I’m pretty sure this was on BoingBoing a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t until my friend Kris said that it was cool and that I should watch it that I actually did. Boy, am I glad.
Although, I know this was a love paean to old NES-style video game action — complete with chiptune-style soundtrack — but all I could think of was, “Damn, I wish I had that much Lego!”
Caster Semeya celebrates her gold medal win prior to the beginning of the current gender controversy. (Photo by David J. Phillip)
Earlier this week at the World Athletics Championship in Berlin, the women’s 800 meter event was won by the South African athlete, Caster Semenya. The 18 year old won the gold medal by an amazing 2 second lead. Of greater international interest, however, is the suggestion that Semenya might not be a woman. This seemingly odd accusation arose from a commonplace drug screening test that found the athlete had testosterone levels three times higher than normal for a female, triggering the need for a gender-verification test.
When I first heard this news story, my immediate mental image was that of a stark, laboratory-like, sterile white room and some poor athlete forced to pull down their pants in front of a panel of doctors. All of whom would be holding clipboards because that’s how you can tell they are professionals.
Of course, the reality is much different and much more complex. Time magazine explains that the simple binary test I envision is not how it is done, nor is the issue as uncommon as one might think.
In his paper “Intersex and the Olympic Games,” Rob Ritchie, a urological surgeon at Oxford University, notes that in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta — the last Games in which all female athletes were subjected to gender testing — eight female athletes were found to be genetically male. Seven of them had androgen-insensitivity syndrome (AIS), a condition in which a genetic male is resistant to androgens, the male sex hormones that include testosterone. In such cases, the testes never descend from the abdomen and the genitalia may resemble female genitalia.
Not only might professional sports be the only career path that requires gender testing (unless your career goals include becoming the Pope), but it might be the only one where you can find out that you are not the gender you thought you were.
But back to the point: even if an individual has AIS, does that make them “not-female” and unable to race against other women, or is it categorized as a genetic abnormality?
Olympic officials do not consider AIS to necessarily confer an advantage. The seven genetically male athletes with AIS at the Atlanta Olympics were allowed to compete as women. However, the incidence of AIS in Atlanta — seven cases among 3,000 athletes — compared with the rate in the general population, which is 1 in 20,000, suggests that partial AIS can boost athletic ability, Ritchie says. “But,” he adds, “it’s never been proven that women found to be genetically male have any physical advantage above what might otherwise be seen in the extremes of genetically female women.”
Therefore, if being genetically male due to AIS does not preclude women from competing as women, how will it be determined if Semenya is female or not?
The IAAF’s evaluation of Semenya will include an endocrinologist, a gynecologist and a psychologist. Whether Semenya is genetically male will be only one of the factors considered. The test will also likely include a psychological profile to see whether she feels herself to be a woman.
The results of the test are not expected for several weeks. In the meantime, I cannot even begin to understand the sorts of emotions that a young adult might go through as the entire world waits to hear the outcome of their gender test.
The other day, Amy pointed me towards a site called Information is Beautiful, which she said “you’ll like.” She was right. It’s the home page of one David McCandless, who has made it his business to organize information into, um, beautiful charts and graphs.
I like. Sometimes his site also showcases the work of others, like the drugs Venn diagram, above, which is a tweaked version of someone else’s work. Click on it for full-size. I also liked the “calories vs. caffeine” chart, partially excerpted below, which allows everyone to make a fully informed choice as to the pros and cons of cola and/or tea.
It immediately reminded me of a site I always mean to explore further, called Swivel, which advertises itself as “tasty data.” The cool thing about Swivel is that anyone can upload data — and a lot of people have scraped data from government sources, so it’s well-sourced. But the really cool thing about Swivel is that you can take anyone’s data set and combine it with any other data set. So you get weird cross-references like the U.S. gross domestic product charted alongside the average yearly temperature. Or, take a look at rates of violent crime compared with how much wine people drink.
There’s loads of fun stuff in both sites. If you come across great things, leave a link in the comments!
An article over at the Huffington Post backs up something I’ve believed ever since I first heard the term ‘multitasking’ — those who engage in said activity are easily distracted individuals who do sloppy work. In fact, those that multitask more often are those that are the worst at it.
I’m not a productivity guru, but multitasking is no longer restricted to just a business setting:
In a society that seems to encourage more and more multitasking, the findings have social implications, Nass observed. Multitasking is already blamed for car crashes as several states restrict the use of cell phones while driving. Lawyers or advertisers can try to use irrelevant information to distract and refocus people to influence their decisions.
Although the article goes into more detail about the actual scientific study, the short version is this: people who multitask more often have greater difficulty keeping separate tasks distinct from one another in their mind.
That said, I should have a snappy one-liner to end this blog entry, but I’m too busy thinking about a letter I’m supposed to be writing. Hopefully, it will be of higher quality than these few paragraphs, but I have my doubts.
Ever wonder how some people — who you just know are stupid — respond to an intelligent work of art? Well, these days they respond online.
Gut-bustingly funny “one-star” Amazon reviews collected at The Guardian include:
Alien
“What do people see in this film? I am not one for horror films, though I do like this alien stuff. Nothing happens in the film. Nothing. We spent most of the time waiting and waiting for something to happen. This movie could have been cut to half an hour, easy.”2001: A Space Odyssey
“This is easily the worst movie of all time. It’s a bunch of spaceships and special effects, but there’s NO coherent plot.”The Shawshank Redemption
“The escape through the sewer is an obvious symbol for anal sex”This Is Spinal Tap
“If you’re going to make such an excellent documentary, why make it about about a band that nobody has ever heard of?”
They also point to a collection of one-star reviews posted at the blog Cynical-C.
In “Leaving Las Vegas” Nicholas Cage’s character tries to drink himself to death. But how long would that take in real life? Luckily, the fine folks at Barstools.net can tell you:
(Using this calculator will take you to the Barstools website, where they say you have to be at least 21. Well, if you’re in Canada, like I am, I’m going to go ahead and say that you can be 18 — or 19, depending on the province.)
(via Coudal)
I was led to this video via MetaFilter, and I’m so very glad for it. Gabe Askew created a video to the song Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Even the lead singer has seen it, and approves.
It’s a really beautiful and interesting concept, and there’s so much going on in it, that I kind of want to watch it over and over again.
You can see the official Two Weeks video here.
Coudal points me to Oddity Central, which points me to EToday, where I discover something that was totally worth it — the Japanese have invented coloured beer. Says Oddity Central:
The people at the Abashiri Brewery have found a use for the icebergs that wash up on Japan’s cost every year. They’ve melted them and used the water to make the world’s first blue beer. The unusual draft looks amazing and is said to taste pretty good as well. Japanese blue beer also contains a fair amount of seaweed.
Abashiri’s green beer is also made of seaweed, as well as hops and a mixture of plants from Japan’s Siretoko peninsula. The red beer contains anthocyans, natural pigments found in plants and fruit.
Now, I’ve had a “red” beer before, but I’m talking something like Rickard’s Red, which isn’t exactly bright and Christmassy like this beer. Anyone heading to Japan and want to bring me some back?
It’s right out of Flight of the Phoenix or Mad Max 2: stuck with a broken-down Citroen in the Moroccan desert, a French handyman decided that the best way home was to take apart the car, repurpose the usable parts, and cobble himself together a home-made motorcycle.
The man’s site, which details the transformation, is in French, and there’s another French site that talks about it here.
I saw it on Jalopnik (via BoingBoing Gadgets).
If you have earned the right to call yourself a scientist, then you have invested years of time and effort in deep study and experimentation. Science has become an integral (pun intended) part of your life. So why not make it a permanent part of your skin?
Turns out that plenty of scientists get their passions inked on to their bodies in the form of a tattoo. Stevens Johnson, a professor of Physics and Engineering, is one of them.
The right shoulder tattoo [above] is a 3D perspective abstract view of a gaussian photon, a “particle of light,” the red vertical undulations represent the electric field, the black horizontal undulations the magnetic field. It is propagating to the right, seen here as a snapshot in time. The photon is the single most common manner in which information is transmitted from one place in the universe to another. The tattoo artist suggested adding the faint shadows to give it depth, but the real reason I agreed was the ironic (oxymoronic?) humor of a particle of light casting a shadow.
The left shoulder tattoo [below] is a 3D perspective of the Periodic Table with the Planck Snake weaving around it (note the h-bar, Plank’s constant, in the eye). The snake represents the wave nature of matter, and Physics in general. (The infinity symbol the snake forms is a bonus.) The combination of the Periodic Table of Chemistry with the Planck Snake of Physics is also an inside joke at the expense of chemists: It took the Quantum Mechanics of Physics to explain to Chemistry its own Table of Elements.
More — many, many more — at the Science Tattoo Emporium.
(via Coudal)
Thanks to Dave on Facebook for pointing this my way. Warning: The Professor Brothers, created by Brad Neely, can be addictive.
Awhile back I posted a fantastic video of the Avett Brothers performing their song St. Joseph’s in a gondola. A gondola!
The Avett Brothers, after performing and recording for a decade, are finally getting a major-label release, produced by none other than Rick Rubin, best known for producing some of the most famous rap and metal recordings in the last 20 years, but who also had success with the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Johnny Cash.
The new Avett Brothers album is called I and Love and You, and will be released in September, although the title track has been floating around as a single for awhile.
I was a little wary when I first heard the track. I mean, the main instrument in the song is a piano and not the guitar or banjo. It’s taken several listens to start to appreciate the way the song swells and builds; to appreciate that although it sounds like their brand of country has been squashed a little, it’s still subtly there; to appreciate the way the lyrics, three words that became hard to say/I and love and you, make my heart break.
The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
(Avett Brothers picture from flickr user Julio Enriquez)
I happened across a very addictive internet game this afternoon — basically, you just fly a helicopter through a tunnel of green. Randomly-placed blocks try to stymie your progress.
I’ve linked to it above, or click here. The developer claims that his high score is 2,148, and as you can see, I only got 912 as my best. I was averaging between 600-700 and I really wanted to beat 1,000, but I just couldn’t do it.
The Photographic Dictionary is:
dedicated to defining words through the literal, figurative and personal meanings found in each photograph.
Although the dictionary is just getting started (there are only 21 words under the letter E for example — and they don’t have an entry for either “entry” or “example” … or “either”, as it turns out) there are still some worthy submissions.
Sure, some of them are mundane, or only really personal (if you think beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so must be “morbid“)
But some of them are strangely compelling, like the clever illustration of the word “extension“, above, which was photographed by Josh Murfitt.
Matt Mullenweg is one of the founders of WordPress, the software platform that powers this blog — and many others.
But if he wasn’t working on WordPress all the time, what would he be doing? He says, maybe he’d start a bank:
The name of my bank would be something supremely boring, like SafeBank. The idea behind it is that bad behaviour in the banking world has been largely inevitable because their compensation structures incented people to do overly risky things. SafeBank would maintain a reserve level 2-3x higher than Fed requirements and any other bank. SafeBank would have no bonuses. Critics would say this would make it impossible to attract top-shelf talent. Every time the bank gets attacked we’d turn it into an advertising opportunity to emphasize why we’re different. “We can’t attract top-shelf talent? We take your money and put it in a vault. We don’t need the million-dollar bonus geniuses on Wall Street to do that. SafeBank. Bank, safe.”
Drawing on the ethos of open-source and the software startup industry, Mullenweg says that he would grow his bank slowly and organically, but expects it would reach a tipping point where it would start to put pressure on the big banks to reign in their worst practices.
The bank would make money through data-mining, though even he expresses some discomfort from the privacy implications of some of that. Why couldn’t it just lend money at fair rates, the same way banks used to?
Aside from the fact that “SafeBank” wouldn’t have any bricks-and-mortar outlets, being an online-only entity, it strikes me as pretty similar in ethics to the way banks used to be.
Sounds like an interesting idea — I wonder if anyone will run with it. If you’re interested in it at all, go read the rest of his post — he’s got it seriously thought-out.