Paranormal activity. || Peeling scenes. || Notable use of a frying pan. || Incoming. || That’s exactly how I would’ve done it. || Two women, one bed. And what a bed it is. || A brief history of toilet innovation. || Two minutes of window cleaning. || Clouds ahoy. || The thrill of British cuisine. (h/t, Perry) || Inside a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie. || Frasier takes a dark turn. || Diamonds not forever. || They’re doing it for the wee ones. || I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here. || The joys of public transport, part 4,866. || Oh, how we gasped. || Oh, how we gasped 2. || Omni-directional ball-wheel robot. || In the navy. || And finally, don’t forget, Slovenia’s annual Roast Potato Festival will soon be upon us.

Three items presented for your betterment:

First up, “Kids and kink can coexist at Pride in a totally fine way,” we’re told.

You see, exhibitionist displays of fetishes – say, transvestism, sadomasochism, nipple clamps and cock rings – constitute a “justice space” and “kids and youth voices are vital to justice movements.” “Kids,” we learn, “are a vulnerable and marginalised group” and must therefore – yes, therefore – be exposed to narcissistic psychodrama and the penises of creepy, damaged men.

It’s all about those “intersecting identities and oppressions.”

This second item reminds us, inadvertently, of two fairly obvious options. You could, of course, regurgitate pseudo-scholarly prattle in a condescending tone, complete with facial theatre. Or you could just, you know, dial back on the carbs and sugar, and thereby live longer without the serious health problems. Or the mental contortions.

Oh, and somehow, inexcusably, I’ve only today discovered this.

I think it’s safe to say that your cross-cultural interview isn’t going terribly well when the interviewee starts throwing his own faeces at you.

Also, open thread.

Grooming is important. || Dignity intact. || Drain blockage detected. || Dog bed for humans. || He does this better than you would. || It’s a good-news-bad-news thing. || Hobby of note. || Rapid upwardsness. || You will watch the empowering sassiness. || The progressive retail experience, part 435. || Party snack experiment not entirely successful. (h/t, Julia) || A suggestion for crime reporters. || Prepare for robots with living skin. || Robot plays cello. || She really hopes it helps. || Correct answer in physics class “ascribed value by whiteness.” || Traffic noise generator, to obscure actual traffic noise. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) || Vibrant scenes. || The thrill of cricket. || And in pre-school news, it seems he doesn’t know.

On the subject of ostentatious hair colouring, Emil Kirkegaard has some thoughts:

For those not into memes: the idea is that poisonous animals advertise their dangerousness by [using] bright colours to scare away predators. Humans appear to do the same, as those who are poisonous — mentally ill — colour their hair in bright, dangerous-looking colours. Since this meme was made in about 2014, we’ve seen a strong increase in the number of people with unnatural hair colours. In the same time, we have seen a rise in mental illness in left-wingers…

Is unnatural hair colour associated with mental illness, or are we being misled by a few prominent people with this hair style who appear very mentally ill? We decided to find out using the venerable OKCupid dataset.

Charts and number-crunching ensue.

The full paper – Blue Hair and the Blues: Dying Your Hair Unnatural Colours is Associated with Depression – can be downloaded here. 

When you park the car in Portland. 

Also, open thread.