This is one of the coolest, best things I have ever seen. Visit the site, settle in, do some reading, it’s…it’s awesome. Great. Amazing.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
This is one of the coolest, best things I have ever seen. Visit the site, settle in, do some reading, it’s…it’s awesome. Great. Amazing.
Sometimes, there just isn’t an adequate expression, and even wow doesn’t make the cut.
Photograph by Mark Cowan.
Photograph by Mark Cowan.
While traveling through the Amazon to study reptile and amphibian diversity with the Herpetology Division at the University of Michigan, photographer Mark Cowan happened upon a strange sight: a caiman whose head was nearly covered in butterflies. The phenomenon itself isn’t particularly unusual, salt is critical to the survival of many creatures like butterflies and bees who sometimes drink tears from reptiles in regions where the mineral is scarce. What made this sight so unusual was seeing the butterflies organize themselves into three different species groups atop the caiman’s head.
Uh, also, that side eye!
Cowan’s photograph received special commendation from the 2016 Royal Society Publishing photography competition, you can see the rest of this year’s finalists here.
More speechless:
“Hitchhikers” (Lion’s Mane Jellyfish), St Kilda, off the Island of Hirta, Scotland, by George Stoyle.
The British Wildlife Photography Awards just announced the 2016 winners of their annual competition in categories including Animal Behavior, Animal Portraits, Urban Wildlife, and an overall winner. The awards, established in 2009, aim to highlight photographers working in the UK, while also showcasing the biodiversity, species, and habitats found in Britain.
George Stoyle, overall winner of this year’s competition, found his subject off the Island of Hirta in Scotland. “I was working for Scottish Natural Heritage on a project to assess the current biological status of major sea caves around some of the UK’s most remote islands,” Stoyle told the BWPA. “At the end of one of the dives I was swimming back to the boat when I came face to ‘face’ with the largest jellyfish I’d ever encountered. As I approached cautiously I noticed a number of juvenile fish had taken refuge inside the stinging tentacles.”
You can see more UK habitats and animal portraits from 2016’s British Wildlife Photography Awards on their website, Facebook, and Twitter.
MAD (taken from the Danish word for “food”) is a not-for-profit organization that works to expand knowledge of food to make every meal a better meal; not just at restaurants, but every meal cooked and served. Good cooking and a healthy environment can and should go hand-in-hand, and the quest for a better meal can leave the world a better place than we found it. MAD is committed to producing and sharing this knowledge and to taking promising ideas from theory to practice.
MAD is a great place to lose yourself for ages on end. Food, food, food, but not all the regular ways food is addressed. Here, there is the breathtaking culture of food, from all over the world, the history of food, the art of food, traditions of food, innovations and artistry of food. Any curiosity you may have about food, you can find satisfaction at MAD. I’ve been trying to catch up, reading at the site for the past month or so, and I’ve barely made a dent. Two articles in particular got my attention in recent days: Turning Trash Into Delicious Things: a Brief Guide by Arielle Johnson, and A People’s History of Carolina Rice, by Michael Twitty.
The first article grabbed my attention because it addresses the waste of craft brewers, and that particular waste happens in my household, as Rick is a home brewer:
On an artisanal-industrial scale, spent grains—the malted barley that is steeped in water to make beer—is a major source of waste for craft brewers, with (roughly) 8 kilos of leftover barley for every 50 liters of finished beer. It can be used as animal fodder, but you can go beyond that, since it also presents creative flavor opportunities.
That waste, it turns out, can be used to make koji, which in turn can be used to make a form of miso. Click on over to the article for details, and recipes! The article on Carolina rice was eye-opening, and details the history of this rice from 3500 B.C.E. to 2013. There’s personal history in this overview of one food:
1770s: My great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother is captured in a war in Sierra Leone and brought to Charleston, without a doubt to grow and mill rice on a Lowcountry plantation. She is a member of the Mende people, who would later lead the Amistad slave ship revolt in 1839.
[…]
1835: My great-great-great grandmother, Hettie Esther Haynes, is born and is later sold out of South Carolina, away from her mother Nora, into the cotton country of Alabama during the largest forced migration in American history—the domestic slave trade. Thousands of Gullah-Geechee will know this fate as rice cultivation faces competition from other countries and slaveholders are forced to reduce the number of bondspeople.
Now I’m going to read about The Carbon Footprint of Eating Out, A War Zone Cuisine, and Culture of the Kitchen: Cooks Weigh In.
Have a wondrous wander through the fields of MAD, it’s a journey you won’t regret.
As the number of water protectors continues to burgeon on the banks of the Cannonball River in protest of the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s route across Standing Rock Sioux ancestral, treaty-protected lands, national media outlets are starting to pick up the story.
Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have run pieces, and The New York Times published an op-ed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II, as well as a detailed explanation of the issues. But Democracy Now! has been out in front with in-depth reports on more than one night. Last week we brought you the independent news show’s initial report.
Anchor Amy Goodman has since interviewed both Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II and Ojibwe activist, journalist, author and sometime vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke. Both reports aired last week, as support from Indian nations and people continued to grow to several thousand.
Watch Archambault and LaDuke below, and read the stories at Democracy Now!, including an August 30 report on the Black Lives Matter movement’s visit to the spirit camps..
Shutterstock.
The World Wide Web will soon be responsible for more than 10 percent or even 15 percent of gross domestic product in G20 countries, yet gay people continue to be denied opportunity to fully participate in its operation. Despite clear plans and global support to create community benefit from the new .GAY namespace, the top brass of the internet continue to deny LGBTQIA efforts to operate it. What does this say about equality of opportunity and nondiscrimination for the gay community when it comes to operations of the world’s most important means of communication and enterprise?
Years of fighting for equality and human rights have brought the LGBTQIA community together. Allies and advocates fought collectively to create organizations and policy improvements within government, institutions, and corporations so that safe spaces and equal footing could exist for employees and citizens, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Despite these advancements, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has ignored its own commitments to human rights and nondiscrimination by disadvantaging the gay community over big money interests.
ICANN is a California nonprofit organization responsible for keeping the Internet “safe, secure and interoperable.” Since 1998, it has also been responsible for contracting with those operating Internet namespaces. Some legacy namespaces include .COM and .ORG, but hundreds more have recently been released into the market such as .BANK, .YOGA, and .NYC.
Each operator is responsible for managing and developing policies for their respective namespace. With four companies applying for the .GAY namespace, ICANN has found itself in the middle of a controversy involving the transparency and fairness afforded to dotgay LLC, the only community-based applicant for .GAY competing against strict business applications.
There’s much more to this story at The Advocate, so click on over to read. Just once, it would be so nice if something could work, and work smoothly.
Shutterstock.
Twitter is pulling a “look at us, we’re doing something, we really are, look!” They are busy suspending accounts which they think are promoting extremism and terrorism.
Twitter said Thursday it has suspended 235,000 accounts as part of its crackdown on accounts that have violated policies on the promotion of extremism and terrorism over the last six months. With the latest move, the total number of suspended accounts in the past year has reached 360,000.
In February, the microblogging platform announced that 125,000 accounts had been banned for the same reasons since mid-2015. Twitter joined the fight against terrorism after it faced criticism over the level of extremist content that was detected on its network. Twitter said daily suspensions of terrorism-linked accounts have jumped 80 percent since last year and that such suspensions usually rise just after terrorist attacks.
“The world has witnessed a further wave of deadly, abhorrent terror attacks across the globe,” Twitter said in a statement. “We strongly condemn these acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform.”
Twitter said it has expanded its teams that review reported violations, and also expanded the number of groups it works with to counter violent extremism online.
[…]
“Our work is not done,” Twitter said on its blog post, adding: “Our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter.”
I’ll say your work isn’t done, it isn’t even started yet. Hell, it isn’t even acknowledged. I don’t have any problem with suspending accounts which have no point except to spread hatred and violence, but I can’t help seeing this as a smoke and mirrors move on the part of Twitter execs who do not want to face the real problem – that their platform is made for, and largely supported by trolls who delight in vicious harassment. Twitter has been taken to task about this so many times now, and they always have excuses, there are always plenty of harrumphs and paragraphs of glib nothingness, but no solutions provided, no changes made. Oh yes, they banned Milo whateveritis, and while I’m sure that helped some, this still leaves just about every woman and person of colour on that platform open to vile harassment on a large scale. No one should have to be utterly exhausted at the end of each day, attempting to filter and block, just because they want to engage in some friendly banter, update, or exchange news. Twitter could be a good platform, but it would require sweeping changes, and Twitter would have to take a hit by removing their troll base, and I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.
Via Raw Story.
File this under serious gear lust.
Via Colossal Art.
*cough* Er, I mean Revolutionary Camera Recording Propulsion Data Completes Groundbreaking Test.
While thousands turned out watch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) recently complete a full-scale test of its booster, few were aware of the other major test occurring simultaneously. NASA’s High Dynamic Range Stereo X (HiDyRS-X) project, a revolutionary high-speed, high dynamic range camera, filmed the test, recording propulsion video data in never before seen detail.
The HiDyRS-X project originated from a problem that exists when trying to film rocket motor tests. Rocket motor plumes, in addition to being extremely loud, are also extremely bright, making them difficult to record without drastically cutting down the exposure settings on the camera. Doing so, however, darkens the rest of the image, obscuring other important components on the motor.
Traditionally, video cameras record using one exposure at a time, but HiDyRS-X records multiple, slow motion video exposures at once, combining them into a high dynamic range video that perfectly exposes all areas of the video image.
The HiDyRS-X project began as part of NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Early Career Initiative (ECI), designed to give young engineers the opportunity to lead projects and develop hardware alongside leading innovators in industry. Howard Conyers, a structural dynamist at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, was awarded as an ECI grant in 2015. After initial proof of concept and a preliminary design review, the HiDyRS-X project was placed within NASA’s Game Changing Development program to complete its first prototype. Created in partnership with Innovative Imaging and Research Corporation, the project was tested on small rocket nozzle plumes at Stennis.
The massive booster test served as a rare opportunity to test the HiDyRS-X hardware in a full-scale environment. The Qualification Motor 2, or QM-2, test was held at Orbital ATK’s test facility in Promontory, Utah, and was the second and final booster test before SLS’s first test flight in late 2018. SLS will be the most powerful rocket in the world, and will take our astronauts farther into deep space than ever before.
We explore the cosmos to find answers to the unknown, but what if you could explore knowledge itself in the same way? Enter Wikiverse, which is essentially Wikipedia, the video game: hundreds of thousands of articles that you explore as if you’re flying a space ship through planets and stars. Stars, a.k.a. Wikipedia entries, are clustered together according to their hyperlinks, forming solar systems, star clusters, and galaxies of related concepts.
We’ve been Wikiverse explorers since French programmer Owen Cornec first said, “Let there be light,” to the HTML, CSS, and WebGL-supported Chrome Experiment back in 2014, but a new update has expanded his digital galaxy several orders of magnitude and added features that provide stellar insights into the terrestrial realm. The new version grows his approximation of human knowledge from 50,000 articles to a whopping 250,000, grouping similar subjects into categories like art, music, and politics. Once you’ve gotten used to zooming around the dazzling 3D space, you begin to notice unexpected connections between entries.
“In this universe, articles are threaded together through a physics based simulation. Millions of inter-page links, chosen by thousands of editors, pull and tug at each other to groups stars together. These choices crystallize articles into clusters and domains, where proximity equates to related-ness” Cornec explains. For example, orbiting Kanye West are expected entries like Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, and the loop, but “I Want Candy” by Aaron Carter and Tim Armstrong’s band, Rancid, are there too. The connections are even more fascinating in the politics quadrant, which was dominated by Donald Trump last week and Hillary Clinton this week. Trump’s entry might be the most fascinating in the miniature universe, binding together a blinding mix of art deco, alcoholism, Dr. Seuss, the Bible, Citizen Kane, conspiracy theories, and the Czech Republic.
The Creators Project has the full story. You can play with Wikiverse here.
![[Photo: Kirk Morales via Unsplash. Illustrations: NYC MTA/ tovovan via Shutterstock]](https://i2.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/affinity/files/2016/08/3062539-poster-p-2-this-simcity-of-subways-lets-you-redesign-the-mta.jpg?ssl=1)
[Photo: Kirk Morales via Unsplash. Illustrations: NYC MTA/ tovovan via Shutterstock]
New Yorkers frustrated by the high fares, cramped commutes, and long walking distances to the nearest stop have long loved indulging in the city-wide pastime of playing armchair design critic to the MTA. But is it possible to design a more efficient New York subway system? Like SimCity for subways, Brand New Subway is a new web game that lets you give it a shot—and it just might give you a newfound appreciation for the efficiency of the MTA.
Based upon an accurate map of New York City, the goal of Brand New Subway is to design your own subway line. You do so by putting icons representing existing MTA lines onto the map, with the computer automatically connecting stations into lines by calculating the optimal path between them. Crossovers can also be manually assigned, so that multiple lines form a citywide network.
Where things get interesting is that when you drop a station on the map, Brand New Subway automatically pulls in local data from a variety of sources, including information about population, jobs, transportation demand, taxes, and so on. It then calculates how successful your subway is based on a couple of metrics: how many people it can move on an average weekday, and the cost of a single-ride MetroCard for the network.
You can read more about the game here. Brand New Subway.
Furenexo wants to make assistive tech.
Would you purchase a basic digital camera connected to a 22″ LCD monitor for $3,000?
How about a GPS unit to announce your location for $800?
Unfortunately, a hugely overlooked segment of the population has no choice but to pay these prices for outdated technology – namely, people with disabilities.
We at Furenexo believe it’s time for Makers to become advocates, and recently launched our Kickstarter campaign to develop low-cost, highly accessible assistive technology using open source hardware and software. We see an amazing opportunity to empower Makers to become “enableists”, and make better things — and things better — for our world.
Why Make Assistive Devices?
– Because advances like Arduino, 3D printing, and object/face/voice recognition are making concepts that were only pipe dreams a few years ago possible.
– Because the challenges faced by people with disabilities have been ignored for so long and any progress could have a deep impact.
– Because nobody needs an “Uber for dry-cleaning” or yet another disco light set-up for Burning Man.
– Because engaging with disability at any level could be a personal challenge outside your comfort zone.
– Because around 49 million Americans (3.8 million of whom are veterans) are affected by some physical or sensory impairment. The economic impact of even slightly reducing some of these challenges people with disabilities face could be profound.
– Because just making something to help a neighbor could earn you a smile and thank you to light up your day, and every day.
There’s much more at Make Magazine. Furenexo’s website.
In the I wish I was filthy rich department, Bubble!
French designer Pierre Stephane Dumas has created a range of portable transparent huts, offering a quiet space to retreat to. The idea behind his Bubble collection was to create a temporary leisure accommodation that had the least impact on the surrounding environment, whilst also giving the impression of being amongst nature.
“I designed this eccentric shelter with the goal to offer an unusual experience under the stars while keeping all the comfort of a bedroom suite,” says Dumas. “Bubble huts are for me like an ataraxic catalyst, a place apart where getting rest, breathing and standing back”.
Additionally, the unique design and geometry of the Bubble creates a silencing acoustic effect. “Noises coming from the outside are reduced and noises coming from the inside echo towards the sphere’s hub. This echo drives people to speak quietly bringing about a feeling of appeasement favorable to have a nap,” explains Dumas.
You can read about and see more here.
An 8-year-old boy dug up this fossilized turtle that scientists believe helps explain the turtle’s earliest uses of its shell (Credit: Wits University)
Every young boy has spent at least one afternoon digging a hole in the ground looking for some kind of treasure. An eight-year-old from South Africa was doing just that when he unearthed a turtle fossil that could help scientists understand the original purpose and evolution of the turtle’s shell.
A group of scientists from parts of the world including South Africa, Switzerland and the United States conducted a study on several early turtle fossils including a fossil discovered by an 8-year-old Kobus Snyman on his father’s farm in the Western Cape of South Africa. The study that took place at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg found that early turtles may have used their shells for burrowing instead of for protection from potential predators.
The 5.9 inch (15 cm) long turtle fossil discovered by Snyman contains a preserved skeleton with articulated hands and feet. The study published in the journal Current Biology also examined several turtle fossils found in the Karoo Basin of South Africa including a partially shelled proto-turtle that’s 260 million years old.
Last, but not least, Tooooooooooooooys! Oh, the toys. Want. Seriously want Iron Giant, because if anyone brings the cool, it’s Iron Giant:
and Groot! GROOT.
And Deadpool. Hulk vs Wolverine. Catwoman. And So. Much. More. 3 pages of toys. See them all here.
Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos (Screenshot)
Yesterday, it was noted that Leslie Jones had been harassed off Twitter by a torrent of racist shit, and of course, asshack Milo Yiannopoulos was leading the charge. Milo is a remarkably untalented person, who has relied on Twitter to make hay for him, thanks to their rather nonchalant views about harassment. Not that Milo has any idea of how to actually do anything, but he’ll have to make do without Twitter.
Twitter has permanently banned a rightwing writer and notorious troll for his role in the online abuse of Leslie Jones over her role in the Ghostbusters reboot.
Milo Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero. Before he was banned, he had more than 338,000 followers and called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet” for his provocations online.
No, Cupcake. You aren’t fabulous at anything.
Yiannopoulos has been suspended from Twitter several times in the past for violating its terms of service, and had his verified status revoked earlier this year, prompting the hashtag #JeSuisMilo among his supporters.
But claims that he had fanned the flames of the harassment of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones on Twitter led to a “permanent suspension” from Twitter on Wednesday.
Yiannopolous told Breitbart.com his suspension was “cowardly”, and evidence that Twitter was a “no-go zone for conservatives”.
“Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.
“This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”
[…]
Before he was banned, he told Heat Street that “of course” he had no regrets about his behaviour towards Jones. “But feminists, on the other hand, should have regrets that they have taught strong women that they are victims and attacked people for having different opinions to them on Twitter.”
A spokesman for Twitter said in a statement that “permanent suspension” was one of a number of steps that had been taken to address the uptick in offending accounts since Jones began rallying against her abusers.
There’s more at The Guardian. Okay, Twitter. This was a good first step. Don’t stop now, please.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. CREDIT: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma.
Rather than someone putting out highly questionable content, this time it’s the company itself. FB has been taken to task over its lack of diversity, and that lack is still in place. According to the company, that just isn’t their fault, no. There aren’t any women or PoC who are qualified! They just aren’t there, only white guys are qualifying for working at FB.
On Thursday, Facebook released its latest diversity numbers and didn’t have much to show for increases in women and people of color. Its technical workforce is 48 percent white and 83 percent male, while just 3 percent is Hispanic, 1 percent is black, and 17 percent is female. That’s just a 2 percent increase in its female technical workforce from 2014, while its numbers on black and Hispanic workers in that area didn’t budget at all.
The company said on Thursday that it’s “been working hard” to increase the diversity among its ranks. But it also indicated that the hardest work must be done by others.
“It has become clear that at the most fundamental level, appropriate representation in technology or any other industry will depend upon more people having the opportunity to gain necessary skills through the public education system,” Maxine Williams, global head of diversity, wrote in the release of its data. The company indicated to the Wall Street Journal that the main problem is an empty pipeline — that there just aren’t enough skilled people of color and women to hire in the technology field.
Interesting that they have a woman making the statement. I wonder if they think that’s going to make people think they are telling the truth? “Look, we have a woman in charge of diversity, and she says…”
But that explanation ignores the numbers. A USA Today investigation in 2014 concluded that black and Hispanic people were graduating with computer science and engineering degrees from top-tier universities at twice the rate that they were getting hired by big tech firms. That year, the workforces of technology companies in Silicon Valley were just 2 percent black and 3 percent Hispanic on average. But 4.5 percent of all new graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the field from prestigious universities were black and 6.5 percent were Hispanic.
Women have a similar experience. A 2013 report from the Census Bureau found that among college graduates with science and engineering degrees, men were employed in science, technology, engineering, or math at twice the rate of women — 31 percent for men versus 15 percent for women. A different report from last year found that four years after they graduate, less than a quarter of female computer science and engineering majors get a job in their field.
One half of the problem is on the hiring side, where white, male employees have been found to be more likely to hire people who look like them than others in all industries. Technology also thinks of itself as a “meritocracy” where people succeed on skills alone, no matter what they look like, which ignores implicit biases. For example, many people are turned away from jobs for not being a “culture fit,” which can also be read as not fitting in with an already white and male office.
Ohhh, not a “culture fit.” So that’s the new name of the white boys club. This problem certainly isn’t Facebook’s alone, the whole tech industry suffers from culture fit, with a variety of excuses for remaining that way. It’s past time for STEM fields to stop all that mirror gazing, and actually look at that vast pool of people who would like a job. I’m pretty sure if you look hard enough, you might manage to see people who aren’t white, and and aren’t male. In the meantime, don’t place your failures on the shoulders of people who have studied and worked their asses off, and put up with discrimination and microaggressive environments, just so they can do the work they love, and would like to be employed in.
Via Think Progress.