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Pikachu cake molds ⊟

Wondering what to serve when your friends come over to play Pokemon X/Y all day, which I’m sure happens somewhere sometime? Make a Pikachu cake with these silicone molds from J-List.

You can either get two small Pikachus, or one big one, for $20. It’s up to you to decide what flavor of cake best represents a giant electric rodent.

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When Jake Locker went down with ugly hip and knee injuries against the Jets three weeks ago, it looked like his entire season might be over. Now it looks like he's going to miss just two starts.

AP CEO: Press freedom v. security a 'false choice' Albany Times Union DENVER (AP) — The president and CEO of The Associated Press says that governments that try to force citizens to decide between a free press and national security are creating a "false choice" that weakens democracy. Gary Pruitt said Saturday that the ... and more »

All Hail Supreme Cat Lord

thinkmexican:

Paloma Noyola: The Face of Mexico’s Unleashed Potential

When a report emerged in September 2012 that a girl from one of Matamoros’ poorest neighborhoods had attained the highest math score in Mexico, some doubted its veracity. It must be fake, they said.

But it wasn’t fake. Her name is Paloma Noyola, and what most reports failed to mention is that almost all of her classmates also scored very high on the national math test. 10 scored in 99.99% percentile.

Paloma and her classmates also scored in the top percentile in language. Something special was happening at José Urbina López primary school in Matamoros, and Wired went to take a look.

The high test scores turned out to be the work of a young teacher who also came from humble beginnings. Sergio Juárez Correa was tired of the monotony of teaching out of a book and wanted to try something new to help engage his students when he came across the work of Sugata Mitra, a UK university professor who had innovated a new pedagogy he called SOLE, or self organized learning environments. The new approach paid off.

Although SOLE usually relies on unfettered Internet access for research, Juárez and his students had very limited access. Somehow, he still found a way to apply Mitra’s teachings and unleash their potential.

From the beginning, Paloma’s exceptional abilities were evident:

One day Juárez Correa went to his whiteboard and wrote “1 = 1.00.” Normally, at this point, he would start explaining the concept of fractions and decimals. Instead he just wrote “½ = ?” and “¼ = ?”

“Think about that for a second,” he said, and walked out of the room.

While the kids murmured, Juárez Correa went to the school cafeteria, where children could buy breakfast and lunch for small change. He borrowed about 10 pesos in coins, worth about 75 cents, and walked back to his classroom, where he distributed a peso’s worth of coins to each table. He noticed that Paloma had already written .50 and .25 on a piece of paper.

As Mr. Juárez implemented more of Mitra’s teachings in his classroom, Paloma continued to stand out as an exceptionally gifted student:

Juárez Correa was impressed. But he was even more intrigued by Paloma. During these experiments, he noticed that she almost always came up with the answer immediately. Sometimes she explained things to her tablemates, other times she kept the answer to herself. Nobody had told him that she had an unusual gift. Yet even when he gave the class difficult questions, she quickly jotted down the answers. To test her limits, he challenged the class with a problem he was sure would stump her. He told the story of Carl Friedrich Gauss, the famous German mathematician, who was born in 1777.

When Gauss was a schoolboy, one of his teachers asked the class to add up every number between 1 and 100. It was supposed to take an hour, but Gauss had the answer almost instantly.

“Does anyone know how he did this?” Juárez Correa asked.

A few students started trying to add up the numbers and soon realized it would take a long time. Paloma, working with her group, carefully wrote out a few sequences and looked at them for a moment. Then she raised her hand.

“The answer is 5,050,” she said. “There are 50 pairs of 101.”

Juárez Correa felt a chill. He’d never encountered a student with so much innate ability. He squatted next to her and asked why she hadn’t expressed much interest in math in the past, since she was clearly good at it.

“Because no one made it this interesting,” she said.

Although this Wired piece focuses mostly on Sugata Mitra, it does once again highlight the story of Paloma Noyola. Unfortunately, after a brief spurt of media attention, little on Paloma was ever mentioned and, as was pointed out by Wired, nothing was ever said of Mr. Juárez.

As with most stories in the Mexican press — and with in the middle-class — things suddenly become very important once it’s featured in a gringo publication. Which is a very sad commentary. We hope, however, that this story pushes those in the press, state and federal government to look not to the United States for validation but to Mexicans like Sergio Juárez doing good work in places like Matamoros.

The clear message in this story is that there are thousands of Paloma Noyolas going to school in Mexico who, just like her at one time, are not being challenged and therefore aren’t very interested in school. This story can, if we want it to, raise enough awareness to shift the discussion from poverty to opportunity.

Paloma truly personifies both Mexico’s challenges and unleashed potential.

Read the entire Wired story here: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses

Editor’s note: As an addendum, Wired provided information on helping support Sugata Mitra and his School in the Clouds project, and although they donated school supplies and equipment to José Urbina López School, we’re interested in seeing if we can help set up a similar fund for Sergio Juárez, the teacher featured in this story.

Also, $9,300 was raised to help fund Paloma’s education last year. We going to follow with the economist who led the fundraising campaign to see how she’s doing. Stay tuned for updates.

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This is definitely a thing you wanted, right? This $299 suitcase with a built-in scooter? It’s perfect for your lifestyle of scootering places with a small amount of possessions in a tiny suitcase that’s attached to a scooter.

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And here's what that will look like. Check out MarvelHeroes.com for more. Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

behance | Vincent Mahé


behance | Vincent Mahé


behance | Vincent Mahé


behance | Vincent Mahé


behance | Vincent Mahé

Vincent Mahé

Nate Silver says a key editorial judgment at FiveThirtyEight is what not to cover.

The data-driven news site, which he recently sold to Disney and ESPN, will relaunch early next year. In a speech at the Online News Association’s annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Silver said:

I think, editorially, a big decision is the stories you don’t cover. The things you don’t say is just as important as what you do. Because when you lend a weight of authority to a story just by covering it, that affects the way people perceive that story and the way it sometimes even plays out.

Afterward, in an interview with Quartz, Silver elaborated on the idea. “I think it’s one of the basics of editorial judgment,” he said, adding:

It’s kind of related to the idea of not feeding the trolls. You can respond to something and make someone look like they’re incorrect. But sometimes people are after attention, in general, and so you can make matters worse by not having some discretion in which fights that you choose to engage in.

untrustyou:

Doublefaced No. 23

Sebastian Bieniek

Daniel_Stuckey writes "We all know that Wikipedia can be subverted—it’s an inevitability of an open platform that some people will seek to abuse it, whether to gain some advantage or just for a laugh. Fortunately, the Wikipedia community has strong mechanisms in place to deal with this, from the famous cry of [citation needed] to the rigorous checks and standards put in place by its hierarchy of editors and admins. In recent months though, Insiders have encountered something altogether more worrying: a concerted attack on the very fabric of Wikipedia by PR companies that have subverted the online encyclopedia's editing hierarchy to alter articles on a massive scale—perhaps tens of thousands of them. Wikipedia is the world's most popular source of cultural, historical, and scientific knowledge—if their fears are correct, its all-important credibility could be on the line... Adam Masonbrink, a founder and Vice-President of Sales at Wiki-PR, boasts of new clients including Priceline and Viacom. Viacom didn't respond ... but Priceline — a NASDAQ listed firm with over 5,000 employees and William Shatner as their official spokesman — did. Sadly, Priceline didn't choose to respond to us via Captain Kirk; instead Leslie Cafferty, vice president of corporate communications and public relations, admitted, 'We are using them to help us get all of our brands a presence because I don't have the resources internally to otherwise manage.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Advocates of recreational marijuana use are looking to an upcoming vote in Maine as an indicator of whether the East Coast is ready to follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington by legalizing cannabis.

Washington Post

Prime Property: Sandy-damaged prison to be sold in heart of trendy Manhattan Fox News NEW YORK – A former women's prison in Manhattan that few New Yorkers knew about remains closed a year after Superstorm Sandy caused $600,000 in damage. After the storm, state officials decided to close Bayview Correctional Facility, and they're still ... Sandy-damaged prison to be sold in NYC hotspotSeattle Post Intelligencer Sandy-damaged prison to be sold as NYC hotspotNorthJersey.com all 15 news articles »

kellysue:

GPOY

Fox has picked up its rookie cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine for a full season, giving the show nine more episodes to continue building its audience and maybe solve some more crimes. So many crimes going unsolved while Andy Samberg and Co. goof around, establishing the sort of ensemble chemistry that may make for entertaining television, but does little to console the victims of this wicked city. Anyway, the series (like all freshmen comedies that aren’t on CBS) has been a slow-starter so far, with episodes averaging only around 5.2 million viewers despite the positive reviews. But Fox obviously has faith in it, saying in a statement that “it feels like this show is going to be around for a long time,” and even giving it the endorsement of a plum, post-Super Bowl time slot alongside New Girl, so that football fans can keep the party going with some ...

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ghostkid:

tedison

Adopt us.

When composing an I, Anonymous, why does everybody direct the letter to the person they are complaining about? Chances are that person/those people will never know about your rantings. I mean, I get it, but why not speak directly to your actual readers? For example, you could say, "So how about this homeless person, sales clerk, bus driver, boyfriend, girlfriend, sister-in-law, random asshole on the street, driver, cyclist, bartender, client, co-worker, customer, pedestrian who really pissed me off?! Here is what s/he did..." That, or simply tell the story in a narrative form using first person, or third of you're that kind. The Dear (insert perpetrator here) template is growing old. Think outside the dear.

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Six Decades of the Most Popular Names for Girls

FOXSports.com

Former NFL head coach Bum Phillips dies Reuters Sat Oct 19, 2013 2:08am EDT. (Reuters) - Bum Phillips, the colorful head coach of the National Football League's Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints in the 1970s and 1980s, died on Friday, his son said. He was 90. Phillips took over a losing football ... Bum Phillips, Colorful Football Coach, Dies at 90New York Times Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips dies at 90USA TODAY Bum Phillips, led Houston Oilers to playoffs, dead at 90Boston.com Bloomberg -The Advocate all 85 news articles »

While the Ubuntu 13.10 desktop isn't using Mir/XMir by default, the packages are available within the archive for those wanting to test out the next-generation display server for Ubuntu. To see how the 2D/3D performance is when running under XMir with the Unity System Compositor, I ran some new benchmarks using this week's Ubuntu 13.10 release.

FOXSports.com

Hall of Famer Bill Russell arrested for carrying loaded gun through airport security Washington Post SEATAC, Wash. — Hall of Fame center Bill Russell was arrested this week at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after Transportation Security Administration officials found a loaded gun in his luggage. Russell was arrested Wednesday night as he attempted ... NBA legend Bill Russell cited for loaded gun at Seattle airportReuters Bill Russell arrested on gun chargeESPN all 127 news articles »

el-hotel-bella-muerte:

sunny-deanwinchester:

togifs:

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did you just

Visual grammar jokes are my favourite

Disney has been releasing a new series of Mickey Mouse shorts online, and in honor of October, they're sharing a spooky silly episode featuring an undead Goofy.

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