thirdrailpodium

[thirdrailpodium]

Ship Week and NC Amendment One

Yesterday was certainly a mixed bag. I learned what the faint not-quite-tinnitus noise has been for the past two days (the faint squeeing in the distance of the Castle fandom). Not to really out myself or anything, but it was a hell of a season finale. >_> Speaking of outing, NC voters are bastards. Okay, bigotry aside, the morons voting in favor of Amendment One must have failed to realize that 1) gay marriage was already illegal in NC, and 2) this amendment also threatens or destroys the rights of non-married couples, children, and many others. Did any of you morons actually do any research about this thing before you voted on it, or did you climb so far up the so-called "Family Research Council"'s butt that you couldn't see daylight? Asshats. I just moved back here and already I'm getting irritated every time I pass a state vehicle with its cheery little welcome tags. So, as someone I know pointed out, if this is about "protecting the sanctity of marriage", why don't we make divorce illegal? Oh, right, the FRC wants that, too. Or, as another friend suggested, how about we just stop getting married? Then there's no need to ever get a divorce. Or complain about the "sanctity" of marriage being violated. Or why don't we just keep your religious opinions out of the legal arena where they actually affect people, gay and otherwise? NC: Y U NO LET CASTLE FANS STAY HAPPY? To return to happier (well, it's complicated) news, Castle: And thus concludes a probably soon-to-be-typical two-topic bipolar teacup-rant (size; I'm more of a coffee person).

[thirdrailpodium]

Worst April Fools Ever

So apparently a really bad April Fools joke slipped by the majority of the country (and by the country I mean America) a few weeks ago. If you haven't heard what happened to Albert Florence and the resulting court case, I recommend looking it up. I just have to ask... what?! [Interrobang emphasized here.] A guy gets wrongfully arrested for a completely mundane crime (actually an error, especially since he had proof that he had paid the fine for which he was arrested), strip-searched twice, and then the Supreme Court rules that suspicionless strip searches are okay? And for a crime that minor? Naturally, there are a few creepy immediately obvious problems with this. I wonder if those 5 Supreme Court Justices are very familiar with the 4th Amendment... or for that matter, the reasoning behind Terry v. Ohio. It's more than a bit alarming that a man was wrongfully strip-searched (wrong on a few accounts), and all the Supreme Court has to say about it is basically "cool story, bro".... Oh, not to seem partisan, but if anyone's wondering, the 5 Justices who ruled in favor of the legality of this violation of personal space were appointed by Reagan and the two Bushes. The 4 who ruled against it were appointed by Clinton and Obama. To see some of the reasoning involved in the dissenting opinion (you know, like empirical evidence), see the above link.

[becauseofbee]

[ju-ju-bean-blog]

[capillaries-blog]

WHAT’S THIS? 

WHY, IT’S A MOTHERFUCKING INTERROBANG.

Not only does it have a sweet-ass name, but it’s a fucking amazing piece of punctuation.

Does your teacher bitch at you for using a “?” and a “!”? Well then, this is the thing for you!  YOU JUST PULL THIS BITCH OUT, AND WIPE THE GRIN OFF THAT  MOTHER-FUCKER’S FACE. Watch as their mind is blown that you’re using famous punctuation from the NINETEEN SIXTIES.

True. Fucking. Facts. This glorious character was invented by Martin K. Spekter in 1962. That’s right, even its creator had a bad-ass name.

BUT. ALAS. THIS MIND-BLOWING, ELEPHANT ORGASMING PUNCTUATION NEVER GOT TO BE  DECLARED  “OFFICIAL”. That’s why it doesn’t show up in all your fancy ass computer fonts.

SO YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY‽ I SAY WE BRING BACK THE INTERROBANG. USE IT WHEN YOU CAN. SPREAD THE WORD. RE-BLOG THIS SHIT. 

For a while I wanted an interrobang tattoo. I still kind of do. 

[thirdrailpodium]

I kind of like the so-called "irony mark", too. Problematically, since it was supposed to indicate sarcasm as well, I would probably never stop using it on social networking sites. . . especially considering the number of times I get into an argument with people who believe superstitious or pseudoscientific nonsense. Or who repost infamous chain mail.

[anderson-blog1]

Anderson meets Meow, the 37-lb cat (the equivalent of a 600-lb person), today on “Anderson.”

[argonkitten]

Oh god, I thought it was photoshopped- but this is so much better!!

[thirdrailpodium]

This is amazing. Although by amazing I mean I hate morbidly obese people, but somehow I find a pathetic way to excuse it for cats. Mostly. Meow should probably be renamed Tubby McTubbTubbs or something, though. That's... huge. Like, he probably would alter the tides if he moved coast-to-coast.

[vegan-atheist-deactivated201205]

there´s a bunch of people talking about their experiences, and usually they all say they saw ghosts, were floating in the surgery room watching their own body, and, of course, christian nuns or priests coming to them and telling them they are supposed to keep living.

now I´m convinced it´s...

[thirdrailpodium]

Well, as for the NDE explanations, you can take your pick. I've heard it suggested that it's random visual firing in the absence of other input or during overload because of extreme pain or panic, but most commonly it's just viewed as normal brain processing structures producing freaky phenomena in the face of unusual stimuli (i.e., impending death). Regardless, here's a pretty recent popular-science NDE article: http://news.discovery.com/human/-neuroscience-explains-near-death-110923.html Popular science isn't always the best, but it sure beats "I SAW THINGS THAT FIT MY PRECONCEIVED IDEAS ABOUT HOW THE WORLD WORKS, THEREFORE THEY ARE TRUE"... not that Buddhists have ever hallucinated about Amida Buddha or anything, no....

[thirdrailpodium]

When these babies start hurting, you know things are getting serious. These symptoms are probably indicators, too: In related news, I happily did well on my oral final exam. A bit stressful when 5 minutes determines a quarter of your grade.

[youtuberconfessions]

[thirdrailpodium]

This pretty well summarized my weekend, actually. It was especially bad because nearly the same thing happened to someone I know. Happily for her, she got a happy ending to her story. So anyway, it was a sudden and not-exactly-happy way to start the weekend. My girlfriend probably wasn't overjoyed to keep getting moderately depressing texts for half of the weekend. When they posted the video I relived the unsettling terror that I felt when I first heard that she had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. I kind of had to prop up my weekend by catching up on Castle and Fringe (no offense to them even slightly intended; they've taken it all like absolute troopers). Anyway, I hope Charles and Alli keep doing as well as they have been.

[itsokaytobesmart]

Ten Common Misconceptions Debunked

From whether you can see the Great Wall of China from space (and is it the only man-made object we can see up there?) to how much of your brain you really use.

Use this at your next party when you need to show your friends that they don’t know everything :)

(via CGPGrey)

[thirdrailpodium]

This. Also, an alarming number of people repeat the "10% of your brain is used" thing. An entire Hollywood film was made on it, if I heard correctly. It's probably not as bad as the people that guzzle 8 bottles of water a day in practical terms, though. Nice job using up all the plastic, guys.

[anticapitalist]

[icetsuki]

EVEN THE GUYS

[dat-asterisk-deactivated2019021]

birth control as in contraceptives. Condoms, birth control pills, etc.

[thirdrailpodium]

It's bullshit. If you look at the study, 98% have ever used birth control, which allows "that one time my boyfriend/husband and I used a condom before marriage". Moreover, since this is still self-report, it doesn't include those who may have had sex but not admitted to it, which may bias results in one direction or another. In fact, only 68% of Catholic women use "highly effective" methods, including IUDs, hormonal methods (pills or otherwise), and sterilization. Also, according to the methodological section, the contraception question excludes those who are trying to get pregnant (at least in the graphs), which is an important ideological consideration, given the religious demographic (and its praise for reproduction). Their actual methodological statement?

"Contraceptive use was restricted to women at risk for unintended pregnancy, whom we define as those who had had sex in the three months prior to the survey and were not pregnant, postpartum or trying to get pregnant." [Emphases added.]

Another graph (Figure 3) in the same study seems to indicate that Catholic women are still fairly likely to use birth control (interestingly, more likely to use condoms than Protestants), although they also had the highest percentage that reported no method at all of contraception (methods which include "natural family planning", which was the lowest methodological grouping. I suppose they figure that if they are going to attempt to have sex without pregnancy, you might as well go for the goal instead of half-assing it). Again, apparently these ratings all exclude people actually trying to get pregnant, or so the study says. So it's not necessarily a bad study, although I have a few concerns, but just citing "98%" is a pretty glaring mistake (and oversimplification). Or an attempt at fraudulent representation or obfuscation. I'm not necessarily making any accusations, though.

[ohioclaire-deactivated20121103]

Ahh, January.

Progress with my New Year’s resolutions:

I don’t sleep when I should.

All I do is eat.

I missed my first class of the quarter because I overslept. Just now I dropped the class out of pure humiliation.

I’m still blind. 

Oh yeah, I’m on top of this. 

[thirdrailpodium]

And this is why I don't pretend to have New Year's Resolutions. Plus, that's pretty much how my year started. I'll add that chronic procrastination is still a problem (hey, guess what I'm doing now!), and Mimosa doesn't taste great the second time. Not that it's stellar the first time, really. Also, someone courteously bought me a 4-pack and a 12-pack of sugarfree Red Bull. Not to inspect a gift horse in the mouth (the Red Bull part, not the gloriously sugarfree part), I proceeded to dispense with any pretense of holding off my caffeine intake for a while. Still. Last January was a refreshing change.

[itsokaytobesmart]

The Red Flags of Quackery v2.0

Don’t make me raise the flag on you.

(via sci-ence.org)

[thirdrailpodium]

This. Just this. I wish I was paid (even in spare change) every time I got into an argument with someone over things that could fall onto this handy template. Maybe I should get this on a shirt.

[atheist-me-blog]

-@DesKellyDM

[thirdrailpodium]

Classy, classy. Funny how full of rage a lot of them get, too.

[iwouldexistwithoutyou]

One of the most intelligent people I’ve ever heard, I am sad I never got to meet him, a true inspiration.  R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens.

#godisnotgreat

[thirdrailpodium]

Indeed. R.I.P., Chris Hitchens. You will be sorely missed.

[fuckyeahmedicaldiagrams]

[thirdrailpodium]

Oh, this diagram.... How nice to see it again.

[handfu1ofdust-deactivated201201]

Summary of Evidence:

- Give exam in stadium-sized gym

- There are three other exams taking place simultaneously in said gym

- Everyone knows what’s going on

- Except the psychology students

- At least 50 of whom tried to hand their exam into me

...

Conclusion Reached:

The people who will be helping the mentally deficient in the future are, themselves, mentally deficient.

[thirdrailpodium]

And this is why we denigrate clinical psychology majors, for those that ask. They generally seem to be the starry-eyed group that don't stop to sort jack from shit before they act. Also, some of them grow up to invent things like rebirth therapy and past-life regression, which just goes to show that they don't grow out of it.

[staceythinx]

Protrude, Flow is an amazing interactive installation piece by Sachiko Kodama and his collaborator: Minako Takeno.

Kodama on his work:

The fluid moves in synchronization with sound, controlled by a computer, so that it is able to transform into organic wild shapes and movements.

Using magnetic fluid, sound and moving images, the transformation of three-dimensional patterns is affected by the sounds of the spectators` voice in the exhibition space. Simultaneously its flowing movement and dynamic transformations are documented and projected onto a wide screen.

[thirdrailpodium]

For anyone who doesn't understand this (and the other awesome things I omitted), the fluid is basically magnetic. For the simplest way to understand this, imagine water (or for that matter, vegetable oil) with extremely tiny particles of iron completely saturating it. The resulting solution/fluid is put onto electromagnets with varying strength, which is what causes them to move. The "spikes" are actually the efforts of the fluid to follow the magnetic lines of flux. To see these yourself, take iron filings and drop them onto a magnet. The resulting pattern are the lines of flux. By the way, this exact phenomenon is what causes the north and south poles to be open to solar radiation, but not anywhere else (resulting in the Aurora Borealis). In case that wasn't clear, the earth has a magnetic field, too. I forget exactly what causes it, but I think it's the spin of the iron core in relation to the liquid outer core. The outer core is conductive, and a combination of the spin of the earth and convection really complicate things, so let's just say it's the spin of the earth, and all the iron and conductivity makes the inside of the earth a very handy electromagnet. Anyway, the fat "spikes" are where the lines of flux are actually less dense, and the thin ones are where the lines are denser. And there you have it. Creepily awesome fluids turned into moving art.