firehose

memewhore:

 

“The first rule of nap club is SHUT THE FUCK UP” - Nap Club

San Francisco and Los Angeles' rivalry turns into an all-out war in Sandow Birk's satirical art series In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of the Californias. Birk created grand paintings and wry propaganda posters imagining the bloody battles between Northern California and South.

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The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special airs on November 23rd, but we'll be seeing Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor again a little bit early. On November 14th, Smith will appear with Professor Brian Cox in the special The Science of Doctor Who.

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A diet fueled by food stamps is making South Texans obese but leaving them hungry.

Despite having a big territory rich with natural scenery, Brazil is not accustomed to many international visitors.

The Cincinnati Bengals got to overtime thanks to a ridiculous Hail Mary. But they couldn't move the ball in overtime, and Justin Tucker nailed the field goal, and he took full advantage of his moment in the spotlight.

Yes, it was Terio time.

OOH, KILL EM. Nothing says victory like a meme of a husky child dancing.

Of course, this was not the first Terio sighting of the day in the NFL.

between flesh and what’s fantasy

The Seattle Seahawks acquired star receiver Percy Harvin in the offseason but he has yet to be activated this season as he recovers from a hip injury. The Seahawks are hoping to get Harvin back next week against his former team, the Minnesota Vikings, but don't forget that they already have a pretty talented wide receiver. He may not get the same amount of publicity, the most name recognition, or a very good reputation among opposing fans, but Golden Tate can do some amazing things.

Some really, really amazing things.

Tate caught this 6-yard touchdown from Russell Wilson with :08 seconds left before the half in Atlanta against the Falcons. It gave the Seahawks a 23-3 lead on the road but also reminds fans that "the guy that caught the controversial game-winner against the Packers on Monday night last year" is also really, really good at catching footballs.

Just imagine if Seattle had Tate and Harvin at the same time.

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People say you had to be in Paris in the ’20s or New York in the ’80s. The sad truth of our contemporary moment seems to be only that you no longer need to be anywhere in particular anymore.

	Courtney shared this story from Geek Feminism Blog:
	Nice concise explanation of why @TRUCEConf is bullshit.

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This is a guest post by Jacob Kaplan-Moss. Jacob is the co-BDFL of Django and Director of Security at Heroku. Jacob helped create Django while working at the Lawrence Journal-World, a family owned newspaper in Lawrence, KS. He lives outside of Lawrence and spends his weekends playing at being a farmer.

This post originally appeared on Jacob’s blog.

Friday brought news of TRUCEConf.

It’s a terrible, dangerous and insulting idea. The organizers should reconsider, either canceling the event or changing its scope and mission radically. I have no doubts that the organizers have good intentions, but good intention don’t always yield positive results. As is, TRUCEConf’s very existence runs counter to the vision of equality in tech.

Tone arguments and trivialization

It’s hard to read the verbiage on TRUCEConf‘s home page as anything other than an extended tone argument. The page continually talks “anger”: citing the need for “discussions without… anger”, or the danger of continuing “on the path of anger”.

It’s hard to read this as anything other than buying into the myth of the “angry feminist”, criticizing people working for equality who have the temerity to occasionally get angry. This is a classic tone argument at its best: distracting from the actual issue at hand by focusing on the tone.

Here’s the thing, though: as Melissa McEwan points out, “to a subjugated person… anger is perfectly rational.” Indeed, “how can you look at a cultural landscape of institutionalized inequality and not be angry… because you know that the opposite of anger, for a progressive, is complacence.”

TRUCEConf, on the very face of it, trivializes and dismisses the work that’s already been done, implying that the reason it failed is because it was somehow done wrong. That’s incredibly insulting to everyone who’s been working on this problem.

What exactly are “both sides”?

TRUCEConf continually mentions “both sides”. What exactly are these two sides? (Spoiler alert: they don’t exist.)

Men and women?

Maybe they mean “men” and “women”? If so:

• It ignores the fact that some men are as uncomfortable with the status quo, as well as the sad truth that some women have a deep investment in keeping the system in place.
• This buys into the myth of the gender binary, sweeping trans*, gender questioning, and gender nonconforming people under the rug.
• Indeed, it implies that the only problems facing tech is sexism, when in fact our community is also racist, ableist, ageist, etc. etc. etc.

All of this comes down to a lack of understanding of intersectionalism – the way different forms of oppression interlock and interrelate. There’s not “two sides”; there’s a deep and complex interlocking set of oppressions. Put succinctly:

When you enter a feminist space and you are only concerned with sexism, you are missing the full story. It’s like listening to music but only hearing the melody…without the harmony, percussion, and bass line, you aren’t actually hearing the song.

(From Intersectionalism 101. Read the rest of it, please!)

“Sexists” and “non-sexists”?

OK, maybe they don’t mean “men” and “women”; maybe they mean “sexists” and “non-sexists”?

If so, that’s even worse. We’re not talking about two equal groups here; one “side” is comprised of harassers, abusers, and rapists. Take a moment to peruse the history of sexist incidents in tech. Is TRUCEConf seriously suggesting that we invite people from “both sides” of those events?

Do they really believe that the solution is to invite abusers and their victims to “work together in an open environment to solve our problems collaboratively”?

“Both sides” implies false equivalence

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what these supposed “two sides” are. The very
discussion of these “two sides” sets up a damaging an untrue false equivalence
between bullies, abusers and rapists on one “side” and people speaking out
against harassment on the other.

This implies that speaking out about abuse is somehow equivalent to abuse itself.

It’s hard even to articulate how insulting and damaging this sort of false equivalence is.

This is an appropriation of the language of oppression by the oppressing class. Having your privilege challenged isn’t bullying. Saying that is the worst kind of privilege. If the worst thing that’s happened to you is having someone on Twitter call you sexist, well, you’ve lived a pretty incredibly lucky life so far, don’t you think?

This isn’t a war

Fundamentally, TRUCEConf fails because this isn’t a “war.” A “war” implies some sort of struggle, with equivalent atrocities on both sides. When it comes to our tech industry, nothing could be further from the truth.

This isn’t a “war” between equals; it’s the systematic oppression of women, people of color, LGBT folk, and other minorities. The people with privilege are not going to just sit down, talk it out, and suddenly agree to give up that privilege; there’s a massive culture deeply invested in maintaining the status quo.

Refusing to acknowledge this systemic imbalance implicitly endorses it. The concept of a “truce” is laughable; the only solution is to dismantle the system that’s so stacked against equality.

There's a reason Marshawn Lynch earned his nickname "Beast Mode." The Falcons got a rude reminder on the Seahawks' opening drive.

The Seahawks got a field goal to go up 3-0 early.

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In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson—an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor—emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin.

blackphoenix77:

xxnativeiamxx:

rainwood:

Indigenous people of Brazil trying to prevent their eviction from an old indigenous museum which they have been living in for the past 7 years.

On March 22nd all of the inhabitants and their supporters were forcibly removed or arrested.

The building is being destroyed to make a parking lot :(

indigeno

A parking lot

Really?

For many, reading a good book can be a religious experience, but this new bookstore in Zwolle, The Netherlands takes that idea to a whole new level. Architects BK. Architecten were tasked with converting this 15th century Dominican church into a modern bookstore with the addition of 700 square meters of shopping space. But there was one major catch: all the historical elements of the 547-year-old building including stained glass windows, pipe organ, ceiling paintings and expansive arches had to remain intact.

Incredibly, BK. Architecten managed to add three levels of retail space to the side wings of the church in a manner that the entire structure can one day be removed in order to restore the church to its original design. In addition only three colors of building materials were used to mimic the existing palette of the cathedral’s interior to further ensure that the bookstore would pay reverence to the original space.

Waanders in de Broeren opened earlier this summer and you can see many more views on the architect’s website. Photos by Joop van Putten and Hans Westerink. If you liked this you might also enjoy reading about a Walmart being converted into the largest single-story library in the United States. (via Arch Daily)

onthesideoftheotters:

crazypeoplejail:

help me I can’t stop laughing

DID HE JUST RUN ALL THE WAY TO THE SEATS TO CLAP FOR HIS TEAM OMFG

Canada's Conservative government has become notorious for muzzling government scientists, requiring them to speak through political minders (often callow twentysomethings with no science background who received government jobs in exchange for their work on election campaigns). Government scientists are not allowed to speak to the press alone no matter how trivial the subject, and the default position when reporters seek interviews is to turn them down. (Much of Canada's state-funded science pertains to the climate and the environment; Canada's Tories were elected with strong backing from the dirty tar sands and other polluting industries)

A group of University of British Columbia students decided to measure just how extraordinarily secretive science has become in Stephen Harper's Canada. Dave Ng writes:

What if there was a non-political research project that involved a collaboration between NASA scientists and Environment Canada scientists? How easy would it be for a journalist to talk to the scientists involved? It turns out it would take only 15 minutes for something to be arranged with NASA. With Environment Canada, however, it would take the activities of 11 media relations people, sending over 50 pages of internal emails, before a list of irrelevant information was finally sent back - all of this long after the deadline had passed. This is what happened to journalist Tom Spears in April 2012. With this, this Terry Podcast episode asks a simple question: If it was this difficult to get interviews for a positive science story, what would happen if a journalist needed to actually ask some tough questions? Please take a listen as this episode of the Terry Podcast examines the relationship between media and Canadian Government scientists, and questions whether the Harper government has politicized science.

The Terry Project on CiTR #27: Silencing the Scientists

Podcast feed

MP3 link

(Image: Talal Al Salem/Terry Project)

ANIMATED: WHY IS THERE A HORSE IN THE END ZONE

carlsagan:

Carl Sagan through the years

NYC Moves to Vacate Judge's Stop-Frisk Decisions ABC News Attorneys for New York City asked a federal appeals court Saturday to vacate a judge's orders that require the police department to change its stop-and-frisk practice that critics argue unfairly targets minorities. The city said in filings with the 2nd U.S. Circuit ... and more »

The EPA has banned the production and sale of the types of stoves used by about 80 percent of those with such stoves. The regulations limit the amount of “airborne fine-particle matter” to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The current EPA regulations allow for 15 micrograms in the same amount of air space. Most of the wood stoves currently nestled inside cabins and homes from coast-to-coast don’t meet the new environmental standard. The EPA launched a “Burn Wise” website to help convince the public that the new regulations were needed.

So when Sherman was asked this week about facing White, returning from a hindering high ankle sprain, Sherman downplayed the "challenge" at hand, per the Seattle Times. "What challenge?" Sherman asked. ... "We're an 8-1 ballclub, they're a 2-6 ballclub. Facts."

Now that the war in Iraq is over, operations in Afghanistan are winding down and budget cuts are curtailing training missions, several Joint Chiefs told Congress on Monday they’re worried that their troops are “bored.”

Everyyear, Science's Dance your PhD competition challenges grad students past and present to convey their dissertations with interpretive dance. Finalists for this year's competition were just announced, and yes, they are amazing.

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Toilet paper seller Charmin had the most winning Thor 2 tie-in with this punny image, complete with a toilet paper roll forged for the butts of the worthy.

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juniperklausenburg:

irisrukka:

whimsy-cat:

"The Elizabeth Taylor Ceremonial Cape from Cleopatra is an ornately designed piece made of thin panels of gold-painted leather adorned with hand-stitched gold bugle beads, seed beads and bead-anchored sequins.”

From the 1963 film.

Great characters are usually at their best when they're surprising us. A villain who is purely evil is never as interesting as a villain who sometimes expresses kindness. A killer with a code; a monster with a soft spot for kittens. Yet some video games this past generation just didn't seem to get that—they pushed us to play purely evil or purely good.

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