The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[Volourn]

I debated whetehr I should put this link in the funny or weird thread. I decided to be more PC and throw it here;

 

However.... TRIGGER WARNING:

 

 SJW ALERT!!! SJW ALERT!!! SJW ALERT!!!!

 

 

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-buzz/a-woman-with-a-rare-psychological-condition-182334160.html

 

And, as I post this I notice I got beat to it.. L0L

[GhoulishVisage]

[ManifestedISO]

American businessman makes good on promise, hope rampant among fans, news at 11. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSxzYJV8ZGQ

 

Haven't been this excited since Schumi went to the Scuderia. 

[Raithe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyv39DxQlFM

[Woldan]

I just stumbled across this video, best engine sound I've ever heard. 750 bhp NA 8L V8. 

 

Really, play the vid and turn your volume to the max. 

 

Edited October 5, 2015 by Woldan

[Azdeus]

Eargasm  

 

I love Laguna by the by, one of the coolest tracks out there.

[Woldan]

Eargasm

 

I love Laguna by the by, one of the coolest tracks out there.

 

I love it too, a very technical track with its legendary corkscrew corner. What I love the most about it is that it has a lot of vertical variation and tight corners - compared to the Formula 1 tracks which are perfectly flat and have runoff zones that are almost wide as the track itself, which is silly and boring. 

[Azdeus]

I love it too, a very technical track with its legendary corkscrew corner. What I love the most about it is that it has a lot of vertical variation and tight corners - compared to the Formula 1 tracks which are perfectly flat and have runoff zones that are almost wide as the track itself, which is silly and boring.

I don't mind the runoffs, but I do agree on the vertical parts, another track I really like - in sims especially - is the Belgian track, with that sweeping right uphill corner that crests into a left. Can't remember the name though =/

 

I'd rather something like this never happens again

 

https://youtu.be/Tpp7OCngXQM?t=56s

Edited October 5, 2015 by Azdeus

[Woldan]

 

I love it too, a very technical track with its legendary corkscrew corner. What I love the most about it is that it has a lot of vertical variation and tight corners - compared to the Formula 1 tracks which are perfectly flat and have runoff zones that are almost wide as the track itself, which is silly and boring.

I don't mind the runoffs, but I do agree on the vertical parts, another track I really like - in sims especially - is the Belgian track, with that sweeping right uphill corner that crests into a left. Can't remember the name though =/

 

 

Spa! Its awesome too! I'm glad they didn't change it too much of its layout when they modernized it. Many great old tracks were completely butchered to curry favor with the F1 and its completely excessive track safety standards. 

 

And I don't like the giant runoff areas because they totally change the track, drivers exploit it and corners suddenly become far less tight and much faster, crushing previous track records with what can be considered cheating. And with too much paved runoff the track start to look like parking lots. Fuji and Silverstone come to mind. 

Edited October 5, 2015 by Woldan

[ManifestedISO]

God you guys are making me tear up ... I didn't think anyone else knew about Spa or Laguna ... 

[Malcador]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34450057

 

Gee, what a surprise...Florida

[Gfted1]

Lego Doctor Who Is Finally Here, And It Looks Awesome.

[Malcador]

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/06/aviation/russian-plane-restorer/index.html?sr=fb100615russian-plane-restorer0430PMStoryGal&linkId=17725906

 

http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/f020-academic-works-on-restoring-iconic-1950s-soviet-jetlinerin-her-spare-time/

 

Russian mathematician working to restore an old jetliner

[Raithe]

One for Bruce and the SJW's to rally behind..

 

Actually a rather well crafted push to raise awareness in Spain on anti LGTB issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAb_xYVNHOM

[Agiel]

Lawmakers Weigh Cut in Fed Payout to Banks. More than $1 billion a year would go to pay for highway construction

 

I confess I had to check my calendar to see that it wasn't April 1st.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Agiel

[Volourn]

Wait. They can legally do that? L0L Is this from the bail outs? Because it seems  eerily something a nazi regime would do. LMAO

[Leferd]

Hmm...

 

I suppose perusing Playboy just for its articles is now going to be a real thing.

 

http://www.mtv.com/news/2347704/playboy-nixing-nudity-magazines/

 

Sixty-two years after its debut publication — which featured Marilyn Monroe as its inaugural centerfold — Playboy magazine has decided to make a major change and offer no more nudity in print. Yes, you read that right: Playboy will no longer feature nude women in its pages.

 

Secondly, the Playboy team now believes that the original purpose of the magazine — to revolutionize the picture of sex in America, essentially — has been completely fulfilled.

“That battle has been fought and won,” Playboy’s CEO, Scott Flanders, told NYT.

 

 

[Volourn]

The CEO doesn't get the point of Playboy?   This is ridiculous. Nazi SJWs strike again!

[Raithe]

For that blog on SJW reactions and literature..

 

The Unbearable Racism of Social Justice Warrior Jerks

 

 

 

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows how I feel about racism. It is the most primitive, irrational, repugnant version of collectivist pseudo-thought that I can possibly imagine. It allows pathetic, brainless mediocrities to glom onto one another and find a delusion of strength in numbers. (Thanks, Internet!) They have no ability to achieve individually, so they gather in groups to castigate and victimize others based on the one thing their enemies cannot control – their race. They have no other recourse. They put others down based on skin color, because they don’t have enough intellect and rational thought to constructively critique them in any other way.

 

A few months ago a halfwit named K. Tempest Bradford issued a reading challenge to her frothing pack of acolytes: stop reading works by straight, white, cis males for one year. Anyone with an IQ of room temperature or higher can see the racist principles pervasive in such a challenge. Don’t read works based on their content. Don’t read them for plot, characterization, or quality of writing. Shun writers based on the melanin content in their skin and their sexual identity – but only the identity that this puffed up SJW wacko approves of. Because anything else is WRONGTHOUGHT.

 

Larry Correia did a hilarious fisk of Tempest’s nuttery in February, so please do go read it. It’s a joy to behold.

But if you think the SJW cranks learned something from the ridicule, you’d be wrong.

 

Recently, a young adult author named Meg Rosoff had the unmitigated temerity to claim that good literature should expand your mind, that it doesn’t have to be a “mirror” for whatever Special Snowflakitude you claim, but rather expand your horizons and teach you about the world.

 

For this unspeakable WRONGTHINK, the SJW loons have begun to congeal into one, large, racist barrage of fruitcakery, condemning Ms. Rosoff for her views, which are – according to their demented doctrine – are wrong because of her WRONGCOLOR!

 

The most obvious is a screeching screed at Bibliodaze entitled, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Meg Rosoff: a Dissection.” Again I call on those with above room temperature IQ to pay close attention to the title of this article. The shrill, squealing siren call to shun Ms. Rosoff also includes the usual catchwords, such as “privilege,” “safe space,” and “diversity,” as well as the usual accusation of “bigotry,” which really is the ad hominem fallback of any empty-headed, sniveling, perpetually-offended halfwit, who doesn’t have the intellectual fortitude to hold its own in a disagreement.

 

In the process, this quivering-lipped SJW lectures us about how Ms. Rosoff is apparently not entitled to her opinion on the mission of YA literature, because all literature doesn’t matter!

“Books are to teach kids about the world, about being different or being brave. I really hate this idea that we need agendas in books. A great book has a philosophical, spiritual, intellectual agenda that speaks to many people – not just gay black boys. I’m sorry, but write a pamphlet about it. That’s not what books are for.” [says Ms. Rosoff]

 

This, is the literary equivalent of ‘All Lives Matter’.

 

Rosoff posits a definition of a book’s aim, and directly opposes that aim with the notion of fair and inclusive representation. The message is clear – cishet white stories are ‘universal’; everything else is an ‘agenda’. A picture book about a queer black boy cannot possess the ‘philosophical, spiritual, intellectual’ capacity needed to speak to ‘many people’. This is the crooked reasoning that sees Roland Emmerich whitewashStonewall to appeal to a wider audience (and fail). It’s a false view of the world, one steeped in privilege, that sees the very existence of someone unlike yourself as being inherently agenda driven, and one you never need to understand. A queer black boy doesn’t get to have the same fantastical escape through literature that a straight white boy does because the industry still sees him as a niche interest more akin to a political ping-pong ball than a worthy demographic. This insidious train of thought is racist, ignorant and rooted in ignorant lies about our world and the people who populate it. There’s no place for it in publishing, and the Rosoffs of the industry would do well to listen to those actively trying to change it.

 

Because apparently, according to this shrew, the only way queer, black boys can escape into the wondrous worlds of literature is through mirror images of themselves, not through great storytelling, no matter who tells it! And if you think that “white” stories are anything but “white” stories, well then you’re a privileged racist. If you believe literature should be for everyone, no matter what color the writer or the main characters are, then you’re an insensitive lout, who doesn’t deserve consideration or respect. If you insist on a world as it should be – judged by the content of its character, rather than the content of the melanin in its skin or its social identity – you’re a disgusting bigot.

 

The absolute twisted derangement of this pseudo-logic is mind-boggling. If you refuse to judge others by something as superficial as skin color or sexual identity, you’re a bigot. Orwell is probably spinning in his grave so hard, he’s spiraled his way to the earth’s core by now!

What is this hoopla about?

 

You see, there’s this book by Myles E. Johnson called “Large Fears” that tells the tale of a marginalized child – a boy whose favorite color is pink – who wants to escape to Mars, harboring a belief that he will be more accepted there, because he’s not treated well by his classmates. I haven’t read this book, so I have no idea whether it’s good or not. If I had read this book, I would judge it by its content alone. Is the plot interesting? Are the characters engaging? Is the book well-written and readable?

 

Well, apparently, that’s just horrible WRONGTHINK, according to a blogger, who thinks that if one judges a book by its content and not by its social message, they must hate diversity and want to somehow marginalize queer, black boys.

 

Yeah, that left me scratching my head.

 

Worse yet, because Ms. Rosoff apparently doesn’t think that books need to pound the reader over the head with a social justice message and because she disagrees that one doesn’t need a literary mirror to expand one’s mind and experience the joys of the stories one reads, she’s wrong – not because of any logical, rational reason, but because she’s white.

As stated

on her website,

“Meg Rosoff is the multi-award winning author of How I Live Now, Just In Case, What I Was, The Bride’s Farewell, There Is No Dog, Moose Baby and Picture Me Gone.” Let me add that she’s White.

Well, gosh! That just invalidates any opinion she may have that doesn’t toe the SJW line of victimhood and oppression!

“That’s not what books are for.” Queer black boys are not what books are for, says she.

Actually, that’s not what Ms. Rosoff said at all, as illustrated by the screen shot of her actual response to this book. Anyone with reading comprehension skills greater than that of a stoned hamster can see Ms. Rosoff said no such thing.

 

 

What she said, for the reading comprehension-challenged, is that books do not have the job of being a mirror, but rather they should expand kids’ minds. No, she certainly did not say, nor did she imply, that books are not for queer, black boys, but rather that literature should be for many people.

 

But you forget – that’s WRONGTHINK, and you’re a racist for thinking otherwise! Apparently, if you hold the view that books should be for everyone, you’re a racist. If you believe that the 2 percent of males and 3 percent of females who identified as “queer” in a Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census need an agenda to enjoy literature, you’re a bigot. Oh, and by the way, if you’re guilty of WRONGTHINK, it must be because you’re white, and by virtue of that unfortunate trait, a bigot.

 

That is really the only weapon they wield against you, because as much as they try to paint the world as a narrow-minded hive of bigots that victimizes their poor, inadequate selves by refusing to give them a pass on creating quality because of their self-assessed suffering, the world is, in fact, hurtling toward ruthless equality, and they’re simply not prepared for it. They don’t want actual fairness, because they feel woefully inadequate in that even playing field. So they wield the twisted sword of “social justice,” demanding special dispensation for whatever it is they deem to be their particular weakness, painting their ugly wounds and mediocrities as virtues, rather than working to overcome them, while pushing those who are “privileged” enough to not bare their oozing sores to the world into a marginalized role.

 

This, of course, will never fly with the perpetually-offended progressive self-loathers, whose only goal is to be accepted by the social justice “cool kids,” and since they haven’t figured out a way to parlay their life experiences into suffering and victimhood, the only thing they can hope to do is highlight their alleged “privilege,” apologize for not having suffered enough, and grovel at the feet of those who proclaim their perceived suffering as a virtue in order to bask in their misery and perhaps, if they’re “lucky,” have some of that oozing pus rub off on them.

My prediction is that they will dogpile on Ms. Rosoff and bully her into issuing a mea culpa in order to save her career and reputation from ruin. They will yell about her alleged “bigotry and racism” until she buckles under their condemnations.

 

I have not read any of Ms. Rosoff’s books, but I plan to. If the racist social justice warrior jerks can recommend reading books based only on race, sexual identity, and gender, I can recommend authors based on what they believe literature should be: inclusive, mind-expanding, joyous, spiritual, beautiful, and intellectual – without consideration to race or anything else that doesn’t have anything to do with the joy of reading!

 

 

[Malcador]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

 

Nothing but articles in Playboy now.

[Raithe]

Neurologica - Ideology : In Search of a Justification

 

 

 

One of the hallmarks of pseudoscience is that it works backwards – typically those engaging in pseudoscience begin with a conclusion and then work backwards to fill in the evidence and logic. People are generally very good at this type of process, which is often referred to as rationalization.

 

There are several specific components to the pseudoscientific process. In order to find positive evidence for the desired conclusion, the rationalizer will cherry pick evidence. This allows them to quote studies and scientists to make it seem like their conclusions are based on science.

 

In order to refute any evidence against their conclusion, they will simply find fault with any inconvenient evidence. Here I find a range of sophistication. At the complex end of the spectrum, usually those with some science background, specific weaknesses of studies can be pointed out. No study is perfect, so if you want to find fault with a study you can. It is always necessary to put any criticisms into context – are these fatal flaws, or minor quibbles. This requires judgement, and it is precisely judgement that is skewed in the pseudoscientific process.

 

At the less sophisticated end of the spectrum there is simple denial of the inconvenient evidence. Often this is accomplished through a knee-jerk ad hominem argument – that study was funded by a corporation with vested interests, or by the government, or insurance companies, or by academics searching for funding. No matter what the source of the study is, that source can be impeached by inventing a conflict of interest.  That scientist has “ties” to industry, no matter how wispy and inconsequential those ties are. There are people and organizations with real conflicts of interest, and so once again judgement is required, judgement that can be skewed to render service to the desired conclusion.

 

In the extreme the dismissal of inconvenient evidence turns into a conspiracy theory. The evidence is not just biased or tainted by conflicts, there is an active and coordinated conspiracy to manufacture the unwanted conclusion. The conspiracy theory gives the pseudoscientist unlimited rhetorical power to alter reality as their ideology demands.

 

An extension of the conflict/conspiracy is what we call, “playing the shill card.” While engaging in debate about a topic, when someone cites evidence or logic that conflicts with the desired conclusion, they are clearly minions of the conspiracy or vested interest- they are shills. Their arguments (and the evidence they cite) can then be comfortably ignored.

When these processes are used to systematically deny an established scientific conclusion, then we call that denialism, which is a collection of mental strategies that tend to cluster together. I discussed them recently here. 

 

All of this should be very familiar to any skeptic engaging in social media (or even with friends, family, and colleagues). The same process is at work, however, with any ideology, not just with skeptical issues. As I always feel obliged to point out, we all do this some of the time. This is how humans behave, not just other people. The most important lesson to derive from this article, therefore, is how to be more vigilant in detecting such behavior in yourself.

 

We tend to arrive at conclusions for emotional and subconscious reasons, and then engage in rationalization to defend those conclusions. This process depends heavily on the degree of emotional investment. For claims that are not important to us emotionally, we happily update our conclusions based on logic, evidence, and valid arguments. For those conclusions that are at the core of our ideology, religion, or world-view, we will go through mental gymnastics to maintain them.

In addition to the processes above, another strategy for maintaining an ideological position is to constantly shift justifications. This way you can be like flowing water, evading any refutation of any argument used to justify the ideology.

 

We find a similar process at work with many alternative medicine modalities – they are often treatments in search of an indication. What is acupuncture good for? Everything and anything, if you believe proponents. They have yet to demonstrate it actually works for anything, but they continue to search for an indication, in areas as diverse as in vitro fertilization to hypertension and depression.

 

Again we see the process is flowing backwards. When searching for effective treatments medical scientists will begin at times with anecdotal evidence for efficacy, and then perform scientific studies to see if the anecdotes hold up. Or (ideally) treatments will be designed based upon our basic science understanding of the mechanisms of disease or symptoms. With pseudomedicine, however, the treatment comes first, and then all efforts are made to demonstrate that the treatment works for something – anything. Anything that happens during the treatment becomes a mechanism, regardless of whether or not it can be actually tied to the desired outcome. Evidence for lack of efficacy is dismissed, no matter how solid, and evidence for efficacy is embraced, no matter how tenuous or flawed.

 

Ideologies work the same way. If, for example, an economic conservative believes that the idea that industry is adversely affecting the Earth’s climate by releasing large amounts of previously sequestered carbon into the atmosphere is being used to justify an economically liberal agenda, they are likely to oppose the science (rather than what they perceive as the liberal exploitation).

 

They are not starting with the evidence and then deriving their conclusion, they are starting with their conclusion and searching for evidence. For this strategy being flexible is an advantage. So on one occasion they will argue that the Earth is not warming, or the warming has paused. If you destroy that argument with evidence, then they will flow over to another – well, the Earth is warming but not by human activity. They can also slide over to the argument that we don’t know the consequences will be bad, or that there is nothing we can do about it anyway. They will then circle back opportunistically to the claim that the Earth is not warming, whenever they have some cherry picked evidence to latch onto. And the cycle repeats.

 

I find the same behavior with the pro-organic ideology. At times organic proponents will argue that there is no yield advantage to conventional farming, and even that organic farming does (or can) have superior yields. When that argument is destroyed, as it was recently by a very thorough review by the USDA, then the justification for organic farming was never about yield, but about food quality. When the food quality argument is refuted by 50 years of scientific study, then the justification was never about food quality, but about environmental sustainability. When that argument is refuted, then it’s about corporate control of our food production. When you point out that organic farming is just as much big industry as conventional farming, then we’re back to one of the other arguments.

 

I have done this dance with deniers and pseudoscientists of every stripe. One interesting wrinkle is that they will often turn their pseudoscientific process into a rhetorical weapon, accusing you of making a strawman argument because you are not addressing the “real” reason for their position.

 

Conclusion

It takes a great deal of work to constantly police yourself for the many processes that tend to bias your beliefs into ideological or emotionally convenient directions. The shifting justifications phenomenon is one more to look out for. If you find yourself grasping at various justifications for a particular position, then ask yourself – what came first?

 

Do you hold the position for ideological reasons, and then cast about for anything to justify the position, or did you come to a particular position because of logic and evidence? When one justification is refuted, does that modify your position, or do you just slide over to another justification? Do you acknowledge the points on the other side, or just pretend that the issue was never about those points?

 

 

[Darkpriest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

 

Nothing but articles in Playboy now.

 

wow, now i am sad for all those wannabe celebs... now they are left only with "leaked sextapes" as means to get on the covers... Can't get some nice buck and media attention for getting nude anymore...

[Azdeus]

Neurologica - Ideology : In Search of a Justification

Have you ever listened to his podcast?

[Raithe]

Netflix Stocks Plummet Following Poor Earnings Report

 

 

Netflix just reported third quarter earnings and it’s a miss. A very ugly, very costly miss.

 

Earnings per share came in at $0.07 on revenue of $1.74 billion. Following these results, shares were down a quick 14%.

Via Bloomberg, Wall Street was looking for the company to report adjusted earnings per share of $0.12 on revenue of $1.75 billion.

On the user side, Netflix added 880,000 members, below expectations to add 1.25 million.

 

International streaming adds came in at 2.74 million, beating expectations to add 2.45 million users during the quarter. In the second quarter, the company added 3.3 million subscribers.

 

In the fourth quarter, Netflix expects to add 1.65 million users in the US, below expectations for 1.81 million ahead of the report.

[Blarghagh]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html

 

Astronomers may have just found giant, alien "megastructures" orbiting a star near the milky way. Theoretically related to the idea of a dyson sphere. o.O