July 12, 2013
"Do we need to produce billions of new garments a year?"
But this post ain't one
twink has become a non-specific word
What Comes After The Twink?
"Somewhere along the way "twink" has stopped being just a cutesy, mildly negative stereotype and become something more malignant: An easy shorthand for a lot of vicious stereotypes about gay people, a way to covertly make fun not just of someone's mild gender variance but really their "gayness" as well."
"Somewhere along the way "twink" has stopped being just a cutesy, mildly negative stereotype and become something more malignant: An easy shorthand for a lot of vicious stereotypes about gay people, a way to covertly make fun not just of someone's mild gender variance but really their "gayness" as well."
Moving a very large magnet to measure very small particles.
By making a very precise measurement of the muon g-2 value and comparing the results to its predicted value, researchers at Fermilab hope to uncover evidence of new, undiscovered particles and forces. This continues work done at Brookhaven National Laboratory a decade ago. To do so, Fermilab needs their 50-ft ring magnet and its fragile, precisely assembled superconducting coils. After six months of planning, the magnet was slowly hauled on an eight-axle trailer through the streets of Long Island, loaded onto a barge, and tugged down the Atlantic coast and into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will go up the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to the Mississippi and then through Illinois waterways before it's trucked again through suburban Chicago. Fermilab has a photo and video gallery and is posting updates. [more inside]
"The bloodiest battles took place in the marketing meetings"
Plagued by the realities threatening many retail stores, Sears also faces a unique problem (alternate link): [CEO Eddie] Lampert. Lampert runs Sears like a hedge fund portfolio, with dozens of autonomous businesses competing for his attention and money. An outspoken advocate of free-market economics and fan of the novelist Ayn Rand, he created the model because he expected the invisible hand of the market to drive better results. If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.
Talk to the gals just like any old man
Singing the Lesbian Blues in 1920s Harlem.
In Jazz Age speakeasies, dive bars, and private parties, blue singers had the freedom to explore alternative sexuality, and on a rare occasion, they even expressed it in song.
Don't tell Wil Short about this technology.
Regular Expression Crosswords Do you like regular expressions? Do you like crosswords puzzles? Then you're going to (hate|love) this.
Fine art Deer Butt alien heads
They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them
Malala Yousafzai, sixteen-year-old Pakistani education activist, has delivered her first public address since she was shot in the head and neck by Taliban gunmen in October last year. Yousafzai's speech at the UN headquarters in New York today is available in full as text or video. She has been credited with bringing the issue of women's education to global attention, a crucial concern given that a quarter of young women around the world have not completed primary school.
But can you praise a "choice" if there is no choice?
(Links in English except where marked with '*' (Spanish))
Amnesty International urges Chile to allow an 11-year old to abort a pregnancy due to rape after President Sebastián Piñera, who has a strong anti-abortion position, congratulates the girl's "mature and profound" decision to continue with her pregnancy (CNN.cl video)*. The Association* of Chilean Physicians also speaks in support of making an exception as well as liberalizing existing laws.
This case highlights the discrepancies between the political elite's conservative ideals and reality in a country of extreme and highly institutionalized inequality. [more inside]
Right on schedule for development of the Terminator
"The bald eagle sounds like a cross between a squeaky toy and a seagull"
The expanding canvas
The Sad and Rapid Decline of the Ball Cap: Including photos of the 67 hats that survived of the author's 90s-era Hat Collection. [more inside]
Wave your arms to let the animal know you are human.
John Hodgman On Full Metal Jacket
"But The Shining speaks to what makes Kubrick such an interesting and, for a lot of people, troublesome filmmaker, because he does not give you what you want. At all. He does not give you a Vietnam movie set in the jungle, and he does not give you a horror movie that is just like Stephen King’s The Shining. He doesn’t even give you scares for a long time, [just] ominous foreboding. And it takes people a while to figure out, “Oh, maybe I don’t know what I want. Maybe this is better.” - Mefi's Own Jon Hodgman talks about Full Metal Jacket with Scott Tobias for "The Last Great Movie I Saw."
"Cruel, but most entertaining for the DM."
Some wonderfully enterprising nerd has created a mod for the real-time grid-based 3D dungeon crawler Legend of Grimrock (twice previously) based on the the Dungeons & Dragons module Tomb of Horrors (previously, funny SA rundown here). It's available via nexusmods and Steam Workshop. Have a nice weekend.
Goodbye World.
RIP Alan Whicker globe trotting reporter and 'television natural'. In a career that spanned 60 years he presented the BBC/ITV documentary series Whicker's World for nearly 30. He was the inspiration for the Monty Python Whicker Island sketch. (previously) [more inside]
Young Dutch boy leads PSV crowd in booming chant during pre-season match
"It's a shame we don't share the same courage in our convictions as this little 10-year-old Dutch lad, who - with a little help from his Dad when it came to the words (come on you boys in red, Eindhoven we love you), proudly led the PSV crowd in a chant during a recent pre-season friendly against FC Eindhoven..."
(SL Youtube) [more inside]
The Woman Who (Maybe) Struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
In 1931 a 17-year old girl faced off against baseball Hall of Famers Babe Ruth and Lou Gherig. They both struck out swinging. Was Jackie Mitchell for real?
A Scary Story (by Sean Demory)
Sean Demory’s short story The Ballad of the Wayfaring Stranger and the Dead Man’s Whore is built round the mythology and atmosphere of classic American murder ballads like Knoxville Girl and In the Pines. It spooked the bejaysus out of me, and may do the same for you…
It’s almost as if a domestic war is about to be formally declared.
Creating a military-industrial-immigration complex.
In a world where basic services are being cut, an emerging policing apparatus in the borderlands is flourishing. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent $791 billion on “homeland security” alone, an inflation-adjusted $300 billion more than the cost of the entire New Deal.
In a world where basic services are being cut, an emerging policing apparatus in the borderlands is flourishing. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent $791 billion on “homeland security” alone, an inflation-adjusted $300 billion more than the cost of the entire New Deal.
"Never, ever, think outside the box."
New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff picks his 11 favourite cartoons.
Quiet place on the river to enjoy a lobster roll
No question mark required.
"Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade" is the title the new course taught by four star general and Visiting Professor at CUNY, David Petraeus. For his two courses at CUNY, Petraeus will be paid over $150,000, which is much more than CUNY's average adjunct salary of $3,000 per course. [more inside]
I'm a mathlete!
You Can't Do Simple Maths Under Pressure (autoplay music)
Native American dogs
"Pre-Columbian origins of Native American dog breeds, with only limited replacement by European dogs, confirmed by mtDNA analysis." [more inside]
THE PIXAR THEORY
Every Pixar movie is connected. I explain how, and possibly why. Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies actually exist within the same universe. Since then, I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme.
She and the children have a great deal in common.
I regret to inform you that my wedding to Captain Von Trapp has been cancelled. Comedian and author Melinda Taub's piece in McSweeney's, a letter from Baroness Elsa Schraeder to the guests of the wedding she thought she was going to have.
Related: An Update on the Problem of Maria. A memo from the Reverend Mother to The Nuns.
[For those not in the know]
Finally, Did You No Wrong
Sex Pistols vs Ce Ce Peniston. Music from an alternate, better, universe.
Bertrand Russell had it right
As machines take over more of our work, we are going to have to find other ways of letting people fulfil these human needs. Forcing them to send 500 CVs out every week is not a good start. In stripping out inefficiencies and pushing digital goods to near-free prices, the Internet kills middle-class jobs. Digitization has already largely de-monetized academia, film, music, journalism, and lots more besides. More industries will feel the pain, including the legal professions, real estate, insurance, accounting, and the civil service, all of which are built on inefficiency, and all of which will be stripped of jobs in the years to come. As it becomes clear to those with established positions that there are no jobs for their children, they’ll push for a more radical solution.
"THE MAN THEY CALL MISTER BANJO, MISTER GEORGE BANJO!"
1931's top investigative journalist, Mr Chomondley-Warner, aims to find out whether professional players are a good thing for association football by pitting Liverpool's 1991 team against Arsenal's 1931 squad. [more inside]
“It's exactly what you think it is—a tornado full of sharks”
The rise of video-on-demand services like Netflix and dedicated cable-TV channels has created a new industry in low-budget B-movies; meet Asylum Films, an outfit in California following in the footsteps of historical B-movie auteurs like Roger Corman, Menahem Golan and Uwe Boll, with films with titles like Sharknado, Transmorphers, Sex Pot and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies. Asylum's new B-movies are made quickly and cheaply to ride the coattails of the big studios' fads, filling gaps in the market for more films about, say, adorable puppies, alien battleships or apocalypses. The films are made to a strict formula, are played entirely seriously, with no hint of irony or knowingness, and are designed primarily to pad out rental lists and appeal to recommendation engines, though the producers point out that often mainstream Hollywood fare is often no less hackneyed and formulaic. (Previously...)
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