- In r/movies, a redditor took some stills from Spirited Away that look more like paintings than screenshots. Here’s all 38.
- Could cosplay be banned at New York Comic Con? This is mostly speculation right now, but a New York councilman has introduced legislation targeting costumed characters. It’d be a dark day indeed if cosplayers had to get official permission from the people who own the rights to each character.
- When Rae Johnston wore a Bioshock: Infinite shirt to a coffee shop, a man accused her of not knowing what it even was about. So she spoiled the ending. This week, she blogged about the unbelievable quantity of positive and negative feedback she received just for tweeting about the incident.
- Mattie Brice wrote a poignant, poetic, personal essay about games criticism paralleled with her identity as a transgender woman of color:
I didn’t cry when I got home. Instead I went through and looked at all of the names, all of the names of my editors, those receiving my pitches, giving me opportunity to further myself in the industry. The names on the business cards in my purse, the names already in my inbox. The guy I was dating. That man on the street knew. He knew.
- Which reminds me: in feminist and other equality writings, proponents tend to use a vocabulary that isn’t quite mainstream yet, words like cisgender and WoC. But not knowing the right words doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Here’s a great essay on why it’s wrong to punish people who aren’t in the know. “There’s no point in being ‘correct’ if only 12 of your friends understand it.”
- Adam Gurri writes about breaking the cycle of Web addiction. Do you believe you’re addicted to the Internet, or that the Internet has shortened or altered your attention span and work habits in some way?
- I started freelancing for ReadWrite this week, where I’ll be writing a story about learning to program every day. Here’s my first story, on an iPad app that teaches kids to code. I’ll also be writing about my attempts to teach myself to program. Is there a coding topic you’d like me to write about? Let me know!