ive taken anti antimalarials and not taken antimalarials, its really much better to just take them, people sometime die and more often get sick and have their trip ruined, its not that much of a hassle, just dont get the ones that give you nightmares
― lag∞n, Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:43 (eleven years ago) link
"Page gives a restrained but brilliantly satirical performance as an intellectual and emotional faker. She's one of the greatest of Allen's female creations."
― High powered Texas lawyer (symsymsym), Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:49 (eleven years ago) link
because if anyone knows about being an intellectual faker...
― High powered Texas lawyer (symsymsym), Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:50 (eleven years ago) link
they make a lengthy point in that article about how egyptian mosquitos are not a keystone in the ecological food chain they're sort of at the top of their chain and are feeding off of one of the few other megafauna species that function as ultrapredators, i.e. us
― Authorities don't know who shot the 50 Cent the goose. (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
aedes mosquitos are a nonnative species in north america, are not 'part of the food chain'. also curious how bombing aedes w/ insecticide (which does affect native species along w/ o yeah humans)(but then again that's only if you believe biochemists and ecologists whose 'opinions' clearly aren't as valid as average joe) would somehow be less disruptive on this nonexistent place in the food chain that effectively breeding them out. maybe the bats can feed on the blood of christ.
― balls, Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:57 (eleven years ago) link
balls and i just want what's best for you why can't you see that*sets frankensquito to "kill"*
― Authorities don't know who shot the 50 Cent the goose. (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 8 July 2012 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/file.php?40,file=36695,filename=MansquitoPromo.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 8 July 2012 20:02 (eleven years ago) link
^ chemtrails pic?
― balls, Sunday, 8 July 2012 20:04 (eleven years ago) link
i too want what's best for balls
― mookieproof, Sunday, 8 July 2012 20:05 (eleven years ago) link
That was a still from Mansquito, and it was funny.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 8 July 2012 20:21 (eleven years ago) link
Does anyone really take antimalarials? Everyone I know who has traveled/lived in a malaria-endemic place has "not bothered."
I had a friend in college who forgot to take them before going to Central America and then got malaria. But I think he "forgot" rather than forgot, and now I can't remember if he was lying about the malaria.
― tokyo rosemary, Monday, 9 July 2012 05:08 (eleven years ago) link
Huh, this friend has a Wikipedia entry, and I have now learned he was interviewed for a New Yorker article.
― tokyo rosemary, Monday, 9 July 2012 05:37 (eleven years ago) link
The Gladwell/DDT article exaggerates the effectiveness of DDT and has lead to a lot of right wing cranks writing nonsense. Mosquitos were becoming resistant to it around the time it got stopped being sprayed, and the replacement chemicals that were just as good if not better. Right now bug nets really are the best way to fight it.
some posts about it here, mostly going on about it not being "banned" which can be skipped: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/ddt/
― abanana, Monday, 9 July 2012 20:51 (eleven years ago) link
Gladwell wrong? =0
― Tom Crucifictorious (Leee), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:00 (eleven years ago) link
W/E Malcolm Gladwell just gets off on flipping you over on your back like "You think it's one way, but it's another! BLAOW!"
― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:04 (eleven years ago) link
But all the bad stuff about DDT, its effectiveness and/or dangers, were discovered after the US more or less stopped using it, no?
I just read the Christian Marclay profile from a few months ago. Good stuff.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 July 2012 21:08 (eleven years ago) link
the version i'd heard was that it was the anti-DDT stuff in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" that brought about the US ban (eventually).
― swaggy dog story (c sharp major), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:30 (eleven years ago) link
Many of the younger female staff writers are kind of rowr, is this some kind of NYC thing.
― Tom Crucifictorious (Leee), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:38 (eleven years ago) link
uh
― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:39 (eleven years ago) link
JUST SAYING.
― Tom Crucifictorious (Leee), Monday, 9 July 2012 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
No but I mean it's not hard to figure out why that might happen
― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Monday, 9 July 2012 22:13 (eleven years ago) link
Who are we talking about? Lauren Collins? Ariel Levy?
― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Monday, 9 July 2012 22:24 (eleven years ago) link
Larissa Macfqurharar?
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Monday, 9 July 2012 22:28 (eleven years ago) link
Isn't that in the piece I noted? Where DDT was well on its way to ending malaria, then along comes "Silent Spring" to put the end to that, even though the scientific verdict was out?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 July 2012 22:29 (eleven years ago) link
oh, i get you now-- but the "bad stuff" about DDT was already (in the process of being) discovered, no? else she wouldn't have had anything to write about.
― swaggy dog story (c sharp major), Monday, 9 July 2012 22:43 (eleven years ago) link
I thought she was warning about what might happen, which she weighed heavier than the menace of malaria, which killed millions and made me massively alliterative. I could totally be wrong, but I could have sworn at the time of "Silent Spring" there was no definitive, or close to definitive, verdict on DDT, but the book was so effective that (rich, western) people didn't want to wait to find out what could happen.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 July 2012 22:57 (eleven years ago) link
silent spring also spawned a mainstream middlebrow ecomovement, the value of which is up for grabs but is kinda important nonetheless
― Authorities don't know who shot the 50 Cent the goose. (forksclovetofu), Monday, 9 July 2012 23:02 (eleven years ago) link
rachel carson went to my high school
/max
― mookieproof, Monday, 9 July 2012 23:04 (eleven years ago) link
xposts
the impression that i got - and this is based almost entirely on listening to the guardian science podcast a month ago - was that she, while she was a biologist working for the US govt, heard from various scientific contacts that the mass use of pesticides on fields in the US was having a terrible effect, and that effect was travelling up the food chain, and that was what she wrote about. but, yes, i didn't get the impression that she was particularly thinking about the use of DDT to specifically combat mosquitos who spread malaria.
― swaggy dog story (c sharp major), Monday, 9 July 2012 23:07 (eleven years ago) link
Lauren Collins, Wendell Steavenson, and Julia Ioffe.
― Tom Crucifictorious (Leee), Monday, 9 July 2012 23:31 (eleven years ago) link
here is another link about DDT and malaria control: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186
― abanana, Tuesday, 10 July 2012 04:47 (eleven years ago) link
That was a good piece, despite too much Hitler bait. However, it misses the point, at least rhetorically. Carson turned out to be right about resistance to DDT as well as its dangers ... but those weren't determined for several more years, if not decades. At the time of "Silent Spring," as I understand it, her warning was just that, a mostly unfounded warning.
Now, to argue for renewed DDT use, yeah, that would totally go against reason and science. But back then she effectively marshaled support with worst case scenario predictions. To our benefit! But if that New Yorker article was at all accurate, it sounds like the ban went into place right when that guy was making real progress on the anti-mosquito front. fwiw.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 10 July 2012 12:42 (eleven years ago) link
sounding the batuman klaxon: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/07/african-drumming-in-istanbul.html
― blossom smulch (schlump), Tuesday, 10 July 2012 13:23 (eleven years ago) link
lazy ass magazine on vacation all summer
― lag∞n, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:08 (eleven years ago) link
just read the mosquito article - pretty exciting and promising stuff, and agree with balls's assessment itt
― k3vin k., Friday, 13 July 2012 04:16 (eleven years ago) link
Anyway mosquitos are part of the food chain so, y'know, beware unintended consequences and whatnot. What will the bats eat?
― quincie, Sunday, July 8, 2012 3:36 PM (5 days ago)
the article goes out of its way a couple times to mention and cite that mosquitos, especially this particular species which is non-native to north america, aren't really essential parts of any food chain. i'll be interested to read further about this but it seems like the potential benefits pretty far outweigh the risks
― k3vin k., Friday, 13 July 2012 04:18 (eleven years ago) link
a follow-up of sorts (free): http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/mosquitoes-and-nimbyism.html
― k3vin k., Friday, 13 July 2012 04:19 (eleven years ago) link
mosquitos are worthless horrible people and should be banished from the earth if at all possible
― lag∞n, Friday, 13 July 2012 04:20 (eleven years ago) link
2 good pieces in this week: forensic linguistics article (which is kinda pro forma but has an interesting subject) and the strongman competition article (which is great all around)
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
cool, hello cottage reading.
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 18:49 (eleven years ago) link
strongman 1 is not paywalled btw & yes, v good - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/23/120723fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 18:50 (eleven years ago) link
forensic linguistics piece has a great detail about the early life of one its main subjects that's just kinda thrown in there but when you read it you're like WTF
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 18:50 (eleven years ago) link
ha yes
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:26 (eleven years ago) link
forensic linguistics article (which is kinda pro forma but has an interesting subject)
I agree with this. I found it a little disappointing, but only because it's something that's so ridiculously up my alley that I wanted more from it. But what, I dunno.
― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:28 (eleven years ago) link
it literally took me 30 mins to remember what the wtf fact is & i read that article earlier today but yes v otm
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:30 (eleven years ago) link
goddammit you guys I was all happy with skipping the strongman article >:[
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:34 (eleven years ago) link
can we have a separate david grann alert thread? then i can stop checking this one.
― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:39 (eleven years ago) link
― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:28 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
all the cases were fascinating, the article couldve just been composed entirely of examples of past linguistic detective work and it wouldve been p fn sweet
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:44 (eleven years ago) link
strongman story is v v good.this fucken guyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEvpNMdOK6I
― This clam, stranded on someone’s floor, is trying to dig itself (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 20:04 (eleven years ago) link
the dude lifts a half a ton and his nose starts bleeding i mean wtf
― This clam, stranded on someone’s floor, is trying to dig itself (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 20:05 (eleven years ago) link