Hi Turingian morphogenes,
60 years after his death, it has finally been demonstrated that Alan Turing was a genius!
Oh, OK - we already knew that. Without him, modern computing would be decades less well developed, for example. But it turns out that another area - biology - really was another one of brilliance!
'Turing's theory of chemical morphogenesis validated 60 years after his death'
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-turing-theory-chemical-morphogenesis-validated.html
Turing predicted that there would be six different patterns to how a simple blastocyst/morula would develop into a foetus, with a front and back, head and tail, inside and outside, etc.
His model involved spatial variance in presence of chemicals, within the cells, which would define in/out, up/down, etc, so that a body shape could develop. That is what 'morphogenesis' means - the growth of a shape.
Well, the researchers found all six patterns predicted by Turing... and a seventh that he didn't. Well, nobody's perfect. :-D
You might have heard of Fred Phelps - to most people, he's the crazy/hateful Westboro Baptist Church Christian who pickets people's funerals with signs declaring "GOD HATES FAGS" and the like, and is basically a living incarnation of evil.
Well, he can't be, anymore, because he's died. Either way, the religious and unreligious have found mutual satisfaction in despising him and his family (their whole sect is basically nepotistic) because of their behaviour.
Interestingly, psychologically-speaking, the confused 'moderate' religionists try to pretend that what they do doesn't count as 'proper' religion. But if you're going to do bronze age bullshit, surely you should do it right? I have empathy with him, for at least sticking to his principles. Not, of course, for sticking to bigoted principles.
"You're not going to get nowhere with that slop that 'God loves you,'" Mr Phelps once told the Religion News Service. "That's a diabolical lie from hell without biblical warrant."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26669967
“It’s pure nonsense to say that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, and he hates the sinner. He sends them to hell. Do you think he loves the people in hell?”
http://wwrn.org/articles/42007/
As demonstrated by the preceding quotes, everything he said was eminently logical within the confines of religious bullshit. Oddly, it's the 'moderates' who seem to have the most trouble making sense. Phelps was sincere in everything he hysterically preached - moderates pretend that Xtianity's goodness and light, when Phelps knew better. Ironic, really.
Even more interesting than the psychology of 'moderate' religion, is the fact that he was once an eminent civil rights lawyer. Oh yes! A civil rights lawyer who became famous for the hysterical condemnation of anyone suspected of being being a bit Gay. Could you make it up?
He once fought in legal cases, not on the side of Queers, but on the side of 'Blacks' who were condemned to slavery by the Christian dogma that saw slavery as perfectly fine. (The Bible contains rules of how slavery should be done, and does not condemn it explicitly) Indeed, it was overwhelmingly religionists who defended slavery and the slave trade, while humanists, notably the secularists of unitarianism, opposed slavery.
This just goes to show how arbitrary bigotry is. Because prejudices are superstitious (opposed, or just unsupported by evidence) there is no objective reference - there is nothing necessitating coherence. So this man, who advocated so enthusiastically for 'Blacks' in courts of law, did so as an arbitrarily received position - not one from rational principle - which meant homophobia would come just as easily as racism left.
Less interesting, but maybe something for the deathbed-conversionists to think about, is the way he changed, at the end. He was kicked out of his own Church - deposed by a rival, and relative. How did he lose favour with his followers (baying hoardes). Well, apparently, for suggesting that his peers be nicer!
Well, if this story's true, he was kicked out of his own cult, for being moral... relatively speaking, of course!
Or maybe it's just that he said "be nice" like this:
"Oh, be nice!"
http://youtu.be/MUmBiuEqL8o?t=49s
Or maybe, sensibly-speaking, he just wanted a chance to see his estranged son again, one last time. The son he drove away through blind, unbending adherence to superstitious principle.
Did he soften, in his dying hour - mind opened to the humanistic value of relationships, and personal affection? And who would deny him such an opportunity? It would be emotionalism alone to deny him the one thing you'd wished he'd shown through all the rest of his life!
In contrast, there is Humanism itself, which is a deliberate attempt to be nice, for goodness' sake, regardless of proximity to mortal expiry.
Well, there is slightly more to it, than that. And for that reason, the British Humanist Association has produced this mini-series, explaining what humanism's all about:
'That's Humanism'
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmy6S1K0vOcPeekquhWn3weh7O23Hczc7
Speaking of mortality: a 3200 year old skeleton has been found, bearing evidence of metastatic carcinoma - a kind of cancer. It's not possible to say whether they died of it, however.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-year-old-skeleton-cancer.html
It's not the oldest known case of cancer, though - many examples of bone-related cancers have been found in hadrosaurs - herbivorous dinosaurs that lived about 100 million years ago.
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/27/dinosaurs-had-cancer-too.html
{Blogspot tried to spellcheck 'hadrosaurs' into 'pterosaurs'... um, no!}
So cancer is very much not a new thing; which is to be expected, really. Fundamentally, all cancer is, is where cells go rogue, for whatever reason, and start hoarding bodily resources, at the expense of the body as a whole.
This is essentially the same as any entrepreneur - quack, scammer, or church - they hoard all the resources, and if they're 'successful' enough, then they kill their host. But like with diseases, the most successful are non-lethal and effective only post-reproduction, because then they can't be countered by natural selection.
Consequently, it should be expected that cancer has been with eukaryotes - especially big vertebrates - for the hundreds of millions of years of their existences!
Speaking of long-times-ago, let's awkwardly segue into cosmology:
'Cosmic News: Astronomers Find the Twisted Fingerprints of Inflation in the Background Glow of the Universe'
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/03/17/evidence_of_inflation_astronomers_detect_gravitational_waves_from_the_early.html
'Big Bang breakthrough explained with towel and apple'
http://youtu.be/Dvc0Az1XG1Q
So basically, what's happened, is that a new technique has been used to 'look' further back in time than has ever been achieved before.
The universe is expanding. That's known. The universe was smaller once. That's known. The farthest into the past we can see is the CMB - the Cosmic Microwave Background - light that is only just reaching us, because inflation caused the universe to expand so fast that it's getting to us 13.5 billion years late! That's known.
But what is also known, is that we will probably never be able to see the actual start, itself - the t=0 moment, as it were - because that data has ceased to exist. We can see the CMB, because that light is out there, on its way. Anything before then is non-existent data.
But like ripples in a pond, or waves in a towel, goings-ons in the early universe will have left features in the modern universe. Looking back toward the CMB is like looking back at the middle of the ripples - they're clearest there, and so easiest to measure.
The non-metaphorical ripples observed in this research, are gravitational waves, caused by massive stuff moving about. Just like sound waves are caused by a diaphragm moving in and out, in a speaker, gravitational waves are caused by massive cosmos-sized diaphragms moving around.
It is by measuring these miniscule deviations in spacetime, that the hallmarks of pre-CMB events have been observed - not directly, because that's (probably) impossible, but by their effects further down the timeline.
That's basically it, according to my comprehension. Did you understand it all?
Good. There'll be a quiz on it, next week. Have your pencils at the ready :-P
On-or-around-about-this-date-or-week-in-history:
Earth Hour is the 29th of March. Turn off lights, for the WWF; and jump into each other's arms, for Durex. Or don't, as the case might be.
The 24th of March is Ada Lovelace Day - a woman who was prolific, in her mathematical and computational achievements, who unfortunately died very young.
In other news:
Pole dancing robots? In Germany, that's a "yes"! LOL, those crazy Germans. On a side note, there are feminists who gleefully await IVF technology that utterly negates a need for men. Well, artificial dancers, artificial cooking (ready-made + microwave ovens), artificial housekeeping (cleaner robots and dishwashers), and someday artificial wombs, are going to make female humans obsolete too. It's a dangerous game, to see males and females as opposing sexes, rather than complimentary ones, as i do!
http://informoverload.com/pole-dancing-robo/
Silent magician - Teller - of Penn & Teller fame, has won a lawsuit, in which he sued someone for breaching performance copyright. There is no law giving Intellectual Property rights to someone for a magic trick, but there is legal status to performances - plays, presentations, etc. It was on these grounds that Teller successfully sued, The judge said "By arguing that the secret to his illusion is different than Teller's, Dogge implicitly argues about aspects of the performance that are not perceivable by the audience," he writes. "In discerning substantial similarity, the court compares only the observable elements of the works in question. Therefore, whether Dogge uses Teller's method, a technique known only by various holy men of the Himalayas, or even real magic is irrelevant, as the performances appear identical to an ordinary observer."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/teller-wins-lawsuit-copied-magic-690347?
A computer program has solved a virtual Rubik's Cube in 3.253 seconds. Yeah, but can it do a pole dance?
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-robot-rubik-cube-birmingham-fair.html
A 3-metre chicken has been discovered in Dakota, the USA. Well, not really - paleontologists have discovered a species of oviraptorosaur, that was feathered, and measured 3 metres tall. The researchers nicknamed it the 'chicken from hell'. Pictures are available at the link:
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/80450417582/the-chicken-from-hell-dakotas-3-metre-feathered
Some delusional people in Arkansas have tried to 'save' their owl, by quackupuncture. Having been hit by a car, it was feeling low, and responding slowly to treatment. Impatiently, the rescue centre grasped at bullshit non-medicine in an attempt to hurry their recovery. "Well, i guess stabbing it can't hurt!", Lynne Slater, executive director of the HAWK Center, almost said. And so they did. And now that the bird's showing minor signs of not being dead yet, they're attributing recovery to the pseudoscience of 'health by a thousand cuts'. The credulity is astounding!
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/injured-owl-receives-life-saving.html
It doesn't get any less comic. Yet another so-called psychic has had to cancel a show 'due to unforeseen circumstances'. Maybe she should stick a pin in her diary planner, then it might get better. Oh, sorry - i shouldn't mix my superstitions. Bad Tap :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/psychic-cancels-live-shows-due-to.html
Non-news item of the week: camels love beer! ITV took time out to tell people how much a particular camel loves beer. When asked how the guy found out his camel liked beer, he told them he asked someone else what camels like, and they said "Well, camels like beer". Gah - slow news day, i suppose...
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/jeffrey-camel-loves-drinking-beer.html
Meanwhile, Fox31 has accidentally broadcast a penis, on air. No, i'm not referring to any of the presenters - i mean they actually showed a picture of a penis, tweeted to the same column as a picture relevant to their news subject. The production values at Fox are staggering, aren't they. Come for the soundbites, leave with a free wang. I bet they don't advertise that to the kids!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/18/fox-affiliate-airs-penis-pic-video_n_4987124.html?
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Unlocking a car with your Brain'
The scientific lesson, herein, is that it is imperative you do not believe something, until evidence supports the notion. There is no difficulty in revoking prejudices that were never received in the first place.
http://youtu.be/0Uqf71muwWc
'The Dream'
Oh, what a horrible nightmare! Fortunately, not all of those mutually exclusive superstitions can be true :o)
http://youtu.be/rv1AcGsQytU
'Hubble's Stunning Monkey Head'
For everyone else, this title's an example of absurd humour. For an astronomer, it's just an everyday name :-P
http://youtu.be/hWiHgj1yhJ4
'Baby assassin bug lures deadly ants with a wave'I prefer them to vertebrate babies - they lure adults in with raucous screaming!
http://youtu.be/8KvefGaTvno
'Animated cyber eyes mask your expression'
http://youtu.be/t3_i5q2rKPg
'Drayson B12 200 mph electric car | Fully Charged'
219 mph (352 kph) in an electric car. Wow! P.S. The world's first electric formula - Formula E - tour starts, in September of this year.
http://youtu.be/lS1fWUg2oDY
'Get shaved in the face'
http://www.illegaladvertising.com/post/79860228638/shaved-in-the-face
'Flower Marge!'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/body-oddity/marge-video/
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: sternutation -- the act of sneezing
Expression Of The Week: 'gone for a burton' -- failed, terminated, or originally, died; most probably derived from Burton's Ale - a drink popular with RAF pilots who already used the phrase "in the drink" to refer to crash-landing in the sea; 'going for a Burton' originally meant dying by crashing into the sea
Etymology Of The Week: ghastly -- from old english 'gaesten' meaning 'to torment/frighten'; it has the same etymology as the word 'ghost'
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
FEEDBACK UPDATES:
THE nutritional information on a packet of bread mix from Wrights startled Richard Lawson by giving the energy supplied by 100 grams, about two slices, as "987g".
Assuming that they did mean this as a measure of energy in grams, and applying the infamous equation "E = mc2" to convert mass to energy, by Richard's calculation his breakfast should supply 9 x 1016 joules: enough to power a tenth of the world for the rest of the day.
15 Feb
AS is his custom, Ben Garrod recently went to buy "my weekly hit of all things science" from a W. H. Smith shop in Cambridge, UK. "When I left the store," he reports, "(after paying, I might add), I beeped at the door." After staff had checked through various bags, they discovered that his copy of New Scientist had a pink stick-on security tag on the Feedback page.
Staff said all of their New Scientist copies are tagged and they still frequently "go missing". Ben, being at a loose end, checked: the New Scientists, and no other magazines, were indeed tagged. This leads him to two distressing conclusions: first that the scientific world is a den of thieves, and, worse, that some of us "can be out-foxed by a sticker".
15 Feb
SOME time ago Feedback noticed posters plugging nutritional supplements, exhorting us to buy "his" and "her" pills from Vitabiotics, and shrugged. We started from a sceptical stance on the benefits of supplements, especially for the people who buy them – who probably have a more balanced diet than those who don't. We were more sceptical still when it came to separate pills for women's and men's subtly different recommended daily amounts. One effect of the division would seem to be that twice as many pills would lurk untaken in certain bathroom cabinets, increasing sales.
Recently we have spotted the company promoting a plethora of pregnancy-related pills: Pregnacare® Original, Plus and Max; Pregnacare® Breastfeeding; Pregnacare® New Mum; Pregnacare® Conception; Wellman® Conception; and, for that feeling of togetherness, Pregnacare® His & Her Conception. If there's some kind of quantum limit for this kind of subdivided advertising, they must be approaching it. Perhaps the next step will be a super-specific supplement to be taken only during the hour before conception? Or during?
22 Feb
Tesco supermarket's labelling helpfully informed Geoffrey Thomas that what he had bought was "freezer safe": "Indeed," he says of his ice-cube trays, "I hope so"
22 Feb
GOOD news for those who don't get around to proper exercise. A blog in The New York Times describes a study concluding that "Over all [sic], the data reveal that 'sex can be considered, at times, a significant exercise'." It adds that researcher Antony Karelis therefore believes that sex is worth encouraging in people who otherwise balk at working out.
Ninety-eight per cent of Karelis's volunteers reported that sex felt more fun than jogging. Feedback notes that the study included 21 couples, so that other 2 per cent was one individual.
22 Feb
{Sex is much more fun your own! This study is bunk :-P }
One of the products offered by John West in Australia is "naturally smoked oysters": David Prichard would like to know where in the world you find them – volcanic vents, perhaps?
1 Mar
SEQUENCING the DNA of a 3-year-old who died 12,600 years ago in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains created much excitement last month (15 February, p 8). This may explain the title of a report in Science on 14 February: "Ancient Infant Was Ancestor of Today's Native Americans". Will Howard asks: "What's wrong with this headline?" Feedback confesses it took us several deep thinks to get it. Hint: he was 3...
1 Mar
PROSAIC justice – that was the name we suggested for the risk we run by pointing out other publications' errors, as above. Elizabeth Spiegel and Ian Boehm point us to a lovely note from the Canberra Society of Editors in 2003, suggesting that we, in fact, risk falling foul of "Muphry's Law" – named by John Bangsund of the Victorian Society of Editors as "the editorial application of the better-known Murphy's Law," which holds that if it can go wrong, it will. Read the piece in full at bit.ly/muphry-law.
1 Mar
MUPHRY was indeed at work: while this page was in production, we spotted that New Scientist itself said that the 3-year-old boy "turns out to be a direct ancestor of most tribes in Central and South America" (15 February, p 8). Whoops...
1 Mar
{It's a sign of strength, that someone can accepted criticism and laugh at it. Feedback must be one of the most powerful organisations in the world!}
The Cardinia Cultural Centre café in Pakenham, Victoria, Australia, instructs Peter Robinson that "any patrons that bring dogs must under council policy be on a leash." Harsh, but fair?
8 Mar
{As long as it applies to councillors, too :-D }
WE SUSPECT a bet may also have been involved in the editing of the Wikipedia page for the pterosaur Arambourgiania. According to Courtney Kelly, at some point it provided the essential information that the beast was two and a half Benedict Cumberbatches tall, referring to the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes for the BBC. At the time of writing, this information remains on the Dutch version of the page. Feedback wonders whether this may have been inspired by last year's popular compendium at bit.ly/Otters-who-look-like-Benedict-Cumberbatch.
8 Mar
FOOD, treacherous food! On 5 March the World Health Organization recommended we halve the amount of sugar in our diets. When we saw this, we remembered a prominent report in The Guardian newspaper the day before: "Diets high in meat, eggs and dairy could be as harmful to health as smoking".
Call Feedback a sour cynic, but we wondered whether that could have been spoon-fed as a "spoiler" to spread confusion and doubt about the WHO recommendation. It certainly turned out that there was much less to the story than met the eye. It was based what people aged 55 to 60 had eaten in the 24 hours before a survey (8 March, p 7).
When we turn to the declarations of interest on the paper (doi.org/rs2) we find no links to the usual confusion-spreading suspects. But one author, Valter D. Longo, "has equity interest in L-Nutra, a company that develops medical food". We find at l-nutra.com that "ProLon™ will be L-Nutra's first product to reach the market. "So what is it?
So far, we have found no list of ingredients, just a statement that it is an "all natural product produced from vegetables... a source of all the important vitamins, minerals and other essential micronutrients".
ProLon is also described as a "Fasting Mimicking Enhancing™ Diet". We are left with the suspicion that it is food-free food. At least it seems to be free of macronutrients.
22 Mar
A scam email gave the game away to Joe Hill when it mentioned a tax refund of "lb 1,400". It'd be so much easier for them if the UK metricated the pound sterling...
22 Mar
SEX, meanwhile, makes nearly as good an opening to a story as food. Grant Hutchison responded to our mention of researcher Antony Karelis, who believes that sex is worth encouraging in people who baulk at working out (22 February).
Grant points out that the aerobic benefit is quantified in, among other places, the article "Clinical practice guidelines for physical therapy in cardiac rehabilitation" from the admirably thorough Royal Dutch Society for Physical Therapy.
As an equivalent level of exercise to slow dancing or bricklaying, you could consider "sexual activities (own partner)". This will burn energy at a rate of 60 watts. You could hit 80 to 90 watts through dancing (not slow) – or "sexual activities (new partner)". Feedback disclaims all responsibility for any untoward effects of following this advice.
22 Mar
PLASTIC carrier bags from the Cotswold Outdoor shop come emblazoned with the intriguing message: "Made from biodegradable". Feedback wonders how many people consider the things they buy to be composed of virtues, not atoms. Consider the possible power of the slogans "Made of nutrition" and "Contents: cleanliness"... and the time saved by accepting these value judgements, thus avoiding reading the ingredients.22 Mar
{Those slogans should be hurled against the wall of shame :-P }
FINALLY, a contender for probably Feedback's favourite-ever unusual unit arrives in an email from Mark Dowson, and it has the more unusual cachet of likely great antiquity. Apparently, reindeer are unable to walk and pee at the same time: they have to pause at set intervals of distance.
In Finnish, this interval is known as poronkusema or "reindeer's piss" and was an old-fashioned description of rural distances. By Mark's calculation, it is about 320 blue-whale-lengths.
This is a WikiFact, but it seems almost too nice to be true. So Feedback asked a friend – the Finnish journalist Heikki Jokinen. He confirms that it is used in Lapland and was delighted to be diverted from other work to discover its actual value, which is about 7.5 kilometres for a reindeer drawing a light sledge – and that it is important: reindeer eating lichen produce urine as strong as battery acid, he says, and they get sick if deprived of their comfort breaks.
22 Mar.
.
Hi piple!
Get it? Pi-ple, as in pi-people... uh, ok, never mind... :-P
Anyway, last friday was Pi Day. So there will be some piey things strewn through this week's post.
[awkward segue] One thing that can be presented on a pie chart, is the number of people who want a referendum on something.
Referendums seem to be all over the place, in the UK... well, potential referendums seem to be.
The Conservative Party of the UK has promised a referendum 'on Europe', for 2017. Obviously, it's geologically infeasible to extricate the British Isles from Europe, but with Michael 'Newton’s laws of thermodynamics' Gove as Minister for Education, you can hardly expect much of the poor dears' intellects, can you!
But they have also denied a referendum on Scotland's leaving the Union between England and Scotland. This would, essentially, leave the UK un-Ued.
Notice the position they're in, here - they're saying "No, no, don't be ridiculous, no" to the idea of Scottish independence from England, but saying "Oh yes, yes please, yes" to English independence from the EU.
Urm... it can't be that hard to notice the steaming hypocrisy, can it? If devolution's good for the goose, then why's it bad for the gander? :-P
Well, it must be hypocrisy that's very difficult to spot, because the entirety of Britain's media appears to have completely missed it!
Never mind, boys and girls, never mind...
This week's fact-checking mission covers the jolly subject of suicide. Yay :-D
'The better-educated and the wealthy are more likely to opt for suicide, finds Swiss study of 1301 people'
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/02February/Pages/What-type-of-people-choose-assisted-suicide.aspx?
This is not the title the Daily Fail went with, a few weeks ago, due to its not being congenial to their patriarchal, feudalistic, religious ideology.
Instead, they went with 'Women, divorcees and atheists are most likely to choose assisted suicide - with nearly 20% saying they are simply 'weary of life'.' Hmm... i see what they did, there ;-)
The data came from a longitudinal study in Switzerland, following 5,004,403 Swiss residents, 1,301 of which were the subjects of assisted suicide (euthenasia is still illegal in Switzerland) between the period 2003 to 2008.
There's a glaring hole in that data though, where 16% of death certificates relating to assisted suicide did not record a cause of death, despite an obvious medical condition being a predicate for A.S. qualification!
The "weary of life" part was not from the researchers' fingers - they were quoting someone else - but the data does seem to conflict itself, in that it says the lonely are more likely to opt for it, but also that those of higher socio-economic status are.
If depression motivates people to end their lives sooner (which stands to reason) then why this conflict in the data? Unless higher socio-economic status correlates with greater depression, of course!
If such a study could be done in somewhere euthanasia is legal, and all cases were necessarily reported to a central agency, then more could be derived from those statistics.
But with this study, the only notable talking point is that 46.5% of life-opt-outers were cancer sufferers - and only 20.6% were sufferers of nervous system disorders such as motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease.
If a euthanasia-accepting system were in place, to be abused by murderers, then they would have to fabricate the medical context in which such a decision would be made. 4th stage cancer sufferers are unlikely to 'need' murdering, rendering such scenarios unlikely.
I think this is a very worthy campaign: http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/
On-or-around-or-about this date, in history:
43 years ago on saturday, the first internet virus popped up, called 'The Creeper'. Celebration time? Maybe not. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-virus.html
Next tuesday is going to be the 5th 'A' Week - the international movement that gives closeted non-god-believers an opportunity to see that they are not alone, and the confidence to accept that it's OK for them to be honest, too.
Reaching out to the oppressed, downtrodden, or just plain misunderstood, now appears to be expensive, on Facebook, so it might be the last. Hopefully, the organisers will shift it to a safer home.
In other news:
There has been the discovery of what might well be Europe's largest ever carnivorous dinosaur. Torvosaurus gurneyi's teeth grew to at least 10 cm, meaning it could have scaled to 10 metres - almost the size of a T-Rex.
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0088905.g004&representation=PNG_L
An analysis of more than 6000 heart attack and stroke incidents has found that, in the 2 hours after an outburst of rage, people are nearly five times as likely to have a heart attack and more than three times as likely to have a stroke. This news makes me mad! [think calm thoughts; think calm thoughts; think calm thoughts...]
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129593.200-60-seconds.html
Some peculiar-looking pigeons have been spotted in the Queens area of New York, in the USA. They appear to have tie-dyed tail feathers. What can have caused such an effect? Well it's most likely to have been deliberately performed by a pigeon fancier, as religionists in Eurasia are known to do it. Like most religious rituals, bird-painting is known to be harmful, because the paint's poisonous to them. At least they'll make pretty corpses!
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/03/the-mystery-of-the-tye-dyed-pigeons/
{Asinine theological question: do birds in heaven gain a second pair of wings?}
Some obonxious classists at the BBC decided, this week, that it was a fair usage of column inches to debate whether the cheese course should come before or after the dessert. Forget that, philistines - just don't pass the salt the wrong way! #pretentiousdebateputsmeoffmydinner
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26526076
A man has chained himself to the doors of a motorway service station, to protest its destruction, because it's where he was conceived. Not born - conceived. His parents were there, after attending a Phil Collins concert. And i have to say, i'm not surprised that someone could be this sentimental! Putting the 'mental' into 'sentimental', as they say :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/man-chained-himself-to-place-he-was.html
The 'World Record' of this week involves a Pakistani man - Mohammed Rashid - who has set the new 'best' for walnuts smashed with the head, within a minute. The previous record was 44; he increased it to 155! Like last time, you can see a video of the feat, at the link:
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/man-breaks-world-record-for-smashing.html
Council workpeople, in Liverpool, the UK, have put down "School - Keep Clear" road markings outside a non-existent school. It had been knocked down, a year previously! They said "they just followed their instructions without thinking about it.” Evidently :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/council-workmen-painting-road-markings.html
'Window lurker called police after witnessing couple making love in their own home'. That's the whole story, right there, in the title. Some guy decided he didn't like 'having' to see people having sex, in the privacy of their own home, by staring through their window, so he tried to get them arrested for what he'd done! Un-bonking-believable...
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/window-lurker-called-police-after.html
News like this reassures me that idiocy extends to more than Britain and the USA's media! A Spanish TV station mislabelled Poland as Germany, and Belarus as Poland. So there you go, Americans - there are Europeans who fail at cartography, too :-P
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/spanish-tv-station-broadcast-error.html
Who wants to see a fish swim? Well, that's not much to speak of... but this fish is a robot fish! Lennon and McCartney, in Red Dwarf, will one day be real, it seems. You can see a video of it, swimming, by following the link.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-soft-robotic-fish-real.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Which will freeze first in LIQUID NITROGEN, Digital or clockwork?'
The follow-up to last week's teaser question. The result might surprise you!
http://youtu.be/-mLASMl8gg0
'SURICATE - Le cosmos'
I had to watch this one twice... i didn't quite follow the plot, the first time :-D
http://youtu.be/MnfHQWHG4v0
'The Tube of Mystery'
http://youtu.be/TM0oG2ozUYA
'Can you explain this?'
I wonder whether it'd work as well, if he shook it at a different frequency. I suspect not ;-)
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/can-you-explain-this-4/
'Starstuff and Nanodiamonds'
Thebrainscoop's most fascinating when it's doing Physics, LOL. Physics >> Biology :-D
http://youtu.be/wpBCJoxGWXk
'Virtual drop helps confront fear of heights'
http://youtu.be/66JreCaEr20
'Psychedelic crystals captured in melting ice movie'
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25192
'Indian Wells 2014 FreeD Camera Feature'
I thought 'd throw this one in here - it's cool technology :-)
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Media/Video-Landing/*/Tennis/Media/Videos/Uploaded/2014/3/13/Indian-Wells-2014-Freed-Camera-Feature.aspx
'Indian Wells 2014 Wednesday Hot Shot Haas'
Tommy Haas is amazing. Still. After 20 years :o)
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Media/Video-Landing/*/Tennis/Media/Videos/Uploaded/2014/3/13/Indian-Wells-2014-Wednesday-Hot-Shot-Haas.aspx
'THE CATCH: CAMPBELL'S PEA & HAM SOUP | The Checkout | ABC1'
That's more like hammy salt than salt ham :-D
http://youtu.be/vFLy-6bu8Ss
'SIGNS OF THE TIME EPISODE 4 | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/oYFO2N0EwVs
'PRODUCT VS PACKSHOT: KFC NACHOS | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/wi3oTZWFbCQ
'Pi me a River - Numberphile'
http://youtu.be/TUErNWBOkUM
{I told you there'd be pi references :-P }
'Pi Prog Rock - Numberphile'
Incredibly geeky, but a surprisingly good melody. Plus, lovely shots of California :-)
http://youtu.be/E36qMxXGo3A
'Carin Bondar: The birds and the bees are just the beginning'
Sex talks are great fun. Especially when they're about other species :o)
http://youtu.be/N39x_WTPix0
'More Or Less: Mailbox edition 15th March 2014'
"Your questions answered - Do the Maasai in Africa number one million? Is it true that a quarter of Americans do not know the Earth goes round the sun? Are half of Tasmanians innumerate and illiterate? Plus, Do the 85 richest people in the world hold the same amount of wealth as the poorest half?"
http://player.fm/series/more-or-less-behind-the-stats/moreorless-mailbox-edition-15-mar-14
{I don't think i've ever posted a link to an episode of More Or Less, for its own sake, before. But they're trying out new show designs, between series, and this one's chock full of interestingness}
'FIRST KISS'
You might have seen this week's viral video - an arty piece by Tatia Pilieva - in which strangers kiss each other. That's basically it.
http://vimeo.com/88671403
Well, here's the parody version: 'FIRST HANDJOB'. Surprisingly, it's less sexy than the original, but it's quite a lot funnier :-P
http://youtu.be/SAnjUhQvGi0
I'm not sure whether this video manages to beat it, however. It involves non-models kissing each other, for real. Do the noises make it sexier? Urmmm.... hahaha. Looks fun, anyway :-P
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/shorties/we-got-twenty-british-strangers-who-arent-models-to-kiss-each-other
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: carcolepsy -- the inability to stay awake or alert inside a car, whether as driver or passenger
Quote Of The Week: "A surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person" - GCHQ. Good on ya, State surveillance teams - providing us with useless information that we could never have done without :-D
Headline Of The Week: 'Sexuality "fudge" sticks in critics' throats' - Church Times
Alternative Headline Of The Week: 'Kelly Brook's ex-Gladiator, blah blah blah blah...' Read it yourself :-P
Gene Of The Week: Gremlin -- which interferes with the production of proteins in bone. Along with a gene called 'Noggin' it's involved in shaping the bones of the skull.
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Inside Lubor Fiedler´s Brain'
Simple but cute illusions. Something even i can get my head around :o)
http://youtu.be/4yCa0fvGU6U
'Burlington: Can You Sock Me?'
When it's time for bed, i suppose she socks him off. Some really dodgy humour, in this ad :-/
http://www.illegaladvertising.com/post/79470348592/sock-me-please
And now, into the wonderfully weird world of wumblr... sorry, i mean tumblr:
'Celebrate National Pie Day'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/79661377991
'I am never dancing in public ever again'
This is what i see, every time someone dances :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/79375229979
'amazingly real and legit'
Ghost hunters. You gotta laugh. And at the complicity of the TV channel, too :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/79665264632
'He gets into his shows'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/79593583381
And so does he...
'Meercat'
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/meercat.html
'Meanwhile in Canada'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/79728369253
And to finish... a story that could have been in 'in other news' if it weren't from December last year:
'An inflatable sex doll called Missy has been sent into the stratosphere'
"As she free fell back to Earth, her left arm was torn off by a crosswind. She then suffered severe damage to her right leg, before her right arm detached. The triple amputee was last seen at around 27,432 metres, spiralling out of control towards a sandy grave."
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/79752185641/an-inflatable-sex-doll-called-missy-has-been-sent
As you might expect, the stunt was arranged by a sex toy manufacturer. Oddly, the pictures show her to be wearing clothes!?
She is not the first sex toy to be sent into the stratosphere, however - in October 2011, a 'vibrating bullet' was sent up, and in October 2013, a large black dildo was propelled into the upper atmosphere!
Oh, btw - if you follow the links, you can see a video of her puncture-defying mission :-D
.
.
Hi nuclear physicists,
'Schoolboy, 13, creates nuclear fusion in Penwortham'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-26450512
Is this real, or just more crankery?
Well,
for a start, "creates nuclear fusion" is a semantically null clause,
which goes to show that the journalists on the job probably aren't all
that aware of the subject matter!
Nuclear fusion is a process - not an object - the correct clause would have to be "causes nuclear fusion".
The
technique he employed is not, in fact, new - he used a generic fusion device to
(possibly) be the youngest person ever to fuse their own helium from
hydrogen.
Having produced a literal flash in a metaphorical pan,
however, does not mean he actually achieved it - all the flash means is that he made some very hot air! Only the raw data will be able to verify whether any of that
hot air fused. As the article says, his "record attempt is yet to be verified by the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium".
So
he might have fused some hydrogen into helium, but he might not.
Whether he did or didn't, either way, he should have stood behind a wall
to avoid radiation from the machine. I hope he did so.
My only other point can be: "why did his headteacher give him £2000 for the project?"
I
hope it wasn't school money, which could be far more usefully
appropriated in consideration that the boy attended a failing academy!
{All 'academies' in the UK are failing. That's why they're made into academies}
It's
understandable that no local laboratories or universities would fund his
desire to make helium in a very expensive way - he wasn't doing
anything particularly novel, and he wasn't doing research. And he wasn't producing energy, either.
Even
the world's premier nuclear fusion research site - ITER, in France - is
struggling to produce maintainable reactions that give out more energy
than is put in. He will not have beaten them with 50-year-old
technology!
What this story really means, is that a headteacher gave £2000 of someone's money so that a boy could do a 50-year-old science demo. I hope the publicity makes it worth it!
'Update and yet more DMCAs'
http://youtu.be/k25d5AEYBpE
You might remember this story from a few weeks back. Myles Power is the guy who's been falsely DMCA-ed by the pseudoscientists behind the 'House Of Numbers' AIDS-denialist movie.
Some assorted other nutbags laid into him too, including an autism-ignorant anti-vaccer and a generalised fake-medicine rubber-head.
All those falsely-made DMCAs look set to be revoked, thanks to the assertiveness of the YouTube team.
I'm still not all that keen on Google+ ;-) But YouTube seems that little bit better, right now :o)
Long live Science!
As the new Godzilla movie approaches, a little bird has nudged me at the rather comic history of the Godzilla movies:
''Godzilla's' Humor Lives On'
http://www.rense.com/general56/godzilla.htm
It seems a shame, to me, that the Hollywood Godzilla franchise has not embraced the humour of its Japanese ancestors. But i suppose the original comedy had to be there - no-one was going to believe that a man in a rubber suit, stomping over a miniaturised set, was really a gigantic reptilian monster, were they!
Incidentally, 'Mothra v. Godzilla' was a real movie... and comparably funny. FYI: the new Godzilla movie will be out in May, at about the same time as AC/DC's new album is due out, and Queen go on tour with Adam Lambert.
Oh, btw, that little bird was Maynard, of Maynard.com.au ... A U !!!
Has anyone out there heard of the Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys? I've decided i quite like them. Here's another of theirs:
'tokyo panorama mambo boys - pachinko (single version)'
http://youtu.be/bCix18TOYpU
Buddhist hysteria continues in Burma, where they've been violently persecuting Muslim people...
'Myanmar Leader Backs Buddhist Monks’ Calls for Laws to ‘Protect’ Religion, Race'
http://wwrn.org/articles/41848/
"In pushing their petition last year, Buddhist monks have said that Buddhist women wishing to marry non-Buddhist men must first receive permission from their parents and local government officials."
"Concerned that Muslims are spreading their faith by marrying Buddhist women, the monks also want non-Buddhist men wishing to marry Buddhist women to first convert to the faith."
Religionism and racism are not good for people, even if their symbols are fat men with smiles on their faces! There is no such thing as peaceful religion - only less religion.
"Religion poisons everything", as Hitch said. And this week's etymology of the week is actually 'toxophilia'. Which is not, as you might intuit, a love of poisons. It is, in fact, a love of archery!
'Toxophilia'
http://nineteenteen.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/toxophilia.html
You might be surprised to read that, back in 19th century Britain, archery was quite the sport for a young lady!
Even once trussed up in crinolines.
"Girls, move freely and break a sweat? How un-lady-like! But there have always been a handful of sports to which young women have been given grudging access…and one of them was archery. Here was a sport at which it was unlikely you might become overheated or over-excited. It was a sport you could do while wearing a corset (in fact, wearing a corset might even help!) And it gave you a chance to order adorable new clothes."
'Most Attractive Convict Suing Because Her Mugshot Became A Meme'
http://informoverload.com/most-attractive-convict-suing-because-her-mugshot-became-a-meme/
Was it OK for them to use her face, to demonstrate that some 'criminals' are attractive?
I think it was wrong for them to use it because it was done so without her permission - you wouldn't 'out' someone sexually, without their permission. That's a scummy thing to do - and releasing personal details (and what's more personal than a face?) can subject people to mob 'justice'. Reckless!
It's not OK when the Media do it, and it's not OK in this case. But if she were willing, then that would be a different matter. She's claiming that she's been done out of royalties, however, and erm... I don't think so, haha. Memes don't pay wages :-D
In other news:
This one's slightly late, but: it has been found, after decades, that cannabis does have a non-zero short-term lethality. In other words, it is possible to overdose on cannabis. But because these examples are so incredibly rare, they're not much to worry about. Drugs experts stress that neurological effects on adolescents are the major effects, along with the basic damage done by inhaling any burning plant, whether it's tobacco leaves, cannabis leaves, or cabbage leaves!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129573.500-cannabis-can-kill-without-the-influence-of-other-drugs.html
According to Forbes, Bill Gates is, once again, the world's richest person. In the USA, of course, companies are seen as people, so officially, he'd probably be way down the list!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26420414
Nepal's government has declared that every individual to climb Mount Everest must bring back at least 8 Kg of rubbish, or they will lose their $4000 (£2600) deposit! The mountain is littered with rubbish, deposited by climbers on their way up, in order to lighten their load. Many people have been up to clean the mountain, in the past, but it's not a practical effort. In 2010, strenuous efforts were made to recover two bodies out of the many climbers who have died on the mountain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26420855
Last week, there was the story of the surfing crocodile in Western Australia, now here's a story about surfing swans, in Queensland. It looks like they're having fun :o)
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/surfing-swans.html
This guy needs a slap! Apparently, Major General James Cowan has issued a sincere note to soldiers and officers of Bulford Camp, in Wiltshire. His comments included: “Quite a few officers in the divisional mess seem to be under the impression that they can eat their food with their hands... the practice of serving rolls and sandwiches must stop.” “a gentleman or a lady uses a knife and fork.”
He also condemned poor grammar and writing, and the "wanton use of capitals, abbreviations and acronyms" because they can, apparently, leave the reader exhausted! And this guy's in charge of more than 22,000 people. Hmmm... someone needs a slap and a cold shower.
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/army-commander-bans-sandwiches-in.html
An Indian man has set a new world record for typing out a pre-set sentence, in the shortest time... with his nose. Mohammed Khurshid Hussain, who already holds the record for typing out the latin alphabet with his fingers (3.43 seconds), has set a time of 48.62 seconds to write "Guinness world records have challenged me to type this sentence using my nose in the fastest time." There's an intense, pumped up, video of the feat being performed, at the link. Careful though - it's knackering just to watch :-P
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/indian-man-sets-new-world-record-for.html
"A zircon crystal has been verified as being 4.4 billion years old, making it one of the oldest known pieces of Earth's crust. The crystal, from Jack Hills in Western Australia, is less than a millimetre wide, but it should teach us more about how the Earth's crust cooled." said the New Scientist journalist that i just churnalised because there wasn't really any need to change their wording :-P
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/full/ngeo2075.html
Pithovirus sibericum is a newly-found virus, that has been dug out of the permafrost of the coastal tundra in Chukotka, near the East Siberia Sea, where the average annual temperature is minus 13.4 degrees Celsius. When thawed out, and placed in agar jelly, the virus resumed replication, indicating that it had not been denatured by the experience. (Denaturing is the non-life equivalent of dying). P. Sibericum is not harmful to humans - it lives only in amoeba - but unlike flu, which has only 8 genes, P. Sibericum has 500 - it's a relative giant. The viral particles were dated to be 30,000 years old, by radiometric carbon dating of vegetation that also resided in the siberian ice.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-year-old-virus-permafrost-reborn.html
Funny and unbelieved (by me) story of the week: Indian Police suspend work for 8 years, pending the recovery of a password. Highly doubtful.
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/indian-police-failed-to-act-on-eight.html
Funny but far-more-plausable story of the week: Woman accused of attacking her mother with a vibrator. When blood runs hot, a vibrator's as good as anything, i suppose :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/woman-accused-of-attacking-her-mother.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Freezing your hand in LIQUID NITROGEN, how long?'
http://youtu.be/_tyQvPdHL2o
'John and Kevin's Sunday Papers - March 2014'
http://youtu.be/HGTh_buLYG0
'Beer Vs. Chainsaw: Slow Motion'
Always use electric power-tools, eh? So that's where i've been going wrong!
http://youtu.be/RSRdUyfZHWg
'Computer paints images with millions of colours'"Hungarian programmer József Fejes has won a competition for software that creates beautiful images containing every colour made using red, green and blue"
http://youtu.be/JBk6McexwKg
'Cyborg drummer creates unique beats'
http://youtu.be/5nqKO9Na3tI
'SIGNS OF THE TIME | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/Vipq0hR-jSo
'CHLOROPHYLL | The Checkout | ABC1'
Any idea how chlorophyll's supposed to help with photosynthesis, in the dark of your gut? Nah - me neither. This is the same rubbish Not-a-doctor Gillian McKeith Not-a-phd was selling, years ago. That's her official title, by the way :-P
http://youtu.be/MTa_ccZBvEg
'Cannon fire'
A newly-uploaded demo from the RSC
http://youtu.be/vvSjyPs4stc
'TOP 5 Best Tennis ATP Points 2014 FULL HD (January February)'
Not a bad start to the year, LOL
http://youtu.be/qQlKMBxJdnk
'Indian Wells 2014 Saturday Hot Shot Stepanek'
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Media/Video-Landing/*/Tennis/Media/Videos/Uploaded/2014/3/9/Indian-Wells-2014-Saturday-Hot-Shot-Stepanek.aspx
'Back To The Future Hoverboards Are Here!'
Well i have to give it to them - it is an interesting fake. All of those celebrities must have fantastic senses of balance! Captain Disillusion to the rescue: LINK. I await a video on it :-)
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/78597026034/skate-de-back-to-the-future-verdadero-o-falso
'Flying around the Christ the Redeemer'
This is exactly the kind of fun i don't want to have. Why, exactly, do i keep watching these? :-D
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/78376489862/volando-al-rededor-del-cristo-redentor
'Gender Swap - Experiment with The Machine to Be Another' via cibermitanios
I'm having interesting experiences, just pretending i'm in that gear, LOL. Oh, btw - there are bare boobs and hairy moobs in this video. So it's not safe for adults :-P
http://vimeo.com/84150219
'Advanced Exoskeletons Made From Fishing Line?! (Brainstorm Ep175)'
It turns out Iron Man could have been built from stock in a hobby shop. I'm off shopping... :-D
http://youtu.be/W5-BzZGfcVs
'Dinosaurs totally made up for benefit of toy industry'
One of these last two articles is purely ridiculous... now which one? :-P
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/dinosaurs-totally-made-up-for-benefit-of-toy-industry-2014030784397
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: ronion -- a mangy or scabby creature
Headline Of The Week: 'Cameron Diaz Encourages Women to Keep Their Pubic Hair in Her New Book'
Etymology Of The Week: toxophilia -- love of archery; from tóxon, meaning 'bow'; and philia meaning 'love'. The meaning as 'poison' derives from poison's use on bowtips, in which sense it earned the name 'toxikon'.
Joke Of The Week: How many times can you subtract the number 7 from the number 49? Once - after you've subtracted 7 the first time, it's not 49 anymore :-P
Film Review Of The Week: Mark Kermode reviewing '300: Rise of an Empire'. I can't verify whether it's accurate, but it's certainly funny :-D Magazine Monitor's laid into it, too!
Astronomical Effect Of The Week: The Yorp Effect (The Yarkovsky–O'Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack Effect)
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Anatomical Barbie, By Jason Freeny'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/79048586105/anatomical-barbie-by-jason-freeny-image
'The 'average' doll v Barbie'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26465106
Apparently, someone's committed to making a 'realistic' girly doll. All i can say is: "grrow, to the look on the right" :o)
I've never heard of Pat Hartley, before, but i don't think much of her, having read this quote:
"Finally someone has been brave enough to show what a woman really looks like"
Um... who doesn't know what a woman looks like??? Even bigots who've lived in the Vatican's dungeons for the last 20 years have some recollection of what a female human looks like!
It occurs to me that the best way to show the more-ignorant people how a woman looks (or a man, for that matter) is to urge everyone to go nude, as often as possible. But presumably, this is exactly the wrong way to show people what people who are real people, really look like.
Nudity is dirty and disgusting... but honest and daring and truthful and free, and must therefore be condemned as a method for demonstrating genuine bodily aesthetics! It'd be as absurd as putting realistic photos on food packets. Oh no, no - never allow it :-P
'Face of food!'
I can think of a less effortful way of putting my face in food, but i'd rather put the food in my face :-P
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/face-of-food/
'Banksy's Wall And Piece Quote'
It is real: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wall-Piece-Banksy/dp/1844137872
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/79048728606/herbshuttle-sparklegenocide-oh-you-biggest.
.
Date Started: 3/3/14 Date Completed: 8/3/14 Date First Published: 8/3/14
"Feminist bakesale for equality. 75c for women, $1 for men"
This was read out, as a joke, on The News Quiz, a couple of fridays ago, in their comic-correspondence closer.
I thought "Oh, yeah - typical feminists - misunderstanding equality" and also that it was quite funny, so i wanted to find a source.
I found this: Facebook link 1
But i also found this: Not-Facebook link 2
It turns out that the offer wasn't quite as guilelessly moronic as it first seemed. It was in fact.... guilefully slightly-below-par.
"“Generally, women make about 75-77 percent of what men make in the workforce,” Natalie Abell, an Amnesty International member, said. In order to represent this statistic, men paid $1 for a cupcake while women paid a reduced 75 cents."
"During the sale, a group of men walked by the stand and yelled, “You’re making it worse.” “We’re making it obvious,” Abell replied."
Nope - they were making it worse - by inciting sexist division through propaganda. How's it propaganda, and not awareness? Because it's wrong!
I wish to defend Amnesty International, however - they are a great organisation, doing important things - but this claim is one that keeps coming back, again and again and again. Note: being a member of AI does not mean they were presenting official AI views!
The difference in income is certainly a real thing - i am not arguing with that - but there is no consideration made, by any real feminist, for the causes of the income gap. Once again, the Ocean Dilemma rears its head, but this time into a melee of hysterically sexist slagging matches.
{By "real feminist" i mean someone partisan to 'the feminine' (females) - prejudiced in favour of women - not someone who doesn't know the word 'egalitarian', doesn't know what 'egalitarian' means, or thinks 'egalitarian' means the same as 'feminist'. Egalitarians, such as myself, strive for equality, real feminists strive only to replace pre-existing masculist sexism with their own.}
Chapter 1
The causes for the income gap are known - they have been investigated, and were put to sleep (I wish!) four years ago. In the USA and UK, sexist prejudice is not the major driving factor behind the income differential. The sectors of our economies that exhibit horrendous sexism are actually quite small, economically speaking, and so do not show up in economy-wide statistics such as the ones referenced in the 75c / $1 claim.
I want to stress this, now -- sexism is still a problem, and i am committed to challenging it and making it forgettable history, but when it comes to income gaps, it is mostly limited to pokey niches of the economy - religious organisations, investment banks, political parties. They are all manned by relatively small populations. What are the real reasons for the economy-wide income gap?
Well, when the factor of part-time work is taken into account, and when the factors of promotion are taken into account, the income gap subsides into statistical insignificance. That means it would be dishonest to assuredly state that it is a thing.
The reason for this, is that women are much more likely to work part-time (likely related to socialising and childraising), and are less likely (maybe for sexist reasons but it would be presumptuous to say so) to pursue and achieve 'promotions', which would lead to higher incomes.
All of this should be seen in the context of the possibility of family-making. Whether reproduction actually happens, a wealth-providing career is often turned down in the interests of keeping options open.
Only women with endless energy, no intent to 'have a family', or terrible foresight, would embark upon a career that gave a huge financial return but left little time/energy for looking after kids. Surely everybody knows that it's "the greatest challenge of your life... but the most rewarding"? It's the greatest challenge because it's knackering!
Regardless of how rewarding it is in anyone's particular case, the fact remains that many people will find it infeasible to family-raise as well as hold a full-time career down (certainly in their younger years). There is an increasing trend, in the most-developed countries, for women to delay family-bearing so that they have already developed a career when they go on maternity leave. Also, various 'professional' industries - Law and Accountancy, for example - have made changes to conventional practice, in order to accommodate women who wish to 'do the family thing'.
When BBC Radio 4's Statistics programme - More Or Less - investigated the "23% less than men" claim, as iterated by Harriet Harman back in 2010, they found that the figure did not take difference in employment types into account.
But they also didn't take into account that the source figures were median averages, which ignore the tiny minority of top-end income differences - those earning millions, basically. This could have pulled the difference down a bit.
When they interviewed Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, they found that in her study group, the difference in income was 25% down to sector entered, 30% down to hours worked, and 30% down to job interruptions - childcare, for example. (She didn't say what the other 15% was attributed to)
She noted that, in the "financial sectors" the penalties for such breaks are huge - and these are the sectors that lift the median income up - suggesting why 25% decided not to enter them in the first place.
We should not ignore the fact that men and women might simply have different demands of life. Maybe to them, money is less important, than it is to men. If that's the case, then surely there is a motive for us to pity men, as well as women!
But anyway, let's get back to the bakesale...
What should they really have been selling, if they'd wanted to present a valid metaphor for income inequality? They should have been selling some women cupcakes in chunks, to represent part-time employment, and men cupcakes with varying amounts of decoration, to represent promotions.
But apart from in certain niches of our economies, when it comes to income, men and women are playing the same game, to the same rules, and getting different results because of the way they play it.
Maybe it would be more practical to present a different pradigm...
Chapter 2
There is a real scandal behind all of this. It's not sexism, but it is real... i'm going to make up a word here... 'careerism'.
Why is that women work jobs that get paid less? Because men in those same jobs get paid less. But why does anyone in that job get paid less?
Across the board, economy-wide, there are stratae of careers. You can be the world's greatest cleaner, but at the same company, the world's worst manager will still get paid more than you. Maybe twice as much.
{Note that women are more likely to be cleaners, and men are more likely to be managers, providing an illusion of sexist wage imbalance}
Let's imagine an ideal world:
If that cleaner goes home with the same number of hours worked, the same number of calories burned, and the same amount of cortisol in their blood, from the stress of the job, will they get paid the same amount? And do you think it's fair that they should/shouldn't?
The chances are, you'll think it's perfectly fine - perfectly 'normal' - that their career is automatically less 'deserving' of financial reward, than the 'suit' as they are sometimes derogatorily known, who works upstairs. And so will most other people.
In fact, this feeds back into why 'promotion' often means moving into management - management pays better, and promotion is presumed to necessarily mean more money. Not nicer conditions, friendlier peers, or a nicer room? No - more money.
There is circular logic in thinking that management deserves more money, because people get promoted into it, and promoted people should be paid more, so management deserves more money, because people get promoted into it, and promoted people should be paid more. Circular logic is right because circular logic is right because circular logic is right...
Even incredibly smart people, like surgeons, intuit that doing a tough job renders them deserving of a hefty pay packet. £30,000 enough? No. £70,000 enough? No. £100,000 enough? Getting there.
Well, you might think they're 'worth it' too - they live on the coal face, saving people's lives, working 16-hour shifts - of course they're deserving of such a huge amount of money!
But really, what does it achieve? Does it mean they get more 'chattels', as solicitors call it, ready for when they die? Does it mean they get more holidays - more vacations away from having to do that thing that made them so deserving of high wages in the first place?
This system of giving more money to people who do great things, seems to encourage us all to do great things, but as little of it as we can afford, in funding relaxation time in somewhere like Far North Queensland, overlooking the Great Barrier Reef!
{Other fantastic holiday resorts are available}
Does this system even work, at encouraging people to do their jobs well? SDT (self-determination theory) says no: financial reward only correlates with productivity, when it comes clearly correlated with results; for example with builders, plumbers, etc. Do the job, get the money - a clear financial incentive, for all of their brain to see.
Most jobs are not immediately rewarded, and so there is a disconnect between the receipt of money and the motivation to receive it. Could it be that we make surgeons less committed, by paying them more? It's not as if they really truly need the money - there are just as many hours in a day for them as for the rest of us - we only think they're worth it because of this funny idea of 'deserving' something.
{And also because we rest on money as a metric for social value. This is why the rich sneer at the poor, the employed sneer at the unemployed, and religious organisations with dogmas that explicitly reject the pursuit of money are willing to hoard huge amounts of it... A vague feeling of personal validation}
I put it to everyone who's bothered to read down this far, that a better world, with a better system, and lower income inequality, must reject this ideology of 'careerism'.
So what should the feminist egalitarian bakesale do with their cupcake prices?
They should sell most of them at 60 -90 cents, with some sold at $5, $10 or $20 for the tiny minority of immense-wealth holders who have the fortune to be incredibly rich despite the universal maximum of 24 hours a day to do their work in.
They should also sprinkle extra decoration on the more expensive cupcakes, to represent non-monetary perks like company cars, etc.
Plus, they should reserve a tiny proportion of smaller cupcakes, to be sold at 5 cents each. Some of these should have jelly beans on. The jelly beans represent medicine pills, and the small size of cupcakes represent the economic contributions of unemployed and pensioned people, through non-paying work, volunteering, etc.
This would represent the diversity of income that is earned by people in the so-called 'developed' world, today. I hope you agree that it is a far better representation of the outrageous income inequality that affects both sexes alike.
Chapter 3
In practice, a rejection of careerism, and an idealised situation of income equality, would be best enforced by an over-arching, and thereby incredibly powerful, State, which would pay everyone the same, regardless of career, and regarding only need. Whether a married 60-year-old man, or a single teenage mother, they would get as much as they needed.
This has been a past pipe-dream of my own, which i now regard as fanciful, due to the impracticality of keeping such a State free from corruption. Also, the only States in which people have attempted it, in living memory, have been Communist ones, that abused the wealth and power as soon as they gained it - not a socialist ideology at all, but a right-wing, solipsist, capitalist one! Good luck convincing modern generations to go along with that, past-Tap!
But the point remains - careerism means people get paid different amounts, despite being equally valid members of organisations - and it is this that causes the income gap between men and women.
Therein lies the true scandal - not economic sexism, but economic careerism. It imposes socioeconomic inequality and exacerbates segregation, and as New Scientist reported two years ago, social stability, life expectancy, and health.
The jargon of motivational speakers is full of buzzphrases about teamwork. Everyone in the entire world surely knows "there's no 'i' in team". (There are, however, the letters of "me")
But is that particular motivator taken to heart? If we're all part of a team, and "united we stand, divided we fall" then surely all of Finance, HR, Sales, or whatever department, should get somewhere around the same basic wage?
And considering that they all work in the same company, and the fact that the whole company is necessary for it to function, why is the concept of 'team' not considered cross-departmentally? Why is there a differential across departments, as well as within them?
Just as with authoritarian hierarchies - whether patriarchal, matriarchal, or thearchal - the problem of rule-setters making their own rules has given us a situation which is incredibly difficult to resolve.
Patriarchs, matriarchs and thearchs are unlikely to be willing to give away the pleasures that they have grown familiar with. In practice, we see that this is true - such individuals are very sparsely distributed. It takes great strength of intellect and emotion to deliberately leave yourself and your peers worse off, to benefit people you've never met, on principle!
In patriarchies, the patriarchs are unwilling to concede that the way they've been doing things for decades has actually been wrong; and in careerarchies (another new word, i know!) the wage-setters are unwilling to concede that their current wages are more than they deserve.
{People actually increase their expenditures to as income does, so they will also have a motive to keep wages high enough that they can, for example, pay off a massive mortgage on their £350,000 house. It's like dining out, to make the most of a one-size-too-big dress!}
This is the challenge to getting such rules changed. Top-down control, which could be lost to a less-compassionate successor, would be the only way to make fast revolutionary changes. Every generation will want to not feel hard-done-by, seeing their predecessors minted, while they themselves languish with an 'average' wage. They will all resist such a trend. Consequently, such changes toward equality must, necessarily, be slow.
{Slow change is only absolutely necessary if top-down changes are not made and maintained for, i estimate, two decades or so, as people acclimatise. It's already known that when companies in an industry advertise to compete with their peers, they will collectively lobby against restrictions on advertising, because they fear change itself, and their market-share to be effected. But they will accept the changes once in place, because they know everybody else faces the same.
The tobacco industry has already done exactly this, when tobacco advertising has been restricted. In the absence of advertising-related competition, they saved huge amounts of money, because they weren't spending it on adverts! This scenario translates to domestic upheaval too. Remember that everyone wants to 'keep up with the Joneses' - they compare themselves with their peers - if everyone goes down the same number of levels, then the competition is still on, and no-one feels exceptionally miffed.}
So is that the message we have to remember: "we're in it for the long haul"? Well, unfortunately, we are. Social changes can often be slow - too slow to perceive in a single generation - but still as real as anything. As long as we aim in the right direction, we will achieve greater equality. Impatience can only add turbulence to our efforts, and slow our progress.
If i ruled the world, this would be fixed and settled in those two decades. But i don't. And neither do you. So we must go the slow route, and have patience.Now... who feels like nomming on a cupcake?.
.
Hi Queens,
'Gay men to be banned from becoming Queen ahead of first same-sex marriages'
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/02/22/men-banned-becoming-queen-ahead-sex-marriage/
That's a slightly cheeky headline - the legislation has been changed so that male partners of Kings wouldn't have to be called 'Queen' and female ones of Queens wouldn't be called 'Prince Consort'.
But it's not really a damp squib of a story, because it does show that even one of the most conservative organisations in the country, takes the current advancement toward equality seriously.
And now to some not-so-camp news:
'Arab-Iranian Poet & Peace Activist Hashem Shaabani Executed For 'Waging War On God''
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/10/arab-iranian-poet--peace-activist-hashem-shaabani-executed-waging-war-on-god_n_4758900.html
'Pakistan sentences man to death for blasphemy'
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/01/pakistan-sentences-man-death-blasphemy-2014124104727553298.html
I have nothing more to say. Other than: "How dare the religious say they're the ones who are 'offended'!"
[Urge to blaspheme rising...] :-P
Aha...
Richard Herring's 'Meaning Of Life' stage show is now available as a 6-part podcast/vodcast (episode 1 uploaded so far)
It's all about, well... 'meaning of life's... and covers all kinds of ridiculous religious geneses (that's the plural of genesis, right :-P) with satiricalityism.
Apparently, the video quality's better on Vimeo than YT, but here are the links to all:
http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_meaning_of_life/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdyFPDFYAJUs9N6oSqe69w/videos
http://vimeo.com/87224963
The full thing is fee-paying, but there's plenty there for nothing. I'm looking forward to the other episodes :o)
As you would expect, if you were familiar with Richard Herring, there are plenty of in-jokes - i counted half a dozen, in just the first 5 minutes :-D
This is not an in-joke, though:
'An Acre of The Moon, Mars or Venus, £17.99 With Free Delivery (55% Off)'
https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/special/gg-groupon-goods-global-gmb-h-89-5348/34622638
Surely this is fraud, right?
The surfaces of these astronomical bodies are not owned by these people, and so are not for sale. And it's not like they're selling the pack as a novelty.
"Delivery: Free. Allow up 7 working days. Can fit through most letter boxes."
Gah.....
It's cute, it's furry, and the Naked Scientists want to know what we think of it... what is it? :-P
"These robots are designed to comfort hospital patients, but do you find them cute or terrifying?"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152348360440839
I find them distinctly unnerving, but i think i could get used to them, LOL
Here's something interesting, from last week's Naked Science podcast:
'Why do we have "handedness"?'
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/1000292/
Handedness is actually side-dominance. This is one of those situations where scientists use better terms so that they know what they're talking about. Like they say 'endothermic' and 'ectothermic' instead of 'warm-blooded' and 'cold-blooded'.
Ectothermic animals aren't actually cold-blooded - they need their blood to be warm, so that they can run around and do stuff - bu they get that warmth from their environment, instead of inside themselves. Hence, 'ecto-' meaning 'outside'.
When we practice something a lot, with just one side, we will get more better at using that side compared to the other, and our bias toward using that side of our body will grow, making us more better still than the other side what we are lesser better with because we don't use it as much.
{I insist that the grammar in that sentence was perfectly fit for function :-P}
Consequently, we show great bias to our left or right hands, less to our left or right feet, and less still to our left or right ears, or eyes. 90% of humans are right-handed; 80% are right-footed; 70% are right-eyed; and 60% are right-eared.
Comparing handedness to mice, we see 50% right/left-pawedness. And we see side-dominance in other animals, too. Side dominance exists at all because it introduces a 'nudge' to make choices easier.
When a fly buzzes into your face, to suggest a mundane example (i'm the one suggesting the example - not the fly :-P), it helps to instinctively use your right/left hand, because timing matters. Wasting time contemplating which hand to use, could be more costly in a more dangerous situation.
But why so many humans (and other species) exhibit right-side dominance overall, is a bit of a mystery. It might reflect the universal chirality of the chemicals of which we are made. Or it might be pure chance!
We don't all use scientific terminology, like 'ectothermic', but there is one term that's universally used:
'Everybody in Almost Every Language Says “Huh”? HUH?!'
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/everybody-almost-every-language-says-huh-huh-180949822/?no-ist
"Are the researchers sure that huh? will turn up in every language in the world? “No,” Dingemanse says. “But we are ready to place bets”."
I'm perfectly happy to accept "huh" as a word. Anything to stop people claiming that 'no' is the first word everyone learns, as a kid!
You try asking them: "Does 'huh' count as a word?" And back will come the reply: "No!" Typical...
'Couple's crystal ball failed to predict it would set their bedroom on fire'
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/couples-crystal-ball-failed-to-predict.html
Firstly: look, i've found a new site, with fun news stuff on it :-D
Secondly: Refraction seems to be a General Ignorance topic that's been in the news quite a bit in the last year. This example of lensing is, of course, much smaller in scale, but maybe more damaging, than the Walkie-Talkie building's lensing of light, as we heard last year.
When you don't know that refraction can happen, you won't see it a a threat. Both events essentially have the same cause.
Incidentally, it's not known whether the crystal ball was used for woo-woo purposes. The article describes it only as an ornament.
This story, however, definitely contains woo-woo, and very dangerous woo-woo!
'#BBCtrending: Egyptian public sceptical about military’s HIV ‘breakthrough’'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-26345581
Essentially, what some cranks in Egypt have done, is to remarket a dowsing rod as an HIV detector... and also as an HIV curer!
These look like being exactly the same rods that were used in James McCormick's shameful, fraudulent behaviour, last year; especially considering that they are described as "adapted from a device for detecting bombs."
Let's get this straight, again: dowsing is just a bizarre superstition, whereby pretty much any prop you can think of has been used in a farcical pretence of detection - whether that be for water, metal, bombs, or HIV. It does not work, and can not work.
The 'devices' were never golf-ball detectors; they were never bomb detectors, and they are not HIV detectors.
Just like with homeopathetic superstition, the threat does not come from immediate effects, but from displacing superior options - if people think a wonky stick can help them find a life-threatening disease, they are likely to forego the techniques that actually work, whether they involve scary-looking needles or not.
In other news:
Remember the 10-year-old boy who wasn't a dwarf, but did crash his parents' car, on the way to visit his grandma? Well, this time he's stolen his aunt's car, and got three times as far - 30 kilometres - but due to the now-non-peculiarity of the event, his parents have had to be reported to social services. Oh dear - no such a cute story, after all!
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/10-year-old-boy-who-isnt-dwarf-has.html
A four-metre crocodile has taken to the surf in Western Australia. No locals have been harmed... presumably because blind people aren't that keen on swimming in the sea :-P
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/surfing-4m-croc-closes-broomes-cable-beach/story-fnhocxo3-1226836741160
By extending beyond the common smooth-fronted-tie look, the number of permuations of the knot that can be achieved, rise to 177,147! Whew - i feel the Paradox of Choice, coming on :-/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25019-matrix-villain-spawns-177000-ways-to-knot-a-tie.html
A transexual prostitute in Italy - Efe Bal - has conducted a naked protest, outside the office of an Italian newspaper, to campaign for official registration of her profession. “I am a prostitute and I want to pay tax”, she said. Upsides for sex-workers would include a long-overdue perception of legitimacy for the profession, and also... a pension. That's right - work your life, to make people happy, while facing the threat of dangerous clients - and the State will not look after you when you retire. Bravo, Efa! Judging by her YouTube channel, she is quite a prominent campaigner.
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/transsexual-prostitute-held-naked.html
[audio] 'How oil spills affect Tuna'
Empirical evidence has been found that shows how crude oil exposure, from oil spills, damages the hearts of tuna fish. It was already known that such exposure effects fish health, but this research has shown that the fossil oils counter the development of cardiac muscle cells, and impair their ability to produce a heart rhythm. It seems likely that exposure to hydrocarbons in the air - smog - also have a detrimental effect on human heart health.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000617/
A bra has been designed, that bursts open when it 'detects' its wearer to be in love. Now, obviously, it doesn't actually do this - all of these so-called love-detecting products sense either body temperature, or pulse-rate. This one does the latter. But pulse-rate increases due to other factors, as well as love: excitement at seeing an actor you really admire; exercise, running up a corridor, at work; or anxiety, wondering which is your train, at the station. It would not be very helpful, if your bra exploded onto the platform, while you were already stressing over a decision!
Also notice that the nonsense product is met with similarly nonsensical sexism from the hack who churnalised this article: "Unsurprisingly, the inventors of this bra are male (as with the Microsoft bra) and it leaves us wondering what their obsession is with a garment that they have no experience or concept of wearing". Um... they're entrepreneurs... do you think all producers must necessarily consume their own products? Folks in the construction industry are going to need really humungous overdrafts, if you compel them to! Gah... Anyway, most men are quite easily enthused about anything that involves boobs. Is the writer really that ignorant of human nature? :-D
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/27/true-love-bra-ravijour_n_4672386.html
A council in Dorset, UK, has experimented with making the dashed lines down the middle of a road wonky, to encourage people to slow down. It's not yet known whether they've succeeded, but they have already apologised for making them more wonky than intended.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26381899
A bizarre outpouring of emotion has followed Ikea's withdrawal of one of their shelving designs... even though it's been replaced by something that looks almost exactly the same!?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26339553
Even more bizarre: the contents of this year's Oscar nominations' goody bag! On the list are useful things: a watch, a camera, chocolates, and a mace pepper spray gun! Less useful but nice to have are: a tour of Japan, a holiday in Mexico, and some "pet shampoo". And then there's the tonne of quack products: surgery that doesn't enhance the orgasmic potential of a woman's pussy lips, "pet health therapy", 'skincare', "portion control dinnerware", 'weight loss products', and a house call from a "respected" quackupuncturist! I know these celebrities are often gullible prats, but really! The total value of all these gifts will sum to ~£80,000, with everything supplied purely for promotional purposes. Incidentally, the companies will all outright deny that they're fishing for endorsements, but at that pricetag, can you really believe them!?
http://www.stylist.co.uk/red-carpet/awards-season/whats-in-the-2014-oscars-goodie-bag
Similarly bizarre, but probably not winning out, is the attitude of Italian soccer club Parma F.C.'s sponsor's decision to give their opponents, this week... vacuum cleaners. It's hardly a guided tour of Japan, is it! Parma FC's shirt sponsor is a company that manufacters vacuum cleaners, LOL
http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/26/parma-mark-centenary-celebrations-by-giving-opposition-players-vacuum-cleaners-before-kick-off-4323433/
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'A tour of the British Isles in accents'
Brilliant. I'd love to be able to do this :o)
http://audioboo.fm/boos/1945168-a-tour-of-the-british-isles-in-accents
'SBTH - Holiday Blues'
RiAus' 'Science Behind The Headlines' series discusses clinical anxiety and clinical depression, how they manifest in people, and the factors that influence people's perception of how they manifest. A fascinating series - especially for people who are not personally aware of the nature of the conditions.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPB2vq9gwct5-SQLQ_9w3vqHtbbYTHDD5
{What do you mean, depression's too depressing to be featured in 'Entertainment'? :-P}
'Dubai 2014 Monday Hot Shot Federer'
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Media/Video-Landing/*/Tennis/Media/Videos/Uploaded/2014/2/24/Dubai-2014-Monday-Hot-Shot-Federer.aspx
'SURICATE - Le Rire 2.0 / Internet Laughter'
http://youtu.be/rug2I4Is7ms
'AS A GUILTY MUM: TOILET TRAINING | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/qpVjbzP9eo4
'SIGNS OF THE TIME | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/AGvNHNSb_sI
'Six-sided snowflakes bloom in slow motion'
http://youtu.be/jiuaxPETk_k
'Recording captures hiss of Big Bang radiation'
http://youtu.be/gJJmFnMea1Q
'Water Planet'
http://youtu.be/BEbvYqljAzQ
'Swirling reindeer caught on camera'
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/swirling-reindeer-caught-on-camera.html
'негритята' (I've no idea what that translates to?!?)
This is adorable. They're as cute as buttons... very dirty buttons :-D
http://youtu.be/dyo83tsj_LI
'Chris Taylor vs. Wild'
"On the drive into Ranthambhore National Park, there’s a sign arched above the main gateway that says: “Welcome to Ranthambhore – Home Of India’s Famous Tiger”. The only problem is – no-one’s seen a tiger here in weeks."
http://thehoopla.com.au/chris-taylor-vs-wild/
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: arriviste -- someone who has attained a position of power or prestige, but not yet respect
Etymology Of The Week: architect -- from greek 'arkhitekton' meaning 'master' (arkhon) and 'builder/crapenter' (tekton)
Quote Of The Week: "My grief at his passing is matched only by my delight at his death" - Phil Cornwell, doing an impression of a please-everyone politician, on Dead Ringers S4E3
Freudian Joke Of The Week: "I've got Freudian slippers. They feel marvelous on my balls... feet, feet! FEET! Ugg..."
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'In pictures: London now and then'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/78313385412/in-pictures-london-now-and-then-the-museum-of
'Alfred Hitchcock spoof - Big Train - BBC comedy'
http://youtu.be/XGFknyGKtao
'See a black and white picture in full colour!'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/see-a-black-and-white-picture-in-full-colour/
'Amazing pareidolic shirts!'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/amazing-pareidolia/
'Coming Out (feat. JackHoward)'
http://youtu.be/H0WynQgUlWo
'Asdfmovie 1-7 (Complete Collection)'
http://youtu.be/FJ8il9MUYac
'asdfmovie: deleted scenes'
http://youtu.be/XlUMyKgmy6k
'LEGO The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Teaser Trailer [HD]'
http://youtu.be/4VQ6wkvDdyY
'Just Walking The Snakes'
http://meltallthetigers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/those-are-weird-dogs.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/wtf/comments/ywjsl/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/guy-who-walks-snake-python-youtube-channel-photo_n_1834383.html
'These children’s shows made a lot of really adult jokes'
Adult jokes in kids' programmes. Who noticed. Did you? :-P
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/77390033981
'Are you using your inhaler?'
Dr. Gregory House... i must catch up with these series!
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/77287987835
'Justing Bieber Is Not White'
Well, don't you learn something new, every day :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/76967615740
'Daddy makes a TV'
[Everybody pats daddy on the head and says "well done"]
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/76866325782
'A plea for sanity'
Enough with these ridiculous neologisms. Repeal them all, i say. Grunts and squeaks are all we should ever use to communicate with :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/77860714181
...and that includes the word "huh"... obviously ;-D.
.
