"My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare." - Mike Myers

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Humour 'comes from testosterone' - "Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims. Men make more gags than women and their jokes tend to be more aggressive, Professor Sam Shuster, of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, says... Women tend to tell fewer jokes than men and male comedians outnumber female ones."
But they forget that this is due to hegemonic patriarchy!!!

A slippery slope to kiddie porn - "With her long hair, erotic poses and skimpy outfits that leave little to the imagination, Aira Mihana is a bona-fide sex symbol. But Aira, who appears in a number of popular books, magazines and DVDs, is also 13 years old. She's known as a "U-15 idol," in other words, a sexy female model under the age of 15. And she's not alone. The U-15 market is made up of dozens of girls in their pre- and early teens who are seen in photos and videos dressed in lingerie and G-string bikinis, often in semi-erotic situations."
Damn Japs.

e-Consultation Paper: Legislative Amendments to Unsecured Credit Rules - "Last year, MAS and the Ministry of Law ("MinLaw") conducted a joint public consultation on the proposed changes to the unsecured credit rules for financial institutions and the proposed application of these rules to moneylenders with appropriate modifications."
Great. We're so Orwellian we don't even recognise when we're being Orwellian.b

Japanese moshimoshi culture - "Moshi-Moshi can only be used as a greeting on the telephone. The Origin of Moshimoshi comes from the word "Moushi_age_masu". Moushiagemasu means something like "I am about to say" and is used as a respectful expression when one is about to speak to one's senior or superior."
An answer to the question: "Why do Japs say 'Moshi Moshi' when they pick up the phone?"

Europe.view | Down with democracy | Economist.com - "The trouble with democracy is that the vote in itself means so little. Everything depends on who is allowed to vote, who selects the candidates or drafts the question, and what happens in the years, months, weeks and days beforehand. That raises harder questions about the rule of law, public-spiritedness, and the strength of fair-minded, disinterested institutions. The Soviet Union held a referendum in March 1991 asking (some) voters “Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?”... Russia’s election result may look like a thumping democratic mandate, but it is merely a rigged plebiscite that confirms the continued rule of junta of ex-spooks."
The referendum on Singapore's 'independence' was also very democratic.

Chad Varah | Economist.com - "He liked to tell young Samaritan recruits how he had dealt with a manipulative regular caller who had telephoned him at home and threatened to kill herself if he did not reschedule an appointment: “You do that, sweetie, and I'll piss on your grave.”... As might be expected of a number offering boundless sympathy and plenty of female voices, the Samaritans often attract telephone masturbators, a topic to which Mr Varah devoted one of his many books. Unlike some colleagues, he saw these callers as an opportunity rather than problem—if only they could get beyond their “presenting problem” and talk of their real troubles."
Lucky he didn't do that in Singapore, or he'd be hauled up by the police.

Shutting Themselves In - "After years of being bullied at school and having no friends, Y.S., who asked to be identified by his initials, retreated to his room at age 14, and proceeded to watch TV, surf the Internet and build model cars - for 13 years. When he finally left his room one April afternoon last year, he had spent half of his life as a shut-in. Like Takeshi and Shuichi, Y.S. suffered from a problem known in Japan as hikikomori, which translates as "withdrawal" and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home."

Everyone knows about the first episode of 5 Rangers, but I think episode 3 and episode 4 are a lot funnier. Or there's episode 8, featuring the After School Electromagnetic Wave Club. And episode 10 is a roll.

Removing Apple Mobile Device Support - Tales from the Crypto - "I'm not a fan of Appple's, particularly because they tend to impose crap on me that I'm not interested in having... I eventually spend a while watching the uninstall procedure, boring as it is to watch a progress bar that reads "11 seconds remaining" then "14 seconds remaining", etc, as progress bars tend to do. But then the progress bar does something magical - it goes backwards, and when it reaches zero, the uninstall program just quits."
In the comments: "I was recently given an Apple Macbook to use at work. iTunes, iPhoto, Garage Band, yeah, a bunch of unnecessary stuff. Apple's official line on uninstalling these and other apps, as far as I can tell, is that you simply drag the application's main icon to the trash can, and that will almost always uninstall the application - or it might just delete the executable leaving the rest of the application on-deck. For years, Jay, I've had you and others telling me that I should come over to the Apple side, because the water's lovely and everything's so intuitive - but now that I'm dipping my toes, I find that there is little intuitive about it... From the Apple camp's reaction to Microsoft's behaviours, I assumed that they believed those behaviours to be wrong - now I see that what is wrong is that Microsoft is big, and Apple is not. The behaviour itself is good if you're small, bad if you're big."