Friday Linkdump is your feathery friend

Well, the chickens have officially been named. We ended up going with Doctor Who companions in the end, though the sauce nicknames also seem to have stuck. Thus, the Easter Egger is now Susan (aka Sweet & Sour), the Barred Rock is Barbara (aka Ranch), the Buff Orpington is Vicki (aka Honey Mustard), and the Australorp is Katarina (aka BBQ).

Katarina, incidently, is definitely the chicken most likely to engage in airlock heroics.

Also, ever since somebody mentioned that Buff Orpington sounds like a pulp sci-fi hero, I can't stop thinking about that idea. I really should consider asking my friend Jean about illustrating that for me...

Speaking of brainmeats, it's been a productive week here in blogland! I've posted writeups of The Hunger Games, Repo! The Genetic Opera, and Marco Polo (serial 004 of the epic classic Doctor Who rewatch) over at Not Broadcast Safe.

I also posted some thoughts about Jimmy Carter's departure from the Southern Baptist church over the treatment of women over at The Land, Sea, and Sky, which rather turned out to be more about my thoughts re: individuals' responsibilities within their faith communities, but there you go.

Good times.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Internet:

- Music from places that aren't the United States or Western Europe: I found BIGBANG's "Fantastic Baby" video very enjoyable indeed, while this badass combo of Tuvan throat singing and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" kicked my ass.

- For all three of you who have yet to see it, the first Doctor Who Series Seven preview. Yeah, I've been humming a particular musical theme all week. Why do you ask?

- From LifeHacker, an interesting thought: Instead of Saying "I Don’t Have Time," Say "It’s Not a Priority." Now, I have feelings about this. On a normal weekday, I have about three hours (usually 6-9 PM) that aren't already spoken for outside of sleep, work, basic self-care/hygiene/nutrition, or writing. Some nights, I don't even get those hours. By that standard I may well genuinely not have time to do everything that needs to be done, or would be nice to do, etc. On the other hand, the way I use that time (and even the time broadly allotted to various tasks)? Well, it's all about choices, isn't it? At the very least, trying this language on could yeild interesting (and probably uncomfortable) insights about what one's real priorities are? Then again, I have in the past done myself terrible harm by telling myself "your X is not so broken you can't also do Y." So. Approach with caution?

- How To Be Creative. Another thing I'm wearing my skeptic pants about, because while the article is very slick in its way, what does it really tell us? How to prime your brain. As someone who's very good (at least in theory) at priming his brain, I can genuinely say that the actual labor of creativity is not as easy as 20 minutes on YouTube. If it were, I'd have written a hundred libraries' worth of books. Instead...well, instead I've seen an awful lot of funny videos on YouTube. Er.

- Some soldiers in Afghanistan have apparently begun adding "infidel gear" to their equipment. While I certainly have a deep, personal understanding of that impulse to act out in frustration in the face of all kinds of pressures, this is pretty much the very definition of bad choices.

- Why hello there, 2012 Clarke Award shortlist. Or, as I like to call it, that list of books that will only make my to-read stack just that much less possible to scale.

- Banana flavored scorpion vodka. Or, as I like to call it, something I am actively refusing to put in my mouth.

- Transgender Miss Universe Canada Finalist Jenna Talackova Disqualified From Competition. And yes, the comments are just as appalling as you'd expect them to be. Still, if you follow the story around a bit, there's a lot of support for Talackova out there right now, too.

- Pictures From a Battlefield: the men and women who started ACT UP.

- “Clicktivism” vs. “real” activism – everybody needs to just sit down.

- While I could live without the whiff of dismissiveness in the headline, this news about IDW making Womanthology becoming an ongoing series makes me very happy indeed.

I now return you to your previously scheduled Friday afternoon.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com