firehose

Today, almost half of all U.S. jobs require a drug test, and it turns out that companies that test their employees hire more black people. But that’s not a result that reflects well on Americans.

cakeybots:

doncasturbate:

Ruin this text post

superwholock

Perhaps this is just me, but it's refreshing to hear someone in Hollywood say they're not going to make a sequel just for the sake of making a sequel. As we've reported previously, Guillermo del Toro has been working on the screenplay for Pacific Rim 2, and Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull has said the studio's open to it. This week, in an interview with I Am Rogue, Tull further addressed the sequel rumors, explaining that if they give the movie the greenlight, they're going to take their time and get it right.

nyhistory:

Happy Fashion Friday! Check out our blog on Spring Fashion, circa 1890.

B. Altman & Co. Catalog, Spring and Summer, 1896. New-York Historical Society, Landauer Collection TT555.B35 1896.

Bus hanging over Massachusetts Pike is towed away Boston Herald NEWTON, Mass. — A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus that crashed through a guardrail Sunday and was partially hanging over the Massachusetts Pike has been towed away, authorities said. The bus was removed from its perch over the Pike ... and more »

WCVB Boston

Man arrested with guns outside BU graduation NECN A man was arrested Sunday for trying to bring two handguns into the Boston University commencement. Andrea Massa, 28, will be arraigned Monday. The Marshfield resident is believed to have been at the ceremony for the graduation of a relative. NECN will ... Boston University: Man with guns arrested at commencementWicked Local Newton all 12 news articles »

hodad

@NewdleSewp

Original Source

coolchicksfromhistory:

Khutulun (circa 1260-1306)

Art by Tara (tumblr)

Khutulun was the great-great granddaughter of Genghis Khan.  Her father, Kaidu, ruled a large swath of Central Asia and actively opposed his uncle, Kublai Khan.

Khutulun accompanied her father on military campaigns, which was not unusual in her culture.  Mongolian women were known as skilled horseback riders and hunters.  It was not unheard of for Mongolian women to participate in battle.

What made Khutulun unique was her wrestling ability.  She competed in public wrestling competitions and is said to have won 10,000 horses from her opponents.   According to Marco Polo, Khutulun refused to marry unless a man could first defeat her in wrestling.   No prospective groom ever won her hand and Khutulun eventually chosen her own husband, possibly in attempt to quell rumors that she was sexually involved with her father.

Khutulun was her father’s favorite child and one of his most trusted advisers.  Kaidu may have hoped to make Khutulun his successor.   After Kaidu’s death in 1301, Khutulun formed an alliance with her brother Orus which allowed her to remain commander of the military until her own death in 1306.

More information: The Wrestling Princess (Lapham’s Quarterly)

"Lance Armstrong's missing testicle."

Just another night of playing Cards Against Humanity... pic.twitter.com/lfu3YtdHRC

— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) May 18, 2014

#ThatAwkwardMomentWhen a party game references your missing testicle.

This tops the now-second-most awkward use of this card.

(via Imgur)

Lance, are you done with Cards Against Humanity?

(via Vox Dot Com's @AllisonRockey)

ohsnapitsj:

Powerful & inspiring innovators/motivators!

“

[The thought that launched the Mothership collection] happened this past December while I was, oddly enough, looking up at the night sky. I’d just finished watching an SF movie and had gone outside, mentally ranting about what I’d just seen. It was a tired and familiar rant, and I was tired of ranting it. Yet, there I was.

It went something like this…

Mainstream, American corporate culture “white washes” all culture—past, present, and future—giving people the false impression that America has been, is, and always will be the “White Man’s Country.” For example, people have no clue that the Revolutionary army was, at times, 16% black and fully integrated. They have no idea that the “Wild West” was 25% African-American. Watching movies of late gives one the impression that the Civil Rights movement was a battle between crusty, old white folks and bright-eyed, determined white girls. And, in the magical hands of Martin Scorsese (in Gangs of New York), over 100 black corpses disappeared and this country’s largest race riot ended up having nothing to do with race at all.

Hollywood executives tell us that no one wants to see movies or watch TV shows focusing on people of color, though we make up almost 30% of their domestic market and the vast majority of their foreign one. Once you take out Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman’s narration, people of color are nearly invisible.

Science fiction often implies that racism will be dead in the future. At least, they never really address it so we can only assume it will be. We can also assume that it’s dead because a melanin-devouring plague (Schuylerosis?) either killed all people of color or that same plague killed all the melanin on the planet, leaving only a handful of affable sidekicks in its wake. Because, if racism were truly dead, roughly 6 out of every 7 cast members would be people of color as opposed to, say, 2 out of every 15.

”

- excerpt from Bill Campbell’s introduction to Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. (via dangercupcakemurdericing)

“BURGLAR INVADES OLD LADY’S HOUSE ONLY TO FIND SHE’S A COMPETITIVE AXE-THROWER”

-

Yeah. That’s the Headline. (via themarysue)

“All I have to do is hit his spine.”

“All I have to do is hit his spine.”

“All I have to do is hit his spine.”

(via moniquill)

submitted by lightninhopkins [link] [25 comments]

peoplemask:

smartgirlsattheparty:

huffingtonpost:

A perfect match. Watch the full inspirational video here. 

This is one of our favorite stories!

#SmartGirlsAdopt

Ok, this is super adorbs, though I am cringing at the “INSPIRATIONAL VIDEO” thing. But, happy that Rosie found a home. :)

aww, me too! I once lived with a deaf dog who was (and may still be) the best. Is it harder to find home for deaf dogs? That’s a shame :( They’re not any more difficult than hearing dogs once they learn signs.

ofools:

but i do literally hate gardening so much and yet for weeks ive been like

terrariums

get me pictures

pictures of terrariums

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/xbtfq548/


http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/xbtfq548/


http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/xbtfq548/

machetecorgez:

This is a Welsh Corgi, 100% mongrel.

and thus spawned a bajillion corgis named ‘ein.’

Frozach Submitted

Oregon Zoo welcomes new Sea otter pup Juno. Watch her do the tail wiggle (by Oregon Zoo)

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Your Life in Weeks

It's no secret around here that I love superhero movies, especially anything that's a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but even in my interminable fangirling, I am able to recognize and acknowledge the flaws of these films. First and foremost, many superhero movies just aren't that diverse in terms of casting. There are no current MCU movies lead by a woman (or a person of color, for that matter), and the MCU's main competitor, DC/Warner Brothers, isn't much better. However, with constant talk of a Black Widow solo film and African-American men cast in major roles in the next Fantastic Four movie, it seems we are slowly inching toward more diverse superheroes. That being said, there is still something missing from the conversation, and that is the topic of queer superheroes.

Read more...

The fight for gay rights isn’t limited to real-world spaces. There’s a swelling movement for greater diversity and LGBT representation in video games that’s about to reach a national tipping point.

Turns out, Tozer Seeds, a British vegetable breeding company, is one step ahead of you. They’ve developed a Brussels-kale hybrid that they’re calling Kalettes™, which shoppers will be able to find in supermarkets in the U.S. starting this fall. Tozer successfully produced a vegetable cool kid — but it was kind of an accident, and it took them 15 years.

Tozer mainly focuses on tweaking existing seeds. They develop things like canker-resistant parsnips, slow-bolting celery and new varieties of runner beans, but they also do some seed breeding experiments, which their sales director David Rogers calls “Blue Sky projects.” In the lab, scientists mix plant strains to see what they come up with.

In 1995, Dr. Jamie Claxton, who was relatively new to the company at the time, started mixing brassica lines. He mashed up kale and Brussels sprouts and the resulting vegetable, which had kale-like leaves on a Brussels-y stalk, was interesting enough that Tozer decided to put some research behind it. Brussels sprouts sales, which had always been pretty high in the U.K., were dropping, and they thought they might be able to perk them up.

But that’s where trend forecasting gets a little fuzzy. The success of this mashup came down to luck. The scientists had no idea that kale, bolstered by future appearances on “The Ellen Show” and being named one of the “trendiest” vegetables of the last 50 years by Bon Appétit, would become cool. After all, it takes a long time to develop a new species, even when you’re in a lab and with a team of scientists. “If you cross two lines, it takes a year to see how it turns out,” Rogers says.

That’s why you don’t often see completely new vegetables. The last new veggie to be introduced was Broccolini, which was developed in 1993 by Sakata Seed Company in Japan. It took Tozer almost 15 years until they felt like they had a marketable product. They tweaked the flavor to tone down the Brussels, worked on varieties that had longer growing seasons and bred in strains that they deemed more attractive. Even now, as it’s being sold, they’re still tweaking the details.

Getting a lab-perfected plant is only part of the process. From there you have to convince farmers to grow it and stores to sell it. Rodgers says that was the hardest part. It’s a gamble, because it’s hard to tell how consumers are going to react to a totally new food. “Growers could see that it had potential, but no one wanted to grow it on scale, because they weren’t sure if stores would sell it,” he says. In the U.K., they ended up setting up an exclusive deal with one grower, Mani Fresh, and one grocery store, Marks & Spencer. After the first year, the new vegetable, which they started calling Flower Sprouts, was popular enough that both signed on for another. That gave Tozer some confidence. They then brought it to Fruit Logistica, an agriculture trade show in Berlin and won 3^rd place in the annual innovation awards. That’s when Tozer decided to try to start selling it in the U.S.

Coming to America came with a new set of challenges. Kale is trendier in the U.S. than it is in England, and they wanted to capitalize on that. The name “Flower Sprouts” wouldn’t fly, they decided. They changed the name to Kalettes to appeal more to America’s obsession with kale’s health benefits.

Tozer also faces issues of infringement. Exclusivity is a big part of being cool, so when you’ve made something completely new it’s in your best interest to claim it, even if that new thing, theoretically, is repeatable. “You can’t stop another seed company from creating a cross, it’s not a difficult thing to do,” Rogers says. He says the only thing you can really keep ownership of is the name, and that’s why they’ve thought so much about branding. Kalettes is intentional, and they’re trying their hardest keeping it exclusive. Only certain commercial growers will get access to the seeds, and they’re figuring out partnerships with stores. If you want to grow it yourself, he says that seeds will be available for small farmers and individual gardeners.

Despite all the work Tozer has done to brand their particular vegetable mashup, Rogers says that most of it comes down to luck. “It’s lifted by the fact that kale is so popular right now,” he says. “In 1995 that wasn’t there. In the U.K. kale has always been sheep food.”

 

The post When Kale and Brussels Sprouts Combine appeared first on Modern Farmer.

twitterthecomic:

I’m Barack Obama, and I think reading is *catches football* a slam dunk! *looks at football* oh, for christ’s… Biden, we talked about this

— ☆ lil lemon ☆ (@electrolemon)

January 3, 2013

Tatiana Malsany is Wolverine in X-Men: Genderflip. Tilda Swinton as Professor X, who's still bald.

Building a new entertainment medium requires lots of money and very talented engineers. Facebook ensured that Oculus VR has plenty of the former, and now the company has set its sights on the latter goal, by hiring Google Glass lead electrical...