firehose

this website becomes so strange late at night

A Georgia man is learning the hard way that you need to keep your promises.

One of the great things about the late great Nelson Mandela is that he didn’t hold grudges. How else could he have accepted normal relations with the CIA, which tipped off the white-supremacy regime to his whereabouts in 1962?

Daniel_Stuckey writes "According to new research, drivers, walkers, and bicyclists will generally provide us with more useful directions than transit riders. Published in Urban Planning, 'Going Mental' shows that cognitively active travelers, regardless of commute by foot or car, tend to trump cognitively passive travelers (those who frequent public buses and trains), in perceiving distance. Questioning cognitively active, passive, and mixed travelers about distances from a survey site to LA's city hall, the research demonstrated that the passive bus and subway riders have less of a grip on distance. Actively cognitive travelers, according to the results, were more likely to integrate street names in their directions, and also exhibited a sharper understanding of distances."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

beck-liz:

shartonnay:

shartonnay:

i think i’ve found my favorite christmas photo of all time

reblogging this again so more people can gaze upon its beauty

Santa’s all, “Have you taken the picture yet? Have you? Are we done?”

petermorwood:

erikkwakkel:

Stunning medieval murals survive under twenty paint layers

The BBC reported today about an amazing find in a local church in Llancarfan, Wales. A thin red line was discovered some time ago and upon further investigation expert discovered numerous 15th-century wall paintings behind the 20 layers of lime wash that were added over the past five centuries. They have been restored over the past months and can now be enjoyed by everybody. It’s fascinating how these medieval paintings lay dormant - were able to survive, really - behind layers and layers of paint.

Read more about it here - including a short film. Reference via @ETreharne. Pic source here.

There may be many more medieval murals (ooh, alliteration!) waiting to be discovered: what with Henry VIII, the Reformation in general and then Cromwell’s Puritan-slanted Commowealth, a lot of medieval religious art was destroyed - but a lot more was “hidden in plain sight” with lime-wash, just like these.

minionsinthetardis:

helloradness:

quackquackdontdocrack:

quatral:

yellowfangofspookyclan:

psychoactivelectricity:

Different densities of liquids

a must reblog for the scientific community

it took me a solid minute to figure out what the hell they meant by die

Tomatoes arnt a fucking liquid

I looked at “die” for a really long time before getting it

http://ajollyblackman.tumblr.com/post/69239106838/perchu-heres-my-idea-for-2015-once-the-amazon:

perchu:

heres my idea for 2015: once the amazon drones are released, i gather a group of millions of people and we all purchase dildos at the same exact time, and deliver them all to the same spot in new york. about 30 minutes later, people look into the distance and see what they think is…

bossyfangs:

so embarrassed I don’t wanna talk about it

Peanuts

KLEW

NSA cites Reagan-era executive order to justify collection of cell-phone location ... Computerworld Computerworld - The National Security Agency on Friday cited a 1981 executive order signed by then-President Ronald Reagan as the authority under which it is collecting location data daily from tens of millions of cell phones around the world. In a statement ... NSA defends global cellphone tracking as legalWZVN-TV all 139 news articles »

is this grand theft auto v or second life or imvu

oh great

someone came up with another goddamn thing

cumberbatchweb:

Caitlin Moran on Benedict Cumberbatch in this week’s Celeb Watch (At number 3!)

This week, the most staggeringly unlikely bitch-off in the history of pop was recounted by one of the participants themselves — Bendybum Cumbybag, aka Bumperdinck Cumberbats, aka Benedict Cumberbatch — in an interview with GQ.

Really, if you’ve got a former Harrovian, plum-voiced sex actor v the Long-Reigning and Dirty-Fighting Queen of Pop, Madonna, you’d know where to place your bets if things got a bit hissy. BUT YOU’D BE WRONG.

“I met Madonna,” Cumberbatch recounted. “She said, ‘You’re the one with the strange name’. I said, ‘Yes, I am, Madonna …..’”

TEN POINTS AND A VIP BOOTH AT RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE TO FENDERWICKS CLUMBERHOUND.

(chuckling)

According to her Facebook page, 16-year-old Rosalee Ramer is the youngest professional female monster truck driver. Sounds dangerous to me, but then again, so do most sports. Ramer looks more than qualified though. Plus, sweet manicure. Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Krampus Parade, from Der Spiegel, Picture This.

popular shared this story from Tastefully Offensive on Tumblr.

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Sports in a nutshell. [vectorbelly]

corduroyzebra:

So. This photo has been sitting in my drafts for a while.

Here’s a thing that happened.

A bunch of months ago, here on Tumblr, Kelly Sue mentioned a Sergio Leone quote that meant a lot to her. Then she Tumbld the actual quote. Here’s a bit of that post:

“The important thing is to make a different world, to make a world that is not now. A real world, a genuine world, but one that allows myth to live. The myth is everything.”
-Sergio Leone

And it … I don’t know.It got me in the gut. And I understood how it could mean so much to someone. 

Moved, literally and the other way, I went and stood in the crafts room. This was months ago. This was back when I knew I was going to be at NYCC, and that Kelly Sue was not. I just wanted to make a thing. For her? I guess. I had no idea how it’d ever get there. I just wanted to make a thing. 

And then it turned out Kelly Sue was going to be at NYCC. So I had to, you know. Finish the thing. On Saturday I stained the embroidery hoop blue and painted the front facing …edge… thinger (are there actual terms? probably!) gold. I stitched an “HL” and a “TL” onto the tree, and gave that sky a Mars, because I’d seen KS the night before at The Thrilling Adventure Hour's show in Brooklyn, and I figured, yeah. Let's get Mars up in there. 

Sunday was my day at NYCC. My friends and I went to the Women of Marvel panel. It was amazing. I had the thing in my bag, along with my Captain Marvel TPBs. After the panel, KS talked to everyone who waited to talk to her. Everyone. At that point I was thinking: I could probably just … mail this. Because, look. My default mode is “Talk to people? Oh, no thank you. Not ever.” Throw a little famous on that, and a handful of “your work has meant a lot to me” and I’m not real sure how I was walking and talking right then, but I was. And I got to actually hand the thing to Kelly Sue. And I said words, and some of them may have formed actual sentences. Did I completely forget about the Captain Marvels I’d brought? OH YOU BET I DID. But it was fine because … this was way better. It was the best. Kelly Sue … she’s the best. 

And then I uploaded this picture. And … never shared it. Not because I’m not proud of it. I am. Sloppy technique and mistakes aaand all.

Today Kelly Sue posted this. And I made the picture full-size, just to take a look around her office (Workspaces! The fascinatingest? I think so). And there it was. Behind her desk. And maybe I (definitely) teared up a little bit.

So. I figured it was a good time to tell you all about it. 

AW, DUDE. I love it SO MUCH. Not only is it right there behind my chair (waiting to be hung on the wall), but the note that came with it is back there too.

submitted by Mcsquizzy
[link] [43 comments]

Motorola will join United Continental Holdings Inc., Hillshire Brands Co.—the successor to Sara Lee Corp.— and other corporate giants abandoning vast suburban campuses for urban offices nearer to the young, educated and hyper-connected workers who will lead their businesses into the digital age. Archer Daniels Midland Co. recently said it would move its headquarters from Decatur, Ill., and in the Bay Area, startups like Pinterest Inc. are departing Silicon Valley for San Francisco.

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have announced that measles cases in the U.S. spiked this year, rising to three times their recent average rate. It's partly due to a greater number of people traveling to the U.S. when they're infectious, but also because a frustrating number of people are either failing to have their children vaccinated, or are failing to do so in a timely manner. Dr. Thomas Friedman said, 'Around 90 percent of the people who have had measles in this country were not vaccinated either because they refused, or were not vaccinated on time.' Phil Plait adds, 'In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them, which then spread due to low vaccination rates in their communities. It's unclear how much religious beliefs themselves were behind the outbreaks in Brooklyn and North Carolina; it may have been due to widespread secular anti-vax beliefs in those tight-knit groups. But either way, a large proportion of the people in those areas were unvaccinated.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Frances Benjamin Johnston, full-length self-portrait dressed as a man with false moustache, posed with bicycle, facing left: Johnston (Frances Benjamin) Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-04884

What started as an April Fool’s joke in 2012 has now become a real ThinkGeek product, the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie. The magical hoodie enables wearers to cast nine different spells with light and sound effects using hand movements. It’s available to purchase online at ThinkGeek.

Wild Mage. Wizard. Sorcerer. Illusionist. Enchanter. Invoker. Necromancer. There are so many words to describe people who wield magical powers. We have one word: badass. Let’s look at your average adventuring party: The fighter swings her greatsword, cleaving through two orcs. Sweet. The rogue pops out of the shadows, backstabbing the hobgoblin. Nice! The ranger fires an arrow through the throat of The Bandit King, right in the middle of his monologue. Love it. The cleric is adept with both a mace and a bandage. Phew! But the wizard sets entire battlefields on fire before lunch.

Here’s how it works:

And this is the original 2012 April Fool’s video:

images and videos via ThinkGeek

elizabitchtaylor:

On December 6th, 1989, shortly before five ‘o’ clock and the end of classes before Christmas break, fourteen female engineering students were shot and killed at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec by a gunman who claimed he was “fighting feminism”. 

The massacre stands as one of the most tragic hate crimes in Canadian history. 

Today we remember:

Geneviève Bergeron, aged 21;
Hélène Colgan, 23;
Nathalie Croteau, 23;
Barbara Daigneault, 22;
Anne-Marie Edward, 21;
Maud Haviernick, 29;
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31;
Maryse Leclair, 23;
Annie St.-Arneault, 23;
Michèle Richard, 21;
Maryse Laganière, 25;
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22;
Sonia Pelletier, 28; and
Annie Turcotte, aged 21.

(image credit: Sandy Kowalik)

Me, Chris Sebela & Ryan Sook.  

New Ghost #1, drops December 18th.  

I don’t think I want to “grow my business” anymore; I sort of want to do the opposite. And I’m tired, sick to death, of saying “Maybe Someday” when it comes to the things we really want to make. So, we’re not going to do that anymore. The next year is going to be a pretty big one, one of the biggest yet; it’s the year the previous fifteen have been leading up to in the literal sense but also in other ways. I think they’re going to be “big years” from now on, frankly. And it hurts pretty bad, but I don’t know where PATV as a “channel” for third party shows and The Penny Arcade Report fit into that. We’ll be shutting those things down at the end of this year.

University of Bristol climate scientist Dan Lunt, writing under the name Radagast the Brown, released a paper today where he used powerful supercomputers to model the climate of Middle Earth. So of course he had to release it in Dwarvish, Elvish and English. He made some fascinating scientific observations, too.

Read more...