Thursday 31 July 2014

BuzzFeed: 13 Remarkable Sex Stats (from OkCupid)


Published on Jun 24, 2014 by BuzzFeedYellow
13 Remarkable Sex Stats
Thanks to: Christian Rudder & OkTrends @christianrudder http://oktrends.okcupid.com



OkCupid Trends - Apr 19/2011
10 Charts About Sex by Christian Rudder
This seems to be some of the original source information for the above video.





In the comments to this OkCupid article, I found

April 25, 2011 at 3:09 am
Theodore says:
@Truth, @Fred, your statements about old men needing rough sex due to circumcision don’t hold. I’m 74, cut, and have learned to have mind-blowing orgasms solely by tickling my anus with a goose feather.

[I pull out my weekly shopping list and jot down] g...o...o...s...e...f...e...a...t...h...e...r...


OkCupid Trends - Oct 12/2010
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex by Christian Rudder

Gay people aren't promiscuous.
Another common myth about gay people is that they sleep around, but the statistical reality is that gay people as a group aren't any more slutty than straights.

Median Reported Sex Partners

  • straight men: 6
  • gay men: 6
  • straight women: 6
  • gay women: 6

Straight people have gay sex, too.
Another inquiry that had unexpected results: we asked 252,900 straight people have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex?


Men

Women

Using the incredible power of computers, we were able to break down this question geographically. Here are straight people who either have had or would like to have a same-sex experience in the continental U.S. and lower Canada. You can see some sharp geographic divides.Using the incredible power of computers, we were able to break down this question geographically. Here are straight people who either have had or would like to have a same-sex experience in the continental U.S. and lower Canada. You can see some sharp geographic divides.



Canada? Look at Canada! The true North strong and gay? (FYI: National Anthem: "O Canada, the true north strong and free")


OkCupid Trends - Feb 16/2010
The Case For An Older Woman by Christian Rudder

[Older women] are in fact way better adjusted than their younger counterparts.



It might be hard to eyeball, because the bottom graph isn't steeply sloped, but women in their thirties are 4.0% more likely to be happy than their younger counterparts. As anyone who's been in a relationship with someone who lacks them can attest, self-sufficiency and confidence are awesome qualities in a match.

The graph below shows a similar trend, until a poignant drop at the end.



Either something very sad happens to a woman at 40, or something incredibly awesome happens at 39. Hard to tell. And I also want to say, guys, that just because a woman is older, she's not necessarily on the fast-track to marriage:




References

Wikipedia: BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of "the viral web in realtime". Co-founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti (who is also cofounder of The Huffington Post), BuzzFeed is located in Manhattan, New York in the Flatiron District.

official web site: BuzzFeed

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedBlue

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedYellow

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedVideo

Wikipedia: OkCupid
OkCupid is a free friendship, dating and social networking website that features member-created quizzes and multiple-choice questions. The site supports multiple modes of communication, including instant messages and emails. OkCupid was listed in Time magazine's 2007 "Top 10" dating websites.

2014-07-31

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Wednesday 30 July 2014

Expectation vs Reality





















I'm a legend in my own mind.

2014-07-19

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Monday 28 July 2014

If it's on the Internet, it's true.

I was prompted to write after seeing this posted. I had seen it before and investigated the accuracy of the attribution, but thought now to talk about the bigger picture of how we collectively disseminate misinformation much in the same way our ancestors said the Earth was flat. It isn't, just to be clear.

The Guardian - Nov 10/2012
Betty White: TV's golden girl on 63 years in showbusiness by Michael Cragg
"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding." If you happen to look this quote up, you'll see it attributed to notoriously sweet 90-year-old TV great Betty White. Only those words never passed her lips, and she'd quite like people to bear that in mind next time they see fit to quote it at her, as I have just done. "That's what I hate about Facebook and the internet," she sighs. "They can say you said anything. I never would have said that. I'd never say that in a million years."

I discovered that the original author of this quote is apparently Sheng Wang, a Taiwanese American stand-up comic. The following video dating back to 2011 shows the comic expressing this idea but not quite in the words used in the current Internet meme. Go figure. Our apologies, Ms. White.

Uploaded on Apr 12, 2011 by Mixtape Comedy Show
Mixtape Comedy Show - Sheng Wang (2:12)
Sheng starts to talk about this meme around 1:30.



Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland (1903-1989) worked in the field of fashion as a journalist and editor. It would seem logical she would say such a thing but she didn't. The quote comes from Erin McKean (b 1971), an American lexigrapher. (works on dictionaries... I had to look it up.) What's interesting is that in Ms. McKean's article, linked below, she starts off with a picture of Diana Vreeland. Did somebody see this then confuse who uttered the words?

A Dress A Day - Oct 20/2006
You Don’t Have to Be Pretty by Erin McKean
“You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female’.”




Marilyn Monroe
I see a lot of stuff floating around attributed to our favourite blonde.

Goodreads: Quotes About Misattributed To Marilyn Monroe

“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”
-Bette Midler

“Diamonds are a girl's best friend.”
―Jule Styne, The Songs of Jule Styne

“Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is very tired, hurt and bewildered.”
― Clara Bow, Marilyn Monroe: A Composite View

Immortal Marilyn (a fan site): Janie's take on Marilyn Monroe: Misquoting Marilyn
Marilyn Monroe was known for her 'Marilynisms'- witty little bon mots, usually an expertly blended mix of innocent and coquette, and her quotes remain popular still. But how many 'quotes' attributed to Monroe were actually said by her? With Marilyn quotes appearing on everything from t-shirts to wall decals to tattoos, how many of these oft-repeated words were never said by her in the first place? And how can you tell the difference?

An internet search of "Marilyn Monroe Quotes'', unfortunately, reveals countless misquotes, paraphrasings, and flat out ridiculous things attributed to
Marilyn, as well as quotes that were actually said by other people. Here's some of the worst examples.


Harry Potter
Garson O’Toole, the author of the web site Quote Investigator, does an excellent job of studying the history of the following aphorism.

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
-J. K. Rowling

We may all know Ms. Rowling, but this idea has been floating around for a very long time and we can all be assured that the author is well acquainted with the various other writers who have expressed this maxim.


John Lennon
Once again, Quote Investigator looks into the history of the following quote.

Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans.
-John Lennon

Apparently, this first appeared in an issue of Reader’s Digest magazine dated January 1957 in a section called “Quotable Quotes” attributed to Allen Saunders, the author of the cartoon strip "Steve Roper". One could say that the greats quote the greats or quite simply, there is nothing new under the sun. Yes, it has all been done before.


Charles Bukowski
"Find what you love and let it kill you."
-Charles Bukowski, (1920–1994), German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer

A little research led me to this blog on the Houston Press. The author, "Jef With One F", goes through various references and concludes with: "In light of other evidence we're going to have to conclude that the misattributed quote actually belongs to our own Kinky Friedman, and not poet Charles Bukowski."

Wikipedia: Kinky Friedman
Richard Samet "Kinky" Friedman (born November 1, 1944) is an American Texas Country singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race.


How does this all tie together?
In this digital age of the Internet, we have arrived at an unprecedented access to information.

Google About: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Nevertheless, I have been struck, no I have been stunned by the misinformation being passed around. We may laugh at how our ancestors believed the world was flat, but we seem to be completely oblivious to our own ignorance right now, today. The above examples demonstrate to me how we repeat things we hear without ever verifying ourselves if the thing in question is true or not. Somebody told me therefore it has to be true. It's on the Internet so it's got to be true. Of course, it sounds like I'm being funny but I am dead serious. Pick any subject, politics, science, human relations, or sex, and we could go through a list of so-called facts or factoids ("an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact"). Despite this incredible access to information thanks to such services such as Google, we human beings continue to practise what is seen in the following game.

Wikipedia: Chinese Whispers
Chinese whispers (or telephone in the United States) is a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first. Reasons for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections, and that some players may deliberately alter what is being said to guarantee a changed message by the end of the line.

What are the facts? What is the truth? With so many people giving their opinion, supposedly an informed, educated opinion, how do we work out who's giving us the straight goods? As somebody so humorously wrote of the far right in the United States: If you have faith, you don't need facts.


“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
—Malcolm S. Forbes.
The Quote Investigator: Ann Landers? Abigail Van Buren? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Samuel Johnson? Malcolm Forbes? Paul Eldridge? James D. Miles? Dan Reeves? Paul Eldridge had an early version of this saying, but it is most likely that Malcolm Forbes deserves the credit for the currrent form of the saying.



References

Wikipedia: Sheng Wang
Sheng Wang is a Taiwanese American stand-up comic.

Wikipedia: Betty White
Betty Marion White (born January 17, 1922) is an American actress, comedian, presenter, singer, author, and television personality. In 2013, the Guinness World Records awarded White with having the longest television career for a female entertainer.

Wikipedia: Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles ('LA'). His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski's appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."

2014-07-28

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Saturday 26 July 2014

Monty Python: The Cheese Shop



Uploaded on Feb 26, 2008 by Andrew Boynton
The Cheese Shop sketch, Monty Python

There are forty-three cheeses mentioned in the sketch: Red Leicester, Tilsit, Caerphilly, Bel Paese, Red Windsor, Stilton, Emmenthal, Gruyère, Norwegian Jarlsburg, Liptauer, Lancashire, White Stilton, Danish Blue, Double Gloucester, Cheshire, Dorset Blue Vinney (though said to be nearly extinct), Brie, Roquefort, Pont l’Évêque, Port Salut, Savoyard, Saint-Paulin, Carré de l’Est, Bresse Bleu, Boursin, Camembert, Gouda, Edam, Caithness, Smoked Austrian, Japanese Sage Derby* (though Sage Derby exists), Wensleydale, Greek Feta, Gorgonzola, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Pipo Crème, Danish Fynbo, Czech sheep’s milk (Abertam), Venezuelan Beaver Cheese* (no beavers native to Venezuela!), Cheddar, Ilchester, and Limburger. Apparently, there are over a thousand different cheeses produced worldwide with la belle France responsible for over 500 of them.


Uploaded on Sep 21, 2009 by Eagle Rock
The writing of "The Cheese Shop" sketch from "Monty Python - Almost the Truth - The Lawyer's Cut"



Matching Tie and Handkerchief
This sketch from the television show was included in this 1973 album. In the above sketch, when Palin keeps insisting the Camembert is runny, Cleese finally says, "I don't care how excrementally runny it is." On the album, he says, "I don't care how f**king runny is." The F word, contrasted with the highbrow language, was hilarious.

A personal note
Here is an quirky observation I've had over the years. The humour of Monty Python is based on the absurd and I have found that people either get it or they don't. They think it's hilarious or it's not funny at all; it's stupid. There seems to be no middle ground. Worth a chuckle? Amusing? No, it's either bring tears to your eyes slash out loud guffaw funny or zip, nada, nothing. Maybe it's more of a question of absurdist humour. Certainly you have to have a certain taste for such a thing. After all, does everybody get The Marx Brothers or The Three Stooges? It's a taste.

So my odd take on Monty Python. Funny or not funny. Hilarious or stupid. No fence sitting.


References

Wikipedia: Cheese Shop sketch
The Cheese Shop is a well-known sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. It originally appears in episode 33, "Salad Days". The script for the sketch is included in the book The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Volume 2. It would later be reworked for the album The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief and appeared for one last time during Monty Python Live (Mostly), as a surprising coda to the Dead Parrot sketch.

Wikipedia: The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief
Free Record Given Away with the Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, later shortened to simply The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, is the fourth album by the comedy group Monty Python, released in 1973.

Note the following for all of you old enough to remember record albums.

Double grooves
The album's original LP edition (on Charisma Records in the U.K., catalog no. CAS 1080, released 1973, and on Arista Records in the U.S., catalog no. AL 4039, released 1975) is particularly notable in that it was mastered with two concentric grooves on side two, so that different material would be played depending on where the stylus was put down on the record's surface. For this reason it is sometimes referred to as a "three-sided" record. ... The album did not have a track listing, so that this feature would come as a complete surprise to listeners, who might on a second listening hear material they had never heard before, creating genuine confusion.


Wikipedia: Monty Python
Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.

Monty Python YouTube channel

Google search: "monty python"

Google image search: "monty python"

Google video search: "monty python"

my blog: Monty Python: The Philosophers' Football Match

2014-07-26

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Tuesday 22 July 2014

Yonic Symbolism: intentional or not

This all started back on April 2, 2014 when I posted "Phallic Symbolism: intentional or not". Being an equal opportunity type of guy, I couldn't leave the ladies out of the fun. But first, I had to find out the female equivalent of phallic.

Wikipedia: Yoni
Yoni (Sanskrit: योनि yoni, literally "vagina" or "womb") is the symbol of the Goddess (Shakti or Devi), the Hindu Divine Mother. Within Shaivism, the sect dedicated to the god Shiva, the yoni symbolizes his consort. The male counterpart of the yoni is Shiva's linga. Their union represents the eternal process of creation and regeneration. Since the late 19th century, some have interpreted the yoni and the linga as aniconic* representations of the vulva and a phallus respectively.

* aniconic = symbolic or suggestive rather than literally representational (Yeah, I had to look it up.)


Seed Pod
Miss Smith at Home: Botanical Strip Show (Discretion Advised)


Zantedeschia aethiopica: common name Calla Lily


Sacred Cleft, San Diego County, California: Yoniversum: Christina Camphausen




The Gregory Building, University of Glasgow, Scotland
(Departments of Archaeology, Geographical and Earth Sciences and Archaeological Research Division)
FYI: I can't find any information about the sculpture.


Stairs in the Israeli Supreme Court Building
I note that there are a few conspiracy sites devoted to explaining how all this is connected to the rise of the Illuminati
and a New World Order: here, and here, here. I also note that sometimes a stairs is just a stairs.



Proposed stadium in Al Wakrah, Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup
(Metro - Nov18/2013: That awkward moment when a new stadium for the Qatar World Cup looks like a vagina)


Yonic Vulva Pendant by Vulva Love Lovely


Staircase at the Bristol Palace Hotel, Genoa, Italy


Part of a well-balanced breakfast.
You can make up your own joke here.


The Great Wall of Vagina
9 metre long polyptych consisting of four hundred plaster casts of vulvas, all of them unique, arranged into ten large panels.


References

my blog: Phallic Symbolism: intentional or not - Apr 2/2014
I suppose I should start with something profound about Freudian analysis and our collective pysche or an erudite reference to antiquity and our roots with the Greeks and Romans, but in reality, this all started when, by random chance, I ran across the picture of a young lady on the ground holding her legs up with the Tower of Pisa in the background. - Okay, it's not profound, but it was funny. - From there, I typed "phallic symbolism" into Google and the merriment started. Pictures, animated GIFs, and articles both scholarly and humorous were bountifully listed off in a never-ending stream of guffaws and "what were they thinking".

Wikipedia: Lingam
The lingam (also, linga, ling, Shiva linga, Shiv ling, Sanskrit लिङ्गं, liṅgaṃ, meaning "mark", "sign", or "inference") is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples.[3] In traditional Indian society, the linga is rather seen as a symbol of the energy and potentiality of the God. The lingam is often represented alongside the yoni, a symbol of the goddess or of Shakti, female creative energy.[8] The union of lingam and yoni represents the "indivisible two-in-oneness of male and female, the passive space and active time from which all life originates".

Pinterest: yoni or resembling thereof

Vagina Dentata - Nov 22/2009
Christmas is coming! Vajayjay present suggestions by Naomi McAuliffe
[A whole bunch of links to various things about vulvas.]

Published on Nov 5, 2012 by Team Coco
Sarah Silverman's Dirty Smartphone Hack - CONAN on TBS
Sarah's iPhone "craft" will be on everyone's lips today.


2014-07-22

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