Christopher Lantz

ponintothewild:

I love my cute butt.

Environmental organization Hong Kong Cleanup is using DNA analysis to create digital renderings of the faces of actual Hong Kong litter scofflaws in a new anti-littering campaign. The renderings, which are examples of DNA phenotyping, are based both on DNA found on litter samples as well as demographic information based on context clues like type of litter and neighborhood. Starting today–Earth Day–the litterbug faces are being posted on the Hong Kong transit system, social media, and print media. The campaign was produced in partnership with Ecozine and The Nature Conservancy and was created by Ogilvy.

images via Hong Kong Cleanup

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

via http://tamaralichtenstein.tumblr.com/post/4505952269/beneaththebalcony-kanibalkangaroo

My goodness, this is weird. (more…)

• It’s pretty difficult to find a game that actually nails the way breasts move. Curiously, though, it seems like the people making virtual reality porn are making some good strides in the realm of breast physics.
  VR Porn Has Made Some Progress With Breasts, At Least (Kotaku)

• The Internet — and the tech industry as a whole — has essentially polarized into two separate, independent fiefdoms: porn, and non-sexual content. There is little-to-no room for anything in between. Anything remotely sexual is (generally) considered porn, and treated as tainted, by “respectable” businesses.
  Porn, Sex, Tech, And Cindy Gallop (TechCrunch)

• The operator of a revenge porn website has been sentenced to 18 years in jail in the US. Kevin Bollaert of San Diego created the UGotPosted.com website that let people post explicit pictures of their former partners. Pictures were posted without victims’ consent and Bollaert charged up to $350 (£235) to get photos removed. Bollaert was convicted in February on 21 counts of ID theft and six of extortion.
  ‘Revenge porn’ site owner faces lengthy jail term (BBC)

• Life as a Rent A Gent: “The drinks keep flowing. Before long I feel, under the table, Cathy’s hand on my thigh, and I discover that my own hand has started the journey along her black stockings from her knee to her thigh and beyond, high up under her skirt.”
  My Life as a Rent A Gent (GQ)

• “If you are watching porn online in 2015, even in incognito mode, you should expect that at some point your porn viewing history will be publicly released and attached to your name (…)”
  ​Your Porn Is Watching You (VICE)

• Warning for survivors of sexual assault and trauma. Last November, Rolling Stone published a story, ‘A Rape on Campus’ [RS 1223], that centered around a University of Virginia student’s horrifying account of her alleged gang rape at a campus fraternity house. RS has since officially retracted the story, and the episode is a lesson in lapses in reporting, editing and fact-checking that all online writers should pay very close attention to.
  Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Report (Rolling Stone)

• Michael Stable, a documentary filmmaker, is in the process of making a documentary about Chuck Homes, titled Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story. As the acknowledged king of a pivotal era in gay porn, Holmes is an important subject for historical assessment. But the film also takes a look at his financial role in some of his era’s defining political causes — in particular, he provided the seed money for the HRC (Human Rights Campaign).
  Seed Money: Capturing a Pivotal Era of Gay Porn (Film International)

• Why hasn’t anyone asked Edward Snowden these questions before? I’m serious. And, yes, there’s sex in this story…
  John Oliver Makes Edward Snowden Squirm on ‘Last Week Tonight’ (Daily Beast)

• This means TinyNibbles.com will be blocked in the UK: The UK culture secretary has promised a Conservative Government will take action to protect the UK from online pornography, saying a regulator will have the power to force internet services to block certain websites, if without a proper age verification system.
  Porn sites without age checks could be blocked after the general election (Independent UK)

• If you own or operate an adult website and have access to its visitor statistics, you may have noticed a prolonged decline in traffic volume due to Google’s Panda, Penguin and other algorithm updates. Even if obtaining Google traffic was not a top priority for some sites, the websites (and affiliates) that are linking to those sites were likely hit by the ongoing re-ranking of Google’s search results, causing a trickle-down effect that affected the bottom line of many websites.
  Google Causes Algorithm Anxiety (XBIZ)

• Mistress Morgana caught up with Shawna Virago over tea in the dungeon recently to talk about her video, songwriting, her trajectory as an artist, the new album, and what it’s like to be top Google hit for “San Francisco dominatrix.”
  The Rumpus Interview with Shawna Virago (Rumpus)

This is what your brain looks like during an orgasm http://t.co/4IKMQo5EZU #fmri #neuroscience pic.twitter.com/D5sytyW5xR

— FutureofSex (@FutureofSex) April 6, 2015

• Renowned sex ed author Paul Joannides made an educational video titled Porn and Anal Sex, posted it to YouTube last week, and within an hour, YouTube had banned it.
  Banned by YouTube! (Psychology Today)

• An interview with Dennis Hof (Moonlite Bunny Ranch), who has a book coming out.
  Inside Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, the World’s Most Famous Brothel (Details)

• If public displays of affection make you uncomfortable, don’t come to Latin America. From Mexico City to Medellin and Buenos Aires to Belize, making out in public is a virtual rite of passage for high schoolers and young adults. It’s so widespread that when the city of Guanajuato passed an ordinance in 2009 banning certain forms of PDA, it was met with such furor that the law had to be suspended days later.
  Why Do So Many Young People in Latin America Hook Up in Parks? (PS Mag)

• While sex toy recycling still hasn’t caught on in any meaningful large-scale sense, there are a handful of purveyors that are taking steps to address the issue for both practical business concerns and environmental considerations.
  What’s the Best Way to Recycle Your Vibrator? (Vice)

• Fast Company manages to squeeze ‘sex toys‘ into the headline, and again in a sentence later, but can’t be bothered to talk about the sex-themed boxes or link to them. It’s an interesting idea (and if anyone wants Privacy Stickers for a box, let me know!)
  From Socks To Sex Toys: Inside America’s Subscription-Box Obsession (Fast Company)

spacegirltina:

god fucking damnit

Sci-Fi-O-Rama proudly present a very special feature on Chris Foss, as profiled by Jeff Love, owner and admin of the sublime Sci-Fi art blog Ski-ffy.

**

Born in 1946 in Guernsey, Channel Islands, Chris Foss is a British illustrator and a powerhouse of science fiction design and invention. His work is a celebration of future machinery, impossibly sized constructions exist on a planetary scale; a showcase of hardware so large that the human figure is dwarfed by comparison.

Arriving in the SF illustration field in the early 1970s, he is a cult figure, influential and universally admired. For British SF and SF art, his work can be seen as a catalyst; his prolific output was used abundantly in the UK paperback market, particularly by publishing houses like Panther, Coronet (Hodder & Stoughton) and Granada. Foss’ iconic paintings adorned the covers of American classics; E. E. Smith’s Lensman and Family d’Alembert series, reprints of the works of Asimov, James Blish and Philip K. Dick. These colourful scenes of gargantuan spacecraft, space-scenes and enormous robots not only influenced an entire school of imitators but instilled a love of future-tech amongst several generations of science fiction fans.

His early life encouraged an interest in art, his endeavours with pencil won him a scholarship to a public school in Dorset. Exploration of the surrounding area yielded numerous influences; elements of post-war, semi-derelict, bombed-out buildings and shipyards can be seen in numerous examples of later work.

As a young man during the 1960s – by way of compromise – he found himself studying architecture at Cambridge University. His parents (both teachers) disapproved of his wishes to become a commercial artist. Finding architecture too drab a subject, Foss was reportedly something of an absentee student and by his second year, he found himself providing strips of erotic artwork to Bob Guccione’s (later to publish OMNI) Penthouse magazine. The former being so impressed with the young artist that he put him on retainer to illustrate a Barbarella style strip.

Though he found steady work working for an architectural sculptor, the following years were not easy. After a few false starts whilst working various jobs to support himself, Foss career finally began to grow following an introduction to a design agency. Though he produced cover art for miscellaneous non-SF titles at first, this also included interior illustrations; careful line drawings for Alex Comfort’s The Joy Of Sex (1972) that showcased his talent as a varied and capable draughtsman. Meanwhile his reputation for skilfully depicting starships and future themes become so, that authors such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke would specifically ask for his work to be used on the covers of their novels.

As Foss’ name and portfolio grew, Hollywood called. Conceptual work followed for the planet Krypton (Richard Donner’s Superman – 1978) and early designs of the Leviathan and Nostromo spacecraft (Ridley Scott’s Alien – 1978) but perhaps most famous are his contributions to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unrealised 1975 film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Science Fiction classic Dune.

It is as a cover artist, however, that Foss is best-known. His arrival and rise in popularity initiated something of a renaissance amongst publishing houses and art editors. Previously (particularly in the UK), paperback covers – more often than not – were one of two ways: utilizing (or re-using) artwork previously found on the covers of American novels, nebulous, bland patterns or photography that suggested space as a theme, but depicted very little. There were exceptions of course, but Foss’ creations surely motivated on two fronts: in the eyes of the book buying public, as well as that of the publishers and art editors who had on their hands a skilful demonstration of the importance of jacket design, proof – if any were needed – that books can sell solely on the merit of the cover.

A new wave of artists soon followed in his footsteps as publishers sought artwork similar in tone and execution, similarly talented, wielding airbrushes. Not to diminish their talents: Tim White, Chris Moore, Peter Jones and Angus McKie’s early works often bear more than a passing resemblance, each frequently mistaken for the other, though each developed into their own, individual and recognizable artists in their own right. However, unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Foss is not a fan of SF, and as such did not read the books his was commissioned to illustrate jackets for. Scenes are rendered entirely from the imagination and as such do not illustrate scenes found inside novels. In this sense they can be seen as vague, or meaningless abstraction – but serve the purpose of creating interest in the books they appear on very well. The attraction is the technology; art for art’s sake.

Foss’ legacy is a body of work that informs us that in regards to fantastical spacecraft, elegance in appearance is not strictly necessary. Spacefaring vehicles could be as floating cathedrals, organic, asymmetrical leviathans as large as the imagination might allow. His visualisations of space hardware show incredible attention to detail: behemoths with scale reinforced by scatterings of pinpricks of light. Rejecting the needle-pointed, aerodynamic and militaristic rocket shapes established by pulp heroes, he opted instead for enormous and colourful industrial vessels, floating relics rendered with a weight of authenticity; free from the restrictions of mass in a vacuum.

Foss’ vessels may be enormous, but space is always bigger.

**

Many, many Thanks to Jeff Love for this bloody brilliant article! be sure to check out his blog http://ski-ffy.blogspot.co.uk

To read up more about Foss please check the following articles:

Sci-fi artist Chris Foss talks through his inspirations

Chris Foss on the Nostromo (Alien 1979)

And finally, If you’re interested in the very latest from Chris Foss himself check his site: chrisfossart.com

A24 has released the second official trailer for their upcoming sci-fi thriller film Ex Machina (previously) directed by Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine. The trailer features young coder Caleb Smith blindly falling for the beautiful artificially intelligent robot named Ava. Smith quickly goes from being the tester to being tested. It’s currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on April 10, 2015.

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test—charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated––and more deceptive––than the two men could have imagined.

You've never met anyone like her. #MeetAva #ExMachina pic.twitter.com/7fRDMJ5ibf

— Ex Machina (@ExMachinaMovie) March 20, 2015

image via Ex Machina

“AWAKE” is a new time-lapse film by filmmaker Alexis Coram that captures the stunning prismatic beauty of the aurora borealis as it dances across the Fairbanks, Alaska winter sky.

I spent 4 nights outside of Fairbanks in February – two of those nights were entirely overcast and not a light could be seen. The other two nights were electrifying. I stood outside for hours – shooting and gazing in awe at the orchestral dance above and around me. I felt more awake than ever during those moments. I hope my interpretation in images portrays that feeling.

photos by Alexis Coram

via Fstoppers

_{The women are the strong ones, truly.}

In the remarkable time-lapse video “Dubai Flow Motion” by photographer Rob Whitworth, Dubai is explored in a series of frenetic, seamlessly linked time-lapses. The video covers the length and breadth of Dubai, including the baggage sorting system of the Dubai International Airport, the interior of the Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest building), and the tanks of the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

A mother who goes by the handle Unicornreality on Imgur recently used a makeup app to give her newborn son a virtual makeover with some hilarious results. The photos show the young boy with varying levels of digitally inserted makeup, fake eyelashes, and wigs to give him looks that range from to cute to downright unsettling.

images via Unicornreality

via Bored Panda

Indonesian wildlife photographer Hendy Mp has captured absolutely amazing images of a tiny Reinwardt’s tree frog riding atop a giant rhinoceros beetle, like a tiny cowboy upon his steed. Giddy-up!

photos by Hendy Mp

via Daily Mail, Bored Panda

Fuzzy Dude with Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue

Fashion designers, models, and other luminaries at New York Fashion Week are shown posing with bouncing fuzzy creatures in the thoroughly odd animated GIF portraits of motion designer John McLaughlin. McLaughlin has been recruiting people to pose with the “Fuzzy Dude” at various Fashion Week events. The project started as an experiment with hair rendering in Cinema 4D, but now McLaughlin is using it to raise awareness for the nonprofit organization Champions Against Bullying.

Fuzzy Dude with models at the JOYRICH presentation

Fuzzy Dude with actress Zosia Mamet

Fuzzy Dude with a model at the Sandy Liang presentation

Fuzzy Dude with model Julia Restoin Roitfeld

GIFs by John McLaughlin

via The Creators Project

Prayer nuts are small spherical wooden objects that can be opened to reveal remarkably ornate relief carvings of biblical events. Prayer nuts served as a kind of luxury Rosary bead for pious (and wealthy) Northern Europeans during the 16th century. The objects are now rare and reside in a few museums around the world, including the British Museum in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and one particularly handsome fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For those in the market for a prayer nut, Sotheby’s recently auctioned one for £133,250–which comes out to $205,000.

photos via British Museum

via Un monde de papier, My Modern Metropolis

The Sant Antoni de la Pobla bonfire festival is an annual three-day celebration that takes place in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona each winter. The festival began in 1992, but is based on a much older festival from the island of Majorca. The Barcelona version features traditional music, performances, and food from both Majorca and Catalonia. The festival culminates in a night of bonfires and a spectacular procession of costumed revelers. The 2015 festival took place in the end of January.

photos by Jordi Boixareu/ZUMA Press/Corbis

via Smithsonian Magazine

ethertune:

steps to SAKURA (By teeco55)

livingabovetherest:

gettingahealthybody:

ifuckinghatetomhiddleston:

REAL LIFE DISNEY PRINCE TOM HIDDLESTON EXHIBIT

I adore him.

My biggest role model

I never got why SO MANY females swoon over him, many of my friends list him as their #1 celebrity crush but glimpsing this bit of his intelligent, compassionate, romantic personality (Even if it may be glorified PR persona or REALLY good game with the ladies) I finally get it a little.