Luke.stirling

I’m not going to debate which Star Trek is the best, feel free to do that in the comments, but I will say this is the best TNG phaser I’ve seen made out of LEGO by Ryan H (LDM):

Though feel free to compare it to Tommy’s Original Series Phasers.

It's a small world.  I forwarded the photo above to my brother-in-law in the TriCities area, who emailed back that the house involved belongs to a retired air-traffic-control colleague friend of his.

Apparently the FedEx driver had backed his truck up the steep driveway opposite to facilitate unloading a parcel, then forgot to set the emergency brake...

I like the homeowner's response:

"The first reaction is, "My goodness,'" said homeowner Phil Rickman, who arrived shortly after the van plowed into his foyer. "My second reaction is, 'Is anyone hurt?' It was an accident. Accidents happen. You have to keep everything in perspective."

From The Guardian:

What is an expat? And who is an expat? According to Wikipedia, “an expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (‘out of’) and patria (‘country, fatherland’)”.

Defined that way, you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad...

The Wall Street Journal, the leading financial information magazine in the world, has a blog dedicated to the life of expats and recently they featured a story ‘Who is an expat, anyway?’. Here are the main conclusions: “Some arrivals are described as expats; others as immigrants; and some simply as migrants. It depends on social class, country of origin and economic status. It’s strange to hear some people in Hong Kong described as expats, but not others. Anyone with roots in a western country is considered an expat … Filipino domestic helpers are just guests, even if they’ve been here for decades. Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese are rarely regarded as expats … It’s a double standard woven into official policy.” 

More at the link, which is an op-ed piece and reflects the opinion of the author.  I invite commentary from international readers of this blog as to whether the distinction hold in their country.

Men are also the victims. Read this analysis of a recent paper in human population genetics: coincident with the rise of agriculture, there was a drastic bottleneck in the effective population size of men, but not women — the interpretation is that there was a massive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few men, who basically used that power to put all the reproductive rights in their hands, and the hands of their sons.

There is a nice infographic to explain the concept.

Biology says all men ought to be raging democrats, opposing the concentration of wealth into the hands of a few. Psychology, unfortunately, says that most men are stupid and imagine they are one of the few.

“When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. “This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar,” she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. “My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.”
It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions? How often had I sped past them as I learned of male achievement and men’s place in the history books? Then I read Rosalind Miles’s book “The Women’s History of the World” (recently republished as “Who Cooked the Last Supper?”) and I knew I needed to look again. History is full of fabulous females who have been systematically ignored, forgotten or simply written out of the records. They’re not all saints, they’re not all geniuses, but they do deserve remembering.”

- Sandi Toksvig, 'Top 10 unsung heroines' (via ninestories)

outrageauxbonnesmoeurs:

vonnegutpizza:

fuckitandmakeart:

dais17:

hobbitjt:

ultrafacts:

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I remember watching an Attenborough documentary and seeing elephant babies having a funeral for their mother and burying her in big leaves and stroking her face and crying. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen I was literally sobbing.

Elephants, man.

i got emotional over this omg. :(

Elephants are the best ❤️

MY HEART JUST BROKE.

La Mise en Abîme (2013, used oil, metal) / All photos courtesy We Find Wildness

Created by Swiss artist Romain Crelier, La Mise en Abîme (an idiom that communicates the same thing as “a curveball,” but means, roughly, “to have put into an abyss”) was a visually arresting artwork installed on the floor of the Bellelay Abbey in Switzerland back in 2013. The piece is comprised of two shallow pools of used motor oil that function as mirrors, reflecting the architectural details of the surrounding interior. The crude juxtaposition of recycled oil and the impeccably preserved aesthetic of a 12th century church wasn’t lost on the artist who referred to the piece as “monochrome paintings using a despised substance.” You can see more photos on We Find Wildness. (via We Find Wildness, This Isn’t Happiness, thnx Kathy!)

It's a man's world on your toy store shelves.

Via Imgur, "Images from slides taken during the construction of the miniatures for the film 'Bladerunner'" Read the rest

Nintendo today announced it would partner with Japanese mobile game giant DeNA to create new games based on the company's brands. Read the rest

It's called Conquered by Clippy. Rule 34 continues to bestride the Internet like a colossus, apparently. Oh, and there's more ... Read the rest

Day in and day out automated bots detect and report millions of alleged copyright infringements, which are processed by popular web services without a human ever looking at them.

Needless to say, this process is far from flawless, but YouTube’s takedown system is particularly problematic. YouTube allows copyright holders to upload their work into a fingerprint database so matching content can easily be detected.

This results in some rather hilarious mismatches, such as a cat purring video being flagged as pirated music. But there are also mistakes of a different order, where original artists are targeted over their own work.

These include Norwegian musician Bjorn Lynne who has had two of his videos hijacked by Universal Music Group (UMG) which is now running ads alongside his work.

“Can I just state publicly that I hate Universal Music Group. For the second time now, they have hijacked my music and claimed ownership of it in all YouTube videos that include my music, thereby monetizing my music,” Lynne writes.

Apparently UMG has the rights to an audiobook that uses Lynne’s music track “Kingdom of the Persians” as background music. This isn’t a problem, as his music can be freely used as long as the license fees are paid.

However, UMG have entered the audiobook in YouTube’s Content-ID system, and as a result they’ve hijacked the ads on the original video. Making matters even worse, UMG also rejected Lynne’s dispute through YouTube after he explained the situation.

“One thing would have been to have done this unwittingly, by mistake. But I have ‘disputed’ the claim on YouTube, written an explanation and told them about the origins of this music — then waited the FULL 30 DAYS that the claimant has to process the dispute, only to be told that UMG have reviewed the dispute and UPHELD their claim!” Lynne notes.

This means that the indie artist is running short on options to challenge the claim (although there’s still the appeal and counter-notification). He could of course sue the largest music corporation in the world, but without a heap of cash in hand that’s not really an option either.

“The only reasonable thing to do here, for me, would be to hire a top lawyer to go after them legally. But realistically, it’s like $350 per hour for a lawyer and a 3 hour minimum for a case, so I’m looking at over $1,000 just to get something started.”

“I feel powerless and I’m left to watch my music being raped by a media giant, who sits behind closed curtains, ignores the rightful owner of the music and just goes ‘Nah, we’ll take it anyway’. Screw you, Universal Music Group!”

According to Lynne this is not the first time his music has been hijacked. The same thing happened in the past with the track “Mystical Pyramids,” and it may very well happen again in the future.

Update: We updated the article to clarify that the Content ID process has three stages to fight a claim.

Update: Lynne posted an update on Facebook a few hours after we published this article. He took the issue to YouTube’s highest appeal process and that finally freed his videos.

“I have not had any communication with/from UMG, but what seems to have done the trick is that I used the “appeal” process at YouTube after I was told that my original dispute had been rejected by UMG. Going through the “appeal” at YouTube is a pretty scary process, because YouTube uses some very strong language to warn you that you may face legal action and/or your YouTube account may be shut down. I did it nevertheless, I was that hell bent on getting UMG to stop monetizing my music and claiming ownership of it.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

“Being gluten intolerant means you are entitled to tell people about the offensive things that happen to you if you eat gluten. Because they're not gluten free, they're obligated by law to listen.” Read the rest

Scientists had a pigeon, hawk, and owl fly over super-sensitive microphones to measure how much sound was created by their flapping. Owls are known for their silent flying abilities and this is demonstrated by the barn owl in the GIF above. Watch the video

Architect Luciano Pia designed 25 Verde, a 63 unit apartment complex in Turin, Italy. Read the rest

A fun fact about human people with uteruses is that we are one of the very few species in which menopause happens and the person can continue living a long and happy life for many years afterwards. There are only three species in the world in which females live for significant years after they lose their fertility: humans, pilot whales, and killer whales. So that’s a little weird. Most mammals have pretty similar reproductive patterns, and it does make an evolutionary sense that after an animal has stopped being able to produce babies they don’t stick around for too long and take up resources. So why on earth do we have menopause?

There are a few theories that have been floating around for a while. One suggests that technology and medicine simply changed our lifespans so that women lost their fertility at about the same age but kept living. But the most common hypothesis was called the Grandmother Hypothesis, which suggests that women stop bearing children and move to caretaking roles that improve the chances their children and grandchildren have of surviving. Of course there’s nothing about this hypothesis that explains why humans but almost no other species do this, or why it would improve one’s evolutionary chances more than having your own kids (who are more genetically similar to you than your grandchildren).

But studies on killer whales might give insight into the mechanisms of menopause. One of the most striking things that orcas, pilot whales, and humans all have in common is the patterns of habitation that offspring use. In all of them, children either continue to live with their parents into adulthood, or only daughters leave and move to their mate’s family. That means in all these cases, only some of the mother’s grandchildren will be in close proximity to her.

For killer whales, this translates into a whale’s grandchildren through her son spreading into different pods, while her grandchildren through her daughter stay in her pod. Statistically, that means it’s most beneficial to put resources into the son, as his children won’t be competing with each other, since they’ll be spread among different pods. And that’s exactly what studies of whales found: female, menopausal whales put the most effort into keeping their sons alive and healthy. An adult male whale was 14 times more likely to die in the next year if his mother died. It turns out that these grandmotherly whales do actually help their offspring to survive, particularly by providing information about where choice sources of food are. During lean years, researchers found that the menopausal whales took on an even greater importance in the pod.

So why does any of this matter beyond the interest of cool scientific findings? Well it certainly calls into question many of the assumptions that people make about how evolution has changed us. Especially in fields like evolutionary psychology, many people operate on the assumption that all of the adaptations that have got us where we are happened in order to allow men to have more sex and to allow women to keep their mates close to help raise children. What these insights ask is whether more offspring is really always better, or whether there are intellectual resources that parents can pass to their offspring. These findings call into question some of the most basic ways that science falls into sexism, and provides some evidence that smart women are completely necessary for the survival of the species. It might even push some evo psych proponents to try using actual science instead of assumptions and stereotypes.

Thanks menopause!

Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, several UK ISPs are required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.

The most prominent target of these blocks is without doubt The Pirate Bay. As one of the most visited sites on the Internet it has been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industries for years.

The Pirate Bay was one of the first sites on the UK blocklist and access has been barred since 2012. Or rather should have been barred.

For a few weeks most UK Internet subscribers have been able to access TPB just fine. Ever since the site switched to CloudFlare and made the secure https://thepiratebay.se version default, it has become widely accessible again.

TorrentFreak did a quick round among subscribers of various ISPs and found that The Pirate Bay is no longer blocked by Virgin Media, TalkTalk, BT and EE. At the time of writing only Sky appears to block the site consistently.

As a result, The Pirate Bay’s direct UK traffic is steadily increasing.

The Pirate Bay is not the only site that’s widely accessible again. The same applies to the https versions of Torrentz.eu, Rarbg.com, Isohunt.to and various other ‘blocked’ sites. For some sites, including Kickass.to and Extratorrent, the results vary per ISP.

The operator of the Pirate Bay proxy ilikerainbows.co, which had its own domain name added to the blocklist last week, believes that the unblocking relates to the use of https strict.

“I believe it’s because of how CloudFlare works, Simply put when you enable HTTPS Strict on CloudFlare they remove the HTTP Header from the request during HTTPS Connections, thus when they try to inspect the header to a list of ‘banned’ websites it won’t register,” Rainbows’ operator tells TF.

“So any site that uses CloudFlare, has a properly configured and signed SSL Certificate and enables HTTPS-Strict under CloudFlare should be able to evade the ban that’s imposed by Virgin and perhaps other providers,” he adds.

What further complicates the matter is the fact that it’s harder to block The Pirate Bay by its IP-address, as the true location is hidden by CloudFlare’s network of addresses now.

While it may be harder to block sites, it’s not impossible. Sky appears to have no trouble keeping sites blocked, although that probably requires some rather advanced and invasive monitoring tools.

TF asked several ISPs for a comment on the issue and Virgin Media informed us that they still comply with the court order.

“Virgin Media is required to block certain sites by the UK High Court. As a responsible ISP, we comply with court orders addressed to us,” a spokesperson informed TF this morning.

Virgin’s comment suggests that the https version of TPB is not covered by the order at all, and that it was previously blocked by IP-address. However, Virgin couldn’t comment on this suggestion.

We’ll update this article as more information comes in.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

I’m not at all sure what the designer was thinking of here, but apparently this was the cover of a religious magazine.

What is that supposed to be? I was thinking an appropriate subtitle would be Faith: the poop-nugget in the butt-crack of life, but I really doubt that that was the message they were going for.

Don’t let the name fool you. Lego Jurassic World [official site] may be tied to the similarly titled Big Summer Sequel for marketing purposes, but it covers the previous films in the Jurassic series as well. That means Lego Attenborough, Lego Laura Dern, Lego Sam Neill and Lego Annoying Kids. It also means Lego Goldblum. There will also be dinosaurs, as the trailer below demonstrates.

… [visit site to read more]

PRINTS BONANZA!

I finally came to my senses and uploaded my new stuff on Redbubble. At last you can fill your living rooms with 10 000 tonne Gaussfreighters and smelly vagrant robots!

Have a look: http://www.redbubble.com/people/simonstalenhag/portfolio

gifsboom:

Ozzy the Weasel Chooses His Favorite Eeyore Toy [video]

purpleyin:

yourkingandqueen:

dbvictoria:

Incredible beds

I love the bed fandom

I seriously want like a couple of these. Non-standard furniture, especially the multifunction or space saving kind, I am a sucker for. Why we not get this more often, make life more efficient people-who-decide-what-furniture-to-sell please.

I like food that's as close to being alive (or fresh, depending on your perspective) as possible. That's partly because it tastes better but also because it's tingly to see food move when you don't expect it too. This blooming chocolate dessert is a mover, all right. As you pour the cream onto the dish, the chocolate strip opens up like a flower.

Read more...

“Yesterday, I spent 60 dollars on groceries,
took the bus home,
carried both bags with two good arms back to my studio apartment
and cooked myself dinner.
You and I may have different definitions of a good day.
This week, I paid my rent and my credit card bill,
worked 60 hours between my two jobs,
only saw the sun on my cigarette breaks
and slept like a rock.
Flossed in the morning,
locked my door,
and remembered to buy eggs.
My mother is proud of me.
It is not the kind of pride she brags about at the golf course.
She doesn’t combat topics like, ”My daughter got into Yale”
with, “Oh yeah, my daughter remembered to buy eggs”
But she is proud.
See, she remembers what came before this.
The weeks where I forgot how to use my muscles,
how I would stay as silent as a thick fog for weeks.
She thought each phone call from an unknown number was the notice of my suicide.
These were the bad days.
My life was a gift that I wanted to return.
My head was a house of leaking faucets and burnt-out lightbulbs.
Depression, is a good lover.
So attentive; has this innate way of making everything about you.
And it is easy to forget that your bedroom is not the world,
That the dark shadows your pain casts is not mood-lighting.
It is easier to stay in this abusive relationship than fix the problems it has created.
Today, I slept in until 10,
cleaned every dish I own,
fought with the bank,
took care of paperwork.
You and I might have different definitions of adulthood.
I don’t work for salary, I didn’t graduate from college,
but I don’t speak for others anymore,
and I don’t regret anything I can’t genuinely apologize for.
And my mother is proud of me.
I burned down a house of depression,
I painted over murals of greyscale,
and it was hard to rewrite my life into one I wanted to live
But today, I want to live.
I didn’t salivate over sharp knives,
or envy the boy who tossed himself off the Brooklyn bridge.
I just cleaned my bathroom,
did the laundry,
called my brother.
Told him, “it was a good day.”

-

Kait Rokowski, A Good Day

(via

femmewitchbabe

)

you fucking go, you bad ass bitch 🙌

(via heysaba)

popular shared this story from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

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New comic!
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 OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING

samjoonyuh:

Perspective. 

You can explore it interactively for free and download a jumbo wallpaper JPEG, but the print edition is $250. Read the rest