Entertainment stuff from the week 5-11/5/14

Hi voters,


Here's a much more erudite explanation of the problem of net neutrality (or rather, the lack of it) than what i said last week.

'Internet Citizens: Defend Net Neutrality'
http://youtu.be/wtt2aSV8wdw

I was late to the anti-party, btw. And CCP Grey's a week later, but still plugging an important problem.

Fortunately, for those of us in the EU, we have the good-fortune to be shafted by those know-nothing, pin-headed, snouts-in-the-trough bureaucrats, who voted last month, to defend net neutrality in a billion people's interests, but not their own:

'European Parliament passes strong net neutrality law, along with major roaming reforms'
https://gigaom.com/2014/04/03/european-parliament-passes-strong-net-neutrality-law-along-with-major-roaming-reforms/

Curse those selfish, fascist totalitarians! Arrrggh :-P

Meanwhile, in America, the struggle is still being bitterly fought:

'150 tech companies press government for net neutrality'
"Internet service providers with virtual strangleholds on some US cities would be able to charge tolls for data to get priority in "fast lanes" under regulations recommended by FCC chief Tom Wheeler last month."
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-tech-companies-net-neutrality.html


In Europe, there's a big election coming up: the European Elections, 2014

Last time around, 56% of people didn't vote. If you have one to cast, please, please, please do - or the moronic xenophobes of UKIP will.

'Nick Doody - Euro Election Fever is here! (The Now Show 9th May 2014)'
http://youtu.be/5go66NkT1M4

"I vote for the same reason that i'd punch a bear that was eating me: i don't think it'll make a big difference to the outcome, but at least, that way, it doesn't look like i want to be eaten by a bear"

But if you think UKIP are an alternative to the Conservatives, then you've been sorely misled:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=733398596680951&id=119416361412514

I received a copy of this horrendous propaganda from the Tories, last week. I did not make such good use of it as this, however:

'Conservative Campaign Circular Collage'
http://tbotgojctsodtsoaabiaibjajbjbahba.tumblr.com/post/84559683599/so-we-got-these-leaflets-for-the-south-east-of


Oh, and don't forget that the current Minister for Health, in the Tory cabinet is Jeremy Hunt - a man who believes that shaken water is a form of medicine!

'U.K. Health Secretary Hunt: Needs to buy a clue'
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/05/u-k-health-secretary-hunt-needs-to-buy-a-clue/

This is the standard of intellect, in the Conservative Party of the UK.

I should point out, that he was deliberately put there, by Dave Cameron, despite having a qualified GP as a member of his Party! And yet it's Hunt who climbs the greasy pole to the top!? Those people are demented....


...speaking of demented:

'If Your Veterinarian Offers Acupuncture, Find a Different Vet'
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/05/alternative_medicine_for_pets_veterinarians_should_not_perform_acupuncture.html

What i find most fascinating, is the basic mechanisms behind the way everything works.

As a Physics-centred sciencey person (yes, Tapejaras are persons) this is what i have always strived to do. When you've identified a natural law, you can understand huge amounts of the world around you.

In the modern world, there is a well-developed thing called Science. Yes, there is, please keep up :-P

And part of that thing, is another thing, called The Scientific Method. That other thing, is the best method we've ever had, for identifying truths and falsehoods. Essentially, it's the bit of Science by which Science grows.

In stark contrast to the way Science grows, there is a thing called superstition. Sometimes, it's formed when people make shit up, just because they can, but often it grows because people just got the wrong end of a metaphorical stick, and refused to let it go.

But there are basic laws, in people's behaviour, that bear out the nature of their beliefs - whether they're scientific or superstitious.

It's not just the nature of the evidence that can be used to work out who's telling the truth - it's the behaviour of truers and liers, in the face of that evidence.

Acupuncturists, for example, do not respond as scientists do, when presented with evidence. When being scientific, a person will accept criticism, because they want to acknowledge falsehoods so that they can reject them.

When being superstitious, they will reject criticism, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. And even when subject to it, they will plough on regardless. Take away all of the Xtianity from modern Xtians, and they still 'believe in Jesus Xt'. This is superstition.

In this specific example, we have the application of quackupuncturist 'health by a thousand cuts' superstition to other species.

Even though it makes no sense to apply acupuncture to horses' gall bladder meridians (they do not even have gall bladders) the acupuncturists blunder on with it anyway.

When presented with the fact that 'real' acupuncture works just as well as 'sham' acupuncture, which is deliberately designed to not work, they claim that acupuncture's even better than previously realised, because it works even when it's not there!

The question remains: how batshit crazy can superstition get? Well, because it exists despite evidence, it can "become more [crazy] than you can possibly imagine" to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I would argue that it already has.

If people can believe, or claim to believe, that gods exist, perforating skin heals illness, twisting arms resolves fictional subluxations, and shaken water drizzled on sugar is therapeutic too; but not be met with whails of laughter such that women's bladders empty all over the place, then we live in a culture that is sufficiently deranged that any charlatan could legally extort money out of innocently unsuspecting people, with the active support of the law.

Oh yeah, we do...

'#023 - Simon Singh and Libel Law'
http://youtu.be/CQZfuppkQRc


In other news:

The American Samoa national soccer team had never won a match, until late 2011. And on that team, was a transexual player - Johnny “Jayieh” Saelua - who is recognised as a 'fa’afafine', which is Samoan for 'to be a woman'. In Samoa, male-to-female transexuals are accepted as a third sex, but FIFA recognises only two; hence a woman playing in a men's soccer match! Their achievement has been featured in a recently-released film: 'Next Goal Wins'
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/transgender-soccer-player-leads-american-samoa-team-to-first-ever-win/news/2011/12/01/30936

The Eurovision Song Contest has been won by a male transvestite with a beard. Personally, i've never understood the look - either they intend to look feminine, and the beard's a dreadful mistake, or they intend to look beardy, and are cheating their way into a Miss Hairy Competition. I'm sure humour can't be the answer! <s> I didn't watch the full competition, btw, so i don't have much to say about it. But let's suffice with: the Russian entry got booed during voting, for political reasons, and the french came last, with the song 'Moustache'. That's probably because it wasn't golden. Amirite? :-D
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/eurovision-2014-full-results-table-3525022

An interesting catch has been made, in the Gulf of Mexico - a rarely-found Goblin Shark, and several isopods - which suggests the fishermen were located above a 'whalefell' - the decaying carcass of a dead whale, on the ocean floor. Animals centre on them, to take advantage of the peculiar abundance of nutrients. To see pictures, click the links:
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/crazy-animals/goblinshark/
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/05/some-bizarre-looking-animals-appeared-in-this-lucky-catch/
Here's video footage of it: http://youtu.be/eh_HUIJkRzU

Notorious, frivolous-lawsuit-obsessed pervert, Chris Sevier, has taken religionists' worst argument against equal access to marriage, to court. He has said that if two men can be allowed to marry each other, then he should be allowed to marry his porn-filled Apple laptop. He has previously tried to sue Apple for producing a laptop, with which it was possible to download and store porn! And yes, he has always been laughed out of court :-D
http://abovethelaw.com/tag/chris-sevier/

For the less perverted amongst you, but still interested in sex, maybe Kunda Park, Queensland, Australia's worth a trip. A brothel there is trialling a period of 'Pie, Coke and a poke' offers, which is intended to encourage new custom. Well, i suppose many foody places also do forms of entertainment - restaurants with cabaret acts; bars with bands; etc. There are cinemas in the USA, that go the other way - serve you dinner while you watch a film. It's not so odd. It's just that sexual recreation is treated wildly different to other forms of fun. I won't be engaging in any of it myself, of course. That would be bestiality! Ew.... :-P
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/enterprising-australian-brothel-offers.html

Jewish supremacists in the USA and UK fund the Elad Foundation, which has excavated an archeological site that they claim is the location of legendary King David's Citadel. Once again, the whole basis for this place's supposed existence, is Biblical myth. Archeologists contend that there is no evidence for such a claim. More worrying, is that this kind of propaganda has been used to motivate the displacement of Arabic families from 'Jewish' lands. The reason that Jews have historically only been subject to this kind of factionalism, is that they never had a State to engineer it with. Well, they do now - Israel - and they're behaving just as an antitheist would expect - disgracefully.
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/05/has-the-citadel-captured-by-king-david-been-found/

Qianzhousaurus Sinensis is a newly-discovered tyrannosaur, which has been nicknamed 'Pinocchio Rex' by paleontologists, because its skull is ~1/3 longer than expected of its size, compared to other tyrannosaurs. It was adult at 9 metres long, so would not have rivalled T-Rex for status. Its long snout might have been used for catcing prey out of the air, or fishing, or maybe for poking into the carcasses of prey. At the moment, that's all speculation.
http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-qianzhousaurus-sinensis-pinocchio-rex-china-01907.html

Even more exciting than a species of rhinally extrapolated tyrannosaurs, is this... a fossil tube - Plexus ricei. Yeah! It would have looked like a tapeworm, grown up to about 80 centimetres in length, and rummaged through the seafloors of the Ediacaran ~570 million years ago, looking for food. It's not as exciting, but it is one of Earth's earliest complex organisms!
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-paleontologists-fossil.html

Researchers have found the RNA-based mechanism that involves the Pax6 gene in the development of squids' camera eyes, further establishing that Pax6 must have been one of the first genes involved in eye-development, more than 500 million years ago. It is a gene that also features in our own, reptilian and human genomes. Pax6 does not encode for a particular structure - the retina or lens, for example - but for the order and timing in which developmental steps occur. Even though humans and cephalopods have vastly different lineages, and very different eyes and eye-related genomes, they have commonalities in these 0.5 billion-year-old process-related genes. Amazing! "We are all connected" :-)
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-humans-squids-evolved-eyes-genes.html

Researchers in Scotland and the USA have developed an acoustic tractor beam. That's a device that uses sound waves to push stuff about. Crucially, it can be used to 'pull' things toward it. You'll have to look at the diagram to understand how. Previously, an optical tractor beam has been developed, which uses light to move tiny, microscale particles. This one uses sound to move centimetre-sized particles. It's probably not useful, but what the heck - it's a tractor beam!! :-D
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-acoustic-tractor.html

------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff

'Mitch Benn - Jamaica Inn Review Review (The Now Show 25th April 2014)' (my upload)
http://youtu.be/AoWrU2rok5w

'John and Kevin's Sunday Papers - 4th May 2014'
http://youtu.be/DYP41fMt9WI

'Now Show - John Finnemore on the Frog and the Scorpions'
http://youtu.be/HetLxhI1txY

'Under study: The frogs of Calaveras County'
http://youtu.be/BjfUAg8vzkY

'Bird-brained pigeons perform like primates'
http://youtu.be/IDuWqjQGth4

'Blooming Science A Week in Science'
http://youtu.be/hvUDXi55Xqg

'Steam Hammer: Slow Motion'
http://youtu.be/bDItSUeykrA

'Holey Experiment - Periodic Table of Videos'
http://youtu.be/RfeaffoWajc

'Aluminium Powder Ignites in Slow Motion - Periodic Table of Videos'
http://youtu.be/FhG2e6mpdEY

'Major New Cosmic Simulation: Why it's Significant'
"The project, called Illustris, encompasses over 12 billion data points to track the rise and evolution of some 50,000 galaxies. The simulation used a total of 8,000 processors, the equivalent of 2,000 years of processing time on a standard desktop computer. The run created half-petabyte of information."
http://youtu.be/32qqEzBG9OI

'Purity Balls: Daddy Is My Boyfriend!'
Creepy stuff :-/
http://youtu.be/dA-hF0yr3wg

'Jay Foreman - Day After Tube Strike Song'
"This is my topical song written especially for 'Not The One Show', on Thursday 1st May 2014. (Written about 20 minutes before we went on air!)"
http://youtu.be/okOPZDmfxk8

'CrossFit by Jesus (CrossFit parody) {The Kloons}'
http://youtu.be/1q31CCDVdas

'Scariest Words I Ever Heard'
A heart-warming story :-D
http://youtu.be/bzBo22eLLxM

'Parent vs Child - Feeding Your Child'
http://youtu.be/KrShSL9O6EM

'SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE ™: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS'
http://youtu.be/NFy3gHWF5oo

------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks

Word Of The Week: preposterous -- contrary to nature, reason, or sense; absurd; ridiculous

Etymology Of The Week: 'blah' -- a generic term for meaningless phonemics; thought to be derived from 'blasé' (french for indifference) or 'blab' meaning 'to reveal' or 'bar' from ancient greek. Basically, nobody really knows. It could easily be one of many neogeneses to have the same meaning.

Quote Of The Week: "Nothing makes a young man feel more alive, and on an adventure, than speeding down the M6 at 2 am, [sitting] next to a man wearing a big fake head" - Jon Ronson, on RHLSTP, 'this' week.

Suzie Calman's one was hilarious too. If you hear that, you'll want to hear the one with Harry Shearer, as well. I don't know - maybe hear them (backwards) in consecutive order - it's up to you :-P

Fact Of The Week: New Mexico, USA, was the first to officially recognise a State Question. It was, and still is, "Red or green?" The official State Answer, is "Red and Green or Christmas"

------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff

'Dolly Parton's "Jolene" played at 33 RPM has an unexpected sound'
http://www.wimp.com/unexpectedsound/

'Helen Arney sings "Animals" at the Funny Women Final 2010'
http://youtu.be/At8L94aAoc0

'Blues singing bird'
It might not be an animal singing Helen Arney, but it's good enough for me :-D
http://youtu.be/xGJaz64lrJ4


In case you didn't know, Purcell wrote some very 'funky' songs, back in the 17th century. This first one is not the most explicit of them...

'Henry Purcell -- Once, twice, thrice I Julia tried -- Deller Consort'
http://youtu.be/6JTcrYnwIOo

'Henry Purcell - Pox on You'
http://youtu.be/A5n1tWLFCEw

'When Celia was Learning on the Spinnet'
http://youtu.be/CrFiXBq-HSE
Lyrics:
http://www.theroutiers.org/culture/Celia.htm

'My Man John'
http://youtu.be/T_D6gUmAUIM
Lyrics (it's actually about mending a broom):
http://www.horntip.com/mp3/1700s/1720ca--1993-02-11_the_art_of_the_bawdy_song__the_baltimore_consort_%28CD%29/28_my_man_john.htm

'Andreas Scholl - Purcell - "Man is for the woman made"'
Lyrics are in the description box
"...As the spur is for the jade, As the scabbard for the blade, As for digging is the spade, As for liquor is the can..." :-D
http://youtu.be/YmaRYRuZNI0?t=1m29s

'Henry Purcell -- The Miller's daughter -- Deller Consort'
This one's about a Miller's daughter, noticing that she's quite hairy... and so's her mother :-D
http://youtu.be/HgoriBL-P9g

'Henry Purcell -- Sir Walter enjoying his damsel -- Deller Consort'
In the 17th century, 'enjoying' meant giving pleasure, as well as receiving it. Literally, causing joy. Like 'enlivening' still means 'giving life'.
http://youtu.be/yVUHn8_ZWN8

'Henry Purcell -- I gave her cakes and I gave her ale -- Alfred Deller'
It sounds like he gave her something, and kissed her something :-P
http://youtu.be/f2WW9PtF4Do

'Henry Purcell -- 'Tis women makes us love -- Deller Consort'
This is a bit of a melancholic one to finish on, but it is musically beautiful :-)
http://youtu.be/nXm7tUse03E


'Never fear B.I.T.C.H. team is here!'
http://a-beautiful-little-fool16.tumblr.com/post/85386632730/doctor-korra-holmes-in-hogwarts-shawarmababy

'We all scream for ice cream!'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/we-all-scream-for-ice-cream/

'Historic Grayscale Pictures With Amazing False Colour'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/84418401121

'You won’t believe your eyes!'
This is an amazing illusion. Brilliant :-)
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/you-wont-believe-your-eyes-3/

'How do you want your hair done?'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/84005498941

'i just went from aw to wtf'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/84005465107

'Dancing Woodcock'
http://youtu.be/5ywsQG4kFVA
Factfile on the Woodock Dance, most of which is not seen in the video:
http://mrines.com/Birds/woodcock/

'These 50 Photos From The Past Are Shocking And Hilarious. I Can't Believe How Things Have Changed...'
http://news.distractify.com/people/scenes-from-the-past-you-never-expected-never-seen-before/?v=1

'The Italian Job Missing Scene'
I agree - beautiful waltzey, skatey stuff - but it would have made a mockery of the film.
http://youtu.be/qNs4MIs9Who

'Chipotle'
That face is haunting me, it's so cute! ...ah, well [munch, munch, munch]
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/85142333461

'What’s the Most Shocking Thing Your Kids Don’t Know About'
The last one is fantastic. Another haunting face, from that little girl :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/85109320651

'Cool Teachers'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/84904821171

'Only for terriers?'
https://twitter.com/RichardWiseman/status/464763160688623616
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That's it for this week, folks. Don't forget to vote! ...and to read my latest mini-essay: 'Eating For £1 A Day' ;-)
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