"I experienced a number of small epiphanies — self-realizations actually — but one in particular remained with me. As the drug wore off, I went indoors to take a hot bath. For a moment I thought that might not be a good idea, as bath time is when women in middle age can be very self-critical and unforgiving, and I didn’t want the sight of my waistline to veer me into a bad trip. But while in the tub I envisioned my body as a ship that was taking me through life, and that made it beautiful. I stopped feeling guilty about growing older and regretful about losing my looks. Instead, I felt overwhelming gratitude. It was a tremendous relief that I still feel." NY Times
>>><<<
"“Colonel” is pronounced just like “kernel.” How did this happen? From borrowing the same word from two different places. In the 1500s, English borrowed a bunch of military vocabulary from French, words like cavalerie, infanterie, citadelle, canon, and also, coronel. The French had borrowed them from the Italians, then the reigning experts in the art of war, but in doing so, had changed colonello to coronel." Mental Floss
>>><<<
"If he simply steals one cup of coffee for himself, his power affordance shrinks slightly. If, on the other hand, he steals the pot and pours cups for himself and the other person, his power affordance spikes sharply. People want this man as their leader." Atlantic
>>><<<
A hoverboard!
(Though note this is basically a small-scale hovercraft, operating by the displacement of air. The one's from Back to the Future appeared to operate by some sort of anti-gravity technology).
>>><<<
Only a single district in Ireland voted against marriage equality
>>><<<
"Democrats don't like to talk about it too loudly, but quietly there's considerable optimism that a white candidate could drastically outperform Obama in Greater Appalachia, strengthening the party's hold on Pennsylvania and putting Missouri back into contention. Conversely, many Republicans are hopeful that Obama's successor won't be able to maintain his extraordinary performance with black and Latino voters." Vox
>>><<<
Yikes. How the "purity culture" associated with certain US churches facilitates sexual coercion
[TW: for sexual abuse]
>>><<<
The age of male Hollywood stars, graphed against the age of the their female love interests.
>>><<<
"It would be a mistake to say that science fiction as such is “about” laziness—no genre reducible to such a singular point of significance can flower long—but it is uncommonly good at animating fantasies about avoiding labor." Slate
>>><<<
"The hero cop narrative is also belied by the facts. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, police work does not crack the top-10 list of most dangerous jobs. Loggers have a fatality rate 11 times higher than cops, and sanitation workers die in the line of duty at twice the rate that police do... In fact, if you compare the murder rate among police officers with the murder rate in several American cities, you find that it is far safer to be a NYPD officer than an average black man in Baltimore or St. Louis." Slate
>>><<<
Just finished reading Maus. Broken
>>><<<
A history of state massacres of political opponents in Angola
>>><<<
Very interesting discussion on the contrasts between studio and independent filmmaking, and the nature of the actor's art generally
(Also, it turns out Robert Downey Jr says some hella racist stuff)
"There’s a special political failing that results—the self-congratulatory good feelings of the overtly liberal cinema. And there’s an aesthetic failing that follows as well: the shibboleth of the self-effacing director who gives his or her performers the space in which to shine, and who, in fact, makes films in which the actors are compelled to do the bulk of the work. The special mediocrity of independent films is the lack of direction and of production alike, the sense that there’s neither an infrastructure surrounding the set nor a stimulus on the set, but, rather, a faux stage on which the actors give boundlessly of themselves without keeping any true creative control."
>>><<<
Some profiles of people from communities that are identified as "culturally Muslim", but who are not religious. Interested to hear thoughts
“The other day I ordered some food online – pork buns – and afterwards a guy called me up from the company and he said ‘Nasreen, do you know it’s not halal?’ I said yes, I’m not a Muslim, but afterwards I wish I’d said ‘Who are you to police what I’m eating? How dare you call me up to remind me.’ But that’s how people think: you’re a Muslim, you’ve got a Muslim name.”
>>><<<
What strikes me about this is the extent to which debates about "service delivery" actually obscure deeper debates about the legal status of informal settlements. I think the real challenge, in the longer term, is making these settlements formal, with all that entails - access to land rights and tenure, but also the construction of infrastructure, applying building codes and lots more.
>>><<<
"The result is a turbine that’s 50 percent less expensive than a bladed one, nearly silent, and, as one of the turbine’s engineers put it, “looks like asparagus” (sorry, Quixote). And while each Vortex turbine is also 30 percent less efficient at capturing energy, wind farms can double the number of turbines that occupy a given area if they go bladeless. That’s a net energy gain of 40 percent ... Plus, the turbine has no gears or moving parts; theoretically maintenance could be much easier than a traditional bells-and-whistles spinning one." Grist
>>><<<
Great cartoon about greeting customs in different cultures.
"The earliest recorded mention of kissing in human history is in India's vedic texts, first written down in 1500 BCE... Some believe that social kissing originated as a way to smell the person they were greeting. In fact, the word for "kiss" in those vedic texts is the same as the word for "sniff"."
>>><<<
A criticism of consensus decision making. All thoughts welcome
>>><<<
On why Max Max is such a great piece of filmmaking
>>><<<
I guffawed
>>><<<
Gosh, criminal law being misused to police social deviance? Who could have imagined?!
>>><<<
"“Colonel” is pronounced just like “kernel.” How did this happen? From borrowing the same word from two different places. In the 1500s, English borrowed a bunch of military vocabulary from French, words like cavalerie, infanterie, citadelle, canon, and also, coronel. The French had borrowed them from the Italians, then the reigning experts in the art of war, but in doing so, had changed colonello to coronel." Mental Floss
>>><<<
"If he simply steals one cup of coffee for himself, his power affordance shrinks slightly. If, on the other hand, he steals the pot and pours cups for himself and the other person, his power affordance spikes sharply. People want this man as their leader." Atlantic
>>><<<
A hoverboard!
(Though note this is basically a small-scale hovercraft, operating by the displacement of air. The one's from Back to the Future appeared to operate by some sort of anti-gravity technology).
>>><<<
Only a single district in Ireland voted against marriage equality
>>><<<
"Democrats don't like to talk about it too loudly, but quietly there's considerable optimism that a white candidate could drastically outperform Obama in Greater Appalachia, strengthening the party's hold on Pennsylvania and putting Missouri back into contention. Conversely, many Republicans are hopeful that Obama's successor won't be able to maintain his extraordinary performance with black and Latino voters." Vox
>>><<<
Yikes. How the "purity culture" associated with certain US churches facilitates sexual coercion
[TW: for sexual abuse]
>>><<<
The age of male Hollywood stars, graphed against the age of the their female love interests.
>>><<<
"It would be a mistake to say that science fiction as such is “about” laziness—no genre reducible to such a singular point of significance can flower long—but it is uncommonly good at animating fantasies about avoiding labor." Slate
>>><<<
"The hero cop narrative is also belied by the facts. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, police work does not crack the top-10 list of most dangerous jobs. Loggers have a fatality rate 11 times higher than cops, and sanitation workers die in the line of duty at twice the rate that police do... In fact, if you compare the murder rate among police officers with the murder rate in several American cities, you find that it is far safer to be a NYPD officer than an average black man in Baltimore or St. Louis." Slate
>>><<<
Just finished reading Maus. Broken
>>><<<
A history of state massacres of political opponents in Angola
>>><<<
Very interesting discussion on the contrasts between studio and independent filmmaking, and the nature of the actor's art generally
(Also, it turns out Robert Downey Jr says some hella racist stuff)
"There’s a special political failing that results—the self-congratulatory good feelings of the overtly liberal cinema. And there’s an aesthetic failing that follows as well: the shibboleth of the self-effacing director who gives his or her performers the space in which to shine, and who, in fact, makes films in which the actors are compelled to do the bulk of the work. The special mediocrity of independent films is the lack of direction and of production alike, the sense that there’s neither an infrastructure surrounding the set nor a stimulus on the set, but, rather, a faux stage on which the actors give boundlessly of themselves without keeping any true creative control."
>>><<<
Some profiles of people from communities that are identified as "culturally Muslim", but who are not religious. Interested to hear thoughts
“The other day I ordered some food online – pork buns – and afterwards a guy called me up from the company and he said ‘Nasreen, do you know it’s not halal?’ I said yes, I’m not a Muslim, but afterwards I wish I’d said ‘Who are you to police what I’m eating? How dare you call me up to remind me.’ But that’s how people think: you’re a Muslim, you’ve got a Muslim name.”
>>><<<
What strikes me about this is the extent to which debates about "service delivery" actually obscure deeper debates about the legal status of informal settlements. I think the real challenge, in the longer term, is making these settlements formal, with all that entails - access to land rights and tenure, but also the construction of infrastructure, applying building codes and lots more.
>>><<<
"The result is a turbine that’s 50 percent less expensive than a bladed one, nearly silent, and, as one of the turbine’s engineers put it, “looks like asparagus” (sorry, Quixote). And while each Vortex turbine is also 30 percent less efficient at capturing energy, wind farms can double the number of turbines that occupy a given area if they go bladeless. That’s a net energy gain of 40 percent ... Plus, the turbine has no gears or moving parts; theoretically maintenance could be much easier than a traditional bells-and-whistles spinning one." Grist
>>><<<
Great cartoon about greeting customs in different cultures.
"The earliest recorded mention of kissing in human history is in India's vedic texts, first written down in 1500 BCE... Some believe that social kissing originated as a way to smell the person they were greeting. In fact, the word for "kiss" in those vedic texts is the same as the word for "sniff"."
>>><<<
A criticism of consensus decision making. All thoughts welcome
>>><<<
On why Max Max is such a great piece of filmmaking
>>><<<
I guffawed
>>><<<
Gosh, criminal law being misused to police social deviance? Who could have imagined?!
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