Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – Eating Seeds

by | May 3, 2023 | Daily Links | 229 comments

Scientific American, why do you have to be like this?

Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary

The animal kingdom does not limit itself to only one biological binary regarding how a species makes gametes. Scientifically speaking, animals with the capacity to produce ova are generally called “female” and sperm producers “male.” While most animal species fall into the “two types of gametes produced by two versions of the reproductive tract” model, many don’t. Some worms produce both. Some fish start producing one kind and then switch to the other, and some switch back and forth throughout their lives. There are even lizards that have done away with one type all together. Among our fellow mammals, which are less freewheeling because of the twin constraints of lactation and live birth, there are varied connections between gametes and body fat, body size, muscles, metabolism, brain function and much more.

One might reasonably contend that an anthropologist should know that human beings are not worms, fish, or lizards.

We know that humans exhibit a range of biological and behavioral patterns related to sex biology that overlap and diverge. Producing ova or sperm does not tell us everything (or even most things) biologically or socially, about an individual’s childcare capacity, homemaking tendencies, sexual attractions, interest in literature, engineering and math capabilities or tendencies towards gossip, violence, compassion, sense of identity, or love of, and competence for, sports. Gametes and gamete production physiology, by themselves, are only a part of the entirety of human lives. Plentiful data and analyses support the assertions that sex is very complex in humans and that binary and simplistic explanations for human sex biology are either wholly incorrect or substantially incomplete.

Switching the argument to sexual determinism of behavior and the commonly-observed cultural traits of the binary sexes is dishonest in the extreme.

What a sad joke of an article.


 

The Schist Disk: Egypt and “Advanced” Technology

Since discovered in 1936 in the Egyptian village of Saqqara, the so-called “Schist Disk” has been used to support the widely-held contention that the ancient Egyptian culture acquired technology far superior to their own at some point in their development from an outside source.

And while this disk may not be definitive proof of that contention, considering all that is known about the Egyptian culture after nearly two centuries of concerted study, the Egyptians of 3000 BCE did not have the capabilities to create such a sophisticated piece of technology. Yet, they did.

Uncovered by renowned British Egyptologist Brian Walter Emery while excavating the tomb of Prince Sabu, son of Adjuib Pharaoh, governor of the First Dynasty (circa 3000 BCE), the Schist Disk was found among some common funerary objects (including stone vessels, flint knives, arrows, and a few copper tools) Emery initially cataloged as “a container in the form of a schist bowl.”

The term schist, derived from the Greek word σχ?ζειν meaning “to split” (referring to the relative ease with which this material can be split along the lateral plane), is a category of medium-grade metamorphic rock rich in what are termed “lamellar” minerals, which include mica, chlorite, talc, hornblende, and graphite.

Derived from clay and mud, which have undergone a series of extreme physical-chemical (transitioning from shale to slate to phyllite), most schists are made of mica, but graphite and chlorite are also quite common.

And while the existence of ancient objects made of this hard but brittle material is far from rare, the design and craftsmanship of this disk, in particular, is astounding—if not more than a little eerie.

Not only did it require extraordinary practice and patience to create, but other similarly-crafted pieces also have never been found.


 

I spent $160K on leg-lengthening surgery — it changed my sex life

Surgery has heightened this woman’s modeling career — and sex life.

Theresia Fischer, who starred on Germany’s “Celebrity Big Brother,” has undergone two surgeries to lengthen her legs.

She now stands 6 feet tall when barefoot.

The 31-year-old underwent two operations to insert adjustable telescopic rods into her tibiae (shinbones), adding an extra 5.5 inches to her height.

The total surgery cost was $124,000, but medications and physical therapy bumped her total bill up to $161,000 — all of which she paid with the modeling checks she hopes will increase after these procedures.

The increasingly popular operation reportedly costs $70,000 to $150,000, depending on how many inches the patient wants to “grow,” as well as thousands of dollars more in follow-up costs, GQ reported.

The leg-lengthening process requires a painful procedure in which a doctor breaks the femur in each of a patient’s legs and inserts extendable metal nails.

The nails are gradually extended over the next three months by one millimeter a day — eventually making the recovered patient several inches taller.


 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

229 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    That magazine when down the toilet like my last shit.

    • invisible finger

      Not like your schist?

      • Count Potato

        Sorry, I don’t speak German.

  2. Count Potato

    “Egyptians of 3000 BCE did not have the capabilities to create such a sophisticated piece of technology. Yet, they did.”

    I’m not saying it was aliens.

    • UnCivilServant

      The Egyptians used illegal alien laborers?

    • Timeloose

      I have a conversation about ancient aliens with my dad nearly every time we see each other. To him an many others, when some sort of well crafted object or structure is found, it’s aliens. We have a natural material that was well crafted in the case of the schist bowl. The material itself is soft and relatively easy to shape compared to say granite or quartz. Isn’t it conceivable that people were relatively smart and skillful with the materials readily available to them, especially in one of the most wealthy civilizations of the ancient world.

      The other exceptions are marvelous materials that we can’t replicate today due to “lost knowledge from aliens”. Typically this amazing lost knowledge was in really lost sources of naturally found materials that just happened to have the right composition and properties. You don’t have any record of the shitty Roman Concrete that was made from other recipes and material sources, as it was bad enough that it was never used again after it degraded.

      The, “it’s aliens” people have no respect for human intellect.

      • UnCivilServant

        One things humans have shown over and over again is that we’re also very good at moving very large rocks with simple tools.

      • juris imprudent

        Nature itself can move some pretty good size rocks.

      • The Other Kevin

        I think I wrote this earlier this week, but they had hundreds or thousands of years to perfect that skill. You see the one success but not the many, many failures.

      • UnCivilServant

        especially with a particularly fragile material that when broken looks like mere rock chips.

      • Timeloose

        Exactly. Whole generations of workers perfecting one skillset like stone cutting or gem polishing. The other thing we forget is that the only stuff remaining from 3000-6000 years ago is going to be stone. Wood, metals, and textiles would oxidize or rot after a few thousand years.

      • Nephilium

        You mean like all those clean white marble statues that look so pristine and pure?

        The ones that used to be painted up in gaudy colors?

  3. Nephilium

    The girl with the leg lengthening looks like an AI generated idea of a person. And I hope the first time she complains about how hard it is to find a man who’s tall enough to date her someone breaks one of her legs again.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah… I really hope that’s just the photographer using some odd perspective — because if that’s how she looks in real life, 3000BC Egypt should be trying to contact her again.

      • Nephilium

        I think there’s some forced perspective in the picture as well.

    • Not Adahn

      Are we sure she’s always been a she?

    • Tonio

      The up-angle photo also emphasizes that.

      Surgery makes her look like she has Marfan Syndrome.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thats why the “up-angle” site I go to looks weird…

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        She looks more like a mannerist painting than anything else.

    • rhywun

      Huh. It turns out $160K can’t cure mental illness.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Can cure AIDS though

        Seems its a South Park did it day

  4. Count Potato

    “The leg-lengthening process requires a painful procedure in which a doctor breaks the femur in each of a patient’s legs and inserts extendable metal nails.”

    So is it femur or tibia?

    • The Other Kevin

      I would imagine both for that much height.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Having broken a tibia and been around people with broken femurs, I can safely say she’s nucking futs.

    • Not Adahn

      Leg bones are a spectrum.

    • Animal

      Hippocrates would like a word.

      • Tonio

        “First, do no harm…”

      • Ownbestenemy

        Such ancient, wise and ethical thinking is forbidden

      • The Hyperbole

        Meh, it’s not hard to think of many common and helpful medical procedures that begin by doing harm to the patient or to some one else.

      • DrOtto

        The hippocratic oath is over 2,000 years old, it’s hard to say what the meant by “do no harm” probably meant “Do? No, harm!”

      • Tonio

        And they owned slaves, right?

      • rhywun

        “No, money down!”

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        It’s, like, older that the constitution! And that is like a hundred years, man!

      • B.P.

        This is the part where the experts explain to her loved ones that not artificially lengthening her legs would’ve been catastrophic to her mental health with possible suicidal implications.

        Yeah, I’m jaded.

      • rhywun

        But she was bullied for being a 5’7″ woman!

    • Bobarian LMD

      Tibia would require fibula as well?

      But the scars seem to indicate that is what she did?

      Maybe both?

      • Timeloose

        RTA, it has x-rays of the pins and screws.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    Eating seed-

    All fellatio, all the time.

  6. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Was just reading a Tweet from Scientific American about how awesome and harmless puberty blockers are.

    • Count Potato

      CWABOA

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Decades of data support the use and safety of puberty-pausing medications, which give transgender adolescents and their families time to weigh important medical decisions https://t.co/2buX9mtEk8— Scientific American (@sciam) May 3, 2023

      Blocking puberty to buy some time.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Decades of data on the usage to treat precocious puberty, an actual medical condition.

        That’s like saying we have decades of data on chemotherapy for cancer patients so we should administer it to people to believe they have cancer.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Chemotherapy as a diet drug.

      • Tres Cool

        This one secret diet trick doctors dont want you to know about!

        Did wonders for my mom. The pounds melted away.

      • Count Potato

        BULLSHIT

      • Certified Public Asshat

        “These puberty-pausing medications are widely used in many different populations and safely so,” McNamara says. GnRHas are also used in adolescents to treat endometriosis, a condition in which the cells lining the uterus grow in other parts of the body. These hormonal drugs have provided solutions to a number of hard-to-treat conditions. They adjust hormone levels for people with prostate and breast cancer, pause menstruation for those undergoing chemotherapy and help with in vitro fertilization. This host of beneficial clinical uses and data, stretching back to the 1960s, shows that puberty blockers are not an experimental treatment, as they are sometimes mischaracterized, says Simona Giordano, a bioethicist at the University of Manchester in England. Among patients who have received the treatment, studies have documented vanishingly small regret rates and minimal side effects, as well as benefits to mental and social health.

        “From an ethical and a legal perspective, this is a benign medication,” Giordano says.

        I could be wrong, but definitely seems like they are conflating the safety claims with the drugs other uses.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        They’re absolutely conflating the safety of the drug for treating specific medical conditions with its usage to stop or delay puberty with no consideration for the damage that stopping or delaying puberty will cause.

        It’s a motte and bailey argument.

      • R C Dean

        You’re not wrong. None of the listed uses are actually “puberty-pausing”, although that might be a side effect when given to children. I wonder how often, and how long, they are given to children for those other purposes. If the answers are “infrequently” and “not long”, then it’s extremely dishonest to extrapolate to using them to trans children.

        One also wonder about their definition of “safe”. In the immediate term? Eh, sure. In the long run, when used for “puberty-pausing”? How much longitudinal data do they actually have?

      • Nephilium

        The models say that there’s no impact at all. Trust the models.

    • invisible finger

      Should rename the mag to Scientific Marxian. The remaining readers would probably be glad to be rid of the old, triggering name.

    • kinnath

      Of all the black pills that I have swallowed of late, the total corruption of the science media is the thing that makes me most nauseous.

      • The Other Kevin

        Yep. There is no objective truth anymore, 2+2=4 is racist, a vaccine is whatever we say it is, every science class has to include critical race theory, and now two clearly defined options (XX and XY) are a “spectrum”.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I second that. People have no idea what science actually is. They think it’s this magic thing you can appeal to that automatically wins debates and ends the conversation. It is a blanket appeal to authority that’s just as co-optable as religion. Anytime someone makes a truth claim or says “settled science”, it should set off alarm bells.

        I read “They Thought They Were Free” by Milton Mayer recently. It’s a book written in the 50’s where a journalist went to Germany after the collapse of the Nazi regime and interviewed a bunch of people in a small town about what it was like to live under it from their perspective. You’d be amazed how often the phrase “the scientists figured that out” came up to explain a lot of the loony shit they thought was reality.

        Separating science from state is even more than separating church and state.

    • slumbrew

      They were skin-suited years ago.

      • juris imprudent

        The carcass is rotting off the bones.

  7. Certified Public Asshat

    The increasingly popular operation

    This is the first time I am hearing of this, but of course not surprising.

    • The Other Kevin

      Maybe it’s a Europe thing.

    • Nephilium

      There was a grouping of articles about it in the past year or so, generally referring to Silicon Valley tech-bros doing it to increase their potential earnings, since taller people generally make more money.

      • Count Potato

        Also, incels.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It’s gone from zero to one. That’s increasing.

  8. kinnath

    The leg-lengthening process requires a painful procedure in which a doctor breaks the femur in each of a patient’s legs and inserts extendable metal nails.

    I saw this in Gattaca.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    One might reasonably contend that an anthropologist should know that human beings are not worms, fish, or lizards.

    That’s not very inclusive of you.

    • B.P.

      We’re totally the same as worms. Which is why it won’t be a big deal when millions of people are composted to save Gaia.

  10. JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

    Try saying “shist disc” 10 times fast.

    • Tonio

      Holy Schist!

    • Bobarian LMD

      I can’t say it once.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      I shist a disc.
      a disc I shist.
      Upon a shisted disc I sit.

      • Tres Cool

        ex Mrs Tres, ever the aspiring thespian, always used to use the “Betty Botter” rhyme.

    • Spudalicious

      Listen here shit disk.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    The leg-lengthening process requires a painful procedure in which a doctor breaks the femur in each of a patient’s legs and inserts extendable metal nails.

    Torquemada did it.

    • Bobarian LMD

      South Park did it.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I swear to god those guys have a time machine. Have you ever seen the episode “Death Camp of Tolerance”?

        They predicted liberals applauding teachers waving their sexual deviance in grade-school children’s faces back in like 2004.

      • The Other Kevin

        Much like Rush Limbaugh, they’re very observant and just take things to their most absurd extreme. Unfortunately for us that absurd extreme really happens.

      • rhywun

        LOL one of several episodes where I could barely believe what I was seeing.

  12. Shpip

    Uncovered by renowned British Egyptologist Brian Walter Emery while excavating the tomb of Prince Sabu, son of Adjuib Pharaoh, governor of the First Dynasty (circa 3000 BCE), the Schist Disk was found among some common funerary objects (including stone vessels, flint knives, arrows, and a few copper tools) Emery initially cataloged as “a container in the form of a schist bowl.”

    I’m thinking to myself, “Well, ain’t that the schist.” But I know that talc is cheap. Once again, we shouldn’t take for granite what the ancients were able to attain.

    • Gender Traitor

      Gneiss.

      • B.P.

        I marble at the ability of you folks to quickly churn out puns.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Their just punning for gold.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        *They’re

      • Ted S.

        You have to think out of the bauxite to come up with new puns around here.

      • UnCivilServant

        Naw, he’s made a greedy Conglomerate of references, making it hard for those of us who come later.

      • Gender Traitor

        It should just whet your apatite to rise to the challenge.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m too sedimentary to be goated to erupt with anger.

        Take any claims to the contrary with a grain of basalt.

      • Shpip

        I’m just trying not to take it tufa.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Rocky!
        .

        .

        .
        .
        .
        Janet!

      • Nephilium

        Dr. Scott!

    • Shpip

      Swiss has some bedrock principles about puns, so once he shows up we’ll all have to gravel for forgiveness.

    • Spartacus

      I wonder if he’s related to the actual Egyptologist Walter Bryan Emery.
      Looks the research on this site is up to the internet’s usual standards.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Plentiful data and analyses support the assertions that sex is very complex in humans and that binary and simplistic explanations for human sex biology are either wholly incorrect or substantially incomplete.

    Go tell that to the sex change industry.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Dude, people have different sexual preferences. That means you should totally endorse the fucking and mutilation of children by adults.

      SCIENCE

  14. The Other Kevin

    “Switching the argument to sexual determinism of behavior and the commonly-observed cultural traits of the binary sexes is dishonest in the extreme.”

    I don’t have much to say beyond this, other than that everything about the transgender trend/fad is dishonest.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    We’re totally the same as worms. Which is why it won’t be a big deal when millions of people are composted to save Gaia.

    What of those of you (count me out; I’ll be gone by then, one way or another) who will subsist on worm meal? Would that qualify as cannibalism?

    • Count Potato

      If that were true, beef would be a vegetable.

  16. Not Adahn

    All of these IFLS types using the word “spectrum,” they do know that light is quantized, right? There are discrete wavelengths. If there’s not an electronic transition between two particular colors, that wavelength does not, in fact, exist.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Dude, I can red shift to any wavelength you desire.

    • whiz

      Not only that, black body radiation is just one example of a continuum of wavelengths.

  17. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    You know you’re getting old when your wife suggests that we should go listen to a presentation on replacement windows so we can get the free steak dinner.

    • Tonio

      The horror…

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Next she’ll be responding to a timeshare vacation pamphlet.

      • Bobarian LMD

        How good is the steak and how good is your resolve?

        “Ahh, we needed windows anyway.”

    • Mojeaux

      Hard pass.

      My husband has dragged me to one or two of those things because I’m super awesome at saying “no,” whereas he will let them go on a little longer. I finally put my foot down and reminded him that TANSTAAFL once again. A free steak dinner is not worth the cost of facing down a determined salespimp or 3.

      • Tonio

        “Salespimp” for the mf’ing win!

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It’s good you saw right through that.

    • Nephilium

      The girlfriend sprung something like that on me once.

      Once.

      • Michael Malaise

        My father hung me on a hook once …

  18. invisible finger

    Who the fuck would loan someone money for unnecessary leg lengthening surgery?

    This is the kind of crazy that zero-interest loans begets. See also the sec change fad.

    Most of this idiocy goes away when banks collapse.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Most of this idiocy goes away when banks collapse.

      Yes

    • Bobarian LMD

      Who the fuck would loan …

      Someone with a specific fetish?

    • Ted S.

      This is the kind of crazy that zero-interest loans begets. See also the sec change fad.

      Is that making champagne brut or doux?

    • rhywun

      She says her modeling gig paid for it. The one that she somehow struggled through while being constantly bullied or something. 🙄

    • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

      Pimp daddy long legs?

  19. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Leg Lengthening Surgery: You have GOT to be kidding me!

    • Grummun

      I know, why is she still wearing the stripper heels?

      • Gender Traitor

        “They make my legs look longer!”

  20. Fatty Bolger

    #science-tific American

  21. The Late P Brooks

    You know you’re getting old when your wife suggests that we should go listen to a presentation on replacement windows so we can get the free steak dinner.

    I went to the local home show a few weeks ago, to see if there is anybody around here who does pre cast concrete construction (spoiler alert: no. Plenty of pole barn guys, though). As I was walking by one of the booths, a nice young lady offered me a free inspection and estimate for a new roof. I told her I’d burn the fucking place down before I’d put a new roof on it. She was rather taken aback.

    • The Other Kevin

      Right before we got married we went to one of those time share things because they promised a “free vacation”. It was a classic hard sell, they show you a presentation in a group then break you off with a sales person to close the deal. We were saving up for our wedding so no matter how much they tried to lower the price we were a firm No. About a month later in the news we saw they had busted the operation and a bunch of people lost their money.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I knew somebody who did a few of those things for the freebies, he was mostly amused by the hard sell at the end and had no problem saying no, but it was very stressful for his wife so they had to stop doing them.

      • The Other Kevin

        As the entire thing was a scam, that “free vacation” never materialized for us.

  22. J. Frank Parnell

    Schist Disk sounds like a prop in a German porno.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      *golf clap*

    • Bobarian LMD

      Or the lead actor.

    • The Other Kevin

      Two fraulines, one schist disk

    • Michael Malaise

      Velcome to Schist Disc, zee only radio program about zee hardfloor.

  23. Ownbestenemy

    Its amazing what craftsmen can do under threat of death and slavery

    • Ownbestenemy

      A slap, 86’d and blackballed from the bar used to be the proper punishment

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        That’s for the guys without deep pockets.

    • Mojeaux

      Patrick is a classy dude. His dad (baseball player) used to take him into the locker room and got him acquainted with athletes and how to deal with the media and all the right things to say.

      Apparently, Jackson didn’t get the same education because he’s a classless wretch.

      Brittany (Patrick’s wife) also needs some lessons because she’s got her own brand of classlessness (although I think after the spraying-champagne-all-over-the-fans-when-it-was-colder-than-a-witch’s-tit-outside episode, she calmed down a little).

      Patrick’s mom has made her own faux pas or two.

  24. Tonio

    Does anyone here have any experience with Notepad++?

    I find myself in need of a powerful, configurable, ASCII editor.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      I do. What’s the question?

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Short answer is “it works”

        It easily handles large files and the plugin library is quite useful.

    • EvilSheldon

      I use Notepad++ quite a bit.

    • The Other Kevin

      I have used it for years.

    • Fatty Bolger

      It’s great. Has tons of features, I’ve barely scratched the surface really.

    • Grummun

      :: prepares incendiary device ::
      :: lights fuse ::
      :: hurls device ::

      Emacs.

      :: runs away ::

      • UnCivilServant

        People still use that? I thought they lost the editor war years ago.

      • Grummun

        Until you see Richard Stallman’s obituary, there will emacs users.

        Reading through his wikipedia page, I had completely forgotten him being a pedo apologist.

      • Tonio

        I have used a line-editor on a teletype machine serving as a dumb terminal. You can’t scare me with your fancy 1200 bps CRT displays, and HP smart terminals.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You are a WYSE man Tonio

      • Tres Cool

        /IBM AS/400 enters the chat

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        The system that won’t die.

      • Tonio

        This is, tentacly elder gods help us, not for code, but to unfuck text.

    • Tonio

      I need something where I can easily turn

      words words words\n
      words words words\n
      words words words\n
      \n
      words words words\n
      words words words\n
      words words words\n
      \n

      into

      words words words words words words words words words\n
      \n
      words words words words words words words words words\n
      \n

      Ie, in which I can either write a macro to turn single \n into \b and double \n into single \n. I realize this may require three find and replace passes, which is totes okay.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        It will do it.

      • Tonio

        Thankee.

      • Rat on a train

        sed?

      • Ted S.

        Perl?

    • Count Potato

      Atom is for writing code, but you can do pretty much anything with it.

    • rhywun

      I use Visual Studio Code. It can choke on very large files (> around 1GB) but for that I have another editor but it’s not free.

      I have no doubt Notepad++ can do almost anything too – but I find it painfully obtuse to figure out how to do what I need.

    • The Other Kevin

      No reasonable prosecutor, etc.

      • juris imprudent

        You don’t need a reasonable prosecutor, you’ve got that very slim Republican majority in the House.

        This almost feels like bait.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    I am not an attorney (I dodged that bullet a long time ago) but… looking at google news headlines, I see reports of a parade of women in the Trump Rape Case testifying about his assaults on them. Unless they have specific knowledge of the crime at hand, how are these smears admissible?

    • UnCivilServant

      Because the judge allowed it.

      The judge isn’t an unbiased arbiter.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I wouldn’t be too shocked if someone dropped by his office and told him he needs to allow it and to let as many cameras as they can fit into the courtroom.

    • juris imprudent

      It isn’t a criminal trial, it is civil. That widens the aperture quite a bit.

    • Ted S.

      Because fuck you, that’s how.

  26. DEG

    One might reasonably contend that an anthropologist should know that human beings are not worms, fish, or lizards.

    WHY DO YOU HATE TRANSPECIESISTS?!?!?!?!?!?11111!111??

    • juris imprudent

      South Park has already been mentioned.

  27. DEG

    all of which she paid with the modeling checks she hopes will increase after these procedures.

    Paid with checks she hopes will increase?

    Journalism fail.

  28. Grummun

    Shooty types: any recommendations for an optical sight for a .44 Mag revolver?

    • EvilSheldon

      Do you need magnification, or would a red dot suffice?

      • Grummun

        Just red dot is fine. Something that sits down low, preferably.

      • Count Potato

        Crimson Trace grips.

      • Tundra

        Very interested in what you end up with. And how you mount it.

        I have a .357 that could use an optic. Not gonna hunt with it, but I sure could use a little help lol.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        I’m probably going to end up with a 3 inch barrel S&W 686 with a tuned trigger from an elderly acquaintance. I’m guessing it’s set to 1-1/2 pounds at most.

        It’s a competition gun. I wouldn’t dare carry the thing. But that uber-light trigger sure makes it easier to hit the target..

      • Tundra

        Mine has a six inch barrel so there is no question of EDC. But I wouldn’t mind putting an optic on it for home and trail.

      • Tundra

        Lol!

        I’ll stick with my Shield.

      • Grummun

        I’ve found a rail that mounts using the ring bases integral in the top strap: https://www.jackweigand.com/srh.html. I’d be mounting any optic on that rail.

        I’m not much of a hunter, but if needs must I’m thinking a red dot will make the thing more useful, and be less bulky/awkward than a scope.

      • Tundra

        Cool! Thanks for that.

    • Count Potato

      Is this for hunting? If you put a scope on it, get good rings. Three rings isn’t uncommon.

      • Grummun

        Three rings due to the .44 mag? Or because revolver generally?

      • Count Potato

        Both. It wouldn’t be an issue with a .22, and recoil on a rifle goes pretty much straight back. Further, if this is a DA, you can’t let it flip up like a SA, so there is the momentum of scope trying to go up while you are trying to keep the muzzle down.

  29. Tundra

    Toxicity is the perfect song for lynx one and three. Disgusting people.

    I really want to believe in the Schist Disk. Should I?

    • juris imprudent

      Isn’t the bigger question, does the Schist Disk believe in you?

      • Tundra

        That’s deep, man.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s gonna get deeper.

    • Nephilium

      I’ll stick with Tuxicity.

  30. Derpetologist

    I decided on the Jaime Escalante approach to teaching. After 10 days of that, I was fired. But I received standing ovations from my students and compliments from some teachers. I had a student ask me “what’s arithmetic?” There were some serious knowledge gaps. I introduced them to the bifurcation/chaos theory and the Penrose tiles. A student asked me what would happen if the Penrose tiles were projected into 3 dimensions. I said I don’t know, but you’re definitely getting an A.

    I interviewed at a nearby school today and gave a discreet summary of my foray into public school teaching. They asked me what I know about teaching gifted/talented students. So maybe I can do that. I was in that program in elementary and middle school.

    • Derpetologist

      Also, I ate an excellent Cuban sandwich today from a food truck. Life is good.

    • UnCivilServant

      No ‘rithmatic? Did they at least know readin’ and ‘ritin’?

      • Derpetologist

        There was at least 1 student who will be getting a diploma after spending 12 years to get a 5th grade education. It is impossible to wake someone who is pretending to be asleep, as the Cherokee say.

    • Derpetologist

      I suspect my replacement will be the weight-lifting coach who thinks the earth is flat. So it goes.

      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      Time to build up my tutoring business.

    • Tundra

      Start your own school. The school choice shit is probably going to just result in megacorp schools, but you could probably build an outlier.

      Congrats on getting canned!

    • Tonio

      Derpy, you’re back!!1!

      O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

    • Derpetologist

      I like to start classes off with a joke or words of wisdom. 1 day, it was:

      ***
      It doesn’t matter if you have more degrees than a thermometer if you’re sharp as a marble.
      ***

      I need to work on my Foghorn Leghorn impression.

      • Tres Cool

        “that boys as sharp as a bag of wet mice”

  31. R C Dean

    So, that disk. What was it for? It definitely looks like it was intended to be mounted on a shaft of some kind (pause for ribaldry), and like it has some kind of mechanical function, but I can’t for the life of me figure it out. And saying “oh, it was decorative/ritual” just seems like a cop out (and, if it had some ritual purpose something that we might have seen more than once).

    Another question – since the Egyptians apparently had mad schist-carving skills, what else of theirs do we have made out of schist?

    • Sean

      It’s a lazy susan.

      • Michael Malaise

        Dumbest thing you’ll hear today. Lazy Susans in kitchen redesigns have been renamed Super Susans. True story.

    • Gender Traitor

      And saying “oh, it was decorative/ritual” just seems like a cop out

      +1 Motel of the Mysteries

      • B.P.

        I picture some future civilization pondering, “Why did those people spend so much effort fastidiously preserving canine feces in plastic bags?”

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Judging by the quantity of them left beside hiking trails, it’s not to throw out later.

      • R C Dean

        It drives me bananas when people bag their dog shit and then drop it on the ground. What is the point of that? Now you have not only littered plastic (quelle horreur!), you have prevented the dog shit from, err, meeting its destiny as compost.

  32. Ownbestenemy

    When videos on the internet were fun

    • Ownbestenemy

      Then they get better with animation and rewrote the lyrics a bit.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Flash was such great software for the time that just unleashed a wide array of creativity

      • Tundra

        Wow. A trip down memory lane:

        GODZILLA!

        I wonder what happened to these brilliant dudes.

  33. hayeksplosives

    “Scientific” American lost me when they did a big spread on a tornado that came through Moore Oklahoma and laid the damage at the feet of climate change that he insisted had caused tornados to be more frequent and intense in the last 5 years. I guess the guy hadn’t noticed the nearly identical damage path in Moore in May 1999.

    There’s a reason it’s called tornado alley.

    Author claimed to be from Oklahoma which apparently qualifies him to make any pronouncement he likes about OK.

    • creech

      I went through Moore a week after the 1999 event. It just missed the factory where I was doing an audit.
      The folks working there were nonplussed: since they were kids, tornados had been regularly tearing through the area. The only difference they could see was that those tornados were never carried on national news.

    • rhywun

      They’re counting on people to not check the actual records.

      Unfortunately, they’re usually right.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        It is like all the heat waves in Oregon. THE HOTTEST EVA, until someone checks the records, and sees it was hotter 50 years ago.

      • rhywun

        Or the records only go back a hundred years.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Base rate fallacy

      They do it constantly.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      I got through the first paragraph. I can’t read that.

    • Animal

      How can we as a society survive when political cover is given to these assholes?

      I suspect we’re about to find out.

      • R C Dean

        Alternate question:

        Should we as a society survive if political cover is given for this?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Unequivocally no.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Give people a way to get a “free pass” and they will abuse it.

      3% of the population is psychopathic. You don’t want to give them the wrong incentives.

      • juris imprudent

        Our society is trying to remove accountability from everyone, even white men (with the right connections/credentials).

    • Sensei

      The important thing is I’m directly paying for that horror show.

      I really hate this state.

      • Bob Boberson

        I can think of a couple of ways to eliminate that expense from the state’s budget.

  34. Tonio

    Okay, I know you Zoomsters are getting all twitchy, but here is the link, the eternal, holy, unchanging Glibs HumpDay AutoZoom link which autostarts at 20:00 Eastern.