Once again, Safari has so many windows open that my computer is bogged down and my swap file is growing like the Federal deficit, so here we go!
Psychology/sociology
Half of your friends lost every seven years
Had a good chat with someone recently? Has a good friend just helped you to do up your home? Then you will be lucky if that person still does that in seven years time. Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst investigated how the context in which we meet people influences our social network. One of his conclusions: you lose about half of your close network members every seven years.
Why do women have erotic rape fantasies?
A bit shallow, I think, and doesn’t really go into as much detail as I’d like to see about things like perception of desirability and blame avoidance, but kudos for mentioning that acting out such fantasies can be challenging for the person playing the role of “perpetrator” as well as for the person pretending to be the “victim.”
Geek
Viral video hoax, or proof of impending cyber apocalypse?
As part of an ad campaign for a video game convention, a publicity firm created a phony video showing a group of hackers breaking into the computer-controlled lighting system of an office building and then playing Space Invaders on the building. (zensidhe, you’ll love the video int he article.) That’s not the interesting part–the interesting part is that McAfee thought the video was real and started sounding alarms about evil hackers attacking building infrastructure.
Art
Books carved into three-dimensional sculpture. some of the bits of artwork are amazing.
Wonderful Body Painting (NSFW)
Highly stylized body painting involving blending a person into a patterned background. I’d love to be this talented.
Sex
Teen who auctioned virginity learns that taxes are the wages of sin
If you’re gonna make money, you’re gonna pay taxes. Especially if you’re in the country on a work visa, which puts you in a different tax class from the get-go…
And by “luxury” they mean “expensive.” And by “expensive,” try $10,500. For a vibrator. A gold-plated vibrator, to be sure, but a vibrator nonetheless. At this price, I wonder how much each orgasm costs.
Ya-Ya Japanese Love Dolls (NSFW)
These things fall smack dab in the center of the Uncanny Valley for me. I can’t imagine having sex with one of these dolls outside of perhaps a forced humiliation scene or something. I can’t quite decide what’s creepier–the “mini” (childlike) ones, or the fact that the Web site carries a disclaimer reading “For those who wish to see photos other than what is on our homepage please contact us by email. These are limited only to customers who plan to make an order. Please refrain from making requests if you are not serious about ordering or in the same business.”
And speaking of scary sex toys, Woody Cock Ring and Nut Cruncher (NSFW)
What do you get when you combine a cock ring with a pair of alligator jaws? A sex toy designed for maximum discomfort of the man during sex. Just looking at this thing makes my eyes water!
10 Ridiculous Anti-Pornography Commercials
My own personal favorite, the anti-porn film made by Charles Keating (before he embezzled $1.2 billion from Lincoln Savings & Loan, triggering the collapse of the entire S&L industry) made the cut. The thing that’s most amazing about these videos is that they are sincere. The people who made them, truly believe them.
Physics fail
Hallmark Corporation Jumbo Snowman Snow Globe Recall
What is it? A giant, round glass ball, about ten inches wide, with a snowman’s head and arms on it. What’s wrong with it? If you set it on your windowsill, when the sunlight comes through the window the snow globe focuses the light into a tiny hot point and burns down your house.
Politics
Virgina bans smiles in DMV driver license photos
Because–get this–they’re now using facial recognition software on your mug when you get your driver’s license. And the facial recognition software can’t cope with smiling faces. So they now instruct everyone to adopt a “neutral expression” when being photographed, and reject any photo in which the subject is smiling.
Top 10 Rush Limbaugh Racist Quotes
Is there anyone who can explain to me why people still listen to this drug-addled, racist scumbag? Number one on the list: “I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
Science
Reawakening Retrocyclins: Ancestral Human Defensins Active Against HIV-1
This is interesting. Some primates contain natural defenses to retroviruses that essentially make them immune to HIV infection. As it turns out, we have the gene that confers this immunity–but it’s dormant because at some point in our evolutionary past it became garbled. Now a group of researchers have figured out how to reactivate it.
Humor
Bizarre, funny, and “WTF?” images fro all over the Web. Some of these images make me scratch my head and wonder at the human condition.
Boston Police Department: We Will Let You Know When The Zombies Come
In case you were wondering.
And finally, a bonus video! This was sent to me by the-xtina, who has yet to be suitably punished for it, and it’s totally got me earwormed. Remember the melodramatic, utterly over-the-top music video for the 80s song “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? Well, this is what happens if you remove the lyrics and replace them with a literal transcription of what’s happening in the video itself. Safe for work, but your explosive peals of laughter might not be.
“What the effing crap? That angel guy just felt me up!” indeed.