31 October 2014
"Marked Women, Unmarked Men"
Excerpt from "Wears Jump Suit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband's Last Name." by Deborah Tannen:
I asked myself what style we women could have adopted that would have been unmarked, like the men’s. The answer was none. There is no unmarked woman.
There is no woman’s hair style that can be called standard, that says nothing about her. The range of women’s hair styles is staggering, but a woman whose hair has no particular style is perceived as not caring about how she looks, which can disqualify her for many positions, and will subtly diminish her as a person in the eyes of some.
Women must choose between attractive shoes and comfortable shoes. When our group made an unexpected trek, the woman who wore flat, laced shoes arrived first. Last to arrive was the woman in spike heels, shoes in hand and a handful of men around her.
If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing (in other words, sexy), it sends a message — an intended one of wanting to be attractive, but also a possibly unintended one of availability. If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message, lent meaning by the knowledge that they could have been. There are thousands of cosmetic products from which women can choose and myriad ways of applying them. Yet no makeup at all is anything but unmarked. Some men see it as a hostile refusal to please them.
Women can’t even fill out a form without telling stories about themselves. Most forms give four titles to choose from. “Mr.” carries no meaning other than that the respondent is male. But a woman who checks “Mrs.” or “Miss” communicates not only whether she has been married but also whether she has conservative tastes in forms of address — and probably other conservative values as well. Checking “Ms.” declines to let on about marriage (checking “Mr.” declines nothing since nothing was asked), but it also marks her as either liberated or rebellious, depending on the observer’s attitudes and assumptions.
I sometimes try to duck these variously marked choices by giving my title as “Dr.” — and in so doing risk marking myself as either uppity (hence sarcastic responses like “Excuse me!”) or an overachiever (hence reactions of congratulatory surprise like “Good for you!”).
All married women’s surnames are marked. If a woman takes her husband’s name, she announces to the world that she is married and has traditional values. To some it will indicate that she is less herself, more identified by her husband’s identity. If she does not take her husband’s name, this too is marked, seen as worthy of comment: she has done something; she has “kept her own name.” A man is never said to have “kept his own name” because it never occurs to anyone that he might have given it up. For him using his own name is unmarked.
A married woman who wants to have her cake and eat it too may use her surname plus his, with or without a hyphen. But this too announces her marital status and often results in a tongue-tying string. In a list (Harvey O’Donovan, Jonathan Feldman, Stephanie Woodbury McGillicutty), the woman’s multiple name stands out. It is marked.
[hat tip]
I asked myself what style we women could have adopted that would have been unmarked, like the men’s. The answer was none. There is no unmarked woman.
There is no woman’s hair style that can be called standard, that says nothing about her. The range of women’s hair styles is staggering, but a woman whose hair has no particular style is perceived as not caring about how she looks, which can disqualify her for many positions, and will subtly diminish her as a person in the eyes of some.
Women must choose between attractive shoes and comfortable shoes. When our group made an unexpected trek, the woman who wore flat, laced shoes arrived first. Last to arrive was the woman in spike heels, shoes in hand and a handful of men around her.
If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing (in other words, sexy), it sends a message — an intended one of wanting to be attractive, but also a possibly unintended one of availability. If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message, lent meaning by the knowledge that they could have been. There are thousands of cosmetic products from which women can choose and myriad ways of applying them. Yet no makeup at all is anything but unmarked. Some men see it as a hostile refusal to please them.
Women can’t even fill out a form without telling stories about themselves. Most forms give four titles to choose from. “Mr.” carries no meaning other than that the respondent is male. But a woman who checks “Mrs.” or “Miss” communicates not only whether she has been married but also whether she has conservative tastes in forms of address — and probably other conservative values as well. Checking “Ms.” declines to let on about marriage (checking “Mr.” declines nothing since nothing was asked), but it also marks her as either liberated or rebellious, depending on the observer’s attitudes and assumptions.
I sometimes try to duck these variously marked choices by giving my title as “Dr.” — and in so doing risk marking myself as either uppity (hence sarcastic responses like “Excuse me!”) or an overachiever (hence reactions of congratulatory surprise like “Good for you!”).
All married women’s surnames are marked. If a woman takes her husband’s name, she announces to the world that she is married and has traditional values. To some it will indicate that she is less herself, more identified by her husband’s identity. If she does not take her husband’s name, this too is marked, seen as worthy of comment: she has done something; she has “kept her own name.” A man is never said to have “kept his own name” because it never occurs to anyone that he might have given it up. For him using his own name is unmarked.
A married woman who wants to have her cake and eat it too may use her surname plus his, with or without a hyphen. But this too announces her marital status and often results in a tongue-tying string. In a list (Harvey O’Donovan, Jonathan Feldman, Stephanie Woodbury McGillicutty), the woman’s multiple name stands out. It is marked.
[hat tip]
Labels: equality
30 October 2014
Absurd Works of Art
Mark "Mark Does Stuff" Oshiro has been watching Farscape and it's been WONDERFUL. When he posts a review, he links to it on twitter with a brief summary. Here was today's:
Labels: Farscape
29 October 2014
Lunch Break
This Retail comic strip is not an exaggeration:
True story from my time as a retail store manager:
One Christmas season we hired a woman whose name I don't remember, but let's call her Jane. I gave Jane the tour (showing her the layout of the store, the break room, etc.) and we finished at the daily schedule. The daily schedule had two parts: The left side showed where everyone was working that day, and the right side showed the break schedule. Everyone had a fifteen minute break first, then a thirty minute break later. Jane asked if she got a lunch break. I looked at the schedule, and showed her that she got a fifteen minute break at 11:30. She said (whined), "But don't I get a lunch break at noon??" I explained, as nicely as I could, that we can't all take a break at noon, because we have to take turns for our breaks. She asked again about a break at noon. Again, I pointed to her 11:30 break. She complained, "But that's only fifteen minutes. That's not enough time to go get a lunch!"
First of all: I have never, in my entire life, started a job without a bagged lunch. You never know what the facilities are going to be like.
Secondly: My boss came and found me halfway through the day and asked what I thought of Jane. I said, "Please make her go away". He said, "How about I pay her for the hours she's worked today and then fire her". I said, "That'll work". First and only time in my life I've gotten someone fired.
True story from my time as a retail store manager:
One Christmas season we hired a woman whose name I don't remember, but let's call her Jane. I gave Jane the tour (showing her the layout of the store, the break room, etc.) and we finished at the daily schedule. The daily schedule had two parts: The left side showed where everyone was working that day, and the right side showed the break schedule. Everyone had a fifteen minute break first, then a thirty minute break later. Jane asked if she got a lunch break. I looked at the schedule, and showed her that she got a fifteen minute break at 11:30. She said (whined), "But don't I get a lunch break at noon??" I explained, as nicely as I could, that we can't all take a break at noon, because we have to take turns for our breaks. She asked again about a break at noon. Again, I pointed to her 11:30 break. She complained, "But that's only fifteen minutes. That's not enough time to go get a lunch!"
First of all: I have never, in my entire life, started a job without a bagged lunch. You never know what the facilities are going to be like.
Secondly: My boss came and found me halfway through the day and asked what I thought of Jane. I said, "Please make her go away". He said, "How about I pay her for the hours she's worked today and then fire her". I said, "That'll work". First and only time in my life I've gotten someone fired.
28 October 2014
Swin Cash Interviews Becky Hammon
27 October 2014
Found Soda
26 October 2014
"What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security"
Seen here:
Among the many changes the Nobel Prize brought to [Brian] Schmidt’s life: travel hassles. Here’s what he said it’s like to carry a Nobel medal aboard an airplane:
"There are a couple of bizarre things that happen. One of the things you get when you win a Nobel Prize is, well, a Nobel Prize. It’s about that big, that thick [he mimes a disk roughly the size of an Olympic medal], weighs a half a pound, and it’s made of gold.
“When I won this, my grandma, who lives in Fargo, North Dakota, wanted to see it. I was coming around so I decided I’d bring my Nobel Prize. You would think that carrying around a Nobel Prize would be uneventful, and it was uneventful, until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the X-ray machine. I could see they were puzzled. It was in my laptop bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the X-rays—it’s completely black. And they had never seen anything completely black.
“They’re like, ‘Sir, there’s something in your bag.’
I said, ‘Yes, I think it’s this box.’
They said, ‘What’s in the box?’
I said, ‘a large gold medal,’ as one does.
So they opened it up and they said, ‘What’s it made out of?’
I said, ‘gold.’
And they’re like, ‘Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?’
‘The King of Sweden.’
‘Why did he give this to you?’
‘Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.’
At which point, they were beginning to lose their sense of humor. I explained to them it was a Nobel Prize, and their main question was, ‘Why were you in Fargo?'"
Among the many changes the Nobel Prize brought to [Brian] Schmidt’s life: travel hassles. Here’s what he said it’s like to carry a Nobel medal aboard an airplane:
"There are a couple of bizarre things that happen. One of the things you get when you win a Nobel Prize is, well, a Nobel Prize. It’s about that big, that thick [he mimes a disk roughly the size of an Olympic medal], weighs a half a pound, and it’s made of gold.
“When I won this, my grandma, who lives in Fargo, North Dakota, wanted to see it. I was coming around so I decided I’d bring my Nobel Prize. You would think that carrying around a Nobel Prize would be uneventful, and it was uneventful, until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the X-ray machine. I could see they were puzzled. It was in my laptop bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the X-rays—it’s completely black. And they had never seen anything completely black.
“They’re like, ‘Sir, there’s something in your bag.’
I said, ‘Yes, I think it’s this box.’
They said, ‘What’s in the box?’
I said, ‘a large gold medal,’ as one does.
So they opened it up and they said, ‘What’s it made out of?’
I said, ‘gold.’
And they’re like, ‘Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?’
‘The King of Sweden.’
‘Why did he give this to you?’
‘Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.’
At which point, they were beginning to lose their sense of humor. I explained to them it was a Nobel Prize, and their main question was, ‘Why were you in Fargo?'"
Labels: random awesomeness
25 October 2014
Tomatoes
24 October 2014
Doing Nothing
23 October 2014
The Cake Is a Lie
From NotAlwaysRight:
(A man calls to check on a cake he’d ordered, but things just go downhill from there.)
Customer: “I’d like to check on the cake I ordered for graduation.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but this is [donut shop]. We don’t make cakes; we only make donuts.”
Customer: “I ordered the cake two weeks ago and I want to know if it will be ready.”
Me: “I can’t help you with that because we don’t make cakes here. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Is this [donut shop]?”
Me: “Yes, that’s right.”
Customer: “Well, I know that’s where I ordered my cake, and I want to know if it will be ready.”
Me: “I can’t help you with that because you didn’t order a cake here. We don’t make cakes. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Are you near [chain grocery store]?”
Me: “Yes, there’s one near us.”
Customer: “Then that proves I ordered the cake there because it was right near [chain grocery store].”
Me: “You may have been somewhere near [chain grocery store], but you couldn’t have been here, because we don’t make cakes. We only make donuts. We don’t even have an oven except for a small microwave oven. Everything here is deep-fried, so we have no way to make cakes even if we want to.”
Customer: “Well, where did I order my cake then, if I didn’t order it from you?!”
Me: “I don’t know where you ordered your cake, but I do know that you didn’t order it here, because we don’t make cakes. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Whatever, you are incompetent! I’m never ordering cakes from you guys ever again!” *click*
(A man calls to check on a cake he’d ordered, but things just go downhill from there.)
Customer: “I’d like to check on the cake I ordered for graduation.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but this is [donut shop]. We don’t make cakes; we only make donuts.”
Customer: “I ordered the cake two weeks ago and I want to know if it will be ready.”
Me: “I can’t help you with that because we don’t make cakes here. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Is this [donut shop]?”
Me: “Yes, that’s right.”
Customer: “Well, I know that’s where I ordered my cake, and I want to know if it will be ready.”
Me: “I can’t help you with that because you didn’t order a cake here. We don’t make cakes. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Are you near [chain grocery store]?”
Me: “Yes, there’s one near us.”
Customer: “Then that proves I ordered the cake there because it was right near [chain grocery store].”
Me: “You may have been somewhere near [chain grocery store], but you couldn’t have been here, because we don’t make cakes. We only make donuts. We don’t even have an oven except for a small microwave oven. Everything here is deep-fried, so we have no way to make cakes even if we want to.”
Customer: “Well, where did I order my cake then, if I didn’t order it from you?!”
Me: “I don’t know where you ordered your cake, but I do know that you didn’t order it here, because we don’t make cakes. We only make donuts.”
Customer: “Whatever, you are incompetent! I’m never ordering cakes from you guys ever again!” *click*
Labels: Not Always...
22 October 2014
Ice Girls
I had never heard of "ice girls", but apparently they dress like NFL cheerleaders and clean the ice at NHL games?
From Misogyny: Every Little Bit Matters:
‘Ice girls’ are one part – a small part, perhaps, but a part – of why some men believe so deeply that they are more human than women are. ‘Ice girls,’ NFL cheerleaders, movie damsels in distress, video game hookers, everyone pictured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition: All are defined entirely by whether or not they’re pleasing to men, and by how men choose to react to them. This isn’t about actual sex workers, who certainly have their place in society; it’s about an overall image of womanhood that we accept, unthinking, because we’re so used to it.
Children of both genders see co-ed crews shoveling NHL ice, with the men in warm-up suits and women in sports bras and hot pants, and see that there’s a fundamental difference between what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, even when that man and that woman are doing the exact same job. Teens see an entire issue of the world’s leading sports magazine devoted to showing pictures of barely-dressed female models, and they learn that the sports world still caters directly, if not exclusively, to straight men. Grown men hear pundits blame women for provoking domestic abuse or muse about the commercial boost afforded by sexual assault charges, and conclude that ‘real men’ are entitled – and expected – to dominate women.
From Misogyny: Every Little Bit Matters:
‘Ice girls’ are one part – a small part, perhaps, but a part – of why some men believe so deeply that they are more human than women are. ‘Ice girls,’ NFL cheerleaders, movie damsels in distress, video game hookers, everyone pictured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition: All are defined entirely by whether or not they’re pleasing to men, and by how men choose to react to them. This isn’t about actual sex workers, who certainly have their place in society; it’s about an overall image of womanhood that we accept, unthinking, because we’re so used to it.
Children of both genders see co-ed crews shoveling NHL ice, with the men in warm-up suits and women in sports bras and hot pants, and see that there’s a fundamental difference between what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, even when that man and that woman are doing the exact same job. Teens see an entire issue of the world’s leading sports magazine devoted to showing pictures of barely-dressed female models, and they learn that the sports world still caters directly, if not exclusively, to straight men. Grown men hear pundits blame women for provoking domestic abuse or muse about the commercial boost afforded by sexual assault charges, and conclude that ‘real men’ are entitled – and expected – to dominate women.
Labels: equality
21 October 2014
"It's Not What It Looks Like!"
20 October 2014
Jessie's Girl
19 October 2014
Best Friend Siri
From To Siri, With Love: How One Boy With Autism Became B.F.F.'s With Apple’s Siri:
After a while I heard this:
Gus: “You’re a really nice computer.”
Siri: “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Gus: “You are always asking if you can help me. Is there anything you want?”
Siri: “Thank you, but I have very few wants.”
Gus: “O.K.! Well, good night!”
Siri: “Ah, it’s 5:06 p.m.”
Gus: “Oh sorry, I mean, goodbye.”
Siri: “See you later!”
That Siri. She doesn’t let my communications-impaired son get away with anything. Indeed, many of us wanted an imaginary friend, and now we have one. Only she’s not entirely imaginary.
After a while I heard this:
Gus: “You’re a really nice computer.”
Siri: “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Gus: “You are always asking if you can help me. Is there anything you want?”
Siri: “Thank you, but I have very few wants.”
Gus: “O.K.! Well, good night!”
Siri: “Ah, it’s 5:06 p.m.”
Gus: “Oh sorry, I mean, goodbye.”
Siri: “See you later!”
That Siri. She doesn’t let my communications-impaired son get away with anything. Indeed, many of us wanted an imaginary friend, and now we have one. Only she’s not entirely imaginary.
Labels: random awesomeness
18 October 2014
UConn First Night 2014
17 October 2014
Pick & Roll
16 October 2014
Dynamics
(Seen here.)
There are some fantastic comments on the original post. My favorite:
One day, when I was in concert band in high school, we got a new piece handed out for the first time, and there was a strange little commotion back in the tuba section — whispering, and pointing at something in the music, and swatting at each other’s hands all shhh don’t call attention to it. And although they did attract the attention of basically everyone else in the band, they managed to avoid being noticed by the band director, who gave us a few minutes to look over our parts and then said, “All right, let’s run through it up to section A.”
And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:
[stifled giggling]
[reeeeeeally deep breath]
[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]
The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.
In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”
FFFF is not really a rational dynamic marking for any instrument, but for the love of all that is holy why would you put it in a tuba part.
There are some fantastic comments on the original post. My favorite:
One day, when I was in concert band in high school, we got a new piece handed out for the first time, and there was a strange little commotion back in the tuba section — whispering, and pointing at something in the music, and swatting at each other’s hands all shhh don’t call attention to it. And although they did attract the attention of basically everyone else in the band, they managed to avoid being noticed by the band director, who gave us a few minutes to look over our parts and then said, “All right, let’s run through it up to section A.”
And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:
[stifled giggling]
[reeeeeeally deep breath]
[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]
The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.
In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”
FFFF is not really a rational dynamic marking for any instrument, but for the love of all that is holy why would you put it in a tuba part.
Labels: music
15 October 2014
Small Talk with Ichabod & Abbie
From io9's review of the Sleepy Hollow episode Go Where I Send Thee:
Turns out that in between figuring out the coffeemaker and Netflix's search feature, Ichabod's been practicing driving with Jenny!
But this isn't just practice for driving to the beach for a long walk as they watch the sun set, hand in hand. No, this is because Abbie could be killed at any moment and she wants Ichabod to be independent. Ichabod isn't having it: "Hear me, Grace Abigail Mills. It is not our fate for one of us to bury the other. we will be victorious or defeated, together." (Reminder: We're five minutes into a monster-of-the-week. This is just their version of small talk.)
Turns out that in between figuring out the coffeemaker and Netflix's search feature, Ichabod's been practicing driving with Jenny!
But this isn't just practice for driving to the beach for a long walk as they watch the sun set, hand in hand. No, this is because Abbie could be killed at any moment and she wants Ichabod to be independent. Ichabod isn't having it: "Hear me, Grace Abigail Mills. It is not our fate for one of us to bury the other. we will be victorious or defeated, together." (Reminder: We're five minutes into a monster-of-the-week. This is just their version of small talk.)
Labels: Sleepy Hollow
14 October 2014
"We Have Always Fought"
From this essay by Kameron Hurley:
I’m going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story you’ve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they eat their young if not raised properly; and how, at the end of their lives, they hurl themselves – lemming-like – over cliffs to drown in the surging sea. They are, at heart, sea creatures, birthed from the sea, married to it like the fishing people who make their livelihood there.
Every story you hear about llamas is the same. You see it in books: the poor doomed baby llama getting chomped up by its intemperate parent. On television: the massive tide of scaly llamas falling in a great, majestic herd into the sea below. In the movies: bad-ass llamas smoking cigars and painting their scales in jungle camouflage.
Because you’ve seen this story so many times, because you already know the nature and history of llamas, it sometimes shocks you, of course, to see a llama outside of these media spaces. The llamas you see don’t have scales. So you doubt what you see, and you joke with your friends about “those scaly llamas” and they laugh and say, “Yes, llamas sure are scaly!” and you forget your actual experience.
What you remember is the llama you saw who had mange, which sort of looked scaly, after a while, and that one llama who was sort of aggressive toward a baby llama, like maybe it was going to eat it. So you forget the llamas that don’t fit the narrative you saw in films, books, television – the ones you heard about in the stories – and you remember the ones that exhibited the behavior the stories talk about. Suddenly, all the llamas you remember fit the narrative you see and hear every day from those around you. You make jokes about it with your friends. You feel like you’ve won something. You’re not crazy. You think just like everyone else.
And then there came a day when you started writing about your own llamas. Unsurprisingly, you didn’t choose to write about the soft, downy, non-cannibalistic ones you actually met, because you knew no one would find those “realistic.” You plucked out the llamas from the stories. You created cannibal llamas with a death wish, their scales matted in paint.
It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.
It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.
Oh, and it’s not true.
I’m going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story you’ve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they eat their young if not raised properly; and how, at the end of their lives, they hurl themselves – lemming-like – over cliffs to drown in the surging sea. They are, at heart, sea creatures, birthed from the sea, married to it like the fishing people who make their livelihood there.
Every story you hear about llamas is the same. You see it in books: the poor doomed baby llama getting chomped up by its intemperate parent. On television: the massive tide of scaly llamas falling in a great, majestic herd into the sea below. In the movies: bad-ass llamas smoking cigars and painting their scales in jungle camouflage.
Because you’ve seen this story so many times, because you already know the nature and history of llamas, it sometimes shocks you, of course, to see a llama outside of these media spaces. The llamas you see don’t have scales. So you doubt what you see, and you joke with your friends about “those scaly llamas” and they laugh and say, “Yes, llamas sure are scaly!” and you forget your actual experience.
What you remember is the llama you saw who had mange, which sort of looked scaly, after a while, and that one llama who was sort of aggressive toward a baby llama, like maybe it was going to eat it. So you forget the llamas that don’t fit the narrative you saw in films, books, television – the ones you heard about in the stories – and you remember the ones that exhibited the behavior the stories talk about. Suddenly, all the llamas you remember fit the narrative you see and hear every day from those around you. You make jokes about it with your friends. You feel like you’ve won something. You’re not crazy. You think just like everyone else.
And then there came a day when you started writing about your own llamas. Unsurprisingly, you didn’t choose to write about the soft, downy, non-cannibalistic ones you actually met, because you knew no one would find those “realistic.” You plucked out the llamas from the stories. You created cannibal llamas with a death wish, their scales matted in paint.
It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.
It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.
Oh, and it’s not true.
Labels: equality, scifi/fantasy
13 October 2014
Scumbag
12 October 2014
Pirate Joe's
There are no Trader Joe's in Canada. But there is a Pirate Joe's:
"Pirate Joe’s isn’t technically engaging in piracy. The stock isn’t stolen (Hallatt pays retail to Trader Joe’s for all his stock), counterfeit (Hallatt’s products are advertised as Trader Joe’s products, and are in fact Trader Joe’s products), nor technically smuggled (Hallatt declares his haul at customs, and he doesn’t stock alcohol -- which is especially regulated). But Pirate Joe’s is dealing in a grey market, or the trade of a product outside of its official, authorized distribution channel. Authorized goods are white market, illegal goods are black market; grey market goods are somewhere in between."
"Pirate Joe’s isn’t technically engaging in piracy. The stock isn’t stolen (Hallatt pays retail to Trader Joe’s for all his stock), counterfeit (Hallatt’s products are advertised as Trader Joe’s products, and are in fact Trader Joe’s products), nor technically smuggled (Hallatt declares his haul at customs, and he doesn’t stock alcohol -- which is especially regulated). But Pirate Joe’s is dealing in a grey market, or the trade of a product outside of its official, authorized distribution channel. Authorized goods are white market, illegal goods are black market; grey market goods are somewhere in between."
Labels: random weirdness
11 October 2014
Security Question
From tumblr:
When a financial institution asks me my “mother’s maiden name” as a security question. Because it’s assumed that I have at least one and no more than one mother in my life AND that she married AND that she gave up her own name AND that that part of her identity was erased enough from my public history so as to be a password to access my private information.
When a financial institution asks me my “mother’s maiden name” as a security question. Because it’s assumed that I have at least one and no more than one mother in my life AND that she married AND that she gave up her own name AND that that part of her identity was erased enough from my public history so as to be a password to access my private information.
10 October 2014
Everyone Is Horrible
My favorite new show this fall season is the surprisingly entertaining How To Get Away With Murder. Here's an excerpt from Tom&Lorenzo's review of the third episode:
"Y’know, while it seems to be a more accurate title with each new episode, we still think How To Get Away With Murder is a terrible name for a show. This is a show about getting away with much more than murder. In fact, in some ways, this is a show that indulges our most basic desires for entertainment, going all the way back to the days of fire: Let’s all come together as a tribe and watch people commit sin. It still takes us by surprise that this is such a deliciously dark and cynical TV show. It really wasn’t what we were expecting going into it. To be perfectly blunt, we just thought it was going to be a weepy legal drama with a high-profile lead. Instead, it’s a show all about people doing very dumb or very bad things to each other. It’s a show that has the message etched into its very DNA that all people are capable of terrible things. So after last night’s episode, where pretty much every person who uttered a line managed to break a commandment, we propose the much more succinct (and even more accurate) title, Everyone Is Horrible. Because everyone is, right down to the wide-eyed naifs. But for a show with such a nihilistic point of view, Everyone is Horrible sure is a fun hour of television. Let’s face it: we’re all just a step up from when we were living in caves. It’s still crazy fun watching other people sin."
"Y’know, while it seems to be a more accurate title with each new episode, we still think How To Get Away With Murder is a terrible name for a show. This is a show about getting away with much more than murder. In fact, in some ways, this is a show that indulges our most basic desires for entertainment, going all the way back to the days of fire: Let’s all come together as a tribe and watch people commit sin. It still takes us by surprise that this is such a deliciously dark and cynical TV show. It really wasn’t what we were expecting going into it. To be perfectly blunt, we just thought it was going to be a weepy legal drama with a high-profile lead. Instead, it’s a show all about people doing very dumb or very bad things to each other. It’s a show that has the message etched into its very DNA that all people are capable of terrible things. So after last night’s episode, where pretty much every person who uttered a line managed to break a commandment, we propose the much more succinct (and even more accurate) title, Everyone Is Horrible. Because everyone is, right down to the wide-eyed naifs. But for a show with such a nihilistic point of view, Everyone is Horrible sure is a fun hour of television. Let’s face it: we’re all just a step up from when we were living in caves. It’s still crazy fun watching other people sin."
Labels: How To Get Away with Murder
09 October 2014
"This Is What Happens When You Replace Women In Everyday Situations With Men"
08 October 2014
John Oliver vs Roger Goodell
07 October 2014
Fake Punt FTW
From Fieldgulls, about last night's Seattle @ Washington game:
With the game 17-10 and the 'Skins gaining confidence, Seattle found another drive stalling out. Taking advantage of good field position, the 'Hawks pushed the ball into Washington territory before stalling out at the Redskins' 35. Staring at a 4th and 1 and leading by just one score, Pete Carroll sent out the field goal unit. That's when my favorite thing happened.
Instead of receiving the snap and placing it down for a Steven Hauschka field goal, as per the yoozh, holder-extraordinaire Jon muhfuggin' Ryan took a ran a got dang power sweep and bullied forward for a first down. He also pinned five punts inside the 20 (including tumbling one out of bounds at the 1) so we can just go ahead and elect him to public office whenever.
Inspired by the plucky orange one, the Seahawks regathered their strength and plunged themselves to the hilt into the beleaguered Redskins defense. They capped the drive with a swing pass to Marshawn Lynch who found himself eight yards from pay dirt and one man to beat. He shrugged off the hapless linebacker like so much dust on his FUBU jacket. It is startling how automatic it has become that Lynch won't be tackled one-on-one in the open field.
With the game 17-10 and the 'Skins gaining confidence, Seattle found another drive stalling out. Taking advantage of good field position, the 'Hawks pushed the ball into Washington territory before stalling out at the Redskins' 35. Staring at a 4th and 1 and leading by just one score, Pete Carroll sent out the field goal unit. That's when my favorite thing happened.
Instead of receiving the snap and placing it down for a Steven Hauschka field goal, as per the yoozh, holder-extraordinaire Jon muhfuggin' Ryan took a ran a got dang power sweep and bullied forward for a first down. He also pinned five punts inside the 20 (including tumbling one out of bounds at the 1) so we can just go ahead and elect him to public office whenever.
Inspired by the plucky orange one, the Seahawks regathered their strength and plunged themselves to the hilt into the beleaguered Redskins defense. They capped the drive with a swing pass to Marshawn Lynch who found himself eight yards from pay dirt and one man to beat. He shrugged off the hapless linebacker like so much dust on his FUBU jacket. It is startling how automatic it has become that Lynch won't be tackled one-on-one in the open field.
Labels: Seattle Seahawks
06 October 2014
Tips for Women
From the satiric twitter account WomanAgainstFeminism:
"I don’t need feimsns if women don’t want to be sexually assaulted they should be CAREFUL & stay SOBER & wear a PANTSUIT & never go OUTSIDE"
"I don’t need feimsns if women don’t want to be sexually assaulted they should be CAREFUL & stay SOBER & wear a PANTSUIT & never go OUTSIDE"
Labels: equality
05 October 2014
Corgi on a Carousel
04 October 2014
Olbermann's Worst
03 October 2014
First-World Basketball Problems
From Mechelle Voepel's chat:
kevin (macon ga): If Sue Bird was Australian she would already be guaranteed a spot on the 2020 roster. If Breanna Stewart came up in any other country the only debate would be whether anyone else should be allowed to touch the ball. Isn't debating whether Bird or Stewart or any of the other serious contenders should make the Team USA roster the very definition of a First World Problem?
Mechelle Voepel: *Every* debate about the US national team is a first-world problem. :) What I understand is that there may be a feeling that it didn't matter how well other guards played in training camp or how much better they may be now as WNBA players, nothing or no one was going to knock Bird out of her spot. And some may say that's justified because of all she's done for the national team, and that she's very reliable. I understand that point of view. But it's also understandable that it be questioned because there are a lot of good guards.
kevin (macon ga): If Sue Bird was Australian she would already be guaranteed a spot on the 2020 roster. If Breanna Stewart came up in any other country the only debate would be whether anyone else should be allowed to touch the ball. Isn't debating whether Bird or Stewart or any of the other serious contenders should make the Team USA roster the very definition of a First World Problem?
Mechelle Voepel: *Every* debate about the US national team is a first-world problem. :) What I understand is that there may be a feeling that it didn't matter how well other guards played in training camp or how much better they may be now as WNBA players, nothing or no one was going to knock Bird out of her spot. And some may say that's justified because of all she's done for the national team, and that she's very reliable. I understand that point of view. But it's also understandable that it be questioned because there are a lot of good guards.
Labels: Olympics, Seattle Storm, UConn basketball
02 October 2014
Data
01 October 2014
Listener Bias
From Stop Interrupting Me: Gender, Conversation Dominance, and Listener Bias by Jessica Kirkpatrick [h/t Tumblr]:
After reading about gender-bias and conversation dominance in the classroom, I asked for a peer to observe a physics class I was teaching and keep track of the discussion time I was giving to various students along with their race and gender. In this exercise, I knew I was being observed and I was trying to be extra careful to equally represent all students―but I STILL gave a disproportionate amount of discussion time to the white male students in my classroom (controlling for the overall distribution of genders and races in the class). I was shocked. It felt like I was giving a disproportionate amount of time to my white female and non-white students.
Even when I was explicitly trying, I still failed to have the discussion participants fairly represent the population of the students in my classroom.
This is a well-studied phenomena and it's called listener bias. We are socialized to think women talk more than they actually do. Listener bias results in most people thinking that women are 'hogging the floor' even when men are dominating.
After reading about gender-bias and conversation dominance in the classroom, I asked for a peer to observe a physics class I was teaching and keep track of the discussion time I was giving to various students along with their race and gender. In this exercise, I knew I was being observed and I was trying to be extra careful to equally represent all students―but I STILL gave a disproportionate amount of discussion time to the white male students in my classroom (controlling for the overall distribution of genders and races in the class). I was shocked. It felt like I was giving a disproportionate amount of time to my white female and non-white students.
Even when I was explicitly trying, I still failed to have the discussion participants fairly represent the population of the students in my classroom.
This is a well-studied phenomena and it's called listener bias. We are socialized to think women talk more than they actually do. Listener bias results in most people thinking that women are 'hogging the floor' even when men are dominating.
Labels: equality
