firehose

How’s Bowser spending the holiday break? ⊟

Oh, he’s just taking it easy, enjoying his keyhole turtleneck and a cup of coffee, reading Machiavelli’s The Prince to his kids. Admiring this artwork from Masa, I’m almost convinced that 2014 was the year of Bowser Dad.

BUY Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Tiny Cartridge's Holiday Gift Guide

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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New York Times

Ferguson PD suspends spokesman for calling Michael Brown memorial 'trash' Fox News A spokesman for the Ferguson Police Department has been suspended for calling a makeshift memorial to Michael Brown “a pile of trash.” The memorial marks the spot where the 18-year-old Brown was shot and killed in a confrontation last summer with ... Ferguson Police Spokesperson Suspended for 'Pile of Trash' CommentTIME Ferguson police spokesman suspended after 'pile of trash' remarkThe Globe and Mail all 352 news articles »

“Congrats, you’ve been nominated for Best Female Entrepreneur of the Year. Do you want to accept the nomination?” said the guy on the other end of the phone. Despite the inherent compliment, my gut feeling wasn’t pride and excitement. It was concern.

The box you don’t want to be in

“Hmm, can I think about it?” I responded, and asked “why isn’t there a category for best Male Entrepreneur of the Year?”

There isn’t. Nor is there one for Best White Entrepreneur, Best Entrepreneur from Copenhagen, nor for many other categories that we assume to be strong.

So with the presence of a category for Best Female, and one for Best Entrepreneur from the Outskirts of the Country it’s hard not to feel you’ve just been given a handicap. That you’ve been placed in a position of weakness, rather than of strength. Hardly a desirable box to be in.

An awful story from today’s world

Normally I don’t accept invitation to talks/features/interviews/groups starting with the title “female.”

It’s not because I don’t face additional challenges as a woman in business, I do. But I believe it’s better to try to prove people wrong, than to risk being seen as someone who complains. After all, it’s hard to be successful no matter your gender.

But inequality is there—even if it’s probably hard to spot as a (white) male, which the majority of decision makers and business leaders are. For all these reasons, I don’t talk much about the glass ceiling. Neither do most other female business leaders I know. This has the innate danger of making it appear as if the challenge is solved. It isn’t.

Recently a C-level female acquaintance of mine told me her story. She’s a top executive in one the country’s largest companies and has over 1,000 employees under her. She had been invited for her first-ever board position. It was a small firm, way below “her level,” but she was interested and went to see them. After a good long chat with the CEO, she asked as an afterthought “is there a specific reason why it’s a woman you’re inviting to join your board?” The CEO replied, “we figured that if it was a woman, she’d be happy to join for a bottle of wine.”

She’s much nicer than me. I would have shoved said bottle of wine down his throat unopened.

I won’t tell more stories, this was just to demonstrate that the issue isn’t historic.

Perception is everything

In my inner heart I have to admit that I’ve also declined the invitations because I was afraid. Afraid that people would suddenly notice that I was a woman. An alien on management level!

On an unconscious level we have images of how people in certain positions should look and act. That’s a basic survival mechanism that enables us to process millions of inputs a day—we put people into boxes. In my world—the tech startup world—the image of a fundable entrepreneur is made of the majority of previously successful tech entrepreneurs: male, young, white, able bodied, programmer, extrovert and tall.

Falling outside this mental picture is an additional challenge for everyone trying to compete on the same playing field. I’m fortunate to live in an enlightened part of the world where opportunities are almost equal. Almost all of my good contacts, fellow founders and management colleagues are men. And I am fine with that. I have a fabulous time working and doing business with men. Most of them treat me as their equal, because they’ve experienced that I am as skilled as them. But I do rely on them thinking of me as someone who can contribute, accelerate growth, hire and fire. If they thought of me as weak, I’d be finished in business.

Therefore any job, speech or interview that puts me in a position where I get associated with the less-skilled-in-business—as we inherently consider women to be—is something I’ve considered dangerous, especially earlier in my career. It’s dangerous, because it might impact the box people put me in in their mind. I need that box to be “strong, proactive, talented” if I’m to have a shot becoming really successful. Not “female, nice.”

That’s why I prefer equal positioning: having a woman on the program, on the board, in the management team, as the winner of a general prize, or on the panel. Not there because she is a woman, but because she has demonstrated talent. If we do this, people get used to seeing women in another light. None of the women I know, want to be on the board just for being a women.

I must have had 50 invitations for speeches, about female business topics, but instead I insist on talking about Becoming An Entrepreneur (of any gender), or decline the invitation.

So I said yes, with nervousness.

I’ve worked my butt off to get here—long hours, personal sacrifices, big risks, even bigger pressure—for more than 15 years. And I can’t help but to feel a little nervous that I am jeopardizing all that to make a political point.

And, on the other hand, it would be selfish not to accept it.

As I was considering whether or not to accept a young woman called me. “I’m one of the ones that nominated you,” she said. “And I understand you may be ambivalent about a Female prize, but you’re one of the only role models I have, and I’d really like you to accept so more women realize that there are others who’ve done what they dream of, someone they can identify with, so they dare to try it,” she elaborated.

The right role model matter

The conversation has a profound impact on me. While not feeling at all I can live up to being anyone’s role model, I recognized that I would never have dared myself, if it weren’t for my own role models. I’ve relied on many people who are further than me both for learning and bravery, especially those who’ve dared to be candid and honest. That required bravery from their side. So if someone can get a bit of self-confidence from my journey, then surely I should “man up” and enable that.

The thing with role models is that they only work if you can identify with them. That’s why it ridiculous that the whole world uses Mark Zuckerberg as a reference case to promote entrepreneurship. Unless you’re a young, white, male, middle class developer you’re probably unlikely to identify with the talented Zuckerberg. And let’s face it, that’s hardly the demographic that needs help. We need to tell more entrepreneurial stories about people who are local, of all ages, in all industries, from all background, so everyone has role models they can relate to. (For this I was stoked of the bravery of Apple CEO Tim Cook who announced publicly that he is gay).

The box is open for every one

So in the end, I’ve accepted the nomination.

I am sure I won’t win, so this is probably the last you’ll hear of this. You won’t see Female Entrepreneurship as my new favorite topic either. I am a businessperson, a business leader and an entrepreneur, that’s the box I feel I belong in.

But I hope there is space for diversity in that box. Regardless of gender, color, nationality, sexual orientation and age, I hope there’s space for those who’ve got the talent, and are willing to work for it.

This post originally appeared at Dare, Do! Follow Tine on Twitter @TahiTahi.

submitted by perandtim to askportland
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Philly.com

Who Was the Top-Grossing Actor of the Year? seattlepi.com As if we needed another reason to envy her, Jennifer Lawrence has been named the top-grossing actor of the year, according to Forbes. Adding up her films' global grosses for 2014, the 24-year-old actress tops the list with $1.4 billion. Two of her movies, The ... Jennifer Lawrence, the most profitable actress in 2014SMN Weekly Movie movers and shakers, 2014SFGate Thanks to Mockingjay, Jennifer Lawrence Is the Biggest Earner in HollywoodContactmusic.com Irish Independent -The Westside Story all 145 news articles »

An overexcited French bulldog named Eva is absolutely beside herself as she splashes around in two ball pits, maniacally running back and forth between each while her schnauzer friend calmly watches on.

A few days later, however, Eva had to stand her ground when there were three overexcited French bulldogs and only one ball pit.

via Nothing To Do With Arbroath

Here we have it: a strong early contender for 2015's guiltiest pleasure. Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody and Peng Lin star in Dragon Blade, an alt-history in which Rome fights Han Dynasty China for control over the Silk Road. You've never seen Brody chewing scenery like this before.

Read more...

Google released on Monday its semiannual transparency report, which for the first time included nearly 30 examples of content that dozens of governments have asked the search engine giant to remove.

Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on the 1990s TV show "Saved by the Bell," has been charged with stabbing a man at a Wisconsin bar.

100% off

tastefullyoffensive:

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Christmas

Many public elementary- and middle-school students in Boston may soon have a longer time to spend in school each day. A change, announced Friday by Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh, though yet to get final approval from the city's school committee and teachers' unions' full membership, would add 40 minutes to the schedule at schools not already under an extended schedule. Currently, most elementary school students have a 6-hour day, and middle school students' is 10 minutes longer, which means that high schools will now have by default the shortest day (six and a half hours) in the Boston public school system. From the Boston Globe's coverage: Teachers in the 60 schools would get an annual stipend of $4,464 for the expanded schedule, the mayor’s office said. The plan would be rolled out over three years, beginning with about 20 schools in the 2015-2016 school year, the statement said. Officials said it wasn’t clear which schools would be in the first group. Once fully rolled out, the plan, which would add up to about an extra month of learning per year for 23,000 students, would cost about $12.5 million per year. How long is the school day in your neck of the woods, and do you think it should be any longer?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here’s the transcript of Marshawn Lynch’s post game interview. (@bcondotta on twitter)

I appreciate you asking about my stomach. Thank you.

redditfront:

Let’s set things straight.

Presto Vivace writes with news that the FCC has had trouble dealing with the sheer volume of comments submitted about net neutrality. There were millions of them, and they caused problems with the agency's 18-year-old Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). When the FCC attempted to dump the comments into XML format to make download and analysis easier, problems with Apache Solr meant roughly 680,000 didn't make the transfer. The agency promised to release a new set of fixed XML files in January that include all of the dropped comments. Despite many reports that the comments were "lost," they're all available using the ECFS.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Peter Capaldi recently finished his first full season as the Doctor. He’s the Twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in the BBC series Doctor Who. The Doctor gets a new signature outfit or look every time he regenerates, and Capaldi’s costume is understated and classy. He’s worn a handful of different outfits, but the look that jumps to mind is the black coat with a deep red lining. It’s paired with a black vest and pants and a white button down shirt.

Replica Props Forum (RPF) user Tommyd987 assembled that costume as well as another couple of shirts seen in episodes from the current season. He purchased many of the outfit components and detailed his finds:

…sporting the black lake loafer boots (alt purchased from Ebay £30) My tapered Slim black trousers (River Island £30) my white shirt and black cardigan (Next £20) and my lovely crombie coat (Ebay £100) and my black belt from Debenhams (£18) Then down to the more subtle detail like The Doctor’s gold ring, the original prop is an add on to Peter Capaldi’s wedding ring including a green diamond in the centre, consequently what i wear is two thin golden rings linking to look like one, and in the process looking like Capaldi’s!

He made the waistcoat from the Crombie one mentioned; he just modified it down to the last detail – including making the correct buttons.

Get more information about the costume at The RPF.

We've seen Russell Wilson escape near-sacks and spin away from hits like they're nothing, so we know he has moves -- but grandma Carolyn? Damn, she owned it.

Seems accurate for the Quick Lane Bowl.

STAKES IS HIGH SON pic.twitter.com/8N7fRS2Der

— CK (@cranekicker) December 26, 2014

You might think that this is a typo, but it actually seems like the appropriate stakes for a bowl game that no one really cares about anyway.

What's really odd about that ESPN graphic is that they had it right, apparently there was no page 2 https://t.co/eBn77RcRSy

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 26, 2014

“When I say things about gay people, or people think my lyrics are homophobic -- it’s because I’m gay,” he tells Franco's character. He adds, "I’m more shocked that people haven’t figured it out yet. I mean, it’s kind of like I’ve been playing gay peek-a-boo.”

A topless Zhdanova grabbed the Baby Jesus statue about an hour after the pope offered his Christmas blessing Thursday. A Vatican guard immediately covered her with his cape and detained her, while Zhdanova, still clutching the figure, shouted "God is woman."

ask-thelittleheros:

Kurt: I have it under control.

pdlcomics:

Holidays

From the Raspberry Pi Foundation via the Raspberry Pi Pod:

The Penguins Lifeline project, headed up by Dr Tom Hart, is a multi-organisation enterprise. ZSL are working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oxford University, Oceanites, and Stony Brook University to monitor Adelie penguin populations throughout the year, and to find out how external events like weather and disease, and human influences like pollution and fisheries, affect them. The cameras have been in situ since January 2014 (so very nearly a year’s data has been collected and sent back to researchers by the very cold Raspberry Pis). It’s summer in Antarctica right now, but most places where these are installed will still be well below freezing.

Read more

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!