Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-15-2010

[andrewducker]

• Motorola Droid X actually self-destructs if you try to mod it
  (tags: android security motorola hacks)
• India Facebook users urged to appear whiter
  (tags: india makeup facebook)
• PC Zone magazine is to shut after 17 years
  Alas. It's where I first encountered the writing of Charlie Brooker. I loved it.
  (tags: magazines uk computers pc gaming)
• President of the International Music Managers' Forum: preventing file-sharing is a waste of time.
  (tags: copyright filesharing law music p2p uk)
• Report: Teens Using Digital Drugs to Get High. (Are we sure this isn't an episode of Brasseye)
  (tags: drugs digital music weird)
• A poll on the most pressing question of our time - Who would win - Jeeves or Batman?
  (tags: batman jeeves poll funny)
• UK unmanned solar plan set for 2 week flight
  (tags: solarpower flight military)

Comments

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

It seems a bit unfair that Facebook is being blamed for the Vaseline product. Skin whitening products are for sale in many places where people's skin isn't white; Ari came across loads of the stuff when she lived in the Middle East, and they sell it in the Asian supermarket at the end of our street.

Wierd and freaky? Yes.
Exactly the same as the rows and rows of self-tan for sale? Yes*. Seems people will never be happy with their skin colour.
exactly the same as loads of other FB apps where you see what you would look like fat/with glasses/with different hair? Pretty much.

FB is a platform. It always seem weird when they get the blame for the way of the world.

*excepting any medical differences, I know historically skin whitening stuff was made of lead, and whilst it isn't any more, if it were me I'd want I thorough knowledge of the ingredients.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Skin whitening products are for sale in many places where people's skin isn't white

And it's only in (or at least because of) America that it's seen as a racial issue instead of a cultural one. Fair skin has long been prized over darker skin as a sign of status, not because it proves that your ancestors are from Northern Europe, but because you haven't been working in the fields or hunting outdoors to provide food.

The standards that have been built up over thousands of years haven't entirely broken down during the brief Industrial Age.

Don't assume that the Indians in question are trying to appear "white"; they're just responding to the pressure of trying to appear as if they've spent less time in the sun than their neighbors.

This has been changing, slightly, in the US, as more people have spent their leisure time getting all over tans. Redneck tans are still counted as unattractive by most.

[andrewducker]

India's caste system is hereditary, and is at least partially racial, because the higher castes are more descended from Aryan invaders.

"20%-30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes."

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is true. The colonial system manages to fuck with my pet theories. I knew there was a reason I didn't like it.

[andrewducker]

Oooh, another thing I just thought of - a friend of mine worked out in the Maldives, and there was a definite hierarchy of white people->Indians->Afrians, with people lower on the hierarchy trying to emulate those further up, through dress, mannerisms, and where possible colour.