Archive for the Internet Category

Saturday’s Must-Read

“Today A Man Touched Me So I Hit Him.” by Kate Spencer.

A short but relevant account of what most women experience in their lives when they go out in public – invasion of privacy, safety, and comfort.

I’ve written before about the affects of street harassment, and Kate Spencer drives the point home,

How is someone whistling at you threatening, they ask? Here is what they don’t understand. Those moments, which may seem insignificant and small, create an unsafe environment in which women are forced to live.

Definitely read it, especially if you have never understood why street harassment is a big deal.

How To Woo a Woman on Facebook

Blog News + Awesome Links

Hi everyone! New host, new layout, new domain, etc etc. Let me know if you have any comments about it, or if you experience any errors!

Quit Facebook Day

Apparently, May 31st 2010 is Quit Facebook Day.

Exactly one week from today (Monday), over 14,000 people have pledged to quit Facebook in protest of their shady terms and conditions and violation of privacy.

Any regular user of FB has probably noticed the fairly consistent changes and revamps to the site, which also usually come with changes to the privacy policy. This includes having your Facebook page listed on Google, how much information can be seen by non-registered users and strangers, and what sites can ‘grab’ your interest keywords from your logged-in account and use it for their own website.  For a full list of offenses against privacy FB has committed, you can read a pretty concise list here.

Many of us don’t see their privacy changes as a huge problem. For instance, my phone number and address isn’t anywhere on the site because I never put it in there. However it does link to all my family members, friends, and often statuses that say my location.

However a decisive day to end Facebook is extremely compelling to me. I’ve been contemplating the pros and cons (have you all noticed I love pros and cons?) of keeping my account and am still unsure.

Pro: FB is the absolute easiest and best way for me to keep in contact with friends I only see once and a while, cousins who live in other states, etc.

Con: FB is the absolute easiest and best way for people I don’t like to contact me.

Pro: FB is the perfect platform to start discussions with a wide variety of people with different views and morals, allowing a mix of all my friends and acquaintances to share ideas and viewpoints.

Con: FB is the perfect platform for people to spew uncredited, untrue misinformation to masses of people quickly and without discourse.

Pro: Though I read the news and have a Twitter, I do get a lot of information through Facebook, mostly friends and fanpages posting news links, happenings, events, etc.

Con: I could get almost all that same information through Twitter.

Pro: I can further get to know a person I otherwise have not.

Con: I find that I like many people less once I have them on Facebook. With the ease of information spreading, I tend to see the bad sides of many people and often hateful or ignorant views I wouldn’t have otherwise known about them. Likewise I’m sure many people have lost interest in being friends with me after learning my views on some things.

My main concern with having a personal account is that sometimes, its an overload of information to me. Life would be less distraction-filled without Facebook, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up the Pros along with the Cons yet.

Are any of you quitting Facebook at the end of the month?

If you aren’t, you can become a fan of me on Facebook!

If you are, you can follow me on Twitter!

Link Love

A roundup of funny, interesting, weird, thoughtful, and informative links from Dr. Sangfroid.

  • Sectional Sofas – Do you ever get totally into looking at furniture for a house you don’t own? No? Just me? Okay.
  • Alien Invasion – A collection of images by Dmitry Maximov of aliens invading Earth.
  • Polish Woman Dies Because She’s Pregnant - and the doctor refuses to operate on her because he was afraid to hurt the baby…which led to both the woman and consequently, her baby dieing. Way to go, “conscience clause”.
  • Cherry Culture Sells Near-Expired Make Up – Okay, I can’t confirm this and it is a year old, but I’ve heard a lot of bad reviews of cherryculture.com. Mostly slow shipping, bad CS, and cracked make up which I can live with..but the near-expired make up is just gross and I don’t think I’ll be shopping there anymore. Ladies, please check your makeup’s expiration dates!

STDs in America
Via: Online Schools. Click to learn!

Pictures of Cats

So I’m horribly allergic to cats, and am more of a dog person anyway. But in the past 6 months there have been two stray cats living outside that are way cool. Let’s explain with pictures (and some words):

Here’s Big Kitty. She liked to sleep by the door.

Yup.

And here’s Little Kitty.

Eating.

They liked to sleep in cardboard boxes outside, I guess.

Eventually both of the strays were adopted, yay!

Also, you can check out my friend Lisa’s blog to learn how IAMs cat food can be bad for male cats.

Top 5 Tuesday

Welcome to Top 5 Tuesday, where Dr. Sangfroid let’s you all know about 5 cool(?) things.

This week’s top 5: ThinkGeek Items

The Staple-Free Stapler
Not exactly a new invention, but it gets into the top 5 because I EFFING HATE STAPLERS. I always mess them up, the staples get jammed, and one time in 5th grade I stapled by finger. Also these are shaped like dogs and cats, which is cute.

Star Trek Webcam

Regular webcams are kind of ugly, and if you’re secretly trying to record someone, very obvious. For the people who want their computer to be functional and chic (and for the stalkers of the world), there’s the Enterprise webcam.

Universal Gadget Wrist Charger

This handy device is a road-trip life saver. Plug in your PSP, iPhone, Nintendo DS, or phone and avoid a dead battery. No longer will you fear having to listen to your parents for 200 miles once your iPod dies.

Periodic Table Shower Curtain

Essentially useless, but also essentially awesome.

Cocktail Chemistry Set

Live out your dreams of being a suave bartending scientist! I know I will.

Click on any of the pictures to be taken to the item, or go directly to ThinkGeek.com!

Facebook Statuses Translated

Facebook gives people the opportunity to portray themselves in anyway they want-which is why most people take angled shots that hide their muffin top, list their career as “fashion consultant” instead of “Macy’s minimum wage employee”, and never say what they really mean in their update statuses:

“Men are dumb, totally done with them for the rest of the year!”
I’m single look at me look at me look at meeeeeee!

“Thinking of doing something crazy! Who wants to come??”
I’m going to log off Facebook chat and eat cheetos while watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model.

“What a crazy night.”
Please ask me about my night, at which point I will get an ego boost from the attention but only respond with, ‘Dude it was nuts, I was so wasted’ and never actually explain anything.

“I have the most amazing boyfriend/girlfriend!”
Take that, ex!

“I’m so tired/hungry/bored.”
I’m so tired/hungry/bored but also too lazy to leave Facebook.

“So done with this drama. Eff off, you crazy bitch!”
I thrive off drama, but am afraid of confrontation, so I hide behind Facebook.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, please forgive me…”
I did something dumb and regret it, but instead of being mature, I’ll air my dirty laundry on Facebook so that people can comfort me because I am vain.

“Meaningful quote”
Look at me I’m deep!

“Homework/class/school”
There is nothing else worthwhile in my life to post about.

“Going to the gym!”
Feel free to notice that I am really muscular next time you see me, since you know, I’m going to the gym. THE GYM!

“(insert moral or political issue/figure here) is SO DUMB!”
I have strong opinions but will not post anything logical or coherent about them. If you post something that is opposing my view in response, I will respond with ‘yeah well its different ya know’ or something equally vague, which just shows I know nothing about this issue.

“Drinking!!!”
Just want everyone to know I’m partaking in festivities, and totally not sitting around being boring. Ignore the obvious fact that I am doing something social, however occupying myself with Facebook.

How To Become A Player

Today, I stumbled across this gem of a website: Become A Player

The website, which boasts, “Game is all that matters” and that their goal is to teach the average male how to “attract,seduce, meet, and pick up women” is essentially an online guide on how to look like an idiot and brand yourself a skeezy douche hat.

playa

Let’s take a look at the advice this website is giving out:

Tip & Tricks To Becoming A Player

“While you are macking on a particular girl, go away after you’ve talked for a while and begin talking to someone else, just say to her “I need to dissapear[sic] for a bit, I’ll be back”. This will drive her crazy, and if you’ve made a decent impression on her, she won’t be able to think of anything except you.”

Poor grammar and spelling aside…this is still stupid. Any guy still using the term “macking on a girl” is either 40+ years old, or has lived his life in his grandparent’ basement reading anime fanfiction (or both). Plus the only men saying they need to disappear should be magicians, and convicted criminals. Oh, at least they remembered that all girls need and crave the attention of a 40 year old cologne-soaked man they meet at a bar. Really, she won’t be able to stop thinking bout the 5 minute “conversation” she had with you consisting solely of cheesy pick-up lines.

“Whenever you are with a girl and her hair is falling in her face, gently use your index finger to “pull” the hair back and place it behind her ear. When you do this rub your finger down behind her ear all the way down to her ear lobe.”

Also, doing this in the workplace may lead to sexual harassment charges. Don’t touch people’s ears, you goddamn creep.

“When you are approaching a group of girls and you’ve already picked out the one that you want, the only thing that should be running through your mind is “I need to get her ALONE!”. Yes, that it your first and foremost goal… to separate her from her friends.”

This is also what rapists and murderers do, how about that!

The website also features, some great articles, including:

“How To Make Your Ex Return Your Calls”
“How To Transform Your Computer Into A Seduction Machine”
“Use The Poke Button On Facebook to Get Chicks”
“Turbo Charge Your Booty Calls”

I wish I was making these up.

Finally, the website features a “Rulebook”, the ultimate list of douchebaggery. Featuring:

-”Constantly repeat her name” because women are like puppies, and you can only win their affections with fatty treats and sweet name cooing.

-“Instead of: “How about giving me your number?”. Ask: “I’d like to talk to you again, is there a number I can reach you at?“. Because women are too stupid to realize that this is the exact same question. Really.

-”The player who gets rejected the most leaves with the most numbers“. No, I’m sorry, the ‘player’ who gets rejected the most leaves with nothing, because your odds do not increase with each rejection/restraining order.

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Shakira- She Wolf

I was going to write a relevant entry today, but then I saw this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aEW_Z5Va5s]

Dear Shakira-

Hey girl, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? What was your last song about? Something about hips and terrible grammar? Anyway, just wanted to let you know I watched your new music video for She Wolf, and I’d like to discuss it with you. Here’s some bits to think about for the next 3 years until you come out with another song.

-Look, I know you’re foreign and all, and have crazy traditions, but do you really need to sing with rocks in your mouth? You sound like a Muppet, gargling rocks. Which is cool in Columbizilaguay or whatever, I guess.
-I know one piece leotards, asymmetrical designs, Beyonce, and impractical swimsuits are all in fashion right now, but when you combine all of them it sort of looks like puke.
-I can’t tell if you’re auditioning for the part of Spiderman, a stripper, or The Exorcist. Please be clearer of your intentions.
-80′s dance moves aren’t cool anymore, sorry. Please try to expand your knowledge of dance past an old Vanilla Ice music video.

Also, I would rethink the following lyrics:

“I’m starting to feel just a little abused like a coffee machine in an office.”

Because last I checked, coffee machines are not locked in cages and forced to perform erotic dances.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sangfroid