Climb to the Shrine, Right What Is Wrong

Authentick Memoirs of the Life and Conduct of Her Grace, Sarah, Late Dutchess of Marlborough: Containing a Genuine Narrative of Her Grace's Conduct, from Her First Coming to Court, to the Death of Her Royal Mistress Queen Anne, and ... to Her Grace's Death. Likewise All Her Grace's Letters to the Queen, and Her Majesty's Answers. To which is Prefix'd, the Last Will and Testament of Her Grace, from a True Copy of the Original, Lodg'd in Doctor's Commons

Due to the Will and Testament, it actually begins only on page 70 or so. But it's hilarious. The woman is so full of herself and the points of sleight-of-hand are so obvious.
Screw ~realistic~ fiction, I prefer history.

For a woman who claimed that Queen Anne was a lesbian (with her replacement as the queen's favorite), the intro sure sounds like yuri. *snerk* 'Oh, our friendship was so great that she couldn't bear addressing me as a lesser, so we invented usernames pennames that were on the same level!'
(And should you say that 'well, they had very strong platonic relationships back then' - the Duchess of Marlborough prodded Queen Anne about the charge, not me.)

...Jeez, this is melodramatic and slashy. Admittedly Anne was dead at this point, so she couldn't gainsay anything she was claimed to have written, but, if it were made up, surely the Duchess of Marlborough grasped what this looked like.

Then again, this is the woman who thought it was a good idea to TELL THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND to shut up during a heated argument. Yes. Sarah Churchill in a nutshell.

*crying with laughter* And her excuse is 'I never did anything wrong, everyone's just mad that I bashed Abigail Masham!' Oh man, the chutzpah! Oh, this is GLORIOUS...

(This is a more readable version of the main part.)

What annoys me is that it wasn't as catty as I was led to believe. 'Tis a pity. Perhaps the catty parts were elsewhere?
(Apparently it was in a letter I can't track down through Google Books. Oh well.)
( Cut for some slashy screencaps. )

Laboratory-grown vaginas implanted in patients
(Is it strange of me to automatically think 'This is going to be very helpful for trans women'? I know gender-reassignment surgery already works, but, as the article says, vaginal construction surgery as it stands now has a very high chance of complications. Apparently these vaginas are much closer to normal functioning, which is all to the good.)
Breakthrough therapy allows four paraplegic men to voluntarily move their legs
Scientists are attempting to 3D-print a human heart
Scientists unmask a piece in the puzzle of how the inheritance of traumas is mediated

Hope you find some of these relevant to your interests!

So they've found a way to reverse (some form of) female infertility by switching off a junk-damaged-eggs gene.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii don't know if this is really the best thing. Stinks of a "THIS IS GOING TO BITE US IN THE ASS LATER" stratagem. ...Wait and see, I guess.

Killing melanoma by cutting off its (glucose) food supply
Zombie cancer cells eat themselves to live
The origin of twins
Researchers use light-based technique to repair a mouse's damaged nerve

___

Anyway! Sorry to not be more active, but The Tumblr Monster eats one alive. :D;; I've also been busy with work and school. ...I'm improving, though.

Hope you're all doing well!

Smokers' brains biased against negative images of smoking

What's next? "Liberals' brains biased against negative depictions of liberalism"? "Conservatives' brains biased against negative depictions of conservatism"? "Gourmets' brains biased against negative images of food"? "Athletes' brains biased against negative images of sports"?

I like neurology and studies on how the brain behaves, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I have to wonder if some neurologists have ever interacted with human beings. People don't like to be told that pleasurable activities are bad for them, even if said activities are highly harmful? WHAT A SHOCK!

...Seriously, I expect to see "Study finds that bears frequently defecate in the woods" in the headlines any idea now. I would not put it past some Captain Obvious researchers to actually investigate that.

So there is a meaning to that 'Gym Badges increase stats' stuff in the earlier generations. Who knew?

Interesting tips on drawing.
How Does It Feel to Be in Flow?

Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.
A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
Knowing that the activity is doable – that skills are adequate to the task.
A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, our sin to pass by in minutes.
Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

( And now for whining. Slight TMI warning. )

In-Progress Runs
My Silver Randomlocke: "Sudowoodo" captured, now taking a stroll to Olivine	Poisoned Haven (my Mono-Red Poison Storylocke): At the base of Mt. Moon

---

Completed Runs
My Blue Randomlocke: Rest well, brave heroes	My Inverse Red Nuzlocke: Victory despite all odds

As you can see, I have two completed, and I'm... waiting for my wireless limit to reset so that I can update the other two runs to the current area of progress. (Respectively - "Gym Leader Morty defeated" and "Lt. Surge defeated, now entering Rock Tunnel".) Haven't updated in a few days due to said limit, but ah well... I'm using my LJ for imagehosting via private-locked entries. I still have 948.68 MB/1000 MB left. :P Not going to need a new imagehost for a while, that's for sure. Anyway, I'm mainly browsing the Nuzlocke Forums for entertainment these days, because fandom doesn't seem to be moving that fast and I... forgot that MedicalXpress existed. >_>;; The Nuzlocke Forums are not the fastest-moving place, admittedly, but at least there's a decent amount of excitement with deaths, victories-by-1-HP, and the like.

Since I mentioned MedicalXpress, have a few links.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria turns immune system against itself
Brain structure shows affinity with numbers (WHAT THE **** IS THIS 'SPATIAL' NONSENSE?! I... I literally have never heard of anyone processing numbers that way. And scientists thought that was the PREDOMINANT way? I... wow.)
Switching learning on

Hope everyone else is having a good day!

01E22DCD                                             01005ED7

(Found it in this FAQ)
Input these codes into Visual Boy's Gameshark feature, then walk in front of the Swimmer at Misty's Gym. Problem: you have to exit afterwards, as the battle will restart indefinitely.

AH. Found a better option.
Input 01E22DCD and then fight Lorelei. Since she's a conversation-only Trainer and not a walk-up one, her loop ends normally and the door opens.

Gotta say - Oak's not very good. I had one death (YULONG D:) the time I tried with the Swimmer, but Tauros Leered through the Hyper Beam recharge this time and I beat him with ease. YES, with L55-ish Pokemon against his L70s.

Disappointingly, the code only gives the Blastoise team, and there is no way to make it go to the other teams instead. I tried. I got a LOT of Glitch Trainers. Thing seems convinced that you chose Charmander. (The Rival battle given by the code also shows up as L5 Squirtle.)

I don't understand. How do you get it to spit out the battle with, say, Squirtle starter?
This site talks about how to make your own Gameshark codes, which seems to indicate that the 01??2DCD code listed here is, for me, assigning the value of 2E to the location CD2D in the memory bank 01. That controls which Trainer you face.

Now, this Trainer is a specific Trainer, possibly the first of the sort you fight. So there must be a way to change it to a different Trainer of that sort.

HOW?

E2, incidentally, is 226 in decimal. E3 is 227. Since Oak and Chief turn up for ?? values of E2 and E3, I guess this is the exact same value the Special stat modifies.
Now, here's the WEIRD thing. What does the Attack stat of the Ditto modify? I know that, for the Mew glitch, it modifies the level of Mew. (Mew comes by 7 at default, but lowering the enemy's Attack alters Mew's level.)

DISREGARD. GLITCH CITY LABORATORIES SAVES MY GEEKY POSTERIOR AGAIN.
(You should really read that link, by the way - it's interesting, and contains useful codes if you want to fool around with this stuff.)
The roster modification code is 01015DD0 for Blastoise team, 01025DD0 for Venusaur team, and 01035DD0 for Charizard team.

The instant-battle code is 01??59D0.

( Why did I do all of this? So I could determine something about my Balanced Blue run. )

I have just beaten up the strongest Trainer in the game with an L46 Nidoking and an L50 Blastoise and a few top-level healing items.
I declare Balanced [Randomized] Blue beaten into absolute submission, and will now move on to Pokemon Yellow. Because really, that was just pitiful.

I may or may not finish Restricted Red - I'm not sure about that one's plot. It won't really hit a point of actual plot until Celadon, and then it lags after Saffron (assuming Celadon->Lavender->Saffron order) until Viridian City, at which point the plot essentially ends. This is partly a scheme to allow me to skim through Victory Road and the Elite Four up to the Champion Battle, but it's... not satisfying. I've established Muninn's freak-outs and hostility to Team Rocket, so... the next few segments will be almost entirely padding. :\ That's part of why I don't have motivation to update it or continue playing. I mean, the CHALLENGE is interesting, but not so much the execution.
...Disregard, I just read that entry, and the writing's actually much better than I thought. Not GREAT, mind, but at least passable - which I didn't think it was.

Eh. I'll do it when I have the time. I just needed this Randomizer run as a break. :) *BACK TO WORK, SINCE HOLIDAY BREAK IS ENDING*

Here.
And, courtesy of a Bulbagarden forum link, the Gen I art BEFORE the Gen I art!
Here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Incidentally, I saved the pictures all into a folder, and the contrast between the Japanese Gen I art (Red/Green) and the international/Blue Version redone-Gen-I art is practically a class in making your posing more dynamic. I need to study that sometime, and I mean that seriously.

Anyway, I thought the Pokemon fans in the audience would be interested to see this!

---

I hope that most of you are doing well, and I hope those of you whom I know aren't will be doing better soon. *hugs for all*

Researchers discover idling brain activity in severely brain-injured patients who "wake up" after using Ambien
Stuck on flu: How a sugar-rich mucus barrier traps the virus—and it gets free to infect
Imaging the magnetically stimulated brain
Social symptoms in autistic children may be caused by hyper-connected neurons
Psychiatry professor takes new approach to helping compulsive washers

Who learns from the carrot, and who from the stick?
^Hm. So people's ability to switch off of previously-but-no-longer rewarding events and their tendency to walk away from something when it turns negative may be genetic. Interestingly enough? They aren't based on the same genes.

That may explain why some people are 'quitters' who nonetheless suffer from addictive tendencies. *embarrassed cough* It also implies that some people persevere in the face of adversity but can nonetheless get out of a burning barn, that some people will doggedly hang on despite negative stimulus for good or for ill, and that some people just quit when something turns bad whether or not it used to be rewarding.

Here's the big question for me. I've seen some people switch from one pattern to another... usually from a 'good' one to a 'bad' one. And usually tied to a traumatic life event or a series thereof in quick succession.

Can trauma change the expression of these genes?

And another, if so...

What is the method to trigger the reversal?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Free logic-puzzles site. Good for a brief distraction.

Also, I haven't given you guys MedicalXpress links for a while... let's fix that.

Staph infections and eczema: What's the connection?
(*sourly* This is now relevant to my interests.)
Mind over gray matter: Placebo improves both pleasure and pain
How video gaming can be beneficial for the brain
(i.e. the one everyone will want to throw in the faces of family members XD)
THE POPE IS CATHOLIC AND BEARS DEFECATE IN THE WOODS - er, "Manipulative and empathetic people both adept at reading emotions"
(In all seriousness. Yes, if one of your interest areas is, to be euphemistic about it, "win friends and influence people", OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO CULTIVATE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL SIGNALS AND THUS LEARN TO "READ" THEM MORE ACCURATELY. Did this really need to be STUDIED?)
What makes creativity tick?
Study explores the cost of creativity
[opinion: the reason why the creative students had more trouble recalling details/big picture is that their brains were more prone to fabricate plausible-seeming alternatives from shifty data, whereas the non-creative students had more stable recollections.
Not that it was a significant difference in the study - 9% error versus 2% error, seriously? - but similar phenomena are sometimes a %$@^! for me, so I'm guessing that's why.]

Night Witches: The Female Fighter Pilots of World War II
(a.k.a. bombing the blazes out of the Nazis in PLYWOOD BIPLANES that had a MAXIMUM SPEED lower than the STALL SPEED of the Nazi planes and whose "stealth" mode was TURNING OFF THE ENGINE IN MIDAIR. Only, only, ONLY in Russia.
...Did I mention that they did such a good job of it that downing one of them was automatic grounds for getting an Iron Cross?)
How (not) to pull a frickin' insane ragequit of Go in real life. (Also, a most ingenious way of resisting arrest. Can't do that with a chessboard, I'll say.)
And you thought YOU got pissed off at the day job?

However, in 1572, Queen Elizabeth I of England abruptly refused to admit the Sea Beggars to her harbours. No longer having refuge, they made a desperate attack upon Brielle, which they seized by surprise in the absence of the Spanish garrison on 1 April 1572. Encouraged by this surprising success, they now sailed to Flushing, which was also taken by a coup de main. The capture of these two towns prompted several nearby towns to declare for revolt, starting a chain reaction that resulted in the majority of Holland joining in a general revolt of the Netherlands, and is regarded as the real beginning of Dutch independence.

And all because they couldn't get parking.

Man, that must have been the real-life equivalent of when you bum-rush a Fire Emblem chapter in a fit of frustration and end up getting out alive. (In all seriousness, that's just one of these insane fits of historical providence. A real life April Fool's Day...)

Video games do not make vulnerable teens more violent, study says
Do men and women really look for different things in a romantic partner? (...Ehem. Out of curiosity, is this study on males and females in general or HETEROSEXUAL males and females? Inquiring minds...)

By the way, Autostraddle lists Carmilla as a trashy lesbian romance. ...Accurate. :P

Very Good Advice From Bill Watterson, in Comic Strip Form

Someone else liveblogging Hamlet's Father, Part One / Part Two / [no Part Three]

Sports player commits suicide after years of mental illness caused by acne drug RoAccutane
Is this the best Wikipedia entry ever?
Keogh review: 11 NHS hospitals to be placed in special measures as Jeremy Hunt reveals thousands of patients needlessly died
New surgical knife can instantly detect cancer
Tasting event set for artificial beef grown from stem cells

Only later was it was shown not to be not the world's smallest corvid, but rather the world's largest tit.
...Sorry. I have the maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy.

Read the article, though - it's really interesting.
In other science news...
Dogs imitate novel human actions and store them in memory
Researchers discover important woolly rhino fossil (...two years ago)
A new form of carbon: Grossly warped 'nanographene'
Scientists solve a 14,000-year-old ocean mystery

Cells in the early embryo battle each other to death for becoming part of the organism
Females respond better to stress because of estrogen, animal study finds
Short stressful events may improve working memory
Nerves play key role in triggering prostate cancer and influencing its spread
Metastatic pancreatic, primary breast cancer have common growth mechanisms, study suggests
Novel drug acts in unique way to protect against kidney injury
NGC 2392: A beautiful end to a star's life

( *IRL rant* )

Ehem. Anyway.

XKCD would like you to remember Douglas Engelbart.
Oh, and tell people who nag you about being too bookish that childhood and adulthood cognitive activity staves off Alzheimer's
Stocks jump 1% as the federal government reports the labor market is gaining strength
Scientists create a human-liver-like structure from stem cells

Today, I'm... working. Yep, working.
It helps that the internet is updating at a freakishly low rate this summer. Maybe it's just my perceptions, but I thought fandom tended to get flooded with activity when school let out. ...*shrug* At any rate, surfing's become tedious, and I have better things to do. Like work.

On FE: Awakening, I managed to discover that it is possible to keep Anna from getting wiped out on Paralogue 2 - you really need to get Cordelia first, however, so you can ferry two overpowered units over to that side of the river. Didn't manage to Talk to her, alas, but Talking in that chapter doesn't give any benefit. It's just for bragging rights. (And it may be trivial on Normal - just checked a FAQ, and apparently a chunk of the enemies only appear on Hard [and then a chunk more on Lunatic, but I am NOT going to attempt that].)

Sorry that I don't have much to talk about. Life isn't too exciting, and I haven't been feeling very inspired recently. I'm also judging time-intervals poorly, and I'm not sure why.
...I'll go get out the caffeine products. They cure anything. *slurps*

*Bay leaves are a reasonable natural insect repellent.
**Please don't ask why I needed to learn this.
*In the absence of a scanner, smartphones can be used to take photos of fanart and send it to one's computer.
**Again, don't ask.
*Fire Emblem Awakening's Avatar is an awesome unit, and Chrom/Avatar is seriously overpowered.
*Stahl/Sully is also overpowered.
*Pairing Up Donnel with Frederick is useful for giving Donnel valuable Atk and Def, but it also gives him +1 speed, which is necessary to keep him from being doubled in his Paralogue on Hard Mode

New Immune System Discovered
Researchers Discover New Way To Block Inflammation
Physical Principles For Scalable Neural Recording

Anyway... nothing much to talk about so far today. Went out, ate lunch, etc. Should do more. Currently rewatching the Bad Movie Beatdown of Universal Soldier: The Return.

Kind of slow summer fandom-wise, isn't it? Perhaps I'm not on the fast communities. ...I'll see.

Fast-acting virus targets melanoma in mice
Tumor-killing virus selectively targets diseased brain cells
Superconductor from solvent created: Study opens up new understanding of phenomenon

Right here.

On the same page, I found myself both wincing and cracking up at the description of the "Guru" bully. Having seen several of those - I'd say that the 'autism' point is more relevant than the website guesses, though only that of the high-functioning variety and admittedly of an antisocial type (in the 'sociopathic tendencies' sense, not the 'doesn't like socializing' sense).

From observation, I'd suggest that the personality in question results from heavy cultivation of a talented but emotionally troubled young person with Asperger's tendencies during childhood or young adulthood. (And, to be crude about it, the personality appears more often in males because people have a greater tendency to fetishize boy geniuses.) God-complexes go together... spectacularly with functioning difficulties. Not spectacularly well, mind you. But spectacularly.

Sorry, just rifling through a few online-fraud sites due to the topic of Thanfiction. He's rare as far as non-consensually LARPing to such an... extent - but not as far as the deceptions themselves go, unfortunately.

Unkind? Perhaps. But as it recently went off the Web Archive – and had to be retrieved from screencaps – and I have a ScrapBook backup of the page, I figured now’s as good a time as any.
For the kind-hearted on my f-list, I would like to point out the following:
1 – Thanfiction is a master manipulator. In my politically-incorrect opinion, this is how he manages to get such a fanbase when he sets up shop in a fandom – if writing is, in part, selling your story to the reader, then whoo boy does he have an M.A. in selling stories. As such, if you get drawn in? That’s not because the truth is so compelling, it’s because he’s an expert in making it sound as compelling as possible. I’ll be unpacking his tricks as I go, but still. Do not suspend your disbelief.
2 – He’s known to incorporate elements from others’ stories. So if something rings true to you – does it ring true because it originated with him, or because he knew someone who’d actually gone through something similar very well?
3 – Most importantly in this poor-pitiful-repressed-FTM narrative – Thanfiction’s preferred targets are WELL-KNOWN to be vulnerable, naïve, and somewhat immature young women. And how is he presenting himself here? As a pooooor vulnerable, naïve, and somewhat immature young woman (who turned out to be a desperately angsty and troubled young man straight out of cliché fanfiction). Gee, what a coinkydink. Particularly when it comes to adding those lovely touches of authenticity to your seminal memoir of loss, lunacy, and self-discovery.

So if you say “there but for the grace of God go I” – noooo. And, I repeat, I’ll be explaining why as I go.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

To Whom It May Concern
You have known me as Amy Player, as Strwriter, as Voyagerbabe, VB, Victoria Bitter, Mr. Frodo, and Jordan Wood.
I hear he’s leaving out “Merry Brandybuck” and “Orlando Bloom” from that list, at the very least…

( *sporkity spork spork spork* )

NSA, FBI secretly mining data from Internet firms...
'THEY QUITE LITERALLY CAN WATCH YOUR IDEAS AS YOU TYPE'...
Top secret PRISM program...
MICROSOFTYAHOOGOOGLEYOUTUBEFACEBOOKSKYPEAPPLE...
Obama administration collecting phone records of millions daily...
Secret court order requires VERIZON to hand over ALL CALL DATA...
White House: Critical tool against 'terrorist threats'...
Specifically targeted Americans, not foreigners...
'Homeland Security': Laptops, phones can be searched based on hunches...
NSA SEES ALL: Phone Sex, Banks, Emails...
CIA: We'll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher...
'1984' Published 64 Years Ago Today...
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
I'm sorry. My icon does not convey the proper amount of rage. I'll just... put in an appropriate animation.

...

Disclaimer: No, you are not a bad person if you've ever written this. You are not a bad person if you are still writing this. You are not a bad person if you are completely unrepentant. You are not a bad person if you start using this as a serious guide to producing such fics bi-weekly. (In the last case, I can only be in awe of your work ethic.) The snark is not about bashing you or your writing, it's about mocking the formula. And to spare everyone paragraphs of redundant disclaimer, I'll just emphasize that Your Manacles May Vex, Your Manuals May Vaporize, and Your Mambas May Vituperate. All right?

We now commence the description...


( [...] This looks really bizarre when characters veer between weeping soulfully over their tragic backstories and manically laughing while reducing their enemies to bloody heaps of organ-donor material [...] )

Woodward: On Benghazi, some 'acted as if they want to be Nixonian'
Quote of the day, Benghazi edition
And hooray for Claire McCaskill!
“We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we’ve got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes out that this is unacceptable,” she said. “It is un-American, it is wrong, and it cannot occur again.”


In brighter news!
Saudi woman climbs Everest in first
Deep brain stimulation: A fix when the drugs don't work

...I approve of this article.

Also, an interesting article on cults as broken RPGs, and... oh, dear. Thanfiction is at it again.

On the bright side, someone did an amazing write-up of his recent activities. Read her Tumblr - it seems she's joined the Thanfiction watch. Gives me faith in Internet humanity. :)
And we finally hear about the astral undead shaman wizard story!

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
NY Times gives more details.

Spread the word, reblog the snooping, protest like there's no tomorrow. It may seem relatively tame now, but -
The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.
If they get their way now, you can be certain they WILL progress back to their original proposal. If you place any value on your privacy whatsoever, raise the hue and cry NOW.

Let me note:
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

They WANT to have the social-networking leaders to have the power to read all your PMs at will. They WANT to be able to see what you're doing and saying at all times. They WANT to be able to monitor you like a parent looking over your shoulder...

D'you seriously believe that, once they have this power, they'll only activate it when a court-order calls for it? I suspect the Patriot Act allows for loopholes. This isn't alarmism - just observing the way the government has trended for the last dozen years.

Please spread word of this.

Dear Brill, we may have found the real-life equivalent of Asalin.

For everyone else's benefit - click that link, and feel very, very sorry for Swedish Tolkien fans.

Highlights:
OT: "What's happened to your precious Nazgûl? Has he had another mount shot under him?" (The Lord of the Rings 473)
ST: "What happened to your invaluable Nazgûl? Landed on another mountain?" (Sagan om de två tornen 62).

OT: "Two swift hours passed, and now the king sat upon his white horse ..." (The Lord of the Rings 834)
ST: "Two swift steeds passed by and then the king himself sat in the saddle upon his white horse ..." (Sagan om konungens återkomst 86)

OT: "... the last strongholds of the mighty woods of the Elder Days, in which the Firstborn roamed while Men still slept." (The Lord of the Rings 463).
ST: "... the very last bastions of the mighty woodland reaches of the Elder Days, where the Firstborn One mooed while the race of Men were still asleep" (Sagan om de två tornen 51).

Samurai sword-wielding Mormon bishop comes to aid of Utah neighbor chased and attacked by stalker, authorities say
Scientists find ethnicity linked to antibodies
Team finds antibody that transforms bone marrow stem cells directly into brain cells
And, in the-Pope-is-Catholic-and-bears-excrete-in-the-wood news:
Anti-smoking ads with strong arguments, not flashy editing, trigger part of brain involving behavior change
Why, it's almost as if people are intelligent, thinking beings, rather than flash-addled lab mice, isn't it?

...Nah.

Hm, interesting.

In summary:
More personal space -> more dominance, less personal space -> less dominance.
Similarly, more expansive/open posture -> more dominance, constricted posture -> less dominance.
Less revealing/less restricting clothing -> more dominance, more revealing/restricting clothing -> less dominance.
(I'm skeptical on this one. Suspect it has to do more with the KIND of revealing going on than the EXTENT. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that a man wearing nothing but shoulder pads and a loincloth could easily come off as more dominant than the same man wearing a nightgown...)
Initiating touch -> dominant. Unfortunately, also can -> sexual interest. Bugger.
Eye contact -> dominant, avoiding eye contact -> submissive. Unfortunately, this is another 'can be misinterpreted as sexual interest' one. Double bugger.

...Unfortunately, if you do too much of the dominance too obviously, you come off as a jerk. So, moderation, moderation...

In highly depressing news, ( Cut for homophobia, violence, and rape. Not in the same article. )

In this-is-why-I-don't-complain-much-about-female-objectification news, behold the Annual Ma Yuehan Bodybuilding Contest.
And scientists may be developing a cure for cocaine addiction!
Study unravels central mystery of Alzheimer's disease
Key pathway to stop dangerous, out-of-control inflammation discovered
The Fat Chip: Controlling obesity the smart way