Watching this once-beloved film with 2019 sensibilities produces a lot of cringing. The nerds’ zany pranks include many serious felonies that were once treated as examples of “boys will be boys.”

Interesting study (.pdf format). They asked 15-year-old boys and girls in the English-speaking nations whether they were knowledgeable about non-existent subjects.

As a rule, girls were more likely to admit that they knew nothing about bogus subjects like “subjunctive scaling,” while boys often claimed expertise. In terms of class differentiation, poor kids were honest in admitting they knew nothing of such imaginary subjects as “declarative fractions,” but the richer the respondent, the more they were likely to bullshit.

Those findings didn’t surprise me, but some things did:

* The USA did NOT finish first in total bullshit. The upset winner was Canada.

* The USA had the least gender gap (England had the most) and the least class gap (Scotland had the most). While Americans finished very high in bullshit, it was distributed quite evenly among genders and classes.

Basically all Americans are full of it.

Conversely, the Scots finished very low in total bullshit, but evidenced large gaps by class and gender. In other words, poor Scots girls are the straightest shooters on the planet, or at least on the English-speaking portion of it.

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The study also showed that those who rated themselves very high on questions like “I am quick to understand things” – the sort of questions that often appear on pre-employment questionnaires – also tended to score very high on bullshit.

I suppose it’s logical that some confidence is bullshit. I remember reading a more specific study many years ago that measured people’s belief in their ability to multi-task, and contrasted it to their actual tested ability. People who think they are good at it are actually no better than anyone else. (This is a bit misleading because the study also showed that nobody is really good at multi-tasking, so it was inevitable that they would conclude that anyone who claims to be is bullshitting. Trying to do two things at once is almost never comparable in efficiency to doing them one at a time.)

Maybe. It might be true, but “the Department of Homeland Security has not announced it is sending migrants to sanctuary cities.“

That headline sounds like it might be from The Onion, but it’s not satirical. This is a real thing.

(To be fair, it is a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek promotion.)

Yetide Badaki in American Gods, s2e8.

A 1080hd film clip can be found in the members’ area.

Here’s a .gif of the scene

Love her voice. Kinda reminds me of Eartha Kitt’s.

Trump tweets many Judge Napolitano opinions. This was an exception.

Here’s how the President actually responded:

….Ever since Andrew came to my office to ask that I appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I said NO, he has been very hostile! Also asked for pardon for his friend. A good “pal” of low ratings Shepard Smith.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2019

Ah, social media!

Noah, like her sister, likes to show off.

Anja Rubik for Vogue Magazine, France (May, 2019)

The final chapter in the Avengers saga grossed $156 million on Friday alone. (Including Thursday night previews.) The previous single-day record was $119 million.

Its market share was approximately 93%. To word that another way, it took in about thirteen times as much as all other films added together. Its predecessor, Infinity War, “only” took in about five times as much as the other films released that weekend.

Coming into this weekend, the weekend record for the entire film market was a gross of $313 million, set during the weekend when Infinity War set the single film weekend record with $257 million. Endgame will gross more than that total market record by itself, perhaps by a very wide margin. (The total for the entire market this weekend will not be that much more than Endgame’s individual total because of that film’s insane level of market dominance.)

Believe it or not, the film’s international box office is even more impressive. Endgame had already shattered the overseas weekend record by Friday and may come close to doubling it by the time the dust clears! By the close of business Friday it had grossed $487 million outside the USA. The previous record for the entire weekend was $443M.

Nine pictures of Natalie Portman roasting her bosom at the beach. That was in January of 2000 on the island called St. Barts. She was 18.

That collage was almost the complete collection, as far as I know. The only other one that I can recall is here.