Amazon Prime Now has expanded to the SF Bay Area. While I doubt I’ll ever order the ice cream and frozen pizzas, there’s some comfort in knowing that if you really need a 1080p home theater projector before midnight, they’ve got you covered.

Or if you find yourself running out of candy on Halloween…

I expect it to mostly benefit people like my sister, who often finds herself in business hotels, frantically working on events and presentations.

Steven is justly concerned about the marginalization of normality by a very vocal minority that demands praise for every non-traditional lifestyle choice they make. Not tolerance, not acceptance, not legal recognition; praise. And in their childish tantrums, they lash out at anyone and anything that biology and society call “normal”.

The slang term “cis” (which simply means “on the near side”, false etymologies to the contrary) is a straightforward attempt to de-normalize “normal”, so that people who define themselves as “trans” don’t have to face up to the severe psychological problems that lead them to consider cutting off their genitals. (they have my pity, since they’re only harming themselves; the parents who decide that a child engaging in non-gender-stereotypical behavior is “trans” belong in prison)

I came across a good example recently, a comment on the usually-informative Boobs Don’t Work That Way tumblr, in response to a tutorial video:

"That video has some good drawing points but you should probably tag it at *least* as #casual cissexism"

“Casual cissexism” = “assumption that pretty much everybody is male or female” = “simple truth”.

But you can’t say that, because Speaking Truth To Activists is a hate crime.

There have been a lot of regional versions of Playboy magazine, with the nudity content varied to meet local standards. Most of them have gone under, and now that the flagship is abandoning nudity in favor of exploiting residual brand recognition, I doubt it’s long for this world. Honestly, any monthly magazine is a tough sell these days, and this latest change is likely to be about as effective as the time they put the magazine into the hands of a former Maxim exec.

But don’t worry, cheesecake fans, Japan’s got your back. Weekly Playboy (no relation) has a healthy business model built on healthy models, in and out of their clothing. Their photography lacks the high artistic and technical standards that once made Playboy stand out of the crowd, but nobody does it that way any more; the craft of creating a single memorable image has been replaced by happy accidents embedded in filler.

In the strictly-non-nude department, Bomb! reliably delivers decent cheesecake photoshoots that flatter their subjects (unlike the recent WP (NSFW) shoot of Erika Yazawa that just made me feel sorry for her). Their DVDs are nicely shot, as well.

There are a lot of other weekly and monthly magazines that add a slice of cheesecake (in many genres), but as always with Japanese magazines, it can be a little too fresh, so be sure to check the pull date before ogling too intently. The kanji 「歳」 preceded by a number should be considered a warning label.

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(larger image here, because the source is very, very NSFW)

[Update 10/15: Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has called this a “mistake” and promised to fix it in the next update.]

I’d like to say a hearty “fuck you” to the person who decided that the optional update “Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro” should be selected by default. I caught it in time, but damn. That’s “anal probe with a rusty crowbar” behavior.

[Update: this isn’t happening to everyone, so I suspect the fact that this device is a Surface Pro 2 is the reason. They may pull this stunt on other users later, but someone likely decided that people who owned a Microsoft-branded tablet would be thrilled rather than appalled. They’re wrong, of course, since there’s no way to undo it and they removed full system backup/restore in Windows 8 (Acronis works nicely). They seem to think that their “system restore” functionality plus user-data backups is sufficient, neglecting the days of work it would take to reconfigure applications and restore data that isn’t covered by their partial backups.]

[Update: at this point, it looks like the auto-install kicks off if the background downloader has successfully finished copying the N-gig image to your hard drive. If you don’t leave your machine on unattended for long periods of time, you might not get the surprise for a while.]

In response to the law permitting concealed-carry on campus, a likely-small group of students has briefly turned to open-carry of dildos.

Question 1: if a white student carries a black dildo, is it cultural appropriation or race-shaming?

Question 2: if a white student carries a white dildo, is that racist?

Question 3: as the same crew often asks about guns, won’t a determined criminal just take it away and use it against them?

Question 4: wouldn’t this be more dignified?

(via)

1. Last week’s odd soliloquy worked as part of the teaser, but was dropped into the actual episode with all the grace of a flaming bag of manure.

2. This week’s fourth-wall-breaking was… jarring, to be kind. Vaguely condescending as well, which would be fine if it were Doctor-to-companion rather than writer-to-audience.

3. Hey, at least Missy didn’t show up.