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10 May 02:01

April 24, 2013 4:01pm GMT | Herd Groyne Lighthouse | River Tyne,...



April 24, 2013 4:01pm GMT | Herd Groyne Lighthouse | River Tyne, South Shields, England

10 May 02:00

Slovakia Struggles to Desegregate Its Schools

An elementary school in eastern Slovakia is a microcosm of one of Europe’s biggest challenges: how to bring its most disadvantaged and fastest-growing minority into the mainstream.
    


10 May 01:58

This is what your Mac keyboard will look like in 100 years

by Annalee Newitz

After the excavation, everybody attending the 2113 meeting of the World Anthropology Association discussed what they'd found. It was a century-old midden pit, full of Apple devices from the days before the company had gotten into biological devices and cloning kits.

Read more...

    


10 May 01:58

Whole Foods mixes up chicken, vegan salads

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Whole Foods Market Inc. says labels on a chicken salad and those on a vegan version of the salad were reversed at some of its cold food bars in the Northeast.
    


10 May 01:56

What Were the Top-Selling Breweries of 2012?

by Chris Schonberger

Mid-April means taxes (did you remember?!), but it also means the release of the previous year’s beer sales figures, helpfully compiled by the Brewers Association. We already know that craft breweries continued to grow in 2012, accounting for 6.5% of total beer sales (up from 5.7%), but it’s always interesting to see who’s really moving product on a large scale. If you compare the numbers below with those from 2011, there wasn’t a huge amount of movement, except for Lagunitas, which moved up to sixth place. Brooklyn Brewery also hopped two places up to 11 after expanding its Williamsburg facility.

Did you realize all of the breweries below were so big?

Top 50 U.S. Craft Brewing Companies 
(Based on 2012 beer sales volume)

 Rank Brewing Company City State
1 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA
2 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA
3 New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
4 The Gambrinus Co. San Antonio TX
5 Deschutes Brewery Bend OR
6 Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA
7 Bell’s Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI
8 Matt Brewing Co. Utica NY
9 Harpoon Brewery Boston MA
10 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA
11 Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY
12 Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO
13 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE
14 Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA
15 Shipyard Brewing Co. Portland ME
16 Alaskan Brewing Co. Juneau AK
17 New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI
18 Long Trail Brewing Co. Bridgewater Corners VT
19 Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH
20 Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA
21 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA
22 Rogue Ales Newport OR
23 Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN
t. 24 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR
t. 24 SweetWater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA
26 Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA
27 Oskar Blues Brewery Longmont CO
28 Cold Spring Brewing Co./
Third Street Brewhouse
Cold Spring MN
29 Flying Dog Brewery Frederick MD
30 Founders Brewing Co. Grand Rapids MI
31 Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR
32 CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries, Inc. Chattanooga & Louisville TN/CO
33 Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
34 Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA
35 Stevens Point Brewery Stevens Point WI
36 Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY
37 Southern Tier Brewing Co. Lakewood NY
38 Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe Eureka CA
39 Karl Strauss Brewing Co. San Diego CA
40 BJ’s Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. Huntington Beach CA
41 Breckenridge Brewery Denver CO
42 North Coast Brewing Co. Fort Bragg CA
43 Left Hand Brewing Co. Longmont CO
44 St. Louis Brewery, Inc./
Schlafly Beers
St. Louis MO
45 Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Houston TX
46 Ballast Point Brewing Co. San Diego CA
47 Big Sky Brewing Co. Missoula MT
48 Allagash Brewing Co. Portland ME
49 Uinta Brewing Co. Salt Lake City UT
50 Tröegs Brewing Co. Hershey PA

 

Top 50 Overall U.S. Brewing Companies
(Based on 2012 beer sales volume)

Rank Brewing Company City State
1 Anheuser-Busch Inc. (a) St. Louis MO
2 MillerCoors (b) Chicago IL
3 Pabst Brewing Co. (c) Woodbridge IL
4 D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc. Pottsville PA
5 Boston Beer Co. (d) Boston MA
6 North American Breweries (e) Rochester NY
7 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA
8 New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
9 Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. (f) Portland OR
10 The Gambrinus Co. (g) San Antonio TX
11 Minhas Craft Brewery (h) Monroe WI
12 Deschutes Brewery Bend OR
13 Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA
14 Bell’s Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI
15 Matt Brewing Co. (i) Utica NY
16 Harpoon Brewery Boston MA
17 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA
18 Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY
19 Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO
20 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE
21 Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA
22 World Brews/Winery Exchange (j) Novato CA
23 Shipyard Brewing Co. (k) Portland ME
24 Alaskan Brewing Co. Juneau AK
25 August Schell Brewing Co. (l) New Ulm MN
26 New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI
27 Long Trail Brewing Co. (m) Bridgewater Corners VT
28 Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH
29 Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA
30 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA
31 Rogue Ales Newport OR
32 Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN
t. 33 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR
t. 33 SweetWater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA
35 Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA
36 Oskar Blues Brewery Longmont CO
37 Pittsburgh Brewing Co. (n) Pittsburgh PA
38 Mendocino Brewing Co. (o) Ukiah CA
39 Cold Spring Brewing Co./
Third Street Brewhouse (p)
Cold Spring MN
40 Flying Dog Brewery Fredrick MD
41 Founders Brewing Co. Grand Rapids MI
42 Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR
43 CraftWorks Breweries & Restaurants, Inc. (q) Chattanooga & Louisville TN/CO
44 Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
45 Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA
46 Stevens Point Brewery (r) Stevens Point WI
47 Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY
48 Southern Tier Brewing Co. Lakewood NY
49 Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe Eureka CA
50 Karl Strauss Brewing Co. San Diego CA

 

[via Brewer Association]

10 May 01:55

Iran Plans To Launch an 'Islamic Google Earth'

by Soulskill
Shipwack sends this quote from the Guardian: "The Iranian authorities have long accused Google Earth of being a tool for western spy agencies, but now they have taken their attacks on the 3D mapping service one step further — by planning the launch of an 'Islamic' competitor. ... The minister, however, gave little information on what he meant by an Islamic 3D map. 'We are developing this service with the Islamic views we have in Iran and we will put a kind of information on our website that would take people of the world towards reality Our values in Iran are the values of God and this would be the difference between Basir and the Google Earth, which belongs to the ominous triangle of the U.S., England and the Zionists [a reference to Israel].' Experts, however, have serious doubts about the project. An IT consultant who has worked on Iran's national internet project in the past said the announcement was merely an excuse to obtain funds and secure working contracts for the future. 'They have claimed to run their service in four months and said their data centre capacity will reach Google's size in three years,' he said. 'Three-year project, no business model and only relying on government funding, a piece of cake indeed To have a data centre with such capacity and security level they need power stations, cooler systems, bandwidth, etc, which will require billions of dollars of investment that doesn't fit with Iran's sanctions-hit economy.'"

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10 May 01:52

Man who helped free missing Cleveland women Berry, DeJesus and Knight: 'I did what had to be done'

Russian Sledges

"Cordero and Tejeda aren't English speakers, so nobody interviewed them, so nobody knows they were there"—firehose

Man who helped free missing Cleveland women Berry, DeJesus and Knight: 'I did what had to be done':

“Ramsey arrived after she was outside with the girl,” Cordero said. “But the truth who arrived there, who crossed the street, who came and broke the door, it was me.” Wintel Tejeda, who lives across the street from the suspect’s house, said others helped and when Berry came out, they gave her a phone. “She was able to call police from my house,” Tejeda said in Spanish. Now with Ramsey’s interview making headlines, both men said they’re not jealous. “I did what had to be done. I helped her,” Cordero said. “They have their daughter, daughters are safe over there.”

10 May 01:02

The Music Box, A Working Music Box Made Out of a Massive Soil Compactor Machine

by EDW Lynch

The Music Box by Dave Cole

For his 2012 kinetic sculpture “The Music Box,” artist Dave Cole converted a 22,000 pound soil compactor machine into a massive music box that plays the “Star Spangled Banner.” Though Cole stripped most of the weight out of the compactor to make the sculpture more manageable, it still weighs in at 2,000 pounds. The sculpture was commissioned by the Cleveland Institute of Art.

The Music Box by Dave Cole

photos by Carly Gaebe

via designboom

10 May 00:49

TSA hearing for "Naked American Hero" John Brennan

by Mark Frauenfelder
Russian Sledges

meanwhile, in Portland

NewImageRemember our happy mutant comrade John Brennan, who removed his clothes at the Portland Airport during a TSA screening? He was acquitted of a ridiculous indecent exposure charge, and now he is appealing an equally stupid fine from the Transportation Security Administration for “interfering with the screening process.” This might sound silly, but it's serious business. As Brennan points out in his press release below, "This is the first time the TSA has followed through on assessing civil penalties for 'interference with screening" purely for nonviolent, non-obstructive protected expressive conduct.'"

I'm grateful to Brennan for being a civil liberties champion.

John Brennan’s TSA Hearing for Nude Protest on May 14, 2013

May 09, 2013

Portland, OR - John Brennan, the man who protested TSA at Portland International Airport in 2012 by removing his clothes, has a TSA hearing at 9AM on May 14, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. Mr. Brennan is appealing a fine from the Transportation Security Administration for “interfering with the screening process.” Under docket # 12-TSA-0092, Administrative Law Judge George J. Jordan will preside at U.S. Bankruptcy Court 1001 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 700 Portland, OR 97204 Room: 9th Floor, Courtroom #2. Robert Callahan of the Northwest Law Center represents Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Brennan is charged with an alleged civil violation of Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § Part 1540, Section 109, which states, “No person may interfere with, assault, or intimidate screening personnel in the performance of their screening duties under this subchapter.” The first step in appealing this fine is an administrative hearing. Mr. Brennan was acquitted of the criminal charges of indecent exposure in 2012.

Mr. Brennan’s TSA hearing is of note for several reasons: This is the first time the TSA has followed through on assessing civil penalties for "interference with screening" purely for nonviolent, non-obstructive protected expressive conduct.

Mr. Brennan’s hearing will have an administrative record resulting from a public hearing, the first of its kind in the United States with TSA legal proceedings according to Freedom To Travel USA, http://fttusa.org/.

The Administrative Law Judge has no authority to consider the Constitutionality of TSA regulations or orders.

While the criminal charge of indecent exposure, initiated by the State of Oregon, were resolved within months of Mr. Brennan’s protest, the civil charges, initiated by TSA, are on-going. TSA provided verbal notification of an investigation at the time of Mr. Brennan’s arrest, April 17, 2012, and written notification on April 26, 2012. On August 30, 2012, Mr. Brennan was notified in writing that TSA proposed to assess a civil penalty. Mr. Brennan’s hearing on May 14, 2013, comes more than a year after his protest.

If Mr. Brennan loses at this hearing, his next action is an administrative appeal to the head of the TSA. If he loses the administrative appeal, Mr. Brennan will have 60 days from the administrative appeal decision to file a "Petition for Review" of the TSA decision by the Circuit Court of Appeals.

On April 17, 2012, TSA referred the Port of Portland Police Department (POPPD) to John Brennan, who was going through TSA screening and chose to engage in a political protest of the TSA after allegedly testing positive for nitrates, an explosive. In, what he says was “effective and appropriate” protest (and a way to show TSA that he was not carrying explosives), Mr. Brennan removed all his clothes. POPPD arrested Mr. Brennan for the criminal charges of indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct charges were immediately dropped, and Mr. Brennan was acquitted of the indecent exposure charges on July 18, 2012. The trial judge concluded, “…it is the speech itself that the State is attempting to punish and that it cannot do, so I am finding Mr. Brennan not guilty.”

Follow John Brennan on Twitter

    


10 May 00:14

Iranian Scientist Claims To Have Invented A 'Time Machine'

An Iranian businessman claims to have mastered time with a machine that allows users to fast forward up to eight years into the future.
10 May 00:13

HOWTO wrap a pigeon for aircraft drop

by Cory Doctorow


If you need to wrap a pigeon for aircraft-drop, this will help. From the surprisingly useful Pigeon Service Manual, Air Ministry, 1919 (featuring "Some meritorious performaces," "Writing the message," and more).

Could prove useful

    


10 May 00:10

Simon Pegg's Star Trek Reboot Theory: Is this the "Mirror " Crew?

by Charlie Jane Anders
Russian Sledges

"J.J. [Abrams] is keen on having as much stuff around you physically as is possible, and using CG as little as possible," said John Cho, in a roundtable interview with Pegg and some other reporters yesterday. "It makes it easier for an actor, certainly, to look up and see things, instead of green felt cloth."

Star Trek Into Darkness uses physical sets instead of greenscreen, as much as possible — they even filmed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, for a key sequence aboard the Enterprise. And when we talked to Simon Pegg and John Cho yesterday, they told us some of their Enterprise scenes were so demanding, Pegg actually threw up.

Read more...

    


10 May 00:06

President Obama signs executive order requiring agencies to publish 'open data'

by Carl Franzen
Obama-ipad-briefing_large

President Obama came into office 2009 with a promise to make his administration the most "open" in history in terms of revealing information to the public about the inner-workings of government, a claim that has been challenged vociferously. But to further advance his open government ambitions, the President today issued an executive order requiring all major federal agencies under the executive branch to make their data "easy to find, accessible, and usable," with an important caveat: " wherever possible and legally permissible." The White House also released a new set of open source software tools on Github that federal agencies can use to get more of their data out onto the web in software developer and user-friendly formats,...

Continue reading…

09 May 23:59

birthmoviesdeath: Harrison Ford doesn’t frown and he doesn’t...



birthmoviesdeath:

Harrison Ford doesn’t frown and he doesn’t smile. He simply expresses himself through one emotion known as FORDING -GM

09 May 23:57

omgthatdress: Jacket 1888-1892 Augusta Auctions Oh wow.



omgthatdress:

Jacket

1888-1892

Augusta Auctions

Oh wow.

09 May 23:54

Federal 52 Deck

by Tiffanie Pfrang

04 10 13 federal52 1

Designer, Jackson Robinson shared this beautiful design created from labor of love with us. Check out the US currency inspired design, the Kickstarer Video, and a time lapse of the inking process of the Ace of Heart  after the jump! 

    


09 May 23:53

Who knew illuminated manuscripts contained so many fart and poop jokes?

by Lauren Davis

There's plenty of silliness sitting in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, and the Tumblr The Discarded Image collects some of the goofiest of the goofy: cats licking their junk, murderous bunny rabbits, prankster monkeys, amorous animals, and tongue-wagging jokesters. But perhaps the highlight of blog is its extensive collection of butts, and the poop and fart humor that goes with it. NSFWish images below.

Read more...

    


09 May 23:53

Dear life

by W.W. | HOUSTON

GUN-CONTROL legislation fell short last month in a close Senate vote, but some spy flickers of hope in the "world's greatest deliberative body". However, the sense of urgency that followed the Newtown massacre has definitely faded, and new studies from the Department of Justice and the Pew Research Center showing an astonishing drop in gun violence over the past two decades seem to call into question the need for new, stricter regulations. Americans have been improving control over their many, many guns without it.

Pew reports:

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

The Department of Justice recently reported similar stats. Gun-rights advocates are crowing. Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review says that the Pew and DOJ reports make "embarrassing reading for those who spend their time trying to make it appear as if America is in the middle of a gun-crime wave". Mr Cooke adds: "And those screaming '. . .but Sandy Hook!' will no doubt be pleased to know that school shootings, too, are down 33 percent since 1993".

This is all most excellent news, though I would resist the impulse to think that these welcome trends will somehow vitiate the felt need for further gun control.

The decline in gun violence is consistent with a truly amazing general decline of violence, a subject recently explored in Steven Pinker's fascinating book, "The Better Angels of our Nature". This trend defies easy explanation. Mr Pinker speculates that we have become more pacific through the gradual cultural refinement of rational capacities that have guided us away from ancient strategies of violence. One of my own pet hypotheses is that human life becomes literally more valuable to the living as we become wealthier and longer-lived. Wealthier lives have, other things equal, a better experiential texture. And as life expectancy increases, early death steals more years. So we become less likely to feel that life is disposable or cheap, and more likely to see intolerably profound loss in premature death.

Insofar as guns are seen as dangerous tools for killing, it makes sense that they would become increasingly odious to increasingly peaceful sensibilities. (And insofar as guns are seen as necessary tools of public safety and self-defence, gun control itself may seem increasingly dangerous. One's side in this debate perhaps depends more than anything on a judgment about the greater source of peril.) New demand for gun control may reflect the same shift in sensibility that has already made us less likely to use guns for violent ends. When the felt value of life increases, a small death toll can add up to a large sense of loss, and a large death toll can add up to an incomprehensible enormity. How many good hours of life were robbed from the children at Sandy Hook Elementary? Perhaps it's callous to the past to imagine that each individual life seems more valuable to us today than it did to our forebears a century ago. Still, I suspect it does. In which case, an almost-50% decrease in gun homicide may not represent quite as much progress as it at first appears. Would the 1993 rate of gun violence seem twice as intolerable today? Who knows? What I do know is that our sense of peril, our sense of what's at risk, does not track crime statistics in any simple way.

The twist in the Pew study is that Americans appear quite ignorant of these happy developments. Indeed, most Americans believe falsely that gun violence has increased. "Despite the attention to gun violence in recent months", the authors of the Pew study write, "most Americans are unaware that gun crime is markedly lower than it was two decades ago." This has some conservatives complaining of liberal "media bias", and there's probably some of that, though selection bias of the "if it bleeds, it leads" variety, and the centrality of gun violence to pop entertainments, probably has more to do with it. I'd add that the psycho-social dynamic I describe—our growing estimate of life's preciousness—might have something to do with it, too. Perhaps the salience of gun crime has increased for the same reason the danger of allowing children to walk to school alone, or to ride bicycles without shoes or helmets, has also increased in salience. Parents don't love their children any more then they used to, but they feel, probably correctly, that children now have more to lose.

In any case, general ignorance of the fall in gun violence ought to cut both ways. Once we understand how much safer we have really become, the felt need to own a gun in order to defend against guns ought to recede. Right?

(Photo credit: AFP)

09 May 23:52

A brewing fight

by The Economist | WASHINGTON, DC

EARLIER this year, when a lawsuit accused Anheuser-Busch of selling watered-down beer, it caused only a minor buzz. America’s biggest breweries have long produced flavourless tipples. And anyway, those seeking a more robust brew have plenty of options. Today’s beer market increasingly resembles that of the pre-Prohibition era, when smaller, regional breweries dotted the map. Such is the demand for good-tasting beer that, on average, more than one new brewery opened every day last year.

Small and independent breweries have thrived during the recession and its aftermath, taking market share away from traditional brands like Budweiser and Miller Lite. According to Beer Marketer’s Insights, a trade publication, craft beer has grown over 13% by volume in each of the past three years. America’s two biggest brewers, Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, still account for around three-quarters of the domestic market, to craft’s 6.7%. But even they have noticed the change in consumer tastes. Whereas sales of their big brands have dropped off, gains have been made by offerings derisively called “crafty beer”, which look and taste like craft brews.

This has led to some debate over what constitutes a craft beer and an intra-industry squabble over taxes. The Brewers Association promotes the interests of “small, independent, and traditional” brewers that produce up to 6m barrels of beer a year. The largest craft brewer under this definition is the Boston Beer Company, maker of Samuel Adams, which produced over 2m barrels last year. That number also happens to be the cut-off for favourable treatment by the government, which gives small brewers a break on the federal excise tax.

As the craft-beer industry grows, the Brewers Association thinks more of its members will join Boston Beer on the wrong side of the tax code. So it is pushing Congress to pass a bill that would raise the excise-tax bar to 6m barrels a year. In March hundreds of small-brewery owners took their case to Congress. But the Beer Institute, which represents big and small brewers alike, unsurprisingly favours a different bill that would cut the excise tax for the whole industry.

Opponents of slashing the excise tax, which has not been adjusted since 1991, note that inflation has already reduced its potency. Moreover, some see higher alcohol taxes as a way to increase revenues. But others are sympathetic to the Beer Institute’s claim that taxes have become the most expensive ingredient of beer. Hence, perhaps, the bitter taste of some brews.

09 May 23:52

warp level

Russian Sledges

I could never get there

Today on Married To The Sea: warp level
09 May 23:51

Yes, Of Course It Was Jihad, Ctd

by Andrew Sullivan

A reader draws the thread to a dissenting close:

It seems to me that Tamerlan is the Lee Harvey Oswald of our time. Was Oswald motivated by communism? Maybe. But more likely he was motivated by a sense of restlessness, a feeling that he was a Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Boxing Picturesgreat man who couldn’t quite get his shit together. Both he and Tamerlan were frustrated by professional failure. Both went overseas looking for something. Both had strikingly similar domestic situations. Is it a coincidence that Tamerlan, Oswald, Czolgosz and Booth — and even Timothy McVeigh — were all about the same age?

Never mind the conspiracy theories, Oswald was a lone wolf. And so was Tamerlan (plus his kid brother). Had he been a secret agent, an al Qaeda plant and part of a larger terror network like the 9/11 terrorists, that would be something. But the actions of men like this don’t really deserve political or ideological scrutiny. Their actions are just sad, all-too-familiar human tragedies.

Is radical Islam more violent than communism or anarchism or white racism? Hardly. For guys like Tamerlan, ideology is just something to wear in a cold world.

So is theology.

(Photo: Getty Images.)


09 May 23:22

Performance Architecture: 10 Dramatic Opera Sets & Stages

by Steph
[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Amazing Opera Stages Main

Magnificent, surreal stages rise from the depths of Austria’s Lake Constance, rotating, glowing, rising and falling in time with the plots of famed operas, plays and musicals. Unparalleled in their scale and complexity, these stages are built every two years for the Bregenz Opera Festival, which began in 1946. With each season that passes, the sets get even more impressive. Here are 10 standouts.

Andre Chenier

Amazing Opera Stages Andre Chenier

AMazing Opera Stages Andrew Chenier 2

Amazing Opera Stages Andre Chenier 3

Looking like the remains of some fallen civilization, a statue emerges from the lake, its head draped. Then the fabric begins to fall away, revealing a set of stairs that lead right up to the figure’s eye. This interactive set for Andre Chenier, an opera set during the French Revolution, grows even more amazing as the night goes on: the neck of the statue is severed, the head falling back to reveal an additional set.

A Masked Ball

Amazing Opera Stages A Masked Ball

Amazing Opera Stages A Masked Ball 2

A massive skeleton looms over an open book as the scene for A Masked Ball, an opera by Guiseppe Verde. One of the Bregenz Festival’s most iconic sets, this one from 1999 is fairly simple compared to the amazingly complex ones seen in more recent years.

Tosca

Amazing Opera Stage Tosca

Amazing Opera Stages Tosca 2

Puccini’s Tosca played out against this unforgettable backdrop, which featured a giant eye with an iris that actually rotates to reveal a hidden room. Scenes for the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace were filmed in the front of the building and in the audience while this stage was still active, in 2008.

Next Page:
Performance Architecture 10 Dramatic Opera Sets Stages

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09 May 23:21

Deviates, Inc.: bloomsburyist: I’ve spent most of this week screaming about Mary Frith...

by joanna-molloy
Deviates, Inc.: bloomsburyist: I’ve spent most of this week screaming about Mary Frith...:

bloomsburyist:

image

I’ve spent most of this week screaming about Mary Frith (alias Moll Cut-Purse; 1584-1659), the cross-dressing thief, fence, and pimp who achieved such widespread fame that in 1611, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton made her the subject of their city comedy, The…

09 May 23:19

Edward Green Mercer, Dark Oak

by steven

The Edward Green Mercer is an elegant monk strap the kind of shoe you want to pair with a sharp grey or blue suit. The angled strap and clean forefoot creates an understated refinement that is classic Edward Green.

 

82 Last, Dark Oak Antique, Brass Buckles, Single Leather Soles

09 May 23:07

3 Films by Carl Theodor Dreyer The Passion of Joan of Arc,...

Russian Sledges

yessssss







3 Films by Carl Theodor Dreyer

The Passion of Joan of Arc, Ordet, Vampyr

09 May 23:04

9 Film Frames

09 May 23:04

Legend (1985) - Alternate Versions - IMDb

by russiansledges
There are at least four different versions of this picture: the original European release (94 min.), the American theatrical release (89 min.), a network TV version (94 min.) and a director's cut (113 min.)
09 May 23:04

Princess Monster Truck, A Persian Cat With a Fierce Underbite

by Kimber Streams

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Princess Monster Truck

Princess Monster Truck is a Persian cat with an unusually fierce underbite found by New York City-based artists Joseph Bryce and Tracy Timmins. According to Buzzfeed, they found Monster while walking home from dinner one night and took her in because she was thin, hungry, and “she didn’t look like a survivor.” After taking her to a veterinarian, Joseph and Tracy learned that Monster’s extreme underbite was probably a birth defect rather than an injury or illness. You can see more photos of the glorious Princess Monster Truck on Instagram.

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Tracy Timmins

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Tracy Timmins

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Princess Monster Truck

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Princess Monster Truck

Princess Monster Truck

photo via Princess Monster Truck

via Buzzfeed

09 May 23:03

dearrintheheadlights: this Marketing v. Reality







dearrintheheadlights:

this

Marketing v. Reality

09 May 23:02

How the Syrian Electronic Army Hacked The Onion

by timothy
Nerval's Lobster writes "For comedy publication The Onion, a recent cyber-attack by the Syrian Electronic Army was no laughing matter. The SEA managed to compromise The Onion's Twitter account, plastering it with insults aimed at the United Nations, Israel, and Syrian rebels. 'UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: "Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor,"' read a typical (and perhaps one of the more printable) ones. When the Tweets appeared, some Onion Twitter-followers questioned whether the newspaper was playing some sort of elaborate meta-joke, perhaps riffing on a recent series of high-profile cyber attacks. But the SEA was serious, and so was The Onion about flushing the attackers from its systems. In a new posting on theonion.github.io, the publication's IT crew details exactly what happened. On May 3, attackers from the SEA fired off phishing emails to Onion employees, at least one of whom clicked on a malicious link. From there, the attackers compromised a handful of systems. 'In total, the attacker compromised at least 5 accounts,' the account concluded. 'The attacker logged in to compromised accounts from 46.17.103.125 which is also where the SEA hosts a website.' But following the crisis, The Onion couldn't resist swiping at its attackers. 'Syrian Electronic Army Has a Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Deaths at Hands of Rebels,' read the headline for a May 6 article that described a fictional massacre of the SEA in gruesome detail."

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