This video from Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics) makes it pretty clear.
(h/t Eric)
This Literally Draws You a Picture of Why Vaccines Are Important
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Monthly Archives: April 2014
This Week in WTF, April 25, 2014
![By Andy Jones from Gaithersburg, USA [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/343px-2014_Miss_America_Nina_Davuluri_dips_her_toe_in_the_surf_-214x300.jpg "By Andy Jones from Gaithersburg, USA [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
– You’re doing it wrong: A high school student in Pennsylvania got suspended after making what probably seemed like a bold move during a school assembly featuring the reigning Miss America, Nina Davuluri. During a Q&A session about whatever it is Miss Americas talk to kids about, the 18 year-old stood, asked her to be his prom date, and walked up to the stage with a flower. Reports indicate that Miss Davuluri was flattered, and the whole school cheered, but the higher-ups were less amused. He got a three-day suspension, and while Miss Davuluri politely declined the invitation, she asked the school to reconsider his punishment.
– An Indiana Jones adventure worthy of LeBeouf: The Video Game Crash of 1983 was something that actually happened and has a cool, ominous-sounding name. The industry didn’t recover in North America for several years, when the Nintendo Entertainment System came along. One of the major culprits in the crash was Atari’s movie tie-in game for 1982’s E.T., which was one of the first video games to throw almost everything into its title and marketing and almost nothing into actual gameplay. The game sucked so much that Atari allegedly buried all the unsold cartridges in the desert. Continue reading
What I’m Reading, April 24, 2014
![Nari Sin [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/4956463427_da8877eb84_z.jpg "Nari Sin [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr")
The Difference Between a Tea Party “Patriot” and a Real Patriot, Allen Clifton, Forward Progressives, April 19, 2014
Republicans are great at coining a term and using it over and over and over and over and – well you get the point. It’s as if there’s a secret handbook only conservatives are given access to where they’re instructed which words to say and when to say them. Rich people aren’t wealthy, they’re “job creators.” Laws that legalize using religion to discriminate against others are “religious freedom” laws. Even when it comes to patriotism they act as if they’re the only ones who are patriotic. As if flying an American flag, putting a “God Bless America” bumper sticker on their vehicle and finishing sentences with “support our troops” instantly makes them patriotic.
Maddow Asks: ‘Why Do We Overlook Right-Wing Violence and Refuse to Call it Terrorism?’ Answer: Because They’re White, Chauncey DeVega, AlterNet, April 18, 2014
Domestic terrorism is an oxymoron in America when white folks are involved. Whiteness imagines itself as kind, benign, safe, neutral, normal, and good. “Terrorism” is something those “other people” do, i.e. the Muslims, or some other ambiguous cohort of black and brown people who “hate American values”. Whiteness and the white racial frame are possessed by an acute sense of historical amnesia as well. The most dangerous domestic terrorist organization in the history of the United States was the Ku Klux Klan, a group that killed thousands of black Americans during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Open Thread: “Why Be A Neocon?…” Balloon Juice, April 19, 2014, comment by Patrick II
What I’m Reading, April 23, 2014
![David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/5065859501_6fc40e1e95_z.jpg "David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr")
Apparently, We Need To Remind People That Pro-Choice Women Are Allowed To Have Babies, Samantha Lachman, Huffington Post, April 17, 2014
Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, and some anti-abortion activists responded to the news Thursday by showing they don’t understand what being “pro-choice” means: being able to choose to have a baby, or not.
White Supremacist’s Genocidal Paranoia: Inside the Mind of the White Man March Founder, Toby McCasker, AlterNet, April 19, 2014
Masked ethnic nationalism had been enjoying a nice stay as a dot-point in the “dark enlightenment” of the so-called neo-reactionary movement, but bigotry is never content to be itemized. Say hi to nuwe racism, and the composite ire-ony of using the Afrikaans for “new” here seems so complexly black and white as to transcend meta. Hyper-aware there is less and less room on earth for old hate, nuwe racists dress their prejudice in conspiracy and pseudoscience and call it “pride.” Pride is a much more appealing sin than wrath, and allows them to, heinously, plead victimhood just as they pursue a policy of victimization. It is like punching someone and getting angry at them for hurting your fist.
“Hello M’Lady,” the App that Lets Nice Guys™ Know How They Look to the Rest of the World
I was once a Nice Guy™. I got past it. Here’s a sketch from Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer that might help explain a few things to people still struggling with Nice Guy™ism.
If the message you get from this sketch is that women are ungrateful and will insensitively use you for the tasks they don’t want to do, or if you still think that the “friend zone” is an actual thing, then I’m sorry, but you are still in the clutches of Nice GuyNice Guy™ism. There is still hope, but it might be a long and difficult road to self-awareness.
Pizza Cake
Did you hear me? I said pizza cake.
Pizza. Cake.
PIZZA CAKE!!!
Look, just shut up and do whatever pizza cake tells you to do. Let pizza cake be your guide.
If you only see one set of footprints on the beach, it’s because I ditched your ass to go get some pizza cake.
Austin and Its Bicycles
Here’s an interesting project that creates maps showing various aspects of city life:
The Social Computing Group at MIT is compiling data for maps that demonstrate the impact that small independent coffee shops can have on life in the big city.
The interactive maps are part of the “You Are Here” project, which creates data visualizations to serve as tools for urban planning at the micro level.
The io9 article shows a map of areas with walkable coffee shops, and I had hoped to see something similar for Austin. We’re not exactly a walkable city, though, are we?
So far, the only map available for Austin shows (you guessed it) bicycle crashes:
Uh, yay us?
What I’m Reading, April 22, 2014
Is Our Elites Learning, Atrios, Eschaton, April 18, 2014
The problem with the Lifestyles Of The Not Quite Rich Enough genre is there’s never any hint that anyone involved (reporters, subjects) take the next step and think, “oh, gosh, if I can’t live on $300K what must it be like to live on $50K!!!!”
“You’re leaving? Are you effing kidding?” An anti-gay bigot gets humiliated, Kate Geiselman, Salon, April 16, 2014
When Peter LaBarbera saw that close to a hundred people had assembled at my college to hear his warning about “the gay agenda,” I’m sure he was thrilled. He is the president of a group called Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, which describes its mission as being “dedicated to exposing the homosexual-bisexual-transgender activist agendas.”
When, less than 10 minutes later, he was left with an audience of about a dozen, he was angry. Angry enough to say, as the masses marched out, “You’re leaving? Are you effing kidding?” Angry enough to tweet, later that evening, “Two liberal professors lead their students in a walkout of my talk … rather than allow them to hear an opposing viewpoint.”
Except that’s not exactly what happened. What happened was much bigger than that, but I should back up a bit.
Is growth always good? Mano Singham, Freethought Blogs, April 17, 2014
It seems to be almost axiomatic these days to think of economic growth as an unfettered good. But must it always be so? Johann Hari in the April 2010 of The Progressive magazine wrote in a review of a book about John Maynard Keynes, whose influential work has been used to fuel growth, about what that famous economist thought about when we might know that it might be time to call a halt to growth.
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The key is to try and ensure that everyone has a basic level of comfort and security, and the current rapidly growing inequality works against that.
What I’m Reading, April. 21, 2014
![Торжествуют (They are triumphant) by Vasily Vereshchagin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Торжествуют-300x230.jpg "Торжествуют (They are triumphant) by Vasily Vereshchagin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
The Lost Empire that Ruled the Silk Road, Annalee Newitz, io9, April 15, 2014
Today, the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan is relatively remote, known mostly for its magnificent medieval ruins. But over a millennium ago, it was one of the richest cities on the infamous trade route known as the Silk Road. Back in the 600s CE, that route was called simply “the road to Samarkand.”
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The term “Silk Road” was popularized by European explorers in the nineteenth century. German scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term in 1877, while attempting to follow its eroded pathways centuries after the world economy had come to rely on ocean shipping routes. Also, there is no evidence that anyone traveled along the entire route from Europe to China until Marco Polo wrote about his journey in the thirteenth century. (Polo probably wasn’t the first traveler to do this, but his account popularized the idea and led to many more journeys.)
But for most people the Silk Road was just a local highway system. They used the routes to go from one city to another, and more rarely to cross the borders between empires.
Bill Russell, Boston Celtics Veteran, Sounds Off On Gay Athletes, Jim Vertuno, AP, April 10, 2014
NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell said Wednesday that gay athletes’ current fight for equality and acceptance reminds him of some of the same struggles black athletes faced in the 1960s. Continue reading
Texas Town to Treat Toilet Water for Tap
![US Department of Agriculture [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Discharge_pipe-300x199.jpg "US Department of Agriculture [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
According the Burnt Orange Report, the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, is going to begin recycling its own wastewater because of the drought:
Nope, it’s not a two-weeks-late April Fools’ joke: The city will be recycling 5 million gallons of “potty water” into (hopefully) clean and (fingers-crossed) drinkable water.
The decision to reuse the wastewater comes after existing restrictions have reduces waster usage by half.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality tested the water for 41 days to ensure that it is safe.
My knowledge of water and wastewater treatment procedures is based solely on an Intro to Environmental Science class I took in the fall of 1996, but in that class we took field trips to get a fourth credit hour. We visited both a water treatment plant and a wastewater treatment plant. The city of Houston drew water from the Trinity River and treated it to make it potable. It treated its wastewater to remove the worst contaminants (poo, condoms, corpses, etc.) and dumped the decidedly non-potable water back into the Trinity River. The wastewater treatment plant was downstream from the water treatment plant, because otherwise Houstonians would be drinking the same water they peed in not too long ago. Continue reading