Link Roundup

by Mallory Ortberg · December 12, 2014

So I am more than a little late to this (I think it came out last year?) but if you haven’t played/read “My Father’s Long, Long Legs” (AND YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE; IT’S POSSIBLE TO MISS THINGS ON THE INTERNET, YOU KNOW, EVEN WHEN “THE INTERNET” IS YOUR JOB), please take some time to do so today.

Heads up that it is scary. Words scary, not images-that-will-burn-themselves-into-your-skull scary, but still.

*

Schools’ Discipline for Girls Differs by Race and Hue:

An analysis by Villanova researchers of data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health indicated that black girls with the darkest skin tones were three times more likely to be suspended than black girls with the lightest skin.

There are different gender expectations for black girls compared with white girls, said Lance Hannon, a Villanova sociology professor who conducted the analysis. And, he said, there are different expectations within cross-sections of black girls. “When a darker-skinned African-American female acts up, there’s a certain concern about their boyish aggressiveness,” Dr. Hannon said, “that they don’t know their place as a female, as a woman.”

*

“Forty years after the fact, the story of the Doodler killings has not been even cursorily told. Unlike cases with similar body counts—the Zodiac Killer and David Berkowitz, for example—this one was quickly forgotten. It was, perhaps, somewhat a matter of timing. When the killings began, it had been just a year since the American Psychiatric Association Board of Trustees ceased classifying homosexuality as a disorder. Most media outlets, just maybe, did not consider gay men sufficiently sympathetic to rate coverage. And then, four and half years after the killings ended, San Francisco’s own Ken Horne, a ballet school dropout, was reported to the Centers for Disease Control with Kaposi’s Sarcoma. Five murdered men would become, relative to what followed, a statistical blip.”

Elon Green and forgotten serial killers. I could not but click.

*

I know it’s just a regular storm by any other state’s standards, but all I can think is “Thank goodness, we need the rain” in my mother’s voice. “Don’t bring us any water! We’re in a drought!” she adds to an invisible waitress who exists only in my mind.

*

The term Great Year has a variety of related meanings. It is defined by NASA as “The period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic, about 25,800 years […] also known as [a] Platonic Year.” One complete cycle of the equinoxes here means one complete cycle of axial precession, this precession was known to Plato, who defined the “perfect year” as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars (circle of the Same) to their original positions, from his studying in Egypt for 13 years. Cicero followed Plato in defining the Great Year as a combination of solar, lunar and planetary cycles (61 XX) Nicholas Campion writes of “periods of History, analogous to the solar year, known as ‘Great Years.’ “

Other ideas still emerged for concept and debate.

Josephus refers to a ‘Great Year’  of 600 years.

God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded the time of foretelling [the periods of the stars] unless they had lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval.

LET’S ALL LEARN ABOUT FAKE ASTRONOMICAL CONCEPTS TODAY

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83 Comments

    1. thescelosaurus +8

      NO. I mean, I’m not surpised, but, you know, sometimes you just hope that a bad person has only done a particular bad thing one time.

      I wonder if he uses these encounters in class, as teaching material? Eurgh.

    3. ToastiewithCheese +9

      Not going to link, but you know what’s also a big surprise but not really? Slate has an article up defending the dude.

      2. betsymore +49

        And it was written by another b-school prof. I’m sure we’re all shocked.

        (Also, it called him a “maverick.” Spare me. That’s just what white guys get called when they’re assholes.)

        1. littlehuntingcreek +32

          How can Rude Professor be called a “maverick” when all the Rude Dudes act exactly the same? The Maverick at HBS is the Polite Professor

      3. jtradke +13

        From that piece:

        But who among us hasn’t had some sort of heated customer service argument at some time?

        Hahahaha, I mean, OK, yes, most of us have, but we didn’t go on a sustained e-mail crusade because of it. That’s not “heated”, that’s a character flaw.

    4. Bunburying +70

      Oh my god the restaurant’s response is priceless.

      “NO ONE in retail should have to deal with someone whose ego is as large as yours. NONE of your requests will be met under any circumstances. As a matter of fact, you are not welcomed back… ever. We will in fact call the Boston police department and have you escorted out for trespassing.”

      I cry tears of joy

    5. Ethylbenzene +67

      Interesting (is it though?) that it’s a Sushi restaurant, and the previous story was a Chinese restaurant. I wonder how he chooses who he thinks is being “deceitful.” I WONDER WHAT IT COULD BE YOU GUYS.

    6. GoatseFanfic +21

      That restaurant guy is rad and my memories of food retail make his responses SO SATISFYING UNGH

    7. redheadedwolf +13

      WOW.

      That first email he wrote about the Groupon dispute — that makes it abundantly clear what a sad, sad little man he is. Just, honestly. If he were trying to impress anyone on first meeting (a colleague, a date), all someone would have to do is hand over that transcription to show the new acquaintance exactly what kind of person he is. I wonder if he’d even be proud of it, then?

      I am SO HAPPY the business owner made clear he is never welcome back to their restaurant, and also basically told him how pathetic he was.

      1. aravisthequeen +28

        “Um EXCUSE ME this item was on the 99-cent rack but it rang up as $31.99! You must honour that price!” “No, it must have been put on there by mistake. See these same sweaters on the $31.99 table?” “YOU MUST HONOUR PRICES AS MARKED.” “No, it wasn’t marked. See the tag here? It says $31.99.” “BUT IT WAS ON THE 99-CENT TABLE I’M GOING TO CALL THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU AND YOU’LL BE OUT OF BUSINESS.” “OK sir, would you like to speak to Walmart Customer Service?” “YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM MY LAWYER”

        1. GoatseFanfic +12

          This is what the top of the field looks like for small-time hustles; the guy developing the theory behind every creep loudly claiming he gave the cashier a hundred-dollar bill and only got change for a ten of course there’s no evidence SHE MUST HAVE STOLEN IT

        2. raqueue +15

          Maybe it’s the excessive Gilmore Girl watching I’ve been doing lately, but he reminds me of Taylor Doose.

  2. gorebooth +12

    “Words scary, not images-that-will-burn-themselves-into-your-skull scary”

    I like how you say that like they’re two different things. (I’m in the last 100 pages of IQ84 by Haruki Murakami right now and the book and I are taking a little break because of some words-burned-into-my-skull scary…)

    1. academianut30 +1

      I found that book seriously creepy..like wake up in the middle of the night and think I might be in an alternate universe disturbing ..

  3. deleted5647547 +13

    I love “My Father’s Long Long Legs!” The story! Not my actual father’s legs, which are not long cause he’s like five foot seven!

    I read it alone at night a couple weeks ago. Regrets, I had a few.

    1. Es_Petal +3

      I have never heard of it and have a phone meeting at work in 10 minutes. Do i want to read it this evening or should I wait for daylight and company?

      1. deleted5647547 +21

        Uhh I’m an enabler and I like to see people suffer as I have suffered so read it tonight, alone, with headphones on. It’ll be fine. Trust the Lovecraftian nightmare god, we’re like super honest.

  4. wallofillusion +13

    “inspirations: Emily Carroll, Junji Ito”
    yeah, I… I can tell.

    (Side note, I asked for Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods for Christmas and I am exciiiiteeeed)

    1. rangiferina +4

      oooh that makes me really excited/scared to read it later.

      (Through the Woods is GREAT, by the way. like, “slam the book shut and refuse to turn the page for fear of nightmares” great.)

    2. Genny_ +3

      Each time I’ve played it, I’ve had images in my head JUST like Carroll’s illustrations. It’s unsettling to say the least.

      1. Allpha7 +3

        LOVE Junji Ito! I stumbled across Uzumaki years ago and have been tracking down more ever since.

        A friend of mine said he’ll never open another book I leave out in my house after he peeked into a copy of Gyo I left on my coffee table.

      2. Spent Gladiator #2 +1

        Uzumaki! Amigara Fault! Not sleeping for two straight days!

        PS My favourite Junji Ito manga is the one about his cats. I don’t want to say too much about it in case anyone here hasn’t read it, but it’s exactly what you’d expect a slice-of-life manga about cats written by Junji Ito to look like.

  5. bibliobotic +12

    Do I really need the sound on while I read it?

    Edit: Wait, was this supposed to be a reply to someone? I don’t even know any more.

        1. deleted5647547 +6

          There’s definitely sound! It’s not very loud at first though. When I listened to it initially I thought I was just hearing background noise in my house, which kind of was actually more terrifying so it worked out in the end.

  6. Grace +5

    Oh yeah, fake astronomical concepts! Let’s all take what Josephus says as the absolute truth! We can’t question it, he’s an historian! And since he’s an historian, he obviously knows ALLLLLLLLL about astronomical concepts that are in no way fictitious, falsified, or made-up!

  8. GreenGrasses +59

    My Father’s Long Long Legs was awesome and creepy and scary, but I have to warn everyone to close your Toast tab while you do it, or else the autoplay ads will seriously harsh your experience. “I went down into the basement and called for my brother. BUY A GALAXY 300 PHONE!. I got no response.”

    2. meetapossum +12

      Man, those autoplay ads have been killing me. AND I CAN NEVER FIND THEM. There’s like 7 playing, but none are the Verizon ad. WHERE DO YOU HIDE.

    1. Alli525 +13

      Man, FUCK Bob Jones and his whole stupid fucking school. I had to go there for fine arts competitions in high school and it was nonsense from start to finish. My college buddies and I used to read sections of their code of conduct/morals policy out loud for the horror and sheer stupidity of it all. Men and women really did at one point have to segregate elevators and sidewalks.

      I didn’t know before clicking the link that it was BJU, but I’m not surprised at all.

      *ragespiral*

      1. redheadedwolf +5

        Ahahaha, my junior high school (a K-12 that did those fine arts trips to BJU every year) also had gender-segregated staircases and chapel seating.

        1. Alli525 +5

          Oh man not to brag or anything but my school was the wild child of the schools in the BJU circle – we had a DRUM SET in CHURCH! (Which is probably why we almost never won anything, because it’s not like the BJU professors judging our performances were neutral observers.)

    2. azure_azure +12

      Oh wow. I thought you were sarcastically paraphrasing, but no, that is actually what the dude said.

  11. helen_jeffs +5

    Guys, this is a side-note but I am in some Toastie trouble: anyone know where I can get hold of Texts from Jane Eyre in the UK? It was top of my Christmas list and Amazon only has one used copy, so it’s not stocking it (yet?). I will buy it if I have to, but is anyone supplying it properly? Mallory, do you happen to know?

    1. Es_Petal +2

      I dont’ think it’s out over here until the spring – I am pretty sure it’s a good few months away I’m afraid.

      1. helen_jeffs +2

        Ah, rubbish. I’ll just have to wait, but HOW?! Thanks for letting me know though – saved me a lot of frustrated internet searches!

        1. keristars +2

          have you tried Book Depository? I’ve had luck getting books ordered pretty easily that aren’t in the US yet or I want the UK edition. You may have to use the .com vs the .co.uk site.

          of course, if you’ve already looked them up, this won’t be helpful.

    2. suggestion

      I would suggest trying amazon.com instead of amazon.co.uk if you’re willing to pay shipping–if you check out the new or used tabs, some of the sellers will do international shipping. I’m in the US and got Adrian Nevil’s latest novel off of UK Amazon that way (sometimes you just really want a book!). What’s nice is that Amazon will automatically change the currency for you, so it was actually cheaper for me to buy Nevil’s book from the UK somehow.

  12. hearyoume +11

    I was going to wait for the Open Thread to do this, but I don’t think I’ll be around when it goes up, so:

    I’m consistently getting video ads with autoplay when I visit The Toast. I think Nicole and Mallory usually direct people to Nick if this happens, but I want to make sure emailing him is the right thing to do before I bother him.

    2. extrayarn +3

      Do you have adblock extension on your browser? If you do, you can make it go away. Tell it “block an ad on this page” and it will ask you to select the location of the ad. Do that, click “Block” and boom, done.

  13. hearyoume +10

    Hrm, this makes me sad.I would almost prefer one of those videos that pops up and you have to watch it for 10 seconds, but at least you can mute it.

    1. redheadedwolf +3

      If it’s a real problem (for me, it was making Javascript crash in all my browser tabs), you can disable plugins by left-clicking the page icon next to the address bar — there’s a list of options there.

  14. CleverManka +5

    That My Father’s Long, Long Legs thing was amazing. THANK YOU.

    It was made more amazing by the fact that I’m (I hope) on the tail end of a migraine, so I read it while wearing sunglasses because I’m still super sensitive to light and contrast and the sounds were that much more intense. Wow. Not sure it helped the headache, but it certainly improved my day.

  15. winterbymorning +29

    Technical note:

    Previously, the ads that appear between Toast articles were “boxed in” which made them easy to identify. Then when the Butter was launched, and Butter articles were also boxed. Now I’m noticing that only the Butter articles are in boxes, while the ads are not, which can get confusing since a lot of them have titles that I wouldn’t be surprised to see on an actual piece by Mallory, like “Dream Job Made Real: Getting Paid to Eat” and “What’s On Your Baby’s Mind?” (murder and Hegelian dialectic).

    1. bibliobotic +14

      I’ve noticed that! There was one sponsored post recently that had a title – I swear – that was something like “HOW TO TELL GARBAGE MEN TO LEAVE YOU ALONE” or something. I was like, “Ooh! …Oh.”

      (I could be exaggerating slightly on the title, but not a lot)

    2. redheadedwolf +15

      I KNOW OMG. It’s the most disappointing deception, because so many of those titles would make for some A+ satire.

  16. mkpatter +12

    OK so that Doodler article is amazing, but I just came across the phrase “ballet school dropout” and WHY ISN’T THIS THE PREMISE FOR AN AMAZING DANCE MOVIE!?

  18. ankulometes +1

    I played My Father’s Long Long Legs some time ago and I definitely recommend it, it’s got that level of creepiness I like.