Thorns

My battery has started running out AGAIN only a few months after getting it replaced last time. Anyone else had this problem? Is it plausibly just the price I pay for living on top of a really big hill? And if you live in Perth, where do you get yours replaced? I've been using Scooters Australia, which costs about $600 ie RATHER MORE than I'd like to be spending every few months /o\

Have been recharging whenever I'm not using it, trying not to let it run down too low when I'm out, and trying to keep the wheels inflated though we did forget about that for a while. And it's still run out faster than it did before I started doing any of those things.

Some interesting posts by other people about safe spaces and accessibility at Swancon:

• An open letter to the Australian SF community The post itself is about the lack of ramps at the awards ceremony, but there's more (sometimes frustrating) general discussion in the comments
  
• Swancon 2011 - Hyatt Mobility Issues firvulag has offered to help future committees with this stuff because he is awesome.
  
• In Which I Learn Things About Safe Spaces
  

Those not subscribed to alias_sqbr may be interested in my (not very good) panel notes.

• Disability and social media, AI and the human mind
  
• Great women in comics, New Who, This Spaceship has cooties (feminism and sff), Emotion and attachment in video games, Politics of fanworks, Conversation with Artists: Technique, Gynaecon discussion on accessibility, food and food ethics
  
• Galactic Suburbia podcast recording, How to write fight scenes, Religion Creation in fantasy, Classic Doctor Who, female characters in the background, 2012 launch, vidding
  
• Social media and science fiction fandom, Comics you should be reading, closing ceremony
  

I thought about posting this to gynaecon but I feel my ideas are still too brainstormy and vague at this stage, also there's just not many people on that comm! I'm definitely not meaning to talk about them behind their backs, what with all but three of them being on my friends list :D¹. If I feel like I've poked at the idea enough to make a coherent point I'll post it.
( Read more... )

So I'm tossing up going to the swancon bbq. On the one hand, it's an awful lot of effort, on the other I would like to go(*). Cam is plausibly going to be too busy to give me a lift, and I don't want to organise a lift with anyone else in case I suddenly have to cancel. (The energy it takes to be there far outweighs the energy it takes to get there assuming I can find a low-walking public transport option)

Anyway, after much messing about with the Transperth website (and ringing their info line who had no idea what suburb Kings Park was in), looking at google maps it occurred to me that the best way to get there might be to catch a bus to the corner of winthrop ave/thomas rd and walk through the park.

Is this plausible? I don't think I've ever entered the park from that side so I have no clue and don't want to end up looking up at a cliff or fence or something (like I would if I took the transperth site's advice and caught the cat to Mounts Bay hospital. Clearly their algorithm does not consider vertical distance)

(*)I know they said to rsvp, but since I couldn't eat much last time, and now my diet's even MORE restrictive, I can't see me turning up being much of an inconvenience. I'll bring my own munchies and pay a donation like I did last time.

So, several years ago one of Swancon's guests was the Doctor Who author Kate Orman. I didn't pay that much attention because you know, I don't like Dr Who *cough*, but she seemed pretty cool and I think we may have had a nice conversation at some point (it was a long time ago, and my brain leaks)

Now a year or so ago I joined the anti-racist community debunkingwhite. A little while ago I decided to start posting a bit about racism in australia since I couldn't find anywhere else better to do so(*), and another australian, seeingred, was very enthusiastic and posted some stuff as well. I've seen her here and there on the internet with her "redheads against racism" icon (which somewhat inspired one of mine), and we've had a few pleasant conversations, and she seems pretty cool.

A month or so ago I discovered the Dr Who macro community icanhastardis. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment from it, but have noticed a bit of friction over the rather strict spoiler policy, cheerfully but firmly enforced by the mod, who I decided was a bit odd but to be commended for running such a large and worthwhile community, and overall..pretty cool.

So (and I think you can see where this is going), today I killing time on the internet and came across a post(**) about this lj user who was involved in a bit of a kerfuffle in Dr Who fandom, and it mentioned some of the drama around the way she mods icanhastardis.

Her name? kateorman, aka seeingred.

How I managed to not recognise her name on all the mod posts (and in great shiny letters on her other lj) I do not know.

Anyway, I just had to share :) I am otherwise taking a day off thinking for I have a very busy day tomorrow, I intend to answer my piles of email some time after I gather the energy to wrap my brothers birthday present.

EDIT: checks out her userinfo and discovers she's been friended by nine of you guys, all of who are I'm sure laughing at me right now :P

(*)A well meaning gesture which has somewhat fallen to the wayside, because I am lazy and have a short attention span
(**)Which I won't link to, but I'm sure you can find if you really want. It's not very exciting, but I guess it is proof that no publicity os bad publicity :) I wouldn't have mentioned it at all but it was such a weird way to find out!

So I was talking to penchaft about her writing, and started thinking about of the many people on my flist involved in local small press sff short story publishing (It seems to me that submitting to something like Borderlands would be a good next step, but I'm not sure she agrees).

Listing you all in my head I was struck by the fact that you're all older than me¹, ie 30+. Which, ok, so it takes a little while to get into that sort of thing, but thinking back I'm sure Lily started Fables back in her early to mid 20s, and similarly with a lot of the people on Borderlands etc. Looking through the submitters to Borderlands and Ticonderoga the (admittedly few) names I recognise are all older than me apart from a few of the artists.
( Further thoughts... )