GoodShit

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A person close to the family has confirmed reports that that Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died. He was 87.
—Garcia Marquez’s magical realist novels and short stories exposed tens of millions of readers to Latin America’s passion, superstition, violence and inequality. Widely considered the most popular Spanish-language writer since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century, Garcia Marquez achieved literary celebrity that spawned comparisons to Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.
—His flamboyant and melancholy works outsold everything published in Spanish except the Bible. The epic 1967 novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude sold more than 50 million copies in more than 25 languages.

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OBITUARY

Capital Man – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.A FINE ADDITIONAL REVIEW HEREThomas Piketty is economics’ biggest sensation. He’s also the field’s fiercest critic.
By Emily Eakin
–The French economist Thomas Piketty arrived in Washington, D.C., on Sunday for a week of talks at some of the nation’s leading policy-research centers but which might as well have been billed as a victory lap up the East Coast. The English translation of Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, a formidably rigorous, 700-page history of wealth, out barely five weeks, had just made The New York Times’s best-seller list. But even before it appeared, on the strength of a handful of advance reviews and a surge of Internet buzz, Piketty’s transformation was complete: from respected researcher on income distribution to ranking heavyweight, a scholar who, armed with reams of data and charts—and, unusual for an economist, a gilded tongue—proposed to upend decades of mainstream wisdom on inequality though an unprecedented analysis of the past.
—The Economist declared that Piketty’s book may “revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries” and started an online reading group to discuss it chapter by chapter. The British magazine Prospect added Piketty to its annual list of the most influential world thinkers, and his book was said to be making the rounds in the office of Ed Milliband, the British Labour Party leader. Documentary filmmakers were vying for the chance to turn the book into a movie; a composer was seeking Piketty’s blessing to make it an opera.

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Congress demands more information on NSA spy programs .

FBI agents storm out from Senate hearing to avoid testifying on Insider Threat program .

‘Zero knowledge privacy’: NSA-proof email service goes online .

Two justices say high court will likely rule on NSA programs.

18 April SWJ Roundup | Small Wars Journal.

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January 1937. “Migrant agricultural workers. Family from New Mexico, camped near the packinghouse at Deerfield, Florida. Note the box labeled ‘Yakima Apples’ which has been carried all the way from the apple orchards of Washington.” Photo by Arthur Rothstein for the Resettlement Administration…. via.

…a group of passengers, and conductor on a train car. Travel used to be a big event, and you can see from this picture what a special occasion it was…. via.

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled, from the Kitchen Table Series, 1990 (63.2001.3)

Carrie Mae Weems tells stories in her photographs, often becoming her own subject. She uses her work to explore cultural, social, and political issues, particularly those dealing with representation of women and African Americans, and comments on race, sex, and gender.

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We lived in a sandy-colored stone house with an engraved winged serpent and solar disc above the door. It seemed like something straight out of ancient Sumeria, or Indiana Jones — but it was not, in either case, something you’d expect to find in upstate New York. It overlooked a deep gorge, and beyond that the city of Ithaca. At the turn of the last century it had been the headquarters for a secret society at Cornell called the Sphinx Head Tomb, but in the second half of the century some bedrooms and a kitchen were added and, by the 1980s, it had been converted into a private home where I lived with my wonderful mother and father.

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TUNE.

Late one night last August, on the chalk downlands of southern England, Paul Kingsnorth stood in a field beside an old-growth forest, two yurts and a composting toilet. Kingsnorth is 41, tall, slim and energetic, with sweeping brown hair and a sparse beard. He wears rimless glasses and a silver stud in his ear, and he talks with great ardor, often apologizing for having said too much or for having said it too strongly.

On this occasion, Kingsnorth was silent.

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Eliot Elisofon: The Danish Gym team (red & white, natch’!), preparing for the World’s Fair…

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“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett

“Hypocrisy is the only modern sin.” – Nick Denton

Last Friday morning, a shuttle bus transporting Google workers from Oakland to Mountain View was surrounded by a mob. A banner was unfurled – “Fuck off Google” — and several of the protesters began hurling rocks at the bus, smashing a side window. Later reports suggested the bus had its tires slashed before police arrived to break up the violence.
—The attack coincided with a similar protest in San Francisco, which remained peaceful, although afterwards Erin Mcelroy of Eviction-Free San Francisco told Pando she was “excited” that her Oakland colleagues were “mobilizing in different ways.”
—And so this is what it’s come to.

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1. Neil Strauss told me you would

Neil Strauss wrote a book called The Game. That book told me I’d have more luck with women if I wore crazy hats at night clubs (see: ‘Peacocking’). It also taught me about false time constraints. If you approach someone and say, “I’ve got to get back to my friends in five minutes but I wanted to ask you…”, then the person you’re approaching will be less likely to feel you are intruding or being invasive. They lower their barriers because their subconscious rationalizes that they will only have to endure you for five minutes if things get awkward — they become mentally prepared for a known finite encounter. So too with lists. You know from the outset that this thing is only going to be 10 points, that’s how long you will have to endure. The end is in sight right up front, as is the reward (in this case, learning 10 reasons why you will read this), and this certainty for its own sake is both alluring and reassuring.

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Our brains are hardwired for language .

Chronic inflammation linked to ‘high-grade’ prostate cancer .

Fossil Reveals Missing Link In The Transition From Carnivore To Herbivore .

Classifying Cognitive Style Across Disciplines .

DNA ‘barcodes’ reveal North America’s 10,000 fungi.

Epigenetics Helps Explain Early Humans’ Appearances – D-brief .

75-year-old human cloned for the production of stem cells.

Why we get autism but our Neanderthal cousins didn’t - .

Next Time Someone Tells You That Our World Is Getting Worse, Show Them This. .

Females have penises in sex-reversed cave insects.

Almost-Earth Tantalizes Astronomers With Promise of Worlds to Come .

Fossils suggest modern sharks are better predators than ancestors .

homeless vet

Tallahassee, Fla. — Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 2012, a freshman at Florida State University reported that she had been raped by a stranger somewhere off campus after a night of drinking at a popular Tallahassee bar called Potbelly’s.

As she gave her account to the police, several bruises began to appear, indicating recent trauma. Tests would later find semen on her underwear.

For nearly a year, the events of that evening remained a well-kept secret until the woman’s allegations burst into the open, roiling the university and threatening a prized asset: Jameis Winston, one of the marquee names of college football.

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No matter how deep a civilian’s interest is when it comes to PTSD in the military, and how it can be treated or prevented—if you don’t have battle experience, you’ll always be a few steps away when it comes to relating to the men and women who return from battle with mental wounds.
—For many people in Canada, which boasts a small military, meeting an active soldier or a veteran during one’s average day can be rare, especially when media stereotypes tend to depict veterans as scattered or mentally ravaged. Because of that, I was pleased to meet Jody Mitic, a war hero who stepped on a landmine and lost both of his feet in Afghanistan, and who has become an outspoken advocate of soldiers’ mental health.

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A Canadian flag with a marijuana leaf flies alongside Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada during a pot legalization rally. (Donald Weber/Getty Images)

Back in January, UK-based wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas spent six days in the Makgadikgadi Pans region of Botswana photographing meerkats.
—He got more than he bargained for when the curious creatures clambered onto him and his photography equipment, playing with his camera and using his gigantic lens as a look-out post.
—The resulting close-up shots of the adorable meerkats, which included tiny three-week-old babies, are nothing short of delightful.
—Check out a video below of his experience and view more images here.

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Though James Dent could watch Central High School’s homecoming parade from the porch of his faded-white bungalow, it had been years since he’d bothered. But last fall, Dent’s oldest granddaughter, D’Leisha, was vying for homecoming queen, and he knew she’d be poking up through the sunroof of her mother’s car, hand cupped in a beauty-pageant wave, looking for him.

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A pseudocrater looks like a true volcanic crater, but is not. These distinctive landforms are created when flowing hot lava crosses over a wet surface, such as a swamp, a lake, or a pond causing an explosion of steam through the lava. The explosive gases break through the lava surface in a manner similar to a phreatic eruption, and flying debris builds up crater-like feature which can appear very similar to real volcanic craters. Pseudocraters are also known as rootless cones, since they are characterized by the absence of any magma conduit which connects below the surface of the earth.

A classic locality for pseudocraters is the Lake Myvatn area of northern Iceland that was formed 2,300 years ago by basaltic lava eruption. The lava flowed down the Laxárdalur Valley to the lowland plain of Aðaldalur where it entered the Arctic Ocean about 50 km away from Mývatn. There was a large lake in the area at the time, a precursor of the present-day Mývatn. When the glowing lava encountered the lake some of the water-logged lake sediment was trapped underneath it. The ensuing steam explosions tore the lava into small pieces which were thrown up into the air, together with some of the lake.

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On a windy and rainy day in Boston, the city marked a year since the attack at the Marathon. Two homemade bombs killed three and injured more than 250 people near the finish line last year. Symbolic events took place today culminating with a flag-raising ceremony and moment of silence. –Lloyd Young (20 photos total)

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Living with your parents, single and with no clear career. Is this a failure to grow up or a whole new stage of life’?

I will readily admit, it took me a long time to grow up. I graduated from Michigan State University in 1980 at the age of 23 with a freshly printed bachelor’s degree in psychology and no idea what I really wanted to do. I’d learned to play guitar in college and, intent on avoiding the drudgery of a crummy low-paying job, I now worked up a repertoire of songs large enough to enable me to make money by playing in bars and restaurants. I made enough to live on, but only because I had moved back home with my parents and didn’t have to pay for rent or groceries.

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New York — In the doorway of his cafe, located in the heart of Little Italy on New York’s Lower East Side, Angelo Greco lies dead, target of a lone gunman who fired four accurate shots. The slaying took place as the street was crowded with hundreds returning to their homes after the day’s work. Not one of the people peering out of the windows – in common Lower East Side fashion – nor those on the street knew anything about the shooting. Police said Greco had a record of ten arrests and two convictions. One was for possession, one for illegal sale of alcohol. (1939)

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Charlotte Figi

Six-year-old Charlotte is the miniature miracle who suffered from an untreatable form of epilepsy and used medical marijuana to cure herself. By the time she was two years old her parents had literally tried all medications to cure her – some which nearly ended in her demise. Enduring some 50 seizures a night, her parents managed to get her a medical marijuana card in Colorado.

After her first dose of high CBD oil her seizures immediately stopped, her parents claim. She emerged out of her catatonic state and her parents got to meet her for the first time. Charlotte has since featured on a CNN documentary, documenting her miraculous story.

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“La via per immagini,” 1985

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For centuries New Zealand flightless birds and slow-moving reptiles lived without fear of native predators. This golden era ended when the British showed up on rat-infested ships. Since then, rats have become the key player in the destruction of native forestry and the extinction of nine native species of birds. Clearly the rats need to go, but how do you motivate New Zealanders into becoming active rat hunters?

Beer Trap is a program that lets time-rich and beer-poor university students to swap dead rats for free brews. Genius, right? We spoke to Jonathan Musther, one of the masterminds of the campaign, about the intricacies of fixing the environment with young Kiwis and alcohol.

VICE: So first of all, how do I get a free beer?

Gareth Morgan: It’s pretty simple, you bring a dead rat to Victoria University of Wellington’s Science Society, we supply the traps, and we exchange it for a voucher which you can use to claim a drink at The Hunter Lounge (the uni bar).

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This Friday, a movie called Transcendence will arrive in theaters…. The movie follows Johnny Depp’s Dr. Caster’s journey from being fatally shot to uploading his mind into a supercomputer, where he achieves the all-knowing, all-powerful state he’s only dreamed about before. But whether Transcendence ends up being the movie of the year or another Nolanesque piece of genre silliness, the concept that gives the film its title is something we need to consider—because this time, these ideas are real.

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Escalera a ninguna parte. Quizás, el signo de los tiempos…. via/a>.

Analysis of a 325 million-year-old fossil suggests that modern sharks have evolved extensively, rather than remaining unchanged since prehistoric times

two views of a curvy rock on a white background, with some biological structures visible

The exceptionally well-preserved fossil of Ozarcus mapesae from two different lateral views. The scale bar is 10 millimeters

AMNH / F. Ippolito

Sharks are usually thought of as primitive creatures, sometimes called “living fossils.” But a new study of a 325-million-year-old shark fossil — the most complete of its kind — suggests modern sharks have evolved significantly from their bony ancestors.

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Invasive species and sushi lovers threaten to wipe the little creatures from the Nova Scotian coast. And with them, a $2.5 million industry. by Meagan Campbell

Sea urchins from the bed of the Atlantic Ocean are served in Japan on another bed, one of rice. The roe inside their spiky scalps is a delicacy, which meets the tongue with a sweet tang and wiggles down the throat like milky tofu. But the Atlantic’s sea urchins are disappearing. And a formerly $2.5 million-per-year Nova Scotian industry is disappearing with them.

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Tom Mc Nemar Still Life and Fine Art Photography | Cemetery | A Man and his Guitar<... via.

The federal government has recently signed off on approving study and research for using marijuana as a treatment for veterans that deal with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. This decision has marijuana advocates surprised, yet glad. The study to be conducted will monitor how 50 veterans that suffer from PTSD react to vaporized marijuana. This study will research different potencies of the plant.
—This decision made by the Department of Health and Human Services has many wondering how this will shift other drug policies in America. For years marijuana has been illegal and punished with harsh criminal penalties. If the studies are shown as successful then this could lead to a more lenient view on the drug, especially where medical use is concerned.

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Survey: Americans say no to robots as caretakers and meat grown in a lab .

Horrifying: Centipede tears through snake’s stomach .

Mars orbiter snaps Curiosity and tracks from far above .

New proposal may pave way for next generation of plastic computers r.

New Caseid Fossil Sheds Light on Ancient Carnivore’s Evolution into Plant-Eating Lifestyle .

Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
–In total, the U.S. loses $150 billion in federal revenue and another $34 billion in… Read More
–U.S. taxpayers would need to pay an average of $1,259 more a year to make up the federal and state taxes lost to corporations and individuals sheltering money in overseas tax havens, according to a report.
–“Tax haven abusers benefit from America’s markets, public infrastructure, educated workforce, security and rule of law -– all supported in one way or another by tax dollars but they avoid paying for these benefits,” U.S. Public Interest Research Group said in the report released today, the deadline for filing 2013 taxes.

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‘Zero knowledge privacy’: NSA-proof email service goes online .

EFF: NSA May Have Used IRC Botnets to Exploit Heartbleed for Last Two Years.

17 April SWJ Roundup | Small Wars Journal.

War News Updates.

This Backpack Drone Could be U.S. Troops’ New Secret Weapon.

RealClearDefense.

How Turkey Can Integrate Syrian Refugees .

Obama: NSA Must Reveal Bugs Like Heartbleed, Unless They Help the NSA /a>.

Terrorism expands from Sinai to Cairo .

pic hosting

1864. “Point of Rocks, Virginia (vicinity). Redoubt ‘Zabriskie’ on Appomattox River.” Civil War glass negative collection, Library of Congress…via.

Today’s picture is from around 1920, and it shows some passengers in the observation car of a passenger train. From the looks of it, I would guess you needed some sort of first class ticket to access this car….via.

erotic cemetary art