firehose

I had to cut this one really short :(

little-ms-spooky:

How to Dance Goth

Artist Tom Eckert creates incredibly lifelike sculptures that are made entirely out of wood. Using a variety of traditional woodworking techniques and lacquer paint, Eckert makes astonishingly convincing full-scale still lifes of everyday objects. His most mind-boggling sculptures feature flowing fabric forms, some of which appear translucent.

Forms carved to suggest cloth recur in many of my pieces. By tradition, cloth has been widely used to conceal and shroud objects in practices ranging from advertising to church rituals. Covered forms are often more evocative – with a sense of mystery absent from the uncovered object by itself. I remember in church one Lent, as a child, being mystified while gazing at the statues shrouded with purple cloth.

via Twisted Sifter

Dinosaur (Falcom - PC-9801 - 1989)

First time accepted submitter jahard writes "It's not clear yet whether the preliminary look will result in anything more. The FTC and the Justice Department don't investigate behemoths like Google on a lark, so there's at least a decent chance they'll find reason to look deeper. But according to several online ad sources, the evidence is mixed, and some–even at least one competitor–say Google is playing fair with its so-called 'stack' of ad technologies. Contacted for comment, Google provided only a terse statement: 'We have not heard anything from the FTC regarding any new antitrust investigation.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SIGGRAPH 2013, the 40th international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, will take place in Anaheim, California from July 21st to the 25th. This short video shows some of the revolutionary techniques and devices — like new methods for accurate hair capture and snow simulation, as well as AIREAL, a device that simulates tactile experience with small bursts of air — that will be unveiled and discussed at the conference.

Gur-E Amir Mausoleum, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Tokyo-based graphic designer Mike Wrobel has reimagined characters from HBO’s Game of Thrones as if the show was set in a “90s grunge/gangsta era.” So far, Wrobel has redesigned Jon Snow, Joffrey Baratheon, Jaime Lannister, as well as Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons.

images via Mike Wrobel

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

New submitter geirlk writes "Toms Hardware reports that 'Group program manager of Xbox Incubation & Prototyping Jeff Henshaw recently told OXM that for every console Microsoft builds, it will provision the CPU and storage equivalent of three Xbox One consoles in the cloud. This allows developers to assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game. Thus, developers can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Plans for the Cape, St Nicolas, Haiti (1803)

Plan du cap et Mole S. Nicolas. Plans for the Cape, St Nicolas, Haiti (1803) Date: 1803 Author: Unknown Dwnld: Full Size (12.65mb) Source: Library of Congress Print Availability: See our Prints Page for more details pff This map isn't part of any series, but we have other maps of Haiti that you might want to check out. Another peculiar and charming French map of a Fort in Haiti. There's...

the BIG Map Blog - Interesting maps, historical maps, BIG maps.

From Zach Weinersmith's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comes a cautionary tale about technology and evolution.

Read more...

New York Daily News

Passenger tried to open door on Alaska flight New York Daily News A “hissing” Alaska Airlines passenger who tried to open an aircraft door mid-flight was restrained after being tied up with shoe laces. RELATED: GROUP: WE GOT KICKED OFF FLIGHT FOR SPEAKING RUSSIAN. Alexander Michael Herrera, 23, freaked out ... Passenger Tries to Open Emergency Exit Door on Alaska Airlines Flight While ...ABC News Alaska Airlines passenger detained at PDX after trying to open in-flight plane's ...OregonLive.com Airline passenger attempts to open emergency doorCNN International New York Times -Washington Times -KATU all 61 news articles »

Designer Jiho Jang has created GIFTY, a small camera with a built-in Zero Ink printer that captures and prints animated GIFs as little flip books. For the time being, the GIFTY camera is only a concept and is not yet available for purchase.

images via Yanko Design

via Yanko Design

Being benchmarked today at Phoronix is a comparison of eight different BSD and Linux operating systems. The contenders for this performance roundabout include PC-BSD 9.1, DragonFlyBSD 3.4.1, Ubuntu 13.04, Linux Mint 15 RC, CentOS 6.4, Fedora 18, Mageia 3, and openSUSE 12.3. Which of these operating systems are the fastest and slowest for a variety of different workloads? Read on to find out.

Toronto Star

Two senior members of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's staff resign Globe and Mail Two more top aides have departed from the office of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as the city's troubled leader continues to battle allegations that he was caught on video using crack cocaine. The mayor's press secretary George Christopoulos and his assistant, ... Rob Ford video scandal: Mayor's two communications aides resignToronto Star Mayor Rob Ford, brother blast 'bunch of maggots' in the mediaCBC.ca Toronto Mayor Says Crack Video Doesn't ExistABC News National Post -MetroNews Canada -globalnews.ca all 114 news articles »

garymortimer writes "Germany's national railway company, Deutsche Bahn, plans to test small drones to try to reduce the amount of graffiti being sprayed on its property. The idea is to use airborne infra-red cameras to collect evidence, which could then be used to prosecute vandals who deface property at night. A company spokesman said drones would be tested at rail depots soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1812: Russia’s female hussar article - click here:

Watermelon socks

sinfulmachine:

fishbonemania:

snakelinksonic:

Roar of Time and Spacial Rend

I love this

I cannot explain how much I love

HOLY SHIT

Um pouco mais rápido e pega fogo os dedo tudo.

“I said, ‘Are you happy?’ ” Vance recalled. “He said, ‘No, I’m content. They’re two different things.’ ”

by Matthew Cobb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

h/t @JohnRHutchinson

“The evidence for the most part comes from records of court proceedings, where people’s spoken language was recorded verbatim; from pornographic books, where obscene language went hand in hand with obscene doings; or from dictionaries whose editors were brave enough to include bad words. Let’s take fuck, for example. Around 1790, a Virginia judge named George Tucker wrote a poem in which a father argues with his son the scholar, “‘G—d— your books!’ the testy father said, / ‘I’d not give ——— for all you’ve read.’” According to Jesse Sheidlower and Geoffrey Hughes, the third ——— is replacing “a fuck,” producing the first recorded example of the modern teenage mantra, “I don’t give a fuck.” This poem didn’t see the light of day until a scholarly edition of Tucker’s work in 1977.”

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The modern history of swearing: Where all the dirtiest words come from - Salon.com

History can be so fun sometimes!

(via kgoldschmitt)

By Jan Dumolyn and Jelle Haemers

How subversive was the speech of Flemish rebels in the later Middle Ages? Violence remained the exception in urban rebellions, whereas subversive utterances, though always risky, must have been almost the rule of daily politics in the urban centres of late medieval Flanders and in many other European towns and cities as well. Quoted below, you can find five of the most popular expressions of urban rebels in Flanders. Naive at first sight, they contain however hidden messages for those who were shouted at.

1. ‘A bad chicken was brooding’ (een quaet kiekin broedde; Ypres, 1477) was a common proverb in the Middle Ages. It meant that wicked people were hatching a malicious plan. They ‘were brooding on’ subversive plans that had to remain hidden from the authorities, until they could take action and openly call for a strike in the textile industry. Testimonies of Flemish rebels not only show that they planned their political actions in clandestine meetings, but also that even groups completely excluded from political power, as the young apprentices of the Flemish textile guilds, commonly exchanged dangerous political ideas amongst themselves without the initial knowledge of the urban rulers or the deans and masters of their guilds. When these bad eggs were hatched, subversive speech could pose a serious threat to the authorities.

2. ‘Son of a b*tch’ (hoerezuene; Bruges, 1478). Such vulgar language was not used only by rebels, as it seems to have been quite common in all social layers in town. Anyway, as today, one of the most common metaphors used to describe the strengths and weaknesses of opponents in past societies involved sexuality. Insulters targeted men and women with references to their (alleged) sexual excesses and unreliability. Furthermore, a victim’s descent was called into question when an insulter called him or her a ‘b*stard’ or a ‘son of a b*tch’. Power and status depended not only on behaviour, but also on membership in an important family through birth or marriage. Both aspects came under pressure if a man or woman was labelled as an illegitimate child, because in Flanders ‘b*stards’ had no legal rights unless the sovereign legitimized them.

3. ‘I sh*t on you’ (ic schyte in ulieden; Bruges, 1527). In 1527, the fishmonger Thomas Haghebaert had shouted to the dean and the sworn men of his guild ‘I have nothing to do with you or with the magistrate. I sh*t on you and on the aldermen and on all those who think they can harm me!’ He was exiled as well, a heavy punishment for a serious crime. More than just social status and reputation were at stake when Thomas threatened his superiors with these ‘faecal insults’. He was also challenging their legal authority. Therefore, this ‘indecent language’, as it was called in the final verdict of Thomas, not only wanted to dishonour the chiefs of the guild, as the main purpose of the defamation was to destabilize the political authority of rulers and privileged social groups.

4. ‘Liver eater’ (levereter; Ghent, 1432). This offensive term was generally aimed at corrupt officers or aldermen. The term was linked to ‘organologic’ views which compared the city with a body that could be harmed by the corrupt acts of individuals. In this case, according to rebel ideology, people who ate the ‘liver’ of the city damaged the most important part of its ‘body politic’. Medieval medicine saw the liver as the source of all necessary body fluids, but medical models aside, the basic idea of eating one’s liver is expressive enough. By accusing someone of this severe crime, rebels legitimated the punishment of those who were accused of corruption, as they claimed that it was a necessary action to cure ‘a wounded town’.

5. ‘Kill! Kill!’ (slaet doot, slaet doot; Bruges, 1477). The rhythmic structure of the Middle Dutch text, and of several other similar examples, shows that it was meant to be chanted or sung. If a mob of thousands was shouting such phrases unisono, this would obviously have an extremely intimidating effect on the aldermen hiding in the city hall. Using a rhetoric of violence targeted at the moral failings of rulers, these shouted slogans did not attack the urban government as a whole, but just those who had failed to fulfil their proper role as good governors. Rebels sought to hold up the mirror to magistrates, asking them to correct their faults and remedy the particular grievance that lay at the heart of the protest. Rebels did perhaps not fully understand what the ‘bad practices’ were that they were referring to when they collectively shouted similar slogans in public during times of commotion, but they certainly did know what was at stake and why they shouted it.

Jan Dumolyn is a lecturer in medieval history (with special research assignment) at Ghent University. He publishes on the social, political and cultural history of the later medieval Low Countries. Trained as an urban historian, Jelle Haemers wrote his first book on the Ghent revolt of 1449-53. In recent years his research interests have widened to encompass other kinds of social and political conflicts in the late medieval town, notably in the Low Countries (1100-1600). Their recent article in Past and Present — “‘A Bad Chicken was Brooding’: Subversive Speech in Late Medieval Flanders” — is available to read for free for a limited time.

Founded in 1952, Past & Present is widely acknowledged to be the liveliest and most stimulating historical journal in the English-speaking world.

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Image credit: white chicken. © Rui Vale Sousa via iStockphoto.

The post The five most common insults and slogans of medieval rebels appeared first on OUPblog.

What every bee needs is a good watering hole, and the bees at the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture in Corvallis, Oregon have the fanciest one I’ve seen. Water comes in through a drip irrigation-type system. The hose from the source runs up the side of the structure and through the middle of the [...]

pikingler:

newkidsonmycock11:

my country is the best

brichibi:

untitled-titles:

i want to cry

He tried so hard.  And got so far.  But in the end.  It doesn’t even matter.