firehose

Artist Alexey Zakharov has created a lovely 3D-animated "test shot" of the exceedingly complicated 31st-century world of Futurama, starring the Planet Express ship and Mom's Old-Fashioned Robot Oil. It's just... wow.

Read more...

femfreq:

I get so many emails like this I could publish a coffee table book full of them.

It’s especially amusing that this misogyny laced email is unironically signed “See you soon m’lady. *tips fedora*”

Holy shit. 

For decades, shortwave radio enthusiasts have been stumbling upon mysterious stations that broadcast a looping noise, such as a nursery rhyme, occasionally punctuated by someone reading a string of numbers. The most popular theory is that these are coded messages—and now, an online shortwave radio lets you listen in.

Read more...

I’m honestly not sure how this stayed quiet for so long but OH MY GOD RAINBOWS, STAR SPRINKLES, AND FLYING HORSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

Actress Emily Osment, best known for her work on Hannah Montana, has revealed she’s voicing Rainbow Brite in a new animated series. She wrote on Instagram, “First day on the job! Very stoked to be back doing some animation this summer. See you soon! Love, Emily aka Rainbow Brite.”

Osment’s previous voice work includes some Family Guy episodes and Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and 3.

The ’80s reboot train has not stopped chugging for a while and after seeing the resurgence of things like My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake, I was surprised Rainbow Brite didn’t follow—it being the brainchild of Hallmark, after all, and the merchandise possibilities being endless. Apparently they were just biding their time like Murky and Lurky.

While many of us are still skeptical of the live-action Jem and the Holograms movie filming now, I have to say I’m pretty optimistic about new animated Rainbow Brite. How about you?

(via Metro UK)

Previously in Reboots

• Hollywood Remakes, Reboots, and Spinoffs: The Lion King, The Magic School Bus, and Sonic the Hedgehog
• Confirmed: New Stargate Trilogy Will Start The Story Over
• Dean Israelite and Arash Amel in Talks to Direct, Write WarGames Reboot, Which Is Still Happening

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, & Google +?

popular shared this story from Whatever.

---

I noted a couple of years ago that Straight White Male is the lowest difficulty setting in the game called life (in particular the Western civilization variant of it). This annoyed many a straight white male, who didn’t see his life as being particularly “easy.” Noting that “lowest difficulty” is not the same as “easy” did not assuage this agitation. And well, I can understand it: If you genuinely think your life sucks — and it may! — sucks, it may be hard to imagine that you still get advantages other folks don’t.

So maybe this will help: A 25-year study followed the experience of nearly 800 children in Baltimore, from first grade into adulthood. Half their families were low income, many with parents who had not finished high school; 40% of those low-income kids were white.

A couple of relevant points from the article:

Looking at where these children started in life and where they ended up, the study results are troubling but clear: At 28, hardly any of the children from a disadvantaged background, black or white, had finished college.

But even without the benefit of a college degree, whites, and white men especially, had vastly better employment outcomes. At every age, the white men experienced shorter spells of unemployment, were more likely to be working full-time and earned more.

And:

[T]he consequences have been especially dire for African-Americans. As young adults, African-American men had fared much worse than whites in the job market, even though they and their white counterparts had about the same levels of education and the whites reported higher rates of marijuana and heavy drug use and binge drinking…

Indeed, throughout the course of our study, it was clear that African- Americans face greater barriers to employment. Having an arrest record or failing to complete high school were less consequential for white men than for African-American men: 84% of whites without a high school degree were employed at 22; among African Americans, just 40% were.

And this is the point of the lowest difficulty setting metaphor. It isn’t that folks who are straight, and white, and male, can’t or don’t find themselves on the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder. They can and do, and there’s no doubt that it sucks. But even then, they can catch some breaks that others — in this particular study, black men — don’t (or don’t catch as often).

Which is to say: Even as much as your life blows, straight white dude, the black dude in exactly the same situation is likely to have it worse. And not because of anything he (or you) did. Just because it’s the way things are.

This study applies specifically to Baltimore, it appears, and factors in Baltimore’s own history of racial and cultural biases. But I would not in the least be surprised if other studies in other major cities across the US (at least) cropped up similar data. Baltimore is not exactly unique in terms of its racial dynamics. Nor does it seem that the authors of the study would be surprised; the sales copy of the book the above article is based upon notes: “[Baltimore's] struggles with deindustrialization, white flight, and concentrated poverty were characteristic of most East Coast and Midwest manufacturing cities. The experience of Baltimore’s children who came of age during this era is mirrored in the experiences of urban children across the nation.”

Now, bear in mind that when I said “maybe this will help,” that I don’t actually expect the sort of straight white man who fervently believes that is life is harder than anyone else’s, harder than anyone else can possibly imagine, and that society is even now feasting upon his set-upon bones, will pause to consider the data above. For that sort of dude, mere data are not nearly enough in the face of certain belief. For everyone else, including the straight white males who aren’t already conflating their own personal unhappiness with society squishing straight white men in general like bugs, this might be useful.

(Here’s another take on the data, at Science Daily (but largely written, it appears, by Johns Hopkins’ PR folks). There’s more in the study than just the one aspect I’m highlighting here, all of which are pretty interesting.)

popular shared this story from Buzz Andersen.

---

“

Isn’t it striking that the most-typical and most-maligned genres of Instagram imagery happen to correspond to the primary genres of Western secular art? All that #foodporn is still-life; all those #selfies, self-portraits. All those vacation vistas are #landscape; art-historically speaking, #beachday pics evoke the hoariest cliché of middle-class leisure iconography. (As for the #nudes, I guess they are going on over on Snapchat.)

Why this (largely unintentional) echo? Because there is a sneaky continuity between the motivations behind such casual images and the power dynamics that not-so-secretly governed classic art.

…

Technology has so democratized image-making that it has put the artistic power once mainly associated with aristocrats—to stylize your image and project yourself to an audience as desirable—into everyone’s hands. (Although the parallel to art as “celebration of private property” is probably most vivid in the case of those who most closely resemble modern-day aristocrats. See: “Rich Kids of Instagram”). But images retain their function as game pieces in the competition for social status. “Doesn’t this look delicious?” “Aren’t I fabulous?” “Look where I am!” “Look what I have!”

”

- Instagram and Art Theory (via Bill Couch)

Stories started surfacing last year about increased cases of marijuana poisoning in dogs and the problem is apparently getting worse. [ more › ]

Since our last look at Chris Roberts' space epic Star Citizen, the game's crowdfunding effort has pulled down another $5 million, bringing the current total to a staggering $48 million. With another funding milestone comes another stretch goal...

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

In his ongoing digital illustration series “The Ancient Kaiju Project,” German artist Oliver Wetter skillfully augments classic paintings with the addition of fearsome creatures and objects from pop culture like Godzilla, a Star Wars AT-AT, and Howl’s Moving Castle. According to Wetter he is using the project as a way improve his ability at replicating classic painting styles. He has posted process images and making-of videos on his blog.

images by Oliver Wetter

via DesignTAXI, Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Don't pretend you don't like her. SHE'S GREAT.

Dunham is touring with her new essay collection Not That Kind of Girl, and she'll be at the Newmark in October in conversation with Carrie Brownstein. Unfortunately for everyone, tickets are $38 PLUS a whopping $10.50 in "service fees" (what the actual fuck?), thus pricing the target audience for this right out. Too bad. Enjoy all the girl talk, rich people!

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Grimes, McConnell set records, raise a combined $7M The Courier-Journal (blog) Alison Lundergan Grimes, secretary of state giving acceptance speach at Frankfort Civic Center. November 8, 2011 (Photo: CJ)Buy Photo. Tags. Duffy. 2 CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE. Alison Lundergan Grimes is reporting that she has ... and more »

Black Widow #11 Cover- Laura Kinney, ladies and gentlemen!

I'm not sure if they're fancy enough to be "infographics," so we'll let you decide that.

There are 750 players on a 25-man roster at any given time.There are 79 players who have been named to an All-Star roster this year. You sabermetric types might have figured out this means over 10 percent of players on a major league roster are All-Stars. That's a lot of All-Stars, yet it's still possible to complain about players who were left off. All-Star debates are the best, worst debates.

Where do these players come from? How many of them are homegrown? How much do they make? How old are they? How experienced are they? It's time to answer most of these questions before the 2014 MLB All-Star Game.

Where players come from

Their mothers, stupid. But if you're asking where they come from in a baseball context, that's a good question. Here's the breakdown of how All-Stars turned from amateurs into professionals:

The draftees take it by almost two-to-one (52:27) over the international players. You might be surprised at this, except that's almost the exact ratio of the entire big leagues. So this is totally expected. I don't know why I led with the least entertaining factlet. Pretend this never happened.

There are 22 Cuban-born players in the majors this season, and just under a quarter (five) of them were named to a roster. Canada had a representative at the Home Run Derby (Justin Morneau), but they were shut out of the All-Star Game. This was also the case with Jamaica (Justin Masterson, hurt, bad) and Germany (Edwin Jackson, bad).

Players who went to college are represented more among the players who were drafted, which is a minor upset, considering that more high school players are drafted in the first 100 picks of any given draft. Of the players who were drafted, 42 percent of them were drafted in the first round.

Round	All-Stars drafted
1	22
2	8
3	3
4	3
6	3
7	1
8	3
9	3
10	1
13	2
17	1
20	1
38	1

The freak in the 38th round is Mark Buehrle, who was drafted in the 38th round out of Jefferson College, a pick after Shaun Skrehot, who is reading this right now because he googled his name. Hi, Shaun!

Drafting and signing international players are about as important as you might have guessed, considering the majority of All-Stars are with their original organization:

The most-traveled player on a roster is Alfredo Simon, who has been with the Phillies, Giants, Rangers, Orioles, Phillies again, Rangers again, Dodgers, Orioles, and Reds. The most-traveled player without repeating an organization was Jose Bautista, who was sold by the Rays two days before he was traded for Justin Huber, which was hours before he was traded for Jeff Keppinger.

The age of All-Stars

It's not a perfect bell curve, but it's close until you get to the old freaks at the end. The ages range from Mike Trout to Derek Jeter, with the former being born when the latter was doing this:

Derek Jeter had just the classiest way of explaining how to use DOS, you should have seen it. Also of note: Mike Trout is still the youngest All-Star, even though this is his third appearance.

Here's how many appearances each All-Star has made:

The top 10:

Player	Number of All-Star games
Derek Jeter	14
Miguel Cabrera	9
Robinson Cano	6
Chase Utley	6
Yadier Molina	6
Jose Bautista	5
Francisco Rodriguez	5
Mark Buehrle	5
Victor Martinez	5
Adam Jones	5
Felix Hernandez	5

And if you're looking for the most common All-Star season, the answer is "fourth", with four-year veterans having a plurality in Minnesota this year:

Derek Jeter is the outlier again, with a pair of third basemen (Adrian Beltre and Aramis Ramirez) runners up.

How much All-Stars are paid

A lot more after they make the team, generally.

The most expensive player on either All-Star roster? Zack Greinke, who is making $26 million this year (and can opt out after next year, too!) My favorite factlet of the bunch is that Greinke is making more this season than the following 23 All-Stars combined:

• Dellin Betances
• Sean Doolittle
• Tony Watson
• Pat Neshek
• Julio Teheran
• Tyson Ross
• Kyle Seager
• Dee Gordon
• Devin Mesoraco
• Josh Harrison
• Josh Donaldson
• Charlie Blackmon
• Todd Frazier
• Matt Carpenter
• Mike Trout
• Paul Goldschmidt
• Anthony Rizzo
• Jose Altuve
• Michael Brantley
• Salvador Perez
• Jonathan Lucroy
• Kurt Suzuki
• Francisco Rodriguez

Drinks are on Zack! Drinks are on Zack. Also, if it's okay with you, Zack isn't actually going to drink. He's just going to stare at you as he sits in the corner.

This is probably a good place to remind everyone that Miguel Cabrera will make $32 million in 2023. The full list of All-Star salary distribution:

Salary (in millions)	Number of players
0.5	11
.5 – 1	2
1 – 1.9	9
2 – 2.9	3
3 – 3.9	4
4 – 4.9	4
5 – 5.9	6
6 – 6.9	1
7 – 7.9	8
8 – 8.9	2
9 – 9.9	2
10 – 10.9	5
11 – 11.9	1
12 – 12.9	2
13 – 13.9	2
14 – 14.9	2
15 – 15.9	3
16 – 16.9	4
17 – 17.9	1
18 – 18.9	1
19 – 19.9	1
20 – 20.9	0
21 – 21.9	0
22 – 22.9	3
23 – 23.9	0
24 – 24.9	1
25 – 25.9	0
26 – 26.9	1

There you have it. A little data mining, some gussied-up charts (courtesy of Justin Bopp), and hopefully a few interesting tidbits. Enjoy the All-Star Game! Try, at least.

Before we finish, though, let's find the most average All-Star of them all. If the average All-Star is underpaid, 28 years old, in his fourth season, from the United States, and still with the organization that drafted him out of college in the first round, then the most average All-Star in the game is ...

Todd Frazier. Shown here with Derek Jeter because time is a flat circle.

This means something.

This unceremonious end to a perfect beach day is brought to you by hail.

Beach-goers in Novosibirsk, Russia, were surprised when their picture-perfect sunny day was ruined by a quick-moving thunderstorm and hailstorm. As the ominous clouds moved over the area on Saturday, the temperature plummeted from 105 degrees Fahrenheit to 71 degrees Fahrenheit, with the skies opening up in a barrage of ice. Beach patrons ran for cover as the hail, which has been described as golf ball-sized, rained down.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), hail causes more than $1 billion in damage to crops and property every year in the United States. It's created when "updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere where they freeze into balls of ice," according to NOAA, and the ice can be suspended aloft by the storm's powerful updrafts until it gets so large that it falls to the ground Read more...

More about Video, Viral Videos, Weather, Russia, and Us World

Author Piper Kerman, the “real Piper” (and good friend of Laughing Squid), whose 2011 book Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison was adapted into the extremely popular Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, speaks with Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein about the very real problems that currently exist within the American prison system and how the Smarter Sentencing Act can create fairer prison minimums for non-violent offenders.

We’ve seen more movement on the conditions of confinement, seen a lot more interest and comprehension of things like solitary confinement and the the fact that we have shockingly high numbers people in solitary confinement, sometimes for independently long periods of time. But the name of the game is putting fewer people in prison jail in the first place and that requires legislative change. So the Smarter Sentencing Act is alive and moving in congress right now. here are both House and Senate bills. They have good Republican sponsors right now and that is very encouraging. So it would reform mandatory minimum drug sentencing. It would not repeal mandatory minimums, it would simply bring them a little bit more in line with what common sense dictates around nonviolent drug offenses

In a separate piece, the “real” Larry Smith (also good friend of Laughing Squid) chimes in with an amazing post entitled, “My Life with Piper: From Big House to Small Screen” in which he talks about the similarities and differences between him and the onscreen Larry.

In the spring of 2013, I am watching an advance screener of the soon-to-be-released Netflix show Orange Is the New Black, and a guy named Larry, who looks more like me than not, proposes to a blue-eyed blonde named Piper, looking like the younger cousin of my wife. They’re on a beach, as we were when I proposed, and he removes a ring from a sealed plastic bag, as I did. Larry Bloom, in one of his best lines, explains: “I gotta lock this shit down before you leave, Pipes.” I’m pretty sure it’s something I said, too, and even if I didn’t, it’s the scene at which my friends dropped their vocal opposition to Jason Biggs. For the record, though, I have never called her “Pipes.”

photo by Ryan Pfluger

One of the most upsetting first world problems we struggle with here has been the dramatic rise in iced coffee prices. Counting up your caffeine-related receipts can be more depressing than counting up your booze-related ones.

Cards Against Humanity—which literally bills itself as being “for horrible people”—has always been a very complicated game for those who invested in social politics and feminism. Sure, making jokes about wanting to bang genetically engineered super soldiers is always a good time, but the game also has a history of cards with rape jokes and transphobic material on them, which is categorically not. Due to the actions of one of the game’s creators, defending it is about to get a lot more complicated.

On Friday, CAH creator Max Temkin wrote a long post on his Tumblr announcing that a fellow Goucher College alumnus with whom he’d “had a really brief relationship” publicly accused him of rape in a personal Facebook post. In his rebuttal, he calls these allegations “baseless gossip” (which, it should be pointed out, is a term with a very gender-biased history) and shifts the blames on rape culture at large rather than any actions he might have taken during the relationship:

Part of rape culture that hurts everyone is that it makes it difficult to talk about what is and is not consent, and makes it incredibly scary for people to speak up when their boundaries are crossed. It is entirely possible she read something completely different than I did into an awkward college hookup. If any part of that was traumatic for her, I am sincerely sorry, and I wish we would have had a chance to address it privately. I’ve sent her an email and a Facebook message and given her my contact information, but so far I haven’t heard back (but she did edit her post to remove my name).

He also makes it a point to remind readers of his efforts to remove those aforementioned rape jokes from future decks, to outline and then subsequently deny he will be using legal options (which many have taken to be an indirect threat against his accuser), and to maintain that he will “continue to be a feminist and an advocate for women’s rights.”

The blog post spread across the Internet and Temkin received both an outpouring of support, mostly from male gamers, as well as a large amount of criticism—most notably from Kelly Kend at Medium, romance novelist Lilith T. Bell, and “Liberate Zealot” of Feminist Armchair Regime, the latter of whom also attended Goucher and suggests that students on campus were aware of this story in 2006.

Magz, the woman behind the original Facebook post, has since created her own blog post (entitled “Humanity Against Sexual Assault”), which reiterates the initial allegation and describes her decision to come forward. She writes:

I am not interested in pressing charges. I don’t think my attacker is a serial predator. I see my assault as an almost textbook example of a “crime of opportunity.” I have no interest in personal compensation, monetary or otherwise. I have no interest in his company or in stifling his intellectual or personal life. If I did, I would use my full name. I frankly have an infinite number of better, more positive things on which to focus my life and attentions.

What I have learned from all of this is that, for all of my fears of rejection, dismissal, and ridicule I have only received expressions of love, respect, and support. All of this anger and energy would be better focused on ensuring that every survivor should be able to speak out about their experiences secure in the knowledge that they are not alone, that they too are entitled to their own voice and their own life.

She also adds at the end that the statement was sent to Temkin in response to the e-mail he mentioned in his own post, but that she received no reply.

Because none of us were in that dorm room eight years ago, we aren’t ever going to know without a shadow of a doubt what truly happened between Magz and Temkin.  However, it’s very important both to note that Magz has little to gain from making a false allegation—in no small part because Temkin’s celebrity in the gaming world could and no doubt has inspired fans to automatically take his side against hers—and to note that speaking eloquently about the perils of rape culture does not under any circumstances absolve a person of being a rapist. As Lilith Bell notes in her dissection of Temkin’s story,

Max Temkin is very good at using social justice language. He’s very good at making himself seem sympathetic and reasonable. Rapists are perfectly capable of doing all of those things. They aren’t non-human monsters that leap out of closets, with no awareness of society or communication skills. They’re people, like any one of us. They can be intelligent. They can be involved in social justice. They can create awesome games. They can come across as reasonable, kind people. They can, in fact, be reasonable and kind people in every way except for that pesky raping thing.

Is Max Temkin a rapist? I don’t know. I do know that he’s written a manipulative post, though. I know that he’s spreading harmful rape culture myths under the cloak of being a “feminist and an advocate for women’s rights.” I know that he’s using intimidation tactics against someone who, because of his platform and wealth and gender, has far less power than he does.

At the very least, Temkin manages to be right about something: rape culture is a terrible blight that makes talking about sexual assault incredibly difficult. Magz came forward because she’d been inspired by women openly describing their own painful experiences during the #YesAllWomen hashtag campaign, and she now speaks out as a way to own her story and support others who’ve suffered similarly. Regardless of how much you might enjoy Cards Against Humanity, this growing refusal on the part of survivors of all genders to keep silent about their own rapes and assaults is necessary and important, and will hopefully pave the way for positive and lasting changes in the way our society views sex and consent.

(via Jezebel, image via Jill Pantozzi)

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, & Google +?

I am a human being who will drop everything on my to do list if you propose watching 1995′s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. I’ll drop it like the title drops its ‘g.’ And I think we should all drop everything to watch a movie that opens with a skydiving stunt, contains a subplot where all the kids in Angel Grove get trapped on a runaway monorail, and defeats the Big Bad with a crotch shot from a giant robot, all with absolutely no sense of irony. I’m not expecting much from its reboot, and I’m probably expecting a little less now that Roberto Orci has been tapped to provide the story.

According to the Hollywood Repoter, Orci is on board the Power Rangers train to executive produce and craft the story of the film. Lets just say that I never really thought the Transformers movies held together and I felt pretty badly burned by Star Trek Into Darkness, so I’m not particularly excited to see him revamp a classic television series that I was actually old enough to become attached to when it originally aired (the less said the better about Cowboys & Aliens). There’s a ray of hope here, however, as Orci won’t be writing the screenplay: those duties will go to Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, veterans of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and X-Men: First Class.

Really, there’s not a lot that I’m expecting from a Power Rangers movie reboot. Ideally, it’ll tickle my nostalgia but ultimately be aimed at today’s elementary schoolers, and importantly keep the roster of gender and racial diversity of the original series. Frankly, it’s high time the racially diverse action team with at least two female characters so prevalent in the late 80s and early 90s made a comeback in kids entertainment.

(The Hollywood Reporter via Escapist Magazine)

Previously in Power Rangers

• We’re Getting a Power Rangers Movie Reboot From Lionsgate Whether Anyone Wants That or Not
• How Pacific Rim Should Have Ended, Now With Bonus Voltrons [Video]
• Happy Birthday! It’s The Avengers, If They Were the Power Rangers [Video]

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, & Google +?

MINNEAPOLIS—As the best players in baseball prepare to go head-to-head at Target Field, millions of fans across the nation expressed their excitement for Tuesday evening’s MLB All-Star Game, theoretically speaking.

submitted by pietvanzoen [link] [7 comments]

seekingwillow:

ikasper00:

Jewish people in New York protesting for Palestine’s freedom.

Gaza Under Attack

____

Gentle reminder to my brain indeed that Jewish != Zionist.