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Link: the artist is Eric Brunning of Vancouver's Adorned (via JWZ)

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Happy New Year !    [ video ]

When earnest theater child Anne Hathaway won her Oscar in 2012, it represented one of the ugliest days in American pop culture. In the months leading up to the awards show, the vitriol against her snowballed to the point where her detractors were given their own name, "Hathahaters." And piece after piece after piece was written about how much people hated the actress, ostensibly fueling the beast to the point where the only conversation about Hathaway being had was about hating her.

The focus of this collective vitriol on one person was decidedly odd.

After that day, Hathaway all but disappeared from the spotlight before popping up this year in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. The hate that consumed a nation in 2012 has fallen off, but that doesn't mean it was silly or inconsequential. As Hathaway told The New York Times in an interview, being on the receiving end of that kind of loathing changes you, and you find out what you're made of. She explained the lesson we can all take from what she went through:

There was a strong, negative reaction after you won your Oscar. In a recent interview for Elle U.K., you said, "As with anything difficult, eventually its purpose revealed itself, and I found it ultimately very liberating." What was its purpose?

Self-acceptance. If you’re not someone who has a natural and effortless love for yourself, it’s hard to let go of your desire to please other people, and that’s really not an ingredient for a happy life.

What do you suppose was behind all the vitriol?

Oh, I think you can’t answer that and be a self-respecting person.

California just broke ground on the nation’s first high-speed rail system, ushering in a new era of efficient, eco-friendly transportation! The railway will enable riders to travel faster than a Ferrari once it’s completed: at 220 miles an hour, a passenger will be able to travel from northern to southern California in just three hours. The first segment is being built in Fresno, and by 2029 the system will run from San Francisco to Los Angeles. After that, the system will continue to Sacramento and San Diego, adding 24 stops to the rail.

Read the rest of California just broke ground on the United States’ first high-speed rail!

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Post tags: american high speed rail, California, california high speed rail, california high speed rail authority, california high speed railway authority, california high speed train, Diana Gomez, eco-travel, high speed rail, high-speed rail authority, high-speed rail California, highspeed rail, Kathy Omachi, rail, railway systems, upgraded railway systems

Mac Sabbath is a Black Sabbath cover band that plays the original band's tunes, but with the words changed to relate to McDonald's. There's a video of a live performance of 'Frying Pan' (Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man') after the jump, and I kept waiting for Ronald to grab that Fry Kid and bite its head off, but it never happened. Seriously? I'd be pissed if the cover was over $5. That said, I'd still let evil Grimace sign my chest with a McRib. Keep going for the performance.

Seen here performing two simultaneous ghost handjobs, this is a short video of everyone's favorite hotel owner Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) explaining why stupid people are too stupid to know they're stupid. Apparently you actually have to have a little intelligence to know you're stupid. I, for one, am smart enough to know how dumb I am, and I'm okay with that. I'm still smarter than all my friends. Keep going for the video.

by Sean Orr | Shit is getting cray: Vancouver police end 2014 with a record number of arrests under the Mental Health Act – which poses the question, are incidents of mental health duress increasing, or just arrests under the Act?

“The answer for someone suffering a mental-health crisis is not a cop with a gun.” But what if the cop with a gun is the one suffering the mental health crisis? Potential Vancouver Police Department Suicide Covered Up by Local Media.

The Simi Sara Show w/Michael Smyth – Wed Dec 31 – Should Transit Cops Have Guns? Nope. Wow, that was easy. Next question!

Why we can’t have nice things: Reminder: Vancouver’s planned NYE celebration cancelled. Cancel Vancouver! This one’s on you, Jim Pattison, Peter Wall, Ryan Holmes, Francesco Aquilini, Bob Gagliardi, Chip Wilson, Brandt Louie, Hassan Khosrowshahi, Caleb Chan, Gary Charlwood, and the Laljis.

I’ll give Thomas Kwok a pass: Billionaire owner of Vancouver’s Aspac Developments gets five years in jail.

Now this is one year-end list I can get behind: Canada drops out of top 10 most developed countries list. Congo be all like “started at the bottom now we here…”

Best first line in an article: “Sometimes I meet people in the real world and they suggest that they vote Conservative and I become really confused”. Best of Canadian Politics – 2014.

Don’t forget about the missing 3.1 billion dollars: Where the heck’s that $3.1-billion? Where’s the fury?

Mis-play of the year: How to saber Champagne…or not.

Craigslist of the year: Model wanted as girlfriend. “Must not be shallow, must look good in bikini and be attracted to aging rockers and back of the bus types. No money but lots of sex, laughs and adventure…”

Bonus: Vancouver Art in the Sixties: Urban Renewal: Ghost Traps, Collage, Condos, and Squats.

The post TEA & TWO SLICES | On Policing The Mentally Ill And Sending Crooked Developers To Prison appeared first on Scout Magazine.

Previously: Harry Potter and Star Wars versions. Go HERE to take a 72-question test to determine your personality type. This is a Myers-Briggs personality chart (larger version HERE, full-res version as well as Doctor Who, Avengers, The Walking Dead, Firefly, Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer charts available at the source HERE) featuring a bunch of characters from The Hobbit. Which one are you? I can never remember what personality type I am, so I just pick whatever character I want to be and say I'm that. In this case, I'm ENTP for Bard the Visionary, because his hair looks the best. Thanks to David, who encourages you all to be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Google has revealed the first functional prototype of its new self-driving car, following the debut of the “early mockup” this last May. The shape of the Google’s self-driving car hasn’t changed that much over the last few months, but Google says that the latest prototype now has all of the parts that it needs to drive on the road.

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Post tags: autonomous car, Google, google autonomous car, google car, Google car prototype, Google driverless car, Google self drive car concept, google self-driving car, green car, green transportation, self-driving car

New York City-based designer J. S. Nero created the WiVes’ Table, a versatile coffee table that can be set up in a variety of different styles. The designer heat-bent an equilateral steel triangle into a sturdy three-point, origami-like base. The folded metal base can be used as a table on its own or it can be paired with a slab of wood for greater surface area and a different look. Currently, the line is available in raw steel, custom patina, semi-gloss white, and high-gloss yellow powder coats.

+ J. S. Nero

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: "green furniture", coffee table, furniture design, J. S. Nero, metal base, reader submitted content, Wives Tables

If you've got an extra tab to spare in your browser and a love of graphics or web design, check out this fun online clock that converts the current time into its corresponding six-character color hex code. The site's background also happens to reflect the current color value, and over the day it will slowly shift across 16,777,216 shades.

Read more...

Ninety percent of Americans frequently use electronic devices right before bed. And though it's a fun way to wind down, a new experiment shows that the bright screens are shining sleep problems directly into their eyes.

In the study, participants spent two weeks sleeping in a private hospital room and reading for four hours before bed with either a paper book or an iPad. Those using the iPad reported feeling less sleepy at night and took about 10 minutes longer to fall asleep. They also felt less alert in the morning. And although they didn't sleep less, they spent less sleep in the REM stage, which may have accounted for the morning grogginess (and presumably fewer dreams).

Those using AN iPad took about 10 minutes longer to fall asleep

At night, the iPad users also experienced a 50 percent drop in melatonin — the hormone that makes people feel sleepy. Even more disturbing, their melatonin cycle shifted forward by an hour and a half, essentially creating self-imposed jet lag.

Anne-Marie Chang, a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, is the lead author on the paper, which was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I talked to Chang about the experiment's results and what lessons we can draw from it to sleep better:

Susannah Locke: What did you show about tablets and sleep that’s never been shown before?

Anne-Marie Chang: Other studies had showed that light in the evening affects the way you sleep. What we showed was [what happens] when individuals use a light-emitting device in the hours before bedtime. It takes them longer to fall asleep. They feel more sleepy the following morning. They have less REM sleep. The light suppresses their melatonin, which is the sleep-promoting hormone, by more than 50 percent. And their melatonin rhythm was more than an hour and a half delayed. So that amount is pretty large.

SL: Were you surprised by any of the ill effects you found?

AC: We had an idea of the effects of light in the evening. [But] we were surprised in the results we saw in sleepiness and alertness the following morning. The [participants] didn't have any difference in total sleep duration that would account for that.

SL: If people were getting the same amount of sleep, then what was causing more grogginess in the morning?

AC: It could have something to do with the shortened duration of REM sleep, which occurs [more] in the later part of the night, closer to the morning. Also, the delay that we see in melatonin may be contributing to the effect that we see in the morning. There’s a significant difference in how sleepy they feel until midday.

"we were surprised in the sleepiness the following morning"

SL: Do you know if the problem is the tablet’s brightness or the bluish tint of its light?

AC: We don't know if it was the brightness or the blue light from the devices. It could be the combination contributing to what we saw. We know that bright light will induce some of the same responses that we saw, and bright light will [make] you feel more awake and more alert. If the light is not as bright, but is short-wavelength enriched [more blue], you can see these effects.

SL: Your study may have underestimated these devices’ effects because participants’ bedtimes were strictly enforced. No one was allowed to get sucked into an iPad rabbit hole until 3 am.

AC: In our study, we had a very stable schedule. The study participants read from 6 pm to 10 pm, and they had to stop, and they went to sleep. And they were in the dark sleeping between 10 pm and 6 am each night.

You may see even more profound differences in a real-world setting, where people are then sleeping for less because they’re staying up due to the light from these devices. When you're using a device which makes you feel more alert, chances are you won't be going to bed just because it’s bedtime. [The light masks] the sleepiness that your body may be feeling, but you don't discern that as being sleepy.

SL: Why did you compare the iPad to a paper book rather than to a non-light-emitting device like the original Kindle?

AC: That’s a great question. We wanted to compare the devices with what typically people had been doing, and still a lot of people prefer to read books. Because at the time [2010 and 2011], they were pretty new and not so many people were using these devices. We wanted to just compare what is the typical condition — which I don’t know if that’s changed since then, but at the time was reading printed books.

Presumably reading on a non-light-emitting device would be the same as reading on a book, but we didn’t specifically test that in the study.

SL: What are some other differences between the experiment and the real world?

AC: One caveat is that the e-readers in our study were set to the very brightest level, and a reader at home may dim the light. In this case, reducing the brightness may reduce the magnitude of the response that we found.

"IF YOU HAVE TO USE DEVICES, TURN DOWN THE BRIGHTNESS"

Another limitation is that the hours of reading before bedtime that we used in the study is relatively long. Most people don't read for four hours. But if you total up the number of hours spent on [any] screen before bedtime [in the real world], it will be very comparable to four hours. And it may be a lot more.

SL: What do you think of software like F.lux that makes screens less blue at night?

AC: Technology is moving so quickly, and science really can’t keep pace with the pace of technology and the pace of commerce. So I think it’s great when you have individuals and companies coming up with technologies to modify and improve the devices that we have, based on evidence.

SL: What do you personally do about screen time before bed, both for yourself and for your kids?

AC: Let me start with what I tell my kids. This is the technology that’s popular with kids. More and more children and adolescents are sleeping with them, using them all the time. I think it’s best to avoid any screen time an hour or two before bedtime. Devices get charged outside of the bedroom so that they’re not anywhere inside or near the bedroom.

I tell my friends — I tell myself — if you have to use devices, be on the computer, or check your phone, to turn down the brightness. And I think installing some of these programs that compensate for the color can be helpful.

SL: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

AC: For the vast majority of people, we don't have so much control or wiggle room in the morning as far as when we wake up. But we have presumably a lot more voluntary control over when we go to bed. So if we can deal with issues of light-emitting devices and when we use them — or how can we improve what we have — I think those would be really great goals.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Last year, Tesla announced plans for a new battery swap technology that would give Model S owners the ability to replace their depleted battery with a fully charged one in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank. Tesla is now ready to launch a pilot version of that technology, and it’ll kick off in Harris Ranch, CA.

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Post tags: battery, battery pack, battery swap, battery swap program, battery swapping, electric motor, green car, green transportation, lithium ion battery, model s, Supercharger, tesla, Tesla battery swap, Tesla battery swap program, tesla model-s, Tesla Supercharger Network

Apparently it’s not just human kids who react adorably the first time they play in the snow. Although polar bears live in icy environs, their young are born in relatively warm dens and only experience real snow once they venture out for the first time. This little guy is catching a glimpse of the snowy world around him, and his reactions are just priceless.

Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment

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Post tags: Arctic, arctic ice, arctic pollution, baby bear, baby polar bear, bear cub, bear cubs, Climate Change, endangered, endangered species, habitat loss, polar bear, polar bear cub, polar bear cubs, polar bear endangered, polar bears, sea ice

McDonald’s recently reported that their same-store sales (at stores open at least 13 months) fell a whopping 4.6% month-on-month. That’s coming on the heels of a brutal fall in sales overall since early 2012. Global same-store sales also fell 2.2% month-on-month, suggesting that while the US was particularly hard hit, the backlash against McDonald’s is worldwide. The chain also announced that their fourth-quarter results would be negatively affected by both the fall in sales and a supply issue in China, to the tune of $0.07 to %0.10 per share.

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Post tags: Chipotle, chipotle burrito, chipotle sales figures, fast food, mcdonald's sales figures, mcdonalds

This is a list of the top 100 emojis used on Twitter as of June of this year (well this is the top ten, full list after the jump). Since then, the tears of joy emoji has taken over first place by a long shot. You can see all emoji use on Twitter visualized in real-time at the Emoji Tracker site created by Matthew Rothenberg, which comes with an epilepsy warning on account of lots of flashing colors. I watched it until I felt like I was slipping into the Matrix. Then I slipped out of the Matrix and into my Jacuzzi. Come join me? "Absolutely not." I was only going to use you to bring me some aromatherapy candles anyways. Keep going for the full list.

Video: 13 Dogs and 1 Cat Enjoy a Huge Holiday Feast

thatsfackedahp:

I love this

This is a video chronicling the story of Derby the dog. Derby was born with disfigured front legs and later adopted by Tara Anderson, who happens to be a director at 3D Systems, a global 3-D printing company. So what did she do? Got Derby some 3-D printed prosthetics so he he can walk and run now! I cried. Then I beat myself up for crying. Then I cried because beating myself up hurt a lot. Keep going for your feel good video of the day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did you know that orangutans share 97 percent of our DNA? Like us, they have complex emotions, family bonds, and a love of drawing and music. Rickina is a little orphaned orangutan who’s being cared for at the IAR Ketapang Orangutan Rescue Center in Borneo, after being confiscated from a man who claims that her mother dropped her and ran away when she saw a stranger in the forest. Rickina has a horrible wound on her head that the man says was caused by his machete when he bent down to pick her up, but considering that mother orangutans will fight to the death to protect their young, his story is “suspect”, to say the least. In this video, Rickina is making some new friends, who will hopefully lessen her anxiety at being away from her mother.

Read the rest of VIDEO: Orphaned baby Indonesian orangutan named Rickina

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Post tags: baby orangutan, borneo, help orangutan, indonesia, machete, machete wound, orangutan, orangutan graveyard, orangutan help, orangutan murder, orangutan orphans, orangutan outreach, orangutan rescue, orangutan rickina, orangutan slaughter, orangutan video, orangutans, orphaned orangutan, palm oil, palm oil orangutan, palm oil plantation, Rickina, unethical palm oil, wounded baby orangutan

Nice shoulder-pads, bro. Also, YOU'RE LIGHTING AN EMPTY PIPE. Seen here looking remarkably similar to the pipe mug I invented in ceramics class in high school, this is the PIPEMUG available from Zang. It's a $50 ceramic coffee mug with an "intented-for-tobacco-use-only" pipe in the handle. It's the perfect mug for waking and baking on a rainy Saturday morning. Or, if you're unemployed, for every morning.

The world's only mug with a pipe in it! Don't compromise your comfort by searching for your pipe when relaxing with your favorite drink from your mug, because now the two are one in the same! Feel at ease knowing there's no cross contamination between your smoke and your favorite drink. The PIPEMUG is the only way sip it and rip it!

Well, I think I found my new coffee mug for the office. Plus if anybody tries to steal it I'll call them out for smoking weed at work. But if anybody tries to call me out for smoking weed at work, I'll accuse them of trying to prevent a sick man from taking his medicine. I have a condition. "Escapism?" It's chronic. Keep going for a couple more shots.

This stew made with pork, hominy and spices is so comforting, especially on a cold winter night. And leftovers taste even better the next day. Topped with avocado and a squeeze of lime, it's the perfect balance of flavors and textures.


This recipe is ever so slightly adapted from Martha Stewart's new cookbook, One Pot. When I say ever so slightly, all I did what reduce the amount of oil used. We all loved how it turned out, excellent dish for a chilly night. Her book has everything from slow cooker, pressure cooker, stock pot and skillet recipes that only require one pot – brilliant idea!


Believe it or not, I love my pressure cooker even more than I like my slow cooker. Why? Because it cuts the cooking time in half, especially when making stews that use tough cuts of meat and the pressure cooker makes them very tender, fast. Plus, nothing beats the flavors you get from cooking in the pressure cooker. That being said, I know a lot of people are scared of the pressure cooker. I've been using my stove top Presto for years and never had an issue. I purchased one of those fancy electric ones but have yet to use it, but either one will work.

Could you make this in a pot or Dutch oven? Sure, you will need to add a little more liquid and let it simmer, covered at least 2 hours before adding the Hominy.

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

A 44-year-old Northern White Rhino died on Sunday at the San Diego Zoo safari park. His death means there are only five of the species left in the world. Known as Angalifu, the rhino came to the park from Sudan in 1990. “Angalifu’s death is a tremendous loss to all of us,” safari park curator Randy Rieches said in a statement. “Not only because he was well beloved here at the park but also because his death brings this wonderful species one step closer to extinction.”

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Post tags: Biodiversity, captive breeding program, extinction, hunting, illegal wildlife trade, Northern white rhino, poaching, rhinoceros, rhinos, San Diego Zoo

(via lesseroceans)

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