Daria Morgendorffer captured hearts as the protagonist of Daria not by being adorable or charming, but by being a salty curmudgeon who just couldn’t find her place in the teenage world. And part of that salt—a part that a lot of similarly minded teens certainly related to—was the kind of media she adored. While Daria’s favorite TV show, Sick Sad World, certainly featured prominently on the show, she also mentioned 57 different books over the course of the show’s five seasons, all of which are listed below. The good people at Aerogramme Studio that put together this list were also kind enough to include links to free eBook editions of the tomes where available, which is great, because we’ve got a lot of sick, sad reading to do.
1. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Gutenberg / Kindle)
Request to buy this photoEric Albrecht | DispatchA stranger sexually assaulted this Ohio State student in May near campus on E. 17th Avenue, but OSU did not put out a crime alert to warn others.
Request to buy this photoMarcus Castro | For The DISPATCHWhile a student at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, Katherine Lowe told officials she had been sexually assaulted. They did nothing, so she went to police, who found that the school commonly ignored or underreported crimes on campus.
The crime statistics being released by colleges nationwide on Wednesday are so misleading that
they give students and parents a false sense of security.
Even the U.S. Department of Education official who oversees compliance with a federal law
requiring that the statistics be posted on Oct. 1 each year admits that they are inaccurate. Jim
Moore said that a vast majority of schools comply with the law but some purposely underreport
crimes to protect their images; others have made honest mistakes in attempting to comply.
In addition, weaknesses in the law allow for thousands of off-campus crimes involving students
to go unreported, and the Education Department does little to monitor or enforce compliance with
the law — even when colleges report numbers that seem questionable.
The White House and some in Congress have noticed and are pushing for changes, including
increased sanctions.
The law, known as the Clery Act, was enacted in 1991 to alert students to dangers on campus, but
it often fails at its core mission, a joint investigation by
The Dispatch and the Student Press Law Center found.
Elizabeth City State University is one that seemed like a safe campus on paper.
The North Carolina school’s annual crime reports showed that during an 11-year span, no student
ever had been sexually assaulted.
But then in April 2013, a dorm security guard pushed student Katherine Lowe onto her bed and
fondled her. It was the fourth time he had done that to her, and she was determined that it would
be the last. She went to police, who soon learned the truth: The school’s crime reports were way
off.
Police discovered as many as 17 sexual-assault victims whose cases never were reported to
federal education officials — a gross violation of a law that requires colleges to count and report
such crimes.
What happened at Elizabeth City State is one of many examples of what’s wrong with the Clery
Act, a complicated law fraught with loopholes that can allow colleges to make their campuses and
neighborhoods look safer than they really are.
Colleges such as Elizabeth City State and Urbana University in Ohio have failed at meeting the
most-basic requirements of the law: accurately counting and reporting the number of crimes that
happen on or near campus each year.
Other colleges across the U.S. have drawn boundaries around their campuses to exclude off-campus
housing where the majority of their students live — as the law allows. And some, including Ohio
State University, often choose not to alert students when violent crimes happen in those areas.
Three days after
The Dispatch asked about the lack of alerts, Ohio State issued two alerts during the
weekend, including the first OSU alert for a possible off-campus sexual assault in more than three
years. University officials said yesterday that the timing was a coincidence.
College officials such as those from the University of Toledo said they didn’t do enough for
many years to create victim-friendly cultures that encourage students to report crimes to police or
campus officials.
Crime statistics are taking on even more importance as
U.S. News & World Report and other college-ranking publications use them to measure
safety.
“We encourage people to use the Clery Act as a starting point,” Moore said. “We think the data
is useful to give a long view.”
But its intent — inspired by the slaying of Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Clery, who was
unaware of a rash of crimes on her campus in 1986 prior to her death — was to create a one-stop
gauge of campus safety.
“The magnifying glass is now targeted on the schools, so it’s important that they report — and
they know it,” said Clery’s mother, Connie Clery, of Bryn Mawr, Pa.
No crimes here
The Dispatch and the Student Press Law Center analyzed 12 years of Clery Act crime
statistics involving nearly 1,800 schools with on-campus housing and found that:
Nearly 3 percent have reported that there never has been a crime of violence on their campuses.
Not a single homicide, robbery, serious physical assault or sexual assault.
Nearly 16 percent reported that there has never been a physical altercation that could have
resulted in serious harm.
Nearly a fifth reported that there has never been a sexual assault, including Urbana University,
northwest of Columbus, where a student told police in 2012 that she was gang-raped in a dorm
room.
In any year, at least half of the colleges report zero sexual assaults. About two-thirds report
zero serious physical assaults.
Bowling Green State University, for example, said that it had no serious physical assaults on
campus in 2011 and 2012, even though its student-disciplinary board punished about 60 students for
physical assault. Bowling Green leaders said that even a shoving match is considered “physical
abuse” by the code of conduct, but that attacks rarely result in serious injury.
Experts on crime, and even the Education Department’s Moore, say those scenarios seem
unrealistic. “If you have a housing unit, it would be hard to believe that over any period of time,
any number of years, you could actually be so lucky as to not have any sex crimes,” Moore said.
But those in charge of enforcing the law rarely check accuracy of the colleges’ numbers.
The lack of oversight for colleges is troubling to Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, who, in response to
the
Dispatch/SPLC investigation, is considering a program here that models programs in New
York, Texas and California, where investigators audit Clery Act compliance among the schools in
their states.
Last year’s reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act resulted in the first major
overhaul of Clery since the law was enacted. The changes require colleges to report statistics
on dating and domestic violence and stalking.
Although final regulations are not expected to be released until next month, the federal
Education Department told colleges last year that they must make a good-faith effort to comply with
the changes, and the annual reports distributed by colleges on Wednesday should reflect this.
These new requirements may prove challenging for administrators. Those drafting the
regulations struggled with how to define dating violence, particularly as it applies to college
students who may have different standards than administrators as to what counts as a dating
relationship.
“The intent behind Clery was good. The execution often stinks,” said Andrea Goldblum of
Columbus, a consultant with the the Margolis Healy firm and former Clery coordinator at Ohio State.
“It’s actually really hard to comply with Clery.”
The numbers game
At first, Kathryn Lowe was reluctant to report that a dorm security guard had forced his way
into her room at Elizabeth City State.
After the fourth time — when he pinned her to the bed last year and tried to spread her legs
apart — she went to campus police, who quickly let the matter die, in part because they thought she
was lying.
So she went to city police. She had no idea the impact that decision would have. Police found
127 cases of crimes on campus that had not been thoroughly investigated by the college, including
eight rapes.
The Dispatch typically does not identify victims of sexual assault, but in this case, Lowe
chose to go public.
“I knew the school tried to cover up things,” Lowe said. “I just didn’t know to that
degree."
The fallout has been extensive.
Her molester was convicted of sexual battery and breaking and entering, a verdict he is
appealing. The campus police chief resigned and this year pleaded no contest to a charge that he
failed to adequately investigate crimes. The college’s chancellor also resigned.
The university hired Margolis Healy, based in Vermont, whose consultants specialize in advising
colleges about Clery. They found that the school was “substantially out of compliance.”
“There’s no doubt we definitely had work to do,” said Alyn Goodson, a school attorney.
Margolis Healy’s managing partner and co-founder, Steven J. Healy, said, “It would be a stretch
to say Elizabeth City is an outlier, because we’ve seen other universities with the same
problems."
One is too many
It takes only one unreported incident for a college to violate the law.
At Urbana University, a female student reported that she had been gang-raped by three male
students in March 2012. A nine-page report from the Urbana city police department details the
sexual assault that happened in a dorm room.
After a three-month investigation, no criminal charges were filed, partly because of a reluctant
victim. Still, the school was required to log the incident as a sexual assault.
After
The Dispatchand SPLC contacted the university about not reporting the case, school
officials said it was an oversight and that they will review city police and campus records to
ensure that nothing else has been missed.
Once that review is finished, they said they will update their crime statistics for the years
2011, 2012 and 2013 to reflect previously unreported crimes.
“Moving forward, every incident will be reviewed and appropriately reported,” said Urbana
spokeswoman Cheri Moore.
Officials at other Ohio universities with reports of no violent crimes over a 12-year span stood
by their unblemished crime statistics.
Most cited their faith-based culture as the main reason.
“That sort of thing just doesn’t happen here,” said Jim Dentler, a spokesman for Allegheny
Wesleyan College in northeastern Ohio.
Campus-crime researcher Matthew Nobles said it’s worth questioning whether colleges that report
zeros actually have zero crime.
“It seems unlikely that if you have 10 years of statistics with a university that has on-campus
housing and it shows zeros throughout, it’s very, very unlikely that literally nothing ever happens
there that could be reportable,” said Nobles, a professor Sam Houston State University in
Huntsville, Texas.
For sex offenses, the numbers reported by colleges are lower than even conservative estimates
would predict.
U.S. Justice Department statistics say that over a nine-month school year, about 3 percent of
women on any given campus will be a victim of sexual assault, but only 5 percent of that group will
report it to police or a campus official.
Between 2001 and 2012, colleges reviewed by
The Dispatch/SPLC reported nearly 33,000 sexual assaults. Applying the national average to
the number of females living on campuses, those colleges collectively would have been expected to
report closer to 124,000 sexual assaults.
The national justice statistics aren’t a perfect predictor of Clery-countable sex offenses. But
experts say they give a rough estimate, and the difference between what is reported and what might
be expected is large enough to cause concern.
Out of bounds
An Ohio State freshman returned to an off-campus apartment with a group of friends after a late
Sunday church service in January and stayed the night to avoid a long, frigid walk back to his
dorm.
In the early morning hours, the 18-year-old man was awakened by someone touching his genitals.
He remained motionless momentarily, thinking it was a dream, until he made eye contact with his
abuser, someone he had considered a friend.
A few months later, on a warm spring night this past May in the same east-campus neighborhood,
another OSU student was walking home when a stranger pulled a gun on her and threatened to kill her
if she didn’t follow his orders.
He pressed her against a car and sexually assaulted her until a passing car scared him away.
Two weeks later, that same man raped another woman in the same neighborhood.
But those crimes won’t be counted by OSU because, while the law requires colleges to report
crimes on or near campus, it gives the colleges latitude in defining what
near means. None of those incidents prompted an alert to students from Ohio State, which
would have been required by federal law if the crimes had happened on campus property.
“If the same thing had happened in a dorm on campus, there would have been alerts, emails,
posters and everyone would know,” said the male victim, who, like the female sexual-assault victim,
asked that he not be identified. “If you live across the street, across that campus line, it’s like
nothing ever happened.”
The overwhelming majority of colleges across the country count only the crimes that happen on
their property or at sites tied to their schools, such as fraternity and sorority houses. That’s
the minimum required by the Clery Act.
Colleges routinely exclude crimes committed only blocks from campus, in neighborhoods that often
house the majority of the student body.
The Dispatch/SPLC analysis of Clery data found that at 72 percent of schools with
on-campus housing, less than half of their students live on campus. According to the U.S. Bureau of
Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, about 30 percent of all violent crimes
happen in or near a victim’s home.
Ohio State reported two robberies on its campus in 2012, but in the area just east of campus
there were 71 robberies in that span, Columbus police data show. In the same year, Ohio State
reported four aggravated assaults. East of campus, Columbus police responded to 17.
OSU Police Chief Paul Denton said it’s difficult for his department to track crimes off campus,
which is outside his jurisdiction. Even when the OSU police learn of crimes in student
neighborhoods, Denton said, it can be risky to broadcast that information. Getting the details
wrong could jeopardize a Columbus police investigation, he said, or get the public looking for a
false suspect.
But he acknowledged that there might be cases in which the university should tell students about
crimes off campus. Such an alert after the May rape might have helped prevent the second, he
acknowledged. “I realize that,” he said. “It’s a struggle in all these cases.”
The two OSU sexual-assault victims interviewed by
The Dispatch hope that colleges eventually will be required to report all known crimes
that could put students at risk, on campus or off. They both credit OSU for being supportive and
helpful after their assaults, but they continue to be disappointed that off-campus crimes aren’t
counted in Clery numbers and don’t always trigger crime alerts.
“I’m always looking over my shoulder now, and I don’t want anyone else to have to go through
this,” the female student said. “Most of us live in these neighborhoods. We should count just as
much as the students who live in the dorms.”
Paper tigers
No one is making sure on a wide scale that schools are honestly and correctly reporting
statistics.
State auditors in California, New York and Texas who review crime data reported by public
colleges in their states have uncovered widespread misreporting, with confusion resulting in both
over- and underreporting.
Most states don’t have programs to independently verify the numbers colleges report. In Ohio,
the state’s college-crime guru scans school websites to see if they published their crime data
online. As long as the numbers are there, he doesn’t question their accuracy.
“We have no authority to investigate,” said Rick Amweg, director of campus safety and security
for the Ohio Board of Regents. “Holding their feet to the fire is the federal government’s
job."
But the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t regularly audit the accuracy of the statistics that
are reported, either. In fact, a warning on its website says it “cannot vouch for the accuracy of
the data reported here.”
Even when statistics change dramatically from year to year, they’re not always flagged for
review, such as between 2009 and 2010, when Arizona State University reported an apparently
dramatic increase in the number of students referred for alcohol-related disciplinary action — from
zero to 989 students. After an SPLC reporter questioned it, the university said the earlier number
was incorrect and it intended to correct the numbers.
Only during investigations does the department check whether colleges have reported crimes
accurately. Frequently, colleges have not. In 50 of the 63 reviews completed since the law was
enacted, the Education Department identified problems with the statistics reported.
Among the 13 four-year public universities in Ohio, two — Miami University and Ohio State
University — have faced scrutiny, federal records show. A private college, Notre Dame College of
Ohio in South Euclid, also came under review.
With more than 11,000 colleges that are required to comply with Clery, most escape scrutiny. Of
those that draw attention — less than 0.006 percent of all colleges — few face serious
sanctions.
In all, only a third of investigated colleges have been fined, for a total of $2.8 million since
the department began auditing in the late 1990s. Schools can be fined $35,000 for each violation
and in recent years, Moore said, “the percentage of cases that resulted in fines has been going up
substantially.”
Since 2010, the percentage of cases that resulted in a fine has increased 75 percent — from
eight to 14 schools. But the average fine decreased from $130,000 prior to 2010 to $128,000 in the
most recent years, the
Dispatch/SPLC investigation shows.
Difficult conversations
The University of Toledo campus sprawls across 800 acres and has more than 20,000 students. Ohio
Wesleyan University is a small private school in Delaware on 200 acres with about 1,850
students.
Yet between 2001 and 2012 Ohio Wesleyan has reported four times as many sexual assaults (72) as
Toledo (18).
Ohio Wesleyan’s number are higher because almost all of its students live on campus, and school
administrators have placed a priority on encouraging victims to come forward.
As soon as students step on campus, Ohio Wesleyan officials talk with them about sexual
assaults. Each student is required to take a two-hour online course on sexual assault, harassment
and alcohol abuse. They’ve created policies — such as not punishing a victim who was drunk at the
time of an assault as some schools do — that encourage reporting.
“We’ve worked very hard to create a safe environment,” said Kimberlie L. Goldsberry, dean of
students.
Toledo, by its own admission, knows the number of sexual assaults reported under the Clery Act
is low.
Like at some other schools, Toledo officials blame themselves for previously lacking a culture
that educates faculty members and students on the importance of reporting crimes.
“I completely agree that number is low, extremely low,” said Mary Martinez, Toledo’s
student-conduct officer. “It’s been a national epidemic, and sexual assaults have been
underreported for a long while, and it was hardly talked about. Every school needs to be having
these difficult conversations with the students, parents and administrators. We all can do better
educating our campuses.”
At least one student filed a federal complaint against Toledo for its handling of her rape
case.
The student, who asked not to be identified, said the university belittled her allegations that
a male student –– and once a good friend –– had raped her in his apartment near campus.
University officials told her the rape wasn’t “severe enough” to warrant an expulsion, she said.
A campus judicial board found the man guilty of sexual misconduct and suspended him for a year
before lowering the punishment after he appealed. In the end, his punishment was one year of
probation, 10 hours of sexual-assault counseling and a $25 administrative fee.
The woman said she had no say in the appeal. Officials repeatedly questioned her story, she
said, but interviewed the man just once. Soon after, she left the school. “The university is active
in victim-blaming and is an active participant in the rape culture,” she said. “They would rather
protect the rapist than the victim.”
University of Toledo officials declined to discuss the case, citing student-privacy laws, but
said the school “fully investigates all reports of sexual misconduct and offers survivors resources
on campus.”
In the past year, Toledo officials say they have attempted to correct the culture by
implementing a sexual-assault education and prevention program that includes training staff members
to help victims report the crime and guide them through a difficult process.
The university also issues crime alerts in neighborhoods where the majority of its students
reside.
Clery confusion
Critics have long said that the complexity of the Clery Act is an obstacle, even for schools
that try to comply.
The primary resource to help colleges decipher the law is a handbook that has ballooned to 285
pages after years of revisions and additions.
Gray areas in the rules allow some to interpret the law incorrectly. In some cases, schools just
don’t understand the law.
Between 2001 and 2008, a small nursing school in Peoria, Ill., reported campus crime numbers
that, on paper, made it look like one of the country’s most-dangerous colleges.
The St. Francis Medical Center College of Nursing, which has 358 students living on campus,
reported hundreds of violent crimes during that time, including sexual assaults, aggravated
assaults and robberies.
When Harold “Skip” Alwes became the head of security there, he was shocked that a campus with a
single building drew that much crime.
Then Alwes found a problem: The school had erroneously reported crimes from a 40-acre area that
included a hospital with 6,000 employees and nearby high-crime neighborhoods.
“There was total confusion, and it was unclear what was campus and how much we were supposed to
be reporting,” said Alwes, a former Kansas City police officer. “We got it straightened out, but
for a while, those numbers were totally misrepresenting what is a very safe environment for our
students and faculty.”
For the past five years, there have been no violent crimes reported on the campus.
Fine lines between some crime definitions have tripped up other schools. Whether an attack rises
to the level of an aggravated assault, as an example, can be subjective.
Even finding out that a crime happened can be a challenge.
The law requires colleges to publish crimes reported to police, but also to other “campus
security authorities” that range from residence-hall workers to assistant coaches to parking-lot
attendants.
Often, safety experts say, those people don’t even know that they have a responsibility under
the Clery Act to report crimes to the university. Training for these mandatory reporters varies
significantly from college to college.
“The knowledge and expertise on Clery varies as much as the institutions themselves,” said the
consultant Healy. “One institution might have a sophisticated reporting system and the one right
next to it may be dismal, and that’s more due to ignorance. That’s not an excuse; it’s just a
reality.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook is counting on buyers of the Apple Watch to view it not as a timepiece but as an extension of the iPhone. If they can make that mental leap, then they’ll think nothing of repeatedly plugging it in for a charge.
But if they’re counting on getting through the day without having to recharge their new smart watch, they may be in for disappointment—and Apple, for some flack.
The always hyper-secretive company hasn’t said how exactly it will power the Watch, which Cook unveiled publicly last month. Some suspect Apple has been deliberately lowering expectations for the device’s power performance. But experts say that, given the space confines and the high demands of its electronics, the Watch will struggle to last a normal 16-hour waking day on a single charge.
As a result, it will probably include software that carefully regulates its functionality to conserve the battery. In other words, you likely won’t be able to actively (screen on) check your GPS, monitor your messages, instruct Siri to call your friend AND consider Apple’s latest suggestion on how many calories you can burn.
“It may be easier to solve the problems facing vehicle batteries than in a wearable,” says Samir Mayekar, CEO of Chicago-based SiNode Systems, which is working on an advanced anode for wearable devices. “The ratio of active material to dead weight in a wearable is much lower than in a smart phone or a car.”
The consensus among experts queried by Quartz is that Apple will rely on the same battery material that’s in most laptops, smart phones and nearly every other lithium-ion battery on the planet: cobalt oxide, a chemistry commercialized in 1991. Cobalt oxide is a powerful electrode material, packing more electrons into a dense space than any of its commercial rivals. But Apple can put very little of it into the tiny space inside in a watch—much less, proportionately, than can go into an iPhone battery, for example.
One recent advance that will help Apple is that the newest lithium-ion cobalt oxide batteries operate at higher voltages than earlier versions, meaning they deliver more energy, experts say.
Venkat Srinivasan, a professor at Cal Berkeley, tells Quartz that Apple will probably use a version of cobalt oxide operating at 4.35 volts and delivering about 160 watt-hours per kg; just a few years ago, the best lithium-ion cobalt-oxide batteries delivered only 90 watt-hours per kg. Advances in cobalt-oxide are “really remarkable,” Srinivasan says.
But it doesn’t bode well for Apple that it is already the target of complaints about battery life in connection with its iOS 8.0.1 system, used in the iPhone 6 and downloadable for older models. The company has sought to fix the problem with the release of 8.0.2. But watch-buyers may be less patient.
The Pirates did terribly in the Wild Card game. This kid did great!
The Pirates did not bring it in the NL Wild Card game against the Giants. Starter Edinson Volquez gave up five runs in five innings, the bullpen allowed three more. Their offense mustered zero runs against Madison Bumgarner. They did, however, have one star:
He wasn't just striking fools out -- when the Pirates were at the plate, he was smacking the ball out the park (via @corkgaines):
The one bright spot is that the crowd cleared out enough by the ninth inning to let this little guy shine. His final stats, per the unofficial scorekeeper (I am the unofficial scorekeeper):
9 IP, 27 K's, 81 pitches
27-for-27, 27 home runs
This kid destroyed the Giants. We regret that he was not actually playing for the Pirates.
Considering the star-crossed Kevin Harvick has experienced in 2014, it seems only fitting that a strange woman tried casting a spell on him last weekend at Dover.
In a season where bad luck has hovered like his own personal black cloud, the last thing Kevin Harvick needs is a witch doctor casting spells on him.
That, however was the scenario Harvick encountered last week at Dover International Speedway, as a women holding a monkey skull emblazoned with his car number (along with Brad Keselowski's) was seen in the garage Sunday.
"Last week, we had a Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. fan with a monkey skull with some sort of witchcraft standing behind our car," Harvick told reporters Wednesday. "There's some weird things happening. The skull had a 2 and a 4 on it so I guess that was meant for myself and (Brad) Keselowski.
"I don't know that she'll be able to show up for every race."
Whatever spell was cast by the mysterious woman apparently worked, as a broken stem valve caused a flat tire and eradicated what had been a dominant effort. Harvick led 223 laps at Dover and was comfortable leading when the failure occurred. The same issue also occurred in the June Dover race with Harvick again in contention.
Bad luck has been a recurring theme throughout the season. Although he has led more laps than anyone, Harvick has just two victories on the year with five runner-up finishes.
More often than not the Stewart-Haas Racing driver has had the fastest car only for continued mistakes on pit road or other mechanical failures to occur. A broken wheel sent him to the garage early as Harvick was running in the top-five at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While the No. 4 was out front a ruptured oil line led to a fiery exit at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Prior to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, defending series champion Jimmie Johnson estimated Harvick should have upwards of eight wins. And Jeff Gordon, who went on to win last Sunday at Dover, acknowledged Harvick consistently has had the best car.
"Kevin (and that team) are extremely fast, but putting the whole race together, you can see that they have some things to work on there," Gordon said. "But they figure that out, I don't know anybody that can beat them. They're just that fast. Every weekend they have been."
Through it all Harvick has tried to remain positive. He continually points out that eventually his luck will turn, and despite the repeated misfortune is still considered one of the favorites to win the championship.
"I've been a part of this before where you think that the waking dogs are against you," Harvick said. "Then, the next thing you know, you can't do anything wrong and you're winning races and doing things that you feel like you probably should've done on that particular day. It all comes full circle in this sport.
"We know the capability is there to win every week on any style racetrack, you just have to have those circumstances go right. Now, I'm not going tell you that at the beginning of the year we didn't make a lot of mistakes and we didn't have car failures, but we haven't had that at the end of the year. We just hadn't been on the right side of the circumstance train to capitalize on some of the days that we've had."
Have you ever licked a cactus? Probably not. But it might be interesting to try it out, in another form. Time to create some special sensations for our tongues! In this instructable I’ll make a cactus-inspired popsicle and demonstrate the two-part silicone casting process.
Here’s an instructable that introduces you to mold making basics. Making a two-part mold has versatile applications and is beginner friendly. Here I used a combination of one-part and two-part mold-making techniques.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Replica Props Forum user Talaaya, a.k.a. Chelsea, used the benefits of 3D printing to her advantage with this impressive Samus Aran costume. She worked with her friend Matt Serle to print the armor pieces of the bounty hunter’s costume, and it took hundred hours of printing plus about the same amount of time for post processing each piece to make it as smooth and accurate as possible. One of the challenges she faced was breaking down the armor into small pieces since the bed of the printer she used – a Zcorp 450 – is only 8″ x 10″ 8.” Yeah, she had to glue a lot of armor and helmet sections together.
Chelsea documented the entire build with detailed notes at her blog, and it’s fascinating to watch the plans evolve. She started the Samus Aran project in January 2012, and back then she waas considering making the armor from resin. Over two years later, the costume is finished and you can scroll through her blog to see the intense amount of work that went into the build.
A few areas are not 3D printed and the includes the plastic dome shapes in the leg armor. She cut down plastic Christmas craft ornaments to use as the base and experimented with vinyl film:
A while back I bought a green vinyl film which I intended to use to color the straight lit sections on the legs and other areas. I wasn’t sure how to do the domes since I didn’t think the film would work on such compound curves. I tried all sorts of other stuff like using Pledge Future Shine and food coloring, and just straight up painting. Neither were anywhere close to ideal. Tonight I decided to see if I could make the film work on the domes. It’s really, really difficult, but it does indeed work!! Yay!
In the picture I’m lighting the shin with an LED flashlight which has a yellow covering on it. After seeing how nice the yellow looks, I think I’ll switch to yellow LEDs instead of using actual green LEDs like I originally planned. Makes it look much more lime green as it should.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a computer virus that spies on Apple Inc's iOS operating system for the iPhone and iPad, and they believe it is targeting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Decided to make a handy graphic after seeing a lot of misinformation spread around tumblr. Current science isn’t perfect and definitions are bound to change, but I wanted to push back against the hostile attitude against it because it seems like a lot of people are being hostile for the wrong reasons.
Please let me know if there are any factual errors, thank you :)
riGHT FUCKIN ON BC PLUTO WAS NOT IN FACT ACTUALLY RECLASSIFIED AS A PLANET GO LOOK IT UP YOU GULLIBLE FUCKING WALNUTS
pluto is a shit rock in the middle of space and its about the size of ten billion other shit rocks in space no amount of 90s kids and ugly ass sun uwu pics will change that
Helen Mirren & Liam Neeson had a four year relationship after starring in the 1981 film Excalibur. The couple lived together and Mirren was instrumental in getting the 28 year old Neeson an agent.
Neeson has since remarked in an interview: “I fell in love with Helen Mirren. Oh my god. Can you imagine riding horses in shiny suits of armor, having sword fights and stuff, and you’re falling in love with Helen Mirren? It doesn’t get any better than that.” (.)
Eighteen months after demonstrating that he could make a 3D-printed gun, Cody Wilson announced Wednesday that his nonprofit group, Defense Distributed, has now moved on to simplifying the process of manufacturing traditional metal guns.
Defense Distributed is now selling a $1,200 computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) mill—dubbed the "Ghost Gunner"—that can complete an unfinished lower receiver for an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle as part of a limited pre-order. While designed to mill an AR-15 lower, the CNC could theoretically mill anything of a similar size.
Wilson’s new Ghost Gunner makes home gunsmithing faster, cheaper, and more portable than ever before.
An account of possible jury misconduct surfaced Wednesday morning on Twitter, when several users sent messages about one juror who may have discussed evidence in the case with a friend.
Back in June, the United Kingdom outlined new copyright rules that would allow citizens to make backups of their music, movies, and e-books. Previously, making copies of media was illegal.
It is, however, still illegal to share those backups with friends or family, and making copies of rented media, or media that a person pays a subscription for (like Rdio or Netflix), likewise remains illegal. Media consumers are allowed to change formats—burning MP3s on a CD, for instance—but media vendors are allowed to use all kinds of DRM to keep users from doing just that (like Amazon does with its e-books, for example). Also, consumers are not allowed to resell an original copy if they keep the duplicates of it.
In the early 2000s, William "Trip" Hawkins—founder of video game publisher Electronic Arts—was living the good life. He owned a private jet, two multi-million-dollar homes, sent his kids to private school, had four vehicles between himself and his wife, held San Francisco Giants season tickets, and employed a private staff.
Hawkins appeared to be flush with cash. He once had an estimated worth of $100 million while manning the video game company that has long produced best-sellers like the Madden NFL franchise, and he cashed out company stock repeatedly. He sold $24.4 million of EA stock in 1996. The following year, he sold $3.7 million more. In 1998, he sold $38.76 million.
But Hawkins had a peculiar way of keeping his cash flow up; he wasn't paying all the taxes connected to the proceeds of some of his stock sales. Instead, he participated in a tax sheltering setup designed to produce on-paper "monetary losses" to offset the gains. The scheme was all done through accounting firm KPMG, which used convoluted Swiss and Cayman Islands deals that eventually raised the eyebrows of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax auditors. The IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board eventually cried foul.
Marshawn Lynch is all about that eternally looping raccoon-petting action, boss:
Kinda mesmerizing, no? This comes from an XBox ad:
I don't really get what's going on here, but I do think Marshawn should wash his (gloved) hand between petting a taxidermied animal and eating Skittles.
As communities are heading back to school, we’d like to take a moment to celebrate the educators who are also our Uber partner drivers. Whether it’s an afternoon shift or a summertime gig, partnering with Uber provides teachers with the flexibility and opportunity they need to continue creating a foundation of excellence for students across the country.
Every day teachers are asked to do more with less, constantly faced with new challenges and limited resources. Uber opens the door for more possibilities and delivers a meaningful impact to the communities we serve.
“Teachers, in general, need a little bit more money. With Uber, I get to pick when I want to drive and how much money I want to bring in. I can be a great teacher and make both happen.”
- Jenny Hochmiller, High Tech Early College
Teachers are among the most dedicated, passionate and hardworking professionals – a few of the qualities that make the best Uber partner drivers. Throughout the year, we’ll continue to invest in providing opportunities for educators in cities around the world – recognizing the need for more income options on their own terms.
By utilizing Uber, teachers are increasing their earnings while dedicating their lives to shaping students’ futures – cultivating a generation that is imaginative, determined and believes in extraordinary possibilities.
“I’m a criminal justice instructor and deputy sheriff – not to mention a father of two girls. As a driver with Uber, I see first hand how Uber takes safety to the next level.”
- Corey Watson, Colerain High School
Our partners are your drivers, neighbors, teachers, and community members – dedicated individuals bringing their passion to the Uber experience. We met with these teachers across the country – from Denver to Cincinnati to Louisville – who consistently said what they love about driving with Uber.
We want to share their inspiring stories with you.
"It’s Karl Kerschl, though, who shines brightest in this book. Kerschl’s an amazingly talented artist, but he’s always seemed to me like a creator who’s never quite gotten the credit he deserves. In Gotham Academy he is phenomenal. The exaggerated, cartoony character designs are perfect for the characters, with Olive’s moody eyes framed by her silver hair, and Maps’s peppy, wide-eyed delight at her surroundings coming through on every page. Even the page layouts are amazing, whether it’s the cutaway that establishes the setting in the opening pages, or the corkscrew of panels as they climb to the top of a bell tower"
Gotham Academy is exactly the comic book I want to read.
That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been reading ComicsAlliance for any significant amount of time. I mean, if you made a list of the things I like seeing in my comics, then Batman, teenage mystery solvers, and high school drama set in a superhero universe are all things that are going to land pretty close to the top of the list, and those three elements form the exact core of Gotham Academy‘s premise. It’s so perfectly designed to fit my very specific tastes that you’d actually have to work hard to combine them into something that I wouldn’t like.
Because of that, it might be tempting to write off anything nice I have to say about the book, but trust me: this first issue of Gotham Academy is great, not just because it’s got a bunch of stuff I want to see, but because Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl, Geyser,and Dave McCaig, have produced one of the most solid starts of the year.
To be honest, a lot of what I like about Gotham Academy comes from what it represents as much as what’s actually contained in these 20 pages. I’ve always been attracted to comics that focus on the stranger and more obscure corners of the universe, showing how a world full of superheroes can shape the other people around them, and I think that’s because it makes the universe feel more complete.
When you have a covert ops task force made up of otherwise forgotten arch-criminals, or a super-team that’s structured like a law firm fighting crime for profit, or a district attorney who raids the evidence locker for super-weapons that she can use to fight crime, things feel like they’re connected. It’s something that you get from a universe that’s been around for a while, and as a result, it’s something that — to me, at least — feels like it’s been missing from the DC Universe for a few years.
‘The New 52′, with its relaunched mandate to put the focus on all-new, all-collared iconic heroes, just hasn’t felt lived-in. It’s been like a brand new house without any furniture in it. But with this book, and a few other recent launches, that feels like it’s changing.
Gotham Academy is, after all, a book that requires a history on multiple levels; a history that it’s creating on the page as you read it. It’s right there on page one, when Cloonan and Fletcher talk about the stories behind the school in the first lines of the book:
It’s not just the school itself, though. It’s the history of the city, a history that’s inextricably linked to Batman, and — moving to the small scale and the focus of the comic — it’s the history of Olive Silverlock, the character that we join for this first issue.
We learn a lot about Olive in pretty short order: This isn’t her first year at Gotham, she recently broke up with her boyfriend Kyle, and most importantly for connecting Gotham Academy to the wider universe; Olive has a history with Batman. Something happened between them over the summer, something that was bad enough for someone that Bruce Wayne remembers her by name, which is very rarely a good thing for all concerned.
That’s the history that we’re dropped into in this first issue, and it’s great. As tempting as it might have been to “Harry Potter{ things up and follow a character who was new to the setting in order introduce it, using Olive as a returning student as our viewpoint character helps to establish that feeling of history that makes things work so well. And besides, we’ve got Maps along as the wide-eyed newcomer for when we need that POV.
As a quick aside, can we talk about the names in this comic? Because they are that special kind of ridiculous that loops back around to being amazing: Olive Silverlock, who quite literally has silver locks of hair, and “Maps” Mizoguchi, who is super into D&D and draws maps all the time. Those are names that could only exist in comics, and those are just our main characters. Once you get into the other students, there’s a whole new world of improbable names, including troublemaker Colton Rivera and rich rival Pomeline Fritch (!), which is astounding. I love it.
Beyond the names, the characters are instantly engaging, and they feel fully formed after just one issue, even when there’s plenty of mystery about them still left to be revealed. There’s a sense of adventure and fun to the whole thing that just feels masterful in how well it’s put together.
It’s Karl Kerschl, though, who shines brightest in this book. Kerschl’s an amazingly talented artist, but he’s always seemed to me like a creator who’s never quite gotten the credit he deserves. In Gotham Academy he is phenomenal. The exaggerated, cartoony character designs are perfect for the characters, with Olive’s moody eyes framed by her silver hair, and Maps’s peppy, wide-eyed delight at her surroundings coming through on every page. Even the page layouts are amazing, whether it’s the cutaway that establishes the setting in the opening pages, or the corkscrew of panels as they climb to the top of a bell tower:
In the end, it’s not just a beautiful comic full of engaging characters and instantly enjoyable teen drama; it’s one of the few comics in a long while that I think is truly a perfect gateway into the DC Universe. It doesn’t shy away from superheroics or the weirdness of its setting — I mean, Batman’s in it, after all — but it presents it all in a way that lets you see it in a fresh and fascinating new way, with incredible storytelling from everyone involved.
It’s not just the comic that I want to read; it’s the comic that DC needed to put out, and they nailed it with this one.
These have to be future DLC outfits for Smash Bros., right? Every character in that middle pic (originally depicted in the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu commercial) is in the game! Well, not the Toon version of Zelda, but you know what I mean. I need Megane Bowser to be in my 3DS for real.
These tributes to the New 3DS commercial, from top left to bottom right, were drawn by 1boshi, glamdoodle, Rico, Darkly, and Akira.
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