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San Francisco, 10:26 PM
Sat Nov 28
9 posts in the last 24 hours
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05/26/09
Techie things are male, and they act as stubbornly and unpredictably as if they had a Y chromosome and testosterone.
Although one of the cars had a gender that, in human terms, might have been FTM at an early age (before we bought it).
Our VCR's all had Star Wars names, our first TiVo is "Little Mr. TiVo".
Most people I know, their inanimate objects are either neuter or male. Almost nothing female, even Roomba.
05/25/09
05/25/09
05/24/09
I would also like to point out that Indigen is wrong, at least if you have hardwood floors. Pangur does a beautiful job cleaning the damn floor.
05/24/09
05/25/09
05/24/09
This, of course, just points us back to Lazy Science Fiction Cliche #203: All sexuality throughout the universe will break down in such a way that there is an easily recognizable (or at least implied) gender dualism whereby aliens/robots/what-have-you's of one "gender" only have sex/relations with aliens/robots/what-have-you's of the opposite "gender." Even the Hutts, for Christ's sake--and they're giant effing space worms!
They go so far on The Next Generation that Riker falls in love with an alien from a genderless/sexless world and the plot of the episode is that said alien wants to have a gender (female, of course, so that Riker wouldn't be space-gay) and becomes an outlaw in order to do so. Whaaaaat?
Notice how much richer sci-fi seems--Farscape comes to mind immediately, though it was great for a lot of other reasons, too--when this sort of assumption isn't made and where more interesting questions about intimacy get asked, above and beyond the recent penchant for tokenized queer characters.
05/24/09
There's been the odd tri-gendered race in popular sci-fi, and there was one episode of Enterprise when they go to Risa and Trip/Reed end up almost hooking up with what can only be assumed to have been trannies (one points out some hot alien "ladies" and the other suggests that they might not be ladies at all).
Of course, there was that one episode where it was heavily implied (with a purpose) that Ivanova and Talia had a night to remember (er, well, Ivanova did at least, since Talia's memories went poof with her entire personality not too long after that point). But yeah, male-ien on male-ien relationships are something of a taboo subject, probably due to that genre market being so heavily skewed to hetero males, particularly of the inexperienced variety.
05/24/09
How about gay rights for robots who have had their genders assigned to them but who later decide they'd rather have a different gender?
Seriously, though, I think that if/when robots achieve better-than-human intelligence, they'll look at us as we look at cats and dogs. And then *they* will assign their gender definitions to *us*.
Here, kitty kitty kitty....
Go fetch, buster! ... Good boy!
05/24/09
Those aren't gay robots. They're just transgendered robots. For a clear view of the difference, watch pretty much any episode of Tripping the Rift for "gay robot", and Futurama's "Bend Her" for an example of transgendered Bender.
05/24/09
05/24/09
When they make a dish-washing robot, THAT will be female also.
05/24/09
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05/25/09
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05/24/09
05/24/09
And, no, it's not to piss off people trying to get pronouns straight.
05/24/09
Granted, robots are technically inanimate (or at least, not persons), but it's harder to interact socially with an inanimate object; hence the need to anthropomorphize our machines.
05/24/09
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05/24/09
05/25/09
05/24/09
Screw you, checkout robot.
05/24/09
He so does not deserve her, the prick.
05/24/09
If you're slow about putting something in the bag she says "Please put the item IN the bag." If you take it out she says "Please put the item BACK in the bag."
Seriously, I'd love to hack the s/w and have it say:
Please put the item IN the bag
Please take the item OUT of the bag
Please put ANOTHER item IN the bag
Please throw the item AT another shopper
Please turn around THREE times and spit.
05/24/09
Lady voice: "Please put the item in the bag."
Man voice: "Cherie, je t'aime."
Lady voice: "Will that be cash or charge."
Man voice: "Merde, mais tu ne m'entende pas!"
Lady voice: "Thank you for shopping at BuyAway! Have a nice day!"
Exit man in a tweed jacket with three pig-tailed daughters.
Enter old lady in fur-lined moccasins and an olive colored toque.
Man voice: "Bienvenue a BuyAway!"
Lady voice: "God you're sexy. I wish you'd take your shirt off."
Will somebody make this movie for me? You can rewrite the script.
05/24/09
05/25/09
Title.
Dramatic explosion.
Intro
Dramatic explosion.
Dramatic explosion.
Dramatic explosion.
Small explosion.
They meet.
Talk.
More explosions.
Booby-trapped table by a jealous ATM.
Dramatic explosion.
Ridiculous love scene. (An explosion in the background.)
They sit on a beach. The jealous ATM comes in, but explodes far off in the distance from water exposure.
Credits.
Dramatic explosion.
05/25/09
05/25/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
Never heard of it. ;)
05/21/09
BAYCON!
This weekend, Santa Clara Hyatt Regency. (near Great America)
baycon.org
It's not feminist, but it's fun.
PM me if you're going!
05/21/09
I wish I could be in both places at once! Why does BayCon always have to be at the same time as WisCon? Huh? Huh?
05/21/09
I know there's gonna be feminists at Baycon -- like me -- but that's not the main point of the con.
Also, Baycon does books, movies, TV, anime, music, science...
I think they have a fantasy-steampunk theme this year. Last year it was pirates.
I've been making lists off io9 reviews so I know what books to buy from the dealers instead of Amazon. Gotta support fannish small business.
05/21/09
05/21/09