50 shades of Grey

#4e5054, #272727, #282828, #292929, #2b2b2b, #2c2c2c, #2e2e2e, #313131, #323232, #343434, #353535, #373737, #393939, #3a3a3a, #3c3c3c, #3f3f3f, #404040, #424242, #444444, #454545, #474747, #484848, #4a4a4a, #4b4b4b, #4d4d4d, #4e4e4e, #505050, #515151, #535353, #565656, #575757, #585858, #595959, #5b5b5b, #5c5c5c, #5e5e5e, #616161, #626262, #646464, #656565, #676767, #6a6a6a, #6b6b6b, #6c6c6c, #6d6d6d, #6f6f6f, #727272, #737373, #757575, #767676, #777777, #7b7b7b, #7c7c7c, #7d7d7d, #7e7e7e, #808080, #818181, #838383, #868686, #878787, #888888, #898989, #8b8b8b, #8c8c8c, #8e8e8e, #919191, #929292, #949494, #959595, #979797, #9a9a9a, #9b9b9b, #9c9c9c, #9d9d9d, #9f9f9f, #a0a0a0, #a2a2a2, #a5a5a5, #a6a6a6, #a8a8a8, #a9a9a9, #ababab, #aeaeae, #afafaf, #b0b0b0.

Carbonara

An Unlikely Thanksgiving Stand-In - Pasta Carbonara - NYTimes.com

"[It has been] turned into an Italian tradition that, like many inviolate Italian traditions, is actually far less old than the Mayflower...

According to one Italian food historian, there are at least 400 versions, from the most classic Roman to variations that are delicious but drive traditionalists mad.

Though Mr. Trillin did not address the subject, carbonara can be tricky to make well, partly because it is so simple: at base, egg, cheese, cured pork, pasta and black pepper. There is little margin for error. I learned this to my great embarrassment at a poolside party a few years ago with a bunch of posh Italians and their sunburned, hungry children...

Eggs, bacon, cheese and pasta taste great, almost no matter what. It’s worth the effort, though, to get right, and that’s what I’ve striven for since, to the point of curing my own guanciale at home, which is less difficult than it sounds. No obsession here, I swear...

Which carbonara you would take to the other side. One with guanciale, pancetta or plain bacon? Only pecorino cheese, made from sheep’s milk? Or is a bit of Parmesan O.K.? Peas or not? Onion? Whole eggs or yolks?

Or, heaven forbid, the ingredient that most divides devotees of a dish that, above all, aims for creaminess: actual cream?...

What seems clear is that carbonara, like many so-called old standards in Italy, is a fairly new invention. Al dente pasta became the benchmark relatively recently. Pizza was often considered revolting, some food historians say, until Queen Margherita of Savoy sanctified it in a trip to Naples in 1889, inspiring the name of the most famous pizza. Some old Italian cookbooks treat even garlic with suspicion.

Tradition is often invoked in Italy, but often it means what you kind of like or what Mamma made...

An unapologetic apostate (“I’m going to get angry e-mails,” he said as he made it one recent night), he invokes science for the use of cream: it makes it less likely, he said, for the eggs to scramble under the heat of the fat and pasta. That is vital, he added, in a dish that is either great or wrecked right at the end.

“This dish really is about the last three minutes,” he said"


"I also enjoy the fact that Italians have such strong opinions on the right way, and wrong way, to make something. When I'm am there on our active culinary tours, I just listen, and agree, and learn. There is little point in arguing. Then I return home, and make it my own. It's just shows how much they care about their food - paying attention to ingredients, being passionate about what you create all contributes to a great meal."

"One trick that has helped increase my success is to combine the beaten eggs and cheese in a bowl and then temper them with a small amount of pasta water. Then I add this to the hot pasta, and quickly toss with tongs adding small amounts of pasta water until I get the right consistency. There's something the starch in the pasta water that magically brings it all together."

"I finally got it right after going to google.it and searching for videos of Italian chefs preparing the dish. I now use the recipe from one of those sites - it uses cream, with the chef's note, "lo so che non è ortodossa, scusatemi" (I know it's not orthodox, forgive me)."

"Well of course those "posh" Italians mentioned in the article did not want to eat your Carbonara. It was summertime."

"Do you now how ridiculous this article sounds to people who have trouble putting food...any food on the table?"
"oh for heaven's sake Can't anybody write anything about food without someone making this kind of comment? Do we have to suspend all food writing everywhere till every last person on the planet has enough to eat? "

"who wants to live forever when there's carbonara to be eaten? I'd rather die young-ish than deprived of joy."

Addendum: "Emilio Dente Ferracci, an Italian food historian and son of a great Roman cook, Anna Dente of Osteria di San Cesario outside Rome, has collected scores of stories of how carbonara came to be: He doesn’t believe it existed before 1944, based on cookbooks and Roman menus. He does think that, in the deprived days after the war, Romans used American food aid (bacon and powdered egg yolks) to gussy up pasta dishes.

“The Americans left, and the Romans perfected the recipe,” Mr. Ferracci wrote in an e-mail. “Instead of bacon, pancetta or still better, guanciale; in place of powered egg yolks, fresh eggs; and for the cheese, pecorino Romano.”

“While in other parts of Italy and the world, garlic, onion, butter or cream are added, in Rome these ingredients are forbidden,” he said. “There are only five permitted ingredients: pasta, guanciale, egg yolk, pecorino Romano and black pepper.”

And so, “tradition,” or so it seems, was born."

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day

A grade school teacher was asking his pupils what their parents did for a living.

"Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?"

Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."

"That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?"

Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."

"Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?"

Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."

The teacher was aghast and went to Billy's house and rang the bell.

Billy's father answered the door.

The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation.

Billy's dad said, "I'm actually a system programmer specializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. How can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"


(interestingly, before 2003, "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" was "Take Our Daughters To Work Day")

Euler on Experience being Unnecessary

"Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory." - Bernard Ingham

***

(following on from The Inadequacy of Experience)

In 1727, Leonhard Euler tied for the second prize of the Paris Academy on the best way to arrange masts on a ship.

This, despite his never having been on a ship.

Indeed, Euler was

"The youthful inhabitant of the Alps", who, other than freighters, ferry boats, and simple canoes on the Rhine river, had never yet caught sight of a ship!
(Leonhard Euler / Emil A. Fellmann)

On his own proposal (Translated & Annotated by Ian Bruce):

Here at last I put an end to my meditations, since it is seen that I have carefully assessed the matter proposed in the problem, and I may have satisfied the problem. I do not think that it is necessary to confirm my theory by experiment, since the whole has been deduced from both the surest and the most irrefutable principles of mechanics, and thus concerning that there cannot be the least doubt or the truth can be put to the test in practice

No doubt there were sailors who, valorising the reality of lived experience, ignored the work of the mathematicians.

(I am reminded of some people who, when I presented them with copious evidence that the Sexual Double Standard did not exist, refused to believe it and fell back on anecdotes - no doubt salient due to Confirmation Bias, and in the end claimed that when a "minority" shares something, other people should listen)

Why women cannot be bishops

Susie Leafe - Is organised religion sexist? | 4thought.tv

She's gotten a lot of flak, perhaps because it was too short for her to elaborate on her argument, which I assume is on the lines of the following:

Men are biologically incapable of having a baby, so it is not sexist to say they cannot give birth to them.
It is delusional to imagine that they can give birth to children.
Nonetheless, they play an important role in the care and bringing up of a child.
Men and women play (or can play, at least) different but equal roles.

Similarly, women are spiritually incapable of leading a church (let's take the family leadership part out for now), so it's not sexist to say they cannot be bishops.
Nonetheless, they play an important role in the church, serving it.
Men and women play (or can play, at least) different but equal roles.

Amusing bits of the Windows 8 EULA

"Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

***

"Please read this so you know what you're agreeing to...

The Additional Terms contain a binding arbitration clause and class action waiver. If you live in the United States, these affect your rights to resolve a dispute with Microsoft, and you should read them carefully...

You and Microsoft will attempt to resolve any dispute through informal negotiation within 60 days from the date the Notice of Dispute is sent. After 60 days, you or Microsoft may commence arbitration...

If you and Microsoft do not resolve any dispute by informal negotiation or in small claims court, any other effort to resolve the dispute will be conducted exclusively by binding arbitration. You are giving up the right to litigate (or participate in as a party or class member) all disputes in court before a judge or jury. Instead, all disputes will be resolved before a neutral arbitrator, whose decision will be final except for a limited right of appeal under the Federal Arbitration Act. Any court with jurisdiction over the parties may enforce the arbitrator’s award...

Any proceedings to resolve or litigate any dispute in any forum will be conducted solely on an individual basis. Neither you nor Microsoft will seek to have any dispute heard as a class action, private attorney general action, or in any other proceeding in which either party acts or proposes to act in a representative capacity. No arbitration or proceeding will be combined with another without the prior written consent of all parties to all affected arbitrations or proceedings...

Microsoft excludes all implied warranties, including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement"


Apparently the "no class action suit" clause began with Xbox 360 in late 2011. I'd have thought they'd have tried to add it in earlier.

I'm assuming the implied warranty clause is to guard against their own marketing.

Links - 21st November 2012

"I am a flute player, not a flautist. I don’t have a flaut, and I’ve never flauted." - James Galway

***

Save the earth, drive your car? - "The average American car carries 1.6 people -- not many, of course, when you're comparing it to mass transit. On the other hand, the average bus carries only 10 people. And a bus burns a lot more fuel than a car. Not exactly what mass-transit advocates would have us believe... 'moving a passenger a mile by bus requires roughly 20 percent more energy than moving a passenger around by car'... light-rail systems in places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Memphis actually do worse than cars in terms of energy efficiency, simply because they're underused"

History transformed in VCE exam - "THE VCE exam body has been left red faced after a doctored artwork depicting a huge robot helping socialist revolutionaries during the Russian Revolution was accidentally included in this year’s year 12 history exam taken by 5700 students... they found an altered version of the work with what appear to be a large "BattleTech Marauder" robot aiding the rising revolutionaries in the background."

Twenty eight gym girls squeeze into Mini

If Cats Watched Porn, I Guess They'd Watch This

Neda Soltani: 'The media mix-up that ruined my life' - "In June 2009, a woman was shot dead in a demonstration in Tehran. Neda Agha-Soltan became the face of the Iranian protest movement - except that it was not her face to begin with, but the face of university teacher Neda Soltani... the people I am most angry with are the Western media. They kept using my photo even though they knew it was not a picture of the real victim in that tragic video. They knowingly exposed me to extreme danger"

Council ordered to move park benches from underneath trees in case branches fall on peoples' heads - "
Just days after a health and safety report condemned 'cotton wool culture', over-zealous officers have ordered a council to remove park benches - in case a branch should fall on someone sitting there... On Monday a report by health and safety watchdogs admitted the 'cotton wool culture' had eroded children’s freedom to play outdoors. They said a blizzard of regulations is being used as an excuse to deny children scope for fun... The HSE said health and safety laws were being ‘wrongly cited’ as a reason to deny children play opportunities. The statement cited ‘shocking’ ICM research that half of children aged seven to 12 are not allowed to climb a tree without an adult present and that one in five children in the same age group have been banned from playing conkers. Councils, schools, charities and other providers should use 'sensible adult judgments' instead of allowing misplaced fears of prosecution to rid play spaces of fun and challenge... Last week residents of a block of flats were ordered to take pictures down from communal walls and get rid of doormats because they are dangerous and breach health and safety rules... Thousands of JLS fans were lashed by torrential rain for two hours because of a health and safety ban on umbrellas at an open air concert"

Another tragic death, and how health and safety nannies are brainwashing us - "Simon Burgess died in a model boating lake in Gosport in Hampshire after apparently suffering an epileptic fit. A doctor told his inquest in Portsmouth that he might have been saved by emergency crews who had been called and were at the scene. However, they were ordered by a superior not to rescue him. Wading into 3ft of water does not obviously demand a great amount of courage. At least two emergency workers were prepared to do it. PC Tony Jones told the inquest he was willing to go into the lake, but was overruled. A paramedic called Robert Wallace, though able to swim in strong currents, was also informed by fire station watch manager, Tony Nicholls, that his help was not needed. The inquest heard from Mr Nicholls that he had ‘made an assessment it was a body retrieval and not a rescue’. He added: ‘The officers were trained to go into ankle-deep water, which is “level one”, so we waited for “level two” officers, who can go in chest high.’ By the time a ‘specialist team’ arrived, Mr Burgess was dead... Shannon Powell, 14, collapsed on a cross-country run in North London but paramedics refused to move her because the terrain was too slippy. She subsequently died and a coroner ruled that the delay may have cost the young girl her life. In July 2008, Alison Hume fell down a mine shaft in Ayrshire. The poor woman was left languishing there for eight hours because, although there was a winch available, it was supposedly only to be used to save rescue workers. The mother-of-two died from a heart attack brought on by hypothermia. And in May 2007 police support officers stood by while Jordan Lyon, ten, drowned in Wigan after diving into a pond to save his younger sister. By the time a suitably trained policeman had arrived it was too late to save Jordan, though the sister survived."
On The Guardian, (predictably) many commenters brand protest against H&S as part of a capitalist plot to exploit workers and increase corporate profits

The Obama campaign asks women to vote with their 'lady parts'. Can liberals get any cruder? - "Now we have the Democrats’ culture war message distilled in a handy e-card. It’s this. If you are a woman, don’t vote on jobs, debt or foreign policy. Vote on the basis of a narrow gendered agenda. In fact, vote how you think your sexual organs might vote if they only could. (It goes without saying that they would vote Democrat)... It’s a rejection of individual will and the idea that someone is defined by their character rather than their physical person. In short, it’s un-American. It’s also based on fear. Nobody’s lady parts depend on the outcome of this election"

Confessions of a troll: 'Trolling is an art' - "At the very least, Cochran concedes “evil trolling” exists, but that the label does not apply to her. “I try my best to always be facetious, but not malicious,” Cochran says. “Most of what I do, I do with great jest and playfulness. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, I just want to make people think and laugh along the way. “I also look at [trolling] as a form of culture jamming, in the sense that it can disrupt the status quo to hopefully stop and make people think for a moment. I'm an activist as well and absolutely have no problem trolling people that are activists too, even if we're on the same side. "I troll Anonymous, I troll Occupy, I troll Wikileaks. I do it because I'd like them to see the hypocrisies of their and our ways and as a reminder that the emperor wears no clothing”... “Hopefully I've just made people laugh and maybe think about things differently. If I've offended people, then they should take a long hard look at themselves, because what I do is harmless fun. If I've really offended people, it's probably because they deserved it and that's their own fault.”"
Trolling is not always a bad thing

Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?

Topless Femen protesters attacked in Paris after chanting "In gay we trust" (warning: some nudity) - "Shevchenko revealed that members of the group began removing their T-shirts in 2010 because no one reacted to their protests over the previous two years. Taking off their clothes, she said, was a way for women to demonstrate they have control over their bodies... They entered the crowd dressed as nuns before peeling off their habits and chanting, "In gay we trust." This caused a furious reaction. The feminist group undergoes intense training in advance of its actions"

Jim Sleeper: Blame the Latest Israel-Arab War on... Singapore?
Comments: "2. How did a discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Singapore's early independence history turn into a rant on the Yale-NUS college?
3. Are you really a lecturer in Yale? The lack of a coherent argument, citation and accurate referencing in this essay would be highlighted for plagiarism or given a Fail in any university in the world. "

Vacation Deprivation Survey Facts
Most vacation-deprived: South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, Canada, United States

9GAG - Cute cat resting on her owner's breast.
Wut.

Why some things are more expensive in S'pore - "Some factors that could explain the price differentials include productivity and wage differences across countries, variation in non-tradable costs like rental and taxes, transport costs and price stickiness when it comes to exchange rate fluctuations, the MAS stated in its tender document... A 2001 study using prices of 119 IKEA products across 25 countries - including Singapore - concluded that price differentials were not due to differences in exchange rates, local costs, tariffs or taxes, but were largely due to differences in mark-ups as a result of strategic pricing across countries"

How to Live Without Irony - NYTimes.com - "Scoffing at the hipster is only a diluted form of his own affliction. He is merely a symptom and the most extreme manifestation of ironic living. For many Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s — members of Generation Y, or Millennials — particularly middle-class Caucasians, irony is the primary mode with which daily life is dealt... the nostalgia cycles have become so short that we even try to inject the present moment with sentimentality, for example, by using certain digital filters to “pre-wash” photos with an aura of historicity. Nostalgia needs time. One cannot accelerate meaningful remembrance... it signals a deep aversion to risk. As a function of fear and pre-emptive shame, ironic living bespeaks cultural numbness, resignation and defeat"

Sex, every day, for a year. Even when tired - "Doug says the experiment is still paying dividends. “If you force yourself to do it, you realise how special sex is, how unique. It’s different from anything you have with anyone else. And if that leaks away in a couple, it’s really sad.” Self-enforced intimacy created “a familiarity between us – but in a good way. A kind of mutual comfort. Each knows what the other likes. And it’s led to it not feeling strange or shaming for us to suggest things. “There’s just a physical ease there, a naturalness. That’s stayed with us. It’s great now when we both know it’s going to happen. It kind of feels like coming home. And it has really taken away the pressure”... if “intimacy every day may not be a long-term sustainable model, neither is no intimacy at all”"

Chinese gramps models women's clothes for grandkid's store, goes viral

DigitalOne - Say no to e-mail after hours - "Outside the United States, some major corporations, such as French IT-services group Atos, have virtually banned e-mailing once employees have clocked out for the day. "There is a growing sentiment that e-mail is not very productive, and actually decreases productivity... A typical manager receives hundreds of e-mails a day, and that consumes a substantial amount of work hours... many employees are consumed by e-mail messages because they are driven by a need to feel that they are part of an organisation"

Clampdown after burqa-clad man flees Jakarta jail

Polish coffin-maker uses nude models to sell wares - ""My son had the idea of creating the company's calendar so that we could show something half-serious, colourful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins"

Democratic Tax Cheats Outnumber Republican, 72% v. 28%
This is as fun as anti-gay male figures being found in compromising positions with other men

Vouchers

Alice: A gift certificate is completely different from cash.
Dilbert: No, it's not. They're both pieces of paper you can exchange for goods and services.
Alice: You're missing the point.
Dilbert: Actually, a gift certificate is worse than cash, because you can only use it in one place.
Wally: And it expires.
Alice: At least it shows some thought.
Dilbert: It shows defective thought. You're trading perfectly good money for something that does the same thing, only not as well.

Le philosophe, l'ascétisme et le mariage

"Incontestablement, depuis qu’il y a des philosophes sur terre et partout où il y a des philosophes (de l’Inde à l’Angleterre, pour prendre les pôles opposés dans les capacités philosophiques), il y a une véritable animosité, une rancune philosophique à l’égard de la sensualité. — Schopenhauer n’en est que l’explosion la plus éloquente et, pour qui sait l’apprécier, la plus entraînante, la plus enchanteresse ; — il existe de même une véritable prévention, une tendresse toute particulière des philosophes à l’égard de l’idéal ascétique — à ce sujet point d’illusion possible. L’une et l’autre particularité, je le répète, appartiennent au type ; si toutes deux manquent chez un philosophe, celui-là — soyez-en certain — ne sera jamais qu’un « prétendu » philosophe. Qu’est-ce que cela signifie ? Car il faut d’abord interpréter cet état de choses : en soi c’est un fait qui demeure stupide pour l’éternité, comme c’est le cas pour toute « chose en soi ». Toute bête, la bête philosophique comme les autres, tend instinctivement vers un optimum de conditions favorables au milieu desquelles elle peut déployer sa force et atteindre la plénitude du sentiment de sa puissance ; toute bête a de même une horreur instinctive et une sorte de flair subtil, « supérieur à toute raison », pour toute espèce de troubles et d’obstacles qui se présentent ou pourraient se présenter sur la route vers l’optimum — (ce n’est pas de sa route vers le bonheur que je parle, mais de sa route vers la puissance, vers l’action, vers l’activité la plus large, ce qui, en somme, dans la plupart des cas, est sa route vers le malheur). Par suite, le philosophe a horreur du mariage et de tout ce qui pourrait l’y conduire, — du mariage en tant qu’obstacle fatal sur sa route vers l’optimum. Parmi les grands philosophes, lequel était marié ? Heraclite, Platon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer — ils ne l’étaient point ; bien plus, on ne pourrait même se les imaginer mariés. Un philosophe marié a sa place dans la comédie, telle est ma thèse : et Socrate, seule exception, le malicieux Socrate, s’est, semble-t-il, marié par ironie, précisément pour démontrer la vérité de cette thèse. Tout philosophe dirait, comme jadis Bouddha, quand on lui annonça la naissance d’un fils : « Râhoula m’est né, une entrave est forgée pour moi » (Râhoula signifie ici « un petit démon »)"

--- La Généalogie de la morale / Nietzsche

Trolling Militant Atheists can be as fun as trolling Religious Fundamentalists

"[Obama's Nobel peace prize] would be like giving someone an Oscar in the hope that it would encourage them to make a decent motion picture." - Christopher Hitchens

***

A: Religion poisons everything.

Miscarrying mother dies after Irish doctors refuse abortion, saying: 'This is a Catholic country'

Me: Does it poison charity too?

A: two words for you; Mother Teresa.

So tell me, do you think religion poisons charity too?

Me: "All X are Y" is a very strong claim

A: Way to try and create a diversion.

B: *grabs popcorn*

Me: Not sure how pointing out that you are making a very strong claim is a diversion when it comes to discussing said claim

Just because Mother Theresa was both religious and problematic with her charity does not mean all religious charity is automatically suspect

There is some evidence that the religious give more money and time to charity - even to secular ones

Religious Faith and Charitable Giving | Hoover Institution

This is a very peculiar kind of poison

A: A woman fucking died of blood poisoning because the ball-less doctors are too chickenshit to go against the RCC's proscription on abortion, and the first thing that comes to your mind is to argue semantics with me on a completely unrelated topic.

Tell me, what does that say about you, Gabriel?

Me: http://www.shabak.gov.il/English/EnTerrorData/Reports/Pages/June12report-en.aspx

Islam poisons everything
All Palestinians are evil
The whole world is trying to exterminate Israel

Two Israelis, including a civilian, were fraking killed by terrorist attacks because wimpy Netanyahu is too craven to invade the Gaza Strip and root out all the terrorists

KNNBCCB

This could all have been prevented if border security had been more trigger-happy, shooting any suspicious characters

If you disagree with my sweeping generalisations, my proposed modification of the rules of engagement or weightings of the relative importance of protecting innocents and killing people by mistake, you are arguing semantics on unrelated topics!

WIPE OUT THE GAZA STRIP!!!!!!!!!!! OMGWTFBBQ


Family's fury after healthy woman, 24, dies on operating table after having an abortion

From this one anecdote, I conclude that abortion laws should be tightened so fewer women will die from abortions

A: And of course, the very next thing you do is to force the spotlight on your attempted diversion further, in order to try and score a point against me for some reason.

Please leave your family contacts here, dipshit. I'm sure your mother would be glad to learn she has raised a son who fails to see past his own male privilege.

Me: INTERNALISE MY DOMINANT PARADIGM!!!

C: B, pass the popcorn please? I love debating abortion, but this thread is getting real messy.

B: I think Gabriel is simply trolling you. Please don't bring his mother in.

Me: It's alright, I don't think she even knows what "male privilege" is


Abortion and the Gender Gap: the Numbers - Ramesh Ponnuru - National Review Online

In the US in 2011, 46% of men suffered from Male Privilege, and 44% of women had internalised the Dominant Paradigm

I think the Patriarchy has failed. I shall be more diligent in my use of my Male Gaze.


Addendum:

Someone: Why did you attempt to use reason to argue against an emotional person

Me: heh
my rules of engagement:
I give people the benefit of the doubt at the start
if they start insulting me, I troll them :D

Someone: Is A a woman?

Me: nope
worse
a sociology grad

Someone: No wonder he is very lacking in the intellectual department

The Perks of Being a Fictional Character

"We accept the love we think we deserve"
"You don't always get what you deserve"

Links - 16th November 2012

Ban on sale of marijuana to tourists in Holland sparks crime wave - "Not only has it pushed the marijuana trade underground, it has created a new source of income for fraudsters manufacturing fake weed passes... Plans to effectively ban tourists from Amsterdam's marijuana cafes have been ditched by the incoming Dutch government... Amsterdam opposes a ban, which would hurt tourism"

Why 'unsexy’ Ikea bedrooms are killing our love lives, by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen - "Grown-up sex should be opera, it should be drama, it should be black velvet and silk, and it should be indulgent and opulent, regardless of how much it costs"

First date: Man or Woman pays? - ""I'm an independent woman and I'm comfortable paying for myself, but if he wants a relationship, that's not the way to start," she adds. They never saw each other again... Mr Jackiey Kwek, 37, owner of dating agency CliqueWise, says men should look at it as an "investment for the future relationship"... Guys take note: Women mostly agree that offering to pay on a first date is almost like a test. Product marketing executive Sarah Tang, 23, who is single, says: "If I offer and he accepts, that's it. It's likely there will be no second date, unless I like the guy." Other women interviewed say accepting the woman's offer to pay signals that the man does not value her company or that he is not interested, unromantic or not generous.
As usual, AWARE was deafeningly silent

Genital injuries send thousands to emergency care each year: Study - "To put this in perspective, the yearly incidence of these (injuries) is almost twice as much as dental injuries, and about the same as electrical and chemical burns"

Fallen soldiers: Is it right to take images of bodies? - "What I don't anticipate is the arrival of Belgian police who announce that if either my colleague or I photograph or film the body, we will be arrested, our camera equipment impounded and - possibly - the archaeological dig closed down... It now appears that, in Belgium, it's acceptable to film the dead from Waterloo but not from WWI. So is there now some arbitrary cut-off point, the Crimean War (1853-6) perhaps? The Zulu War (1879), or the Boer War (1899-1902), after which time it becomes unacceptable to film human remains? Or should we simply never film or show the dead from any conflict?... A funeral for the fallen soldier "would be somewhat compromised if films and pictures of the remains of their relative had been publicly broadcast", he adds. And yet all over the media, whether TV, magazines, books and in museums, images of the fallen from both World Wars are routinely shown."

Gold Mine Of Black Heads On Nose - YouTube - "Here is a Gold mine of black heads, rare and very big black heads on nose, known as solar comedones, being extracted out of nose by me with the help of comedone extractor... We can say that this is going to be one of the best black head video ever"

The 10 happiest jobs in Singapore - "Workers in Singapore are happier now than they have been in the past four years... When classified by salary group, JobStreet reported that those who earned between $9,000 and $$9,999 were the least satisfied. On the other hand, those who earned slightly lower at wages of $8,000 to $8,999 monthly had the highest scores of happiness. Among the factors which workers say were important to them, salary was ranked the highest. This is followed by work-life balance and advancement opportunities, both ranked second most important... employees were least affected by the value of their work to society and the safety of their working conditions. While participants indicated that they were most satisfied with safety conditions at work, many respondents also indicated that they were satisfied with interpersonal relations they had with colleagues at the workplace... men tend to be happier at work, with an overall score of 61 points. Female workers, however, rated their happiness at only 58.7 points"

The Importance of Having Friends Who Disagree - " Every time you have a new idea, you need people you can bounce it off. To get any real benefit out of this process you need people with a complex combination of characteristics.
They should
1. have firm (but not rigid) opinions on their own
2. have logical reasons for those beliefs and be able to articulate them clearly
3. are driven by ideas and not ideology
4. not attach their egos to their opinions.
5. be willing to concede a valid argument even if it forces them to possibly re-examine their beliefs
6. know how to listen
Given all that, it is extremely difficult to find such "friends who disagree"... Many people make the mistake of sorrounding themselves with people who think exactly like them and reinforce every idea or prejudice they have. This is a bad mistake and will often end up distorting the reality you see"

Real and perceived attitude agreement in social networks - "Although considerable attitude similarity exists among friends, the results show that friends disagree more than they think they do. In particular, friends are typically unaware of their disagreements, even when they say they discuss the topic, suggesting that discussion is not the primary means by which friends infer each other's views on particular issues. Rather, it appears that respondents infer opinions in part by relying on stereotypes of their friends and in part by projecting their own views"

Do Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol? - "More intelligent children in both studies grew up to drink alcohol more frequently and in greater quantities than less intelligent children"

The Measurement That Would Reveal The Universe As A Computer Simulation

More than half of S'poreans would migrate if given a choice: Survey - "For the first time in the history of Singapore, a whole generation of wage earners face the chilling possibility that their lives are going to be worse than their parents'... In June, there were 200,000 Singaporeans living abroad for at least six cumulative months in the previous 12 months, a 27 per cent increase from nine years ago, says the National Population and Talent Division. The World Bank has higher figures, with almost 300,000 Singaporeans considered migrants in 2010"

Neil Armstrong (Conversion to Islam) - WikiIslam - "Neil Armstrong is said to have converted to Islam upon hearing the Adhan (call to prayer) on the moon"

Asia's endangered species: The expat - "three out of four senior executives hired in Asia by multinationals were Asian natives already living in the region, according to a Spencer Stuart analysis of 1,500 placements made from 2005 to 2010. Just 6% were noncitizens from outside of Asia... "It takes them six months to figure out how to take a ferry, they're there for 12 months, and then they spend the next six months figuring out how to get home""

Dunns River Cock Flavoured Seasoning 100 g (Pack of 12): Amazon.co.uk: Grocery

Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good - ""A natural flavor," says Terry Acree, a professor of food science at Cornell University, "is a flavor that's been derived with an out-of-date technology." Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. Amyl acetate, for example, provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When it is distilled from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When it is produced by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same... A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor -- benzaldehyde -- is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature."

Electricity 101 - "Can we harness lightning as an energy source?
Can we have wireless transmission of electricity?"

Christian Conservatives Failed to Sway Voters - NYTimes.com - "the bishops spoke out on many issues, including immigration and poverty, but got news media attention only when they talked about abortion, same-sex marriage and religious liberty"

Reasons given for having abortions in the United States - "advocates of unrestrained abortion often cite the "hard cases"--cases of rape, incest, life or health of the mother or baby--in defending access to abortion. It is widely acknowledged that such cases are rare; however, available data suggest that some commonly cited figures are exaggerated. Further, the prevailing preferences of the American electorate are often cited in regard to U.S. abortion legislation. Some will claim, for example, that most Americans support legal abortion. While majority vote is an unconstitutional means of limiting human rights (regardless of what position on abortion one thinks is the one consistent with human rights), the claim itself is a half-truth. Most Americans would oppose banning abortions for hard cases, but at the same time most Americans would support limits on elective abortions, e.g. abortions for convenience or for sex selection... Another AGI study, conducted in 2000-2001, examined contraceptive use but provides some information relating to reasons for abortion. Some data from this survey of 10,683 women obtaining abortions is given below:
not using contraception 46.40% of abortions
[of which] forced to have relations 0.6% of abortions"

Single, but not for want of trying - "Ladies: Don't walk around with a long "checklist". You might have traits you're looking for, but best keep it to three must-haves and three no-nos.
Guys: Please see beyond the biological attraction. The majority of guys in our dating services are looking for girls who are young, physically attractive, slim. Forty years from now, most of us will be old and wrinkly. Focus on the important things: Compatibility. Similar values. Similar wavelength."
How come ladies can have three must-haves, but guys cannot nominate their 3 must-haves as "young, physically attractive and slim"

Pakistan's transgender tribe of tax collectors - "Miss your tax deadline in the United States this weekend, and you might get a nasty letter at your door. In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, you might get Riffee and the gang. They are "transgender" tax collectors -- whose weapons include flamboyancy, surprise -- and a little lipstick... A Pakistani court ruling two years ago gave eunuchs -- men who have been castrated -- the right to be referred to as a "third gender." Riffee believes the same right should extend to her and her friends, although they have not been castrated... the team threaten to come back 24 hours later, half a dozen strong -- and dance in the shop. That just may be enough to get a tax bill settled."

Alright we've discovered what all Men of Reddit do, now Women of Reddit what are some things you are sure all women do or have done? Possibly Nsfw : AskReddit - "sometimes when i wear jeans i purposely give myself cameltoe before i get in the car, so i can wiggle around feel the seam rub on my clit. it's glorious"

How to Be a Girl: Magic Cat Eyes with Scotch Tape! - YouTube
I am amused by the series title

Why Buying An iPad Mini Is An Incredibly Dumb Idea - "For the marginal effort of "sitting up in bed" you could stick a laptop on your lap and play FLASH GAMES on WEBSITES for FREE instead of playing the same games as APPS that you PAY FOR and are WORSE. Also, all this hoopla about the iPad being more portable? Rubbish. An iPad is about as portable as a MacBook Air, but with a MacBook Air you get an actual keyboard and the ability to, you know, have different windows open at the same time so you can engage in the revolutionary activity of, say, taking notes while watching a video. So there you have it. The secret is out: Laptops are like iPads, only better... As far as I can tell, the base-model iPad mini (for $329) really is just an iPod Touch... everything I could do with an iPad -- miniature or no -- I can do with a smartphone. Except that I can put my smartphone in my pocket"
"I've seen a good number of parents getting their kids tablets to get them out of their hair. At supermarkets, kids are playing with tablets instead of destroying what I came to buy."

Grandma in Russia kills wolf with bare hands and axe

Calvin and Hobbes' Life Lessons for Boys (and Girls) - "It's sad whenever a clear genius like Watterson leaves his masterpiece behind, but in the era in which your favorite long-broken up band is reuniting for a 35-city reunion tour, I think Watterson ending C&H left a beautiful, finite result"

An Examination of Gender in Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes - "The fact that Rosalyn's character is viewed in such a negative way creates humor in much the same way as Miss Wormwood's character. Both of them are women that dominate and interfere with Calvin's ability to scheme plans for world domination. However, the fact that Miss Wormwood and Rosalyn are both portrayed in such one-dimensional ways is problematic... it is childhood written from a male's point of view, and in the end there is nothing wrong with that"

Restaurant Review - Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square - NYTimes.com - "Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?... Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?"

Turn to 400 - The Fighting Fantasy documentary film

"Fighting Fantasy was born 30 years ago, Ian Livingstone & Steve Jackson started a role playing phenomenon. This film tells their story."

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

--- Infinite Jest / David Foster Wallace

On feminists silencing men's views on abortion

"And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up." - Roger Ebert

***

Why can’t men shut up about abortion? | Talking Philosophy

"We (us blokes) are not directly affected by a ban on having an abortion, so why should we get a say in whether someone else gets to have an abortion or not?... This has become a popular meme: I’m confronted on a daily basis with claims, whether in the social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, or in the mainstream media, such as newspapers, with the claim that men should simply shut up about these issues and leave it to women to make the decisions...

As it happens, though, I don’t plan to shut up. One reason for that is that I am actually pro-abortion, so I don’t see why I should shut up unless all those anti-abortion men reach a deal with me to do likewise...

As it happens, men often do have pretty good imaginations (with rich experiences of anxiety, fear, inner turmoil, crushing responsibility, and so on, to draw upon), and I’m not at all convinced that we’re unable to imagine something of what it must be like, if we genuinely try. Indeed, some men may be better able to imagine it than many women who have never encountered the situation and perhaps are not sympathetic. If we are prompted to stretch our imaginations, I submit that that’s a good thing...

Many opponents of abortion, irrespective of their sex, can imagine the highest level of anxiety, fear, difficulty, inner turmoil, and so on, for someone who is forced to become a mother against her will, but still oppose abortion. These opponents of abortion are likely to think that abortion is equivalent to murder, or at least something very like murder, in which case they will say that none of the interests of the woman can justify it. However bleak my future may be if I fail to murder someone, that does not usually give me the legal right to do so. There are exceptions for self-defence, but analogies between abortion and self-defence are notoriously tricky and contested...

As it happens, I don’t think that abortion is anything remotely like murder. The trouble is that I don’t see why someone who disagrees with me ought to shut up about it. If he or she holds a contrary position in good faith, and is prepared to back it with arguments, then s/he not only has the legal right to do so, but perhaps also has some legitimate claim on the rest of us to listen (at least if we haven’t heard and considered it all before). And if this (let’s say male) person is truly convinced that abortion somehow harms a fetus much as our deaths would harm us, surely it’s unreasonable for me to expect him to hold his tongue about it...

I doubt that any serious thinker about contemporary politics can avoid taking positions that then entail views on the abortion debate. Keeping entirely silent may not be a practical possibility once you start thinking and talking about almost any other set of fraught political issues."


Comments: "I don’t own a dog. Does this mean I am not allowed an opinion regarding animal cruelty?"

"Please don’t tell me to shut up. That’s so very disrespectful. Until women can reproduce by themselves (they still need a man, right?), there’s no such thing as “women’s reproductive rights”. It’s “reproductive rights”, period. "

"As a man can I really consider the humanity of a female? As a white man can I really consider the humanity of a black man, an Inuit, or an Asian? As me, and only me, with only the highly suspect witness of senses to inform my mind, can I really attest to the validity of YOUR claim to equality of sentient stature with me? Indeed, if you can really remove my claim to such consideration you attack the very foundations of Philosophy itself."

"I see this sentiment expressed quite often among my pro-choice friends. It always rubs me the wrong way. Brains, not reproductive organs, are required for thinking about important social issues... Furthermore, there are plenty of pro-life women, and if you oversimply this debate as a black and white gender war, you are not only dismissing your pro-choice male supporters, but handing some power over to female pro-life activists to play their own gender card and win support with it"

"It is a strange position, philosophically, to expect someone to silence their own beliefs. It is based on an idea that people should only express opinions which they have the direct possibility to experience. By that logic only men should say that men should not express opinions about abortion because women will never be a man and never be able to know if or how abortion affects them. But of course there is no real movement to apply this philosophical principle broadly, no movement to say only people in the military should have a voice in war policy, only tax payers should have a voice in tax policy. It is strange that this principle, which is so obviously flawed in other cases, would be so common in this one issue."

"by the same principle, there should be discussions that exclude childless women"

"Rich, older people pass laws that will overwhelmingly affect poor, young people; that’s true of practically the whole of the criminal law for a start. (Or very large chunks of it anyway.) And that’s not always a bad, or even an avoidable, thing"

"here in New Zealand, we have a cabinet minister responsible for social welfare who was herself a young single mother. While this does give her first-hand experience, this is not manifested in greater sympathy for other teenage single mothers, but in a tough ‘if I can drag myself up by the boot-straps, anyone can’ approach to ‘beneficiaries’. Does this suggest that her personal experience has enabled her to make more informed decisions? Or that she is viewing an atypical (and maybe very lucky) experience as typical?"

"This actually relates to another bugbear of mine: the ‘you wouldn’t say X if you were/had Y’ retort.
‘You wouldn’t oppose the death penalty if it was your child’, or even ‘if you were a parent.’
‘You wouldn’t be taking that line if you had been the victim of crime/unlawful arrest’...
I’m never sure if this is a claim for epistemic privilege, exactly; are these people claiming that I would attain some greater insight or knowledge were I a parent/crime victim? Or merely that my moral priorities would change? If it’s the latter, that does seem like quite a good reason not to implicitly trust the perspectives of such interested parties."

Links - 12th November 2012

"A true friend is someone you can disagree with and still remain friends. For if not, they weren't true friends in the first place." - Sandy Ratliff

***

fairy tales for twentysomethings - "After pulling the sword from the stone but before becoming king, Arthur went on a cross-country road trip / vision quest. He crashed on friends’ couches or, on a few nights, the back seat of his car. He went to Burning Man, stayed in the mountains of Montana for a few weeks, and learned to build a cigar-box guitar from some guy on the street in New Orleans."

Why I said yes to Sex. Violence. FamilyValues - "I am aware that the decision to ban this film is in part due to a society that has been engineered to discourage any open discussion on race. However, I’m still disheartened because film and art have always been one of the best mediums to allow us to explore difficult issues freely... Banning such films do not encourage the local movie industry to grow, nor would it help us mature as a society. The Amy Cheong debacle may be yesterday’s news, but if we continue to stay away from honestly talking about and tackling issues of racism and race-relations in Singapore, there is no stopping incidents from happening again and again"

Man who took upskirt shot of flight attendant escapes charges - "A "peeping Tom" who used a pen-shaped camera to take an upskirt shot of a cabin attendant during a domestic flight in Japan has avoided charges after prosecutors failed to decide which prefecture the plane was flying over at the time... "Peeping Tom" offences typically fall under prefecture-level law to prevent public nuisances and their applications require prosecutors to state exact locations of the crime"

Twitter / almightygod: This is how you handle a fundy ... - "This is how you handle a fundy sign-waver"

Ad networks are killing the Internet.

Single for the Holidays - NYTimes.com - "But isn’t Venice, to which this reporter has been in both summer and winter, a bit romantic for a solo trip? Ms. Bing dismissed the thought. “It’s kind of an exquisite melancholy,” she said. Her advice: go out to lunch and take along some local literature or a copy of Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities,” about an imaginary conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. “A couple of years ago I was reading ‘Invisible Cities’ alone, and oh, my God, if I had wanted to pick somebody up,” she said, “I couldn’t get people to stop interrupting me”... “By an overwhelming majority, the solo travel market is much more female than male”... “the longer the cruise, the older the cruiser”

Carrie Lukas: There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap - WSJ.com - "full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap... In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts... many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families. Few Americans see the economy as a battle between the sexes. They want opportunity to abound so that men and women can find satisfying work situations that meet their unique needs"

Why Do Women Pay More Than Men - "Though few retailers will cop to it, gender pricing is standard industry practice. It's especially pronounced at the drugstore, where bathroom staples like shampoo, soap, and razors marketed to women (invariably packaged in pretty pastels) routinely cost more than near-identical products for men. A recent study by researchers at the University of Central Florida examined some 200 sticks of deodorant sold at major drugstore chains and found that sticks for women cost, on average, 30 cents more per ounce than those for men, even when the only discernible difference was scent... Women tend to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations when choosing a lender rather than shopping around for the lowest rate the way men do. We also find negotiating anathema... "It's a standard industry practice going back decades," says Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plan, an industry trade group, of higher premiums charged to women. He says women "tend to have more health-care costs than men" and see more doctors than men of the same age"
Why do Mac users pay more for hotel rooms than PC users?

The 15 Jobs Where Women Earn More Than Men - "“Researchers have found that both sexes fare better when they are in the minority”... the few women who enter construction and mechanical jobs are likely highly skilled and more concentrated in union jobs"

SMU pulls plug on human rights centre - "Sources told TODAY that the setting up of the centre would have raised many red flags, not least its name and the fact that it was largely funded by a foreigner. "Human rights remain a topic that has to be carefully managed in Singapore. The Centre would lack credibility if it critiques the human rights situation in other countries but not Singapore's." a source said"

5 Weird Ways Disney Buying Lucasfilm Just Changed The Future - "The Star Wars Expanded Universe (or EU) is pretty polarizing to the people who know about it — people seem to loathe it, love it, or be completely oblivious as to its existence. So, you’re likely to be either exuberant, rageful, or completely nonplussed when you realize that Disney is notoriously stringent with control of their trademarks, it seems unlikely that writers in the EU will be given the freedom they’ve had in the past. And if you’re more of a gamer than a reader, this is gonna affect you to: given Disney’s recent purposeful shift away from console gaming and more towards the mobile market, as well as the recent failure of The Old Republic MMO, it’s unlikely that BioWare will continue the franchises it’s created, and that the coffin really is nailed shut on poor Lucasarts — meaning we’ll never see the likes of Monkey Island again."

Celebrity 18th birthday countdowns have long been the rage - "Most older readers who find this behavior reprehensible no doubt stopped reading several paragraphs ago. For those who stuck around, here's some more bad news: This isn't a new phenomenon. And your generation started it. Since the days when Shirley Temple steered the Good Ship Lollipop through puberty, fans have been meticulously dissecting the first kisses, first signs of breasts and first romantic encounters of our nation's most popular female child actors... Between 1982 and 1985, no less than three major label artists -- including Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Aerosmith and Eric Clapton -- recorded or released different songs titled "Jailbait."

Belief in miracles climbs in the age of Oprah - "Service attendance is the strongest predictor of belief in miracles, and demographic groups such as women and evangelical and black Protestants retain relatively strong beliefs in the existence of miracles. But the greatest growth appears to be coming on the periphery of organized religion. One striking finding, for example, was that marginal attenders across faith lines strengthened their belief in miracles over the past two decades... Even among respondents with no religious affiliation, the percentages who believe in miracles increased from 32 percent in 1991 to 42 percent in 2008... One potential explanation, according to Martin, is the cultural preoccupation with miracles promoted in non-dogmatic ways by a series of popular television programs such as “Touched by an Angel” and best-selling books such as the “Left Behind” and “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. No one, Martin and other researchers point out, may have done more for this spiritual phenomenon than Oprah Winfrey... In the 2007 Baylor Religion Survey, 23 percent of respondents said they witnessed a miraculous physical healing and 16 percent said they received a miraculous healing. And in the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, three-quarters of respondents said they prayed to God to receive healing from an illness or injury; more than five in six respondents prayed for someone else’s healing."

Brazilian Student Catarina Migliorini Sells Virginity for £483,000 - "A man, 21-year-old Alex Stepanov from Sydney, also put his virginity up for sale, but only garnered £1,860... Before the auction, Migliorini said she had not found the right person to have sex with and that taking part in the auction was "more sane" than having sex with a stranger drunk at a party... "If you only do it once in your life then you are not a prostitute, just like if you take one amazing photograph it does not automatically make you a photographer"... "She was speaking to her family in Brazil online and they were extremely happy for her. But I guess they didn't expect her to do something like this." Migliorini reportedly plans to use the money to build homes for poverty-stricken families. Under the terms and conditions of the auction, the winning bidder must have a medical examination and a police check. Rules stipulate that they may not be intoxicated during their time with the virgin, kiss them, involve anyone else or sex toys. They are also prohibited from recording the encounter or expect to have any fantasies or fetishes fulfilled. The minimum time the virgin must spend with the bidder is one hour"

A dozen USB chargers in the lab: Apple is very good, but not quite the best - "The Samsung oblong charger came in best, using just 19 mW; this was so low compared to the other chargers that I measured it again a different way to make sure I hadn't made an error. On the other extreme, the fake iPhone charger used 375 mW. The Apple iPhone charger performed surprisingly badly at 195 mW. If plugged in for a year, this would cost you about 21 cents in electricity, so it's probably not worth worrying about

Why Do Sign Language Interpreters Look So Animated? - "Signers are animated not because they are bubbly and energetic, but because sign language uses face and body movements as part of its grammar"

How Food Replaced Art as High Culture - NYTimes.com - "It is costly. It requires knowledge and connoisseurship, which are themselves costly to develop. It is a badge of membership in the higher classes, an ideal example of what Thorstein Veblen, the great social critic of the Gilded Age, called conspicuous consumption. It is a vehicle of status aspiration and competition, an ever-present occasion for snobbery, one-upmanship and social aggression. (My farmers’ market has bigger, better, fresher tomatoes than yours)... Food, for young people now, is creativity, commerce, politics, health, almost religion... Just as aestheticism, the religion of art, inherited the position of Christianity among the progressive classes around the turn of the 20th century, so has foodism taken over from aestheticism around the turn of the 21st. Now we read the gospel according, not to Joyce or Proust, but to Michael Pollan and Alice Waters. “Eat, Pray, Love,” the title goes, but a lot of people never make it past the first. Nor do they have to... Yes, food centers life in France and Italy, too, but not to the disadvantage of art, which still occupies the supreme place in both cultures. Here in America, we are in danger of confusing our palates with our souls"

Calvin & Hobbes (image)

Study: The ‘gateway drug’ is alcohol, not marijuana - "making science-based alcohol education a top priority could actually turn the tide of the drug war — but only if lawmakers and leading educators decide to use that same science as a foundation for public policy and school curriculum... A study published in 2010 in the medical journal Lancet ranked alcohol as the most harmful drug of all, above heroin, crack, meth, cocaine and tobacco. Even more striking: The Lancet study found that harms to others near the user were more than double those of the second most harmful drug, heroin"

Mail Order Queens

From Spam, http://datighyu.com/:

"Beautiful Russian ladies

European and American women are too arrogant for you? Are you looking for a sweet lady that will be caring and understanding? Then you came to the right place- here you can find a Russian lady that will love you with all her heart. Can't find a queen to rule your heart? How about beautiful Russian ladies that have royal blood and royal look? Here you can find hundreds of portfolios of these fine women of any age for every taste. Please excuse us if you are not interested."


I wonder if they got the memo that Russia was in Europe.

And hopefully the Russian queens of men's hearts are not autocrats like Catherine the Great...

The Four Types of Men

"There are four classes of men in the world ; first, those whom every one would wish to talk to, and whom every one does talk of;—these are that small minority that constitute the great. Secondly, those whom no one wishes to talk to, and whom no one docs talk of;—these are the vast majority that constitute the little. The third class is made up of those whom every body talks of, but nobody talks to;— these constitute the knaves. And the fourth is composed of those whom every body talks to, but whom nobody talks of; and these constitute the fools"

--- Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think / Charles Caleb Colton

UNESCO World Heritage Site Tally October 2012

"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." - Robert Louis Stevenson

***

World Heritage List

Australia: Great Barrier Reef; Tasmanian Wilderness; Sydney Opera House; Kakadu National Park; Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park; Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens
Austria: Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg; Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn; Historic Centre of Vienna
Belgium: Flemish Béguinages; La Grand-Place, Brussels; Belfries of Belgium and France; Historic Centre of Brugge; Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta (Brussels)
Cambodia: Angkor
China: Classical Gardens of Suzhou; Historic Centre of Macao; Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang; Mount Taishan; Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian; The Great Wall; Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu; Ancient City of Ping Yao; Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing; Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial Altar in Beijing; Yungang Grottoes; West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou
Czech Republic: Historic Centre of Prague
Estonia: Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn; Struve Geodetic Arc
France: Palace and Park of Versailles; Pont du Gard (Roman Aqueduct); Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Former Abbey of Saint-Remi and Palace of Tau, Reims; Paris, Banks of the Seine; Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Episcopal Ensemble and Avignon Bridge; Chartres Cathedral; Mont-Saint-Michel and its Bay; Palace and Park of Fontainebleau; Bourges Cathedral; The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes; Provins, Town of Medieval Fairs; Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France; Strasbourg – Grande île; Historic Site of Lyons; Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments; Roman Theatre and its Surroundings and the "Triumphal Arch" of Orange; Canal du Midi; Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne; Episcopal City of Albi
Germany: Aachen Cathedral; Museumsinsel (Museum Island), Berlin
Greece: Acropolis, Athens; Archaeological Site of Delphi; Meteora; Archaeological Site of Olympia; Archaeological Sites of Mycenae and Tiryns
Holy See: Vatican City
Indonesia: Borobudur Temple Compounds; Prambanan Temple Compounds; Sangiran Early Man Site
Italy: Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci; Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura; Historic Centre of Florence; Venice and its Lagoon; Historic Centre of Naples; Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna; Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata; Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)
Japan: Buddhist Monuments in the Horyu-ji Area; Himeji-jo; Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities); Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome); Itsukushima Shinto Shrine; Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara; Shrines and Temples of Nikko; Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range
Latvia: Historic Centre of Riga
Lithuania: Vilnius Historic Centre; Curonian Spit; Kernavė Archaeological Site (Cultural Reserve of Kernavė)
Luxembourg: City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and Fortifications
Malaysia: Kinabalu Park; Melaka and George Town, Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca
Netherlands: Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout; Rietveld Schröderhuis (Rietveld Schröder House); Seventeenth-century canal ring area inside the Singelgracht, Amsterdam
Spain: Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain; Las Médulas; Monuments of Oviedo and the Kingdom of the Asturias; Mudejar Architecture of Aragon; Roman Walls of Lugo; Route of Santiago de Compostela; Santiago de Compostela (Old Town); Tower of Hercules; Vizcaya Bridge
Thailand: Historic City of Ayutthaya
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd; Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites; Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey; City of Bath; Frontiers of the Roman Empire; Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church; Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine's Abbey, and St Martin's Church; Tower of London; Maritime Greenwich; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Durham Castle and Cathedral; Old and New Towns of Edinburgh; New Lanark
United States of America: Grand Canyon National Park; Independence Hall; Statue of Liberty; Yosemite National Park
Viet Nam: Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long - Hanoi; Ha Long Bay

Total: 115
Current number of sites: 962


Originally I was going to post this after finishing my travelogues, but it seems I add new ones faster than I can talk about them - it seems the last time I did an update like this was in March 2009

It seems in 3 1/2 years I've added almost 50 sites (a few due to the listing of previously-visited places).