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26 Feb 02:48

This Guy Is Not Ruining Jeopardy!

by Sujay Kumar
Russian Sledges

"Forrest Bounce" needs to be some kind of pine liqueur

Arthur Chu is back on ‘Jeopardy!’ Monday, and let’s hope he keeps winning—because he’s making it so much more fun to watch the show.
    
24 Feb 17:12

Ikea's Expedit is dead, long live ... Kallax?

by Rob Beschizza
Russian Sledges

via Nylonthread ("So, the exterior framing is just thinner? Why go through the painful rebranding? SO much outrage.")

Furniture megaretailer Ikea just screwed up a product relaunch. Its legendary LP-sized Expedit bookshelves got a blink-and-you'll-miss-it redesign and a new name, Kallax. But somewhere between the slightly blander, money-saving look (the new version loses some of the outside "bezel"), the tiresome rebranding, and that unfortunate word "discontinue", all hell broke loose. Fast Co Design offers some suggestions on how to repackage a product without meeting fury.

I mean, if it's trying to save money (or the trees), can't IKEA just stuff the Expedit shelf bezel with horse meat?

    






24 Feb 16:59

Deep In the Heart of Ugly

by Josh Marshall

Two young men, Arron Keahey and Brice Johnson met on the mobile app Meetme and decided to get together for sex. Or that's what Keahey thought. Now Johnson, 19, faces federal hate crimes charges for beating Keahey within an inch of his life. "I invited this guy over, right, at first it was basically like a joke that went too far and too wrong," Johnson told a relative in a jail house phone call. "I invited him over because he was a fag or whatever." Here's the story.

24 Feb 14:53

Industrial Arts: Ryan Connelly of Hallelujah The Hills, Guillermo Sexo, and Alden & Harlow

by Dude-Kicker
Russian Sledges

#selfshare

multitask suicide & I interviewed a guy about some stuff

Ryan Connelly is a familiar face from some of the best places in which we’ve been inebriated: he’s been a server at Eastern Standard and at Hungry Mother, mixed us some splendid vermouth cocktails and chatted about wine at Belly, and just now migrated to Harvard Square’s brand new (but already beloved) Alden & Harlow, where he’s serving and bartending.
24 Feb 12:31

Takei to Arizona lawmakers: we will boycott Arizona if it passes its anti-gay Jim Crow law

by Cory Doctorow


Sergei sez, "George Takei has written an open letter to Arizona legislators regarding a bill that would allow businesses, based on a 'sincerely held religious belief' to bar LGBT patrons from entering their establishments."

Takei reminds Arizona of the estimated $500M it lost by not ratifying MLK Day, and threatens a supercharged version of the boycott, multiplied by the Internet, if the bill passes.

But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s Will” as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.

The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.

So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.

Razing Arizona [George Takei]

    






24 Feb 03:31

showslow: Aerial Photos of Iceland Volcanic Rivers by Andre...

Russian Sledges

via rosalind





















showslow:

Aerial Photos of Iceland Volcanic Rivers by Andre Ermolaev

Iceland is a wonderful country; I would even say that it is a true paradise for all the photo shooting-lovers. But what has become a real discovery for me is the bird’s eye view of the rivers flowing along the black volcanic sand.  It is an inexpressible combination of colors, lines, and patterns. The photo represents the mouth of the river falling into the ocean.

A little bit upstream there is a yellow-colored brook flowing into the river, but yellow currents fail to mix with the main water flow.  One can estimate the scale judging by the car tracks that are clearly seen on the black sand. This is just a river, just a volcano, just our planet.

- Andre Ermolaev (via)

24 Feb 01:48

oorequiemoo: Pair of drawers French, About 1900 France love...

Russian Sledges

via rosalind



oorequiemoo:

Pair of drawers French, About 1900 France

love these

24 Feb 01:46

I'm gonna be the next google. I just need investors, a technical cofounder, and users.

Russian Sledges

via rosalind

(shared for turtle)

24 Feb 01:43

Photo

Russian Sledges

via Rosalind via osiasjota



24 Feb 00:42

Roentgen Objects, or: Devices Larger than the Rooms that Contain Them

by Geoff Manaugh
Russian Sledges

via GN

how did I miss this

[Image: Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

An extraordinary exhibition closed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last year, featuring mechanical furniture designed by the father and son team of Abraham and David Roentgen: elaborate 18th-century technical devices disguised as desks and tables.

First, a quick bit of historical framing, courtesy of the Museum itself: "The meteoric rise of the workshop of Abraham Roentgen (1711–1793) and his son David (1743–1807) blazed across eighteenth-century continental Europe. From about 1742 to its closing in the early 1800s, the Roentgens' innovative designs were combined with intriguing mechanical devices to revolutionize traditional French and English furniture types."

Each piece, the Museum adds, was as much "an ingenious technical invention" as it was "a magnificent work of art," an "elaborate mechanism" or series of "complicated mechanical devices" that sat waiting inside palaces and parlors for someone to come along and activate them.

If you can get past the visual styling of the furniture—after all, the dainty little details and inlays perhaps might not appeal to many BLDGBLOG readers—and concentrate instead only on the mechanical aspect of these designs, then there is something really incredible to be seen here.

[Image: Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

Hidden amidst drawers and sliding panels are keyholes, the proper turning of which results in other unseen drawers and deeper cabinets popping open, swinging out to reveal previously undetectable interiors.

But it doesn't stop there. Further surfaces split in half to reveal yet more trays, files, and shelves that unlatch, swivel, and slide aside to expose entire other cantilevered parts of the furniture, materializing as if from nowhere on little rails and hinges.

Whole cubic feet of interior space are revealed in a flash of clacking wood flung forth on tracks and pulleys.



As the Museum phrases it, Abraham Roentgen's "mechanical ingenuity" was "exemplified by the workings of the lower section" of one of the desks on display in the show: "when the key of the lower drawer is turned to the right, the side drawers spring open; if a button is pressed on the underside of these drawers, each swings aside to reveal three other drawers."

And thus the sequence continues in bursts of self-expansion more reminiscent of a garden than a work of carpentry, a room full of wooden roses blooming in slow motion.

[Images: Photos courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

The furniture is a process—an event—a seemingly endless sequence of new spatial conditions and states expanding outward into the room around it.

Each piece is a controlled explosion of carpentry with no real purpose other than to test the limits of volumetric self-demonstration, offering little in the way of useful storage space and simply showing off, performing, a spatial Olympics of shelves within shelves and spaces hiding spaces.

Sufficiently voluminous furniture becomes indistinguishable from a dream.

[Image: Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

What was so fascinating about the exhibition—and this can be seen, for example, in some of the short accompanying videos (a few of which are archived on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website)—is that you always seemed to have reached the final state, the fullest possible unfolding of the furniture, only for some other little keyhole to appear or some latch to be depressed in just the right way, and the thing just keeps on going, promising infinite possible expansions, as if a single piece of furniture could pop open into endless sub-spaces that are eventually larger than the room it is stored within.

The idea of furniture larger than the space that houses it is an extraordinary topological paradox, a spatial limit-case like black holes or event horizons, a state to which all furniture makers could—and should—aspire, devising a Roentgen object of infinite volumetric density.

A single desk that, when unfolded, is larger than the building around it, hiding its own internal rooms and corridors.

Suggesting that they, too, were thrilled by the other-worldly possibilities of their furniture, the Roentgens—and I love this so much!—also decorated their pieces with perspectival illusions.

[Image: Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

The top of a table might include, for example, the accurately rendered, gridded space of a drawing room, as if you were peering, almost cinematically, into a building located elsewhere; meanwhile, pop-up panels might include a checkerboard reference to other possible spaces that thus seemed to exist somewhere within or behind the furniture, lending each piece the feel of a portal or visual gateway into vast and multidimensional mansions tucked away inside.

The giddiness of it all—at least for me—was the implication that you could decorate a house with pieces of furniture; however, when unfolded to their maximum possible extent, these same objects might volumetrically increase the internal surface area of that house several times over, doubling, tripling, quadrupling its available volume. But it's not magic or the supernatural—it's not quadraturin—it's just advanced carpentry, using millimeter-precise joinery and a constellation of unseen hinges.

[Images: Photos courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art].

You could imagine, for example, a new type of house; it's got a central service core lined with small elevators. Wooden boxes, perhaps four feet cubed, pass up and down inside the walls of the house, riding this network of dumbwaiters from floor to floor, where they occasionally stop, when a resident demands it. That resident then pops open the elevator door and begins to unfold the box inside, unlatching and expanding it outward into the room, this Roentgen object full of doors, drawers, and shelves, cantilevered panels, tabletops, and dividers.

And thus the elevators grow, simultaneously inside and outside, a liminal cabinetry both tumescent and architectural that fills up the space with spaces of its own, fractal super-furniture stretching through more than one room at a time and containing its own further rooms deep within it.

But then you reverse the process and go back through it all the other direction, painstakingly shutting panels, locking drawers, pushing small boxes inside of larger boxes, and tucking it all up again, compressing it like a JPG back into the original, ultra-dense cube it all came from. You're like some homebound god of superstrings tying up and hiding part of the universe so that others might someday rediscover it.

To have been around to drink coffee with the Roentgens and to discuss the delirious outer limits of furniture design would have been like talking to a family of cosmologists, diving deep into the quantum joinery of spatially impossible objects, something so far outside of mere cabinetry and woodwork that it almost forms a new class of industrial design. Alas, their workshop closed, their surviving objects today are limited in number, and the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is now closed.
23 Feb 23:31

byzantienne: roachpatrol: chekhovandowl: soylentvanilla: ever...

Russian Sledges

via GN

this is possibly the most heartwarming whisky ad ever



byzantienne:

roachpatrol:

chekhovandowl:

soylentvanilla:

eversolewd:

girlwithalessonplan:

windycitylibrarian:

Don’t let that image fool you. Click on the video; you won’t regret it.

(You’ll probably also shed a few tears at the end.)

AHHHHHHHHH.  So good!

See this, THIS is how adult education and illiteracy should be in real life.
People being kind, supportive, encouraging, not mocking because you took a little longer to learn something.
I’m sorry I get really emotional about people learning and education and I’m crying really hard right now because I really wish this was a commercial for a adult education network/organization that was becoming mainstream and commonplace and celebrated and not about alcohol

This is a beautiful commercial. Even though it is a commercial for alcohol, it hands down beats the usual marketing devices for such products.

this is fucking fantastic

I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING

you know I used to be a person who did not cry at things?

NOT TRUE ANYMORE.

jeez. watch this.

23 Feb 22:59

UAE Clerics' Fatwa Forbids Muslims From Traveling To Mars

by timothy
Russian Sledges

via firehose

how the fuck will dune happen now

PolygamousRanchKid writes "The Khaleej Times of Dubai reports that a fatwa committee has forbidden Muslims from taking a one-way trip to the Red Planet. At the moment, there is no technology available that would allow for a return trip from Mars, so it is truly a one-way ticket for the colonists, who may also become reality TV stars in the process. The committee of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates that issued the fatwa against such a journey doesn't have anything against space exploration, Elon Musk's Mars visions, or anything like that. Rather, the religious leaders argue that making the trip would be tantamount to committing suicide, which all religions tend to frown upon."

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.








23 Feb 22:50

Walker Aide Dismissed 'Crazy' Woman Who Starved In Mental Health Facility

by Daniel Strauss
Russian Sledges

jesus christ

A top aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) dismissed a complaint about conditions in a facility treating the mentally ill with the words "no one cares about crazy people."

Read More →
23 Feb 21:57

Sexual Assault at God's Harvard

by editors
Russian Sledges

tw: everything

On the culture of abuse and coverup at Patrick Henry College.

[Full Story]
23 Feb 19:01

Mozilla Plans to Sell Ads in Firefox Browser

by John Gruber
Russian Sledges

via overbey

Reuters:

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox Internet browser, will start selling ads as it tries to grab a larger slice of the fast-expanding online advertising market.

Nice, simple, clear English. Mozilla is going to sell ads in Firefox. OK.

Now go to Mozilla’s own weblog, where they announced this with the headline “Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center”. What a pile of obtuse horseshit. If you want to sell ads, sell ads. Own it. Don’t try to coat it with a layer of frosting and tell me it’s a fucking cupcake.

23 Feb 19:00

Google Suggests Dos and Don’ts for Glass Users

by John Gruber
Russian Sledges

via overbey

Under “Don’ts”:

Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Glasshole”). Respect others and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren’t allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you’re asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers.

I’m thinking there’s a problem here, if Google needs to expressly tell people not to be creepy. Got to give them credit for embracing “glasshole” though.

(Via Nick Bilton, who got “glasshole” to run on the New York Times website, and who found the ideal photo to accompany his post.)

23 Feb 18:47

On why I accepted the apology and on the role of apologies in general | Mary Robinette Kowal

by russiansledges
So, Sean Fodera apologized and I accepted it. In the vein of continuing to use this experience as a representative example, I’m going to address things I’ve seen floating around the internet. “Why would you accept it?” I think he was sincere.
23 Feb 15:55

N.Y. Becomes Largest Prison System To Curb Solitary Confinement

Russian Sledges

take that, quakers

via saucie

Reform advocates hope the deal to limit solitary confinement becomes a model for prisons throughout the country.

» E-Mail This

23 Feb 13:34

shawskankredemption: Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor at The...

Russian Sledges

via firehose





shawskankredemption:

Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor at The Entertainment Weekly’s Must List Cocktail Party at The Windsor Arms Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival, September 7th, 2013. 

Idris Elba should be the male lead in every film franchise.

When Idris is busy, call Chiwetel.

23 Feb 13:33

Photo

Russian Sledges

via firehose



23 Feb 03:59

c. 1960s Business travelers walking through the main lobby of...



c. 1960s Business travelers walking through the main lobby of Moisant International Airport | New Orleans, Louisiana - Via

22 Feb 23:00

1949 Customer using a coin-operated Book-O-Mat, which has 50...



1949 Customer using a coin-operated Book-O-Mat, which has 50 different selections with titles visible for browsing - Via

22 Feb 21:53

http://ift.tt/1jociLD

22 Feb 21:49

Federal Court Rules Against Notre Dame's Birth Control Appeal

by Catherine Thompson

A federal court ruled against the University of Notre Dame on Friday in a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate, the Associated Press reported.

Read More →
22 Feb 21:48

Clothes I'm forced to wear in the majority of MMORPGS

Russian Sledges

I don't play these games

shared for grumpy faces

repair-her-armor:

[Please take note that the commentary is just for fun. Bunch of sarcasm. Don’t take it too seriously. I am getting tired of these outfits, though.]

image

1. The classic Bikini Armor. If you’re lucky you might get an actual shoulder-pad! If the designers even bother doing something more than just a regular bikini, you might get some accessories with stilettos! Exactly what I want in battle. For a extra nice touch; cameltoe.

image

2. The Lingerie ”Armor”. There’s absolutely nothing that protects you, but it looks really uncomfortable and nice in bed battle! Complete with some feathery, useless shoulder pads!

image

3. The ever so Stylish Swimsuit! This is usually the armor you get before you get the upgrade Bikini Armor. Bonus points if a choker, thigh-high boots/stockings and a half mask is included!

image

4. The Abstract Art. Yes, we’re all wondering how the hell that works; how does that thing stay on, how does she walk with those shoes, how on earth is that supposed to protect her and why is half of her naked? All those questions is a part of the costume! They say art say more than thousand words.. or something!

image

5. The Dominatrix and/or Slave outfit! For those kinky players out there! Complete with leather or latex, fishnets, chains, chokers and whips! Bonus points of the stilettos are sky-high!

image

6. The Stereotype Shaman or Barbarian! Because she’s clearly so wild and ~exotic~ that she doesn’t need clothes! Best worn with tiny loincloth and underboob-straps!

image

7. The Cute Frilly Dress! Something you’d LOVE to wear, CONSTANTLY…. in battle! Usually the female “robe” costume, but hey, robes doesn’t show her nice legs! ): For absolute effect, add garterbelts.

image

8. I call this the Why?. Everything is so massive and made of thick material, but we wouldn’t want to cover her girly parts now, would we? Clearly NO ONE would be aiming there!

image

9. Nature Thing Something. If you’re not of human race and belong to the nature, expect your outfit to look something like this! Feel completely exposed free! I didn’t even bother with this one, but clearly they don’t even do that in games either. But since you’re not human, it’s totally okay!

image

10. This is best known as “Just In Case You Forgot”. Have a decent looking outfit, but then they suddenly cut obvious holes around your privates, just reminding you that you have breasts, a butt and a vagina! How nice of them! Bonus if you don’t have a boob-hole, but instead boob-chest-plate!

image

11. The Everyday Archer! A very classic outfit, complete with a corset and a mini-skirt! Don’t forget the cape, but heavens forbid that you wear it longer than your hips! Then we wouldn’t be able to see your nice butt or legs from behind! *sad face*

image

12. The Creative Healer! She isn’t supposed to be in close-combat, and sometimes doesn’t even use weapons other than a staff, so minimal armor is understandable… that’s why we give you a dress that leaves you wondering how that thing stays on, and with a leg-slip-thing! We wouldn’t want you to forget you have legs, after all!

image

13. And finally, your Average Sci-Fi chick! This one is an absolute classic. It has weird cut-outs everywhere, extreme cleavage, patterns pointing to your crotch and chest, and CRAZY shoes! Don’t forget the skin tight, often nearly-transparent, glossy fabric. Perfect battle wear, absolutely perfect!image

image

22 Feb 21:19

Tymoshenko urges protesters to stay

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko calls for anti-government protests to continue as she addresses the crowds in central Kiev.
22 Feb 20:23

amygloriouspond: Benedict wanted to explore with his body and...

Russian Sledges

via firehose

22 Feb 17:29

Ole Miss Frat Suspended, Noose Suspects Kicked Out

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A fraternity chapter at the University of Mississippi was indefinitely suspended Friday by its national organization and three of its freshman members were kicked out because of their suspected involvement in hanging a noose on a statue of James Meredith, the first black student to enroll in the then all-white college.

Read More →
22 Feb 16:37

@gguillotte >> @jeffmueller: Bourbon as a Service Bourbon Driven Development Continuous integration bourbon Object oriented bourbon Single responsibility bourbon Open source bourbon Bourbon bourbon bourbon Ice cream Priorities So tired

Russian Sledges

via firehose

'Bourbon as a Service
Bourbon Driven Development
Continuous integration bourbon
Object oriented bourbon
Single responsibility bourbon
Open source bourbon
Bourbon bourbon bourbon'

Bourbon as a Service Bourbon Driven Development Continuous integration bourbon Object oriented bourbon Single responsibility bourbon Open source bourbon Bourbon bourbon bourbon Ice cream Priorities So tired
22 Feb 15:42

Inside Amtrak's (Absolutely Awesome) Plan to Give Free Rides to Writers - The Wire

by russiansledges
Russian Sledges

#trains

After New York City-based writer Jessica Gross took the first "test-run" residency, traveling from NYC to Chicago and back, Amtrak confirmed that it is indeed planning to turn the writers' residencies into an established, long-term program, sending writers on trains throughout its network of routes.