The (not quite) Perfect Boyfriend, Lili Wilkinson.

Over-imaginative Imogen has several problems - her mother, her best friend Tahni, her imaginary boyfriend from England. When a real English boy with the same name turns up at school, Tahni assumes this is Midge's Ben - and Ben saves her from total humiliation by going along with it. But secrets and lies come at a price - if not now, then later. And Midge has a lot to learn about the power of the truth.

OKAY. I am in love with Midge. Three pages in, she starts freaking out about misplaced quotation marks, she spends slow class periods picking out the spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes in the handouts, her claim to fame is winning the spelling bee, and every chapter opens with a word and dictionary definition. A WORD GEEK TEEN HEROINE, Y'ALL. I am there.

And as also evident in Lili's Pink (my review of which I cannot goddamn find, that'll teach me not to tag properly), there's a fantastic and sympathetic grasp of the varied geek experience. PostSecret provides narrative impetus, you guys! It's great.

I should have been clearer in my previous post. People were listing the height of characters, and saying things like Oh, he's a bit on the short side at 5'8" and she's short at 5'9".

No.

Something on the internet was wrong.

Short is, say, 5'5" like by buddy Chris. He's short. He's cool with it, and he'd kick my ass for sure, but he's short. A woman who is 5'2" may be considered short.

Unless your fantasy world is set on Planet Tayshawn or in some Amazonian jungle where the average is 6 feet tall, get your short/tall ratios right. Or unless you're referring to the rest of your 6'5" characters, then yes, your sub 6' giantette would be short.


Ah, whatever. I have a beef pot pie and you don't.

Bookmark Days, Scot Gardner.

Farmgirl Avril and her city cousin Katie are best friends, but could hardly be more different. Avril can drive the ute and cook for twenty shearers - Katie knows what shoes go with what dress and how to make guys pay attention. And Avril is happy, where Katie is not. But the drama really starts when Avril falls for the boy next door - well, on the next farm - a member of the Carrington family, with whom her family's been feuding for three generations. Oooh, farmgirl Romeo and Juliet time, but with much less romanticised teenage stupidity.

A sometimes relevant fact about me is that, though I was never a real farm girl, I grew up in country towns, had friends on farms, and know a little bit about the isolated, hard work and absolute family commitment that goes into keeping a family farm alive. Bookmark Days rang really true to me. Of course, unless you're on one of the wee islands, New Zealand isolation is different from Australian isolation, because Australia is bloody huge. You can be a very long way from anywhere else, and completely at home.

Just in passing and in general, one of the things I am really loving about the Girlfriend series is that they all place a great deal on the importance of female friendships. Katie and Avril have some truly nasty fights, but they are both individually decent enough and collectively strong enough to rebuild.

I have absolutely nothing to say today. (I should probably stick to Twitter.)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

The Indigo Girls, Penni Russon.

Zara, Mieke and Tilly are best friends for two weeks every year, when they're the Indigo Girls at the Indigo camping grounds. But this year Mieke is coming a week later, and alpha-girl Zara and pointy-brained Tilly have to work out how to operate without her as the bridge between them. In the process, they learn a lot about themselves and each other and are TOTALLY FREAKING ADORABLE ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I'm a Tilly-style girl myself, so getting into Zara's kinetic-foused brain was really awesome, particularly the descriptions of night-surfing. Hijinks also include text-stalking, costume parties, and a Brush With Death.

WARNING: Book will make you want to head to the beach immediately.

I had been planning to go to the gay marriage rights march at Flinders Street today, but after some excitement last night I got a late start this morning. Or, this afternoon.

So I think I'm going to spend the day reading. I haven't done that for a while, and I have, courtesy my fabulous A+U editor, a bunch of the Girlfriend Fiction series - all short, girl-focused contemporary YA novels set in Australia, and so far, all utterly delightful. Which you sort of expect with people like Kate Constable and Lili Wilkinson doing the writing.

Mini-review time!

Winter of Grace, Kate Constable.

At an anti-war protest, Bridie witnesses an assault on a boy and helps to rescue him with her gorgeous bestie, Stella. But saving Jay means that he wants to save her too - he's a committed evangelist Christian, and Bridie finds herself ready and willing to welcome Jesus into her life. But her single mother, a biologist, is adamant that Christianity is poisonous lies - though she won't say why she's so very oppposed - and Stella is disgusted by what she sees as Bridie growing goody-goodness. Moreover, Bridie starts to question some aspects of her church. Does she really have to choose between family and God?

As you know, internets, I'm a committed atheist, and I have a lot of sympathy with Bridie's mother, in that I think teaching children that God will send them to hell if they're naughty is teaching them horrible lies. Believing that screwed me up for a while! But religion is certainly a huge and fulfilling part of many, many wonderful people's lives, including my mother, and I am equally unsympathetic to the viewpoint that all believers are clearly idiots, when they clearly are not. So Winter of Grace hit all the right spots for me on the religion front, and then EXTRA BONUS gave me an adorable love story, fun family interactions, and complex characterisation.

So, in an effort to support the burgeouning dissident movement in Iran without making said movement look like a tool of the West, a (gasp!) bipartisan group of senators has come up with a fairly clever idea.

Set up proxy serviers so that such dissidents can communicate more freely with each other and the world.

This actually got into a Defense Department bill and passed; now, the money has to be appropriated.

There are just two problems with this approach. One, obviously these servers can't only serve Iranian users, or it would look too pointed (besides being really tricky to set up). So, we would end up aiding those folks anywhere that want to avoid censorship, including Chinese people -- and we don't really want to anger the Chinese right now.

I'll bet you smart people have spotted the other problem already. If not, just remember what we all learned from "Avenue Q".

That's right. The internet is for porn. In this case, anonymously posted porn. On Gummint-funded servers that are specifically configured for anonymity.

Moral: while the folks in Washington apparently now know that the internet is not a series of tubes, they are still rather innocent about the whole concept. Getting better, though.

http://womenincomics.blogspot.com/2009/11/friday-november-27-manga-edition.html

REVIEWS

Beast Master Vol 1

Black Bird Vol 1 Impression

Review: Color

From Far Away 1-5 by Kyoko Hikawa: A-

Merry Family Plan

 

COMMENTARY

Manga Salad: A History of Horrible Harmless Violence

 

GIFT GUIDES

All I Want for Christmas – Or the Manga Gift Guide – Boys Love Edition

Manga Bookshelf’s 2009 Manga/Manhwa Holiday Gift Guide

The Great Manga Gift Guide - Okazu Edition

2009 Manga Gift Giving Guide - Seinen edition

Manga Gift Guide 2009

Manga Gift Guide

Great Manga Gift Guide!

Coal For Your Manga Stocking

2009 Great Manga Gift Guide

http://womenincomics.blogspot.com/2009/11/friday-november-27th.html

Hey everyone, just a quick note to say that we're changing the way we categorize our links slightly. Our previously labelled "miscellaneous" category will now be more accurately called "women in comics", and the miscellaneous category should be a bit more self-descriptive and reserved for items that don't quite fit elsewhere. Also! Alphabetized! =)

We appreciate feedback, and if you've got links to submit you can send 'em to womenincomics@gmail.com!

Thanks.


BATGIRL:
Batgirl the comic review

Batgirl Showcase Review

GAY SUPERHEROES:
Top Ten Gay Superheroes

JAMES RHODES:
Why James Rhodes Is Comics' Ideal Black Hero

Two Posts of Note

MISCELLANY:
Could "New Moon" be a feminist triumph? Forget the antiquated gender roles and the axed female director. This movie's box office could be a game changer

OP/ED: TWILIGHT & Comic Books - More Alike Than We Know

Take this comic book survey

Egypt's first graphic novel banned, publisher fined LE 5,000

ORMES SOCIETY:
You! Black woman creating comics!

Ormes update!

POWER GIRL/COSTUME JUSTIFICATIONS:
Okay. Now I’m Getting Mad.

What’s sauce for the goose…

“Are you kidding me? I’m getting an ‘I choose my choice’ speech from a fictional character?”

On the Power Girl Cut-Out Costume

Power Girl Lectures Women for Complaining About Her Costume

Costumes & Cheesecake: Power Girl Controversy Illustrates Gender In Comics

SPANDEX COMIC:
First gay superhero comic launches

World's first gay superheroes

Spandex’s Gay Superheroes Battle ‘50-Foot Lesbian’

WOMEN IN COMICS:
AH! Adam Hughes talks about the Catwoman #83 cover

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight motion comic confirmed

Beauty and the Block of Marble

Romance Comics (The Basic Formula)

Marvel Dreams

Spider-Man 4 Black Cat Casting Rumors Run Rampant

Women claim Marvel comics in 2010

Refrigerator Busting #2 – You Know What the Speed Force Needs More Of?

Thawing to a Close

BLACKEST NIGHT: 100%

DC Dreams

All-American Shojo: The Dreamer

The Flash: Rebirth (spoilers)

Comics on The View?

A Marvel Thought

Panels 66: Why Chicks Cry

Interview: Nadja Spiegelman

Rin-Ne Book 1

Clear Communication

WONDER WOMAN:
Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman and Lois

I miss Rucka's Wonder Woman

I've been playing around with Yahoo Pipes recently. This has mostly been in the realm of seeing what it can do; I haven't found a really good use for it yet—at least not something that I am impressed by. But then, I don't work with feeds very often, so maybe I'm not the "intended audience". There's nothing wrong with that.

There is one interesting thing I've noticed, however. Pipes has a few obvious deficiencies in its language. The most obvious one is that it's impossible (or at least very awkward, more on that later) to extract text from items. "text" and "items" are two of the Pipes data types, representing a text string and a group of feed entries, respectively.

Here's an example to show what I mean. Let's say you have a feed with a certain number of items, and you want to choose one specific item from it. This is not too difficult; I've already written a pipe to choose one item from a feed. This pipe takes two inputs: a URL and a number. It uses Fetch Site Feed to get the feed from the URL, and it uses some math and filters to get only the specified item. Simple!

The Example That Doesn't Work

But let's think of a slightly different example. Let's say that you want to choose a specific item from a feed, but which item is given by a different webpage. Like you have a webpage that displays nothing but the number "3", and that means you want the third item from the feed. But you don't know the number until run-time; it could be 3, or 4, or 1600, or anything. You want the pipe to query the webpage to find out which entry to get from the feed. This turns out to be difficult.

The problem is that while you can get the webpage data with Fetch Page—or Fetch Data, or even Fetch CSV if you want—those modules don't return "number", they return "items". The math and filter modules need a "number" parameter to do their thing. "items" is a collection of data entries; it can't be used as a string, even if there's only one.

How to Solve the Problem

First, I should note that one part of this problem is not actually a problem. Pipes will convert strings into numbers. You can create a String Input containing "3", and can be hooked into a "number" input that will then be set to 3. So, the problem isn't converting the text; the problem is getting it out of the "items" type.

I propose a new module, perhaps called String Extractor. In its simplest form, it would take in "items" and return "text" representing the default content of the first entry in the feed. If we wanted to get more fancy, we could add a "number" parameter to denote which entry to extract, and also perhaps a field to choose which element of the entry gets extracted (like Rename or Regex lets you choose).

I believe this module would be simple to implement, and while I don't know much about the implementation, I have a good reason to believe this wouldn't be too hard.

The Workaround

The truth is, it's already possible to create a pipe that performs this function, using a "trick" that some Pipes developers have come up with. It actually involves creating two pipes.

1. First create a pipe that chooses a specific item from a feed. That was my first example, above.

2. Make a second pipe that fetches a number from a page. Process it until you have a feed with one item, containing the number.

3. Bring in a Loop module and place the first pipe inside it as a sub-pipe. Hook the number-feed up to the Loop module's input. Set the sub-pipe's number input to be "item.content".

The way this works is that "for every item in the input feed", the sub-pipe will be run on it and the content field will be used as the sub-pipe's parameter. Of course, there's only one item in the input feed, and it contains the specified number, so the loop is run once to choose the item from the feed.

Why a New Module?

Some might ask why we should be able to do this with Pipes at all. The new module would allow all sorts of facilities for interesting data filtering; much more like programming than simply mashing feeds together. I think this would be well worth it. And it's obvious that the Pipes developers want this functionality, because a lot of them talk about it and know about this "trick" on the Pipes discussion forums.

So, some might also ask why a new module is needed if we can already perform this function. The answer is that the current way is completely awkward; that makes it hard for new Pipes developers to figure out. Maybe some of them have already been discouraged. Also, because this method requires a sub-pipe, it inflates the number of pipes.

And because the functionality of the module I'm proposing is already part of theLoop module, it's certain to be easy to implement.

Dammit. I was all set, had my ranty panties on, and I did a bit of research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
Well, fuck. I'm average height for a Mexican-American man.


The point being? People who are 5'7" or 5'9" are NOT FUCKING SHORT. THEY'RE GODDAMN AVERAGE. You want to make short jokes? Keep it close to 5 feet. Otherwise? Average.


Drives me nuts when I see someone described as a short man at 5'9" . aljdfjdalkfa

the second printing of the pfsc book arrives next week, you'll need to order it soon if you want it for christmastimes

santana v. - totensamba

I don’t normally do this, because it usually turns into a clusterfuck. But the fine little Thinkpad X61 that Avatar Press picked up for me when my main computer died horribly last year… well, it’s been worked very hard, and is starting to cough a little blood. It’s also buzzing intermittently, after the last wave of Windows over-the-air updates made it do a fainting goat impression and then turn itself off.

I have, however, quite quickly gotten used to working on a laptop rather than the big desktop machines I’ve been using since the 90s.

(And I have to say, for a tiny machine, the Thinkpad is a terrific device. Its single real drawback has been that its recovery system will steal the entire hard drive if you let it.)

So I’m looking at new laptops, speculatively. I’m not going to have the spare money for one until next year. But, as much as I also need a new phone (the Nokia N95 8GB keeps randomly shutting itself off, which is not useful in a mobile device), a work computer is going to have to take precedence.

Being in the UK, I don’t have the selection of cheap and lovely things available to my US readers. But I would appreciate some suggestions for a big, powerful laptop that is unlikely to start jetting blood and asking for mummy in eighteen months’ time.

No Macs, no Linux: I have a lot of Windows-specific software and function that I need to maintain. Don’t even talk to me about partitions and Windows emulators and whatever, I’m a working writer who can’t programme a VCR and I Do Not Have The Time.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

No, really. This isn’t serious, right?

I mean, the book got cancelled.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

Your home shopping list, by Ariana, which saves me having to type out pretty much the same list.  Did you see Wil Wheaton’s new mug idea?  Right here.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

Fighting Fridays since 2008.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

I would joke "don't get injured in any Black Friday shopping sprees," but I teach consumer behavior and study this sort of thing.

Instead, I would like to seriously intone "don't get injured in any Black Friday shopping sprees."





Edit: perhaps I should have considered stepping away from my default icon for once.

It was a great holiday. I got to talk with relatives, and I also got about three pages longhand of a piece of the novel that means I can move forward somewhat. And it started with a simple twist the bot gave me in our nano channel last night:

What happens if your main character wakes up as the other gender?

So yeah, things have just gotten interesting.

Hope your thanksgiving was great!

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.