Russian Sledges

Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston

Actual thesis: The influence of anonymity, free speech rhetoric, and privilege in online spaces, and how marginalized communities challenge discriminatory outcomes.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian mystery film directed by Peter Weir, adapted from the novel of the same name. It premiered at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide, South Australia on 8 August 1975.

Sütterlin: The Lost German Handwriting zine:

This zine explores the history of Sütterlinschrift, a style of German cursive handwriting that is going extinct. In the early 20th century, a

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Home > Shop > kdowning > 'Doctor Who's Favorite Things'

Lawyers for Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghayth said Thursday that they will resort to written questions to interview alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed as a witness before...

M Plummer Fernandez is a South East London artist who uses computers to push the boundaries of industrial design. I came across these pieces he made titled Digital Natives where 3D scanned a series of traditional objects and then abstracted and distorted them, turning them into new objects.

Everyday items such as toys and a watering can are 3D scanned using a digital camera and subjected to algorithms that distort, abstract and taint them into new primordial vessel forms. In some cases only close inspection reveals traces inherited from their physical predecessors. These are then 3D printed on a z-corp printer.

Vessels are arguably the lowest common denominator for man-made objects across all cultures, these objects however have no storage function other than to embody the stored digital data that describes them.

What I love about these objects is that they’re not only abstracted physically, but with a unique blend of colors. The faceted gradation really is a beautiful effect which gives each piece a sense of movement. I’m really looking forward to the day where I can buy a “recipe” for one of these vases and then print it out in a matter of hours. DIY will take on a brand new meaning for us all soon enough.

Post by: Grant Rodiek

The Polish government has a group called The Institute of National Remembrance, created in 1998. As an American, I must say the frank openness and purpose of the Institute is just incredible. Its role is to make known the history of the Polish people, which is often a grim truth, share the archives and secret records collected by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, and educate the polish people.

I’ve always been an avid student of history. I know all too well what my history books taught me, or more often didn’t. Knowing there is a government agency whose entire job it is to discuss these things is just incredible. I’d love for such a thing in America.

This is a blog about games and game design, though. Thankfully, the Institute of National Remembrance has the foresight and knowledge that games are an incredible way to teach. Yesterday, I bought Queue, also known as Kolejka in its native Polish.

This game was created to entertain, but also teach people about the absurdity of a centralized economy, how it failed the Polish people (and others living in the Eastern Bloc nations), and what it was like to live in a nation where obtaining common household goods and groceries people like me take for granted wasn’t always easy.

Put simply, it is a game about waiting in line for groceries.

The game’s presentation is humble, and I mean that in the best of ways. It is clean and almost silly, as it features actual propaganda imagery, cartoons, and goods from the time period. It is lovingly crafted, right down to the fake coffee stain on the back of the board. Everything is top quality.

I haven’t played it yet, nor have I finished reading the rules, but I’ve begun and the game has already greatly interested me. It has affected me and I want to know more. I wish I taught a history class so that I could have my students play.

I’m an American, as is most of my readership, so I’d like to bring up the topic of how we as designers and Americans can inform, learn, and entertain with aspects of our culture other than our wars. This is already being done by others.

Academy Games released Freedom: The Underground Railroad last year. In it, players act cooperatively as abolitionists trying to bring down the institution of slavery. I’m a big fan of Academy Games and accolades for the game have been numerous, but I must admit the topic makes me so uncomfortable I haven’t been able to purchase it yet. This is very heavy stuff. In their review, the normally funny Shut Up & Sit Down reviewers only made a single joke about how they didn’t feel comfortable making jokes.

I am curious that if a game can be made about the institution of slavery, can one be made about something as dark as The Trail of Tears? This was the government sanctioned act of forcibly relocating and killing many Native American tribes as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The experience and game could revolve around trying to survive under such hardships. Gaining food, shelter, and dealing with the oppressive conditions. It could also focus on the results at the end of the trail. How can one begin anew after such a trial?

A game could be crafted to tell the story of Japanese-American Internment during World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government forced over 100,000 Japanese-Americans to live in internment camps due to fears of sabotage and treachery. These people lost their homes, their belongings, their businesses, and their status in our culture.

Perhaps the game could be about finding happiness in the camp? Or rebuilding life after the war and camp life? The important thing is to teach about the hardship and struggles in a way that is interesting for players.

Something slightly less dark, that nonetheless had a questionable impact on the world, would be how the United States and its allies split and divided the world following the end of World War II. Many new nations were created and merged. Many were split and divided, not among cultural lines, but often arbitrarily, geographically, or as a result of political bargaining. Take a look at how this has affected Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia — pretty much every part of the world with combatants.

Players could play as members of the new Security Council, each with interests, each with a task and awkward duty of defining the new countries of the post-war world. This could even be a challenging Legacy-style game. What will be the repercussions of your decisions? What can you learn from them?

There are also positive elements to our history. Let this not be purely doom and gloom. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild war-torn, devastated Europe. Without it, World War III may have emerged from the ashes of a desperate and downtrodden people.

What about the desperate struggles of Hoover and Roosevelt during the Great Depression? What about the innovative, ridiculous, and sometimes unlawful moves to fix the greatest economic calamity our nation has ever faced?

Volko Ruhnke and his COIN (counter-insurgency) series of games let players live and experience history that is sometimes still happening. It is thought provoking and even painful.

What about how immigrants throughout our history have contributed positively to our culture with their cultural contributions, industriousness, and voice? The love of my life is a Cantonese-American and my great grandparents immigrated from Germany. There is an interesting story there and I want to know more.

What about the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr and the NAACP to stand up against oppressive laws throughout the United States in the middle of the 20th century?

My point, is that history is grand, dark, deeply important, and it affects our lives every day. I believe we often simply look to our wars and military conflicts for inspiration. As a result, we’re missing an honest, frank, and enlightening look at the decisions that made our country what it is today, for better or worse. I think there is a great wealth of inspiration to be found and once I’m finished with my current crop of designs, I’m going to try to do something with it.

Games can be more than just games. They can be fun, insightful, and thought-provoking.

What story would you tell with a design? What element of our history would you investigate?

ananyo writes "Publishing giant Elsevier says that it has now made it easy for scientists to extract facts and data computationally from its more than 11 million online research papers. Other publishers are likely to follow suit this year, lowering barriers to the computer-based research technique. But some scientists object that even as publishers roll out improved technical infrastructure and allow greater access, they are exerting tight legal controls over the way text-mining is done. Under the arrangements, announced on 26 January at the American Library Association conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, researchers at academic institutions can use Elsevier's online interface (API) to batch-download documents in computer-readable XML format. Elsevier has chosen to provisionally limit researchers to 10,000 articles per week. These can be freely mined — so long as the researchers, or their institutions, sign a legal agreement. The deal includes conditions: for instance, that researchers may publish the products of their text-mining work only under a license that restricts use to non-commercial purposes, can include only snippets (of up to 200 characters) of the original text, and must include links to original content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Peek’s new best friend.

Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes - Sol LeWitt

@UCBerkeley student w/ measles rode BART last week, exposing potentially thousands to disease. More to come.

4gifs:

GET OVER HERE

C’MERE

beatonna:

nyhistory:

January 24,1890: After months of public attention and anticipation, Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World, arrives in New York, completing her round-the-world trip in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes, beating the pace set in Jules Verne’s fictional Around the World in 80 Days.

McLoughlin Bros., Round the World with Nellie Bly [board game], 1890. New-York Historical Society, The Liman Collection, 2000.44.

Am ace-reporter Nellie Bly board game?  Did I travel back to 1890, and it’s my birthday?

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

help I am dying

#VILLEASHELL

This is a diagram drawn by Kate Estrop of her relationship circle. Because not everyone is comfortable using their real names, the diagram only uses first initials.

Poly people also face confusion and tension from more conservative family members, according to Somerville resident and tribal fusion belly dancer Laura Blake.

Original Source

f-l-e-u-r-d-e-l-y-s:

Historia del Arte, Colegio Santa Inés, 4to año: abril 2013

1….7/ Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus with the head of Medusa
  1554 bronze, 3.20 m (with stand)
Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria

8./ Giambologna, The Rape of the Sabine
1574-1582, marble
Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy.

10./  Giambologna(Jean de Bologna), Mercury
 1563-1564, bronze 56 cm high.
  Museo Civico, Bologna

Have you heard about the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System? It just started producing electricity today, and it's quite a sight to behold. [ more › ]

 

 

 

ISS038-E-042992 (10 Feb. 2014) — One of the Expedition 38 crew members aboard the International Space Station downlinked this vertical 600mm night view of Sochi, Russia, which clearly shows the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics while they are just a few days under way. Fisht Stadium where the Opening Ceremonies were held on Feb. 7 is easily recognizable as the bright circular structure.

Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the Black Sea coast near the border between Georgia/Abkhazia and Russia. It has an area of 1,353 square miles or 3,505 square kilometers.

 

 

 

Verizon has begun slowing down AWS. Not sure what that means? Allow us to explain.

tomewing:

ancientpeoples:

Stone Dice

Greek

1st Century AD

20 sided dice made of stone, inscribed with letters of the Greek alphabet (from alpha to upsilon)

(Source: The British Museum)

Cannot believe my parents took me endlessly to the British Museum as a kid to look at stolen carvings, mummies etc and never tried to sell me on it with a 2000 YEAR OLD D20.

Pandora, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) died at her Washington, D.C. home (tank) Wednesday at the advanced age of five. She stretched more...

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

rhythmheavenfever:

rhythmheavenfever:

surprise ur valentine with $5-8 billion worth of damage :)

its that time of year again :)

rem barok -loveletter(vbe) rem by: spyder / ispyder@mail.com / @GRAMMERSoft Group / Manila,Philippines

source code

porcelain-horse-horselain:

 Not a god damn thing.

How you gonna mind-meld with boxing gloves on?

erictrautmann:

I rarely do this, so bear with me. 

I previewed it a couple weeks ago, but my first vector download set is now available via my website. Over 140 individual sci-fi themed HUD elements, perfect for supervillain lairs or starship command decks, all for a mere five Yanqui dollars. 

Details and links to buy are over at my website.

So, yeah, basically what I’m saying here is “PLEASE BUY MY THING PLEASE.”

erictrautmann is a man of many, many talents. He’s the guy who’s been putting together the backmatter layout with Michael on LAZARUS, who’s been assisting me in getting the World Bible in order, who’s been making the faux ads we’ve been running throughout the “Lift” arc, who designed the Dagger, Hock, Bittner, Caragher and - currently - Morray insigne, and who makes all the tech bells and whistles for the book.

He is selling his stuffs. For you. To use.

You could do far, far worse is what I’m saying.

Go to.

Via TIME Magazine:

During an Olympics already mired in controversy over “gay propaganda” laws, Russia passed a statute Thursday forbidding single people (gay or straight) who live in any country where gay marriage is legal from adopting Russian children. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the measure as an amendment to the law passed last July forbidding all same-sex couples from adopting from Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new decree will not affect American citizens, who have already been banned from adopting Russian children, regardless of their sexual preferences or marital status, since 2012.

More from Britain's Telegraph:

The decree, which is dated February 10 but was posted on the Russian government's website on Thursday, is officially intended to "help improve the procedure for transferring children without parental care to families of Russian and foreign citizens, and to protect the rights and interests of these children." The amendments to the Russian adoption law that were signed by Mr Medvedev include a bar on adoptions by "those in a same-sex union recognized as a marriage and registered an accordance with the law of states in which such marriage is allowed, and also citizens of such states who are not married."

Free Republic readers are celebrating.

hodad

#yitb

Original Source