Russian Sledges

A Florida family says their 18-year-old daughter was charged with a felony and expelled from high school as a result of a consensual, same-sex relationship with another student.

Kaitlyn Hunt started dating a female classmate at the beginning of the school year when she was 17 and the girl she was about three years younger. According to an account posted to Facebook by Kaitlyn’s mother, in February, shortly after Kaitlyn turned 18, she was arrested on felony charges at the behest of her girlfriend’s parents. The specific crime was “sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.”

Kaitlyn’s mother believes the charges were motivated by anti-gay animus:

They were out to destroy my daughter, they feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay. They are bigoted, religious zeolites [sic] that see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.

But Kaitlyn’s problems did not end there. Her girlfriends’s parents appealed to the school board and had her expelled from Sebastian River High School. Kaitlyn’s mom reports that the State Attorney, Brian Workman, has offered Kaitlyn a plea deal of “of two years house arrest and one year probation.” Kaitlyn has until next Friday to accept the plea deal or face a trial.

The family has started a petition calling on the state attorney to drop the charges against Kaitlyn.

“Picture a croissant dough that is fried and then flavored in three ways: filled, dusted with sugar, and glazed.”

image via Dominique Ansel Bakery

The Cronut is a donut-croissant hybrid invented by New York City pastry chef Dominique Ansel. These hybrids have flaky layers like a croissant but are shaped and filled like a donut. Cronuts are available now in several flavors at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood (189 Spring Street) but get there early, people are lining up early to get a taste and they have been selling out each day. Paige Beaumont of Thrillist went to the bakery to taste test the cronut and says, “you can rest assured that the icing-topped, flakey, sweet, cream-filled treats definitely ‘back up the hype’ and are ‘holy sh*t good’.” Niko Triantafillou of Serious Eats New York also tried it and says it’s “a deep-fried dessert lover’s dream.”

image via Thrillist

via Thrillist, KNSTRCT, The Awesomer

“Get me library or dead.”

Above: A mini-documentary on the wedding of William Warren and Renard Latour, shot by local filmmaker Jessica Vecchione of Vecc Videography.

New York State law barred William Warren and Renard Latour from marrying for almost four decades. 

But when the couple decided to marry this spring, it wasn't the law that stood in their way. It was less than a mile of road between O'Connor Hospital and the Delhi town clerk's office -- a road that 75-year-old Warren, paralyzed in all four limbs, could not travel without medical help.

On Wednesday, May 8, Warren and Latour were married at O'Connor Hospital, in front of a small group of witnesses that included doctors, nurses, hospital staff, family and friends, a documentary filmmaker, and Warren's former hospital roommate, who showed up with his wife.

The wedding might never have happened without the intervention of Warren's doctor, Alberto Gaitan.  Read more

An oversight by the U.S. Congress two decades ago led to the inclusion of models in the H-1B class. A 2007 bill to put them in another category -- and let their numbers soar -- failed. Its sponsor: then-Representative Anthony Weiner of New York, who quit Congress in 2011 after engaging in lewd online behavior.

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@LoraNorda @overbey and alla resta you

Ah, Cards Against Humanity. The epic drunk-and-bored game of the early 21st century.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, here are the rules:

• Most of the cards are white and are nouns.
• The others are black and are questions or fill-in-the-blank types.
• Each turn, one player pulls a random black card.
• Then the other players put down a white card they think is funniest when paired with the aforementioned black card.
• That original player (who pulled the black card) picks his or her favorite pairing.
• The person who played that white card gets a point.

It’s Apples to Apples, but horribly and hilariously offensive. I called alum and co-creator of CAH Ben Hantoot ’09 to get his blessing for a Brown University expansion pack. He said it was chill. He was on his Bluetooth, driving what was probably a really nice car, what with all the big money to be made in board games these days. We had a funny conversation about smoking weed on Governor Street and the difference between Canadians’ and Americans’ card preferences, which you can read in Post- Magazine HERE. (I’m not going to pull a Jonah Lehrer and write the same article for two publications, even though I am not Jonah Lehrer and no one would care if I did.) All I can say is that I’m proud to attend the same school [wipes away single tear] as this modern genius once did. After Binder, let’s give Hantoot an honorary degree.

So here it is: the Brown University Expansion Pack. We hope you’ll mix them in with the original game, which you can download free on the Cards Against Humanity website. The card “Controversial Herald opinion articles” deserves to play in the big leagues. I, for one, will be at the GCB with these bad boys if you wanna hang out. Take a look after the jump.

Original Source

Au départ, il agissait d'un jacquard avec des pieds de poule. Puis il se sont mis à dégringoler. Puis on a fait un jeu vidéo 8bit. Puis une bande originale avec D33J, Juj et Max Cooper à téléchager ici.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — L.L. Bean's grandson Leon Gorman is retiring as chairman of the outdoors retailer after more than a half-century as the company's chairman or CEO, but the privately held firm is keeping the position in the family.

A construction crew’s backhoe severed a high-pressure gas main this morning in Kendall Square, forcing evacuations, road closures and disruption of MBTA Red Line service.

Cambridge fire and police crews are monitoring the air quality of three buildings in Kendall Square before letting tenants back inside.

Construction crews were digging an excavation site next to a building at 5 Cambridge Center when the backhoe hit the gas main shortly after 11 a.m., said Cambridge Deputy Fire Chief Lester Bokuniewicz. NStar has since shut down the gas.

Best press release ever? Best press release ever.

Cumberbatch himself has recently piped up about the Cumber-"B"-word faction after having made light of their existence to other press outlets (including our own). He refuses to call them by their name and instead refers to them as the "Cumberwomen" or "Cumbergirls." "It's not even politeness," the 36-year-old actor told The Times of London. "I won't allow you to be my b----es. I think it sets feminism back so many notches. You are… Cumberpeople," he said.

Read Drew's blog: The Worst Things For Sale.

Hey geeks! James has a further announcement regarding their new channel. Please give it a look.

[Photographs: Maggie Hoffman]

Portland, Oregon’s Salt & Straw is known for churning up unusual ice cream flavors. We’re big fans of their Coffee Bourbon ice cream, though we found last fall’s rich and savory foie gras flavor a little challenging. In honor of Father’s Day, they’re launching a sixpack of beer-inspired ice creams featuring local breweries. (They’ll be available in Portland scoop shops throughout June, and online for June through September.)

The flavors were created in collaboration with Portland brewers including Breakside Brewery, Gigantic Brewing Company, Hair of the Dog Brewing Company, Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales, The Commons Brewery, and Widmer Brothers Brewing—but that doesn’t mean that the Salt & Straw team just dumped some beer in the freezer. Instead, the flavors of individual brews were incorporated in a few unusual ways: for example, one ice cream base was cold-steeped in a barrel that was used to age the beer, while another ice cream was infused with the beer’s Meridian hops.

These ice creams won’t get you tipsy, but do they capture the Portland craft beer experience in frozen form? We love beer, and we love ice cream, but would we love beer-flavored ice cream? We gave the whole sixpack a taste to find out.

Hopped Farmhouse Ale

This is a citrusy, creamy ice cream with a remarkable wort-like flavor, inspired by Commons Brewery’s Myrtle Farmhouse Ale. Honeyed malt flavors work well with the creaminess and fudgy texture, though the finish is a little weird. The ice cream base was steeped with Meridian hops, which are known for their floral, lemony, citrus flavor. That totally comes through here—it’s not piney or very bitter, so this flavor works pretty well as a dessert.

Cherry Adam from the Wood

We recruited our beer columnist Mike Reis (of Monk’s Kettle and Abbot’s Cellar in San Francisco) to taste through these ice creams with us, and this was the one that got him most excited. “Dude, this is cool,” said Reis. “Lots of bourbon character, lots of cherry.” The malty cherry ice cream base was cold steeped in a bourbon barrel from Hair of the Dog Brewery. The result is boozy but not totally over the top—oaky and vanilla-y but not aggressively spiritous. You have to really like bourbon to be into this, but as long as you do, this is one to try, especially with some toasted nuts on top.

Bretta Fermented Pears and Fudge

Inspired by David Logsdon’s Cocoa Bretta Ale, this ice cream is based on pear juice and malted fudge syrup fermented with the yeast strain used for the beer. This ice cream has a bit of a funky fermented fruit character, and the results will seem totally weird to some. Though you might identify a pureed pear flavor, it’s subtle. The malted fudge is quite malty and has an interesting fruity character that will please malted milkshake fans. “I like that is has a very unusual flavor profile,” says Mike Reis. “Your palate becomes accustomed to the funkiness pretty quickly.”

Passionfruit Berliner Weisse Marmalade in Coconut Water Sorbet

This is one of the easiest in the bunch to love: sweet coconut sorbet with slim ribbons of marmalade made with Breakside Brewing’s Passionfruit Berliner Weisse. The marmalade offers a nice bit of tartness, and the ice cream is super-delicious, but we’d love a more extreme lactic tang. This stuff is pretty refreshing, but a little more sourness might be fun.

IPA Upside Down Cake

This is a seriously bitter IPA ice cream inspired by Gigantic Brewing Company’s Imperial IPA. It has an almost mentholy hop flavor, and the ice cream base is filled with chunks of pineapple upside down cake and candied tangerine zest. “The pineapple comes through, and the tangerine zest. The flavors are all really nice,” commented Reis. “But then you get that earthy, pine-like bitterness.” All in all, the ice cream tastes a bit more like hops than like beer. “You’re left with that plant-matter hop flavor,” says Reis, and the bitterness reminded us a bit of bitter grapefruit pith.

Smoked Hefeweizen

Rather than making an ice cream inspired by Widmer Brothers’ classic hefe, Salt & Straw went a more extreme route here, smoking wheat malt and steeping it in the ice cream base. “Oooh man, that’s really smoky,” reacted Reis immediately. This ice cream has a pretty prominent bacony flavor—it’s a lot like the Schlenkerla Rauchbiers. We could see this being served with a savory dish, or with bacon crumbles on top. A little dulce de leche might help, too.

Dozens of American children are abducted to Japan every year—not by strangers, but by parents after messy divorces.

Waka Waka Waka

Simply awesome.

(Source: MissKateGB/Instagram)

Topology versus Geography in Transit Maps

Here’s a nice little animated diagram from Fathom Information Design that compares the two polar opposites of transit mapping using Boston’s MBTA rail network as an example. Click through to play around with it, and see the benefits and drawbacks of the two approaches. It’s also super fun to watch the map morph between the two styles.

In real life, most transit maps fall somewhere between these two extremes: very few use such a strict topological grid, and completely geographically accurate maps are also very rarely used for this purpose — even the New York subway map has a certain level of simplification and abstraction.

Unofficial Map: MBTA Map Contest Entry by Michael Kvrivishvili

Here’s another entry for the MBTA’s map contest, sent to me by Michael Kvrivishvili, a graphic and interactive designer from Moscow.

Michael has chosen to show all of the services on his map that the MBTA does on their map – subway, BRT, commuter rail, key bus routes and ferries. He pulls it off pretty well, too, although the convoluted network of bus routes is always going to look a little busy.

Like Kerim, Michael’s map features a perfect diamond representing the downtown interchange stations, and he also manages to fit in all the Green Line stations.If it wasn’t for the little flip in the Red Line to Braintree, he’d also have a perfectly straight diagonal line across the map! Despite these similarities, the two maps are really quite different.

Much like the current Washington DC map, Michael has added badges to the end of each line that denotes that line’s name –  "OL" for Orange Line, and so on – an excellent aid for color-blind users of the system. He also adds the full name of the line in very small text within each line, which seems redundant and is also far too small to be of any real use.

For the most part, Michael’s handling of the commuter rail lines is well done: they’re obviously lower in the information hierarchy than the main subway lines, but still look attractive. Again, the ends of the commuter rail lines feature some lovely and unusual arrowheads – I love this sort of attention to detail. The one place the map is not as clear as it could be is at Readville station. The Fairmount Line terminates at this station, while trains on the Franklin Line stop, but trains on the Stoughton/Providence Line pass through without stopping. On Michael’s map. the Franklin Line looks like a continuation of the Fairmount Line (which isn’t named on the map), and there’s no visual indication that Stoughton/Providence trains don’t stop here.

There’s more usability problems with the Silver Line at Logan Airport. Michael shows all the stops, but he doesn’t show how the route loops around. From the information shown on the map, a reader might expect that once the bus reaches the end of the line at Terminal E, it reverses back along the line, stopping at the other terminals again along the way. A similar problem is evident with the end of the SL2 line at Design Center (also a loop in real life).

Interestingly, Michael has chosen to show non-accessible stations on the map, rather than accessible ones. This actually works quite well at cleaning up the central part of the map, where there are more accessible stations than non-accessible ones.

A few other thoughts: the legend at the bottom of the map is beautifully laid out; the subway to bus/commuter rail symbol is subtle but effective; and the bus routes are generally pretty well done. Also, the Silver Line makes a big capital “B” in the middle of the map!

Our rating: Really quite good. The few shortcomings are probably due to Michael's unfamiliarity with the system and look like they could be easily fixed. Three-and-a-half stars.

(Source: Email from Michael, also on Flickr)

The outing of a failed writer who spent years anonymously grinding axes on Wikipedia.

[Full Story]

Securing perhaps the biggest costume job going at the moment, Michael Kaplan has officially been chosen as costume designer for Star Wars Episode VII. It was on his IMDb page for a short while (later removed), but now the appointment has been corroborated by the man himself. “I am very excited to be working on Star Wars” Kaplan confirms to Clothes on Film “I’m so looking forward to collaborating, once again, with JJ.”

Kaplan is now director J.J. Abrams’ regular costume designer having worked with him on Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Evidently after two terms with Abrams on Star Trek, Kaplan has the sci-fi chops necessary to tackle arguably a denser franchise with even greater fan expectation. Get it right and he could have an Oscar to put alongside his BAFTA statuette and Costume Designers Guild awards, get it wrong and there will be nowhere to hide, and probably no option to come back for the sequels.

Michael Kaplan first dabbled in sci-fi for Blade Runner. Saying something about his reluctance to be pigeon holed, Kaplan’s next film was Flashdance.

Besides Star Trek, one of Michael Kaplan’s earliest sci-fi gigs was as co-costume designer with Charles Knode on Blade Runner in 1982 (which he referenced for Into Darkness). Kaplan’s most impressive skill however is his versatility. A costume CV that includes Flashdance, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Seven, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Fight Club and Burlesque is not the résumé of someone afraid to try new things. What Kaplan has in store for Star Wars Episode VII is anybody’s guess at present, though providing he retains Han Solo’s black cotton waistcoat he is at least starting on safe ground.

Star Wars Episode VII begins shooting in 2014 for release in 2015.

© 2013, Chris Laverty.

notcanonyet:

I demand an answer.

(snicker)

A small collection of old photos of Japanese 130 years ago

See more at vintag.es

Favorite Looks of the 2013 Grammy Awards

Janelle Monáe

Screaming, Expletives, and, Eventually, Police: All in the First Night of Kitchen Nightmares Taping at Amy's Baking Company - Phoenix - Restaurants and Dining - Chow Bella - Page all

Hey there, I've seen these two girls that work at Game stop in the pheasant lane mall. They are both very cool, and cute. One brunette working upstairs, skinny and looking good. The other a cute blonde working downstairs, I think she caught me starin [...]

I highly doubt you will see this as I suspect you are a European tourist or possibly Brazilian. However, I felt like there was certainly a connection when I saw you in the COOP bookstore in the fiction aisle. I wanted to invite you to a green tea but [...]

Reviewing The Annotated Frankenstein, Michael Saler reveals the deeper meaning of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous creation:

Wolfson and Levao show that the first edition of Frankenstein of 1818 was packaged as a philosophic novel. Published anonymously, and dedicated to William Godwin, it features more references to the Prometheus legend and Paradise Lost than to such Gothic tropes as perverse sexuality and spectral hauntings. The monster may be stitched together from human and animal parts, yet he is more memorable for being an autodidact who pleads for affection: “his humanity is the most surprising, most disturbing, and ultimately most moving aspect of his character”. When he is viciously rejected, the monster engages in a murderous rampage – but Shelley blames this on his egotistic creator and an uncaring society that refuses to empathize with a suffering fellow “creature”.

As the editors note, Shelley’s contemporaries would have associated the monster’s terror with the Terror of the French Revolution. Conservatives likened the Revolution to a monster created by Enlightenment rationalism, whereas radicals perceived it as a justified response to a monstrous ancien régime. The novel raised questions about social justice and reciprocal obligations in a modern, secular age, in the process also condemning slavery. In addition, Shelley criticized gender relations, just as her mother had done in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Frankenstein’s creation of life was not simply an act of scientific hubris, but an exposé of patriarchy. By arrogating the creation of life solely to himself, Frankenstein’s deed of giving birth results in the death of everyone he loved, culminating in his own mortal struggle with his creation in the sterile frigidity of the Arctic.

(Image: the frontispiece to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, via Wikimedia Commons)

Showgirls dressed as Obama, Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho, as well as nuns and nurses at former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's parties. Karima El Mahroug testified about showgirls dressing up at a prostitution trial in Italy.