Seahorses, I Love 'Em (& other Links of Interest)

[Neek]

It's been done in Dwarf Fortress to better effect (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=49641.0)

[vampireshark]

An unbiased comparison of five classic metal singers by a classically-trained voice teacher. I think it's pretty interesting what she has to say.

[LinguistCat]

An unbiased comparison of five classic metal singers by a classically-trained voice teacher. I think it's pretty interesting what she has to say.

Haha, nice....

[Delthayre]

This cellular telephone costs $300,000*.

I can barely stand the idea of paying more than $50 for a cellular telephone, much less six thousand times that.

*€215,470.80; £188,655.60

[Pthagnar]

This cellularl telephone costs $300,000*.

I can barely stand the idea of paying more than $50 for a cellular telephone, much less six thousand times that.

*€215,470.80; £188,655.60

well for some reason they built a nested set of horological dials powered by springed toothed gears into the cellular telephone apparatus so you are getting that too

[Viktor77]

This cellular telephone costs $300,000*.

I can barely stand the idea of paying more than $50 for a cellular telephone, much less six thousand times that.

*€215,470.80; £188,655.60

"a 3.2 megapixel auto-zoom with flash camera, a 2.2 inch OLED and a battery life of 3.5 hours talk time."

WTF is that!? If I were to spend 300K on a phone I'd expect easily a 12 megapixel camera, a battery life of several days, the ability to play games, watch movies, use apps, and surf the internet flawlessly, and hologram technology would be a nice start.

[Pthagnar]

WTF is that!? If I were to spend 300K on a phone I'd expect easily a 12 megapixel camera, a battery life of several days, the ability to play games, watch movies, use apps, and surf the internet flawlessly, and hologram technology would be a nice start.

and this is why you are much more small time than you believe yourself to be

[Rui]

WTF is that!? If I were to spend 300K on a phone I'd expect easily a 12 megapixel camera, a battery life of several days, the ability to play games, watch movies, use apps, and surf the internet flawlessly, and hologram technology would be a nice start.

And maybe a currency converter.

[Rui]

I randomly stumbled upon this website tonight, and I think it's absolutely fascinating, and eye-opening to exactly how wealthy the "wealthy" are in America.*

http://higley1000.com/

*An interesting point the creator of the site makes is that he takes his data from the US Census, which apparently doesn't allow you to say that you have an income of over $2 million (to avoid people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet from COMPLETELY skewing data), so these are actually low estimates of the incomes of these areas.

*edit* It was also eye-opening seeing all the different areas of the US that I had no idea were that wealthy. I had always heard from others that "OMG Connecticut is soooooo rich," but really, places all over the country are right up there with Greenwich, Darien, and New Canaan (the quintessential rich towns in CT)

[Viktor77]

GAP rebranded themselves.

Now all I can think of when I see their logo is: "Welcome to Gap Fidelity: Your number one brokerage firm for the buying and selling of mutual funds." I'm going to have to go into one of their stores and ask them when I can speak with a broker.

[jal]

GAP rebranded themselves.

Never heard of it. Wat is't?


JAL

[Viktor77]

GAP rebranded themselves.

Never heard of it. Wat is't?


JAL

A clothing store, really popular here. It's similar to H&M, so imagine if H&M made a logo like that what havoc would break out.

Engrish, the beauty that comes from English being an en vogue global language.

[HandsomeRob]

GAP rebranded themselves.

Now all I can think of when I see their logo is: "Welcome to Gap Fidelity: Your number one brokerage firm for the buying and selling of mutual funds." I'm going to have to go into one of their stores and ask them when I can speak with a broker.

Uk, yeah. The old logo was a classic.

And you're right on about the new design.

[dhok]

Ask the Hoff.

[rickardspaghetti]

Dolph Lundgren vs. a unicorn.

[catberry]

I find this much more funny than I should.

[Travis B.]

I find this much more funny than I should.

Those eyes are... really bizarre...

[catberry]

I had no idea what they were until I read the comments.

They're supposed to be cats.......

[Rui]

CaptchaArt

[Nortaneous]

I find this much more funny than I should.

Reminds me of this for some reason.

[Delthayre]

A paper entitled Simulating the Effects of the Alternative Vote in the 2010 UK General Election postulates that had the 2010 United Kingdom general election been contested under the alternative vote, the results would have been significantly different than they were under the present plurality system. To wit, the study claims that the Conservatives would have won 283 seats (-21), the Labour Party 243 seats (-15) and the Liberal Democrats 89 seats (+32). The study projects no difference for the minor parties. I haven't read it closely enough to really assess it and I lack the expertise needed, so the paper should be considered suspiciously, but I found it interesting to merit being shared.

I doubt that it offers much insight into what a future general election by the alternative vote, in the unlikely case that it is adopted, would yield. The present government's plan to, rather hamfistedly, equalize parliamentary constituency sizes and, rather assininely, reduce the size of the House of Commons to 600 members would probably be enough to materially alter the analysis. What I suspect would be even more consequential is the effects upon partisan attitudes of the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition. I don't really know enough about British politics to assess this, but the coalition seems to have been politically destructive to the Liberal Democrats, who are both obscured in the Conservative shadow and weakened by the disaffection of those who voted for them, then felt betrayed by their entering the coalition. That could change by 2015, but that presumes that the coalition will endure that long, which it, for all that I know, might do.

[dhok]

Why I love Craigslist.

[Nortaneous]

Cool, psychology has an Octaviano also. This guy claims that no civilians were killed when we nuked Japan, people's religious preferences are encoded in their genome, poor people can improve their chances of reproduction by committing murder, and there's no such thing as gender socialization.

[jal]

Cool, psychology has an Octaviano also.[/url]

I don't think it's fair to compare Octaviano to this person, but it was a funny read.

This guy claims that no civilians were killed when we nuked Japan

He redefines "war", then redefines "combatant", then redefines "civilians". He's not a kind of holocaust denier, he just redefines common terms for his own convenience, and explains here why the entire Japanese populous were combatants (and it was an act of mercy dropping the atomic bombs): the entire Japanese populous was armed with bamboo sticks and prepared to fight till death (and were therefore combatants, no civilians), they would've been slaughtered by the US army at an invasion, and the mere 20,000 casulaties of the atomic bomb drops were small compared to the casulaties that would've been the result of slaughtering bamboo stick armed women and children.

people's religious preferences are encoded in their genome

No, he doesn't claim that. He claims that "Muslim" (and "Catholic") are, just like "Jew", ethnic labels instead of religious labels, and hence, since Obama was conceived by an ethnic muslim father, he is half muslim (just like he'd be half Jewish when his mother would've been Jewish). Again a redefinition of terms, but not as rediculous as claiming genes encode for religion.

poor people can improve their chances of reproduction by committing murder

I think what he claims is that violent behaviour results from having no prospects in life, and that people who are facing such lack of prospects commit crimes without being deterred by punishment (even the death penalty), as when committing the crime (murder, rape) they have a greater chance of succeeding (there's a chance you're not caught) then when doing nothing (total failure for sure). He has some kind of a point there, somewhere. Funny detail: "Men usually do not consciously decide to commit murder" - afaik, the definition of murder includes consious decision.

there's no such thing as gender socialization.

What he says is that the "fact" (he presents no data) that women are more religious than men is not caused by gender socialization, and makes the aside that "As a general rule, “gender socialization” is never the true cause of observed sex differences". I think that is not a very controversial statement to make. As for the explanation as to why women are more religious, it comes down to risk management: woman take less risks than men, and being religious is betting on the safe side.

So all in all, although the guy makes questionable statements and does not provide any evidence to back them up, he seems rather coherent and not a true nutcase. Just my opinion though.


JAL

[Viktor77]

GAP researches what it means to be branded with a logo and good design; they revert back to their old classic logo.