firehose

Redditor Avalon_ has created a color wheel using all 649 Pokémon currently in existence. A larger version of the image can be found at imgur.

image via Avalon_

via reddit, Neatorama

Tonight in Paris, tens of thousands of people dressed in white, will converge at a secret location, set up miles of tables, food and champagne and dine in high spirits until midnight for the annual Diner en Blanc.

[Trigger warning for discussions of threats of sexual harassment and rape]

When I talk about privilege and entitlement being a problem in gaming and geekdom as a whole, I often receive pushback from people who want to insist that it’s not really a thing. I’m just being over-sensitive! I’m seeing misogyny where none exists! I have a persecution complex! Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, folks, you won’t get a more concrete example of geek entitlement than what happened at this weekend’s Akon-24. A bunch of douchenozzles took to Twitter using the hashtag #gropecrew to threaten to grope, rape, or otherwise sexually assault cosplaying female attendees. Here are two of the most widely circulated tweets:

@princessology @ms_meepsheep THERE ARE NO BRAKES ON THE GROPE TRAIN #gropecrew5ever

— Mærty Townsend (@kingtytan) May 31, 2013

 

Hey ladies I cant wait to force myself inside you at #akon24. I’m not gonna be a virgin much longer! #gropecrew

— 《 $|4₩ 》(@colesl4w_king) May 31, 2013

(You can look up the hashtag on Twitter to find more examples. I won’t waste space re-hashing them here.)

Geek privilege and entitlement? It doesn’t get any clearer than this. This aggressive posturing – these public threats of harassment and assault meant to silence and intimidate female attendees – is a direct backlash against the recent trend of conventions starting to take a serious look at the problem of sexual harassment and assault at conventions.

Because people have DARED to say that costumes are not the same as consent.

Because they have DARED to proclaim that their bodies are not objects for the gratification of others.

Because they have DARED to say that violating the boundaries of others is not acceptable.

And because they have DARED to say that people who harass and assault other attendees should face consequences for their actions.

In other words, these asshats are threatening to assault women because they feel that it is their God-given right to use women for their sexual pleasure, purely because they are impinging on a space that they feel has been designed for the comfort and enjoyment of men. And the thing that they are fighting so very hard against is the simple notion that women are people. Full stop.

And sure, most everyone will be outraged. You will shake your heads and ask what is wrong with people? You’ll say that you hope these degenerates die in a fire, or get beaten with shovels, or get hit by a meteor. But these proclamations of rage, cathartic as they might be, don’t do anything to address the fact that the people behind #gropecrew are acting this way because they feel that geek culture entitles them to act that way. Because we have given them permission and will continue to give them permission to act this way.

When the overwhelming narrative of games is that men are heroes and women are objects…

When male characters get heroic character arcs while female characters are raped and killed for “shock” value…

When strong female characters are raped to make them “vulnerable”…

When the small number of women who appear in games are nearly universally sexualized and are portrayed as objects of sexual gratification and not people…

When game developers cry “censorship” when people speak out against a title that contains yet another rape of a female character…

When game developers ignore the half of their audience that is female to pander to the increasingly narrow portion of their audience that is white, young, heterosexual, and male…

Is it any surprise that the misogynists behind #gropecrew would feel affirmed in their beliefs that women are things, not people? And is it any surprise that they would feel they could expect not to face any consequences over this? They are acting this way because they are participating in a culture that we have all been complicit in constructing.

So how can we change this? What can we, personally, do to change the culture so that things like this aren’t so incredibly, depressingly, overwhelmingly common?

FIRST: accept that the things you love are problematic, and that this is not an indictment of you as a person.

When a woman says that something you like is sexist (or racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, whatever), don’t tell her that she is wrong. Don’t tell her that she doesn’t “understand” the history of that thing you like. Don’t explain to her why her feelings are not valid. Don’t tell her that she doesn’t “belong” in your hobby and that her opinions don’t count.

LISTEN.

Listen and accept that maybe the thing you like isn’t perfect, and that’s okay, and it doesn’t make you a terrible human being for liking it.

SECOND: Listen to women when they speak; don’t attempt to silence them, and support their voices when there are others trying to silence them.

Don’t tell women that they don’t belong in your hobby. Don’t tell women that they are not “real” members of your community. Don’t judge the ways in which they choose to participate in your community.

THIRD: When someone you know says something that is sexist, or racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, or whatever – call that shit out. ESPECIALLY TO YOUR FRIENDS.

Piling on assholes like these #gropecrew low-lifes is easy. What’s not as easy is speaking out to your friends. But if shit like this is going to end, you need to overcome that discomfort. Because even more important than correcting the perceptions of your friend is ending the silence. When someone says something that reinforces sexist attitudes in geekdom and that statement goes unchallenged, it makes the harassing douchcanoes feel comfortable. It confers tacit permission to the scumbags to harass and assault women who venture into your hobby.

Enough is enough. Step up, speak out, and END THE SILENCE.

(Privilege and Entitlement in Geekdom originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

John Lloyd: Lastly, here's a Freudian question for you. Freud once said, "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is: what does a woman want?" What do you feel about that?
Natalie Haynes: I think... a woman wants not to be treated as some sort of exotic sub-species by a coke-addled creep like Freud.

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Philly.com

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ABC News

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If Brazil is going to maintain its grasp on the global orange juice market, it’s going to have to shake things up a bit.

Brazil makes and distributes more orange juice than any other country in the world, and it’s not even a close race—the country makes more than 50% of the world’s orange juice. But recent history hasn’t been all that kind to the citrus giant. Orange juice production has grown stagnant over the past few years and orange juice exports, which the local industry relies heavily on, have fallen almost 15% since their peak in 2003.

What’s going on? A few things.

People are drinking less orange juice these days

There are nearly one billion more people in the world than there were in 2000, and yet the world, as a whole, drinks less orange juice today than it did then. Led by big drops in the US and Europe, the world’s two largest markets for orange juice, orange juice consumption has shrunk in virtually every year this decade. If you export over 98% of the orange juice you produce, as Brazil does, that’s a serious problem.

Especially if profit margins are shrinking, too.

Exporting orange juice is getting expensive

Even if there were enough demand to sweep more oranges out of farmer’s hands, growing oranges isn’t all that lucrative in Brazil anymore. An updated labor code has driven up the minimum wage, and land lease costs and prices of pesticides have risen, too. At this point, it may not even be cost-effective for smaller growers to produce oranges in Brazil anymore, Marco Antonio dos Santos, the president of a local grower’s union, told Agence France-Presse:

The government calculated that we have a production cost of around 5 dollars per crate (40.8 kilograms or 90 pounds), while we are selling it at 3.5 to 4 dollars…In the citrus belt of Sao Paulo, half of the orange farms have disappeared over the past 10 years, and only the most productive survive.

And exporting them? That’s even more costly. The price of processing and transporting the orange juice to overseas terminals has risen steeply—over 50% since 2000—in part due to rising oil prices.

Orange juice. Orange juice. Who wants orange juice?

As orange juice exports go, so too does Brazil’s entire orange juice industry. The good news is, though fewer people are drinking orange juice overall these days, the decline is largely driven by shrinking demand in the US and Europe, where consumption has fallen roughly 20% and 5% since 2003, respectively.

In many emerging markets, by contrast, demand for orange juice is growing. The numbers are modest, mind you, but with promising growth and billions of prospective consumers, the potential is certainly there. Growing the market outside of the US and Europe, which together account for roughly 80% of Brazil’s orange juice exports, in countries like China and Russia could help protect the country’s smarting citrus industry from the decline happening in developed countries, and pivot for the future. 

But if Brazil wants to inject life into its ailing orange juice industry, it may want to begin by getting its own people to start drinking orange juice.

Currently the world’s 10th largest consumer of packaged orange juice, Brazil has seen its own consumption rise only 8% since 2003. Compare that to China, which consumes more than twice as much juice as it did in 2003, or Russia, which consumes 70% more. Since per-capita incomes have risen a good deal in all three countries, this suggests that getting Brazilians to drink more of the stuff isn’t just a matter of waiting for them to get more prosperous. (Note, though: The data don’t capture orange juice freshly squeezed on the spot, which is, naturally, much more common in Brazil than in China or Russia.)

Some nonetheless see promise in the Brazilian market. “In a few years, our country can have as many people drinking industrial orange juice as in Germany, which is the world’s leading consumer per capita,” dos Santos told the AFP. Brazil certainly hopes he’s right.

Jiroemon Kimura was the last man living who witnessed the 19th century.

For small farmers, making a living from selling food is getting harder and harder. Time to hustle.

As The Guillotines opens, the titular assassins—an elite 18th-century hit squad—are closing in on messianic bandit Huang Xiaoming and his white-robed followers. Their showdown makes for a rollicking prologue, a whir of blades, flames, and proto-steampunk gadgetry that plays like a cross between a Tsui Hark movie and Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers. However, it’s also misleading; like Andrew Lau’s Legend Of The Fist: The Return Of Chen Zhen, The Guillotines expends most of its energy in its first 30 minutes, leaving the audience with roughly 90 minutes of soapy Qing Dynasty fan fiction.   

After Huang escapes with the daughter of the head Guillotine (no pun intended) as his hostage, the Emperor dispatches Ethan Juan (Monga) to track them down. Juan is joined by a half-dozen of his Guillotine brothers, as well as Imperial guard Shawn Yue, a childhood friend turned rival. Yue ...

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Link (Thanks, McGone!)

This is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, riding in a life-size, cupcake tank comprised of approximately 5,000 cupcakes and at least 200 pounds of camouflage fondant. Because why not?

Gun nuts, anti-abortion zealots and free-market cultists are leading the state to the brink of disaster.

9gag:

I have no idea what I’m doing, maybe dog does

Armenia

According to a 2012 study, 72% of Armenians do not want to live in a country led by someone like Stalin.

Link

bowtiesandbrotanks:

The Entire Plot of Disney-Pixar’s Ratatoulie 

Here now, ripe for examination, is a zoomable, aerial view of San Francisco in 1938. Despite its age, the map's resolution is very, very impressive, which makes it endlessly fascinating to explore in Google-Maps-like fashion.

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shutupfour:

Historical photographs held in their modern location. Wow, tragically beautiful.

le Bat