Maitri

Our fearless founder Jennifer Dziura read Ivanka Trump’s new book so you don’t have to. She also went ahead and made some useful edits.

Ivanka Trump’s Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, has been hand annotated in red pen and retitled Women Who Work My Nerves: Rewriting the Rules for Success to Benefit the 1%. The annotated version has now been posted for sale on eBay  – all proceeds from the sale will go to EMILY’s List. (While we privately think some executive at EMILY’s List will probably find this amusing, no one at EMILY’s List was involved in this project.)

The book contains useful tips, such as:

Working remotely … helps keep the President from grabbing your p*ssy
See the value of self-care … instead of health insurance
Inspire a career sponsor … like Vladimir Putin

Here are some highlights:

Humor aside: This is a book ostensibly about women’s success that does not once mention that men might be behind problems women face in the workplace. This is a book that will not make the patriarchy uncomfortable in any way. Feminism fail. (Not that the book contains the word “feminism.” It does not.)

Of interest: Ivanka Trump’s new book is a vacuous exercise in branding by Tabatha Southey

Update: The annotated book has been sold and shipped! We donated the proceeds to EMILY’s List on behalf of Ivanka herself.

Last year I told you about Andrew Lynch’s posters of individual New York subway lines. Now Lynch has created something that will be of interest to anyone who likes the London Underground’s track network map or Franklin Jarrier’s detailed rail maps: a geographically accurate subway track map for New York City, which can be downloaded as a PDF here. He describes how he went about making it (with apologia that sound like standard mapmaking compromises):

Collecting every historical map I could find, using GIS data, satellite imagery (both current and historic), YouTube videos of fan trips, my own observations looking out the window of trains through tunnels, and talking to retired track workers I was able to draw what I believe to be the most accurate track map of the NYC Subway ever. Features I’ve added to the map are all provisions for future expansion and abandoned sections with a notes section explaining each one as well as an exploded view for the more complex stations and areas obscured by overlapping tracks. I’ve elected to remove all streets as not to clutter the map and also not to imply that specific sections (such as crossovers) are perfectly aligned to the street grid. While the map is geographically accurate at this scale tracks had to be spaced far enough apart to read correctly so lines are not perfect aligned with the widths of the streets. Also some train yards have been truncated to fit within the geographical boundaries of the map.

Previously: New York Subway Line Posters; A Map of the London Underground Track Network.

Model Irena Shyshkena poses at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC 2017) Wednesday, May 3, 2017, in Houston. ( Steve Gonzales / Houston Chronicle ) By Lydia DePillis Those wandering the aisles of the Offshore Technology Conference might notice female staff at various booths that look just a little too perfect — their hair elegantly waved, ...

Oil and gas companies have given millions over the past three years to Texas’ lawmakers, according to an analysis released Monday by the non-profit Texans for Public Justice. The non-profit found state senators collected around $3.4 million from the energy industry;  representatives collected around $5.6 million. Overall, oil and gas companies gave six percent of ...

Blacknoise is the opposite of a white noise generator: you leave it running and it produces annoying, aggravating sounds that go right through you.

The Doctor Who 50th anniversary special wasn’t our last chance to get David Tennant and Billie Piper back together for some Doctor Who—and they’re finally going to actually acknowledge each other/give us actual Rose Tyler rather than The Moment” this time! Always and forever, we will appreciate how easy time travel shows make it to slip in any additional adventure writers can dream up.

The pair will kick off Volume Two of Big Finish’s Tenth Doctor Adventures series that previously brought Tennant’s incarnation of the Time Lord back together with Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Not to be left out, Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) will also return for the audio dramas, which will include three new stories. Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery said, “Getting David and Billie back together was definitely on my bucket list—two wonderful actors who created an era of Doctor Who which is so fondly remembered and brought a different aspect of the relationship between the Doctor and his companion to the fore—love, both platonic and unrequited. It’s great to have the Tenth Doctor and Rose back again!”

The three episodes are Infamy of the Zaross (by John Dorney), Sword of the Chevalier (by Guy Adams), and Cold Vengeance (by Matt Fitton). The first centers on an alien invasion of Earth that’s not what it seems, the second has the Doctor and Rose “arrive in Slough in 1791 and encounter Chevalier D’Eon, an enigmatic ex-spy who has lived their life as a woman,” and the third on a deep space asteroid where old Who villains, the Ice Warriors, are thawing out. All three episodes are coming in November, with preorders already open on Big Finish’s site—including a special edition set to really commemorate the moment.

(via Blastr, image: Big Finish)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Unpleasant Thought: Even if war with North Korea is as imminent as the media would like you to imagine, and even if the sea levels are rising at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year, it’s probably still not okay that you don’t have any real retirement savings.

Object Purchased: Triple Cinnamon Cupcake, from the Sprinkles ATM.

Unpleasant Thought: Maybe you are just bound to repeat the patterns from your parents’ marriages regardless of when and whom you marry.

Object Purchased: Capri Blue Surf Spray Candle, from Anthropologie.

Unpleasant Thought: The Wedding Industrial Complex has been clouding your sense of what’s real and healthy and what’s imaginary and commercialized since birth.

Object Purchased: Sequined Pineapple Dish Towel, also from Anthropologie.

Unpleasant Thought: You are now almost positive you pronounced it “car-CEREAL state” when you were drunk at that dinner party and trying to sound smart, and everyone heard it. Everyone.

Object Purchased: Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Color Splash Lipstick, in Daiquiri, from Sephora.

Unpleasant Thought: There is no way of knowing if your new female acquaintance is being cold and competitive toward you or if your internalized misogyny is making you feel cold and competitive toward her, and being socialized all your life to expect indirect aggression from other women is causing you to project that feeling onto her actually lovely and well-intentioned words and behaviors, and there is ALSO no way of knowing how many potentially life-altering female friendships have been and will be lost to you forever in this way.

Object Purchased: Shroomami Warm Grain Bowl, from Sweetgreen.

Unpleasant Thought: You have not called your grandfather in 96 days, and you tell yourself it is because he’s always taking a nap but you know that really it is because you are so selfishly and childishly afraid of his death and your death and of death in general.

Object Purchased: Graceful Gardens Planner & Datebook, from The Paper Source.

Unpleasant Thought: There is no afterlife.

Object Purchased: 2-for-1 flip flops, in Coral Pink and Fuschia Islands, from Old Navy.

Unpleasant Thought: You have wasted and squandered your many privileges.

Object Purchased: AIRism Stretch Cropped Pants, from Uniqlo.

Unpleasant Thought: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Object Purchased: Sustainable Vegan Bracelet, Woven in Cambodia, from Bloomingdales

  Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday that beginning Jan. 1 it will offer at least 16 weeks paid maternity leave to its female employees worldwide. The policy will particularly boost benefits for employees in 45 countries where there are only limited paid or unpaid maternity leave benefits, such as in the United States. Shell also has ...

By its very nature, Doctor Who is a formulaic show. You’ve got the Doctor, you’ve got a companion, they go on an adventure, there’s a scary monster, they overcome it , and are back in the TARDIS in time to do it all over again. But its latest episode did something to twist that: it gave some major consequences to the…

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The author of <em>The Fabric of the Cosmos</em>, and other bestsellers, says America needs rational thinkers to step up and help fix its relationship with facts. The post Brian Greene on How Science Became a Political Prisoner appeared first on WIRED.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A few weeks after the election, pro-Trump commentator Scottie Nell Hughes heralded the dawn of a new era when she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." In the age of Trump there's little need for people who've devoted their lives to studying scientific facts, and over the weekend the administration finally got around to dismissing some of them. According to the Washington Post, about half of the 18 members on the Environmental Protection Agency's Board of Scientific Counselors have been informed that their terms will not be renewed. The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound. The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term. But on Friday some received emails from the agency informing them that their first three-year term was up and they would not be renominated. Republican members of Congress have complained for some time that the Board of Scientific Counselors, as well as the 47-member Science Advisory Board, just rubber-stamp new EPA regulations. A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts (though the EPA is supposed to be regulating those companies). Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy, expressed her disappointment and asked, "What's the scientific reason for removing these individuals from this EPA science review board? It is rare to see such a large scale dismissal even in a presidential transition. The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics. This move by the EPA is inserting politics into science."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Crows are smart, and they can be kind of jerks sometimes. To wit: this series of crows perched or riding on top of other birds. Their victims range from indifferent to grumpy. (more…)

You are probably very good at your job, and may not feel the need to learn how to code. That's perfectly okay. But it's possible that learning programming could be an interesting and fiscally rewarding way to enrich your life and advance your career. In that case, take a look at The Ultimate Learn to Code 2017 Bundle in the Boing Boing Store. This collection offers a multi-disciplinary approach to learning programming and features a wide variety of courses. A sampling of what you’ll learn:

• How to build web applications with Ruby on Rails
• Responsive web design with HTML, CSS
• Cross-platform mobile app development
• Crafting complex user interfaces using Angular.js and TypeScript
• How to work with relational databases and client-server communication
• Java, Python, Javascript, Objective-C, Swift, and other powerful programming languages

With over 80 hours of instructional content, you’ll gain fluency in an array of widely-used technology stacks and coding styles. Go ahead and take a deep dive into software development with the Ultimate Learn to Code 2017 Bundle, available in the Boing Boing Store.

Felix Semper paid tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. in the only way he knew how: by sculpting a slinky-esque coil of flexible paper into a remakably lifelike work of art. (more…)

America is a country of opportunity, as we’re constantly told. People come here with nothing yet can make themselves billionaires. But there’s a price that immigrants have to pay when they come to this country, an unspoken loss that lies at the heart of American Gods. “We are a country of cultural appropriation,” says…

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Alayna Treene, writing for Axios: Long gone are the days of unpaid internships, at least at these 25 companies who are paying interns more than what the average American earns. Tech and finance interns in particular -- including at Google, Bloomberg, BlackRock, and Facebook -- earn more per month than the average American, according to data released by Glassdoor Tuesday.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you have an e-reader laying somewhere collecting dust, you aren't alone. More and more consumers are making the shift back to hard copy.

The post E-reader Sales Slack as Paper Books Reclaim Market Share appeared first on ExtremeTech.

The AmazonBasics Metal Monitor Stand was just what I needed to give my monitor a 4.25 inch boost. My laptop fits under the monitor, too, freeing up desk space.

The proposed "bathroom bill" is currently the cause of heated debate in Austin, but local leaders say Senate Bill 6 could play a role in Houston's ability to draw in new conventions and trade shows. SB-6 is a bill requiring transgender people to use public restrooms according to their biological sex. Proposed by four Texas Republicans, the bathroom bill has been a legislative priority for Lt. Governor Dan Patrick despite state and local business groups arguing the bill could have an adverse impact…

Daniel Huffman and John Nelson have launched A Cartographer’s Story, a website that collects personal essays from mapmakers.

While our community has a rich culture of sharing project walkthroughs and clever tricks, our colleagues also need to hear about the personal and emotional relationships we have with our maps. We invest ourselves in creating works that are meant to stir the hearts and imaginations of others—and in return our works invest in us. What are your stories? How has mapping moved you or changed you? Did it encourage you through a tough time? Teach you something about yourself? Represent a significant relationship in your life?

Seven stories posted so far; they’re looking for more.

Two books by John Blake on nautical maps that had heretofore escaped my attention: The Sea Chart, the second edition of which came out last May; and Sea Charts of the British Isles, a 2008 book that is getting a paperback edition in April. [WMS]

It can be easy to dismiss issues of representation in the abstract. Casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead in Ghost In The Shell was portrayed as part of the business, and many who criticized it as whitewashing were told they were over-reacting. After all, “it’s just a movie.” But as one video shows, there’s nothing…

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Tina Guo, the classically trained musician who provided the badass cello riffs on Wonder Woman’s theme from Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, shared a video of her making the song even more metal. She told io9 that the video below is in preparation for her personal work, rather than a new song for Wonder Woman, but she is recording something for Wonder Woman. Either way, we can still enjoy (a) her talent (b) her use of the hashtag #PizzaPower.

Recording #ElectricCello for my new #WonderWoman single…. coming soon! #Metal #PizzaPower #Pizza 🍕🍕🍕🎸🎸🎸🎻🎻🎻 pic.twitter.com/Z5WtkULWCK

— Tina Guo (@Tinaguo) March 5, 2017

• Amy Jo Johnson, the original Pink Ranger, pranked the cast of the new Power Rangers movie by pretending to be a reporter at their press junket. (via Nerdist)
• ScreenCrush shared an amazing look at all the visual effects work that went into Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the movie overall, I still found the amount of work and artistry that goes into creating these scenes astounding. It’s worth checking out.
• Remezcla and NPR’s Latino USA released a story about the fascinating, super-secret process of creating the Spanish-language dub of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The secrecy around the film was just absurd. As described by io9, translator Katya Ojeda “had to translate from a rotoscoped version of the film. The entire screen was in black, and when the actors talked, little ‘bubbles’ would open up so she could observe the lip movements.” (via io9)
• Danny Rand will not wear a costume in the first season of Iron Fist, so fans of navel-deep plunging necklines will have to wait. (via CBR)
• Disney has posted the first five minutes of their Disney Channel Original Movie, Tangled: Before Ever After. The movie is a sort of extended pilot for Tangled: The Series. (via /Film)

(image via screengrab from Guo’s video)

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Regis McKenna, Silicon Valley's cultural shaman, explains why many startups (*cough* Uber) find it hard to live up to their brand stories.

Regis McKenna, Silicon Valley's cultural shaman, explains why many startups (*cough* Uber) find it hard to live up to their brand stories.

Regis McKenna is Silicon Valley's original storyteller, the closest thing it has ever had to a shaman-in-residence. McKenna, 77, had a notable hand in shaping the strategy and marketing of some of tech's biggest companies, including National Semiconductor, Intel, Genentech, Electronic Arts, and perhaps most notably, Apple. All are companies that started small, grew big, and had to wrestle painfully with their own identity along the way. McKenna consults occasionally, often for startups, and knows every step of the Silicon Valley corporate assembly line, from university innovation competitions to the corner office of tech behemoths. He recently spoke with editor-at-large Rick Tetzeli about corporate narratives in Silicon Valley:

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Sure, the Cybermen have been “back” in the revived era of Doctor Who for a while. Hell, they’ve even been turned into Iron Man, basically. But these Cybermen never were actually the original monsters from the classic series—they were parallel world knockoffs. And now, the grandaddies of all Cybermen are finally back.

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An anonymous reader shares an Engadget report: There's now a course at the University of Washington, "Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data" that helps you find bad information and show others why it's bad. The instructors, Professors Jevin D. West and Carl T. Bergstrom, jokingly write that "we will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful ... that you acquire during the course of your college education." They add that the intention is not to be political, as "both sides of the aisle have proven themselves facile at creating and spreading bullshit." The intention, then, is to arm students (and the public if they want) with the tools to combat a scourge of misinformation that's aided and abetted by social media.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.