firehose

lunarbaboon.com


lunarbaboon.com


lunarbaboon.com

Lunarbaboon

lolmythesis:

Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

The only problem with being a 100-foot-tall statue on a mountaintop is the lightning. The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, which overlooks Rio de Janeiro, has suffered two fingers chipped over the past few weeks after being struck by lightning.

In 1982, New York State passed legislation that providing MSG with property tax relief and a discount on its electric bill. Unlike the tax breaks, Con Edison’s customers paid for the discount, which is a privately-owned, for-profit entity.

The Times (subscription)

Putin: 'I know some people who are gay. We're on friendly terms' The Times (subscription) President Putin said that he had gay friends and he was not “in any way” homophobic as he attempted to dampen the international furore over Russia's “gay propaganda” law before the Sochi Olympics start next month. He added that he would be happy to ... and more »

Two years into the housing recovery, and a half-century since Martin Luther King fought for racial equality, it’s clear that homeownership doesn’t treat everyone the same.

While millions of homeowners of all races were affected by the burst of the housing bubble, from losing their homes to foreclosure or finding themselves in negative equity, many areas nationwide are now firmly in recovery as home values inch back toward peak levels. But that trend isn’t universal: neighborhoods that are predominantly black or Hispanic continue to lag behind today.

According to research from Zillow, home values in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods are down significantly from their peaks—by 23.3% and 32.6%, respectively. The recovery has been kinder to white and Asian neighborhoods, though, which are down 13.4% and 0.6%, respectively.

Zillow dug into these and other issues in a report called “A House Divided: How Race Colors the Path to Homeownership.” What quickly became clear was that, from the beginning to the end of the path to homeownership, experiences vary widely among races. Despite making up 12% of the US population, blacks make up only 2% of all successful mortgage applicants. Hispanics, who make up 17.3% of the population, make up 4.5% of successful mortgage applicants. By contrast, whites and Asians are overrepresented in the pool of successful mortgage applicants.

A lot of these differences along the path to homeownership can be attributed to differences in education level, credit scores, and income among the races; blacks and Hispanics have a lower average income than whites and Asians, and blacks and Hispanics who apply for a mortgage are much more likely to have a lower credit score. Asians are more likely than the other races to achieve a higher level of education, which contributes to higher incomes. It’s especially troubling that, even after successfully jumping the hurdles along the path to homeownership, buyers in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods don’t realize the same returns as those who buy in white and Asian neighborhoods. This has enormous implications since, for many Americans, homes represent retirement savings and collateral for college loans, as well as somewhere to rest their heads at night.

Differences in education levels, credit scores, and incomes are root causes that can’t be addressed by housing policy alone, or the market as a whole. But they’re very real problems, which demand creative, collaborative solutions from all political and social spectrums. For its part, Zillow will host a meeting with on Jan. 22 with various stakeholders, including the National Urban League and federal housing officials, and will live stream the meeting here.

We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com. 

James Bond - Skyfall (Screenshot of the movie, ~87 min)

Mix of three different languages:

1. (At the top) A very simple ASX file
2. (Middle part) Seems like disassembled code - because of all the var_XXX in there - maybe produced by IDA. The catch lines seem to be copied into that assembler code from somewhere else.
3. (The function part at the bottom) Seems to be modified javascript, trying to load an Java applet

Harmonix has allegedly canceled development on an unannounced Kinect game for Xbox One. So says the LinkedIn profile of Rob Stokes, senior level designer at Harmonix, as spotted by internet sleuth Superannuation (via Kotaku). Harmonix announced in ...

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever spent more than 20 years trying to beat butter at its own game. But the maker of Flora, Country Crock, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, appears ready to give up the fight.

trickybastard:

How to keep Daniel Radcliffe grounded. (x)

"Mochi" - Contact (Grasshopper Manufacture - DS - 2006) 

requested by kiwi-kamikaze

Onsei Kanjou Sokuteiki: Kokoro Scan (Sega - DS - 2007) 

requested by longgomehome  

You should probably watch the trailer.

Folks were already concerned about Maleficent coming out too sympathetic in the upcoming film of the same name starring Angelina Jolie. After all, she's one badass witch, and that's why everyone loves her. The first trailer for the Disney live-action film came off super creepy (although Rebecca dared it to do better). And that was a good thing in my opinion, but now this has happened. And by "this" I mean, DEAR GOD WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Watch and see what you think. We get some new, interesting, looks at the film but the overall effect is pretty terrible. Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Death Industry #4 (Lithuania) 1993. Editors: “Ramūnas Platukis” and “Donatas Bagdonas” (English)

Features and interviews with My Dying Bride, Mortuary Drape, Samael (on their trip to Moscow), Trechoma Mag, Napalm Death (nice one with Barney!), Disharmonic Orchestra, Intense Agonizing, Ancient Rites, Atrofia Cerebral, Depravity, Audicion Irritable, Excess of Cruelty, Dragon, Impetigo (nice long one!), Gravid Rage Dist., Mass Psychosis, Black Power Records (GR), Cripple Bastards, Inverted, Korpse, Excavation, Forsaken, Excrescent (artist Mark Riddick‘s band), Ulcerous Phlegm, Sadness, Eterne, Dismal, reviews, and more. Thanks to Ra in Vilnius for the contrib.

malformalady:

Prosthetic hands on display at London’s Science Museum in the multimedia show, “Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine.”

Sonnet today announced the first Thunderbolt 2 expansion chassis, allowing owners of late 2013-era MacBook Pro and Mac Pro models to add two or three PCIe cards to their machines.

There are three new options, desktop and rack mount three-slot chassis, plus a two-slot desktop version.

The Echo Express III-D, Echo Express III-R, and Echo Express SE II incorporate ultra-fast Thunderbolt 2 technology, which delivers twice the throughput of 10 Gb/sec Thunderbolt and provides sufficient bandwidth to support many of the highest-performance and most-demanding PCIe cards. The new expansion chassis support every kind of Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe card available — enabling the use of professional video capture, audio interface, 16Gb and 8Gb Fibre Channel, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, SAS and SATA HBA, and RAID controller cards with Thunderbolt-enabled iMac®, Mac® mini, Mac Pro®, MacBook Air®, and MacBook Pro® computers. Plus, the Sonnet systems' dual Thunderbolt 2 ports support full-bandwidth connectivity with Thunderbolt 2-equipped host computers, full backward compatibility with 10 Gb/sec Thunderbolt-equipped computers and devices, and daisy-chaining of other Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt devices.

Customers who purchased Thunderbolt 1 equipped expansion chassis can get free upgrades to the Thunderbolt 2 version. All the Thunderbolt 2 chassis are fully backwards-compatible with older Thunderbolt equipped Macs.

The desktop three-slot version is available for $979, the rack mount three-slot is $1,199, and the two-slot desktop is $499.

A quick look at: the Celtic carnyx, and accounts of their use from ancient sources.

"Their trumpets again are of a peculiar barbarian kind; they blow into them and produce a harsh sound which suits the tumult of war"

             -Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus (60-30 BC), Histories, 5.30.

The carnyx was a type of bronze trumpet used between c. 200 BC and c. AD 200 in Iron Age Europe, primarily by the Iron Age Celts. They were styled in the shape of an animal’s head, such as that of an open-mouthed boar. The carnyx was used in warfare, spurring troops into battle, and intimidating opponents. The upright carriage of the instrument allowed its bellowing sound to be heard over those in battles or in ceremonies. Greek historian Polybius (c. 200–c. 118 BC) was so impressed by the Gallic army’s use of them battle, he wrote:

"There were countless trumpeters and horn blowers and since the whole army was shouting its war cries at the same time there was such a confused sound that the noise seemed to come not only from the trumpeters and the soldiers but also from the countryside which was joining in the echo."

The first image is of reconstructions of the Celtic carnyx at the Celtic Museum in Hallein, photo taken by Wolfgang Sauber.

The second image is a detail from the Gundestrup Cauldron (200 BC-300 AD) showing figures with carnyx, currently located at the National Museum of Denmark, photo taken by Bloodofox.

Jitish Kallat's 2008 piece "Aquasaurus" is a massive replica water truck made to look like a great prehistoric leviathan's skeleton, with great bowed ribs and enormous grinding teeth. It's part of a series of pieces that includes a bone motorcycle as well. His work is currently displayed on the India stage at Art Stage Singapore.

kallat’s series of bone vehicles references his own photographs of cars, trucks, bicycles, and buses that had been incinerated and torched during riots. he has transformed the visual of the burnt-umber endoskeletons into intricate white sculptures mimicking fossilized remains that he describes as ‘grotesque, burlesque and arabesque in equal measure’. ‘aquasaurus’ and ‘ignitaurus’ are two examples from the series — hybrid pieces that compound the aesthetic of mammoths found in natural history museums and specialized transportation devices from an automobile-expo. the refashioned carcasses can be seen as carrying, even through a playful approach, a broad and deep inclination of extinction and death.

bone vehicles by jitish kallat [Nina Azzarello/Designboom]

(via WTBW)

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

thekimonogallery:

Japanese child ready to participate in a festival (matsuri)

“The Christmas Invasion” (season 2, Christmas special; originally aired 12/25/2005)

(Available on Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video.)

“Look at these people. These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet and, blinking, step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than... no, hold on. Sorry, that’s The Lion King.”

There’s a longstanding, rather odd Doctor Who tradition that the newly regenerated Doctor doesn’t actually appear all that much in his first adventure. Much like David Tennant here, Jon Pertwee was asleep in a hospital bed for most of the first third of “Spearhead From Space,” while Peter Davison spent a distressingly high percentage of “Castrovalva” unconscious in a box. Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann were recovering from amnesia for good chunks of their debuts, while Colin Baker had to play ...

And still completes a first down, because he's Peyton Manning.

Man, what a choker that Peyton Manning guy is. Can't even handle a snap on the opening drive ... what's that? He still got the play off and threw for a first down? Well then. Manning is still good, carry on.