firehose

Toothpaste for dinner

Never quit

kierongillen:

wicdiv:

June Previews is out tomorrow, meaning our entirely-created-for-previews preview advert story will be out in the world.

Bleeding Cool has just ran it.

And now it’s here.

Mention it to the shop if you want more.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE
June 18th 2014

So there you go.

voodoojunkie:

"Shiver me tampons" needs to make its way into my parlance

Eclectic Method created a remix of the wisdom shared by “Master Yoda” in Star Wars, which is available to download online from Soundcloud.

We can’t all afford our own personal life coaches, so I’ve edited together the wisest nuggets from Master Yoda. Clear your mind, you must unlearn what you have learned and click play on this trip hop journey with the wisest Jedi of all time.

image via Eclectic Method

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Yesterday we reported about the fire marshal severely limiting the capacity of a hiphop show at Kelly's Olympian on Saturday, March 22. Today, Portland Fire and Rescue Fire Marshal Nate Takara has responded with a clarification on the event under discussion, outlining the ongoing back-and-forth between the venue and PF&R which led to Saturday's capacity cap. Takara clarifies that the particular show was not targeted specifically, and that the show room at Kelly's Olympian has always had an occupancy limit of 49. I'll copy and paste Takara's response in full (with a few bolded phrases, emphasis mine).

Dear Mercury,

PF&R wants to take this opportunity to correct and enhance information in your piece regarding capacity regulations at Kelly’s Olympian.

The performance space with stage at Kelly’s Olympian has always had an occupancy limit of 49 people. It is a room with one exit which can create a hazardous situation when it is over occupancy.

On Feb. 21, 2014, PF&R’s Fire Inspector had a conversation with the manager during a fire inspection clarifying the occupant load of the bar and stage area.

On 3/12/14 our inspector sent an email to the manager stating “…just want to reiterate the 49-person capacity for your music venue…we have been having some trouble with outside promoters not doing a good job of sticking to occupant loads, most notably in small spaces such as yours, so wanted to make sure this was clear.”

Our inspectors revisited Kelly’s Olympian on the night of 3/14/2014 and during the fire inspection 120 people were found in a room with a 49 person capacity limit. Kelly’s Olympian was cited and fined. Kelly’s Olympian applied for a special events permit for the show you are writing about and asked to double the occupancy load from 49 to 100 people for the performance space. Based on the fact that the room has only one exit and the inability of management to heed occupancy loads during our inspector’s most recent visits, it was denied.

Our codes are based on best practices that have been tested over time and the result of some very unfortunate situations where people have been hurt. As you can see from the facts in this case, we tried to work with the venue and educate them about their occupancy limits in a way that was not connected to any scheduled performances at the venue.

Sincerely,
Nate Takara
Portland Fire & Rescue Fire Marshal

The management at Kelly's Olympian was unaware of the legal venue capacity for years due to unclear wording on the posted sign. The Fire Marshal has since cleared up any confusion, and we are and will continue to be in compliance and cooperative. The Fire Marshal's office in this case was doing their job to keep people safe, and that is important to us. We would never deliberately put anyone in danger, for any reason.

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An Air Tractor equipped for combat on display at the Paris Air Show.

Looking to get out of the business of secret drone strikes against Al Qaeda members and others in Yemen, the US is preparing to give the Yemeni Air Force its own, somewhat lower-tech equivalent of the Predator and Reaper for carrying out “targeted killing” operations. According to documents obtained by Buzzfeed’s Aram Roston, the US will provide a squadron of 10 aircraft originally designed as crop dusters, which are now equipped for a wholly different sort of reaping.

The two aircraft manufacturers in contention for the Yemen Precision Strike Program are Air Tractor and Thrush Aircraft. The specs of the program call for two-crew member airplanes that are easy enough to fly that the Yemeni Air Force can quickly crew them up. The planes must also be able to carry surveillance and targeting sensors, ballistic armor to protect the crew from ground fire, and a load of weapons on six “hardpoints” on the wings.

While weapons are not part of the first round of deliveries, the ability to incorporate them is. The required weapons capabilities include the ability to launch or drop Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs. They should also be “capable of carrying/employing [a] .50 cal gun,” according to a US Central Command memo on the program published by Buzzfeed.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

(via Twitter / MakingOfs: Gandalf checking his email …)

Pete Hottelet of Omni Consumer Products has created the Power Mitt, a silicone oven mitt styled after the classic Nintendo Power Glove. He’s pre-selling the gloves on Indiegogo.

Previous products developed by Pete include Fight Club Soap, Tru Blood O Positive, Stay Puft Marshmallows and Eau My Cologne Spray by George Takei.

photos via Pete Hottelet

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

kqedscience:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks Asteroids With 9-Year-Old Boy In Michigan

“During a question-and-answer session, a 9-year-old boy named Jacob got into a riveting exchange with famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on the various ways to stop an asteroid headed toward Earth. But the kid doesn’t simply ask his question, sit down and listen to the answer. Nope, he’s ready for this moment, peppering the host of the Fox TV series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" with followup questions and alternate scenarios."

(via huffingtonpost: http://goo.gl/tnNgX7)

Truly inspiring to see this interaction.

The NFL is banning dunking a football over the goalpost. In the NFL, football is a distraction, excitement is a danger, and eventually humans can be eliminated from the equation entirely.

The NFL has outlawed the dunking of the ball over the goal post, and now the NFL is great. Before I did not like anything about the NFL because my son could see Jimmy Graham dunking the ball, and my son would cry. Later, he would break into cars, and in jail would tell other inmates about the day he took the wrong turn in life -- the day he watched a man pretend to play basketball with a football, and his innocence died.

The crossbar can still be toyed with in other ways the NFL must address. The ball may not be used as a prop anymore, but players may still do pull-ups on the crossbar. They may mount it and perform balance beam routines, or even set up model trains along its length. It may be tapped in jest, or even mocked silently. Someone, some deranged deviant, could even perform a muscle-up on the bar, and contaminate the purity of the NFL with Crossfit. This disaster is real. It could happen.

This is what the NFL is now: 12 months of litigation and debate practice periodically interrupted by football. Far from the reputation of being stodgy on the field, the NFL is creative as hell with its legal jiu-jitsu. They sued MIA for over $16 million for shooting a middle finger during the Super Bowl halftime show, are fielding numerous possibly disastrous concussion lawsuits with panache, and are fighting the usual lawsuits from their own players and people hit with ice falling from their stadiums.

There's also players getting arrested-- something treated with a vastly different attitude than the poor, bedeviled owners of the league-- and free agency, and the draft, and talking about the salary cap, and rules decisions like this, and that random Tuesday when Merrill Hoge decides Johnny Manziel is going to be a bust. The issues the league's owners may have, like getting arrested for DUI or being investigated for toxic, discriminatory business practices by the FBI, are less publicized, and differently weighted.

And it's all product, at least the parts not focusing on the league's owners and their problems. This is nothing you don't already know, but the NFL manages to make you eat 10 pounds of soy filler for every gram of actual football meat you consume. Calling the NFL "They" at this point seems wrong. Let's call the NFL an "it," an impersonal, monstrous thing that stands somewhere categorically weird: part full-time law firm, part branding consortium, part etiquette council, and part massively gifted real estate scam.

Sometimes they play the distraction of football, and now you understand why you can't dunk a ball over the goalpost anymore. When you become something so inhuman as what the NFL is at its godlike size, the slightest trace of human excitement registers as an error, and must be eliminated immediately. In the end, Dr. Manhattan became so powerful he didn't need Earth anymore. When the godlike corporation of the NFL figures out a way to eliminate humans entirely from their equation, it won't either.

Someone is finally catering for the cross section of Star Wars fans and baseball fans.

In the case of our #StarWars Night jerseys on May 4, these ARE the droids you're looking for. http://t.co/bjnVjm3Bhr pic.twitter.com/9dYF1kj8SZ

— Durham Bulls (@DurhamBulls) March 25, 2014

The Durham Bulls are joining the throngs of minor league baseball teams to catch a timely case of Star Wars fever! Timely in the sense that it's a reference to a movie that's almost 40 years old. Now you can be a part of history by witnessing these R2-D2 jerseys on May 4... as in "May the fourth be with you."

It's following in a fine from a year ago and one that seems will stick around for a while.

The @MudHens (@tigers Triple A affiliate) will wear Chewbacca jerseys on May 4. #MLBFC pic.twitter.com/v6jyvRYYxZ

— MLB Fan Cave (@MLBFanCave) April 28, 2013

Yes, it's official — Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftax's Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett are returning to TV to make fun of some of the National Geopgraphic channel's programming in Total Riff-Off. And we're proud to debut this first-ever clip!

Read more...

Here’s the cool thing: The God Engines, my Hugo and Nebula nominated novella, is now part of the Humble eBook Bundle 3, a collection of DRM-free electronic works. The God Engines joins Jumper by Stephen Gould, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Tithe by Holly Black, and several other books by some of the best science fiction and fantasy writers today.

And how much do you pay? Well, that’s the thing: You pay as much or as little as you like for the Humble Bundle. But the more you pay, the more titles you unlock — and if you kick in $15, you’ll get the audiobook version of Cory Doctorow’s novel Homeland, narrated by Wil Wheaton (who has a book of his own in the bundle). $15 for eleven titles in total is not a bad deal at all.

And, when you buy the Humble Bundle, not only does your payment go to the authors, it also goes to the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund (supporting science fiction and fantasy writers when they get into medical scrapes) and to Worldreader, dedicated to increase literacy worldwide. Two good causes, supported by this one bundle.

If you want this bundle — and why would you not? — move quickly: It’s only available for one more week.

Again, here’s the link. Happy reading!

Fuck Yeah Bookmobiles

	Courtney shared this story from Deirdra Kiai Productions:
	I love Squinky, the end.

GDC 2014, the most overwhelming GDC I have ever experienced, has come and gone. I saw many friends, too numerous to list, and met even more amazing people. At the IGF Awards, Dominique Pamplemousse lost to Papers, Please, DEVICE 6, and Luxuria Superbia, and I feel quite all right with that, because they are all very worthy games and I’m more than flattered to even be in their company. Later that night, I crashed the Wild Rumpus party with my one-euphonium guerilla marching band.

But the most significant — and most nerve-wracking — thing I did, by far, was stand alongside a group of some of the most awe-inspiring women in games and give my #1ReasonToBe talk. It received a standing ovation and more people than I can count came up to me afterwards and told me that they related to it, and that it moved them to tears. I am beyond humbled. I’ve spent so much of my time in games feeling like the odd one out that I’m still trying to process what it means to call that into question.

Below is the full text of the talk I gave.

(more…)

© Squinky for Deirdra Kiai Productions, 2014. | Permalink | No comment

Courtney shared this story from toxoplasm.

sun-praiser:

really really important

	Courtney shared this story from The ToastThe Toast:
	"I think to myself, White people conquered our country for spices that they don’t use."

My first week in America, I poured half a bottle of hot sauce into my food.

“Wow,” said my dining companion, a girl from Connecticut who rode on the equestrian team. “I can tell you’re not from here.”

I laughed. “Because I like hot sauce?”

“No, but you just put so much of it into your food – I like my food much more delicately seasoned than that. That’s why I can’t handle curry. It’s just too much, it upsets my stomach.” She shuddered, as if reliving a bad dream.

I put the bottle down on the table, and stared down at my plate, covered in tell-tale red. I don’t tell her that curry is a Western construct, one that you wouldn’t find on any Indian menu. Instead, I feel ashamed, as though I’ve been caught with my hand in a cookie jar at midnight.

From now on, I vow, I will be much more discreet.

*

I grew up on spices.

In middle school, a boy teases me for being named after a famous Indian brand of pickle. Pickle in India connotes a mix of vegetables and fruits preserved in brine, bottled for convenience, served at every meal. He asks me if I like Priya Pickles. I laugh and tell him that yes, I love Priya‘s hot lime pickle. He blushes, unable to think of a comeback.

Every Indian kitchen has an extensive pantry of spices; a silver dabba, or container, holds the most commonly used spices. I’ve never been good at cooking, but I’ve been in the kitchen enough, peeked over my mother’s shoulder enough to know what each spice tastes like. There’s cinnamon, clove, coriander seeds, different types of cardamom that are each as fragrant as flowers. Fenugreek, fennel, nutmeg. Asafoetida so pungent that more than a sprinkle will ruin your dinner. Crushed chilli powder that is red as sindoor, the powder that new brides rub into their hairline. These are always dusted into the rice that my mother serves, always on the table as an accompaniment to whatever we eat. My favourite is the cumin seed, that I learn how to roast and mix into the iced yogurt drink we make every summer.

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, though Indian sweets deserve their own hall of fame. For dessert, like, my father, I eat tender green mangoes with salt and chilli powder. The taste is mouth-puckeringly sour. Between the two of us, we polish off every mango in the freezer without so much as a stomach-ache to show for it. My mother sighs when I drown my food in spices to make it extra hot, a trick I picked up from him.

I’ve only ever lived in places where I could find my beloved spices: London and Delhi and the Middle East. Wherever I went, I found Indian grocery stores that stocked jars and jars of spices or dried whole chillies that I could take home and crush into my food. In London, I eat at little Indian restaurants when I’m homesick. In Delhi, I bite into the corn which the street vendors rub with their own concoction of rock salt and potent spices. In Muscat, I eat falafel and kebabs and hummus spicier than anything you’d find in a store.

In India, a man catcalls me on the street. He says: “You’re a real masala girl.” He means I’m hot, but I like to think of it as spicy.

*

In America, I go to college in a tiny town, and for the first time there is no Indian grocery store that I can raid to get my fix. I make do with the poorest of substitutes: a bottle of generically-labelled “Curry Powder”; extra jalapeño peppers on my pizza; bottles of Frank’s Red Hot.

When I order Chinese food with my friends, I get the hottest thing on the menu. It’s still not hot enough for me. But when my friends taste it, their eyes water, and they yell at me for not warning them.

“Really?” I say, spooning more into my mouth. “It doesn’t taste spicy at all.”

They scoff.

“You should try the ghost pepper,” they say, “the hottest spice in the world.”

“I’ve already tried it, ” I say. “It’s called the bhoot jolokia. It’s Indian.”

“Crazy girl,” they say, shaking their heads at me. “Crazy.”

*

Quickly, I learn the jokes that they use for Indian people: the jokes that are somehow always connected with our food.

Curry-eating Indians, they say. They hate Indian food, how the smell gets into everything. White people tell me they’ve been to India and lost, like, twenty pounds because they got diarrhoea.

I laugh awkwardly. I don’t eat Indian food in front of them. I leave the bottle of hot sauce unopened, and learn to eat meals that don’t taste like anything. The only seasoning I use is a dash of salt.

I forget what spices taste like.

I think to myself, White people conquered our country for spices that they don’t use. I am amused by the irony of it.

*

As I grow older, I meet different kinds of people. Not all of them are on the equestrian team.

I date a white boy, who takes me to dinner and asks whether I want to eat Indian food.

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“You like spicy food?”

“Sure,” he says.

I am skeptical. At dinner, I ask the waiter for food as spicy as possible. He is delighted to meet another Indian in our little town.

“Suno,” I say, summoning my bad Hindi to my aid, “bahut teekha, ji. Samjhe? Dhanyavaad.”

Listen, sir, I’d like it very hot. Know what I mean? Thanks. 

My date scrunches up his face a little when he tastes the chicken. The waiter has, indeed, been generous with the spices. I bite my lip.

“This is good,” he says. “Very good. The real deal.”

Manfully, he chokes it down. His cheeks are a vivid shade of red, and he drinks his glass of water in one go and asks for another. I burst out laughing, and he joins me.

*

Little by little, I reclaim my love of spicy food.

I grow feisty as the spices, rebellious as the taste of pepper on your tongue. Whenever I come across someone who doesn’t like Indian food, I tell them it’s their stomach that’s weak, not my taste buds that are too strong. I tell people that Indian food is no less crude than European cuisine merely because it’s more flavorful.

I eat food in combinations that only a pregnant woman would think of. I order Bloody Marys and dirty martinis when I go out, because I like my drinks to be as delicious as my food. I make friends with people who love the same kind of food I do, the kind of people who rush out and buy sriracha when they hear there might be a shortage.

I move to a big city, where I can have Indian food whenever I crave it, which isn’t often anymore. Usually, I’m happy with a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot. I keep bottles of it in my kitchen in plain sight, unashamed.

Read more Spicy at The Toast.

Lithograph, from ca. 1754, showing Martin Luther burning the Papal Bull excommunicating him in 1520, while the surrounding vignettes show episodes in his life and other heroes of the Reformation

griffstream:

- hellooooo Monday…

The next time you grab the toolbox for a quick home improvement project, forget boring old flat or Phillips head screws, these happiness-inducing screws are guaranteed to put a smile on your load bearing beam. Screw :) is a collaborative project between Japanese designer Yuma Kano and a screw factory called Komuro Seisakusho in East Osaka, Japan. Kano began thinking about the potential to infuse emotion into small, ubiquitous objects like screws, the design of which has rarely changed since its invention. Of course smiley face screws aren’t meant as a replacement for more standard designs, but would make a fun detail for smaller projects or areas where a screw might be more visible. You can see much more over on his website. (via NOTCOT, Designboom)