Headphones Not Required

"I typically refer to the IAC sale as “the worst business decision of my life.” I’m not sure IAC is..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:20:43 -0400

“I typically refer to the IAC sale as “the worst business decision of my life.” I’m not sure IAC is worse than any other large company in this regard. An entrepreneur is someone who, almost artistically, designs a living entity which embodies the values, beliefs, and ambitions of the creator. It’s impossible for a larger entity to swallow a smaller one without completely reshaping it. When this process begins, a wild visionary – the entrepreneur type – is the most toxic, indigestible actor imaginable. And this is why I roll my eyes when a new acquisition is announced: Because I don’t see it as a triumphant graduation but a sacrifice to an industry that is afraid to dream big.”

- Jake Lodwick, An acquisition is always a failure (via soupsoup)

"I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 02:10:47 -0400

“

I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.

”

- My Medical Choice - NYTimes.com

Angelina Jolie is BRCA-1 positive.

I’ve been adjacent to this world for a couple of years now. My father tested positive for the gene mutation, and told my sister and I we needed to be tested. I was negative. But Dana tested positive.

She elected to have the surgeries. They were long and torturous but she’s come through the other side. She now does a lot of work with the advocacy group FORCE. My father also does work with them, fundraising and about genealogical research.

The thing you need to know, that is of the essence, is that last month the Supreme Court heard a case about the right of the lab that developed the test for the BRCA-1 mutation to hold a patent on the gene and charge whatever they want. The test can cost anywhere from $300 to $3000.

When Dana first found out, we all did a lot of research and reading. These were the ones I found most helpful:

In The Family, a documentary by Joanna Rudnick.

Pretty is What Changes, by Jessica Queller.

(via jaybushman)

Angelina Jolie’s op-ed will reach a lot of people and I’m very thankful for that, because it will make the choices so many women and men will have to face much less alien — but no less expensive.

(via meganwest)

colchrishadfield: With deference to the genius of David Bowie,...

Mon, 13 May 2013 02:07:22 -0400

colchrishadfield:

With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.

Huge thanks in the making of the video to the talented trio of Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran and Andrew Tidby, plus Evan Hadfield and all at the CSA.

"[W]hen we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows. So I..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 21:28:57 -0400

“[W]hen we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows. So I think people do want a great experience and they want access – people are mostly honest. The best way to combat piracy isn’t legislatively or criminally but by giving good options. One of the side effects of growth of content is an expectation to have access to it. You can’t use the internet as a marketing vehicle and then not as a delivery vehicle.”

- Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix (via laliberty)

Look, someone who gets it.

(via knitmeapony)

motleyjack: thegoldenlasso: Inspired by this. No words...

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:35:41 -0400

motleyjack:

thegoldenlasso:

Inspired by this.

No words can express my love for this… <3

more Super Femmes

abbyjean: Public Policy Polling has raised weird polls to an...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:31:07 -0400

abbyjean:

Public Policy Polling has raised weird polls to an art form. During last year’s presidential campaign, the firm earned a bit of a reputation for its unorthodox questions; for example, “If God exists, do you approve of its handling of natural disasters?”

Today PPP released the results of a national survey looking at common conspiracy theories. Broken down by topic and cross-referenced by political preference, the results will not inspire a lot of patriotism. If you need to defend your fellow countrymen, be sure to note that the margin of error is 2.8 percent. (Atlantic)

(to be fair, this is the proportion of people who told a polling company they believed this, which may or may not reflect actual belief. i myself would report a belief that northwestern university is being threatened by attack deer engineered by the university of wisconsin…)

Photo

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:05:15 -0400

"Herndon pulled up an Excel spreadsheet containing Reinhart’s data and quickly spotted something that..."

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:19:47 -0400

“

Herndon pulled up an Excel spreadsheet containing Reinhart’s data and quickly spotted something that looked odd.

“I clicked on cell L51, and saw that they had only averaged rows 30 through 44, instead of rows 30 through 49.”

What Herndon had discovered was that by making a sloppy computing error, Reinhart and Rogoff had forgotten to include a critical piece of data about countries with high debt-to-GDP ratios that would have affected their overall calculations. They had also excluded data from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia — all countries that experienced solid growth during periods of high debt and would thus undercut their thesis that high debt forestalls growth….

After consulting his professors, Herndon signed two of them — Pollin and department chair Michael Ash — on as co-authors, and the three of them quickly put together a paper outlining their findings. The paper cut to the core of a debate that has been dividing economists and politicians for decades. Fans of austerity believe that governments should cut spending in order to grow their economies, while anti-austerians believe that government spending in times of economic duress can create growth and reduce unemployment, even if it increases debt in the short term. What Herndon et al. were claiming, in essence, was that the pro-austerity movement was relying on bogus information.

”

- Grad Student Who Shook Global Austerity Movement — Daily Intelligencer

Always check your math. The fate of the world might depend on it.

(via jaybushman)

hitrecordjoe: jaredgeller: <3 (image via...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:05:32 -0400

hitrecordjoe:

jaredgeller:

<3

(image via TheIlluminator)

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shananaomi: “I really, honestly think that anybody who is...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:47:59 -0400

shananaomi:

“I really, honestly think that anybody who is openly gay and visible is powerful. It doesn’t matter what you do, you are impacting people.”

—Portia de Rossi in OUT’s May 2013 issue.

In my new cover story with Portia de Rossi, she talks about taking the plunge into producing, happy home life with Ellen and how she feels about having the gayest TV husband ever on Arrested Development.

Read it here.

maddieonthings: Party Nose

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:21:00 -0400

maddieonthings:

Party Nose

explodingdog: My Favorite Songs

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:07:37 -0400

explodingdog:

My Favorite Songs

doctorswithoutborders: Photo: The raining season may close off...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:07:00 -0400

doctorswithoutborders:

Photo: The raining season may close off vehicle access to roads, but MSF staff will find the means to reach their patients in need. DRC 2013 © MSF

futurejournalismproject: Remembering Rwanda Via Pieter...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:06:40 -0400

futurejournalismproject:

Remembering Rwanda

Via Pieter Hugo:

In 2004, most of the photojournalists I knew were heading to South Africa to cover that country’s decade of democracy celebrations. Following a succession of terrible events – widespread famine, Somalia’s endless civil war, the scourge of Aids and finally the genocide in Rwanda, which led to the war in former Zaire – people were desperate to tell positive stories from Africa. Publications and academics demanded it, claiming that it was irresponsible to continue depicting Africa as a continent tethered to war, famine and disaster. Yet, not engaging with the complexities of Rwanda seemed thoughtless to me.

As I still worked primarily as a photojournalist at the time, I tried petitioning every foreign publication I knew to send me to Rwanda. None obliged, so I decided to go on my own and stayed there for a few months photographing and contemplating these sites.

Rwanda did eventually rebury its dead ceremoniously in 2004. After President Paul Kagame stated that France ‘knowingly trained and armed the government soldiers and militias who were going to commit genocide and they knew they were going to commit genocide’, the French junior foreign minister, Renaud Muselier, cut his trip short.

These photographs offer a glimpse of what I saw there before the reburials took place, and a very limited forensic view of a few of the genocide sites. At many of the places there is nothing happening and historical knowledge is needed to support the images; through the stillness the atrocity continues to resonate. At some of the sites human remains and the personal effects of the dead are still present. I hope these images in some small way bear testament to the personal anguish of these individuals.

April 7 was the United Nations’ Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Rwanda Genocide. Human rights organizations estimate that 800,000 people were killed within a one hundred day period.

Image: Bodies Covered in Lime, Murambi, by Pieter Hugo.

hipsterfood: Over the winter I’ve been falling in love with...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:01:30 -0400

hipsterfood:

Over the winter I’ve been falling in love with sour foods. Citrus are the easiest to identify: lemons, limes, grapefruit - but also cranberries, vinegars, and fermented and pickled foods. I’ve always eaten too much sugar and soda, so when I wanted to stop consuming (at times) 10 or 20 times the recommended amount of sugar every day, I went sour. What I found wasn’t unpleasant, as you would normally think these foods are, it was a whole new sense that I had never explored, and I’m so glad I did.

Read More

nprfreshair: From the family vault of our executive producer,...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:33:39 -0400

nprfreshair:

From the family vault of our executive producer, Danny Miller:

Today on the show, we’re rebroadcasting Dave Davies’s interview with Frank Langella about Langella’s role in the 2012 movie Robot & Frank. That, combined with the chatter about “botnets” in the massive denial of service cyber-attacks this week got me thinking about Botro. Botro was an imaginary robot character that my dad invented when we were kids. My father, Joe Miller, was an architect very much in the modern tradition. When one of us were sick, or sometimes for our birthdays, Botro would show up in a drawing flashing a message on his belly screen. Botro really hit his stride when the grandkids Eitan, Marie and Karen arrived on the scene.

And speaking of Botros - or Robots – there’s this gem from The Flight of the Conchords.

motherjones: jhermann: archiemcphee: Yago Partal, a graphic...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:12:27 -0400

motherjones:

jhermann:

archiemcphee:

Yago Partal, a graphic artist based in Barcelona, has created an awesome photo series entitled Zoo Portraits, depicting a wide variety of animals who all share two things in common: they like dressing up in stylish clothing and posing for fashion portraits.

There are lots of different animals in the series and you can purchase prints of the photos via Yago’s online shop. We love each and every one of them.

[via HiConsumption]

menswear dog is crying alone somewhere right now

Yup.

meganwest: brucesterling: Joi Ito of MIT Media Lab: From a...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:02:42 -0400

meganwest:

brucesterling:

Joi Ito of MIT Media Lab:

From a Wired interview:

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/resiliency-risk-and-a-good-compass-how-to-survive-the-coming-chaos/

Ito: There are nine or so principles to work in a world like this:

1. Resilience instead of strength, which means you want to yield and allow failure and you bounce back instead of trying to resist failure.

2. You pull instead of push. That means you pull the resources from the network as you need them, as opposed to centrally stocking them and controlling them.

3. You want to take risk instead of focusing on safety.

4. You want to focus on the system instead of objects.

5. You want to have good compasses not maps.

6. You want to work on practice instead of theory. Because sometimes you don’t why it works, but what is important is that it is working, not that you have some theory around it.

7. It disobedience instead of compliance. You don’t get a Nobel Prize for doing what you are told. Too much of school is about obedience, we should really be celebrating disobedience.

8. It’s the crowd instead of experts.

9. It’s a focus on learning instead of education.

We’re still working on it, but that is where our thinking is headed.

Needed this today.

Big changes ahead.

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:25:32 -0400

I’ve been rather quiet because I’ve been busy and haven’t really had the energy for Tumblr. Not sure when this will change and I’ll go back to posting regularly, but I’m around and just busy.

In April I’m leaving NYC and moving to San Francisco for a new job. My boyfriend recently started a job out in the bay area, which was a major part of the incentive to move. I’m not done with school yet, but I’m arranging things so I can finish up remotely.

It’s scary and exciting. I love San Francisco, but it’s definitely different than New York. There are a lot of things I’ll miss about NYC. Honestly, I don’t think I’m done with this city yet and won’t be surprised if I end up back here in the future.

Photo

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:38:19 -0500