by Rob DenBleyker

Incredible album at imgur. 

This authentic-looking LEGO sushi bar is the work of Malaysian builder Denil Oh. The attention to detail in every corner of this scene is amazing – and extends right up to the walls! I also like the subtle use of custom stickering to give the cuts of fish an appetizing sheen. Check out tons more delicious close-up images over on Flickr.

[Via Pockyland]

New Horizons

What if New Horizons hits my car?

—Robin Sheat

The New Horizons spacecraft is currently flying past Pluto.[1]Ever since astrophysicist Katie Mack pointed out that "New Horizons" appears in the lyrics to A Whole New World, I've gotten it stuck in my head every time I've seen something about Pluto. For the last few days, it's been giving us our first clear look at the world, and it should be making its closest approach at the moment this article is posted. Either that, or hitting your car, I guess.

It's hard to imagine how that could happen, even if New Horizons had headed to Earth by mistake. Unless there's been an especially strange freeway accident, your car is currently within the Earth's atmosphere. All that air stops spacecraft from flying into the ground at full speed. But maybe you took a wrong turn and ended up near Charon, or maybe you drove into a freak extremely-low-pressure system, leaving no atmosphere above you. It could happen!​[2]It really, really couldn't.

New Horizons is about the size and weight of a grand piano, and is currently screaming along at about 14 kilometers per second. If it hit your car, it would be pretty bad for both vehicles.

How fast is 14 kilometers per second? Here's my favorite comparison for putting that speed in perspective: If you were standing at one end of a football field and fired a gun toward the other end, right while New Horizons flew past you, the spacecraft would reach the far end zone before the bullet made it to the 10-yard line.[3]In that same amount of time, a speeding car would travel about an inch.

This high speed means that by this afternoon, New Horizons will be on its way out of the Pluto system,[4]People often ask why New Horizons is just doing a flyby, and not sticking around to orbit Pluto. The answer is: If you can figure out a way to do that, go for it. Pluto is really far away, and to get a probe there before your career ends, you have to go really fast. When you're going that fast, it's hard to stop. (At least, if you want to stop in one piece.) and over the coming days and weeks it will let us know what it saw today. It can't talk to Earth and take photos at the same time, so right now it's spending all its time taking pictures and gathering data.

Later today, the spacecraft will pause the data-gathering for a moment to send a brief message to Earth. No results—just, "Hey, I'm still alive". If it is still alive, that is. It's flying at terrifying speed through a part of the Solar System we've never visited. There could be, say, a bunch of small rocks there.[5]In case of disaster, New Horizons has sent back a few snapshots and data dumps right before the encounter, so at least we'll have those. Or a car.

New Horizons will send the "I'm okay" message in the afternoon, but it takes light four and a half hours to get back to Earth, so it will get here around 8:53pm Eastern US time—so if you're going to have a Pluto party, that's the time to do it. You can tune in to NASA TV to watch the nervous people in mission control wait for the signal. You'll know it worked if there's lots of cheering and hugging.

For more details on the mission, check out Emily Lakdawalla's comprehensive Planetary Society post, What to expect when you're expecting a flyby, which has dates, times, and background on all the equipment. (For up-to-the-minute coverage, her Twitter feed is probably the best place to go for updates, context, and excitement.)

So what does all this mean for your car?

Passenger cars have "crumple zones," which are areas of the car designed to fold up and absorb some of the force of an impact before it reaches the passenger cabin. Unfortunately, in a hypervelocity impact, materials like metal aren't nearly strong enough to hold together. Instead of crumpling, they splash. New Horizons and your car's crumple zone would splash as bits of them passed through each other, and the resulting spray of metal would do the same to the rest of your car. From a distance, it would probably look approximately like this.

Here's the good news: NASA will have to pay for your car. Under the Convention on the International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Object, NASA and the US government would clearly be on the hook for the damage. And, since you wouldn't be considered at fault in the accident, in most states insurance companies would be legally prohibited from raising your premiums.

The situation would be slightly complicated by the fact that this would be a nuclear accident. New Horizons flies too far from the Sun to use solar panels, so it's powered by the heat from a bunch of lumps of plutonium-238. The container holding the plutonium is sturdy, since it's designed to survive atmospheric reentry (and has done so). However, it's not designed to survive entry into a Chevy. The container and the plutonium inside it would be splattered across the landscape. The US government will not only have to replace your car, it will probably have to replace much of your neighborhood.

This has actually happened before. In 1978, the Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, which carried a nuclear reactor, reentered the atmosphere and disintegrated over Canada. The Canadian government spent millions cleaning up the radioactive debris near Yellowknife. They demanded over $6 million (CAD) from the Soviets for the cleanup, and were eventually paid $3 million.

Hopefully, New Horizons is currently flying past Pluto. But don't worry; if it somehow hits your car instead, the US government will cover things. To find out which one it is—Pluto or your car—tune in to NASA TV.

And watch your driveway.

echochamber.js creates a fake comment form on your site. The clever part: it stores the comment in the user's browser storage, so when they come back later it's still "there." (more…)

Kudos to the whole team for an incredible feat of engineering.  Flyby today.

sandandglass:

Why? With Hannibal Buress s01e01

sexedplus:

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Hovertext: This comic is an allegory for, of course, the 1896 presidential elections.

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Today's News:

I thought it was clear. The case is closed. UCL released their official statement.

But strangely, I’m being bombarded with claims that the statement was ambiguous, that it didn’t say what it seems to say, that I’ve misquoted it. Really? What’s ambiguous about:

Council unanimously supports the decision taken by UCL’s executive to accept the resignation.

and

Council acknowledges that all parties agree that reinstatement would be inappropriate.

I think it’s pretty clear that UCL confirmed that their decision to strip Hunt of an honorary title was a correct one. And I think that all along they’ve been absolutely crystal on their insistence that promoting equality does not involve stereotyping women in science, even as a joke. To now claim that their statement is open to interpretation is just plain weird.

It’s also an example of straightforward denialism to now try to rewrite history. His remarks at the Women’s Science and Technology Associations at the 2015 World Conference of Science Journalists were quoted by multiple sources; he has acknowledged what he said, and that he meant it; the Korean group that invited him asked for an apology, and he gave it; yet somehow, that one source claimed that he said “seriously now” after his stereotyping completely changes the meaning of everything? This is beyond absurd. This is a desperate grasping at straws.

It also ignores the fact that in 2014, he said:

I think people are really good at selecting good scientists but I must admit the inequalities in the outcomes, especially at the higher end, are quite staggering. And I have no idea what the reasons are. One should start asking why women being under-represented in senior positions is such a big problem. Is this actually a bad thing? It is not immediately obvious for me… is this bad for women? Or bad for science? Or bad for society? I don’t know, it clearly upsets people a lot.

Here’s what it all means. It does not mean that Hunt is a terrible scientist (I know his work, it’s important stuff), it does not mean that he has to give his Nobel back or get fired from his real positions. It means that Tim Hunt has not thought very deeply about inequities in science. He questions whether it’s even important. Even after all this criticism, he’s baffled that anyone would find his opinions objectionable, and he’s still not questioning his own privilege.

If an institution is trying to correct those inequities, that makes him a terrible public representative of institutional values, and it is right and honorable to ask him to step aside from those duties and instead do what he does well — research.

But he’s a Brave Hero of Science, so the fanatics will continue to demand that he be treated as infallible and semi-divine, right?

Found at The Land of Maps.  I presume for the purposes of this map, London was not considered part of "Europe."

Tumblr offers its unique insight into the history of the universe… reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog … Continue reading →

Have you visited Pleated Jeans today?

Dear homophobes: my tolerance does not extend to beliefs that hurt and oppress other people. And no, you’re not oppressed. You’re bullies who hate being held accountable.

(Buy a print of this comic)

“A man who wishes to have sex with a woman does not ply her with prescription sedatives, date rape drugs or excess alcohol to get her to say yes. A man like that uses substances to prevent her from saying no, because he doesn’t care if she says yes. A man like that wants a woman incapacitated in order to rape her, not in order to have sex with her – and such men admit as much to researchers.
 
Rapists are rarely the guys in the alley or the burglar in your bedroom: they’re people you know and trust, people you look up to, people with whom you or others might well have consensual sex under different circumstances. They’re people whom you believe implicitly are part of the majority of the population of men who aren’t rapists, people with whom you’d share a drink (or a Pudding Pop). They’re people with rich internal lives and sometimes even money and fame. They’re just also rapists, who rape because they like raping.”

- When drugs are used to coerce sex, it’s rape. Even if you’re Bill Cosby |

stele3:

get-your-ass-in-the-impala:

ofgeography:

actualginnyweasley:

natnovna:

i was 14 and i was walking through a mall by myself at 12am after my shift at coldstone creamery lol and a bunch of men started whistling and meowing and getting really close to me and they kept asking me questions and i kept not answering until i didn’t know what else to do so i said “i’m only 14” and almost in unison they said “we don’t care” i was so fucking scared i didn’t know what to do and they kept talking about how i looked and how my body looked and what they would do i was on the verge of tears i was all alone in a huge mall i knew i couldn’t outrun them all i felt totally hopeless until a maintenance worker came up to all of us with a huge industrial broom in her hand, i thought she was going to yell at all of us for being in the mall after hours bc she probably thought we were all friends but instead she cursed all of them out in spanish, threatened to press a panic button on her belt and then proceeded to walk me to the basement garage and waited with me until my mom got there to pick me up she had a death grip on her cart the whole time and a face of steel she looked so strong and i just kept saying thank you and she kept saying not to thank her because she had to stop them.

that was the moment i realized women were the most important beings on this planet and we have to protect each other bc nobody else is going to, she didn’t even know me, we couldn’t even communicate that well because of the language barrier, she could have lost her job for waiting with me in the parking lot but she looked out for me when she didn’t have to, she had nothing to gain from it, i’m 21 now and i tell everyone this story even though it happened 7 years ago, what she did that night helped me form and shape lot of my beliefs early on. 

i was at a grocery store really late one night and some old guy kind of eyed me as i walked out of the store next to this other lady. She and I made eye contact and i knew she was scared too. we loaded up our groceries into our cars as fast as possible and I had way more bags than her so she got done faster than me. I panicked because i was sure she was going to leave so i just hurried faster, shaking a little, and then i noticed she sat in her car, watching me and making sure nobody came near. She waited not until all my groceries were loaded, or until my cart was put away, or until I got into my car. No, she didn’t drive away until I drove away. 

And that was the moment that I realized how much women need other women. That we can’t win this war without each other and we have to be looking out for each other, every second. 

my last year in new york city, i got off the subway around 9 or 10p.m. i only lived about 5 blocks from the f train, but i hadn’t gotten more than two before a woman’s hand suddenly touched my arm. 

“that guy behind us is following you,” she said. “he was watching you leave the train car and followed you up.”

i hadn’t noticed him, or at least not noticed him following me. when we stopped outside a grocery store, he stopped half a block back and loitered. the woman linked her arm with mine and walked me several blocks out of her way to my front door and made sure i got inside safely.

another time, nocigar and i were walking home and at a stoplight a stranger grabbed my arm when i wouldn’t respond to him and tried to physically drag me over to him. she—who is, by the way, not a very physically imposing girl—ripped his hand off my arm and snarled, “don’t fucking touch her.”

protect your friends. protect strangers. there are good men in the world, but don’t wait for them to do something if you can do it yourself.

I was at a club once and my friend left with her boyfriend so I finished my drink and was heading out to the parking lot when three girls came up to me and basically surrounded me. 

“Those guys behind us were talking about following you. We can walk with you.” 

I have MMA training but have never in my life had been offered the protection and sanction of my own gender. This is so important. 

GIRL CODE. FUCKIN’ GIRL CODE. LEAVE NO GIRL BEHIND. EVER.

César Soares built a series of vignettes depicting various rooms of a stylish apartment. The presentation of the vignettes by stacksing the rooms creates an illusion of the tight quarters of an actual apartment.

[source]

The push-back against equality is now trying to rewrite history and retroactively rehabilitate Bora Zivkovic. In a terrible article that ignores all the facts and instead throws around sexist terms (“witch hunt”, “bitches”, “pussies”, “harpies”) utterly oblivious to the fact that they undermine her own argument, we get this ignorant bullshit.

As I noted above, what Bora did in no way met any legal or reasonable standard for sexual harassment — a crew of harpies who accused him just said it did; and all these supposed “skeptics” who make up the science-writing community just piled on.

To recap the incident, Bora was widely recognized as an important gatekeeper to the online science writing community — he knew everyone, was a real activist in building communities and bringing diverse writers together, and was also widely liked. But that all came crashing down when it was discovered that he treated men and women differently, that women were subjected to uncomfortably sexual talk, and that maybe he wasn’t such a great community builder after all, if women were feeling reluctant and betrayed.

There were no legal issues. This was not brought to court. He is not currently in jail. All it was was that he was discovered to be biased in the execution of his work, and therefore wasn’t doing the job he was expected to do — so, like a dishwasher who does a poor job washing dishes, he lost his position as a community manager at Scientific American, and resigned from his position on the board of Science Online. This was right and appropriate — when you lose the trust of a community in a position that is all about the community, of course you should lose that position.

What’s beyond crazy and what’s sick is that we’ve gotten to the point where accusations of sexual harassment are simply believed out of hand. There has been a push from within feminism to never question an (alleged) victim.

Well, the truth is, false accusations are made, and part of a fair investigation is questioning whether there’s validity to an accusation and not simply looking on the calendar to schedule the witch burning for the accused.

This is absurd and dishonest. First, yes, you should believe it when someone testifies to their personal experience, especially when it is not an unusual experience. Our first response to someone saying they were injured in an accident or mugged on the street is not and should not be “No! I think it’s more likely that you made that up!” But we should also verify the story before taking action.

Second, read this summary of the Bora case. The accusations of simply believing out of hand and charging off in a witch hunt are totally false. Many of us were friends of Bora, and we were horrified by the accusation, and we waited to learn more, and hoped that it was an ugly aberration in an otherwise commendable career. Instead, what we got was more women stepping forward, more confirmation, and then, a regretful confession and apology from Bora.

Get that? The story was verified before anyone took any action…and the sum total of that action was to lose confidence in Bora’s ability to do his job. Are people now trying to erase the facts? Because you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to call the accusers “bitches” and pretend that no concerned investigation was carried out. Bora is not and can not be reinstated in a position of high regard in the community he abused.

It’s also incredibly dishonest to claim that he was the target of a hysterical inquisition to bring Bora down. This was a community that very much liked Bora, and responded in a deliberative and thoughtful way to the revelations. It’s telling that the way some people react to disclosures of casual sexism is with extremely over-the-top accusations of witch-hunting and McCarthyite show trials and conspiracy theories about evil feminists out to destroy the reputations of good men, to the point that they have to lie about the actual facts of the case.

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room.

Read the rest

Photographer Phoo Chan has seen more than his fair share of spectacular moments while photographing birds and other wildlife around his home in California, but perhaps nothing will ever top what he witnessed last spring while shooting near Kitsap, Washington: a crow riding atop a bald eagle. It only lasted for a few seconds, but Chan managed to capture the entire encounter on film. He shares about the image:

Crows are known for aggressively harassing other raptors that are much bigger in size when spotted in their territories and usually these ‘intruders’ simply retreat without much fuss. However, in this frame the crow did not seem to harass the bald eagle at such close proximity and neither did the bald eagle seem to mind the crow’s presence invading its personal space. What made it even more bizarre was that the crow even made a brief stop on the back of the eagle as if it was taking a free scenic ride and the eagle simply obliged.

You can see more of Chan’s bird photography on 500px and Flickr. (via Bored Panda, @pourmecoffee, Stellar)

Hovertext: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Only two weeks left to place your proposal to speak at a BAHFest. We're doing shows in Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco this year!

Oh, and about that Seattle show... 

 

Photographer Matt Emmett doesn't pay attention to signs that say "do not enter." While traveling around Europe, the urban explorer looks for the eerie beauty found in the derelict and forgotten. Emmett has photographed everything from abandoned hotels to power stations; before entering a new location, he always reads up about the history first. He offers a detailed description of each picture he takes on his Flickr. 

"I enjoy being in such magnificent places alone or in a small group," Emmett told mental_floss. "The atmosphere that hangs over a derelict power station or steel plant, for me, puts them on a level with the Angkor Wat's or Machu Pichu's of this world." 

You can see more of his work on his website, Twitter, or Facebook page. 

A rooftop view of an abandoned asylum in Northern Italy. A lot of the medical equipment and machines can still be found inside. 

A ruined chapel at a private residence in Italy.

The inside of a cooling tower in Belgium. 

A crane in an old factory. 

A radome in Belgium.

Inside the radome.

The overgrown window of a UK manor house. 

A decaying library in a manor house in England. 

Faded fresco paintings cling to the walls of the entrance hall at a large abandoned Villa complex.

This strange structure was created by an artist to house himself and his sheep. It's located on private land in the Cotswolds, England. 

Rusting radar dishes along the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coast in England. 

The banister of an abandoned Italian villa. It was converted into a psychiatric hospital in the 1800s. 

Light shining through the Oculus Tower in Italy. The factory was used to process sugarbeets in sugars and oils. 

Wooden cabinets that were used to hold patient information at a psychiatric hospital in Northern Italy.

An old television sits by the window in Bull Manor in England. 

A ruined colonnade encased in foliage. This photo is one of the photographer's favorites. 

A home abandoned after a fire during World War II. 

A statue of Neptune stands guard over a secret underwater dome in the UK. 

A Victorian reservoir located under the streets of London, England. "The echo in here had fantastic delay to it, my whoop coming back to me around four seconds after it left my mouth," Emmett said. 

A surgery room at an abandoned psychiatric hospital. "The hospital was famous in the 1930s for being one of the pioneering sites for the research and early practice of frontal lobe lobotomy," Emmett writes.

A long hallway of a military hospital used to take care of U.S. soldiers during the Gulf War. "Places like this remind me that [nature] always prevails and nothing we create can ever stand up to her and the passage of time," Emmett said. 

Another view of the Oculus Tower in Italy. 

A tunnel in underground London. 

Photographer and son in the Box Quarry in the UK. 

A jet engine test area at Pyestock NGTE, a Royal Aircraft Establishment facility in Fleek, UK, that has since been demolished.

Inside an empty castle in Italy. 

A customer commissioned Glasgow, Scotland vehicle graphics company Clyde Wraps to make a 2014 Volkswagen van look like it had been devoured by rust. The vehicle is actually covered in beautifully designed vinyl stickers of corroded car parts. Read the rest

Cincinnati's gorgeous art deco Union Station houses many museums -- and a beautifully preserved 1930s ice-cream parlour serving locally made ice-cream. Read the rest

tjsbin:

daiquest:

Brazil, June 26th 2015 - Public debate between one of the country’s most homophobic pastors / ministers (left) and the president of the LGBT Brazilian Association (right). This picture says a lot.

This is a work of art.