis (Jason intro)
Through a browser, darkly
I, for one, welcome our toddler operated robot arachnid overlords
Thanksgiving FAQ
Paul, the artistic robot
A radio show run by psychiatric patients 
Inner-City Wizard School 
The International Journal of Indexing
Newly discovered Hitchcock film is available to watch now 
The international meteorite market
What does 20th century Mondrian art have in common with 21st century video game music?
Freehand lasercutting 
72 year old man models teen-girl clothes (h/t Jason)
What would realistic space battles look like? 
Final call for reader submissions
Giant balloon will protect us from floods, terrorism
Mini cheeseburger kit takes the “fast” and “food” out of fast food
300 singing turkeys 
Stories from kottke.org readers on connecting with people online 
Amazon Random Shopper 
Your new TV ruins movies
Feminist video game hacking
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Analyze Stanley Kubrick
Scientists un-discover an island 

“And we break for lunch, because she makes us eat. It’s so much better than before, when it was just dudes.”

I’ve long engaged in a hobby where, whenever I visit a tech company’s website, I head straight to their “Team” page, and scan for the women. More often than not, I have to scroll past four or more men before I see a woman – and very frequently, her title places her in one of the “people” roles: human resources, communications, project or client management, user experience, customer service, or office administration. (One could almost – if one were feeling cheeky – rename these roles employee empathy, customer empathy, team empathy, user empathy, and boss empathy: all of them require deep skills in emotional intelligence, verbal and written communications, and putting oneself in the shoes of others.)

Lauren Bacon in a great article on women in tech and empathy work which puts words to my discomfort with this ad for a tech company looking to hire an Office Mom Host Manager. 

If You Two Go Home Together Tonight People Will Die Day!

girlsareprettyforever:

Go ahead. Go find an empty booth and talk to each other. Find out how much you both have in common. Find out how easy your conversation feels, how it feels like you’ve known each other for years. How it feels like you two intended to meet each other here tonight, almost like you’d planned it. Or someone did.

Go ahead and lean in for that first kiss. It will lead to a second. Then you’ll just fall into his body, your head against his chest, listening to his heart. It will be disarming to your friends who see you. It will look like you’re already boyfriend and girlfriend. It will look like they’ve seen you clumped up together in a booth like that every Saturday night for years. It will look totally expected, completely natural, and they’ll wonder if it’s always been this way.

Go ahead and leave the bar. Wander the streets telling each other the truth. Hold hands even. Fuck it. You already feel like you should, like it’s perfectly acceptable for two people who just met a couple hours ago to walk around your city holding hands. Stop occasionally to kiss. Stop occasionally to just press yourselves together. Stop occasionally. 

Go ahead. Go on home to your apartment or his. Go ahead and fall into each other’s embrace before you even get through the apartment door. Go ahead to the bedroom and spend the next 72 to 96 hours absolutely devouring each other’s flesh, only to find that you’ve barely even begun to sate your hunger.

Go ahead and go home together tonight. Just know that if you do, people will die.

Not saying who. Not saying how. Not saying why.

But if you two go home together tonight, people will die.

Not saying if the people who are going to die are just fine with that, since they know your love is worth their lives coming to an end. Just saying what’s to be said.

You go home. They go away. It’s only fair that you know what’s at stake. Sometimes, there are repercussions to two people falling in love.

Happy If You Two Go Home Together Tonight People Will Die Day!

France: Explained

me:
"Originally released as a French-language concept album, the first musical-stage adaptation of Les Misérables was presented at a Paris sports arena, the Palais des Sports, in 1980."
me:
you're weird, france
Chris/0:
First, some tennis. Then, a musical!
Chris/0:
Followed by tennis.

Filed under chrisoverzero

loopermovie: For the curious, here is the original 4 page prose sketch for Looper, written in 2002. Right-click here to download the pdf, or click to open directly in your browser. At the time we were still trying and failing to get Brick made, and out of frustration I started writing short ideas that we could film with no money.  The Psychology of Dream Analysis was one that we actually made, this was another (though we never ended up shooting it.)  It sat in a drawer for seven years, until I pulled it out and used it as a sort of treatment for what became the full script.  It’s both very different and very similar to what we ended up with on screen, I hope it’s an interesting read.  Let me know what you think.

loopermovie:

For the curious, here is the original 4 page prose sketch for Looper, written in 2002.

Right-click here to download the pdf, or click to open directly in your browser.

At the time we were still trying and failing to get Brick made, and out of frustration I started writing short ideas that we could film with no money.  The Psychology of Dream Analysis was one that we actually made, this was another (though we never ended up shooting it.)  It sat in a drawer for seven years, until I pulled it out and used it as a sort of treatment for what became the full script.  It’s both very different and very similar to what we ended up with on screen, I hope it’s an interesting read.  Let me know what you think.