Why are older men looking at women half their age?

It’s been a week of gloomy thoughts about what one applicant called “the packaging”. In fact, he wasn’t an applicant. He wrote specifically to tell me he wasn’t. “It’s a shame I don’t fancy you,” he said, “because otherwise you tick all the boxes.” Another said I sounded nice, but added: “Though unfortunately I have stringent physical criteria.” There seems to be a gender imbalance, vis-a-vis the packaging thing. All the women I know are tolerant of middle age showing itself in a chap. We quite like a late flowering, in fact: the silvering, the smile lines, the coming of bodily sturdiness. We read these as signs that life has been lived and enjoyed.

-The Guardian 

Sans se plaiiiiiiiindre!

Il y a tant de raisons de se plaindre, surtout quand on a tout pour être heureux. Je ne soulignerai donc pas à quel point je trouve l’hiver trop long. Je ne dirai pas que j’ai mal ici ou là. Aucun intérêt. Je ne parlerai pas de l’austérité ni des impôts. Cela n’a rien d’original. Tout le monde y passera. Pas les riches, mais les autres, oui. Depuis 21 jours, j’ai cessé de me plaindre. Incroyable, on ne me reconnaît plus. Je est un autre, comme disait Rimbaud.

Et cette autre a coupé le son lancinant du lyrage, une forme négative de valorisation aiguë. Car celui qui se plaint n’affiche-t-il pas un soupçon de supériorité intellectuelle, capable de départager le gris du très gris et ne se contentant pas de ce qui satisfait les foules vite rassasiées de calories vides? Heureux les creux…

-Le Devoir

THE DARK SCIENCE OF INTERROGATION How to find out anything from anyone

In August 2003, six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and four months into the bloody insurgency that followed, Steve Kleinman, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, arrived in the country as part of a special operations task force based out of Baghdad International Airport. A lean man with an angular face and a faintly Californian cadence, Kleinman had been an intelligence officer for almost two decades. He had questioned high-level prisoners of war during the 1989 invasion of Panama and Iraqi generals during Operation Desert Storm, and he’d run the Air Force Combat Interrogation Course. At the Baghdad airport, however, he witnessed techniques he hadn’t seen in the field. In one of the plywood-walled interrogation rooms he saw a detainee slapped in the face each time he answered a question. Outside another room was a taped-up sheet of paper with the words “1 hour sleep, 3 hrs. awake, ½ hr. on knees, ½ sitting down, 1 hr. standing, ½ hr. knees” written on it. At the bottom it read, “Repeat.”


-Bloomberg

These Photographs Are the Only Real Record of Canada’s Alcatraz

During its 178-year-long history, most Canadians knew Kingston Penitentiary only by reputation. Often referred to as Canada’s Alcatraz, the Ontario maximum-security prison housed around 400 of the country’s most dangerous criminals, and was known for its historically harsh treatment of inmates. But while stories often came out of the prison over the years, there were few images to help illustrate what life was like there.

-Slate

50 Amazing Photographs of New York City's Subway Commuters in 1980

Since the ground was broken, New York City's subway system has been the stuff of legend as well as a source of inspiration and fear. This dark, democratic environment provides the setting for photographer Bruce Davidson's first extensive series in color.

-Vintage Everyday

Man Quits Job to Convert Old Van into Mobile Home to Travel the World

Like many others, Mike Hudson longed to exchange the monotony of work and everyday routines for a life filled with adventure and travel. He made that dream a reality in 2013, when he quit his job as a systems engineer, gave away most of his worldly possessions, and began the enormous project of converting a rundown, 10-year-old van into a home on wheels called Vandog.

-My Modern Met

Virtual-Reality Porn Is Coming, and Your Fantasies May Never Be the Same

As a kid, Ela Darling fell in love with the idea of virtual reality. This was the late ’90s, early 2000s; Johnny Mnemonic and the Nintendo Virtual Boy had already come and gone, and VR had moved from brain-busting sci-fi concept to schlocky punch line to faded cultural footnote. But still, Darling was an avid reader and D&D player, and the idea of getting lost in an immersive world—“making visual what I was already losing myself in books for,” as she puts it—was something she found not just exciting but romantic. Not surprisingly for an active reader, Darling went on to get a master’s degree and become a librarian. Perhaps more surprisingly, she then stopped being a librarian and started acting in pornographic movies.

-Wired 

Bizarre Posters For A Campaign Against Venereal Disease During World War 2

We have stumbled across this bizarre series of graphic illustrations warning soldiers against the dangers of Venereal Disease. In a nationwide crusade aimed at changing a whole population’s sexual habits and attitudes, the American government enlisted the help of creative professionals. Artists, designers and ad-men teamed up to create these striking and very frank posters.


-Beautiful Decay

4 Ancient Roman Amphitheatres Still in Use Today

Two thousand years ago, when the mighty Roman emperors ruled over a significant part of the world, they built large public stadium-like entertainment complexes called amphitheatres. These were large, circular or oval open-air venues with raised seating and staged events such as gladiator combats, wild beast shows, races and executions – anything to keep the populace happy. Nearly every town with more than a few thousand people had its own stone amphitheatre, all over the Roman Empire from Syria to Spain, and from England to Tunisia. The larger Roman amphitheatres could hold around 20,000 people while the famous Colosseum in Rome, the largest Roman amphitheatre, could cater for 50,000.


-Amusing Planet

A Night In São Paulo's Crackland

Priscila Carolino was nearly due with her fifth child when she sauntered into the public hospital for her weekly checkup. Fidgety and talkative, she quickly made her presence known in the waiting room, asking to touch other patients' pregnant bellies and inquiring about their love lives. After her visit, unhappy with her doctor's recommendations, Carolino yelled across the room, calling herself a fat cow. Like many women in the waiting area, 29-year-old Carolino carried a paper that deemed her pregnancy alto risco, or high risk. She lives in a densely populated area in São Paulo known as Cracolândia — or Crackland. She claims to have stopped using crack cocaine during this pregnancy, but she frequently smokes cigarettes and marijuana.


-Vice

Rio de Janeiro, in Fantastically High Definition

Rio de Janeiro is called cidade maravilhosa, or the "marvelous city," for a reason. "How is one melancholic in Rio de Janeiro?" asks the Brazilian writer Tatiana Salem Levy. "You lower your head, but on your right side a hill rises up, majestic; on the left side, scandalous nature makes its presence felt; in front of you, the infinite line of the sea." But Rio gets even more marvelous when you spend a couple days filming it with a $50,000, 80-megapixel camera—and a couple months whittling the footage down to a rhapsodic, five-and-a-half minute time-lapse video. 


-The Atlantic

The Story of Diana: The Making of a Terrorist

 

When Diana Oughton, dead at 28, was buried in Dwight, Ill., on Tuesday, March 24, 1970, the family and friends gathered at her grave did not really know who she was. 

The minister who led the mourners in prayer explained Diana’s death as part of the violent history of the times, but the full truth was not so simple.

-Longform

Why the US Government Is Terrified of Hobbyist Drones

If you want to understand why the government freaked out when a $400 remote-controlled quadcopter landed on the White House grounds last week, you need to look four miles away, to a small briefing room in Arlington, Virginia. There, just 10 days earlier, officials from the US military, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FAA gathered for a DHS “summit” on a danger that had been consuming them privately for years: the potential use of hobbyist drones as weapons of terror or assassination.

-Wired

8 Best Apps for Cutting the Cord

Cable subscription prices are through the roof, and because of this, more and more people are looking at cutting the cord — we’re all looking for alternatives to cable TV. There are an endless number of cable TV alternatives available, and there are even some great smartphone and tablet apps for cord cutting.

-Gadget Review

Le libre-échange de l’amour

Les économistes peuvent vraiment tout faire : prédire l’avenir (parfois) en se fiant au passé, tâter le pouls du présent et même… rafistoler des mariages. Le jour n’est peut-être pas si loin où nous irons nous épancher avec eux pour comprendre ce qui cloche dans nos unions volatiles. À l’heure où un mariage sur deux se termine en eau de boudin, pourquoi pas un matheux épris de graphiques et de lettres grecques pour nous sortir du pétrin ?

-Le Devoir