Luke.stirling

dinnermess:

greenyvertekins:

fourbeatgait:

Do not declaw your cats. Today my friend who works at a local rescue received an application for a cat adoption. There’s a section for “Do you plan on declawing your new cat?” and the person checked the box for yes and wrote “We have expensive furniture.”

ok then don’t get a cat

sorry but if you’re going to mutilate your animal to avoid ruining your expensive furniture then a cat is not the animal you need

So many reasons not to do this

-it’s EXTREMELY painful. they don’t just remove the claw, they remove the TOE up to the first joint.

-if your cat escapes your home, they have absolutely ZERO way of defending or feeding themselves (not that your cat should be allowed outside for any reason but that’s a whole separate rant)

-your cat will be in pain while walking. because they removed that actual bone, your cat’s weight is now balanced on that second bone in their toe, not the first as was designed. Painful.

-Your cat may even lose the desire to be touched. literally we adopted this adolescent cat whose owners abandoned him because he was an escape artist. they had already declawed him and for the longest time he wouldn’t even let us get near his feet. like we couldn’t touch him if it wasn’t his head or the base of his tail.

do. not. declaw. your. cat.

Alternatively:

-buy little nail caps. they sell them at pet stores and they come in all sorts of cute colors

-buy furniture guards. figure out where your cat is most aggressive with scratching. buy a furniture guard and place a cat tree or scratching post nearby and use some catnip or treats to attract their attention to it

-literally just trim the nails with nail clippers. be careful not to quick them. if your cat starts fussing, take a break and come back later to avoid accidents due to them moving around

don’t declaw your cat

Declawing can actually kill a cat.

I mean think about this.

Declawing often results in behavorial problems such as toileting outside the litter box, aggression and anxious behaviors.

Chances are, an owner who cannot deal with those consequences of their cruelty either abandons the poor animal or takes it to a cat shelter that euthanizes “problem” animals that cannot be realistically rehomed due to said “problematic” behavior.

If the animal was abandoned, it cannot survive in the wild due to being declawed and rased as a domestic pet.

The fact that Cat declawing hasn’t been outlawed in every state in America is absolutely outrageous.

DO NOT. DECLAW. YOUR CATS.

Political scientists have a theory called “democratic consolidation,” which holds that once countries develop democratic institutions, a robust civil society and a certain level of wealth, their democracy is secure.

For decades, global events seemed to support that idea. Data from Freedom House, a watchdog organization that measures democracy and freedom around the world, shows that the number of countries classified as “free” rose steadily from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. Many Latin American countries transitioned from military rule to democracy; after the end of the Cold War, much of Eastern Europe followed suit. And longstanding liberal democracies in North America, Western Europe and Australia seemed more secure than ever.

But since 2005, Freedom House’s index has shown a decline in global freedom each year...  

According to the Mounk-Foa early-warning system, signs of democratic deconsolidation in the United States and many other liberal democracies are now similar to those in Venezuela before its crisis.

Across numerous countries, including Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, the percentage of people who say it is “essential” to live in a democracy has plummeted, and it is especially low among younger generations...

Support for autocratic alternatives is rising, too. Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a “good” or “very good” thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995.

That trend is particularly strong among young people. For instance, in a previously published paper, the researchers calculated that 43 percent of older Americans believed it was illegitimate for the military to take over if the government were incompetent or failing to do its job, but only 19 percent of millennials agreed. The same generational divide showed up in Europe, where 53 percent of older people thought a military takeover would be illegitimate, while only 36 percent of millennials agreed...

Here is a rack of shirts in our local Blain's Farm &Fleet store.  Lets see... there are about three "small," then a couple dozen medium, then lots of large and extra large.  And lots of extra extra large.  And...


... then comes the "extra extra extra large," and finally the ones for which there are no preprinted signs so they had to use a Sharpie to designate the "extra extra extra extra large" shirts.

I don't know if this is true elsewhere.  It does seem to be typical here in south-central Wisconsin.

Two Swedish developers have created a site offering a way to wipe your entire existence off the internet in a few clicks. schwit1 quotes The Next Web: When logging into the website with a Google account it scans for apps and services you've created an account for, and creates a list of them with easy delete links. Every account it finds gets paired with an easy delete link pointing to the unsubscribe page for that service. In a few clicks you're freed from it, and depending on how long you need to work through the entire list, you can be account-less within the hour. I'm a little uncomfortable giving a stranger's web site access to my personal information - even if it is for the purpose of deleting it altogether. But the original submission ends with an interesting question. "Can we get this for government databases too?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read 29 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Don’t you think there are too many spaceships and interstellar fighters prowling around the international LEGO space lately? Of course, their top-class designs are undeniable, but how about taking just a day off and spending it somewhere in a calm restful rural place? This vast diorama by Piotr Machalski, a talented builder from Poland, is full of soft summer sun and serenity. Even though the actual size of the build is 25 m², it can hardly contain a huge century-old oak and just a little bit of a field by the farm.

Hurry up to see some brilliant close-ups of the diorama as the author promises to extend his creation with new territory.

Hovertext:
Okay, quick, let's switch them all to kale so we can claim they're grass-fed.

New comic!
Today's News:

Not a new problem:

• "The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations..."
  • From the diary of President Rutherford B. Hayes (11 March 1888)

Seattle-based Getty Images is an agency
with control over an archive of millions of stock images. It also has a reputation for strongly protecting its copyrights and chasing down companies and individuals who use Getty images without paying an appropriate fee.

Late December 2015, established US-based photographer Carol Highsmith was a recipient of a Getty threat via License Compliance Services (LCS) on behalf of Alamy, another Getty-affiliated company.

“We have seen that an image or image(s) represented by Alamy has been used for online use by your company. According to Alamy’s records your company doesn’t have a valid license for use of the image(s),” the letter began.

“Although this infringement might have been unintentional, use of an image without a valid license is considered copyright infringement in violation of the Copyright Act, Title 17, United States Code. This copyright law entitles Alamy to seek compensation for any license infringement.”

Targeting Highsmith with this particular threat was problematic. The image in question was one of her own. It was among thousands of other images she previously donated to the Library of Congress and made available to the public to reproduce and display for free. Highsmith subsequently discovered that Getty and its affiliates were making available more than 18,000 of her other photographs too.

The photographer responded with a $1bn lawsuit but the stock image company didn’t back down. Fighting back, Getty said it would vigorously defend its position based on the fact that Highsmith had placed her work in the public domain.

Considering the David and Goliath nature of the case (not to mention Getty’s reputation for picking on the little guy), observers hoped that during the lawsuit Getty would at least get a bloody nose. That has not come to pass.

To begin, on October 28, US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed each of Carol Highsmith’s federal copyright claims.

“Defendants Getty Images (US), Inc., License Compliance Services, Inc., Alamy, including thatInc., and Alamy Ltd. collectively moved to dismiss all claims of plaintiffs Carol Highsmith and This is America!, Inc. under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act,…the Lanham Act,… New York General Business Law,… and New York common law of unfair competition,” the Judge wrote.

“Upon consideration, the Court grants defendants’ motions,” he added.

With the federal claims gone, three state law claims werincluding that Getty charged licensing fees for images when it shouldn’t have and collected settlements from alleged infringers when it had no right. However, these claims have now also been dismissed, along with the rest of the case.

“It is hereby stipulated and agreed, by and among the parties, that this action shall be dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(a)(l)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, each party to bear its own costs and fees,” the Judge wrote in his dismissal.

Since the case was dismissed with prejudice, it is done and cannot be brought back to court.

The Judge added that a memorandum explaining the reasoning behind the rulings will be issued in due course, but it seems fairly clear that since Highsmith had passed her images into the public domain in 1988, that seriously undermined her case.

The terms of the settlement have not been released, and a lengthy protective order issued early November forbids all parties from discussing any information obtained during the pre-trial discovery phase.

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

Out of necessity, most LEGO castle builders stick to a regular color palette of light gray or dark gray. Sometimes we’ll use tan if we’re feeling particularly frisky. But Patrick Massey has kicked this old convention out the window and assembled a medieval inn out of beautiful autumn colors. The end result is a stunning and unique creation that looks well lived-in (if not a little spooky).

Via the Earth Port subreddit.

It’s not just Al-Qaeda. Water shortages, collapsing oil supplies, war, refugees, pirates, poverty—why Yemen is failing.

At the heart of all these problems is Yemen’s looming economic collapse. Already the poorest country in the Arab world, Yemen is rapidly depleting its oil reserves and lacks any options for creating a sustainable post-oil economy. Unemployment is estimated at 35 percent, higher than what the U.S. faced during the Great Depression.

Accelerating the economic decline is a protracted civil war in the north between Shia insurgents and the Sana’a-based government. The war has caused a refugee crisis and extensive damage to infrastructure...

The map/graphics embedded above is excellent - click for bigger to read the details.

No commentary from me; I'm just posting for future use/reference.

Reposted from 2010 to add the following from an article by Andrew Cockburn in the Sept 2016 issue of Harper's:

Just a few short years ago, Yemen was judged to be among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 154th out of the 187 nations on the U.N.’s Human Development Index. One in every five Yemenis went hungry. Almost one in three was unemployed. Every year, 40,000 children died before their fifth birthday, and experts predicted the country would soon run out of water.

Such was the dire condition of the country before Saudi Arabia unleashed a bombing campaign in March 2015, which has destroyed warehouses, factories, power plants, ports, hospitals, water tanks, gas stations, and bridges, along with miscellaneous targets ranging from donkey carts to wedding parties to archaeological monuments. Thousands of civilians — no one knows how many — have been killed or wounded. Along with the bombing, the Saudis have enforced a blockade, cutting off supplies of food, fuel, and medicine. A year and a half into the war, the health system has largely broken down, and much of the country is on the brink of starvation.

This rain of destruction was made possible by the material and moral support of the United States, which supplied most of the bombers, bombs, and missiles required for the aerial onslaught. (Admittedly, the United Kingdom, France, and other NATO arms exporters eagerly did their bit.) U.S. Navy ships aided the blockade. But no one that I talked to in Washington suggested that the war was in any way necessary to our national security. The best answer I got came from Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from California who has been one of the few public officials to speak out about the devastation we were enabling far away. “Honestly,” he told me, “I think it’s because Saudi Arabia asked.”

Much more at the link.

The television series Star Trek: Deep Space 9 actually went where no Star Trek series had gone before – it was the first series that took place on a starbase rather than a starship. Clearly vehicles were still required as no one would want to be stuck on a starbase without the opportunity to encounter some new species or tackle some intergalactic crisis. Larsvader has built this huge minifig scale LEGO version of the USS Yukon (NCC-74602), which was a Danube-class runabout used extensively in the series.

The builder has managed to ensure that his Star Trek minifigure personnel are as comfortable as possible. The interior includes a large crew cabin complete with sleeping and dining areas for extended travel. There is also a compact personnel transporter to ensure there can be a dramatic transportation just in the nick of time. Of course the cockpit comes complete with beeping screen, tactical stations and an escape hatch. But where is the toilet?!

nickfuckface:

thingsfittingperfectly:

The super moon on a radio receiver dish

mission accomplish boys,,,,,,,,,,,,, we caught the moon………………..

Let's face it, bakers: turkeys look silly.

Real turkeys, I mean.

SO SILLY.

 

So in that spirit, why NOT make your turkey cakes look like a snake on a Mexican poncho?

 

Or a volcano with a chicken beak?

 

Or a ruffled... er...

[long pause]
[gratuitous side-eye]
...decorative... pillow.

Yeeeah.

 

I mean, on the one hand, bakers, this is utterly ridiculous. Have you seen a real turkey's head? It's not even brown.

But on the other hand, when else do you get to illustrate an angry little poop being attacked by technicolor leeches?

Never, that's when.

 

So I say... [cranks up America the Beautiful]... GO FOR IT, bakers.

Embrace the ridiculous!

Stretch those legs!

 

Spread-eagle that turkey!

 

Anything goes!!

[record screeches to a halt]

Except this.

THIS IS A NO-GO, BAKERS.

 

Thanks to Heather M., Stieg, Laura B., Sandy F., Dave & Alison, DeLoris N., & Morgan R. for making us all do a triple-take. (Still pretty sure those ARE supposed to be turkeys, though.)

*****

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"...we took the election results and created two new imaginary nations by slicing the country along the sharp divide between Republican and Democratic Americas."

From the New York Times.  Interesting to see this done at a county or district level rather than at the state level.

I don’t know about everywhere else, but this weekend saw winter begin to take hold in Scotland. Appropriately enough, along come two lovely little LEGO builds which perfectly capture the chill in the air. First up, IamKritch‘s cabin looks like a great place to sit out the blizzard. The trees and the frozen stream are smart, but it’s the simple use of a brown grille brick for the cabin’s log walls which grabs the attention.

And then there’s Brick Blue Wren‘s wonderful winter diorama. I like the variety of techniques used for the trees, and the curved backdrop and base evoking the shape of a snow globe. The color scheme properly pops off the page, particularly those hefty snowflakes against the blue sky. A few more models like this and I’ll be all set for Christmas.

From an interesting longread at TheVerge:

To the casual observer, the beach may look like the only natural bit of the city, a fringe of shore reaching out from under the glass and pastel skyline. But this would be false: the beach is every bit as artificial as the towers and turquoise pools. For years the sea has been eating away at the shore, and the city has spent millions of dollars pumping up sand from the seafloor to replace it, only to have it wash away again. Every handful of sand on Miami Beach was placed there by someone.

That sand is washing away ever faster. The sea around Miami is rising a third of an inch a year, and it’s accelerating. The region is far from alone in its predicament, or in its response to an eroding coast: it’s becoming hard to find a populated beach in the United States that doesn’t require regular infusions of sand...

"There isn’t a natural grain of sand on the beach in Northern New Jersey; there is no Miami Beach unless we build it," Young says. "The real endangered species on the coast of the US isn’t the piping plover or the loggerhead sea turtle. It’s an unengineered beach."..

On July 31st, 2015, the Army Corps released a plan for patching eroding sections of Miami Beach. Miami-Dade’s sand resources had been exhausted, the Corps wrote, and some of the best alternatives lay to the north, offshore of Martin and St. Lucie counties. Though the shoals were in federal waters and the northern counties had no greater right to them than anyone else, they viewed the sand as theirs, and with the Corps’ announcement began the latest skirmish in what local officials call "the sand wars."..

P.B. spends his time building fabulous microscale walking tanks and artillery units. This one, in Jovian Regimental Colors no less, is a little cracker. The tank carries an impressive level of detail for such a small model — delivered through effective color blocking and a nice depth of texture. I love the use of bucket handles to add detail to the legs — I haven’t seen that before. But the undoubted stars of this show are the teeny-tiny figures — the crewman and the Commissar — effortlessly carrying off some Communist-era chic with their little red scarves. Well played Comrade PB, well played.

 

Thanks to Sarah O. for helping us stick figure that one out.

*****

Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.

United Continental Holdings Inc will become the first big U.S. airline to limit low-fare customers to one carry-on bag that fits under a seat... 

United, the No. 3 U.S. airline by passengers carried, said customers who bought its cheapest fares would not be assigned seats until the day of departure, meaning people on the same ticket may be split apart.

United will also prohibit these travelers from carrying on bags that can only fit in overhead bins, and they will not accrue miles toward elite status.

The company expects the moves to add $4.8 billion to its annual operating income by 2020, although the figure does not include rising wages.  Fare initiatives such as "basic economy" will account for $1 billion of this, as more customers pay to check bags or select higher fares that give them two "free" carry-ons.

The classic rolling carry-on, of course, does not fit under a seat.  More at Reuters.

We’ve previously featured Terez trz‘s ongoing project of creating a LEGO version of their own home. Now we have more images to pore over — a wonderful sitting area.

Whilst the building is cool, once again it’s the quality of Terez’s photography which elevates the models out of the ordinary. The images wouldn’t look out of place in a fancy interiors catalog. Whilst the diorama doesn’t feature any people, I think it avoids sterility with the sense of lived-in clutter created by touches like the pile of mail by the door and the organic messiness of the pot plants.

Hovertext:
I searched on google, and apparently these exist.

New comic!
Today's News:

"America's children have officially won the right to sue their government over global warming," reports Motherboard. An anonymous reader quotes their article: Thursday, a lawsuit filed by 21 youth plaintiffs was ruled valid by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon. A group of citizens, whose ages range from nine to twenty, charged President Obama, the fossil fuel industry, and other federal agencies with violating their constitutional rights by declining to take action against climate change. "Federal courts too often have been cautious and overly deferential in the arena of environmental law, and the world has suffered for it," wrote Judge Aiken in her ruling. [PDF] Several groups -- including the U.S. government and the American Petroleum Institute -- had asked the judge to throw out the case, but the judge ruled instead that climate change would "threaten plaintiffs' fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty," calling man-made climate change an "undisputed" fact. In a related story, Slashdot reader devinp shares a new study which suggests "Global changes in temperature due to human-induced climate change have already impacted every aspect of life on Earth from genes to entire ecosystems, with increasingly unpredictable consequences for humans."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hovertext:
If I were you, I'd focus less on algebra and more on seeking public office.

New comic!
Today's News:

Hey geeks of London and MIT! We're just starting to get the ball rolling on next year's shows, and submissions are now open. Both shows will be open theme!

Brick To The Past is a collective of British builders who specialize in large-scale historical dioramas in LEGO. We’ve covered some of their previous masterpieces, including a huge Roman camp and section of Hadrian’s Wall, and their recreation of the streets of Victorian London. We recently interviewed leading member James Pegrum about BttP’s impressive Battle of Hastings display. As if that wasn’t enough for 2016, the gang’s latest effort is this enormous diorama depicting a section of Anglo Saxon Britain in 793AD.

As you’d expect from such a large model, there are numerous areas worthy of your attention. An obvious highlight is the monastery under attack by Viking raiders…

Viking raiders were the bane of Northern England and Scotland’s seashore communities in this period — regularly looting villages and burning homes. In later times the Norsemen were to settle in the region more permanently and peacefully, lending the North many of its distinctive placenames. However, who wants to see a completely peaceful LEGO model? We want ACTION, like monks leaping into the sea…

Of course, it isn’t all war and chaos. The model also features more domestic scenes of everyday life in the period. Here’s a small fishing village — showcasing the BttP builders’ trademark attention to historical detail…

And then there’s the larger settlement, perched atop an impressively-landscaped hill…

But perhaps my favourite bit of the whole layout is the decidedly spooky forest section. Check out this brave soul tending his grazing cattle. Not sure I’d be in those woods by myself. Who knows what’s lurking behind the trees?

All-in-all this is another amazing collaborative build. I’m looking forward to seeing what the guys come up with for next year’s LEGO show season.

Minifigs residing in a city of LEGO modular buildings can purchase and repair their bicycles at this custom modular bike shop built by Łukasz Libuszewski. Interesting colors and unusual use of elements define the series as much as the modular standard, and there is no shortage of this throughout the build.

Łukasz added an elevator to his bike shop modular, and looking in the center column with gear racks on either side and a janitor standing slightly elevated, it appears to be functional.

View more shots of Łukasz’s building on Flickr.

The best thing about LEGO sets in the 1990s? Well, ok, besides all the awesome themes likes Ice Planet and Dragon Knights. Every LEGO set came with a miniature catalog, either a folded single page or a half-sheet booklet, and besides just advertising new sets, they included dioramas showing all the sets from a theme in action on a cool bit of scenery, like this Castle diorama from 1995. Builder Pixel Fox is creating some amazing images that bring back that nostalgia. LEGO catalogs need to do this again.