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On flu and cold
How A Flu Invades Your Body Does Being Cold Make You Sick? A video from Laughing Squid. Carl Zimmer talking about ‘The End Of Flu’ on RNZ. It is actually possible to be allergic to cold. ‘People with...
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Everyday words whose scientific meanings are different
THEORY In everyday language, a theory is something that hasn’t been proven. We use it to mean ‘hypothesis’. I don’t know why socks go missing but I have a theory. MARK COLVIN: Do you think that to a...
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There are no magic words.
No, they are not. A resonant detail from a sociolinguistics lecture some years ago was that in Chinese families, designated ‘polite’ words are not used between family members. I had already noticed...
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Inequalities
1. The Inequality Map from NY Times 2. The Future Of Inequality from Overcoming Bias 3. If A Parent Who Reads To Her Child Is “Good”, Is One Who Doesn’t “Bad”? from Huff Post Parents, which is really...
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The Babysitters Club: Is it as terrible and dated as it sounds?
It would be easy to dismiss The Babysitter’s Club as an outdated storyline aimed at channeling girls into careers in childcare, turning them into good little obedient baby-machines and not much else....
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Praise and Compliments
Giving Good Praise To Girls A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Praise by Christopher Wall from LA Review Of Books Lavishing Kids With Praise Can Make Them Feel Worse About Themselves from The Atlantic...
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So I watched a whole bunch of Gilmore Girls.
**CONTAINS ALL THE SPOILERS** I write this post for feminist parents who may have wondered if this show is good to show to their adolescent daughters, given that Rory Gilmore is a rare example of a...
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On Vanilla
The ingredient believed to give clay its unique smell is vanilla, according to OMG Facts. Gendering Your Household By Smell. Is vanilla masculine or feminine, do you think? (From Inequality By...
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On Handwriting
How My Handwriting Has Changed Since Preschool from The Oatmeal is a comic strip I heavily identify with. Somebody analyses Stephen King’s handwriting. Survey shows cursive, on the decline, is taught...
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On Reading A Lot, Quickly
When I was in Year Nine there was a nationwide attempt to get kids reading, and so a reading challenge, sponsored by a corporation I can no longer remember, was set in place. Were there prizes? I don’t...
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A Place For Purple Prose
Apart from the fact that certain types of writing demand flowery language — a subset of the romance genre being a case in point — there are other uses for the sort of prose which otherwise reads so...
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On Rituals
It’s a truism that if you think you’re sick, then you probably are; the reverse is equally true. Last night I watched a documentary called Teenage Exorcists, about three young women from America who...
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Feminist Film Review: Gravity
***SPOILERS ABOUND***. This is not a post for people who have yet to see the film, except for the final paragraph, which is safe. DOES THIS FILM ANNOY A FEMINIST? There has already been quite a bit of...
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On Multi-tasking
Should You And Yours Multi-task In Multi-screen World? from GeekDad at Wired Are Men Or Women Better At Multitasking? from PsyBlog When you can’t get anything done, do one thing from Time Management...
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Feminist Film Review: Silence Of The Lambs
Silence of the Lambs is one of those films which I seem to watch every few years — always on a rainy day — because it’s showing on free-to-air TV. I first saw it as a teenager. (I was making Japanese...
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Girls Like Humour and Slapstick Too
I just watched Yogi Bear, the movie, with our five year old daughter. She loved it. Bears, slapstick, what’s not to love. (I on the other hand have some issues — the same issues I usually have about...
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Then I woke up, and it was all a dream!
I’ve recently been taking some magnesium supplements which is supposed to send you to sleep, and it does indeed. For me it also leads to vivid and lengthy dreams. I’ve been on some adventures, I tell...
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Dissecting Humour
Humor can be either very dependent on an escapist mindset or the very opposite. Laughter is a diversion, much like fantasy, though it also often requires an understanding of what is actually going on....
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Hyperrealism And Different Drawing Workflows
Hyperrealistic drawings fascinate me, mainly because I can’t achieve that level of realism even if I try. Although I’m tempted to ask, ‘Why not just take a photo?’ I have learnt to appreciate the value...
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Feminist Film Review: Frozen
The thing about all things for kids: We think a lot more about whether it’s good for them. We don’t tend to think so much about the merits of pop movies for adults. We just let them be. By writing...
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