After my Batman shirt, which gets me stopped about 10 times per day, this is the second most awesome shirt ever.
[OMG It’s R2-D2 ! I Loved Him in Star Trek!]
The post OMG It’s R2-D2 ! I Loved Him in Star Trek! (Funny Tee) appeared first on Geeks are Sexy Technology News.
Revenge is a dish best served early. Or cold. Or both.
Artwork by Chris Gugliotti [webcomic | tumblr]
All new Frog Shorts at Runt of the Web! Click here to read it early!
Interrupting others is rude, impolite, and can set off tempers. It’s also absolutely necessary if you find yourself in an aggressive professional environment. That was the lesson that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had to learn.
It’s Tuesday, and that means another episode of The End of All Things. “Can Long Endure” is now out and available from your favorite eBook retailer. Here’s the official description:
“They signed up to defend humans from hostile aliens, but this group of Colonial Union soldiers finds themselves, instead, repeatedly sent to squelch rebellious human colonies that want to leave the CU. It’s not a sustainable situation. Something has to give.”
Yup, that’s about right. Here’s an excerpt of the story for you. And for the US, here’s a stack of eBook retailers to get it from:
Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Google Play|iBooks|Kobo. Other countries, please check your local retailers.
For those of you who like the military science fiction side of the Old Man’s War universe, this is your novella — it’s focused on a single squad and features lots of action, adventure and explosions in all their various forms. Plus, you know. Other stuff too.
It’s a good one. I hope you enjoy it!
The Google+ notification system, which appears nearly everywhere that you’re logged into Google, is getting a major change. Now, you can get notifications for Google Photos or YouTube. You can even filter which ones you want to see.
The last selfie before my surgery. This is my METAL FACE.
Are you depressed? Do you have anxiety? Are you on SSRIs? Better be wary when you hit the ER for a physical problem; they might tell you it's all in your head. That's what happened to me. I recently went through five months of pain for no good reason. One simple, non-invasive test could've solved a serious medical issue, but I wasn't given that test in the ER.
Here's why.
Last February, out of freaking nowhere, I came down with the worst indigestion of my life. To be clear, I'm 37 years old, 5'5", 140 pounds, and generally in good health. I didn't change my lifestyle, eat a 40 ounce steak, or do anything unusual. But this indigestion-- it took over my life. Chest pains, pressure on my trachea, acid in my throat and belly, trouble breathing. Every moment was agony. Every time I went to sleep, I felt like I was going to die. I tried every over the counter remedy available, from Beano to Gas X to Pepto Bismol. Nothing helped. So I went to my general practitioner.
He said it was simple acid reflux and prescribed Nexium. I decided, while I was there, to ask for an antidepressant. February is my darkest month, and I decided that after all these years of battling depression, I would finally give Celexa a try. Normally, I go home and Google every medicine any doctor prescribes, but this time, I decided against it. I didn't want to look at a long list of side effects and toss the Rx in the trash as I had in the past. I wanted to feel better.
That night, I took two pills: Nexium and Celexa.
Shortly thereafter, I had a bad reaction while watching Spiderman 3. Oddly enough, it wasn't due to what a horrible movie Spiderman 3 is.
I thought it was a heart attack... until I Googled "Celexa and Nexium drug interaction" and saw a bright red stop sign to indicate a major problem. It was terrifying. I couldn't breathe, my heart was hammering, my ears were ringing, my body was alternating hot and cold, my fingertips and feet were numb, I was dizzy. I was home alone with the kids, and I was afraid I was going to pass out, so I called 9-1-1.
The 9-1-1 responders were amazing. They ran several tests, including an EKG, and concluded that there was nothing life-threatening going on, that it was most likely the drug interaction combined with a panic attack. They suggested I have someone drive me to the emergency room, as going in the ambulance with two kids would only make me freak out more. I spent that night in the ER, hooked up to an IV and having dozens of blood tests. I told the doctors and nurses every symptom, with heavy emphasis on the indigestion that had started it all and was ongoing. Reflux, they said. Simple as that. They discharged me and told me to follow up with my general practitioner the next day.
Know what my chart said, what they didn't have the guts to tell me to my face?
There was nothing wrong. I was just having a panic attack.
The general practitioner claimed that the Celexa and Nexium, as prescribed, constituted too small a dose to cause the reaction I'd had (even though it matched every symptom of the reaction as described online). He said to keep trying with the Nexium, which I refused to do. He offered me a different antidepressant, which I rejected. He said it was probably just anxiety and gave me anxiety meds. And I took them, because I was terrified of that same feeling, that panic that I was dying.
For the next four months, off and on, I'd get better... and then have the indigestion again. There seemed to be no trigger. After the Nexium incident, I was scared of reflux medicines. I stopped eating fat and fried foods and milk, basically just consumed toast and ginger ale. I couldn't wear my usual jeans because I was so bloated. Every time I thought about having a panic attack, every time I was in the car and my mouth went dry, every time I saw a movie and vertigo kicked in (I'm talking to you, Jupiter Ascending)... I felt my heart jack up, and I took an anxiety pill. For my stupid anxiety.
And then, in May, the indigestion hit a peak. I was talking to my kids, and suddenly, I was out of breath. I couldn't finish a sentence. I was wheezing. I took an anxiety pill, and it didn't help. I calmly got dressed and asked to go to the ER-- of a different, bigger hospital in a larger town forty miles away. The whole way there, I sipped my water and clutched the car door hard enough to make my knuckles white. I was scared. I couldn't breathe. It was like someone was sitting on my chest, slowly crushing me.
The first thing they asked me in the ER?
Do you still have your gallbladder?
Well, yeah. The last ER said it was fine. They ran blood tests.
But did they do an ultrasound?
Well, no. They said if my blood didn't show signs of infection, then my gallbladder wasn't the problem.
And the doctor made a very annoyed face and sent me right off to have an ultrasound, which revealed a big, fat GALLSTONE blocking the neck of my GALLSTONE-PACKED gallbladder.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" the doctor asked when I was wheeled back to my room.
"I'm going to Phoenix Comicon," I said.
"What are you doing the day you get back?"
And that's how we scheduled the surgery shown above... for the day after I got back from a con. They wanted that gallbladder OUT. And so did I.
My gallbladder was a shitshow. Totally useless. That whole time, it wasn't even functional. This huge, D20 stone was blocking the whole damn organ. Bile was backed up my esophagus. I couldn't digest fat. No wonder I was a mess for five months.
FIVE.
GODDAMN.
MONTHS.
If they'd run an ultrasound IN FEBRUARY, I could've been spared so much pain and worry.
But instead, they told me I was crazy.
Not in so many words, of course. But they told me that all of this pain was in my head. That it was anxiety. That I should calm down. That I was doing it to myself.
They gave me... more pills.
They sent me to a general practitioner who told me it was reflux and who sent me to a gastroenterologist who also told me it was reflux. I went to a gynecologist to see if it was hormone related and was told it was... reflux. When I told these people, "I am having a serious problem and it's taking over my life," they brushed it away and said to try a new reflux medicine. More pills.
Now, I know that there are dozens of variables here. Maybe I didn't give the ER docs all the info they would've needed to check my gallbladder; I was freaking out at the time. Maybe they were too busy focusing on the drug interaction to pay attention to the original symptom that started the entire chain of events. Maybe things would've been different if I'd gone to a different hospital at a different time, talked to a different doctor. Maybe they heard I was a writer and decided I was being hyperbolic. Who knows?
What stands out to me is that I told them I was on Celexa, an antidepressant, and they seemed fine with skipping other tests and telling me it was all in my head. My concerns were brushed off. They missed what I was told, later, were glaringly obvious symptoms of a messed up gallbladder.
All that time, I thought I was doing it to myself. That it was all in my head. That if I could just calm down and chill out, I'd get better.
Bullshit.
They gave me anxiety because they missed the problem.
Not only that, but they treated anxiety not as an actual illness with physical symptoms beyond my control, but as something that I was doing wrong, something that could be fixed through sheer force of will and a little meditation.
Every time I had a gallstone attack from February to May, I thought it was a panic attack. I took my Lorazepam and focused my breathing, as if it was something I could control. Which it wasn't. It never was.
Anxiety is not something you can control any more than a gallbladder is. Your brain is just as much of an organ as your gallbladder or kidney or heart. We all deserve answers and treatment, and if we have to get pushy, then so be it. Ask for more tests. Whip out your phone and Google your drug interactions. Demand that they deal with the problem instead of slapping a drug band-aid on you to get you out the door.
I'm now three weeks out of gallbladder surgery, and I feel great. I've lost 6 pounds. I can wear jeans again. I'm not having panic attacks. I'm learning how to eat without my stupid, blocked-up gallbladder donking up digestion. It's not a perfect solution, but it's so much better than what was happening before.
My message to you: Take care of yourself. Demand answers.
Don't let them tell you it's all in your head.
Do you need any more proof of the racist double standard in the media?
The white shooter in a rampage killing gets a smiling childhood photo and an uncritical look at how his actions were influenced by the Internet. A black man who saved his own mother from a hail of bullets, though, has his “troubled past” highlighted. But wait, the treatment of the black man gets even worse.
This is what systemic racism looks like.
Because news cameras are apparently only there if looting and protests are mentioned, here are some shots from the march for peace in Charleston yesterday. In case you missed it, thousands marched to Ravenel Bridge, holding hands in prayer and unity. Yet this doesn’t make news, but an interview with the killer’s friend does. all photos from Twitter
The internet is trapped in a shame spiral, and it’s time for us to get the fuck out. Last week, the vortex churned around British physicist Tim Hunt, the Nobel laureate who went to lunch and lost his job.
I don’t know how long “BlackSmoke Billy” spent trying to achieve that trick or if it was by pure chance, but darn, that is one impressive GTA V stunt!
The post HOLY CRAP: This GTA V Semi Truck Stunt Jump Will Blow Your Mind [Video] appeared first on Geeks are Sexy Technology News.
Playing boardgames and tabletop RPGs can bring you a lot of surprising benefits , but it’s not as fun when your dice keep rolling the same result over and over. This simple trick can help you make sure all of your D6s, D10s, and D20s are perfectly balanced.
My bestie is a zoo keeper, and she told me that because of Jurassic World it has become a craze in the keeper community (!) to re-enact Chris Pratt. You guys, this is the best.
OnePlus, med sin obefintliga marknadsföringsbudget, förlitar sig på forum, bloggar och sociala nätverk för att nå ut till Androidentusiaster. Därför brukar tillverkaren göra små men många tillkännagivanden för att det skapar större exponering, istället för få och stora.
Precis som förra året tycks OnePlus därför välja att avslöja specifikationerna för årets toppmodell ett steg i taget. Företagets VD har i ett foruminlägg meddelat att OnePlus 2 utrustats med 64-bitarschippet Snapdragon 810.
Det rör sig specifikt om v2.1 av Snapdragon 810, som sägs vara svalare än de första upplagorna av chippet. I februari hävdade Qualcomm att Snapdragon 810 är svalare än Snapdragon 801 vid både videoinspelning i 4K och spelande, sannolikt i ett försök att stävja ryktena om överhettning.
Snapdragon 810-enheter som HTC One M9 och Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet har inte överhettat för oss. Däremot har Xperia Z3+ överhettat när vissa kamerafunktioner används. Kameran har då stängts ner. Detta kan mycket möjligt åtgärdas genom en OTA-uppdatering. Vi friar hellre än fäller Snapdragon 810, även om det återstår att se hur pass bra chippet fungerar i OnePlus 2.
Inlägget OnePlus 2 har utrustats med Snapdragon 810 v2.1 dök först upp på Swedroid.
Pushbullet is one of our favorite apps for bridging the gap between your devices . Now, the company is going even further with a new app called Portal that can transfer files directly between your devices over Wi-Fi.
News about the American Gods show is rareand it feels like we’ve been hearing about the TV adaptation forever. But tStarz has just announced that they’ve greenlit Bryan Fuller’s series, and it looks like American Gods on TV finally be happening!
För två år sedan presenterades Fairphone – en ny typ av mobil vars främsta mål inte är att generera intäkter för tillverkaren. Fokus låg istället på att minimera inverkan på miljön och försöka erbjuda så rättvisa förhållanden för alla i produktionsledet som möjligt.
Nu har uppföljaren Fairphone 2 introducerats. Precis som för föregångaren används material från konfliktfria zoner i så lång utsträckning som möjligt. En del av intäkterna går till en fond för arbetare i Kina och företaget sponsrar återvinning av e-avfall i Ghana.
I och med nya telefonen har Fairphone satsat mer på en modulär design, något som är tänkt att göra att enheten kan användas längre. Företaget vill motverka uppgraderingshetsen och minska mängden elektroniskt avfall genom att skapa en telefon som håller och är enkel att reparera.
Bakstycket går att ta bort och är utformat på ett skyddande vis som enligt Fairphone eliminerar behovet av ett skal. Batteriet är löstagbart och innanmätet har olika ”lager” som gör att enskilda komponenter blir enklare att byta själv. Skärm, kameror, högtalare, mikrofoner och chipp ska exempelvis gå att ersätta på egen hand.
Reservdelar går att köpa direkt från Fairphone och företaget föreställer sig en andrahandsmarknad för komponenter. Telefonen sägs även vara uppgraderingsbar i viss utsträckning.
Fairphone 2 har utrustats med Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, LTE, 2GB RAM, 32GB lagring, en 8MP-kamera, minneskortsplats, en 5-tumsskärm (1080p), samt plats för dubbla SIM-kort. Telefonen kommer gå att förbeställa i Europa i sommar för 525 euro (4840 kronor).
De som vill veta mer kan besöka Fairphone.com.
By combining this unique design with tutorials and the sale of spare parts, Fairphone wants to encourage users to have a deeper relationship with their phones and take more responsibility for keeping them in working condition. In addition, Fairphone plans to collaborate with developers to offer users more choice and control over the operating system.
Inlägget Fairphone 2 har modulär design, är enkel att reparera dök först upp på Swedroid.
The sky is gearing up for a very cool event: On June 30 and July 1, Venus and Jupiter will pass extremely close together in the sky, less than a third of a degree apart!
That’s close. The full Moon is a half degree across, so this will be very pretty. And it plays out over several days, so you’ll have plenty of chances to see it.
The planets orbit the Sun more or less in the same plane. We’re in that plane, too, so we see the solar system from the inside, and edge-on. That means that as the planets move around the Sun we see them moving along the same line in the sky, which we call the ecliptic.
In reality the planets’ orbits are all tilted slightly with respect to one another, so they don’t follow the exact same line. This means that, from Earth, we see them pass by each other in the sky, sometimes closer than other times. Usually they miss each other by a few degrees—and remember, this is just a perspective effect. In reality the planets are hundreds of millions of kilometers apart.
Venus orbits the Sun closer than Earth does, and Jupiter well outside. Right now, Venus is “rounding the corner” of its orbit, on the near side of the Sun and starting to overtake us. Jupiter is headed for superior conjunction, when it’s on the other side of the Sun from us. All these motions combined means Venus and Jupiter are approaching each other in the sky, getting closer every night.
If you go outside just after sunset (even before the sky is totally dark) and look to the west, you won’t miss them; Venus and Jupiter are the third and fourth brightest natural objects in the sky. It’s been pretty rainy where I am, but the other night we had clear skies and I saw them about 10° apart. They’re already making a striking pair.
They get closest together around 03:00 UTC on July 1 (which is in the evening in the U.S. on June 30). At that point they’ll be about 17 arcminutes apart (there are 60 arcminutes to a degree, so the Moon is 30 arcminutes in size). Through a telescope they’ll be amazing. They should both fit easily under low power. Jupiter’s disk will show stripes, the moons will be visible, and Venus will shine in a waning crescent phase.
This is the closest the pair have been for a while … but just wait until next year. They’ll get an incredible 4 arcminutes apart on Aug. 27! That’s during the day here in the U.S., but should be visible with binoculars or a telescope. So think of this month as a warmup.
In the meantime, get out and watch! It’s fun to go out every night and see them get closer. If the weather holds up, you can bet I’ll be outside, and looking through my own ‘scope, too.
For more info, and more events like this, check out the article on Universe Today.
Whether you’re casually avoiding T-1000’s in the San Fernando Valley or involved in a high-speed chase in the bed of the LA River, your navigation can now be voiced by a Terminator Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, thanks to Terminator Genisys’ new partnership with Waze. And yes, it’s really Arnold telling you where to go.
Bad news first, folks. LastPass, our favorite password manager (and yours ) has been hacked. It’s time to change your master password. The good news is, the passwords you have saved for other sites should be safe.
Enligt kinesiska sidan MyDrivers kommer OnePlus nya telefon lanseras i juli med chippet Snapdragon 810, 3GB RAM, en 13MP-kamera, ett 3300mAh-batteri, samt en 5,5-tumsskärm med 1920 x 1080 pixlar.
Priset som nämns är 1999 yuan vilket idag motsvarar 2600 kronor. Förmodligen släpps telefonen med olika mängder internt lagringsutrymme och priset lär således variera beroende på modell. Tidigare indikationer har istället pekat på ett pris kring 3300 kronor och det återstår att se vad OnePlus Two kostar i Sverige senare i sommar.
Precis som för föregångaren kommer enheten inte gå att köpa utan inbjudan – i alla fall inte inledningsvis.
Inlägget Rykte: OnePlus Two lanseras i juli, kostar 2600 kronor dök först upp på Swedroid.
