“Do what she says, Steve”

This made me a little happy.

Mouthpiece of the gluten-industry conspiracy?

Yesterday, Slate published one of its patented “I’m calling bullshit!” pieces, this time by Daniel Engber. The subject? Are we over-(self)diagnosing gluten intolerance?

These patients are described as having "gluten intolerance," a nebulous condition that amounts to something like celiac-lite: They feel pain or discomfort after eating wheat, rye, or barley but lack the hallmark signs of intestinal deterioration.[...]

Since there's no way to "prove" a case of gluten-intolerance in the lab, the diagnostic criteria are rather lax. To qualify for the condition, you need only discover (with or without medical supervision) that going "G-free" makes you feel better—in body or mind or spirit.

But what about all those people who insist that quitting gluten really, really does make them feel better, really for reals? Blame your amazing, adaptable body

Now imagine that you've cut out gluten from your diet completely—that means no bread, no cereal, no wheat whatsoever. Chances are you'll have reduced your total intake of carbs, and thus the amount of α-amylase in your gut. In other words, the mere fact of being on a gluten-free diet could make you more sensitive to grains and cereals—which would only reinforce your conviction that you're gluten-intolerant. Slip up for even one meal, and you'll pay the price with indigestion. (Same goes for people who don't eat meat or dairy: A momentary lapse can yield a nasty stomachache.)

We wish Engber luck with this line of argument. Biology can never hope to compete with anecdote, placebo, or peer-group affirmations. Trying to talk someone out of being G-free is like trying to reason with an anorexic.

Best sentence in the article: “As an erstwhile Neapolitan, he did seem disturbed that people might be giving up pizza without legitimate medical reasons.”

The art of Harvey Kurtzman

On the occasion of the release of a new collection of his work, Newsweek profiles one of the great artists of our time.

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, however, makes even Little Annie Fanny artistically fascinating, with a brilliant set of tracing-paper pages showing the development of a spread from a first pencil layout to the finished product. But the book also does something else, something much better: it makes hilariously and beautifully clear the overarching talent of Harvey Kurtzman. To paraphrase one of Kurtzman's laughably blunt magazine covers: don't buy those other hoity-toity art books. Buy this one instead.

You know, if you have any money.

Wodehouse takes the stage

From the Guardian:

The discovery of four satirical "playlets" by PG Wodehouse, seen by the public for the first time in 100 years this weekend, prove that the humorist - who is often viewed as apolitical - had a strong interest in public affairs from his youth.

[...]

Wodehouse, or "Plum" as he was known to friends, used the sketches to parody the debate of the time about tariff reform and proposed changes to tax law that split the Conservative government, and led to a Liberal landslide in 1906.

Sounds dashed boring, if you’ll pardon my saying so!

We’re all light

Don’t ya know? Yeah, I read that some place. Oh, wait it was here:

"The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. Japanese researchers have shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive.”

Via Slashdot.

RIP: Les Lye

Television actor Les Lye, widely know for his work on You Can’t Do That on Television, has died. I was a huge fan of YCDTT back in the day; this very sad news, indeed. [Via]

I’m no economist

Thank god. But there’s some suspicious news from the CJR:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before a Congressional committee yesterday and told lawmakers he plans to keep interest rates low, The New York Times reports. In testimony that built off his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bernanke said concerns about inflation take a back seat to returning the fragile economy to strength. Global investors agree, and give Bernanke high marks, Bloomberg reports.

Hmm. Growing inflation to strengthen the economy, plus a jobless-recovery, equals... no! It can’t be! We killed you back in the 80's!

Tech and death

From Slashdot: “Chinese Employee Loses iPhone Prototype, Kills Self”:

"Physical intimidation of a Foxconn employee, 25 year-old Sun Danyong, and a possibly-illegal search of his house may have led to suicide after an iPhone prototype in his possession was lost.”

Goddamn.

Manic Pixie Panic

Doree Shafrir finds an almost-Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the film (500) Days of Summer:

Deschanel's Summer just the latest manifestation of the female character that The Onion last year called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but I don't think that term is wholly accurate. She's more of an elusive cipher, and this is a road Deschanel's been down before, in Elf and All the Real Girls. Also think Natalie Portman in Garden State and Beautiful Girls; Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (director Sofia Coppola, herself an elusive cipher, is a master at these characters); Kirsten Dunst in practically every movie she's ever made; and of course, the prototype, Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The movie seems completely missable.

Prepare for witch-burnings

From Slashdot:

It does seem bizarre that, in 2009, a modern European nation would seek to shield religious belief from criticism — yet that is what is happening in Ireland right now. In repealing the 1961 Defamation Act, the Irish government sought to expunge the worst excesses of Ireland's draconian laws restricting free speech, but in the process it has ended up making offending religious belief a criminal offence.

What the –[censored]?

... or I’ll send you to bed without your US Weekly!

Wired presents: The balanced media diet food pyramid. [Via CJR]

Charitable mac ‘n cheese

This morning the Consumerist highlighted a new,easy charitable endeavor:

For every click on their "Share A Little Comfort" site, Kraft will donate ten boxes of Macaroni and Cheese to Feeding America (previously known as Second Harvest.) One click per person per day up to 1 million boxes, etc.

If you’re in the mood, why not give a click? Also, the Free Rice quiz is still going on.

New Kindle features: A memory hole

The Guardian reports on the removal of certain books from people’s Amazon Kindles. The good news is that this may not happen again (possibly):

Initially Amazon customer service representatives had said the book had been withdrawn at the request of the publisher - a move it said was "a rarity [but] publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store".

However Herdener said the company would be altering its policy so that it could block illegal copies, but not take back copies innocently downloaded by customers.

"We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances," he said.

The fact is that, in allowing users to keep “innocently downloaded” books, Amazon would also avoid having to refund their customers the cost of the books recalled. Clever, and it’s worth mentioning how Amazon is not mentioning it.

Eggers Excerpt

Love him or hate him, the SF Chronicle has published an excerpt of David Eggers’ new book, Zeitoun.

John Barrowman interviewed

... at the A.V. Club:

After we left Glasgow, when I was 8, I went to the U.S. I used to stay up on Sunday nights and watch the marathons of Doctor Who. I would go to bed at about 1:30 in the morning and I would end up getting up late on Monday, and I would fail my spelling tests every Monday. And so I always say that Doctor Who is the reason I’m a shit speller.

I did much the same, but somehow when he says it, it sounds sexy.

Steampunk 101

As a lapsed science fiction/fantasy fan, I am daily confounded by categories and subgenres that most other folks were able to get a handle on years ago. One of the many areas in which I have little experience is the world of steampunk. Fortunately, the A. V. Club has posted one of their many primers on intimidating culture that might help people like me.

As literary subgenres go, steampunk is especially nebulous. Coined partly in reaction to the future-obsessed cyberpunk craze of the ’80s and ’90s, steampunk looks backward rather than forward, imagining what the Victorian and/or Edwardian Era might have looked like if technological advances such as computers and robots had popped up many decades too soon.

I can’t decide whether or not to add “steampunk” to my browser’s built-in dictionary, now.

There’s always room for...

From Slashdot:

Z80xxc! writes "The Anchorage Daily News reports that a 15 mile-long blob of unknown, 'gooey,' probably organic material is floating past communities on Alaska's North Slope. The US Coast Guard sent pollution experts to investigate, who determined that it was not an oil spill or other type of pollution, but were unable to determine what it is.

This can only mean one thing, ladies and gentlemen: The Blob is real, and it will be our new Bigfoot.

Putting it all together

From the Washington Post:

To protect against skimming and eavesdropping attacks, federal and state officials recommend that Americans keep their e-passports tightly shut and store their RFID-tagged passport cards and enhanced driver's licenses in "radio-opaque" sleeves.

That's because experiments have shown that the e-passport begins transmitting some data when opened even a half inch, and chipped passport cards and EDLs can be read from varying distances depending on reader techonology [sic].

All right, folks – one Faraday cage wallet, coming right up.

We must adapt to new technology

Michael Schaub (of the Bookslut Blog) links to a a piece in Vanity Fair, thus:

James Wolcott on the main problem with the Kindle (I'm paraphrasing): The cute nerdy emo girl at the coffee shop has no way of knowing you're reading 2666.

It’s a tricky situation, to be sure – but there is a solution: Broadcast your literary taste on your hat, Judah Friedlander-style.

Ow! My angst!

All about LiveJournal, from Cracked.com:

LiveJournal is 95 percent female. Like an acting club or cheerleading squad, the minority of males who use it are either gay or there for the chicks. The all-female atmosphere means that 95 percent of LJ comments consist of people hugging each other, and the other 5 percent consist of people apologizing for judging someone’s Harry Potter rape fanart.

Ouch. Then again, poking innocent fun at LiveJournal these days is kind of like making fun of the Kaiser’s funny-looking hat, but at least they picked a target that can laugh at themselves. (Odd that they went for the “Ick! It’s full of girls!” thing, though.)

The Movie: The Book

Joe Queenan defends those writers who produce film novelizations:

Similarly, the whole time I was watching Hannah Montana: The Movie, I did not realize that Miley Cyrus, Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana were all one person. The wig confused me. Originally, I thought Miley Stewart was the young Minnie Driver, while her alter ego was Miley Cyrus dressed up to look like Hillary Duff. It was simply too hard to follow; it was more confusing than The Matrix Revolutions. Not until I read Hannah Montana: The Junior Novel by NB Grace did I realise that Miley Stewart/Cyrus was not only Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter but Hannah Montana in disguise.

Well that paragraph had big flashing “Post me on your blog!” signs hung all around, didn’t it?

Into Wodehouse

If you’ve been looking for a way into the works of P.G. Wodehouse, the AV Club is here to help:

With the exception of 1974’s Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (or The Cat-Nappers, depending what country you’re in), the 34 short stories and nine novels of the Jeeves-Wooster cycle represent the most consistently amusing, well-paced series of Wodehouse’s career. The Mating Season isn’t as widely praised as The Code Of The Woosters or Jeeves In The Morning, but it’s just as deft, and it doesn’t have too many recurring characters to overwhelm novices.

Very helpful. Less helpful? No mention of how to pronounce the name.

Why Google, why now?

Techdirt asks why Google is building an operating system:

There have been rumors for years that Google might someday release its own operating system, but the announcement that it's turning the Chrome browser into an operating system is an odd duck for a variety of reasons (amusingly, the "Google browser" was also rumored for years before Chrome showed up). Why is it odd?

The first thing they mention is the fact that Android already exists, so Google already has an operating system. (My guess is that it’s something to do with the licensing.)

Of course, if you’re in a hurry to go with a cloud-centric, Google-focused OS, there’s always gOS.

Calling out the economists

From Newsweek:

One intriguing subplot of the economic crisis is the failure of most economists to predict it. Here we have the most spectacular economic and financial crisis in decades—possibly since the Great Depression—and the one group that spends most of its waking hours analyzing the economy basically missed it. Oh, a few economists can legitimately claim some foresight. But they are a handful. Most were as surprised as the rest of us.

We’ve said it time and time again: Never trust economists.

Here we go again!

From CJR:

The Financial Times led its front page with a major story today on the return of those dread words “financial innovation.”

[…]

The FT reports that these “schemes,” which it rightly calls them, could lower the banks’ cost of capital by up to half. Guess who’s leading the charge? Goldman Sachs—and Barclays Capital.

Will we never learn? (No, not if enough people can make their packet and get out, leaving someone else holding the bag.)

Everything I need to know I learned in Greyhawk

From Javaworld, a case where Dungeons & Dragons helps someone succeed in business:

Throughout my 20s and 30s, I played D&D and other fantasy role playing games at least once a week. Doing so did more than teach me the rules of combat or proper behavior in a dragon's lair. I gained several skills that truly did help me in my career.

Several common-sense pieces of advice follow, as seen through a D&D lens. One addition I might suggest, however is don’t piss off your healer. How that applies to the business world, I’m not sure, but there must be some connection.

Bound to be the Wetlands of the short-pants set

From the Guardian comes the story of a rather grim fairytale:

The word "slut" appears in the first line of Margo Lanagan's new book, Tender Morsels. The next few paragraphs describe an unsettling sex scene between a witch and a dwarf. For some parents this will simply be an upfront way of indicating the challenging content of an interesting novel for young people, for others it will signal the end of children's literature.

The novel, published this month by Random House, is a lurid reworking of Grimm's Snow White and Rose Red fairytale and also contains a gang rape and a frank description of a miscarriage. Within the book industry, the new title from the Australian author is already being described as uncompromising and controversial.

Of course, there’s a renewed call for some kind of book rating system as a result of all this. (I wish they had something like that when I was a kid. It would have saved me a lot of time, otherwise wasted on reading books without lurid depictions of sex or violence.)