Russian Sledges

In the ten years since shooting, Juliette Danielle has learned how to laugh with fans, even while they’re laughing at her.

Cotorienne is a collection designed by the Japanese artist, Anyan, for Yuwa fabrics. In this third collection (SS2013), Anyan explores the sheer joy and fun of friendship, or "togetherness."  SHEEEEEP features fluffy white flocks of sheep tended to by a border collie.

A+ rant

Great words!

Women and children can understand the language, but it is primarily used among men engaged in male domain activities like fishing and boat-building.

COMPUTER GRAPHICS’ ARCHAEOLOGY via Socks Studio

The Hp 9845C , introduced in 1981, was the top-of-the-line model of the 9845 series, it was the very first HP computer supporting color and it was capable of tremendous computer graphics.

It offered hardware accelerated vector drawing and polygon fill features, and  supported fast matrix operations for rendering 3D models. It was intended for use in scientific and engineering environments, but it was really a multipurpose system. It was even used for the graphic scenes of John Badhams “War Games” in 1983.

Charles Dellschau was a butcher, but after his retirement in 1899, he became an artist, laboring over intricate collages and illustrations of flying machines. He filled notebooks with gorgeous, multicolored airship designs and mysterious, coded records of the "Sonora Aero Club."

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Universal Orlando has teamed with writer/director Drew Goddard to create a Halloween Horror experience out of The Cabin in the Woods. I want to go so bad but I'm worried I wouldn't make it back.

Love was definitely in the air today at San Francisco City Hall where many same-sex couples wed following the recent historic rulings allowing gay marriage. As I live near San Francisco, I took the opportunity to bring my daughter and some friends to see this amazing history in the making. We watched several weddings (which were all quite touching) and cheered along as each couple got hitched. While watching one couple tie the knot, I met photographer Charlotte Fiorito of We Are Family Photography, a company that specializes in photographing lesbian and gay weddings, who was there taking shots of happy couples for free all weekend.

While she was taking this shot:

I was taking this one of her:

photo by Rusty Blazenhoff

And right before that, the wedding party celebrated their friends by dancing around them:

She has many more photos at the We Are Family Photography Facebook page.

video by Rusty Blazenhoff

photos by Charlotte Fiorito of We Are Family Photography, except where noted

On tuesday the 25th of June, to celebrate the 110th birthday of George Orwell, surveillance cameras in the center of the city of Utrecht were decorated with colorful party hats! George Orwell is best known for his book ‘1984’, in which he describes a dystopian future society where the populace is constantly watched by the surveillance state of Big Brother. By putting these happy party hats on the surveillance cameras we don’t just celebrate Orwell’s birthday. By making these inconspicuous cameras that we ignore in our daily lives catch the eye again we also create awareness of how many cameras really watch us nowadays, and that the surveillance state described by Orwell is getting closer and closer to reality.

It’s time to bury the term “Foodie.” I suggest we replace it with “Food Asshole”

A few weeks ago, in a televised symposium, Steven Spielberg predicted the “implosion” of Hollywood as a consequence of blockbuster mania while George Lucas sat next to him, nodding. “You’re at the point right now,” said Spielberg, “where a studio would rather invest $250 million in one film for a ... More »

westsidesafari:

Flying turtle. Kircher illustrated this wonder of nature, but did not believe it. (China Illustrata, 205)

Dogs have been used in warfare for millennia – and are still trained to operate in war zones today. The Ark in Space today has a pictorial feature on the Military Working Dog. From the scouts to the tracker, detectors and sentries, this is a tribute to those dogs who work with the military today - and of course their trainers.

Want to play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe that's genuinely challenging and hard? Try "Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe," in which each square is made up of another, smaller Tic-Tac-Toe board, and to win the square you have to win its mini-game. Ben Orlin says he discovered the game on a mathematicians' picnic, and he explains a wrinkle on the rules:

You don’t get to pick which of the nine boards to play on. That’s determined by your opponent’s previous move. Whichever square he picks, that’s the board you must play in next. (And whichever square you pick will determine which board he plays on next.)...

This lends the game a strategic element. You can’t just focus on the little board. You’ve got to consider where your move will send your opponent, and where his next move will send you, and so on.

The resulting scenarios look bizarre. Players seem to move randomly, missing easy two- and three-in-a-rows. But there’s a method to the madness – they’re thinking ahead to future moves, wary of setting up their opponent on prime real estate. It is, in short, vastly more interesting than regular tic-tac-toe.

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe (via Kottke)

(via Erlenmeyer Mug | Lab Equipment and Safety science experiments, teaching & education tools: Educational Innovations)

The committee is authorized to gather documents, data and information about the bank with the “prompt collaboration” of the bank’s staff and that of other Vatican departments.

Photo: AP/Alessandra Tarantino

While riding in his open air Popemobile, the Argentine Pope Francis saw a young man wearing Argentina's national soccer jersey. He stopped to speak to the boy, 17-year old Alberto di Tullio. CBS News reports:

Francis invited Alberto di Tullio up onto his open-top Mercedes at the end of his general audience Wednesday, letting him spin around on the pontiff's white chair while tens of thousands of people looked on.

The boy's father, Celestino di Tullio, told The Associated Press he choked up when Francis approached his son: "The pope saw him, embraced him. Then Alberto pointed to the car, and so he brought him up!"

Link -via Daily Telegraph

The day before the concert, Pope Francis said bishops should be 'close to the people' and not have 'the mentality of a prince.' 

Earlier today, Janelle Monáe announced her sophomore record, The Electric Lady, is due out Sept. 10, and with that news also came a new single. “Dance Apocalyptic” is equal parts Michael Jackson circa Jackson 5, soul, pop, and Sesame Street. In other words, it’s pretty good.

In other pretty good news, both Prince and Miguel will appear on The Electric Lady. Erykah Badu also pops up on the record’s lead single, “Q.U.E.E.N.” 

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Fine art photographer Harold Ross uses delicate light painting techniques to create surreal landscapes photographed late at night. The photographer, who has been perfecting his methods for over 25 years, uses an LED flashlight and other lights to selectively illuminate various areas in each photograph, a process he refers to as “light sculpting”. The result are scenes that look almost like digitally rendered illustrations, with numerous light sources that seem to come from every direction. The photos you see here really don’t do his work justice, see them much larger on his website. Ross also teaches about light painting over on his blog. (via faith is torment)

The long, strange trip of the Wikipedia founder, who went from being an Insane Clown Posse fan who owned the “Bomis Babe Report” to a jet-setter married to “the most connected woman in London,” all without turning much of a profit.

[Full Story]

[Photo: Amy's Baking Company]

America's favorite restaurateurs Samy and Amy Bouzaglo of Amy's Baking Company — whose infamous appearance on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares resulted in a notorious Facebook freakout, hacking claims, deportation threats, and general shitshowiness — are at it again. The duo behind the Scottsdale, Arizona restaurant are now allegedly making employees sign a legally binding work contract, complete with "possible monetary penalties" for any breech in the employment agreement.

RadarOnline has an exclusive look at a document purporting to originate from Amy's Baking Company. The four-page document includes a non-compete clause ("[you] shall not work for any competitor within a 50 mile radius of ABC within one year of termination or voluntary resignation"). There's a $250 penalty for not showing up to work on holidays and weekends. There is a rule against "unnecessary talking." If you break something or burn food "due to direct negligence," expense "will be taken from your pay check at ABC's cost."

Signatories of the 20-item "mutual agreement" agree to the following ([sic] to everything, where applicable):

1). No Cell Phones allowed while working.

2). No outside Food or Beverages may be brought inside ABC.

3). If you fail to show up for your scheduled shift we may penalize you monetarily.

4). When you show up for work you must be dressed appropriately, and properly covered. And you must be ready to work with your hair pulled back, and hands washed by no later than 5minutes before your scheduled shift begins.

5). Any type of attitude will result in immediate termination.

6). You must leave the premise immediately after your scheduled shift, and no family or friends may come to see you while working.

7). You must remain in your designated working area.

8). No purses or bags are allowed inside ABC, (exceptions may be made) however upon leaving a designated employee of ABC has the legal right and consent to inspect any and all packages that you may have brought with you.

9). At no point is any food or any type of open beverage allowed in the kitchen. This is a direct Health Code Violation.

10). ABC has multiple security cameras and any type of theft will be punished by the fullest extent of the Law.

11). No visiting or unnecessary talking is allowed during your work shift. This causes distractions and results in loss of product. Any may result in possible harm to you, or to others.

12). Workers must keep their hair pulled back in a bun and no facial hair is allowed (unless for religious beliefs).

13). Any product such as food or plates that are broken or burned due to direct negligence will be taken from your pay check at ABC's cost.

14). Respect and distance must be given to all fellow employees. No harassment or bulling of any type will be tolerated and will be cause for immediate termination. If such and event happens you must report the incident immediately to Samy or Amy Bouzaglo.

15) You must treat the equipment and all property of ABC with respect .Equipment should be cleaned and maintained nightly as part of your scheduled shifts responsibilities.

16) Holidays and Weekends are Mandatory, by signing this contract you are accepting that you will be required to work all Holidays, and Weekends. Due to the nature of our Industry this is a necessity and any No-Show will be monetarily penalized with a fee of $250.00.

17) The recipes and techniques that have been developed by Amy at ABC are exclusive and shall remain confidential. Any removal of recipes will be considered theft.

18) You must possess a current Maricopa County Food Handlers Card.

19) The wait staff understands that any and all "tips" are property of the "house." By signing this contract, you agree that you willingly accept a payment of $8.00 to $12.00 per hour to ensure that you will receive some type of payment. Due to the volatile nature of any retail business we are unable to predict when we will have buissness.By signing this contact you agree that you are willfully accepting a payment of $___ per hour instead of tips.

20) It takes a great deal of time, energy and patience on the part of Samy & Amy (the owners) to train and teach our employees. We are investing in you as a new employer, and we are paying you to teach you. By signing this contract you are hereby accepting that you will be employed exclusively by ABC Amy's Baking Co. LLC. And shall not work for any competitor within a 50 mile radius of ABC within one year of temination or voluntary Resignation, without prior authorization from ABC. Amy's Baking Co LLC. Nor shall you be allowed to open your own business of the same type, within the above mentioned radius.

Though the document is undated, should it be recent, provision #19 — that "that any and all 'tips' are property of the 'house'" — contradicts co-owner Samy Bouzaglo's May claim that future servers would be paid $5 an hour and "get all their tips." Not mentioned in the contract: rights to appear on an upcoming Amy's Baking reality show, which the Bouzaglos might or might not be shopping around.

· Kitchen Nightmares Restauranteurs Had Employees Sign Lengthy 'Legally Binding Contract' — See It Here! [RadarOnline]
· All Amy's Baking Coverage on Eater [-E-]

OPM guidance says employees can start making enrollment changes now, due to DOMA reversal.

The Mizuno running shoes worn by Texas State Senator Wendy Davis during her marathon filibuster on Tuesday of a Texas anti-abortion bill have become a symbol of her stand for abortion rights—the Amazon product page for the shoes has since been inundated by reviews. As of this writing, the top review, “A marathon shoe for marathon filibustering,” was found “helpful” by 4,335 Amazon users.

photo by Bob Daemmrich for Corbis

via RethinkThePink

Thanks Lori Dorn!

mallemaroking, n. Pronunciation:  Brit. /ˌmaləməˈreʊkɪŋ/ , U.S. /ˌmæləməˈroʊkɪŋ/ Forms:  18 mallemuching, 18– mallemaroking. Etymology: 

Update on July 3: The reader_archive and feed_archive scripts are no longer operational, since Reader (and its API) has been shut down. Thanks to everyone that tried the script and gave feedback. For more discussion, see also Hacker News.

There remain only a few days until Google Reader shuts down. Besides the emotions¹ and the practicalities of finding a replacement², I've also been pondering the data loss aspects. As a bit of a digital pack rat, the idea of not being able to get at a large chunk of the information that I've consumed over the past seven and a half years seems very scary. Technically most of it is public data, and just a web search away. However, the items that I've read, tagged, starred, etc. represent a curated subset of that, and I don't see an easy of recovering those bits.

Reader has Takeout support, but it's incomplete. I've therefore built the reader_archive tool that dumps everything related to your account in Reader via the "API". This means every read item³, every tagged item, every comment, every like, every bundle, etc. There's also a companion site at readerisdead.com that explains how to use the tool, provides pointers to the archive format and collects related tools⁴.

Additionally, Reader is for better or worse the papersite of record for public feed content on the internet. Beyond my 545 subscriptions, there are millions of feeds whose histories are best preserved in Reader. Thankfully, ArchiveTeam has stepped up. I've also provided a feed_archive tool that lets you dump Reader's full history for feeds for your own use.⁵

I don't fault Google for providing only partial data via Takeout. Exporting all 612,599 read items in my account (and a few hundred thousand more from subscriptions, recommendations, etc.) results in almost 4 GB of data. Even if I'm in the 99th percentile for Reader users (I've got the badge to prove it), providing hundreds of megabytes of data per user would not be feasible. I'm actually happy that Takeout support happened at all, since my understanding is that it was all during 20% time. It's certainly better than other outcomes.

Of course, I've had 3 months to work on this tool, but per Parkinson's law, it's been a bit of a scramble over the past few days to get it all together. I'm now reasonably confident that the tool is getting everything it can. The biggest missing piece is a way to browse the extracted data. I've started on reader_browser, which exposes a web UI for an archive directory. I'm also hoping to write some more selective exporters (e.g. from tagged items to Evernote for Ann's tagged recipes). Help is appreciated.

1. I am of course saddened to see something that I spent 5 years working on get shut down. And yet, I'm excited to see renewed interest and activity in a field that had been thought fallow. Hopefully not having a a disinterested incumbent will be for the best.
2. Still a toss-up between NewsBlur and Digg Reader.
3. Up to a limit of 300,000, imposed by Reader's backend.
4. If these command-line tools are too unfriendly, CloudPull is a nice-looking app that backs up subscriptions, tags and starred items.
5. Google's Feed API will continue to exist, and it's served by the same backend that served Google Reader. However it does not expose items beyond recent ones in the feed.

After the heavy breathing from yesterday’s post, here’s a lighter touch on Prism.