Luke.stirling

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Here’s the sort-of transcript:

A Saudi historian has gone on record as saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to drive because if they drive, their cars may break down. And if their cars break down, they can be raped.

This is a completely ridiculous argument to people living outside of Saudi Arabia, since women driving is a completely normal part of our daily lives, and the thought of stopping half the population from doing something that is seems as natural to us as breathing is absurd.

But if you think it’s ridiculous to stop women from driving because they might get raped but you think it’s cool to stop women from drinking alcohol or wearing particular outfits or saying certain things on the Internet because they might get raped, then have a seat, because you’re a giant hypocrite.

Saudis arguing that women shouldn’t drive because they might get raped is the perfect absurd argument to highlight the inherent absurdity of every other argument that pretends to be about protecting women but is actually about controlling women’s behavior in more and more severe ways, creating impossible standards that we can never meet in order to be perfectly unrape-able.

The absurdity becomes even clearer when the interviewer asked the saudi historian whether or not it was a potential problem that women may be raped by their male chauffeurs. He admitted that that was a problem, and suggested that the solution would be hiring foreign women to drive around Saudi women.

It’s a game women can never win: our rights are curtailed in the supposed interest of our safety, but we’re never actually made more safe. What happens to women every day in pretty much all societies around the world is a much more severe and dangerous version of what happens to people who travel on airplanes when they go through TSA. We’re offered the illusion of safety, but we’re never actually made any safer, we’re just forced to waste time taking off our god damn shoes when we’re already running late.

Imagine if the TSA decided you couldn’t fly at all, because you might be murdered by a terrorist on the plane. “Why don’t you just stop the terrorist from flying,” you may ask incredulously. The TSA agent shrugs and says that they can’t catch all the terrorists, so people should take personal responsibility and protect themselves by hiring a private jet. Though some TSA agents think even that is too risky, so you should probably just drive. But you might get raped so you should have someone else drive. Someone who doesn’t want to rape you.

Oh, dear, I’ve mixed up my analogies and now I have no idea how I’m getting to Chicago next month.

bonitaapplebelle:

After Jessica Williams declared that she does not want to replace Jon Stewart, a journalist decided it to diagnose Williams with “imposter syndome” (the idea that a woman in a male dominated field doesn’t feel as if they’re not doing enough to be in said position) and this was Williams response.

http://thebillfold.com/2015/02/on-the-daily-shows-jessica-williams-the-latest-high-profile-victim-of-impostor-syndrome/

Super-sized sheets of wrapping paper printed with building facades from around the world. Wrap your gifts to create 3D buildings that come together to form mini skylines. Unique wrapping paper perfect for that special architect in your life. The best way to keep the pile of presents under the tree looking organised. Buy here.

Recently, a friend of mine named Akiba took me to visit his friend’s zipper factory in China. I love visiting factories: no matter how simple the product, I learn something new.

This factory is a highly automated, vertically integrated manufacturer. To give you an idea of what that means, they take this:

and this:

and turn it into this:

In between the inputted material and the outputted product, however, is a fully automated die casting line. This line consists of a set of tumblers and vibrating pots that release and polish the zippers, along with a set of machines that de-burr and join the zipper’s puller to its slider. I think I counted less than a dozen employees in the facility and I’m guessing their capacity well exceeds a million zippers a month.

I find vibrapots mesmerizing. I actually don’t know if that’s what they are called — I just call them that. It looks as if the sliders and pullers are lining themselves up in the right orientation by magic, falling into a rail and being pressed together into that familiar zipper form, all in a single, fully automated machine.

 I’d like to imagine that most people, after watching a person join pullers to sliders for a couple minutes, will be quite alright to suffer the tiny bump on the tip of their zipper to save another human the fate of having to manually align pullers into sliders for eight hours a day. 

Yet despite the high level of automation in this factory, many of the workers I saw were manually separating zippers from the rail. This begs the question: Why is it that some zippers have fully automated assembly processes, whereas others are semi-automatic?

The answer, it turns out, is very subtle. When the pullers come around the rail, their orientation is random: some are facing right, some facing left. But the joining operation must only insert the slider into the smaller of the two holes. A tiny tab on the top of the zipper allows gravity to cause all the pullers to hang in the same direction as they fall into a rail on the left.

The semi-automated zipper design doesn’t have this tab; as a result, the design is too symmetric for a vibrapot to align the puller. Essentially, this tiny tab, barely visible, is the difference between full automation and a human having to join millions of sliders and pullers together. I asked the factory owner if adding the tiny tab would save this labor. His answer? Absolutely.

Elsie has been really into sweet potatoes lately. So, of course, as soon as she leaves town, I decide I'm in the mood to make sweet potato fries. 

You can go ahead and give me the "Worst Sister of the Year" award. :)

Really though, I think it was Elsie who reminded me (once again) that I really love sweet potatoes. They have so much flavor, nutrition, and they are a way fun color. So, I decided to work on my baked sweet potato fries skills, and I have a method I'm excited to share with you. It's sort of a variation on my favorite baked fries method with some slight changes. You'll see. The good news—it's super easy.

Best Baked Sweet Potato Fries, serves 2-3 as a side dish.

2 medium/large sweet potatoes 
1 tablespoon cornstarch
big sprinkle of cayenne (about 1/8 teaspoon)
big sprinkle of cumin (about 1/8 teaspoon)
2 tablespoons peanut oil (or canola)
salt, pepper to season
cilantro for garnish

First, peel the potatoes. Then cut them into matchsticks. Try to keep them all relatively the same thickness (different lengths is fine). This will help them cook evenly. 

Soak the cut potatoes in water for 15-20 minutes.

I think they kind of look like carrot sticks at this point. :)

Drain and pat dry. In a large ziplock bag, toss the potatoes with the cornstarch, cayenne and cumin. If you find that you are all out of large ziplock bags, spend 2 minutes feeling annoyed with yourself for not checking before you went to the store, and then another 3 minutes being distracted by Instagram.

Actually, don't do that. That's just what I did. You can also toss them in a large mixing bowl. Then toss with 1 tablespoon of oil. Cover two baking sheets with aluminum foil and coat with the remaining tablespoon of oil. You may be able to use just one baking sheet, depending on the size. But if you're unsure, just use two so you're not crowding the fries (this will help them bake more crispy).

Bake at 450°F for 10-12 minutes. Then flip all the fries over and rotate the pans. Bake another 10-12 minutes. Then turn the oven off, open the (oven) door just a little and allow the fries to sit in there for another 5-6 minutes. 

Season with salt and pepper and garnish with a little chopped cilantro. You can see I went ahead and took mine to the next level and made chipotle mayo. You can make this too by combining 2/3 cup mayo and one chipotle pepper in adobo sauce in a food processor or blender for a few seconds. Easy peasy. Enjoy! xo. Emma

Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.

Russia's massive impulse generator that can shoot deadly 500 to 650-foot lightning bolts isn't exactly off limits, but it is tucked away near a forest, far from the usual tourist traps... for obvious reasons. Thankfully, Russia Today got permission t...

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A scene in Jennifer Lopez’s new film in which her character is given a supposed first edition of The Iliad has prompted viewers to attempt to find their own first edition of an epic poem composed at least 2,000 years before the invention of the printing press.

According to books marketplace AbeBooks, since Lopez’s film The Boy Next Door was released in the US on 23 January, “The Iliad, first edition” has been its top search term, ahead of To Kill A Mockingbird. AbeBooks attributes this to a scene in the film in which Lopez’s character, a high-school teacher, is given a hardback copy of the book by the teenager with whom she is to go on to have a dangerous affair.

“Oh my God – this is a first edition? I can’t accept this, it must have cost a fortune,” she tells her admirer. “It was a buck at a garage sale – one man’s trash…” he replies.

“It appears people who have watched the film are trying to identify the actual edition handed to Lopez, which has dark yellow and blue boards. I cannot match the book seen in the movie to anything currently for sale on AbeBooks. It could be a movie prop and not even be a real book. It certainly appears to be an attractive book,” said AbeBooks spokesman Richard Davies.

”

- J-Lo sparks quest to find ‘first editions’ of The Iliad | Books | The Guardian (via dduane)

An excited cockatiel adorably chirps and runs in circles to the sound of coffee being stirred by its human companion in a 2006 video uploaded by Amy Lowry.

via reddit

A diminutive (and rather mad-looking) northern saw-whet owl demonstrates its remarkable image stabilization feature (really the vestibulo–ocular reflex) in this amusing short video. The video was posted in 2013 by Gene Jacobs of Raptor Services.

via Tastefully Offensive

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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If I look up “carrot” in the dictionary, most people will acknowledge I do not know all there is to know about carrots and if I truly want to understand carrots, I should probably pick up a horticultural text book. We know that legal and medical terms are going to be, at best, simplistically represented and know we need to find a lawyer or a doctor if we want to know more. Anyone deciding to base their argument on, say, a philosophical concept or term using the dictionary is going to be laughed at at best, or automatically lose whatever argument they’re trying to make at least.

Yet the minute we move into a social justice framework, the ultimate authority changes. We don’t need lived experience, we don’t need experts who have examined centuries of social disparities and discrimination, we don’t need societal context. We don’t need sociology or history – no, we have THE DICTIONARY! That ultimate tome of oracular insight, the last word on any debate!

It’s patently ridiculous and you can see that by applying it to any other field of knowledge. But the privileged will continually trot out simplistic, twitter-style dictionary definitions as if they are the last word and the ultimate authority. No-one would drag out the dictionary to debate science with a scientist. But they’re more than willing to trot out a dictionary definition of racism over any sociological analysis. A dictionary is not the ultimate authority - they’re a rough guide for you to discover the simple meaning of words you’ve never heard before – not an ultimate definition of what the word means and all its contexts.

”

- Sparky at Womanist Musings. YES! (via flowerskss)

hestmord:

reptilmastaren:

Did you know that Moomin creator Tove Jansson illustrated J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit for the 1962 swedish edition? These are just a few of the illustrations in the book.

I love these and I’ve never seen so many in one place before also holy shit that spider

the-real-eye-to-see:

Tricky hedgehog

cubebreaker:

Stefano Boeri’s 'Bosco Verticale' towers have opened in Milan, with each of the 113 apartments featuring its own beautifully landscaped balcony irrigated by greywater recycled through the building.

nonconcept:

V+D SET, Mar Azul, Argentina by BAK Architects. (Photography: Ines Tanoira)

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To date, ISIS has killed four Americans, a horrible tragedy for those people and their families. But since the idea of the group’s threat to America is at this point entirely hypothetical, we should be as specific as we can when we talk about that threat. Do we think they’re going to try to hijack planes or send agents here to set off bombs? And if so, what do we need to do to counter those threats that we aren’t already doing? If we’re going to expand our military involvement in the Middle East, is there a way to do it that won’t create more problems than it solves?

Those are simple, obvious questions, but so often they’re overwhelmed by people waving their arms and shouting “We’re all gonna die!” In the days and years after September 11, Republicans repeated that al Qaeda was an “existential threat,” a notion that was utterly insane yet seldom examined. And we certainly acted as though the very existence of the United States of America was indeed in question. Congress gave the federal government a slate of new powers to spy on its citizens. We created a surveillance apparatus of gargantuan size and scope. We deployed a network of secret prisons as sites for a program of torture. And we all got used to the idea that the War on Terror is forever.

”

- A couple of hundred thousand Americans die every year from preventable medical errors and the response from the government amounts to “Gee, that’s too bad,” but all it takes is a few videos of brutal executions 6,000 miles away to spur a wholesale reexamination of American foreign policy.

sixpenceee:

Lake Sorvagsvatn located in Faroe Islands, between Norway and Iceland. It is 30 meters above the Ocean.

Muslim commits any crime ever: THEY'RE A TERRORIST! ALL OF THEM ARE BARBARIC! CALL IT WHAT IT IS: TERRORISM!!!
Man who openly hates Muslims kills 3 Muslims execution style: Let's not call it a hate crime, why do we have to label everything? He was just evil, it doesn't matter that the victims were Muslim, they could have been Black, White, or green it didn't matter. This was about a parking dispute, nothing else.

“What is significant about fan fiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans - women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly.”

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Sherlock and the Adventure of the Overzealous Fanbase by Laurie Penny  (via basilandtheblues)

I’ll always reblog this.

(via chase820)

whoop there it is

(via randomfandomteacher)

hartorotica:

sandandglass:

Bryan Stevenson on The Daily Show.

“Ignorance is bad for everybody. It only lowers the collective IQ when lawmakers still push to teach “intelligent design.” It similarly should never be a matter of any dispute that the Inquisition and the Crusades were bad ideas, and to take offense over pointing that out is inane. Likewise, these targeted, strategic attempts to force students – students who are intellectually sophisticated enough to take on college level coursework – to accept a propaganda-based curriculum is detrimental to critical thought as a whole. It should be absurd to promote any educational agenda that pushes jingoism as a lesson plan. It should never have gotten this far. And the reality of life in the 21st century is that we are sharing this planet with the rest of its inhabitants. It’s not just dumb and wrong to teach kids that we’re better than the rest of the world, and to attempt to conspicuously leave our past misdeeds from lessons — it’s bad diplomacy and it’s bad business. That’s not teaching exceptionalism; it’s teaching entitlement – not a useful quality on the global playing field.
 
There’s a profound insecurity at the heart of any agenda that presumes that if kids aren’t spoon fed a black and white fairy tale of our national greatness, they’ll have no pride or loyalty. Arrogance isn’t patriotism, and education isn’t indoctrination. And anyone who doesn’t comprehend that difference doesn’t just need a history lesson, he needs a dictionary.”

- Oklahoma’s demented fight against AP history.

wasbella102:

U.S. Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan, NYC, 1945                    

We already know that it's possible to map your home's WiFi signal in 2D, but that doesn't help if you're holding your phone above your head to get connected. Step forward YouTuber CNLohr, who appears to have developed a reasonably low-tech way to ana...

genderoftheday:

Today’s Gender of the day is: A bouncing cockatoo