Imran Khan's effort to help the Pakistani flood victims

Excerpts from an article at Der Spiegel today:

"This flood in Pakistan is one of the greatest natural disasters that a nation has had to confront in recent history," he says. But the government is doing nothing, according to Khan, who says that only the military is doing good work. "Dollars, dollars, dollars," says Khan, as he runs his hand through his long hair and shakes his head. "Why do we always look abroad and expect help from there? Because we have the most corrupt, inept government of all time."

Some 20 million people, more than one-ninth of the population, have been affected by the floods. At least one-fifth of the entire surface area of Pakistan is still under water...

One thing is clear: The military is the political winner in this disaster. There are rumors that the flooding could perhaps lead to a new coup that would topple President Asif Ali Zardari. Pakistani journalists even maintain that they have been pressured by members of the army and the intelligence agency to spread lies about the government. There is virtually no way to verify these claims...

Imran Khan has read articles in American and British newspapers that argue that the Taliban could use the situation to expand their power base. "Nonsense," he says. "Pakistan is a great nation; there are 170 million of us. Does the world seriously believe that the Taliban is all that we have on our minds?"

He rolls up his shirtsleeves. His fund will be independent of his Tehreek-e-Insaf party ("Movement for Justice"), he says. "If we put aside all political differences, it shouldn't be so difficult to rebuild homes, streets and bridges." 

More at the link.

Boston.com's The Big Picture has a set of 36 impressive photos from the flooding in Pakistan.

"I hope feral cats eat every one of you"

Posted for any lecturers in academia who happen to visit this blog...

Anatomically (in)correct gloves

Interesting design - but the vascular supply to the hand is nothing like that shown on the glove.

"Gloves designed by Meret Oppenheim" found at Consciousness is a Congential Hallucination.

Slingshot

Technology certainly has changed since I was a kid.  I can understand the sight and the grip and the wrist brace at the back - not sure about the doodads that flare out to the sides in the front.  More pix here.

Those who are interested in this subject matter would probably enjoy viewing the video of Rufus Hussey, the "beanshooter man."

Addendum:  Melissa reports that the flaring components are stabilizers, similar to those incorporated into competitive archery equipment, as described at this link.

Jessica is confused

Credit.

Addendum: Reposted because today I found the perfect photo to explain Jessica's confusion:

This video defines "schadenfreude"

I feel guilty about posting this, and will probably take some flak from readers - but it does exemplify the term quite well:

Schadenfreude = pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

and for completeness, these complementary terms:

Empathy = unhappiness at another's misfortune
Envy = unhappiness at another's good fortune
Mudita = Buddhist concept of happiness at another's good fortune

I found myself frankly uncomfortable watching the video, because the participants appeared to be at risk for significant injury.  The video is apparently compiled from segments of a television program called "Wipeout," which may or may not air in this country.   If nothing else, this reminded me of why I stopped watching TV.

Addendum:  This from a comment by Conor:

After all these years being told there's no English for for schadenfreude (and even explaining to some surprised German that we had to translation for schadenfreude nor doppelganger), I found that there sort of is: epicaricacy. Found in archaic dictionaries, and modern collections of rare words, and not much in between. Of course, now that it's on TYWKIWDBI, it will surely flourish.

It's not in my Random House, or my OED, but it is in Wiktionary, as he notes, with this etymology:

From Ancient Greek ἐπί (epi, “upon”) + χάρις (kharis, “joy”) +κακός (kakos, “evil”).

The next time I hear this word, I'm going to ask the speaker if they read this blog...

"Euthanasia the illegal alien"

"Hang the person whom hires them."

Photo found Wonkette, via Language Log, where the discussion thread appropriately focuses more on the grammar than on the sentiment.

"Write drunk, edit sober."

Attributed to Ernest Hemingway.  Via Palahniuk & Chocolate.

"A Scottish Vigil"

Charles Sillem Lidderdale - A Scottish Vigil

This is a later version of his Royal Academy exhibit of 1869... entitled In Hiding after Culloden. The Royal Academy picture features solely the worn out soldier and the girl secretly bringing him food. The critic for the Art Journal considered the 1869 version to be 'the artist's best work' (1869; p. 202). This success would have no doubt prompted him to attempt another version the following year. The composition of the later work varies slightly as the girl peers at the sleeping soldier over the shoulder of her father who appears in deep concentration, probably considering the dilemma this deserter or refugee has presented and contemplating the outcome of this infamous battle.

More information at Victorian/Edwardian Paintings, a blog with an impressive assemblage of art work.

The world's biggest ammonite

Parapuzosia seppenradensis, biggest known ammonite, diameter 1,80 m

I used to collect rocks, minerals (especially asbestiform minerals), crystals, geodes, and such - but it's such a heavy hobby when you're moving frequently.  Still, wouldn't it be fun to have something like this in your den as a conversation piece?  Or maybe in the back yard.  It's awesome.

Museum not specified; via Minerals and Fossils.

Addendum:  Museum found! (Readers of this blog seem to know everything :.))  It's in the foyer of a German natural history museum.  And apparently it was the "fossil of the year" in 1998.  (auf English)

A girl's "lives" don't occur in the same order nowadays

A "Millie the Model" panel from Comically Vintage.

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearances

A quite comprehensive assemblage, lacking only "Easy Virtue (1927), Blackmail (1929), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), and Under Capricorn (1949)." This is much better than the link I posted earlier today in the smorgasbord.  I do wish that the person who compiled it had come up with some audio background other than an endless loop of the Funeral March of A Marionette.

Things you can't carry as hand baggage on a flight

Knives, scissors, meat cleavers, portable power drills, hockey sticks, bullwhips, dynamite, pickles and spices...

Via the Telegraph's weekly "Sign Language" feature.

Screw-cap wine bottles may be threatening an ecosystem

Personally, when I spend $10 for a bottle of wine, I don't care if it has a cork cork, a plastic cork, or a screw cap (and frankly, for convenience I prefer the latter two).  But an essay at the Guardian suggests that by not using natural cork, I may be endangering the future of cork oak trees.

Deep into one of the 350 remaining cork oak forests (in my case Herdade dos Fidalgos, near Lisbon) sometime between June and August you'll suddenly come across a team of about 20 men, ranging in ages from 16 to 70, striking huge twisted trees with axes. Then, with a sensitivity you would not associate with an axe, they prise the juicy bark from the tree and it is levered from the trunk in great, satisfying pieces. From the base, right up to the beginning of the branches, it is peeled away to reveal the oak's red, nude surface underneath.

When the tree is completely harvested, the axeman takes a swig from his water barrel and moves on to the next. Periodically, a truck comes to collect the pieces of cork and take them to nearby sheds where they will be weathered for months before being processed. The truck is the only obvious exception to a process that hasn't changed since the 18th century, when montados (open cork oak woodlands) and forests here in Portugal, in southern Spain, Morocco, Algeria and Turkey began to be exploited commercially to produce wine corks. A white number is painted on the tree. It will be nine years before it's disturbed again.

This was all new to me; I didn't realize that after the cork was harvested the tree regrew a new supply.  The interesting essay goes on to discuss the ecology of cork trees ("Each tree sustains 100 species; it is pretty much the only place in which the rare short-toed eagle and extremely rare Iberian lynx will consider living...") and the recent shift in wine-bottle closure preferences.  The problem is that if noone uses cork, economic pressures will tempt owners of the cork forests to shift their "crop" to more lucrative trees:

On one side are the cork oaks that take 80 years to reach their first harvest, their canopies stretching over smaller plants. On the other side there's a fast-growing eucalyptus plantation presiding over some very dry soil. The eucalyptus will be ready to be sold for the voracious pulp and paper market in a matter of months. If the market drops further for cork, the decision for the landowner becomes a no-brainer. They plant fast-growing eucalyptus, ecosystem be damned.

Have you noticed more "infographics" recently?

There's a reason for that.  If you look, for example, at a recent one entitled "All About Blood" and then scroll all the way to the bottom, you see, next to a smattering of unclickable links from which the infographic data was obtained, a logo for "Online Schools" and a clickable "source" for the infographic which will take you to an online school for medical assistants.

I received an email earlier this week from a producer of infographics, offering to pay me if I would host infographics on TYWKIWDBI.  I declined, because I'm trying to keep this blog commercial-free for as long as I can - although the temptation gets stronger the longer this economic slowdown persists.

There is of course nothing "wrong" with sponsorship of infographics.  It's a perfectly valid way to establish name recognition and seek business traffic, and probably in the large majority of instances the content is valid and noncontroversial.  But it's worth understanding that their proliferation of infographics reflects not so much an embracing of a popular graphic art form as an embracing of a way for bloggers to monetize their product.

Addendum:  A hat tip to Internev for providing this link to a Reddit thread explaining how infographics are used for search engine optimization.