Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 4.24
- Yes, we DO need more women in tech
- Kazakhstan government to build UFO base and alien embassy – “If these reports are to be believed, the authorities have already allocated a large plot of land in the city of Almaty for this ambitious project. Facilities to be built within the complex will include a guesthouse, theatre and translation service. A purpose built UFO landing pad and checkpoint will be attached to the embassy.” From Steve.
- Brain-Twitter project offers hope to paralyzed patients -“Adam Wilson posted two messages on Twitter on April 15. The first one, “GO BADGERS,” might have been sent by any University of Wisconsin-Madison student cheering for the school team. His second post, 20 minutes later, was a little more unusual: “SPELLING WITH MY BRAIN.””
- How wrong is it to masturbate with a kitten? – It might depend on whether you’ve washed your hands or not. (Link is work safe, don’t worry.)
- Lots of submissions for Cute Animal Friday! this week. Janiece sent in a veritable plethora of zoo animal cuteness. Steve’s right, omg a bunny! Nowoo introduced me to the adorableness of anteaters. And NoisyAstronomer pointed out the description of this video of a slow loris being tickled.
Psychological priming is a well known occurance. I suppose which primers result in which shift is always interesting.
Funny though that the disgust/cleanliness scale shifts towards stricter moral judgements at both ends, suggesting that the only priming that’s really coming through is the idea of being cleaner / more pure than average, and therfore making harsher judgements.
I suppose the essence of psychological priming is to simply make people aware of the average, and people will automatically categorise themselves above it all on their own.
Funny though that the disgust/cleanliness scale shifts towards stricter moral judgements at both ends, suggesting that the only priming that’s really coming through is the idea of being cleaner / more pure than average, and therfore making harsher judgements.
You missed it: the scale was reversed for the handwashing exercise. Cleanliness/purity made people more ‘morally lax’.
I only know it’s wrong to have “Cute animal Friday” follow “Masturbating with a kitten”.
Also, I’m pretty sure if you masturbate with a kitten, God kills two.
Hey diddle diddle with the cat I did fiddle.
Tomorrow the cow gets me over the moon!
@SaraDee: “You missed it: the scale was reversed for the handwashing exercise. Cleanliness/purity made people more ‘morally lax’.”
Well, that certainly explains the Grateful Dead parking lot.
wai those anneterz has no capshunz?
Are you sure that the UFO base isn’t a sequel to “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”?
You are gonna have so much egg on your face when Kazakhstan has the market cornered on alien kitsch.
Those anteaters may be the cutest thing I’ve seen in my entire life. When my plan for world domination finally works out I buy myself a romper room filled with anteaters.
wawawewawe come in peace
Silly Kazakhstan, don’t they know that the Aliens don’t need landing facilities? The beam directly into YOUR HEADS!
Few women in SciTech isn’t my problem for the same reason few women in construction, skilled trades and manual labor aren’t a problem.
It is what it is.
Shooting for some abstract PC target (diverse, gender balanced team) with no discernable value is business stupid. You might as well add in an even height/weight, hair color, eye color, genitalia size distribution as well. Everything has to be balanced, after all.
BitchBuzz hit this out of the park though:
@movingshadow: Lol.
Also, anyone else notice that the “All News Web” site that the Kazakh UFO story came from might not be the most credible news source in the world? check out some of the other articles, like http://www.allnewsweb.com/page6686687.php.
They also have a column on psychic predictions and advice.
If Kazakhstan comes up with a bunch of whiz-bang weapons in the near future and becomes the world’s next hyperpower, then you won’t be laughing!
@mxracer652:
If people with brown hair were being actively discouraged from being part of the tech field, we might ask why that was happening, too. In addition, I don’t think that trying to potentially double the number of talented people in a certain field counts as “business stupid.”
@Bjornar: Forgive me, the kitten masturbation title was just too funny and too rare for me to pass up.
You ever try to masturbate with a kitten? It’s all claws and teeth. Bity, scratchy, no orgasmy.
I am devestatingly allergic to cats. It horrifies me to think what would happen if I tried that. I won’t give details because it’s just too nasty to contemplate.
I’ll stick to my neighbors poodle thank you.
@Amanda: Oh I don’t mind the title, just it being placed right next to cute animal Friday. My mind can’t safely handle that sort of association.
@SaraDee:
“You missed it: the scale was reversed for the handwashing exercise. Cleanliness/purity made people more ‘morally lax’.”
You’re absolutely right! And the reason I mad ethat mistake is because somebody fucked up the graphs. The first one has a lower bar for more morally wrong, the second one has a higher bar for more morally wrong.
FAIL!
@Gabrielbrawley: You ever try to masturbate without a kitten? It’s all no claws and no teeth. No bity, no scratchy, no orgasmy.
I’ve never understood how, if one cares about the future of a given field, one would not want to get all the talent possible into the field. The best way to increase the talent in a field: go after under-represented populations.
When I was in grad school studying mathematics, one of my female office-mates was a woman, a rarity in the department. She was also not Chinese and a PhD candidate, which as far as I could discern was enough to make her unique in a fairly large contingent of grad students.
If there were anyone one would think would care about the under-representation of women in mathematics, one would expect that person to be her…One would be wrong. I brought it up and she expressed complete and utter disinterest. I followed up saying that if you want a field to be as successful as possible, you would want to encourage as many people as possible to enter it to get the best people possible. She said, and I quote, “I guess…”
I just don’t get it. Even if you aren’t particularly bothered by sexism, how is this not a no-brainer?
@TheCzech: “one of my female office-mates was a woman”
Brilliant! Is there a tautology of the week award?