I CAN HAS VETO?
LOL President is a political version of I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?
My knitting blog is now located at the Needle Exchange!
Du’a Khalil Aswad
“In a short mobile video clip which appears to have been taken by locals at [the scene] of the murder, the girl is seen being ambushed on her way home by a group of up to 1000 men who were waiting for her to return; the men killed her in the most brutal way possible, by throwing large stones on her head. The following clips show that while she is alive and crying for help she is taunted and kicked in her stomach until someone finishes her off by throwing a large stone on her face. From the clips it appears that the girl was first stripped naked to symbolize that she had dishonored her family and her Yezidi religion. She is lying on the road naked while her smashed face is covered with blood and still breathing.”
– According to the Assyrian National News Agency, as quoted on Salon’s Broadsheet.
This is particularly horrifying. I can barely wrap my mind around it. There are a few links at the Broadsheet post where you can show your support for organizations preventing violence against women; if you feel as I do, consider throwing some money their way. And if you’re still not convinced, head over to Whedonesque for a particularly eloquent comment by Joss Whedon (father of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Pinker, Thinker
Steven Pinker on how learning about the brain changes the way he lives:
There isn’t any aspect of my daily life that isn’t affected by my interest in the mind. When I have to write down a number, I make it a point to say it to myself, to use the brain’s echo chamber as an auxiliary memory. If while playing with my 2-year-old nephew I say, “I’ll borrow your brother’s dinosaur,” and he replies, “And I’ll borrow my dinosaur,” it makes me ponder the semantics of the verb borrow—and which parts he has not yet learned. When I see a pretty face, I reflect on whether I am reacting to its signs of youth, health, femaleness, or a population composite (and whether the composite is increasingly multiracial). When I listen to music, I attend to the note-by-note transitions and how they help me segregate the instruments. And when I find myself taking umbrage at a critical remark, I try to distinguish actual unfairness from my own self-deception and self-serving biases. I can’t say that this awareness makes me a wiser or better person, but it does add to the richness of everyday experience.
Link Surge: Science! (and some math and education)
- Implicit Racial Bias in NBA Referees at Mixing Memory.
- Instructables: modular pie-cosahedron
- Big Dinos Heard Deep, Low Tones
- Reworking Working Memory
- Robots Taking on More Human Traits
- The Amazing Test Results! (Ohio school pulls wool over standardized test’s eyes)
House Hacks
The flushing sound came from… Behind the Bookcase!
Hey guys, remember when ThinkGeek was cool?
They still are (marginally). Check out this shirt explaining Japanese for Beginners.
Keyboard Waffle Iron
This waffle iron is made from an old typewriter keyboard. Hopefully they cleaned out the keys.
My favourite novelty waffle iron is of course that for FC Bayern München (my favourite soccer/football team), but there are waffle irons for every interest/fetish. More novelty waffle irons make the shapes of penguins, Hello Kitty, and Cinderella.
Bonus link: How to preslice a banana without peeling it.