A good nose. || Dinner and a show. || The spread of dumplings. || He does this better than you do. || And she does this better than you do. || Meme density. || Discussing TV. || Temporal anomaly detected. (h/t, Tim) || Speaking, as we were, of Scientific American. || A point is made. || What CPR does. || Paedophile Pride, you say. || And of course we mustn’t forget the terribly put-upon animal-shaggers. || Incoming. (h/t, Perry) || Inevitable, I suppose. || The thrill of houseplants. || Hiring decision of note. || “Gender–affirming surgery,” you say? || In our brave, progressive tomorrow, white devils will be laid off first. || Not commissioned, just a fan. || From charcoal and water. || And finally, for adventurous motorists, another what-if scenario. 

Also, I now have a Twitter account.  

“Decolonizing” the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) could boost its chances of success, says science historian Rebecca Charbonneau.

From Scientific American, obviously.

You see,

Increasingly, SETI scientists are grappling with the disquieting notion that, much like their intellectual forebears, their search may somehow be undermined by biases they only dimly perceive—biases that could, for instance, be related to the misunderstanding and mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and other marginalised groups…

But of course. Some editorial trajectories are, I guess, inevitable. As one might imagine, the author of the article, Camilo Garzón, is keen to signal his own modish sensitivities, and so the interview with Ms Charbonneau begins as it means to go on:

“Decolonisation” seems to be a problematic term,

This prompts much rhetorical nodding, along with the news that space exploration is “a stand-in for encounters with Indigenous peoples.” Sadly, before this claim can be explored or tested in any way, we shift sideways in search of a point. Says Ms Charbonneau:

“It was, like, so awesome.” 

Or, “Woman with mental health problems craves validation from other people’s eight-year-olds, whom she manipulates, seemingly with impunity.”

Readers may wish to devise captions of their own. 

Update: 

Via the comments, and somewhat related, this illustration of ideological capture.  

And so, a woman who has been raped and is understandably uneasy about cross-dressing men venturing into female-only intimate spaces, including changing rooms, showers, and rape support groups, is patronised and scolded – at length, on her own doorstep, by a female police officer – for not believing that “trans women are women.” And the police officer, this rambling fool, the one doing the patronising, is the one who claims to be offended. On behalf of dysmorphic and autogynephile men. “You’ve got in your head that a trans woman is not a woman. You need to educate yourself,” says she.

In another context, it could pass for black comedy.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Bubbling detected. || An abundance of ladybirds. || Singled out. || Monkey see, monkey do. || Mahi-mahi. || “It’s mango, don’t you like it?”  (h/t, Ben) || The shadow of the Moon. || Magic show of note. (h/t, Desert Rat) || Signage. (h/t, Perry) || Summon the worms. || Today’s word is uncrossable. || Kiss of life. || I foresee accessibility issues. || Steals car, kidnaps child, when caught invokes victimhood. || As cabin views go, it’s pretty decent, actually. || Treasuring the good times. || Hardcore teacher. || Two types of home security, exchanging looks. || Stealth tech in action. || He was sent to buy curtains. || That’s exactly how I would’ve done it. || How to enhance your viewing of vampire-romance movies. || And finally, via Paul Johnson, when the Space Age met the Stone Age, in 1964.

Oh, and a reminder that I now have a Twitter account.  

Time to revisit the world of “queer studies,” via the academic journal Qualitative Research:

I wanted to understand how my research participants experience sexual pleasure when reading shota, a Japanese genre of self-published erotic comics that features young boy characters. I therefore started reading the comics in the same way as my research participants had told me that they did it: while masturbating.

Hey, I’m just reading what it says here.

In this research note, I will recount how I set up an experimental method of masturbating to shota comics, and how this participant observation of my own desire not only gave me a more embodied understanding of the topic for my research but also made me think about loneliness and ways to combat it as driving forces of the culture of self-published erotic comics.

It’s embodied, you see. And before you go getting any untoward ideas, it’s all being done selflessly, high-mindedly, for the greater good:

Untangling this largely unresearched knot of desires for fictional boy characters will give us a better understanding of human sexuality and provide a more solid basis for policymaking.