May 1, 2015
how do you even put people on money?
The Dickonomics of Tinder
When Tinder first came along, it was heralded by some as the Grindr for straight people and a hook-up app that women would actually use. Men braced themselves for what was supposed to be a rush of incoming babes, women who had been released from the confines of a Girls Gone Wild! VHS but didn’t expect anything so extravagant from them as a novelty T-shirt for taking their clothes off. Simple girls, horny girls. When Tinder matches occurred, these men stormed into our messages with all the social grace of Steve fucking Urkel but none of his endearing sincerity with appeals like, “Sexy dress. Hook up?” They used the precious real estate of their bio to complain about women rather than entice them. They wore jerseys for teams that suck. They attempted to order women to their homes as if they were chicken fingers on Seamless. And almost every last goddamn one of them found their whiskey habit absolutely fascinating."Dick is abundant and low value." Alana Massey on successfully using Tinder as a hook-up app. [NSFW header illustration]
So many more stories of fascinating and brilliant women to be told
"Every one of these sites is worthy of visiting." Sophia Dembling highlights U.S. women's museums and sites for The Toast. Related: Women in Game Developement, a recently opened exhibit at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland, California. This exhibit features the work of early developers like Roberta Williams, Carol Shaw, Amy Henning, and more — see MADE's webpage for full list and game screenshots.
Ben E. King (1938 - 2015)
Ben E. King has died at 76. He was the original singer of "Stand by Me" (later covered by John Lennon, Otis Redding, Bono/Springsteen, and many others), which he cowrote with the famous songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller. [more inside]
Hahaha vs. Hehehe
The New Yorker investigates the differences between "e-laughter" in its latest cultural commentary. [more inside]
"I don't know but I really want one!"
‘What’s your favorite post-Peter Gabriel song by Genesis?’
In which the crowd at Dangerous Minds get serious about the question that's been on everyone's mind.
warning: advertorial
warning: advertorial
HTTP SOL
Mozilla is moving to deprecate support of HTTP:
After a robust discussion on our community mailing list, Mozilla is committing to focus new development efforts on the secure web, and start removing capabilities from the non-secure web. There are two broad elements of this plan:
* Setting a date after which all new features will be available only to secure websites
* Gradually phasing out access to browser features for non-secure websites, especially features that pose risks to users’ security and privacy.
After a robust discussion on our community mailing list, Mozilla is committing to focus new development efforts on the secure web, and start removing capabilities from the non-secure web. There are two broad elements of this plan:
* Setting a date after which all new features will be available only to secure websites
* Gradually phasing out access to browser features for non-secure websites, especially features that pose risks to users’ security and privacy.
Canines are cool, too, MetaFilter!
The title of this collection is wrong. These are dogs at their doggiest.
Dress for Success
Compton's cowboys: the urban oddity of Richland Farms
When [Griffith Dickenson Compton, a Methodist minister and leader of a temperance group] donated his land to incorporate and create the city of Compton in 1889, he stipulated that a certain acreage be zoned for agricultural purposes only -- thus Richland Farms was born.This isn't such a unique thing, except Richland farms is still focused on agriculture, while the rest of Los Angeles County became urbanized. It's here you can find Compton's cowboys who support the Compton Jr. Posse, which focuses on ranching, riding, education and outreach. And if you watch the rodeo circuit, you might have seen Tre Hosley representing his community. You can read much more about Richland Farms and its residents in KCET's online Communities series.
This video will make you hallucinate
Warning: do not watch this if you’re epileptic. Don’t watch it if you’re on your way to a meeting or about to write an article, either. This video will allow you to hallucinate without taking any drugs. [more inside]
Have you turned it off and on again?
FAA (pdf link): A Boeing Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all AC electrical power due to the generator control units (GCUs) simultaneously going into failsafe mode. This condition is caused by a software counter internal to the GCUs that will overflow after 248 days of continuous power. We are issuing this airworthiness directive to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane.
Guardian article: "In the latest of a long line of problems plaguing Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which saw the company’s fleet grounded over battery issues and concerns raised over possible hacking vulnerabilities, the new software bug was found in plane’s generator-control units." [more inside]
"Optimization For The Motorola RAZR"
Did this film direct itself?
How Hollywood Keeps out women In 2013, 1.9 percent of the directors of Hollywood's 100 top-grossing films were female, according to a study conducted by USC researcher Stacy L. Smith. In 2011, women held 7.1 percent of U.S. military general and admiral posts, 20 percent of U.S. Senate seats and more than 20 percent of leadership roles at Twitter and Facebook — and both companies now face gender-discrimination lawsuits.
UNIMAGINABLY DENSE MATERIAL
whistleblowers and whistle in bronze, on tour
"Italian artist immortalizes Snowden, Assange and Manning with a statue honoring their courage in Berlin's Alexanderplatz."
Anything to Say is now on tour.
More pictures in this Berliner Zeitung article.
The House That Math Built
If you took a calculus course in college, the name James Stewart may ring a bell. The money you spent on those textbooks went to build "one of the most important private houses built in North America in a long time", a curving concert hall of wood and glass. Stewart died in December, and the house is now on sale.
"This has been very difficult for me to write."
Dr. Cassie Smith-Christmas writes about her brother, Ian, and the epidemic of suicides (trigger warning) at William and Mary College. The College of William and Mary hosted an open conversation on suicide prevention and mental health April 22 in response to criticisms about mental health on campus. [more inside]
Slytherin wins the house cup!
Dark Lord Funk you up, Dark Lord Funk you up -- a mashup of you-know-who and Uptown Funk.
Ida, be obnoxious
Vocal fry (previously) is an auditory tic associated, currently, with young women (although it is by no means a new phenomenon or a female-exclusive one). That said, the prevalence of vocal fry may be growing in young women--which has implications for the prevalence of vocal fry across English speakers, since young women are linguistic trendsetters. Given all that, it's a shame that vocal tics like vocal fry and uptalk are so frequently criticized as a specifically female phenomenon--imposing an extra cost of vocal self-monitoring on female professionals.
*gasp*!
Flash Friday! In Murder, don't get caught killing the King, then catch others trying to usurp your reign- or get usurped and get revenge! Red Light Green Light was never played with higher stakes!
Most assuredly *not* 42
This is my vision of life. A conversation with evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins. (Video and transcript)
Nasty, Brutish, Short
The one where Buck learns you can't bark away the hicupps
"It's something we must do, and we can do, and we will do."
Tesla Powerwall Battery Economics: Almost There - "Elon Musk announced Tesla's home / business battery today. [video] tl;dr: It'll get enthusiastic early adopters to buy. The economics are almost there to make it cost effective for a wide market... That said, for large scale grid deployment (outside of the home), it still looks like flow batteries[1] and advanced compressed air[2] are likely to be far cheaper in the long run." [more inside]
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