One More Cup of Coffee

vurtual: Bernal, a Magical Town - Mexico (by Luis Montemayor)

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:25 -0400

Bernal, a Magical Town - Mexico (by Luis Montemayor)

"I am still so naive; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am...."

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:18 -0400

“I am still so naive; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?”

- Sylvia Plath (via deardarlingbutton)

wnycradiolab: Julie Mecoli’s “Dark Matter” is a series of...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:35 -0400

wnycradiolab:

Julie Mecoli’s “Dark Matter” is a series of artworks inspired by the University of Queensland Pitch Drop Experiment (if you want to seriously geek out about this, our story on the experiment is right here).

Mecoli’s pieces are made of bitumen. They start out looking like solids and slooooowly reveal their true liquid nature. Check out some of her other work here.

westeastsouthnorth: Sanaa, Yemen

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:00:17 -0400

westeastsouthnorth:

Sanaa, Yemen

"The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make you unloveable or..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:18 -0400

“The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make you unloveable or undesirable or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. Everyone struggles. Everyone has a difficult time coping, and at times, we all fall apart. During these times, we aren’t always easy to be around — and that’s okay. No one is easy to be around one hundred percent of the time. Yes, you may sometimes be unpleasant or difficult. And yes, you may sometimes do or say things that make the people around you feel helpless or sad. But those things aren’t all of who you are and they certainly don’t discount your worth as a human being. The truth is that you can be struggling and still be loved. You can be difficult and still be cared for. You can be less than perfect, and still be deserving of compassion and kindness.”

- Daniell Koepke (via anditslove)

"The millennials are the people who’ve inherited the hangover from the baby boomers’ party: a warming..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:04:48 -0400

“The millennials are the people who’ve inherited the hangover from the baby boomers’ party: a warming planet, a dysfunctional global financial system that rewards the rich and screws the poor, a polarized political class that’s moved so far to the right that a centrist like Barack Obama can be described with a straight face as “a socialist.” Millennials may be “narcissistic, materialistic and addicted to technology,” as Stein alleges early in his article; they’re also drowning in college debt, slaves to an internship “system” that demands ever-increasing work for no pay, and entrants into a job market that’s replaced employment rights with the “flexibility” of never being able to afford health insurance.”

- Why Time’s Millennials Cover Story Says More About Joel Stein Than It Does About Millennials

(via jumblejo)

I graduated from college a year ago, summa cum laude, with three internships under my belt, and I’m still working as a hostess in a chain restaurant.

A few months ago, I interviewed for a job that sounded perfect for me — until the hiring manager decided that hiring a recent college grad was too big a risk. Instead, he wanted to hire two of them to work part time for a few months before deciding which one to keep full-time — and which one to fire. Because we are completely disposable.

feistie: A kid was walking around school wearing this today and...

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:58:26 -0400

feistie:

A kid was walking around school wearing this today and didn’t receive a single comment from administration.

Meanwhile, I was pulled over twice by them to mention how “incredibly short” my bottoms were.

Last time I checked, my shorts don’t reference blowjobs.

Quit sexualizing things that aren’t meant to be suggestive.

stupidfuckingquestions: What do network executives consistently...

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:56:33 -0400

stupidfuckingquestions:

What do network executives consistently get wrong in comedy? (x)

"I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:22:27 -0400

“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown, eat interesting food, dig some interesting people, have an adventure, be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about, I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking twelve miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people — Americans and Europeans — come back and go, “Ohhhh.” And the lightbulb goes on.”

- Henry Rollins

(so very true)

(via awelltraveledwoman)

thepeoplesrecord: Real, complete, fire-able 3D printed...

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:10:29 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

Real, complete, fire-able 3D printed ‘liberator’ gun downloaded tens of thousands of times
May 9, 2013

If gun control advocates hoped to prevent blueprints for the world’s first fully 3D-printable gun from spreading online, that horse has now left the barn about a hundred thousand times.

That’s the number of downloads of the 3D-printable file for the so-called “Liberator” gun that the high-tech gunsmithing group Defense Distributed has seen in just the last two days, a member of the group tells me. The gun’s CAD files have been ten times more popular than any component the group has previously made available, parts that have included the body of an AR-15 and the magazine for an AK-47.”This has definitely been our most well-received download,” says Haroon Khalid, a developer working with Defense Distributed. “I don’t think any of us predicted it would be this much.”

The controversial gun-printing group is hosting those files, which include everything from the gun’s trigger to its body to its barrel, on a service that has attracted some controversy of its own: Kim Dotcom’s Mega storage site. Although the blueprint is only publicly visible on Defense Distributed’s own website Defcad.org, users who click on it are prompted to download the collection of CAD files from Mega.co.nz, which advertises that it encrypts all users’ information and has a reputation for resisting government surveillance.

Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed’s 25-year-old founder, says that the group chose to use Mega mostly because it was fast and free. But he also says he feels a degree of common cause with Kim Dotcom, the ex-hacker chief executive of Mega who has become a vocal critic of the U.S. government after being indicted for copyright infringement and racketeering in early 2012. “We’re sympathetic to Kim Dotcom,” says Wilson. “There are plenty of services we could have used, but we chose this one. He’s down for the struggle.”

The most downloads of Defense Distributed’s “Liberator,” surprisingly, haven’t come from the U.S., but from Spain, according to Khalid’s count. The U.S. is second, ahead of Brazil, Germany, and the U.K., he says, although he wasn’t able to provide absolute download numbers for each country.

Update: Although Spain was initially outpacing the U.S. in downloads, it seems more Americans have now downloaded the file.

The gun’s blueprint, of course, may have also already spread far wider than Defense Distributed can measure. It’s also been uploaded to the filesharing site the Pirate Bay, where it’s quickly become one of the most popular files in the site’s 3D-printing category. “This is the first in what will become an avalanche of undetectable, untraceable, easy-to-manufacture weapons that will turn the tables on evil-doers the world over,” writes one user with the name DakotaSmith on the site. “Share and enjoy.”

It’s worth noting that only a fraction of those who download the printable gun file will ever try to actually create one. Defense Distributed used an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST to print their prototype, a 3D printer that the vast majority of its fans won’t have access to.

Nonetheless the “Liberator,” which I first revealed last Friday and then witnessed being test-fired over the weekend, has caused an enormous stir online. Defense Distributed says that it received 540,000 users to its website in the two days since its printable gun was released, and its video revealing the gun has attracted 2.8 million views on YouTube.

The project has also already immediately inspired a legal backlash. New York congressmen Steve Israel and Chuck Schumer have both called for the renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act to ban any gun that can’t be spotted with a metal detector.

But Defense Distributed’s real goal hasn’t been to create an undetectable gun so much as an uncensorable, digital one. As the group’s founder radical libertarian founder Cody Wilson sees it, firearms can be made into a printable file that blurs the line between gun control and information censorship, blending the First Amendent and the Second and demonstrating how technology can render the government irrelevant.

“Call me crazy, but I see a world where contraband will pass underground through the data cables to be printed in our homes as the drones move overhead,” Wilson said when we first spoke in August of last year. “I see a kind of poetry there…I dream of this very weird future and I’d like to be a part of it.”

Source (Forbes)

Scary. We reported this about a year ago when they only had a few parts of the gun available to print. It got reblogs with comments like ‘yah but they won’t develop the technology in our lifetime to print the whole gun.’ Welp, as I said then and I say now, this is not some distant-future technology. It is here now, available to people who have an expensive 3D Printer, but in the next few years, 3D printers will become cheaper and cheaper and eventually, way cheaper. So I think this is important & I think we should be paying attention to this.

Terrifying.

comedycentral: On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart covered...

Tue, 07 May 2013 21:45:06 -0400

comedycentral:

On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart covered the 2013 NRA Convention, complete with a Yoda impression.

Click here for part-one and here for part-two.

"A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:25:59 -0400

“A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed.””

- Mary Dickson

[CW: discussion of rape culture and violence]

This reminds me of an article about online (heterosexual) dating that I read a while ago. It listed men’s and women’s worst fears about meeting someone from online. The highest ranked fear that men had was that their date would be fat, whereas the highest ranked fear that women had was that their date would turn out to be violent and kill them.

I think that says a lot.

(via kaitg)

Its interesting also that these fears sit subconsciously until woman are asked to exams their responses to men. We women will operate with this fear in mind, the way we protect ourselves, make sure our friends know where we are when we go on a date, words that we use while interacting with men, all in hopes they will not kill us, but simultaneously love us.

I think bell hooks made a point about this in her series on love. Something along the lines of how can women hope to love and receive love from men when at the foundation of our relationships there is this strong fear of men. You can’t build true trust when your foundation is crumbling under you.

The scariest part is, once you recognize this fear, and face it, how do you address it when there is evidence of “good” men abusing, hurting, and killing women everyday?

(via becomingchichi)

I was in my early 20’s when one of my homegirls broke this down for me.

I was in a broken relationship, and one of the things was that bugged me at the time was that the girlfriend at the time would freak out whenever I got angry - I never yelled, never throw or hit things, mostly, I just needed some time to cool out.

“Why does she get scared when I’m angry? I’d never hit her!”

“But she doesn’t KNOW that. She can’t assume that. Look at how many dudes are out there pulling shit.”

And that stuck with me for a hot minute. The relationship was broken on so many levels anyway, but that fact still remains, as a man, I can’t fault women for assuming the worst in order to protect themselves, especially how the world’s patriarchy and misogyny rolls.

(via bankuei)

I’ve had continual discussions with Tchy about this, and I don’t expect to stop. It’s fair to say that there’s no one in the world that I trust more, and he has been extremely careful with me, but… the fact remains that he leans quite a bit towards the masculine, and this means that that fear is always there. The news of transmasculine folks abusing/raping people doesn’t help that fear any. :(

I’m learning not to apologize for it. It’s not my fault (nor, really, is it his) that I’m scared of dude-type people. But it’s always there. Which is another reason why I get so pissed off when trans men try to make transmisogyny about them.

(via kiriamaya)

This is an incredible thread of responses. I’ve seen this quote before, but not the dialogue that built up around it. The part about loud=violent hits home particularly hard for me. I am terrified of getting into irl arguments with men, especially when they get loud. It’s always going to sit in the pit of my stomach.

(via mizbingley)

That part resonates for me too, although from a completely different angle. Despite being more terrified of sexual violence than I am of anything other than my own brain, I do not hesitate to yell, confront, get up in the face of, threaten, even hit men twice my size and many times my strength. Faced with a threat of violence from men, I will either imply or state “I dare you to.”

I also, as previously established on this blog, have a death wish.

To me, that encapsulates everything about the violence, especially sexual violence, coded into relationships between men and women in our society: for a woman to assert herself in the face of maleness may require the woman in question (such as me) to be perpetually suicidal.

(via 14kgoldnyc)

Reblogging for commentary. I have been frightened and scared by men being loud with me, even if I don’t think they’ll be violent. Like people have said above, it’s just a latent response in your brain to fear violence from men.

I went out to dinner with someone a couple of weeks ago (LONG story, was supposed to be a group dinner but it ended up just being me & a strange man) and I told him I blogged about feminism and politics, and he went off on me. He told me feelings were bullshit and women just wanted special privileges, and then he said, “Women don’t give men enough credit for not being violent psychopaths. That’s what we are, deep down. We want to rape and pillage, and we don’t, and women don’t give us enough credit for that.” I burst into tears. That shit was terrifying.

(via stfuconservatives)

I too am reblogging this for the amazing commentary.

When supposed feminist ally men deny this very basic, simple truth - that’s how you know they are an ally to no one.

This all gets taught to women at a very young age, how dangerous the world is when you’re in it being a woman. I’ve been struggling to write about something that happened with my daughter a few weeks ago, how to form the words, but this is possibly the best context.

We were in the wine shop, in line to pay, and she was so excited to get her lollipop (in the time honored tradition of wine stores everywhere). A man two people ahead of us started fighting with the woman behind the counter about how much money he’d given her. As I was moving her behind my body, my daughter froze, and when I say froze, I mean wasn’t moving a muscle except to shake.

It sorted itself out pretty quickly. We paid and left.

Once we got back into the car, she started crying. I asked her what was the matter, and she said, “Mama, I was so scared. When men get angry they shoot people.”

That’s a direct quote. When men get angry, they shoot people.

I asked her, “Baby, why do you think that?” She replied, “on NPR, that’s what happens. When men get really mad they kill people. That guy was really mad, what if he had a gun? What would you do?”

The talk we had afterwards was difficult; no one said parenting was easy. But this is the life we live as women. If my 9 year old understands it, then men of the world, alleged feminist allies, Nice Guys, random douches on the street, and even actual non-dangerous men: so can you.

(via someauthorgirl)

I’ve reblogged this quote before, I think. But reblogging now for the amazing commentary.

I was having a discussion with my father and brother the other day. We were talking about receiving threats of rape or violence via the internet. Their whole argument was “just ignore it and walk away from your computer”. Amazing solution. Can’t believe I never thought of that. It’s so clever because we all know that when you leave your keyboard the threat of violence disappears.

Urgh.

(via lavenderlabia)

I like this quotation a lot. I like the fact that it is almost always followed by discussion.

(via bookoisseur)

that terrifying feeling when you are finishing a book and THERE AREN’T ENOUGH PAGES LEFT FOR ALL OF...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:17:21 -0400

that terrifying feeling when you are finishing a book and THERE AREN’T ENOUGH PAGES LEFT FOR ALL OF THE THINGS THAT NEED TO HAPPEN.

Photo

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:13:15 -0400

"For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert?..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:44:54 -0400

“For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.”

- Claire Messud (via rachelfershleiser)

I might have gone a little crazy at the library book sale.

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:05:52 -0400

I might have gone a little crazy at the library book sale.

Cheryl Strayed is giving me some much needed perspective on this...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:48:15 -0400

Cheryl Strayed is giving me some much needed perspective on this downer of a night #tinybeautifulthings

Just realized my used copy of THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR...

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:20:35 -0400

Just realized my used copy of THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO is signed by Junot Diaz. Cool. (Taken with Instagram)

savvydarling: On the Train by gerrit.krey on Flickr.

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:45:27 -0400

savvydarling:

On the Train by gerrit.krey on Flickr.

"We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough..."

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 20:51:01 -0400

“We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.”

- David Levithan (via creatingaquietmind)