Snob

The juice is loose.

Dan Harmon is working on a new TV project. According to Variety, Harmon has teamed up with Evan Katz (Small Crimes) to develop a TV adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan. Here’s the logline for the project: UCP is also working on Sirens of Titan, with Dan Harmon (Rick & Morty) […]

Notes:
- Colour is based on the political position of the head of the government's party, according to Wikipedia.
- Grey represents either an independent/nonpartisan or a situation where there is no governing political party, for example, a period of military occupation.
- The map is based on the first of January each year, so some very short lived governments may not appear. (Also, governments only elected since 01/01/2017)
- Some countries (for example, Ireland), have two major political parties which Wikipedia describes as having the same ideology, so a change in government does not appear on this map.
- For ease of viewing, coalitions are not shown on this map

Reddit use: Zurgetron

Hoy os contamos en nuestro canal de Youtube la historia de Sigue Sigue Sputnik, una banda de new wave-punk-rock que durante una breve temporada fueron el grupo más famoso del mundo.

Dadle al play para descubrir esta fascinante historia:

The post VÍDEO: Auge y caída de Sigue Sigue Sputnik appeared first on Teenage Thunder.

Dicen que el verano es la mejor época para tener sexo; sin embargo, no todos piensan que también puede ser el mejor momento para dejar salir al fetichista que se lleva dentro. Se entiende por fetichismo la excitación sexual que se produce por un objeto, escena o parte del cuerpo que no tiene una connotación sexual en […]

Este post ¿Somos más fetichistas en verano?, escrito por Silvia C. Carpallo, se publicó originalmente en Yorokobu.

Lifehacker has a list of ways to deal with a manspreader taking up a seat. Asking politely is probably effective, but my favorite is Cassie J Sneider's technique: plop down on the manspreader's leg.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing in front of a thirtysomething guy with his legs spread so far, it looked like he was doing some sort of post-vasectomy physical therapy exercise. He ignored me.

As a woman, I am used to this, so I gestured to the seat and said excuse me again. Nothing. I checked and he wasn’t wearing headphones.

This man, like the three or four others taking up multiple seats on this train car, are the center of our universe from sun-up until sundown, never once considering the lady with the stroller, the World War II vet stooped over a cane, or the child riding home from school alone.

We all go about our ride politely avoiding calling them out on their selfishness, holding grocery bags and diaper bags and the weight of all our frustration, seething. In that moment, something became crystal clear to me: seething doesn’t help anyone, but sitting on a dude sure is satisfying.

I waited a moment. He leisurely stretched his calves, turned away from me, and then I sat on him.

“Excuse me,” I said, using my bony ass to crush his thigh. Outside of a horror movie, I have never seen anyone react so quickly to get away from another human being. There was terror, then disgust, then anger. I took out my book and turned to him. “Thank you,” I said, and then smiled like Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. It would have been rude otherwise.

Image: FriedC/Wikipedia

Teresa o Florencio Pla Meseguer nació con una malformación en su aparato genital. Fue perseguido por el franquismo, se hizo guerrillero con el apodo de «Durruti» y acabó en prisión acusado de numerosos asesinatos que no cometió y presentado como una «despiadada lesbiana»

Está Durruti (el legendario anarquista, el ídolo de masas, el rostro del anarquismo militante y heroico) y luego está ese otro Durruti, menos conocido pero con una historia que ha sido intentada llevar a la literatura y el cine, y que sirve para contar el rostro cruel y manipulador de una parte de nuestra historia más o menos reciente. El caso de Teresa / Florencio Pla Meseguer (su aparato genital no estaba del todo definido como hombre o mujer en lo que era un caso de seudohermafroditismo bastante inusual), se convirtió en una cantinela asustadiza para los niños y niñas del cole en la zona de Maestrat y Els Ports, algo así como el otro cuento del lobo o del hombre del saco. Si te portabas mal, vendría el / ella y te castigaría. Los medios de información y autoridades franquistas le atribuyeron toda clase de crímenes que no cometió, concentrando en su anomalía todos los odios del fascismo, a medio camino entre la «loba hambrienta de carne y sangre» y la «lesbiana depravada». Finalmente, pasó diecisiete largos años de calvario en cárceles franquistas por su peor crimen, que no fue otro que aceptar su anomalía y convertirse en una maquis de renombre que respondía al nombre, entre otros, de Durruti, aunque sus alias fueron variados, entre ellos La Pastora, como hoy se la conoce. Pero eso fue luego, más tarde.  

La Pastora

Así que podemos dejarlo así: Teresa Pla Meseguer, alias La Pastora, Teresot, Florencio o Durruti, nació en Vallibona, Castellón, en medio de la Primera Guerra Mundial y falleció en 2004. Sus padres, desconcertados y avergonzados por su malformación, la inscribieron como niña, pero pronto se descubrió su particularidad. Teresa / Florencio, físicamente, parecía más un hombre que una mujer, y empezó a ser estigmatizada como un ser monstruoso. Su infancia y adolescencia la pasó casi en soledad. Sin embargo, un hecho marcó un antes y un después; en 1949, con el país sometido a una implacable dictadura, sufrió las burlas y violencias de un teniente de la Guardia Civil de Castell de Cabres, donde todavía se seguían cometiendo toda clase de tropelías, supuestamente debido a la actitud de algunos vecinos que ayudaban a guerrilleros alzados. Tras la quema de Mas del Cabanil, el futuro Durruti se echó al monte e integró en el maquis de su zona, la Agrupación de Guerrilleros de Levante y Aragón, con los que pasó casi dos años. Su frecuente pastoreo le hacía conocedor de los atajos y caminos en medio de la escarpada geografía. De paso, aprendió a leer y escribir en compañía de los guerrilleros, que lo trataron por vez primera en su vida con respeto. «Yo estaba delante cuando La Pastora se echó al monte. Yo tenía entonces unos quince años y estaba en casa de una mujer. Esa mujer le cortó el pelo a Teresot, y luego se lo peinó para atrás como lo llevan los chicos. Había ropa de hombre preparada para ella en la casa: un pantalón, una camisa y una chaqueta, todo de hombre. Cuando ya tenía el pelo cortado se metió en una habitación y se puso toda la ropa y cuando salió era como si ya hubiera sido un hombre desde que nació. Nadie hubiera dicho que era una mujer», se narra en Donde nadie te encuentre, una novela sobre su vida escrita por Alicia Giménez Bartlett y que mereció el premio Nadal.

«Al dueño que tenía yo [su patrón] lo mataron y le arrancaron los testículos. La Guardia Civil… Y a otros le clavaron cañas por debajo de las uñas, otros mancos… Yo, para quedarme así, prefería morir de un tiro. Por eso me metí en las guerrillas»

Pero el tiempo pasó y los guerrilleros fueron cayendo uno tras otro. Lo que iba a ser una dominación nacional temporal se hizo eterna. La Pastora, como ya era conocida, se marchó a Andorra. Nuevamente sola y aislada malvivió traficando con tabaco y cuidando ganado, pero debido a su aspecto fue identificada por las autoridades y en 1960, mientras los periódicos daban cuenta de la captura de una «despiadada asesina de bajos instintos, la lesbiana pérfida», entró por vez primera en la cárcel.

Guerrilleros del maquis de Levante y Aragón a finales de los años cuarenta

Un informador la delató, una pequeña / gran traición que contó para la revista Els Temps en 1988: «Llevaba cinco años trabajando duro. Había ahorrado algún dinero y los guardé en casa de un amigo, que un buen día desapareció con ellos. Como me había quedado sin nada, le reclamé a otro contrabandista de nombre Cisco que me devolviera 12.000 pesetas que le había prestado en cierta ocasión. Pero este Cisco me denunció al teniente de la policía de La Pobla de Segur. Me cogieron cuando salía a pastorear con el rebaño. Y me entregaron a la Guardia Civil».

La Pastora y su ficha policial de 1960

La lista de crímenes que le imputaban era interminable, entre otros veintinueve asesinatos, que incluían a siete alcaldes de pueblos de la zona. Entró en una cárcel de mujeres, pero previamente un informe médico lo calificó como hombre. Muchos años después, fue indultado. Eran los años de la transición y su caso fue, posiblemente, de los más singulares entre grupos armados, maquis y guerrilleros antifranquistas amnistiados. En 1990, tras una agitada y durísima vida, todo el país vio su rostro en televisión en lo que es su única aparición. Allí, emocionado, contó porqué se hizo guerrillero, porqué fue el «maqui hermafrodita»: «Al dueño que tenía yo [su patrón] lo mataron y le arrancaron los testículos. La Guardia Civil… Y a otros le clavaron cañas por debajo de las uñas, otros mancos… Yo, para quedarme así, prefería morir de un tiro. Por eso me metí en las guerrillas».

La Guardia Civil investiga los hechos. No descarta ninguna hipótesis a la espera de la autopsia, pero las primeras líneas de investigación apuntan a un suicidio.

Comedy Central has cancelled @midnight after four seasons. The Chris Hardwick hosted tak show will not return for Season 5. The final episodes of @midnight will commence July 31, culminating with the series finale Friday, August 4, which also sees the show reach the 600-episode landmark. Comedy Central president Kent Alterman told Deadline of the […]

The post @midnight Cancelled By Comedy Central – No Season 5 appeared first on Renew Cancel TV.

These sleek, diminutive flamethrowers cost between $13 and $30 and are for sale online. Any person who makes an untoward advance at a potential victim is likely to have second thoughts after experiencing the device's 3,300 degree Fahrenheit, 20-inch jet of flame. From The Telegraph:

[O]ne vendor boasted to local media how they can "scald or even disfigure an attacker.”

Another vendor told The Beijing Youth Daily they “can leave a permanent scar, but are a legal, non-lethal tool. Not a weapon.” Chinese police have warned that the devices are against the law, but they were still being sold on the Chinese Internet on Tuesday.

"Flames and the super high temperatures are enough to scare the bad guys away,” said one website, which added that the flames can last for 30 minutes. "At that crucial moment, you could also become an anti-terror SWAT,” said another.

Fortunately, bad people don't know about these.

Thanks, Matthew!

Arab Women originally appeared on MyConfinedSpace NSFW on July 18, 2017.

“Sin condón no hay vuelta atrás” es el “ocurrente” eslogan que los creativos del gobierno del Partido Popular han ideado para una campaña publicitaria costeada con dinero público y dedicada a promover las relaciones carnales entre hombres.

El gobierno de Mariano Rajoy ha destinado fondos públicos a elaborar un vídeo en el que promueve el uso del condón en las relaciones entre homosexuales con el eslogan “sin condón no hay vuelta atrás”, en referencia al giro de 180º que debe hacer uno de los dos hombres para poder llevar a cabo la penetración anal.

A continuación, el vídeo de la campaña, producida por el Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad.

Además, del vídeo, la campaña cuenta con carteles para pegar en centros públicos, en los que se promueven las relaciones homosexuales con desconocidos:

Otro de los materiales informativos de la campaña contiene datos que aguarían cualquier fiesta del Orgullo:

Los riesgos de tener sexo anal, según la comunidad médica, son:

• Alto riesgo de infecciones. En el ano se encuentran bacterias que son peligrosas si entran en la vagina y en la boca.
• La penetración anal conlleva fricciones que pueden ocasionar rasgaduras dentro de la cavidad del ano y romper las delicadas membranas.
• La penetración anal es un factor de riesgo para contraer las Enfermedades de Transmisión Sexual (ETS). El Virus de la Inmunodeficiencia Humana VIH, virus que causa el SIDA, se transmite con frecuencia a través de la penetración anal. Es más: el riesgo de transmisión por esa vía es muchísimo más alto que por el sexo vaginal.

Hace casi 2.000 años, en la carta a los Romanos, decía San Pablo: “los hombres, dejando la relación natural con la mujer, se han abrasado en deseos de unos por otros. Hombres con hombres cometen acciones ignominiosas y reciben en su propio cuerpo el pago merecido por su extravío.”

Julia de Micheo: una católica provida al frente del Gabinete de Sanidad

La entrada El gobierno de Rajoy: Dinero público para promover la sodomía aparece primero en Infovaticana.

Stu McGill could see my problem the moment I sat down on his couch. I was there to interview him for a magazine story, but what I really wanted to know is why, after decades of lifting, my back had suddenly started to hurt during basic exercises like squats and deadlifts.

So he watched how I positioned myself in a classic manspread, with my torso leaning forward and my feet angled out—a position, I would soon learn, that's determined by the shape and configuration of my hip joints.

McGill, a professor emeritus of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, is among the world's most sought-after specialists in back pain. He's used to solving the toughest cases, with a client list that includes MMA champions, record-setting powerlifters, and even some doctors who specialize in back problems but can't resolve their own.

My case wasn't tough at all. Unless my form on the squat matched the unique structure of my hips (it didn't), it was only a matter of time before I hurt myself.

Since then I've noticed subtle differences in the ways guys sit—the breadth of their spread, how much they lean forward or back, and whether their feet angle out evenly or asymmetrically. (My left foot goes out farther than my right, another reason conventional exercise form would cause a problem sooner or later.) All reflect the nearly infinite variations in pelvic structure, along with the manspreader's ancestral origins.

But if you see the word "manspread" in an article or opinion piece, you can bet it's not going to be about how it's natural for women to sit with their knees close together and ankles crossed, but the same position can be painful for a guy like me.

You're more likely to read stories like this one from Mic, which accurately notes that any space men and women occupy is "inherently gendered." But it attributes these gender differences not to anatomy, or even to obliviousness on the part of men who don't seem to notice they've expanded beyond any reasonable definition of personal space. Instead, it links manspreading to power dynamics, saying it "doesn't just make people feel more entitled, it also makes them more likely to steal, cheat, and fail to respect traffic laws." That's right: If you manspread, you're basically Trump without the golf courses.

McGill had never heard the term "manspreading" before we spoke, but he immediately thought of a context that explains how it relates to his work with elite strength athletes. Here, for example, is a picture of the legendary Russian weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev sitting side by side with a photo of him lifting.

Pretty much the same angle, right? The same applies to me, even though I'm half the size of the 350-pound Alekseyev. I know that because McGill used the two tests shown in this video to determine my ideal squat form. (You can do the second test, the hip rock-back, on your own.) "Most men will find the least-stressed sitting position is with their knees apart," he says.

Here's what happens when someone like me sits with my knees close together: The round ball at the top of the femur will pinch against the outside edge of the acetabulum (the hip socket), straining the labrum that lines the socket. To get into that position, I have to activate the adductor muscles on my inner thighs. That automatically triggers resistance from the abductor muscles on my outer thighs, creating tension that can reach all the way up into the lower back. The second I release the contraction, my thighs spring apart, leaving a gap of about 15 inches from the center of each kneecap, more than three-quarters of the distance to a proper manspread.

Women, on the other hand, have a wider pelvis and thighbones that more naturally angle in toward the body's midline, rather than away from it. Sitting with the knees close together is a stress-free position most of the time, although that changes during pregnancy, when the weight of the belly pushes the knees out.

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Differences in hip anatomy aren't just gender-specific. They differ by your regional ancestry as well. One fascinating consequence of these differences, McGill says, is the close relationship between orthopedic disease rates and athletic ability. Poland, for example, is the epicenter of hip dysplasia—hips coming out of the socket. But because shallow hip sockets allow deep, ass-to-calves squats, Poland also produces a lot of great Olympic weightlifters.

By contrast, those with Celtic hips are far more likely to suffer from hip impingement, a consequence of the limited range of motion caused by their deep hip sockets. Those deep sockets put them at a disadvantage at the bottom of a squat, but allow them to generate tremendous power from a more upright stance. That helps explain why Scots invented golf and caber tossing and Brits popularized upright, bare-knuckle boxing.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Asian martial arts use a lower center of gravity and extreme hip mobility to turn a potential opponent's size and strength into a disadvantage.

You can even see it in folk traditions. The Ukrainian Cossack dance is made possible by relatively short femurs, while Irish step dancing wouldn't have taken hold in a population where people could easily do a split.

None of this, to be clear, justifies guys being assholes on public transportation, where we all have to put up with a little discomfort to coexist. Nor is it another take on the dick-and-balls defense, which argues that without manspreading we'll crush our testicles between our awesomely powerful adductor muscles. I'm a proud member of the penile-American community, but I guarantee it doesn't take much of a spread to avoid squeezing Frank and his two nutty friends.

But it's not like the anti-manspreading arguments have risen above specious reasoning. Take that study mentioned in the Mic article. Titled "The Ergonomics of Dishonesty," it doesn't actually address gender. Moreover, if you read to the end, you'll see its conclusions aren't entirely negative. It notes that "incidentally expansive postures" can have positive effects, including "resilience from pain and stress" and "prosocial and socially responsible outcomes if the situational cues for such goals are salient."

So I'll put this out there for my fellow bearers of the Y chromosome: With great manspreads come great responsibility. We don't need to apologize for expanding to fill the available space. But when that space isn't available, it's on us to take one for the team and reel that shit in.

Read This Next: In Defense of Running

Instagram ha creado un monstruo que tiene enganchadas a más de 200 millones de personas.

RELACIONADO: Orígenes de Usagi Yojimbo

Ah, the Emmy Award winning piece of television is back for its penultimate season and the first episode of what was promised to be a season of “go, go, go” felt like an hour of “snore, snore, snore”. It wasn’t egregiously offensive anywhere to get hyped up on the anger, but they didn’t lean heavily into their big set piece key moments so we weren’t treated with the laughably bad either. (Other than Euron.) It was just boring bad. Which is probably the worst kind because it doesn’t elicit strong emotions one way or the other.

To start with, we have to talk about the “previously on” because someone went edit happy with this thing. With the piano remix and fast, hard cuts, it was more fun to watch than the episode itself. “Previously on’s” always entertain me because of how ham-fistedly expositional they are. They’re a crutch, and one that Throne’s heavily relies on because all of their moments are one note responses rather than developments of a long history of action, thus we gotta remind the audience what that one cause is before we show the effect.

A strange ringing piano note dictated change of storylines on the “previously on”, and with the accompanying Dragonstone backstory, it was no question where Dany would land. I think they really thought we wouldn’t remember that table….but come on guys. You had Melisandre and Stannis bone down on there, we all remember that table. For myself, I will always remember worrying that can’t possibly be comfortable for her.

We also get a season one flashback of Viserys’s response to Dany asking him to go home. Now that line never hit the way it hit in the book on the show because they didn’t understand home didn’t mean Westeros at that moment and they continually fail to deal with the complexity of the notion of “home” for Dany…but we’ll get to that later. I just find it funny that this is what they thought we needed to be reminded of to understand the impact of Dany’s journey home. I mean maybe that is the most we have on it because that frustration and confusion is never really brought up again on the show.

So let’s forgive them for the bad exposition, on but not for failing to seed it in in the first place to give them a free choice of moments. “Home” is a really important idea for Dany but also a really hard one and for an episode called “Dragonstone”, it seems to forget that.

 

ARYA

We have a cold open this season with a scene that was apparently not even meant to be a cold open, but D&D were just so taken with Bradley’s performance that they had to. David Bradley looks like he’s having a bunch of fun doing this scene, and it’s entertaining to watch him do things other than Filch, (not that it’s a huge stretch) but the point or impact of anything going on quickly runs stale. We’re essentially supposed to be reading this as the Red Wedding 2.0, except with just as much set up and five hundred less percent of the impact. We don’t care about any of the Freys, and the one of only ones we ever got to truly see as a individual human was Walder, who represents the worst of his house.

The moral dilemma of the fact that maybe not every single person is equally culpable for the Red Wedding isn’t present (which is odd because they parallel this with the only other Arya scene where she’s supposed to start questioning some of her broad stroke judging.) Also isn’t this the same argument Sansa and Jon are having? Punishing the sons for a fathers sins…wait did I strike upon an accidental theme? I mean a theme not focused on or developed but an accidental through line nonetheless…which I will need to get through the rest of this.

Anyway, Arya has a Walder Frey Faceless Men mask that she got off screen and poisons all of his sons (and not his daughters because she’s a feminist icon). But I really can’t make heads or tails of what we’re supposed to get out of this. They want to have their cake and eat it too with that Ed Sheeran cameo. We’re supposed to see Arya’s badassery (I mean we even get the smirk of female empowerment) but then have her call into question her morality line with the Lannister scene. But neither allow for a purposeful through line of character growth.

As Arya pulls off her face to reveal herself to the daughters, she tells them to let everyone know the “north remembers”. Except for when it didn’t every other season, but I guess if we’re combining characters, Arya can represent the entirety of the North… Also this scene was clearly supposed to happen last year but they were spinning wheels with Arya and wanted the shock factor set in before anything else. Did they not have the budget to do this last season so they needed to have this moment twice? It just felt like a rehash and not a good one.

Then we get the fucking Ed Sheeran cameo in the most obvious “this is Ed Sheeran” unearned closeups thrown at us. Arya stumbles upon some Lannister soldiers and they want her to join them for food. They are overtly and exceptionally nice and Arya is confused about this. I mean they end up a bit ham-fistedly nice with the whole “Be kind to strangers and strangers will be kind to you,” but I’ll take this over ham-fisted nihilism.

This could have been a really nice moment. Concept wise it is. But it felt more like they were writing a scene to throw Ed Sheeran into, rather than a scene for Arya. We do see her dealing with the fact that the Lannisters are not all bad, but we don’t see a thread line because the narrative doesn’t frame her actions at the Twins as being problematic. If we saw the struggle there at all and then had her charge head first into Lannister soldiers planning to do the same, but realize perhaps they don’t deserve to be punished for the sins of their leaders etc, that would have been a nice self-contained arc for Arya. And would have connected her struggles with Sansa’s and Jon’s…but that’s asking too much.

 

BRAN

Let’s get this over with. We get a vision of the White Walkers coming by a long shot of the cold windstorm blowing up and towards camera. It probably could have used with shaving a few frames or two off the beginning and a darker time of day, but it’s not so bad. And they managed to finally show more than the 4 White Walkers of the Apocalypse. It’s like they are a race of beings or something…strange. And this was all seen through Bran’s magic visions that just have no limitations or rules anymore. He’s just walking exposition.

He and Meera reach the Wall (wow her arms must be killing her) and the newly elected-by-the-process-of-*shrugs* Dolorous Edd lets them in. He first questions if they are wildlings—which if they are that shouldn’t be a problem because they’re on the same side now—then if they really are Meera and Bran (that’s a weird fucking story for two wilding kids to make up) and then Bran just convinces him with his vision powers, telling him the dead are coming. I mean…they know that already but thanks for the live feed update Bran!

SAM

Sam…oh boy. I mean what the fuck was this montage? It’s like when people edit together regular everyday sounds to make a song remix; why were the editors so trigger happy this week? First the “previously on” and now this. Except this was a montage of putting away books, cleaning bedpans, gagging, scrubbing, and serving food…the core learnings of a novice. I mean, when I expected them to montage Oldtown, I was picturing some generic learning montages…not this.

Also we’re apparently in Harry Potter over here because there’s a restricted section of the library that Sam just needs to get books from and Slughorn is one of his teachers. Well Jim Broadbent is playing an Archmaester…but he’s basically playing Slughorn.

We get a nonversation between him and Sam where Sam tries to tell him about the White Walker threat and how he needs access to those books, but Archmaester Slughorn sidesteps the conversation to talk about why Maesters are important. “We’re this world’s memory,” he says. Which is true, and important, but I think D&D fail to recognize that memory is selective and biased. We see it whenever George R.R. Martin writes a story through the eyes of a Maester.

I would say maybe they’re seeding in the Maesters’ distrust of magic and all of that, but I doubt they’d spend time on it. I think Oldtown is going to be a quick in and out this season with some more shots of Sam reading.

He then dismisses Sam’s worries by saying, “we’re still alive aren’t we? The past is the past and we got through it. The world didn’t end so it won’t now.” What happened to “we are the world’s memory” from five seconds ago? Isn’t the point of that sentiment to use said memory to inform and improve the future. We don’t want to forget because if we do we can’t evolve. But nah, that would be helpful…and a response to what was said previously in the conversation.

Sam steals the keys to the restricted section anyway and ends up discovering, in a real Dora-the-Explorer-level-obvious map of Dragonstone with what is basically an X-marks-the-spot, our hidden dragon glass cache. Stannis told him about this two seasons ago but he forgot, so we had to have this revelation a second time.

Oh, and he also feeds people who are locked up in cells and Jorah jumpscares Sam with his greyscale arm and guess what? Jorah Greyscale Mormont still has only one thing on his mind….Dany. (This lov-OBSESSION knows no bounds).

THE HOUND

The Hound is riding with Berric Dondarrion and crew through wintery snows as he expresses his doubt of the Lord of Light, and they just happen upon the same farm Sandor was at a few seasons ago with Arya where he stole from the father and daughter after sharing meat and mead at their table.

Also…I’m confused about the weather. Is this not close to the riverlands? It’s snowy. It was not snowy near Arya and certainly not near anyone else further south. Does winter ever come there?

Sandor is hesitant to face his crimes—the people he stole from—and is reluctant to go inside, but his pride gets the better of him and he goes in. Also he disses Throros’ sweet top knot and utters the phrase ‘top knot’. Inside he sees their corpses and we see the father killed them to save them from the pain of starvation.

After looking at corpses, bro bonding time is happening in the farmhouse and The Hound questions Berric’s faith. Berric cannot give much of an answer to that, saying that he doesn’t know what his lord wants other than his life. To better explain, Thoros calls him over to the flames and surprise! Sandor can see things in them…things just as clear if not clearer than Melisandre. He sees Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and the dead marching. After this revelation he buries the corpses of the farmer and his daughter in the middle of the night (is this how they are giving us the gravedigger?) and Thoros comes out to help him.

Overall this moment with the Hound isn’t bad. In isolation it’s quite nice and more of a step in the direction he should be going in after his return, but it doesn’t hit hard because we’ve had nothing lead up to it. This instead came out of nowhere after violence lusty Sandor made his appearance last season, and any impact or irony of Sandor finding a path of betterment through religion and better yet, a religion founded upon fire, is lost. There’s also too many conversations that lead nowhere but the sentiment of the scene and the dynamic between these characters is quite good in isolation.

CERSEI

Cersei’s giant floor map makes its appearance—as it’s still being painted and she just walks all over it. Then Jaime does the same, for they need to walk on wet paint for them to have their riveting conversation. That poor painter is still in the middle of working so hard! Most sympathetic character in the episode? Or is it a tie between him and Meera, both of whom have done thankless jobs.

Cersei apparently watched last season because she knows all of Dany’s latest movements, and then Jaime suggests she will land on Dragonstone. Which Stannis apparently left unoccupied…just add that to the never-ending list of why this adaptation hates Stannis. They even throw strategic blunders and character assassination his way after his death.

We get a slew of lovely adjectives from Cersei to describe her enemies including “brood of bitches,” “Olenna, the old cunt,” and the “murdering whore Sansa.” Perhaps if I thought they were interested in exploring Cersei’s internalized misogyny I would excuse the use of these gendered slurs as actually having a point,  but seeing as that has never been their intention with show!Cersei, it’s just annoyingly frustrating.

Jaime points out that right now they look like they are on the losing side (truth! You are ridiculously outnumbered and this feels like D&D are setting up a crackpot explanation of how you are going to somehow not get completely decimated.) Oh and here’s where Euron walks in!

With his “thousand ship and two good hands,” a new version of Euron Greyjoy pops on our screen, and this time he’s somehow even more pathetic. He’s basically playing Johnny Depp playing Captain Jack Sparrow (there’s no wig, but there is eyeliner!), complaining about his niece and nephew, saying his favorite word (MURDER!) and general one dimensional EHVULLL dialogue. Also where the hell did these ships come fro— you know what, fuck it. That’s the least of the internal logic problems. Euron commandeered some ships from Captain Barbossa, I guess.

Also this scene is the second time the word “Armada” is used. Did D&D just learn this word?

Euron proposes marriage as an answer to Cersei—which we already knew going in (and so did she) that this would be his bargain, so it renders much of this conversation moot but it is so worth it for the Jaime sitcom reaction shot during Euron’s spiel. 

Cersei denies the marriage and he promises to bring her back a gift to prove himself but seriously… I thought she set all this up. Why did she turn down her only allies because he asked what she expected him to ask? Doesn’t Cersei need him? Not the other way around?

JON/SANSA

Back at the snowy keep of Winterfell, it looks as though nothing moved from last season except for Sophie Turner’s hair, and replacing it is the most distractingly awful wig imaginable. But once you get passed that, you realize that they’re discussing some basic politicking. Jon assigns everyone homework to find dragon glass and then, the true feminist he is, says he wants both the boys and girls to learn to fight. Lord Glover disagrees but Lyanna Mormont stands up, rejects knitting (wait…don’t reject it! It’s important too. Soldiers need socks!) and promises that she and everyone on Bear Island will do their own fighting. She convinces the room. She always convinces the room. Everyone except Jon always convinces the room. Remind me why he’s in charge again?

Jon assigns Tormund to garrison other castles at the Wall, stuff they should have been doing seasons ago adding to the political unrest that leads to Jon’s betrayal, but whatevs—do it whenever cause who cares about structure?!

Tormund makes a fun joke that now they (the Free Folk) are the Night’s Watch, which I kind of like. It’s a big fuck you to the elitism. The show, however, has perpetuated said elitism till it was no longer convenient to the plot so I don’t give them a full high five for this. 

The first two houses on the White Walker path should the Wall fall are the Umbers and Karstarks. But those are houses that sided with the Boltons so some frustrated murmurs start. Then Royce stands up and says he wants to tear down these traitors castles, but Sansa reigns him in from this extremism by suggesting that we need every fortress for the war to come, but perhaps we  should still reward those that remained loyal and punish those that didn’t.

Meanwhile Jon is looking at her like WHO SAID U COULD SPEAK?? (This seems to be his attitude this whole episode). The room agrees with Sansa but Jon disagrees. It’s a disagreement that feels like it stems from a more juvenile stubborn place than conviction but you know…KING IN THE NORTH! Littlefinger is smirking in the background in his wall spot that he has not moved from since last season and now occupies permanent residency there. With this dissent growing, the narrative rewards Littlefinger the gratification of being right.

The room continues to agree with Sansa until it doesn’t. Then Jon relates this back to Ned, his old ways, and how he stands by them but would not punish the sons for their father’s sins. He calls Ned Umber and Alys Karstark  to come forward (yeah isn’t it totally awkward they were having this conversation while they were in the room) and they pledge their loyalty, showing how right Jon was and how easy this situation is.

“You are my sister, but I am king now,” Jon tells her after they have a walk and talk moment together. Jon is in complete insufferable asshole mode and I really don’t like it. Why does someone always have to be incompetent? Also I wanted Queen in the North for Sansa, but even if she had to prop Jon up, there’s some great Catelyn/Robb parallels that could have been made there but weren’t. Instead just childish arguments that should be solved with communication. 

Then Sansa’s whole character changes and she randomly tells Jon how good he is at ruling despite the fact that she just disagreed with his major policy decision.

And oh, we’re back in the other conversation now and Jon tells Sansa “I’ll stop trying to protect you and you stop trying to undermine me.” She then insists to him the he must be smarter than Robb and Ned because their dumb decisions got them killed (uh, not really), but Jon scoffs at the idea of taking counsel from Sansa. This all just feels like a rehash of the argument they’ve had already, plus added sexism. 

This is interrupted by a letter from Cersei, who demands Jon bend the knee. Sansa reminds Jon that Cersei is a threat not to be ignored and says, “You’re the military man, but I know her.” This sounds eerily “Battle of the Bastards” familiar. Jon then says Sansa sounds as if she admires Cersei and that’s when I pulled my hair out…well not really, but COME ON. I mean Sansa basically learns what not to do from Cersei—it’s not at admiration thing. “If I am queen, I will make them love me,” isn’t really Cersei’s mantra…but I guess it’s not Empowered, Murderous Sansa’s cup of tea either so maybe they more similar than I give them credit for.

Brienne badly teaches Pod some sword fighting and is probably the worst tutor ever. She just tells him “No!” when he’s wrong without telling him what he did wrong until she gets frustrated, finally slamming him down into the ground. Sansa’s just watching from above when Littlefinger creeps up to her and tells her he wants her to be happy. She’s super sassy to him here and I quite enjoyed her responses, however meta they were, they were fun. She said right now above all else she just wants “peace and quiet” and when Littlefinger goes to reply she quips “No need to seize the last word Lord Baelish, I’ll assume it was something clever.”

However, all of that is kind of undermined when Brienne comes up  and asks the question we have all been asking “Why is he still here?” I DON’T KNOW EITHER BRIENNE. Sansa is all “we need his men” and he “saved us.” I mean 1) Can we stop the charade that Littlefinger has such tight control over the Vale Lords? They’d be Sansa’s men in a second should she reveal the truth of Lysa’s death. Also 2) How does one write the exchange with Littlefinger and then turn that on its head and have Sansa praise him?

DANY

Finally we get to the title of the episode where Dany arrives on Dragonstone (yeah, we wait a whole episode for the moment that gave the episode its title). We have this same moment of Dany’s people standing back while she experiences Dragonstone for the first time on her own. It happens quite a few times from room to room, and by the third time it loses its emotional significance, though it’s still somewhat effective.

Dragonstone seems completely deserted…nice job Show!Stannis. But Dany walks through these empty halls for the first time, truly seeing Viserys’ tales come to life.

Now I feel like the ultimate impact of everything Dany does is typically lost on this show considering how badly they butchered her characterization, but one part of which is her relationship with the word “home” and that ties right into her first return to Westeros. It’s a complex and emotional term for her in the books because she grew up with Viserys describing their “real” home but it was a home she never knew, the life with the red door house and Willem Darry when she was younger that she has fond memories of, Illyrio’s manse, then the Dothraki hoard, then Meereen, and finally Westeros – but this time not for Viserys, but for what it means to her. It’s a loaded concept and in a moment that rests on pure emotional reaction, no dialogue, we needed the weight of that to be developed beforehand to truly feel it, but with what we have, I still think the sequence is effective. 

To cap it off, Dany gets to the Melisandre and Stannis bone table and says “Shall we begin?” You guys didn’t plan anything on your way here?

But, really, I don’t detest the scene. I think it loses its weight for a few seconds. For an episode named after this location, it needed to hit all the marks, and it was overall successful in isolation—especially if I just let myself throw some book context onto it.  

Well, that is it! It was a struggle to rewatch it as it really is just so boringly bad that it’s not even the fun kind of bad, but hopefully that super fast paced season they were all talking about will kick off next week…who am I kidding? 

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Images courtesy of HBO

The post Ed Sheeran, Bad Wigs, and Boredom! Game of Thrones is Back! appeared first on The Fandomentals.

Simon Hanselmann was once some annoying Australian comics bumpkin and an online nuisance, but now he's the best guy making alternative comics in addition to still being an online nuisance. You may recall his comic series Megg, Mogg and Owl from this website before he outgrew us and became a globetrotting international comics superstar. His work about mentally unstable, drug-addicted, chaos-finding creeps channel the comedic joke overload experience of watching The Simpsons better than The Simpsons comics ever did. His 12-paneled pages maintain a solid pace that results in an immersive comic experience that is impossible to avoid. A cartoonist douchebag I know wrote Simon off recently as some guy who just makes stoner animal comics, but that's like saying that the Beatles were just making stoner submarine songs when they wrote "Yellow Submarine."

Megg, Mogg and Owl is great as a funny comic. It's also great as a simple but beautiful thing to absorb visually, with its simplistic drawing style and gentle watercolors. And it's great at how it talks about LGBTQ issues in a way that is engaging and accessible, and how it also talks about mental health and addiction in alternatively humorous and horrific ways that people who have dealt with these things can relate to. Simon's third hardcover book from Fantagraphics is out now, and it's called One More Year. It completes the trilogy that also includes the earlier books, Megahex and Amsterdam. I wanted to check in with the guy who used to shit-talk me online who I now care so deeply for and ask him about his new book and projects so that I could learn these things and then you could learn about them, too. Here's this thing I just said it was.

VICE: Are other comics people starting to resent your success?
Simon Hanselmann: I fucking hope so. Thirteen languages. Multiple New York Times best-sellers (before they fucking scuttled it). Numerous Eisner, Ignatz, and Angouleme nominations. Upcoming gallery show at Galerie Martel in Paris (google it, nerds). Animation people all up in my fries (and I couldn't give a shit). I did all this from the bottom of the earth, high as fuck, sad as hell. Maybe any hypothetical bitter people should attempt making some funny and relatable work that caters outside of their small demographic? Worked for me!

Why's the new book called One More Year? You had Megg say that in her high school flashback and you had her say it again when she's dealing with Mogg's bullshit.
I couldn't think of a better title. Mostly it means, "Please put up with this old shit for one more year, and then you'll get your fucking Megg's Coven." Also it's just about change, trying to change. It's one more year until Werewolf Jones has his overdose. He don't change. Maybe Megg can?

This new book makes for a really nice little trio of hardcover books. How long do you see yourself releasing MMO books in this format?
I think I'm gonna change it up for Megg's Coven. Currently I'm envisioning a nice, big, Euro-style hardback series that will eventually be housed in a slipcase. I'm going to be aiming for like 120 pages a year. Probably like four or five volumes. It's exciting for me to be doing it this way, with forward momentum. It was a real dick move of me to put out Megahex and say, "Continued in Megg's Coven," and then put out two odds-and-ends collections afterwards. I fucked up. I am the George R.R. Martin of comics.

Is Megg eager to separate from Mogg?
Perhaps. I wouldn't say eager, but it's not all lollipops and sunshine between them. She clearly desires something more. They'll be apart for a lot of Megg's Coven, so she'll have a chance to figure out how she feels about everything.

Do you see yourself continuing with these characters like Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez do with theirs, having them age in real time? Are we going to eventually be witnessing the exploits of Jaxon and Diesel grown up?
Totally. I've been saying for years that I want to Love and Rockets this shit. Megg and Mogg is the new Doonesbury. I actually just finished a new zine where we get a glimpse at a 19-year-old Jaxon. I've thought about what happens to the boys after Werewolf Jones's death quite a lot. They'll definitely be around.

How much of the new book appeared on the VICE site?
I think roughly a quarter. In addition to last year's VICE run, there's the stuff from an out-of-print book called Life Zone and a colored version of my 2015 book, Worst Behavior. After the publisher, Alvin Buenaventura, of Worst Behavior died, I was told that the large chunk of remaining copies would most likely be pulped, so I figured I'd color it, in a depressing memorial way, and include it in this book. Unfortunately, his parents actually went on to sell them all over town and flooded the market. (If you guys are reading this, I WANT MY FUCKING ROYALTIES. That was Alvin and I's book, not yours.) There's also 52 pages of new stuff I made for the book. It has my finest dick joke yet.

Are you ever coming back to VICE? I miss your weekly comics.
Probably not. My next big thing I'm working on is Megg's Coven, which will be a series of new original books with material that won't have appeared anywhere else. I don't want to serialize this shit. I want to work on it with no time constraints, no weekly pressures. I pretty much just came back to VICE last year because Alvin owed me ten grand when he killed himself. I really liked some of the longer stories I did for VICE last year, but some of the shorter ones were weak. I gotta push this whole thing forward. But yeah, I wish I could keep doing VICE, it's a good venue for cartoonists. I don't think you get enough credit for what you do there, Nick. You brought us Anna Haifisch, Lauren Monger, and Anya Davidson, weird Euro shit, weird Australian shit. I've seen people shit-talking VICE comics, and I think that's bullshit. It's not overly dude-heavy, and it's great exposure for us. I remember thinking you were a dickhead like five years ago, and I regret that very much.

You weren't wrong about me being a dickhead. Everybody's a dickhead sometimes. I'm sure you're a dickhead in certain circumstances, and nobody goes into comics because they have good personalities. Nobody doing anything of any value is questioning whether or not they're a dickhead.
I enjoy hanging out with crazy, unstable, questionable assholes. I really liked what Rich Smith wrote about Megg and Mogg last year: "Hanselmann's abrasive way of opening up channels of empathy seems just as valid as those who want to control and reduce various forms of oppression by creating safe spaces and taking care not to offend people. Art that reveals addicts, murderers, and the severely mentally ill as human beings offers others a way to figure out how much and what to trust in those kinds of people, which is valuable work in a society that seems to prefer incarceration to rehabilitation."

Would you like to mention how important Alvin Buenaventura is to comics, or are you done memorializing him? I thought he was a really smart/cool guy.
I memorialize him every day. I miss him so much. I don't even know if I really believe the suicide thing. He'd hired an office space for Pigeon Press two days before he died. He LOVED his drugs, so it might have just been an overdose. I don't fucking know, I wasn't there in his house when it happened. But yeah, he put out so many beautiful books and really gave a shit about this stuff and us oddball cartoonists. A lot of people warned me about working with him, but he was always so generous—he did so much for me, made me so much money, became a true friend that I could talk to about anything. The only way he fucked me over was by fucking dying. He broke my heart.

When's your animated TV show happening?
I don't fucking know. I turned down a series a few times. Might do a one-off special—me and HTMLflowers have written something for somebody. I'm real lazy with it, though. I just like making comics, and I can pay my rent off of it. With the new book out, I've been getting another wave of talent agencies and producers hitting me up. But yeah, I'm wary. I'm not selling out easy. I don't want to become Alex Schubert, ha ha ha. I just want to make better comics. I want Megg's Coven to be, like, fucking unimpeachably awesome. I like working alone and having full control.

You and Alex Schubert sure razz each other a lot online.
I assume it's fake. It is, isn't it? It's certainly fake on my end. I think Alex is great. I miss his comics. I don't blame him for becoming a TV healthcare cunt, though. Comics is a fucking racket. But yeah, Truth Zone is fucking dicy. I play around with some really loaded shit in that last TZ book and insult a lot of people. I really need to stop doing it, but I can't help myself. The comics internet is going crazy right now, and I can't help but try to turn that into zine form. I love that lots of Russian teenagers are buying these things, and it must make, like, fucking zero sense. It's so inside baseball.

"Maybe any hypothetical bitter people should attempt making some funny and relatable work that caters outside of their small demographic?"

What's with the erotic anime statue collection?
I was traveling to a lot of mainstream cons, and I bought one, and then I got addicted. I haven't bought one for a while, though. Hopefully it was a passing fancy. I have to hide them when my wife's dad visits. Charles Burns came over once to see my studio, and I felt somewhat embarrassed by them.

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Watch VICE art editor Nick Gazin tell you the objectively best ten comic books of all time:

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Are you turned on by them, or do you just find them aesthetically pleasing?
I find them both aesthetically pleasing and erotic. I enjoy erotic art.

How about making some sexy anime body pillows with Megg on one side and Owl on the other?
That is a fabulous idea. I should do that. Everybody likes pillows.

Follow Nick Gazin on Instagram.

One More Year by Simon Hanselmann is available in bookstores and online from Fantagraphics.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions is the respected global body representing libraries all over the world; in an open letter to the World Wide Web Consortium, the organization says the recent decision to standardize DRM for the web has undermined the web's openness and the ability of libraries and other public institutions to fulfill their important social role. (more…)

 

Ultra Low-Fi Rockers! Wild guitar actions! Insane-Kickin’ Ass Rockers!

Well alright! Here’s a vinyl comp. series of some sloppy, dirty, drunken, undisciplined 60s rockers [mostly uncomped]. Here you gotta deal with some rare, obscure R-billy, C.Berry influenced R’n’R , few mid 60s garage & R&B rockers and instrumentals. It’s kinda like now legendary ”Greasy Rock’n’Roll” comp. series. Below are some of my favs you can check out. Now ya know what a fuss is all about. It’s about RUMBLE !!!

 

• Rumble Rock Vol.1
• Rumble Rock Vol.2
• Rumble Rock Vol.3

 

 

A pesar de haber sido estigmatizados con el invento de la siesta, ser expertos en calentar la silla del trabajo y gustarnos más la cama que la cinta para correr, lo cierto es que España no está entre los países más vagos del mundo. De hecho, está entre los países más activos del mundo.

Al menos en cuanto a número de pasos se refiere, según una nueva investigación publicada en la revista Nature.

Número de pasos globales

Un equipo de científicos de la Universidad de Stanford ha recopilado datos de actividad física (los pasos contados por el móvil) de más de 700.000 usuarios de smartphones de todo el mundo de 111 países durante un período de 95 días. El recuento de pasos diarios registrados por el acelerómetro del teléfono inteligente se unió a información básica sobre la edad, sexo, altura y peso de los sujetos.

Los resultados proponen el mapa mundial de la actividad física de cada país, revelando qué países son los más o menos vagos del planeta y ayudando a medir el nivel de obesidad. Y es que se estableció una correlación significativa: en países con poca obesidad, las personas tienden a caminar prácticamente la misma cantidad de pasos cada día.

También es cierto que hay países donde hay mucha diferencia entre los que caminan mucho y los que caminan poco (son países donde la obesidad también es un problema). En ese sentido, los 5 países con los niveles más altos de desigualdad de actividad fueron: Arabia Saudí, Australia, Canadá, Egipto y Estados Unidos. Según palabras de Jure Leskovec, coautor del trabajo:

Cuando la desigualdad de actividad es mayor, la actividad de las mujeres se reduce mucho más dramáticamente que la actividad de los hombres y, por lo tanto las conexiones negativas a la obesidad pueden afectar a las mujeres mucho más.

El estudio, naturalmente, tiene sus limitaciones. En primer lugar, los investigadores restringieron su estudio a teléfonos iPhone, no en el resto de terminales. Y, en segundo lugar, solo registraron pasos, no otras actividades físicas como la bicicleta (aquí seguro que Holanda nos gana) o natación, por ejemplo.

El promedio global de pasos fue de 5.000 pasos diarios. España, con 5.936 pasos al día de media, se situó en quinto. Los que más caminan son los habitantes de Hong Kong (China), con una media de 6.880 pasos diarios. Los indonesios, por el contrario, son los más vagos con 3.513 pasos al día de media.

Los 25 países más vagos:

1. Indonesia
2. Arabia Saudí
3. Malasia
4. Filipinas
5. Sudáfrica
6. Qatar
7. Brasil
8. India
9. Egitpo
10. Grecia
11. Emiratos Árabes Unidos
12. Nueva Zelanda
13. México
14. Portugal
15. Rumanía
16. Tailandia
17. Estados Unidos
18. Canadá
19. Australia
20. Bélgica
21. Taiwán
22. Israel
23. Turquía
24. Holanda
25. Francia

Los 10 países más activos:

1. China
2. Ucrania
3. Japón
4. Rusia
5. España
6. Suecia
7. Corea del Sur
8. Singapur
9. Suiza
10. República Checa

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La noticia ¿Cuáles son los países más vagos del mundo? (España no está en la lista) fue publicada originalmente en Xataka Ciencia por Sergio Parra .

Nearly everyone does it, but we still don't know exactly why masturbation exists. Could rubbing one out have an adaptive function or it is simply a lucky byproduct of natural selection? Research on why and how monkeys get themselves off is helping scientists zero in on answers—and remove the stigma around one of our most beloved activities at the same time.

In the 1940s, the Kinsey Reports scientifically verified what humans had anecdotally known for a long time—that masturbation is widespread among both men and women. This finding created an evolutionary puzzle; it's still not immediately clear how masturbation improves the reproductive success of males or females, in fact at first it seems more likely that self-love gets in the way of the real thing. Trying to explain masturbation in terms of evolution has continuously created a sticky mess for scientists.

Humans have been preoccupied with diddling themselves since the beginning of civilization, a reality brought to light by our ancestors' explicit cave art showing exactly what got them off. Despite it being one of our most popular past-times, the social stigma around masturbation has prevented intensive scientific research into the evolutionary factors that have shaped how we masturbate, Cambridge primatologist Constance Dubuc tells me. This is now changing.

Although masturbation was once thought to be uniquely human, extensive field studies have shown that it is widespread among other animal species. From wild dolphins to sea otters and iguanas, many animals have been caught "self-comforting." These observations have allowed for the systematic study of masturbation in both captive and wild non-human animals that scientists hope can may provide valuable insight into human sexual health and behavior.

An older albeit widely accepted scientific explanation for the existence of masturbation in males is that it provides those who rarely mate with the opportunity to wash out old sperm and improve ejaculate quality. This seems to make evolutionary sense—better sperm quality equals more offspring.

In 2016, Dubuc and two of her colleagues conducted a study exploring how masturbation affects the mating and reproductive success of Rhesus macaque monkeys. The group found that as expected, males were most likely to masturbate on days they didn't have sex and that monkeys with a low social status and little access to females were more likely to masturbate than high-ranking individuals—depressing yet revelatory. The puzzle, for males species at least, seemed to be coming together.

However, as Dubuc explains, they "were surprised to observe that in the vast majority of cases, males did not ejaculate as the result of masturbation. Yet ejaculation is at the center of both adaptive and non-adaptive explanations for the occurrence of masturbation." It appears that masturbation may be "aimed at increasing sexual arousal rather than at releasing it." Practice makes perfect?

For these monkeys, Dubuc says, ejaculation is reached at the end of mating, which can last from several minutes to an hour. Masturbation could be used by males to decrease the length of matings, too. It is possible that speedy sex "could be instrumental to allow low-ranked males to sneak copulations, since a long mating series would increase the probability of a high-ranked males interrupting them before ejaculation was reached," she adds.

Human males—unlike their macaque cousins—don't appear to be masturbating to reduce the time spent having sex, though. In fact, studies have shown that masturbation is often used as a non-medically prescribed method of preventing premature ejaculation (whether this is effective or not has yet to be tested scientifically). But that doesn't mean that the monkey findings don't have implications for humans. As Dubuc explains, studying masturbation in monkeys has shown that touching ourselves is "well-rooted in our evolutionary heritage" and studying masturbation in humans could help take the shame or embarrassment out of it altogether.

When it comes to women, things are even less clear. Current theories fail to account for or explain the existence of female masturbation; meaning that it could be an evolutionary byproduct of the success of wanker men or an adaptive behavior in its own right. Examples of female masturbation are harder to find among non-human animals. "In many species, there is no external clitoris, making masturbation difficult. Moreover, in most species, females are only sexually aroused in short periods of time around ovulation, decreasing the probability to observe it," Dubuc says.

Dubuc explains that "primates—including humans—are unique because the clitoris is external and periods of sexual receptivity are extended. But still, from my personal experience, masturbation is much less common in females than in males in macaques, and the low rate at which I observed it would actually prevent me to study it quantitatively."

Having an external clitoris dramatically changes how members of a species interact with each other and their own bodies. External genitals allow female bonobos, for example, to engage in genito-genital rubbing, in which pairs of females rub their genitals together in a behavior thought to be vital for tension reduction and social cohesion. How and why we masturbate is intimately linked to our anatomy, and Dubuc believes that as we come to better understand the adaptive functions of the female orgasm and clitoris we may shed light onto the adaptive functions of female masturbation.

Unlike other primates though, humans can articulate their emotions, sexual arousal and habits to scientists providing data for future research. Until recently, stigma surrounding female sexuality, orgasm and masturbation has prevented research and slowed down understanding. Science is thankfully shifting to be more representative of female sexuality, and we may soon know more.

While many animals masturbate, it has been proposed that humans are unique in their ability to pair tactile genital stimulation with vivid sexual thoughts. From imagined fetishes to daydreamed ménages à trois; big brains set us apart in our ability for self-stimulation. In fact, the science writer Jesse Bering has postulated that imagination-aided me time is what makes humans unique.

"One thing that studies of masturbatory behavior in monkeys and apes has done is to make it clear that the behavior is widespread, perfectly normal and harmless," says Alan Dixson, a researcher in evolutionary biology and anthropology who has written extensively about primate sexuality. "It used to be thought that masturbation harmed human sexual and moral development...things are more enlightened nowadays, but it was not always so, and guilt concerning sexual matters is still an issue in many human societies. Monkeys and apes are, presumably, free of such feelings of guilt." If we can learn anything from our hairier relatives, it's that we should be less uptight about our solo play.

Read This Next: The Complicated Relationship Between Sex and Masturbation

It's easy to misplace things, especially as you grow older. Keys. Glasses. Your phone. But one British woman's story takes the cake: She lost 27 contact lenses in her eye socket over a period of years.

According to a short report in the BMJ, a 67-year-old woman came in for routine cataract surgery at a hospital near Birmingham, England, last November. As she was being prepped for the procedure, an anesthesiologist found what the journal describes as a "blueish mass" of 17 contacts fused together by mucus in her right eye. On further examination, doctors discovered another 10 individual lenses. That's 27 in a single eye and, apparently, zero in the left.

The operating team was, understandably, shocked. (And maybe a little horrified?) Not just by the sheer quantity of "retained bodies," but by the fact that the patient had never complained, other than noting reduced vision in that eye. "It was such a large mass...We were really surprised that the patient didn't notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there," Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee ophthalmologist and author of the report, told Optometry Today.

As for how the contacts got there? The patient had worn monthly disposable contacts for the past 35 years, but didn't see an optometrist regularly. She, too, was surprised to learn about the mass of contacts in her eye, though Morjaria noted the woman said she was a lot more comfortable at a follow-up appointment two weeks after the lenses were removed. "She thought her previous discomfort was just part of old age and dry eye." The BMJ report speculated that the disappearing-contact act may have been possible because the woman has deep-set eyes.

After removing the lenses, doctors postponed surgery to avoid complications and gave her antibiotics. "Because she had harboured these contact lenses in her eye for an unknown length of time, if we had operated she would have had a lot of bacteria around her conjunctiva," Morjaria said. The woman has no known complications since the surgery, Morjaria told Tonic in an email.

Morjaria and her colleagues decided to publish the story to show that a patient could have that many contacts in her eye without symptoms like significant discomfort and redness—but also to remind contact-wearers that they need regular, professional eye exams, even if they get their lenses online. "Contact lenses are used all the time, but if they are not appropriately monitored we see people with serious eye infections that can cause them to lose their sight," she said. As convenient as they are, contacts are still medical devices, and need to be treated as such.

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Taiwan's feisty parliament, the Legislative Yuan, descended into fistfights, water balloon launches, and chair throwing again this week over a massive infrastructure spending plan. Members of the opposition Kuomintang clad in blue swarmed the podium. against the green-wearing Democratic Progressive Party, the latest in decades of dust-ups between the two camps.

After the end of one-party rule, Taiwanese politics was locked in struggle between, simplified, the largely pro-indepedence DPP and the pro-reunification KMT., with fights most often started by the opposition party when other avenues have been exhausted. Fights have broke out over a fourth nuclear power plant, trade deals with mainland China, featuring slapping speakers, eating legislation, and food fights. The Legislative Yuan was awarded an Ig Nobel "demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations."

Elsewhere around the world, South Koreans have barricaded doors to prevent quorums and launched tear gas (previously) into the chamber. Fights have also happened in Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, and Russia.

Other nations have also had legislative violence, which was more common in America's younger days. In 1856, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks savagely beat Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane. One Alabama state representative punched another. More recently, scuffles broke out at the Texas state house when one legislator called Immigration and Customs Enforcement on protesters.

Fighting Words is a column in which writers rub you the wrong way with their unpopular but well-argued opinions on fitness, health, nutrition, what have you. Got something to get off your chest? Send your pitch to tonic@vice.com.

I recently attended a lunch held by one of the country's foremost organic companies. The event's host—a yoga teacher who lives in a Connecticut suburb where the streets are jammed with hybrid luxury SUVs and single-source organic almond milk lattes in every cupholder—explained how the brand's holistic world view aligned with her own.

The waiters entered the banquet hall. As they dropped off plates of salmon, risotto, and broccoli, the host announced that this food was 100-percent organic, locally sourced, non-GMO, and free of antibiotics, hormones, and additives. "Enjoy this clean lunch made with real food!" she proclaimed.

I don't buy organic, think the anti-GMO movement is basically BS, and eat a bowl of Lucky Charms with conventional whole milk every night of the week. And for 30 years I've somehow not only survived, but thrived. My docs say my health is stellar—on my diet of what is, apparently, filthy, fake food. Am I a miracle of biology? Not even close.

"Clean eating" is a feel-good diet based around organic, non-GMO, ethically raised foods that are free of unnatural additives. It's a popular method among wealthy yoga moms, Whole Foods hippies, and the occasional fitness fanatic. It offers "fast fat loss that lasts a lifetime," and promises a Gwyneth Paltrow-esque vision of wellness that will "reset" your health.

You also see clean eating on magazine covers and bookshelves—Clean Eating Made Simple, Clean Eats, Clean, and The Eat Clean Diet are all bestsellers. It's the catch phrase of Panera Bread, the $5.1 billion fast-casual brand, who has based their marketing around the idea that "100% of our food is 100% clean." Celebs like Alicia Silverstone and Jessica Alba are on board.

Trouble is, the movement is a wholly classist phenomenon—or, in the words of one of my students who grew up in inner-city Detroit, "Clean eating? That's some rich white people shit." Yet despite a lack of scientific evidence, clean eating is defining the health and weight loss discourse, says Krista Scott-Dixon, a nutritional consultant for Precision Nutrition.

And that's too bad, because if you accept clean eating ideals, you may think you can't afford to eat healthily—organic foods cost about 40 percent more than conventional foods, according to Consumer Reports. "Of course you can't afford to eat healthily—if you're buying $12 bottles of green juice and all organic, non-GMO, clean food," Scott-Dixon says.

Seventy percent of Americans are overweight, and only one in ten eat the recommended amount of produce each day. The poorest states eat even less than that. Adding extra financial and accessibility barriers to entry surely isn't helping the majority, and hits underserved populations especially hard, says Robin Deweese, a food disparities researcher at Arizona State University. "We need to start with access to produce and make it affordable and desirable," she says. "We can't worry about beliefs like clean eating in the communities I work in."

Deweese says she hates the term clean eating. "It's a social status thing. It's more about 'I'm better because I eat clean,'" she says. Adds Scott-Dixon, "'Clean eating' is a preoccupation of people who, in socioeconomic terms, really don't have any real, legitimate worries. It's a first-world problem."

Indeed, labeling some foods as clean frames the rest as dirty, setting up a binary, us-vs-them, self-righteous world view. "It's using food as propaganda. There's a moral component," says Trevor Kashey, a nutrition consultant for Complete Human Performance, who holds a PhD in biochemistry.

When so many people have limited resources, you need to be careful about deeming foods "bad," says John Weidman, deputy executive director of The Food Trust, a nationwide non-profit dedicated to ensuring that disadvantaged communities have access to affordable, nutritious food. "If you're trying to get a kid to eat more bananas," he says, "you don't want kids to think they're eating 'dirty' bananas."

Scott-Dixon agrees: "With the concept of clean eating, there's so many moralistic, judgmental associations." So few people can afford to make every meal 'clean' that it can lead to a skewed relationship with food. "Now every choice you make has this incredible baggage; you can't just make a choice? With clients, the way we see this manifest is that every eating choice becomes this opportunity to be paranoid, anxious, worried, punishing, or critical," she says.

And if you do have the dough to eat 100 percent clean, you hold the moral high ground. "Clean proponents need to realize that not everyone has the resources to go out and buy a grass-fed steak that costs four times as much as the conventional steak, which most research shows is probably nutritionally equivalent," says Anothony D'Orazio, an adjunct professor of biology and nutrition at Ohio State University. "And that doesn't make anyone any less of a person."

Nutrition education programs should be culturally sensitive, Weidman says. "There's no one type of healthy food," he adds. If people want to eat all-organic and GMO-free, his program is happy to help them do that, but at the end of the day, "we just want to help people eat healthier," he says.

There's more than one way to do that. The clean eating movement's big pitch is that its food is healthier and better for weight loss compared to its conventional, "dirty" counterparts. But if you ate the same diet of clean foods instead of dirty ones, no scientific evidence suggests you'd lose any more weight or be any healthier, Kashey says.

"Yes, clean eating will usually result in weight loss. But not for the reasons you think. If you lose weight it's because you stopped eating comfort food and started eating leaves," Kashey says. "That the leaves are organic or non-GMO have nothing to do with your weight loss." The reason: pesticides, GMOs, antibiotics, and chemicals don't impact the energy content of your food, says Michael Lowe, a clinical psychologist who researches weight control and obesity at Drexel University.

Regularly eating fewer calories than you burn each day—called a calorie deficit—is the only thing that's been consistently proven to help people lose weight. "At the end of the day, weight loss, gain, or maintenance is calories in, calories out," Lowe says. Years of scientific research agrees. "Claiming something like a non-GMO or organic food will help you lose more weight is like me saying 'what's the alignment of the stars, and which alignment are you born under, and then I'll tell you whether you can lose weight or not,'" Lowe says.

The same goes for health. "Is organic actually healthier? it feels like it should be, but is that scientifically correct? It's hard to say," Scott-Dixon says. After scrutinizing 240 studies on the topic, scientists at Stanford University failed to find any evidence linking organic food to better health.

Just last month, researchers in the UK also looked at the data and concluded that the jury's still out on the topic. They conceded that organic food does have some slight nutritional differences compared to conventional food—for example, organic milk has slightly more Omega-3s but less iodine, while organic produce tends to have more antioxidants—but those differences haven't been shown to improve health outcomes. "A food having slightly more or less of a vitamin or mineral doesn't necessarily mean it will have a practical impact on our ability to thrive as a species," Kashey says.

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Clean eaters often point to potential health threats posed by the pesticides used in conventional farming. Of course, we don't know everything about the long-term health effects of pesticides—and under Trump's EPA, there are clear risks that still need to be evaluated. But we do know a lot, and pesticides used today go through a rigorous approval process before they can be used in farming. Glyphosate, the most widely used pesticide, has been listed as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO). But after more research, the WHO also added a caveat—reporting that it's unlikely to be harmful in the amounts humans are exposed to. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency also undertook a massive evaluation of glyphosate's link to cancer and concluded: "The available data at this time do no support a carcinogenic process for glyphosate."

Meanwhile, after years of research, GMOs are agreed to not only be safe, but in many cases also more nutritious than their non-GMO counterparts, D'Orazio says. Not only has no one ever died from eating a GMO, but GMO crops are in fact a tool that can help save many of the 3.1-million children who die of malnutrition each year.

Sciencey-sounding food additives—another clean eating no-no—are carefully regulated, and many improve the safety and nutritional value of food. The fearmongering around them plays into what philosophers call "the naturalistic fallacy," a belief that anything natural is more morally righteous. "Guess what, death is natural, typhoons are natural, the plague is natural. The three most deadly chemical compounds—botulinum toxin a, tetanus toxin a, and diphtheria toxin—are all natural," Kashey says. "When did we get this idea that nature is so great? Nature isn't good. Nature isn't bad. Nature just is."

There are, of course, plenty of valid reasons for supporting clean foods—ranging from concern over the treatment of animals to supporting local farmers. But those concerns have nothing to do with health and weight loss, clean eating's big sales pitch.

Those beliefs can even lead to what researchers call the "health halo" effect, a phenomenon wherein people believe that because clean foods may be better for the environment or workers, they're also healthier and better for weight loss. That was the conclusion of scientists at Cornell University who found that people perceived organic foods as having fewer calories and more nutrients than nutritionally-equivalent conventional food. Panera Bread, for example, offers a clean Steak and White Cheddar Panini that has 850 calories, or about the same as a Big Mac and medium fries. People know McDonald's probably isn't a smart choice if your goal is to lose weight, while the "clean" Panera option may not be perceived the same way.

At the end of the day, Dixon says, clean eating is ultimately a made-up rule, like "don't walk on the grass." "Ideally, we want people to shift to an internal locus of control," she says. "That's where you don't have to rely on a made-up list of foods, and instead you're your own scientist who has an awareness of what works for you." That, of course, could include a plate of clean salmon, risotto, and broccoli. But it could also include a bowl of Lucky Charms and discount whole milk.

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Correction (7/17/2017): A previous version of this article stated that 1 in 10 Americans don't eat the recommended amount of produce. In fact, only 1 in 10 Americans do eat the recommended amount.

Pirate video streaming sites are booming. Their relative ease of use through on-demand viewing makes them a viable alternative to P2P file-sharing, which traditionally dominated the piracy arena.

The popular movie streaming sites GoMovies, formerly known as 123movies, is one of the most-used streaming sites. While it’s built a steady userbase of millions of users over the past year, the site’s home keeps changing.

The latest move came this week. Going forward, the site will be active from GoStream.is, operating from the Icelandic gostream.is domain name.

While the site hasn’t officially commented on the reason for the move, on Twitter a site representative mentioned a Google ‘penalty’ as the main driver behind the recent change.

Penalized

When we looked at the issue more closely, we found that it’s not so much a penalty, but rather a response to a DMCA takedown request.

Earlier this week the site’s homepage was removed from Google’s search engine following a takedown notice from Warner Bros. This made it harder for users to find the site through Google, as various knockoffs were ranked higher in the search results for the “Gomovies” keyword.

In addition to relocating to a new domain name, the site has also changed the look of its homepage. Instead of a page filled with the most popular movies and TV-shows, it now lists a basic search box.

New GoMovies homepage

The homepage change is likely a response to Google’s search engine removal as well. The previous GoMovies domain was targeted by Warner Bros. because it listed a link to a pirated movie, but such links are no longer present on the new homepage.

That said, users who prefer the old look can still access it with a single click, which is prominently mentioned on the site.

Despite the domain name change, the GoMovies brand hasn’t changed. The logo and all other references to the site’s name remain intact. Confusingly, people who search for GoMovies on Google still won’t see the Gostream.is URL in the top results, but perhaps that will change in the future.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.