Russian Sledges

No, it's not a lost Escher print, it's a photo of Saarinen's long-lost TWA lounge at Idlewild, and you can buy it as a print:

Circa 1964. "Trans World Airlines Terminal. Idlewild Airport, Queens, New York." Acetate negative by Balthazar Korab (1926-2013), Hungarian-born architectural photographer who documented the work of Eero Saarinen.

TWA: 1964 (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I have bad news and I have good news. You should probably read both.

Bad News: I have been diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 36.

Good News: We caught it very early and the cancer is small enough that a surgical procedure will get rid of it. My doctors are optimistic about my prognosis and all of my insane middle-of-the-night librarian research tells me the same thing. This is highly survivable thanks to catching it early in a regular exam. My friends and family have been extremely supportive and I am thankful for all of their positive energy and snarky humor that’s helping me get through this difficult time.

One of the things that helped me feel less scared between my biopsies and “finding out I had the BIG C” was remembering the experiences of Xeni Jardin a little over a year ago. Jardin decided to live-Tweet her first mammogram, after which she was told that she had breast cancer. She’s since Tweeted and blogged her experiences with cancer very openly. What she did was one of the first things that came into my head and she helped me to realize whatever happened, I could beat this. I obviously have a much smaller readership than Jardin, but I want to pay it forward and do the same thing.

I will be having surgery next Thursday afternoon. I will be Tweeting (and cross-posting to Facebook for friends there) about my experience.  I also plan to live-Tweet during the surgery, as I will be awake for it.

If by being an open book I can help make people less scared about cervical cancer, encourage other women to get screened and tested regularly, I want to do that. If I can turn this negative situation into a positive one for someone else, all the better.

Yes, I’m scared.  But don’t worry. I’m going to be okay.

Soon you're going to start judging Facebook friends on how good they are at sharing stuff—not on their actual relationship with you.

"Look, I represent the majority of citizens," Rabinowtiz asserted. "The majority of citizens of this city are appalled by what has happened and I would like to say to people who don't live in New York that this means something much more than the specifics of this dreadful program. It means: envision what happens when you get a government that is run by an autocratic mayor or other leader and a government before which you are helpless. We now look at a city whose best neighborhoods are absolutely begrimed, is the word, by these blazing blue Citi Bank bikes — all of the finest, most pictureesque parts of the city. It is shocking to walk around the city to see how much of this they have sneaked under the radar in the interest of the environment."

angiekilljoy:

If a Vulcan kiss is done like this…

Then, what is this…?

paintdoktahwho:

11’s regeneration

The revelation that major US technology companies are participating in a National Security Administration surveillance program was shocking enough. And that was before we saw the top-secret slides used by the government to describe the spying operation. They are, to put it mildly, heinously ugly…

The slides immediately attracted scorn on Twitter, even inspiring graphics luminary Edward Tufte to weigh in:

Dreadful spy-PRISM deck sets new record for most header logos per slide: 13
washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special… #powerpoint #ppt http://t.co/KUUyRikE2l—
Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) June 07, 2013

The US government, though, is no stranger to bad graphic design. The Department of Defense is a particularly egregious offender, with its hopelessly complex network diagrams…

…over-the-top collages…

…and tacky flow charts.

But the military is hardly the only offender.

From the Department of State:

The Environmental Protection Agency:

NASA:

The US Small Business Administration:

From New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (pdf):

And, finally, from the Department of Homeland Security, a design that’s not exactly ugly but certainly disorienting:

 

For the past eighteen months, over forty faculty members in Harvard’s Division of Arts and Humanities have devoted themselves to studying the history and significance of the humanistic tradition and to exploring the ways in which it informs civic discourse, cultural identities and personal understanding. One group, headed by Professors James Simpson and Sean Kelly, has written two of the documents posted here: The Teaching of the Arts and Humanities at Harvard College: Mapping The Future, and In Brief: Mapping The Future. 

Colin McGinn, a prominent philosopher at the University of Miami, is leaving amid allegations that he sent improper messages to a graduate student, dividing philosophers at his institution and across the country. Midway through the 2012-13 academic year, Mr. McGinn signed an agreement with the university stating that he will formally depart at the end of December 2013, several faculty members who are close to the philosopher said. The university declined to confirm Mr. McGinn's job status, citing its policy of not commenting on personnel issues.

One day Google, too, will fall. The good news is that, thanks in part to this superficial and megalomaniacal book, the company’s mammoth intellectual ambitions will be preserved for posterity to study in a cautionary way. The virtual world of Google’s imagination might not be real, but the glib arrogance of its executives definitely is.

(surprisingly, not about doctor who)

Word on the Street

Shortly before his retirement at 60, Tatsuo Horiuchi picked up a copy of Microsoft Excel and started making art with it. His art does not look anything like you'd expect Excel art to look:

Tags: art   Excel   Tatsuo Horiuchi

Neko Case at Lowdown Hudson Blues Fest 2012 (more by Chris La Putt)

Last night (or technically this morning) around midnight, Neko Case tweeted, "HEY, LOOK!!! IT'S FINALLY DONE!!" with a link to a video which appears to be the trailer for her new album. It features about a minute and a half of new music and then reveals the album title, The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, followed by the Anti- logo. No release date has been set yet.

Watch the video, and check out Neko's upcoming list of dates (none in NYC) below...

Continue reading "Neko Case announces new album (watch the trailer)" at brooklynvegan

A Texas man, Ezekiel Gilbert, has been acquitted of murder after shooting and killing a 23 year old escort he found on craigslist because she would not have sex with him even after paying her $150 fee.

Gilbert was acquitted under a Texas law that allows you to use deadly force to protect your property during a nighttime theft. In this case, the property was either the $150 or the use-rights to the body of 23 year old Lenora Ivie Frago. Frago said she couldn't give back the money because she had to give it to the driver who was waiting for her.

Gilbert's lawyers conceded that he shot Frago but insisted he was not actually trying to kill her. Frago was initialized paralyzed due to a gunshot wound to the neck and later died due to her injury.

I've been trying to find the exact statute under which he was acquitted. Not just the concept but the actual statute so I could read the whole thing. At first I thought it was Texas's 'Castle Doctrine' law passed in 2007. But that law doesn't appear to contain the language in question. If anyone knows can you email me?

Late Update: It appears to be this part of the Texas penal code. The relevant clauses being these circumstances, under which you can use deadly force: "(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or (B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property ..."

Here's a more readable version of the section in question.

A collection inspired by the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel series by George R.R. Martin and the HBO series, "Game of Thrones!" Each image has been tagged with the House or group name.

BOSTON — Boston police are stepping up security at city schools after what were described as "rambling" and "threatening" letters were sent to about a dozen schools.

Police Superintendent William Evans said Thursday that the anonymous, typed letters were sent from Texas and made references to Nazis, al-Qaida, the CIA and weapons of mass destruction.

They made no threats against specific people or schools and did not contain any hazardous materials.

Police do not believe children are in danger.

michaelshiatusbeard:

scarfshipping:

yours-truly-calliope:

This is a useful resource…

i’ll be the most creative murderer the world has ever seen

two types of people

I said I was a difficult, complicated person. He said he didn’t care who I was. In retrospect, that admission should have bothered me more than it did. Instead it felt romantic and exotic and like something one didn’t say no to when one was in India for two months and trying to mend a broken heart. A week later I started to have reservations. When I told him I wasn’t sure this was going to work out, he looked distraught, drew me to him and said, “Don’t leave me.” Given how little time we had spent together, I didn’t even realize I was in a position to leave him, but I couldn’t do so then. I put my arms around him and told him not to worry, that everything would be O.K. And that’s how I ended up in a serious relationship with someone I barely knew, and who seemed to have little interest in really knowing me. And how I learned that love is not a universal language after all. It’s cultural and it’s specific.

I’m first going to do a run through of the french seam and then will show you how to apply it to the armhole.

Known pleasures

Young Turks

The small alpine forest at Mount Kaputar's peak is believed by scientists to be the result of unique circumstances that have preserved a tiny remnant of Australia's geological past. Measuring only 10 by 10 kilometers (roughly 6.2 miles squared), this forest is teeming with life found nowhere else in the world.

Millions of years ago, when Australia was part of a larger landmass known as Gondwana, the terrain was characterized by lush rainforests. Since then conditions on the continent have changed drastically, with dryer climes all but wiping out the the region's rainforest-specific species. A volcanic eruption on Mount Kaputar 17 million years ago is believed to be responsible for preserving the cooler, damper conditions needed to support the summit's rainforest-era relics.

By far the most colorful of member of this ecosystem is the giant pink slug (Triboniophorus aff. graeffei), which can reach a whopping 7.8 inches in length. These slugs spend most of their time buried beneath the leaf mold on which they feed, but according to Michael Murphy, a New South Wales parks ranger who regularly patrols Mount Kaputar's summit, they're known to come out in the hundreds by night or after a rain shower to snack on tree moss. "As bright pink as you can imagine, that's how pink they are," said Murphy in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Other unique species found at Mount Kaputar's summit include not one but three different cannibal snail species which prey on their vegetarian brethren by following their tell-tale slime trails.

The ecosystem atop Mount Kaputar hangs in a delicate balance, and a temperature increase of only one or two degrees has the potential to dry up the mountain's peculiar residents. In an effort to preserve this distinct habitat, the NSW Scientific Committee has begun steps to designate the area an Endangered Ecological Community.