A few days ago, Scott Adams, creator of the long running comic strip Dilbert, asked the commenters on his blog for a topic to write about, and the overwhelming vote was for him to take up the cause of Men’s Rights Activism for a post.

I guess there are a lot of masculinists who also enjoy bland but occasionally funny cubicle farm humor? Never would have guessed. Well, let’s see how Adams handles the controversial topic:

The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.

Well, shit.

>>>Full story at The Mary Sue.

Well, this about ruins everything: Darren Aronofsky, citing his desire to spend time with his family, is not going to be directing The Wolverine after all.

Just an introduction, before we blow your mind: a few weeks ago, a fake internal memo from Nickelodeon circulated on the internet, proclaiming that the kids television network had bowed to years of older fans clamoring for a way to watch it’s classic shows, and would be producing new episodes of Doug, Rugrats, The Angry Beavers, and more.

So yeah, new episodes, very unlikely.

Except now it is almost true.

>>> Full story at The Mary Sue.

Calling all attendees of PAX East! We’ve got three sets of Harmonix goodies to give away, including hats, stickers, pins, bottle openers, wrist bands, track packs, some DLC codes thrown in for good measure, and signed copies of the very first software titles that the makers of Rock Band ever put out (hint, it’s not Rock Band). How do you sign up?

You find us.

Well, me. Susana, the official The Mary Sue/Geekosystem PAX representative, at this weekend’s PAX East, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Tickets are sold out, so I hope you’ve got yours already. How are you going to find me?

Classics Majors, this one's for you. See, it turns out, there's are a lot of storytelling conventions out there that aren't original... and haven't been for quite a bit longer than you might expect.

Ever since that James Cameron movie quietly hit the box office, people who want to talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender have had to be specific. So: This is the first official look we’ve gotten at the face of Korra, the heroine of Avatar: The Legend of Korra, the greenlit miniseries and sequel to the Airbender series, which is happening despite the schlock and awe of M. Knight Shyamalan‘s The Last Airbender movie.

Seven major castmembers have been announced today, as well as the characters they will be playing.

>>>Full details at The Mary Sue.

The Internet is a fascinating place primarily because of its commitment to anonymity. We simply wouldn’t have the web without it. Trolls, spam, scams, controversial Wikipedia edits, WikiLeaks, basic user safety, all are dependent on having a hidden identity. User anonymity is fundamental and inseparable.

But ever since the great RealID debacle of 2010, I’ve been thinking about how this same anonymity is a contributing factor to why women and racial/cultural minorities struggle to find acceptance in open anonymous communities like forums, social news communities, and especially online gaming, and whether it’s possible to do anything about that.

What are the disadvantages of staying anonymous? Well, it starts with the simple assumptions we make about those around us, and in particular what we assume about the concept “human being” when we have no other input.

>>>Full post at The Mary Sue.

We’re hard at work preparing The Mary Sue for launch next week, but in the meantime we thought you’d like to see one of the things we just put together.  The Mary Sue will go live this coming Monday, but for now feel free to follow us on Twitter @The_MarySue. – Susana

The Hipster Princesses Meme began humbly, with only Ariel, but unlike its red haired founder, this meme has legs.  It’s now expanded to lay its photoshopped plastic spectacles over a wide swath of female Disney characters.

We’ve put nineteen more of our favorites after the jump.  After all, we’ve been watching this meme since before it became mainstream.

Star Trek: The Animated Series, the cartoon that was created to tide fans over from watching Original Series Star Trek until Star Trek: The Motion Picture could be brought to theaters, is now being offered up for instant streaming from Star Trek.com, completely and utterly free.

Which is good, because this stricken-from-continuity, barely animated, too-poor-to-hire-Chekov show, is probably best enjoyed when you didn’t have to pay for it.

But oh, are there things to enjoy.  Here are some brief selections from a google image search for “star trek the animated series.”

As of today, Facebook gives you two more ways to describe your “it’s complicated.”  Perfectly timed with the passing today of Hawaii’s same-sex civil union law (soon to be signed into law by the state’s governor), Facebook users can now choose “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership” from the list of relationship statuses.

At least you can in the U.S., Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

It’s safe to say that most people on the correct side of the gay marriage argument would really rather that we lived in a society where it wasn’t necessary for anyone to say that they were in a domestic partnership or civil union when what they really wanted was to say they were married.  But as most of us are aware, sometimes, when you say it on the internet hard enough, it comes true.  We’re calling this a win.