Summersville Lake is quite interesting. It was built to control flooding of the Gauley River, and has a huge dam.

Normally, when I think of dams, I think of the giant cement structure that villains threaten to destroy in movies, to wreak destruction upon an unsuspecting populace.

Summersville dam is different.

Here a picture of the dam, looking up from the Gauley River. If you look closely, you can see cars driving across the dam.

Try this link to see the satellite view of the dam.

Summersville Lake is seasonal: in April it starts to fill, and in early autumn, the water is carefully released, allowing for some of the best white water rafting in the country.

So when we see the lake in October, the water levels are low, so you can see the underlying rock formations, exposed by the water.

Here’s the full moon over the lake.

And here’s the Gauley River. It was quite lovely, and I would have enjoyed spending more time hiking around there. Sadly for me, we casually strolled down, and I’d not bothered to put on my boots or carry my hiking stick. This is important because without those two items, walking on rocks quickly puts a major strain on my bad ankle.

But it was totally worth it.

This is the third year we’ve going to Bridge Day. For some reason I didn’t feel much like watching the base jumpers, but that’s not really the best part of Bridge Day–I love standing on the bridge looking out over the New River Gorge Canyon. It’s a stunning, amazing view.

Here’s a picture of the bridge from the Visitor Center platform. If you look at the bigger picture, you can see the rappelling lines.

In this one, you can see the rappelling lines and the zip line.

(I made notes in Flickr, to point out these lines if you can’t see them.)

Stairs from/to the visitor center to the viewing platform. Michael counted and there were 130.

A view from the bridge–you can see how foggy and overcast the morning was.

A nice gentleman took our picture for us:

This is quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve seen in a long time (seriously, click through and see the other two pictures):

 
 
And speaking of foxes, there’s a fox living on the White House grounds.

 
 
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I discovered some new websites:

Bad Figure: God-awful good-for-nothing figures from cutting-edge published research.

frex:

 
 
Buzz Hoot Roar is comics + science.
 
 
And discarded images, which is a tumblr dedicated to the images found in the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts.

frex:

weasel: ‘The weasel is called mustela, ‘a long mouse’, so to speak, for theon [telos] in Greek means ‘long’. […] It hunts snakes and mice. […] Some say that weasels conceive through the ear and give birth through the mouth; others say, on the contrary, that they conceive through the mouth and give birth through the ear…’ (transl. Aberdeen Bestiary Project)

Bestiary, Thérouanne ca. 1270.

LA, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS. Ludwig XV 3, fol. 91v

 
 
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I discovered the West Virginia State Park Program: Hiking West Virginia and have absolutely no idea how I didn’t know about this before.

 
 
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I learned how to make a penguin wetsuit, in case that need ever arises.

 
 
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And on Facebook, my friends and I had a long discussion on body image and the treatment of women in the media.

There was a link on Facebook purporting to show how celebrities look in real life versus in magazines. But it was magazines photos compared to candid shots, and bothered me for several reasons:

1. It was ALL women. No men.
2. The “normal” shots were paparazzi shots. I think paparazzi are a scourge upon the world.
3. There’s no time comparison–were the photos taken weeks, months, years apart?
4. A lot of the paparazzi shots were vacation shots. Come on, who hasn’t pigged out on vacation and worn comfortable clothes?

Essentially, I felt it was just mean.

But, it IS true that the image of women that is presented in the media is unrealistic and completely unachievable. So I found some sites that had much better (and far less mean) comparisons, that let you see people at the best, and how photoshop is still used to manipulate those images.

Links of interest:
23 Celebrities Before & After Photoshop
40 Amazing Before and After Photo Retouching Photos
The Reality of Celebrity Photoshop: Before and After

And that’s what happened this week.

The article on ScienceBlogs, Sharyn Ainscough dies tragically because she followed the example of her daughter, The Wellness Warrior is a fascinating and well-written read. I recommend you wander over and read it yourself.

But I was struck particularly by the closing paragraph, and what it means in a much broader context.

You might think that, seeing her mother die might have been a wake-up call that leads her to change the course she’s on, but I know human nature. She won’t. After all, if she admits that Gerson therapy is useless, even harmful, quackery that failed to save her mother, then she would be forced to acknowledge her role in the death of her mother. She would also be forced to accept that Gerson therapy can’t save her, either. These are both conclusions that Ainscough would likely find too painful to accept.

Those seem like conclusions that almost anyone would find too painful to accept.

How much tragedy and horror in the world are due simply to our inability as individuals to look at our past actions and see wrongdoing because that would be to recognize the cost of our mistakes?

The southerner who flies the confederate flag and claims the Civil War was only over states rights.

The spouse who claims their partner “didn’t really meant it”.

The parent who claims, “it didn’t hurt me any when I was growing up.”

It’s a defense mechanism. A defense mechanism that I truly understand. Admitting that you are wrong, especially if that caused another harm, is a very hard and very painful thing to do. It’s far easier to bend and twist facts to fit your belief system than it is to take a step back and truly consider the facts. To consider what it means if your beliefs and actions caused damage. Caused harm. Caused death.

No one wants that kind of pain, and I think our brains do everything they can to keep us from it. How many people are truly capable of honestly owning up to their mistakes, and the harm they caused?

How often do you hear someone say, “I was wrong” and truly mean it? Not very damned often.

Maybe Jack Nicholson had it right. Maybe we really can’t handle the truth–at least the truth we hide from ourselves.

When was the last time you changed your mind about an important subject? Really considered both sides of the topic? When was the last time you truly considered a view opposite of your own?

I sometimes think about Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and I believe they have the right of it. The barriers to admitting the truth are high–higher than most people can reach. It seems to me that only by setting aside the fear of retribution can we truly do the work required to come to terms with our actions.

And only by coming to terms with our actions and stripping away our justifications can we begin to heal ourselves and those around us, and keep others from coming to harm in the future.

(NOTE: Believe it or not, this has absolutely nothing to do with the current political situation. It’s just something that I’ve been mulling over.)

We saw BB King last night, so in his honor, today’s word is: blues

While at Cass, we rode the trains two different days, in hopes the weather would be nice on one of those days. Although it was overcast and foggy, we also had some sun, so I really had no complaints at all.

I mentioned it was foggy, right? This was at the top of Bald Knob.

It cleared a tiny bit at the top of the mountain. See that white object? That’s the Green Bank telescope:

We stopped at Seneca Rocks on the way home:

Of course I was drawn to piles of rusting industrial parts and the burned out shell of the old lumber mill.

I went to the shell of the lumbermill without Michael, as he is lawful good, and these things make him nervous. (But in deference to Michael (and my clumsiness) I didn’t climb into the building and ruins. I just got really really close. And maybe stepped over some logs and stuff.)

Cass Scenic Railroad, located in Cass WV, allows you to ride on a coal powered steam train up into the mountains.

Cass was a lumber town, and had a mill that ran until the 1950s, but had it’s heyday in the early 1900s, when the mountains (and most of the state, to be honest) was logged.

The Cass rail line uses/used Shay Engines which were designed to allow the engines to climb steep inclines with sharp turns hauling heavy loads of timber.

Here’s a close-up of geared wheels:

Here is the crankshaft:

And here’s everything put together:

Here’s the view from the opposite side:

Here’s the view from the inside.

That square box is there so kids and stand on it and see better.

Here’s a look back at some of the track we’ve just passed over. I was serious about the track being curvy.

Here’s a look forward at the engine, from where I was sitting on the train.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the engine is “on backwards” actually pushing the train up the hill rather than pulling. The reason for this is because, as a coal engine, it throws lots of soot and cinders, and as we’re on a sight seeing tour, they want the cinders going behind the train rather than in front of it.

Of course, there are two switchbacks, so for part of the ride, we did get ash and cinder rained down on us, but luckily for us, our car had a top.

The guys leaning out at the ends of the cars are the break men (there was a break woman as well). Their job is to loosen or tighten the break on each car, and to do so in tandem with the other break men, so the cars don’t bump into one another. The break man on our car was a 70-year-old man who was also the narrator/guide for the trip. He was awesome, to be perfectly honest.

The break on the car in front of us:

And some more pictures of the train:

And, a completely random note, Cass supplied timber to the paper mill in Luke, Maryland–which is where my great-grandfather worked his entire life (except during WWII, when he was in the Navy). So the logging of the red spruce here help my great-grandfather employed.

Thanks to Janiece, I discovered both Lindsey Stirling AND Pentatonix

Here they are doing a cover of Imagine Dragons’ Radioactive, which blew me away:

Once you watch that, go check out some of Lindsey Stirling’s videos, if you haven’t seem them before.

 
 
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I continue to love Dinosaur Comics.

 
 
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Science is beautiful AND amazing…

 
 
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I’m currently listening to Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch, which I re-read over the summer.

It’s somewhat odd, in that it’s narrated by Paul Michael, who has an American accent, but all the dialog is read with Russian accents. What makes this especially odd is the story is written in first person, so it seems like Anton is thinking in an American accent, but speaking in a Russian accent.

It’s not bad, and I love the stories, but it takes some getting used to.

 
 
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Are you on Pinterest? I use it for a place to stash things I might like to come back to. Like these color photos from 100 years ago:

I’d found that article back when it first came out, then forgot about it, and so was overjoyed to find it again. Now I have a link to it on Pinterest.

 
 
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Have I mentioned Gravity Glue before? If not, it’s an amazing site. He balances rocks.

No. Really. He does.

And it’s amazing.

 
 
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And I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but The Oatmeal is genius.

I now have a shockingly large amount of frozen puree in my freezer–and three left still to be cooked down. SO today’s word is: pumpkin

Saturday we took a family trip to Ohiopyle PA. The leaves have started to change, the weather was beautiful, all in all it was a lovely day.

Weird. A picture of me.

World War II in Europe: Losses and gains in territory over the course of the war.

It’s fascinating, but also horrifying when you consider how many lives were lost every time a small piece of territory changed sides.

Major points are noted in this iO9 article (where I found the video).

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What was that you wanted? A laser rifle?

Here you go! A British company has built one!

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Until October 20th, there’s a giant rubber duck in Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River.

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I loved these pictures of cliffside walkways.

And really, I loved the comments on the iO9 story almost as much.

9jack9U
Rejected Chinese tourism slogan: “Watch your fucking step!”

Gemmabeta
And also, “honestly, we are not trying to jinx your experience, but we would still like you to pay in advance.”

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This is just plain gorgeous:

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And finally, this seems like it should be a really terrible joke, but somehow, this book exists.

No. Really. IT EXISTS.

And over at SBTB, they have a review of it.

I HAD A PERFECTLY LOVELY LIFE WITHOUT THIS KNOWLEDGE AND NOW I CAN NEVER LIVE A LIFE WHERE I DID NOT READ THIS.

No, seriously. Someone wrote Dinosaur Erotica AND IT WAS PUBLISHED.

On the continued theme of the treatment of women in SFF, I also recently read a discussion (also, in part, mia culpa) about gender bias in SFF.

That started me wondering, what about my favorite books this year?

So I pulled out all the books I rated 9/10 or 10/10 (I removed audio books, which are rated on their own grounds, rather than just the story) and looked at what I had:

Twilight Watch (2003/2007) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield
Night Watch (1998/2006) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield
A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005) Tom Standage
Walking Your Octopus (2013) Brian Kesinger
Madame Mirage (2008) Paul Dini and Kenneth Rocafort
Companions to the Moon (2007) Charles de Lint
Sabriel (1995) Garth Nix
Across the Nightingale Floor (2002) Lian Hearn
Heaven’s Net is Wide (2007) Lian Hearn
Slashback (2013) Rob Thurman
What Darkness Brings (2013) C.S. Harris
The Privilege of the Sword (2006) Ellen Kushner
Thomas the Rhymer (1990) Ellen Kushner
4:50 from Paddington (1957) Agatha Christie

Author M:F = 7:7

Main Character M:F = 7:6

Not too bad!

BUT

Do you see something there? Only three of those women write under female names. The rest are male pseudonyms or initials. So if someone who knew nothing about the authors were to look at the list, what they’d see would be only three books written by women, the rest presumed to be written by men.

That’s less good.

So, I decided to take a look over the past several years, and see how things stack up.

 
It fluctuates from year to year, but in general, I read more female authors than male, and that ratio is more strongly female, when you add in the number of male pseudonyms and recognize that the majority of authors writing under their initials are women.

Multiple author includes two groups: anthologies, where the stories were written by both male and female authors, and books written by a male and female team (like Charles Todd & Ilona Andrews)

And although initials can be either gender, with the exception of T.A. Pratt, what I read were books written by women. And I don’t seem to have any books written by men under a female pseudonym.

I will note that my tendency to read all books in a series will skew my results for any given year. For example, this year I’m reading all the Charles Todd (a mother + son partnership) and Donna Leon books (18) I own. When I broke my ankle in 2010 I read every Robert Crais book (10) I could get my hands on and restarted Ian Rankin’s series (18 books). And the year I read all the Robert B. Parker books in the house (28) in one month? That was epic.

It’s quite interesting that of the past several years, the number of books I’ve read by male authors has been steadily decreasing. I wish that I’d been keeping track of what I’d been reading in the 90s, because that was when I got back into reading fantasy, and discovered Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Then I became curious as to whether there was a correlation between author gender and genre.

This one isn’t quite as clear and easy to see and trends or correlations.

I believe that the uptick in both YA and Romance are strongly correlated with the number of female authors I read in 2012.

NOTE: As far as genre goes, a single book can be classified as multiple genres. So I read lots of books that are both YA and Fantasy (Megan Whalen Turner FREX), as well as books that are Fantasy and Mystery. (Jim Butcher or Simon Green.) So if you’re adding numbers and they’re not coming out right, that’s why.

I don’t go to cons—I have anxiety and issues with crowds—but as a fan of genre books, I keep aware of cons, and the groups that recognize genre books, etc.

As such, there has been a shit-storm for the past several months that just won’t stop, over the way women are viewed within and treated by the SFF community.

It isn’t good.

In fact, it’s so bad that some of my favorite fantasy authors refuse to join the SFWA. (Jeaniene Frost, Faith Hunter, Ilona Andrews to name three authors I adore.)

The SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) has been full of controversy this year, most of those controversies involving the way women are treated and/or depicted. You can peruse that link for what’s happened, I have no stomach for it here.

So what’s happened now? World Fantasy Con (WFC) had planned a panel called "The Next Generation: Broads with Swords"

The Next Generation: Broads with Swords. Once upon a time the heroic fantasy genre was—with a few notable exceptions such as C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett—the sole domain of male writers like Robert E. Howard, John Jakes and Michael Moorcock. Those days are long gone, and it seems that more & more women writers are having their heroines suit up in chain-mail and wield a broadsword. Who are these new writers embracing a once male-dominated field & how are their books any different from their literary predecessors?

This came to my attention via the always excellent Jim Hines who has been politely and hilariously mocking gender stereotypes for a while now.

My first reaction was that it would have been amusing if they’d called the panel Broad-Swords, because I’m immature and find puns hilarious.

My second reaction was, "wait, what? ‘the sole domain of male writers’? What the hell have I been reading for the past twenty some years then?"

That led to a perusal of my book database for books published between 1980 and 1990, with female fighters / women who are willing to fight if needed.

Emma Bull War for the Oaks  published in 1987
Robin McKinley The Hero and the Crown  published in 1984
Charles De Lint Jack, the Giant Killer published in 1987
Mercedes Lackey  Diana Tregarde  series, first book published in 1989
Mercedes Lackey  Vows and Honor series, first book published in 1988
Jennifer Roberson Tiger and Del series, first book published in 1986
Steven Brust  Vlad Taltos  series, first book published in 1983

Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey Thieves’ World series, published  1979-1989 
Marion Zimmer Bradley Sword & Sorceress series, first book published in 1984
Terri Windling  Borderland series, first book published in 1986

And although they aren’t fighters per se, I wanted to also point out these strong female characters:

Marion Zimmer Bradley The Mists of Avalon published in 1982
Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts Empire series, first book published in 1987
Terry Pratchett Discworld series, first book published in 1985
David Eddings The Belgariad  series, first book published in 1982

And these are just books I have read. There were plenty of other books published during that time, with female fighters or strong female characters, that I never read or even knew about.

So, if you’re looking for something to read, I recommend any of the above books, even though they may possibly have existed only in my imagination.