Zackc43

In this evocative trailer for short film "Dust," you'll be sucked into a beautifully-designed, futuristic world. Nature is evolving at a breakneck pace, transforming Earth's ecosystems while humans lock themselves up in walled cities.

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HOLY CRAP THIS MATHS QUIZ IS STRESSFUL. Seriously, probably the worst thing to attempt on a Monday morning. But we're sharing it with you, anyway, because you deserve to know about this. Also, it's pretty fun.

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Chances are most of us have seen the 1989 Batman movie at least once. But what if you'd only ever heard the soundtrack album by Prince? What would you think the plot of the movie was? Basically, it's the story of Batman's nemesis Partyman, and his ultimate weapon: the Lemon Crush.

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Jon Negroni's Pixar Theory: "Every movie is connected and implies major events that influence every single movie." [HT: Rob Sheridan]

How and why the CIA allowed the post-torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the admitted mastermind of 9/11, to design a vacuum cleaner from scratch in order to keep him from going insane.

Want to try sous vide cooking, but don't want to invest in another bulky (and not to mention expensive) gadget for your kitchen? Very soon, you might not have to. Codlo is a new device that can instantly transform your slow cooker, rice cooker, or even your coffee maker into your very own sous vide machine. There's no assembly required — just plug and cook!

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My name is Sue, how do you do

by digby

A tale of a man looking for a job:

Somewhere after the four month mark my confidence was starting to take a hit. The people rejecting me were business people too, how could my reasoning that I was perfect for these jobs be so different to theirs? Putting on my most serious business head I went back and scoured my CV. It was the only contact any of my potential employers or their recruitment companies had had with me. My CV was THE common denominator and if something was wrong it MUST be there.

I had fortunately seen a number of CVs in my time. I was happy with the choice of style and layout, and the balance of detail versus brevity. I was particularly pleased with the decision I made to brand it with my name with just enough bold positioning to make it instantly recognisable, and as I sat scouring every detail of that CV a horrible truth slowly dawned on me. My name.

My first name is Kim. Technically its gender neutral but my experience showed that most people’s default setting in the absence of any other clues is to assume Kim is a women’s name. And nothing else on my CV identified me as male. At first I thought I was being a little paranoid but engineering, trades, sales and management were all definitely male dominated industries. So I pictured all the managers I had over the years and, forming an amalgam of them in my mind, I read through the document as I imagined they would have. It was like being hit on the head with a big sheet of unbreakable glass ceiling.

My choice to brand the CV with a bold positioning of my name actually seemed to scream that I was a woman. I could easily imagine many of the people I had worked for discarding the document without even reading further. If they did read further the next thing they saw (as politeness declared at the time) was a little personal information, and that declared I was married with kids. I had put this in because I knew many employers would see it as showing stability, but when I viewed it through the skewed view of middle aged men who thought I was a woman, I could see it was just further damning my cause. I doubt if many of the managers I had known would have made it to the second page.

I made one change that day. I put Mr in front of my name on my CV. It looked a little too formal for my liking but I got an interview for the very next job I applied for. And the one after that. It all happened in a fortnight and the second job was a substantial increase in responsibility over anything I had done before. In the end I beat out a very competitive short-list and enjoyed that job for the next few years, further enhancing my career.

Where I had worked previously there was a woman manager. She was the only one of about a dozen at my level, and there were none on the next level. She had worked her way up through the company over many years and was very good at her job. She was the example everyone used to show that it could be done, but that most women just didn’t want to. It’s embarrassing to think I once believed that. It’s even more incredible to think many people still do.

I have some experience with the opposite effect. When everyone just knew me as "digby" most assumed I was male. And when they found out I wasn't, most people were fine with it. But there were those who felt that the moment I revealed myself to be a woman my writing began to suffer and I was no longer credible. (I guess it must have been the stress...)

There are many studies that show hiring practices are highly influenced by names. For instance, they've done controlled experiments with common African-American names like Jamal or LaToya and found that they get far fewer callbacks than those with names like Sally or Bob. There may be some that prove this gender bias as well. And what's most insidious about this is that many people don't even know they're doing it.


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BuzzFeed have compiled a series of images sharing the workspaces of famously creative folks including the likes of Mark Twain, Pablo Picasso, Yves Saint Laurent, Mark Rothko, and above, designer Charles Eames.

More images below.

Georgia O’Keefe, painter.

Martin Amis, novelist.

Virginia Woolf, novelist.

Willem de Kooning, artist

Chip Kidd, book cover designer.

Amanda Hesser, food writer.

Mark Twain, author and humorist.

Joan Miró, artist.

Nigella Lawson, food writer.

Pablo Picasso, painter.

Paul Cézanne, painter.

William Buckley, author and commentator.

Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer.

Will Self, writer.

Francis Bacon, painter.

Jane Austen, novelist.

Rudyard Kipling, author.

George Bernard Shaw, playwright.

Lisa Congdon, illustrator.

Ruth Reichl, food writer.

Mark Rothko, painter.

pic and info: BuzzFeed

Actually, for the purposes of this example, they haven't walked in yet, but they can peek through the window unseen.

First Guy 

GM 1: The bar is completely empty except for the bartender who is behind the bar, looking at the door, holding a shotgun.

Player 1: Ok, I got Sneak at 25% so I'm going to Sneak in and (roll r...)

GM 1: Hold it hold it hold it. The room is empty, the bartender is looking straight at the door. There's no way you can just sneak in there normally.

Player1: Ok, I'm going to set a trashcan on fire out on the street, then when the bartender comes out to investigate, sneak in.

GM 1: Ok, the trash can is on fire. The bartender (roll roll) does indeed go out to investigate after about a minute...roll to sneak...

Player1: Did it!

GM 1: Alright, you're in. And outside there's a trashcan fire. It's (roll roll) actually kinda getting out of control.

_

Second Guy

Predator duck hunt

Beautiful. 

I realize you're going to spend Independence Day happily drinking whatever cold adult beverage you're served, because you're polite and you're an alcoholic. And I trust you'll have a fine old time no matter what you drink. But that doesn't mean America's shitbrews are all the same. The list below breaks down 36 of them, from worst to least-worst.

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You’re all such good cooks you probably already planned and shopped for the Fourth of July, but here’s union-made you can buy:

Hot dogs
• Ball Park
• Boar’s Head
• Foster Farms
• Hebrew National
• Hofmann
• Oscar Mayer
• Hormel
Sausages:
• Farmland
• Koegel’s
• Gianelli (UFCW)
• Kroger brand (UFCW)
Condiments:
• French’s and Guldens Mustard (UFCW)
• Heinz Ketchup and Catsup (UFCW)
• Lucky Whip
• Hidden Valley Ranch
Buns:
• Sara Lee (UFCW)
• Oroweat
• Arnold
• Stroehmann
Soda & Bottled Water:
• Barq’s Rootbeer, Coke , and Sprite products (UFCW)
• Pepsi
• American Springs and Poland Springs Water (UFCW)
• Pocono Northern Fall’s Water
Beer:
• Bud Light (UFCW)
• Budweiser
• Michelob
• Miller
• Milwaukee’s Best
• Rolling Rock
• Goose Island
Snacks & Desserts:
• Breyers & Good Humor Ice Cream (UFCW)
• Flips pretzels
• Frito-Lay Chips
Supplies:
• Solo cups
• Weber Q grills
• Igloo coolers

I didn’t know this:

EAT UNION!! the fabulous burgers at WENDYS are made by members of UFCW Local 1776 in Pennsylvania for 11 states. Lots of Wendy’s foods are unionmade, the rolls, the fries, the CHILI!, sooo you need a quick bite head to WENDYS!! — with Ufcw SnackUnion.

More beer

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When Matt Osborne died on Friday, the news rang out far and wide. Fox Sports: "Report: Doink the Clown dead at 56." TMZ: "Doink the Clown Pro Wrestler Dies at 55." New York Daily News: "Ex-WWE wrestler Doink the Clown dead at 55." The implication was that the role had overtaken its actor. As this site's Barry Petchesky wrote, "We're hard-pressed to think of a wrestler who was more defined by a single gimmick."

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The idea that companies exist solely to produce shareholder value can be traced to a 1970 editorial by Milton Friedman. Writing in Forbes, Steve Denning calls this The World's Dumbest Idea, and gives pretty comprehensive evidence to support that notion: "As often happens with bad ideas that make some people a lot of money, shareholder value caught on and became the conventional wisdom."

Jim Kelly, whose role in Enter The Dragon made him the first black martial arts movie star, died over the weekend at his home in San Diego. He was 67.

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This morning I rode through Englewood, on Chicago's South Side, with the Cook County Sheriff's department's eviction team. Most of the evictees were long gone. They'd left behind trash, mattresses, children's clothes, blaring radios, food and dirty linen. But we stopped at one house where an entire family was set to be sat out on the street.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's office is more progressive than most. (You can click here and get a running tally of the county's jail population and breakdown of its cost.) They'd brought a social worker with them, and the officers were generally polite. But an eviction is an eviction and the fact of the law making you homeless can't really be massaged.

The adult male in the family, who was at home, seemed to grasp this. He argued with the officers and bucked in a way that was very familiar to me. He was in the living room with his spouse and their two kids. He was being emasculated in front of all of them. He had no power. His family was about to be sat out and there was nothing he could do. The officers escorted him outside. They told him to leave the immediate premises or be arrested. Outside there were men hired to haul the family's stuff into the streets.

The social worker took the mother to the back along her two kids. She asked the mother if she had a place to go. She offered referrals for shelter. One of the children, a beautiful brown boy, maybe two years old, wandered back out. "Alvin and the Chipmunks" was on TV. A bowl of cereal sat on the table. The beautiful brown boy kept yelling "chipmunk!" over and over and laughing. I thought of my father who came from home from school at age six, and found his entire life in the street. He lived on a truck with his father for two weeks after that.

When we left, the beautiful brown boy was standing on the sidewalk next to his parents. His mother held the baby on her hip. She said nothing. One of the officers wished them good luck. The man yelled in response, "You talk about us like we dead. We ain't dead. We still a family. Good luck to you." He said it in such a way that he seemed to be trying to convince himself.

Rousseau contrasts moral slavery, "the impulsion of mere appetite," with moral liberty, "obedience to the law you have set yourself." For much of American history the franchise on this kind of "moral liberty" has belonged to men. But it has never belonged to black men as much as it has belonged to white men. And in this day and age, it is increasingly not the strict franchise of men at all. This is as it should be. The past was not better. Still our notions of what men should be remain.

When I saw the father today, I saw a man without the power to set his own laws. I've seen the same pose out in the streets where men yell and threaten violence. I used to think such a display fearsome, but people who must show their power through threatening violence inhabit a low rung. They are not unprivileged. Even the threatening connotes the idea of some natural right which has eluded them, sort of like the phrase "poor white trash."

I've observed this before about the housing riots in mid-20th century Chicago. Those with the most power segregated black people through a dignified "urban renewal." Those with the least were reduced to brick-throwing, arson and riot. A few weeks ago my wife asked me if I would ever engage in cat-calling. I told her that as I am now--respected writer with a son in private school, a wife studying at an Ivy, and latte at the ready--I would not. But had things gone some other way (as they easily could have) I can't say what I'd do. Street harassment is a kind of implied violence, a tool most embraced by those who lack the power to set laws, men who are in doubt of themselves. Real men objectify women with dignity and decorum.

The macho pose, the loud talking, the insistence on violence as resolution, the boastfulness, marks the formative portion of my life. The men who participated in this behavior were no more sexist then the men I know now. But they lacked power. And they came from generations of men who lacked power. And they came up in society that claimed such power as the essence of manhood. The father standing with his family barking, homeless, was attempting to restore some of that power, to assert his dominance in the face of all events. The beautiful brown boy was watching him.

This mushroom opened overnight into full caterpillar hookah-and-head-games toadstool position.

God bless you, Mark Sanchez. You are the gift that keeps on giving.

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Sweep the leg!

entropybegets:

FINISH HIM !!!!!!!

When I heard that adding a little water to a pan of bacon would keep it from splattering fat as it cooked, I had to give the trick a try for myself. Not only did I confirm that this little tip is indeed a way to keep your apron clean, but I also discovered that it's the key to better bacon on the stovetop.

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Obamacare will reduce abortions. Not that conservatives care.

by David Atkins

Once again with feeling: if you want to reduce the number of abortions, the best way is through education and expanded healthcare:

A new study focusing on low-income women in St. Louis, MO concludes that expanding access to free contraception — just as the health care reform law does through its provision to provide birth control without a co-pay — leads to significantly lower rates of unintended teen pregnancy and abortion. Researchers found that when women weren’t prohibited by cost, they chose more effective, long-lasting forms of birth control and experienced many fewer unintended pregnancies as a result.

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis worked in partnership with the local Planned Parenthood affiliate to track over 9,200 low-income women in the St. Louis area, some of whom lacked insurance coverage, during a four-year Contraceptive CHOICE study. The CHOICE project simulated Obamacare’s birth control provision by allowing teens and women to select from the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive options and receive their preferred method at no cost. They found that birth rates among the teens who received free birth control in the CHOICE project were less than a fifth of the national teen birth rate — just 6.3 births per 1,000 teens, compared to 34.3 per 1,000 teens nationwide in 2010 — and abortion rates were less than half of both the regional and national rates.

But for conservatives, the goal has never been actually reducing the number of abortions. It has always been about controlling women's sexual freedom. Expanded sex education and health coverage gives women greater sexual freedom while reducing abortions, so on balance conservatives hate that. Given the choice between more abortions and more freedom for women, conservatives will pick more abortions every time.

And that tells you everything you need to know.


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Thursday morning is brought to you by …. 

While the kitchen in the basement of the Agriculture Department’s offices in Washington DC was unorthodox, it was hard to fault the food. The menu was wide and varied, and the chef, known only as “Perry,” had an impressive resume, incl...

I think Nancy Pelosi has the best DOMA SCOTUS response of the day, bar none. Watch.

The Girlfriend Index is, quite simply, the number of different google results an activity returns when inserted at the beginning of the phrase "with my girlfriend'.

Scholars differ on the precise significance of the Girlfriend Index.

the coffee table behind me

When I wrote this 4 years ago, it was the only thing that came up if you Googled the phrase "40k with my girlfriend".

Since then, Warhammer 40k's Girlfriend Index has gone up 600%. So that's...something.

"40k with my boyfriend" brings up 3 different results.
"40k with my mom" brings up 1
"40k with my dad" brings up 6
"40k with my sister": 1
"40k with my brother": 5,350
"40k with my wife" 7
"40k with my husband"  4 (well, 4 about gaming, a fifth was about  remodelling a kitchen)
"40k with my daughter" 3
"40k with my son" 5,440
_

And in case you thought the RPG was doing better...
"Dark Heresy with my girlfriend" and the like bring up zero (P.S. Dear Google: I play Dark Heresy with my girlfriend)
"Dark Heresy with my wife" brings up 1 and it's someone commenting on this blog.
_

"Pathfinder with my girlfriend" 2
"4e with my girlfriend" 1
"3.5 with my girlfriend" 4
"AD&D with my girlfriend" 1
"D&D with my girlfriend" 14,800
"D&D with my sister" 14,900
"D&D with my daughter" brings up 7 results, 3 of which are decidedly OSR
(Shadowrun, 13th Age, Blue Rose, Rifts, Dungeon World, FASERIP: 0)
White Wolf games are hard to google since "vampire with my girlfriend" could mean a lot of things...
"LARP with my girlfriend" 5
"Warhammer with my girlfriend" 4
"Exalted with my girlfriend" 0
"RPGs with my girlfriend" 6 results, 3 about tabletop
"CoC with my girlfriend" 4 results--all of which refer to Call of Cthulhu and none of which refer to Corrosion of Conformity.

Next glass ceiling: we also played 40k with our girlfriend.
Only one result for that so far.
See you in 2017.
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Getting "Niner Fan Al" to fit on a license plate sounds much better than it looks.

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