fuckyeahfeminists:

About Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire. This international day of celebration helps people learn about the achievements of women in STEM, inspiring others and creating new role models for young and old alike.

The inspiration for Ada Lovelace Day came from psychologist Penelope Lockwood, who carried out a study which found that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male role models. “Outstanding women can function as inspirational examples of success,” she said, “illustrating the kinds of achievements that are possible for women around them. They demonstrate that it is possible to overcome traditional gender barriers, indicating to other women that high levels of success are indeed attainable.”

The day begins in Kiribati, the easternmost country in the world, and continues for a mindbending 50 hours, ending in American Samoa. Ada Lovelace Day is on 16th October 2012 and we encourage you to talk about women in stem that you admire and add your story to our directory so that others can find and read it.

As I’ve gotten more interested in the feminist movement online, I have been awed many times by great women using technology to create change toward social justice. I hope to become one of them myself? What great woman in STEM inspires you this Ada Lovelace Day?

paxvalkyrie:

In a recent post on TechCrunch, Penelope Trunk tells us (again) that most women don’t want to do startups. 

First, I’d like to extend that to Asians, African Americans, Gays, and Latinos. Oh, and white men. Most of them don’t want to do startups either, because most people don’t want to do startups for a whole host of reasons. 

Penelope tells us that women are different though, because women don’t want to join startups because women want to have babies. As evidence, she points out that most women downshift their careers as soon as they have babies, which of course makes startups impossible. 

It’s not that women don’t join startups because of lack of opportunity or sexism or doing what’s expected of them or anything else. Now that we have completed defeated bias, all women can choose to do anything they want, and they are choosing to have babies rather than go to startups. Case closed!

Here’s the problem: Penelope, and other people who say things like this, are making my life a whole lot harder, and I’d like them to knock it the fuck off. 

Imma just let this one stand for itself.

thebluecasket:

roachpatrol:

cheeeeeeen:

By far two of the most dangerous and harmful bills introduced today, not only to US citizens but to the entire world, are Protect-IP and SOPA, proposed censorship systems for the internet based on the interests of the entertainment industry. It sounds ridiculous, especially because you probably haven’t heard of it before, but they’re very real.

The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here’s the big point— they know they have gotten their message through to Congress — the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.

PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites “by accident,” mistakenly, or for NOT doing “enough” to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples’ sites, including slowing down your connection. That’s right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.

—boingboing.com

And this is how it will affect you:

Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.”  How do you get that label?  Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must 

• be directed toward the US, and either
• allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or
• allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.

If an IP rightsholder (vaguely defined – could be Justin Bieber worried about his publicity rights) thinks you meet the criteria and that it is in some way harmed, it can send a notice claiming as much to the payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc.) and ad services you rely on.

Once they get it, they have 5 days to choke off your financial support.  Of course, the payment processors and ad networks won’t be able to fine-tune their response so that only the allegedly infringing portion of your site is affected, which means your whole site will be under assault.  And, it makes no difference that no judge has found you guilty of anything or that the DMCA safe harbors would shelter your conduct if the matter ever went to court.  Indeed, services that have been specifically found legal, like Rapidshare, could be economically strangled via SOPA. You can file a counter-notice, but you’ve only got 5 days to do it (good luck getting solid legal advice in time) and the payment processors and ad networks have no obligation to respect it in any event.  That’s because there are vigilante provisions that grant them immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement.

—eff.org

Prime targets, eff.org says, are sites like twitter and tumblr.

But for now, we still have the power we’ve always had to stimulate change and speak up against this censorship, using exactly what these bills will try to stifle. ANYONE who uses tumblr should sign this petition and get the word out. Part of the strength of Protect-IP and SOPA is that they’re so under the radar right now. It’s our job to change this. Don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP PROTECT-IP AND SOPA:

• Sign the petition at change.org.
• Write a letter to your congressperson.
• Sign up for updates at fightforthefuture.org.

PLEASE DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN AND REBLOG THIS POST TO GET THE WORD OUT!!!

Reblog and kick up a fuss!

i’m going to reblog this every time i see it

I’ve heard of something similar a few months ago, and it didn’t get through. But this is much, much worse. The Protect-IP act is being rushed through.

Idk if anyone knows this, but it can also affect gameplay videos as well. For the fighting game community, that means no combo or tournament videos. And that’s bullshit.