“We are Forerunners. Guardians of all that exists. The roots of the Galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun, towards which all intelligence blossoms… And the impervious shelter, beneath which it has prospered.”

From the meetup: Free trade and its flaws

(This is going to be one of several posts in a series dealing with my thoughts on various topics that came up during our Singapore meetup late last year. I haven’t forgotten about what we discussed, it’s just been a busy few weeks since I got back. Since I...

Women in a masculine society

One of the very common objections made by feminists (of the Jizzabel stripe) and white knights to the ideas and themes of the ‘Sphere is that our stated goal of promoting a society in which men are once more in charge would reduce women back to a state of...

Strider’s Poem

Every new year I go through a ritual of sorts by watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy over the course of several successive weekends. (This year, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey got placed first in the queue, of course.) There is much to love...

(Not exactly) A field report

Another weekend, another opportunity to post about introverted game. In all honesty, the reason I don’t post about game much- or as much as I should- is because I haven’t done very much about it for a while. That said, on Friday evening an opportunity came...

Stock up on wool coats…

The next few years (or decades) could be very, very cold: The Sun’s activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned.  They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit,...

C+= – the feminist programming language

If you are at least somewhat conversant with a modern programming language- and in particular with C++, Java, or C#- then you’ll have some idea what I’m talking about when I say that this is quite possibly the funniest damn thing you’ve seen so...

Five problems with a very obvious solution

Normally I rather enjoy Cracked.com’s highly irreverent and thoroughly offbeat commentary on issues large and small. Recently, however, they published a list that purported to show how hard life is for women in the military, and I have to say that I got more...

The Law of the Jungle by Rudyard Kipling

I must have first read The Jungle Book when I was maybe five or six. I’ve loved it ever since. This is one of my personal favourite parts of the Second Jungle Book- the exposition of the Law of the Jungle. Reading it is a very good reminder as to precisely what...

That awful double standard

A while back, a College-Educated Feminist and I were listening to a random selection of tracks (playing from a set of CDs she selected). A track by John Mayer came on. I think I made an offhand comment about Taylor Swift at some point during that song- something do to...

Gender equality is indeed a myth

Yet for some reason, some bird named Beyonce Knowles is thoroughly puzzled as to why this vexing situation should exist: The Grammy-award winner signed the essay using her hyphenated married name, Beyonce Knowles-Carter.  ‘Humanity requires both men and...