Linkspam Sunday

[firecat]

I failed to record the sources where I found these, but many are from andrewducker and moominmuppet

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112661209/young-gorillas-observed-dismantling-poacher-snares

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/30-awesome-behind-the-scenes-photos-from-old-movie
"Old movies" are now movies made in the 70s and 80s, and in a couple of cases, 90s. Ghod.

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/23/eagle-scouts-stand-up-to-the-b.html
Some Eagle Scouts are returning their medals in protest of Boy Scouts of America homophobia and religious intolerance.

http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons
Complete with equations! Now to get medical schools to also realize that days-long shifts aren't a good idea.

http://vimeo.com/28457062
Video of lightning captured at 7,207 images per second

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/21/paranoid_parents_kill_cities/
This is about how in the US and some other cultures, children are no longer allowed outdoors unsupervised.

"In the Sydney Morning Herald, a writer recently marveled at seeing children wandering unchaperoned all over Tokyo. When she worried to her Japanese colleague about the lack of adult supervision, he responded, “What do you mean, no adults? There were the car drivers, the shopkeepers, the other pedestrians.” In Japan, 80 percent of kids between 6 and 12 walk to school grownup-free."

Note: I don't judge any parents. But I wonder about the consequences of a culture where children are not allowed to have any time to themselves outdoors.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/07/geeks-guide-ursula-k-le-guin/all/
Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin. Includes the cover of an SF Masterworks version of The Dispossessed that strikes me as the most awesome bookcover ever. This interview also links to an article Le Guin wrote for Harpers in 2008 about reading:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081907

http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/dc-and-marvel-superheroes-as-manatees
MANATEE SUPERHEROES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/happiness_is_about_respect_not_riches
Yes I agree, but that doesn't mean people who have survival needs going unmet are happy. So I hope no one uses it as an excuse to continue suppressing the minimum wage and promoting other underpaid work.

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs
How Stereotypes Can Drive Women To Quit Science

And can I just say that I'm disgusted people are criticizing the body of a female swimmer who has won multiple gold medals? (Leisel Jones of Australia). I'm not linking to any of the news articles about it because they quote body hatred, but you can quack it.

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/fluoride-lowers-your-iq-b.s.-headline-week
Fluoride lowers IQ, or does it? (How science is misreported, especially by people with an agenda.)

http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/de-gendering-academic-dress-at-oxford/
I approve.

http://scienceinmyfiction.com/2012/07/23/science-fiction-fails-immunology/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-flooded-with-brand-police-to-protect-sponsors-7945436.html

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London", if they give the impression of a formal connection to the Olympics.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/pot-legalization-is-coming-20120726
Interesting article about the ramifications of various ways to legalize and regulate marijuana.

Comments

[19_crows]

Your "quack" link is broken (though easy to correct if you click on it.)

I'm curious why not Google?

[firecat]

Fixed, thanks!

From here:
http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/741985.html
DuckDuckGo http://duckduckgo.com/
Positions itself as a search engine that doesn't "bubble" you (filter your search results based on search history) and doesn't track you. Has an option of a "red box result" at the top of the page that includes a definition of your search term. Has an ad at the right side of the page. Gives 10% of its income to Open Source projects.

[19_crows]

Thanks!

[feuervogel]

When I went to my dentist's office the other week, the receptionist and a patient both lamented that they'd never let their kids go outside because it's sooooo daaaaaaaangerous and predators and it wasn't like when they were growing up, no, the people outside can't be trusted.

I just sat there, shaking my head. (I have no children of my own, but even if I did, I'd probably let them run around outside with their friends, like the rest of my neighbors do here in suburbia.)

(I live in the US.)

[lilacsigil]

The newspaper that started the Liesel Jones fat hatred is my state's newspaper (the one not owned by Murdoch) and it's been on a real fat-hate binge the last month. This was one case where I *did* read the comments and they were vastly better than the article. Readers thought that the reporters were vile and that this wasn't an actual news story. Unfortunately, this didn't stop the newspaper then going on and on about other (all female, shock!) athletes and their body size and shape.

One thing that might be different about Tokyo compared to most US and Australian cities is that it's extremely population-dense and based around walking and cheap, reliable public transport. It's also extremely decentralised except for office workers, meaning that, despite the size of the city, those kids are walking around in much smaller neighbourhoods that they know well, and where everyone knows them. When I lived there, it was very like living in the rural town where I grew up - just 1000 of those towns pushed together with a city in the middle!