Thursday Links

Remember when we used to do Thursday Links on a regular schedule? Good times, good times.

Hank Green’s succinct and logical argument against the rhetoric of anti-gay marriage legislation.

One of Katie’s (many, many) talents is recognizing voice-over actors’ voices (that, and always knowing when someone got a haircut). This documentary looks awesome.

Easter Island heads have bodies! At least 1/2 of the Interrobangs minds are blown. Did other people know this?

A cover of a cover, but these two sisters singing Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” are really good.

Katie’s former advisor is a biodiversity superstar and just published an interactive biodiversity map of the world.

This is all sorts of adorable.

Garfunkle and Oates strike again.

Let me tell you a secret. It’s called The Secret

Here’s another secret. You’re an asshole.

Henna “crowns” adorning the heads of cancer patients (via Ruby Bastille)

Les Miserables trailer. Yes!

Shirley Manson stops a concert to yell at a man for hitting a woman.

Thursday Links

Laura at Ruby Bastille explores the intersections between fashion, feminism, and Christianity.

The theme of Katie and The Rocket Scientist’s wedding is “What? We have to have a theme?!?,” but if there was a theme, this Scientific Wedding or this Prehistoric Wedding (no cavepeople, promise) are both very cool.

And on that note, a Tardis-style engagement ring!

And more Dr. Who! An entire site of very cool merchandise. Katie totally wants a “Keep Calm and Alons-y!” shirt.

Jenna Marbles’ drunk makeup tutorial. Note: Mom, this is NOT we’ll do eyelashes for the wedding.

This summer marks Katie’s epic “Clean Your Apartment and Get Rid of All Your Crap” adventure. On that note, Unfuck Your Habitat will be a much-visited site.

Perfect Strangers, the video game.

Sharks with laser beams!

Check out the beautiful pieces from House of Wandering Silk, a company dedicated to providing “…a dignified & sustainable means to lifting women & their families out of poverty through the creation of high-quality & desirable ethically- and environmentally-aware clothing, accessories and home wares.” (and see if you recognize one of their models!)

Thursday Links

DIY Bird Mobile. Finally something to do with all my fabric scraps!

Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly argue over metaphorical shrimp.

Chip Kidd’s TED Talk on designing book covers. Now there’s a character!

Dinosaur showdown at high noon.

Sarah Harmer and Kathleen Edwards singing “House Full of Empty Rooms” is equally beautiful and heartbreaking.

A children’s book about a young Mary Shelly and Ada Lovelace – pro-math, pro-history, pro-science, pro-literature, and they solve mysteries! [Millie, unsurprisingly, loves everything about this unreservedly.]

Millie also loves everything about this woman’s art project, “Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.” The facial expressions are AMAZING.

An elderly man in a nursing home comes to life, almost literally, when he listens to music.

xkcd’s take on the scale of the depths of the oceans. Note especially the comment next to the sperm whale.

Thursday Links

Best summary of The Hunger Games. And much funnier than the book, which was surprisingly not an upper…

The donut charade we insist on continuing.

“You’re more awesome than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon riding a cyborg unicorn…”

The angry librarians of Alexandria

Margaret Atwood’s perspective on “women’s novels.”

This proposal at a Toronto Maple Leafs/Ottawa Senators hockey game is pretty fantastic.

Henry Rollins vs the Hipsters

Thursday Links

Darth Vader, a unicycle, and a bagpipe walk into a parking lot (via Katie’s dad)

Not completely literary-ily accurate, but Katie loves the idea behind this Anne of Green Gables-inspired wedding

Dogs look hilarious under water.

Millie is kinda curious to see this movie about a white American man who goes looking for a Chinese wife, even though based on about ten seconds of the trailer she knows she’ll want to punch the man, because aaaaah creepy bigoted skeeziness. But, seeing how the filmmaker (who must have guts of iron to stomach the epic amounts of skeeze) gets drawn into it has totally sold it for me.

Millie has been systematically going through the back episodes of Radiolab, and this one on musical language is fantastic, and well worth a listen.

On the gross intolerance of neo-atheists.

These women, newly redefined as sluts, are very talented, hilarious, and politically witty.

The comment section for ever article on PETA.

Brain Pickings suggests a Curator’s Code for citing sources on the internet.

A Rube Goldberg machine for pouring a glass of wine.

Thursday Links

A rather adorable tale of a dad who learns about comic books to keep up with his daughter’s interest in them.

A psychology study has found that wearing a lab coat makes scientists do science better. There’s a blog post in this, if Millie can ever find more than ten minutes to write.

On the parallels between misogyny and homophobia.

This advice on pitfalls to avoid when writing a resume is very good! The comment section has lots of input too.

If you’re feeling very typographically fancy, here’s some combinations of fonts.

How to extract your DNA! Not especially useful, but nifty nonetheless.

Caitlin Doughty is a mortician, and she has a really refreshing and down-to-earth approach to funeral rites. She’s done a series of contributions to Fortnight Journal, and can also be found at Order of the Good Death.

Is it time to reclaim the female version of guy? Millie thinks perhaps.

Thursday Links

Apparently mothers talk about math very differently to their daughters than to their sons. A study has found that the women studied used concrete numbers and numerical concepts more often when talking to their sons.

A response to n+1′s piece about ladyblogs and feminism online, which is both better written and much more reasonable than the original piece.

This short story imagining a underground network of women distributing birth control is not nearly far enough from the realm of possibility.

Millie’s real name is a source of confusion for many people, so reading a paper on how people form more positive impressions of people with easily pronounceable names is a bit disheartening.

Millie loooooved Carmen Sandiego when she was little, and this essay about how she’s a very positive Latina role model is well worth reading.

Grandmotherly advice about social media etiquette.

Astonishing book sculptures.

Want to know who’s trying to track your clicks on the internet? Collusion is a Firefox add-on that tells you who’s trying to track you.

On the implausibility of the Death Star trash compacter.

Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords fame won an Oscar. Good for him! And good for us, because it’s an excuse for some gratuitous New Zealand folk-rap. (Though we don’t really need an excuse.)

Thursday Links

Open letter to Elsevier employees, from @FakeElsevier.

This half-hour radio documentary on egg donation in Canada is well worth a listen.

Google is changing its privacy settings, so if you want to delete your Google browsing history before it gets merged with data from your other Google sites (email, reader, etc), EFF has some instructions on how. (Thanks, S.!)

Women in games, and the fallout from one woman’s suggestion about how to make games more appealing to women.

This ghost story is gorgeous.

Thursday Links

Shocking new sport? Extreme Tazer Ball.

Katie’s not a Louis Vuitton fan, but this menagerie of animals constructed out of LV pieces is very cool.

Is Jane Austen only for white people?

A squirrel’s guide to fashion!

*Groan*

Katie CANNOT stop watching (and laughing hysterically at) the Funny or Die sketch of Jean Dujardin’s villain auditions. “Kermit!”

The world’s first English language vegan North Korean food blog.

Hanku is a collection of haikus found in the Hansard Parliamentary record. Two haikus that come up consecutively, said by two different people in different years:

He said that he thought
that the Iraqis would greet us
as liberators.

Anyone can see
that that is an illogical
position to take.

Millie’s said for a few years now that she wants to sing like Neko Case, but after hearing cover of Star Witness by two extremely talented high schoolers, she’s thinking she’d like to be able to sing like one of them instead.

If you’re not in favour of the Enbridge Northern Pipeline (which if built will connect the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific coast), congratulations, you’re a radical in the eyes of the government! Let them know the breadth and scope of the radical ranks of the citizenry.

Thursday Links

I have to make one of these cork giraffes. Actually I have to make two, then they could fight and be GIRAFFE-STRANGLINGLY-ANGRY!! Awesome!

Thursday Links

Project Unbreakable aims to use photography to help the victims of sexual abuse heal [Trigger warning, and equal parts infuriating/heartbreaking/inspiring]

Three faces of feminism: Louise Mensch, Laurie Penny, and Jodie Marsh. A critical look at where we find feminism.

Academic publishing has is by no means perfect, and there’s a increasing call for journals to be open access, or at least not so prohibitively expensive to institution. In particular, publishing giant Elsevier has decided to bundle its journals, so libraries will have to pay for a bundle of journals, some of which will probably not be useful to the library patrons, rather than jsut for the journals they want or need. DrugMonkey’s response to some of the publishers’ statements (like “Publishers pursue the goal of universal access through whatever means are practically available.” which is just patently ludicrous) is well worth a read.

The only thing better than a good roadside dinosaur is a terrible roadside dinosaur.

Relatedly, T-Rex tries to do things.

The anthropology of the ubiquitous red plastic cup.

This is horrifically disgusting: eighty percent of chicken farmers never sanitize the chickens’ crates.

This letter from a former slave to his previous master is incredible.

File under “things you will probably never need to know but will remember anyway:” a nasal tampon made of salt pork makes an excellent nosebleed cure.

Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory chronicles a man’s investigation into where exactly his Apple products come from.

Millie may be a vegetarian, but watching a whale (or squid, or giraffe, or elephant…) dissection while eating dinner has been a daily occurrence this week.

Thursday Links

Apparently Craig Ferguson did a long interview with Stephen Fry, and Millie could listen to the two of them talk all day.

A guy modified a record player to play tree rings rather than vinyl. So neat!

Millie and her gentleman friend went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last weekend, and she thinks she probably missed about half of the important bits of implied information. This rather thorough analysis fills in a lot of the gaps though.

Backstage at the Dior couture show.

The Stoakes-Whibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns.

Lego man in space!

Need something to do to kill time? Try this colour matching game, which is sure to infuriate you.

Thursday Links, Evening Edition

A 13-year old girl vlogs intelligently about “slut shaming.” Well done!

Nerds and male privilege (just don’t read the comments) (via Ruby Bastille)

Disney vs. Miyazaki

If you read nothing else in this post, read this: Indo-chic. (It’s on the problems with bindis, and Indian garments and styling becoming popular in the West, and it’s fantastic.) (via garconniere)

This is a great piece on why some men play as women (or men) in video games. Millie’s got a couple of video game related posts up her sleeve, if she ever gets around to writing them out.

Animation of a lonely desk toy taking a trip.

A cape made out of spider silk. Gorgeous!

Practical writing tips from an assortment of authors.

Weird lava!

A reporter for The Toronto Star, along with considerable help from an array of people from school principals to readers, helped get Roya Shams, a 17 year old Afghani girl who wants to be a politician to carry on her father’s work, get to Canada so she can attend school in Ottawa. This is one remarkable girl, by all accounts. The back coverage is here.

Thursday Links

New thoughts about what an appendix does, and how having one may help save your life. Millie rather likes the idea of a bacteria farm in her innards.

Turns out orangutans love playing with iPads, especially watching video of other orangutans they know. The picture of the little one holding an iPad with all four appendages is impossibly adorable.

8th Fire is a TV and radio series on relations between Aboriginal Canadians and non-Aboriginal Canadians on the CBC starting next week. There’s online content too, and looks pretty great.

Making a robot cute makes people much more likely to interact with it, and interact positively.

Women! When riding your new-fangled bicycle, you must follow these rules!

A woman made an R2D2 ballerina costume, and called it Artootutu. Brilliant! (via the Mary Sue)

Also from The Mary Sue, Star Trek figures dance in stop motion to All the Single Ladies (All the Trekkie Ladies?).

English pronunciation (this one’s especially for Katie’s Dad and The Rocket Scientist)

The Ryan Gosling memes continue. Now he loves museums – huzzah!

An excellent extra credit question.

Stephen Harper wants to monitor Canadians online. Bad Prime Minister, bad!

Maurice Sendak tells you to go to hell and it’s adorable.

20 Ways to Get Good Karma, by the Dalai Lama. [Millie: I <3 the Dalai Lama so, so much. He's the sort of spiritual leader my little atheist heart can really get behind.]

Thursday Links

How the West plays into the caricature of North Korea. Relatedly, an examination of the public grief of North Koreans after Kim Jong Il’s death.

The gay community in Minnesota apologizes to Amy Koch for ruining her marriage.

Radioactive spiderwebs found on nuclear waste.

Love me, love my footnotes.

Thursday Links

A couple of Christmas-related videos: Wil Wheaton is surprised by a gift from his former roommate, and Darth Vader leads a caroling flash mob. And how did Millie not know about The Nerdist before?

Slate is running a serious of podcasts on the art of negotiation; here’s the first one.

Millie is for no especially good reason fascinated by North Korea, and this documentary on the state was curious.

Relatedly, Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong Il have a conversation in the afterlife.

Apparently there is such a thing as an electric bagpipe? And bagpipe simulation software? The world is a strange, strange place.

Skate Bush.

Chelsie enjoyed this video of McGill (doctors, scientists and students) Dancing for Cancer Research.

In other Montreal news, Maisonneuve Magazine has uncovered the unsavory underbelly (bid rigging, collusion, etc) of snow removal in Montreal. The whole article is only in the print edition, but this interview with the author sketches out where she got her story from.

The first same-sex first-kiss-off-the-boat in the American Navy after the repealing of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Awww!

Ice Cube celebrates the Eames.

Thursday Links

How doctors die.

The news of 2011, in Lego.

The “Hey girl” meme expands to include Gael García-Bernal.

Tommy Tiernan on Strombo talking about Don Cherry.

Nick Cave has such an awesome voice, as evidenced by his narration of The Cat Piano.

Rick Mercer’s heritage moment on pulling out of Kyoto.

Relatedly, small delays in cutting emissions makes a big difference.

Millie is not the slightest bit surprised that Canada pulled out of Kyoto, unfortunately, but she’s amused that Justin Trudeau is carrying on the family tradition of cussing in the House of Commons. (She also thinks he should be apologizing for his terrible taste in facial hair before he apologizes for swearing at Kent.) Also, Strombo’s debrief on it features Harper with James Dean hair.

This post about a Friday night dance is fantastic.

Yo-Yo Ma on a bathroom floor with a wombat. (Does that sound like a Clue accusation to anyone else?)

Thursday Links

It’s grading season, and just like there’s five stages of grief, there’s five stages of grading too.

A modest proposal for the PhD: the degree IS the job.

Librarian Hey Girl. Perfection.

Stephen Lewis, as always, knocks it clean out of the park in his speech at an AIDS conference this week.

Everyone knows that when it comes to financing wars, or bailing out the banks, or bailing out Greece, or reinstituting corporate bonuses, or even responding to natural disasters that threaten economies, there’s always enough money. We’re drowning in crocodile tears. It’s not a matter of the financial crisis; it’s a matter of human priorities. We have a right to ask the G8: what do you sanctify as governments: profits and greed or global public health?

In other news from people Millie is a big fan of, Stephanie Nolen’s got a multimedia project up on The Globe and Mail about the difficulties low caste girls face in rural India, and a school that gives them an education. Heartwrenching stuff.

The Trawler gathers and curates opinion pieces from news organizations from around the world.

Photoshop silliness of Rob Ford kicking things.

Thursday Links

John Green, author, vlogger, and lover of the interrobang, is about to publish his new novel, The Fault in Our Stars. Hear him read the first chapter here.

Laurie Penny’s musing on self presentation and consumerism, and what it means to “smarten up” as she puts it, is fantastic, and you should all read it.

This article on the state of sex education in New York high schools is depressing. But the author is 17, and that’s awesome.

Pacific Rain executes a tremendous Anthropologie knock off and creates some gorgeous gold and quartz earrings.

Katie’s proud of the Girl Scouts stand on transgendered children in her adopted home state.

Do you follow Laura Ingalls Wilder on Twitter?

Millie laughed so hard at this MS Paint music video for Look at Me Know she couldn’t breathe. Lyrics seriously NSFW.

This article about why the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare’s authorship is bunk is fantastic.

Have a million dollars burning a hole in your pocket? Perhaps you should get a human slinky!

These are some serious braids.

Nature wants to eat you. True facts.

This is a long but very well written essay about the role of police in the Occupy movement.

Jess embroidered constellations on her cardigan and it is AWESOME!

Thursday Links

Millie is indeed tired of the relentless inundation of “sexy” Hallowe’en costumes.

She’s also tired of the trotting out of cultural stereotypes, and this ad campaign is fantastic.

This video by the ever insightful Jay Smooth on the Occupy Wall Street movement is well worth the four minutes to watch.

Millie may write more about this later (and here, even! Yes, she hasn’t forgotten that she contributes here too, and not just links!), but this post on masculinity as seen on TV is great.

Tim Gunn + Star Trek fashion = awesomeness.

The Golden Age of Dirty Talk.

You’ve got balls,” we say, when once we could have yelled that “the testimonies of your Manhood are swell’d as big, Sirrah, as a couple of Norfolk dumplings!”

Millie would’ve done well in a time when people talked like that.

Disney movies look way funnier when the faces are swapped.

Everyone needs duct tape in their arsenal of tools, now use it to make your own dress form.

No one else will care, but The Rocket Scientist shows up for a few seconds in this video about the US Ambassador to Germany. [Millie: Is he the dude in a suit brushing his hair back?] [Katie: No, he's the dude who looks like The Rocket Scientist You see him sitting at the far end of the front row of the presentation, looking very serious with his Aquiline nose]

Listen to Florence & The Machine’s new album, “Ceremonials”!

This Atlantic article on women and marriage is fascinating.

Rob Ford called the police on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. [Millie: I nearly keeled over laughing when I heard this! Jian Ghomeshi's incredulity is worth a listen too.]

Occupy Wall Street’s race problem.

Joss Whedon is doing Much Ado About Nothing!

On a selfish note, Katie’s eyeing a new pair of boots. But what color (driftwood, cognac or lavendar)?

Restoring the Clyfford Still art collection for exhibition.

Thursday Links

The Ira Glass sex tape. Genius!

The tumblr Feminist Ryan Gosling is a HILARIOUS combination of feminist theory and a cute Canadian.

There’s also Fuck Yeah, Ryan Gosling. The Golden Girls make him cry.

Best journal article abstract ever. EVER.

Years of anatomy and physiology courses taught Katie what high heels do your feet and skeletal system, which is why she doesn’t wear them. These photos of models’ feet after Fashion Week is another good reason.

Typography violence (via Katie’s dad).

Zombies with a side of cowbell.

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens on the death penalty.

Millie wishes she had the chutzpah to send a letter like this one rejecting a rejection. (See also this.)

A plan to double the world’s food supply sounds sorely needed, and it’s not surprising that the reduction of reliance on meat is key to it. Millie and Sarah are walking proof that vegetarianism is doable for most people!

Thursday Links

The knowledge that “pink is for girls” is a relatively recent social construct isn’t new, but this post by Peggy Orenstein sums it up nicely.

Ben & Jerry’s letter to the Wall Street occupiers.

Watch the trailer for Miss Representation, a film about the affect of the portrayal of women in the media. (via Ruby Bastille)

Anthroparodie is hilarious and hits the mark perfectly.

Proof that not all Victorians were dour! Some even *gasp* smiled! Others put things on their chest like Katie sometimes does!

So apparently Hugh Jackman, Baz Luhrmann Robert Pattinson once did karaoke together in Japan. Millie would pay good money to’ve seen that.

The captions on this set of celebrity photos is absolutely hilarious. (via A., of all people)

The correlation of Google searches relating to poverty and Walmart jobs is pretty depressing.

Thursday Links

The Ig Nobel Prize winners were announced this week (and the regular Nobel Prizes are being announced now-ish, too) and they’re fantastic. Do tortoises have contagious yawning? Can airborne wasabi be used as an emergency alarm? Can world peace be achieved by running over luxury cars with a tank? People did experiments on these things!!!

A great video on the history of lyrics that aren’t lyrics (via Katie’s dad).

The Taino, the indigenous peoples Columbus meet in the Caribbean, were believed to have been exterminated centuries ago. But the story is far more layered than that.

The single bride who married herself. Right on!

This is so old and so pointless, but yet here we are.

Millie thinks “Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)” is one of Arcade Fire’s prettier songs, and this cover by Quinn Deveaux and Meklit Hadero takes it to a whole new (gorgeous!) level. [Katie edit: How beautiful!]

More music! One of Katie’s all-time favorite artists is Kathleen Edwards, and she has two new songs out. “Change the Sheets” and “Wapusk,” both produced by Bon Iver.

“Wapusk” is Kathleen Edward’s contribution to Parks Canada’s The National Parks Project, celebrating the organization’s centennial. Watch the trailer for the upcoming film. [Watching the sun rise over Gros Morne is on Katie's life list. She just has to figure out how to wake up that early...]

This audiovisual illusion called the McGurk Effect is MIND BLOWING. Turns out what you hear is at least partially dependent on what you see.

What Twitter would’ve been in the 1800′s, and other vintage startups.

Should we return to nose to tail eating? Cookbook author Jennifer McLagan says yes, in an interview on Q.

The death of the creative class.

Are any of you Jeopardy! watchers? Two people have told Katie that one of last week’s champions, Chris Fleitas, is her boy-twin in looks and mannerisms. She wonders if fake-related status earns her a slice of the winnings…

Thursday Links

Last Friday would have been Jim Henson’s 75th birthday. At his memorial, his fellow Muppeteers performed some of Henson’s favorite songs. Warning: if the very end doesn’t make you tear up, you may be a Cyberman.

Katie’s only knowledge of Dark Shadows comes from a Corner Gas episode, but Johnny Depp’s remake is intriguing.

Shame on you, London (Canada) Farmers’ Market.

Fasting for God, or holy anorexia? (be careful: frank discussion of eating disorders)

The short film Planet of the Arabs explores the depiction of Middle Eastern peoples in Hollywood films.

At a recent Lutheran Church rummage sale, Katie caught herself singing “All American Prophet” from The Book of Mormon. It’s really catchy.

Two excellent discussions on Troy Davis and the presence of the death penalty.

Oh, Sweet Jebus. Thank goodness the curse of the Native American cannibals is broken.

Have you guys seen Penelope? She’s serious. Pantsuit serious.

Science, music and brains (but not in a zombie way).

Trains with lightsaber handles.

Saudi women gain the right to vote. And then one woman gets sentenced 10 lashes for driving.

Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Price, died on Wednesday. In this scene from Dirt! The Movie, she declares she “will be a hummingbird.”

“Did she just moneyshot herself with his neck blood?” Femme fatales in video games.

Hark! A Vagrant the book came out this week! Do you read Kate Beaton’s awesome webcomic? It’s in our blogroll. Have you checked out our blogroll? It’s full of fantasticness. Anywho, goeth forth and read Hark! A Vagrant.

Katie’s totally going to do this from now on, so you’d better be on your conversation game.

Thursday Links (sometimes on Wednesday)

Damn it, Jaunty Dame, these videos made K laugh far too hard!

Actually, any of these options sound fine. Why can’t you have the ice cream and the Tardis?

What Would Miss Frizzle Wear? Why, I do believe we’ve seen that lobster dress before!

This makes no sense, but: gonads and strife.

It’s all rubbish, but Katie has a “Wood Face.” What face do you have?

Inside Out Style shows you how to find your balance points. Handy for determining necklines and adornment.

As a decidedly busty gal, Katie was thrilled to find Hourglassy, a blog dedicated to “above average style for the above average bust.”

Oh, the “mansplaining” (definition of mansplaining here).

Eddie Izzard is in a new movie. All is right with the world.

Vladimir Putin, man of action, attempts to bend a frying pan with his bare hands.

Why do Republicans take pride in being…well…stupid?

The most amazing use for a plastic bottle.

A good reason why to use an Oxford comma.