July 15, 2012
Tiaras Unite!
This fanart piece of Disney Princesses as superheroes inspired a group of cosplayers to make it real. Their latest group shot at San Diego Comic-Con features new faces: Jane, Nala, Merida, Giselle, Cinderella, and Wendy. [more inside]
'Students were allowed to quit at any time. Seven of them did.'
Officers in the United States Marine Corps face a long and rigorous selection and training process. First, Officer Candidate School, where they receive their commissions. Then The Basic School, where they are taught the credo: 'Every Marine A Rifleman.' Then, for those who choose and are selected for the infantry, the Infantry Officer's Course.
With the 'front lines' of modern combat blurred at best, the United States Marine Corps will begin accepting women for the infantry in September, enrolling them in the Infantry Officer's Course. [more inside]
tut tut tut
Indian Dubstep is a fun little dance routine by Gerardam, two brothers from India, Johnnathan and Joshua Gerard. Via Ministry of Manipulation, who say, "... this is what happens when two clowns become excellent dancers." Johnnathan composed the music.
Underground-ish rappers review mainstream movies
NextMovie sends rappers to the movies in the series Rapper Reviews: 21 video reviews from an eclectic selection of artists. May be considered NSFW and/or offensive. DJ Paul of Three Six Mafia on The Three Stooges. R.A. the Rugged Man on The Lucky One. David Banner on The Hunger Games. Kool Keith on Magic Mike. M.O.P. on The Muppets. Insane Clown Posse on Water for Elephants. Jean Grae on X-Men: First Class.
2012 Tony Awards Performances
The cast of The Book Of Mormon provide the opening number, "Hello", for the 66th Annual Tony Awards. This preceeded the celebrated opening number "What If Life Were More Like Theater?" (previously). But there were many other performances that night... [more inside]
HURF DURF YOUTUBE COMMENTATOR
Daily Odd Compliment
Lightning capture at 7 thousand frames per second
These each take about 1/2 second but have been expanded to ~30 seconds. I read a book about Tesla awhile ago, and he seemed to view lighting almost like a fluid (and electricity in general).
This is a really cool, really interesting way to view it, and the videos here are mesmerizing.
Stop trying to save the Earth, it's too late
"...by persisting in the false belief that coral reefs have a future, we grossly misallocate the funds needed to cope with the fallout from their collapse." In the New York Times, ecologist Roger Bradbury argues that it's too late to save a big chunk of the Earth's environment, and that we should instead spend our resources getting ready for the challenges we'll face once that part of the world is destroyed. Marine scientists offer varying opinions on how doomed the reefs are, ranging from "Yep, they're doomed" to "If we stopped increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere today, they would probably stick around in some more or less degraded form" to "it’s clear to me that corals as a group of living things will almost assuredly* construct glorious reefs in millenniums to come of unimaginable richness."
"I want to put this whole business out of my own mind. It happened such a long time ago."
The Cyclops Child is an essay published in Psychology Today by Dr. Frederic Neuman, M. D., detailing the brief life and death of a child born with Holoprosencephaly in the 1960s. Ford Vox, writing for The Atlantic, critiques the essay, and Dr. Neuman has published an addendum in response to the ensuing medical ethics debate.
"It is while running or thinking of running, Hall said, that he feels most conversant with and dependent on God."
A Runner’s Belief: God Is His Coach. [NYTimes.com] "As he prepares for the London Olympics, the marathoner Ryan Hall has embraced an evangelical Christian faith and has found biblical reinforcement for his training."
Auction House
Swann Galleries is Photographs, Posters, Prints & Drawings, Books, Maps, Autographs, and African-American Fine Art. Served daily. Also. [more inside]
Swiss Miss: Can poor people open a Swiss bank account?
Foreign Policy magazine asks, "Can poor people open a Swiss bank account?" (Bad news: You need more than a passport, some pocket change, and a healthy disdain for the IRS.)
Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My University Press
What is the probability that you are dreaming right now? asks Jan Westerhoff, author of Oxford University Press' Reality: A Very Short Introduction (large excerpts at Google Books). Westerhoff explains that since it's accepted that about 20% of time sleeping is REM (dreaming) sleep, if you sleep 8 hours a night, then 10% of your "conscious" time is actually dream time.* [more inside]
In the Public Interest....
Earlier this year, six scientists and doctors filed a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration alleging that the FDA had secretly monitored their personal e-mail accounts after they (legally) warned Congress that the "agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients." The agency said it had done so to "investigate allegations that the employees had leaked confidential information to the public." At the time, the FDA indicated their computer monitoring was limited to five scientists. But now, the New York Times is reporting that "what began as a narrow investigation" "quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process.". [more inside]
The heat goes on
Could global warming become an election issue? After the extreme weather last year and the likelihood that 2012 will reach a record high global temperature (which it almost has), it's possible that hot weather could become politically noticeable. Most Americans say they believe temperatures around the world are going up and that weather patterns have become more unstable in the past few years, according to this poll (and this other poll and this other poll.) Obama has said that climate change and the money being thrown into the denial of science is one of the most important issues in the coming campaign discussion. but Romney doesn't know.
We the People ... Are Lonely
In "Friends of a Certain Age," the New York Times Style Section examines how life stages affect friendship, citing the college years as America's prime friendship-making time. Why? Because as we get older and "external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other." [more inside]
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