Shared posts

16 Sep 20:13

Deception

by Reza
Juliawmartin

omg, yes.

15 Sep 16:16

MIT's Robotic Cheetah Can Now Run And Jump While Untethered

by George Dvorsky

MIT's Robotic Cheetah Can Now Run And Jump While Untethered

Well, we knew it had to happen someday. A DARPA-funded robotic cheetah has been released into the wild, so to speak. A new algorithm developed by MIT researchers now allows their quadruped to run and jump — while untethered — across a field of grass.

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15 Sep 15:39

“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I...

Juliawmartin

I really don't get this.



“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

15 Sep 14:40

Marching Band Transforms Into Giant TV Set And Plays Classic TV Tunes

by Meredith Woerner
Juliawmartin

I'm now obsessed with the ohio state marching band

The Ohio State University marching band performed a glorious, TV-inspired halftime show. The show includes classic tunes such as the theme songs from Batman, The Simpsons, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Game of Thones, MASH, The Lone Ranger and much more. It's just the best.

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13 Sep 15:26

Jason Statham

by ThisIsNotPorn
Juliawmartin

what?

Jason Statham when he was a member of Britains National Diving Squad | Rare and beautiful celebrity photosJason Statham when he was a member of Britain’s National Diving Squad. He finished 12th in the World Championships in 1992.

12 Sep 20:21

Five domestic violence survivor organizations worth your time and money

by Joanna Purpich

You can help Safe Horizon help out domestic violence survivors. via Facebook A recording released earlier this week of Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancee highlights the serious but rarely discussed issue of domestic violence. While our screens separate us from a survivor’s pain, we must remember that domestic violence happens everywhere. Even though abuse often occurs behind closed doors, you can still support survivors by giving time, money or your voice to any one of these life-changing organizations. Safe Horizon: A big swinger that attacks abuse on all fronts by providing physical, emotional, and legal support to survivors. They do everything from changing locks to advocating policy changes. You can donate here  or fundraise with Team Horizon. Center Against Domestic Violence: This group takes to heart the idea that knowledge is power by running educational programs for elementary, middle and high school students. They also run three domestic violence shelters. Get involved… Read More
12 Sep 18:31

Junk Press squeezes useless junk mail into handy bowls & plates

by Kimberley Mok
Juliawmartin

WANT!

This press will have you actually keeping your junk mail as a convenient source of raw material for making new, useful things.
12 Sep 18:15

In Which We Take Anyone Who Speaks Our Language

by Durga
Juliawmartin

I got to this line of the review "You want something to fall from the sky into your lap, like a plotline, or perhaps a conflict, or maybe a free pizza. You want somebody to come up to you and speak in English and lead you to your bed, where you will be able to dream of jokes that are actually funny and dialogue that actually sounds like people speaking to one another."
and decided it was a must share.

Good Americans

by KARA VANDERBIJL

The Cosmopolitans
creator Whit Stillman

Aubrey (Carrie MacLemore) is having a rough day. Her bedheaded French boyfriend, for whom she recently left Alabama to live in Paris, has banished her to the maid’s quarters. When he tells her that she can’t use the kitchen in his place anymore, either, she straps on a pair of heels and trudges along the Seine.

But that’s not the worst of it, because Aubrey is about to sit down at a sidewalk cafe with the only people in Paris who are more deplorable than her boyfriend: Hal (Jordan Rountree) and Jimmy (Adam Brody), fellow American expats who lounge around, complaining about French women.

And that’s about all there is to say about The Cosmopolitans. Oscar Wilde once said that good Americans go to Paris when they die, but according to Stillman, you’ve just got to be bored. Paris is the bright pair of shoes or the clever joke you bring to a party to differentiate yourself from everybody else, a word that means nothing anymore except for culture, pleasure, and wealth.

Hal, Jimmy and Aubrey have come to Paris in search of friendship and romance, which, even after watching the pilot, is still the only thing we know about any of them. They have no jobs, no roots, no ambitions: they flit from cafe to house party, glass of wine in hand, seemingly directionless.

Watching them is a little bit like trying to find your way around a foreign city at night when you’ve just spent the past twenty hours on an airplane, not sleeping. You want something to fall from the sky into your lap, like a plotline, or perhaps a conflict, or maybe a free pizza. You want somebody to come up to you and speak in English and lead you to your bed, where you will be able to dream of jokes that are actually funny and dialogue that actually sounds like people speaking to one another.

Expatriatism is all about imagination. We wouldn’t travel at all if visiting other lands didn’t mean exploring the alternate facets of our own personalities. Immature travelers spend most of their time differentiating their new experiences from ones they’re familiar with, asking, “Why isn’t this like what I’m used to?” These people are incapable of imagining the world, or themselves, differently. Seasoned expatriates create a third culture in which aspects of both their native surroundings and their new ones are integrated.

Aubrey, the token fish-out-of-water, is meant to lure us into Hal, Jimmy and Sandro’s territory, the third culture that they’ve created. Normally it’d be hard to believe that a woman on her own in a foreign country would comfortably sit with three strange guys at a sidewalk cafe. These things seem to happen naturally when you’re abroad: it’s like your ears have been fine-tuned to hear your language from hundreds of yards away, that you’ve been outfitted with an internal GPS that leads you to others like yourself.

Still, it’s Aubrey’s willingness to hang out with them that propels The Cosmopolitans into the far reaches of fantasy. Within a few minutes, Hal, Jimmy, and Sandro insult her drink order (sangria) and launch a smear campaign against Hal’s ex, Clemence, who, for all intents and purposes, seemed like a pretty decent person, just not into weird entitled creeps like Hal who are only capable of one facial expression.

Aubrey can’t see these red flags because she’s still convinced that her bedhead boyfriend wants to be with her. Perhaps she believes she’s living inside Beauty and the Beast.

It’s a pity because Adam Brody, of The O.C. fame, is genuinely funny, and he brings his open Seth Cohen face to this role. Unfortunately, this only serves to make the other characters, especially Hal, look like stock photography someone from Yale might use in an admissions brochure.

Of course, one might concede that in a foreign country, when you’ve just been dumped by your beast of a boyfriend and you’re all alone, you’ll take anyone who speaks your language or shows a sign of friendliness. In which case I’d like to tell Aubrey and anybody else considering this as a new fall show: stick to singing candlesticks and talking clocks. The Cosmopolitans may look good, but really, it’s positively primeval. Plus, Gilmore Girls just landed on Netflix.

Kara VanderBijl is the managing editor of This Recording.

"Hard To Love" - The Drums (mp3)

"If He Likes It Let Him Do It" - The Drums (mp3)


12 Sep 16:47

Chris Pratt

by ThisIsNotPorn
Juliawmartin

omg wot?

Chris Pratts first headshot circa 2000 | Rare and beautiful celebrity photosChris Pratt’s first headshot, circa 2000.

12 Sep 12:58

Dear Photograph,We took the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty...

Juliawmartin

um, holy shit.



Dear Photograph,
We took the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and missed visiting the twin towers. The next day (Note the timestamp on the original photo) will be forever etched in our hearts, as we drove further and further away, watching the skys unfold with so much heartache. Freedom… that word has never meant so much to us.
Love to the families, -Stephanie

11 Sep 21:29

The Week In Pop: So, What Else Does “All About That Bass” Singer Meghan Trainor Have To Offer?

by Stereogum
Juliawmartin

catchy as hell

“All About That Bass” is a great song. It is not a cool song, but hopefully by now we all realize cool is not the same thing as great. Meghan Trainor’s breakout single, which celebrates the sex appeal of larger women, is also not quite as smart or important as Trainor thinks it is — but again, neither of those are prerequisites for greatness. That bass, as it were, is a big part of the tune’s appeal, so effectively does it pivot across the beat and groove against the syncopated handclaps. As demonstrated in Trainor’s unfortunately trebly Tonight Show performance, the low end is, appropriately, what holds the rest of the song together. Still, there’s more to like about it, not least of which is the pleasant swagger in Trainor’s deadpan delivery, a playfulness that also manifests itself in the tuneful wordless ad-libs that dot the outro. Purposeful details like the “Sexyback” reference and the pitched-down, echoing “bass, bass, bass” at the end of the chorus mark the song as a smart modern update on the doo-wop hits that were its obvious inspiration. And the video, for all its foibles, is both cute and effective. As a pop song designed to infect your consciousness and delight the masses, it’s great. You will dance to it at weddings, and you will love it.

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11 Sep 18:44

Watch Janelle Monáe Sing On Sesame Street

by Stereogum
Juliawmartin

yes please

Back in January, Billboard went behind the scenes of Sesame Street while Janelle Monaé was filming a guest spot, and the episode she was set to appear in has finally aired. She sang a song called “The Power Of Yet” that’s all about learning from your mistakes and trying again. Feist and Tilly And The Wall have also made appearances on the show, and Cookie Monster did a memorable version of Icona Pop’s “I Love It” last year. Watch below.

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11 Sep 18:28

The Foods That Are Popular In Each State -- And Only In That State

by Ria Misra
Juliawmartin

prunes! way to go NY

The Foods That Are Popular In Each State -- And Only In That State

Sampling the different regional delicacies and ingredients available is one of the delights of traveling far away. But just crossing state lines can be enough to change up what shows up on your plate, as this map of the most distinctive foods in every state reveals.

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11 Sep 14:44

"-Wait, are you a Fresh Prince connoisseur? -Well, I try to be."

Juliawmartin

this is one of my favorite things that harith has ever said.

“-Wait, are you a Fresh Prince connoisseur?
-Well, I try to be.”

- Nate and Harith
11 Sep 12:46

“Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in...

Juliawmartin

this quote is a solid example of why I've never read this book. CLOSE TO THE BONE



“Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in their stride, just as they took the larger absurdities of deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs. Economic circumstances might force you to live in this environment, but the important thing was to keep from being contaminated. The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

10 Sep 19:02

Burrito Bracket, Questioned: Earlier today, FiveThirtyEight concluded its ongoing...

by Erin DeJesus
Juliawmartin

I've been to La Taqueria, though did not have a burrito. The tacos I had moved me to tears, seriously. it was so fucking good. Those of you who follow me on instagram know that I posted a rare food pic of it. SO FUCKING GOOD>

la-taqueria-best-burrito-600.jpgEarlier today, FiveThirtyEight concluded its ongoing quest for America's Best Burrito, crowning San Francisco's La Taqueria the burrito bracket winner. In response, Vox offers its counterpoint as to way the choice is "fatally flawed," arguing "the best burrito is the burrito you actually want to have in real life, a burrito that is both tasty and available. In other words, a Chipotle burrito." [FiveThirtyEight; Vox] [Photo: Facebook]

10 Sep 18:41

London's Best Cocktail Bars App: An iOS discovery tool featuring the top places for mixed drinks in the ever-evolving city

by David Graver
Juliawmartin

flagged for future relevance

London's Best Cocktail Bars App
Discovery-based apps aren't just for tourists. Case in point: the new iOS application London's Best Cocktail Bars. Fit for any appreciator of mixed drinks in the city of London, the...
Continue Reading...
10 Sep 18:13

Dreams and Fears

by Reza
Juliawmartin

hahahahahahahahaha.

dreams-and-fears

09 Sep 18:10

Why would people hang their babies out the windows in cages?

by Lloyd Alter
Juliawmartin

I was just talking to someone about this and getting it for their cat.

They were taught that their children needed fresh cool air in order to thrive. It would be pretty healthy for their carbon footprint too.
09 Sep 18:01

Old Timers: Junior's, a Brooklyn Mainstay, Is Not Moving After All

by Khushbu Shah
Juliawmartin

wooooooooooooooooo

juniors-not-moving-from-brooklyn.jpg
[Photo: Junior's/Facebook]

Millions of dollars isn't quite enough to convince restaurateur Alan Rosen to move the original location of his legendary Brooklyn restaurant Junior's. According to Eater NY, Rosen was given several offers on the space, including one for $45 million or $450 a square foot. Initially, Rosen was going to allow developers to build atop the restaurant and "open a temporary outpost during construction," but some of the contracts would not have let the restaurant return to its original location.

Even though the offers were some of the highest Brooklyn has seen for a space, sentimentality trumped a plush pay day: Rosen, whose family has owned Junior's since 1950, tells the New York Times that the restaurant "has such a heritage and such a tradition for so many people here in Brooklyn, that it just can't be replaced."

· Junior's Won't Sell Its Original Brooklyn Location [Eater NY]
· Legendary Restaurant Is to Stay in Brooklyn [NYT]
· All Brooklyn Coverage on Eater [-E-]

09 Sep 17:03

Floating Neighborhood for NYC: How to Hover a Whole Megablock

by Steph
Juliawmartin

interesting

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

NYC Floating Skyscraper 1

How do you fit an entire new neighborhood for 65,000 people, complete with offices, schools and streets, into the already congested and overdeveloped island of Manhattan without knocking anything down? Hover it. That’s the plan for Hudson Yards, the largest private development project in U.S. history, which will be erected on a super-strong platform over an existing active rail yard between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.

construction gif

construction hudson yards

The whole massive, incredibly heavy thing will barely touch the ground, resting on 300 concrete-sleeved steel caissons inserted 40-80 feet into the bedrock. Borrowed from bridge-building techniques, these supports will hold up a slab that will serve as the foundation of six skyscrapers, 100 shops, 20 restaurants, a school and 14 acres of parks.

NYC Floating Skyscraper 3

NYC Floating Skyscraper 2

The 26-acre West Side Yard over which this development will be built is a critical part of New York City’s transit system, serving overflow Long Island Railroad trains during rush hour with 30 tracks and space for storage and maintenance. Luckily, its original developers in the 1980s realized that one day the space would be prime for redevelopment, and left a gap around the edges of the yard just big enough for structural members to be installed without interrupting traffic.

NYC Floating Skyscraper 4

Since the trains will still be active while Hudson Yards is under construction, actually getting everything into the ground will be a bit of a challenge. The builders plan to sink the caissons in sections and then attach them to 100-foot trusses whenever there’s a window of opportunity in between moving trains.

NYC Floating Skyscraper 5

Gizmodo got an early look at the plans and has a series of mesmerizing gif images of exactly how everything will come together. It’s an interesting example of developers finding space for something new in a bustling metropolis without disturbing existing functionality, and even arguably improving a lot that many find an eyesore. The final phase of the city’s High Line park, set to open later in 2014, will connect directly to Hudson Yards, which should be complete by 2024.


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[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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09 Sep 13:08

How-To: Knit a Cable without a Cable Needle

by Haley Pierson-Cox
Juliawmartin

I have never mastered the art of the cable, but this seems like it might help.

lionbrand_knit_cables_01Have a cable in your knitting pattern, but no cable needle in your stash? Don't panic!

Read more on MAKE

08 Sep 18:13

Brooklyn Public Library has money, is hiring librarians and other staff

by David Colon
Juliawmartin

well blow me over.


This could be you! The librarian, not the kids. via Facebook Hey, have you heard the good news? The library has more money in their budget than they had last year, according to a very excited press release. What it means for you is extended hours and more libraries open on weekends, if you’re the type of person who wants to hang out in the library on weekends. Having money though also means that the library is doing a bunch of hiring. Want to be a librarian? Want to be handle the library’s social media? Want to be a custodian? Well today is your lucky day, bub. Proving that if you give them $2.8 million, the Brooklyn Public Library will spend it, the library is hiring about 25 to 30 staff positions, according to a library representative, with all of the jobs available listed on their website. While you might be a… Read More
08 Sep 17:28

All day. Every day.

Juliawmartin

SCIENCE!





















All day. Every day.

08 Sep 16:49

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Billy Wilder

by ThisIsNotPorn
Juliawmartin

The Apartment is one of my top ten all time favorite movies.

Jack Lemmon Shirley MacLaine and Billy Wilder having lunch during the filming of The Apartment | Rare and beautiful celebrity photosJack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Billy Wilder having lunch during the filming of The Apartment.

08 Sep 16:01

My book, The Internet Police, now out in snazzy paperback edition

by Nate Anderson
Juliawmartin

I still want to read this.

I'd like to thank Ars readers for making last year's publication of my first book, The Internet Police, a hugely rewarding experience. You bought copies, sent me encouraging e-mails, and even supported my oldest daughter's quest to become a professional bookmark designer. Related opportunities, such as appearing on NPR's Fresh Air and getting a one-page review in the New York Times, might well be once in a lifetime events, and I savored them.

But now, the most exciting moment in my book's journey from brain to page has arrived: it is available in paperback (direct Amazon link). Bright yellow paperback. And I think it looks terrific.

The Internet Police opens in the 1990s and early 2000s, when legislators, spooks, and police believed that the Internet was a "borderless," chaotic place in which the forces of order were at risk of losing all control. It chronicles the decade-long shift to the far more bordered, intensely surveilled Internet we have today, one in which the 'Net is often a cop's best friend. The book is packed with in-depth stories that show how online investigations work (and sometimes how they don't), including: the Cleveland man whose “natural male enhancement” pill inadvertently protected the privacy of your e-mail; the Russian spam king who ended up in a Milwaukee jail; and the Australian arrest that ultimately led to the breakup of the largest child pornography ring in the United States.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

08 Sep 14:42

Bill Murray On His Personal Philosophy

by Robbie Gonzalez
Juliawmartin

"You can do the very best you can when you're very, very relaxed, no matter what it is or what your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are." I feel this way too.

Bill Murray On His Personal Philosophy

Bill Murray showed up after a screening of Ghostbusters in Toronto yesterday, where he spent the better part of an hour answering questions from fans. His best answer was in response to a question about his penchant for weird, unannounced hangouts (crashing the above couple's engagement photoshoot , for instance).

Read more...








08 Sep 13:14

Scientists agree that BPA is an "ovarian toxicant"

by Katherine Martinko
Juliawmartin

well fuck.

Studies of humans, mice, monkeys, and sheep all point to the same scary conclusion -- that BPA wreaks havoc on the female reproductive system.
08 Sep 13:08

Guerrilla Kindness: Add-Ons Make Cities More Convenient

by Steph
Juliawmartin

I always like stuff like this.

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

Hacktion 1

Three designers sneak around Paris, quickly installing brightly-colored machine-fabricated objects onto public chairs, phones, vending machines and other urban surfaces to make them more convenient to city residents. They call it ‘Fabrique-Hacktion,’ taking extra steps beyond what city officials are willing to fund with tax dollars to create a more comfortable and welcoming place to live.

Hacktion 2

Hacktion 3

Little slides shoot coins out of the receptacles in vending machines to make them easier to retrieve. Coat hooks hang helpfully from rock walls near bus stops. Tension bands hold newspapers against the wall of the subway, offering them to each new rider in turn.

Hacktion 5 Hacktion 4

Highly recognizable in bright shades of orange, blue and green, these thoughtful conveniences even go so far as hand-crank phone chargers and reflectors on top of the red and green lights of metro ticketing machines so users can tell from far away which machines are working and which aren’t.

Hacktion 6

Hacktion 7

Beyond just installing these items themselves, the designers offer up an explanatory video, manual and all construction plans and files for download on their website so anyone can take the project to their own city.


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[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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05 Sep 20:54

crownedrose: Today is so exciting for a ton of fellow...

Juliawmartin

this is the dinosaur we've been waiting for.



crownedrose:

Today is so exciting for a ton of fellow palaeontologists, students, researchers, and myself… Dreadnoughtus has finally been published!

The video above gives you guys a bit of history to where this titanosaur was discovered back in 2005. Almost ten years later and it’s finally gone public! With a name like Dreadnoughtus, it’s hard not to want to run around saying its awesome name.

These fossils spent a lot of time being excavated out of the matrix they were found in; around 4 years with multiple labs working tirelessly to clean and repair them. We had to get it done at least in some sort of quick time, right? With such a huge specimen, a lot of man power is required!

I’m so proud and happy for everyone involved that we can now share this gorgeous dinosaur to the public! It’s MASSIVE. The fossils are just mind blowing to look at, and now we continue to move forward with its preservation, education, and further research. It’ll be going back to Argentina next year.

You can read the article about Dreadnoughtus here on Drexel University’s website, and the scientific paper on Nature.com (which some super awesome people I know worked on).

Behold, the behemoth!

Meet the new (and aptly named) dinosaur species Dreadnoughtus, the most complete fossil of a massive sauropod ever unearthed, a creature so large and formidable that it was essentially invincible to the predators of its time, a dinosaur likely heavier than a 12-pack of bull elephants (and well heftier than a Boeing 737), a titan whose femur stood as high as me (and I’m no shrimp).

Scientists aren’t ready to say that this was the largest land animal EVAR, but it’s definitely the most massive creature that we have good data for. The completeness of this skeleton is simply remarkable!  Paleontologists rarely find this many bones from the same single specimen. Some other sauropods may have in fact been more massive than Dreadnoughtus, but those bigger estimates are based on just a handful of bones. Well, not a handful, more like a truckful, but you get the idea. 

When you’re done with the video above, head on over to National Geographic to read Brian Switek’s great summary of the news. Just imagine, if we’re still uncovering new species like this giant after centuries of sifting through the upper crust of Earth, imagine what else lies undiscovered…

Keep digging!