Speaking of battle-of-the-sexes banter fodder, and academic papers, you did all see that article last week about the researchers who wanted to compare the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users? You know, the one where they had to cancel the research because they couldn’t find any men in their 20s who had never been exposed to porn…
Category: Aside
Aside
I love how the article’s author is so sanguine about this aspect of his analysis, dropping it deadpan in a single sentence at the end of the piece: “The bad news for authors is that their royalties will decrease since they are based off of retail sales price.” Surely the simplification of the production and distribution system should result in less profit for publisher/distributor/vendor–i.e. the parts of the system simplified–and not in less profit for the bit that remains just as hard as ever?
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Generally speaking one should not mess around with any kind of major upgrade (operating system, router firmware, web service, etc) while drinking–this was lies madness. WordPress upgrades are so painless though, that I can run one from a hotel room while sustaining a mild buzz.
Aside
I have a tab open to the site where you can stream the Angora Napkin cartoon. I was keeping it around to point you guys at it, and explain why you should take a look. But my soon-to-be-comics-pusher Christopher Butcher beat me to the punch, so it’s a lot easier to just point you to his post. (As an aside, in an aside, I met Troy Little when he stopped in to do a signing at Strange Adventures–he did a sketch for me in my Chiaroscuro collection, which book I think I prefer to the Angora Napkin one, not least because it has a decidedly less Ren & Stimpy art style–and he seemed like a totally nice, straight up guy.)
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One month from now I will be moving into the new house in Cambridge. The Halifax 31 day countdown is on.
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Dear Internet: please explain this. And I would like an explanation that makes more sense than “only in accordance with the instruction of children dancing, singing, arms breathe fire on the dreams of children“.
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I’m doing a little better with Jeff Ford’s current recommended reading list than I did with the last one–this time I’ve actually read some of the books (four of them, to be precise). Given that the theme this time seems to be “detective fiction at the boundaries of, or crossing into, other modes” it’s perhaps no surprise–I enjoy a little genre stretching and deconstruction. Of course the net result is five more books to put on the wishlist.
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I have two immediate reactions to a story about someone constructing a box that will only open at specific coordinates as a wedding gift. First, I am forced to wonder why I have never been given such a thing–my friends are creative, fabulous, and on average pretty tech savvy. After I get over my jealousy though, it does make me think about those fantasy stories where the Maguffin had to be taken to a particular place, or the “lost technology of the Ancients” stories where it’s lost tech instead of magic that serves the same role, and how those are realizable now. Any sufficiently advanced technology, etc. Maybe we’re “the Ancients”, now.
Aside
You know, sometimes the right tool for the job makes problems remarkably simple to solve. For a lot of my small computer problems, the right tool is sed. I remember the first time I encountered it, and I estimate it’s saved me around an average of about an hour a week since then–which works out to something like 117 working days.
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A completely unsolicited endorsement: the combination of St. Ambroise Stout and Sartori Reserve Raspberry BellaVitano cheese is ridiculously yummy. That is all.
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I note with some interest that the winner of this year’s Canadian Brewing Awards in the Stout category is the St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout from McAuslan. Not news to me. I’ll have to look into Hockley Valley Brewing, and that Imperial Stout from Grand River Brewing as well–more reasons to look forward to the Ontario move.
Aside
Yeah, so they’re making an A-Team movie. The more I think about it, the more I like Declan’s theory that Hollywood is clutching after any tiny remnant of things associated with a mass audience. I sadly also admit that I believe this is more effective on my generation than previous ones, because we are total suckers for anything that reminds us of our childhood.
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I have enough Australian friends that I usually don’t bother to trot out the tired old “nation of criminals” joke/insult (although I do like Moran’s “it’s a jail” line–but I can’t deliver it like he can). I’m tempted to do it this once, though, just to provide some kind of segue to linking to some vintage Sydney mug shots. Look at those shots–those are some characters, man.
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To add to the list of things I’m really unhappy with the Obama administration about: letting the torturers get away with blatant destruction of evidence. It’s one thing not to prosecute, it’s a completely different thing to de facto endorse the obstruction of justice, and consequently send the message that it’s OK for things to operate this way; business as usual. Gordon Hewart must be rolling in his grave.
Aside
I am grown man of 36 years, and yet when I see a story entitled Cosmic-Ray Concentrations Highest in Half a Century all that comes into my head is a debate about whether it would be cooler to be stretchy or to be able to fly around and shoot fire. I was broken by my childhood.
