sitting at the foot of the bed

kqedscience: A humbling map of real-time wind patterns in...

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:31:34 -0700

A humbling map of real-time wind patterns in Tornado Alley

“Wind Map” is a stunning interactive datavisualization that presents wind patterns across the continental U.S. in real time. Picture above is what it looked like last night at 10:59 CDT, in the aftermath of yesterday’s devastating Oklahoma tornado.”

Read more here from io9.

chirp: It’s taken me a few days to process this, and I’ve...

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:47:04 -0700

chirp:

It’s taken me a few days to process this, and I’ve thought long and hard about whether I wanted to write about this publicly. Those of you who follow me on Instagram know that on Friday evening, I got a courtesy ride from the cops (and some of you left some very good emoji montages, pictured above). I was on my way to the Needles & Pens anniversary show, and BART was delayed due to that naked guy fiasco, so I hopped on a 14 and took my phone out of my pocket to let a friend know that I would be late. Then, as the bus pulled over to the 23rd and Mission stop, a scary man ripped my phone out of my hands and ran off the bus with it.

Now, I don’t consider myself a particularly brave person. I cover my face at least once during every Game of Thrones episode, I’ve had a long history of existential anxiety and hypochondria, and I am a smallish person with a weak constitution who has never gotten into a physical fight in her life. Maybe it was the fact that I had just been pick-pocketed in Europe last month, but something happened to me then, some animal instinct that flipped a switch and propelled me off the bus, screaming bloody murder and running after this guy who was twice my size with all of my might.

I caught up to him and grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt, yelling “GIVE ME BACK MY PHONE! HE STOLE MY PHONE!” over and over at the top of my lungs. He struck me in the face and threw me to the ground, but I somehow managed to get back up and run after him again. After some blur of a struggle, he let go of my phone, muttered “what the fuck is wrong with you?” and took off around the corner. Despite having been dropped, my phone was miraculously in one piece and barely damaged. This all happened in less than two minutes.

The Muni driver, who had stopped the bus since I had run off screaming, declared this his last stop and called 911. “See that?” he said, pointing to the cameras placed about the bus. “We got him here. We got him there.” There is also a camera in front of Mission Bar, where most of this transpired. Two nice girls held me and offered me cigarettes while I waited for the police and paramedics to arrive, then stuck around to give eyewitness testimony. My lip was bleeding and I was shaking uncontrollably but I kept insisting that I was okay. I got my phone back and I am alive. I have never been hugged and told I was a badass by so many strangers.

Let me just say that I do not consider what I did to be the smartest thing to do. When shit happens, the human body has a fight or flight response, and mine happened to be fight. I had no time to think, and adrenaline is one hell of a drug. However, there were at least ten witnesses on the sidewalk and several times that number on the bus and inside nearby businesses, and during the chase and struggle, none of these people intervened to help me. This is still disappointing to me. If you see a person in distress, please do something. Anything. Please do not assume that it may just be a domestic dispute that you have no business involving yourself in, like so many bystanders in my case.

I am fine. My right knee is in a brace and I have some bruises and cuts on my hands and face, but it could have been a lot worse. I probably have a bit of psychological trauma, but mostly I feel triumphant. And angry. I am angry that I had to go through that, that I was not more careful, that I have all of these aches in my body. I am angry that nobody helped me until it was over. I am angry that this awful criminal is still out there. I am angry that I cannot be safe in a city that I spend so much to live in, and that this city breeds the kind of class warfare that drives crimes like these. I am angry because I am a freelance designer who works harder and makes less money than the average person my age living in this neighborhood, but that doesn’t matter because I was targeted anyway. And I am angry that despite all this, I will probably get some shitty reactions declaring that I deserved this, that I had it coming, something something gentrification tech hipster bullshit something.

I made it to the Luggage Store after all, via that courtesy ride. I laughed and cried and drank and smoked more than I should have, then met up with other friends and stayed out. And then I stayed out all day Saturday, because I did not want to be home alone with my cat and my thoughts. I am feeling much better now, thanks to time and the company of so many of my favorite people. You know who you are and I thank you with all of my heart. I am a wolf. I fought the bad guy, and I won.

Update: I wrote some more thoughts on Mission Mission.

Couple embracing, Egon Schiele

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:43:57 -0700

Couple embracing, Egon Schiele

thefrogman: Warp Dogs.

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:05:03 -0700

thefrogman:

Warp Dogs.

eatsleepdraw: Her Adonis Archontides

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:04:07 -0700

eatsleepdraw:

Her

Adonis Archontides

clairemojher: To celebrate the exciting return of Arrested...

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:33:44 -0700

clairemojher:

To celebrate the exciting return of Arrested Development, a few of us greeting card artists put our heads (and pencils) together and whipped up a (fake) mini-line of greeting cards for this contest that anyone can download and print out for free!

It’s super easy! Download the high-res files here. They even come with a dotted line for the fold and should print easily to your basic home printer.

And if you like them, please share them to your heart’s content!

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:24:49 -0700

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:23:05 -0700

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:22:47 -0700

A solar panel field of the size of Austria in the Sahara desert would produce enough electricity for the whole world.

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:19:11 -0700

seerofnight:

did-you-kno:

The left square, labelled “world,” is around the size of Austria. If that area were covered in solar thermal power plants, it could produce enough electricity to meet world demand. The area in the center would be required to meet European demand. The one on the right corresponds to Germany’s energy demand.

Source

A post on tumblr on environmentalism with more than a few hundred notes? This is very rare.

the-science-llama: If Earth Had Rings First off, they would be...

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:02:26 -0700

Guatamala

Washington, DC

Quito, Ecuador

Polynesia The Earth's Shadow appears on the Rings at night

Arctic Circle The Rings are barely visible

the-science-llama:

If Earth Had Rings

First off, they would be really pretty to look at. They would also dominate the sky in both night and day at exactly the same place as they would never rise nor set. And at night you would see the Earth’s shadow swing across the rings, like in the 4th photo here.

However, life would be very different on Earth if this were the case. Nocturnal animals would have a hard time being nocturnal, as the light reflecting from the rings would illuminate the night.

Because we are closer to the Sun than Saturn is, the rings would be more rocky than ice, making them less bright but still pretty bright. In fact, you would see far less stars at night (living anywhere other than the equator or the arctic circle) because of the light pollution and not to mention ruin most meteor showers because of that.

During the day the rings would block sunlight in certain regions of the planet creating wild weather cycles and effecting plant life as well. So basically, they would be definitely pretty to look at but they would also make a whole lot of things screwy.

Illustrations by Ron Miller // io9
— Click the photos for captions

sonofbaldwin: christel-thoughts: Wayne Allyn Root -...

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:01:27 -0700

sonofbaldwin:

christel-thoughts:

Wayne Allyn Root - seriously, look his face in the last gif.

I don’t even know whether to classify this as classism, the dehumanizing effect of capitalism, or simply “look at this fucking asshole”. The most appropriate is most likely “I’m a rich white guy; nobody’s suffering matters more than my money” - a brief synopsis of a good 65/70 % of the world’s problems.

Look at white supremacy.

And understand that it has no concept of how to understand our humanity