Delicious LiveJournal Links for 1-12-2010

[andrewducker]

• Avatar, Star Trek nominated for best ... writing!
  (tags: movies JamesCameron startrek)
• Spidey 4's dead, Raimi & Maguire out, reboot coming
  I wasn't expecting _that_.
  (tags: spiderman movies SamRaimi)
• BBC News - Having a big bum, hips and thighs 'is healthy'
  Carrying extra weight on your hips, bum and thighs is good for your health, protecting against heart and metabolic problems, UK experts have said.
  (tags: health weight)
• Anonymous Facebook Employee Interview - fascinating stuff
  In case you've been wondering what they get up to...
  (tags: facebook privacy interview security socialmedia)
• LJ: Polls for Basic Users
  Requires greasemonkey, and is dependent on a third party. But still - pretty nifty.
  (tags: livejournal polls)
• Bayonetta: empowering or exploitative?
  Nicely nuanced discussion
  (tags: feminism games videogames art)
• Pros and cons of using a four-year-old as your language instructor
  (tags: language children chinese)
• Remembering Reagan
  (tags: USA history comic RonaldReagan)
• The crisis of the mediocre marriage
  (tags: marriage uk society)
• Afghans more optimistic for future, survey shows
  (tags: afghanistan)
• Energy 2.0: What Comes From After Oil
  (tags: energy electricity)
• When people would just rather than transpeople didn't exist, they pretend they don't.
  This made me very angry indeed.
  (tags: transgender healthcare society)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

The Facebook thing:

> Employee: See, the thing is — and I don’t know how much you know about it — it’s all stored in a database on the backend. Literally everything. Your messages are stored in a database, whether deleted or not. So we can just query the database, and easily look at it without every logging into your account. That’s what most people don’t understand.

I know most people don't think about to or need to know how websites are made, same as laws and sausages, but where to they think they're stored? In the bellies of magical secret keeper elves?

[andrewducker]

I hear that they mostly use leprechauns.

And no, most people have no idea. They think that "the internet" is a thing, not a collection of loosely joined independent machines.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

That's it I'm deleting the internet!

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I gather that they expect the data to be more carefully protected than to be laid bare by nothing more than a query. Although honestly, I have no idea how you could go about protecting that sort of data, whether or not you could tie it to domain level permissions and the like, and protect it with company logins and the like.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

You'd protect the database itself, but ultimately the DB server has to be completely accessible to the web server, and for debugging and stuff you need to be able to run raw queries on it.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

what's a backend database?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Good point.

In plain lingo: everything you type into FB or any site has to be stored in some way on some hard drive somewhere.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Although this may sound undesirable, it is actually beneficial because when fat is broken down quickly it releases a lot of cytokines which trigger inflammation in the body, say experts.

I wonder whether this is true, and if so, why this is the first time I've heard it. Probably because people don't want to hear that dieting might be dangerous. I keep wondering how much of the health risks of being very fat are the result of dangerous weight loss methods and of stigma.

[andrewducker]

Seems to have been known since 2005:
http://newsblaze.com/story/20051101224906nnnn.nb/topstory.html

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That article doesn't mention risks of losing weight quickly.

I'm also surprised that surgically removing visceral fat having good health effects isn't better known. The operation is described as risky, but I can't believe it's as dangerous as weight loss surgery.

My paranoid reading is that it doesn't play into the standard view of fat. It improves health without promising to make people thin, and it doesn't restrict what fat people are allowed to eat.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I'm struggling between anger and tearful for the trans people story.

Re:Bayonetta

[tanyad.livejournal.com]

I don't think its empowering or exploitative to be honest. I think its just stupidly over the top and meant for an adult audience. If you're looking for empowerment from a videogame character, you're doing it wrong.

Re: Bayonetta

[andrewducker]

Do you believe this about all media? Or are videogames special?

Re: Bayonetta

[tanyad.livejournal.com]

Do I believe what about all media? That looking to them for empowerment is dumb?

Re: Bayonetta

[andrewducker]

Yup.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Avatar, Star Trek nominated for best ... writing!
Jesus H. There are well-written sci-fi films but those aren't it - even Star Trek, which really wasn't bad, wasn't that good.

BBC News - Having a big bum, hips and thighs 'is healthy'
Takes them a while to catch up, doesn't it?

Bayonetta: empowering or exploitative?
Oh, the tried and tested 'taking sexy back' arugment. Feminism: You're doing it wrong.

When people would just rather than transpeople didn't exist, they pretend they don't.
This made me very angry indeed.
Me too.

[andrewducker]

Why is it impossible to have sexiness and feminism at the same time?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Er, I don't believe I said that.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> Oh, the tried and tested 'taking sexy back' arugment. Feminism: You're doing it wrong.

Yup.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

Re: Bayonetta, I don't think I like seeing anyone's sexuality used as a weapon.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Agreed, see my commentary above.

LJ polls and Greasemonkey

[matgb]

So, you can install a script, post a poll, trust the person that wrote the script to have a reliable server and keep your data secure, and put up with the results being posted as an image without the nuance of LJ polls.

Or you can switch briefly to a plus/sponsored account, post the poll, then downgrade to basic again.

Personally, I think the latter is the better option.

Re: LJ polls and Greasemonkey

[andrewducker]

Oooh, I didn't know you could do that!

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Eugh. That trans story is utterly vile. Thank you for the link, but eugh.

[andrewducker]

I know. I found it vile. I got it via rozk, who is well worth reading.