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2013-05-19 01:15:55 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

sexy doesn't mean slut

I write. A lot about being sensual and feeling sexy and how to be comfortable in your own skin. I’m now unashamed of my body and it’s taken thirty something 40 years to feel this way.This has caused me some pain actually because as we all know sometimes we have to bounce off the walls to  find the middle… pendulum style. Bouncing hurts. Swinging too far the other way has it’s consequences. So let me elaborate as only I can do…

Just because a woman feels sensual and claims such does not give you the right to automatically think:

1. she’s talking to me

2. she’s talking about me

3. i can say whatever i like in whatever manner i choose to her because she LIKES sex

4. sensuality means i can be degrading in a sexually derogatory manner

5. she wants to bang me

A woman that likessex is not aut... more »

2013-05-18 17:05:39 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2013-05-18 16:48:43 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Why Manhattan's Green Roofs Don't Work--and How to Fix Them: City rooftops covered with vegetation are seen as a way to reduce the urban heat-island effect and cut energy usage--but so far, the results have been unimpressive http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-manhattans-green-roofs-dont-work-how-to-fix-them

2013-05-17 17:47:19 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

This is interesting. Amnesty International accesses your Facebook information, and determines what types of crimes you could be convicted of around the globe.

http://www.trialbytimeline.org.nz/

(H/T +Alison Marlowe)

2013-05-17 14:19:27 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

New England's only exclusively science fiction theatre company.

I had no idea this existed.

❝ About Us

Our Past Productions

This will be Science Fiction Theatre Company’s fourth production.

Dark Matters followed a woman and her family coping with the idea that she may have been the victim of an alien abduction.

On Ego was the story of routine teleportation gone wrong resulting in two versions of the protagonist. He had to make the ultimate sacrifice to allow his other self to live on.

Our last show Man in the Couch was about a soldier being teleported into a woman’s living room. Only problem is now he’s fused with her couch.

If you haven’t caught on yet we like SciFi. Especially shows that have those make it or break it moments. Like teleporting a person into a couch. In front of the audience. Andmaking it... more »

2013-05-17 13:41:53 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Pat Robertson: "What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn't want to wander"

❝ "Here's the secret," the famous evangelical said. "Stop talking the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he's a man."

The wife needs to focus on the reasons she married her spouse, he continued.

"Does he provide a home for you to live in," Robertson said. 'Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children... Is he handsome?" ❞

2013-05-17 13:37:54 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Republicans alter Benghazi emails?

I've been trying to ignore this tempest in a teapot, but this is getting ridiculous. If think it's time for the White House to respond to every Benghazi query with "I'm sorry, we have more important things  to worry about than a trumped up, fake scandal. Next question?"

2013-05-17 02:22:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This looks promising.  I think the following from the series description says it all...

Back at the club, White Trash Billy, a hip-hop oil worker, has developed a fondness for blond-haired Aslaug and asks her to dance at his bachelor party. Guter becomes jealous, performs a violent dance routine for Billy, and gets suspended from Bordello's. To make matters worse, Aslaug becomes miserably homesick when she learns her estranged father was released from the German prison where he built Ikea furniture. Guter knows Aslaug's father is living in America, but to keep Aslaug dancing in North Dakota, she withholds the secret. Until Aslaug sees a photo of her father on the bingo hall bulletin board...

2013-05-17 01:56:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Why Congress's "useless" attempts to repeal ObamaCare have an impact.

❝ There was a great study on this phenomena last year that used speed limits as a restriction. It found that research subjects were generally okay with the new regulation, unless they were told there was a chance the city council would repeal it. Add that information in, and opinions about the law became significantly more negative. ❞

2013-05-17 01:53:38 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

IT Industry Ignores Silver Surfers at Its Peril: Design for Seniors to Tap Market, Industry Urged

❝ Hardware and software vendors are foolish to ignore the needs of the growing population of older computer and information technology users, the so-called "silver surfers." US researchers offer convincing evidence in a monograph to be published in the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management that from the business perspective, seniors represent a rapidly growing sector of the market with the most disposable income to spend on these companies' products. ❞

2013-05-17 01:29:54 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Let's start a movement to refer to trolls as hoydens.

❝ Hoyden is a curiosity because it once referred exclusively to men. We may now look indulgently on hoydenish young women but male hoydens were considered to be rude, ignorant, awkward or boorish. In 1593, Thomas Nashe (its first recorded user) wrote disparagingly of the hoydens of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge. Its members were exclusively male at the time, as they continued to be until 1977, when the college admitted its first female undergraduates. ❞

2013-05-17 01:23:27 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

What the heck is a liripipe?

We were examining Mollie's Master's Hood ("Chaperon", and yes, the word chaperone derives from the hood) and wondering what on earth the odd tail on the "hood" was.

❝ Nobody seems to know much about the origin of this word, except that it comes from medieval Latin liripipium, variously explained down the centuries as the tippet of a hood, a cord, a shoe-lace and the inner sole-leather of shoes. This suggests strongly that nobody has the slightest idea what it really meant. ❞

2013-05-17 00:49:15 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

The age determination of a deep-drill core from the Pacific Ocean showed that the supernova explosion must have occurred about 2.2 million years ago, roughly around the time when the modern human developed. Isotopic inspection of bacterial fossils containing tiny crystals of magnetite (Fe3O4) show some iron isotopes that would have decayed by now if not caused by a very recent supernova. We know lots more about the (pre-Noah) past than some folks allow into their philosophy, alas.  In this case, it makes you envision our australopithecine forebears staring up, in wonder.  And changing.

http://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/short/article/30832/

2013-05-16 23:31:44 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Oh My Goodness

This is not quite . . . funny.

2013-05-16 19:13:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

BBQ Nation!
Lexington Battle-Green BBQ Festival.

Great BBQ to Eat! Great Live Music! State Championship BBQ Cookoff!

Saturday May 19 11-7!
Sunday May 20 noon-4!

Admission is $5. Under 13 free with adult. A portion of the proceeds go to the LABBB Programs for students with special needs.

2013 Registered Teams:
Hullabaloo BBQ Lexington, MA
Fatback Joe's BBQ Hampden, MA
Crazy Smoke N. Attleboro, MA
Que and a Half Men Rockland, MA
Chain Smokers Danvers, MA
ZBQ Cumberland, RI
Hart Attack Hopkinton, MA
Smokin' Hoggz BBQ Abington, MA
Howling Hog Barbecue E. Randolph, VT
Triple Barrel BBQ Plymouth, MA
Smokin Aces
Chicopee, MA
Rub This! BBQ Shrewsbury, MA
The Basic BBQ Team Hyannis, MA
Wizard of Qz Woburn, MA
DJ Smoke Sudbury, MA
Smoking Section BBQ Sharon, MA... more »

2013-05-16 16:49:31 (5 comments, 3 reshares, 6 +1s)

Inspired by +Lauren Weinstein and +Sai's posts on Google+'s poor handling of long text posts, I've updated +Replies and More to auto-expand text posts. 

This will automatically click the "Read More" link, and hide the "Show Less" link. Since +Replies and More is opinionated software, I've turned this on by default.

2013-05-16 12:34:31 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Something to consider. Useful not only in our everyday lives but also for world building, writing, and game design.

2013-05-16 01:24:41 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Anyone have a 2000 or later copy of Neuromancer? +Shireen Hinckley is looking for the full quote about this from the afterward for a paper:

In his afterword to the 2000 re-issue of Neuromancer, fellow author Jack Womack suggests that Gibson's vision of cyberspace may have inspired the way in which the Internet (and the Web particularly) developed, following the publication of Neuromancer in 1984, asking "what if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?"[139]

2013-05-15 20:42:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Not cool, Monsanto.

Lawmakers in Vermont are looking to regulate food labels so customers can know which products are made from genetically modified crops, but agricultural giants Monsanto say they will sue if the state follows through.

If the bill in question, H-722 (the “VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act”) passes the state Senate and House, manufacturers will be required to label products that are created either partially or in full from a genetically modified organism, or GMO. Such man-made crops have become a trademark of the billion-dollar Monsanto corporation, and in the past the company has gone to great lengths to keep themselves the number-one name in American agriculture, even if those profits are made possible from playing God.

Monsanto is going mad over the proposal, however, which would also make them unable to label their productions as“na... more »

2013-05-15 20:38:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This won't have a large impact on developing nations AT ALL...I say with blatant #sarcasm  

2013-05-15 14:55:12 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

❝ Pretty soon everyone's going to have a mental disorder or two or three, and it's time we reconsider how we want to define this and whether the definitions should be in the hands of the drug companies, which is very much what's happened in recent years. ❞

2013-05-15 14:44:49 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Homeland SEcurity has frozen accounts between Dwolla and bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

This should be interesting, but it looks like BitCoin is headed back to being an underground currency.

2013-05-15 14:02:33 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The Augustan Age. "forged amidst creeping tyranny and the demands of literary propaganda"

❝ Called the Augustan Age, it was a golden age of literature with Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphosis among its treasures. But they were forged amidst creeping tyranny and the demands of literary propaganda. Augustus tightened public morals, funded architectural renewal and prosecuted adultery. Ovid was exiled for his saucy love poems but Virgil's Aeneid, a celebration of Rome's grand purpose, was supported by the regime.
Indeed, Augustus saw literature, architecture, culture and morality as vehicles for his values. He presented his regime as a return to old Roman virtues of forbearance, valour and moral rectitude, but he created a very new form of power. He was the first Roman Emperor and, above all, he established the idea that Rome would be an empire without end. ❞

2013-05-15 13:34:22 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

Take That!

I can't help but giggle.  This is so delightfully snarky.  Looks like they should have let the new Merida keep her bow.  :p

http://www.dorktower.com/2013/05/14/princess-makeover-dork-tower-14-05-13/

2013-05-14 22:36:08 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

A brilliant reversal of gender stereotypes from a wicked smart and talented team. Well done. 

2013-05-14 16:59:16 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Any publicity is…um…you know what? I’m not even sure anymore. #nsfw

2013-05-14 15:28:13 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

h/t +Blake Ulmer

2013-05-14 15:04:58 (4 comments, 4 reshares, 5 +1s)

Commander +Chris Hadfield talks about the guitar on the ISS, and some of the aspects of playing guitar while weightless.

via today's XKCD What-If on the cost of shooting a video on the ISS http://what-if.xkcd.com/45/

2013-05-14 14:27:52 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2013-05-14 14:16:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Commute Listening: The Silk Road on In Our Time

❝ Melvyn Bragg and guests Tim Barrett, Naomi Standen and Frances Wood discuss the Silk Road, the trade routes which spanned Asia for over a thousand years, carrying Buddhism to China and paper-making and gunpowder westwards.

In 1900, a Taoist monk came upon a cave near the Chinese town of Dunhuang. Inside, he found thousands of ancient manuscripts. They revealed a vast amount of evidence about the so-called Silk Road: the great trade routes which had stretched from Central Asia, through desert oases, to China, throughout the first millennium.

Besides silk, the Silk Road helped the dispersion of writing and paper-making, coinage and gunpowder, and it was along these trade routes that Buddhism reached China from India.

The history of these transcontinental links reveals a dazzlingly complex meeting andm... more »

2013-05-14 13:34:42 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Commute Listening: The Silk Road on In Our Time

❝ Melvyn Bragg and guests Tim Barrett, Naomi Standen and Frances Wood discuss the Silk Road, the trade routes which spanned Asia for over a thousand years, carrying Buddhism to China and paper-making and gunpowder westwards.

In 1900, a Taoist monk came upon a cave near the Chinese town of Dunhuang. Inside, he found thousands of ancient manuscripts. They revealed a vast amount of evidence about the so-called Silk Road: the great trade routes which had stretched from Central Asia, through desert oases, to China, throughout the first millennium.

Besides silk, the Silk Road helped the dispersion of writing and paper-making, coinage and gunpowder, and it was along these trade routes that Buddhism reached China from India.

The history of these transcontinental links reveals a dazzlingly complex meeting andm... more »

2013-05-13 20:37:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

From the article:

Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office in 2012, the study reported, 28.4% of speaking characters were female. That's a drop from 32.8% three years ago, and a number that has stayed relatively stagnant despite increased research attention to the topic and several high-profile box-office successes starring women.

When they are on-screen, 31.6% of women are shown wearing sexually revealing clothing, the highest percentage in the five years the USC researchers have been studying the issue.

For teen girls, the number who are provocatively dressed is even higher: 56.6% of teen girl characters in 2012 movies wore sexy clothes, an increase of 20% since 2009.

2013-05-13 17:24:34 (16 comments, 3 reshares, 6 +1s)

2013-05-13 13:19:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Listening to In Our Time Archive: History (IOTH: The Neanderthals)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution and characteristics of the Neanderthals. Guests include Danielle Schreve, Chris Stringer and Simon Conway Morris.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/ioth/ioth_20100617-0900a.mp3

2013-05-13 11:50:38 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

This wasn't the first music video Chris Hadfield has done from space. See this collab w Bare Naked Ladies frontman.

Intergalactic Collab: Chris Hadfield & Ed Robertson's "Is Somebody Singing" Goes Viral

February 13, 2013
By Emily Pratt | @emilyampratt
It's a space jam! (Not the Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny kind). Last week, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies' front man Ed Robertson premiered their new song I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) exclusively for CBC Radio. The catch: While Ed and a glee club sang inside the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto, Chris just happened to be floating miles above the earth's atmosphere inside the International Space Station. Talk about an intergalactic musical collaboration.

h/t +Ken Arnold

2013-05-13 11:44:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

More details on the Space Oddity cover from performer Emm Gryner, who wrote the piano piece & co-produced it.

Via David Bowie's Facebook page.

2013-05-13 01:22:50 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I finally found a iPhone app to do onion-skining. These photos were taken over 100 years apart.

I didn't have a lot of time, since we were out there to do a lot of cleaning up, and the rain was coming in. But the photos are close. I clearly need to move more to the left. There's not much I can do about the apparent lens differences. More difficult though is the impact of beach erosion. I can't take a picture high enough to match the two up vertically, unless I out my iPhone on a tall pole.

Also worth noting. The iron structure on top is not the original. The new one was out on about ten years ago. The original was tossed in the bay when it was decommissioned in the 1930's.

2013-05-13 00:18:57 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

2013-05-12 23:20:35 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

What's like being a freshman congressperson? At least 4 hours a day devoted to raising $$$.

2013-05-12 21:34:32 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I can't say I've ever been to a "Strolling of the Heifers", let alone a heifer cycling tour.

2013-05-12 01:26:14 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

The Bloggess: Undermining Trust in the Marketplace Since Forever.

http://thebloggess.com/2013/05/things-you-cant-buy-on-ebay-a-sense-of-humor/

2013-05-11 23:13:19 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

The world loves Richard Feynman. Richard Feynman is dead.

Richard Feynman would have turned 95 today. My favorite Feynman story is from his time at Los Alamos. As he was working on the Manhattan Project. He would spend his free time picking locks to alleviate his boredom. After he discovers a hole in the wall of the top-security compound one day, he would walk in through the front gate, go out through the hole, then walk in again through the front gate. After a few times doing this, he almost got himself arrested by the MPs.

The world doesn't know his address, but he'll be getting plenty of these kinds of tributes today.

In June of 1945, Arline Feynman — high-school sweetheart and wife of the hugely influential physicist, Richard Feynman — passed away after succumbing to tuberculosis. She was 25-years-old. 16 months later, in October of 1946, Richardwrot... more »

2013-05-11 23:11:47 (16 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Pretty much.

2013-05-11 20:07:51 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Does anyone have a copy of Green Speculations by Eric Otto? Better yet, in the LA area?

A certain daughter needs it for a paper and forgot to order it in time.

Many thanks. Sorry for the notifications.

2013-05-11 11:54:02 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 13 +1s)

2013-05-11 02:45:45 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

no shock here.

2013-05-11 01:42:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

It's Raining Owls!

It started raining here in Austin yesterday, and given our ongoing drought conditions we're happy about that. Also, we still have owls. We didn't see them peeking out during the day, perhaps on account of the rain, and I was curious what effect the rain would have on their feeding habits. It turns out there was nothing to worry about.

Both parents actively participate in dinner time, and last time it was especially apparent. They take turns bringing in food, and often this means that it's just a rotation without both being there at the same time. Last night was different. They seemed to often catch prey around the same time, and one would wait patiently on a nearby branch while the other flew in to feed the owlets and then bring their own bit of yummy goodness to the box.

We know that the owlets will probably fledge within the next... more »

2013-05-10 22:12:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago - before modern humans existed.

Up 85 ppm since 1958.

This weekend I'm off to visit my family's place on Cape Cod. I fully expect that my children will be the last generation to be able to use it.

2013-05-10 22:04:48 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Medieval Dunwich, lost in the 1400's, lies below the sea. How long before archaeologists are diving to view New York and Boston?

2013-05-10 16:40:26 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)