Amanda Bynes has sent out some uncomfortable tweets in her day, but she managed to top herself by going after the world's most notorious victim of domestic violence.

Chinese tourists are making their mark on the global tourism industry—literally. The picture above is a relief etched 3,500 years ago in Egypt’s Luxor Temple in Egypt. More recently, someone added the characters “Ding Jinhao was here,” as documented by an ashamed Chinese traveler who posted his photo to Sina Weibo (registration required). “We want to wipe off the marking with a towel,” the traveler wrote. “But we can’t use water since it is a 3,500 year-old relic.”

Ding, who turned out to be a 15-year-old from Nanjing, was quickly found out via Sina Weibo research. His parents have since apologized.

A tour guide surnamed Zhang told QQ (link in Chinese) that he “had never seen this sort of behavior from tourists,” and that “until recently, the Chinese tourists going to Egypt were relatively few, and their character was relatively good.”

“There’s a lot of this kind of uncivilized behavior out there,” said Zhang. “Take for example the sign outside the Louvre Museum only in Chinese characters that forbids people from urinating or defecating wherever they want.”

This is all the more alarming given the rapid rise of Chinese tourism overseas, boosted by new wealth and ever-improving exchange rates. Some 83 million traveled abroad in 2012, up from just 10 million in 2000. Reports of Chinese tourists behaving badly generally include spitting, littering, ignoring traffic laws and speaking loudly. Children are another issue: reports abound of tourists letting their children defecate in public pools (paywall) and urinate in the middle of restaurants.

Uncouth visitors have caused particular strife in Hong Kong, where 70% of the 48 million tourists a year come from the Chinese mainland. But grievances are reported everywhere. Chinese travelers are ignoring dressing customs in Thai Buddhist temples, overrunning the campus of South Korea’s Ewha Women’s University, launching drunken singsongs in Bali and generally being loud in Singapore.

The problem has become big enough that vice premier Wang Yang recently scolded his compatriots’ holiday habits. ”They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and [carry out] some other uncivilized behavior,” said Wang. “It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact.”

In fact, China announced just last month that it is issuing a Tourism Law to take effect in October. That law will give travel agencies the authority to penalize tourists who “violate social ethics,” though it’s also geared toward cleaning up the domestic tourism industry.

In a recent blog on Tea Leaf Nation, Liang Pan, a Chinese national studying in New York, pleaded for “more understanding” for the flocks of Chinese traveling overseas for the first time, chalking much of the bad behavior up to naivety and cultural misunderstanding.

He has a point. After all, vandalism of landmarks was occurring long before the Chinese tourism boom got underway. And in many places the first nationality the world associates with “loud” and “rude” tourists is still the US. Maybe it’s just one of those things that comes with being a superpower.

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

boobs-birds-botany:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

UNF

I am very much liking her look here

And seriously want this outfit in my closet :D

fans self

i NEED TO BE THIS WOWWW

She is looking dapper as fuck

So animated gifs are awesome if you're writing a software blog. It saves all this time working with YouTube embeddings and stuff, and your "videos" are stored locally. The simplified FFMPEG writer was before unable to output animated GIFs, but I've tweaked it and now it does. It's also a nice piece of code to learn how to FFMPEG in C.

There's not a lot to say technically because most of the code remained the same, except maybe a couple of things that have to do with the required formats that animated GIFs require (RGB24).
When getting the discovered codec from avformat_alloc_output_context (that examines the filename), we should set the pixel format to RGB24. The codec can give us a list of all supported pix formats:

        codec = avcodec_find_encoder(avcid);
        if (!codec) {
            fprintf(stderr, "codec not found: %s\n", avcodec_get_name(avcid));
            exit(1);
        } else {
            const AVPixelFormat* p = codec->pix_fmts;
            while (p != NULL && *p != AV_PIX_FMT_NONE) {
                printf("supported pix fmt: %s\n",av_get_pix_fmt_name(*p));
                supported_pix_fmt = *p;
                ++p;
            }
            // Codec doesn't have any pix formats?
            if (p == NULL || *p == AV_PIX_FMT_NONE) {
                if(fmt->video_codec == AV_CODEC_ID_RAWVIDEO) {
                    // Well if it's "rawvideo" we know it's GIF, and that needs RGB24
                    supported_pix_fmt = AV_PIX_FMT_RGB24;
                } else {
                    supported_pix_fmt = AV_PIX_FMT_YUV420P; /* default pix_fmt */
                }
            }
        }

The only other thing is when writing a frame, the rawvideo codec for GIFs doesn't need encoding just streaming the pixels to the file:

    if (oc->oformat->flags & AVFMT_RAWPICTURE) {
        /* Raw video case - directly store the picture in the packet */
        AVPacket pkt;
        av_init_packet(&pkt);
        pkt.flags        |= AV_PKT_FLAG_KEY;
        pkt.stream_index  = video_st->index;
        pkt.data          = picture->data[0];
        pkt.size          = sizeof(AVPicture);
        ret = av_interleaved_write_frame(oc, &pkt);
    } else {
    ...

Code

Get the code: here

Compressing the GIFs

The outputs are usually huge, like 20Mb for 20 seconds, so ImageMagick helped a lot:

convert -quality 80% output.gif output-comp.gif

And here's a sample...

Enjoy
Roy.

Warp Dogs.

EEEAAGLE!

genderweed:

this piece of shit company

fuckyeah-nerdery:

ryuyosei:

its-raining-red-pants:

sherlock-has-got-the-blue-box:

riddle-my-hiddles:

sherlockspeare:

everythingthelighttoucheskingdom:

everlasting-feels:

sabrina-is-at-221b-bakerstreet:

tomithejellyfish:

mycrofthholmes:

i-just-sarcastically:

shady-brain-farm:

LOOK AT THIS POOR OPPRESSED WOMAN AND WHAT HER COUNTRY IS MAKING HER DO.

Even in her eyes it says “help me”. 

This is why we have to stop these misogynistic societies.

I’m sorry but no. I acknowledg that this is terrible, but don’t you think we should fix our own countries mishaps before we deal in other countries affairs? We have corrupt businesses, crime, poverty, homelessness, and believe it or not starvation.

Does anyone even know the threat that walmart has to this country?!

I hope you’re being ironic ouo

everything about this is horrible tbh

Isn’t that Benedict Cumberbatch?

That’s Benedict Cumberbatch.

Guys that’s obviously Benedict Cumberbatch.

Oh my god I’ve never imagined this situation

IVE BE EN LAGUHING FOR THE PAST 500 YEARS

OMGGG YOU GUYS 

#when gifs are taken out of context

I was going to reblog this b/c it is an awesome gif of benedict as sherlock and then i read the comments *dies laughing*

Benedict Cumberbatch = Oppressed Muslim woman.

Happy Memorial Day

San Francisco Chronicle

Biden fields questions about vice presidents on 'Jeopardy!' The News Journal Vice President Joe Biden hit the game show circuit this week, appearing Thursday on “Jeopardy!” Under the quiz show's time-honored format, Biden provided the answers for questions about the first vice president to serve (John Adams), the first vice ... Tied to Obama, Biden forges his own distinct roleBeaumont Enterprise CARICOM-US to sign trade accordJamaica Observer Caricom leaders in T&T for key talksTrinidad Guardian Trinidad & Tobago Express all 19 news articles »

ABC News

UK Police Arrest 10th Suspect in Soldier's Slaying ABC News Police on Monday arrested a 10th suspect in connection with the vicious killing of an off-duty British soldier on a London street in an apparent Islamic extremist attack. The 50-year-old man was detained in Welling, east of London, on suspicion of conspiring to ... Woolwich murder suspect: Michael Adebolajo held in Kenya in 2010BBC News More Detained in British Soldier's KillingWall Street Journal Woolwich murder: Kenya arrest raises questions for security services in UKThe Guardian Sky News -Philly.com -Capital FM Kenya all 112 news articles »

The penny may be history, but some Canadians suspect the Bank of Canada has been circulating a new scent along with its plastic bank notes.

San Francisco Chronicle

Partisan Gridlock Thwarts Effort to Alter Health Law New York Times WASHINGTON — When he talks to Republicans in Congress, Scott DeFife, a restaurant industry lobbyist, speaks their language: President Obama's health care law is a train wreck well down the track. There will be collateral damage if changes are not made. Poll: Do you support or oppose the health care law?CNN (blog) Republicans see 'Obamacare' debacle as key to 2014San Jose Mercury News Why the Left and the Right Can't Talk to Each Other About Health CarePatriot Post all 8 news articles »

Father’s Day Gift Guide

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Web developer Alex Onsager created a nifty site called Pokemon Fusion that demands your attention. By selecting two Pokemon from drop-down menus, the site mashes them together into one creature. The created beasts are sometimes cute, other times horrific, but certainly make us wonder what really goes on at those Pokemon daycare centers in the games.

Onsager said via Twitter that he's finishing up the first generation of Pokemon, and also shared an album of fan art created by folks around web based on the Poke-mashups.

Continue reading Stiq Figures, May 13 - 19: Pokemon Fusion edition

Stiq Figures, May 13 - 19: Pokemon Fusion edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 26 May 2013 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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STRUCTURES V - New work by Atelier Olschinsky

Peter has a saying: “when you see a sign telling people not to do something, the more unlikely the prohibition sounds, the more often people will be doing it.” (The first time he came out with ths codification — which really ought to be called Morwood’s Law — was when we were in Stratford-upon-Avon to do some grocery shopping and we found ourselves looking at a bridge over the river that had a sign on it that said PLEASE DO NOT JUMP OFF THE BRIDGE. Apparently inebriated people often thought it was a good idea to jump off onto the roofs of passing canal boats. With predictable results.)

earthlynation:

Snow Leopard

I love the expression on the one in the background. “Oh, Ronald. You are such a dork.”

by voidmonk

theghic:

The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens has been a locale to flock to as a film and television fan for many, many years. Their next big attraction will be a tribute to Jim Henson. The 2,200 square foot gallery will house nearly 400 puppets, costumes and other props used in various Muppet film and television productions, including The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and The Dark Crystal. Among the Muppets presented in the displays will be Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Count von Count, Gobo Fraggle, the Swedish Chef, Statler, Waldorf, and many more.

This is a must see, i’m sure. The gallery will open Winter 2014. Check out the official announcement below:

Read More

rembrandtswife:

whyweloveclassictrek:

spodiddly:

So yeah remember that one post I made ages ago about wanting to debunk the pop culture Spock and Kirk myths? Well, here’s part two of that segment.

Thanks to greenscrewdriver and itreallyisthelittlethings for checks and added ideas.

This is for the Anon who asked me if I even watched TOS.

THIS IS ALL ENTIRELY TRUE.

Kirk gets knocked out of his senses or has his mind tampered with and winds up kissing a woman.

He seduces or agrees to be seduced by a female adversary in order to gain the advantage.

He is flirtatious with just about everybody, regardless of gender or species.
But the main thing to remember is that he falls in love very quickly, very easily. He gets *emotionally involved* very easily. That’s not about his dick; it’s about his heart.

(I can’t believe I’m defending Kirk. Some days I don’t even like Kirk. I always preferred Spock. But dammit, Jim Kirk is not a slobbering idiot who can’t keep it in his pants.)

Yep, all there. Thank you for that.

(And also: an intelligent and gifted commander. Because they do not give command of starships to STOOPID PEOPLE.)