Oakfairy

Moonbeard by James Squires [website | tumblr | twitter]

[reddit] [h/t: yaypuppiesyay]

[video]

Photos on Ellen van Deelen [redbubble]

There’s a lot of awesomeness in the works! Let’s jump right in:

THE GAME IS AFOOT!

Jim has finished writing Skin Game! There are still some revisions to process, but it’s on its way toward print. Hopefully, we should have a release date to announce soon. Join our mailing list and be among the first to know!

GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY

However, the holiday season will not be Dresdenless! We’re only two weeks away from the December 3rd release of George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois’ Dangerous Women, which contains the Molly-POV novella “Bombshells.” Pre-order it through the Jim-Butcher.com store!

We don’t have an Audible link yet, but it will also be available in downloadable audiobook format, with Jim’s story narrated by Emily Rankin. You can check out a list of all the performers here. Castle fans will be delighted to hear Stana Katic reading pieces by Joe Abercrombie and S.M. Stirling, and Farscape fans will enjoy Claudia Black performing pieces by Brandon Sanderson and Sam Sykes.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

We told you last week that Cold Days made the Opening Round in the Goodreads Choice Awards. Today, we see that it’s made it into the Final Round! There are a bunch of fantastic authors represented in a wide variety of categories, and the contest ends November 25th, so don’t forget to vote for your favorites!

LET’S ROLL

We neglected to mention here that the Dresden Files: Winter Knight Fate Dice went on sale a few months back. Pick up a set at your favorite local game store or online through the Evil Hat webstore.

hannahblumenreich:

cat people: erwin schrödinger

By Hannah Blumenreich [tumblr | twitter | store]

By Samiel
There can be only one...

wowwoohoo:

So I can’t do my math homework cause my duck fell asleep on my calculator..

togifs:

[video]

Time lapse images of Earth at night taken from the International Space Station

tastefullyoffensive:

Amazing Ocean Facts by Rob DenBleyker [natgeo]

Previously: Animated Animals Facts

[reddit] [h/t: fydogs]

In related news: Did you know books can get herpes?

Read more...

[video] [h/t: alxbngala]

[video]

Being a huge fan of science fiction, I have always been fascinated by the world of future tech: nanotechnology, faster than light travel and, of course, robotics.  Last night, I was afforded the chance to explore the latter at one of Tokyo’s hottest night spots, the Robot Restaurant, a place where science and spectacle converge in a flashy, sonorous, dizzying – and informative – display.

Located in the hear of Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, the restaurant was opened a couple of years ago at a cost of an astounding $10+ million and has been packing them in ever since.  The price of admission (about $50 per person) gets you an unremarkable dinner (we ate before we came) and a seat at THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!

As we walked along in search of our destination, this caught my eye -

We already had plans for the night but, being a military buff, I thought this would be an equally educational opportunity for some other time. But I was surprised to discover that said Tank Girls make up part of one of the acts I’d be watching that night.  Robotics AND military history!  I actually felt myself getting smarter!

We purchased our reserved tickets (There are a couple of shows each night so make sure to book in advance), selected our meals (you have a choice between meat or fish), then walked across the street and into…well…let me show you…

Once downstairs, we were ushered into the showroom and over to our assigned seats.  With ten minutes to go before the commencement of the festivities, we were free to walk around, check out some of massive props on display, and grab a drink.  The crowd was, perhaps not so surprisingly, mainly made up of foreigners, ranging in age from tiny kids to grandmothers.

The audience settled into the seats flanking the stage area and we were instructed to remain seated during the show as there was a danger of being clipped by moving set pieces.  Also, I imagine that every so often one of these robots gains sentience and runs amok, necessitating prompt action by trained professionals who don’t need innocent bystanders getting in the way.  Photography is permitted, but big cameras (?) are frowned upon.  Also frowned upon = touching the robots or dancers.  :(

The show kicked off with an impressive choreographed taiko performance involving two groups of women on two moving stages, massive wadaiko drums, a moving omikoshi and its dancing bearers, a slew of oni (Japanese demons), colorful costumes, flashing lights, blaring music, smoke.  Here’s a taste:

Following a five minute intermission, it was time to start the next act – which ended up being my favorite.  And, speaking of favorites, as much as I loved the headlining robots – especially the goofy dancing samurai-bot – I ranked this performer as my #1 draw:

Another five minute intermission and then we moved onto the third act which was weird and my least favorite, but no less entertaining.  This one actually told a story and involved a fearsome black samurai and his two underlings who looked like rock ‘em sock ‘em robots dancing around and talking trash.  They are confronted by a panda and his two tiger buddies.  The robots kick the crap out of the panda but are in turn beaten up by the tigers who end up getting their asses kicked by black samurai.  Enter a warrior woman armed with Thor’s hammer and Captain America’s shield.  She takes on the robots.  And loses.  She retreats, but another champion steps into the fray: a woman riding a dinosaur wielding a giant iron ball on a chain.  She battles black samurai and is forced to retreat.  At which point this giant spider woman makes a grand entrance, battles the black samurai, and captures him with her webbing before dragging him back to her lair. Hurray!  The day is saved!

Another five minute intermission.  We are all handed glow wands and instructed on what to do.  Alas, all the instructions were in Japanese – but I got the gist.

And the show goes on with another wild performance, this one involving roller-skating robots and warrior women.  Also, towering robots programmed to serve humanity.  And dance!

A break in the action affords us the opportunity for a photo op:

A goodbye to the robots…

And then it was time for the capper, a performance highlighted by more costume clad women, loud music, laser lights, and a technicolor tank…

Wow.  What a production!    I was impressed – not just by the scope and scale of the production, but the talented performers as well.

On my way out, I bought a souvenir Robot Danger Dance & Mechanic Crew t-shirt.  The fellow at the counter informed me that they had received some mighty impressive guests from overseas  in recent months (Anthony Bourdain, JJ Abrams, The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus) and suggested I check out the website as the performances were always changing.  A return visit is a must!

Highly recommended.  If you’re in Tokyo, not to be missed!

Japan Robot Restaurant – ロボットレストラン

http://www.tokyoweekender.com/2013/07/robot-restaurant/

Tagged: Japan, Japan travel, Robot Restaurant, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Tokyo travel

You didn't see me and I didn't see you -- I was off buying a bottle of water and a sausage roll while Elise looked after the luggage. But you are a professional, you could have done it to anyone, and you walked off with my laptop bag.

So, what you've got. The bag itself was new for this trip. It matches a mug I have. It's Danica Studio Odyssey bag, and it looks more like a knitting bag than a laptop bag. I liked it, but I hadn't had it long enough to really bond with it. I don't think you'll be able to sell it, so I suggest you give it to your mother to use for her knitting. She's your mother, she tried to think well of you, she doesn't want to believe you're a bad person, no matter what the evidence. She knows you've been in trouble, but she still thinks you can turn it around. Bad companions, mistakes made, all of that. Give her the bag, she'll take it as evidence of how you're a good boy really. She's the only person who still believes in you, and you need that. You'll need somebody to visit you in prison. She can knit in the waiting room. And at the foot of the guillotine. Do they still have a guillotine? Did they ever have one in Belgium? Maybe not.

Inside, well, there's the netbook. It's an Acer, with very cool Florence stickers, but I'm going to Florence in a month and can buy more. It has a password on it, and you may be able to get around that or you may not, but it isn't worth the bother, there's nothing on it of value to you. Of value to me, yes, especially that thousand words or so I wrote the other night, grr, and all my bookmarks in Firefox, but to you, no. You'd do best to reformat it and sell it. It's nearly two years old and it cost $217. You have the powercord, with adapters for the world's electricity, and the awesome little round speaker I bought on the way home from Wiscon, and the headphones I bought on the way to Britain this summer, and the Logitech trackball wireless mouse. The weird thing is a stand so it can be used with a keyboard and have the monitor up high. You don't have the keyboard, it was in my pack. (You do have the usb key for the keyboard, which makes the keyboard pretty useless.) The stand is a specific one and it was expensive, but almost nobody would want it. I can replace all these peripherals with nothing but money. If you sell the whole lot together on Craigslist you might get a hundred dollars or so. I'd give you more than that to have it back, but that's not an option is it?

There are two little handmade Viking bags, to which I was very attached. The friend who made them has offered to give me more, which makes me feel better about that. The little one has the charger cord for my Kindle, useless without the Kindle, which is with me. It also has my headphones and two thumb drives. One of them has Protext for Ubuntu. You should try using it. It's a truly great wordprocesser. Maybe you can write a book and get out of thieving. It's no way to make a living really. So risky and also making the world worse instead of better. The other thumb drive has Bach's complete orchestral works and Sassafrass's Prophecies and Lies. I have them all on CD at home, so that's fine. Enjoy them. The big one has the powercord and the mouse and the speaker and also a gold chain set with stones. The name of that necklace is Ibidem, and it was made by Elise, the person you did see when you stole my bag. It's gold and it has special stones and it was a gift from a whole set of friends of mine, but it's not really sellable. It's a unique work of art, and very valuable to me, but you wouldn't get any more for it than the value of the gold as scrap. I think it would be better if you give it your girlfriend. (After you give it to her, she'll break up with you. She'll keep the chain, and she'll pass it on to her daughter when she first breaks up with a useless boyfriend, and she'll give it to hers and it will become an heirloom in their family.)

Also in the bag are three tins of tea and a mug and a filter. There's probably about $50 worth of tea, actually, but not resellable, just drink it. The tea in the black tin with the cool autumn trees stickers (I decorated it myself) is pu erh that needs to have the leaf woken -- use the filter that's in the bag, pour boiling water over it, then pour that away. Then pour water at 85 degrees over it and drink that. The handmade teabags are oolong -- make the same way, gaba dragon, same way, and rouge et noir, which you just make normally. The little Continental Railways tin, which I've had for 25 years and which was a gift from a friend now dead, which makes it probably the least replaceable thing apart from the necklace, has tisanes. Make them the normal way. Give the peppermint to your mother. It'll be good for her nerves.

That's all -- well, there's a silk shirt and a pair of underpants, pretty much useless, though I'd rather have them than not.

So you've caused me a lot of misery and financial loss, while gaining for yourself, well, maybe a hundred dollars, some music, and a cup of tea. Was it really worth it? One of these days you're going to get caught, you know you are. Not today, but one day. Not with my bag, but with somebody's bag. When you're there waiting for the guillotine, or sitting in a cell waiting for your poor old mother to bring you tea (because once you try it you're going to get to like it) and news of the outside world, will you be glad you took the risk and took my bag?

I know your life's hard. But you made my life harder. But writing to you has given me a good sense of what you're like, and my life is so great and yours is so awful, and due to get so much worse that I suppose I ought to be sympathetic. Tell you what. If you send the netbook, the Viking bags, the Continental tea tin and the necklace to me, care of Tor Books in New York, you can keep the rest and I'll give you the $300 it would cost me to replace the netbook. I also promise I'll campaign against the reintroduction of the guillotine, send you pu erh in prison, and let you cry on my shoulder when your girlfriend breaks up with you.

Do we have a deal? Pity about that.

Yesterday, Akemi and I did breakfast Tokyo Convenience Style, sitting down to a lovely spread: spicy orange-hued chicken nuggets devoid of any real chicken taste or texture, a soggy pork bun, another much better barbecued pork bun we received instead of the actual pizza bun we had ordered, an alarmingly runny aloe yogurt (with the fruit plant at the bottom) and, to wash it all down, a bottle of milk soda.  The verdict?  I was pleasantly surprised by the milk soda that tasted like Japan’s famed Calpis soda.  As for the rest….Well…

With our breakfast sitting in our stomachs like quick-drying cement, we headed to the Yushima neighborhood for lunch at Kurogi, a popular kaiseki restaurant.  Having never visited Kurogi, or the area, before, we decided to get there a little early and walk around…

A map of the area showed what appear to be two stairways, one named The Men’s Slope, the other The Women’s Slope.  Not sure whether there are any hard and fast rules about men walking up the women’s slope (and vice-versa) but, according to Akemi, word has it that anyone who fall while climbing up either will die in three years – or lose three years off their lifespan.  ”Where’d you hear this rumor?”I asked her. “Not rumor,”she informed me.  ”It common sense.”

As we continued our walkabout, I noticed Akemi slowing down.  It turned out her feet were killing her.  Her boots were NOT made for walking.  And so, we ended up stopping off at a discount shoe store where Akemi bought this – er – stylish pair…

Ultimately, she wasn’t that worried about how they looked so long as they were comfortable.

Well, they were comfortable for about a half an hour – after which she had to purchase some band-aids to keep the inside of the shoes from chafing her heel.  That helped.  For maybe fifteen minutes and, soon, Akemi was back to strolling in her original boots.

We wound our way around the small side streets and alleys, brimming with character and tiny restaurants.  I stopped to help a middle-aged woman who had slipped and fallen and couldn’t get up.  She thanked my while her friends remarked what a gentleman I was.  Oh, tondemonai!

We finally arrived at our lunch reservation and discovered other diners awaiting the 12:30 seating…

We filed in at a little after 12:30 and were seated at the main counter where we were presented with our lunch.  No ordering.  It’s an omakase (chef’s choice) set lunch comprised of snapper in a sesame-based sauce, pickles, salmon roe, miso soup, and rice.  And we were informed we could have as much rice and sashimi as we liked.  Akemi had a second bowl of rice.  I did both rice and sashimi.  The two older women seated to my right had three bowls of the sashimi.

While we ate, we watched the chef’s prep for the more elaborate dinner service.  Here a chef prepares the delicacy Bottarga, the salted and cured roe of the mullet fish:

A quick and casual kaiseki meal but no less delicious.  And one of the most economical I’ve ever had at roughly $10 per person.  Dinner is roughly double the price – but an equal bargain considering the expanded menu.  If you’re in town and want to try kaiseki (traditional Japanese meal) without breaking the bank, be sure to make a reservation: http://www.kurogi.co.jp/pg14.html

Well, I haven’t tracked down that Neon Genesis Evangelion cover for my new iPhone, but I did find THIS equally cool substitute:

We unwound back at the hotel, then walked over to the Matsuya department store for a snack at La Maison de Chocolat.  A couple of hot chocolates, a chocolate-pistachio macaron, and -

I was especially looking forward to dinner because the place we were headed – in the city’s rougher, working man’s section of Ikkebukuro – was a far cry from most of the high-end eateries I’ve visited over my many trips to Tokyo.  We were going to Kabuto, a tiny, family-run restaurant specializing in grilled eel.

The place was even tinier than I expected, comprised of two tiny tables and a long counter.  The customers sat on one side, offering about two feet of clearance behind them for people to negotiate the room, single file.  On the other side, the unagi master ran the show while (I assumed) his wife and son, did the honors: taking our orders [you have a choice between the small (one eels), medium (one and a half eels), and large (two eels) meals], pouring the sake, plating the food and, in son’s case, gutting and cleaning the eel that were kept in a bucket below the counter.  He would pull one up, kill it by severing its spinal cord with a quick slash, then nail its head to a designated area.  Thus secured, he would use his knife to slice it neatly in half, remove its spine in another expert stroke, trim off any inedible parts, and then skewer the meat, ready for eating.  Oh, he also demonstrated his knife skills by divesting the eel of its heart which is served raw and still beating.  But don’t take my word for it.  Check out the videos below.

Meanwhile, the unagi master, the star of the chef, grilled the eel, fanning the morsels.  Our fellow diners were positively raucous – and super friendly.  It was like one giant friends and family dinner.

Eel-gutting 101:

Akemi has a heart:

Rustic, raucous, and utterly delicious.  By night’s end, I was thoroughly stuffed – and a little tipsy.  I bought a round for the two boisterous salarymen we had befriended (“From Canada,”the woman who took my order informed them), then paid the bill (cash only) and headed back to the hotel for my first blissfully deep and interrupted sleep in days. Restaurant Report – Unagi Kabuto in Tokyo – NYTimes.com

Tagged: eel, eel restaurant, Japan, Japan food, Japan travel, Kabuto, Kabuto Tokyo, Kabuto unagi, kaiseki, Kurogi, Kurogi Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo food, Tokyo travel, unagi-ya

laughterkey:

kendrawcandraw:

Only thing I’m worried about pulling off is my earrings ‘cause we’re fighting bitch

Reblogging this again because it’s so cute it fucking hurts my feelings.

Wendy Davis Redefines ‘Pro-Life,’ Enrages Anti-Choicers:

“I am pro-life,” she told a University of Texas at Brownsville crowd on Tuesday. “I care about the life of every child: every child that goes to bed hungry, every child that goes to bed without a proper education, every child that goes to bed without being able to be a part of the Texas dream, every woman and man who worry about their children’s future and their ability to provide for that future. I care about life and I have a record of fighting for people above all else.”

“This isn’t about protecting abortion,” Davis explained in the same appearance. “It’s about protecting women. It’s about trusting women to make good decisions for themselves and empowering them with the tools to do that.”

Anti-choicers are violently pro-life, right up to the second a child is born. It’s heartening to see Wendy Davis taking them on like this.

I'm a big fan of using cordless drills to speed up tasks whenever possible, and this trick from The Manly Housekeeper takes the idea to a new level. Just mod the top of a typical hand-held scrubber with a bit attachment, snap the assembly together, and get to work.

Read more...

I am smug. Really, insufferably smug. Why, you might ask, do I have this excessive sense of pride? I will tell you. First, you should know about #TheRealRothfuss game.

For two weeks, Pat Rothfuss and five impersonators will all try to convince you that they are the real Pat Rothfuss on Twitter.

At the end of the two weeks, fans will be asked to vote for who they think the real Pat Rothfuss is, and the winning Twitter user will receive a $1000 donation to the charity of their choice, donated by DAW Books.

Next you should know that I was one of the five Rothfi impersonating Pat.

He didn’t tell us who the other players were, and assigned the twitter handles out of a hat. The only rules were that we couldn’t make up stories about his son, we couldn’t change our accounts photo, and that Pat couldn’t post pictures of himself. Other than that, we could be as tricksy as we wanted to.

Now, here is where the smugness comes in. I had 42% of the vote. The next closest Rothfi was Pat himself (@PatrickRothfuss) with 15% of the vote. Mwhahaha! Or, as Pat would say, “Muahahahaha!”

This is the part that I thought you might find interesting, which is how I convinced people that I was him. Most of you know that I write this series of books set in the Regency and aim for the style of Jane Austen. I applied those same text analysis tricks to Pat’s writing. I was initially helped by a cheatsheet that Amanda, Pat’s assistant, put together for us that talked about things Pat does and doesn’t do. Beard jokes, for instance. Other people make them about him, but he rarely makes them.

Next, I read back through several post both on the blog and on Facebook. The comments were the most useful because that was where we got to see Pat in short form, which is what I’d be doing on Twitter. He had a couple of ticks. One was that he tends to use *asterisks* to emphasize things. He also usually does four dots in an ellipses, though not always.

When I wanted to write something, I’d plug the keyword into the search box on his site to see if he’d ever talked about the subject. If he had, I’d lift language from there, shifting it a little so that a google search wouldn’t return that exact sentence. If he hadn’t, then I’d write it trying to “hear” Pat say it. After I wrote it, I’d look to see if I’d used any idioms, slang or larger words. Then I’d again turn to the search box and look to see if he’d used the word, and if he’d used it in the same context.

For instance, I wrote, “Whoa guys.  Just scrolling through the bajillion tweets that accumulated while I was in flight. You’re all awesome.”

• I searched for “Whoa” which he never used. I changed that to “Wow.”
• “Bajillion” returned nothing, so I searched for “illion” to see how he handled long numbers. That gave me “approximately ten hajillion” which I lifted.
• “Awesome” turns up a fair bit, including one phrase, “You guys are awesome.”

That made the whole tweet read as, “Wow. Just scrolling through approximately ten hajillion tweets that accumulated while I was in flight. You guys are awesome.”

I lifted language a couple of other times, including when he posted a link to Facebook and I just grabbed the exact words prefacing and retweeted them. Shortly after that tweet, a funny thing happened. My account got verified by Twitter as being “real.” We don’t know how being verified works, but we know it doesn’t involve contacting the person.

The fact that the photo my account was the same as his Facebook and G+ icons probably helped, but I can’t imagine Twitter making that the entirety of their process. My best guess was that they might have a bot that was looking for reoccurring phrases and the fact that I was lifting phrases triggered it. Four times. We kept changing my username and changing it back, which removes verification. Then it would return.

I had to play the verification two ways. One, I had to play it as Pat, who would be annoyed that his game was being disrupted and pretend to be someone else. But he couldn’t pretend too hard, or that would completely convince people that the account was Pat. Two, I wanted to win, so I did, in fact, want to convince people that the account was really Pat.  It was a fun challenge.

One trick I used…when he sent us an email telling us that he was going to do a blog post later, I tweeted, “We think we have a game plan for dealing with the recurring Verified tag *if* it comes back. Blog post forthcoming.”

I was banking that most of the voters wouldn’t know or think about the fact that he was telling us ahead of time when game related posts were going up. Regardless, whatever that process is someone at Twitter needs to take another look at it.

One of the interesting side effects of the game was that I started to feel responsible for Pat’s fans — not for the work that they loved, but for their well-being. Pat often talks about how amazing they are and he is not kidding. They are clever, funny, and completely dedicated.

The one thing I’ll say is that you guys should stop bugging him about the third book. Role-playing him for two weeks I have to tell you that my @Pat_Rothfuss account got asked that all the time. Even for me, it was wearing. It was clear that it came from a place of enthsiasm and love, but the cummulative effect in just the two weeks I was playing Pat was sort of depressing. As an author, I can tell you that it doesn’t help and the constant pressure sort of makes it harder to write. So from a Faux Rothfuss, please back off of the guy? You guys are awesome.

Meanwhile, I get bragging rights to being more Rothfussian that Pat himself AND the charity of my choice Con or Bust, gets $1000. Smug, I tell you. Insufferably smug.

The post How I beat Pat Rothfuss at being Pat Rothfuss appeared first on Mary Robinette Kowal.

maureenspooky:

the american sex education system in one sentence.

I believe this is what was actually taught in my all-girl Catholic high school. I seem to remember taking a quiz on this.

Photographs by Jean-Louis Klein and Marie-Luce Hubert
[website]

[h/t: wonderous-world]

[flickr] [h/t: fruitsgarden]

Is this image a satellite picture or a microscope one? That's the question posed by "Macro or Micro?," an exhibit created by two scientists with completely different focuses. Oh, and we'll tell you the answer below.

Read more...

Den allra första Nexus-telefonen tillverkades av HTC och heter Nexus One. Google-anställda började använda mobilen redan i slutet av 2009. Google ville skapa ett flaggskepp för Android – en slags förebild som visar vad plattformen är kapabel till. Sedan dess har Internetbjässen fortsatt samarbeta med tillverkare och släppt minst en ny Nexus-modell varje år. Idag finns sammanlagt åtta olika Nexus-enheter.

Efter Nexus One följde den Samsung-tillverkade Nexus S. Samsung fick även skapa hårdvaran för 2011 års Galaxy Nexus. Förra hösten släpptes den LG-tillverkade Nexus 4 och precis som Samsung har LG nu fått släppa två Nexus-mobiler i rad.

Den animerade GIF-bilden nedan summerar fyra års utveckling på tre sekunder. Bildfilen är ganska stor och det kan därför ta ett par sekunder innan animationen flyter som den ska. Nexus 5 är förstås alldeles ny, men vilken Nexus-telefon tycker ni har betytt mest för Android?

Pssh. I can do better than that.