Do you like the color purple? Turns out you can thank rancid mollusc butt mucus! “This is a colour that pretends to transcend the vulgar vagaries of this world, all the while remaining mired in its muck.”
Links
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
Linkdump for July 16th through July 30th
Sometime between July 16th and July 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- Is there any anti-abortion talking point that isn’t based on a lie?: "As I’ve investigated both sides of the abortion debate, I’ve become honestly curious to discover if there is any anti-abortion argument that isn’t based on a lie (or lies). I’m going through the most popular current US anti-abortion talking points and giving each a Politifact-esque truth rating. Let’s investigate!"
- Meet Mike Cernovich: Right-Wing Provocateur Who Got James Gunn Fired: “Cernovich didn’t dredge up Gunn’s old tweets out of a genuine care for women, children, or LGBTQP+ people. He didn’t write this as a feminist or left-wing activist hoping for a more productive dialogue surrounding trauma that gives these issues the seriousness they deserve; Cernovich directly accused Gunn of being a pedophile for these tweets, and Disney submissively just bent to that and fired him.”
- What it’s like when Nazis infiltrate your conference: Interesting look at how nazis trolled and attacked the narrative of a hacker con. Worth considering and keeping these techniques and brainstorming ideas of how to combat them effectively when planning for conferences/conventions these days.
- The 9/11 Country Music theory: "MY HOT TAKE: with very few exceptions, including goodbye earl, before he cheats, and daddy Iessons (side note – all women!) 9/11 ruined country music." Sounds about right to me. Country's never been my primary genre, but what I do like is universally pre- (usually very pre-) 9/11.
- “People like to think that Hitler came straight into power with ‘Kill the Jews y/n?’ and all the Germans were like ‘yeah totes’ but it’s just not how it goes.”: "No, the defining moment of this timeline was that people didn't show up to vote the Nazi Party out in the one last chance they had. The one last chance they had before the power grab was up and the whole thing was too far off the rails."
Linkdump for May 26th through July 11th
Sometime between May 26th and July 11th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- ALL POSSIBLE RESPONSES TO “THEY SHOULD GET IN LINE AND DO IT THE RIGHT WAY, THE WAY MY FAMILY DID,” WITH CITATIONS (ALSO JOKES): TL;dr: there’s a really good chance that at least some portion of your family came to the U.S. without a visa, and the “right way” from 1790–1965 has nothing to do with how things are done now.
- Civility. Some thoughts.: "It's hypocrisy to us because we believe that the behavior is the problem. It's not hypocritical to them because they believe the person is the problem."
- What To Do When ― Not If ― Roe Vanishes: "Now, it is almost certainly a matter of when, not if, we lose Roe. It’s time to prepare for life without nationwide legal abortion." That we have to be thinking seriously about this is incredibly sad.
- Really neat answer to this question about early Star Trek fandom:: “I would love to know more about when you first started thinking that there was more than friendship between Kirk and Spock and when fans first started talking about it. Was it Amok Time that first gave you the idea?”
- Why ‘Solo’ Works: SPOILERS: “A constant supply of ‘Star Wars’ requires an occasional double between dingers. Here’s how the low-stakes origin story of Han Solo makes clean contact.”
“The website RateMyProfessors.com killed the ‘chili pepper’ rating that allowed students to rate a professor’s ‘hotness.’” Excellent — what a ridiculous and sexist ‘feature’ that was.
Linkdump for May 13th through May 25th
Sometime between May 13th and May 25th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- George Takei Accuser Scott Brunton Changed His Story of Drugs, Assault: “A fabricated coffee meeting. Key facts withheld or walked back. A ‘great party story’ about a sexual assault—which the accuser now says may not have actually happened. What happens when an activist’s legacy is tarnished by the story of an old friend who later says it could have all been a misunderstanding? And how do we process such an anomaly in an era of overdue social justice?l
- when i say ‘don’t make jokes about rednecks and hillbillies’, that doesn’t mean i think you’re being racist against white people: “i say that because you are perpetuating extremely toxic rhetoric about our region, you are promoting stigma, you are encouraging blatant classism, and you are furthering the idea that we somehow ‘deserve’ it because our elected officials vote republican. it’s not cute. stop acting like none of us have the right to call you out on your classist bullshit.“
- Dear NRA, It’s Time to Take Away Everyone’s Gun: “I’m finished trying to reason with you. So now I, a guy who was ambivalent about guns just a few years ago, want to take your guns away. All of them. I want to take them all and melt them down and shape them into a giant sphere and then push it at you so you have to run away from it like Indiana Jones for the rest of your lives. I want Ted Nugent to roam the halls of his gunless house, sighing wearily until he dies. I want to end this thing once and for all, so that all of you who have prioritized the sale of guns over the lives of children have to sit quietly and think about what you’ve done. God help me, I want to take all of your guns out of your hands, by myself, right now.”
- The respect of personhood vs the respect of authority: "In April 2015, Autistic Abby wrote on their Tumblr about how people mistakenly conflate two distinct definitions of 'respect' when relating to and communicating with others. This is an amazing & astute observation and applies readily to many aspects of our current political moment."
- How the 50-mm Camera Lens Became ‘Normal’: “The idea that a 50-mm best approximates human sight has more to do with the early history of lens production than any essential optical correspondence between the lens and the eye.”
Here’s a nice collection of photos from the Kilauea eruption going on right now. Gorgeous and awesome — in its formal “extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear” meaning.
I wish I knew where this image was sourced from (it was found on Facebook without any other information), because that’s a wonderful typo. Someone was in a bit of a hurry to get this edition out, I think. :)
ETA: This came from the Star Democrat of Easton, MD, on page A10 of the May 11 print issue. Credit to Josh Larios‘ sleuthing skills.
Linkdump for May 3rd through May 7th
Sometime between May 3rd and May 7th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- Connecticut OKs Bill Pledging Electoral Votes To National Popular-Vote Winner: “The bill adopts an interstate compact that's officially called ‘The Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.’ The agreement won't kick in unless it's backed by enough states and other voting areas to claim a majority of Electoral College votes. In addition to Connecticut, the other jurisdictions in the pact are California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state, along with Washington, D.C.”
- The original iMac: 20 years since Apple changed its fate: “Sitting in the Flint Center in 1998, it would have been impossible to imagine the Apple of 2018. But without that day, and the product that Steve Jobs unveiled on that stage, it’s hard to imagine that Apple would have ever had the chance to become what it is today.”
- One space between each sentence, they said. Science just proved them wrong.: Bah! Science did no such thing! It’s one study with a small sample size, screwball parameters (Courier? Seriously?), and a barely measurable result that only really affected those participants already predisposed to two-spacing. Sentences get one space, and one space only. (My favorite part: “Note: An earlier version of this story published incorrectly because, seriously, putting two spaces in the headline broke the web code.”)
- ‘Who Gets to Be Sexy?’: Interesting look at how the porn industry is changing. “Amateurs are flooding the internet; piracy has addled the once-dominant studios; production has atomized and scattered. But along the way, something interesting has started to happen: Women are rising up.”
- Swedish Meatballs Are Turkish? ‘My Whole Life Has Been a Lie’: “The country’s national Twitter account made the announcement in a tweet this week. ‘Swedish meatballs are actually based on a recipe King Charles XII brought home from Turkey in the early 18th century,’ the tweet said. ‘Let’s stick to the facts!’”
Well sure, what better time than right on the heels of a privacy scandal to announce that Facebook is getting into the dating game? Of course, people who are already friends won’t be matched (because…people only date strangers?), and poly/open people aren’t welcome. Um…okay.
Interesting new pseudo-3D/motion panoramic app called Fyuse just hit my radar. This grumpy unicorn is my first experiment.