Global Motherf*ckers
A mythical beast known as the “grass-mud horse” has become an Internet phenomenon in China. The New York Times reported Thursday that the alpacalike creature’s Mandarin name just happens to be a very, very dirty pun. Times style rules prevent the paper from clarifying the joke, but other, less-dignified outlets explain that the phrase Cao ni ma is a homonym for “fuck your mother” in Chinese. Is some variant of motherfucker used all over the world?
Pretty much. While it’s not quite a universal insult, variations on the command to commit incest with one’s mother appear in every region of the globe. Anthropologists note that, across cultures, the most severe insults tend to involve a few basic themes: your opponent’s family, your opponent’s religion, sex, and scatology. Because motherfucker covers two of these topics—plus incest, a nearly global taboo—it’s a popular choice just about everywhere. In Mandarin Chinese alone, riffs on the basic phrase include Cao ni ma ge bi, meaning “fuck your mother’s cunt,” and Cao ni da ye, “fuck your elder uncle.” Given the Chinese culture of ancestor worship, Cao ni zu shong shi ba dai, or “fuck your ancestors of 18 generations,” may be the worst incest instruction of all.
The decline and fall of books
Like so many prototypes of supposedly revolutionary inventions, the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) fails to impress. Sited in a branch of Blackwell’s in Charing Cross Road, London, the machine resembles an oversized photocopier with extra bits. Can this be part of, as a Blackwell’s executive has claimed, “the biggest change since Gutenberg”?
It is an attractive idea. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to go into a shop knowing that if the book you wanted was not in stock, you could get it printed specially for you? Or that you could browse the catalogue and get copies of whatever you fancy in minutes. Blackwell’s claims that the EBM offers 400,000 titles, which are digitised texts from libraries and other sources. On receiving an order, the machine takes about 20 minutes to set up the file and then prints a perfectly acceptable paperback book in five minutes. A 400-page book costs about £9. Those produced from digital files look good; those produced from books that have gone through a scanner look a bit rough.
British tourist stung 500 times as bees invade French art gallery
British tourist stung 500 times as bees invade French art gallery
The attack took place next to the converted pigeon loft of the Ardennes Chateau in Moulidars, near Cognac, in the western Charente region.
In what witnesses described as a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock horror film, thousands of the potentially lethal bees descended on a dozen victims.
The worst injured was an English woman in her 20s who sustained at least 500 stings all over her body.
She was in such a state of panic that she had to be sedated as emergency workers tried to remove the bees from her face and hair.
No benefits for laid-off religious workers
Washing kids’ hands can keep everyone healthy
Some people are going to fairly great lengths to avoid infection with H1N1 influenza. But a review of scientific evidence published Tuesday shows the best way to curb respiratory illnesses is to keep little hands clean. Very little hands. And very clean.
Scientists at the Cochrane Library, which reviews research results, looked at 51 studies of ways to contain respiratory virus epidemics. Frequent hand washing; using gloves, gowns and masks with filtration; and isolating sick people were all found to be effective. But children’s hygiene had the biggest effect.
One large study involved 4,332 children in Pakistan. Those who washed their hands several times a day with soap had 50% fewer episodes of respiratory illness than children with standard hygiene practices. Another study found those who used alcohol hand gels plus hand washing had a 43% lower absenteeism rate.
How We’ll Be Forced To Drive the Most Fuel Efficient Cars
How We’ll Be Forced To Drive the Most Fuel Efficient Cars
With the recent developments in the auto industry and Federal government, it is clear the current administration would like to see Detroit automakers pursue building more fuel efficient vehicles. In fact, they are mandated to do so by Congress, and it is going to happen sooner, rather than later. CAFE standards are set to increase to 35mpg by 2020. In addition, the 35mpg fuel economy standard will apply not only to cars, but to light trucks as well. Light trucks are currently exempt from the car standard, having to meet a lower fuel economy number. Cars must actually meet a CAFE standard of 37.5mpg by 2015, only 5 model years hence. That is a rather large jump that Detroit is mandated to meet in the coming half decade. The problem for automakers is that many Americans either don’t want to or can’t drive small, fuel efficient vehicles, unless they have no other choice.
Since the Federal government is now in an unprecedented position to control the kind of vehicles rolling off the assembly lines, and they have made it abundantly clear that they feel the future is in smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles, that means one thing. You are going to see smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles being produced buy U.S. automakers in the near future, and larger, more powerful, and safer vehicles (that Americans would really rather be driving) will gradually be phased out or dramatically reduced in availability.
No benefits for laid-off religious workers
No benefits for laid-off religious workers
Some people recently laid-off from religious institutions in Virginia said they were shocked to find the state does not offer them unemployment benefits.
Carol Bronson, who was laid off from her secretarial job at Temple Emanuel synagogue in Virginia Beach, said she was told her unemployment claim was denied because the tax exemptions for religious organizations under Virginia law include an exemption from paying unemployment taxes, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday.
“I had no idea that there would not be any benefits for me after leaving my job,” she said.
A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges
A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges
Everybody knows what a cloverleaf looks like — but could you identify a volleyball, a double trumpet, or a “spooey” if you drove on one in the course of your highway travels? These are among the distinctive designs that transportation engineers have conjured up to keep traffic flowing and motorists headed in the right direction when major roads intersect.
For your driverly edification, we’ve compiled photo examples of more than 2o different kinds of strange and delightful highway interchanges found both here in the US and abroad. In fact, right now stimulus dollars are being spent t0 build or upgrade many interchanges into one of these forms.
Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World
Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World
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Souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens, intelligent designers, government conspirators, and all manner of invisible agents with power and intention are believed to haunt our world and control our lives. Why?
The answer has two parts, starting with the concept of “patternicity,” which I defined in my December 2008 column as the human tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise. Consider the face on Mars, the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, satanic messages in rock music. Of course, some patterns are real. Finding predictive patterns
in changing weather, fruiting trees, migrating prey animals and hungry predators was central to the survival of Paleolithic hominids.The problem is that we did not evolve a baloney-detection device in our brains to discriminate between true and false patterns. So we make two types of errors: a type I error, or false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it is not; a type II error, or false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is. If you believe that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind (a type I error), you are more likely to survive than if you believe that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (a type II error). Because the cost of making a type I error is less than the cost of making a type II error and because there is no time for careful deliberation between patternicities in the split-second world of predator-prey interactions, natural selection would have favored those animals most likely to assume that all patterns are real.
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
Cold Water Ocean Circulation Doesn’t Work As Expected
The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a discrete “conveyor belt” of deep, cold water flowing southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet.
New research led by Duke University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution relied on an armada of sophisticated floats to show that much of this water, originating in the sea between Newfoundland and Greenland, is diverted generally eastward by the time it flows as far south as Massachusetts. From there it disburses to the depths in complex ways that are difficult to follow.
A 50-year-old model of ocean currents had shown this southbound subsurface flow of cold water forming a continuous loop with the familiar northbound flow of warm water on the surface, called the Gulf Stream
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California.
The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills.
The paper is being published in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.
“Farwell developed and mapped out our plan for collecting sediment samples from the ocean floor,” said WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy, referring to lead author Chris Farwell, at the time an undergraduate working with UCSB’s Dave Valentine. “After conducting the analysis of the samples, we were able to make some spectacular findings.”