firehose

mishalak:

moonflowerlights:

#how long have we been holding on to this one?

I held onto this for six whole months. It was soooo hard waiting.

ponderinfrustration:

This is Doctor Dorothy Stopford Price. She was a female doctor at a time in Ireland when it was frowned upon for a woman to be involved in the professions. She witnessed the 1916 Rising, two world wars, Spanish Flu and the fight for Irish independence first-hand. She was treated the IRA/IRB members engaged in the war of independence.

But that’s all beside the point. Her greatest contribution to Ireland was her fight to introduce the BCG vaccine, and she was was a forerunner in the introduction of tuberculin testing to this country. This was the 1930s and 1940s, a time when tuberculosis was still an epidemic in this country and especially in the cities where there was massive levels of poverty. As a Protestant, her attempts to introduce these things were met with opposition from the Catholic church, but in the end she proved successful. (Noel Brown’s Mother and Child Scheme was not so successful.)

Yet, in spite of being so heavily involved in the attempts to eradicate human tb, Doctor Dorothy Stopford Price has been forgotten. We don’t learn about her in school, instead being taught what a failure the aforementioned Mother and Child Scheme was. Let’s focus on the positives for once! Human tuberculosis in Ireland is at an all-time low, and it there were only six cases of bovine tuberculosis diagnosed in humans in this country in 2013. (Source) TB in all of its forms has gone from an epidemic to something almost negligible. And quite a lot of that is thanks to vaccination and this woman.

 Doctor Dorothy Stopford Price, everyone. 

(Photo credit)

This week, Michael Bay’s latest incarnation of Transformers, Age of Extinction, is on pace to become the top grossing film in China ever. By midweek, the action flick is expected to surpass the $218 million that Avatar, the current all-time favorite, made in China after its 2010 release. Over the past weekend, Age of Extinction—widely panned by reviewers as the worst of the four movies of the Transformers franchise—passed China’s no. 2 film, the unexpectedly popular low-budget comedy Lost in Thailand.

How Bay and Paramount pulled this off is an important lesson for other Hollywood studios. Cinema attendance in the United States is falling—this July 4th holiday in the US was one of the worst weekends in decades for box office sales—but China’s film industry is entering a golden age, especially when it comes to action films. It is currently world’s largest box office territory outside of North America:

Age of Extinction’s formula for success has come down to timing and no small amount of flattery. Unlike US blockbusters like Frozen and Despicable Me 2, which were released in China months after their US debuts and made less than a third of their domestic sales, Age of Extinction hit mainland theaters on the same day as in the US. Crucially, that cut down on time for pirated copies to circulate the country.

A co-production between Paramount and Chinese studios, the film includes Chinese actors and Chinese product placements, from Lenovo computers to Yili milk and some of China’s largest banks. The placements weren’t always subtle: “Why would a middle-aged man in the middle of the desert in Texas take out a China Construction Bank card to withdraw money from the ATM?” one Weibo user asked.

Tap to expand image

Optimus Prime visits Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor.Reuters/Tyrone Siu

Beyond that, Age of Extinction portrays the Chinese government exactly as Beijing would like. When the plot turns to Hong Kong, a city that in real life is chafing under China’s control, authorities seek help from Beijing when fighting among the giant robots ravages the city. (“We need to call the central government for help now!” one policeman says.)

It’s not just flattering the Chinese central government that seems to have worked, but contrasting Beijing with morally bankrupt US officials. David Cohen of Variety points out that the film shows “Chinese people turning to the central government in a crisis and the authorities responding with firm benevolence. In contrast, craven American authorities hold a gun to the hero’s daughter’s head to make him reveal information.” Perhaps more to the point, the film features Zou Shiming, China’s first Olympic gold medalist for boxing, beating up a corrupt CIA agent.

Your home Ethernet cable doesn't deal with any of this ish—pictured here, a sea star and a squat lobster—behind some desk.

NEPTUNE Canada

The Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is by far one of the Earth's smallest. It spans just a few hundred kilometers of the Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia coast. But what the Juan de Fuca lacks in size it makes up for in connectivity. It's home to a unique, high-speed optical cabling that has snaked its way across the depths of the Pacific seafloor plate since late 2009.

This link is called NEPTUNE—the North-East Pacific Time-Series Underwater Networked Experiment—and, at more than 800 kilometers (about 500 miles), it's about the same length as 40,000 subway cars connected in a single, long train.

A team of scientists, researchers, and engineers from the not-for-profit group Oceans Network Canada maintains the network, which cost CAD $111 million to install and $17 million each year to maintain. But know that this isn’t your typical undersea cable. For one, NEPTUNE doesn’t traverse the ocean’s expanse, but instead loops back to its starting point at shore. And though NEPTUNE is designed to facilitate the flow of information through the ocean, it also collects information about the ocean, ocean life, and the ocean floor.

Read 52 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Jacob Binck, Death attacking a soldier, 1520-61

moniquill:

jhameia:

hellotailor:

typhonatemybaby:

supercargautier:

foxfamilyfeatures:

Okay 

I think this prank is predicated on the idea that a tampon is some weird gross useless item that no one could POSSIBLY find a use for?

like, it’s the kind of prank that only a 4channer could come up with because you have to literally forget that non-cartoon vaginas exist and half of all people have them

these guys do realise that these are tampons that have not been used right? you are literally just posting minor domestic healthcare supplies to a blogging sites support staff.

Presumably everyone at Tumblr with a womb will be like, “hey, score!”

they’re sending free tampons to Tumblr staff? that’s nice of them!

…and if they find that they get way too many they can donate them to shelters, because sanitary products are some of the most needed and least donated products…

john-wann:

SO DID THEY HAVE HAIR OR NOT

joshunf:

if a charmander running in circles chasing its tail doesnt fit your blog then you are running the wrong kind of blog

clara-the-slytherin-graduate:

I find it really interesting that the historical men like Vincent Van Gogh, Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon portrayed in Moffat Who are always three dimensional and treated respectfully, while the historical women like Elizabeth the First and Nefertiti, are always love sick idiots drooling over the Doctor.

It almost seems like Moffat cannot take women seriously, even if they ruled nations.

Doctor Who Season 7 spoilers

brandomarlons:

I don’t think that people generally realise what motion picture industry has done to the American Indian, as a matter of fact, all ethnic groups, all minorities, all non-whites. And people just simply don’t realise, just take it for granted that that’s the way people are going to be presented and these clichés are just, I mean on this network every night, well perhaps not every night, but you can see silly renditions of human behaviour, the leering Filipino houseboy, the wily Japanese, the kook or the gook, black man, stupid Indian. It just goes on and on and on. And people actually don’t realise how deeply people are injured by seeing themselves represented, not so much the adults, who are already inured to that kind of pain and pressure, but children. Indian children seeing Indians represented as savage, as ugly, as nasty, vicious, treacherous, drunken. They grow up only with a negative image of themselves and it lasts a lifetime. 

Marlon Brando on why Sacheen Littlefeather presented a speech on his behalf during his Best Actor win for The Godfather at the 1973 Academy Awards

camharr:

Hi.

Earlier this year, I founded a special interest group for editing with the International Game Developers Association. I wanted to help create a place where all of us editor types—professional, amateur, and aspiring—could come together to talk shop, share advice, and just discuss this thing we do.

The SIG rollout has been slow because I’m the only admin right now (and I’ve been a little busy), but we finally have an official site and social media. If you’re interested in joining, please do! (Note: Joining the IGDA group requires IGDA membership.)

• IGDA group
• Google Group
• Facebook
• Twitter

I hope to get things rolling in the next month or two, my schedule and interested associates permitting: elections, discussions, maybe a blog or Tumblr. In the meantime, feel free to hop in.

Thanks!

thecutestofthecute:

Australian Cattle Dog/Blue Heeler Appreciation Post

As part of the increased scrutiny at certain airports, security agents may ask travelers to turn on their electronic devices at checkpoints and if they do not have power, the devices will not be allowed on planes, the TSA said.

A U.S. source familiar with the matter said laptop computers are among the devices security screeners may require passengers to turn on.

U.S. officials are concerned that a cellphone, tablet, laptop or other electronic device could be used as a bomb.

nocturnecity:

geoffrox:

Aliens (1986) 

god yes

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

i-bang-bosendorfers:

into battle

University of Loughborough

If you've ever had to wear a splint on any part of your body, you'll know that not only are they uncomfortable, but they can be chunky and ugly too. That may not be the case for much longer.

A researcher from the University of Loughborough has developed a new computer software concept that will allow doctors to customize and 3D print breathable, stylish, slimline splints even if they have no experience using computer aided design software (CAD). The aim of the software is to allow those with no real knowledge of design to create wrist splints for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.

"I wanted to give clinicians the ability to make splints they have not been able to make before," said Abby Paterson, the PhD student who created the software. "They can improve the aesthetics, the fit, and integrate extra bits of functionality they couldn't do before."

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Google's Sundar Pichai demonstrates a phone call on your Android phone popping up on your Chromebook.

Google

I attended both Apple's and Google's developer conference keynotes last month, and I experienced strong deja vu on more than one occasion. Both companies talked about design and consistency. Both companies talked about improving back-end services. And both companies talked about new initiatives to make stuff on your phone appear seamlessly on your tablet or laptop.

"Users almost always have a smartphone with them, including when they are using a Chromebook," said Google's Sundar Pichai. "So we want to increasingly connect those experiences together, so they have a seamless experience across their devices."

At or around the time the Android L release comes out this fall, this means your phone and your Chromebook are going to be able to share even more stuff than they already do. If you have your phone with you, it can unlock your Chromebook (and if you have your smartwatch with you, it can unlock your phone). If you get a call or a text or your battery is running low, you'll be told about it on your Chromebook. Some Android apps are even going to be able to run in Chrome OS, though Google didn't talk much about the technical details.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

ohmarjorie:

Shirokuma’s Recipe #1!
This took much longer than I thought it would to clean up and re-text. I took a bit of liberty with a couple of the translations and am fairly happy with how it turned out, but I would also love to get feedback on both my translation and my scan, as this is my first time doing anything like this. 

evandahm:

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS COMMISSIONS!

I want to draw your character from D&D, or any similar pen-and-paper RPG. I’ll do around 20 of these, and maybe more in the future if it goes well! They’ll be full-body drawings with no backgrounds, as shown in the above illustration of DURGK, the last of the Frog Men.

If you would like one, email me (riceboyart AT gmail !) with whatever description you’d like to give me to work with. Some good things you might want to include are:

• Character’s name and/or title!
• Race/species, class, similar categorical details!
• Attitude/demeanor, and maybe any relevant biographical stuff!
• Important weapons or accoutrements!
• Familiar or animal companion or anything like that? Within reason?
• Central motifs, colors, etc!

My emphasis will be on CLARITY and COHESIVENESS of design & character. If there are tons of fiddly details to include, some might be omitted for this goal. Feel free to emphasize whichever details you feel are central to the character!

Payment will be after the character description is accepted and I start drawing! Prices are firmly 50 USD for a full-color image, with a print-resolution version emailed to you, and an extra 10 USD (15 - 20 USD international) to have the original ink drawing sent to you (probably under 8 by 12 inches).

This is not strictly first-come, first-served; I’ll draw the characters that will be the most fun to draw and I’ll make a new post when all the slots are filled.

I AM EXCITED ABOUT THIS

daaaaaaaang