Good Reads

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19ent5vhn01y7jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

It's an astounding sight: Buddha carved into a tall rock formation at the Ngyen Khag Taktsang Monastery in China. People talked breathlessly about how they visited the place, saw it with their own eyes. Except that they didn't. Because it's a fake. And this is the guy who faked it.

The creator of this photoshopped landscape goes by the handle Archistophanes on Twitter, and prefers to remain anonymous. He's part of an art collective known as Reality Cues, whose Graffiti Lab project plays with landscape and architecture, conjuring images that exist only in the mind and on their computers. I talked with him recently about what it's like to see one of your fakes go viral, to watch the internet treat your manipulated images as fact.​
- read the full article Inside the Fakes Factory: My Chat With a Viral Image Creator (from Paleofuture / Gizmodo)
 
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4045/4441978237_b1648120fc.jpg
image courtesy jan zeschky (Flickr)

Richard Engel reported last night on NBC that all visitors to the Sochi Olympics are getting hacked as soon as their electronic devices connect to any Russian network.

"As tourists and families of athletes arrive in Sochi, if they haven't been warned, and if they fire up their phones at baggage claim, it's probably too late to save the integrity of their electronics and everything inside them. Visitors to Russia can expect to be hacked. And as Richard Engel found out upon his arrival there, it's not a matter of if, but when," reports NBC's Brian Williams.

Engel says, "The State Department warns that travelers should have no expectation of privacy. Even in their hotel rooms. And as we found out, you are especially exposed as soon as you try and communicate with anything."

"One of the first thing visitors to Russia will do is log on," says Engel. "Hackers here are counting on it."

They test the system in the report -- and are, as one might expect, immediately hacked the moment the test computer connects with the Russian network.

"Malicious software hijacked our phone before we even finished our coffee, stealing my information, and giving hackers the option to tap and record my phone calls."​
- read the full article NBC: All Visitors to Sochi Olympics Immediately Hacked (from The Weekly Standard)
 
http://crimemagazine.com/images/NancySmithandchildren300x300.jpg
Nancy Smith, center, with her four teenage children.

The ritual abuse hysteria that swept across the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s resulted in hundreds of innocent people being wrongfully convicted of committing a bizarre concoction of sexual acts on preschoolers. Most of those convicted were eventually freed from prison on appeal, but some innocent people remain behind bars. One of the most blatant cases of wrongful conviction occurred in Lorain, Ohio. There a politically ambitious prosecutor's office coaxed and manipulated a few Head Start preschoolers into testifying that they had been sexually abused repeatedly over a six-month period by their bus driver and some stranger -- two people who never even knew each other, but were sentenced to life for crimes that never occurred in the first place.​
- read the full article The Shame of Lorain, Ohio (from Crime Magazine)
 
http://crimemagazine.com/images/NancySmithandchildren300x300.jpg
Nancy Smith, center, with her four teenage children.

The ritual abuse hysteria that swept across the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s resulted in hundreds of innocent people being wrongfully convicted of committing a bizarre concoction of sexual acts on preschoolers. Most of those convicted were eventually freed from prison on appeal, but some innocent people remain behind bars. One of the most blatant cases of wrongful conviction occurred in Lorain, Ohio. There a politically ambitious prosecutor's office coaxed and manipulated a few Head Start preschoolers into testifying that they had been sexually abused repeatedly over a six-month period by their bus driver and some stranger -- two people who never even knew each other, but were sentenced to life for crimes that never occurred in the first place.​
- read the full article The Shame of Lorain, Ohio (from Crime Magazine)

This sort of thing is commonly used as a political tool by special interests to slither around law. The case I generally cite is my case involving a 17 year old lesbian teen.

The teen was in luv with a female teacher and wanted to live with the woman. The girls mother refused consent but couldn't legally consent if she did approve. So the GALS filed abuse reports, and twisted arms with the sheriff and others to persecute the parents.

The official charges were aggravated battery with a vehicle, sexual abuse, and drug trafficking. The sheriff never filed a complaint with the DA but validated all the allegations tho the state (me) never found a shred of evidence to support the charges (the state went after civil violations as the legal burden is less than beyond reasonable doubt). I never understood how a felony (all abuse-neglect are felonies) isn't a felony, and no one ever made the distinction clear to me.

Anyway, I collected all the relevant evidence, records, and testimony, and there was nothing. The GALS said mom ran over the teen with a Cadillac, the teen had one small scratch across one ankle, about 1/2 inch in length. The detectives said dad was a notorious drug trafficker based on a 1968 pinch for pot possession when dad was 18. That was his entire criminal history. The GALS said dad had sodomized the girl for many years. Medical records revealed that dad was diabetic and impotent, had major heart and lung issues, and was tied to an oxygen cart. The girls 6 siblings denied any inappropriate conduct by dad, ever.

The judge threw it out. The GALS howled in fury. And I was deeelighted to stick their pedo lynching up their cunts.

GALS are Gay & Lesbian Shitheads.
 
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19f4zrrgo5hh8jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

And it's a monk expressing his displeasure at an abbot. In the margins of a guide to moral conduct. Because of course.

Technically, "fuck" appeared two times before this. In 1500, it was used in a satirical poem to describe some friars. In that case, nothing like "fuck" was actually written out. Instead, the word was hidden in a code. And in 1513, it appeared in a Scottish poem as "fukkit."

But for English's first use, we've got a dissatisfied 1528 monk. He's written "O D fuckin abbot." Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, says this "fuck" could be either literal or metaphorical:​
 
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19f4zrrgo5hh8jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

And it's a monk expressing his displeasure at an abbot. In the margins of a guide to moral conduct. Because of course.

Technically, "fuck" appeared two times before this. In 1500, it was used in a satirical poem to describe some friars. In that case, nothing like "fuck" was actually written out. Instead, the word was hidden in a code. And in 1513, it appeared in a Scottish poem as "fukkit."

But for English's first use, we've got a dissatisfied 1528 monk. He's written "O D fuckin abbot." Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, says this "fuck" could be either literal or metaphorical:​

Well, fuck me! Great article.
 
How I :heart: Caity Weaver

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19f9uzbgp91u4jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

What follows is a minute-by-minute timeline documenting the mental and physical collapse of 20 fashion models.
[...]
Standing near several beautiful people holding their bodies in Guantanamo-quality stress positions, watching as they are fed a steady stream of Jolly Ranchers, does odd things to your sense of time. If you only stay for a few minutes (as most people do), you miss this. You also miss how awkward it is.

This is why, last week, I decided to stay for the duration of young celebrity favorite Erin Fetherston's Autumn/Winter 2014 collection and document the events of each minute.

6:00 p.m. I, along with about 100 of my most fashionable friends who I don't know yet, am admitted into the W hotel's Great Room which, according to the W website, is the perfect place to hold an event that is "amplified."​
 
Olympics viewers who tuned in to the snowboard slopestyle finals on Saturday were treated to not only a first time medal event, amazing feats of athleticism and balls-out bravery, but also a glimpse at this strange man, who stood calmly amongst the chaos, knitting away:

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/tY/The-Knitter-OG.jpg

Not one to get carried away on tangents (oh, who are we kidding), we were nonetheless intrigued by just who this mysterious figure could be. Tapping into the vast research resources at our disposal, which include NSA-grade image search/facial recognition/next-level technology, we made some extremely surprising discoveries — it seems that whoever this crocheter is, this is definitely not his first appearance in History.

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/hZ/knitter-bruno-pepper-super-bowl.jpg

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/GR/knitter-final-breaking-bad.jpg

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/Hv/knitter-berlin-wall.jpg
- read the full article Photos: Sochi's Mysterious Knitting Man Through History (from Esquire)
 
http://o.onionstatic.com/images/25/25237/original/700.jpg?3772

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA—Contradicting conventional wisdom that shopping at the musical instrument retail chain guarantees one a renowned and highly successful career in music, a new study released Monday revealed that a mere 88 percent of Guitar Center customers go on to become famous musicians.​

Tell me about it! After months of begging for a set of drums for Christmas my mom went out and bought me a bunch of trash from somebody's garage. One snare, one tom-tom, a bass, and a small crash cymbal that sounded like hitting an empty pie tin.

No ride cymbal. No high hat. No floor tom.

I've never quite gotten over what 'might have been' had she sprung for a nice set of Ludwigs or Slingerlands.
 




Atlas of Genetic History Shows Mongol Warriors’ Reach
By Makiko Kitamura
February 13, 2014


Scientists have mapped the genetic legacy of events of the past 4,000 years that have shaped populations, such as Genghis Khan’s expansion of the Mongol Empire, creating an atlas that extends our understanding of human health and history.

The atlas uses genetic data on 95 different populations to confirm known historical interactions between peoples and shows the impact of European colonialism, the Arab slave trade, the Mongol Empire, and trade near the Silk Road. The study, led by scientists at University College London and Oxford University, is published today in the journal Science.

When comparing a sample of DNA from one of the groups against other populations’ DNA, matching sequences indicate shared ancestry. The longer the uninterrupted matched DNA sequence, the more recent the occurrence of intermingling, said Garrett Hellenthal, lead author and research fellow at the UCL Genetics Institute. Shorter matches indicate that the mixing occurred in earlier periods, allowing the team to estimate when the interaction occurred, he said.

“It’s surprising that some of these signals are so clear, and that they happen in so many groups,” Hellenthal said in a phone interview. “Some 80 percent or more of our sample can be looked at as products of mixtures between two or more genetically distinguishable groups.”

For example, historical records suggesting that the Hazara people of Pakistan are partially descended from Mongol warriors were corroborated by evidence from the study showing that DNA entered the population during the period of the Mongol empire.

Bypassed Invasion

Conversely, analysis of the DNA of the Kalash people, also in Pakistan, show no evidence of mixing with the Mongols, lending support to the understanding that the region was bypassed by the invaders because of its isolated, mountainous geography, Hellenthal said.

Some members of the Kalash community believe they’re instead descended from Alexander the Great’s army, and the analysis didn’t contradict this assertion, given DNA matches with groups in northern and eastern Europe, he said.

While providing fresh insight into historical events, the new research may also have implications for understanding how DNA affects health and disease in different populations. Some populations are more at risk of certain diseases than others, and drug efficacy can also vary...

- read the full article Atlas of Genetic History Shows Mongol Warriors’ Reach (Bloomberg)
 

Rare Stamp Could Bring Millions At NYC Auction

by The Associated Press
February 14, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — It could be called "The Little Stamp That Could."

Three times in its long history, the 1-cent postage stamp from a 19th century British colony in South America has broken the auction record for a single stamp. Now, it's poised to become the world's most valuable stamp again.

Sotheby's predicts the 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta will sell for between $10 million and $20 million when it's offered in New York on June 17.

"You're not going to find anything rarer than this," said Allen Kane, director of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. "It's a stamp the world of collectors has been dying to see for a long time."

Measuring 1 inch-by-1 1/4 inches, the feather-light One-Cent Magenta hasn't been on public view since 1986. It is the only major stamp absent from the British Royal Family's private Royal Philatelic Collection.

An 1855 Swedish stamp, which sold for $2.3 million in 1996, currently holds the auction record for a single.

"This is the superstar of the stamp world," said David Redden, Sotheby's worldwide chairman of books and manuscripts, adding that the stamp will travel to London and Hong Kong before being sold.

David Beech, longtime curator of stamps at the British Library who retired last year, compared it to buying the "Mona Lisa" of the world's most prized stamps.

The modest stamp's origin and current history is as intriguing as the estimated price is staggering.

The last owner was John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who was convicted of fatally shooting a 1984 Olympics champion wrestler. It's being sold by his estate, which will designate part of the proceeds to the Eurasian Pacific Wildlife Conservation Foundation that du Pont championed during his lifetime.

"It's unique, it's special, it has mystique, it has majesty, it has scarcity. Such things always general interest," said Beech.

Printed in black on magenta paper, it bears the image of a three-masted ship and the colony's motto, in Latin, "we give and expect in return." The stamp went into circulation after a shipment of stamps was delayed from London and the postmaster asked printers for the Royal Gazette newspaper in Georgetown in British Guiana to produce three stamps until the shipment arrived: A 1-cent magenta, a 4-cent magenta and a 4-cent blue.

To safeguard against forgery, the postmaster ordered that the stamps be initialed by a post office employee.

While multiple examples of the 4-cent stamps have survived, only the one tiny cent issue is known to exist today.

Its first owner was a 12-year-old Scottish boy living in South America who added it to his collection after finding it among family papers in 1873. He soon sold it for a few shillings to a local collector, Neil McKinnon, so he could afford to buy other stamps.

McKinnon kept it for five years before selling it to a Liverpool dealer who recognized the unassuming stamp as highly uncommon. He paid 120 pounds for it and quickly resold it for 150 pounds to Count Philippe la Renotiere von Ferrary, one of the world's greatest stamp collectors.

Upon his death in 1917, the count bequeathed his stamp collection to the Postmuseum in Berlin. The collection was later seized by France as war reparations and sold off in a series of 14 auctions with the One-Cent Magenta bringing $35,000 in 1922 — an auction record for a single stamp.

Arthur Hind, a textile magnate from Utica, N.Y., was the buyer. Among those bidding against him was King George V. It is the one major piece absent from the Royal Family's heirloom collection, Beech said.

Upon Hind's death in 1933, the stamp was put into an auction with the rest of his collection but was withdrawn after his widow, who claimed it was left to her, brought a lawsuit.

The next owner was Frederick Small, an Australian engineer living in Florida who purchased it privately from Hind's widow for $45,000 in 1940. Thirty years later, he consigned the stamp to a New York auction where it was purchased by an investment consortium for $280,000 — another record.

The stamp set its third record in 1980 when it sold for $935,000 to du Pont.

Beech said likely buyers in June could be some of the world's biggest philatelic collectors, such as bond dealer Bill Gross, or a syndicate from anywhere in the world.
 
I’ve been working on this little tidbit for awhile now. I started writing it because I kept seeing these things on My facebook feed, things that even My FRIENDS in real life were posting. Memes, articles, videos and commentary about “real sex” vs porn sex and then alist of things that to me seem as if they were written to make people feel better about themselves. I thought, if people who are friends with Me believe this stuff the views people have about most porn performers are SO false it is absurd! When I tried talking to My friends about these things they would say “oh but not You, I mean all the OTHER porn girls” Apparently My friends need a reality check. I’ve picked a few of the most common myths I hear over and over and given My perspective:​
 
http://zoom.mfa.org/fif=sc2/sc229815.fpx&obj=iip,1.0&wid=568&cell=568,427&cvt=jpeg

Because there’s a snowstorm bearing down on us in New York, and because last night I sat through Matthew Barney’s new six-hour film, which deals heavily in bodily secretions, today seems like a good day to alert readers to the existence of something wondrous and wonderful: an illustrated scroll from Japan’s Edo period (1603–1867) depicting a fart battle.

‘What is a fart battle?’ you may be wondering. Well, the term for it in Japanese is he-gassen (hehe, also the name of the scroll), which, according to the Daily Mail, translates to “fart battle” or “fart competition.” And yes, the images in the artwork show people bending all the way over, pulling down their pants, and unleashing powerful, monumental farts as a weapon — shaded cones of gas aimed against buildings, other people, cats, and even part of a tree trunk. Made by an unknown artist or artists, the scroll is quite amazing, cartoonlike and silly yet also finely, carefully rendered.​
- read the full article An Illustrated Japanese Battle of Farts (from Hyperallergic)
 
http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads//2014/02/Fall-Through-Ice-3.jpg

If you live in a place where snowy and icy winters are the norm, you know the dangers of falling through the ice. And this guide is especially pertinent for those areas of the country where freezing weather only visits sporadically. When frigid temps descend for a short time upon a location that’s not used to seeing them, people, especially children, are apt to go out exploring their neighborhood ponds and reservoirs. As you can imagine, this creates a danger because the cold weather hasn’t been around long enough to create ice strong enough to walk on. That very scenario has happened here in Tulsa this winter, where two young men, in separate accidents, both drowned when venturing out onto a thinly-frozen creek and pond. So be sure to share this guide with your kids after you study the info yourself.​
- read the full article How to Survive Falling Through the Ice: An Illustrated Guide (from The Art of Manliness)
 
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7283/8745140278_88a09f3c4f_z.jpg
image courtesy Steve K (Flickr)

My friend June Thunderstorm and I once spent a half an hour sitting in a meadow by a mountain lake, watching an inchworm dangle from the top of a stalk of grass, twist about in every possible direction, and then leap to the next stalk and do the same thing. And so it proceeded, in a vast circle, with what must have been a vast expenditure of energy, for what seemed like absolutely no reason at all.

“All animals play,” June had once said to me. “Even ants.” She’d spent many years working as a professional gardener and had plenty of incidents like this to observe and ponder. “Look,” she said, with an air of modest triumph. “See what I mean?”

Most of us, hearing this story, would insist on proof. How do we know the worm was playing? Perhaps the invisible circles it traced in the air were really just a search for some unknown sort of prey. Or a mating ritual. Can we prove they weren’t? Even if the worm was playing, how do we know this form of play did not serve some ultimately practical purpose: exercise, or self-training for some possible future inchworm emergency?

This would be the reaction of most professional ethologists as well. Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions. Under this assumption, an expenditure of energy must be directed toward some goal, whether it be obtaining food, securing territory, achieving dominance, or maximizing reproductive success—unless one can absolutely prove that it isn’t, and absolute proof in such matters is, as one might imagine, very hard to come by.

I must emphasize here that it doesn’t really matter what sort of theory of animal motivation a scientist might entertain: what she believes an animal to be thinking, whether she thinks an animal can be said to be “thinking” anything at all. I’m not saying that ethologists actually believe that animals are simply rational calculating machines. I’m simply saying that ethologists have boxed themselves into a world where to be scientific means to offer an explanation of behavior in rational terms—which in turn means describing an animal as if it were a calculating economic actor trying to maximize some sort of self-interest—whatever their theory of animal psychology, or motivation, might be.

That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal.​
- read the full article What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? (from The Baffler)
 
- read the full article How to Survive Falling Through the Ice: An Illustrated Guide (from The Art of Manliness)

That's worthwhile. It's hard as hell to keep calm and think in life-threatening situations— but it's absolutely necessary if you're to survive things like being caught swimming in a rip tide or falling overboard or hypothermia. You've got to fight panic because that'll kill you for sure.


A couple of months ago (possibly longer) thør had a good discussion of and description of the use of "pegs" in self-rescue from falling through ice-covered water. I think it was in his "Today In Anchorage" thread.



 
http://slaiwkate.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bghqbolcuaah2lh.jpg?w=441

One origin story for fuck is that it comes from when sex was outlawed unless it was permitted explicitly by the king, so people who were legally banging had Fornication Under Consent of the King on their doors, or: F.U.C.K. But obviously that’s wrong. As are all of the other nonsensical acronyms floating about (anything ending in Carnal Knowledge uses words which wouldn’t be used until AFTER the contents of this blog post). So if you do believe any of that, stop it. Stop it right now.

But right now there’s a post going round with a lovely image of a manuscript from Brasenose College, Oxford, proudly declaring it’s the earliest instance of fuck in English (although, it notes, that is apart from that pesky one from Scotland and that one that says fuck but is written in code). But even if we DO agree to discount those two little exceptions, it’s still not the earliest instance. I think the Brasenose fuck was considered the earliest in 1993, and that’s quite out-dated now.

So, for your enjoyment and workplace sniggering, here’s a potted history of fuck.​
- read the full article On the Origin of Fuck (from So Long As It's Words)
 
The psychological origins of waiting (... and waiting, and waiting) to work

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/newsroom/img/mt/2014/02/Screen_Shot_2014_02_12_at_11.56.09_AM/lead.png?n0y8qc

Like most writers, I am an inveterate procrastinator. In the course of writing this one article, I have checked my e-mail approximately 3,000 times, made and discarded multiple grocery lists, conducted a lengthy Twitter battle over whether the gold standard is actually the worst economic policy ever proposed, written Facebook messages to schoolmates I haven’t seen in at least a decade, invented a delicious new recipe for chocolate berry protein smoothies, and googled my own name several times to make sure that I have at least once written something that someone would actually want to read.

Lots of people procrastinate, of course, but for writers it is a peculiarly common occupational hazard. One book editor I talked to fondly reminisced about the first book she was assigned to work on, back in the late 1990s. It had gone under contract in 1972.

I once asked a talented and fairly famous colleague how he managed to regularly produce such highly regarded 8,000 word features. “Well,” he said, “first, I put it off for two or three weeks. Then I sit down to write. That’s when I get up and go clean the garage. After that, I go upstairs, and then I come back downstairs and complain to my wife for a couple of hours. Finally, but only after a couple more days have passed and I’m really freaking out about missing my deadline, I ultimately sit down and write.”

Over the years, I developed a theory about why writers are such procrastinators: We were too good in English class. This sounds crazy, but hear me out.​
- read the full article Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators (from The Atlantic)
 
In the search for how and why music evolved in humans, scientists are trying to see if animals can keep a beat.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/30/article-1175669-04C14DE9000005DC-392_468x530.jpg

Like cat videos, it's pretty easy to stumble over dancing animal videos online. Are these animals really hearing the music and keeping a beat, or are they merely moving around at someone else's behest?

The question has turned into a burgeoning scientific field—one that looks at everything from boy-band-loving cockatoos to head-bobbing sea lions—with implications for how and why music evolved in people.

Every human culture through time that we know of has evolved some kind of music, says Aniruddh Patel, a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, who spoke at a presentation during the ongoing American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference.

But how deeply rooted our penchant for music is still eludes researchers. It could be that music is simply an extension of our ability to imitate sounds, while others including Charles Darwin have proposed that a sense of rhythm is common in all animals as a consequence of similar wiring in our nervous systems.​
- read the full article Dancing Animals Help Tell Us Why Music Evolved (from National Geographic)
 
Back
Top