Monday 21 April 2008

Linkables 21/4/8

I've been having some cool gender-politics related conversations with a friend, so have a few links to interesting discussions on the subject:

  • Firstly an analysis I found ages ago into how men and women approach discussions differently, which has some interesting insights into the ways 'arguments over nothing' arise.
  • A look into the history of the engagement ring, and its popularity explosion simply as a result of advertising. Also touches on whether the man giving the woman an expensive ring is appropriate any more in modern relationships.
  • An article clarifying some of the soft numbers being batted around about pay disparities between men and women.
  • I can't remember if I've linked to it before, but this is a great article explaining some of the social and biological reasons behind seemingly unbalanced numbers that come up when comparing education, intelligence or performance between men and women.
  • On a lighter note, a look at some of the adverts that maybe wouldn't get past the censors (or the good-taste police) nowadays.
It's not really connected to the above, so I'll link it separately, but I found this list of anecdotes about pro-lifers breaking through their own protest lines to get abortions (often unashamedly hypocritically) an intriguing read.

A cool little compilation of all the mashups and conversions of the Zidane-Materazzi video from the last world cup.

I always want a wikipedia style database for song-lyric-interpretations, and this is the best I've found so far.

I first heard of Jonathan Coulton through the song at the end of the game Portal, which he wrote. It's an excellent song (which you shouldn't listen to unless you've played the game, since it'll lose half of its meaning and impact), and so I finally looked up more of his stuff. He's best known for his cover of 'Baby got back', and his original song 'Re: your brains'. All his stuff is available on his site to listen to and buy, so definately check it out. The song that has most captured my imagination is 'Code monkey', and it appeals to me simply because it's told from the point of view of someone working in a random coding job, and as a fellow code monkey, I can appreciate the pain and empathise with the narrator. Whether or not you are in a similar situation, you'll hopefully get something out of the song, anyway, displayed here with a brilliantly put together background montage from some anime show:


2 comments:

Unknown said...

ahhh the code monkey, how I vaguely understand it.

There's a load of his songs done in WoW videos, which I don't care for as much as animé ones, despite not knowing (or caring) which anime that's from. It did however include the unashamedly big breasted lady, a must for all animés.

Unknown said...

following on.. I started reading the engagement ring article, but then kinda started pining for someone who I could actually discuss such absurdities with and come to the conclusion that it's all rather silly, which I obviously can't do, but I then realised the vague irony of sitting in front of a computer reading about engagement etc. and how unlikely the prospect is if I send so much time on the intermaweb, well such is life, I may as well blog about it (or atleast post a comment)