Saturday 10 March 2012

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

The face of the masses, the gaze of the masses via Eurozine articles by Stefan Jonsson
The objectively perceived mass with its collective “face”, formless and thus formable? Or the mass as a subjective entity, endowed with a perceptual apparatus of its own? The drama of the Weimar Republic unfolded between these two poles, writes Stefan Jonsson.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What did queer theory stand for? Bad prose, for starters. But sometimes we have to overthink before we can think. That’s one of the field’s unintended lessons... more

“My Favorite Museum Exhibit”: is a series of posts aimed at giving BoingBoing readers a chance to show off their favourite exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon.
Check out the archive post. (Need to scroll down for the full list.)
My personal favourite? John Lennon’s Rolls Royce

This car sits in the lobby of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia. It once belonged to John Lennon, hence the paint job. But that’s not the only customization. Inside, apparently, there is a fold-out bed, a portable refrigerator, and a record player. There also used to be a TV. Bear in mind, all these changes were made in the mid-to-late 1960s, when the whole refrigerator-and-TV-in-a-car thing were much more impressive feats of technology.
Sean Rodman works at the Royal BC Museum and sent in this photo, along with a request for assistance. On the roof of the car is a symbol that is, ostensibly, the sign for Libra. Except that it doesn&rsquo really resemble the sign for Libra. The Royal BC Museum is confused. Maybe you guys know what this is:


Thanks to Science, a Better Definition of Consciousness via Big Think by Orion Jones
New research out of the UK suggests that a new classification system for consciousness will help doctors and families better understand the condition of individuals with brain injuries. By measuring the brain activity of patients in a vegetative state while they …
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Noontime demon. Call it what you want - ADHD, laziness, information overload, acedia - we've never been good at resisting temptation and distraction... more

Optical illusions via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza

The Optillusions blog appears to be a collection of optical illusions, but there’s something not quite right about it.

Teenagers and social network sites: Do off-line inequalities predict their online social networks?
an article by June Ahn published in First Monday Volume 17 Number 1 (January 2012)
Abstract
This study analyses a data set of 701 U.S. teenagers (ages 12-18) that merges an online survey of social network site (SNS) preferences with administrative records from their public school districts. Using a multinomial logistic model, I examine whether offline divides across gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, self-esteem, and social capital predict teenagers' membership into the popular SNSs, Facebook and Myspace. The results show that the characteristics of teens that use Facebook, Myspace, or both SNSs show distinct differences, which illuminate questions of digital divide and complex adolescent social practices as they relate to online participation. The study offers two main contributions by providing an analysis of: (a) teenage SNS users, a population that is less examined in the research literature of online communities; and, (b) the relationship between their off-line characteristics and online social networks.
Full text (HTML)

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The Future of History. Liberal democracy is the world's default ideology, says Francis Fukuyama. There is no rival, at least not yet. "The alternative is out there, waiting to be born"...more

A Short History of the Modern Calendar [Video] via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
How well do you know calendar history and the changes that led to the modern version that we use? Put your knowledge to the test with this awesome video put together by YouTube user jeremiahjw.
Note: The video does contain a small discrepancy/mix-up on the 0.25 versus 1/25 reference.
A Short History of the Modern Calendar [via Geeks are Sexy]

The Rule of Thumb: Vagina Types and Variability of Female Orgasm via 3quarksdaily by Robin Varghese
MelodiousMsM over at Mosex blog:
In 1924 a revolutionary research paper on the female orgasm was published in Europe under the pen name A. E. Narjani. But as it turns out, the real author was actually Princess Marie Bonapart, great-grandniece of Emperor Napoleon I of France and daughter of Prince Roland Bonaparte. After she married Prince George of Greece and Denmark in 1907, her official title became Her Royal Highness, Princess George of Greece and Denmark.
200px-princessmariebonaparte1
Sadly, the Princess suffered from what many women today still do – the inability to reach orgasm solely through vaginal intercourse. Defying the social mores of her era, she discovered she could reach orgasm through masturbation. While this led her to blame physiology and not psyche, it still left her deeply frustrated with her husband and eventual four other lovers. But the Princess refused to accept such fate as a permanent condition! Instead, she began some of the most revolutionary work of her time on female sexuality and anatomy while also embarking on her quest for orgasm by penetrative sex. 
She first examined and interviewed 243 women. One by one she measured the distance between their clitorises and the vaginas, then compared the distance to their frequency and ease of orgasm. What she discovered was a direct correlation between the ability to orgasm through vaginal sex and the measurement of space between the vagina and the clitoris. She categorized the findings from her subjects in three ways: paraclitoridiennes (para meaning "alongside"), mesoclitoriennes (meso meaning "in the middle"), and téléclitoridiennes (télé meaning "far"). 
Paraclitoridiennes were the fortunate ones. The space between their vaginas and clitorises measured less than one inch. For the 69% of her test subjects that fell into this category, vaginal orgasm was easier than ever to reach. However, similar studies conducted in modern times prove this statistic extremely high.

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