unclefather:

A bee can become drunk from fermented nectar and other bees will punish it by chewing off its legs.

"Hey, Pete is drunk again lets chew his legs off"

jimmyoffthehook:

this boy is dead 100%

currentsinbiology:

These Bacteria Are Wired to Hunt Like a Tiny Wolf Pack

There is an elaborate stealth communication network in the Earth beneath your feet. This smart web acts like a superorganism, fortifying defensive capabilities and coordinating deadly attacks on unsuspecting targets. But it’s not run by the NSA, the CIA, or the military. This web is made of bacteria.

A team of scientists led by Manfred Auer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have used cutting-edge 3-D microscopy to identify a new mechanism for bacterial networking. They observed elaborate webs of a common soil bacterium, Myxococcus xanthus, connected by thread-like membranes. This system of cellular pipelines suggests that some bacteria have evolved complex ways to deliver molecular cargo out of sight from snooping neighbors. Their work appears in the journal Environmental Microbiology.

Myxococcus xanthus biofilm devouring a colony of Escherichia coli. Credit: James Berlemanc

'Ghost in the Shell' Movie Wants Scarlett Johansson for the Lead:

bewareofmpreg:

DreamWorks has made Scarlett Johansson an offer to star in ‘Ghost in the Shell’, after talks with Margot Robbie fell through.

……………………

………….. motoko? :/

In a moment of vanity I commissioned a portrait from David Alegre. I love how much detail got put into it and also that I look a bit like I’m out of Aeon Flux. Original here, (cc) Stephen.

As much as I like the way I look, I kind of wish I had a more original, consistent, less-vain subject/theme to commission from all my favorite artists. Then instead of excellent impulse decisions, I could organizedly populate my wallspace with amazing art. Family seems too sentimental. Nature too broad. I gotta think about this.

Jimmy John's Makes Low-Wage Workers Sign Noncompete Agreements:

Sandwich chain Jimmy John’s makes hourly workers sign noncompete agreements. 

The agreement says that workers can’t work for competitors including Subway or Potbelly for two years, reports Dave Jamieson at The Huffington Post. 

Any business near a Jimmy John’s location that derives more than 10% of its revenue from sandwiches is considered a competitor. 

While noncompete agreements are common for executives and managers, Jimmy John’s makes low-level employees like delivery drivers and sandwich makers sign them, Jamieson writes. 

daaaaaaang what. surely this won’t hold in all states.

mapsontheweb:

Counties with less than 25 minorities.

It does not mean less than 25%, it means less than 25.

i lived in a county adjacent to three of these counties!

new-aesthetic:

New Norwegian currency design by The Metric System (front side) and Snøhetta (back side).

Slik blir de nye sedlene fra Norges Bank - Næringsliv - E24 [English translation]

Design Concept from Norges Bank [PDF]

New court documents released this week by the U.S. government in its case against the alleged ringleader of the Silk Road online black market and drug bazaar suggest that the feds may have some ‘splaining to do.

Prior to its disconnection last year, the Silk Road was reachable only via Tor, software that protects users’ anonymity by bouncing their traffic between different servers and encrypting the traffic at every step of the way. Tor also lets anyone run a Web server without revealing the server’s true Internet address to the site’s users, and this was the very technology that the Silk road used to obscure its location.

Last month, the U.S. government released court records claiming that FBI investigators were able to divine the location of the hidden Silk Road servers because the community’s login page employed an anti-abuse CAPTCHA service that pulled content from the open Internet — thus leaking the site’s true Internet address.

But lawyers for alleged Silk Road captain Ross W. Ulbricht (a.k.a. the “Dread Pirate Roberts”) asked the court to compel prosecutors to prove their version of events.  And indeed, discovery documents reluctantly released by the government this week appear to poke serious holes in the FBI’s story.

For starters, the defense asked the government for the name of the software that FBI agents used to record evidence of the CAPTCHA traffic that allegedly leaked from the Silk Road servers. The government essentially responded (PDF) that it could not comply with that request because the FBI maintained no records of its own access, meaning that the only record of their activity is in the logs of the seized Silk Road servers.

The response that holds perhaps the most potential to damage the government’s claim comes in the form of a configuration file (PDF) taken from the seized servers. Nicholas Weaver,a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and at the University of California, Berkeley, explains the potential significance:

“The IP address listed in that file — 62.75.246.20 — was the front-end server for the Silk Road,” Weaver said. “Apparently, Ulbricht had this split architecture, where the initial communication through Tor went to the front-end server, which in turn just did a normal fetch to the back-end server. It’s not clear why he set it up this way, but the document the government released in 70-6.pdf shows the rules for serving the Silk Road Web pages, and those rules are that all content – including the login CAPTCHA – gets served to the front end server but to nobody else. This suggests that the Web service specifically refuses all connections except from the local host and the front-end Web server.”

Translation: Those rules mean that the Silk Road server would deny any request from the Internet that wasn’t coming from the front-end server, and that includes the CAPTCHA.

“This configuration file was last modified on June 6, so on June 11 — when the FBI said they [saw this leaky CAPTCHA] activity — the FBI could not have seen the CAPTCHA by connecting to the server while not using Tor,” Weaver said. “You simply would not have been able to get the CAPTCHA that way, because the server would refuse all requests.”

The FBI claims that it found the Silk Road server by examining plain text Internet traffic to and from the Silk Road CAPTCHA, and that it visited the address using a regular browser and received the CAPTCHA page. But Weaver says the traffic logs from the Silk Road server (PDF) that also were released by the government this week tell a different story.

“The server logs which the FBI provides as evidence show that, no, what happened is the FBI didn’t see a leakage coming from that IP,” he said. “What happened is they contacted that IP directly and got a PHPMyAdmin configuration page.” See this PDF file for a look at that PHPMyAdmin page. Here is the PHPMyAdmin server configuration.

But this is hardly a satisfying answer to how the FBI investigators located the Silk Road servers. After all, if the FBI investigators contacted the PHPMyAdmin page directly, how did they know to do that in the first place?

“That’s still the $64,000 question,” Weaver said. “So both the CAPTCHA couldn’t leak in that configuration, and the IP the government visited wasn’t providing the CAPTCHA, but instead a PHPMyAdmin interface. Thus, the leaky CAPTCHA story is full of holes.”

Many in the Internet community have officially called baloney [that's a technical term] on the government’s claims, and these latest apparently contradictory revelations from the government are likely to fuel speculation that the government is trying to explain away some not-so-by-the-book investigative methods.

“I find it surprising that when given the chance to provide a cogent, on-the record explanation for how they discovered the server, they instead produced a statement that has been shown inconsistent with reality, and that they knew would be inconsistent with reality,” Weaver said. “”Let me tell you, those tin foil hats are looking more and more fashionable each day.”

whoever said corvids are neat was right

nyannerz:

bring card crusher back

ALERT - ALERT

I KNOW TOM KLUDT

(END ALERTS)

Due to some questionable impulses what seems like forever ago, this was dinner tonight.

(I kinda liked it, surprisingly)

I don’t mention it very often, but I am asexual and aromantic. The main reason it doesn’t come up in conversation is that I don’t think about it very much. Just like the other things I don’t do (hockey, quilting, billiards, bra shopping, squash, meditation, etc.), I rarely talk about sex or romance. When people ask me about asexuality, I explain what it means and answer a few questions. People are usually somewhat interested for a while, then we all talk about something else.

However, I haven’t been completely upfront about it. I’ve always told my family that I’m not going to get married and have kids, but I think they just assumed it was a phase. Instead of discussing it at length, I’ve mostly shrugged and moved on. Now that the phase has entered its 25th year, I’ve decided to provide some more details.

I recently answered some questions about my orientation for a freelance reporter, who incorporated three different perspectives (including mine) into one article (on Vice) to provide a general overview of aromanticism. Of course, my personal experience doesn’t perfectly match up with anyone else’s, so I decided to post my complete answers to the original interview questions in order to provide a better explanation.

###

(Personal Background)
I never dated anyone when I was a teenager, but I always just assumed I didn’t pursue romantic relationships because I never really “clicked” with anyone. After a while, I decided that I wasn’t missing out on anything by staying single, and I was probably about 21 when I finally acknowledged that I had no interest in romance at all.

(Definition)
Aromanticism is the absence of romantic attraction to other people. As an aromantic person, I’m not interested in romantic relationships because I don’t derive any pleasure from intimacy. I understand why other people are romantically attracted to one another and I can appreciate what makes people attractive, but don’t experience that attraction myself. If you think of romance as a personal interest like golfing or bondage, you’ll understand that some people just aren’t interested.

(Societal Pressure)
I think there is a tremendous amount of pressure for people to get married, particularly women. The expectation that women should avoid becoming “old maids” has definitely lessened, but there’s still a vague implication that women who don’t get married have failed somehow. I think the best way to change those expectations is being more realistic about marriage and parenting. It’s important to remember that spouses and parents aren’t always happy, and not all single people want to marry and have kids. I don’t think anyone should feel bad about being single.

(Past Relationships)
I’ve never been in a romantic relationship, but I’ve gone on a couple of casual first dates with women. Nothing ever went beyond dinner and a movie, and I didn’t experience any romantic feelings. I can’t speak for the women, though. Maybe I’ve broken some hearts.

(Asexuality)
I’m asexual, which means I have no desire to have sex. I know there are people who are aromantic and have sex drives, but I’m not sure how they live. I imagine some maintain long-term relationships and some just have casual sex once in a while. I mostly just stay in my apartment and read.

(Other People’s Reactions)
No one has ever had a very strong reaction when I’ve told them, but there are a few customary responses. Disbelief is the most common reaction. Because people often don’t believe that someone could be aromantic, they assume there is something wrong with me, like I’ve been hurt or I’m afraid to pursue a relationship. Occasionally, people feel sorry for me. Romance is a wonderful part of their lives and they think my life would be better if I were like them. Very rarely, people are jealous. I guess they feel like romance is holding them back from doing something else they want to do. I think the best reaction is when people try and understand aromanticism from my point of view. There’s really no reason to be jealous or sympathetic.

(“Friendship Monogamy”)
I like having a circle of close friends for social interaction and support, but I don’t want an extremely close relationship with one person. Lots of asexuals and aromantics have relationships, though. One major concern with close relationships is reciprocity. Whenever just one partner is asexual or aromantic, there is going to be some conflict about sex and intimacy. One partner might just want a platonic relationship, or maybe they just want to have sex with no strings attached. There are conflicts in any relationship, but I think they can be more acute in those situations. Of course, I’m not speaking from personal experience.

(Nature vs. Nurture)
I think aromanticism is innate, but individuals choose whether or not they pursue intimate relationships. There are people who are aromantic and still get married, just like there are romantic people who never wind up in a relationship. I suspect everyone knows someone single who wants to get married and a married person who desperately wants to be single.

(Other Thoughts)
From the outside looking in, I’ve found that the positive aspects of romantic relationships are usually overhyped and the negative aspects are usually overlooked. Although there are plenty of drawbacks to being single, there are a lot of benefits, too. I think it’s much better to be single than to be in a relationship with the wrong person. Somewhat paradoxically, I’ve noticed that the people who are most comfortable being single tend to attract the most romantic interest, especially from other confident, attractive people.

I also don’t think people should define themselves as half of something. Aspire to be more than just a romantic partner, and have your own interests even if your partner doesn’t share them. You should be your own person, because you will always have yourself, no matter what. It can even be comfortable to be alone.

Relationships seem like they will last forever, but many of them don’t. Even if you’re lucky enough to find a partner for life, one of you will outlive the other, which means half of all married people will be single again someday. It might be bleak, but it’s true. It’s important for people not to be afraid of being single, as long as they have friends and family to rely on.

The president exercises his authority to expand an existing marine reserve, making it the largest in the world.

feathered-friends:

Colorful vulture by Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr.

leslieknope:

shoutout to the best onion article of all time

that streepness

hadeiadel:

First day at school, Gaza, Palestine.

vahc:

ANGER RELEASE MACHINE (2008) by yarisal & kublitz

Insert a coin. Your selected piece of china will fall to the bottom of the vending machine. It will shatter. You will feel better.

“In the name of God the Beneficent, the Merciful, there is no other God than God, he has neither son nor associate to his rule. On behalf of the French Republic founded on the basis of liberty and equality, the General Bonaparte, head of the French Army, proclaims to the people of Egypt that for too long the Beys who rule Egypt insult the French nation and heap abuse on its merchants; the hour of their chastisement has come. For too long, this rabble of slaves brought up in the Caucasus and in Georgia tyrannizes the finest region of the world; but God, Lord of the worlds, all-powerful, has proclaimed an end to their empire. Egyptians, some will say that I have come to destroy your religion; this is a lie, do not believe it! Tell them that I have come to restore your rights and to punish the usurpers; that I respect, more than do the Mamluks, God, his prophet Muhammad and the glorious Qur’an… we are true Muslims. Are we not the one who has destroyed the Pope who preached war against Muslims? Did we not destroy the Knights of Malta, because these fanatics believed that God wanted them to make war against the Muslims?”

- General Napoleon Bonaparte’s address to the Egyptian population portraying the general as a faithful Muslim, quoted by Henri Laurens in Les Origines intellectuelles de l’expédition d’Égypte. L’orientalisme islamisant en France (1698-1798), 1987 (via history-jacker)

Spain has bullfighting, Americas has cockfighting, over here in China we have equally if not more heavily invested cricket fighting. The age old sport has been celebrated in China for over a thousand years, punctuated only by the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). Today it is still widely played throughout the country. In fact, cricket fighting has become one of the pillar industries in Ningyang, Shandong Province, generating over 10 million RMB transaction revenue annually. From catching, selling to training and fighting, cricket fighting is a full bloomed gaming business filled with emotional and financial thrills.

Among Ningyang crickets, the ones from Sidian Town are renowned for high winning rate and thus favored even by the Emperor. According to China Cricket Association, Sidian Town boosts calcareous brown soil with the right PH value for growing grain crops, making it the biggest cricket market in North China. In Sidian Town, almost every household is involved in the cricket business ranging from cricket catching, selling to opening hotels for cricket buyers from all over the country.

August announces the high season for cricket transaction. Farmers in Sidian Town are ready to act – more than 80% of them participate in catching cricket. 51 years old Li Xiangui has been catching crickets for over 20 years. If he is diligent enough, he can pocket more than 10,000 RMB (about 1600 USD) just in August. The most skillful household can make up to 100,000 RMB.

The responsibility is well distributed – men catch cricket at night, women sell them during the day. In this cricket market of Sidian Town, mid-aged women dominate the seller stands.

Buyers can come from all corners of the country, but people from Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province seem to be more passionate with the bug. Take Hangzhou City as an example, when Ningyang cricket arrive at Hangzhou market, the price can be double or more.

Children here are also enthusiastic about cricket fighting. The boy is describing to his friend how sharp his cricket’s teeth are.

If you think cricket fighting is just for farmers and retires, think again. According to Hangzhou Cricket Association, 3 of its 270 members are presidents of listed companies, and more than 10 are millionaires. As you can see from the photo, luxury cars are not uncommon in the cricket market.

In the cricket market, buyers come here and rent a stand to receive farmers with crickets to sell. In the morning, it is usually seller market, buyers approach farmers as soon as he step in the market; but in the afternoon, the tide changes to buyer market.

Cricket buying is also a technical job where professional equipments apply. For instance, the electronic scale is to detail the weight of each purchase, since crickets can only fight opponents in the same weight range.

Depending on its size and quality, a cricket’s price can vary from a few yuan to couple of thousands. Rumor has it that Sidian Town once sold a cricket for 300,000 RMB (about 4800 USD). The one in the photo was sold for 360 RMB (about 58 USD)

32-year-old Di Shuge has been in the business for 15 years. Starting from catching to today’s collecting and selling, he is a beloved frequent of Sidian Cricket Market. Many farmers present him their best catch. Di Shuge runs a farming workshop in his hometown Dezhou City, during cricket season he would come to Sidian Town to buy cricket and sell them back to Dezhou. Each year he can expect to make 30,000-50,000 RMB broking crickets.

Back to his hotel, Di Shuge immediately open the box to check on his recent conquer. He says if he didn’t come to the town for crickets, he couldn’t have slept nor eaten with ease. “Feels like something’s missing” Says the cricket broker.

Every August and September, Shanghai will increase its long distance coaches to benefit the cricket tourists. Inside the coach are full of boxes of crickets. Sidian Town opens a new way of getting rich for its township as well as residents around. It seems that the media’s urge to protect the decreasing crickets are powerless in the face of market economy and people’s desire for wealth.

Man Guozhi is a truck driver and a senior cricket player with 40 years of experience. Man Guozhi’s home has plenty of china cricket jugs. The photo in his hand is his once favorite general “Red Teeth”, winning him the champion title of the 2004 cricket fighting competition.

In preparing his fighters for the competition, Man Guozhi pays good attention to the feeding and training process. Cricket feeds is a delicate mixture of bean powder, skim milk, liver powder, grains and fish powder etc. The cricket’s living environment is also important, he makes sure the temperature is kept at 25 degree, humid but no water accumulated, and 12 hours exposure to sunlight. Some people even hire professional cricket keeper to maintain their fighters before the game.

During the competition, referee shoulders the responsibility of dividing the crickets into different weight range and assign fighting teams. To get the fight started, players use a long stick to tease the cricket’s antenna to get them to fight.

In November 2005, Beijing City Police ended a cricket gambling group and confiscated all the tools and crickets. The thousand years old game has provided Chinese with immense pleasure, for those who invest in the play, some pride themselves with the winning titles, some harvest high return on their investment. It is truly a game of shrill.

 

(Source: Netease)

Richard Epstein writes:

Police officer deaths in the line of duty, year to date for 2014, were 67 of which 27 were by gunfire. For the full year of 2013, the numbers were 105 total deaths, with 30 by gunfire. It would be odd to say that police officer deaths (which are more common than deaths to citizens from police officers) should not count…

It would indeed be odd to say that police officer deaths should not count, which is perhaps why no one says this. Police officer deaths are counted but the literal truth is that we don’t count deaths to citizens. No one knows for sure exactly how many citizens are killed by police because the government doesn’t keep a count. Draw your own conclusions. What we do know, is that it is not true that police officer deaths are more common than deaths to citizens from police officers. Not even close.

105 officers were killed in the line of duty in 2013 but to be clear this includes heart attacks, falls, and automobile accidents. Deaths due to violent conflict include 30 deaths by gunfire, 5 vehicular assaults, 2 stabbings and a bomb. To be conservative, let’s say 50 deaths to police at the hands of citizens.

According to the FBI there are around 400 justifiable homicides by police every year, where justified is defined as the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. But note that if the killing of Michael Brown is found to be unjustified it won’t show up in these statistics.

The best information we have of citizens killed by the police, believe it or not, are private tabulations from newspaper accounts. On the basis of one such collection, DataLab at FiveThirtyEight estimates that police kill 1000 people a year.

Thus, killings by police seem to be on the order of 10 to 20 times higher than killings of police.

mapsontheweb:

How a 100 million year old coastline affects presidential elections today

Read More

besturlonhere:

sharsharkan:

besturlonhere:

besturlonhere:

exciting news: you will now be blinded immediately before being killed by the united states military 

It is a non-lethal green laser that dazzles the target so their ability to shoot or fight back is greatly reduced because they cannot look at the source of the light. 

Isn’t Blinding a combatant a war crime?

yeah but this only dazzles them ;)

thymoss:

railroadsoftware:

no one ever says that Rome needed help from aliens to build their empire

#l laughed for days when i found out that #ancient egyptians used water to reduce friction and move blocks for distances #and that this was literally DEPICTED ON THEIR HIEROGLYPHICS #but ~western archaeologists~ #thought that the pouring of water depicted ~superstitious rituals~ #jfc

this is kind of an interesting point. no one ever says the ancient persians needed help from aliens to build their empire, but tepe sialk and such usually don’t get much coverage anyways.

An amazing 75% of the images in an Ikea catalog are not photographs but CGI.

…the real turning point for us was when, in 2009, they called us and said, “You have to stop using CG. I’ve got 200 product images and they’re just terrible. You guys need to practise more.” So we looked at all the images they said weren’t good enough and the two or three they said were great, and the ones they didn’t like were photography and the good ones were all CG! Now, we only talk about a good or a bad image – not what technique created it.”

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Armed demonstrators march through South Dallas to protest police shootings

Two dozen protesters from a gun club named after the founder of the Black Panther Party marched through the streets of South Dallas on Wednesday.

The open-carry rally was organized by the Huey P. Newton Gun Club to promote self-defense and community policing in response to recent police shootings.

“We think that all black people have the right to self defense and self determination,” said Huey Freeman, an organizer. “We believe that we can police ourselves and bring security to our own communities.”

Police monitored the black-clad demonstrators, some of whom had rifles slung over their shoulders. As they walked down MLK Boulevard, many chanted “black power” and “justice for Michael Brown,” the black teenager shot by police in suburban St. Louis.

At one point, the group stopped at Elaine’s Kitchen, and one of the organizers told those who were armed to display their weapons in a “safe, disciplined manner.”

Freeman said they planned to patronize several South Dallas businesses to keep their money in the community and teach their neighbors about their “right to self-defense.”

The march came to a peaceful end about 90 minutes after it began at a car wash at Malcolm X Boulevard and Marburg Street.