Alvaro Freitas

Claude Monet could see ultraviolet light, a side effect of a 1922 cataract operation. This is why his ‘Haystacks’ era work featured such prominent blues and purples.

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VOCÊ JÁ TÁ NA ALTURA QUE EU PRECISO, GIMLIZINHO, PODE COMEÇAR

It has unintentionally turned into Aubrey Plaza week around here, what with all the GQ swimsuit spreads, live-action Darias, and masturbation chats. And what better way to keep the party going than with a definitive collection (disclaimer: this collection is in no way definitive) of GIFs real-life April Ludgate has contributed to web culture over the years. Also: a way too convenient excuse for me to continue to enjoy the divisiveness she creates in the comments.

Speaking of April, we cover her plenty around here, and since this week has been all about Aubrey Plaza “the actress” and not her iconic people-hating Parks character, none of these GIFs are set in Pawnee, Indiana. Prepare to be charmed by animated disaffection. Above via

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And this counts as one…

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You can see the problem straight from the name of the movie. “World War Z”.

The historical world wars, one and two, were big, epic things. To make a movie of one of them by gluing a camera to the ass of one man would be silly; it would be a Forrest Gump-like comedy, an unrealistic lark, with our protagonist showing up wherever things happen whether he wants it or not. If you then have a bigger cataclysm than either of these two wars, and title it in such sweeping fashion, there’s some expectation that you are going to do justice to the scale and complexity of the conflict.

Or, you know, just glue a camera to a guy’s ass and see what happens.

Max Brooks’s book, almost incidentally also called World War Z, gets this. It doesn’t have a protagonist; it has a narrator. The narrator is the least important figure in the story, though the frame story is his. What he did during the war isn’t important, because he did nothing important. His importance is in finding the people who have stories to tell, because no one single person can tell the whole. The broken people that our narrator interviews after the zombie war have their own stories, and together they make up a story of not just humans, but humanity. Instead of war stories, the story of a war: World War Z. That the individual stories are disjointed, separated from each other, just emphasizes the chaos and the terrible extent of the war.

In the movie, the chaos of the conflict is represented by gluing the camera to a pogo stick and turning the lights off. A daring audiovisual storytelling decision, that.

The movie has no narrator, but a protagonist — the few times the protagonist tries to narrate things, he’s capable of nothing more except generic platitudes that could work just as well for a diet as for a zombie apocalypse. See the last minutes of the movie.

Also, in the book the conflict is world-wide: a world war. Through the stories we see the lives of people, as they were and as they became, in Mississippi, China, Russia, South Africa, lots of other places which aren’t named AMERICA! and in which no conspicuous Americans cavort around, stealing the spotlight and the importance of the stories told.

In the movie, we see: New York, in AMERICA! An American base in Korea — we briefly see a native; just briefly, don’t worry. Jerusalem — don’t worry, our protagonist is American and, unlike in the book, we won’t say anything about the Palestinians, rah rah Israel! — and then Wales, which is almost like America, don’t you worry, o, you skittish viewer. You don’t have to struggle over feeling sympathy for people who don’t look like you. Drool into your popcorn and watch the untouchable protagonist running around.

Let’s just take one character from the movie: Tomas. The little kid from New Jersey. He is barricaded in with his family when the protagonist crashes in with his. Shortly after the protagonists leave, the zombies barge in. The whole family except for Tomas is killed, then resurrected; he’s chased up to the roof and to the protagonist’s rescue helicopter by his father, mother and sister who are now monsters that want to kill and eat him. For the resulting trauma and shock we get… a five-second clip of the protagonist telling Tomas to man up and look after his womanfolk. Because your father chasing you with fangs and claws and staring eyes, hey, who wants to see a boy dealing with that. In the book we would have gotten the equivalent of five minutes with Tomas; in the movie we get nothing, because the protagonist’s sickeningly ideal and lily-white family take up all the screentime. Because hey, they lost a stuffed animal or some such great trauma.

In the book, the zombies are slow. You can run away from them; the problem is, where do you run? They are like death and taxes: running is a temporary solution at best. The problem is that the whole world is collapsing, with all the attendant problems and human insanities; one of the main threads of the book is that once miracle cures and utopian refuges don’t appear, one has to stop running, take a shovel, and start bashing zombies in the head. Then, after a few years, those that remain can win a vigilant peace until Zed War Two.

Possibly this is too grim for the idiots who write movies. Or they couldn’t find a way for Brad Pitt to take up a shovel all over the world and hit the zombies with it for five years. (One could trace most of the failures of the movie to this: it has a protagonist, not a narrator. Then you insert a family, jettison some original pieces, insert protagonist heroics, jettison a few more pieces, insert running and screaming, do away with flashbacks, insert some concrete victory the protagonist can find, jettison — and in the end, nothing of the original is left.)

In the book, the zombies are slow; the book’s menace is not that the zombies jump you, but that they corner you. In the movie? The movie starts with the protagonist’s family having a saccharine breakfast in a peaceful world. By lunchtime they’re facing gunfire and rapists at the local mall. It’s not just the zombies that are quick; everything is quick almost to the point of comedy.

During the finale, our protagonist injects himself with a vial of random disease — because the stupid magic bullet here is that the zombies don’t eat the terminally sick. They taste funny or something. Then he waits fifteen minutes and, hooray, the zombies don’t touch him! I am not a biologist, but I am pretty sure diseases don’t work that way. Even if you inject yourself with smallpox, it’s not as if a giant placard of “SICK! AND INEDIBLE!” immediately appears over your head. Surely this should take days, weeks even.

But hey, it’s not like the book is some practicality-attendant thing with a perfectly deadpan serious in-world companion volume called the Zombie Survival Guide. Moving along!

In another development, our protagonist has a family. They’re saccharine non-persons; uninteresting blobs of female baggage. They take the space of a story, but theirs is a story where nothing interesting happens. Nothing would have been lost if they had been eaten during the first ten minutes; indeed it would have made the movie better. At least then our protagonist wouldn’t have left on a world-having mission with no way to contact the UN… but with a phone to contact his wife with.

This could have been framed as the wife’s job being to look after the phone, and alert the UN people when it rang; but I’m not sure if there was any such agreement. (Related: the book makes a big deal of making difficult, cruel, questionable decisions for survival. The movie has the UN people being callous dicks towards the unerring protagonist’s saintly family, for no good reason. Different strokes, I guess!)

Also, the UN apparently didn’t give him any papers or identification, as in Wales the locals didn’t know who he was; in the world of this movie it’s much better to hope you have a phone you can use to get in contact with someone who says he’s the vice something of the UN. You know, credentials! If he had encountered a passport check, why, he would just have handed the magic phone to the inspector. Which is how this UN does things; one wonders how the managed to commandeer a US aircraft carrier to be their home base.

Also: our protagonist, Gerry Lane, sleeps for three days in Wales. When he wakes up, the locals are insistent on knowing who the hell he is. In the three days they apparently did not: (a) find any papers on him, (b) try the exotic satellite phone he had, or (c) ask the woman he came in with. Because, hey, women, what do they know.

And the zombies: well, after one bites you, you have (for one strain) twelve seconds and then you are a zombie too. (For the Korean strain, ten minutes — for the Jerusalem strain, well, our protagonist assumes twelve seconds, but how does he know? What fun it would have been if he had been wrong, and five minutes later… chomp! Israeli lady teeth on you neck, Lane!) These zombies are not death or taxes; they’re more a tsunami of flesh. Which is showy; but has nothing to do with the book.

The book has a lot of interesting set pieces; the movie has none of those.

None.

No Paul Redeker, no downed plane, no Japan, no China, no Tibet, Russia or India; the movie starts after the first stories and ends before the stories of the reclamation.  I can’t recall any extended scene that was from the book. (The movie has Israel walled in, but unlike in the book, the wall doesn’t held. Probably too few Americans holding it.) The makers could just have changed the title and Gerry Lane’s name and Max Brooks couldn’t even have sued them for stealing his ideas.

(I hope Brooks got lots of money for the movie rights; he sure as heck didn’t get a faithful or even a particularly good movie. Hopefully the money buys time to write something big and tasty again, and not just such zombie marginalia as he’s done since the book.)

(Apparently J. Michael Straczynski, a god among men for the creation of Babylon 5, wrote the first iteration of the script. It took place after the war, like the book, and was apparently very good. What went wrong after that I don’t know, but it went wrong repeatedly and with great force to the forehead, and in the end this genius stroke of a movie crawled out.)

After the griping, the good parts of the movie. One, there was a really chilling line about North Korea and teeth. That’s pretty much it; otherwise this was a generic high-budget zombie runner-screamer-shooter with the name of an unrelated, unique and great book.

Filed under: tangent

“You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.”

In 1971, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan took part in that legendary conversation on Mars and the human mind, along with Ray Bradbury and the science editor of The New York Times. But Sagan and Asimov had met a decade earlier. “I visualized him as an elderly person (the stereotype of the astronomer at his telescope,)” Asimov recounted in his autobiography, “but what I found him to be was a twenty-seven-year-old, handsome young man; tall, dark, articulate, and absolutely incredibly intelligent.” The two went on to be good friends for more than 25 years as Asimov’s first impression was not only confirmed but amplified.

From the altogether fantastic Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime in Letters (public library), edited by Asimov’s son Stanley, come a few short and infinitely delightful letters Asimov wrote to and about Sagan over the course of their friendship, brimming with equal parts good-natured humor and overwhelming respect.

There’s so much to love in this note Asimov sent to another friend on March 22, 1966:

Sagan has read half through my book on the universe and has caught one fundamental error so far. In my rendering of Eddington’s theories on stellar structure, I talked of radiation pressure. Apparently, I didn’t have to. Fortunately, it just means correcting a sentence here and there.

But that’s what I need Sagan for. Anything he doesn’t catch isn’t there to be caught. If only he were a little faster about it. I said to him I realized he was awfully busy, too, but then I added with my particular brand of ingenuousness, “But then, what is your work compared to mine?”

And he said, “You say it in such a way that I can take it as a joke. But you really mean it, don’t you?”

So I made the best of it. I said, “Yes, I do.”

A very smart fellow, that Sagan.

Jest aside, however, Asimov held profound admiration and respect for Sagan — but never revealed it in the raw, uncushioned by that same “particular brand of ingenuousness.” On December 13, 1973, he sent Sagan a short note of appreciation, with the appropriate twist of affable irreverence:

I have just finished The Cosmic Connection and loved every word of it. You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.

One thing about the book made me nervous. It was entirely too obvious that you are smarter than I am. I hate that.

On June 15, 1985, Asimov sent another admiring note:

I just heard your talk on nuclear winter on Public Broadcasting. I am so proud of you, I almost burst with it. It was absolutely the sanest best speech I could imagine on the subject. It delighted me so much to find that I was on your side in every sentence of your talk.

But most heart-warming of all is this short limerick Asimov sent on the occasion of Carl Sagan’s marriage to Anne Druyan, one of the most epic love stories of modern history, in 1980:

Three loud cheers for Carl Sagan and Ann
Who today have become woman and man.
Be your lives bright as day
As the broad Milky Way
As the Big Bang with which all began.

One final note on the affectionate faux-rivalry between the two appears in a letter Asimov sent to another friend on March 15, 1986:

Half a year ago, Carl Sagan published Contact and that knocked half the sales off Robots and Empire. (These days, who can afford to buy two hard-covers?)

Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime in Letters is full of many more such gems from Asimov’s singular mind and heart. Complement it with Asimov on curiosity, risk-taking and the value of space exploration in this magnificent interview by the Muppets and Carl Sagan on the meaning of life.

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Sexo é uma vontade que podemos conjulgar em todas as pessoas, tanto do plural quanto do singular. Exceto as pessoas que realmente não sentem atração sexual por nada ou ninguém, nós crescemos, nos desenvolvemos e então finalmente, procriamos. E o prazer vem justamente ai, já que o homem é o único animal que sente prazer nisso, justamente para que haja a procriação.

E se todo mundo quer, há demanda, e se temos demanda, todos são felizes e plenamente felizes sexualmente, já que sempre haverá uma tampa para sua caçarola, certo? 

Claro que não. Sempre haverá os marginalizados, não importa do que se trate o tema. E nesse caso especifico, estou falando dos deficientes físicos. Ou vocês acham que a vida real é igual a novela das nove, onde a moça cadeirante mesmo apresentando uma tetraplegia (não discutindo o nível dela, neste momento), é a Alinne Moraes?

“Mas Gabi, o que você tem haver com isso se você é mó passa-o-rodo?”, vocês dirão. Só que a questão aqui é: namorado, sexo… relacionamentos em geral. Isso costuma vir de mãos dadas, é como aquele pacote de viagem que compramos, e que acabamos seguindo só o roteiro.

E pra quem é cadeirante, meus amigos leitores, irmãos e companheiros, tudo piora. Porque sim, toda desgraça para aleijado é pouca. Na hora de falar que a gente é exemplo de superação, exemplo de vitória e todas essas lorotas, todo mundo tá ai, mas e quando a gente tá precisando de uns bons malhos?

Um texto do New York Times do começo do mês trata dessa questão. Laetitia Rebord, de 31 anos teve uma atrofia muscular genética, que a deixou paralisada, com exceção do dedão esquerdo e dos músculos faciais. E queridos, a única coisa que a Laetitia quer é foder. Mas imaginem o que acontece, né? Agora, menina Laetitia está pensando em pagar por sexo na Alemanha ou Suíça, onde os serviços de parceiros sexuais substitutos são permitidos (para ler mais dessa história, só clicando ali em cima no nome do jornal, mas tá inglês).

A situação da classe que eu represento não é fácil. Vocês acham bonitinho até quando a gente aparece com um namoradinho(a) porque “olha – que coisa, tá na cadeira de rodas mas até namora!” Como dito na reportagem, “uma pessoa incapacitada é vista como uma criança. E inevitavelmente, crianças e sexo não combinam.” E ai não fica fácil pra mim, nem pra ela, nem pra ninguém que usa uma cadeira de rodas. E esse nível de dificuldade fica cada vez mais proporcional ao nível de lesão ou doença que se tem.

Se você nunca pensou sobre esse assunto, mas de alguma forma foi tocado por este meu texto, fica a dica desse documentário (também em inglês, porque hoje acordei bilíngue) que mostra homens e mulheres com vários tipos, com várias lesões, lutando para exercer sua livre capacidade sexual, seja pagando por ela, ou da forma que for.

 

Porque por mais incrível que possa parecer, aleijado também trepa.

Canadian comedy legend Rick Moranis — who most people know from Ghostbuster, the Honey! I Shrunk the Kids franchise, and his work on SCTV, hasn’t been seen on screen since 1997, the year he officially retired to become a stay-at-home Dad. He’d been unofficially backing out of Hollywood for several years before that, since the death of his wife to breast cancer, and then suddenly, arguably at the peak of his career, Moranis just … vanished. He’s done a small smattering of voice work on both television and in the movies since then, but for the most part, he quit.

Why? Because Rick Moranis, who grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, had had a happy wonderful childhood, and he wanted to recreate that for his own kids in Manhattan. He felt that the adage, “90 percent of success is just being there” to be true. “When my kids came home, there was music, and there were lights on, and there were great smells coming out of the kitchen,” he said. “And it was just a joyful place to be, and that’s what I wanted.”

That’s because Rick Moranis is a goddamn saint. However, after being talked into it by his friends, Moranis recorded My Mother’s Brisket & Other Love Songs, a comedy album of Hebrew songs he made, he says jokingly, to get back at his parents, who made him attend Hebrew school two hours every day growing up. He gives only the rarest of interviews, and he wasn’t too keen on giving this one, but he understands that part of the process. As such, he gave a lengthy interview to Jesse Thorn on one of my favorite podcasts, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, and opened up about life after retirement.

I encourage you to listen to the entire interview, if only to hear a great story about how his characters, Bob and Doug, as well as Strange Brew came about as a reaction to government regulations in Canada, and because Moranis sounds like one of the mildest, nicest, most generous guys you will ever hear. I cannot say enough about how sweet and thoughtful he came off sounding, just a really classy guy. For instance, asked what it was like to recalibrate his life around a new situation after his wife died and Moranis retired from Hollywood, he says:

“Stuff happens to people everyday, and they make adjustments to their lives for all kinds of reasons. There was nothing unusual about what happened or what I did, I think the reason that people were intrigued by the decisions I was making and sometimes seem to have almost admiration for it had less to do with the fact that I was doing what I was doing and more to do with what they thought I was walking away from, as if what I was walking away from had far greater value than anything else that one might have. The decision in my case to become a stay-at-home-Dad, which people do all the time, I guess wouldn’t have meant as much to people if I had had a very simple kind of make-a-living existence and decided I needed to spend more time at home. Nobody would pay attention to it, but because I came from celebrity and fame and what was the peak of a career, that was intriguing to people. To me, it wasn’t that. I didn’t have anything to do with that. It was work, and it was just time to make an adjustment.”

Asked what it meant to walk away from a career that utilized his creativity every day, Rick Moranis very matter of factly stated:

“I didn’t walk away from that. I applied all of my creativity to my home life, to my kids, to my family. I was the same person. I didn’t change. I just shifted my focus.

There were things, however, that he did miss while he was raising his kids.

“I missed the people and I missed the very refreshing nature of doing something radically different every day. Raising kids and being a stay-at-home parent, especially a single parent, is, there’s a lot of sameness. It’s a very different kind of life than being on the set with Aykroyd and Murray and Steve Martin. So I missed that kind of thing, but I found lots of joy and lots of rewards in other places. It was just all part of an adjustment.

Asked about what his kids thought about the fact that their Dad was a famous movie star when they were little, Moranis had this to say:

My earliest memories were of being in public situations where people would get all excited because they were seeing a famous person, and my kids were just like, ‘Why are you so excited? It’s just him.’ They had a really good persepective on celebrity and fame very early on.

To demonstrate his kid’s indifference toward celebrity, Moranis told an adorable story about his five year old son seeing Derek Jeter at a Knicks game, around the time that Chuck Knoblauch had signed with the Yankees.

“Derek Jeter turned around, recognized me, got kind of like, ‘Oh hi! Hi!’ And my son said, ‘Have you met Chuck Knoblauch yet?’ And Jeter looked at him like, ‘Who is this kid.’ But that was my son. He was comfortable around anyone, and I think the reason was, is because he just didn’t buy why anyone would get excited around me.”

Moranis also didn’t rule out a return to showbusiness, but he didn’t seem excited about the prospect, either.

“I’m comfortable with where I live. There’s certain places I’m not interested in being. I’m not interested in doing anything I’ve done in the past … I have no idea. It’s not something I’ve given any thought to at all.”

Source: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

This is part of the speech Erica Goldson, the 2010 Valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School, gave at her graduation ceremony.
The speech was uploaded on YouTube, went viral and Erica became known as the ‘Valedictorian who spoke out against schooling’. You can watch the entire speech and read the transcript here.

Erica’s speech really struck a nerve with me because I was totally like her when I was in school. I always did what I was told, didn’t ask too many questions, mindlessly memorised then regurgitated facts and figures. I remember I would write out an entire essay for homework, memorise the whole thing, then write it down verbatim on test day … and then promptly forget it and move on to the next assignment. I graduated near the top of my class, but on hindsight, I’m not sure I learnt much. The pattern continued as I went on to university, even though I never really wanted to be a graphic designer. But the piece of paper I received at the end did help me land a job, so it was all worth it in the end right? Maybe if I had heard this speech back in high school, I would have realised I was stuck in the system and gone down a different path.

One positive thing I do remember about school is that I doodled on EVERYTHING – my textbooks, files, folders, desk, arms, legs,
pencil case and all of my friend’s stuff as well (mainly pictures of Batman, sometimes Wolverine, the occasional Ninja Turtle). If only I spent MORE time doodling and less time being a robot.

Related comics: 11 Ways to be Average. The Road Not Taken.

- Thanks to Jesse for submitting this.
- Check out this in-depth article about myself and the growth of Zen Pencils by viral media expert Jonathan Goodman. It’s especially relevant if you’re interested in starting your own website, blog or webcomic.

I think most of us, anyway, are on the same page with regard to the final season of Dexter : It’s been a less than good season of a show that’s been limping for quite some time. Charlotte Rampling’s Dr. Vogel is somewhat compelling, but most of us are just hanging in there because we want to know: “Will Dexter die?” It’s certainly pointing that way, and Dexter’s exchange with Dr. Vogel this week about demonstrating selfless love through sacrifice provides further evidence.

But, man, what have they done to Debra Morgan? She’s always had her neuroses, and for such a strong female character, she’s always been TERRIBLE at choosing her boyfriends (and wanting to bone Dexter only makes matters worse), but this year, the downward spiral has taken a huge toll. She’s not only a woman in love with her brother, she’s now a murder, an alcoholic, a drug abuser, and a sex fiend.

I miss the Debra of old. She’s still got the occasional decent profanity-lace line, but it’s not the same. So, in honor of the old Debra, let’s take a moment to appreciate the gems she’s given us over seven and a half seasons of Dexter.

In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis also planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called “The Hunger Plan.”

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Segundo pesquisadores, elevada incidência de transtornos é consequência da alta urbanização associada com privações sociais

Da Redação

O relatório São Paulo Megacity Mental Health Surve mostrou que a região metropolitana de São Paulo possui a maior incidência de perturbações mentais no mundo. O estudo feito pela OMS (Organização Mundial de Saúde) revela que 29,6% dos paulistanos, e moradores da região metropolitana, sofrem de algum tipo de perturbação mental. O levantamento pesquisou 24 grandes cidades em diferentes países.

Entre os problemas mais comuns apontados no estudo estão a ansiedade, mudanças comportamentais e abuso de substâncias químicas. Dentre eles, a ansiedade é o mais comum, afetando 19,9% das 5.037 pessoas pesquisadas.

Depois de São Paulo, cidade que representa o Brasil no estudo, os EUA aparece em segundo lugar, com aproximadamente 25% de incidência de perturbações mentais. A cidade norte-americana utilizada no levantamento da OMS não foi revelada.

Além de ser a cidade com maior incidência de perturbações mentais, São Paulo também aparece na liderança do ranking de casos graves, com 10% da população afetada. Neste ponto, a capital paulista também é seguida pelos EUA, que possui uma incidência de casos graves de 5,7%

De acordo com os pesquisadores responsáveis pelo estudo, a alta incidência de perturbações mentais é causada pela alta urbanização associada com privações sociais. Segundo eles, os grupos mais vulneráveis são homens migrantes e mulheres que residem em regiões de alta vulnerabilidade social.

Em São Paulo, a pesquisa da OMS foi financiada pela Fapesp (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), sob a coordenação da Profa. Laura Helena Andrade, professora do Departamento e Instituto de Psiquiatria da Faculdade de Medicina da USP, e da Profa. Maria Carmen Viana, professora do Departamento de Medicina Social da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo.

Com informações do Jornal de Notícias. 

O post São Paulo é a cidade com maior índice de perturbações mentais no mundo apareceu primeiro em SPressoSP.

In 2008 there was a music festival called “Festival of the fuck bands”, where bands such as Fucked Up, Holy Fuck and Fuck buttons performed. It was held in Fucking, Austria.

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Six weeks after ripping reality television a new one with a set of subway ads for fake shows like Married to a Mime and Bayou Eskimos, New York PBS station WNET is at it again, this time putting out trailers for made-up shows titled Meet the Tanners, Clam Kings, and Long Island Landscapers. The Wrap has the details:

Each ad, created by the agency CHI & Partners, contains the message, “The fact that you thought this was a real show says a lot about the state of TV.” [WNET] is trying to make the point that it is one of the last outlets left for quality, educational television. And since they’re public television ads, they also include a link for viewers to donate.

“We’ve been experimenting with humor as a way to cultivate new viewers and donors,” said WNET president Neal Shapiro. “And these spots are really fun.”

Well, between the subway ads and these trailers, I think we can safely say that PBS has won the battle here. I mean, except in the ratings. Because they have definitely lost that battle. By so much. So very, very much. And they would probably lose to these fake shows, too, if a cable network decides to call their bluff and go ahead and make them, intellectual property rights be damned. God, that would be depressing.

In “Newsworthy News That The Newsroom Will Smugly Cover On News Night” news: George Zimmerman, not guilty. We’ll leave the finer points of the controversial trial/verdict to the experts, experts like Olivia Munn and Dumber (or is he Dumb?), but needless to say, people are not happy, including David Simon, who’s usually such a regular Johnny Chuckles. On his blog, The Wire creator shared his well-reasoned opinions on Martin and Zimmerman, all written like the grimmest “white people be like this, black people be like that” joke I’ve ever heard.

You can stand your ground if you’re white, and you can use a gun to do it. But if you stand your ground with your fists and you’re black, you’re dead.

In the state of Florida, the season on African-Americans now runs year round. Come one, come all. And bring a handgun. The legislators are fine with this blood on their hands. The governor, too. One man accosted another and when it became a fist fight, one man — and one man only — had a firearm. The rest is racial rationalization and dishonorable commentary.

If I were a person of color in Florida, I would pick up a brick and start walking toward that courthouse in Sanford. Those that do not, those that hold the pain and betrayal inside and somehow manage to resist violence — these citizens are testament to a stoic tolerance that is more than the rest of us deserve. I confess, their patience and patriotism is well beyond my own.

Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies: Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible. I can’t look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country. Tonight, anyone who truly understands what justice is and what it requires of a society is ashamed to call himself an American.

Should I ever meet Simon, remind me not to ask him, “How many Lee Greenwood songs are on your iPod?”

(via Getty Image) (Via David Simon)

jamietheignorantamerican:

WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT THE QUETZALCOATLUS?!

I MEAN, JESUS F. CHRIST.

PTERODACTYLS AIN’T SHIT NEXT TO THESE MOTHER FUCKERS. QUETZALCOATLUS FUCKING ATE BABY DINOSAURS FOR BRUNCH.

LITTLE-FOOT, NOOOO!!!

JUST IMAGINE SOMETHING AS TALL AS A MOTHER FUCKING GIRAFFE

SOARING THROUGH THE SKIES AT 80 MILES PER HOUR, AND THEN SWOOPING DOWN AND FUCKING EATING YOUR FACE OFF. 

FUCKING QUETZALCOATLUS

alucicrazy:

rio de janeiro

On a show full of iconic props — the dragon eggs, the golden crown, the hand that was once attached to the Kingslayer, the arrows that struck Jon Snow in the back (hahaha), the loaf of bread in the shape of a direwolf — the most instantly recognizable sight on HBO’s Game of Thrones is that of the Iron Throne, which overlooks the aptly-titled Throne Room in the Red Keep, sticking out like a rotting, black tooth. It’s terrifying, in a boil-popping kind of way, but it could have been MORE terrifying if George R.R. Martin had his way.

The HBO throne has become iconic. And well it might. It’s a terrific design, and it has served the show very well…Everyone knows it. I love it. I have all those replicas right here, sitting on my shelves. And yet…it’s still not right. It’s not the Iron Throne I see when I’m working on The Winds of Winter. It’s not the Iron Throne I want my readers to see. The way the throne is described in the books.. HUGE, hulking, black and twisted, with the steep iron stairs in front, the high seat from which the king looks DOWN on everyone in the court…my throne is a hunched beast looming over the throne room, ugly and assymetric…

The HBO throne is none of those things. It’s big, yes, but not nearly as big as the one described in the novels. And for good reason. We have a huge throne room set in Belfast, but not nearly huge enough to hold the Iron Throne as I painted it. For that we’d need something much bigger, more like the interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, and no set has that much room. The Book Version of the Iron Throne would not even fit through the doors of the Paint Hall. (Via)

So what does it look like? Put on your diapers now.

That’s the Iron Throne as painted by the amazing Marc Simonetti (and if you haven’t gotten his 2013 Ice & Fire calendar, better hurry, the year’s half over) for the upcoming concordance, THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE. It’s a rough, not a final version, so what you see in the book will be more polished. But Marc has come closer here to capturing the Iron Throne as I picture it than any other artist to tackle it. From now on, THIS will be the reference I give to every other artist tackling a throne room scene. This Iron Throne is massive. Ugly. Assymetric. It’s a throne made by blacksmiths hammering together half-melted, broken, twisted swords, wrenched from the hands of dead men or yielded up by defeated foes…a symbol of conquest…it has the steps I describe, and the height. From on top, the king dominates the throne room. And there are thousands of swords in it, not just a few.

This Iron Throne is scary. And not at all a comfortable seat, just as Aegon intended.

Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair.

That is the most intense Jenga tower I’ve ever seen.

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Chris Pratt revealing the new Guardians of the Galaxy version of himself over the weekend has me contemplating the future physical appearance of everyone’s favorite lovable oaf going into the next season of Parks and Recreation. Not only because I’m fascinated by man meat transformations, but also because he got all fit for Zero Dark Thirty not long ago only to immediately get extra chubby for another role right after. Hence why Andy Dwyer Season 5 was at peak chubbiness.

Could it happen again? Or will Schur & Co. have to write in a storyline where running becomes much more possible. Chris Pratt: Physical enigma. So as a precautionary measure here’s a collection of definitive chubby Andy Dwyer GIFs. You know, for the sake of posterity. Disclaimer: this collection is in no way definitive. Above via.

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Accompanying video.

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And of course, the reaction GIF no one likes as much as I do.

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As Dustin pointed out the other day when making the case for The Newsroom, OG internet favorite, Olivia Munn, is a compelling reason to tune in on Sunday night. It’s not just any actress who can pull off the Sorkin ideal of drop dead gorgeous female economist — bouncing back and forth between demanding to be taken seriously in the world of hard news and not being able to resist poking Terry Crews in the pec — let alone one who has contributed SO much to web culture over the years.

And since we’ve already covered the most important GIF contributions of the internet’s other favorite Olivia, now seems like a fitting time to give Ms. Munn her due. For the record, both have informed me in private that they are Team Hard G for life. Above via.

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And of course, the Sloan Sabbath-Newsroom GIF wall…

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Nabu

A lot of gods come out bragging about their enchanted weapons and super-strength, but not Nabu! Nabu doesn’t need a magic sword or a flaming whip or a quiver full of thunderbolts. You know why? Because he’s got himself a fancy pen and some tablets to write on! Oh, and a dragon named Sirrush that he rides around. Whatever, Nabu doesn’t need your approval.

Ol’ Nabu was the Assyrian god of wisdom and writing (Assyrian, Babylonian, Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid—they all work. Ain’t nobody forgettin’ to worship Nabu). He wasn’t a fighter, but despite his pacifistic stance he was surprisingly close to the top of the pantheon-pyramid for millennia in different Mesopotamian societies due to his sacred affinity with writing. The ability to read and write, remember, was not by any means a simple gift in Nabu’s time, (a difficult-to-define expanse between 2,000 BCE and 500 CE) and as such was seen as a holy thing indeed. The stories of the gods themselves, the laws of the ruling dynasties, and the cultural histories recorded by the elite were the sole retainers of writing, and this stuff was taken seriously, as you can imagine.

Nabu, besides providing humanity with the continuing ability to write, was also the keeper of the Tablets of Destiny, wherein the fate of every living thing was recorded (similar to the role of the Greek Fates or the Germanic Norns, much later). He was a solo deity at first, but as the different cultures of Mesopotamia diffused and were aligned into more uniform empires, he was incorporated into the royal family of the presiding divinities, and became the son of the god-king Marduk. Marduk made him his official scribe and took him under his protection, and even gave Nabu his trusty dragon Sirrush to ride around on.

Nabu carried a sacred stylus, and was often depicted holding a scroll or tablet for obvious reasons (like taking the orders of the other Mesopotamian gods for sweet pizza parties, guys). Eventually, through contact with the Mediterranean societies in the later days of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid dynasties, Nabu provided traits for both Apollo and Hermes, (or Mercury, still later) and as often happens, was worshipped in a wider section of the world under differing names and titles before finally being absorbed completely into the western pantheons. While he may have persisted  for several centuries after the decline of the Roman empire, the arrival of Islam in Persia and Babylon would eventually stamp out the old Mesopotamian religious traditions almost completely.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the latest in five-dimensional digital data storage using femtocell-laser inscription, here's an update: it works. A team of researchers at the University of Southampton have demonstrated a way to record and retrieve as much as 360 terabytes of digital data onto a single disk of quartz glass in a way that can withstand temperatures of up to 1000 C and should keep the data stable and readable for up to a million years. 'It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race,' said Peter Kazansky, professor of physical optoelectronics at the Univ. of Southampton's Optical Research Centre. 'This technology can secure the last evidence of civilization: all we've learnt will not be forgotten.' Leaving aside the question of how many Twitter posts and Facebook updates really need to be preserved longer than the human species, the technology appears to have tremendous potential for low-cost, long-term, high-volume archiving of enormous databanks. The quartz-glass technique relies on lasers pulsing one quadrillion times per second though a modulator that splits each pulse into 256 beams, generating a holographic image that is recorded on self-assembled nanostructures within a disk of fused-quartz glass. The data are stored in a five-dimensional matrix—the size and directional orientation of each nanostructured dot becomes dimensions four and five, in addition to the usual X, Y and Z axes that describe physical location. Files are written in three layers of dots, separated by five micrometers within a disk of quartz glass nicknamed 'Superman memory crystal' by researchers. (Hitachi has also been researching something similar.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since its discovery in 2005, exoplanet HD 189733b has been one of the most-observed planets orbiting another star, as its size, compact orbit, and proximity to Earth has made it a relatively easy target — as extrasolar planets go. From previous studies, astronomers thought the planet may have an enticing blue-sky atmosphere. Now, further examinations with the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed this planet really does harbor an azure blue atmosphere, very similar to Earth’s ocean blue color.

But this is no ‘pale blue dot’ ocean world. It is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star. It gets blasted with X-rays from its star — tens of thousands of times stronger than the Earth receives from the Sun — and endures wild temperature swings, reaching scorching temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius. Astronomers say it likely rains glass – sideways — in howling 7,000 kilometer-per-hour winds.

Nope, not a place you’d want to visit.
(...)
Read the rest of Hubble Confirms Exoplanet Has a Blue Atmosphere (510 words)

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© nancy for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | 15 comments |
Post tags: exoplanets, Extrasolar Planets, HD 189733b, Hubble Space Telescope

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A fotógrafa Emma Kisiel lançou há algum tempo um ensaio perturbador: “At Rest” utiliza roadkills (animais atropelados em ruas ou estradas) para criar memoriais e santuários com os cadáveres dos animais.

A proposta é aproximar a relação entre humanos e animais e expor (como se já não soubéssemos) que nem sempre a intervenção do homem moderno é benéfica. Veja:

As fotos mais bizarras estão aqui.

Imagine que uma pessoa acabou de fazer cirurgia no joelho. Ou está se recuperando de uma fratura. Ou, pior ainda, sofreu um acidente vascular cerebral, ou esclerose múltipla, ou danos na coluna ou sistema nervoso. Recuperar o poder de caminhar é uma experiência bastante difícil, e pode ser impossível sem depender de uma muleta, um corrimão ou um fisioterapeuta. A AlterG Bionic Leg – vinda direto de um futuro sci-fi – pode ser a resposta. Nós testamos.

Não é a primeira vez que falamos sobre a AlterG, uma empresa menos conhecida pelo público. Ela produziu um cinto criado pela NASA, usado na recuperação de lesões, que diminui em até 80% o peso que impacta os joelhos de atletas. A Bionic Leg, no entanto, é ainda mais incrível.

Pela descrição da empresa, este é “o primeiro exoesqueleto robótico vestível e móvel para fisioterapia dos membros inferiores”. Com ele, os pacientes podem usar suas pernas como faziam antes da lesão.

A Bionic Leg fornece assistência motorizada para estender a perna (endireitando seu joelho): ou seja, ela age quando você se levanta depois de ficar sentado, quando você anda, e ao subir escadas. Ela também fornece resistência na flexão (dobrando seu joelho): por isso, ela entra em ação quando você se abaixa para sentar, ao agachar, ou ao descer escadas.

Por exemplo, uma pessoa com a perna ferida normalmente sobe um lance de escadas começando com a perna boa, apoiando-se nela, e trazendo a perna ferida ao degrau. Então eles usam a perna boa novamente e repetem o processo. Com a AlterG Bionic Leg, você não precisa fazer isso. É possível subir escadas com um pé após o outro, deixando os motores fazerem a maior parte do trabalho no membro lesionado – mas lentamente devolvendo força e controle para recuperá-lo.

Como funciona

Você se senta, e um clínico prende o dispositivo na sua perna. Ele é volumoso e intimidador, mas sua rigidez vem das placas de fibra de carbono, e ele pesa apenas cerca de 3,5 kg (a próxima versão vai pesar só 3 kg). Ele é ajustável para caber praticamente em qualquer perna, e em três minutos ele estará totalmente instalado. No entanto, o componente que faz isto ser um avanço não vai na sua perna – ele vai no seu sapato.

A palmilha fina com quatro sensores de pressão é colocada direto no seu sapato – pode ser qualquer um – e é ligada ao restante da perna. São esses sensores que permitem à perna reagir com base no movimento que você quer fazer. Em outras palavras, a pressão que seu pé aplica nos sensores, junto ao esforço feito por seu joelho, diz à perna biônica se você quer se levantar, andar, subir uma calçada, ou sentar. Ela processa essa informação tão rápido que as reações parecem instantâneas, como se a perna biônica estivesse lendo sua mente.

Na parte superior da máquina há uma pequena tela LCD com alguns botões ao redor. Você coloca seu peso e, em seguida, há quatro parâmetros que podem ser ajustados:

• Limiar: controla a porcentagem do peso corporal necessária para ativar os motores. Ele pode ser configurado entre 5% e 50% do peso do paciente. Em outras palavras, um homem de 80 kg pode configurá-lo para 25%, e os motores auxiliares só se ativam ao sentirem 20 kg de pressão. Esse número pode ser ajustado de acordo com o andamento da reabilitação, para que a perna real continua a levar a carga que aguentar.

• Assistência: é simplesmente o quanto os motores ajudam o paciente a estender a perna. Ele pode ser configurado entre 0% e 80%. À medida que a pessoa melhora, esse número será diminuído para que ela use mais a perna.

• Resistência: é quanta resistência a perna biônica oferece durante a flexão (sentando, descendo escadas etc.). Ela pode ser definida como baixa, média ou alta e, essencialmente, vai evitar que um joelho fraco entre em colapso de forma imprevisível.

• Limitador de extensão: provavelmente seria usado apenas por alguém com uma lesão direta no joelho ou perna. Por exemplo, se você fez recentemente uma cirurgia no joelho e não deve estender totalmente o joelho, os motores só fazem você chegar a um certo grau de extensão. Basicamente, isto salva você de si mesmo.

Vale notar que esta Bionic Leg não serve para uma perna totalmente paralisada. Como o acionamento é desencadeado pelo movimento da sua perna e pela pressão do seu pé, você deve ter pelo menos algum controle sobre ela. Mas, pelo lado positivo, isso significa que a Bionic Leg não precisa de quaisquer controles manuais, e imita melhor o movimento natural.

Tudo isto funciona com uma bateria interna, para que não haja fios limitando a sua mobilidade. Quer entrar e sair do seu carro para praticar? Sem problemas. Isto também significa que um fisioterapeuta pode levar a Bionic Leg para a casa de um paciente, para que ele ou ela possa se acostumar a subir aquela complicada escada em espiral.

Usando

“O QUE É ISSO?!” foi a minha primeira reação, logo seguida por “Eu nunca, em toda a minha vida, senti algo assim”, seguido então por “Eu. Sou. Robocop”. Mesmo com apenas 30% de assistência, eu me senti estranhamente poderoso. Subir escadas era chocantemente fácil, assim como sentar e levantar. A parte mais incrível, porém, foi ver que a perna biônica respondia quase tão rapidamente quanto minha outra perna. Era tão sensível que realmente parecia ser uma parte de mim.

Uma das primeiras coisas que você nota são os sons robóticos proeminentes que os motores fazem. Mas veja só: a AlterG consegue deixar os motores muito mais silenciosos, só que os fisioterapeutas e pacientes preferiam motores mais audíveis. Isso fornece feedback em tempo real para eles, para saber quanto do movimento vem dos motores, e quanto vem da perna do paciente. E sim, isso definitivamente me faz sentir ainda mais como Robocop.

A Bionic Leg, no entanto, não é rápida. Eu tive fantasias de correr na rua como o Homem de Seis Milhões de Dólares e até fazer um chute a gol mas, infelizmente, a perna tem velocidade máxima de apenas 3 km/h. Ela foi feita para reabilitação física de baixo nível, então isso é muito bom; mas nós continuaremos sonhando com futuras versões que permitam a você correr ou, pelo menos, andar mais rápido.

Nota: Os pacientes que usam a AlterG Bionic Leg devem usar calças, tanto por razões de conforto e higiene. Eu não sabia disso antes, e eu só tinha shorts para fazer a demonstração.

Presente e futuro

Dois estudos (reconhecidamente pequenos) foram realizados nos EUA usando a Bionic Leg com pacientes que sofreram AVC. Ambos os estudos concluíram que os pacientes tiveram melhorias significativas na marcha, equilíbrio, velocidade e desempenho funcional. Eles também concluíram que pacientes que usaram a Bionic Leg eram mais propensos a manter essas melhorias bem depois do tratamento acabar, quando comparados aos pacientes que usaram formas mais tradicionais de reabilitação. Isso é ótimo.

Atualmente, existem apenas cerca de 80 pernas biônicas da AlterG nos EUA, espalhadas por todo o país. Elas estão sendo usadas ​​com grande sucesso em diversos pacientes, que sofreram desde lesões traumáticas de joelho a doenças degenerativas. Ela custa cerca de US$ 40.000, mas pode ser alugada por US$ 700 a US$ 1.000 por mês, dependendo de quanto ela será usada. Obviamente, estas são ferramentas para especialistas em reabilitação, mas a AlterG agora está aumentando a produção, por isso espero que esses dispositivos se tornem cada vez mais comuns em locais de reabilitação por todo o mundo.

Esse foi o mais próximo que eu já estive de ser um super-herói. E esse é o melhor tipo de avanço que existe. [AlterG Therapy]

Vídeo por Michael Hession.

They don’t make album promos like they used to, I tell you what. The kids today, they’re interested in their Jay-Z cell phones and daffy punks and African-American skinheads; they don’t know what previews are all about. Back in my day, 1993, we had REAL promos, the kind that feature Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic giving birth to flying babies that hit a dress-wearing Bobcat Goldthwait in the face and talking fish and placenta soup.

Now THAT’S how you hype an album with a song called “Rape Me.” But seriously, folks, In Utero is being reissued in September, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and seeing as how it’s Nirvana best album, this video should be in the Smithsonian, next to a letter from God to Courtney Love reading, “IOU: sanity” and Billy Corgan’s testicles.

Em um futuro distante, a humanidade começou uma nova era de exploração espacial. Os avanços tecnológicos permitiram que nossos descendentes habitassem a nave colônia Avalon, um paraíso tecnológico que abriga o futuro da raça humana. Porém, no espaço a humanidade descobriria não estar só. Criaturas conhecidas como Hideous, moluscos inteligentes capazes de sobreviver no vácuo do espaço,  passam a atacar indiscriminadamente alvos humanos. Para combater os alienígenas agressores, foi comissionada a criação da Aliança Intergaláctica Humana, um corpo militar especializado em combater os Hideous.

Integrando essa Aliança se encontra o subtenente Ledo, um garoto de dezesseis anos de idade que foi treinado desde criança para ser um soldado. Ledo é o típico subproduto da sociedade militarista de Avalon. Respeita a cadeia de comando e obedece sem questionar as ordens de seus superiores. Ele também é piloto do K6821 “Chamber”, uma Machine Calliber, uma espécie de robô gigante com inteligência artificial que é produzido em massa e serve como principal força de ataque da Aliança Intergaláctica.

Durante uma ofensiva falha contra um ninho de Hideous, a máquina de Ledo é atacada e não consegue escapar, caindo em uma espécie de wormhole. Quando Ledo acorda, ele descobre estar distante de Avalon ou até mesmo do espaço, indo parar em um planeta coberto por oceanos e céu azul. Para seu espanto, Ledo descobre ter caído no Planeta Terra, o lendário planeta que serviu de berço para a humanidade.

Responsável pelo resgate do subtenente se encontra a tripulação do Gargantia, que dá título ao anime. Uma imensa frota de navios sucateados composta por pessoas humildes e trabalhadoras, que compõe a maior parte do elenco dessa animação. São com eles, em especial a garota conhecida como Amy, que Ledo começará uma aventura para conhecer a si mesmo e o mundo onde foi parar.

Um pouco extensa, mas é essa a premissa de Suisei no Gargantia, uma animação japonesa de sci-fi que tem sido considerada um dos grandes sucessos desse ano. Com roteiros de Gen Urobuchi (Saya no Uta, Puella Magi Madoka Magica) e animação por conta do estúdio Production IG, Suisei no Gargantia é a prova incontestável que ainda existe esperança para a animação japonesa cunhar novos clássicos.

A grande premissa do roteiro de Suisei no Gargantia é o choque cultural entre Ledo e a população que habita Gargantia. Embora jovem, Ledo é um rapaz emocionalmente distante, acostumado a viver uma realidade hostil e disciplinado através de uma ideologia militar. Sua frieza o torna incapaz de compreender os laços afetivos existentes entre o resto do enredo. Ledo também desconhece o idioma dos terráqueos e seus costumes, tornando a interação entre eles ainda mais difícil.

Esse choque se torna ainda maior com a presença de Chamber. A distância tecnológica entre Ledo e o resto da Gargantia se torna alvo de tensões, a presença da arma humanoide se torna o principal elemento de barganha entre Ledo e seus salvadores. Distante e sem perspectiva de resgate, Ledo aos poucos passa a conhecer a realidade da tripulação de Gargantia e criar um laço afetivo com eles.

Suisei no Gargantia está longe de ser um anime de ação. Boa parte dos episódios explora a relação de Ledo com os terráqueos e a jornada de autodescoberta que isso causa nele. Cada um dos personagens agrega mais e faz com que Ledo questione seus ideais e motivos tão enraizados na doutrina militar da Aliança Intergaláctica.

A série possuí apenas treze episódios. Embora seja possível argumentar que ela é curta, em nenhum momento o roteiro demonstra pressa. Suisei no Gargantia consegue ser honesto e explicar ao leitor toda a trama, sem apelar para cliffhangers ou recursos narrativos desonestos. Vale a pena lembrar que Suisei no Gargantia possui um ótimo engajamento emocional, ao final da série, tanto Ledo como o restante do elenco estão transformados em pessoas diferentes e melhor resolvidas.

Suisei no Gargantia é uma daquelas joias cada vez mais raras, que conseguem comprovar que ainda existe esperança na animação japonesa. Sem cair em vícios ou clichês de roteiro, ela é capaz de surpreender e abrir um sorriso até no fã mais cético e descrente. Atualmente, o único jeito de assistir a série com legendas em português é assinando o Crunchyroll, mas vale a pena o dinheiro investido. Suisei no Gargantia é uma ótima série, perfeita para aqueles que procuram um roteiro bem escrito e honesto, sem cair em pretensões cerebrais ou dramalhão gratuíto.

Harvard approved a BDSM student sex club.

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