Sprinkles Around the Web 10/15-10/21/10

Links are ones that I found interesting. Your mileage may vary.

Me

• I’m interviewed by SFX360 about Geek Girl Con in Dear Girl Gamers, A Con Is Coming Just for You!

Fandom

• Girls who love comics. I love this essay about being a woman in fandom. Because yes, you can find other women and community in geeky fandoms.

LGBT

• Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns shares his own story and talks to LGBT teens. Power and moving. If you haven’t watched any of the “It Gets Better” videos or want to watch one more, this is the one to watch:

• Why is it important?, a comic. This comic explains why sharing your own story is powerful and important to others.

Media and Race

• Racialized Fears in Campaign Ads. There’s nothing like elections to bring out the hate. And this year, there are tons of ads against immigrants which play on racial fears and other “security” fear-mongering against Arab Americans. Fear drives certain votes. And it’s sad, sick, and disgusting. Don’t vote for anyone who claims these ads as their own.

• Skittles Asks Facebook Fans to Drown a Man in Candy. This campaign is so yucky and full of cultural appropriation. Seriously, white ninja, how trite and offensive. Not to mention completely not as innovative as they want to be.

Recipes (I want to make.)

• Shakshuka
• Roasted Eggplant Soup
• 10 Chickpea based Indian Curries
• 10 Chickpea based Indian Breakfast recipes

Seattle

• Who Lives There? A Home in the Pyramid Atop Seattle’s Smith Tower. This is a pretty neat article about the woman and her family who lives at the top of Smith Tower and how they’ve renovated the apartment. Lots of cool photos.

• SDOT now offers point-to-point traffic times. Now I can obsess over traffic at more points in the city. Sure, I already love Google Maps traffic view, but sometimes it just doesn’t know what’s actually happening on 15th Ave W.

• Free trees for Ballard residents. This makes me wish that I owned a home in Ballard so I could plant some trees.

SEO

• How To Dress Like An SEO For Halloween. This is rather hilarious. And too true.

• 5 Quick Google Analytics Hacks. Pretty neat tricks, especially for SEO.

Social Media

• Why Most People Fail in Social Media. How social media is more than just signing up and talking about yourself. You got to interact and make friends.

• Facebook Disconnect Wipes Out All Evidence of Facebook. Annoyed at being asked to “like” brands on Facebook or other things connecting to Facebook when you’re not on Facebook itself? Well, this handy plug-in eliminates those. Or you can also just log-out of Facebook when you’re done with it like I do.

• The Facebook News Feed: How it Works and 10 Biggest Secrets. No, Facebook isn’t showing you all your friends’ updates. Why? Because Facebook fears you’ll get bored and not come back to the site. So instead, it filters it. And here’s some tips on how you can make your friends’ filtered news feeds and how you can change yours to see everyone. It’s rather interesting at who Facebook thinks is the most important for you to know their information. Let me tell you, it’s probably not everyone you care about.

Social Sciences

• Study: Women give more to charity than men do. You know, I find it ironic that women, on average, make less than men, but give more to charities. While I don’t buy women giving due to high rates of compassion, I do think there’s something going on.

Writing

• Why date a writer. This is hilarious. It lists all the reasons why you don’t want to date a writer. And as a writer, I agree with every single one.