Oakfairy

Procrastinators waste too much time, but to get over this bad tendency, you need to know why you procrastinate . Dr. Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University has categorised a few basic types of time-wasters, and has solutions for them too.

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HA HA HA HA

WHEE

pyoo pyoo

THAT RACCOON HAS A GUN AND A HEART

I AM GROOT

I am full of joy

I haven’t had this much fun going to the movies since I don’t know when

YOU’RE ON NOTICE, STAR WARS EPISODE SEVEN

Except this isn’t really like Star Wars at all despite the comparisons

This is more like THE LAST STARFIGHTER or ICE PIRATES

HA HA HA DICK MESSAGE

Hey is that really Sean Gunn from Gilmore Girls?

Oh, dang, he’s related to the director, isn’t he?

The music! THE MUSIC.

Music is so essential!

I have earworms giddily chewing into my brain!

WE MUST BE LIKE KEVIN BACON AND SAVE THE WORLD WITH DANCE

Hey, is that Lee Pace from Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies?

Is that — is that Simon Pegg in an eyepatch?

Wait, no, I don’t think that’s Simon Pegg.

(But Rob Zombie is in this movie?)

This movie is entirely uncynical

It doesn’t have an iota of darkness or grimdarkness in its silly heart

It’s actually sweet!

AHH I WANT MY SON TO SEE THIS SOME DAY BECAUSE WHIZZ BANG FUN ZOOM

Oh Chris Pratt you’re the best and you used to be doughy and you give us all hope

I want to play in this roleplaying game like not a video game but with dice and character sheets and OOH OOH CAN I PLAY THE TECHIE RACCOON WITH A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER

okay maybe some tiny complaints like jeez Marvel sure is in love with this whole Macguffin magical shiny glowy stones and objects bullshit, and hey maybe women could get a better break in these movies instead of the white guy always being the day-saver

and the post credits sequence uhhh wut

BUT AHHHH

FUN

JOY

LAUGHING TIMES

*clap clap clap*

This is why Jesus and George Lucas invented toys!

*gobbles down all the movie merchandising*

BOOM

BOOSH

3D OH SNAP IT’S FLYING RIGHT AT MY FACE

IMAX IS PRETTY COOL BUT I HAD TO TAKE OUT A HOME EQUITY LOAN FOR THE TICKET

WHATEVER WOOOOOOOOOO

*whistles up a floating spear*

*buys self a Walkman*

SHUT UP I’M NOT CRYING

*dances*

Lasers!

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE JESUS GOD CRAP STOP READING THIS AND GO SEE IT

*vibrates until cosmic microscopic dispersal*

(no raccoons or tree people were harmed during the making of this movie)

neither:

LET ME HELP I CAN HELP I WILL HELP IM HELPING

Nikitagram [tumblr | instagram]

[reddit]

[reddit]

If you’re reading this, then the blog software has identified you as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and this blog post has been automatically decrypted for you. (FYI, members of the public will see this article being about why Mars is red.)

Congratulations on getting this far. Given the current state of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the death of Director Fury—not to mention the now-rogue and anarchic Hydra—we know your life is constantly in danger. And now more than ever you need to be apprised of the scientific research being done involving the Avengers Initiative.

We held a covert training session at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend; the idea was to have it in a public place hidden in plain sight (code name: Operation Purloined Letter). We were able to go over the basics to about 500 agents—if you weren’t there, as is likely, then you can read a synopsis by Level 5 Agent Mika McKinnon at io9, another at NerdCoreMovement,^* and a third written by Level 4 Agent Kyle Hill as a false flag operation at Nerdist.com. Again, those will be automatically decrypted for you.

We had several S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists on hand for the training session: Preston Dyches, Sebastian Alvarado, Randii Wessen, and Ricardo Gil da Costa. I was chosen to moderate the panel, given my own work on the Bifrost technology and the efforts to map out Yggdrasil shortly before the Chitauri invasion.

The big announcement was that we have opened up a S.T.A.T.I.O.N.: Scientific Training and Tactical Intelligence Operative Network. Here you’ll learn the introductory science about the Avengers: Thor’s hammer, Tony Stark’s Iron Man tech, how the serum works that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America (involving genetic as well as epigenetic engineering as well), and what we know about Dr. Bruce Banner’s transformation into the Hulk.

The S.T.A.T.I.O.N. is located in Times Square, New York, and will travel the country as soon as Agent Coulson deems it safe enough.

Stay alert, be ever vigilant. Your country, your species, and your planet need you.

^*As a suspected agent of Hydra, the author of that particular article thought she was going undercover to penetrate the meeting; what she didn’t know is that we were totally aware of her presence, and let her in as a trap. She has been dealt with, but we have allowed her article to stand posthumously as part of the disinformation campaign.

dorkly:

Why Captain America is Perfect

Armadillos: They can give you leprosy, but they can also MELT YOUR HEART.

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grarg:

"The Groots"

Another day, another volley in the Amazon-Hachette battle, this time from Amazon, in which it explains what it wants (all ebooks to be $9.99 or less, for starters) and lays out some math that it alleges shows that everyone wins when Amazon gets its way.

Some thoughts:

1. I think Amazon’s math checks out quite well, as long as you have the ground assumption that Amazon is the only distributor of books that publishers or authors (or consumers, for that matter) should ever have to consider. If you entertain the notion that Amazon is just 30% of the market and that publishers have other retailers to consider — and that authors have other income streams than Amazon — then the math falls apart. Amazon’s assumptions don’t include, for example, that publishers and authors might have a legitimate reason for not wanting the gulf between eBook and physical hardcover pricing to be so large that brick and mortar retailers suffer, narrowing the number of venues into which books can sell. Killing off Amazon’s competitors is good for Amazon; there’s rather less of an argument that it’s good for anyone else.

2. Amazon’s math of “you will sell 1.74 times as many books at $9.99 than at $14.99″ is also suspect, because it appears to come with the ground assumption that books are interchangable units of entertainment, each equally as salable as the next, and that pricing is the only thing consumers react to. They’re not, and it’s not. Someone who wants the latest John Ringo novel on the day of release will not likely find the latest Jodi Picoult book a satisfactory replacement, or vice versa; likewise, someone who wants a eBook now may be perfectly happy to pay $14.99 to get it now, in which case the publisher and author should be able to charge what the market will bear, and adjust the prices down (or up! But most likely down) as demand moves about.

(This is where many people decide to opine that the cost of eBooks should reflect the cost of production in some way that allows them to say that whatever price point they prefer is the naturally correct one. This is where I say: You know what, if you’ve ever paid more than twenty cents for a soda at a fast food restaurant, or have ever bought bottled water at a store, then I feel perfectly justified in considering your cost of production position vis a vis publishing as entirely hypocritical. Please stop making the cost of production argument for books and apparently nothing else in your daily consumer life. I think less of you when you do.)

Bear in mind it’s entirely possible that Amazon sells 1.74 times as many books at $9.99 than at $14.99, but then Amazon deals with gross numbers of product, while publishers deal with somewhat smaller numbers, and the author, of course, deals with only her own list of books. As the focus tightens, the general rules stop being as applicable. What’s good for Amazon isn’t necessarily good for publishers, or authors.

3. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I think it’s very likely that if $9.99 becomes the upper bound for pricing on eBooks, then you are going to find $9.99 becomes the standard price for eBooks, period, because publishers who lose money up at the top of the pricing scale will need to recoup that money somewhere else, and the bottom of the pricing scale is a fine place to do it. Yes, the mass of self-published authors out there will create a tier of value-priced books (this has already been done), and I’m sure in a couple of years Amazon will release another spate of numbers that will show how much more profitable $6.99 eBooks are as compared to $9.99 eBooks, and so on. But at the end of the day there will be authors and publishers who can charge $9.99, forever, and they will. If you destroy the top end of the market, the chances you destroy the bottom end go up, fast.

4. I think Amazon taking a moment to opine that authors should get 35% of revenues for their eBooks is a nice bit of trying to rally authors to their point of view by drawing their attention away from Amazon’s attempt to standardize all eBook pricing at a price point that benefits Amazon’s business goals first and authors secondarily, if at all. The translation here is “Look, if only your publisher would do this thing that we have absolutely no control over, then your own income wouldn’t suffer in the slightest!” Which again, is not necessarily true in the long run.

To be clear, I think authors should get more of the revenue of each electronic sale, although I’m not necessarily sanguine about letting Amazon also attempt to set what that percentage should be. Increasing authors’ percentages of revenue on electronic sales is an exciting new frontier in contract negotiations, he said, having walked to that frontier himself several times now. That said, I also think I should be able to get more of the revenue of each sale and have the ability to have my work priced at whatever the market will bear, without a multibillion-dollar company artifically capping the price I or my publisher can set on my work for its own business goals, which may or may not be in line with my own.

5. While this is not going to happen because this is not the way PR works, I really really really wish Amazon would stop pretending that anything it does it does for the benefit of authors. It does not. It does it for the benefit of Amazon, and then finds a way to spin it to authors, with the help of a coterie of supporters to carry that message forward, more or less uncritically.

Look: As Walter Jon Williams recently pointed out, if Amazon is on the side of authors, why does their Kindle Direct boilerplate have language in it that says that Amazon may unilaterally change the parameters of their agreement with authors? I don’t consider my publishers “on my side” any more than I consider Amazon “on my side” — they’re both entities I do business with — but at least my publisher cannot change my deal without my consent. Which is to say that between my publisher and Amazon, one of them gets to utter the immortal Darth Vader line “I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further” to authors doing business with it and one does not.

(I notice in the WJW comment thread someone opines along the lines of “Oh, that’s like EULA boilerplate and it would probably not be enforceable in court,” which I think is a really charming example of naivete, not in the least because, as I suspected, the boilerplate also specifies (in section 10.1) that disputes between Kindle Direct users and Amazon will be settled through arbitration rather than the courts.)

Authors: Amazon is not your friend. Neither is any other publisher or retailer. They are all business entities with their own goals, only some of which may benefit you. When any of them starts invoking your own interest, while promoting their own, look to your wallet.

Wine has so many varieties and varying degrees of value that it can be intimidating to order when you're out to dinner. Gerald Morgan Jr, Sommelier at Simplified Wine, has some tips on choosing and ordering wine that can help alleviate the confusion and intimidation.

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I never knew having a corgi would involve so many severed fox heads.

Artwork by Chris Gugliotti [webcomic | tumblr]

—————————-

This was last week’s Corg Life. 

CHECK OUT AN ALL NEW CORG LIFE! CLICK HERE!!

Email can quickly pile up and be a distraction with its constant notifications—especially those short back and forth messages. Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, says you should get into the habit of using "if...then" statements to reduce these.

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The video on how to get better sleep is below!

Feeling tired? As our lives get busier and busier we tend to sleep less and less. So what does science say about how much you SHOULD be sleeping?

[ASAPScience]

[Via Dorkly | /r/pics]

Uber is a great way to get a ride without having to hail a cab. When you finish a ride, you get a chance to rate your driver and your experience. However, the drivers get to rate you too. Here's how to find out your rating, which is normally a closely-kept secret.

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mybodythehandgrenade:

brinconvenient:

gailsimone:

chrishaley:

Done and done.

(Not pictured: “Butt window”, but trust me, it’s there.)

You have no idea how much this cheered me up just now.

I for one, think this is a major improvement. Look how empowered he is! And it’s relevant to the character as someone who is powered by the sun, he’d want to maximize the amount of sunlight he receives, right? It’s not like it makes sense for him to cover himself from chin to toe.
In fact, I think some strappy sandals might be an improvement.

strappy high heeled sandals would increase his height making him closer to the sun. and if wonderwoman can fight in heels it can’t be that hard, right?

Kids these days…

[Via NA | IZismile]

Yep, been there, done that.

[Source: The Meatly | Like "The Meatly" on Facebook | Via]

[Source: Chris Hallbeck - Maximumble | Via Neatorama]

Web: Part of building a good network is regularly touching base with certain people. And well, it can't hurt to extend that to your personal life and drop a line to old friends. TinyBlu is a simple webapp to remind you when it's been too long since you last spoke with someone.

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[Source: Noitego (CC) | Via Dueling Analogs]

It's preview night at Comic-Con, and DC showed the pilots for two of its upcoming new shows: Constantine and The Flash. And they were both good! Here are our spoiler-free first impressions.

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Yes, we know that this picture has most likely been photoshopped, but we think it’s still funny enough to post.

[Source: The Arnold Fans on Twitter | Via NA]

noobtheloser:

"Just keep walking. If I really commit, he’ll just assume I meant to do this."

I honestly just did this so I could draw the bird looking back like that in the last panel. Hahaha look at him.

I do a lot of these.

So do other people.

Meet Biddy, The Travelling Hedgehog

Those of us who want to travel but do not have the time or the money finally have a solution – we can travel in spirit together with Biddy the hedgehog, a little guy on Instagram whose travel photos are becoming insanely popular.

Toni DeWeese and Tom Unterseher, Biddy’s two loving owners in Oregon, take him on adventures almost every week throughout the Pacific Northwest. He visits mountains, forests, waterfalls, and the occasional donut shop.

[instagram] [h/t: catsbeaversandducks]

It may be the off season, but that isn’t stopping the Game of Thrones theme covers from flowing. This latest one comes from YouTuber Malukah, who has created a medley of the title theme, and the song that closed out season four, The Children.

Malukah uses her own voice as a one woman choir, accompanied by performances on the guitar, piano, and drums to create a truly beautiful tribute.

Get a daily update of the site’s latest news, conveniently sent in newsletter form, directly to your inbox. Sign up for WiC Daily.

[video] [h/t: sizvideos]

Tired of the same old apples and bananas?  Looking to top your corn flakes with something really special?  Well, cash in that 401k and fly on over to Japan to sample these unique fruit:

YUBARI KING MELONS

A hybrid of two cantaloupes (Earl’s Favorite and Burpee’s Spicy), the Yubari King Melon hails from Hokkaido, Japan where they are grown in special greenhouses, each fruit (one to a vine – the rest are pruned) is outfitted with a  special hat to guard them from the sun.  They are usually sold in pairs but you can snag a single for a mere $100.

RUBY ROMAN GRAPES

Grown in Ishikawa prefecture, these ping-pong-sized grapes are sold under strict conditions.  Each must weigh over 20 grams and have a sugar content of over 18%.  Instead of splurging on a bunch, start with a solitary grape – that will set you back about $250.

EGG OF THE SUN MANGOES

Earlier this year, a pair of these prized mangoes sold for a record $3000 at auction and then were promptly airlifted from Miyazaki in southern Japan to a department store in Fukoaka where they went on sale.  The average person can pick up one of these mangoes – that must weigh in at a minimum 350 grams and possess a sugar content of over 15% – for about $50.

DEKOPON

These orange/mandarin hybrids were only available in Japan until several years ago.  They are grown in large greenhouses and then left to sit for 20-40 days after harvesting to mellow their citric character while allowing their sweetness to build. A half dozen will set you back about $80.

SEKAI-ICHI APPLES

Sekai-Ichi Apples translates to “World’s Best Apples”.  They are pollinated by hand and washed with honey.  In comparison to the other fruit on this list, a single apple is a steal at a little over $20.

SQUARE WATERMELON

Grown in tempered glass boxes to ensure their perfectly cubic form, they are incredibly practical: easily stackable and an easy fit for small Japanese refrigerators.  Recent alternate versions include heart-shaped and pyramid varieties.  Get your own for $200 a pop.

DENSUKE BLACK WATERMELON

Also grown in Hokkaido where a mere 100 are farmed each year, they are renown for their crispness and sweetness.   They go for as much as $5000 but, if you’re lucky, you may be able to find one at your local Sembikya fruit store for the rock bottom price of $200.

WHITE STRAWBERRIES

Referred to as “Hatsukoi no kaori” (Scent of First Love), these beautiful strawberries are possessed of a high sugar content and run about $5 each.

HONOKA STRAWBERRIES

Or, you can settle for a box of plump red strawberries from Saga, Japan.  Get your friends to chip in and pick up a box for $30.

GOKUSEN BANANAS

These $6 bananas weigh in at a hefty 200 grams and come packaged with serial numbers in their own special boxes.

OKAYAMA WHITE PEACHES

$40 will get you one of these luscious, premium peaches grown in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan (a.k.a. The Land of Sunshine).