In "Death From Above."

Every time I tried to watch it I was hit by a toxic satellite. Thus, brains. BRAINS.

I'm not worried. However, I am already possessed of a prodigious hunger for brains. They are the only things that numb the pain of being dead. Also, delicious with brandy butter.

In "GiveWell Spammer VS Metafilter"

I can't help but feel that if this does lead to the CEO of this company resigning or being fired there really will be no stopping. Next week, a MeFi march on the White House, fueled by the suspicion that some of those guys posting about how great Ron Paul is are not really interested in the discussion of Optimus Prime's best transformation to which they have contributed. What I'd like to know is whether this wight - Holden Karnovsky, or something to that quite wonderful effect - thought of turning up at blogs and asking if anyone knew a really good website for analysing the quality of charities, before slipping on a false beard and recommending this terrific site called Brand X and dissing the market leader, as his job>. Was the time spent posting to Lifehacker counting in his head as part of the hours he put into being a Chief Executive? Because if it's really that easy, I'm going to launch a coup.

Well, this was a MeFi perfect storm. Somebody got caught in a relatively minor infraction, but then, rather than disappearing, came back with a series of scatty apologies, offers of money, attempts to make amends (this man gave up a $200,000 career, and can barely string a coherent series of thoughts together. I despair). _Then_ he confessed to other wrongdoings. _Then_ yet more wrongdoing was uncovered, unconfessed. _Then_ members of his board and friends of his started to join MetaFilter just to tell them what a great guy he was. _Then_ those affected started to blog about it, giving MeFi even more links. _Then_ other Internet sites started reporting on it. All of this combined with the fact that the New York Times had reported on the chap in the first place, so a sufficiently proficient scalping might get into the proper press. It's actually quite an entertaining read.

In "Nanosolar "

Probably a silly question, but could this be used to make clothes for example? Or is the material not that thin and flexible? Mothninja reads my mind (it's a quick read). I've been tempted by PV-inlaid laptop bags before, but the fragility of the cells, the weight, the rigidity and the relatively poor power output argued strongly against. Whereas if you could cover a bag, or a jacket, with this stuff, and use the greater coverage to offset the lower energy return, you could trickle-charge a phone or an iPod... With the aid of Hammer pants, a man might power Birmingham.

In "GiveWell Spammer VS Metafilter"

Remarkably, in at least a partial victory for the forces of justice. Various non-profit blogs and news agencies start picking up the story. There is currently a cliffhanger where the board of GiveWell has called an emergency meeting, and one of the board has, unusually, posted to her own blog asking what she should do. "Already have a better idea of what to do than the people reading your blog, since you are a Company Director" has yet to be mooted.

In "Curious George: running down the clock."

Why were the stockings hung with care, anyway? It's not like they're going to shatter. Are they exploding stockings? Glass exploding stockings? Ah, well. Happy Festivus, everyone!

In "FEMA Fakes it"

Walton Simons is really going to have his work cut out kicking this shower into shape...

In "Tarred and Feathered."

I'm not so sure that turning things over to politicians, judges, tax collecting and pen pushing police forces is always the best thing--look at how bogged down the criminal justice system is here, but mob rule by the violent majority seems to be the escalation we face when the community takes the law into private hands. Well, logically, if one can trust neither the pencil-necked pen-pushers at City Hall, nor the heartless, mindless anger of the mob, the only logical solution seems to be for one man, perhaps the last honest man in the city, to take a stand against the scum on the streets. Obviously, that man needs not to be working in the public sector, and of a basically solitary mien, but it is feasible. I have talked to experts about this. It is feasible.

In "England welcomes first female Beefeater"

That's just the way they roll. Sorry.

In "Fascist America, in 10 easy steps."

But an important thing to keep in mind is that the US is fighting a group of people who do not fly a flag and do not wear uniforms Be fair - some Democrats have flags. Some of them even wear uniforms. In related news, meanwhile, Dennis Kucinich moves to impeach Cheney. I particularly like his reason for impeaching Cheney rather than Bush - that if he successfully impeached Bush, Cheney would become president, and then he would have to impeach Cheney anyway. Bless.

In "Curious George - Best iTunes Companion Programs?"

Oh dear. Sorry. Running out of the office.

That's a shame - I was looking for something that would offer exactly that Victoria Line muffling functionality... Floola, which I am thinking of putting on my spare iPod, is an application that sits on your iPod in disk mode, and allows you to play the music on Pod on non-syncing computers when it is plugged in. Alternatively, you could just stuff the whole thing and install posted by Monkey Haus 17 years ago

In "Curious George goes down the pub"

Sorry! Accidentally put in in my donkey porn folder. I'll publicise it now. The shout-outs. Not the donkey - actually, that might work too...

Here's a photo of the shoutout wall, but it is rather big, to get all the detail in... click for full size... DSC00508

In "Tom, may I borrow your Holy Book? No, the other one ..."

Well, there's no obligation to hold anything in your left hand, is there? Separation of church and state and all that. The oath is no more compelling if you've got a bible in your left hand, or a cheese sandwich, or the preserved pizzle of a Camargue horse... Try juggling that lot one-handed, though.

In " 'Drunken' bishop faces battle to save his job"

There's a pun here, but I can't quite put my Bishop's Finger on it... He does lose about ten style points for not saying "I'm the Bishop of Goddamn Southwark", however. Upon first hearing this one it seemed oddly reminiscent of the misfortunes that befell Kevin Spacey and that Welsh Assembly fella, so thank Heaven this appears just to be a case of a drunken Bishop getting into a scrap with Tim Westwood. I just hope the Bish got a couple of really good punches in.

In "New York City has plans to allow people to choose their gender."

I don't see how this affects recipients of gender reassignment more than people who have stuck with their original gender. Gender is not "non" until realigned.

In "Girls read comics (and they're pissed)."

(To wit: most guys I know don't like Blue Monday or Hopeless Savages, but they do like Scott Pilgrim - I like all three, and Scott is not materially different.) For what it's worth, I like Blue Monday _and_ Hopeless savages, and also Scott Pilgrim - I've never thought of Hopeless Savages, in particular, as a particularly girl-friendly comic, but now that I think about it... hmmm. There _are_ fights, and music trainspotting, but the focus is on the relationships - it's sort of an American version of shojo manga, in a way, isn't it? Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. I'm sympathetic to the idea, personally, that mainstream superhero comics have such stylised and formal image styles that men and women will have absurd, grotesque and improbably body types - although Mike Allred and Darwyn Cooke, as examples, have done Marvel/DC work that doesn't follow the breast-is-best paradigm. However, that doesn't really excuse the narrative tics - for example, that if you want to show that your villain is extra-villainous, you get him to rape and/or kill the hero's girlfriend in a suitably unpleasant manner. We're back to Gail Simone on this one, with women in refrigerators - a list which seems to suggest that sexual violence, breast cancer and fertility issues (love the entry on Scarlet Witch) are rather common in the narrative treatment of women. Also, don't date Daredevil.

In "New York City has plans to allow people to choose their gender."

Oh, forgot to mention. For public health studies, people who have changed their gender would be counted according to their sex at birth. From the linked article. Now this is interesting, because it suggested that one can alter the gender on someone's birth certificate without altering the scientific data available. Which means that they already are basically running Plegmund's principle of having a birth (or provisional) sex, and a current (or official) sex, which starts off the same as your birth (or provisional) sex, and continues to be so until you ask specifically to change it - it's just that your current sex is the only thing that actually appears physically on your birth certificate. Arguably, this does not go far enough, as it means that one could theoretically probably identify somebody's birth gender as other than their current gender by cross-referencing this data, but I'd see that as a case of ability massively outstripping tactical sense, as the same information could be found far more easily through human intelligence, as a rule. As such, this seems an acceptable compromise, and I'd be interested to know if it resolved the practical objections raised by Bernockle, above.

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