Monday Links from the Bench vol. CXX

[NickFitz]

The last links I'll post while still in my 40s

• Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History - Possibly NSFW: Adrian Chen tracks down the Goatse.cx man, and takes a broader look at shock sites: "The early 2000s were a good time for anything disgusting on the web. Famous shock sites like Tubgirl (girl + body fluids + tub) and lemonparty (old dude orgy) went live and found followings."
  
  
• Whistling Pigs: German Adventures with Google Translate - "The underlying assumption of Google Translate is that any new text requiring translation contains phrases and word patterns that have been adequately translated in the existing online collection of bilingual or multilingual texts." Jalees Rehman considers the ways Google Translate's algorithms, fed on a diet of official documents, struggle with vernacular.
  
  
• TARDIS Control Rooms - All you need to know to operate a TARDIS. "The pedestal the console is attached to is called the Console Stem. If the illusion of the Environmental Metaphor's Desktop Theme is relaxed the Control Console appears to be a multidimensional 'thing' that would drive lesser species insane."
  
  
• Practical Tips from 4 Years of Traveling The World - "I started out having no idea if I had packed the right things in my bag... 4 years later, I’m still moving – though I’m doing so quite a bit differently then when I first started out." Canadian ex-lawyer Jodi proffers tips for the adventurous.
  
  
• The Times and NightJack: an anatomy of a failure - "The story of how, in a string of managerial and legal lapses, the Times hacked NightJack and effectively misled the High Court." Lawyer and blogger David Allen Green's exhaustive account of the way the Times broke into the email account of an award-winning police blogger, then concealed their illegal activities at the High Court in an attempt to justify their exposure of his identity.
  
  
• This Is How Much It Costs to Own a Vagina: An Itemized List - "Do you even know just how much you're shelling out for your clam? Were you aware of the fact that in your 20s alone, you will spend over $26,000 on vaginal maintenance? Herewith, we do the math on just how much that cooter is costing you." Tracie Egan Morrissey on the economics of anatomy.
  
  
• To Compute or Not to Compute: Wolfram|Alpha Analyses Shakespeare's Plays - "For hundreds of years, scholars have carefully studied the plays of Shakespeare, breaking down the language and carefully dissecting every act and scene. We thought it would be interesting to see what sorts of computational insights Wolfram|Alpha could provide, so we uploaded the complete catalog of Shakespeare’s plays into our database. This allows our users to examine Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, and the rest of the Bard’s plays in an entirely new way." Did you know that the longest word in The Merchant of Venice is "notwithstanding"?
  
  
• Molyneux: This is my last chance - Legendary game creator Peter Molyneux on why he left Microsoft to start up a new games studio: "I don’t think I’ve made my best game. And I haven’t made one of the greatest games ever, have I? To achieve that is my absolute, absolute passion. All the steps that I’ve taken in my life have led me to this point."
  
  
• Even in the 1870s, humans were obsessed with ridiculous photos of cats - Cyriaque Lamar discovers that Lolcats aren't a modern meme: "Deranged cat pictures have been around since the early days of photography. Once humans got their hands on cameras, the dignity of the domesticated feline was forever doomed."
  
  
• Deface Value - "Authentically found and intentionally altered album cover art." I reckon the ones that were casually defaced by their original owners are much better than the ones deliberately altered for submission to the site: for example,
  
  
  

Happy invoicing!

[BrilloPad]

This Is How Much It Costs to Own a Vagina: An Itemized List - "Do you even know just how much you're shelling out for your clam? Were you aware of the fact that in your 20s alone, you will spend over $26,000 on vaginal maintenance? Herewith, we do the math on just how much that cooter is costing you." Tracie Egan Morrissey on the economics of anatomy.

How much does it cost to own a penis?

[mudskipper]

I dispute the toilet paper assertion.

[TimberWolf]

How much does it cost to own a penis?

£0 ?

The website needs scripts to show text, and therefore remained unread.

[vetran]

I dispute the toilet paper assertion.

why?

we go through about 12 a week. I probably use 1/2 roll (I prefer to get paid to sit down).

[EternalOptimist]

being 50 aint so hard

you just have to remember to shave your ears now and then, so as to remain attractive to the opposite thingy

[mudskipper]

why?

we go through about 12 a week. I probably use 1/2 roll (I prefer to get paid to sit down).

Men (generally) make far more of a thing of going for a poo than women. As was evident from posts here recently (can't be bothered to find them), many make a 'landing pad' to avoid noise and splashback. Then there's the whole wipe thing requiring large wodges. Not to mention (in our house anyway) he 'goes' about 4 times a morning. I go every other day. Reckon I get through a roll a week. He gets through about 4.

[BrilloPad]

Men (generally) make far more of a thing of going for a poo than women. As was evident from posts here recently (can't be bothered to find them), many make a 'landing pad' to avoid noise and splashback. Then there's the whole wipe thing requiring large wodges. Not to mention (in our house anyway) he 'goes' about 4 times a morning. I go every other day. Reckon I get through a roll a week. He gets through about 4.

Personally I can take a dump anywhere. I consider it one of my best attributes.