The Dublin Arm was invented in 1921, It was a significant advancement in artificial limb technology. It operated using a Bowden cable mechanism, where cables connected to the individuals residual limb enabled hand or hook movements. By contracting specific muscles, the user could control the cables, allowing them to grasp objects and perform various tasks with improved dexterity. This pioneering prosthetic limb set the foundation for future advancements in the field.
A lot of surfer slang consists of in-crowd jargon or outmoded antiques: grommet (an eager young surfer), hodad (a non-surfer; a poser), log (a heavy surfboard), Noah (a shark). But other terms that bubbled up in the surf towns of Southern California, Hawaii, and Australia in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s – bro, dude, Cali (for California), wipeout – are now part of the everyday vocabulary of English-speaking landlubbers who may have no idea about the words’ briny origins. One of the most widespread of these expressions, and probably the most pertinent to our interests at Strong Language, is bitchin’, an adjective or interjection meaning “excellent,” “cool,” or “admirable.”
It took a long time for bitch and its derivatives to evolve from veterinary noun (Old English: “female dog”) to taboo slur (for a woman c. 1400; for a man c. 1500) to slightly taboo verb (early 1900s: “talk spitefully”; early 1930s: “complain”) to a word so cheerily inoffensive that it’s used in brand names that are prominently displayed in mass-market retail outlets like Costco. Along the way, bitch begat dozens of slangy spin-offs, most of them U.S. in origin and mostly pejorative, that include bitch bath (perfume instead of soap and water), bitch box (loudspeaker), and bitch light (a twisted rag soaked in grease and used for illumination).
Bitchin’ Sauce at Costco, Richmond, California. Photo: Nancy Friedman
Bitch and its relatives were considered highly offensive from the 18th century on: In Wicked Words (1989), author Hugh Rawson notes that people resorted to euphemisms like “lady dog” even in the “proper canine context.” (Speaking of dogs, Rawson informs us that the poet John Keats coined bitchrell on the model of “doggerel.” It was naughty enough that Keats self-bowdlerized the word as B–rell–.) It wasn’t until 1962 that bitch was heard in a Hollywood movie (Advise & Consent; the speaker was Gene Tierney, saying of Washington hostesses, “They say any bitch with a million bucks can be the best”). Elton John could sing “The Bitch Is Back” in 1974, but there was still enough opprobrium surrounding bitch in 1984 that Barbara Bush, campaigning for her husband George H.W. Bush, cattily demurred when calling Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro “that four-million-dollar – I can’t say it, but it rhymes with ‘rich.’”
Twenty years later, bitch was fully out in the open. It was heard frequently on the TV series How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014): See Michael Adams’s four “Bitch Chronicles” posts, in which he posits that bitch was the solution for “tonal accuracy” in the show’s dialogue, “permissible on television, but not always in polite conversation.” Around the same time, bitch attached itself to a whole category of wines marketed at women; as I wrote in 2015, the trend began in 2004 with an Australian Grenache called simply Bitch and expanded into unrelated brands like Sassy Bitch, Tasty Bitch, and more. And 2012 brought us resting bitch face, “a facial expression that unintentionally creates the impression that a person is angry, annoyed, irritated, or contemptuous, particularly when the individual is relaxed, resting, or not expressing any particular emotion” (Wikipedia).
By then, bitchin’/bitchen had migrated from surf shacks to high streets. The earliest agreed-on appearance in print of positive bitchen is in Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas, the 1957 novel by Frederick Kohner that was inspired by his teenage daughter’s experiences with the Malibu Point surf crowd: “It was a bitchen day too. The sun was out and all that, even though it was near the end of November.” The spelling gradually settled on bitchin’, eliding the g of the participle. American Speech, the journal of the American Dialect Society, included bitchin’ in a 1965 issue under “Notes on Campus Vocabulary,” observing that it could “serve both as an interjection (bitchin’, man! = ‘Great!’) and as an adjective.” The Surfin’ary, a compilation of surf terms originally published in 1991, calls bitchin’ “a sixties term for cool adopted by surfers” and adds that “it has now been replaced by rad” (from radical). But editor Trevor Gralle also inserts this unverified anecdote:
The word bitchin’, derived from bitching – as in “Quit your bitching” – may have been coined by Dale Velzy in 1949. While surfing with the Manhattan Beach Surf Club, Velzy was overjoyed after a ride and said, “That was a bitchin’ wave,” giving the word new meaning and a positive connotation.
Velzy (1927–2005) was a pioneering Southern California surfer and surfboard maker; according to a Los Angeles Times obituary, he was “surfing’s first commercial shaper or builder.”
Surfin’ary, 1991 edition.
I haven’t been able to confirm Velzy’s reappropriation of bitchin’, but I have found evidence for earlier positive or emphatic uses of bitch that may have laid the groundwork. As early as 1928, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (HDAS), bitching could be a synonym for “whopping” or “damned,” and bitch kitty was World War II slang for “something extraordinary.” (“She’s flying right along. Bitch kitty of an airplane.”)
Today, although bitch can still skew negative – and necessitate a softened version, bish, that tones down the aggression and evades online censorship – the adjective/interjection bitchin’ has achieved full cultural integration. As proof, I point you to the U.S. trademark database, which as of this writing includes 32 registered or pending marks with adjectival BITCHIN’. Besides the aforementioned Bitchin’ Sauces – whose owners also own a record label, Bitchin’ Music Group, phone number 1-737-BITCHIN – there’s Bitchin’ Kitchen, a cooking program that launched on Canadian TV in 2010; Bitchin’ Kitten Brewery (Pennsylvania); Bitchin’ Berry beer (Nevada); Bob’s Bitchin’ BBQ (Wisconsin;, Bitchin Coffee (North Carolina); Bitchin’ Betty brown ale (also North Carolina); and Bitchin’ Digs commercial and residential design in Malibu, California, home of the original bitchin’ surfer girl Gidget.
Like bad, wicked, and sick, three other negatives-turned-slang-positive, bitchin’ has reversed course, from pejorative to enthusiastically approving. While other surfer slang has crested and ebbed — does anyone still say “quimby” or “kookster”? — bitchin’ continues to ride a long, sweet wave of acceptance by the mainstream.
Ok, I NEED you to understand just how insane even ATTEMPTING this was for them.
1. Playing an instrument is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Don’t think I’m stepping on any toes saying that.
2. Dancing is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Still not controversial.
3. YOU AVOID, AT ALL COSTS, MOVING YOUR BODY WHILE PLAYING A WIND INSTRUMENT. To make the correct, pleasant sounds, you need to be in the correct form. And that form involves your ENTIRE body, even your legs when sitting down.
4. “oh, but I’ve seen marching bands before and-” MARCHING BANDS HAVE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC FIELDS DEDICATED TO FIGURING OUT HOW TO MARCH WITH MINIMUM BREAKING OF PROPER FORM. A marching band tries to be as smooth as possible while moving, so as not to jar their instrument, mouth, neck, arms, torso, or anything else.These ladies and gentlemen are BOUNCING and still playing properly, what the FU-!
5. AND ANOTHER THING! Wind instruments and dancing BOTH make demands on your breathing, so the fact that they are dancing (making you breath faster for extra oxygen) AND playing wind instruments (making you effectively hold your breath) AT THE SAME TIME is HUGE. Their lungs must be MASSIVE.
All of that also; the song is Sing, sing, sing (with a swing). If you wanna listen to some of THE SPICIEST big band ever recorded. Its a big hard song and this band does it expertly.
This is the Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School Marching Band, and they are insane. Their uniforms are so recognisable that their nickname is the Orange Devils (オレンジの悪魔, orenji no akuma).
For the love of god, look up these guys on youtube, they are STILL GOING to this day and STILL HIGH QUALITY. And get this: their band teacher insists that he does very little coaching of the band, and that most of the moves are actually decided by the kids themselves, with the older kids teaching the newer ones.
They are exceptionally high quality, and you should really see them perform while marching. They’ve toured internationally. Other schools see them coming and hope for second place. Gold standard performances.
I had tears pouring down my cheeks while I was driving home this morning because I listened to a podcast about the Radium Girls and how hard they fought to hold their employer to account for poisoning them, even though they knew they would die regardless, because they wanted to protect the workers who came after them. Even though their community called them liars and they were in horrible pain, they fought. And then the host started talking about how the Manhattan Project used knowledge gained from the Radium Girls to protect their workers and how the ghosts of those girls and women protected people going forward…
And it made me think of all the ghosts, unnamed and unknown, who in their death protect us: the ghosts of the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Quebec Bridge, and so many others. Disasters that made us change laws and protect people, not just because they were horrific but because survivors and survivors families demanded that we change; kept screaming and fighting and pushing until someone listened and something was fixed.
What a debt we owe.
There’s a saying: “Regulations are written in blood.” This means safety laws get written, or tightened, after people die. The above is a good reminder that sometimes, even with the deaths, people have to fight like hell to get the laws written.
THE CASUALNESS OF THAT COLLIE SLIPPING RIGHT OUT OF THEIR COLLAR. That dude is a Willing Participant of this walk and by god everyone else is going to follow the RULES.
What gets me is the look in that border colliers eyes when it hands the leash over. That is a dog which has Fulfilled Its Purpose, and knows it.
LOOK AT ME, MOM. I BROUGHT BACK THE THING THAT WASN’T WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. I DID THE THING I WAS MADE FOR. DID YOU SEE ME?
As a disabled person who’s loved LEVERAGE and LEVERAGE REDEMPTION since the beginning - for the characters but also the whole ethos of performing acts that help people against crap systems, it’s wonderful to be reminded that it springs from reality.
“In one of the most notable moments in sports history, Kenyan runner Abel Mutai was just a few feet from the finish line, but became confused with the signage and stopped thinking he had completed the race.
A Spanish athlete, Ivan Fernandez, was right behind him, and after realizing what was happening, he started shouting at the Kenyan for him to continue running; but Mutai didn’t understand his Spanish. Fernandez eventually caught up to him and instead of passing him, he pushed him to victory.
A journalist asked Ivan, “Why did you do that?”
Ivan replied, “My dream is that someday we can have a kind of community life where we push and help each other to win.”
The journalist insisted “But why did you let the Kenyan win?“ Ivan replied, "I didn’t let him win, he was going to win.” The journalist insisted again, “But you could have won!”
Ivan looked at him & replied, “But what would be the merit of my victory? What would be the honor of that medal? What would my Mom think of that?” Values are transmitted from generation to generation. What values are we teaching our children? Let us not teach our kids the wrong ways to WIN.”
Deviant Ollam is runs a physical security penetration testing company called The Core Group; in a flat-out amazing, riveting presentation from the 2017 Wild West Hackin’ Fest,
Ollam – a master lockpicker – describes how lockpicking is a last
resort for the desperate, while the wily and knowledgeable gain access
by attacking doors and locks with tools that quickly and undetectably
open them.
Ollam’s techniques are just laugh-out-loud fantastic to watch: from
removing the pins in hinges and lifting doors away from their
high-security locks to sliding cheap tools between doors or under them
to turn thumb-levers, bypass latches, and turn handles. My favorite were
the easy-exit sensors that can be tricked into opening a pair of doors
by blowing vape smoke (or squirting water, or releasing a balloon)
through the crack down their middle.
But more than anything, Ollam’s lecture reminds me of the ground truth
that anyone who learns lockpicking comes to: physical security is a
predatory scam in which shoddy products are passed off onto naive
consumers who have no idea how unfit for purpose they are.
When locksport began, locksmiths were outraged that their long-held
“secret” ways of bypassing, tricking and confounding locks had entered
the public domain – they accused the information security community of
putting the public at risk by publishing the weaknesses in their
products (infosec geeks also get accused of this every time they point
out the weaknesses in digital products, of course).
But the reality is that “bad guys” know about (and exploit) these
vulnerabilities already. The only people in the dark about them are the
suckers who buy them and rely on them.
So when Ollam reveals that thousands of American cop cars, fleet cars,
and taxis can all be unlocked and started using a shared key that you
can literally buy for a few bucks at Home Depot, or that most elevators
can be bypassed with a similarly widely available key, or that most file
cabinets and other small locks can be opened with a third key, or that
most digital entry systems can be bypassed in seconds with a paperclip
(or another common physical key), he’s doing important (and hilarious!)
work.
He’s such an engaging speaker and the subject matter is nothing short of
fantastic. There are a hundred heist novels in this talk alone. It’s
definitely my must-watch for the week.
I am absolutely beside myself with excitement to announce the launch of Unprintable.
Unprintable is an online free shop, where original artwork and arts resources are released into the public domain.
Everything listed here is free to use, copy and remix any way you like. You can print off hi-res artwork to decorate your apartment, or to use in your own projects. You can use the writing in your own zines, anthologies or performances. You can put it on a t-shirt. You can read it on the radio. You can paint it on a truck. It’s up to you, entirely and forever.
The collection will be updated continuously, on an unfixed schedule, with contributions from a wide range of named and anonymous artists and activists. You can read the FAQ for a full rundown of what Unprintable is and why it exists, but these are the really important parts:
Can I download/print/use the work listed here? Yes.
Can I use it for [X]? You can do whatever you want with it forever.
But what if I want to [Y]? You can do whatever you want with it forever.
Why do this? A few reasons:
1. We want a space to just share things, no strings attached. We recognise that copyright is an irrational system that was designed to protect the profit interests of publishing middlemen and IP hoarders. In fact, copyright is often weaponised against the creators it pretends to protect. As long as it exists, we are unlikely to win any other form of protection for our work, and we are profoundly limited from engaging in the kind of communal artistic and storytelling practices that were the norm around the world for thousands of years.
2. Radical art is often unprintable. Profit motives make people cautious. A lot of print-on-demand or local print shop services will refuse artwork with controversial, sensitive or political content. This is very frustrating when these themes are the focus of so much of our work (and indeed our lives). Rather than waste any more breath trying to explain why a trans artist might want to print the word ‘faggot’, we can give our work away for free. Got a printer? It’s yours.
3. It feels good. Sharing is joyful. It’s the reason we love making things in the first place. We don’t write poems because we look forward to filleting them for consumption, or layer colours so that we can sell a canvas by the ounce. We have only ever wanted to be able to support ourselves so that we can make, but that relationship is deeply dysfunctional under capitalism. We made these things, and we want you to have them. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
I’ll write up some more posts introducing the launch collection soon. In the meantime…be free, enjoy, explore, have fun!
A friend's mom always made sauerkraut cake and I always refused to try it... Finally did in my teens and it was one of the best chocolate cakes evar!!!
He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of “freedom” claimed.
He was poisoned.
He was sick.
He was suffering.
“Freedom” would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.
“Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy.
Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined thatin addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticidesthat are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building.
The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls.In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.
No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed.
Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting.”
The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a “free, wild, pure life” cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it’s “better” for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.
Flaco’s life didn’t have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.
Flaco’s death didn’t have to be tragic.
But once the idea of “freedom” entered the chat, Flaco’s fate was unavoidable.
People who get sick from radiation exposure are faking it for attention, radiation is literally the divine light of creation and it nourishes those who are pure of spirit
ALTALT
ALT
