So here’s an interesting story: The creator of the popular I Fucking Love Science Facebook page recently got a Twitter account.
Oh, I know that doesn’t sound all that interesting, but here’s the thing: When she got the Twitter account, she revealed to her Facebook fans that she was, in fact, a she.
This apparently shocked and confused a large portion of her readership. A … Woman? But … but … SCIENCE?! But there she was, with a woman’s name — Elise Andrew — and a woman’s face and everything.
Over on Hello Giggles, Julia Gazdag — also rumored to be a woman — reports on the reaction to Elise Andrew’s Big Reveal. Some chick at Reuters also did a piece on it.
(Thanks, Elizabeth, for pointing me to this story.)
cloudiah: a friend of mine in Seattle had a degree in cartography. She worked as a bartender.
Re maps on silk. They were more than just waterproof. They were durable. They could be hidden in the linings of jackets, crumpled into a pocket, didn’t wear out from being folded, were silent when being used.
They could be smuggled in as the cover of a Monopoly set (honest, this was a known thing… POWs were allowed games, and a set from the UK was made for including in packages, with a map printed on the underside of the layer the playing area was printed on).
Silk was used in the flyleaves of books to get messages/maps into Occupied Europe as well.
There is a nice history, “Between Silk and Cyanide” about the used book trade and espionage. 84 Charing Cross Road is just down the way from Picadilly Circus.
I visited a pencil factory once (my childhood was thrilling), where they made pencils that were only 1/3 full of graphite, and where the rest should be there were tiny little rolled up maps, and the top of the pencil was a miniature compass. They were give to pilots and paratroopers in WWII.
@ emilygoddess
That professor was quite a trip. You should have seen how he said it too – the people in the front row of the lecture hall visible drew back in a (possibly subconscious) attempt to escape the creepy.
@thenat: I imagine that a compass that size provided some … difficulties.
@Cassandra: I dunno about parents in general, but I don’t particularly *want* my babies’ feces. I mean, yeah, if they don’t poop I get worried (they’ve taken to doing it a couple three times a day, massively, rather than in every wet diaper) but I’m not sitting there going, come on, GIVE IT TO ME NOW
I guess I ought to say I don’t value the stool, rather than that I don’t want it.
I love I Fucking Love Science’s posts.
Apocaloptimist1 here. As far as dating and relationships go, prove me wrong you crazy bitches! hehe….
Just so the truth is out there…..Jessay got all confused and butt hurt about a post that she didn’t even understand. I’m as far from a sexist as can be but I do think that the messed up gender roles that our culture is leaning towards are no good for anyone and I think that it’s a subject worth discussing. I was just trying to have a conversation and bring up topics that most people are scared of and Jessay took a few things I said out of context, got all emotional about them, and after that, was unable to participate in any kind of intelligent conversation, ignoring my valid points and attacking me personally. If anything, her behavior proved the point that I was trying to make. That point was that since she was so affected by emotion that her time would probably be better spent being a mother or cooking than engaging in intellectual debate on the internet.
So, sexism sucks…….but people should own their roles, men and women.
“I’m not sexist, I just think some women are too emotional to discuss or debate things properly, and that those archaic roles for women just happen to be the right fit for those women. Nope, no sexism here.”
Related: if people react emotionally to something you said, it’s not because of some failure of rationality. It’s because you said something upsetting. Nice gaslighting, though.