Author: Laurel L. Russwurm

Certainly, and you don’t even need to ask, as the license info is in the sidebar. This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License . . . which means the only restriction is that you can’t license it with greater restriction, you couldn’t add “No Derivatives” or “Non Commercial” or even “Copyright All Rights Reserved.”

However, even if your blog/webpage is itself published under a more restrictive licence, you can still use my work as long as you use the same or similar license as the one I’m using on the page on which you use it.

Do you mind if I quote a couple of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back to your site? My blog is in the exact same area of interest as yours and my visitors would truly benefit from some of the information you provide here. Please let me know if this ok with you. Thanks!

I agree — hopefully talking about this will help move things in the right direction!

Difficult questions, Deanna. I rather think that what we need is equality. The culture is made up of people, and so we are the ones who have to make changes.

I was horrified to see the house league soccer league we were with for years decided to segregate the genders for the kids younger than mine. This was apparently decided to protect the little girls from having to interact with the boys. This seems the opposite direction we need to be going. Nothing motivates gender co-operation more than sharing goals

Thanks for stopping by, Laurel :) Thanks for continuing the conversation!

I agree with you about the creators of the infographic being marketing hipsters, but the info for the graphic was pulled from somewhere. And while labels are not important to me, the whole thing makes me uncomfortable with the lack of recognizing women as part of these (however entwined) communities. And that’s rather my point.

Ultimately, many of the problems with this infographic actually mirror what’s wrong the culture itself.

How can we encourage women to profit from so-called geek and nerd professions (such as math, science, technology), to be proud of their brainy activities when the female-dominated professions of librarians, for example, are so dismissed? Why would women even to pursue such fields when they are so dismissed — and even are treated as sexist toys or gifts — in the culture?

Thanks for giving such a perfect explanation of the different meanings of the words, Shevi. The second paragraph of your comment does a better job than their entire ginormous “infographic” :)

[And my nerd husband points out further that an infographic ought to be effective without having to read the words….]

I saw this poster on a friend’s Pinterest board. I agree with you: it’s so wrong!

I do see a difference between the terms “geek” and “nerd,” but it’s only in that being a geek is about being extremely enthusiastic about something, while being a “nerd” is about being extremely knowledgeable about something.

As in a Lord of the Rings geek loves Lord of the Rings; while a Lord of the Rings nerd know things about Lord of the Rings most fans don’t even know.

Geeks and nerds tend to have the same interests. You can be a tech geek (I am), but you can also be a tech nerd (sadly, I’m not that knowledgeable). I’m a book nerd, because I know a lot about books and writing. I’m also a book geek, because I love books with a passion. I’m also both a comics geek and a comics nerd. And I love Nerdcore almost to the point of geekiness (but not quite).

I think being knowledgeable and enthusiastic are wonderful traits, so I’m a proud nerd and a proud geek. We should ALL be. The world would be a better place if we could all unabashedly embrace our passions. Nerds and geeks rule!

You go girl! I am very proud of my sister. Not only is she well spoken and an excellent writer, she has an innovative creative mind that comes across in her written words.

Thanks Adrian 🙂

Allison has indeed provided an inspiration of talent and freedom, which is why and she’s included on my acknowledgements page along with Nina Paley and Cory Doctorow.

It is, indeed, a world gone mad when one looks at copyright issues. Here’s hoping things are sorted out more sanely in future.

Serving as manager to musician Allison Crowe, it’s fun and wonderful to learn how Allison’s music has helped inspired you in your writing of “Inconstant Moon”.

Allison, as you know, releases all her original music under Creative Commons licensing. I recall reading a blog post of yours, in which you commented that Allison can not release her cover recordings under CC. You’re quite correct. Allison holds the master rights for her performance/recordings, but not the publishing rights, for her interpretations of songs.

We all do what we can. Keep on rockin’ in a world as free as we can make it 🙂