WEST WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — Crosses and other items are being removed at the site of a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people, as the group working to build a permanent memorial clears the land so work can begin.
LONDON (AP) — A U.S. hydrogen bomb nearly detonated on the nation's east coast, with a single switch averting a blast which would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that flattened Hiroshima, a newly published book says.
"I gotta have the gold one. I don't care. I don't waaaaaaaaant this stupid black iPhone! It's gonna make people think I'm a lesbian!"
I am not a New Yorker; standing in lines make me want to start stabbing people. The last time I actually went to a for-real brick and mortar Apple store to purchase a for-real Apple product rather than ordering online like a sane person was back in 2007, when I spent a whole day camped out waiting for a first-generation iPhone. That was a miserable experience, and so was this morning's wait for an iPhone 5S. But it wasn't all bad, because I got to get up close and personal with the kind of people who want gold iPhones.
How the iPhone 5S Gold came to be.
Apple didn't provide Ars with advanced review hardware for either of the new iPhone models, and so both Ars Senior Product Specialist Andrew Cunningham and I found ourselves in line at our respective Apple stores on the morning of the iPhone 5S launch, waiting along with everyone else. Rather than kicking back and enjoying the new features, we'll be digging in over the weekend in order to bring you some solid, Ars-style reviews at the beginning of next week.
Andrew had his own tribulation to endure to get his iPhone, but the process here in Houston was relatively straightforward. I arrived at Baybrook Mall a bit after 7:30am; early reports were that lines at Apple Stores across the country were pretty light, and I was hopeful that I wouldn't be too far back, but alas, it was not to be. There were at least 100 people already queued up around the fountain in front of the Baybrook Apple Store.
For some, fashion week is the ultimate opportunity to gorge oneself, wholesale, on the personal style choices of those who are purportedly amongst the world’s most fashionable people. The collective gawking, chronicling, and obsessive analysis that follows is now so firmly entrenched in contemporary fashion culture as to render the very [fashion] itself common, digested in the time it takes to scroll through the day’s instagram feed, leaving a voracious hole of desire for newness that gains momentum season after season. For this reason, books like the new “I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman”, out now on Gestalten, are such a vitally important source of inspiration today.
Writer-photographer duo Nathaniel Adams and Rose Callahan spirit us away from this fashion system, behind the scenes, and into the delightfully anarchic sartorial world of people whose fashion choices stem from a deep inner conviction, rather than collective influence. Their profiles of some 56 men from England, France, and the United States – several of whom attended last night’s genteel launch party at Gieves & Hawkes on London’s famed Savile Row – offer ample opportunity to laugh (Simon Doonan’s professed love of Liberace), drop one’s jaw (the internal syringe pocket in Dickon Edwards’ three-piece velvet suit, inherited from Sebastian Horsley), nod in agreement (why yes, Winston Chesterfield, women do appreciate elegant men) or simply take note of fun facts (Hamish Bowles now wears mostly Dries Van Noten, Paul Smith, and Tom Ford suits. Got it). But more than that, they espouse the deeply important notion of dressing as one’s most authentic self, unswayed by the turning tides of fashion, rooted in a profound understanding of, and ease with, the alchemy of style.
Co-hosted by Gestalten and Gieves & Hawkes, the launch party brought the authors, minglers and sartorial wizards themselves together for a lovely evening at their store on Savile Row, replete with a tailor live-chalking jacket patterns, a jazz trio providing the essential standards, and a portraitist snapping those looking to step behind the camera. Below, a series of our favourite shots from the evening.
Special thanks to Lina Kunimoto at Gestalten, and to the book’s authors, who have given us such a riveting book to add to the collection.
Teenage wunderkind tailor Zack MacLeod Pinsent.
Works in progress and finished specimens pop against a wall of pattern slopers.
Dickon Edwards in his famous silver velvet three-piece suit, inherited from Sebastien Horsley.
Two dandies discuss pressing sartorial matters while the spectre of Nick Wooster looks on in the background.
Happy guests enjoy their drinks against the ideal closet, Gieves & Hawkes-style.
Drinks. Lychee martinis, elderflower cocktails, whiskey, and champagne.
Fun times. Also, stripes.
A Gieves & Hawkes staff member sitting pretty. Very pretty.
Photographer Khalil works his magic.
Two dandies serenade a striking young lady.
The woman and man of the hour, elegant co-authors Rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams.
Conversations are happening.
Gustav Temple and Michael “Atters” Attree ham it up outside on the ‘Row.
…yes, that is a taxidermy-ed bat on Mr. Atters’ lapel.
“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope says, “preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.
A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.
“This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel."
mdsolar writes in with a story about the fallout from a nuclear plant closing on a small town in Maine. "In a wooded area behind a camouflage-clad guard holding an assault rifle, dozens of hulking casks packed with radioactive waste rest on concrete pads — relics of the shuttered nuclear plant that once powered the region and made this fishing town feel rich. In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the town's 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut. 'I have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is gone,' said Laurie Smith, the town manager. 'All these years later, we're still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases.'"
The Internet features more than its share of negativity and snark—sometimes you’ve just gotta vent. But there’s plenty of room for love, too. With Fan Up, we ask pop-culture people we admire to tell us about something they really, really like.
The fan: As a cartoonist, animator, writer, and musician, Brad Neely’s output sits at the intersection of the profound and the profane—his most widely circulated work, the musical short “Cox & Combes’ Washington,” is a foul-mouthed rap cataloging the almost-historically accurate badassery of the United States’ first president. That spirit carries over to Neely’s Adult Swim series, China, IL—set among the students and faculty of “the worst college in America”—which begins its second season on September 22.
The fanned: Neely’s home state, Arkansas
Brad Neely: I grew up in Arkansas, my wife grew up in Arkansas, both our sets of parents ...
The following restaurant sign in Uyghur and Chinese was sent in by Fangyi Cheng:
The Uyghur portion is longer, larger, and above the Chinese, so one might suspect that it is the primary language of the sign. Upon analysis, however, we will find that the Chinese version is primary and the Uyghur secondary. Nonetheless, the Chinese portion itself is not without question.
"Good Friend sheep entrails and hoofs liangfen restaurant"
"My best friend smashed the sheep hoofs and bean noodles restaurant"
Already it is evident that educated readers have difficulty making sense of the Chinese on the sign (and I have received other wildly varying interpretations). So let's see what is causing the Chinese wording not to have a clear and unambiguous meaning.
The easiest parts of the Chinese name of the restaurant to understand are the first three characters and the last three characters: Hǎo péngyǒu … liángfěn guǎn 好朋友 …凉粉馆 ("Good Friends … cold starch noodle restaurant"). It's all the rest in between — zásuì yángtí 砸碎羊蹄 — that causes problems. These four characters seem to say "smashed sheep trotters", but I've never heard of "smashed sheep trotters" going with "cold starch noodles". Furthermore, "smashed sheep trotters" doesn't match the Uyghur version, so one begins to wonder whether something is wrong with zásuì yángtí 砸碎羊蹄.
As a matter of fact, as soon as I saw this sign I immediately suspected that zásuì 砸碎 ("smash; shatter; break into pieces") was a mistake for the homophonous zásuì 杂碎 ("offal; chopped, cooked entrails [of sheep or oxen]; chop suey"). Now, I don't want to get into a discussion of whether "chop suey" is a purely American invention or not (others are welcome to join that battle in the comments if they wish), but — in and of itself and in comparison with the Uyghur version — zásuì yángtí 杂碎羊蹄 ("offal [and] sheep trotters") makes a lot better sense than zásuì yángtí 砸碎羊蹄 ("smashed sheep trotters").
Zásuì 杂碎 simply highlights the mixture of animal organs, and there is no regular ingredient such as sheep's leg or other ground meat implied by that term itself.
Incidentally, if you're wondering what liángfěn 凉粉 (literally, "cold powder", i.e., "cold starch noodle") is, the explanation in this Wikipedia article should be adequate for introductory purposes.
Further evidence that it would be wrong to render zásuì yángtí 砸碎羊蹄 as "smashed sheep trotters" may be found in this review of a Shaanxi restaurant, especially the last line:
…zēngjiāle yángtíer, liángfěn, qiézi hé chóujiǔ jǐ yàng chīshi
…增加了羊蹄儿、凉粉、茄子和稠酒几样吃食
("…introduced to the menu several items such as sheep's trotters, cold starch noodles, eggplant, and thick wine")
We may surmise, therefore, that this is a Shaanxi or other northwestern restaurant that serves chopped entrails, sheep's trotters, and cold starch noodles operating in Xinjiang.
We might hope that the Uyghur version would help us understand better the intent of the owners of the restaurant in advertising their featured dishes. Yet, while the Uyghur does not have an outright error as does the Chinese, it reads awkwardly:
Yaxshi dostlar öpke-hésip pachaq lengpungliri
Literally "Good friends cooked-entrails shank liangfen-pl.", where lengpung is a direct Chinese loan of liángfěn 凉粉
It is interesting that Henry G. Schwarz (An Uyghur-English dictionary) translates pacaq as "leg" or "shank", but pacaq-pacaq as "smashed to pieces," which would fit with the erroneous zásuì 砸碎 of the Chinese.
As so often happens in the Han-dominated urban centers of Xinjiang, Uyghur merely serves as the "eyebrows" (as Uyghur wags would say) for this sign.
Let us (following Arienne Dwyer) count the ways that the Uyghur is secondary to the Chinese:
-yaxshi dostlar ("good friends") is not at all a common collocation in Uyghur, unlike the high-frequency term hǎo péngyǒu 好朋友 ("good friends") in Chinese. A calque.
-While öpke-hésip is a well-formed Turkic binome, juxtaposing it with the otherwise well-formed Turkic pachaq ("shank") without genitive or possessive marking distinguishes it as translatese. Worse, you have actually three juxtaposed nouns, öpke-hésip + pachaq + lengpung, and the possessive marking shows up on the latter noun, indicating that this is a 3 noun compound: "liangfen (made) of entrails and shanks". The diachronic Uyghur corpus that my team is building still isn't large enough to test this reliably, but I would very much doubt finding any 3-noun compounds, and certainly not bare juxtapositions like these.
And then, the final oddity (this one not from Chinese) is that lengpung is pluralized (lengpung+ pl. lAr+ poss. i).
The plural here is ungrammatical in both Uyghur and Chinese, unless it's the extended sense of the Uyghur plural, which is functionally equivalent to Chinese děng 等 ("and the like", i.e., "Good Friends zasui… and other dishes").
Another day of Uyghlese in the big city!
How ironic it is that, just as Uyghur serves as a kind of ornament on Chinese banknotes, so it has become a sort of decoration on Chinese restaurant signs in its homeland!
[Hat tip Fangyi Cheng; thanks to Arienne Dwyer, Gardner Bovingdon, Leopold Eisenlohr, Yakup Mahire, Mandy Chan, Yuanfei Wang, Jing Wen, and s.a.]
Erin McCarthy takes us through the history of the Trapper Keeper, the brightly-colored binders that made the Mead Corporation $100m a year.
“It was that weird thing where having a knockoff was worse than having nothing at all,” Ryan, now a senior writer at the Huffington Post, says. “Being the new kid, this was strangely devastating.” He would eventually get the real thing—bright red, with red, green, and blue folders. “It didn't make me cool, but at least I felt like I was conforming. Which, at that point, is all I had hoped for.”
You can still buy the real thing, but youngsters won't judge you anymore if you get a copycat.
This more complex volvelle has multiple moving parts, including several outer dials, with a smaller, independently rotating disk inside. Click here for a larger version of this image than Tumblr file sizes permit.
We would like nothing more than to offer this little elephant a hug and a tissue. The newborn calf reportedly cried for five hours, inconsolably, after being separated for a second time from his mother, who tried to kill him, twice.
Keepers at a wildlife park in eastern China, the Shendiaoshan Wild Animal Nature Reserve, in Rongcheng, Shandong province, removed the calf from his mother after she rejected him, stomping on him. Hopeful that the injury had been accidental, they treated the calf and returned him to his mother’s side. She turned on him again, so they again removed him. The calf wept under a blanket for five straight hours before keepers were able to console him.
"He couldn’t bear to be parted from his mother and it was his mother who was trying to kill him," a keeper said, according to reports. All was not lost for the little calf, however. Named Zhuangzhuang, he has been adopted by the keeper who rescued him and they have formed a strong bond. [Source] [x]
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When you create pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current document look.
Blue cheese lollipops! The makers at Lolliphile say it started off as a joke until they tried one and discovered it was totally delicious. Skeptical? Order a batch and taste for yourself!
The lollipops are described as being “sharp, tasty, and edgy.” Since blue cheese is often paired with honey, it was apparently easy to combine both flavors to make the lollipop into a reality.
bias binding silk: I did this last week, and my dread is rational
I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but sometime over the past few months I realized that there isn’t much I dread about sewing anymore. You know what I mean by dread, those things you are loath to do – setting sleeves, putting in a sleeve placket, bias binding silk, buttons and buttonholes, attaching a collar etc. At one point or another in my sewing career I dreaded all of those things and more and being a perfectionist didn’t help things.
I first learned to sew 20 years ago but didn’t really get career serious about it until 2006 when I went back to school for fashion. I’m sure all those garment construction classes helped, as did my patternmaking jobs, but I think what really did it was sewing endless repetitive garments for hound and now here with my patterns. I’m currently making my 11th Archer in actual fabric (I also made a few during pattern development as well as 10 while testing all the pattern sizes in muslin) and it’s amazing how fast one comes together now. I remember a few years ago, sitting at my sewing machine, just dreading setting a sleeve. Now, sleeves? Whatever. It’s a really weird feeling and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I sew.
I have absolutely no idea where I’m going with this post, just something I’ve observed while working lately that I found interesting. Is there something you dread about sewing currently or have you just gotten over dreading a particular task? I’m really curious about this…fill me in.
MojoKid writes "Yep, a USB condom. That term is mostly a dose of marketing brilliance, which is to say that grabs your attention while also serving as an apt description of the product. A little company called int3.cc has developed a product—a USB condom—that blocks the data pins in your USB device while leaving the power pins free. Thus, any time you need to plug a device such as a smartphones into a USB port to charge it—let's say at a public charging kiosk or a coworker's computer--you don't have to worry about compromising any data or contracting some nasty malware. It's one of those simple solutions that seems so obvious once someone came up with it."
Oh, please tell me that is a contemporary illustration. Gloves for boots and boots for gloves! The horse is driving the cart! Fish in the air! Upside town things!
His character has nothing to do with his skin colour and therefore I decided to make him white; this should not bring up the impression that white people are more valuable than black people, it is quite the contrary – the reason for this is that white is a neutral colour.
Teenage wunderkind tailor Zack MacLeod Pinsent.
Works in progress and finished specimens pop against a wall of pattern slopers.
Dickon Edwards in his famous silver velvet three-piece suit, inherited from Sebastien Horsley.
Two dandies discuss pressing sartorial matters while the spectre of Nick Wooster looks on in the background.
Happy guests enjoy their drinks against the ideal closet, Gieves & Hawkes-style.
Drinks. Lychee martinis, elderflower cocktails, whiskey, and champagne.
Fun times. Also, stripes.
A Gieves & Hawkes staff member sitting pretty. Very pretty.
Photographer Khalil works his magic.
Two dandies serenade a striking young lady.
The woman and man of the hour, elegant co-authors Rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams.
Conversations are happening.
Gustav Temple and Michael “Atters” Attree ham it up outside on the ‘Row.
…yes, that is a taxidermy-ed bat on Mr. Atters’ lapel.
It's not exactly a Cronut knockoff, but Portland's Pix Patisserie has debuted a dessert inspired by Dominique Ansel's line-inducing pastry: the macaronut. Baker/owner Cheryl Wakerhauser says the macaronut, essentially a deep-fried macaron "covered in a light fluffy batter, will be available in limited quantities (of about 50 fried macarons each day). It's currently available in about a dozen flavors, like bananas foster, bourbon, and kalamansi lime. [EaterWire]
