Social media was abuzz this week with the images of photographer Hannah Price, whose project documents men she encountered on the streets of Philadelphia. In an interview, she talks about the choices and intentions behind the project.

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Bluefield State College in Bluefield, WV, is 90 percent white. Its alumni association is all0black, and it still gets federal money as a historically black institution.

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logikblok-science:

The Micrarium - A collection of the tiny.

I recently visited the the Grant Museum of Zoology within UCL and came across the micrarium, essentially a collage of the tiny life forms of our planet. Each one is a microscope slide carefully preserved and presented within this awesome display.

It’s often very easy to forget that these smaller creatures from plankton to fungi have a huge effect in the world around us. For example a short post on how bacteria are superheroes. Also more about zoology here are some animals you may not have heard of.

Time Lapse of installing this awesome collection. More about the museum right here.

OR NIGHTMARES!

Are you ready to partake in some true horror?

Allyson Mitchell

Rug-hooked, crocheted, and paper maché'd constructions are womb-like wonders for visitations of the undead lesbian community, who are hell-bent on remaining nightmarishly non-assimilated. Casting the spells of freaky feminist skill sharing and paranormal consciousness raising together with ghouls, bio-engineered monsters, indoctrinators, and avengers, this hell house is designed to pervert, not convert.

In the haunted house, there's something called the "Emasculator."

Allyson Mitchell

jamspreader.com

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No word on whether or not his wife, Marie Cachet, will also stand trial.

The post Varg Vikernes to Face Trial in France for “Inciting Racial Hatred and Exalting War Crimes” appeared first on MetalSucks.

LISTEN to this guy, talking about his decision to vote against the Senate-authored bill whose passage ended the shutdown and raised the debt ceiling last night:

“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, is a nightmare for the Republican Party leadership. The tea-party-led strategy of shutting down the government and refusing to raise the debt ceiling as a means of defunding Obamacare has just failed as resoundingly as any strategy could fail, dragging the party's popularity down to unprecedented lows. But Mr Fleming wants to start threatening default again as soon as he gets the chance in January. 

It's tempting to call this sort of thinking self-destructive, but as has been endlessly pointed out over the past month, for tea-party conservatives in Congress, it...Continue reading

Like so many people who simply haven’t had time, what with their “lives” and other excuses, The Wire star Idris Elba has yet to watch The Wire, what with his being way too busy starring on The Wire. “I’ve never watched The Wire,” Elba admits in his new Playboy interview. “I’ve seen a full episode at screenings but never at home. I’ve never watched an entire season. I’ve not seen any episode of season 2, most of season 3, and none of seasons 4 and 5.”

As the interviewer admirably does not immediately interrupt with a monologue on how he could maybe see skipping season two—even if it is underrated—but that he has to watch season four, at least, it’s incredible, and man, Idris Elba, wait until you see what happens to Idris Elba’s character in season three, Elba was allowed ...

Here's John E. Hill's translation of "The Peoples of the West," Yu Huan's third century account of ancient Rome. Of significant interest is the list of items the Roman Emperor has in plenty, which includes "divine tortoises" "poison-avoiding rats" and many other wonders.

Note: The translator has added the numbering in brackets for the convenience of the reader in checking the notes on the various items. For information on any of the items mentioned in the list, please click on the blue superscript No. 12 after “Product List” above, and then scroll down the page of notes until you come to the number you are looking for. For instance, if you want to check the notes on tin, scroll down until you reach note number 12.12 (6).

Da Qin (the Roman Empire) has plenty of:

(1) gold

(2) silver

(3) copper

(4) iron

(5) lead

(6) tin

(7) ‘divine tortoises’ – tortoises used for divination

(8) white horses with red manes

(9) fighting cocks

(10) rhinoceroses

(11) sea turtle shell

(12) black bears

(13) ‘red hornless (or immature) dragons’ (which produced the famous “dragons’ blood” resin)

(14) ‘poison-avoiding rats’ = mongooses

(15) large cowries

(16) mother-of-pearl

(17) carnelian

(18) ‘southern gold’

(19) kingfisher feathers

(20) ivory

(21) coloured veined jade

(22) ‘bright moon’ pearls

(23) luminescent ‘pearls’ or pearl-like jewels (probably large diamonds)

(24) genuine white pearls

(25) yellow amber

(26) (red) coral

(27) ten varieties of glass: red, white, black, green, yellow, blue-green, dark blue, light blue, fiery red, purple

(28) a magnificent jade

(29) white carnelian?

(30) rock crystal or transparent glass

(31) various semi-precious gems

(32) realgar

(33) orpiment

(34) nephrite

(35) multicoloured jade or gemstone

(36) ten sorts of wool rugs: yellow, white, black, green, purple, fiery red, deep red, dark blue, golden yellow, light blue and back to yellow

(37) finely patterned multicoloured wool carpets

(38) nine colours of multicoloured lower quality wool carpets (kilims rather than knotted carpets?)

(39) gold threaded embroidery

(40) polychrome (warp twill) fine silk or chiffon

(41) woven gold cloth

(42) purple chi cloth

(43) falu cloth

(44) purple chiqu cloth

(45) asbestos cloth

(46) fine silk gauze cloth

(47) shot silk, ‘clinging cloth’ or ‘cloth with swirling patterns’?

(48) dudai cloth

(49) cotton-wool cloth?

(50) multicoloured tao cloth

(51) crimson curtains woven with gold

(52) multicoloured ‘spiral curtains’?

(53) yiwei

(54) myrrh

(55) storax

(56) diti

(57) rosemary

(58) probably dhūṇa – an incense made from the resin of the Indian Sal tree.

(59) bai fuzi – lit. ‘white aconite’ – but it is not clear what plant this refers to here. See notes.

(60) frankincense

(61) turmeric, saffron or tulips

(62) rue oil

(63) Oriental lovage – Lysimachia foenum-graecum Hance

Altogether (they have) twelve types of aromatic plants.13

The Peoples of the West [John E. Hill] (via Beyond the Beyond)

Bar in Chicago, IL

Designed by The Studio of Dan Blackman.

Contemporary mono-weight design paired with sans serif type compliment the 1950s recreation room feel of this down-stairs Chicago bar. The bar's menus, matchbooks, and coaster designs cleverly reuse line-drawing elements from the logo, which also translates nicely into one of the best neon signs I've seen in a while.

Visit Punch House.

For bigger menu images see this post at Art of the Menu

scalesofperception:

Harbour Aerial Views | Bernhard Lang

SoP - Scale of Environments

Sahil Kapur contributed to this report.

For a certain block of House conservatives, the ones who drove Speaker John Boehner toward a government shutdown and near-default against his will, the lesson of the last few weeks isn't that they overreached. Not that they made unachievable demands, put their leadership in an impossible position, damaged their party's position with the public and left a deep uncertainty about whether the GOP conference can recover and legislate.

No, what they're taking away from the 2013 crisis is: They didn't go far enough.

They aren't angry with Speaker John Boehner for ultimately capitulating to Democratic demands. They're frustrated with their more mainstream colleagues who put him in that position.

"I'm more upset with my Republican conference, to be honest with you. It's been Republicans here who apparently always want to fight, but they want to fight the next fight, that have given Speaker Boehner the inability to be successful in this fight," Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) told reporters Wednesday. "So if anybody should be kicked out, it's probably those Republicans... who are unwilling to keep the promises they made to the American people. Those are the people who should be looking behind their back."

Ritual Dagger

• Dated: 17th century or earlier
• Place of Origin: Eastern Tibet, Kham region, Derge, Eastern Derge or China
• Medium: gilt copper alloy and rock crystal
• Measurements: 8 x 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (20.32 x 3.81 x 3.81 cm)

Source: Copyright © 2013 LACMA Museum

The House voted Wednesday night to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

The bill passed 285-144; 144 Republicans voted against it.

President Obama is scheduled to speak at 8:25 p.m. ET in the White House press briefing room, following the Senate vote on a deal to avert default and end the government shutdown:

If you’re reading this blog, chances are good that you already know the backstory for this: Last week, an editor at Biology Online asked Danielle N. Lee, a zoology postdoc and well-known blogger, to contribute posts to the site. She asked how much she would be paid — and when he responded that her payment would be in exposure (which, last I checked, doesn’t pay the rent or buy groceries), Lee politely declined. His response to that was to reference the title of her Scientific American blog, Urban Scientist by asking, “Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?”

On Friday, Lee wrote about the experience; within an hour, her post was removed from Scientific American without any explanation. A firestorm, fueled mostly by the patently false justification tweeted by Scientific American editor Mariette DiChristina.

Many people, including me, were outraged by this; I tweeted about it a handful of times during a chaotic and busy Saturday with my kids. By Sunday night, SciAm Blogs had republished Lee’s original post, DiChristina had publicly explained what had happened, and the offending Biology-Online editor, who still has not been identified publicly, was fired.

Then, at some point yesterday, writer and playwright Monica Byrne updated a post she had published a year ago detailing a encounter she had with a “prominent science editor and blogger.” You can read Monica’s detailed description of the encounter; the CliffsNotes version is: The editor friended Monica on Facebook; Monica sent him clips and asked him to coffee; in the course of discussing her clips, Monica mentioned visiting a strip club; using that as a jumping off point, the editor began talking about his marriage, his sexuality, and his sex life in ways that were clearly inappropriate. Monica later confronted the editor over email; several weeks later, he wrote her an apology and acknowledged he had behaved inappropriately.

Monica’s update contained one new piece of information: The editor and blogger was Bora Zivkovic, who runs SciAm’s blog network and is probably the best-known and most influential person in the science-blogging world. Today, Bora acknowledged that Monica’s description of the events was accurate and that his behavior was wrong — and also that his superiors at SciAm had gotten involved.

Monica writes very eloquently about the ways in which her encounter with Bora affected her. I’m grateful to her for sharing this: As a white man living in the United States in the twenty-first century, I have no idea what it’s like to be bombarded with loutish behavior and unwanted advances on an ongoing basis. Several years ago, a female friend told me about being groped on the subway. I was shocked, a fact which she found laughable: She couldn’t believe that I had no idea that every single woman living in New York had to navigate those waters every single day. By bringing light to one of the often-undiscussed realities of being a woman, Monica has made it that much harder for men to be clueless about what’s going on in the future. Speaking as the father of a daughter and as a teacher, I’m grateful she’s deepened my understanding about the insidious harassment women face.

That does not mean that Bora’s outing was not painful and confusing to me. Bora has been a friend to me and a supporter of mine. I’ve always seen him as someone who was a champion for increasing the diversity of voices in science and science communication. So I didn’t say anything about it — I didn’t tweet about it, didn’t bring attention to it on Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn.

But my not joining in the discussion on social media obviously does not mean I haven’t been thinking about the situation. As I said above, on a global level, I’m glad Monica came forward. On an individual level, I’m struggling with the correct context through which to view his behavior. Viewed in the context of an increasingly visible attitude towards women on the part of some people whom I’d consider intellectual allies, and then in the immediate context of what happened to Lee, this is horrendous — another piece of evidence that women deal with outrageous types of discrimination and harassment that men can barely imagine.

But is that the right context? Bora has, as many have noted, done an enormous amount to increase the voices of women in science. So do I view his behavior of someone who has internalized the power imbalance and misogyny of much of the scientific and science communication worlds? Or do I view it as the fumbling, bumbling, and clearly inappropriate behavior of someone in the midst of what he has said was a difficult personal crisis?

Obviously, I don’t know all the facts here; obviously, we all may learn more in the next few days; obviously, my judgment may be affected by my personal feelings about Bora and his family. That said, to me, this certainly seems like the latter — and for that reason, it saddens me that Bora was outed at this particular moment. Based on what I know right now, I don’t think the implied rationale–that Bora is another example of the type of sexism that allowed a Biology-Online editor to casually call Lee an “urban whore” when she refused to write for him for free–is correct.

At the moment, that is all a bit beside the point. And hopefully, the events of the past four days will force a conversation about many of these issues into the open — and that is inarguably a good thing. Women are overrepresented among the ranks of those starting out in the field — here at MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, it’s not unusual for between 75 and 85% of our applicants and admittees to be female — but men remain overrepresented in positions of authority. We, as a community, have had years to have this conversation. Let’s not let this opportunity fall by the wayside.

snowden-is-dead:

whitecourtkellyrhea:

Our local animal rehab center just posted pics of this owl who got rescued

And I really can’t with him

oh my god

What even

They tried to make me go to rehab

I said no, no, no

Yesterday, I gave a one-hour talk at the University of Michigan on remote administration tools (RATs) and the surprising ways they allow hackers, corporations, schools, and police to spy on computer users by activating microphones and webcams. The talk contains some pretty wild stories—but a woman approached me afterward to let me know that the craziest single RATing story she had ever heard just took place up the road in Detroit. And she was right.

The actual RAT attack in question doesn't sound particularly novel, except that in this case the target was not a young woman (the more typical victim, especially when it comes to voyeurism/sextortion) but a young man named Hector Hernandez. The 17-year old high school student's computer was infected with a RAT, which the software's owner used to spy on Hernandez and eventually record an "embarrassing" video of him. The RAT owner then approached Hernandez through his Facebook account and demanded money—$300, then $1,100—or the video would be released to the world.

The blackmail demand sent to Hernandez's Facebook account.

Hernandez offers no clues to the content of the video—a long list of scenarios is not difficult to imagine—but in an on-camera interview with Detroit's FOX affiliate, he makes clear that he simply couldn't bring himself to tell his parents about the situation. The video was so shameful to Hernandez that instead of going to police or parents, he instead took an estimated $100,000 of family heirlooms and jewelry down the street to a pawn shop. He showed them his ID, which made clear he was only 17, but the pawn shop took the jewelry anyway—and gave Hernandez a mere $1,500 for the lot.

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