Tem42's New Writeups

Homoromantic (idea)

2013-05-20T21:56:13Z

Homoromantic simply means that one feels romantically attracted to members of the same sex. This is in contrast to heteroromantic, biromantic, panromantic, and aromantic... and others as needed.

Generally, this term is used specifically to refer to people who identify as asexual. (Generally, if you are not asexual, your romantic orientation will match your sexual orientation, making such distinctions redundant). It is usual to equate 'homoromantic' with 'gay'/'lesbian'. The difference is that a homoromantic asexual will not have a desire to have sex -- a difference that is very important to the majority of the human race, and can be very alienating, even among a group (the LGBTQ population) that is very familiar with unfair alienation.

Aromantic (idea)

2013-05-20T21:52:47Z

Aromantic is a term used to define one's romantic orientation (sometimes referred to as a person's affectional orientation), used for those who do not feel an urge to engage in romantic relationships. It is sometimes abbreviated aro.

Aromantic is, for the most part, a modifier used by the asexual community. Being asexual does not necessarily mean that you do not desire romance, but it does mean that terms like gay, lesbian, and especially bisexual may not quite fit. So instead you may hear the terms homoromantic asexual, heteroromantic asexual, biromantic asexual, and panromantic asexual. And, of course, you might also come across people who identify as an aromantic asexual.

The term is not always limited to the asexual community. There are also those who identify as, for example, an aromantic bisexual. And you may have noticed that there is a over-hyped stereotype in Western culture of the 'aromantic hetrosexual male' (although that term is never…

Heteroromantic (idea)

2013-05-20T21:50:25Z

Heteroromantic simply means that one feels romantically attracted to members of the opposite sex. This is not necesarily to say members of the 'opposite' gender, as many people who identify as heteroromantic do not consider themselves part of the binary gender paradigm.

Generally, this term is used specifically to refer to people who identify as asexual. (Generally, if you are not asexual, your romantic orientation will match your sexual orientation, making such distinctions redundant). Because the majority of the human race is raised to see heteroromanticism as the default setting, it is often assumed that asexuals are heteroromantic (or perhaps aromantic, to mirror their asexualiy). However, there are certainly those who identify as homoromantic, biromantic, or panromantic.

A heteroromantic asexual will, generally, desire more or less the same romantic activities as a cisgendered person, but will not desire sex.…

eager (review)

2013-05-19T20:28:34Z

eager
by Helen Fox
Hodder Children's Books, 2003
Wendy Lamb Books, 2004

This is a science fiction book for children, intended for ages 9-14. It is a bit more thoughtful than most science fiction written for children this age, being a bit more concerned with what makes an AI conscious and a little less concerned with blood-and-thunder adventures.

The Bell family live in a middle-class English neighborhood at the end of the 21st century. Life is pretty good -- they have robots to do all of the housework, all of the comforts of modern living, and a school that makes learning fun. Their only concern, at the moment, is that their household robot, Grumps, is getting a bit old and makes unpredictable errors -- like serving dinner for breakfast.

This problem looks to be solved when they receive a gift robot, EGR3, from a scientist working with experimental IA's -- robots that learn like humans, and have…

PIMBY (idea)

2013-05-18T23:24:04Z

PIMBY is a response to NIMBY -- Not In My Backyard. While the NIMBY attitude is characterized by an unwillingness to accept any negative externalities involved in large public works or large companies (power companies, pig farms, sewage plants, etc.), PIMBY is the attitude that maybe we should replan these institutions to keep all externalities acceptable to the local community.

While this idea sounds pretty straightforward, the term is used with many shades of meaning by many different groups.

PIMBY is most often translated as either "Please In My Back Yard" or "Power In My Back Yard"; it is generally associated with personal solar power panels or wind turbines, where the homeowner produces their own power. It may also be used by those who raise their own food crops, food animals, use composting toilets, use greywater systems, passive solar heating, etc. The idea is basically that instead of relying on public utilities or corporations, the homeowner…

Hottentotism (thing)

2013-05-18T16:14:05Z

This is a very old and completely obsolete term.

'Hottentot' is a politically incorrect term for the nomadic peoples of South Africa. The most commonly known of these groups today are the !kung and the San. You may also have heard the term Bushmen (which is also politically incorrect). Regardless, they all speak some branch of the Khoisan language family. These languages all have a number of clicks and pops (the ! in !kung indicates one of the tongue clicks). These languages were long viewed as incomprehensible (and the fact that the natives tended to walk about mostly naked didn't help their image).

The term hottentotism was coined by John Conrad Amman, who is best known for working to teach deaf-mutes to speak in the late 1600s and early 1700s. He also worked with severe stutterers, and the most severe of these, whose stuttering was so severe as to make them unintelligible, he referred to as having hottentotism.

It is perhaps worth noting here that…