[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri May 06, 2016 6:46 pm

When I go to a gynecologist for a routine checkup, I say don't have sex, and in fact still a virgin for the purpose of the pelvic exam. I'm usually told to stop lying (politeness varies). When I climb the chair and it's high time for the doctor to eat crow and apologize, she instead tells me off for not having sex / marrying / having children, as I'm "long past due" (I'm 29). I'm really not looking forward to those checkups.

Now imagine how a woman who was (either way) forced into pregnancy and childbirth by 'The Man' and just endured hours of extreme physical pain must feel about facing 'The Man' yet again.

Or, hell, imagine the best-case scenario when everyone in the hospital is being extremely friendly and attentive -- and the woman thinks, "holy crap, how can I ever admit to these wonderful people I'm a dirty sinful and don't want the baby?"

As long as there are women who would've rather not gotten pregnant but give birth because of social disapproval of abortion (whether codified into law or not), there will be women who'd rather dump the baby anonymously.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri May 06, 2016 9:41 pm

The tyranny of the Queen of England continues. Totalitarian government of United Kingdom ignored wishes of the population and named the polar ship "Attenborough" instead of "Boaty McBoatface".

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri May 06, 2016 9:50 pm

The onboard submarine was called Boaty McBoatface, though.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri May 06, 2016 9:52 pm

Chamomile wrote:The onboard submarine was called Boaty McBoatface, though.

No, it was called "Boaty". They care so little about the peasants' opinion that even the small vessel is not named according to their wish.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Fri May 06, 2016 11:16 pm

Fuck boaty mc fuckface. It wasn't democracy but the tyranny of a minority trying to impose their assinine aesthetics on a world that had better things to do. This is why most petitions are rightly ignored

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri May 06, 2016 11:41 pm

People voted wrong anyway. Should've voted for Boatimus Prime.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri May 06, 2016 11:45 pm

ckafrica wrote:Fuck boaty mc fuckface. It wasn't democracy but the tyranny of a minority trying to impose their assinine aesthetics on a world that had better things to do. This is why most petitions are rightly ignored

I'm pretty sure based on the giant bulge of cheekiness, that his calls for obeying the will of the majority in this case are entirely tongue in cheek.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat May 07, 2016 2:52 am

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... oples-will

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat May 07, 2016 8:11 am

ckafrica wrote:Fuck boaty mc fuckface. It wasn't democracy but the tyranny of a minority trying to impose their assinine aesthetics on a world that had better things to do. This is why most petitions are rightly ignored

Is there a massive following of Sir David Attenborough? What makes "Boaty" crowd a minority compared to people who want a different name?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat May 07, 2016 8:29 am

Longes: in most cases where an internet vote gets a stupid result, it's by a handful of people who shall remain Anonymous brute-forcing it to push ricockulous amounts of votes for their option. Such as:
-Justin Bieber's next tour: North Korea
-Austin's solid waste management department: the Fred Durst Society of Humanities and Arts
-A school being named Schoolie McSchoolface/Boaty McBoatface Elementary/John Cena Elementary/Adolf Hitler School for Friendship and Tolerance
-The new Mountain Dew flavour being called Hitler Did Nothing Wrong
-The baseball stadium having a certain Rick Astley hit as their theme tune

It's very rarely a case of the majority of the people actually involved getting together and deciding a joke (that might possibly get old three years down the line when you're driving your kids to the Hitler school) would be the best idea.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat May 07, 2016 9:17 am

It was a public vote. Basically noone voting had a personal stake in what some research vessel gets named. Anonymous wasn't involved.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 07, 2016 9:18 am

I don't know... shitting on Fred Durst usually seems like a pretty god idea...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat May 07, 2016 10:26 pm

Today's slow clap goes to: https://physics.le.ac.uk/jist/index.php ... e/view/183

"Nobody tosses a Dwarf!-Modelling Gimli being tossed by Aragorn"

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Sat May 07, 2016 11:26 pm

SlyJohnny wrote:It was a public vote. Basically noone voting had a personal stake in what some research vessel gets named. Anonymous wasn't involved.

True, but it was an online vote for a British vessel that you didn't have to be British to participate in (case in point: I'm not British, and I voted). So this was a process influenced by global social media alerts that totally overtook the intent.

Honestly, what the agency should have done is rebooted the whole selection process with a list of say ten pre-approved names and put those up for vote instead rather than simply decide on the (otherwise very appropriate) David Attenborough by fiat.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun May 08, 2016 3:09 am

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ram ... es-flight/

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sun May 08, 2016 5:21 am

Maj wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ram ... es-flight/

That article is written like shit.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun May 08, 2016 5:42 am

So apparently Space Raptor Butt Invasion has been nominated for a Hugo.

And the author of that literary masterpiece has already written Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sun May 08, 2016 10:02 am

Version I heard was that Space Raptor Butt Invasion was part of the latest iteration of Theodore Beale's ongoing efforts to shit on the Hugos.

And that Chuck Tingle was not grateful once he found out the reason for his Hugo nomination, trolling Mr Beale in response...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun May 08, 2016 11:04 am

The Puppies are still horrible people whose only motivation is a hatred of democracy and progress, but that was pretty funny.

-Username17

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun May 08, 2016 1:17 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The Puppies are still horrible people whose only motivation is a hatred of democracy and progress, but that was pretty funny.

-Username17

Huh?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun May 08, 2016 1:51 pm

Longes wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The Puppies are still horrible people whose only motivation is a hatred of democracy and progress, but that was pretty funny.

-Username17
Huh?

Theodore Beale is a horrible human being who has a few hundred followers that, in their own words:

Their stupid Manifesto they got nominated for a Hugo wrote:Fight against the social justice warrior agenda of diversity, tolerance, inclusiveness, and equality.

Does that sound insane to you? It should. Because it's actually insane.

Anyway, what they actually do is to spam slate nomination suggestions at fantasy and science fiction awards to try to fill up the nomination slots so that people don't have the ability to vote for works that they don't approve of. It is intensely anti-democratic and the stated goal is to keep women and minorities from being able to have their works recognized.

They call themselves "The Puppies" and there are various sub factions that call themselves "Rabid Puppies" or "Sad Puppies" or whatever the fuck. They are horrible people who should be voted off the island that is Western Civilization.

But getting "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" nominated was pretty funny. Even though the goal of doing that was to fill up a nomination slot so that an otherwise worthy work written by a woman or a black man wouldn't be able to go on Hugo Nomination Reading Lists. So obviously the intent and actual effect were evil and regressive, but it was genuinely pretty funny. So YMMV.

-Username17

GreatGreyShrike · Post by **GreatGreyShrike** » Sun May 08, 2016 1:55 pm

The best part of Chuck Tingle's response to the Space Raptors Butt Invasion nomination, is that because he is unable to attend the ceremony he's asked Zoe Quinn to accept the award in his place if he wins.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun May 08, 2016 1:55 pm

Here's an interview with Dr. Tingle about the nomination.

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/288989/ ... omination/

The Sad Puppies replaced their slate with a recomended reading list, which didn't get a single nomination.

Rabbit puppies swept the nominations with troll nomms and some false-flag nominations of some really good books just to harm the reputations of their authors.

FrankTrollman wrote: Anyway, what they actually do is to spam slate nomination suggestions at fantasy and science fiction awards to try to fill up the nomination slots so that people don't have the ability to vote for works that they don't approve of. It is intensely anti-democratic and the stated goal is to keep women and minorities from being able to have their works recognized.

They actually did include words by politically liberal, female, and minority authors on their slate this time. But that's because their entire slate got no-awarded last time, and these people had a chance of winning before they were slated by Rabid Puppies, so it's basically a form of sabotage.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sun May 08, 2016 3:19 pm

hyzmarca wrote:They actually did include words by politically liberal, female, and minority authors on their slate this time. But that's because their entire slate got no-awarded last time, and these people had a chance of winning before they were slated by Rabid Puppies, so it's basically a form of sabotage.

Except Guardians of the Galaxy, so hopefully no deserving works get screwed out of a Hugo this way.

Not that I'm in a position to help see to that this time around, no way am I commuting from the UK to make it to Worldcon 2016 at this short notice.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Mon May 09, 2016 4:37 pm

Longes wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The Puppies are still horrible people whose only motivation is a hatred of democracy and progress, but that was pretty funny.

-Username17
Huh?

Yeah, as Frank explained, their entire platform is that sci-fi was great before all these bloody women and minorities invaded the old boy's club, and started writing sci-fi about stuff other than rockets and laser guns. Or even stuff that was about rockets and laser guns, but had the gall to include a non-white or otherwise 'unusual' protagonist; one of the books they were getting shitty about last year was Ancillary Justice, where the protagonist is the AI of an ancient warship that was destroyed (leaving her with only a single corpse-soldier meat suit node) who has perceptual trouble differentiating human genders. The main space empire of the setting doesn't really do the whole "gender identity" thing and refers to everyone using female pronouns, anyway.

The last two books of that trilogy really doubled down on the SJW bullshit, and they're really not worth reading (as much as it pains me to agree with the Puppies on ANYTHING), but the first book really doesn't do or say anything offensive, unless you're a crochety racist old white man who wants brown people and trans folks to get off your lawn.