bernot

Fifty hospitals in the United States are charging uninsured consumers more than 10 times the actual cost of patient care, according to research published Monday.

All but one of the these facilities is owned by for-profit entities, and by far the largest number of hospitals — 20 — are in Florida. For the most part, researchers said, the hospitals with the highest markups are not in pricey neighborhoods or big cities, where the market might explain the higher prices.

Topping the list of the most expensive hospitals is North Okaloosa Medical Center, a 110-bed facility in the Florida Panhandle about an hour outside of Pensacola. Uninsured patients are charged 12.6 times the actual cost of patient care.

Community Health Systems operates 25 of the hospitals on the list; Hospital Corp. of America operates another 14.

“They are price-gouging because they can,” said Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-author of the study in Health Affairs. “They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can’t.”

He added: “These are the hospitals that have the highest markup of all 5,000 hospitals in the United States. This means, when it costs the hospital $100, they are going to charge you, on average, $1,000.”

The researchers said other consumers who could face those high charges are patients whose hospitals are not in their insurance company’s preferred network of providers, patients using workers’ compensation and those covered by automobile insurance policies.

Carepoint Health-Bayonne Medical Center in Bayonne, N.J., for example, also charges rates 12.6 times the actual cost of patient care. But state law limits the maximum that hospitals can charge uninsured patients to 115 percent, a spokesman said.

By comparison, the researchers said, a typical U.S. hospital charges 3.4 times the cost of patient care.

Officials representing the 50 hospitals disputed the findings, saying they provide significant discounts to uninsured and underinsured patients to help cover their out-of-pocket costs.

Understanding hospital pricing and charges is one of the most frustrating experiences for ordinary consumers and health-care professionals alike. It’s virtually impossible to find out ahead of time from the hospital how much a procedure or stay in the facility is going to cost. Once the bill arrives, many Americans have difficulty understanding them.

Most hospital patients covered by private or government insurance don’t pay full price because insurers and programs like Medicare negotiate lower rates for their patients.

But the millions of Americans who don’t have insurance don’t have anyone to negotiate on their behalf. They are most likely to be charged the full hospital price. As a result, uninsured patients, who are often the most vulnerable, face skyrocketing medical bills that can lead to personal bankruptcy, damaged credit scores or avoidance of needed medical care.

Researchers said the main factors leading to overcharging are the lack of market competition and the fact that the federal government does not regulate the prices that health-care providers can charge. Only two states, Maryland and West Virginia, set hospital rates.

In the United States, hospitals have something called the chargemaster, a lengthy list of the hospital’s prices for every procedure performed in the facility and for every supply item used during those procedures, such as the cost of one Tylenol tablet, or a box of gauze.

Most patients don’t pay the chargemaster rates because the federal government and private insurers negotiate lower rates for their patients. The government almost always pays fixed amounts based mostly on patients’ conditions.

In determining the size of markups, researchers used as their benchmark what Medicare allows for the costs of care. That includes direct patient costs, such as emergency room and operating room care, and indirect costs, such as administration and pharmacy. It does not include private doctors’ costs.

The study looked at government reports for all Medicare-certified hospitals between May 2012 and April 30, 2013. To calculate those with the highest markup, they tallied up the total charges, then divided by the patient care cost, which they defined as total costs Medicare agrees to pay for those with its government-subsidized health insurance.

“For-profit players appear to be better players in this price-gouging game,” said Ge Bai, an assistant accounting professor at Washington and Lee University and a co-author.

Carepoint Health, which owns the Bayonne Hospital and two other hospitals in Hudson County, N.J., said charge-pricing affects less than 7 percent of total patient interactions system-wide. Without it or adequate reimbursements, “our safety-net hospitals risk closure,” Carepoint said in a statement. Urban hospitals are reimbursed by insurers at lower rates than suburban ones, a spokesman said.

Officials at Community Health Systems of Franklin, Tenn., which operates 25 of the hospitals, and Hospital Corp. of America, based in Nashville, which operates 14, said hospital charges rarely reflect what consumers actually pay. They said their hospitals offer significant discounts to uninsured patients and charity care for those who qualify. Community Health Systems said in a statement that it provided $3.3 billion in charity care, discounts and other uncompensated care for consumers last year. It also noted that several of its hospitals were not owned by CHS at the time the data were reported.

Anderson said researchers chose to show the current ownership status because the company bought the hospitals knowing about the inflated prices.

HCA said in a statement that its uninsured patients are eligible for free care through its charity care program or they receive discounts that are similar to the discounts a private insurance plan receives.

The Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals, said the listed hospitals provided nearly $450 million in uncompensated care in 2012 alone. Including the discounts “would have had a significant effect on the charge-to-cost-ratio reported, and therefore the implications of the study’s results,” it said in a statement.

Anderson said it made little economic sense to “mark something up 10 times what it actually costs and then give a discount.” He added: “Clearly they expect someone to pay these inflated prices.”

He noted that the cost of workers’ compensation and auto insurance polices are higher in the states where hospital charges are unregulated because companies have to pay the higher rates.

The idea for the paper came when co-author Bai received a hospital bill six years ago after her son was born. “I realized that I could not understand the bill,” said Bai, a certified public accountant. She thought to herself that if she couldn’t figure it out, how could the average American? Bills for other items that consumers buy are relatively easy to understand, she noted.

“But we do not understand the bills for this, our most valuable asset,” she said. “This is ridiculous and sad.”

[How Maryland’s hospital rate-setting system works]

volatilequeer:

mydrunkkitchen:

virginsacrificer:

Little Spoon:

• feeling safe and secured
• it feels so warm mmmm
• straight to sleep bc comfy

Big Spoon:

• face full of hair
• one dead arm 
• awkward boner

Little Spoon:

• too hot/can’t wiggle
• someone’s drool on neck
• holding in farts

Big Spoon:

• fart all ya want
• perfect temperature
• get up and go on tumblr anytime 

This is a complete list of the pros/cons involved in spooning. What a wonderful spooning reference post.

There are according to a Williams Institute study an estimated 15,000 trans people in the US military.   In my time in this community I have met or currently know people who have honorably served or are currently serving in all the branches of our military.

Some of those military vets have become some of the trans community's most respected leaders. 

But unlike our LGB brothers and sisters, we cannot serve openly because Don't Ask Don't Tell unfortunately still applies to us.

However, there has been some positive momentum toward open trans military service.  In addition to out military trans people like Army Sgt Shane Ortega who is openly fighting for his right to serve, there are organizations like SPARTA who are along with our allies fighting to ensure these archaic non scientifically based policies are eradicated. .

On June 4, the US Air Force stated that neither gender dysphoria nor self-identification as transgender are grounds for discharge.

Today the American Medical Association House of Delegates at their annual meeting in Chicago unanimously approved a resolution that states there is no medical reason to exclude transgender people from the US military.

It also calls on those trans military members to receive care according to the same medical standards that apply to all other military personnel.Four former U.S. surgeon generals issued a statement during testimony on the issue this weekend at the AMA meeting here in Chicago urging the AMA to take a stand.

“Transgender service members should, as with all personnel, receive the medical care that they need,” former Surgeon Generals Drs. Joycelyn Elders, David Satcher, Regina Benjamin and Kenneth Moritsugu wrote in their statement released by the Palm Center research institute.

Looks like we are getting another step closer to the day that trans people in the United States, like their counterparts in 15 other nations, can openly serve their country.

This is a southern pudu fawn that was born May 12 at the Queens Zoo. The southern pudu is native to Chile and Argentina. It is the world’s smallest deer. The tallest it will ever get is 18 inches high. It’s cute as hell.

Unfortunately, it’s so cute that looking upon it will cause your heart to completely explode seven days from now and you will die. The pudu will literally kill you with cute overload. It takes a few days, because every time you think of the baby deer your heart bursts a little more. Sorry for killing you, but you had to see this fawn. Look at his little leg. Totally worth not being alive anymore for that, right? RIP everyone. Make sure you leave enough kale for the pudu fawn so he survives once there’s no one left to feed him.

The Queens Zoo has three of these guys. If you see all three at once, you’ll die on the spot.

(Photos: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

The post You Will Die Seven Days After Seeing This Unbearably Cute Baby Deer appeared first on ANIMAL.

The Panera Bread cashier today when he asked the name for the order…he spelt it this way. So clever. 😂

Everyone’s favorite mystical poet, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, probably could not have predicted how much global influence his work would have eight centuries after his death. Nor could he have appreciated the irony of his 13th century Islamic Persian verse making him the best-selling poet in the U.S. And yet, a huge part of Rumi’s appeal to the majority of his readers, religious and non-, comes from his non-traditionalism, his anti-dogmatism, gentle iconoclasm, and romanticism. Claims that the poet was gay may be contentious, but there’s no getting away from the eroticism, much of it homoeroticism, in much of Rumi’s poetry. Rumi also inspired the hardly orthodox Sufi sect known as “Whirling Dervishes,” who invoke a trance-like state through a rhythmic spinning ritual based on the poet’s own devotional practices.

But Rumi did not begin his career as a mystic, or as a poet. Author Brad Gooch, who is writing a biography of Rumi, describes him as “a traditional Muslim preacher and scholar, as his father and grandfather had been.” That is until age 37, when in 1244, he met a mystic called Shams of Tabriz. “The two of them have this electric friendship for three years—lover and beloved [or] disciple and sheikh, it’s never clear,” says Gooch. After Shams’ death, possibly by murder, Rumi began writing poetry. “Most of the poetry we have comes from age 37 to 67. He wrote 3,000 [love songs] to Shams, the prophet Muhammad and God. He wrote 2,000 rubayat, four-line quatrains. He wrote in couplets a six-volume spiritual epic, The Masnavi.” These poems, writes the BBC, are “recited, chanted, set to music and used as inspiration for novels, poems, music, films, YouTube videos and tweets.” Today we bring you some of those contemporary appropriations of Rumi’s work.

At the top of the post, hear actress Tilda Swinton—who has her own global cult of admirers—read Rumi’s “Like This.” Swinton recently turned to Rumi’s poetry to promote her line of fragrances. Below Swinton’s reading, celebrity spiritual adventurer (some might say spiritual tourist) Madonna reads Rumi’s “Bitter Sweet” with her guru Deepak Chopra. It was recorded for the album, A Gift Of Love: Deepak & Friends Present Music Inspired By The Love Poems Of Rumi. And just above, we have two very devoted scholars and interpreters of Rumi’s work, Coleman Barks (who translated the poem Swinton reads) and poet Robert Bly, accompanied by tablas, sitar, and drums. Barks has done much to explain the global reach of Rumi’s poetry, writing in the introduction to The Illuminated Rumi that the poet’s “whole life was a witness to the boundless universality of the Heart…. His vision was a whole-world work and the poetry was part of the soul-unfolding done in a learning community.” When Rumi died, Barks tells us, “he was mourned by Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims and Buddhists.” Below, hear Barks attempt to expound on Rumi’s very non-traditional, non-Western, and difficult-to-translate view of love.

Related Content:

Tilda Swinton Recites Poem by Rumi While Reeking of Vetiver, Heliotrope & Musk

Poems as Short Films: Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda and More

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

redhester:

npr:

Women outnumber men in the nursing profession by more than 10 to 1. But men still earn more, a new study finds.

Even after controlling for age, race, marital status and children in the home, males in nursing outearned females by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals.

Even In Nursing, Men Earn More Than Women

Photo Credit: iStockphoto

the wage gap is not because some professions are not as highly-paid as others. the wage gap exists because women are valued less than men. no matter what job, in any sector, if you are a woman you will be paid less. it’s about being female, not the job you do as a female. 

Teachers and students scribbled the lessons — multiplication tables, pilgrim history, how to be clean —  nearly 100 years ago. And they haven’t been touched since.

This week, contractors removing old chalkboards at Emerson High School in Oklahoma City made a startling discovery: Underneath them rested another set of chalkboards, untouched since 1917.

“The penmanship blows me away, because you don’t see a lot of that anymore,” Emerson High School Principal Sherry Kishore told the Oklahoman. “Some of the handwriting in some of these rooms is beautiful.”

The chalkboards being removed to make way for new whiteboards are in four classrooms, according to the Oklahoma City Public School District.

A spokeswoman said the district is working with the city to “preserve the ‘chalk’ work of the teachers that has been captured in time.”

[WWI graffiti discovered deep underground. ‘All these guys wanted to be remembered.’]

A wheel that apparently was used to teach multiplication tables appears on one board. “I have never seen that technique in my life,” Kishore told the Oklahoman.

The boards carry not just teachers’ work, but also that of students, and every room has a lesson on pilgrims, according to the district.

“Their names are here; I don’t know whether they were students in charge that day that got to do the special chores if they were the ones that had a little extra to do because they were acting up,” Kishore said. “But it’s all kinds of different feelings when you look at this.”

READ MORE:

The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a national park tree

Boat likely destroyed in 2011 Japanese tsunami turns up in Oregon with live fish still aboard

keyframedaily:

Catherine Deneuve in Jacques Demy’s Donkey Skin (1970).

karnythia:

Literally the only reason people think the past was all white is racism in Hollywood. All the images of the past that you think are accurate from TV shows & movies produced during Jim Crow are actually fictional representations of what racists wanted the world to be like instead of their reality. That’s why you have people arguing that Egypt isn’t in Africa and that Cleopatra looked like Liz Taylor. That’s why you have period pieces set in London with none of the Black Victorians, Chinese sailors in Limehouse, or Jewish communities. That’s why you don’t see the drag balls that were common in New York, Chicago etc. You don’t even see the diversity of Roman citizens or the Moorish Empire. Next to nothing about women of color at any point in history, despite them being inventors, pioneers, and artists who changed the world. Gee, it’s like media representation has an impact across time. Like, maybe producing media that isn’t inclusive contributes to ignorance, erasure, and perpetuating racist, sexist, homophobic propaganda. If you’re still producing these bland historically  inaccurate shows in 2015 that’s not about historical accuracy, that’s about your internalized bigotry. .

trembling-colors:

François Bazin (1897–1956), Judith and Holofernes, 1925

For obvious reasons I was a little trepidatious about making and posting this. 

 

historieofbeafts:

Another great thing about bestiaries is they’ve produced some of the least seductive merpeople in western art history. Just merpeople doing normal merpeople things.

[Warning: this post contains nominal breasts. Breast-like objects? They don’t really resemble human anatomy, but they are there.]

Merpeople sensibly dressed:

Merpeople out for leisurely swims, waving at neighbours:

Choosing between two options at the store:

[The expressions here are amazing. Those aren’t worried men in a boat, those are guys going “seriously, again?”]

At band practice:

Bowling:

Getting ripped:

And doing standard 9-5 mermaid work:

Look at those expressions of soul-crushing boredom. No one involved is enjoying this.

Image Sources [x]

Today’s Gender of the day is: POW!

On Saturday, I saw a flyer taped to one of those green lamp post boxes outside of Scratch Bread in Bed-Stuy advertising “Cat Hair Pills.”

The poster’s body copy read:

“Cat hair pills available. Made from the finest hair of organic, free-range cats with only occasional antibiotic usage. Two cat choices available, please specify which cat you prefer.”

That was all there was by way of explanation. The poster raised a lot of questions for me, such as: Why would anyone want a capsule stuffed with cat hair? What does one do with a cat hair pill? Does it cost money? Is this a joke? Why am I having such a hard time understanding something as simple as “Cat Hair Pills?”

Photo: Cat Hair Pills

I tore off a slip of paper with a phone number and email address for ordering. On Monday morning, I emailed inquiring about the pills. A few hours later, I received a reply informing me that since I’m a member of the press, the cat hair dealer, who declined to identify him or herself, would provide me with a sample from both Cat A and Cat B. “Please reply with your preferred pick-up neighborhood and I will consult our distribution database for an ideal location,” the fuzzy pharmacist wrote.

I wrote back with my location. A little while after that, the fur-slinger wrote back with instructions on how to pick up my pills. I was to go to a cafe in Bed-Stuy and tell the barista I had lost my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cup. The cup would be green with “George W.” written on the lid in permanent marker. My samples would be inside. I was instructed not to discuss Cat Hair Pills with the staff of the cafe due to HIPAA regulations.

The retrieval of the pills went as planned. So I am now the owner of two large pills stuffed with cat hair. I asked the pharmacist what I should do with them, and he or she wrote back, “Tell your friends and family! God bless.” I tried a different angle, asking what’s my prescription. “Entirely up to you, fellow Cat Hair Pil-grim,” my new spiritual guide answered.

I don’t know what to do with them. My friends have suggested swallowing them, using them to assassinate an allergic enemy, feeding them to my own cat, or snorting the hair.

Photo: Cat Hair Pills

The creator won’t tell me why the pills exist or who he or she is. I asked “why are you doing this?” and he or she responded “I just knew there had to be a better way.” I suppose this is a situation where it’s better to just embrace the mystery. If you want cat hair pills of your own, email cathairpills@gmail.com or call the Cat Hair Hotline at (724) 426-6691.

(Photo: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)

The post I Ordered Cat Hair Pills From A Mysterious Dealer in Bed-Stuy appeared first on ANIMAL.

 
I give perhaps too much benefit of the doubt to high-concept joke bands, and rarely does it pay off. A great many DM readers are surely familiar with the drill—the cheeky name and description of the band gives you enough of a chuckle that you check them out, only to find so-so...

Four former CVS “market investigators” filed suit against the pharmacy chain in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday, alleging that managers at locations in Manhattan and Queens instructed them to racially profile black and Hispanic shoppers, the New York Daily News reports. The anti-shoplifting security guards were “directed to follow utterly despicable and racist directives. Specifically, they were repeatedly instructed to intentionally target and racially profile black and Hispanic shoppers,” by loss prevention managers Anthony Salvatore and Abdul Selene, the suit alleges. The investigators were all fired after complaining about the discrimination.

According to the suit, CVS store management in New York is institutionally racist: “These black people are always the ones that are the thieves,” Salvatore allegedly said, while Abdul Selene said to “watch the black and Hispanic people to catch more cases,” according to the International Business Times. The four investigators, who are all black or Hispanic, were also subjected to racist verbal abuse from managers themselves. One of the defendants, Kerth Pollack, says that Salvatore told him to “get his black ass back to the store and apologize” after arguing with a store manager.

Similar suits at Barneys and Macy’s received payouts of $525,000 and $625,000, respectively.

(Photo: Ed Yourdun)

The post CVS Managers Allegedly Instructed Security Guards To Racially Profile Shoppers appeared first on ANIMAL.

"Maybe this is why God put me on this earth," Jenner told ABC. "To deal with this issue."

Czech cinema gained international acclaim in the 1960s with films like Closely Watched Trains (1966) and The Fireman’s Ball (1967) – movies that conflated the political with the sexual in ways that were as innovative as they were subversive. Much of the fuel of this New Wave of Czech film was the utter absurdity of the Communist rule and the horrors inflicted by the Nazis. Yet beneath that, there’s something within Czech culture that seems naturally skeptical of authority. Franz Kafka was a native of Prague, after all. And one of the most beloved books in the Czech language is Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk (1923), a frequently hilarious satire on the idiocy of war.

The works of Czech filmmaker Gustav Machatý weren’t overtly political yet they were still very subversive. At a time when the battles for universal suffrage was still a recent memory, Machatý had the audacity to show women as sexually autonomous beings.

Born in Prague in 1901, Machatý went to Hollywood at a young age and reportedly apprenticed under D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim. When he returned to his home country, he started making movies.

Machatý’s third feature and final silent movie was Erotikon (1929), a story about a country girl seduced by an upper-class cad only to get pregnant and ostracized by her village. The film recalls F.W. Murnau in his emphasis on faces and his expressionistic use of the camera. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the scene above where the girl surrenders to her slick paramour and discovers sexual bliss. The camera spins around as she writhes on the bed. Showing female sexuality frankly was daring at that time. Women in movies by D. W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin were chaste and pure. They received male appetites, perhaps, but were not subject to animalistic urges themselves.

Four years later, Machatý went even further with his movie Ekstase (1933). Early in the movie, we see the luminously beautiful Hedy Lamarr skinny-dipping in a pond. When her horse runs off with her clothes, she run naked over hill and dale to catch it. A bit later in the movie, in a scene that recalls Erotikon, she has an earth-shattering orgasm thanks to the strapping young worker who finds her horse. Ekstase might not be the first non-pornographic film to have nude scenes but it was certainly one of the first. And it was definitely the first film to clearly show a female orgasm.

The movie was an international sensation. It received raves at the Venice Film Festival only to be denied a prize because the Vatican objected. Worse, it couldn’t get a proper release in the US. First Ekstase was seized by U.S. Customs as pornography. Then, when it finally cleared that hurdle, the movie ran afoul of Hollywood’s self-censoring Hays Code. Ekstase only managed to screen in a handful of independent theaters in 1940, seven years after it first came out.

Nonetheless, the notoriety of the movie turned Hedy Lamarr into a star and soon she was starring opposite Hollywood icons like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable. (And just in case you thought that Lamarr was just a pretty face, she also co-invented and patented technology during WWII that laid the groundwork for things like Wi-Fi.)

Machatý had less success. As the threat of Nazism loomed, he fled back to Hollywood and ended up being an uncredited director for such studio films as The Good Earth and Madame X. He spent the last part of his life teaching film at the Munich Film School before dying in 1963.

You can watch the entirety of Erotikon below:

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Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads.  The Veeptopus store is here.

Remember AIBO, the futuristic pet robot from Sony that amazed us with its dog-like appearance and behavior when it came out in 1999? It was probably one of the first examples of artificial intelligence the general public got a taste of, and we were quite duly fascinated with the antics of the robotic dogs, as evidenced by the fact that the first batch of 3,000 AIBOs sold out in just 20 minutes despite its 250,000 yen (about US$2,100 according to the exchange rate back then) price tag.

But now, more than 15 years down the line, AIBO owners who have become attached to their cybernetic pets, are facing a grave situation — an aging and ailing (or breaking down, in this case) population of AIBOs.

The AIBO, which not only looked like a dog but came programmed so that each one would develop a distinct personality depending on its interactions with its owner, indeed seemed to symbolize the future at the time it was released. It’s estimated that roughly 150,000 AIBOs were sold in total, but it appears the business of developing intelligent robotic pets wasn’t quite profitable enough, as Sony decided to discontinue production of the AIBOs in 2006.

As sad a development as that was for AIBO fans, the big problem now for owners of the electronic pet is that Sony’s repair service for AIBO, the “AIBO Clinic”, was also closed in March last year. The predicament of these owners has been the topic of a recent article on Japanese news and information compilation site Karapaia.

The article focuses particularly on elderly AIBO owners who have come to rely on these robotic dogs for companionship and peace of mind. For them, seeing their AIBOs “grow old” and malfunction, sometimes needing new parts that are no longer available, is a heartbreaking experience, and with the repair service now shut down, they are having to come to terms with the “mortality” of the pets they had thought would never grow old or die.

To the owners who have spent many years with their AIBOs and treated them like a member of the family, this can be a surprisingly difficult experience.

▼ Major Japanese network TV Asahi showed a segment last year about AIBO owners struggling to accept the unexpected mortality of their mechanical pets:

But there is still a glimmer of hope. For desperate owners trying to find a cure for their ailing AIBOs, A・FUN, a company specializing in vintage machine repairs, could be their savior. The company was started by former Sony engineers, so we guess there are no better people to turn to if your precious AIBO is in need of some treatment and care.

According to the Karapaia article, when the engineers decided to take on AIBO repairs, they had to start by taking one of the robots apart and studying the incredibly complex machinery inside — no easy task, and made even more difficult by the fact that Sony was no longer making parts for AIBO.

But the engineers persevered, propelled by the love of the AIBO owners for their long-time companions, and they are now at a point where they are able to perform “transplants” of parts between AIBOs and even custom make the necessary parts in some cases.

As a matter of fact, they even held a “group funeral service“ back in January this year for 19 decommissioned AIBOs whose parts would then be used for other AIBOs needing a transplant.

▼ The first generation AIBO that came out in 1999:

▼ And here’s a promotional video showing a later generation AIBO from 2003 in action:

Considering the amount of time and love these owners have given to their AIBOs, it’s not surprising that the engineers at A・FUN are being kept extremely busy with inquiries and repair requests. Hopefully, their work will allow many owners to spend a much longer time with their beloved pets than would be otherwise possible.

Karapaia’s article raises the issue of  whether it is reasonable to treat robots with artificial intelligence in the same way as regular toys. Should a company be allowed to cut off repair service for a machine that responds to you and grows with you? As technology progresses, this is the kind of question that we are sure to be facing more and more frequently. We can’t help wonder, how much longer will it be until we see kids playing with humanoid robots, and when that happens, will we be discarding these robots when they stop working or their parts become unavailable?

Source: Karapaia (Japanese)
Top Image: SONY Sep. 29, 2005 Press Release
Inset images: SONY Sep. 29, 2005 Press Release, SONY May 11, 1999 Press Release

Origin: We thought robots didn’t die! The demise of the AIBO robot dogs and the fight to keep them alive
Copyright© RocketNews24 / SOCIO CORPORATION. All rights reserved.

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A local St. Louis news broadcast from the late 1970s about the fans of the then almost controversial horror-musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the city’s Varsity Theater.

At around the 1:25 mark, you’ll see future R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, in his best Frank-N-Furter drag, talking to...

“The Franz Kafka Rock Opera” comes from Season 1 of a 1999 video series called Home Movies. In this episode, we find the character Dwayne writing a rock opera based on Kafka’s famous novella The Metamorphosis. It’s not Tommy or Quadrophenia — two of the greatest rock operas ever made. But it does, true to form, feature lyrics and song. You can watch a segment of the rock opera above.

· Kafka Song #1: Introduction
He is Franz Kafka!
Franz Kafka!
Be careful if you get him pissed…
Franz! Franz Kafka!
He’ll smite you with metaphor fists!
Writing all he can, he’s just a man
A warrior of words taking a stand
He is Franz Kafka!
Spoken: Oh look, but there he is, what will he say?
I’m a lonely German…a lonely German from Prague!
Kafka! Kafka! Kafka!

· Kafka Song #2: Turning into a bug
I don’t know what’s wrong with me I think I’m turning into a bug
I see double what I see I think I’m turning into a bug
I ain’t got no self-esteem I think I’m turning into a bug
Bet you fifty dollars I’m a man, I’m a scholar and I’m turning into a bug
Momma like a daddy like a baby like a baby like I’ll turn into a bug
Yeah! Yeah!
He is Franz Kafka!

· Kafka Song #3: Living like a bug ain’t easy
Living like a bug ain’t easy
My old clothes don’t seem to fit me
I got little tiny bug feet
I don’t really know what bugs eat
Don’t want no one stepping on me
Now I’m sympathizing with fleas
Living like a bug ain’t easy…

· Kafka Song #4: Ending
Spoken: Welcome to heaven Franz! My name is God! I think you’re going to like it here!
He is Franz Kafka!

· Louis, Louis End Rap
Well, I’m, curing disease
Helping blind people read
Don’t drink that milk without talking to me (Oh yeah!)
I’m saving those who can’t see with their eyes
Don’t mess with me you’ll get pasteurized!
Yeah! Come on! Come on! Louis Louis in the house! Break it down!
(Jason does a human beatbox)

· Kafka End Song
Right now he can
He’s just a man
A warrior of words
Taking a stand
He grew up very poor
He’s steel, it’s to the core
Born in 1883 died in 1924
He is Franz Kafka!

h/t @DongusAmongus

Related Content:

Four Franz Kafka Animations: Enjoy Creative Animated Shorts from Poland, Japan, Russia & Canada

Franz Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Letters

Vladimir Nabokov Makes Editorial Tweaks to Franz Kafka’s Novella The Metamorphosis

The Art of Franz Kafka: Drawings from 1907-1917

erikalynae:

Let’s talk about Brenda Howard for a sec because I feel like all of the people shouting that “het”-partnered bisexuals don’t belong at Pride are missing a good chunk of their Pride history.

Brenda was:

• A bisexual, polyamorous woman and activist
  
• In a “het” relationship with partner Larry Nelson
  
• Known as the Mother of Pride for her work in organizing the first LGBT Pride events
• A participant in the Stonewall Riots
• An active member of the Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights, BiPAC, and BiNET USA,  among others
• Co-founder of the New York Area Bisexual Network
• Founder of the first Alcoholics Anonymous chapter for bisexuals
• An incredibly important figure in the LGBT community, who paved the way for Pride and LGBT activism as we know it today

“Het”-partnered bisexuals don’t just belong at Pride, they were integral to its creation.

(Bonus facts: Brenda was also Jewish, a sex worker, and an outspoken feminist. I highly recommend learning about her because she was seriously an amazing woman.)

milenab:

anothertgwfan:

busy-beaver:

fangirljeanne:

awkwardthuggin:

I don’t know how many of you guys know about it but this new movie, “Mad Max” just came out  and has already reached critical acclaim. I haven’t seen it , but it’s supposed to be this groundbreaking masterpiece and a huge step for feminism. Which is all good and dandy In theory. But on tumblr there’s been a lot of criticism because the ALL white cast (with the minor exception of Zoe Kravitz). One of the most frustrating things about these types of movies and conversations is that there’s ALWAYS these white feminists that want to tell POC that we have to overlook lack of diversity and basically “take one for the team” (the team being feminism/woman). No. I’m not going to do it. It is fucking disrespectful and borderline racist for you, a white person, to tell minority women that we have to ignore not being represented. Since turning 18 and starting to really think about racism and the media, it is especially uncomfortable for me to watch movies and tv shows with NO people of color. This world is mostly non white and it simply doesn’t make sense for our media to not represent it. And as for feminism, this is not the first time this has happened. When Girls came out, minority women were expected to ignore the show having an all white cast because it was written and directed by Lena Dunham. And anyone who dared to not ignore this issue was considered “non progressive”. This is why I don’t identity as feminist. Because this is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for these huge steps for feminism to not include people of color. And if you’re white and telling people to get over it, you’re a part of the fucking problem.

Okay, I don’t want to take away from some really great points you’re making about how white feminism often downplay or outright dismiss the representation of women of color, especially in discussions of mainstream media WOC are often silenced or ignored.

However, I need to point a few errors that are a common form of microaggression that I see pop up all the time in intersectional discussions of representation, specifically in regard to the recognition of indigenous women of color.

There are THREE women of color in Mad Max Fury Road. Zoe Kravitz (which you already listed), but also Courtney Eaton and Megan Gale. Eaton and Gale are biracial Maori women. The presence of Polynesian women in this film and a fictional future are incredibly important on multiple levels. 

The Mad Max films are set in a post-apocalyptic Australia. In fact, the franchise began as Australian films, George Miller the writer/director/creator of this world is Australian. This is not merely a geographic location, but an important cultural context for the films. 

What’s important about the location and the presence of Polyneisan women within this future world is how their very roles reflect the history of colonialism in the Pacific region. Polynesian people were forced to relocate, our cultures and even identities erased. Many of us are biracial and our own ethic identity are often erased due to a form of cultural genocide that was not unlike what was done to Indigenous people of the Americas. 

Polynesian women have long been viewed as tokens of exotic beauty. Taken as trophies, and forced in to sex work. Not unlike Fragile. Some, like The Valkyrie who actively fought against colonial oppressors. While Zoe/Toast is biracial black and Ashkenzai jew, she two represents an aspect of WOC’s journey through white supremacy and colonialism which was the driving force behind the trans-atlantic slave trade. 

Polynesians often are erased, or mistakenly seen as white passing often because White Western culture only teaches how to see black or white, ignoring or wholesale erasing all the many colors in between. One of the really ugly truths behind why so many indigenous people are “white passing” is because of the long legacy of us being raped by white oppressors. Many of us only being valued as “pretty” sexual objects for the enjoyment and consumption of white men.

There is a BIG difference between being white passing and having your ethnicity erase from mainstream awareness. People, even POC, default code Polynesian women as white because they only SEE the parts of our features that are stereotypically viewed to be “white.” 

I immediately recognizing Fragile and The Valkyrie as women of color, and was deeply moved about how their presence and individual roles in this film reflects the struggles of many indigenous women throughout history and to see them empowered and fighting back against their oppressors made my heart soar.

Also there ARE other people of color in the film, though by virtue of the dominate culture in the film being literally white male supremacy, the only men of color we see are in the lowest cast of society. Not uncommon in colonialism either, given how white men see MOC as a threat to their power and masculinity.

My only real complaint about race in this film is the lack of Indigenous Australians in leading roles. There are a few of them crowd shots of the Citadel’s lower class, and at the end of the film we see a disabled Indigenous Australian man become the focus of a full two second shot, acting as the face of the oppressed class as he is quite literally is lifted up to salvation by women of color.

There are powerful visual moments in this film, that tell not just a story of punching down the patriarchy, but of the dismantling of colonial oppression where indigenous women play key roles in the fight and future of the world.

So please don’t steal this context from the these women. It is very important to many women of color. 

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU 

I’m a Maori woman and it means so much to me to hear someone say FINALLY point this out. I wanna say this to ALL of tumblr so LISTEN UP!

The line between POC and White is very blurred in my culture. There are no ‘full’ Maori left, so everyone is biracial. I wanna point out that this is a very old way of thinking, as nowadays if you’re Maori then that’s it. YOU. ARE. MAORI. 

No matter what you look like, you are Tangata Whenua (people of the land). But I’ll be using it to get my point across. 

There are people with all sorts of different skin colours in my culture now and It makes me SEETHE whenever I see comments like the op. How DARE you dismiss ANYONE FROM A CULTURE THAT ISN’T EVEN YOUR OWN, just because you have been taught to only see in black and white and you can’t accept the fact that they’re from said culture JUST because they don’t ‘look like it’. For us, having people with dark skin, light skin and everything inbetween is NORMAL and we don’t question it. 

So don’t you DARE say that those beautiful woman in that film ‘DON’T COUNT’ We aren’t just some three letter word that you can label us with at your convenience. ‘PoC’ is not some super secret club. You don’t get to decide who is Maori and who is not. So you take that racist BS and shove it because we’re not interested. Especially when it is coming from someone who knows nothing about our culture and the people in it. 

Also, I know your intentions were good but PLEASE don’t refer to us as ‘white-passing’ as it’s just another way to isolate people within their own culture. We are Maori. End of story.

(emphasis mine)

Co-sign from this NZ-raised Polynesian woman.

We’re all mixed here. All of us. It’s so normal that we don’t put a freaking percentage on it and we realise that heritage and ethnicity is more than the colour of your skin, your particular shade of brown or how ‘ethnic’ your features are. It’s what you are.

One of my favourite parts of this movie was to see my people on a movie screen. It’s so rare for those of us of polynesian heritage to see ourselves reflected back in cinema and to see posts and articles that erase our culture or dismiss our heritage because we aren’t dark enough for someone of another culture is not only racist and ignorant, it’s also incredibly hurtful.

Reblogging because this is important stuff. 

Great points

Happy National Leave The Office Early Day!