Birdseed

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• Commented on "Malcolm X was bisexual. Get over it."
  So by ethnic group you don't mean anything relating to culture or shared sense of belonging or identity self-definition, but rather, er, "race". I think you'll have to give this one one more spin in your head....
• Commented on "Malcolm X was bisexual. Get over it."
  Message slightly marred by it coming out of the mouth of Peter Thatchell, a man not exactly enamoured by most LGBT people of colour because of his limelight-stealing, litigation happiness, paternalism and strange attitude towards muslims and Jamaicans. The thought...
• Commented on Weirdest Beatles cover ever by creepy Hungarian ventrilo-choir
  Well, the sign simply says "The Conan O'Brien Show (NBC) Ventriloquist Choir" - as the name of the band. So basically what Bonnie said....
• Commented on Thrashing, mad, metal: the art of Double Fine's <em>Brütal Legend</em>
  Ah, yeah, the Ralph Lauren Photoshop Disaster. But surely that was in another thread?...
• Commented on Yahoo hires lap-dancers to entertain at its open, inclusive Hack Day event
  Yet again I'm amazed how Boing Boing readers are able to be progressive on every issue except the biggest and deepest one there is. If you really can't see how this affects power relations between one dominant group and one...
• Commented on Sympathy for the Lamprey
  I love lampreys! They taste really interesting, very different from other fish. In northern Sweden river lampreys are fished, smoked, and then cooked with cream to make a gorgeous and very unusual dish....
• Commented on Gag order blocks Guardian from reporting on Parliament
  Ah, Stephen Fry just twittered it. That will help get the ball rolling....
• Commented on Gag order blocks Guardian from reporting on Parliament
  Yup, definitely the question mralistair highlighted. It's been all over the twitterverse and blogosphere, with "#trafigua" and "Carter-Ruck" trending topics. It's totally being Streisanded! The report mentioned is on Wikileaks: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations%2C_14_Sep_2006...
• Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
  I've also got sirdook's problem with the cut-off letters along the right-hand margin. Oh, and the "login" page is still the old one. :) Good luck working out the kinks!...
• Commented on Dirty Tats: shocker, but lowbrow game marketing is lowbrow
  This would easily fall to the advertising standards comittee if it was Swedish. For LOADS of reasons, I can't fathom why some people appear to miss them. Sexist advertising 101: 1. The product advertised (a racing game) has nothing to...
• Commented on Turtle sex with a shoe
  I've only seen giant tortoises do this, and they too make the moaning/whining noises. Except it's rather deeper and more sonorous in their case... Do any other animals besides humans and turtles moan during sex?...
• Commented on Putumayo Presents India music compilation
  Oh, and of course there's the music of the Indian diaspora which a companies as culture-essentialist as Rough Guide and Putumayo would never acknowledge. Chutney and chutney-soca in Trinidad, Bhangra in England, "Urban Desi" in the US, "Bongo Bhangra" in...
• Commented on Putumayo Presents India music compilation
  That Putomayo in anyway issues "representative" compilations is a ridiculous idea. I would say they're just extremely biased to what the western folk-world-music audience/neo-colonial overlords want, but then it's not like they would ever include anything that disturbs their picture...
• Commented on Radioactive pedophile suspect at large
  #7: There is no hazard to young children, for example, even when playing or carrying them. On the contrary, I'd say there's definitely a hazard to young children. ESPECIALLY after "playing" them....
• Commented on Unusual plush bank for sale at Walgreens in Puerto Rico
  #6: Surely that has a door and FOUR knobs?...
• Commented on 100Mbps Internet Connection For 11 USD Per Month
  (Oh, and Sweden and Japan stand out together with Korea as the top three FIBRE countries specifically. Haven't found any other data that would indicate a correlation.)...
• Commented on 100Mbps Internet Connection For 11 USD Per Month
  For the stat lovers, the OECD actually has a really comprehensive site of broadband penetration statistics for different developed countries, in something like thirty excel sheets: http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,3343,en_2649_34225_38690102_1_1_1_1,00.html Some of the data is a bit old but they've done comparisons like...
• Commented on 100Mbps Internet Connection For 11 USD Per Month
  Here in Sweden: 100 Mbps uncapped included in the rent. I guess there's a fee baked in there but it's hard to tell how big it is - as an individual I'd pay around $30 for the same service, but...
• Commented on TED2009: Hans Rosling
  Not a fan of a lot of Rosling's stuff myself (he seems to be rather pro-free-market biased) but his online statistical tool Gapminder is quite interesting. Using accurate-ish datasets of the world's population, it allows you to do a lot...
• Commented on Caucasian stars singing Thai pop music (video)
  As far as I'm aware, they're also doing fairly normal Lukthung rather than the more garage-rockey organ based Morlam. (Morlam Sing especially is really cool with its heavy metal influences.)...
• Commented on Nightly meditations on 33 1/3
  Taken one by one the books can be interesting, taken together, the series is scary. It's a formation of a canon that's entirely western, and extremely predominantly male, white and old. (The writers and editors have a similar distribution among...
• Commented on Chocolate Beer
  Besides a few stouts, I've tried this stuff: http://www.meantimebrewing.com/chocolate.html Which was okay, tasted of chocolate and beer... But the combination is ridiculous, considering the flavour potential of both ingredients. It's like combining whisky and wine, or something....
• Commented on The 2009 Nibbler Championship
  @#6: Unfortunately not, with SafeSearch off. Now please get that image off my mind. *shudders*...
• Commented on More photos of Russia's presidential jet
  It's always fascinated me how the New Rich and the worst dictators have such similar (bad) taste in furnishings. Saw a series on one of the news channels where they visited Donald Trump's apartments and the palaces of Sheiks, and...
• Commented on Music Selections at the World-Famous Guantanamo Bay Beach Resort
  What on earth makes them think the detainees haven't heard western rap and pop music? Even the most radical islamic extremist music tends to have a definite western influence....
• Commented on Send your old shoes to Dubya's Liberry
  Will he actually have to keep them, that's the question. We used to have a protest here in Sweden (against, I think, the strong anti-immigration borders of the EU, this was ten years ago) which involved sending a brick to...
• Commented on Hungarian sausage commercial
  Lyrics translation, in case anyone is interested (it's fairly banal stuff, though the ad is cool). This is Joe, this is George This on the other hand is a blood sausage Joe, George, blood sausage The liver sausage is really...
• Commented on Homes with Tails: Homeowners providing their own fiber
  Actually, from my vantage point letting each home owner pick his own ISP is not a very good idea at all. Letting the homeowners' association collectively bargain for group discounts is a much better idea, maintaining competition and driving down...
• Commented on Homes with Tails: Homeowners providing their own fiber
  What's so strange about it? Here in Sweden the system is exceptionally common, for bostadsrättsföreningar (basically condominiums) at least. The homeowners' association gets a switch and a land-based fibreoptic line to some ISP, like any company would, and broadband is...
• Commented on Digital Youth Project: If you care about kids and want to understand how they use technology and why, this is a must-read
  Oh, and, #4: I always correct "corporate logo" style names, too. I'm in control of my language, not some faceless capitalist designer/marketing rep/kid who wants to be "different"....