Entertainment stuff from the week 26/5 - 1/6/14

Greetings, disembodied voices,


Happy Birthdays to you, and to me :o)


The question of the week:

When you read something, is your internal voice male or female?

Personally, i read in any internal voice that seems to suit the writing. If i know the writer's voice, i'll think in that; if i don't, i'll make one up from the context; and if i don't even have that, well, i'm rendered pretty much illiterate :-P

What about you? And what voice are you reading my blog in? :-D


'Jon Culshaw impresses the News on The Now Show (30th May 2014)' (my upload)
http://youtu.be/Kb4hc9ufpcI


'UKIP voters determined to overcome challenge of drawing an ‘X’'
http://newsthump.com/2014/05/22/ukip-voters-determined-to-overcome-challenge-of-drawing-an-x/

'Two thirds of people lying about how racist they are'
http://newsthump.com/2014/05/29/two-thirds-of-people-lying-about-how-racist-they-are/

About a month ago, Bobby Llew wrote about Jezzer Clarkson's mumbled maybe-racism...

'I'm a bit racist and....'
http://llewblog.squarespace.com/journal/2014/5/2/im-a-bit-racist-and.html

... and he advised thusly:
"How many times have we heard the clichéd phrase ‘I’m not racist but...’ It is only used by people who are blatantly racist and go on to make some crass generalization about a group of people who are a bit different to them... So, instead of saying, ‘I’m not racist but’ we should maybe modify the cliché to being, ‘I am a bit racist and’..."

I don't agree with everything Bobby wrote then, but maybe such a relearning of linguistic norms would be useful?

Answers on the back of a postcard, please... :-P


Language is one of those interesting things, though. There's the technical meaning of the word - it's actual definition - and then there's its connotation. Both of which are subject to change, over time.

People have taken both progressive and regressive steps with various words, in the past. They can become insults, and they can cease to be insults. 'Spastic' used to be a technical term, and gained an insulting connotation; whereas 'gay and 'dyke' and 'queer' came to be used as insults, but since reclaimed as terms of endearment, within anti-anti-Queer sub-cultures.

All words that are currently considered to be insulting, had to become so, through associations, and so will not necessarily continue to be considered insulting, for all future!

This arbitrary nature of 'insultingness' shows up in global studies of linguistics. Where a word is utterly benign in some places, it is deemed hugely profane in others. All that differs, is the listener's beliefs, and the speaker's perceived intent.

Thunderf00t goes into this, with specific examples, in the video 'Things you C*N'T say!' listed in 'contemporary stuff'...


In other news:

A bikini has been developed, for women who have had mastectomies, and can't find swimwear that fits them. The designers have called it the 'monokini'. There are pictures at the link:
http://informoverload.com/bikinis-for-woman-with-1-boob-monokini/

But even better than that, is a swimsuit for people who want to show what's deep inside, beyond the external beauty, deep down, where all the organs are. That's right - i give you, the internal organs swimsuit:
http://technabob.com/blog/2014/05/13/internal-organs-swimsuit/

Is this the oldest example of a false tooth, ever found? Inside the richly-furnished timber burial chamber of a 20-30-year-old Iron Age (~2300 ya) woman, excavated in Le Chene, northern France, archaeologists found an almost complete set of teeth. When they came to take a proper look, later, they noticed there were only 31, but with an iron pin showing up in pictures of the excavation, where an upper incisor should have been. The archaeologists have speculated both that the La Tene Celts' interactions with Etruscans might have hinted them to the technology, and that iron's less-than-stable nature in the damp environment of the mouth, might have caused infection and the woman's hastened death. Dentistry itself is known to date back to ~7500 ya (years ago) in the Egyptian/Near-East region.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27587104

Students have 'accidentally' found a 7000-year-old mummy, in Chile, at the site of the famous Chinchorro mummies - the oldest mummified remains yet known, and all dating to about 7000 years old. They found the remains as part of an archaeology workshop, that was making use of a recent 8.2 magnitude earthquake to excavate the upturned ground.
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-students-year-old-mummy-chile.html

Europe-wide research has found that lighter-coloured damselflies and dragonflies are being favoured by the changing climate. With the increasing temperatures, lighter colours are more thermodynamically favourable, because they reflect more sunlight than darker colours. Consequently, species such as the Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis), the Scarlet Darter (Crocothemis erythraea) and the Dainty Damselfly (Coenagrion scitulum) have advanced northward across Europe. The last of these has made a return to the UK, after a 50 year absence. Butterflies that thrive in warmer climates have also advanced northward.
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-light-colored-butterflies-dragonflies-european-climate.html

Research has found the earliest example of an avian pollinator of plants, known to date - the 47-million-year-old fossil remains of a bird, with pollen grains still sitting in its stomach. It's known that insects pollinated plants, through 100-million-year-old fossils, but the previous oldest for birds was 30 million years.
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/87494692455/47-million-year-old-avian-pollinator

Psy's 'Gangnam Style' has become the first video on YouTube to reach two billion views! Naturally, the achievement of reaching this arbitrary numerological boundary has been met with pretentious posturing from Humanities graduates, who think they have valuable ideas about how that thing what happened has happened like what it did. An exemplar: "'Gangnam Style' actually pokes fun at how the common man fantasizes about life in the fast lane, as symbolized by the ritzy area in Seoul known as Gangnam" - an analyst in the 'renowned' Harvard Business Review
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-psy-gangnam-style-galloping-youtube.html

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

'Things you C*N'T say!'
Warning: this video contains language that can be perceived as insulting, within particular cultural contexts :-P
http://youtu.be/KbG8DvRKoJw

'Solar FREAKIN Roadways, are they real?'
Note: this is not the same subject as the fluorescent roadpaint, which is definitely real.
http://youtu.be/H901KdXgHs4

'Repeat after me'
Look at all these ignorant sheeple... well, sheep :-P
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/repeat-after-me.html

'The Amazing Pink Cup'
http://youtu.be/oKouLKT1vXQ

'Parade'
Interactive art, where the sculptures are stationary but their shadows dance
http://vimeo.com/96615251

'R.Gasquet v. C.Berlocq 2014 French Open Men's R2 highlights'
http://youtu.be/eORk9JLbGa8

'J.-W. Tsonga v. J. Janowicz 2014 French Open Men's R3 Highlights'
http://youtu.be/JPIjj3SUuUQ

'ScienceCasts: The Milky Way is Not Just a Refrigerator Magnet'
http://youtu.be/HxqctkvlTtw

'A Journey into a Galaxy Collision'
Stunning images!
http://youtu.be/BS21QuX_tGU

'The Full Monty - Numberphile'
A very good explanation of the Monty Hall Problem
http://youtu.be/7u6kFlWZOWg

'Why do women feel the cold more than men? - A Week in Science'
http://youtu.be/uM2JBkfYOZA

'THE CONSUMER DICTIONARY: FRESH | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/z-pRAvjkqIo

'F.U. TUBE SERIES 2 EPISODE 14 | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/9YvBcfa4nHw

'THE CATCH: KOGAN HEART RATE MONITOR WATCH | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/iHHSiqNWfLU

'Unfinished London - Episode 3 (part 1)'
Just 3 years after Part 2 of the Unfinished London series, Jay Foreman returns with some wonderful historical detective work :o)
http://youtu.be/AbAal7jIWQ4

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

Word Of The Week: Farage -- to masturbate in an angry and confused way using unconventional stimuli, as in "Mark's Wife was furious when she caught him having a farage over a picture of Ann Widdecombe"

Etymology Of The Week: comet -- from 'kometos', greek for 'nice long beard' because the coma of a comet stretches away from the sun, like an old man's grey beard

Quote Of The Week: "The world of experimental physics is littered with people who spent decades looking for something that doesn't actually exist. It's just been a really incredible experience to actually find what you're looking for" - Clement Pryke, University of Minnesota, commenting on the observation of gravitational waves, earlier this year

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

'Change the speed with your mind'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/change-the-speed-with-your-mind/

'Spurious Correlations'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/87014790045/spurious-correlations-correlation-does-not

'Unbelievable Ceramics!'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/unusual-art-and-fashion/unbelievable-ceramics/

'15 Very Poor Business Logo Choices'
http://www.mandatory.com/2014/05/28/15-very-poor-business-logo-choices/

'When Dogs Fly: Base Jumping!'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/crazy-animals/when-dogs-fly-base-jumping/

'The Floating Skate Ramp'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/incredible-feats/video-the-floating-skate-ramp/

'Topless Photo'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86003972801

'King Dong'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86603449411

'Old Spice On Twitter'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86003506796

'I Will Destroy You'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/85702394766

'Yahoo! Questions'
All these questions are so dumb that it's difficult to tell whether they're sincere or not. In the context of religion, this is known as Poe's Law :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86401850261


'Robert Llewellyn - Electric Cars Are Rubbish. Aren't They?'
A very entertaining talk by Bobby Llew, at the Head of Steam, in Liverpool, for the Merseyside Skeptics, and whomever else turned up. It's 2 hours long, btw. Delve deep :-D
http://youtu.be/6q7_xN0ilag
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