firehose

thenizu:

moonneko:

Marry, Fuck, Kill w/ the cast of The Hobbit

Oh jeez guys, I love you soo soo much

Gay-I mean, GUYS, come on….!

Hilarious.

Metropolis

M. Nicod. Les Grands Prix de Rome v.5 1905: 12 via RNDRD

One Shade of Grey

Submitted by @jtdowney

Bookseller has announced that Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop by Reginald Bakeley has won the Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year. It is described as the “only complete manual on how to identify, track, defend against, and destroy bothersome and scheming brownies, goblins, dwarfs, flower-fairies, and other nasty members of the fairy realm.” The book’s editor Clint Marsh accepted the award and is quoted as saying, “The Diagram Prize celebrates the playfulness that is at the heart of much of the world’s best book publishing. Reginald and I take this as a clear sign that people have had enough of goblins in their chicken coops. Our campaign against the fairy kingdom continues.” It is available to purchase at Wonderella Printed. As a longtime fan of Wonderella publications, I’d like to extend a hearty congratulations!

Help is on the way! In the tradition of Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl, Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop shows how to banish those pesky dark Fairy creatures who are ready to thwart every last pleasure, be it gardening, country hikes, or even getting a good night’s sleep.

In this charming guide, “fairy hunter” Reginald Bakeley offers practical instructions to clear your home and garden of these unsettling inhabitants, and banish them from your chicken coop and kitchen cupboard forever!

In this video uploaded by DAFNA kopelis on YouTube, a cat picks up a dog’s leash and walks it home with the help of some coaxing meows.

via Cineraria, Tastefully Offensive

Bloging and RSS pioneer Dave Winer has launched Little Outliner, a simple browser-based JavaScript program released through his new company Small Picture that allows users to create and share organized outlines. Users can create, delete, organize, and customize useful idea outlines to be stored, shared, and accessed from any browser. Little Outliner is free and available now.

via Dave Winer

addelburgh:

yes, hello?

devidsketchbook:

Luciana Frigerio - Folded Book Art

These sculptures are made from carefully folding the pages of recycled books to create different designs. From hearts to letters, words, symbols and objects… Anything is possible! -  Via: Rerylikes (rery)

It doesn't star Ashton Kutcher, and it isn't written by Aaron Sorkin, but it might be more interesting than both: it's the Japanese manga adaptation of Steve Jobs' life.

Pictured on the left is the cover of this week's Biophysical Journal. On it, muscle motor proteins known as myosin can be seen translocating (a.k.a. "walking") across an actin filament. You will surely notice that this particular myosin motor – Myosin-V – appears to be walking with a rather fantastic gait. This is no accident.

Read more...

We've heard the rumors, but this newest Iron Man 3 TV spot confirms it — Pepper Potts has her own Iron Man armor. Well, technically she's Iron Woman, but I hope they use the infinitely more awesome Iron Lady, if she gets an official name at all. Not that we really needed any more reasons to be excited about Iron Man 3, but this officially seals the deal.

Read more...

Mike Hankey of the American Meteor Society has put together a map showing the extent to which Friday’s dramatic meteor was seen along the U.S. East Coast. The boulder-sized fireball, which got as bright as the full moon, was seen all the way from South Carolina to Maine.

Read more...

Yes, Brett Ratner, director of X-Men: The Last Stand, is doing a sword-and-sandal movie about Hercules, which is slated for release on July 25, 2014. The film begins shooting any day now, with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson playing Herc. Be very, very afraid.

Read more...

At least, that's the provocative argument over at Vice's Motherboard, where Brian Merchant argues that Daft Punk are better at creating a science-fictional mythos than they are at making great pop music.

Read more...

In anticipation for the return of Mad Men on April 7th, MWD brings you Dog Draper.

Suit: J.Crew Wool Ludlow in Heather Charcoal  |  Tie: Vintage  |  Pocket Square: The Tie Bar  |  Shirt: Charles Tyrwhitt

not shown:  Shoes: Allen Edmonds (Park Avenue)  |  Fedora: JJ Hat Center NY  |  Cufflinks: Lanvin  |  Watch: Omega Deville Prestige Quartz

(dear PETA, smoke was photoshopped)

Making trumpets.

Opening credits: Whisper of the Heart

melaniegaydos:

Director: Eugenio Recuenco for Rammstein, “Mein Herz Brennt”. GIFs by Jessicar Rodriquez.

A couple of years ago, Geoff Pullum put it this way:

Long-time Language Log readers will recall that we have often said here before that whenever someone says that the X people have no word for Y in their language you should put your hand on your wallet — to make sure it's still there. The people who witter on about who has a word for what hardly ever even know the languages they are talking about, and in the vast majority of cases (check out some of the cases on this list) their claim is false.

Yesterday, Tom Scocca was even more acerbic:

Whenever you hear someone explain that a concept is so foreign to this or that culture that people cannot even use their language to describe it, it is safe to assume your passport has just been stamped for entry into the Land of Bullshit.

Tom was talking about David Brooks' recent column on "The Learning Virtues", which claimed that "American high school students tease nerds, while there is no such concept in the Chinese vocabulary." As Tom notes,

There are multiple dictionary entries for "nerd" in Chinese, including terms for a dull and tasteless person (乏味的人, fáwèi de rén) and for someone excessively enthusiastic about computers (电脑迷, diànnǎomí).

The word for "nerd" in the sense Brooks means—"pedant" or "bookworm"—is "书呆子" (shūdāizi). If you're too shiftlessly American to have an English-Chinese dictionary handy, you can literally type "nerd" into Google Translate and find it.

I've already linked to a longer list of word-for-X debunking than any rational person would want to read, and I'm not in a position to evaluate the linguistic and cultural congruence of Chinese and English words for nerd-like states and actions, beyond repeating Geoff Pullum's advice to watch out for your conceptual wallet. So let me pick up on Tom's observation that "it wouldn't be a David Brooks column if he didn't try to reduce those complexities to a glib and shaky factoid".

In my opinion, David Brooks has an unparalleled ability to shape an intellectually interesting idea into the rhetorical arc of an 800-word op-ed piece. The trouble is, a central part of his genius is choosing the little factoids that perfectly illustrate his points. No doubt he's happy enough to use a true fact if the right one comes to hand, but whenever I've checked, the details have turned out to be somewhere between mischaracterized and invented.

The emblematic case remains Brooks' claim that it was impossible to spend $20 on dinner in Franklin County, PA, dissected in a Philadelphia Magazine article that Tom Scocca linked to ("Boo-Boos in Paradise", April 2004). Some examples from previous LL posts:

"David Brooks, Cognitive Neuroscientist", 6/12/2006
"David Brooks, Neuroendocrinologist", 9/17/2006
"David Brooks, Social Psychologist", 8/13/2008
"The butterfly and the elephant", 11/28/2009

Obama’s expanding empire of drone bases advances across Africa:

The Washington Post reports: The newest outpost in the U.S. government’s empire of drone bases sits behind a razor-wire-topped wall outside this West African capital, blasted by 110-degree heat and the occasional sandstorm blowing from the Sahara.

The U.S. Air Force began flying a handful of unarmed Predator drones from here last month. The gray, mosquito-shaped aircraft emerge sporadically from a borrowed hangar and soar north in search of al-Qaeda fighters and guerrillas from other groups hiding in the region’s untamed deserts and hills.

The harsh terrain of North and West Africa is rapidly emerging as yet another front in the United States’ long-running war against terrorist networks, a conflict that has fueled a revolution in drone warfare.

showslow:

Demolition of the old US 281 bridge in Marble Falls Texas on the morning of March 17th 2013

“If we make it cool to read books in the South Bronx...then it’s a victory” -Rodrigo Venegas, aka Rodstarz, one-third of the rap crew, Rebel Diaz, and founding member of the cultural collective

Welcome to The Richie Perez Radical Library, a new library created by the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective. The library, which was named for a South Bronx educator and activist who died in 2004, features "works by influential thinker-agitators, such as Angela Davis and Malcolm X, with writings by hip-hop luminaries including KRS-One, the RZA and Jay-Z."
The collective partnered with Bluestockings, an independent Lower East Side bookstore, to gather 300 mostly donated books to get things started.

The small library is located in the same space where the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective hosts its monthly hip-hop open mic nights that draw rising rappers and their fans from across the city.

Their goal: "trying to convince these young people that the slickest rhymers are often also the sharpest readers."


“We are what we eat — but we’re also what we read,” said Claudia De la Cruz, a collective member


via DNAinfo.com - Bronx Hip-Hop Collective to Launch a 'Radical' Library for Youth