Interesting Links for 09-01-2012

[andrewducker]

• Will shareholders crack down on executive pay? (No, probably not)
  (tags: business pay uk )
• Why clothes look so much better on celebrities than they do on you.
  (tags: fashion clothes )
• EA Invokes First Amendment Protection for Video Games in Trademark Dispute with Helicopter Maker
  (tags: trademark videogames freespeech usa )
• The evil plot behind Star Wars: The Old Republic
  (tags: starwars funny comic )
• A short piece on genes and intelligence
  (tags: genes Intelligence )
• Children are not as swayed by language as adults are
  Works for me - it took decades for me to realise that certain common phrases were actually descriptive, rather than semi-random sounds used as a reference.
  (tags: language children )
• Plunging A330 fixed by turning it off and on again.
  (tags: planes software technology )

Comments

[dalglir]

I LOL'd in a meeting at the Old Republic toon...

[dalglir]

With reference to the executive pay article: shareholders generally won't give a shit as long as their shares continue to go up in value and dividends continue to be paid out.

[andrewducker]

Excactly.

[thejeopardymaze]

Is Intelligence in the Genes?

Interesting, though I hope he doesn't leave out environmental factors. Nutritional and Physical Degeneration by Weston A Price was a classic when it comes to nutritional factors when it comes to human development, though there are certainly other works and studies since then. I'm just too lazy to look for them and link to them right now.

I wouldn't mind the idea of studying this kind of thing someday, but co-factors are very important, not just having the right parents.

Granted, technically genes are important, in how other species can be very limited in comparison, and we've had a cognitive revolution some time in our past, much of it due to increase in consumption of meat and fat intake.


Pre-ETA: I'm sick of hearing people bringing up the name of a particular denomination of Judaism whose name I forgot how to spell at the moment, they're not a 'pure' group by any means, it's not unusual for other Jews (or members of other ethnic and religious groups for that matter) marry in to them, and their genetic problems have more to do with gene pool issues than intelligence. If anything I think an intellectually friendly environment would probably say more about how it affects cognitive development than simply genetics.

[thejeopardymaze]

There is also the impact of pollution, especially radiation and lead. While I won't argue that there is a connection between lower IQ and health, I believe it has more to do with environmental and developmental factors, because IQ as a cause of health simply doesn't make sense. As said by so many others before, correlation isn't causation.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Tailored clothes: Yes. Worth every penny and then some.

(And it's comparatively inexpensive to get your favourite pieces of clothing adjusted, to boot).

[andrewducker]

Got any examples for "comparatively inexpensive"?

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I've not done it a lot, but my winter coat, for example, was adjusted at time of purchase for about £30, as I recall, and my suit (the jacket of which I wear a lot) was adjusted to fit me for about £40, I think (it was a while ago). I've also had a few shirts made for about £30-£50.

I'd generally expect to spend about £20-£40 on getting an item adjusted.

I'd never thought of having a T-Shirt adjusted, but reading, it seems like an obvious idea. I'll probably have whatever outfit I end up wearing at the DKLS premiere fitted.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

There's a chain here called "Stitch It" that does inexpesive, simple tailoring. Hems and cuffs for $10(CAD) for example... with my weird, stumpy legs I've turned to them to shorten trousers and jeans several times, and even to do some simple repair work on shirts and coat linings.

That being said, this isn't something I'd do routinely as the price is fine for occasional items but would probably drive up my wardrobe costs a good 50% if I applied it across everything in it.

-- Steve wishes he could fork over for more made-to-measure or tailored stuff. It's very comfortable.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

An old-school Gentlemen's Outfitters in the small town I grew up in sold me a pair of smart trousers and my brother a couple of suits, just after new year when we were visiting our parents. Having trousers taken up to fit cost an extra £10, and having a jacket adjusted was an extra £30-£40 depending on what needed tweaking.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

This is why it's been on my to-do list forever to learn to alter my own clothes. The big secret (which I tell everyone so you probably already know) to why I always wear men's shirts with fitted ladies' waistcoats is that it's not because I'm a Huge Dyke; it's because shaped women's shirts don't fit me, even slightly. By the time I've found the enormous size that will go over my washerwoman arms, the body is so tent-like that even tailoring would be a joke. The assumption seems to be that fat women are these perfectly round balls with stalks for arms and legs - I have similar issues finding trousers that fit me on the hips without gaping at the waist and can basically only wear wide-leg as a result. My whole fashion concept - which has now become for many people part of my identity - is actually shaped not by taste but by what I can physically wear.

Additionally, I recently had a (fruitless as everything cost too much) hunt in John Lewis for clothes and discovered from a woman there that the high street is now nearly two sizes different from Proper measurements that the more designer labels use. So when I thought I'd ballooned three sizes in the past decade, I actually only changed by one and a wee bit. Which being an egomaniac I'd always suspected, but still, wtf, amirite?

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting to hear! (I evidently hadn't been around when you mentioned it before either!).

I'm still amused to discover how much vanity sizing goes into high-street men's clothes these days, too. Whilst I was on the diet last year, I needed new jeans - and discovered that M&S were enthusiastically trying to persuade me I was 2-4 inches smaller around the waist than I actually was...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

The other downside of this downsizing is that the smallest size gets larger - my BF is slightly built and wiry and often can't find stuff to fit at all now in high street stores for this reason (I have a similar issue).

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Young women's clothes do now regularly come in size 6 though, which was unheard of when I was a young woman - the reason being of course that that's the size formerly known as 8/10. Rarely seen in grown-up women's shops though.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Indeed. My experience is that if you are whatever is currently deemed a size 10, 12 or 14 you can have clothes that roughly fit. If you aren't well LOL, you better like dressing like a 14 year old or a sack of potatoes. (And the current notion of what a size 10 is 6-10 inches larger than it was 20 years ago; at least in most high street shops).

(having been both a size 6 and a size 16... yeah, I hate clothes shops a WHOLE LOT; I especially hate their lieing size charts)

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I elljayed about an outfit I was wearing one day, when I realised I was wearing a size 10 (very flared) skirt, a size 16 camisole, a gent's small sweater, a gents' large hat, childrens' size 4 shoes, a (vintage) size 20 jacket, and plus size tights.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Heh. Or maybe "Halp, clothes sizes are impossible".

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Waht really peeves me is when sizes are inconsistent within the same store. I do like the quality and colour ranges in Uniqlo, especially for smartish work tops, but have come out of their January sales with tops in every size form small to xlarge.

And bras? God what a hell bra shopping is.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

Size 6 was reasonably common round here (read:Adelaide, Australia) in 1983, when I started shopping for myself.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I mean UK size 6 - aka US size 2/4, aka Australian sized 8 according to internet size converters.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Oh ditto on the shirts. I dunno who they make them to fit!! I recently find men's XS fitted from Next fit me quite well - but I am moderately broad-shouldered, long armed/backed and wiry with not much of a bust (34B).

Oh, tell me about Proper Measurements! Because my own observation (by comparing 10-yr old clothes with new where they both still fit) is that street sizes have got BIGGER for the same 'dress size' number. So I am confused... (I am talking in the 8,10,12 range)

When I had to get a formal dress for a wedding I actually got a strapless boned top and skirt and got both altered - the waist of the skirt a little in and the whole under-bust to waist area of the top a LOT in. I knew this was the way having had to alter similar tops in the past!

For me, women's clothes are too short in the back and arms, too narrow across the shoulders, loose in the lower torso but tight in the arms - and often the shoulders do NOT scale with increasing size elsewhere - which seems counterintuitive...

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

my own observation (by comparing 10-yr old clothes with new where they both still fit) is that street sizes have got BIGGER for the same 'dress size' number. So I am confused... (I am talking in the 8,10,12 range)

That matches my observations exactly.

Maybe the small sizes have got bigger and the big sizes have got smaller?

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

that's what I was thinking...

[cyprinella]

I've been contemplating this for a while and my husband got me a sewing machine for Xmas. Guess I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I love this bit "The investigators ... were unable to find a fault and suggested it may be down to a high-energy atmospheric particle striking one of the integrated circuits within the unit."

So basically it's the old "when all else fails, blame it on cosmic rays". Maybe it's more likely at high altitude, but it's an old excuse for a computer malfunction.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I have always altered my clothes to fit because that's what my mum taught me to do. Because of my huge norks, which were comparatively MUCH bigger than the norm in the eighties, she used to buy men's shirts for me, then shorten the sleeves and dart and vent them so I had smart, tailored school shirts.

I regularly take in the waists of trousers, otherwise ones that fit my arse would dangle at the waist. Thsi is less likely with anything I buy that's 170s or earlier, when it was still assumed British women actually had waists.

Vanity sizing means I am four and a half stone heavier than I was at 18, but wearing the same dress size. When I was only two stone heavier, I was up to twi sizes smaller. E.g I have a lot of M&S Per Una skirts in a size 12. They are four inches bigger in the waist than the size 16 M&S skirt I still have from the late 80s.

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

I did the same thing with my school shirts in the 90s. Being tall (long torso, long arms) and large (16/18 then) boy's school shirts were the cheapest option for my sister and I. She's less curvy than me and looked ok. I hated looking shapeless and put vertical darts and waist shaping into my shirts. Much better.

I should get my hand in again and do more alterations. It opens up what you can buy if you know how you can make it fit. I did alter my wedding dress myself and I think I can handle most blouses/dresses/skirts. Trousers though are beyond me.