Alterity | Jakarta and Bali

I liked to “mess around” with the boys at school, claims Indonesian modelling sensation Dewi Rezer. I bet she did!

The zeitgeist moves on and Vermont is now the third US state after Massachusetts and Connecticut to approve same-sex marriage . Makes you wonder what’s gonna come next really. I mean will we be reading articles like the following in another 20 years down the line? Today, the Cats Make Good Life Partners Association filed a suit in federal court in Boston, MA to challenge the denial of critical federal benefits to cat-human couples. And about time too. Because for far long we have been lacking basic rights – the right to tie nuptials with a cat. But progress has been made. We have recently had an unprecedented majority of House and Senate co-signers for a trans-species equality bill and look to celebrate its passage later this year. And we have secured dollars in a difficult state budget for a toxomoplosis awareness week. We have pushed the envelope, no question. And we will continue to. And we should also raise the profile of plaintiff couples like State Trooper, Mary Ritchie who puts ...

There’s nothing like a controversial post to get your hits up, so I thought I’d look at a bit of conventional wisdom that has baffled researchers for centuries: why are Jews so clever? Personally I’ve never been one for judging people by their race or color of their skin, but to simply brush questions like this aside – as many researchers are required to do in the States (else face being fired on the spot) – is equivalent to sticking your head in to the sand like an ostrich. Sure we should never make any judgments about a single individual because of the socio-economic and cultural traits which they possess, but if we are honest with ourselves and study interesting divergences between different groups, it may be the case that we are able to identify the factors that can explain why such divergences occur. But hold on a sec. Some people say that the conventional wisdom is wrong: i.e. that there is no real difference between the intelligence of Jews and other groups. Indeed, this is what...

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe tuo fo 100 anc. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch atCmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in awrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteerbe in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitllraed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos notraed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! But what about this? ¡¡¡ɥɔno ¡ʇəɯ uəʌə ɹəʌəu əʌɐɥ ʎəɥʇ əuoəɯos ɟo ƃolq əɥʇ ƃuıpɐəɹ ʇsnɾ əɹɐ ʎəɥʇ ɟı uəʌə – əq uɐɔ əldoəd əɯos əlqıllnƃ ʍoɥ sʇsıƃoloɥɔʎsd oʇ əsıɹdɹns ʇuɐʇsuoɔ ɐ uəəq sʎɐʍlɐ s,ʇı Have a nice day!

I’ve never been a big fan of Suduko but a scoop in US Today that a computer scientist has discovered a mathematical formula to solve the puzzle is – if true – big, big news. Sudoku, strangely enough, isn’t Japanese but was invented by an American architect called Howard Garns, who had the puzzle first printed in Dell Magazines under the name "Number Place", starting in 1979. News that the puzzle has been solved will affect millions of Sudoku players worldwide – including my pet cat Kevin who took up Sudoku after getting bored with the Rubik Cube . No longer will Suduko be the mysterious game it once was, but merely a simple mechanical formula that anyone will be able to follow to get the right answer. Sad, really. But such is progress. We’ll just have to move onto other things instead like predicting the random walk. In the meantime, and before the secret is out, here is a Suduko puzzle for you to try out. Good Luck!!! ...

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859502445945534690830264252230825334468503526193118817101000313783875288658753320838142061717766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778185778053217122680661300192787661119590921642019...

Okay here’s a question for you: Take a look at the picture below and decide if: 1) it’s a sex toy, or 2) it’s a rather dangerous piece of equipment with an extremely sharp sabre saw blade attached to it And the answer? Well, it’s a trick question actually – both answers are right! Couldn’t make it up could you? clipped from The Australian Power tool sex toy lands woman in hospital The Maryland woman was flown to hospital on Monday after she was injured in the incident involving a sex toy attached to a sabre saw blade, according to NBCWashington.com. The man who called 911 about the incident admitted attaching the sex toy to the saw and then using the high-powered, homemade device on his partner, the St Mary's County Sheriff's Office said. NBCWashington.com reported the saw cut through the plastic toy and wounded the woman. The injuries were severe enough for her to be flown to hospital but she was released on Tuesday. NBCWashington.com said the woman told police she suffered t...

You’ve got to be careful when doing maths. One little mistake and the answer ain’t right. This is because maths isn’t like some other disciplines where you can get away with making some mistakes; you are either right or wrong. There is no such thing as “nearly right” or “mostly right”. It’s everything, or nothing. And if you don’t believe me, just ask the guys at the US Energy Department (DOE) who did the maths for the FutureGen clean coal project – their estimate was out by an incredible US$500 million!!! The DOE mistakenly said the plant had doubled in price to $1.8 billion, prompting the Bush administration to dump the project after investing $170 million in it, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. And what was the reason for their error? Inflation! In dismissing the project, former Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman inaccurately compared 2005 constant dollars, or dollars that reflect the purchasing power of money in 2005, with inflated dollars that woul...

clipped from http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/04/madonna-relationship Madonna and model Jesus Luz are seen on the streets of Manhattan on March 1, 2009 in New York City. Photograph: Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Image Payback time! Take this Guy Ritchie: "I've got a man 28 years younger than me and he’s called Jesus!" Okay, so he’s not quite jailbait at the age of 22 but where do you draw the line? Well, there is a rule of thumb used by psychologists which states that to determine whether such relationships are morally and socially ethical the "half-your-age-plus-seven rule" should be applied. Okay so Madonna is 50… half her age is 25… and add 7 and we get 32! So Madonna fails the test miserably!!! Jesus is way too young! The logic behind the test largely hinges of the fact that relationships with very large age differences are unlikely to result in any offspring. Or you could say that no matter how many times he humps her, Jesus is very unlikely to get Madonna ...

Oh shit! Yet another omen that the recession will be long and deep and that the global economy won’t start to recover until 2047 by which time only 5% of the global workforce will still have jobs – - and it’s that the Mona Lisa’s famous grin is gone !! > Mona Lisa, by by Leonardo da Vinci Yep folks – what 500 years of madness and two world wars and natural disasters and tsunamis and earthquakes and diseases (like AIDS) couldn’t do, the current global economic downturn could!! Art lovers across the world have gone into mourning, sharing Mona Lisa’s grief and anger. "Je ne sais quoi." said museum head Franco Frogg. "Sacre bleu and cherchez la femme!" he screamed before being ushered away to be guillotined. But Anita Hoare, head of the Britain Museum, was more philosophical. "The strangest aspect of all this is that there is no change in the portrait whatsoever. Computer analysis shows the same expression as before! No, it’s not her that has changed but us! O...