firehose

eventually everyone will delete and abandon their blogs probably

and this will all just be a memory :(

like geocities

Star Trek Office Clothing part 1

I’m very particular about merchandise. I love the idea of it, but what I’m really looking for is a collection of clothing/jewelry I can wear to work that says “I’m a savvy young professional, but also I’m really obsessed with Star Trek” 

They say you can't put a price on happiness, but we bet the Star Wars fan(s) who bought this LaserDisc off eBay didn't mind paying $699 for 30 minutes of bliss.

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (Namco - NES - 1989)

by @badphysics

Michael Bradley is bald. Michael Bradley scored a soccer goal. The rest writes itself.

Switzerland’s competition authority WEKO granted Swatch permission on Friday (Oct. 25) to phase out the the sale of movements—the critical internal mechanisms of mechanical watches—to other watchmakers. The deal allows Swatch to slowly cut its movements supply over the next six years, until 2020, when it will no longer have any sales obligations at all.

This is significant, as Swatch Group now supplies a whopping 60% of movements found in Swiss watches. Swatch has been trying to ease its commitment to other Swiss watchmakers for years, but WEKO hasn’t permitted that for fear that any scaling back would prove catastrophic for watchmakers dependent on the company’s manufacturing arm. Buying components from a quality, large-scale manufacturer like Swatch has allowed watchmakers to keep their prices in check. Without such as supply, their production costs are likely to soar, and with it, their prices. Partly in anticipation, a series of mergers and consolidations has taken place in the industry over the past three years, including the acquisition of over 40 watch and component makers.

With the new ruling, bigger watchmakers are going to have to shift more of their capital into manufacturing, and small watchmakers are going to have to find new—likely more expensive—providers. The phaseout “sends a clear signal to all the brands and groups that they should invest more in their own movements,” Swatch CEO Nick Hayek told the The Wall Street Journal. At worst, the larger companies will see their profits squeezed. But many of Switzerland’s smallest watch companies—the kind that churn out only about 1,000 watches a year—could find themselves incapable of keeping prices down, and ultimately go out of business.

On the surface, Swatch insists that its push to end its manufacturing commitments to the industry has to do with an inherent unfairness in bearing the development costs born by the industry as a whole. ”We are in a ridiculous situation that would be like having BMW supply all the engines for Audi and Mercedes,” Hayek told the Wall Street Journal back in April. But alleviating these sorts of holdover commitments also could be key for Swatch as global competition intensifies for smart watches. Entry-price Swatch brands, the sort that sell in the low hundreds of dollars, fall into roughly the same price category as the $200-$300 smart watches such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear that are arriving. Swatch currently allocates nearly two-thirds of its capital expenditure to manufacturing, some of which it could shift to marketing and advertising to better compete.

The company has been low key about any smart watch ambitions. But Swatch has been working on interactive watches for years, and even helped Apple with its smart watch development, according to Hayek. ”Technology has always been an intrinsic part of Swatch Group’s lower-priced brands.” he told Reuters last month. The end of selling its traditional watch movements could accelerate a shift in investment—and marketing—necessary for Swatch to try to do something no manufacturer has done yet: make smart watches that people want to buy.

tastefullyoffensive:

[poorlydrawnlines]

THE BLASPHEMER HAS DECREED THE LAMENTATIONS SHALL CONTINUE. BEHOLD:

THE VENGEFUL WRAITH OF WHITNEY HOUSTON - “I WILL ALWAYS LOVE EVIL”

bigbigtruck:

krudman:

I love this

"you come here often?"
"DWARVEN CRAAAFTS"

Tutorial: Working with 45-Degree Curves in Adobe Illustrator

I got an request from an anon last week which asked: 

“Hey! Could you do a video tutorial on how to bypass Illustrator’s annoying round corners effect in case of 45 degrees? It would be a lifesaver!”

Now, while you’re not going to get a video tut out of me – I don’t have the resources, time or know-how to produce one of those – I can and will share my battle-tested personal approach to this problem.

As our anonymous friend says, the “Round Corners” effect in Adobe Illustrator is essentially broken when it comes to making transit maps. Because of the way it measures the “radius” of curves, it produces unexpected (and useless) results on curves that aren’t a bog-standard 90 degrees. I wrote in depth about this problem on my design blog a while back: I suggest you head over and read the article if you want to fully understand the issue at hand here.

The other problem with the effect is that it applies the same radius to every curve along the entire length of the path, which isn’t always what you want: a route line might be the outside line (a larger radius) at one corner, but the inside curve at another (a smaller radius).

So I’ve long since given up trying to fight the inadequacies of the “Round Corners” filter, and instead generate all my curves manually from a “master set” of curves that I create at the beginning of a project.

STEP 1 above shows a pretty standard initial set-up: four concentric circles that are aligned to the grid that’s being used by the map. Here, we’ve got a 10-point grid, and the four circles have radiuses of 10, 20, 30 and 40 points. The line thickness is 8pt, so there’s a nice 2pt gap between each route line. When you’re setting up your master curves, be sure to create enough circles to account for the maximum number of adjacent route lines you’ll have on your map. Often, it’s only two or three, but for my map of TGV Routes in France, I had to set up a staggering eighteen!

STEP 2: From here, it’s a simple matter to use Illustrator’s Scissor tool (shortcut: “C” key) on the existing anchor points in each circle to split them up into four 90-degree segments. I’ve moved one set of 90-degree curves away from the others so you can see what you should have. Keep this set for when you need 90-degree curves, then duplicate it so we can use what we’ve already created to create a new 45-degree set.

STEP 3: Draw a line using the Line Segment Tool (shortcut: “" key) that passes through the centre point of all the circles and crosses all the paths at a 45-degree angle. (Hint: start at the centre point and hold down the Option/Alt key – to extend the line equally in each direction from that point – and the Shift key – to constrain the line to 45-degree angles).

Use the Rotate tool to make a duplicate of this line that’s rotated 90 degrees. Select both lines and press Cmd/Ctrl-5 to turn them into guides. Make your guides visible (Cmd/Ctrl-;) and turn on Illustrator’s Smart Guides (Cmd/Ctrl-U). Then use the Scissor tool to cut each of your route lines where it crosses these new guide lines. The Smart Guides will help a lot by giving you feedback when you’re positioned correctly over the guides: a little "intersect” tool-tip (just visible in the STEP 3 screenshot at top right) will appear near the cursor. Click to cut when you see this and you’ll be golden. Repeat for each line you need to cut. You don’t need to have any paths selected to cut, just position your cursor, click and Illustrator is clever enough to work out what you need. You only need to cut these 45-degree points because we already cut the 90-degree points in STEP 2.

STEP 4 show the result. Again, I’ve moved one set of curves away from the others to show you what you should have: eight complete sets of 45-degree curves, ready for use on your map!

STEP 5 shows a common scenario where three separate routes go around a 45-degree curve together. Draw them so the separate segments for each line touch, but there’s absolutely no need to join the lines at this stage.

A note: If Illustrator took a leaf out of CAD software and included a “Fillet” effect, we could forego this entire workaround. You’d simply select each segment of a route line, invoke the filter, set a curve radius (an actual, proper radius!), and the software would then create the curve accurately and join the lines seamlessly for you, each and every time. After 17 versions of Illustrator, I’m really not holding out hope for this functionality any time soon, however…

Another note: decide which of your curve radiuses represents a “standard” curve and always use that curve when a single route goes around a corner. Then, decide what happens when you have two curves: do you use the next size up or down for that curve? And so on for each combination of curves. Always apply your curves according to the rules you set here – this is what gives your map consistency and visual flow. Don’t cheat and use a smaller or non-standard curve to make things fit!

Here, I’ve decided to use the three largest curves for my three route lines (I often feel that the smallest radius can be a bit tight and look ungainly, so I only use it when I really have to), and I’ve pasted in the appropriate curves from my master set (I’ve changed their colour to magenta to make them easier to see and place correctly).

STEP 6: It’s always easier to align the curves to the horizontal or vertical line segment first. Again, this is easier if you have Illustrator’s Smart Guides on. Drag the curves over by one of the left points, holding down the Cmd/Ctrl key as you do. This ensures that Illustrator provides you with the correct visual feedback that things have aligned properly. Be warned: sometimes, Illustrator reports that things are aligned when they’re not. Be sure to zoom in enough and check things out if you suspect things aren’t quite right.

STEP 7: Now align the right points of the curves with the 45-degree segment, by holding down the Cmd/Ctrl key and the Shift key (to constrain the movement) as you drag across. Again, Smart Guides will give you feedback when things are aligned.

STEP 8: Now that the curves are in the right place, you simply have to align the end points of all the line segments with the end points of the curves, then join everything together. Fortunately, Illustrator’s Join command s a lot less finicky than it used to be. You can now just use the “black arrow” Selection tool to select each segment and hit Cmd/Ctrl-J to join them all together in a logical progression. You used to have to select individual end points, two at a time, and tell Illustrator to join just those segments!

An approach I like to use is to leave all this curve work until the routes are substantially laid out. Then I place all my curves, delete the original straight line segments, and simply join all the remaining curves together. Because they’re positioned accurately, you know you’re going to get nice straight lines between each and every one of them! And it saves having to tediously move end points around until things line up before you join things together.

That’s it! If anything’s unclear, drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll try to clear things up for you.

STEP 9 shows the finished result: beautifully nested 45-degree curves with no unnecessary additional points. Perfectly executed and reproducible across the entire map! 

—-

UPDATE: January 2014: The latest update to Adobe Illustrator CC (version 17.1) basically makes this tip redundant through the introduction of “Live Corners”. If you’re making transit maps with Illustrator, this alone is a reason to upgrade to CC. Read my post about using Live Corners here.

Come for OSU sinking the Wolverines' ship. Stay for TYRANNOSAURUS REX.

Washington Post

Chris Brown's rap sheet continues to grow USA TODAY At this point, the word "infamous" seems to fit Chris Brown like a glove, since he's now more famous for his headline-grabbing arrests, meltdowns and fights than his music. Here's a look back at volatile history of the bad boy singer: March 2009: Brown is ... Charge against R&B singer Chris Brown reduced to a misdemeanorWashington Post Chris Brown Ordered Released From Jail, Assault Charge ReducedE! Online Chris Brown's Assault Charge Reduced to Misdemeanor, Singer Pleads Not GuiltyCelebuzz Hollywood Life -CNN -WSET all 711 news articles »

Today's REALLY? Halloween costume comes to us from a tipster by way of Quincy, MA where some brainiacs decided to slap on some blackface and dress up as George Zimmerman shooting a bloody Trayvon Martin.

Punishment Punch Girl is a new game for iOS

Over a year ago we told you that Millennium Films, the company behind The Expendables, is doing a female-focused version of their action franchise called, yes, The ExpendaBelles. There are certain people you'd expect to pop up in an film like that—say, Sigourney Weaver or Linda Hamilton. Or actresses like Gina Carano and Katee Sackhoff, though not them specifically, because they've already hitched their stars to another female Expendables movie. One name I definitely didn't expect to see pop up in the first slate of ExpendaBelles casting rumors? Meryl Streep. And yet.

It looked like the Dallas Cowboys had it all wrapped up, with barely over a minute to go against the Detroit Lions. Never assume anything in a game involving the Cowboys. Detroit got the ball back, moved it down the field right away and scored the game-winning touchdown on the highlightiest play in a game full of them.

Stafford hits Calvin Johnson for 22 yards. He's stopped at the on-yard line with 14 seconds left. Detroit runs down the field, gets lined up ... confusion ensues. The obvious play was a spike, giving the Lions a minute to get set. The Dallas defense is lined up, ready for something to come up the middle, but ...

Matthew Stafford goes over the top and stretches out for the score. He ran it in, just in case too.

And the spike for added emphasis.

There's been a wave of popularity for drinks like the Aperol spritz, the Negroni, and a host of cocktails flavoured with "bitters". Why are people turning their backs on sweet cocktails in favour of a bitter taste?

Wibbly-wobbly, comfy-womfy stuff. (by ThinkGeek, via Fashionably Geek)

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

St. Louis Cardinals rookie second baseman Kolten Wong made a critical mistake, getting picked off first base by Red Sox closer Koji Uehara for the final out in Game 4 of the World Series.

Wong had just come in as a pinch-runner for Allen Craig, who is recovering from a foot injury. Uehara caught the rookie napping at first base, firing the ball to Mike Napoli, who applied a perfect tag on the runner:

If making the final out of the World Series by being picked off first base wasn't bad enough for Wong, he made the out with Carlos Beltran standing in the batter's box. Beltran, a career .337 hitter with 16 home runs in the postseason, could not hide his disbelief after the play:

The Red Sox evened the series at two games apiece with a 4-2 victory, guaranteeing that the series will end in Fenway Park.

More from SB Nation MLB:

• World Series: Cards win Game 3 | Obstruction rule explained

• Hey Boston, stop complaining and start catching the ball

• Gold Glove finalists announced | Brisbee: And they actually make sense!

• How to fix the: Twins | Marlins | Astros

• Death of a Ballplayer: Wrongly convicted prospect spends 27 years in prison

47% of links in US government documents are broken links. Nobody likes a broken link, so the Internet Archive is releasing a new feature as part of the Wayback Machine to rid the internet of broken links. In a nutshell, you can now save a website instantly and get a permalink that will serve as a permanent citation for your work — a complete snapshot of a site at the time the citation is made. Amazing!