Link Banana

Sarah Bird desperately wishes that she could change her son’s sexual orientation: she wants him to be gay.

How could I not dream of having a son who cared deeply about all the right things: fashion, musical theater, interior décor? But mostly a son who cared deeply about the most right thing of all: his mother? How could I not yearn for a son who would tell me that the bias cut emphasized my saddlebag thighs, that no one was staining concrete anymore, that the tiniest bit of white on the upper lids would open up my eyes and make me look 10 years younger? And now that California is handing out marriage licenses, what mother could resist the opportunity to micromanage a union in which both participants would obsess with her about whether the color theme celadon and peach or apple green and hot pink best expresses their love?

Not unrelated: William Saletan discusses a feasible genetic cause of male homosexuality.

This game looks decidedly “meh.” Mostly it’s just that I can’t resist an opportunity to reiterate the point that The Princess Bride may well be the greatest movie ever.

(via BuzzFeed)

The New Scientist’s Technology blog point to some odd facets of the iTunes EULA:

“Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”

(via Freakonomics, who found another odd clause in a different iTunes EULA)

Chris Coleson lost 86 pounds eating only at McDonald’s. Take that Jared.

(via Neatorama)

China, forced by the Olympic to worry about the translations of restaurant’s food names, has mandated changes to some of the weirdest ones. Dishes being changed:

• Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman (to become “Mapo tofu”)
• Chicken without sexual life (to become “Steamed pullet”)
• Husband and wife’s lung slice (to become “Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce”)

(via kottke, who also highlights a Manhattan restaurant serving “sea urchin bukkake”)

Matthew Baldwin recently compiled a list of reactions to his not own a cellphone through history. It makes an interesting story. The first few:

1998: Solidarity (“Yeah, me neither — I hate those things!”)
1999: Envy (“Lucky you; I had to get one for work.”)
2000: Indifference (“Okay, what’s your home phone number then?”)
2001: Encouragement (“You should get one — you can play Tetris on them now!”)

I’m ready to name this the craziest thing I’ve heard all day:

The remains of a woman have been found sitting in front of her TV - 42 years after she was reported missing.

(via Gizmodo)

Austin Kleon is rather excited that Hulu — a synonym for legal, free, ad-supported streaming — now has some Three Stooges episodes. Personally I’ve never much watched the classic, but now I think I mights have to.

Teddy Roosevelt’s famous model for diplomacy was “Talk softly but carry a big stick.” Barack Obama’s model for diplomacy is… Winnie the Pooh?

Mr Danzig [an Obama advisor] spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”

(via Passport)

I feel like I’ve come across this more than a few times before. In any case, it’s a good way to satiate your inner voyeur.

(via Coudal)

Philadelphia has an interesting plan to get people to slow down: paint optical illusions onto the road.

(via Gizmodo)

Though I question the statistical value of these numbers, Mother Jones’s list of party identification by occupation is full of interesting thoughts. Consider, for example, that 65% of plastic surgeons identified as Republicans, but only 28% of pediatricians.

(via Boing Boing)

For some reason, I’ve watched this video every time it’s shown up in my feedreader (which has been a lot). There’s something great about it.

(originally via Kottke)

America’s favorite streaming television site, Hulu, just announced that they’ve now got The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Soon, they’ll also have these great PBS programs:

• Scientific American Frontiers
  
• Wired Science
• Carrier
• Nova

(via TV Squad)

Something about this photo made me laugh. A lot.

Because sometimes the gentle therapy of turning virtual pages of solid color is all you want to do.

(via MetaFilter)

Sometimes I can’t avoid it:

A team of Caltech scientists announced Monday that they have discovered a type of conversational detail smaller than minutiae, the class of particulars long thought to be the smallest possible building blocks of mundanity. “These tiny sub-minutiae, or ‘boredons,’ are so insignificant that they contain almost no information, useless or otherwise,” said head researcher Dr. Nathan Yang, adding that the conversationally inconsequential details naturally occur in elevators and other enclosed spaces containing high concentrations of vaguely familiar acquaintances.

Because I always wondered and never found out for myself: this is what the Chipmunk’s Christmas song sounds like slowed down.

(via Coudal)

Two Philadelphia papers ran fake ads for a childishly named by-the-pound airline. Just thought it was funny.

Over at Salon, Megan Dolls points out that any fans of City of God will probably be interested in the related television series — now available on DVD — from the same director:

In “City of Men,” a televised miniseries that ran in Brazil from October 2002 until December 2005 and is now available on DVD, Meirelles and his collaborators add dimension to “City of God’s” gory view of Rio’s other half, depicting domestic life in the favelas — shantytowns cobbled together from concrete, corrugated tin and cinder blocks by their poor inhabitants. Whereas “City of God” followed its characters through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, “City of Men” looks at contemporary life. Preserving the gritty, neorealist aspects of Meirelles’ film, the TV series offers glimpses into the homes, schools and shops where daily life in the favelas unfolds.