A Sweet Wish Upon a Star

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

None Pizza with Left Beef is 10 years old today.

i made a college vine compilation b/c Suffering™️

As male geeks, a great deal of our identity is built on the notion that male geeks are, in some sense, gender-nonconformant, insofar as we’re unwilling or unable to live up to certain physical ideals about what a man “should” be. Indeed, many of us take pride in how putatively unmanly we are.

Viewed from an historical perspective, however, the virtues of the ideal geek are essentially those of the ideal aristocrat: a cultured polymath with expertise in a vast array of subjects; rarefied or eccentric taste in food, clothing, music, etc.; identity politics that revolve around one’s hobbies or pastimes; open disdain for physical labour and those who perform it; a sense of natural entitlement to positions of authority (“you should be flipping my burgers!”); and so forth.

And the thing about that aristocratic ideal? It’s intensely masculine. It may seem more welcoming to women on the surface, but - as recent events will readily illustrate - this is a facade: we pretend to be egalitarian because it suits our refined self-image, but that affectation falls away in a heartbeat when challenged.

Samsung is recalling the Galaxy Note 7 because they’re literally blowing up

Today, Samsung confirmed in a statement that there was an issue with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 batteries. Samsung has now “stopped sales” of the device and will replace purchased phones “with a new one over the coming weeks.” The timing of this couldn’t have been worse.

WHAT THE HEEEEEELLLLLLLLLL

WARNING - PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVE A PEANUT ALLERGY AND LIKE TO SHMEAR MAKEUP ON YOUR SKIN TO MAKE YOU LOOK AS FLAWLESS AS YOUR PERSONALITY

I am one such an individual, and last night I was super pumped to try this concealer. Out of curiosity I read the ingredients and saw something called arachidyl behenate.

Anything with the root “arachi” such as “arachis oil” is probably peanut related. And, sure enough, I did some research and arachidyl behenate is peanut-derived. Which is the story of how I nearly smushed a deadly food allergen into my skin.

There’s a report here from last year that seems to indicate that some food allergens are neutralized when processed for cosmetics, but I’m not sure that applies for peanuts. And at any rate, they did indicate there was still a risk of a reaction if such proteins weren’t processed properly.

Now, I’m gonna say it outright - I’m not one hundred percent sure that a heavily processed peanut-derived chemical such as arachidyl behenate will cause a reaction. I’ve worn a lot of makeup over the years without checking the ingredients, so I could have easily used a product containing it without knowing. Still, better safe than sorry.

Alternate names for peanut products (anything with the prefix “arachi-” should be considered suspect):

beer nuts, earth nuts, goobers, groundnuts, groundnut oil, hypogaeic acid, katchung oil, mandelonas

A full list can be found here, another cosmetic-specific one here.

Here’s some articles on the subject:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11558642

http://www.national-toxic-encephalopathy-foundation.org/peanuts-in-cosmetics/

http://cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/hydrogenated-peanut-oil

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredient/700482/ARACHIS_HYPOGAEA_(PEANUT)_OIL/

Senate Democrats are filibustering for gun control

Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, took over the Senate floor on Wednesday to protest what they call a lack of action on gun control in the wake of this weekend’s mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.