Luke.stirling

The classic 2011 animated poem about a party where Minchin unloads the full weight of his love of science and reality to refute homeopathy and psychic phenomena is now a beautiful book, which Cory Doctorow read over the weekend. Read the rest

From The Guardian:

An unprecedented international investigation into tax deals struck with Luxembourg has uncovered the multi-billion dollar tax secrets of some of the world’s largest multinational corporations.

A cache of almost 28,000 pages of leaked tax agreements, returns and other sensitive papers relating to over 1,000 businesses paints a damning picture of an EU state which is quietly rubber-stamping tax avoidance on an industrial scale.

The documents show that major companies — including drugs group Shire, City trading firm Icap and vacuum cleaner firm Dyson, who are headquartered in the UK or Ireland — have used complex webs of internal loans and interest payments which have slashed the companies’ tax bills. These arrangements, signed off by the Grand Duchy, are perfectly legal.

The documents also show how some 340 companies from around the world arranged specially-designed corporate structures with the Luxembourg authorities. The businesses include corporations such as Pepsi, Ikea, Accenture, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, Heinz, JP Morgan and FedEx. Leaked papers relating to the Coach handbag firm, drugs group Abbott Laboratories, Amazon, Deutsche Bank and Australian financial group Macquarie are also included.

Lots of details at the link.

A new paper by Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics suggests that, in America at least, inequality in wealth is approaching record levels...
 
The top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America’s wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak—and almost the same share as the bottom 90% of the population.

From The Economist, where the chart is interactive.  The phenomenon is discussed in greater detail in another article there:

Because the bottom half of all families almost always has no net wealth, the share of wealth held by the bottom 90% is an effective measure of “middle class” wealth, or that held by those from the 50th to the 90th percentile...

The 16,000 families making up the richest 0.01%, with an average net worth of $371m, now control 11.2% of total wealth—back to the 1916 share, which is the highest on record...

Richard Dawkins tweeted something yesterday (cue foreboding music, cawing of ravens, the rumble of distant thunder):

Oh NO. Just checked my privilege. Turns out I'm a white heterosexual male. http://t.co/3I1J1dWRrq How can I atone? Hair shirt? Flagellation?

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) November 8, 2014

It was enlightening. Why are there people who are so totally hung up on the idea that maybe they’ve received some lifelong benefits from being male, and white, and heterosexual? I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that I’ve been fortunate to be a member of a socially dominant class, and I have no desire to change my whiteness, maleness, or heterosexuality, nor do I feel any pressure to “atone” for who I am. It seems natural to me to accept the existence of structural patterns of advantage and disadvantage within society. This can’t be so hard for Dawkins to grasp, can i?

And then I looked at the source: this is raw right-wing propaganda put out by a conservative think-tank. Why is Richard Dawkins reading and citing such trash? And the article — University professors attack white, heterosexual, Christian males for being “privileged” — consists of mindless quotes which do not support the thesis of the title, but then, I’m beginning to see that some people regard pointing out reality to them to be an “attack”.

Three professors have launched a “Check Your Privilege” campaign suggesting that if you are white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Christian, or male you are privileged

Yes? Is this at all controversial? Of course you are! It sounds like a campaign to raise awareness of our advantages, and to appreciate that others may not have them. It’s straightforward social consciousness 101.

The “Check Your Privilege” campaign defines privilege as “unearned access to social power based on membership in a dominant social group.”

They write that like it’s weird, rather than obviously true.

So I just made one short reply.

.@RichardDawkins Nothing to atone for. Recognize your advantages, & use them to help less privileged. This shouldn't be hard to figure out

— PZ Myers (@pzmyers) November 9, 2014

We’re atheists. We’re supposed to recognize reality, not take offense at it.

My name is bspencer and I’m a dirty liar. A few days back I wrote a florid post saying I was taking a break from #GamerGate because it was taking its toll on my psyche. That was true. And I did take a break. But it was a short one, and after a couple of days I was back at the hashtag, getting my fix like some huffer who’d just stumbled upon an unattended pile of metallic Krylon.

The truth is I can’t quit #GamerGate. 

So the way I see it, GG is a toxic stew of aggressively stupid and/or ignorant teenagers who now have a lot (cont) http://t.co/UzVr6C7ZkM

— bspencer (@vacuumslayer) November 5, 2014

A couple weeks ago my son and I were watching a series about reptiles. It was hosted by David Attenborough. During the intro, there’s a quick cut of Attenborough watching two huge tortoises mating. It’s weird. You wonder how he’s feeling. Like…does he feel awkward? Is he stifling a laugh? And thinking about that cut made me think about #GamerGate. Watching #GamerGate is like watching reptiles awkwardly mate–you don’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted. You don’t know if you want to keep watching or turn away. But somewhere along the way, I decided to be GG’s David Attenborough: I decided to stay and watch.

I’ve combed through that hashtag searching for signs that I am even 1% wrong about its inhabitants. But I’m not. I’m 1000% right. It’s a movement based entirely on driving feminist women and feminist allies out of gaming and shutting up feminist women who critique games and game culture.

The best thing about GG’s longevity is that its supporters–who are an incredibly unwieldy lot–have given up the pretense that’s about “ethics in journalism.”  On any given day, every other tweet says in language even GGer’s can understand that the goal is to drive feminists and “Social Justice Warriors” out of gaming and gaming criticism.

Everyone knows it’s a cesspool. Everyone outside its bubble sees it the way I do: as a daycare gone rogue with toddlers running around smearing the walls with poop. Everyone who’s cool hates #GamerGate. Everyone who matters hates #GamerGate. But like many toddlers GGer’s think any attention is good attention, so the daycare continues to teem with excitable, poo-smearing toddlers. I think it may be time for that to stop. I think that we all need to just stop paying attention to GG. Because if we do, soon it will just be a room full of toddlers sending nasty emails to Gawker babbling to each other and proudly showing off  their baffling Microsoft Paint graphics poop-drawings.

I promise this time I’ll go first. I promise I’ll stop giving it attention. Then maybe the toddlers of GG will finally get tired and go down for their naps. Boy, do they need one.

carnivaloftherandom:

curlykytta:

comedium:

news flash: bbc finally does something right

Listen up college kiddies that think your drunken escapades don’t matter!

Ooh, and bonus Colin Salmon.

While this rendition isn’t going to get the same results as a real particle accelerator, I invite you to take a look at this fantastic LEGO version from Jason(JK Brickworks).

This “working” accelerator does in fact send a LEGO soccer ball around the track at 440 studs per second, or approximately 12.5 km/hr. Jason outlines some of the build in more detail on his blog.

I highly recommend checking out the video, too.

No time for stairs. [via]

Sometimes, the bad guys actually get punished.

1. Remember Richard Brittain, the creepy Countdown champion and obsessed stalker? I took my post about him down at the request of his victim, but I knew we’d hear more from him soon. Unfortunately, it’s happened: a woman wrote a negative review of his fantasy novel, so he tracked her down and attacked her.

   The writer of the World Rose is arrogant. SO arrogant, in fact, that my review hit him where it hurts a little to hard. In return, he found out where I worked through Facebook, came from LONDON to where I live in the east of Scotland, and attacked me by hitting me over the head with a wine bottle from behind. Not a word or a sound. And then he left. I had to be taken to hospital to receive medical treatment for it, which included several stitches in my head.

   Brittain was arrested, but he’s now out on bail. The woman is pressing charges. I expect he’ll be locked up for a while.

2. Julien Blanc, another creepy dude who makes money with seminars about how to abuse women, has been deported from Australia. His next planned stop is Japan — yeah, the guy who bragged about how you can anything to Japanese girls, is going to Japan — but let’s all hope he gets kicked out of there.

3. 4channers are pathetic and awful. One of them, David Kalac, murdered his girlfriend and posted photos to 4chan. He’s been arrested, and I can’t imagine him getting off.

   Unfortunately, justice is not perfect. The creeps at 4chan have used photos of the dead woman to make memes.

4. Artie Lange (Who? Some third rate comedian who got his start as a sidekick to Howard Stern) used Twitter to babble obscene, racist ‘humor’ about an ESPN announcer. He lost a gig with Comedy Central and has been banned from ESPN. Now he’s placing the blame on “PC groups” who are “ruining the country”.

   I know! He should send his tale of woe to Sam Harris!

The tropes are coming fast and thick, though; all of these guys have defenders, which I find bizarre. One of the most common defenses is to blame the victim, to drag out that nonsense about “professional victims” — there’s no such thing. But I’ll point to a really good storify that turns the tables: there are no “professional victims”, but there are definitely professional victimizers. The real profiteers are the people who have monetized accounts on Patreon and Youtube who are raking in surprisingly big bucks with popular videos about how evil Anita Sarkeesian, for instance, is.

This is the "non-surgical gastric bypass" company whose terms of service forbid complaining, and require you to let them use any kind of success you experience to publicly endorse the company, who are suing pissedconsumer.com for having a message board where its customers are complaining about its product. Read the rest

Parks' resulting work appeared in a 26-photo spread in [Life] magazine. "The Restraints: Open and Hidden" stood out among photography of the era because it used color photos to document the day-to-day impact of Jim Crow segregation on an otherwise anonymous extended family, the Thorntons, rather than focusing on the heroes and flash points of the Civil Rights Movement. When part of the family was kicked out of its Shady Grove, Ala., home and run out of town as a repercussion, Life magazine donated $25,000 to help the family relocate. By capturing the quiet dignity and humanity of Southern blacks, the series highlighted the inadequacies of the separate but equal doctrine at a time when the country was consciously grappling with race.

Both photos credit Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta and Arnika Dawkins Gallery. © The Gordon Parks Foundation, via Creative Loafing where there are more photos and comments

Last year The Guardian carried a story about a UK businessman who sold fake bomb detectors to the Iraqis:

A jury at the Old Bailey found Jim McCormick, 57, from near Taunton, Somerset, guilty on three counts of fraud over a scam that included the sale of £55m of devices based on a novelty golfball finder to Iraq. They were installed at checkpoints in Baghdad through which car bombs and suicide bombers passed, killing hundreds of civilians...

He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golfball finder with a different sticker on it...

A former colleague of McCormick told the BBC he saw him set up accounts in false names for 15 Iraqi officials. He said they "don't care if people live or die"; the only thing they care about is "how much am I going to get back – cashback"....

A prison sentence is in my view an inadequate punishment for a crime of this nature; something more medieval should have been considered.

It was with great disappointment, therefore, that I read in Harper's last month that the fake bomb detectors are still being used in Iraq:

Today, as our cab arrived at Kut, Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint wore U.S. tricolor desert camouflage, the same my unit had been issued for the invasion. It was as if the hidden army of Saddam had reappeared wearing our uniforms. They walked carefully along our cab with a fake bomb detector, purchased from a crooked British contractor who resold $20 American novelty golf-ball locators for $27,000 each. Corrupt Iraqi officials bought $40 million worth of them. The soldier stared intently at the indicator light, three years after their sale had been banned, a keeper of the lie. “Everyone knows it does nothing,” the passenger in the front seat said.

What a totally screwed-up country.

Photo  credit: SWNS.com

Frank Platt via Arbroath.

"By imagining nerds as a race of their own," writes Christopher Tan in The New Inquiry, "Silicon Valley tries to disguise its white supremacy."

Physics. The answer lies in physics. Read the rest

Two juvenile pandas joined forces to try and stop a breeder from feeding them medicine instead of the yummy bamboo they wanted, at a zoo in Chengdu, in Southwest China. The keeper in this video is using a syringe to inject liquid meds into the cubs' mouths. They resist by rolling around and climbing on top of him adorably. [BBC Video]

Writing about abhorrent misogyny pretty much every day of every week can get a tad depressing. So I’m glad to have some actual good news to report. Good news, at least, for non-misogynists.

The #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign has taken off internationally, and the “pickup artist” who advocates choking women as a clever “opener” has been kicked out of Australia, his visa revoked.

In an op-ed in The Independent yesterday, self-described “Aggressive Chinese Girl” Jenn Li explained why she started the #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign and what it has accomplished so far:

Julien Blanc, a “dating advice” consultant working for Real Social Dynamics (RSD), travels around the world teaching men how to manipulate, and in some cases, sexually assault women. …

In Blanc’s videos his treatment of women is – to put it lightly – horrifying. There are videos of him going up to women, clasping their throats, while putting his finger on his lips, saying “shhh”. For reasons beyond me, he has decided to document this abuse by labelling the videos of him doing this with his own hashtag: #ChokingGirlsAroundtheWorld. …

When talking about how to “seduce” a Japanese woman, he is quoted as saying: “Just grab her… To take the pressure off, yell Pikachu or Pokemon or Tamagotchi or something”. He is obsessed with degrading Japanese women, and abusing his white male privilege. “…

By perpetuating the idea that Asian women are a “free for all” for predatory men, he is encouraging other pathetic men to abuse them. …

When I first started the campaign, I had almost no strategy; I just threw things and hoped they stuck. I called the Japanese Embassy, reported him, wrote to the press, did the hashtag thing, and started a petition on change.org.

I’m now targeting venues who are hosting his events. The campaign is still in its early stages, but something has seemed to have stuck. We have been able to shut down events in Melbourne, Brisbane, Austin, and Seattle, and Eventbrite have stopped hosting his events.

In Melbourne, as I noted a couple of days ago, Li and her supporters convinced the hotel hosting his event to boot him. Blanc ended up having to host the event on a boat, and sent an assistant along to conduct the “seminar” in his place. Locals organized a protest and the event itself was shut down. Not long afterwards, local authorities reported that they had revoked Blanc’s visa. He’s now left the country.

Li’s next goal? To shut down Blanc’s scheduled seminars in Japan in two weeks.

RSD founder Owen Cook, aka “Tyler Durden,” has posted a weird, rambling “non response” to the controversy on his website, a strange mixture of apology, defiance and self-justification. After announcing that “we’re not NOT responding. :),” he basically throws Blanc under the bus:

I think Julien’s video was absolutely stupid.  It was totally out of context and he posted it to get shock, not realizing the full outcome.  I’m sorry about the video.  I would have taken it down if I’d seen it, but don’t monitor all social media postings.

I watched Julien’s entire Free Tour from that event today, and he talks about not degrading women and how he’s just kidding around.  The full infield clips have the girls laughing and asking him to kiss them and things like that.  He deliberately left this out of the video to make it inflammatory.  Again I don’t approve that behaviour and frankly neither does he, he was an idiot to post that.

Then he complains that #TakeDownJulienBlanc supporters are

deliberately taking things out of context. … I see fake twitter accounts claiming to be Julien, or videos from me with sarcasm that are cut to say insane things I’m not saying, and that have context when you watch the whole thing.  They know they’re doing this and think it’s funny, so there’s not a lot of dialogue to be had.

So I’m not NOT talking… it’s just that there’s nobody to talk to. :)  I’ve apologized in other threads and condemned the behaviour.  From there it is what it is.

He follows up with a weirdly self-aggrandizing spiel:

All I care about is my ability to do good in the world.  RSD has been a cool vehicle to do that.  If it isn’t a viable vehicle anymore, I’ll continue to do good.  The people who watch our stuff honestly have no idea what it’s like to be a shy guy trying to learn to meet girls, or the pain it causes.  They have no context for why we teach guys what we teach, after years of trying different things to see what works.

It doesn’t matter.  I’ll always do amazing work and make the world better.  As long as I can do that, I’m happy.  The vehicle is just a temporary form that has to be discarded like anything else, whether tomorrow or in 50 years.  As long as I’m alive I’ll keep finding new vehicles to do good things.

It seems like SJW’s cause a lot of trouble for good men as well as bad.  I think it’s important people find out about them.  I think the mainstream media does a lot of messed up things as well.  I’ve honestly felt guilty for not addressing these issues for a while now, but was too busy teaching “pick up” which I’m sure people sensed I did more out of obligation to the community that helped me, than it being my main focus.

So regardless of what happens, I’ll continue to do good.  I’ve spent days working on RSD related stuff, no different than before.  I personally expect RSD to be fine.  My life is basically the same as it ever was, not really different.  I’ve been planning on building something new for a long time, and have a lot of things in the works with it even before this, so if it’s not fine I’ll do other things.

I suspect the plain English translation of all that is: CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP I THINK WE’RE SCREWED.

As far as I know, Blanc himself hasn’t offered any response to any of this yet — aside from quietly taking down Tweets featuring pictures of him choking women.

For the latest on all this, check out the #TakeDownJulienBlanc hashtag on Twitter, and follow Li herself at @JennLi123.

You can also sign a petition to Take Down Julien Blanc and RSD’s Seminars and Web content. Last I checked, the Change.org petition had garnered more than 30,000 signatures. There’s another one directed at the Japanese government here.

For more on the campaign against Blanc, see:

Julien Blanc, the ‘female attraction’ expert, glorifies sexual violence. The fewer seminars he holds, the better, by Somayya Ismailjee at TheGuardian.com.

Julien Blanc, self-described pick-up artist who promotes choking women, leaves Australia and has visa cancelled, at ABC.net.au.

Australian Government Deports Notorious “Pick-Up Artist” Julien Blanc, by Mark Di Stefano at Buzzfeed.

 

 

 

"I think I’m lost…"

From the cutest penguin holiday commercial ever.

herbshuttle:

sparklegenocide:

Oh you

biggest fuck you ever 

The post Aaaargh my hand! appeared first on Fredo and Pidjin. The Webcomic..

embryo-yo:

pualrudd:

theswearingmime:

nehoynehoy14:

lilysinthefall:

professorfangirl:

timemachineyeah:

So this girl walks up to another girl and says “Hey, have you heard of the Bechdel Test?”

And the other girl says, “Yeah, my boyfriend was telling me about it the other day!”

SIT DOWN.

i don’t get it

I feel like this is an inside joke that I am not getting

FUCK

Lol

no one tell them