firehose

You're going to have some friends over for a cocktail party. No problem, you think to yourself, I'll just pick up some glassware at Crate & Barrel. You get there, and panic sets in. It's a cornucopia of tumblers and flutes in every conceivable shape and size. You weren't prepared. Pay attention now, and you will be.

An anonymous reader writes "This article is an eye opening perspective on another side effect of power generation — water usage: 'More than 40 percent of fresh water used in the United States is withdrawn to cool power plants. Renewable energy generally uses far less water, but there are glaring exceptions, such as geothermal and concentrating solar.' The article also mentions that power plants have to shut down if the incoming water is too warm to cool the plant. 'Also, even though some newer plants might use far less water, they could find that there’s far less water available as water temperatures go up and water flows go down. Another study found that nearly half of 423 U.S. plants were at risk of lower power output during droughts because their intake pipes for water were less than 3 meters below the surface.'"

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	Courtney shared this story from Manhattan Nest:
	living vicariously through someone else's kitchen DIY remodel = my idea of a good time.

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Our kitchen renovation seemed straightforward enough.

Step 1. Remove all the yuck.

Step 2. Paint all the things.

Step 3. Yay new kitchen!

But there’s this finicky little step between steps 1 and 2 that I may not have totally accounted for in my mental schedule of events (in which our kitchen has been long done by now because, you know, it’ll take like 4 days start to finish). That step is called PREP. And there is so much of it.

A quick word about this renovation: this is not really the kitchen we intend to have forever. It was probably installed in the 1950s, and was done using pretty cheap materials, even at the time. I think most potential buyers saw this space as a total gut-job (probably one of the several reasons the house sat vacant for 2+ years), but with all the other work that needs to be done in the house, there is just NO way we’re about to gut and replace an entire kitchen. Even though the kitchen looked terrible, the cabinets are solid wood and workable (not in great condition, and not nice cabinets to begin with, but there are lots of them!), the fridge is fine, etc. etc. All of that is good news, since I don’t want to rush designing and planning the layout and materials of whatever kitchen we end up installing here. We want to get at least a few more years out of the existing kitchen, and Max and I both feel like it’s top priority to have a space where it’s actually nice to prepare a meal and feel comfortable and clean——both for ourselves and guests. Especially when we’re in the midst of doing so much other work, I think having a nice kitchen will go a long way toward maintaining our sanity.

The point is, this kitchen is a very extended exercise in trying to do things on the mega-cheap without compromising quality and aesthetics (ideally, I’d like to spend $500-$1,000 total in here). We also want to get it done quickly so that we have more time to devote to other stuff (and, obviously, so we have a kitchen!), so we also need to strike a balance between doing things perfectly and 100% right and just doing things so they’re good enough to last as long as this kitchen realistically needs to. All of this is my way of explaining that seasoned renovators might be rolling their eyes and gasping in horror at some of the decisions I’ve made during the process, but just remember that this kitchen isn’t forever.

SO. ANYWAY. PREP. When we left off, I’d been busy patching all the walls and ceiling from where the drop ceiling had been attached (holes in the walls, holes in the ceiling, holes everywhere) and generally lamenting the state of everything. It felt like maybe it would only be a couple of days until I was happily painting the walls and feeling very satisfied and validated about all my hard work, but every time I turned around, it seemed like there was more craziness to un-do and conquer before paint could happen. I’ve painted a lot of rooms at this point in my life, and this one far surpasses any amount of work I’ve ever had to do to get a space prepped. That includes sanding all of the walls of my apartment hallway. Neva4get.

This was a dark time.

One thing that had been staring me in the face was the fancy contact-paper backsplashes. I won’t lie, I kind of like this cutesy poppy pattern, but the paper was in bad shape and generally dirty and gross and completely at odds with the plan for this room, so it had to go.

I might have saved a scrap of it for…whatever reason. This kitchen has turned my brain to mush.

Consider this a PSA: don’t put contact paper on your backsplashes. Don’t then leave it there for 50 years. This stuff was a NIGHTMARE to get off. It’s possible some kind of wallpaper remover would have helped, but it seemed like a really small area and wasn’t worth the hassle. We don’t have a steamer (heard very mixed things about their usefulness from a lot of different people, and now I’m crippled with indecision), but I did try to loosen some of it with my iron on the steam setting. This made zero difference.

The only thing to do was peel, in tiny pieces, forever. It became like a kind of sick game, where every time a scrap came loose larger than about the size of a child’s palm, I would rejoice and cackle in manic glee. I played this for hours, until the laughter became tears.

Next I turned my attention to the sink area. Remember that thing I mentioned about everything in our house being fixed with caulk, various types of tape, and metal wire?

Well. The sink area is a very good example. Check out how the sink is totally, like, being swallowed by the wall in the first picture. That’s all caulk. See the wall above the sink and to the right? ALSO ALL CAULK.

Yeah. Not only had the edges of the sink been filled and covered and overflowed with years of very hard, very serious caulk, the walls had also been skim-coated with it. I suppose this is a semi-valid way to waterproof this area around the sink, so I respect the ingenuity. But that is just…not what caulk is for.

Since this area is also getting tiled, I had to do my best to remove all the caulk and level the surfaces.

There’s this episode of The X-Files in which Scully gets kidnapped by deranged small-townsfolk who worship a bulbous yellow-ish worm thing that needs a human host to survive. It burrows in a person’s back, along the upper vertebrae, and sort of incubates there for a while before killing the host and moving on. It’s all very gory and horrific.

This caulk was a lot like that. Big and bulbous and yellow and emerging from around the sink like a thick moldy worm thing. I was legitimately a little frightened of it. The amount of caulk removed from this area was bananas. It had actual weight when I put it all in a bag to throw it away. It was heavy.

Shudder. Horrors. Caulk horrors.

In an attempt to feel better about things, I needed to get some paint on something. This seemed like as good a time as any to throw some primer on the floor. Since the original linoleum tiles pretty much popped up en masse, the plan is to just paint this plywood underlayment black. It won’t be the fanciest floor in the world, but I think the black paint will make the imperfections less noticeable, and a kitchen rug on top will keep it from seeming like our floor is made of sadness.

I’d LOVE to rip up this underlayment and expose the original pine plank subfloor, but that’s probably going to wait for the REAL kitchen renovation down the line. Aside from having to remove the radiator and base cabinets to make that happen, there’s a whole SECOND layer of linoleum and plywood underlayment under this plywood underlayment, and then we don’t really know what the subfloor is even going to look like when we get down to it. It could have rot (doesn’t look like it from the basement, but that’s the bottom side…) or tons of damage, or be hideous, or whatever, and we’re just not ready to deal with that whole process. I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I have to refinish a floor OR cover it up with new flooring (and new underlayment…), both of which would suck more time and money from our lives that we don’t have.

SO. I decided to paint the floor with Zinsser B-I-N Shellac-base primer, which is the same stuff I used in Max’s childhood bedroom. I like this line of primers generally, but the shellac stuff is AMAZING for blocking/sealing in all kinds of weird grossness, and it goes on super thin, dries EXTREMELY fast (like 15 minutes), and provides a good surface for paint to adhere to.

I prepped the floor basically just by sweeping and vacuuming it (use the wand to get into all the edges and corners, where dust and debris tend to accumulate), and then I painted it like I would anything else——cutting in around the edges, roller on the rest. I just used a regular old roller made for semi-smooth surfaces and it worked great. The paint is sort of self-leveling since it’s so thin, so it didn’t leave any roller texture once it dried.

I also decided to paint the hearth, since it was so little extra effort and it seemed like a good idea. Even though I cleaned it really well, it still probably had some wallpaper paste/grease remnants that might have messed up the regular paint adhesion and coverage.

Even though it’s just a coat of primer and the floor is going to be black, not white, painting this felt SO GOOD. It happened really fast and COMPLETELY changed the feeling of the room. All of a sudden, it felt like a blank canvas full of possibilities instead of a shoddy room full of gross shit and generally lousy vibes. We won’t paint the floor until after the walls and cabinets are painted (since I don’t want to paint the floor and then drip paint on my newly painted floor while painting the walls, you know?), but anyway. FINALLY! PAINT!

After the floor was primed, I was feeling extra excited and paint-happy, so I decided to paint the radiator! This radiator was…so vile. Same dirty-custard yellow as the walls, covered in tons of grease and dirt and dust and grime. I spent a long time cleaning it,  starting with a flexible dryer vent brush (mine is like this, and it’s the best thing ever for cleaning old radiators!) and finishing with reaching my gloved hands as far into that spaces as they would fit to try to further clean it. The whole thing was very gross and enlightening and took about 2 hours.

Once it was prepped, I taped some cardboard onto the wall behind it. Since the room still needs paint on the walls and the floor, I didn’t care so much about getting off-spray on anything in the surrounding area. However, it’s going to be basically impossible to paint fully behind the radiator (the space between the back of the radiator and the drywall is only about 1/2″!), so I didn’t want to get a bunch of paint back there that I wouldn’t be able to cover up.

I chose this high-heat glossy spray paint in black for the radiator. Because who doesn’t love a black radiator?

The folks at the hardware store assured me that any type of spray paint would probably be fine for a radiator, but I wanted to play it safe with the high-heat. Rust-oleum actually makes a radiator enamel specifically for this, but it wasn’t at the hardware store and I figured it was probably more or less the same stuff.

The actual painting part went really fast. I did about 3 light coats to fully cover it, and used 2 cans of spray paint. I know it would have been better to remove the radiator, power-wash the whole thing, paint it in a well-ventilated space with access to all sides (or better yet, sand-blast and powder coat it!), but all of that would have been way too much time and way too much effort for this. This solution only cost me some scrap cardboard and about $12 in spray paint.

I need to take better pictures when the room starts to come together (this one is terrible, apologies!!), but the radiator looks soooooooo gooooooood. It’s like super beautiful and jet black and shiny and amazing. Once everything around it doesn’t look so crappy, it’s going to be great. Trust.

I don’t have a picture from this angle after the radiator got painted, but you can imagine. Getting there…

p.s.—I did a little interview thingy over at West Elm’s blog, Front&Main! In case you want to read me blather on about thrifting and being cheap and Brooklyn and stuff, you can find it here. 

Rowling’s spectacular career is likely more a fluke of history than a consequence of her unique genius.

Mapfodder wondered what London would look like if the Tube map was geographically accurate, and the result is reminiscent of the first days of Apple Maps. Maybe this was the problem all along!

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In this clip from the 1994 video Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, a man (who claims to have performed occult rituals in the past) shows us how to spot and decode signs of satanic cult activity in a public park. Back in 2010 we posted another clip from the video on how to identify victims of satanic ritual abuse:

via Dangerous Minds

Wall Street Journal

Poll: Mike Enzi crushing Liz Cheney in Wyoming Senate race NewsOK.com Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., is currently crushing Liz Cheney with a lead of 34 points among likely Republican voters in Wyoming, according to a new Conservative Intel poll conducted by Harper Polling, a GOP firm. The poll was taken after Cheney announced ... Morning Jolt: Liz Cheney to run for SenateNeosho Daily News all 106 news articles »

An anonymous reader writes "On Thursday, the board of O-Net gave approval for residents to get access to [full gigabit bandwidth] for the same price that they currently pay for a guaranteed download speed of 100 megabits per second — $57 to $90 a month, depending on whether they have bundled their internet with TV and phone service. ... the town realized that it couldn't attract technology-based businesses and that bandwidth was a challenge even to ordinary businesses. It came up with a plan — it would install a fibre network throughout the town that would connect to the larger inter-community network being built by the government at that time — the Alberta Supernet."

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Ever since the debut of Tupac’s hologram at Coachella, the world has been clamoring over which dead celebrity we should next haul out of eternal rest to get out there and dance for us, ghost monkey, as well as clamoring to tell each other it’s not really a hologram. Potentially next on that list is Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, whose son Jason Bonham—who already created the transparent imitation that is his Led Zeppelin Experience band—now says he wants to put his late father back on stage, so John Bonham can return to doing what he did best: occupying that delicate space between life and death. Also, drumming, about which the younger Bonham says, “My dream is to do the hologram drum solo with dad next to me,” because these are the sorts of things we dream now, apparently. Of course, Bonham admits, there are a ...

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The biggest story in this week's Film section is on Only God Forgives, the latest from Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn; as with Drive, the film's score is by Cliff Martinez, a dude who used to be the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and has become one of the best composers working in film—he's scored a ton of Steven Soderbergh's stuff, and just this year has handled the scores for The Company You Keep, Only God Forgives, and—along with Skrillex—Spring Breakers. And if that's not impressive enough, here's what he does it with. Via Badass Digest:

Cliff is utilizing a pair of Genelec 8020B monitors, a (relatively older) MacBook Pro, an Edirol FA-66 6-channel portable firewire audio interface, a pair of Beats studio headphones, and a CME M-Key 49-note USB MIDI controller. Everything else is software inside the MacBook.



Whenever possible, the globetrotting Martinez likes to work in close proximity with the director during production. He hunkers down in a hotel room, whips out his rig and lets the composition flow. In one instance he even used discarded beer cans as impromptu stands for his Genelec monitors. (Via.)

Each of the movies that Martinez has scored this year aren't necessarily films I'd just recommend to anybody on the street—all of them, shall we say, will probably only appeal to some pretty specific audiences (baby boomers for Company You Keep, Refn fans for Only God Forgives, and people you might not want to be stuck in an elevator with for Spring Breakers). But I will say that being able to hear Martinez's scores coming out of movie theater speakers is a strong argument for seeing each of those films. Hit the jump for a couple of tracks.

[jump]

(Don't tell Ned, but my favorite song off of Spring Breakers—after the Britney one, obviously—is actually a solo Skrillex track: "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.")

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Behold—and I don't say this lightly—the MOST TERRIBLE PERSON CURRENTLY ALIVE IN THE WORLD.

You see, I'm normally a very helpful person. When I see a stalled car in an intersection, I'll pull over and help push it clear. When an older person at the market can't quite reach their intended purchase I grab it for them. It takes 5 seconds out of my day and I do it out of reflex. Maybe it was the way I was raised, I seriously don't even think about it. But lately I've been reading and hearing on this blog how my actions can be considered somehow "misogynistic" and somewhat "rapey". That's why I didn't help you with your bike problem and that is also why I probably will never help another woman in distress ever again, lest I offend them in some way.

Wow. Fuck this guy. Fuck him so much. It's a special breed of "terrible" when a person only does "nice" things to make himself feel better, but this petty, inane asshole easily tops that by being a raging misogynist as well? FUCK... THIS... GUY. (Ahem.) Hey, do YOU have a rant or confession you'd like to share with the world? Might as well drop it into the I, Anonymous Blog—where you'll never be as much of an asshole as this guy. SERIOUSLY, this idiot loser needs to shot into space, and... okay, I'll stop now.

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External Flash is an iOS app that lets users connect the flashes of up to 16 phones over WiFi to generate more lighting for photography. The app is currently available to download in the iTunes App Store.

images via External Flash

video via AddictiveTips

via AddictiveTips, Lifehacker, PetaPixel

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These days, TV pilots set a frenetic pace. You see the hero's father die in the first act. World-shattering things happen before every act break. So the laid-back, uneventful Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot feels like a throwback. We saw the first episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. at Comic-Con, and here are our spoiler-free impressions.

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San Francisco Bay Area CBS station KPIX reports that the California Highway Patrol (CHP) recently discovered a number of fake road signs in the Bay Area that read “Speed Enforced By Drones.” The mysterious signs, which feature a graphic of a drone launching a missile, closely match the construction of actual highway signage. According to KPIX, a CHP spokesman strenuously denied operating any drones:

“At CHP we definitely do not have drones. We use radar, lidar, pace, we have planes and we have helicopters, but we do not have drones,” he said. “Along with not having drones we definitely do not have any drones that would fire any type of weaponry.”

via Joseph Pred

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is a book by Portland-based creative director and author Ian Doescher that reimagines the story of Star Wars in the distinct style of William Shakespeare. It was published by Quirk Books and features twenty fantastic illustrations by artist Nicolas Delort. Hardcover and e-book editions of the book are available to purchase online at Amazon (e-book) and Barnes & Noble.

Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. ’Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearstome stormtroopers, signifying…pretty much everything.

Reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter—and complete with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations–William Shakespeare’s Star Wars will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike. Zounds! This is the book you’re looking for.

Here is a trailer for William Shakespeare’s Star Wars from Quirk Books:

images and video via Quirk Books

via Blame It On The Voices

Halo 4 live-action web-series Forward Unto Dawn is up for an Emmy - no, not a tech Emmy, the real primetime deal. It's going up against the likes of HBO's The Newsroom and CBS' Elementary for this year's Main Title Design honor.

The Main Title Design category rewards work that goes into title sequences, so we should doff our cap towards German 3D animator Polynoid, who collaborated with Halo 4 dev 343 industries on the intros for the five Forward Unto Dawn episodes.

Machinima and Microsoft first released the series on YouTube last year, leading into the launch of Halo 4, before bringing it to Blu-ray and Netflix. If you've not seen it and you've got 90 or so minutes to spare, we'd say it's worth the watch, and not just for the titles. As for the Emmy, the winner will be revealed at this year's ceremony on September 22.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn earns Emmy nomination originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 19 Jul 2013 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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	Courtney shared this story from ~(*cute erotic hell*)~:
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bossybear:

Best of the Buffybot.

In his last year, Schoep received laser treatments and pain medication that reduced the swelling in his joints and allowed him to take walks, go swimming, and rest more comfortably. Earlier this week, Unger posted a photo of Schoep napping peacefully in a meadow of yellow flowers, along with the post, "A fantastic day we had. Up early to walk and go to the beach, eat, nap, go shopping, eat, laundry, go to the beach, eat, nap and one more walk. All without the humidity, that's what made it fantastic—especially for Schoep! (pic) Schoep falling asleep in the sunshine." Schoep, a shepherd mix who turned 20 on June 15, passed away on Wednesday.

djempirical

Back on instagram, folks. Here’s Dexter being Dexter.

Original Source

The following is a transcript of the remarks just delivered by US president Barack Obama at a surprise press conference. Section headings have been added and some portions highlighted.

Thoughts and prayers

The reason I actually wanted to come out today is not to take questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week, the issue of the Trayvon Martin ruling. I gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on Sunday, but watching the debate over the course of the last week I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit.

First of all, you know, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it. The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there are going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case. I’ll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues.

The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this, reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury’s spoken, that’s how our system works.

Could have been me

But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African- American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African- American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

And you know, I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.

History of racial disparities

The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn’t to say that the African-American community is naive about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. We understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African-American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African-American boys are more violent, using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African-American community is also not naive in understanding that statistically somebody like Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else.

So folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Where do we take this?

Now, the question for me at least, and I think, for a lot of folks is, where do we take this? How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? You know, I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family.

But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do? I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement has traditionally done it at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation, we can’t do some things that I think would be productive. So let me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

Reduce mistrust

Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it’d be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.

You know, when I was in Illinois I passed racial profiling legislation. And it actually did just two simple things. One, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped. But the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were doing.

And initially, the police departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way, that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and in turn be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously law enforcement’s got a very tough job.

So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought bear if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And let’s figure out other ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Examine some state and local laws

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it, if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there’s been commentary about the fact that the stand your ground laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case.

On the other hand, if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see?

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Their country cares about them

Number three, and this is a long-term project: We need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African-American boys? And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

You know, I’m not naive about the prospects of some brand-new federal program. I’m not sure that that’s what we’re talking about here. But I do recognize that as president, I’ve got some convening power.

And there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they’re a full part of this society and that they’ve got pathways and avenues to succeed. You know, I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we’re going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

And then finally, I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. You know, there have been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s a possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

Things are getting better

And let me just leave you with a final thought, that as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. I doesn’t mean that we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are. They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.

And so, you know, we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues, and those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions. But we should also have confidence that kids these days I think have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did, and that along this long, difficult journey, you know, we’re becoming a more perfect union–not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

Mythbusters host and Tested scientist Adam Savage went incognito at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, July 18, 2013 by dressing up in a regal Admiral Ackbar costume. The impressive mask was created by Frank Ippolito, a “makeup and prosthetics artist who was a contestant on SyFy’s Face Off reality show.” You can check out the making of Adam Savage’s Admiral Ackbar costume on Tested.

photos #1-3 by Norman Chan, photo #4 by Frank Ippolito

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

I see you there, with your long flowing summer dress all twisted up in your back brake. You appear to really need help and I'm about to render some but choose not to at the last second and decide to just ride by your struggle.

You see, I'm normally a very helpful person. When I see a stalled car in an intersection, I'll pull over and help push it clear. When an older person at the market can't quite reach their intended purchase I grab it for them. It takes 5 seconds out of my day and I do it out of reflex. Maybe it was the way I was raised, I seriously don't even think about it. But lately I've been reading and hearing on this blog how my actions can be considered somehow "misogynistic" and somewhat "rapey". That's why I didn't help you with your bike problem and that is also why I probably will never help another woman in distress ever again, lest I offend them in some way.

I hope you finally got untangled from your bicycle and I hope you didn't ruin your nice dress in the process. Sorry, but I really did want to help.

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If you're unwilling to wade into the calm, inviting waters of the Day 1 console launch pool this year, the Sony Store is offering refurbished 320 GB PS3 Slims for $200.

Cheap Ass Gamer user timro33 posted about the sale on the site's message boards this afternoon. The deal is for the second-generation PS3, a model that doesn't offer the original build's compatibility with PS2 discs. It does, however, play physical PS1 and PS3 games, a technical feat that its imminent successor will not be capable of.

Refurbished PS3s carry the same warranty as their untroubled, factory-fresh counterparts, so you'll have the same luck avoiding the console's pigmented take on the white flag as anyone else should you decide to buy one.

Refurbished 320GB PS3s for $200 at Sony Store originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 19 Jul 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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