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Sex advice is one of the tried and true tropes of men’s- and women’s-interest magazines: 69 Tips for Better Oral Sex, The One Move That Will Blow His/Her/Their Mind, Here’s a Sex Thing You Don’t Even Know About are, given the twin drives of sexuality and curiosity, the most evergreen...More »

Mes y medio ya trabajando en hostelería, algunas conclusiones:

- El sector servicios se sostiene sobre la explotación, tanto la que impone a sus empleados como la que sufren sus clientes. Creando así una cadena de gente que necesita recurrir a más servicios en horarios más amplios porque a su vez está agotada y ocupada por haber servido a otros. 

Ejemplo: Salgo más tarde del trabajo de lo que en un principio se había calculado porque a última hora siempre hay un pico de gente que ha salido tarde del suyo y no ha podido ir antes. Maldigo a esa gente, pero eso no impide que al salir vaya al Carrefour justo antes del cierre y los empleados me maldigan a mí mientras me persiguen mandándome a caja, haciéndoles lo mismo que me han hecho. Eso cuando no salgo aún más tarde y directamente espero poder pedir todavía comida a mi casa por internet y que un empleado pseudoautónomo y desprotegido de todo derecho laboral de Delivroo me lo traiga al filo de medianoche, enfadándome muchísimo si los restaurantes ya han cerrado. Cosa que quizás también hagan los empleados de Carrefour y otros lugares que cierran cuando ya a nadie le apetece cocinar por sí mismo.

La sociedad de consumo crea cada vez más necesidades de servicios porque, al servir a unos trabajadores, somete a otros a horarios y rutinas que le impiden ocuparse de muchas parcelas de su propia vida que tiene entonces que delegar en otros servicios, haciendo que cada vez todo tenga que estar más disponible, cerrando más tarde pero al mismo tiempo siendo más rápido. Formamos parte de ello y sufrimos sus consecuencias pero asumimos como natural el derecho a disponer de todo en cualquier momento, justificando y apuntalando el sistema que genera esa explotación.

- Robamos producto. Por un lado, tiramos al momento a la basura cualquier comanda en la que nos hayamos equivocado para evitar que la vea el jefe, cuando podría aprovecharse para ser comida por los propios empleados, pero eso supondría admitir el error y también interrumpir el trabajo. Por otro, los trabajadores de hostelería pasamos horas de esfuerzo físico y cansancio delante de productos deliciosos y azucarados que servimos a los clientes pero no nos podemos comer. Cuando el jefe no mira, intentamos comernos todo. Las cucharillas desechables vuelan a pares de la boca a la papelera porque una vez las hemos lamido ya no pueden volver a estar en contacto con el producto. Las esquinas o superficies “sucias” en las que se mezclan varios sabores que estamos obligados a retirar para que el producto presente buen aspecto se supone que deberían ir directamente a la basura, pero van a nuestras bocas, nos da igual que realmente no sepa a nada porque se ha mezclado café con coco porque es azúcar y grasa que necesitamos.

Cuantas más sean las horas que hacemos y menos que cobremos, peor nos traten, más conscientes seamos de nuestra explotación y la de nuestros cuerpos y más mecánico sea el trabajo, más producto robamos. Ejemplo: «Voy a cobrarme todas mis plusvalías robadas en frutos rojos».

- La mujer hispana es el peor modelo de cliente posible. Lo siento por esto porque apenas tenía ganas de decir nada malo sobre ningún hispano desde que me había mudado aquí. He atendido a clientes de todo tipo y de todas las nacionalidades posibles y la mujer argentina o española es la única en la que se repite el mismo patrón: clasista y semianoréxica. Mientras el resto de clientes se suelen limitar a enumerarte los sabores que quieren e irse, Pepita de Córdoba te dice que si le puedes poner un poquito de esto pero no tanto como de lo otro sólo un cuarto de tercio más y que ya que estás se lo corones con una avellana pese a no haber elegido sabor avellana que el café no está tan caliente como le gustaría y te lo devuelve mientras mira a su pareja y le dice con voz infantil y poniendo morros “Yo quería un café así calentito calentito” que el café sea descafeinado y la leche sea desnatada que si el producto tiene azúcar o grasa o que le pongas el más light y 0% dios santo NADIE, NADIE NUNCA me ha pedido leche desnatada con el café que no fuese una hispana, ni siquiera tenemos leche desnatada ES UNA TIENDA DE HELADOS si quieres light tírate en el parque y come arena a qué vienes aquí como si tuviese los pies como para averiguar ahora dónde coño están las cápsulas de café descafeinado que seguramente haya que tirar ya porque en un mes nadie más ha pedido te hago uno normal con leche normal y venga, una anécdota sobre cómo en París fueron bordes y te timaron sólo por ser turista, la próxima vez coges y te vas a Lourdes si quieres un helado sin grasa ni azúcar que sabe como para cobrar 4€ por él.

- ABOLISH RESTAURANTS  tiene la verdad.

Following a few hints earlier this week, it is now fully confirmed. Kim Dotcom will be launching a brand new file-sharing site with a familiar name.

Megaupload 2.0 is pencilled in for a January 2017 launch, an event that will coincide with the 2012 closure of the original Megaupload and the massive police raid on its operators.

Having successfully avoided the clutches of a hungry United States government for half a decade, this five-year anniversary is an important one for Dotcom, and it’s becoming clear he hopes to celebrate it with another poke in the eye for the Obama administration.

Details are few at this stage, but here’s what we know. Megaupload 2.0 will have 100gb of free storage. It will allow users to sync all of their devices and there will be no data transfer limits. On-the-fly encryption will be baked-in.

But while site features are important, what the original Megaupload had going for it was millions of loyal users. They were all made homeless and scattered when the site was shut down but according to Dotcom, there will be a future grand reunion.

Intriguingly, the serial entrepreneur says that Megaupload 2.0 will get a fantastic start in life. Rather than simply relying on word-of-mouth advertising to get going, his new venture will launch with the original Megaupload user database intact.

How Dotcom managed to preserve a copy of this data isn’t clear, but he says that each user account held within will get a foot up.

“Most Megaupload accounts will be reinstated with Premium privileges on the new Megaupload,” Dotcom announced this morning.

If every one of those former Megaupload users hit the site on day one, that’s 100 million people needing attention. It’s unlikely that anywhere near that will come aboard, but just one or two percent would be a tremendous start.

But hosting files isn’t the only thing on Dotcom’s mind. His censorship-resistant MegaNet project is still in development and although it’s not going to be ready until 2018 at the earliest, Dotcom says that Megaupload 2.0 will be a crucial component of that network.

“Megaupload 2.0 will be the launch platform for MegaNet. Let’s make sure that we have critical mass first. #100MillionUsers,” he said this morning.

Dotcom clearly has much work to do and even flat-out will struggle to meet his January deadline. Still, he doesn’t intend to do it alone.

“To former Megaupload and current Mega employees. We welcome you with open arms. Mega App developers, we have a great deal for you. Ping me,” he wrote a few hours ago.

So how will former Megaupload users know if they can use their old credentials to access the new site?

“Expect an email,” Dotcom concludes.

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

You marry the person who makes you feel home, no matter where you are. The one who makes you feel like an airplane or a depressing hotel room or a fast food joint in the middle of nowhere is the coziest place you could be, if they’re sitting next to you.

You marry the person who makes your problems bearable, even if they can’t solve them. The one who looks you in the eye during a tough time and says, without even saying it, You’re going to be okay. I know you can do this. You know you can do this. The one who knows you are fully capable of driving through your own life, but who is always willing to take the wheel for an hour or two when your eyelids grow heavy and your soul just needs a little rest.

You marry the person who makes you love how very human you are. The one who laughs when you burp unexpectedly, who thinks you’re at your most beautiful in the morning. The one who understands when you’re lashing out from tiredness or hunger and waits patiently for you to sheepishly own up to it. The one who says “I like it” when you find your first gray hair, who watches you discover the first signs of aging on your face and then points to their own laugh lines, reassuring you that you’ll develop the rest of them together.

You marry the person who only adds to who you are, rather than taking away from it. The person who gives you even more room to solidify your own independence, while still making you feel strengthened from being part of the greater whole that is the two of you.

You marry the person who makes you feel seen. The one who looks at you in a way that no one else has ever looked at you. The one you can trust to pick up on the things you’re feeling, even when you don’t have the energy or the ability to put them into words.

You marry the person who brings you outside of yourself, who opens your eyes to both the things happening far away and the things happening right in front of your face – the things you couldn’t or didn’t want to face before. You marry the person whose words reassure you more than anyone else’s and the person who will just as readily tell you the things that no one else is brave enough to tell you.

You marry the person who is simultaneously capable of making your world more dazzling and yet more real than it has ever been with anyone else. 

You marry the person whose voice brings you warmth, whose beating heart brings you peace, whose hands bring you into a world in which you are never alone.

And most of all, you marry the person who’s willing to change with you. Every single day.

1.
“She’s just the kindest person I’ve ever encountered. It’s almost to a fault because sometimes I think people take advantage of how much she genuinely wants to be there for other people. But it’s unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. She inspires me to be a better person.” — Nick, 25

2.
“Her laugh. Her laugh is honestly one of my favorite sounds in the world. It’s kind of kooky and definitely not a ‘cute’ laugh, but it’s genuine. It’s real. And it’s 100% her.” — Jack, 26

3.
“I am in love with and totally mesmerized by how much she speaks her mind. She knows exactly who she is, what she stands for, what she believes in…and she’s not afraid to be that person. It’s admirable. And so, so, SO attractive.” — Brooks, 28

4.
“She’s so clearly an 11 out of 10. Like, I dig watching her get hit on and knowing I’m the one who is going to leave with her. It’s so fucking hot.” — Kyle, 27

5.
“She’s maybe the best listener I’ve ever met. She’s not one of those people who just nods and says ‘mhm’ and laughs along with whoever is talking. She absolutely absorbs everything; she takes everything in. It’s one of the most attractive qualities I’ve ever seen in another human being.” — Travis, 24

6.
“My girlfriend is a really, really, really good friend. She is the person who you can call at 2 AM and she actually answers and is ready to be there. She treats her friends like they are her flesh and blood. And while, sometimes, I think that can be dangerous for her own sanity, it’s a quality that I look up to.” — Christopher, 22

7.
“She’s not afraid to be alone. I have never felt like she “needed” me in the sense of, “needed me” to be completed. She was and is already a whole person on her own and she OWNS that.” — Logan, 27

8.
“I’ve legit never seen a body like hers in real life before. She looks like she’s photoshopped. I don’t know how I got so lucky.” — Adam, 24

9.
“I’m always amazed and in awe at how willing she is to hear other people out and see their side when there’s conflict. She’s not quick to judge; she’s always ready to find common ground. She’s not a person who goes LOOKING for a fight — just a resolution.” — Sam, 25

10.
“She can and WILL put absolutely anyone in their place. It’s never unwarranted or uncalled for — but it definitely makes you stfu and listen. She’s gonna be a great (and sometimes terrifying) mom.” — Jordan, 29

11.
“She can convey anything with just a look. When she’s pissed off, irritated, bored, thrilled, judgmental. Really anything. I can just look at her eyes, and I know where she’s at. Best is when she’s turned on. It’s super sexy.” — Micah, 23

12.
“When I’m with her I just feel whole. I’m fine on my own — great even! But when I’m with her, even when we’re not ‘together together’ just in the same place, on the same team…I’m THAT much better. I wish there was a better way to describe it but there really isn’t. Losing her would be like losing a limb. I would feel her absence forever.” — Cole, 28

13.
“She is always the center of attention wherever we go. People are just drawn to her. She’s the light in every room, the life of every party. It can be intimidating to keep up with her, but I definitely am into the challenge. She is what makes my life interesting.” — Julien, 24

14.
“I say this will the utmost sincerity: she is too smart. She knows EVERYTHING. I feel like I’m walking around with a human Google. I know when I’m with her I will never be bored because she just…has so much to talk about, to tell me. She is completely fascinating.” — Christian, 23

15.
“She completely oozes sexuality and sensuality. You can tell that at any given moment — she WANTS me. It’s the hottest thing ever and I don’t know how I ended up in my own IRL porno.” — Jessie, 25

16.
“She is the kind of person that makes you want to be better, do better, LIVE better. She genuinely, authentically believes in the good in people and that the world can be a better, kinder, more gentle place to live. I don’t know if she’s necessarily ‘right’ in this mindset/assumption, but it absolutely is an inspirational way to live and look at the world. Being around her is like wearing a permanent pair of rose colored glasses. It’s remarkable.” —Kellen, 26

It seems that although the revelation yesterday that Star Trek‘s Sulu, brought wonderfully to life by actor George Takei in the Original Series, will be gay in the upcoming Star Trek Beyond was met with joy by Trek fans gay and straight alike who were glad to see LGBTQIA representation in their favorite franchise, it was met with less enthusiasm with Takei himself. In fact, he actively voiced his opinion in opposition to this decision during the making of the film.

The Hollywood Reporter tells the story of how Takei once approached Roddenberry about making a character on Star Trek gay, but that while Roddenberry sympathized, he didn’t feel like he could risk making that decision on the show, fearing cancellation. Never mind that the show was cancelled the following season anyway.

Takei not only wishes that Star Trek Beyond had created a new gay character instead of making Sulu gay, but also that this decision is disrespectful of Gene Roddenberry, the franchise’s creator. He says, “[Roddenberry] was a strong supporter of LGBT equality. But he said he has been pushing the envelope and walking a very tight rope — and if he pushed too hard, the show would not be on the air. […] I’m delighted that there’s a gay character. Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

Takei also insists that Roddenberry specifically intended that Sulu be heterosexual.

Obviously, Takei can feel about the character he helped create however he wants, and has unique insight into Sulu. I will never know exactly what Roddenberry expressed to Takei when he was alive. However, I think there’s a huge difference between “not wanting to make the character gay” and “actively making the character straight.” Consider the following:

Sulu has expressed desire for a woman only once on The Original Series, and he was “not himself.” 

In the Season 2 episode “Mirror, Mirror,” Captain Kirk, Scotty, Dr. McCoy, and Uhura end up trading places with their Mirror Universe selves, thanks to an ion storm. In the alternate universe they visit, everyone is pretty much the opposite of the way that they are in the timeline we know. And it is there that we see that Sulu lecherously hitting on Uhura. While all the other men on the show have had multiple relationships with women, of their own volition and in their own timeline, the only example of Sulu’s explicit heterosexuality is in an episode where we’re seeing an alternate universe version of the character. One in which he is thoroughly not the Sulu we’d come to know and love.

Sulu has a daughter, but one doesn’t need a relationship with a woman for that.

We know that Sulu has a daughter named Demora, who is introduced into canon in the film Star Trek: Generations. However, how Demora was conceived is only covered in a non-canon Star Trek novel by Peter David called The Captain’s Daughter. As Takei describes it to The Hollywood Reporter, “It was, to put it crudely, a one-night stand with a glamazon. A very athletic, powerful and stunningly gorgeous woman. That’s Demora’s mother.”

Now, setting aside the fact that this novel isn’t canon, there’s still the issue of it being a “one-night stand.” Now sure, Sulu may be straight and unlucky in love. Or just straight and into one-night-stands.  But he could just as easily be a gay man who slept with a woman That One Time. The point is, we don’t know. We can’t know from the information we’re given.

The point is that we’re trained to see straight as the default in media. Rather than acknowledging that we don’t know the sexuality of any character until they talk about it, or until we can see enough in their actions and behavior to put together a picture, we assume straightness until proven gay. And, of course, we don’t even consider bisexuality its own thing, even when a character says they’re bisexual, because we only value that bisexuality insofar as it serves our individual agendas. If they’re dating someone of the same gender, they count as queer. If they’re dating someone of the opposite gender, then their queerness is merely lip-service.

But back to Star Trek. Again, I will never know what Gene Roddenberry actually said to Takei or anyone else with regard to the show. However, based on the show and the films, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Roddenberry “had always envisioned Sulu as heterosexual.” If anything, Sulu is generally someone who seems without much sexuality at all (‘sup, Aces!).

Takei first learned about Sulu being gay in Star Trek Beyond when John Cho, who plays the character in the Kelvin Universe, told him about it a year ago. Takei expressed his disapproval then, and urged the production to create a new gay character, saying “Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.” Despite the fact that these films are 1) in an alternate timeline and 2) nonetheless happen before the events of The Original Series? Making Sulu gay here would do absolutely nothing to contradict what we know of Sulu moving forward. He would never have been in the closet.

After director Justin Lin confirmed with Takei that Sulu would be gay in Star Trek Beyond:

“I said, ‘This movie is going to be coming out on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, the 50th anniversary of paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the man whose vision it was carried us through half a century. Honor him and create a new character. I urged them. He left me feeling that that was going to happen,” Takei says.

After that, all was quiet from Beyond until a few months ago, when Takei received an email from [Simon] Pegg “praising me for my advocacy for the LGBT movement and for my pride in Star Trek,” he says. “And I thought to myself, ‘How wonderful! It’s a fan letter from Simon Pegg. Justin had talked to him!'” Takei was certain the creative team had rethought their decision to make Sulu gay.

Apparently that was a huge misunderstanding. Sulu remains gay in Star Trek Beyond, and Takei remains disappointed.

According to Spinoff Online, Simon Pegg, who wrote and stars in Star Trek Beyond, responded to Takei’s disapproval in The Guardian. He said, “[Takei’s] right, it is unfortunate, it’s unfortunate that the screen version of the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction hasn’t featured an LGBT character until now. We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character,’ rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?”

Pegg then goes on to say that it was important to them to make Sulu gay, “because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice.” He continues:

“Their sexual orientation is just one of many personal aspects, not the defining characteristic. Also, the audience would infer that there has been an LGBT presence in the Trek Universe from the beginning (at least in the Kelvin timeline), that a gay hero isn’t something new or strange. It’s also important to note that at no point do we suggest that our Sulu was ever closeted, why would he need to be? It’s just hasn’t come up before.”

Indeed, the powerful thing to me when I heard that Sulu would be gay in Star Trek Beyond is precisely that. That it wasn’t just some character “created to be gay” that could easily be brushed aside (or worse, become the victim of the Bury Your Gays trope). It was Sulu. It was a character that we know and have an attachment to. It’s a character we know survives and thrives in Starfleet. Do I agree that we need additional LGBTQIA characters in any and all Star Trek universes? Of course. But it doesn’t have to be either/or. It should be both.

It’s understandable that Takei, who came up in entertainment at a time when being in the closet was encouraged for self-preservation, might feel this way. Understandable that he might be concerned about what this says about gay actors in general, or about himself as an actor specifically. A big reason why actors stay in the closet, after all, is the fear that once people know that they’re gay, the concern is that audiences won’t “be able” to see them as anything else, which is death for an actor whose purpose is to be versatile and play varied characters. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean the character has to be gay!

It’s also a bit of a downer that despite knowing about Takei’s reservations in advance, that the production went ahead and did it anyway, even if I do think it’s the right choice.

But if I could, I would urge Takei to think about how much Sulu being gay means to so many people. I would urge him to think about how meaningful it is to have an established character be gay, and to know that this character will be treated with seriousness and reverence, because he’s one of the original Enterprise crew. I would urge him to remember that new Star Trek fans are born every day, and for many, the Kelvin Universe is their intro. Regardless of what’s “canon” or not, or what Roddenberry’s specific intentions for a character may or may not have been at the time, these new films provide a chance to course-correct. To create a version of Star Trek that is truer to Roddenberry’s vision of the universe, not merely to the specifics he was bound to by corporate bosses in a bygone era.

These new films are an opportunity to provide a Star Trek that today’s generation can latch onto and see themselves in. I hope that one day Takei can feel proud that the character he helped create is in a position to be not only a touchstone for Asian fans, but for LGBTQIA fans as well.

(via io9, image of Takei and Cho via Ronald Woan/Flickr)

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As we all know, there are things that your man wishes he could say, but he’s too stubborn or scared or he asleep right now. It’s so hard for men to express themselves! Here are a few things he wishes you knew, but he doesn’t have the guts or wakefulness to tell you.

He really loves you.

He used to say it a lot in the beginning of the relationship, but as time goes on, it’s just something he assumes you know. And the reason he’s not saying it to you right now is that he is asleep because it is 1 A.M. on a Tuesday. Trust that he’s showing you his love in all sorts of ways, but he’s physically incapable of saying it in his sleep. Don’t give in to your insecurities!

He worries about the future.

Your dude puts up a brave front, but when he thinks of things like finances, his career, and having children, he has a ton of anxiety. These are things he deeply wants to share with you, but it’s incredibly difficult for him to talk about them when he’s deep in an REM cycle. Maybe you should ask him about it when he wakes up!

Sometimes he needs time alone.

Call it fear of intimacy, call it fear of commitment, but there’s a good chance your guy really values his independence and wants to make sure he has time to do his own thing. Unfortunately for you both, he’s snoring while you stare intently at his face, so chances are he’s not gonna come clean about it right now. Kind of annoying, but you get it!

He hates your friends.

Your sweetie is notoriously too nice, so he may not be telling you straight up that he thinks your friends are annoying. Why won’t he admit it? Probably because he’s 23 minutes into a serious Sunday nap. All you can do is be open to him and encourage him to be vulnerable, and also wait until he’s awake to have a conversation.

He loves when you wear skirts.

The last thing your guy wants to be is sexist so he’s probably keeping it to himself that he really loves when you wear cute skirts! You’ve been asking him about it while he’s next to you asleep on the airplane, but he honestly can’t respond right now. But don’t give up—keep encouraging that communication, girl!

At the end of the day, you can trust that if it weren’t for your bae being totally passed out, there is so so much that he’d be sharing with you! It has nothing to do with his communication skills and everything to do with his REM cycle. All you can do is persist in having serious talks no matter what his state of consciousness is. You’re a good girlfriend!

Lo siento, hoy no puedo salir. Tengo que aparecer en una imagen de Getty

Nunca ha habido una serie de televisión más poco realista que Friends. La fantasía que vende al público —que seis personas de veintitantos años son capaces de reunirse con cierta regularidad sin planificarlo— es una gran mentira. ¿Te imaginas los mensajes de grupo, las cadenas de emails, los compromisos y la complejidad que implicarían organizar una reunión de seis personas en una cafetería? Para ser mínimamente realistas, Friends tendría que haber sido una serie sobre seis personas hablando por teléfono, mandándose mensajes e inventando excusas para poder quedarse en su casa a ver la tele.

La semana pasada, la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales de Estados Unidos publicó la Encuesta estadounidense sobre el empleo del tiempo, un análisis anual a la forma en que usamos los preciosos minutos de nuestras cortas vidas. En general, las personas duermen (casi nueve horas al día de media), trabajan (poco menos de ocho horas en los días en que les toca trabajar) y ven televisión (poco menos de tres horas). Dedicamos apenas 41 minutos de media al día a socializarnos con otras personas, tiempo que disminuyó un 9 por ciento durante los últimos 10 años. ¿Esto quiere decir que la sociedad se está alejando cada vez más de ese paraíso feliz convivencia que presentaba Friends? ¿O es que ahora preferimos hacerlo por internet?

Tal vez hay algo más siniestro que no estamos considerando. Tal vez la gente ya no sale porque está encerrada en casa ideando una excusa sobre por qué no podemos salir.

Esa fue la conclusión a la que llegó un estudio reciente realizado por Yelp Eat24, algo que parece una fusión entre Seamless y Yelp. En cualquier caso, no tengo razones para desconfiar de un servicio de comida para llevar que manda un comunicado de prensa explicando que la gente prefiere quedarse en casa. Así que confiemos en ellos cuando dicen que "Tal vez el miedo a perdernos cosas se ha pasado de moda y la encuesta haya detectado cuál es la nueva tendencia: el PLACER de perdernos cosas".

Según el estudio, casi el 30 por ciento de la gente termina decepcionada las noches que sale, más de una tercera parte siente cierto estrés o ansiedad, además de que la resaca y las peleas son efectos secundarios comunes. Por eso no sorprende que el 80 por ciento de la gente haya confesado que "haya tenido que inventar excusas para no salir", es decir, miente a sus amigos para no verlos.

Conocemos perfectamente estas mentiras: "mi perro está enfermo", "ya había quedado con otro amigo", "voy a ensayar con mi banda", "es que estoy intentando dejar de beber", "ya no somos novios", "creo que te has equivocado de número". Las reconocemos en otros y las usamos para mantener la apariencia de que realmente nos gustaría ir a ese festival de música noise, pero por desgracia hay un montón de insectos saliendo de un agujero en la pared y mi primo ha venido de visita a la ciudad. Estas mentiras son el lubricante que evita que la interacción social sea dolorosa, la red maquiavélica que nos mantiene unidos.

¿Por qué no nos limitamos a decir la verdad? Pues, según la información de Yelp Eat24, que, de nuevo, es una fuente de la que no tengo razones para desconfiar, en vez de salir, la gente hace lo siguiente:

1. Ver la televisión o películas
2. Descansar o dormir
3. Comer
4. Pasar tiempo con su pareja
5. Pasar tiempo con sus hijos
6. Leer
7. Escuchar música
8. Hacer la limpieza
9. Beber
10. Jugar a videojuegos

Pasar tiempo con tu pareja o con tus hijos es una muy buena razón para no salir. Y limpiar la casa es obligatorio, pero "escuchar música" no es una actividad que requiere una tarde completa. Tampoco comer. No salir para "beber" tú solo no parece muy emocionante y supongo que "descansar" es un eufemismo de "masturbarse", algo que no debería llevarte toda la noche.

Sin importar cuál es tu concepto de "salir", el resultado es triste. Según la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales, la gente invierte cada vez menos tiempo en cuidar de sus hijos, trabajar y socializarse y prefiere ver la tele. Y por lo visto todos mentimos para ocultarlo. Inventamos historias de que tenemos que trabajar cuando en realidad nos pasamos el tiempo jugando a Call of Duty, "descansando" en el sillón y esperando a que lleguen los de Yelp Eat24 con nuestra comida.

Lo bueno es que al menos todos hacemos lo mismo. Tu pereza, tu incapacidad de ser sincero con los demás (y probablemente contigo mismo) sobre lo que haces con tu vida no es un problema personal, es un síntoma de un mal contagioso. Si te preguntas por qué no voy a tu fiesta, recuerda que la sociedad se desliza lentamente hacia un profundo letargo. ¡Intentaré venir a la próxima!

Aquí está, el audio del debate y análisis de Murderabilia, una obra con gatos, muerte y sexo desganado.

Ponentes principales:
Álvaro Ortiz – Autor de la obra.
Javier Gónzalez – Diseñador y socio del estudio Suxinsu.
Gerardo Vilches – Crítico y divulgador de cómics.
Daniel Aubareda – Librero de Atom Cómics.

La charla fue grabada en Atom Cómics (Madrid) el día 05 de Julio de 2016.

En esta época del año nos apetecen platos frescos y uno de los que más nos gusta en casa es el ceviche, un plato peruano bastante sencillo de preparar y que cada vez es más consumido en nuestro país. Hoy quiero contaros los siete secretos para hacer un buen ceviche en casa para que podáis sorprender a vuestra pareja o a vuestros amigos con un plato fresco y delicioso con todo el sabor de Perú.

Aunque yo había hecho ceviche antes, -con mayor o menor acierto según veo ahora-, tras una tarde con Miguel Novoa del restaurante A&G Madrid -Astrid y Gastón en la calle Ayala- he aprendido los secretos para que el ceviche quede perfecto y hoy quiero compartir lo que nos contó el cocinero peruano para que vuestros ceviches os salgan cuanto menos, mucho mejor que antes.

Seis secretos para hacer un buen ceviche en casa

1. Usa siempre pescado muy fresco

El ceviche es una técnica de cocina que consiste básicamente en cocinar el pescado con los ácidos de la lima, por lo que de forma similar a otras preparaciones en las que el pescado no se cocina con temperatura, es muy importante que el pescado sea muy fresco. Hoy, razones sanitarias hacen que lo mejor sea congelar previamente el pescado con el que se va a preparar el ceviche, al igual que cuando se va a hacer sushi.

2. Utiliza ají peruano para dar el picante al ceviche

Existen muchas clases de ajíes, el ají limo, el aji panca, el ají rocotó y muchos otros. Para un ceviche no excesivamente picante, el ají amarillo es una buena opción, así como el ají limo. Si buscas emociones fuertes, puedes utilizar el ají rocoto u otras variedades de pimientos picantes.

Como no siempre es fácil encontrar ajíes peruanos, puedes sustituirlos por guindillas rojas, que no sean muy picantes. Recuerda que lo que aporta más picor son las "venas" y las semillas del ají, que recomendamos se retiren antes de añadirlo al pescado. De todas formas, con una pequeña porción de ají es suficiente para "alegrar" el ceviche. Usa guantes al manipular los ajies para evitar irritarte los ojos y las mucosas después de haberlos tocado.

3. No exprimas las limas. Usa solamente tres cuartos

Tanto la zona blanca de la lima o el limón -el albedo- como los aceites esenciales de la cáscara pueden amargar por lo que el cocinero nos recomendó no exprimir las limas sino apretarlas ligeramente para sacar su zumo. Aunque se desperdicie una parte importante, para hacer un buen ceviche es preferible cortar en cuartos la lima y apretar sacando tres cuartas partes del zumo, desechando el resto.

4. Corta el pescado en tacos de 1,5 cm de lado

La diferencia fundamental entre el ceviche y los tiraditos, está en el corte de pescado que se utiliza. Mientras que en los tiraditos se corta el pescado en pequeñas tiritas o filetitos, en el ceviche se suele usar el corte en tacos o dados. Un tamaño de 1,5 cm de lado aproximadamente es el ideal para cortar el pescado, una vez descongelado y listo para su uso. Los mejores pescados para el ceviche, son los de carnes blancas y prietas, en especial la corvina.

5. La leche de tigre

Tras sazonar el pescado con sal y añadir el ají picado, el cilantro y la cebolla morada, hay que añadir el zumo de limón para cocinar el pescado con el ácido cítrico. Tras dejar un tiempo el pescado y remover de vez en cuando, el líquido -que tiene toda la mezcla de sabores- se denomina leche de tigre.

El nombre parece derivar de su color blanquecino -leche- y de su potencia -como la atribuida al animal- o según otras versiones, porque su consumo excita la libido. Hace tiempo, la costumbre era dejar marinando el pescado en esa leche de tigre mucho tiempo incluso unas cuantas horas o toda la noche, dentro de la nevera.

La fusión con la cocina japonesa y la evolución de las recetas, ha hecho que hoy se considere que es suficiente con dejar el pescado unos diez minutos dentro de la leche de tigre para que se note el cambio de color del pescado. Además, al servir el ceviche se añade también por encima la leche de tigre para aportar más sabor.

La leche de tigre se puede tener preparada -zumo de limas, ají, cebolla- y guardada lista para usar. Dependiendo del tipo de ají utilizado se puede conseguir una leche de tigre amarillenta o blanquecina. Así lo podéis ver en la foto que hay sobre este párrafo en un ceviche de pulpo, calamares y corvina con leche de tigre amarilla.

6. Acompaña siempre el ceviche con otros productos

Los acompañamientos clásicos del pescado son el maíz cocido o choclo, el maíz tostado o cancha, el boniato cocido o camote y la yuca cocida. Así queda perfecto porque en la boca combinarán las diferentes texturas y los sabores dulce del boniato, salado del maíz crujiente, ácido de la leche de tigre y el conjunto quedará armónico.

7. Prueba a hacer ceviches con otros pescados y productos del mar

Como ya hemos probado en Directo al Paladar con el ceviche de merluza, langostinos y zumo de mandarinas, se pueden hacer ceviches con otros pescados y productos del mar como los langostinos, los calamares, el pulpo y diferentes variedades de pescado con carnes blancas y tersas. Es cuestión de imaginación y de probar cuáles nos gustan más.

Ahora que conoces los siete secretos para hacer un buen ceviche en casa y que te quede perfecto, solo hace falta ponerlos en práctica para alegría de los que tengan la suerte de probar vuestras recetas para sentir el sabor de Perú en vuestra mesa. Ya nos contaréis.

En Directo al Paladar | Ceviche peruano de corvina. Receta
En Directo al Paladar | Ceviche de merluza, langostinos y mandarina. Receta

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-
La noticia Los siete secretos para hacer un buen ceviche en casa fue publicada originalmente en Directo al Paladar por Pakus .

In Lisa Hanawalt's hilariously poignant new illustrated book, Hot Dog Taste Test, she establishes some terminology all food photographers should employ—they're below. We asked her to take her methodology to our photos; we should've known better.

Lisa's Take on Some Food52 Photos

Apologies to the photographer, but this seems like a missed opportunity for a fruit drop: This dish would be twice as appealing if the food were falling.

Elbert Budin discovered this innovation decades ago when he accidentally dropped some fruit, and it’s still an essential technique for any fruit shoot today.

This photo has an interesting use of seeds resembling ants, which gives the viewer a sense of urgency and repulsion.

I detect some forced slathering here. This is known as a “mixed goops" shoot: layering one viscous food on top of another. It's technically challenging because the substances can congeal together very quickly.

I like to spread a thin film of glue over goop #1 and create a bed for goop #2 to rest on top undisturbed, but this trick has technically been illegal since 1985.

This is a phenomenal example of burgview. At first glance it may seem like the burger isn’t filling enough of the frame (75% is suggested by traditional food photography guidelines), but in recent years a 25%-beverage-to-50%-burger ratio has become quite chic!

Pretty, but where's the STORY?

Here’s a great tip if your tabletop is looking too minimalist: Toss 3 cups of cornflakes on your set. Instant texture! Lots of DRAMA!

Here we have a “food intruder,” which is a non-edible object inserted into the food. It’s risky to show that.

This photo is a nice example of pooing it up, as the chicken has been torched to a brown crisp.

Ooh, a lovely wet take. One can clearly sense the amount of moisture in this food! Unfortunately I think we might need a re-cook on this; it looks like the photographer already ate a third of it.

For more of Lisa's musings, on food and otherwise, her book is Hot Dog Taste Test. Book spreads reprinted with permission.

Sweet piece of cake originally appeared on MyConfinedSpace NSFW on July 7, 2016.

Blackberry Kush, pictured above, is an indica—but what you think you know about this class of weed could be wrong. Photo via Flickr user Dank Depot

This post originally appeared on VICE Canada.

Last week the Liberal government in Canada announced the creation of its Legalization Task Force. Composed of doctors, politicians, addiction experts, and cops, it has the people with the expertise—in the government's humble opinion—needed to bring cannabis out from under criminalization and into a legal framework.

But, as I'm sure even they would admit, one thing they're lacking on the task force is anyone with any real knowledge about the plant itself. There's no one on the Legalization Task Force that has any practical experience with weed other than telling you why it's bad or trying to keep it away from you. I doubt very much that any of them would admit to being a regular consumer (if I'm wrong on this, I hope some task force members hit me up for a session) let alone grown it or studied it from anything but a prohibition perspective.

That is certainly not the case with Al the Alchemist.

Al is one of Canada's foremost weed experts—something for which there's currently no official accreditation, but is a position that has to be earned all the same. The former host of the canna-educational Class in Session has been involved in cannabis for more than 30 years and has been growing weed for most of that. He takes the plant seriously and as a result is an invaluable source of information. Since meeting him a few years ago, he has completely changed my awareness of weed and how it works. I sat down with him recently to talk about some cannabis-related topics, including legal versus illegal, sativa versus indica, and the other false dichotomies the legal cannabis industry is being built on.

Photo courtesy of Al the Alchemist

VICE: So how did you get into cannabis?
Al The Alchemist: Literally when I was a kid, we just decided one day to smoke weed. my friend Ricky, who's no longer with us, he passed on. Anyway, I helped Ricky do his paper route, and he stole some weed off his dad, and we just decided to try it! And it was just the best fucking experience! There were a couple others like: There was a pimp that was around in our neighborhood, about a block away from my parents' place—really nice guy, but he was a pimp, no way around it! He had the silk suit and drove the Cadillac—he was a pimp. I got up the balls to knock on his door one day, there were about four of us, so I went and knocked and knocked on his door and waited and waited and finally the door opened and this guy looked at me and started laughing! I was like, "Uh, can I get some weed?" And he laughed in my face and slammed the door! And as I was turning around to leave he opened the door and said, "Hey, where're you going" And I gave him $10, and he filled my hand! Like it wasn't a gram, he filled my hand and said, "Now go have fun!" He still thought of me as a twelve-year-old kid.

What was the point when you started learning about it?
My friend's uncles, they were kind of the old rounders who were selling all the weed, so I started learning right off the hop, "Oh, this is Mexican weed, and this is Colombian." I knew what they each looked like. I knew what Thai looked like. I was really into it! Like, "Oh I heard that the Mexican tastes that way because they cure it with bananas and put it flat under mattresses!" etc.

I guess so much of cannabis industry is based on oral tradition...
One of the old traditional ways, they don't do it anymore in Afghanistan because of all the bullshit they have to go through, but one of the old ways of making hashish in Afghanistan was to extract it from the plant using the friction techniques, but then putting it in a clay urn, sealing it with animal skin and wax, and then burying it in the desert for like six or seven years. And then digging it up because it's fully cured, it's been heated and cooled—the desert gets hot and then super cold and hot and super cold every day—so it does that for seven years before it's ready.

Wow!
And that's the traditional way of the past. In the 70s, they were processing hash like that.

So I guess these are the techniques that are lost now?
The Russian invasion into Afghanistan fucked that all up. They couldn't do those processes anymore.

How did you decide you wanted this to be a thing you wanted to spend some time actually learning about?
It's never been something that I've actually ever sat down and read books to study—it was just an organic gathering of knowledge, like exposing myself to the plant at such a young age, and exposing myself to the criminal side of it really. Learning about dealing, learning about the different companies it was imported from, that gave me a thirst and then when I moved out of my parents' place when I was eighteen, we grew a plant. We were like, "Hey, let's start growing this weed and see what we can do!"

There were no books, you couldn't go and buy High Times, they were outlawed in Canada at that time. It was before Emery stepped up and said this is wrong—and thanks to Emery for doing that because that knowledge is now available. But when I was a kid, there was trial and error. We grew a plant with fucking laundry soap because we knew it had phosphates in it! Like, "Hey look we grew a plant!" And just slowly I started figuring stuff out and was like, "Hey I can grow weed!" Well, that's not true—one of our friends took the three year fucking biker apprenticeship. He grew for these guys, and they're pretty hardcore guys—and that was the first guy in our circle that really knew—he took the plunge, and then I started learning, I did a two year apprenticeship, I guess you could say, through him. We used to grow ruderalis hybrids. It was right when the Roadside Rudys collection was pretty big news. But one thing my buddy figured out from growing outdoors on his apprenticeship was that they flower ultra fast. It was unbelievable!

Photo courtesy of Al the Alchemist

You mentioned off the top how you became interested in the criminal involvement side of cannabis.
Fascinated by it!

It just seems because of cannabis being criminalized, there's really no way to separate the development of and history of this plant from the criminal side of it.
Yeah, it developed completely criminally! Everything being adopted on the licensed-production side was developed under the prohibition. A lot of the techniques, everything! It all comes through the black market. So it's just legitimizing it. I don't understand where the resistance is. The government is willing to take these things and totally ignore everybody that was involved in the black market side. Saying, "Oh, this is the new thing. If you have a criminal record involving cannabis, you're no good to us!" To me, it's all asinine. These are the people you want on your side, growing the weed, people that have done time for it and are passionate about it and weren't scared and still went and did it. You know they got out of jail and still went and grew more and more weed.

A cannabis criminal record is almost like a résumé.
Almost? In my opinion it is.

You would have had to learn from someone or be protected by someone: You would have had to always be adjacent to someone that was criminally involved.
Yeah, and back in the day, it would have been bikers. I mean, nothing wrong with bikers. In my opinion, they were the ones that kick started the cannabis industry and made it what it is. I'm glad there was a group of people who said, "Fuck the government, people want this product, and if they're not stepping up to the plate to grow it, we are!" And I'm really happy for this. People are so quick to talk down in the activist community about the biker grow ops—but a lot of these recipes, strains, and everything we enjoy happened because of the bikers.

You bring up the development of strains. I find it really interesting right now that there's this whole push for good legal weed versus bad illegal weed—but correct me if I'm wrong—a lot of these strains on all sides come from the "black market."
A lot of them come from California. What people don't realize, back to the biker thing, a lot of these bikers were military, and they would collect these seeds from other counties and then grow them once they got back to California. They became part of collectives—there were six Afghani seeds that started Amsterdam basically. And I'm pretty sure it was six seeds that got smuggled out of California into Amsterdam. They were originally from Afghanistan into California, but from California into Amsterdam, and that's crazy! I mean, that could be folklore too, but...

What is it about the West Coast of the US and Canada? Why did cannabis develop so much there?
California! California started a lot of shit, they really did. And because of the Pacific Northwest community, it's not just California because we have Oregon and all of these other places. Eventually working its way up the networks of growers and hippies and people who were passionate about the plant through the 60s and 70s and that came to Canada too. A lot of Canadians traveled the world and also collected their own genetics. There was a pioneer, I don't know if I can say his name, but he was from Winnipeg, and he was flowering weed before Ed Rosenthal wrote about it. He didn't write a book about it, but if he had, he would have been the Ed Rosenthal.

Yeah, when did you realize that there was a national community?
I guess when Emery started stepping up to the plate. We were all like, "Who is this guy? We can buy bongs and books again." Here's a guy who didn't have anything to do with weed, but that realized how wrong it was and said, "Fuck it!" We thought that was the coolest thing: "Holy shit, he went from Ontario to Vancouver." Then we realized that there was the Vancouver scene, and one of our friends brought some strains from Vancouver—one of them was called the "Dankouver," and it was a crazy fucking strain! And another one that they just called "Van Couver," which smelled like strawberries. We realized that there was this huge scene out West.

I guess that was the origins of the fabled "BC bud"?
Yeah, the first ones we were getting were the Hawaiian Skunk, and we called that one the "nug." Pound-A-Plant, which later became the legendary BC Hash Plant, but when we were getting it, it was called "pound of plant." And we were getting the "Rude Northern." It was the rankest, rudest, hardest, densest, chunkiest bud. Really dark.

I think some people don't realize that these strain names actually have origins. There's a reason it's called this or that thing.
No different than a Ford or a Passat—they all have an origin. There is a reason.

There's almost this stripping of the heritage of cannabis going on.
Oh yeah, the history of cannabis has been so removed that it's hard to say what the history of cannabis is. All we have are these bastardized legends, and it's easy to gloss over that. Because of that, it's like we're just making it up as we go along. And to me, they're forcing people to lie! So now people have to say, "Oh it's a sixty/forty indica/sativa!" Oh yeah, how the fuck do you know that? You know that this particular phenotype is expressing this and that—you KNOW that, and you're going to communicate it to someone who is counting on you for the right answer? People can just tell somebody anything right now, and people are going to believe it! They think, Well, the dispensary guy told me this, and it must be true. He's a professional, and he deals with cannabis. He knows whats up! No.

It's even worse when you go to your doctor and your doctor is telling you this stuff?
Fuck yeah! Your doctor is trying to tell you, "Oh, what you need is sativa!" Well, do you? And what's sativa? What's an indica?

Well, what is an indica, and what is a sativa?
Well, a sativa means it's been cultivated, which is all cannabis. It's all cultivated, so everything's a fucking sativa! And an indica means it has to come from India.

So how did it come to the point where people think indica means you're going to get sleepy and sativa means you're going to get jumpy?
For that we've got to go back to the beginning, to the early days of classification. So we've got Linnaeus, he's the guy that categorizes cannabis sativa. The L in the Sativa—L name? That's Linnaeus.

He used correct terminology. He found a culture, a group of people that were growing cannabis, and they had bred—literally selectively bred the cannabis for two different reasons: one for fiber and one for oils. So he chose the proper name of an anciently cultivated cannabis. Cannabis sativa.

But he made no assertions about the effects of sativa?
No! Literally, he used the correct terminology, because this society had been growing cannabis in this region, and they developed, through selective breeding, making it better every year. He drew a picture of this plant, and it's a really lanky plant with stringy arms. But if you grow weed, and you've grown it for any length of time, you know that if you get your plant's root bound, they get lanky! If you grow weed in fields and you plant them side by side, like six inches apart from one another, it won't matter if it's a broad or thin-leaf cannabis plant, it's going to look like that picture Linnaeus drew: It's going to get really skinny, and it's going to stretch, and it's not going to have big branches. So there's your sativa.

Then we have Lamarck. He was in India. He was categorizing all things Indica, which means all things from India. He even classified a mango as an indica. There are lots of indicas that have nothing to do with cannabis.

"Well you don't want to eat that mango before you go to work, that's a bedtime mango."
He found the plant growing in the wild. It wasn't being cultivated in a field or anything like that. It didn't have a whole bunch of other plants six inches from it, it was allowed to spread out it, it had like the squatter structure, with big fucking shrub like appearance and a broader leaf. Because he was in the north of India where plants don't grow super tall, they grow pretty wide and have a broader leaf! But if you go to the south of India, you're going to find the really lanky, "sativas" so to say.

Photo courtesy of Al the Alchemist

So could you conceivably take the same seed and grow it tall and lanky or squatter?
Well, a broad leaf will be a broad leaf and a thin leaf will be a thin leaf. It's not going to change that much. However, there's a guy in Columbia that claims at about eight thousand feet you can turn broad leaves into thin leaves.

So there's nothing about the broad leaf that means you'd be sleepy?
No!

Where did all this idea about indicas making you tired, etc. come from?
Well, Holland comes into the scene, and they started cracking seeds and saw these differences, so they went to the books and said, "Well, that's a sativa and that's an indica," and they ignored where they came from. So then Afghanis (strains) became indicas, North Asians (strains), Nepalese (strains), that all became indica.

I guess maybe it was easier for them to classify that way?
I mean there's Africans that are broad leaf! Are they indicas? They're Africanas! Just like there are Afghanicas, Asianicas.

So can you break down cannabis into two—some make you sleepy and some make you wide awake?
I think it depends on the person's metabolism and brain chemistry.

Yeah, because I've tried stuff that people said was a sativa and I was tired afterward.
Yeah, for sure! Haze often makes me want to go to bed after, but that's a haze! And I'll start my day more often than not with kush, because for me it's light, it's daytime weed, it doesn't have any staying power. And like some of the heaviest kushes that I've watched my friends nod off from—to me that's how I start my day because it doesn't last long. I don't get the narcotic feeling from it. So I just think it's all based on metabolism and brain chemistry really.

THC is THC—the THC in indica is no different than the THC in sativa. People are so trained, and I really think in a lot of cases there's a psychosomatic effect. When people are told that it's a sativa, there's an anticipation, they build it up themselves. I'm guilty of just rolling joints and smoking them with people and not disclosing if they're an "indica" or "sativa." And people that are so "sativa sensitive" are like, "Oh that's awesome, I feel so gooood." Well yeah, you just fucking smoked a haze, I don't know if I should tell you that or not because you might have a panic attack, you know? And then with panic attacks, I've had panic attacks, but I'm not saying it's because of the weed I'm smoking. It's because of my brain chemistry at the time.

So what does causes strain differentials then?
Terpenes. It's the cannabinoid profiles too, but really terpenes are the ones. If we started looking at strains that make people paranoid—chances are they're sharing common terpenes. And strains that make people sleepy—chances are they're all a certain type of terpene profile. I'd like to see weed being slowly classified in those realms.

So then I guess the logical thing to talk about from that would be irradiation and a reduction of terpene clusters, so what does this mean when we talk about irradiating cannabis?
You're stripping the character, bottom line.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is the idea of CBD and THC and this sort of false dichotomy that these are the two trichomes. It's kind of the whole post–Sanjay Gupta effect. That there's good trichome in CBD and bad trichome in THC because supposedly one only affects your body and one affects your mind, but don't they interact?
They both exist within the same trichome. The trichome is the gland, and within that gland, we have the full cannabinoid spectrum. Both THC and CBD are important.

But they're just two of a few right?
Yeah tons. There's THC, CBD, CBG, CBN, and all of those existing in acid forms as well as they're fully decarboxylated forms. There just haven't been enough tests. THC was the one they were testing for the longest time, so they know the most about it. And now they know about CBD. But they haven't really delved into all of these other ones. We are just getting started.

Follow Al the Alchemist on Instagram.

Follow Damian Abraham on Twitter.

Thursday morning, the official Twitter accounts of the nations of Denmark and Sweden engaged in one of the most bizarre Twitter fights I’ve ever seen. It encompasses everything from the size of the two countries to the Danish language to moose populations to Legos.

Early in the morning, Denmark’s account (managed by its foreign ministry) retweeted one of Sweden’s tweets pointing out that Danes and Swedes have a lot in common (in this case, an aversion to wall-to-wall carpeting). It seemed friendly enough — but Sweden responded by dissing Denmark’s size, the first shot in the Great Nordic Twitter War of 2016:

Denmark fired back with a joke about how Sweden has a lot of laws and rules.

Then the whole thing escalated wildly out of control. Jokes covered:

• The time a moose swam from Sweden to Denmark (eventually dying there)
• A Swedish policeman who thought a drunk Swede was just speaking Danish
• A Swedish parent naming a child Lego (Legos were invented in Denmark)
• A weird Vice piece about how Denmark dominates the global sperm market

Anyway, this is obviously all in good fun, and is a much better way of dealing with northern European grievances than Vikings hacking each other up with swords and axes.

The Mary Sue is pleased to present an excerpt from Bonnie Burton’s Crafting with Feminism: 25 Girl-Powered Projects to Smash the Patriarchy, out this October from Quirk Books! Learn how to make a rad pair of wrist cuffs below, and then read on for more information about Bonnie and what to expect from her upcoming book!

Superheroine Wrist Cuffs

Everyone wants to be a superheroine on occasion. Now you can look the part with these impressive wrist cuffs that even an Amazon princess would be proud to wear. (Just don’t use them to try to deflect speeding bullets.)

SUPPLIES

Cardboard tubes from paper towels or toilet paper
Scissors
Felt
Hot-glue gun
Glitter foam sheets
Glitter foam star stickers
Handheld hole punch
Ribbon

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Trim cardboard tubes to cuff length. Cut a vertical slit in each tubes so you can slip them onto your wrists (A).
2. Using the cardboard cuffs as a template, cut felt rectangles to fit inside cuffs (B). Hot-glue felt inside cuffs.
3.  Cut glitter foam rectangles to fit over the outside of the cuffs and hot-glue in place. Hot-glue glitter foam stars to outside of cuffs.
4.  Punch holes in both ends of the cuffs. Cut two 10-inch lengths of ribbon, thread through holes, and tie cuffs onto wrists. Now go save the world!

Excerpted from Crafting with Feminism by Bonnie Burton. Reprinted with permission from Quirk Books.

Crafting with Feminism comes out October 18, 2016 from Quirk Books. It features a foreword by geek girl icon Felicia Day, and instructions on how to make awesome craft projects like these:

Feminist Badges of Honor – Create scout-style merit badges to tout your zine-making skills, band-starting status, and unabashed self-confidence.
Em-broad-ery Hoop Art – Put a sassy spin on traditional embroidery with slogans like “Women Belong in the House . . . and Senate” and “Females Are Strong as Hell.”
Nope Necklace – Give dusty old Scrabble pieces new life as powerful statement jewelry. (As Burton says, “no matter what society expects, you don’t always have to acquiesce.”)
High Heels Are a Pain Planters – Glam up your succulents and cacti while upcycling painful (if gorgeous) footwear.
Huggable Uterus Body Pillow – When menstrual cramps make you want to stay in bed all day, curl up with this larger-than-life plush pillow, complete with a DIY heating pad to soothe your aches.

Bonnie Burton is an author who writes about feminism, crafting and pop culture. Her books include The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls against Girls, and Womanthology. Check out her web shows Vaginal Fantasy Book Club Show and Geek DIY. Find her at grrl.com and on Twitter @bonniegrrl.

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Bradley Chavet, from Facegirl [the firm behind the cafe], told Swiss newspaper Le Matin that men will be able to order a drink and then make themselves comfortable at the café's bar It said it was copying similar popular cafés in Thailand. He added: "In five or ten minutes, it's all over."

A recent University of California study tracked player performance and skill in online multiplayer games along gender lines, attempting to figure out whether men or women are better at games. Cuihua “Cindy” Shen, an associate professor of communication and the leader of the study, found that “there is no gender difference.”

Specifically, Shen compared players based on their length of time in-game, their character choices, and whether or not they were part of a guild. If all of those things added up, then players would end up being of comparable skill, regardless of their gender.

Shen has been researching online games since 2007, and she and her colleagues have looked into player behavior of more than 9,000 users in Everquest II. They also analyzed the behavior of over 2,000 players in a Chinese game called Chevaliers’ Romance III. According to Shen’s findings, women make up 20% of the player base of these types of online games.

“We think the stereotype that women are worse players at games could contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Shen explained, then added that she hoped this research “might be able to break the stereotype and the self-fulfilling prophecy cycle.”

The phenomenon to which Shen refers here is called stereotype threat. Basically, if you tell someone that they have some sort of immutable tendency towards being bad at a particular task, and then ask them to perform that task, they will not do as well as they would have if you hadn’t told them about the supposed stereotype beforehand.

Unfortunately, the stereotype that women are “bad at games” is everywhere. I have run into it on message boards and chatrooms and forums throughout my lifetime. This is held up as the reasoning for why it’s so rare to see women in the very high ranks of gaming tournaments. The assumption goes that women simply are not able to reach that level of competitive play, due to some sort of biological justification.

There’s no evidence that women are “worse” at games, except for the fact that they don’t seem to ever make it into the highest tiers of competitive tournaments. But there are many other explanations for why that would be, and stereotype threat is one obvious reason. Because women are told that they are inferior, even if they reject that idea consciously, they might subconsciously internalize that message and not perform as well as their peers. Of course there are other problems such as sexual harassment, but stereotype threat has always seemed to me like one of the biggest hurdles.

Something similar happens with math skills. Women and men have the same potential to be good at math, but something happens around age 7 that causes many girls’ math skills to begin to deteriorate. I think gaming is similar; I remember in middle school, people started to tell me that it was “weird” for girls to play games, and by high school, I had completely internalized that games were a “boy thing.”

I don’t know whether or not this study will actually help to undo the stereotype that there is something inherently “wrong” with women that makes them bad at games (or math, or science, or whatever else). Instead I would hope that men would look at gaming spaces they inhabit, especially competitive spaces, and think to themselves: why aren’t there any women here? They clearly aren’t missing because of a lack of ability. So why aren’t they there?

I’ve also heard the justification that women supposedly aren’t interested in games or competitive play, and that’s why they don’t show up to tournaments or events. Even if we assume that’s true (it’s not), it’s clear that at least 20% of women are interested in playing Everquest II, as Shen’s research shows. According to Infinity Ward, 24% of Call of Duty players are women. That’s about 1 in 5, and those are game genres that are assumed to only be “for” men.

So let’s just pretend, hypothetically, that only 1 in 5 women is interested in competitive gaming. I think the number is actually higher than that, and that many women are not playing due to other barriers to entry, but let’s just say it’s 1 in 5. Even if that’s the case, then shouldn’t 1 in 5 of the top tier players in the world be women? That’s not currently the case, so clearly, something must be stopping their progress before women can even get that far. What might it be?

Let’s just go ahead and assume that women are already working pretty damn hard to get good at the games they like, and see if everybody else can step it up when it comes to accepting that they’re just as talented and have just as much potential for greatness as their peers. If gaming spaces were more welcoming, then maybe the top tier players would actually include the best players, as opposed to the players who happen to be more comfortable with participating.

(via University of California, image via Matt Brown/Flickr)

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Be warned that this supercut of the 40 greatest jump scares in cinema history contains scenes from scary movies that are designed to make you jump out of your seat. You have probably already seen them, but watch this video at your own risk. It will take you back to the moment you first saw those films.

(YouTube link)

Honestly, these are much less scary in small clips, because you don’t have the suspenseful buildup of the original. And if you care, it contains spoilers. Duh. I watched the whole thing, even though I haven’t seen most of the movies, just to see if the ones I remember most would be there. When I first saw the final scene of Carrie, I jumped into my boyfriend’s lap. Which was memorable, because we were sitting in an MG Midget. Yeah, it’s there. -via Tastefully Offensive

O científico Ángel Carracedo será o pregoeiro das festas santiaguesas, que desta volta comezan o 15 de xullo

It’s totally acceptable— celebrated, even—for toddlers to be messy. My Facebook feed is full of babies manhandling their Cheerios with glee, or grinning with pure, toothless abandon as they smash a banana into their gums.

It seems only natural that little ones should investigate their supper tactilely—squeeze it, roll it around, throw it—in order to better understand what they’re eating. For babies, playing with food is a fundamental part of learning.

And there’s even science to back it up: A 2013 study from the University of Iowa found that toddlers who revel in making a mess with their (non-solid) food by “interacting with it” are better able to identify the snacks at a later time. Understanding, here, hinges on untidiness. But by the time kids reach kindergarten, and those damned social norms begin to kick in, this kind of hands-on eating behavior is expected to come to a screeching halt. Soon, proper dining etiquette and table manners are what separate the lauded young whippersnapper from the ill-behaved, and dinner becomes one of the primo battlegrounds for conforming to the more adult societal standards. The thought of a first grader—or worse, adult—with a ring of Chef Boyardee around his mouth isn’t quite as cute.

Being a messy eater isn’t something people usually like to advertise, but after years of denial, I’m now willing to admit I fall into that camp. I often find myself morphing into a culinary Lady MacBeth after a meal, quietly muttering “Out, out, damn spot!” to the memory of lunch that’s embedded itself in my shirt. When it comes to bread, I am a crumb monster. I’ve been known to gnaw a pork chop bone or two. Pristine, I am not.

But this magnetization towards mess ultimately has some larger social implications. A face smudged with chocolate chip cookie residue doesn’t quite scream responsibility. Save for the occasional barbecue session or eating-straight-from-the-tub-of-ice-cream breakup, culinary disarray has no real place in polite society.

Too often, we assume that people who skew toward messiness have a disregard for the food they’re eating: They’re wolfing it down, with a certain degree of gluttonous haste. And in some Homer Simpson-like cases, I’d say that’s right.

More often than not, though, many of the people going deep with their meals are simply attempting to gain some next-level enjoyment from their food. The messy are the unapologetic fanboys and girls, and they’re not afraid to show it.

Of course, this isn’t a very widely held opinion, and—for better or worse—the evolution of what’s “acceptable” when it comes to messy eating has a pretty clear, undeviating evolution from birth to adulthood. The queen bee of all things manners, Emily Post, writes firmly (and a little terrifyingly) about the topic in the original edition of Etiquette (c. 1922), in which she compares young children to, yes, puppies.

“Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out of hand immediately,” Ms. Post instructs in a chapter entitled The Kindergarten of Etiquette. She goes on:

“Most children will behave badly at a table if left to their own devices. Even though they may commit no serious offenses…all children love to crumb bread, flop this way and that in their chairs, knock spoons and forks together, dawdle over their food, feed animals, or become restless and noisy.”

If kids don’t do well at the dinner table after a few reprimands? Post recommends sending them back to the “nursery.”

(Emily Post has a few thoughts on dinner party seating, too.)

It’s no wonder, then, that mealtime messiness often becomes a form of rebellion during this stage of childhood: Pure culinary chaos is one of the most time-honored ways that kids dream of sticking it to adults. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the elementary school-wide worship for that apex of all things smeared and unholy: the food fight. Who among us didn’t once dream of rising up on a cafeteria table—chicken nugget in hand—and launching it into the air?

This also makes the food fight a popular plot point over and over again in children’s films (think: Heavyweights, The Little Rascals). In the 1991 classic, Hook, Robin Williams plays a middle-aged Peter Pan who is only able to remember his childlike ways after a massive food fight with his fellow Lost Boys in Neverland. Whether consciously or not, Williams drives home the fact that being messy is a way to actively reject growing up.

Despite being naturally messy as a kid, I was also a major people pleaser, and believed that becoming remarkably well-mannered was my gateway to maturity. I geeked out over the nuances of utensil placement and social graces, attending etiquette classes and pouring over old-school tomes that explained the “dos” and don’ts” of dining life. If I couldn’t be naturally good at neatness, I was going to school myself into it.

And it worked pretty well for a long time.

But over the past few years, giving into my more, uh, “organic” state has grown more appealing. Yes, I want to learn about my food by smelling it, seeing it, and (of course) tasting it, but down deep? I also kind of want to be a kid again. Even though it often flies in the face of everything Miss Manners taught me, there’s something to be said for understanding an unfamiliar ingredient by getting a little tactile.

While I’m not advocating for being unhygienic by any means— I’m not going to stick my hand into a bowl of soup for the sake of “research”—I firmly believe the rigidness of neatness often leaves us not fully appreciating all the nuance of what’s on our plates. There has to be a pretty good reason why so many comfort foods (barbecue, pizza, literally all sandwiches) necessitate a little hands-on action. These are the three and four napkin foods, the ones we don’t care if they drip down our chins or get stuck in our teeth because we are so in the zone.

But with fancier fare, we’re often too scared to interrupt the fork-to-mouth flow to really immerse ourselves; too concerned about what the people around us think to eat with true zeal. We want to be, above all else, accepted, and this frequently means restraining ourselves from questioning—or celebrating—what’s on our plate.

Manners are, of course, deeply important. But so is cutting ourselves some slack to continue learning about—and purely enjoying—our food. That vibrant red lasagna stain on your shirt? Think of it as an act of passion, not slovenliness. Never squeezed the flesh of a blackberry? Pick some up at the farmer’s market and give them a honk. Who cares if your fingers get stained?

Keeping a little glimmer of that wide-eyed, high-chair desire to play with our food will ensure that dining continues to be the kind of lifelong exploration that’s both invigorating and satisfying—messy hands and all.

Tell us your thoughts on messy eating: Do you subscribe to Emily Post? Think dinnertime should be a full-on brawl?

Sarah Baird is our second-ever Writer in Residence. Find her other work here.