firehose

heyveronica:

jennirl:

kenlayne:

"Strange tradition from the forgotten rural years." Bees attend keeper’s funeral, 1956.

always reblog bees

important bee news

la-pitonisa-tropical:

La Tarrasque (1874) by Charles Lepec 

“La Tarrasque” was a legendary dragon from Provence (southern France) tamed by Saint Martha.

She was doing this kind of thing all the time: you couldn’t stop her. A bit of a thrill-seeker, Marthe was. People would say “Oh God, another dragon, send for a knight!” and Marthe would mutter “Oh don’t be silly…” and go handle it herself. One dragon she apparently dealt with by sousing it right in its open mouth with a bucketful of holy water (thus putting its fire out: not at all sure which was more effective, the holiness or just the water) and then dragged it home on a leash she improvised out of her garters.

I didn’t know she’d gotten into waterskiing with dragons, but seriously, you wouldn’t put it past her.

Dining vessels that evoke narratives: “We are VESSEL”:

VESSEL is a highly curated offering of select designs from across the globe with an emphasis on handcrafted, well made, unique and beautiful objects for the table.  We aim to tell a story… that good design makes life that much better.

Our designers are the heart of VESSEL.  We are proud to showcase the work of skilled artisans and emerging design brands who are creating innovative, thought provoking, and simply gorgeous products that will endure in style and set your table apart.

Our product mix covers an eclectic spectrum of dining related items including decanters, wine stemware, cocktail glasses, serve ware, flatware, vases, candlesticks and accoutrements. 

Redefining the way we dine.  

We are VESSEL

Read More.

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

(via Blade Runner Rachel by KR0NPR1NZ on deviantART)

babygoatsandfriends:

frauluther:

Butter Icing’s daycare.

Baby goat field trip

A suburban house in Brentwood, New Hampshire exploded as police were responding to an officer-involved shooting at the home.

charliedayy:

I ASKED MY SISTER TO MAKE ME A DANNY DEVITO CAKE FOR MY BIRTHDAY AND SHE DID OH MY GOD

Once Upon A Time ended its massive season with a massive, super inappropriate, two-hour season finale. Super fun fairy tale executions ahead!

Read more...

Princess Mononoke (1997)

ovopack:

Small bird of florist

talesofthestarshipregeneration:

nik west, bassist and soloist

vastderp:

sptrashcan:

scloutier:

2econdp2iioniic:

violentdeke:

desprecious:

sassykittykicksaves:

1st zam broke and leaked oil all over the ice

I saw this without the caption and thought it was blood.

ＴＨＥＲＥ ＷＩＬＬ ＢＥ ＢＬＯＯＤ

Here we see the aftermath of a wild zamboni devouring its prey, a penalized hockey player, and the subsequent trailing back to its lair after a successful hunt.

The crowd looks on in a strange mixture of horror and relief. The zamboni will be satisfied for days. They are safe for now.

Ian, our DnD characters must eventually face a zamboni. Just so you know. …They’re even harder to track than a herd of gazebos.

Very well.

If you insist.

HOLY SHIT

tsu doh nimh (609154) writes "A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada has been arrested for allegedly making at least 30 fraudulent calls — including bomb threats and 'swattings' — to emergency services across North America over the past few months. Canadian media isn't identifying the youth because of laws that prevent the disclosure, but the alleged perpetrator was outed in a dox on Pastebin that was picked up by journalist Brian Krebs, who was twice the recipient of attempted swat raids at the hand of this kid. From the story: 'I told this user privately that targeting an investigative reporter maybe wasn't the brightest idea, and that he was likely to wind up in jail soon. But @ProbablyOnion was on a roll: That same day, he hung out his for-hire sign on Twitter, with the following message: "want someone swatted? Tweet me their name, address and I'll make it happen."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Swedish art director Castor is selling his 1993 Volvo station wagon for $1,100, but being an artist, he’s going about it a little differently than most people selling their cars…

(via Laughing Squid)

One of the many pleasures of reading a Marie Brennan novel is that a swashbuckling quest to find dragon eggs in the tropics is never just that. It is also a complicated political story of colonial incursion and ecosystems in peril. Welcome back to the world of Lady Trent, a naturalist with a dragon obsession.

Read more...

submitted by SidePipeDreams [link] [97 comments]

Sterling didn't hold anything back when speaking with Anderson Cooper on Monday night. Here's a recap of his interview, including videos of some pointed remarks he made towards Magic Johnson.

Donald Sterling sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night and discussed a wide range of topics, including his thoughts on Magic Johnson and being set up by his girlfriend, V. Stiviano.

"I'm not a racist. I made a terrible, terrible mistake. I'm here with you today to apologize and ask for forgiveness," Sterling said in his opening remarks to Cooper.

Here are some of the highlights from the interview.

Sterling on Magic Johnson

Johnson became involved with Sterling and Stiviano when she posted a picture with him on Instagram. Sterling did not like the picture and brought up the issue of his girlfriend "associating with black people" in the phone call Stiviano recorded.

"What kind of guy goes to every city, has sex with every girl, then he catches HIV?" Sterling asked. "Is that someone we want to respect and tell our kids about? I think he should be ashamed of himself, he should go into the background. But what does he do for the black people? He doesn't do anything."

Here are more quotes from Sterling:

"I just don't think he's a good example for the children of Los Angeles. That he would go and do what he did, and go get AIDS. I mean, come on."

"He acts so holy."

Sterling would also go on to say Johnson was "irrelevant" in the issue, even though he spoke about him for more than 10 minutes.

Sterling on the NBA and the Clippers

"I really didn't pay attention to it. They're Clippers. They're mine. And I'm theirs. I'd do anything for them."

"I've embarrassed the league. I've humiliated them."

"The players don't hate me. The sponsors don't hate me. The fans don't hate me. The media hates me. It's all the media."

Sterling on the recording and ex-girlfriend

"I never dreamt this could happen. It's a terrible, terrible nightmare."

"I didn't know she was recording. She was talking so strange. It was like she was baiting me to say things."

"No I don't trust her. I wish I could ask her why, and if she was just setting me up."

"I don't want to talk about her. I want to talk about me and the mistakes I've made."

Sterling on racism

"I think you have more of a plantation mentality than I do. I think you're a bigger racist than I am."

"People are intimidated by even the thought of racism."

"Jews, when they get successful, they will help their people. The African-Americans ... they don't want to help anybody."

On April 29, Sterling was suspended for life and fined $2.5 million by NBA commissioner Adam Silver in wake of racial remarks he made to his girlfriend, V. Stiviano. Sterling is not allowed to attend any NBA games or practices, be in attendance at Clippers facilities, or have any involvement within the organization's front office. Silver also said he would immediately recommend to the NBA's board of governors that Sterling be forced to sell the team.

Here's more on the recording of Sterling's racial comments:

In the recording, Sterling chides Stiviano for posting a picture of herself with Magic Johnson on Instagram, saying it "bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people." Later, he added that "you can sleep with them, you can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that and not to bring them to my games." An extended version of the tape appeared on Deadspin and included Sterling blaming his thoughts on the way of the world.

submitted by pdxpilot [link] [43 comments]

Otters chasing a butterfly. [video]

taraljc:

lierdumoa:

payshaw:

All these people slamming DC for being reluctant to make a Wonder Woman movie by using Black Widow as an example of a successful and interesting female hero in movies.

No.

Just stop…and while you’re shutting up take a seconds break from kissing Marvel’s arse to recognise that of the SIXTEEN confirmed Marvel Cinematic Universe films NONE OF THEM HAVE A FEMALE HERO AS THE MAIN PROTAGONIST.

None.
Not a single fucking one.

0/16

Do better Marvel.

Friendly reminder that the longest running superhero movie franchise (not counting franchise re-boots in which the leads have been re-cast) is the 5 movie Resident Evil franchise, starring Milla Jovovich as Alice, the security guard turned superpowered mutant after her unique genetics came in contact with a lab experiment that turned everyone else exposed into zombies.

Friendly reminder that every single movie in this franchise passes the Bechdel test.

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. I have been using the Resident Evil and Underworld franchises as examples of how both a Black Widow or Wonder Woman movie could do globally for YEARS now. Every single time any dickhead brings up Catwoman or Elektra, I counter with Daredevil and Green Lantern, then hit ‘em with the irrefutable logic of Mila Jovovich as an international action star that brings in audiences IN DROVES with multiple action films and franchises under her belt.

And I will do it again, and again, and louder, and more often, until the dickheads admit there’s no logic in their logic.

Stop what you are doing and watch the trailer for the fan-made film The Akira Project. Set in Neo Tokyo, (NOT Neo New York, thank god) this crowd-sourced project is probably as close as well ever get to a non-garbage translation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira.

Read more...

Not An Onion Article of the Day: Officer Who Killed 16-Year-Old Kimani Gray Named ‘Cop Of The Year’:

thepoliticalfreakshow:

Two officers shot Kimani Gray a total of seven times in 2013. One of them was just named “Cop of the Year.”

In 2013, 16-year-old Kimani Gray was killed when two plainclothes New York Police officers shot him seven times. Police claimed Gray had a gun, though witnesses disagreed with the officers’ story.

The two police involved in the shooting, Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova, have not faced any charges as a result of the shooting. One has, however, stayed on his department’s radar: Mourad was awarded “Cop of the Year” this Thursday by the NYPD Muslim Officers Society.

“He’s done a lot of work taking down criminals and taking a lot of guns and drugs off the street,” Lt. Adeel Rana told the New York Daily News. Mourad had also been honored by the department in 2011 with an award for outstanding police work.

Gray’s family and their supporters were outraged by the group’s choice for this year’s award. “It’s an insult to the family and the community,” Former city council member Charles Barron, one of the Grays’ closest allies, told New York’s Amsterdam News. “There has been a pattern in the Police Department to reward cops who killed our Black youth.”

Mourad has been on the force in both Staten Island and Brooklyn for nine years. In the aftermath of the shooting, the New York Daily News discovered he’d been named in three other civil rights lawsuits against the force. The allegations in the lawsuits include wrongful arrests, illegal stops, and the unnecessary use of force. In total, the lawsuits have cost the department$215,000 in settlements.

Mourad was briefly put on administrative duties after the shooting while the NYPD performed an internal investigation. He has not faced any charges, and Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson has yet to decide whether his office will move forward with the case. The Gray family has taken action by filing their own lawsuit against Mourad, Cordova and the NYPD this April.

The day after the “Cop of the Year” award ceremony, and two days before Mothers Day, Carol Gray and the mothers of others killed by the NYPDrallied in New York to honor their children and protest police brutality. Protesters were specifically calling for a federal investigation into the death of Ramarley Graham, 18, who was killed two years ago when a cop chased him into his home.

“We have many, many victims that have fallen in the hands of those that were supposed to protect and serve,” said Kadiatou Diallo, whose son Amadou was killed by New York cops in 1999. “Please, let the Justice Department hear our voices. Mother’s Day is coming.”

Source: Christie Thompson for ThinkProgress

On the hit 2012 album “The Heist,” by the Seattle hip-hop outfit Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis, the track titled “Jimmy Iovine” rails against the music business, accusing record labels of exploiting artists. “We’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars,” the lyrics go. “After your album comes out, we’ll need back that money that you borrowed.”

Macklemore has since denied the song is actually about Iovine. (You can listen for yourself here on Spotify.) But is still takes on added meaning amid multiple, credible reports (paywall) that Iovine, the co-founder of Beats Electronics and its Beats Music streaming service, is poised to join Apple, the world’s biggest company, to overhaul its entire music strategy, as part of the rumored $3.2 billion deal.

In the music industry, Iovine is about as connected and powerful as they come. If Apple is serious about making more money from music, then Iovine, the former producer for artists such as Bruce Springsteen and U2 and the founder of Interscope Records (now Interscope Geffen A&M), is the man to make that happen.

Apple’s iTunes, software, and services segment, which generated $4.5 billion in revenue last quarter (about 10% of the company’s total) is growing nicely, but that’s mainly due to app sales. Music sales have been falling, and most people attribute the decline to the advent of streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. The below chart is from Asymco’s Horace Dediu.

The single biggest cost that any digital music service faces is royalties due to publishing companies, songwriters, record labels and artists. Pandora, by far the biggest new-media music company, pays more than half of its revenues out in royalties, yet has still been engaged in a series of bitter legal skirmishes with publishing companies. (We took a deep dive into one of those recently.)

“On demand” services such as Spotify and Beats Music, which launched in January, negotiate their sound recording royalties directly with labels. Apple will need to renegotiate the deals that Beats had in place. But with Iovine in its corner, it is reasonable to assume it will end up with deals that are at least as attractive as those that Beats already struck.

Spotify, which is yet to turn a profit, has been fairly transparent about the royalties it pays out, yet it has still been savaged by artists over remuneration. Beats, still in its infancy, has been less transparent. (Beats got off to a slow start since its January launch, with a subscriber base estimated to be in the “low six figures” in April, according to Billboard—compared to Spotify’s 6 million subscribers.)

Expectations are likely to change once Beats is beneath the umbrella of the world’s biggest company. And this wouldn’t be the first time that Apple has been criticized by artists for its role in disrupting the music business.