Little-known fact: March 8th is celebrated in some countries (like the country of my office) as The Feast of Cleaning Up Your Browser Bar.

Con or Bust auction — this closes on the 13th. Bidding for a signed set of Onyx Court books is up to $25 $30, and the money goes toward helping fans of color get to cons they might not otherwise make.

Sirens conference update — I failed to post this in time for the chat on Saturday, but more info on getting involved in programming. Remember, despite the word “conference,” you don’t have to be an academic to participate.

Reproductive Justice linkspam — I hadn’t heard of this organization before, but basically they’re a group that looks past the abortion debate (which has a tendency to dominate the conversation in the U.S.) to broader issues of pregnancy, sexual violence, disability, transsexualism, immigration, economics, and pretty much anything else that affects the ability of women to decide what to do with themselves and their bodies. There are some really heartbreaking stories in there (like the one about confiscating an immigrant woman’s child on the grounds that her lack of English made her unfit to be a mother in the U.S.), and lots of opportunities to take action.

Ignoring people you don’t trust — an interesting look at how the sources of statistical information and analysis can, or should, affect the way you receive that information. On the one hand, the studies claiming smoking reduces risk of Alzheimer’s were mostly written by people affiliated with the tobacco industry; on the other hand, the earliest work documenting a connection between smoking and lung cancer was published by Nazis. So it isn’t a simple question.

A flowchart of where the Google Books Settlement could go from here — a simplified flowchart. Boggle at its complexity.

Johari Window — more than a meme, less than a psych study; click through to choose how you would describe me.