The Null Device
2013/4/25
Today in geek misogyny:
- Wikipedia has started moving female American novelists from the “American Novelists” category to the separate “American Women Novelists”; as there is no “American Men Novelists”, male American novelists from Philip Roth to Dan Brown remain in the “American Novelists” category, while women from Harper Lee to Stephanie Meyer are shunted to the subsidiary category.
- Meanwhile, a self-declared leader of the Anonymous hacktivist group has been charged with raping a woman, twice, in the Occupy London camp.
- And here is The Manhood Academy, the latest offshoot of the Mens' Rights movement
Another predicted consequence of global warming: transatlantic flights could get more turbulent and more expensive by the middle of the century, as the jet stream becomes more unstable:
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests that by mid-century passengers will be bounced around more frequently and more strongly. The zone in the North Atlantic affected by turbulence could also increase.
"The probability of moderate or greater turbulence increases by 10.8%," said Dr Williams. "'Moderate or greater turbulence' has a specific definition in aviation. It is turbulence that is strong enough to bounce the aircraft around with an acceleration of five metres per second squared, which is half of a g-force. For that, the seatbelt sign would certainly be on; it would be difficult to walk; drinks would get knocked over; you'd feel strain against your seatbelt."
In the US, McDonalds is now requiring candidates for cashier jobs to have bachelor's degrees. So if you're wondering what sort of work a BA qualifies you to do, wonder no more.
I wonder whether this is because having studied something at university level provides essential skills for operating a till (which would suggest a collapse in secondary school standards in the US; i.e., the strong likelihood that a high-school graduate without a degree is functionally innumerate), or because employees with the level of debt accrued through taking a degree are more compliant?