Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men

That's the name of a new blog on the Freethought Blogs network.  From the second post:

It is simplistic nonsense to think of patriarchy... as a system in which men oppress women by choice and for our own interests. Patriarchy often requires men to do horrible things to ourselves, to each other and to women. Patriarchy imposes dominant roles on men whether we want them or not, and punishes us when we fail to fulfil them adequately.  ...It is equally simplistic nonsense to imagine that male suffering (on the battlefield and in homelessness, suicide rates, alienation and loneliness) is a consequence of women’s behaviour, choices or social liberation.

(A similar sentiment to another blog post I recently read, linked to by a friend of mine on Facebook.)

I don't know anything about the author, Ally Fogg, but the guy behind the Freethought Blogs network is Ed Brayton, who I've a tremendous amount of respect for.  I hope this turns out to be a worthwhile blog.  It's name suggests it is at least appropriately self-aware.

Mail link to current Safari page in Mac OS 10.8 with a keyboard shortcut

In Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple removed the Email link to this page option in Safari, replacing it with Share > Email this page, which places the entire contents of the page into the email, images and all.

Sometimes this isn't what you want, though.  Sometimes just a link is best.

I've written a short AppleScript to perform the old "just a link" function, and will explain how to make it run from within Safari using a customisable key command.

Actually, funny story.  While messing around, I discovered an undocumented keyboard shortcut which does this.  It's ⇧⌘I. This completely obviates the need for the script I wrote, but I'll keep the instructions here, incase reading about moving data between Safari and Mail using AppleScript is something you'd find useful.

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Aural Architecture

In the past few years there have been released a handful of indie games which share a kind of common form and aesthetic, one that strikes a chord with me.  This design space is represented in my mind by Kairo, and the upcoming Fract and NaissanceE, though it contains many more.

NaissanceE screenshot shows impossibly tall buildings with more buildings in the sky above.

NaissanceE

The quality these games have in common is use a first-person perspective and an experience based around architecture and soundscapes, working in concert to elicit some aesthetic or emotional response. Continue reading