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Go F#%k yourself, Buzzfeed and Friends.

You’ve all seen those obnoxious list-based articles from content farms plastered all over your facebook feed. I’ve grown increasingly fed up with them of late (with the exception of Cracked. Cracked is fucking brilliant). Half the time, they just throw up a catchy headlines, some photos, and call it a day.
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I hate music.

No, not really, but compared to most people I know, I’ve definitely acquired a reputation for being down on music, and a reputation for downright hating musicians.

I really don’t listen to much music compared to most people. On most days, I don’t even really listen to music. I boot up iTunes maybe once, twice a week, and even then just for an hour or two. Why? Well, listening to too much music puts me on edge, and can even give me a headache. No idea why, it just starts grating on my ears. Switching it up doesn’t help, I just have to turn it off. The effect is less pronounced with classical music, but it’s still there. I also prefer my music very much on the quiet side. (That being said, if I were ever in a car with an epic sound system, I’d totally blare the Brandenburg Concertos). While I was working at the Jazzhaus I was the only employee who used earplugs every night.

Gender Disparity in Product Placement

So: In the course of my frantic job hunting, I applied for an online writing job where I would be writing blurbs about products for a gift site. As part of the writing test, I had to go into their huge online store and pick some Mothers’ Day presents to write about. As I did so, I noticed that the products listed in the “gifts for her” section there were very, very stereotypical gifts for women. Given that the topic had to do with thrill-junkies, I popped over to the men’s section, and realized something: There were an insane amount of absolutely gender neutral gifts shoved into the male section. Water bottles and canteens, energy bars, walking sticks, training watches, you name it: All jammed in the men’s section.

I’m not saying there is some huge conspiracy to try to keep women’s interests focused on “feminine” products just to maintain a traditional role in society, but I am saying that it is happening unthinkingly. Advertising makes up an obscene amount of the media we view, and it does help shape our interests and worldviews, no matter what we’d like to think. Whoever set up that store just shoved all those products into gendered categories without putting very much thought into it, probably. Who knows. When you go to find a product, though, and see it in a section advertised for a different gender, there’s an unconscious message being laid out there that says “This isn’t for you. You can’t have this.” Does it affect who buys it? I don’t know. Does it make some people less excited about their purchases? I’d be surprised if it didn’t.

Plus, you know: It does make it a lot less intuitive to search for stuff, so there is that.

Eponymous Laws of Science Fiction

Authors have a tendency to construct laws and rules of writing, both to help themselves while writing and to share with others. Here are a few of my favorites, ranging from the serious to the silly:

Frederick Pohl’s Basic Maxim #1:

“Writers write mostly for the fun of it. Agents exist to see they get money for having fun.”

Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Three Laws

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

A few of Larry Niven’s (Many) Laws

Never throw shit at an armed man.
Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

Brandon Sanderson’s Laws of Magic

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.
Limitations > Powers
Expand what you already have before you add something new.

Sturgeon’s Law

Ninety percent of everything is crud.

Scalzi’s Law

Any conversation on the internet will eventually include bacon in some way. And then be forwarded immediately to John Scalzi.

For a big, huge list of eponymous laws, here’s the wikipedia page.