firehose

Magic Cat

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

Last week this little family adopted a rescue cat from an ASPCA shelter in Manhattan. While we are still trying to figure out a name (most difficult process in history) the cat is super happy and so are my kids. And I have discovered pet accessories. What a huge market! Can we talk about this felted cat bed. Made me smile.

Original Source

In Completely Out of Touch news, the Koch Brothers hosted a retreat for Republican Presidential candidates this weekend where, in addition to making the candidates dance for donations to their campaigns, they hosted an All-Male Panel about activism where they compared their efforts toward Republican leadership to struggles for civil rights. Because clearly, nothing says oppressed quite like older, wealthy white men who support misogynist, transphobic, and homophobic policies.

But hey, at least there was one black participant in the panel:

All-male panel at retreat where Kochs compare their work to Susan B Anthony and MLK http://t.co/zmRogIQab6 pic.twitter.com/xCU8J3tbKT

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) August 3, 2015

According to The Washington Post, Charles Koch had this to say about both his family and his party’s mission:

Look at the American revolution, the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement. All of these struck a moral chord with the American people. They all sought to overcome an injustice. And we, too, are seeking to right injustices that are holding our country back.

Which ones, I wonder? Apparently, a big focus of the weekend was on how devoted the Koch brothers are to helping the poor. Well, they’d better be, considering that the policies their candidates support, not to mention the corporations from which they get their donations, work to keep them poor. Because corporations are people, too, didn’t cha know. Thanks, Citizens United!  I guess they just really want to keep poor people around…so they can help them?

Oh, and apparently the lone female Republican Presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina, formerly a Hewlett-Packard CEO, is the only Republican woman they know, because they couldn’t find any other knowledgeable women to have sit on the panel alongside their one black participant. Whatever happened to Mitt Romney’s binders of women? QUICK! SOMEONE CONSULT THE BINDERS!

The panel also focused on “the plight of the disenfranchised.” Fiorina had this to say about the Koch Brothers’ fundraising network and why she attended the retreat:

These are people who care deeply about our nation. The foundation that the Koch brothers have built has invested in the power of ideas. They’ve invested in the power of ground games. They’ve invested in the power of lifting people up.

That’s kinda hard to believe, considering that the Republicans they support were responsible for gutting the Voting Rights Act, which is the thing that Martin Luther King Jr. fought so hard for to ensure that states allowed people to vote regardless of race, by removing Section 5, which required that states have to run all their new voting laws by the federal government first, to ensure that they’re up to snuff. Chief Justice John Roberts said that “our country has changed” – meaning that we’re all past racism and so we don’t need all these blanket protections anymore. Well, clearly he was wrong, because pretty much the second the Voting Rights Act was changed, eight states instituted new voting laws that disenfranchised a bunch of people – namely, people of color who would likely vote Democrat. So, lifting people up involves taking away their voice in the political process?

What’s more, while there’s a female Republican candidate in Fiorina, and a Latino candidate in Marco Rubio, the current Republican front-runner is apparently Donald freaking Trump, which goes to show how ready Republican voters are to fight for change and the disenfranchised. I guess having a reality show and owning hotels has its privileges?

And that’s really what this is all about. Privilege. Specifically white privilege, male privilege, and good ol’ fashioned class privilege. The Koch Brothers may be working really hard to fix their public image and make themselves over into teddy bears who really care about people. But the fact of the matter is, they put their enormous funds behind candidates who take people’s rights away and actively work to keep poor people in their place.

The American people know hypocrisy when they see it. I hope.

(via Jezebel; Image via DonkeyHotey on Flickr)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Sheep in a Landscape

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

From The Nerdist:

Due out exclusively from Amazon on November 17th, The Collected Works of Hayao Miyazaki contains each of the maestro’s eleven feature films: Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, and The Wind Rises.

I already own all of these on several formats but I will definitely be acquiring this collection. Even more than Pixar, when my family just wants to enjoy and appreciate our downtime, we turn on a Miyazaki movie and eat some popcorn. It's foundational to how we see the world now. The set includes TV series that will be fertile ground for us to explore together.

What I found particularly interesting about the announcement is that it is exclusive to Amazon at launch. That's a huge coup. Not Walmart. Not The Disney Store. Not, even iTunes has this collection.

Also a huge win for The Nerdist, getting this "exclusive."

Via Russia Beyond the Headlines

From October 27 to November 4, the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBP) in Moscow will conduct the experiment, “Moon 2015”, which is the first isolation experiment exclusively involving women.
The project’s goal is to study the psychology and physiology of female humans during deep space missions in order to ultimately understand which line-ups would be the most suitable for such tasks. Ten volunteers – postgraduate students, laboratory assistants, junior and senior research associates – are getting ready for the experiment, but only six of them will be selected to participate.
According to Sergei Ponomarev, one of the project managers, “Moon 2015” will lay the foundation for a series of similar tests. “We would like to collect as much data on the early stages of the female body’s adaptation to enclosed spaces as we can. We are talking about a somewhat distinctive microbiota – no new strains of microorganisms can emerge there. Therefore, the immune system goes into what we call hibernation. But we still have no information on when and how exactly this happens – abruptly or gradually,” the researcher said.

Read more.

Via NASA

New Horizons scientists use enhanced color images to detect differences in the composition and texture of Pluto’s surface. When close-up images are combined with color data from the Ralph instrument, it paints a new and surprising portrait of the dwarf planet. The “heart of the heart,” Sputnik Planum, is suggestive of a source region of ices. The two bluish-white “lobes” that extend to the southwest and northeast of the “heart” may represent exotic ices being transported away from Sputnik Planum.

Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color global view. The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers).

Read more.

Internet radio is a great way to listen to stations from all around the world. But finding a way to casually listen to these stations at home isn’t convenient. Stand alone internet radios are costly, and hooking your computer directly up to your stereo isn’t ideal. Out of frustration, people […]

Read more on MAKE

The post Rebroadcast Internet Radio with a Raspberry Pi appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Autodesk said Stingray, its new videogame engine built on the company's 2014 acquisition of Bitsquid, will be available to game developers beginning August 19. Sometime later in the summer, the company said, Maya LT desktop subscribers will get Stingray at no … more »

The post Autodesk Sets Release Date for Stingray Game Engine appeared first on Studio Daily.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Beautifully designed new treehouse takes root in Japan, via dezeen.

Israeli illustrator Noma Bar has created a wooden pavilion shaped like a bird with a leafy back among the trees of a wood in central Japan.

Bar was commissioned by the Momofuku Ando cultural foundation – named after its founder, a 20th-century inventor who was one of the creators of instant noodles – to design the timber lookout at the highest point of a woodland area in Komoro, Nagano Prefecture.

Read more.

Where does it end?

I can't disagree ... I can only agree. Mine too @NICKIMINAJ ! pic.twitter.com/IYw8eQUHcz

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) August 2, 2015

So Drake Jim Harbaugh is turning out to be a heavy bandwagon tweeter (for a 51-year-old college coach, that is). Come to think about it, scrap that, the dude tweets like our Dad.

Here he is once again sucking up to a hip-hop artist over the world wide web. Yes ,yes, Nicki Minaj MAY retweet you, but you're looking awfully needy there Jimbo. Ease up, son!

Upon further review, Harbaugh doesn't appear to follow Ms. Minaj, which begs the question, does he search Michigan on Twitter?

Even weirder, he found time to follow Ciara and ASAP Rocky, which is odd considering his fun interaction with Lil Wayne:

.@LilTunechi - Proud to be a fan of my man Lil Wayne. Hope you like the jersey as much as we like seeing you in it! pic.twitter.com/itjd1ZSf9T

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) June 20, 2015

Enough is enough.

★★★

SB Nation presents: The best of Jim Harbaugh since he took the Michigan job

You know Katie Ledecky from the 2012 London Olympics, where she swam very, very fast and came home with a gold medal in the women's 800M freestyle. It should come as no shock, then, that the 18-year-old American has more records to set. One just expects that she'd have to, ya know, TRY to set them. Nope.

That is Ledecky setting the world record for the women's 1500M freestyle in a preliminary(!) heat at the FINA World Championships in Russia. This is what was going through her mind as she did something better than anyone on Earth has ever done it, via The Washington Post:

900 easy, 300 build, 300 choice. Translation: Go easy for the first 900 meters, build through the next 300 and do whatever you want at the end.

"I was barely even focusing on this morning's swim," she said. "I was just so relaxed."

Just chilling, setting world records.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Seattle knocks off Boston, Washington beats Houston, Western NY gets a big win in New Jersey and FC Kansas City and Chicago play to a draw.

Whether Crystal Dunn should have been in Canada with the United States women's national team is still up for debate. Had Dunn gone, would she have actually seen the field anyway? Would it have mattered? To the USWNT, probably not. Whether you think Dunn deserved to be one of the 23 or not, the U.S. seemed to do fine without her.

There is one team that definitely wouldn't be fine had she not been around, though: the Washington Spirit. Dunn's season thus far -- and the Spirit still has six games to go -- has landed her not only atop the Golden Boot list with 12 goals, but also as a definite candidate for MVP.

The first pick in the college draft in 2014, Dunn has won Player of the Week honors three times already this season. After a hat trick on Saturday that helped the Spirit further cement a place in the top four heading into the final month of the season, Dunn could very well be adding a fourth.

No player has been named Player of the Week four times in the history of the NWSL, and only one other player -- Vero Boquete, in 2014 -- has won it three times.

And what about Dunn's 12 goals? She joins a list of just seven players -- Lauren Holiday, Abby Wambach, Amy Rodriguez, Sydney Leroux, Kim Little, Jess McDonald and Jodie Taylor -- who have scored 10 or more goals in a season. That's some pretty impressive company. Little holds the NWSL record, with 16 last season, but she needed 23 games to do it. Oh, and six of Little's goals were penalty kicks. So ...

Beverly Yanez scores again as Seattle stays atop the table

Things just keep getting worse for Boston. A week after falling to Sky Blue FC, the Breakers lost again on Saturday, though this time it was at least to the league leading Seattle Reign. It was the third straight loss -- and the eighth in a winless streak that dates all the way back to May -- for a Boston team that's landed at the bottom of the table and is quickly running out of time to make a push for the postseason. The Breakers also lost Julie King, who was sent off after receiving a second yellow card and will now be suspended for Boston's game in Portland on Wednesday.

Beverly Yanez scored in the first half for Seattle, her third goal in two games, to give the Reign a 1-0 lead. The goal was Yanez's ninth of the season, three behind league-leader Crystal Dunn for the Golden Boot. Kristie Mewis equalized for Boston just 10 minutes after Yanez's goal, sending the two teams to halftime tied at one. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad for Boston. Maybe they could still salvage at least a point from thi—oh. What's that? Kim Little taking a penalty? Little, as she has so often done, of course converted for the eventual game winner.

Seattle's win, combined with Chicago's draw against FC Kansas City, not only kept the Reign atop the table for another week, but also gave them a little breathing room -- putting a three-point gap between themselves and the Red Stars heading into the home stretch of the season. Seattle has five games remaining, while Chicago has six.

Houston gets Dunn in by Washington

After a midweek win against FC Kansas City landed Houston in a playoff spot, things were starting to look up for last season's last-place team. And while the Dash is still in fourth after Saturday, a loss to Washington probably wasn't the way Randy Waldrum's team wanted to celebrate their new position on the table.

Crystal Dunn scored all three of Washington's goals, including one where she fought off the entire Houston defense, to give the Spirit the win, their second in three games. Dunn's 10th, 11th and 12th goals of the season keep her atop the Golden Boot list for another week. Seattle's Beverly Yanez is next, with nine.

Jess McDonald scored the Dash's lone goal.

Washington has six games remaining, and is currently in third, separated from fourth place Houston by four points, and three behind second place Chicago. The Dash is still a point up on fifth place Kansas City, with five games remaining.

Sky Blue stalls out as Western NY gets a big win in New Jersey

Heading into Saturday on season-high three-game unbeaten run and with an offense that was finally clicking, things were starting to look up for Sky Blue FC. They were out of last place for the first time in a long time, as close to full strength as they'd been all season and facing a Western NY side that was winless in its last five games.

Both of those streaks -- Sky Blue's unbeaten one and Western New York's winless one -- came to an abrupt halt on Saturday night, though, with Elizabeth Eddy netting the game winner for the Flash in the 89th minute. Eddy had been in the game little more than 10 minutes.

Lady Andrade, making her third appearance for the Flash, scored the first goal of the night for Western NY. It was the Colombian international's first NWSL goal. Kelley O'Hara had the lone tally for Sky Blue FC, her third of the season and third in two games.

Western NY is now in sixth, two points behind Houston for the final playoff spot. The Flash has five games remaining. Sky Blue, meanwhile, is still stuck in eighth, and with five games remaining, the Jersey team has an increasingly big hill to climb to make it into the postseason.

FC Kansas City and Chicago play to a draw

It was a rough week in the Midwest. Chicago fell out of first place, FC Kansas City fell out of the top four. Both teams decided to commiserate with each other by getting together and playing to a 2-2 draw that did little to help either.

Lori Chalupny and Christen Press scored for Chicago, and Amy LePeilbet and Sarah Hagen scored for FCKC.

The Red Stars are now four points back of first place Seattle, but do have a game in hand. FC Kansas City, now winless in three, currently sits in fifth, but just a point out of the final playoff spot. The Blues have five games remaining, all but one against teams currently below them in the standings.

Scores
Wednesday
Western NY Flash 0 - 2 Portland Thorns FC
Houston Dash 3 - 2 FC Kansas City

Saturday
Boston Breakers 1 - 2 Seattle Reign FC
Washington Spirit 3 - 1 Houston Dash
Sky Blue FC 1 - 2 Western NY Flash
Chicago Red Stars 2 - 2 FC Kansas City

They might not be good at it, but at least they're adorable at it.

Monday morning, I saw this Vine. It is of a pig race featuring piglets jumping over hurdles. They do not do a good job of jumping over the hurdle:

These are the All-Alaskan Racing Pigs, a bunch of little pigs (not from Alaska) who spend the summer touring various state/county fairs. The race is a very good race: They go over one hurdle, under one hurdle, and then eat a nice bowl of slop at the end of the racetrack, because they are good pigs:

Sometimes, the little pigs make it over the hurdle just fine:

However, after watching a lot of these videos, I can confirm that a pretty decent amount of the time, at least one of the pigs fails to make it over:

Watch piggie number 6. His name is Bob. Bob is my favorite :) #bacon #pigs #pigrace #countyfair

A video posted by Jess Lydon (@dinosaurs_and_stuff) on Jul 2, 2015 at 9:02pm PDT

F*ckin Piggy Races! Does it get any cuter? #alamedafair #pigrace #4thofjuly #bestsummer #cute

A video posted by Garrick Sather (@bwaybro) on Jul 4, 2015 at 5:24pm PDT

To truly understand what's going on here, watch in slow motion:

The pig race at the OC Fair. Filmed in Slo-Mo for dramatic effect. #adayattheraces #pigrace #ocfair #allalaskanracingpigs

A video posted by @chrispesce on Aug 2, 2015 at 4:45pm PDT

This is about ethics in pig racing journalism.

In track-and-field, racers are disqualified for failing to clear a hurdle. However, nobody seems to care or mind if these piglets knock their hurdle over. In fact, sometimes the pigs don't even try to clear the hurdles, brazenly just butting them over with their heads:

However, all these pigs are pretty great at pig racing in comparison to full-grown potbelly pigs, which are just awful at pig racing:

Bruce and Marshawn having some fun at training camp today pic.twitter.com/JXYLd51o5a

— Jose Rivera (@notjoserivera) August 3, 2015

This is the easiest Marshawn Lynch has gone down in years. He just needed a nice, soft place to land. And Bruce Irvin to kick him a lot.

* * *

SB Nation presents: Every story from every training camp ever

The Big Ten and the Pennsylvania/New York area are exhibiting party game control.

The Princeton Review's ranking of the nation's top 20 party schools is out, and the collegiate world has a new champion of getting it both on and also poppin'.

The University of Illinois. Yes, Illinois! After years of coming up just short of the top overall spot, Illinois gets the top ranking for the first time. Not everyone was happy, like university spokeswoman Robin Kaler: "They are serious, they are hard-working, and to try to present them as being somehow irresponsible is insulting."

No amount of harrumphing can take away this honor, so celebrate as you see fit, Illini fans. It's your hard work that got you here.

Iowa and Wisconsin round out a clean sweep of the party school medal podium for the Big Ten. The SEC only managed to get three into the rankings in Georgia, Ole Miss and Florida, proving definitively and for all time that the SEC is washed and the Big Ten is the nation's preeminent conference of universities.

The full 20:

1. Illinois
2. Iowa
3. Wisconsin
4. Bucknell
5. Syracuse
6. UC-Santa Barbara
7. West Virginia
8. Georgia
9. Tulane
10. Colgate
11. Lehigh
12. Ole Miss
13. Penn State
14. Florida
15. Florida State
16. Ohio
17. DePauw
18. Vermont
19. Miami (Ohio)
20. College of Charleston

Closer inspection shows a full 25 percent are in a tight cluster stretching across upstate New York and Pennsylvania. This area, which includes Syracuse, Colgate, Lehigh, Bucknell and Penn State, is known among the scientific community as the Fertile Crescent of Partying.

Sure, it gets cold in the winter, but that doesn't mean it's not lit.

* * *

SB Nation archives: Know your limit when drinking at games (2014)

I really blew it on preparing a nice blog post officially announcing this, but I don’t want to leave anyone wondering what’s going on while the current story title is hanging out there all “THIS IS IT EVERYBODY.”

Yes, I’m afraid it’s the beginning of the end for this comic. (Though, secretly it’s been happening since All the King’s Dirtbikes finished up. WHICH IS IN A BOOK NOW, BTW) I’ll have more to say on it in the next couple of days, but a couple quick points for now that haven’t exactly been a secret:

- I only wanted to do Dr. McNinja for 10 years, and that’ll officially be in October. (Not counting the time I spent on it before going full blast webcomic)

- The story’s been building up toward this for quite some time, and honestly I think it’s the only place it CAN go now.

- This whole thing will probably actually take quite a while. I don’t know exactly how long, but it certainly won’t be over in October. I won’t be neatly hitting the 10 year mark, because there’s a lot of stuff I want to get in before turning out the lights.

More soon,

-Christopher

PS: Thanks for reading! I have always appreciated your enjoyment of this comic, whether you just started yesterday, or back in 2005.

Dr. McNinja: The End is a post from: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

doubtfulsinsff:

purifiedgoddess:

Y'all see what Chris Rock is doing?

Very smart man…

A magical diagram for the binding of enemies and thieves, XVII century.

Don’t cry

seananmcguire:

I re-blogged a picture of a little girl, dressed as Tiana, hugging the face actress who plays Tiana at one of the Disney Parks, and noted that everyone should have their princess.  And a few people have now contacted me basically going “no, only straight white people can have princesses if you stick with the classics.”

Um.

No.

I am a folklorist, and it’s time for some Fun With Folklore.

First off, very few Princesses/fairy tale heroines who are going to become Princesses because that’s what you do are actually defined by specific physical attributes.  You have Snow White, who yes, requires the “skin as white as snow” etc, but that’s to make her an alien beauty and justify the actions of her stepmother.  She belongs to the Aarne-Thompson tale type 709, which is commonly referred to as “Snow White,” but which contains a hell of a lot more, including “Bella Venezia”, “Myrsina”, “Nourie Hadig“ and ”Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree.”  All those links will take you to Wikipedia.  Click them.  Note that NOT ONE of those girls is defined by her appearance, beyond “incredibly beautiful.”  “Nourie Hadig” is Armenian in origin; you can bet that girl was not white as snow.  (Note that I do not actually care for the “Nourie Hadig” 709 variant, due to using a Roma girl as the main adversary, but that’s another story.)  Any story you want to tell is going to have variants where the heroines are never described!  You know why?

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WERE TELLING THESE STORIES UNDERSTOOD THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR OF THE TALE.

There are fairy tales about people with disabilities, ranging from the physical (missing limbs, missing eyes, missing tongues) to the emotional (girls who cannot smile, boys who cannot feel fear).  There are fairy tales that end in same-sex marriage.  There’s even an excellent fairy tale about gender identity, “The Princess Who Became A Prince,” in which our hero has always felt he was a boy, but tried to be a dutiful daughter, until a dragon stole a neighbor princess and he had to ride to rescue the girl in order to save the kingdom.  One misaimed curse later, and wham, our new-minted prince is finally outwardly as he had been all along on the inside.

THIS IS JUST AS OLD AND TRUE AND SCHOLASTIC AS CINDERELLA AND THE OTHERS.

The “big fairy tales” of today are the ones that someone seized on as marketable.  We have the power, as drivers of media, to say that we want more diversity.  We want Princesses of every race, creed, and religion, and we have the folklore and fairy tales to make them real.  We want our transgender Princess (although wow would the marketing be problematic).  Saying “the classics” are 100% about straight white people reduces the past to a place where only straight whiteness existed, and where no other children ever needed stories.  And that’s not what the past was.

Once upon a time has never stopped being right now.

Little Big Burger, the fast-casual Portland chainlet from prolific restaurateurs Micah Camden and Katie Poppe (Blue Star Donuts, Boxer Ramen, Son of a Biscuit), has been sold to Charlotte, N.C.-based Chanticleer Holdings, Portland Business Journal reported. 

The terms of the deal, which included cash and stock, were not disclosed. According to MarketWatch, Little Big Burger generated $6 million of revenue in 2014 across its eight locations.

Little Big Burger opened its first location in Northwest Portland's Pearl District in 2010 and quickly expanded to eight locations across the state with a ninth on its way to the Lloyd Center's upcoming Hasslo on Eighth development.

Chanticleer Holdings owns Hooters of America, in addition to a number of other small domestic burger restaurant chains.

Camden says Chanticleer is planning to expand the burger concept into Seattle and other markets.

"We have an audience in Seattle," Camden told PBJ. "People in Seattle come to Portland to eat. People from Portland go to Seattle to eat. And Seattle doesn't have a burger concept like ours. It's the next logical market."

With the Little Big Burger acquisition set to close around Aug. 14, Camden and Poppe can focus on their other restaurant concepts in the pipeline: the upcoming Hop Dog, a fast-casual hot dog counter in downtown, and the rapidly-expanding Blue Star Donuts which recently opened a location in Tokyo in April.