Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!

thehawkeyeinitiative:

I recently received an email from an anonymous fan sharing how she pulled a Hawkeye Initiative themed prank on her CEO to illustrate a problem with some artwork.
My personal compliments to her and her accomplice on a mission well done; they perfectly took they perfectly took the concept of The Hawkeye Initiative one step farther, and effected actual change. I hope this gives you as much of a laugh as it did me (the artwork is currently my desktop), and inspires you to be unafraid to stand up and take action in your own awesome way.

Now, excuse me while I go play my new favorite mech game. :)
-Skjaldmeyja

AnonymousFan8675309:

I work with an all-female team of data scientists, in the gaming industry. This makes me the professional equivalent of Amelia Earhart riding the Loch Ness Monster.

I love my job. Our company in particular is great. Firstly, our game (HAWKEN) is beautiful and people love it. Secondly, half of our executive branch is female. Half of them are punk rock, and all of them are badassed. Our gender awareness standards, compared to the industry at large, are top shelf. We are talking Amelia Earhart in Atlantis, at a five star resort, getting a mani-pedi from Jensen Ackles. I have it good.

For the last six months of my tenure at Meteor Entertainment, there has been only one thing I did not love about my job. This
picture:

image

Our CEO loves this picture. It is to all appearances his favorite piece of comic art for the game. He had it blown up poster-sized, framed, and displayed on the out-facing wall of his office. There, it looms over the front room like a ship’s figurehead. It is the first thing workers and visitors see when they enter the building and the last thing they see when they leave. This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.
I loathe this picture.

Why do I loathe it? How, you ask, can I stay mad at a sweet young belle who has so obviously taken a break from her important welding to offer me a piping hot cup of coffee and/or a vigorous hand job? (And probably, given her apparent safety consciousness, simultaneously?) If you don’t already know the answer, you might want to check out things like #1ReasonWhy, and the Bechdel Test, and also this, and this, and this and this, and all these other things. (And while we’re talking you should check out this other bullshit right here.)

So at our office holiday party, while our CEO was having everyone in the company sign it, I stand there grinding my teeth into tiny shards. Until, suddenly, it came to me: a vision.

 And so it came to be that I approached Sam Kirk, a wickedly funny co-worker who shared my sentiment. Sam, turns out, is a very talented artist who can be bribed-slash-inspired using a medley of feminist indignation, hysterical giggling, and two $90 bottles of añejo tequila.

A month-and-a-half later, our vision was a reality. I give you:
Bro-sie The Riveter.

image

I want to make it completely clear that everything in this prank that required actual talent was done by Sam. Find this, and more of Sam’s art, at TheRealSamKirk.com.

We blew (ahem) Brosie up poster sized. We framed him. And then, at 7:30 on Monday, April 1st, we snuck into our CEO’s office and switched them.

I stood in the entryway, dizzy with joy. It was glorious. There Brosie stood, proud, nipples testing the air like young gophers in springtime, the post-apocalyptic breeze gently swaying his banana hammock. Brosie said, loud and proud: “Get ready, world! I am here to lubricate your joints and tighten your socket.”

I basically spend the next few hours having a joy-induced neurological episode.

As the morning progressed, Brosie (ahem) revealed himself to our co-workers. The air resounded with startled, suppressed gargles of mingled joy and horror.  Some take pictures. Some instantly turn and flee. Several men blush and grin in vindicated solidarity. Several women ask us for prints. At this point I am in total rapture. This is the moment I have been dreaming about for six months.

Yet somehow everyone in the office manages to keep quiet about it. Until, finally, our CEO arrives.

We hear a loud: “What the hell is this?!” And then all goes quiet. Ten minutes pass. We panic.

We are both suddenly and painfully aware that we have, in fact, just punked the CEO of our company. He is by all accounts an awesome dude. He is also a late-50s ex-army guy who happens to determine our employment futures in an at-will state. Meep.

Twenty more minutes pass. And then our CEO comes up to my desk, taps me on the shoulder, and says this:

“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bullshit I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and Sam to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”


image

Ruby Underboob and Brosie the Riveter, together at last


Yeah. That happened.

This wonderful experience has taught me two things that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and in gaming. It taught me this:

  1. Lots of men (like Sam) are already sympathetic to the stupid, constant crap women put up with in gaming/STEM, and they are ready and willing to call that crap onto the carpet.

  2. And, most importantly, many of the guys who are behind that stupid, constant crap are totally decent, open-minded human beings who just don’t realize they’re doing it. You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you and your girlfriend are talking about shoes or menstruation until some dude walks into the room? Well sometimes guys don’t realize how much they’re talking about titties.

We just haven’t been around enough for them to notice.

There is only one solution to that, ladies. Bust out your baby-Gap tee and your protective welding goggles, and let’s turn this damn industry into the environment we want it to be. It’s hard work, and yes, there are a couple genuine assholes along the way. But if Ruby Underboob can brave the occasional droplet of molten metal, so can we.

Speaking from experience, it’s worth it.

—K2


About our CEO, Mark Long:

Mark has a long and storied history with, among other things, research, games and comic art. He’s a partner in the RoqlaRue gallery in Seattle, representing “chick art.” Mark considers himself a feminist activist. He is proud to have created a graphic novel trilogy with Nick Sagan (Carl’s son) that features a female hero so strong, Hillary Swank is attached to star as her.

Mark and I are now in an open dialogue about gender in comics and gaming.


miss-azura: gimme-souls: andrewgary-scott: you-are-another-me: “A friend took this pic in Arizona USA. The meteorologists don’t have a name for it. Seems to be high energy to be in a Rainbow and a tornado! ” (source: Council of World Elders) Oh my lhjhcxgjhc All I could think of is the Bifrost.
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miss-azura:

gimme-souls:

andrewgary-scott:

you-are-another-me:

“A friend took this pic in Arizona USA. The meteorologists don’t have a name for it. 
Seems to be high energy to be in a Rainbow and a tornado! ”

(source: Council of World Elders)

Oh my

lhjhcxgjhc

All I could think of is the Bifrost.

(via mortenavida)

Source: you-are-another-me

emergentfutures: New discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere   The process is made possible by a unique microorganism called Pyrococcus furiosus, or “rushing fireball,” which thrives by feeding on carbohydrates in the super-heated ocean waters near geothermal vents. By manipulating the organism’s genetic material, Adams and his colleagues created a kind of P. furiosus that is capable of feeding at much lower temperatures on carbon dioxide. Full Story: Physorg
View Separately

emergentfutures:

New discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere

 

The process is made possible by a unique microorganism called Pyrococcus furiosus, or “rushing fireball,” which thrives by feeding on carbohydrates in the super-heated ocean waters near geothermal vents. By manipulating the organism’s genetic material, Adams and his colleagues created a kind of P. furiosus that is capable of feeding at much lower temperatures on carbon dioxide.


Full Story: Physorg

(via sackoftheweedduh)

Source: emergentfutures

mochte:

ifightformyfriends:

sith-ari:

Leopard Seal tries to teach National Geographic photographer how to hunt.

Oh my god this is so adorable

What.

I hope he actually ate some of the damn penguins because seriously.

(via abukkitofcelestialintent)

Source: sith-ari

brain-food: Man Spends 7 Years Drawing Incredibly Intricate Maze Almost 30 years ago a Japanese custodian sat in front of a large A1 size sheet of white paper, whipped out a pen and started drawing the beginnings of diabolically complex maze, each twist and turn springing spontaneously from his brain onto the paper without aid of a computer. The hobby would consume him as he drew in his spare time until its completion nearly 7 years later when the final labyrinth was rolled up and almost forgotten. Twitter user@Kya7y was recently going through some of her father’s old things (he’s still a custodian at a public university) when she happened upon the maze and snapped a few photos to share on Twitter. She was quickly inundated by requests from friends and eventually strangers who had endless questions, the most obvious being: are you making prints!? I’m not sure if prints will be made (I’ll definitely let you know if I hear anything), but it still boggles the mind simply looking at these few snapshots. (via spoon and tamago)
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brain-food: Man Spends 7 Years Drawing Incredibly Intricate Maze Almost 30 years ago a Japanese custodian sat in front of a large A1 size sheet of white paper, whipped out a pen and started drawing the beginnings of diabolically complex maze, each twist and turn springing spontaneously from his brain onto the paper without aid of a computer. The hobby would consume him as he drew in his spare time until its completion nearly 7 years later when the final labyrinth was rolled up and almost forgotten. Twitter user@Kya7y was recently going through some of her father’s old things (he’s still a custodian at a public university) when she happened upon the maze and snapped a few photos to share on Twitter. She was quickly inundated by requests from friends and eventually strangers who had endless questions, the most obvious being: are you making prints!? I’m not sure if prints will be made (I’ll definitely let you know if I hear anything), but it still boggles the mind simply looking at these few snapshots. (via spoon and tamago)
Zoom Info
brain-food: Man Spends 7 Years Drawing Incredibly Intricate Maze Almost 30 years ago a Japanese custodian sat in front of a large A1 size sheet of white paper, whipped out a pen and started drawing the beginnings of diabolically complex maze, each twist and turn springing spontaneously from his brain onto the paper without aid of a computer. The hobby would consume him as he drew in his spare time until its completion nearly 7 years later when the final labyrinth was rolled up and almost forgotten. Twitter user@Kya7y was recently going through some of her father’s old things (he’s still a custodian at a public university) when she happened upon the maze and snapped a few photos to share on Twitter. She was quickly inundated by requests from friends and eventually strangers who had endless questions, the most obvious being: are you making prints!? I’m not sure if prints will be made (I’ll definitely let you know if I hear anything), but it still boggles the mind simply looking at these few snapshots. (via spoon and tamago)
Zoom Info

brain-food:

Man Spends 7 Years Drawing Incredibly Intricate Maze

Almost 30 years ago a Japanese custodian sat in front of a large A1 size sheet of white paper, whipped out a pen and started drawing the beginnings of diabolically complex maze, each twist and turn springing spontaneously from his brain onto the paper without aid of a computer. The hobby would consume him as he drew in his spare time until its completion nearly 7 years later when the final labyrinth was rolled up and almost forgotten. Twitter user@Kya7y was recently going through some of her father’s old things (he’s still a custodian at a public university) when she happened upon the maze and snapped a few photos to share on Twitter. She was quickly inundated by requests from friends and eventually strangers who had endless questions, the most obvious being: are you making prints!? I’m not sure if prints will be made (I’ll definitely let you know if I hear anything), but it still boggles the mind simply looking at these few snapshots. (via spoon and tamago)

(via sackoftheweedduh)

Source: brain-food

art-of-swords: The Hachiwara Dagger The hachiwara (also kabuto wari or hachi wari), meaning “helmet breaker” or “skull breaker” was a type of knife-shaped weapon, resembling a jutte in many respects. This weapon was carried as a side-arm by the Samurai class of feudal Japan. One type of hachiwara was forged with a sharp dirk like point, to parry an opponent’s sword, to hook the cords of armor or a helmet, or like a can opener to separate armor plates. The sharp point could pierce unprotected or weak areas of an opponent’s armor like the armpit area. The blade of this type of hachiwara was a curved tapered square iron or steel bar with a hook on its back edge. In combat one could parry and catch a blade with that hook, as with a jutte. Some hachiwara of this type were mounted in the style of a tanto with a koshirae. The other type of hachiwara was a blunt, cast iron or forged truncheon like weapon resembling a tekkan or a jutte. This type of hachiwara had the same basic shape as the dirk type hachiwara including the hook, but it was usually blunt and not meant for stabbing. But Hachiwara are not actually tanto as they are not a sword, but rather a forged iron bar designed as a defensive weapon against swords. As said, they are sometimes called sword breakers or helmet breakers. The blades are normally of square cross-section with a hook next to the grip, approximately 12 to 15 inches in length. The mounts are commonly of carved wood or carved cinnabar lacquer. Some hachiwara were made by noted swordsmiths and may be signed. It would appear that tales of samurai breaking open a kabuto (helmet) are more folklore than anything else. The hachi (helmet bowl) is the central component of a kabuto, it is made of pie-piece shaped plates of steel or iron riveted together at the sides and at the top to a large, thick grommet of sorts called a tehen-no-kanamono, and at the bottom to a metal strip that encircles the hachi. This would require enormous pressure to split open. This idea that the hachiwara was somehow able to smash or damage a helmet kabuto is most probably a misinterpretation of the name which could have several meanings, as hachi could mean skull or helmet bowl and wari could mean, split, rip,crack or smash. In modern times there is no Ryu (School, Style) known to train with hachiwara, although certain dojos within Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu still train with them, as an extension of juttejutsu. A number of weapons retailers in Japan still sell usable hachiwara. Source: Wikipedia | Japanese Sword Index
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art-of-swords: The Hachiwara Dagger The hachiwara (also kabuto wari or hachi wari), meaning “helmet breaker” or “skull breaker” was a type of knife-shaped weapon, resembling a jutte in many respects. This weapon was carried as a side-arm by the Samurai class of feudal Japan. One type of hachiwara was forged with a sharp dirk like point, to parry an opponent’s sword, to hook the cords of armor or a helmet, or like a can opener to separate armor plates. The sharp point could pierce unprotected or weak areas of an opponent’s armor like the armpit area. The blade of this type of hachiwara was a curved tapered square iron or steel bar with a hook on its back edge. In combat one could parry and catch a blade with that hook, as with a jutte. Some hachiwara of this type were mounted in the style of a tanto with a koshirae. The other type of hachiwara was a blunt, cast iron or forged truncheon like weapon resembling a tekkan or a jutte. This type of hachiwara had the same basic shape as the dirk type hachiwara including the hook, but it was usually blunt and not meant for stabbing. But Hachiwara are not actually tanto as they are not a sword, but rather a forged iron bar designed as a defensive weapon against swords. As said, they are sometimes called sword breakers or helmet breakers. The blades are normally of square cross-section with a hook next to the grip, approximately 12 to 15 inches in length. The mounts are commonly of carved wood or carved cinnabar lacquer. Some hachiwara were made by noted swordsmiths and may be signed. It would appear that tales of samurai breaking open a kabuto (helmet) are more folklore than anything else. The hachi (helmet bowl) is the central component of a kabuto, it is made of pie-piece shaped plates of steel or iron riveted together at the sides and at the top to a large, thick grommet of sorts called a tehen-no-kanamono, and at the bottom to a metal strip that encircles the hachi. This would require enormous pressure to split open. This idea that the hachiwara was somehow able to smash or damage a helmet kabuto is most probably a misinterpretation of the name which could have several meanings, as hachi could mean skull or helmet bowl and wari could mean, split, rip,crack or smash. In modern times there is no Ryu (School, Style) known to train with hachiwara, although certain dojos within Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu still train with them, as an extension of juttejutsu. A number of weapons retailers in Japan still sell usable hachiwara. Source: Wikipedia | Japanese Sword Index
Zoom Info

art-of-swords:

The Hachiwara Dagger

The hachiwara (also kabuto wari or hachi wari), meaning “helmet breaker” or “skull breaker” was a type of knife-shaped weapon, resembling a jutte in many respects. This weapon was carried as a side-arm by the Samurai class of feudal Japan.

One type of hachiwara was forged with a sharp dirk like point, to parry an opponent’s sword, to hook the cords of armor or a helmet, or like a can opener to separate armor plates. The sharp point could pierce unprotected or weak areas of an opponent’s armor like the armpit area.

The blade of this type of hachiwara was a curved tapered square iron or steel bar with a hook on its back edge. In combat one could parry and catch a blade with that hook, as with a jutte. Some hachiwara of this type were mounted in the style of a tanto with a koshirae.

The other type of hachiwara was a blunt, cast iron or forged truncheon like weapon resembling a tekkan or a jutte. This type of hachiwara had the same basic shape as the dirk type hachiwara including the hook, but it was usually blunt and not meant for stabbing.

But Hachiwara are not actually tanto as they are not a sword, but rather a forged iron bar designed as a defensive weapon against swords. As said, they are sometimes called sword breakers or helmet breakers.

The blades are normally of square cross-section with a hook next to the grip, approximately 12 to 15 inches in length. The mounts are commonly of carved wood or carved cinnabar lacquer. Some hachiwara were made by noted swordsmiths and may be signed.

It would appear that tales of samurai breaking open a kabuto (helmet) are more folklore than anything else. The hachi (helmet bowl) is the central component of a kabuto, it is made of pie-piece shaped plates of steel or iron riveted together at the sides and at the top to a large, thick grommet of sorts called a tehen-no-kanamono, and at the bottom to a metal strip that encircles the hachi.

This would require enormous pressure to split open. This idea that the hachiwara was somehow able to smash or damage a helmet kabuto is most probably a misinterpretation of the name which could have several meanings, as hachi could mean skull or helmet bowl and wari could mean, split, rip,crack or smash.

In modern times there is no Ryu (School, Style) known to train with hachiwara, although certain dojos within Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu still train with them, as an extension of juttejutsu. A number of weapons retailers in Japan still sell usable hachiwara.

Source: Wikipedia | Japanese Sword Index