Long List o Linky-Links

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Since my Web browser currently has a zillion pages open (and is consuming mass quantities of RAM as a result), and since I can’t use the browser on my iPhone because the maximum possible number of pages is open, it’s time once again to share the wealth and post another Grand List of Linky-Links.

In today’s assortment, we have a wide variety of links for your edification and viewing pleasure.

Ready? Here we go!

Society & Politics

New Scientist: Conservatives are biggest consumers of porn

Not that it’s really a surprise to anyone. I’ve long suspected that many social conservatives fall into one of two broad camps: closeted self-loathers, and people who are really only concerned with the appearance of propriety rather than with actual propriety.

Business Week: Portland, Oregon is America’s unhappiest city

Uh-oh. And I’m planning to move there shortly!

Lesbian Nation: Chronicles of the Lesbian Separatist Movement

In the seventies, a movement arose among lesbians who believed that the key to sexual and social freedom lay in withdrawing entirely from American society–including, in many cases, refusing to interact with or even speak to men. Battle too long, and you become the thing you’re fighting against.

Science

Will You Perceive the Event that Kills You?

My favorite link on the list. Will you even be aware of the thing that ends your life? The human sensory apparatus and nervious system are so slow that we are constantly living in the past–about 300-500 milliseconds in the past, to be exact. Many of the things that can kill you do so in less time than that. Interesting stuff, including a rundown of the sequence of events in a car crash, and how far behind your awareness of those events will lag.

Researchers solve mystery of deep-sea fish

Meet the barreleye–a fish with nostrils that look like eyes, a transparent head, and tubular eyes that swivel up and down entirely inside its head. Man, there is some seriously weird stuff in the deep ocean.

Natural selection: Darwin’s God-killer

Two centuries after Origin of Species and people STILL don’t actually know what evolution is. (Hint: If you’re thinking “survival of the fittest,” you ain’t really got it.) Is this idea really a “god-killer”? Of course not. But it does demolish one very specific notion of god–the idea that the world was created in six literal 24-hour days exactly six thousand, four hundred and some odd years ago.

Junkfood Science: Why we think overeating causes obesity

There are many things we all know are true that actually aren’t. Turns out that the notion that people are overweight simply because they eat too much is one of them. The history of a fascinating study on food and food deprivation, which probably would not be possible today ’cause it would violate ethical guidelines on human research.

Globe and Mail: Canadian researchers turn skin cells into stem cells

The new technique is easier and safer than previous techniques to coax mature cells back into becoming stem cells.

Mermaid Dream Comes True Thanks to Weta

Weta Digital, the company that did the special effects for the Lord of the Rings movies, has a lot of experience with advanced prosthetic effects. So when a girl with no legs approached them with the idea of making her a functional mermaid prosthetic, they said “Sure!”

2009: Shaping up to be a bad year for anti-vaccinationists

Everything under the sun has its conspiracy theorists. Terrorism has its 9/11 “truthers.” The space program has its moon hoax conspiracy nutters. Geologists have the flat-earthers and the young-earthers to contend with. And the medical community has, among others, the anti-vaccination nutters. Difference is, the moon hoaxers and flat-earthers don’t put other people’s lives at risk. 2009 looks to be a bad year for this particular breed of nutter.

Sex and Relationships

The Single Best Working Assumption for Drama-Free Relationships

Sometimes it’s the simple things that are most effective.

Control Tower: The Hot Bi Babe

Yes, I know it’s an old article, but Mistress Matisse lays it on the line about why those zillions of married poly-in-theory couples will not likely find that hot bisexual woman they’re looking for.

And finally, here’s an old video circulating YouTube about the evils of pornography, though it has an interesting historical footnote:

The footnote? The person who made this video is none other than Charles Keating.

Keating, for those who don’t remember him, was an anti-sex, anti-porn moral crusader for many years, and joined President Reagan’s Meese Commission on Pornography in an attempt to lobby for tough anti-porn laws.

He later went on to embezzle about $1.2 billion from Lincoln Savings and Loan, singlehandedly triggering the collapse of the entire S&L industry. To Keating, you see, porn = immoral, stealing the life savings from working families = perfectly moral.

Woo-hoo! Posters are here!

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Drafted my roommate into helping me roll posters and stick mailing labels last night; the first batch of the poster versions of the Map of Human Sexuality will be going out this afternoon (and just for the record, sixty mailing tubes is a lot to fit in a 2-seat car). Everyone who placed a pre-order should be getting their posters in the mail over the next few days! (Well, ‘cepting for those of you not in the US; delivery will take a bit longer, I reckon).

It turns out that whoever shipped them from the printers did have OCD, after all. They registered six UPS tracking numbers for one shipment. Weird.

Going to try to find a poster frame this evening, I think. I want one of these hanging on my wall; they look great!

Anyone who didn’t pre-order…sorry, you missed the pre-order price. Price is increasing this afternoon. Don’t let that stop you from ordering one, though!

Posters! And soon to be in Philly…

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First off:

I’ll be arriving in Philadelphia at somewhere around 2ish in the afternoon tomorrow (Saturday the 28th). joreth won’t be arriving ’til about midnightish. That gives me a number of hours unallocated and unspoken for, though I won’t have transportation. Anyone in the area fancy a get-together?

Second off:

The posters of the Map of Human Sexuality are printed and en-route. Funny thing, though. The printer gave me six UPS tracking numbers(!), and when I check them online, each tracking number says that the shipment contains three parcels. Which means, if I’m reading it right, the printer is sending me the posters in eighteen boxes(!!). WTF??! Eighteen boxes to ship 500 posters? That can not possibly be right. Even three boxes sounds like a bit much.

So I’m thinking there are a number of potential scenarios here, all of them wildly unlikely:

1. The person at the print shop who ships stuff out has OCD, and registered my order with UPS six times. (Clicky goes the button! Clicky goes the button! I like the way the label printer sounds. Clicky goes the button!)

2. The person who ran the order on press misread the job ticket, and printed 5,000 posters rather than 500 posters. I’ll have posters and posters and posters and posters! And also, more posters! Psst, wanna buy a poster?

3. Due to an unfortunate mix-up involving a hacked computer, a Russian ex-KGB operative, an Al Quaeda sleeper cell, two vials of sodium pentathol, and a mysterious flat tire on a Greyhound bus, at this very moment I have over five hundred pounds of parts for AK-47 rifles on their way to me, and a whole print run of posters of a sex map are en route to a shadowy underground Pakistani arms dealer in Cyprus. Boy, won’t he be surprised! Heads will roll, oh yes. Heads will roll.

Another List of Linky-Links

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Today’s crop of links covers a lot of territory, from cutting edge science stuff to LOLcat perversaions. Off we go:

Science

Our World May Be a Giant Hologram

A device intended to look for gravity waves may instead have provided evidence confirming a strange hypothesis that space itself is composed of subunits, and that there is a “smallest possible unit” of space.

Scientists Stop the Ageing Process

Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine report the ability to prevent ageing in the cells of a mouse liver by blocking the accumulation of protein detritus.

What’s In the Vault?

Vaults are cool nanoscale, spontaneously self-assembling structures within cells…and nobody knows what they do.

Humor

Яolcats

LOLcats as seen through the prism of Stalin-era Soviet propaganda ideology.

Caligula for President

Uncomfortable truths about American democracy, helped along with a little black humor. “In thrall to the natural, inexorable, cyclic states of empire, the American government is finally beginning to sprout hair on its lip and smell like all the others, and is almost beginning to resemble an adult superpower, in regard to the vast, regrettable and boringly predictable evils of monarchic leadership.”

I Want to Be a Kitten

An antidote to the previous link.

LOLkink

Because sometimes BDSM is just funny. Warning: Not safe for work.

Technology

Military Investigates Amnesia Beams

With a flash of light. Seriously.

Philosophy

The Idiocy of ‘Defamation of Religion’

Some folks, and some nations, are seeking to make “defamation of religion” a crime. Why that’s a profoundly stupid idea.

You might be addicted to World of Warcraft if…

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So this evening, my roommate David and I went shopping after work.

We had to make it fast, because we both had raid tonight. In fact, he talked to his raid leader on the way to the store, so that we’d have an idea of how much time we could spend shopping.

Which got us to thinking how to tell if you’re completely addicted1 to World of Warcraft. The warning signs are pretty subtle, so it can sometimes be a difficult call to make. Still, there are a few little signs and signals that might tip you off. To wit:

1. Your boss asks you if you can work overtime, and you say “Sorry, no can do. We’re raiding tonight. Sartharion, booyeah!”

2. Your new sweetie asks you out on a romantic date, and you say “Sorry, no can do. We’re raiding tonight. Sartharion 25-man, booyeah!”

3. You’re scheduling a funeral for a family member and you realize it can’t be on Saturday, because you’re raiding that night. Sartharion 10-man with three drakes up, booyeah!

4. Your fiancée wants to go out shopping for wedding rings, and you have a fleeting moment when you think “Shopping? We don’t need to do that! I can craft a [Titanium Spellshock Ring]!

5. You have your real-life wedding in-game.

6. …and ALL of your friends show up.

7. …and think it’s cool.

8. And your family shows up, too.

9. You install an add-on that lets you play another game inside the game while you’re idle or traveling somewhere.

10. Your character’s cooking skill is higher than yours.

11. You schedule vacations around the release dates for game expansions.

12. You schedule vacations around patch day.

13. Two words: Soloing Onyxia, booyeah!

14. The porn folder on your computer contains screen shots of that time you soloed a Fel Reaver at level 69.

15. …and you weren’t playing a warlock.

16. The first thing you ask that new hottie who just moved in across the street is “Horde or Alliance?”

17. And if the answer is “Alliance,” you know a relationship will never work. Fuckin’ pansy-ass Alliance, anyway.

18. The three things you look for in a vacation spot are power, broadband Internet access, and… Come to think of it, there’s really only two things you need in a vacation spot.

19. Actually, you don’t really need to go anywhere on vacation. Travel takes away time you could spend playing!

20. And so does sex, for that matter.

21. You may drive a [1977 Chevy Vega] in real life, but who cares? Your character rides a [Mechano-hog]! Booyeah, baby! Put that in your [Dark Iron Smoking Pipe] and smoke it!

22. Your [Tigule and Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream] brings all the boys to the yard.

23. Those “World of Whorecraft” porn videos bug you because they keep getting the lore wrong.

24. When you go to lunch, you tell your boss “AFK for 30”.

25. “LF 1 GF. Will be checking gear.”

26. You know your way around Alterac Valley better than you know your way around your own neighborhood.

27. …and Alterac Valley is safer than your own neighborhood.

28. You see “LFM OT + DPS UBRS Rend run” in general chat and it makes you all misty-eyed with nostalgia.

29. You’ve watched the World of Warcraft “Switch” ad 167 times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time you see it. “Or hell, why don’t I just self-res, and bam! Cast Frost Shock!!!”

And finally:

30. If you had a dollar for every time Blizzard nerfed your class, you could…you could…play for two months for FREE!

1 Not that that’s, you know, a bad thing.

Well, that’s unusual…

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For what may arguably be the first time in its history, the Catholic Church has anticipated a new technology, rather than lagging a few centuries behind, as is more traditional.

Last year, Pope Sidious I Benedict XVI announced the addition of seven new deadly sins to the old list of seven deadly sins (which, frankly, I believe is flawed to begin with). On the new list is genetic engineering, which th Vatican defines broadly to include anything which changes DNA.

Eleven months later, researchers announced a major breakthrough in fighting HIV: a therapy that extracts the patient’s cells, genetically alters them to make them resistant to the AIDS virus, and then re-introduces them into the patient’s body.

The circle is now complete, as Darth Vader says. For the first time, with the newly updated list of deadly sins, the Catholic Church has a complete, end-to-end policy on HIV:

It’s wrong to wear condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, and it’s wrong to use gene therapy to treat AIDS.

Like many other religions, the Catholic Church has long viewed HIV as a behavioral problem, and felt that rigorous control of sexual expression, rather than condom use or research, are the ideal solution. They don’t go quite as far as to say that HIV is a punishment from God, but approaching HIV as a behavioral problem rather than a n epidemiological one still falls flat to me.

Folks who think that HIV is a consequence of an immoral lifestyle or a punishment for wickedness would do well to consider the case of a man who called in to the Playboy Radio talk show I was a guest on several months ago; he was HIV positive not because he’d had wild, deviant unprotected sex, but because he witnessed a car accident. One of the accident victims was thrown through the windshield and badly lacerated. In his efforts to save her life, he cut his hand on the glass and was exposed to her blood. She was HIV positive; now he is, too. Frankly, and I want to be very clear on this point: any omnipotent, merciful, benevolent god who is OK with that can suck my cock kiss my ass. If there is a god who would be fine with that, I think such an entity is manifestly and plainly not worthy of adoration.

But I digress.

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other “sin” is invented nonsense. The idea of criminalizing lifesaving research by holding that certain forms of medicine are inherently sinful–and not just sinful, but mortal sins–that’s a level of wrong I can’t quite even find the words for.

Some movies I’d like to see

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So a couple of projects have managed to wiggle their way into my attention lately.

The first is a book, based on Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It’s a rewrite of the classic with extra bonuz zombie footage (by day, she woos Mr. Darcy; by night, she’s an unstoppable zombie slaying machine!).

Yes, I’m being 100% serious.

The second is the next movie in the Predator franchise, called Pride and Predator, a Predator prequel set in the time of–you guessed it–Pride and Prejudice.

Now, personally, I think this is brilliant. There’s nothing that can make a chick flick entertaining faster than the addition of a zombie horde or an extraterrestrial killing machine. Can’t get enough of that for my entertainment dollar!

But, sadly, I fear this trend doesn’t go far enough. So, this afternoon, I put together some more chick flicks I’d really like to see (clicky on any pic to embiggen):

Last chance to pre-order!

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I have enough pre-orders for the poster version of the Map of Human Sexuality, and the job is at the printer’s right now. Plates are done and it goes on press Monday. I expect to have the posters by the time I get back from the Poly Leadership Summit next Monday.

Once I have the posters in hand, I plan to raise the price to $15, so if you want one at the pre-order price (or you want it signed), now’s the time!

On Re-Evaluating Dating and Relationships

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My sweetie figmentj has just posted what I think is an awesome essay on the nature of dating and the implications of a conventional model of dating in an unconventional relationship world. Here’s a teaser:

In our generally monogamous culture, standard dating is viewed as a series of auditions. If you pass the first, then you get a second date. If you pass that one, you get a third date (and possibly sex, if we really want to go with the cliched model). Eventually you pass enough auditions to have a relationship, and if that goes well, you get married and win the game. Most of the poly people I know, myself included, started out being inundated with the standard model, and eventually became poly later. We learned to let go of the idea that there is One Magical Person for everyone, and the purpose of dating is to find them. But the feelings of being evaluated and passing or failing and internalizing what that means seemed to hang around.

Go read the rest. It’s good stuff.