Tootfinder

Good Morning #Canada
There is a lot of news coverage about a USA president that lusts after a Nobel Prize like he attacks a family sized bucket of KFC. So let's celebrate that OTD in 1957, the first Canadian won the peace prize - Lester B. Pearson. Before he became our 14th Prime Minister, he spent the majority of his career as a diplomat. He was one of the founders of the United Nations and almost ended up as its first Secretary General. He was instrumental in ending the Suez Canal crisis by suggesting and helping to implement the first U.N. Peacekeeping Force.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianHeroes
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1957/pearson/facts/

A federal judge in Illinois temporarily blocks federal officers from using riot control weapons or other force against members of the press and others (Alex Woodward/The Independent)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a

No rubber bullets, no body slamming and no attacking journalists: Judge lays down rules for Trump’s federal agents in Chicago
Judges across US consider lawsuits to block National Guard from supporting Homeland Security in Dem-led states and cities

Day 30: Elizabeth Moon
This last spot (somehow 32 days after my last post, but oh well) was a tough decision, but Moon brings us full circle back to fantasy/sci-fi, and also back to books I enjoyed as a teenager. Her politics don't really match up to Le Guin or Jemisin, but her military experience make for books that are much more interesting than standard fantasy fare in terms of their battles & outcomes (something "A Song of Ice and Fire" achieved by cribbing from history but couldn't extrapolate nearly as well). I liked (and still mostly like) her (unironically) strong female protagonists, even if her (especially more recent) forays into "good king" territory leave something to be desired. Still, in Paksenarion the way we get to see the world from a foot-soldier's perspective before transitioning into something more is pretty special and very rare in fantasy (I love the elven ruins scene as Paks travels over the mountains as an inflection point). Battles are won or lost on tactics, shifting politics, and logistics moreso than some epic magical gimmick, which is a wonderful departure from the fantasy norm.
Her work does come with a content warning for rape, although she addresses it with more nuance and respect than any male SF/F author of her generation. Ex-evangelicals might also find her stuff hard to read, as while she's against conservative Christianity, she's very much still a Christian and that makes its way into her writing. Even if her (not bad but not radical enough) politics lead her writing into less-satisfying places at times, part of my respect for her comes from following her on Twitter for a while, where she was a pretty decent human being...
Overall, Paksenarrion is my favorite of her works, although I've enjoyed some of her sci-fi too and read the follow-up series. While it inherits some of Tolkien's baggage, Moon's ability to deeply humanize her hero and depict a believable balance between magic being real but not the answer to all problems is great.
I've reached 30 at this point, and while I've got more authors on my shortlist, I think I'll end things out tomorrow with a dump of also-rans rather than continuing to write up one per day. I may even include a man or two in that group (probably with at least non-{white cishet} perspective). Honestly, doing this challenge I first thought that sexism might have made it difficult, but here at the end I'm realizing that ironically, the misogyny that holds non-man authors to a higher standard means that (given plenty have still made it through) it's hard to think of male authors who compare with this group.
Looking back on the mostly-male authors of SF/F in my teenage years, for example, I'm now struggling to think of a single one whose work I'd recommend to my kids (having cheated and checked one of my old lists, Pratchett, Jaques, and Asimov qualify but they're outnumbered by those I'm now actively ashamed to admit I enjoyed). If I were given a choice between reading only non-men or non-woman authors for the rest of my life (yes I'm giving myself enby authors as a freebie; they're generally great) I'd very easily choose non-men. I think the only place where (to my knowledge) not enough non-men authors have been allowed through to outshine the fields of male mediocrity yet is in videogames sadly. I have a very long list of beloved games and did include some game designers here, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many other non-man game designers I'd include in the genuinely respect column (I'll include at least two tomorrow but might cheat a bit).
TL;DR: this was fun and you should do it too.
#30AuthorsNoMen

The Trump administration’s bid to systematically lock up nearly all immigrants facing deportation proceedings has led to a fierce
— and mounting
— rejection by courts across the country.
That effort, which began with an abrupt policy change by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 8,
has led to a tidal wave of emergency lawsuitsafter ICE’s targets were arrested at workplaces, courthouses or check-ins with immigration officers.
Many have lived in the U.S. …

I have a question for anyone who happens to be knowledgeable about web standards:
The same way we had the (failed?) "DoNotTrack" header... Is there any working group or initiative working on an #HTTP header sent by the browser (or similar mechanism) to signal that the user wants an ecological/lightweight website? Something like "SaveEnergy" or "LowEnergy", or "LightweightMode".
Would it make sense? Or do you foresee that it would fail for some specific reasons?
P.S.: Of course I would prefer if we didn't have to signal our discontent with the unjustifiably big and unoptimized web pages that we are served.
P.S.2: Now I am feeling tempted to write a browser extension for people who want to use "alternative communication channels" (HTTP headers) to "yell" arbitrary stuff at certain websites (It would be glorious if we could coordinate a big "Fuck you, Google", or, in a more positive tone, "Free Palestine!").
#WebDevelopment #WebDev #Web #Ecology