stammsternenstaub:

ANGRY SCREAMS OF DELIGHT

firehose shared this story from Apparently Fish Need Bicycles..

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thatsnotwatyourmomsaid:

im sorry rosie youve been a good friend

Asiáticos tem tempo livre.

Irmãos corujas dançando.

Irmãos asiáticos imitando.

I was going to talk today a little bit about the Youth Media Awards, but it looks like someone beat me to it!  These awards are like the Academy Awards for children’s and teen literature, and some librarians get pretty psyched about that.  I’m serving on the Caldecott Committee currently, so as you can imagine, I am one of them.

I won’t talk about it too much, though, and instead I’ll just link you to this handy dandy Pinterest board that’ll help you get your hands on the multitudes of wonderful titles that got awards or honors last month.  Aside from the Newbery and Caldecott, you’ll see the most outstanding African American authors and illustrators, the Latina/Latino writers and illustrators that best portray the Latino cultural experience, the best books with LGBTQ content, books representing the disability experience of children and so much more.   Click straight through to our catalog and place your holds.

As we all know, libraries are full of books, right?  And bespectacled women who shush you and help you find your books?  That is often true, but libraries today do so much more.  Oakland Public Library wants to make sure that you are aware of and utilizing all the services that we offer to the community.  Is something missing?  We would love to know what that is.  What would you like to see us do?  What do you need?

Here’s some of what we have to offer that you may not know about.  In alphabetical order, because I can’t pick favorites (and because I’m a librarian).  Starred items don’t require you to get off your couch (once you have a library card).

Bike Library - Oakland Public Library has a mobile library on a bike trailer.  Want us at your next event?  Let us know and we can try to make it happen.

Discover & Go* – Use your library card to get free and discounted passes to museums and cultural institutions.

Freegal* – Download and stream music with your library card.  Keep the downloads forever.

Lawyers – Need some quick legal help?  Our Lawyers in the Library programs offers just that.

Meeting Space - Looking for a space for your community meeting?  We’ve got that too!

Old Things - I am obsessed with the Oakland History Room.  Just go in there and ask to look at cool old things.  It has birth and death records from the 1800s, handwritten of course, and a gazillion awesome old photos and articles.

Online Reading* – Looking for something to read?  Why not check out an ebook or read our newest blog posts full of book discussion, fun facts, and awesome found items.   I love these animated, talking picture books.

Tax Help - Through tax season you can get some help with your taxes.

Technology for Teens - There’s always something amazing going on for teens around here.  Right now I’m super excited about these Teen Tech Week programs.

Transparent Language* – Learn a new language!  Once you’ve gotten started there’s even an app for learning on the go.

Zinio* – Current issues of popular magazines readable digitally.  Don’t miss out on the latest celeb gossip, fitness news or craft ideas.

What’s your favorite lesser-known library service?  What do you wish we had?

Editor’s Note: This piece reflects an individual opinion and is not a reported story from Oakland Local. Oakland Local invites community residents to share their views about events and issues in Oakland. See our guidelines.

porcelain-horse-horselain:

 Not a god damn thing.

How you gonna mind-meld with boxing gloves on?

Levi’s is the latest brand to seek some Oakland cool to complement its marketing campaign. As reported in Fast Company, Levi’s latest promotion for their newest line of skateboard gear is set in and around downtown Oakland–and features timeless Oakland musicians, including Deltron 3030–aka Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala.

Set to the classic Mastermind, the video is shot by Jon Humphries and has some great Oakland images. See the behind the scenes video–all Oakland, all the time, right here.

And see the actual commercial video here.

Typing of the Dead: Overkill - Love at First Bite DLC, all new content for The Typing of The Dead: Overkill is Now Available on Steam!

Roses are red, violets are blue, mutants are ugly, so what do we do? Well, this time players will need to type increasingly more overblown and contrived sweet nothings in order to repel hordes of amorous mutants queuing up to give them a love bite they’ll never forget.

by W. Eric Martin

• In July 2013, U.S. publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment announced the release of Adventure Time: Card Wars, a card game from Matt Hyra and Cory Jones based on the in-show game "Card Wars" featured in an episode of the Adventure Time animated series. As a refresher, here's a description of the game:

Adventure Time: Card Wars is the most epic card game ever found in the Land of Ooo, or anywhere for that matter! In the Adventure Time episode "Card Wars", Jake begs Finn to play his favorite trading card game. Finn accepts, despite warnings from Beemo on how very competitive Jake can be while playing the game. Finn and Jake battle against each other to decide who will be the Dweeb and who will be the Cool Guy.

Now fans can play the actual Card Wars game in Adventure Time: Card Wars - Finn vs. Jake, with all of the action taking place in four combat lanes. Jake's corn-themed deck features creatures from the episode such as the powerful Husker Knights, the intimidating Legion of Earlings, the heroic Archer Dan and many more! Finn's "Blue Plains" deck features creatures from the episode such as the wise Ancient Scholar, the aptly named Cool Dog, and the most fearsome critter of all – The Pig!

Each turn, a player has two Action Points to spend on Creatures, Spells, and Locations, and cards cost between 0 and 2 Action Points to play. When you summon a Creature, you choose which lane you want to place it in; some Creatures have FLOOP abilities that allow you to use their special abilities. When you attack with a Creature down a lane, you might find an opposing Creature, or you might get to deal your damage straight to your opponent's Hit Points. Reduce your opponent's Hit Points from 25 to 0 and you're the Cool Guy (and you win the game)!

Turns out that the November 2013 release date included in the initial announcement did not come to pass, but that's mostly because Cryptozoic was trying to align the release of the card game with the simultaneous release of an iOS Card Wars app from D3 Publisher. In the end, the app is scheduled for release on Feb. 13, 2014, while the games have a Feb. 19, 2014 release date.

That's right — games plural with the second title being Adventure Time: Card Wars - BMO vs. Lady Rainicorn. By design, each starter set in the Card Wars series will feature two forty card decks, and any of those decks can be played against any other. You can also pull apart the decks to create your own.

For an early look at the game, here's an overview video, complete with fancy camerawork from a first-time camerawife. (I think that's the proper term.)

Youtube Video

Submitted by SteadyEddie

Credit Matthew Freeman.

Daniel Gutierrez

Original title and link: Data science: Introducing the (para)normal distribution (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

This year, voters in Oakland will have the opportunity to elect new leaders, including the mayor of our city.

Oakland’s public schools will also have a new leader this year, but the Superintendent of Schools for Oakland is selected by the School Board Directors, representing each of Oakland’s seven districts. The hiring process has begun, and the goal is to select a candidate by mid-April.

Just because the general public doesn’t vote in this process does not mean we should stay on the sidelines. This is such an important job. Not because the superintendent singlehandedly fixes a school district, but because she or he must be highly skilled at creating conditions that support success for the principals, teachers, families and students who do the work that makes a quality education.

Superintendent of a large urban school district is also a very difficult job. According to Kenneth Wong, Ph.D., a professor who researches urban school governance reform at Brown University (quoted here in The Huffington Post) the average tenure for urban school superintendents is just two and a half years. But it much takes longer than that to get major initiatives off the ground and on a path toward stability and success.

Here’s where you come in: We at Great Oakland Public Schools Leadership Center, a 501c(3) non-profit organization, believe broad community input into this process is critical. Please click here and take 10 minutes to complete our community survey on the next superintendent and let the School Board and candidates know how satisfied you are with your school and the direction of the district, and what work you think the new leader should focus on. The survey data will inform GO’s reporting to the school board, the candidates, and the public around this decision.

Oakland Unified has a $600 million annual budget and about 4,500 employees serving 46,000 students in 132 public schools. We need a committed leader who understands the unique challenges of our city, and who will bring communities together to drive needed changes.

Time is running out. The Oakland School Board is screening candidates this month, and selecting top applicants for interviews. The window to complete the survey closes this week. Don’t delay on this opportunity to weigh in on one of the most important decisions of 2014.

Here is one more opportunity to get involved. On March 23, GO will field a team at the Oakland Running Festival to raise awareness of issues in public schools, including the issues the new superintendent will face and what might make a strong superintendent in Oakland. To join our team, please sign up here.

Editor’s Note: This piece reflects an individual opinion and is not a reported story from Oakland Local. Oakland Local invites community residents to share their views about events and issues in Oakland. See our guidelines.

Sunday is a day that is bittersweet. I mean, you have the day off of work, which is really cool, but it sucks, because you know that tomorrow you’re going to be back at the office. Either way, I think you should enjoy the day and I’m going to help you do that with today’s amazing optical illusion. It’s rare that I come across an optical illusion that is just completely different and out of the norm. Well, today, I have an optical illusion that’s very different and I’m super stoked to share it with all of you. The object of this optical illusion is to stare at the image and shake your head back and forth until you see a picture appear. Sounds really cool, doesn’t it? Are you ready to give it a shot? If so, scroll down right now and give it a shot!

After you looked at the picture and shook your head were you able to see the image revealing itself? If so, what did you see? Leave a comment in the comments section below and let us know what was revealed to you. If you want, you can blows your friend’s mind and share this optical illusion with them. I’m sure they will certainly get a kick out of it. I really hope you liked this optical illusion. If you did, you should rate this post by clicking on one of the star images below and letting me know what you thought about it. I value all of your feedback and it will help me improve the site.

The post Shake Your Head to Reveal the Optical Illusion appeared first on Mighty Optical Illusions.

Last year, a scriptreader read 300 scripts for 5 studios, all the while taking notes on the problems and trends he saw. The number 1 problem? The story started too late in the script.

Read more...

geektoriassecret:

Me leaving your party.

via http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

By Dannette Lambert

Gentrification is the word of the day in Oakland. Everywhere you look people are asking, “Am I a gentrifier? Is it bad? Should I care?” What people don’t seem to realize is it isn’t the mere act of moving into a neighborhood that makes you a gentrifier; it’s what you do once you get there.

If you come into someone’s home, do you immediately start rearranging it and moving furniture in? Do you throw away their family photo albums and tell them they have to go to bed at an earlier time or play their music at a lower volume?

No, of course not. You get to know each other, decide if you get along, and, once your host has decided you can stay, you ask politely if there is space to put your stuff. So why do you think you can move into someone else’s neighborhood and start making it over as your own? Why do you think you can move into someone’s ancestral land and start taking it over, evicting them from their homes and pushing out their businesses?

And yet, recently arrived residents of Oakland are doing just that. We would like them to stop. We would like them to include us in on their meetings. Maybe ask one of us what we think about putting in a bunch of high-end markets and pricey boutiques. While you all are dining out at fancy restaurants, some of us are struggling to find a cheap meal.

So I’ve put together a few how-to’s for avoiding the gentrifier label in Oakland:

1. Smile and say hi to your neighbors every time you see them, even if they seem scary or don’t say hi back. Sometimes it takes time to build a rapport and gain the trust of the community.

2. Recognize all the people outside of your door as your neighbors, even if they look different from you and live under different circumstances. This includes the homeless who sleep on the street, the drug dealers who sell outside the liquor store, and the prostitutes walking your streets. Replace the words homeless, drug dealer, and prostitute with the word neighbor. Treating these folks with respect and dignity from the beginning will give you later leverage to talk to them about changing their behavior and getting out of the life.

3. Change the way you look at said neighbors by changing the language you use to describe them. Think about the motivations for their actions. Instead of “that prostitute was out all night selling her body” think “my neighbor (insert name here) was forced by her pimp to stand out in the cold all night and have sex with multiple men she didn’t know.” See if that doesn’t change your opinion of her.

4. Pay your taxes, parking tickets and fines with the pleasure of knowing you are financially helping a beautiful, but struggling city. Be grateful if you are able pay them without too much difficulty.

5. Really think before you call the police. Ask yourself, is this something that can be fixed by a simple conversation? Did a violent crime just happen? Then, of course you should call the police! But your neighbor playing their music too loud is not a police issue. Remember many communities have experienced, and still experience, real trauma at the hands of the police. While you may think a person has nothing to fear if they didn’t do anything wrong, an African American will always be holding Oscar Grant and Alan Blueford in their mind. A simple interaction with the police can trigger the collective PTSD from which the entire community suffers.

6. Remember low-income communities and communities of color are suffering from hundreds of years of historic trauma and this trauma is very fresh in the minds of most Oaklanders.

7. Recognize most of the perpetrators of crime in Oakland have also been the victims of a system you have benefitted from disproportionately.

8. See all of Oakland’s problems as opportunities for growth, creative problem solving, and entrepreneurship. Refuse to complain about a problem unless you are willing to play an active part in the solution.

9. Donate and/or volunteer at local organizations that build solidarity and add capacity to low-income communities of color. Some of my favorites include MISSSEY, The Ella Baker Center, EBASE, Causa Justa :: Just Cause, Black Girls Code, Phat Beets Produce, and Oakland Rising.

10. Shop local and small. Go to the dive bars, hole in the wall restaurants, and small markets as often as the upscale restaurants, swanky bars, and boutiques.

11. If you are opening up a business, make sure your prices are within reach for the majority of people in the neighborhood you operate.

12. Hire locals, low-income folks, people of color, and people from a variety of backgrounds. Take a chance on someone with low experience, but high potential. Hire someone who has been formerly incarcerated. Train some folks. Forgive them for not understanding the ins-and-outs of the workplace as quickly as you would like. If it doesn’t work out, clearly explain to them why and suggest some job training organizations that could help them develop the skills they need for the next job.

13. Recognize Oakland has a very unique and vibrant history and culture, and you were attracted to this city because of the energy that is already here. You should be here to add to that history and culture, not to erase it. We are not San Francisco. We don’t want to be San Francisco. So please don’t try to remake our city in San Francisco’s image. And remember, you don’t gain culture by eating a burrito. You gain culture by engaging in a real and meaningful manner with the person who makes the burrito.

14. Give to crowd-funded campaigns that support local projects by Oaklanders. Encourage low-income folks to launch their own crowd-funded campaigns to help them go to college, get their car fixed so they can drive to work, buy a suit they can wear to an interview, or get a computer so they can pay attention to all that is going on in the community. Invest in your neighbors’ well being. A neighborhood where everyone’s needs are met is a safe neighborhood.

15. Identify your privileges. We all have them. Having privilege is not necessarily the problem, it’s what you do with it. As an Afro-Latina woman, I am not who you would traditionally consider privileged. However, I do have privilege in this society over people who have darker skin, less education, a less respected job, and less money. When I am in situations when these things act in my favor, I use my privilege to enrich myself and the people around me. I mentor people. I try to find jobs and internships for people of color. I teach people how to navigate city services. I know whatever success I gain, I didn’t gain it on my own. I have a responsibility to the community that has facilitated my success to be a resource and asset to those people still trying to make it.

16. If you create a neighborhood organization, make sure the racial and socioeconomic diversity of the group is reflective of the neighborhood. Actively recruit members who have differing perspectives. Find translators that can help facilitate the recruitment and retention of non-English speakers. If there is another organization working in the neighborhood, ask them what they are doing and how you can help, not the other way around.

17. If you plan any major projects in the neighborhood, make sure you do active outreach, and seek the opinions of all your neighbors. Put in the extra effort to build a consensus.

18. Engage with the government and advocate on behalf of policies that benefit all the residents of Oakland, those born and raised here, transplants, people in your neighborhood, and those living in greater Oakland. Support affordable housing, education funding, re-entry services, job training and placement programs.

19. Learn all that you can about the culture and history of Oakland. Take a free, guided walking tour of some of the neighborhoods. Read some books on Oakland. Check out some museums. Go to a few festivals. Talk to elders and ask them what Oakland was like when they were growing up. That older black guy who hangs out the park is a walking historian and a cultural asset. He should be treated as such.

20. Hella love Oakland. Fall in love with our city for everything it ever was, is, and will be. I did a few years ago and have been ecstatic to live here since.

Dannette Lambert is a community organizer and resident in Oakland, CA.

Editor’s Note: This piece reflects an individual opinion and is not a reported story from Oakland Local. Oakland Local invites community residents to share their views about events and issues in Oakland. See our guidelines.