8-bit Invasion

Thanks Patrick Jean: PIXELS

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Changing my name to Wally...

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Echo Chamber

Thanks Hugh!

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Preserving History

The man who collects seeds to save mankind — and promote justice

By Christina Hernandez | Apr 5, 2010 | 0 Comments

For Cary Fowler, saving thousands of seed varieties in a fail-safe vault in a remote Norwegian mountain is about more than life and death. It’s about justice.

A former university professor and an agricultural diversity expert, Fowler is the executive director of theGlobal Crop Diversity Trust, which runs the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Nicknamed the Doomsday Vault, the project launched in 2008 to “to serve as the ultimate safety net for one of the world’s most important natural resources.”

[More? Follow this link]

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iPad Exclusivity

I won't be buying an iPad.  I can't.  I am not affluent enough.

I suppose if I scraped and scrimped and scrounged couch change I might come up with the asking price.  But even then I couldn't afford one.  For the same reason I drive a 15 year old beater.  Or that I am pounding this out on an IBM R51 - the copyright date on the bottom says 2004 - ancient by laptop standards.  Quite simply I do not circulate in the ... ahem, circles ... of affluence that are important to the iPad Apple folks.  Very possibly the "A" folks would rather I not purchase one of their iPads.  ("There goes the neighborhood ...  and all that")

The iPad is priced to sell to folks who have money.  The iPad is priced to engage affluent folks in a culture that will inevitably cost them more and more money.  The iPad is priced to sell to the folks who can afford to pay for the "A" culture. 

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Television...

Television -- a medium.  So called because it is neither rare nor well done.

-- Ernie Kovacs

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Captor of souls...

Iconic Rock Shots From "Trust: Photographs of Jim Marshall"

Dr. John once asked me, "Where's the turlette?"

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Chaos had none.

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing,

the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its

own capacity. ...  Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god

of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god

of the center.  Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together

what they could do to repay his kindness.  They had noticed that, whereas

everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and

so on, Chaos had none.  So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes

in him.  Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.

                -- Chuang Tzu

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If you can't join 'em, BEAT 'em!

Americans are finally beginning to understand the intricate

social and political process used by the rest of the world...

Terrorism.  

Anthony Weiner's Office Receives Threatening Letter Containing White Powder

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Normal?

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Intellectual Capacity

But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human

intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as

we can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues

that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding

of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard

example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --

makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing

whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a

finite or an infinite number.

                -- S.J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"

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Tomfoolery

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery.

But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine,

is somehow enobled and no-one dare criticise it.

                -- Pierre Gallois

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American Mensa's “Top 50” Web Sites 2010 American Mensa members across the country cast and recast their votes, winnowing down a list of more than 300 member-suggested sites to 100 and finally to the final 50. We are proud to display them here.  Which game site made the Top 50? Where do Mensans get their news and their online laughs? Did BubbleWrap beat out Google? Find out below... Art and Culture  Entertainment and Humor  News and Politics  Reference  Science and Technology  Search Engines  Shopping  Social Networking/Media

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Water Day 2010

Water Day 2010

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Note to Elected Representatives...

If you only listen to who you want to hear 

you only hear what you want.

Once elected you are bound by oath of office

to represent every member of your constituency

not just a select few.

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Thirteen words not found in the english language

6. Meraki (Greek): doing something with soul, creativity, or love

Twelve words not found in the english language

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Untitled

Greed or Grace: My prediction about H.264

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Forgotten Boy

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducts New Members

Chad Batka for The New York Times

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day described Iggy Pop, center, as “the most confrontational singer we will ever see."

 Iggy Pop snarled, “I am the world’s forgotten boy.”

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Free Market Correction

Moody's warns nations to cut spending or risk AAA ratings

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Foreign Service 

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The United States and other top world economies need to make potentially painful government spending cuts or risk losing the high-grade credit ratings that have kept borrowing affordable, the Moody's rating agency said Monday.

In an ironic twist of fate governments will now "enjoy" credit scores the same way regular folks do.  It is heartening that print-your-own-money governments are not exempt from the rigors and discipline of a free market economy.

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R.I.P. Charles Moore

 

 

Alabama, 1960.

Early in the movement, King and his wife Coretta CELEBRATE a victory in Montgomery.  

Charles Moore | His Photographs

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An answer to poverty...

Bhagwan Chowdhry's FAB Campaign Aims to Put $100 in Bank Account for Every Baby

BY FAST COMPANY STAFFSun Mar 14, 2010

Bhagwan Chowdhry, a Professor of Finance at UCLA's Anderson School, outlines his organization's mission to give every newborn in the world access to financial legitimacy. The most stunning part of the FinancialAccess@Birth (FAB) campaign isn't the remarkable impact that participants would get from a mere $100 starting balance or even the GNP metrics envisioned to fund this campaign, its the idea that this could help erase poverty. Here's the organization's plan in full.

[More]

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China: a generation away from revolution.

China is one generation away from revolution - either way you look at it.

Old school ideologues believing that the views of a few old curmudgeons can by shear force of will direct the largest economy in the world is, well, old fashioned.  The key word in all of this is not ideologue or curmudgeon or will but Economy.  Even at the height of the Chinese social revolution there was an economy.  In fact, much to the chagrin of the revolutionary leaders, there was not one, but at least two economies simmering away just beneath the thin veneer of egalitarian socialism.

An economy is not a static entity.  It is, to paraphrase the Tao, like water in that if finds its own level.  When "contained" by the guidelines of strict social(istic) rules one of China's economies simply became an underground river.  Value for value was exchanged away from the watchful eyes of the Party observers.  The other economy which the Revolutionary leaders conveniently downplayed was China's relationship to the world economy.  An equally paraphrased Party line is 'The proletariat need only be concerned with his or her own contribution to the well being of the Revolution.'  Little of no mention is made of gold prices or oil prices or international monetary exchange rates yet they all had significant impact on the China of the day.  China, for better or far worse, has always been a player in the world economy.

China is now experiencing a new social revolution.  Gone are the glory days of the beneficent state.  Today China is faced with the reality of "improving" personal economies.  Today's revolutionaries are the young.  The youth of today who do not have first hand knowledge of the last revolution.  The kids who are not looking back to social equality but forward to economic equality, on a world scale.  The internet connected young men and women who can see the truth of their world standing.  The next generation of slightly materialistic, subtly upwardly mobile, achievers.  The generation that will not stand for being held back from their personal goals and aspirations.  And they certainly won't be held to wading knee deep in water and mud to plant the next season's rice.

Whether is is being kept from or moving to a new economy, China is just one generation away from the new revolution.

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Or something...

Millionaire Artist

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Filling Station

Shelley Mon: Walker Evans: Real Need is a Personal Thing

Walker Evans photos matched with the contemporary poems of the poet Cynthia Rylant — Something Permanent.

Thank you Shelley for such a nice share... Zo u 2!

Filling Station

Everybody wanted that job

and when Ferrell Brown's son

got it,

when Mr. Brown's son got to pump gas

and flirt with the pretty girls all day long,

they all said it was a crock,

that that boy never worked a day

in his life, never had to,

with his rich daddy,

so how come he got a job that

plenty of decent boys with real

need wanted.

Then word got around about

the boy's mother

and how she walked through that

house stark naked and

trying to hang dinner plates on the

clotheline,

and people shut up about the

Brown boy.

Real need is a personal thing,

they said.

And his mother's a loon.

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Allergic to mobile phones

250,000 Swedes allergic to mobile phone radiation

By Andrew Nusca | Mar 8, 2010 |

Some 250,000 people in Sweden are allergic to the radio waves that are emitted when someone makes a call with a cellular mobile phone, according to a new report.

Called electro-hypersensitivity, the condition means the afflicted have severe physical reactions — from dizziness, nausea and headaches to breathing problems, heart palpitations and flat-out fainting — to the electromagnetic radiation produced by consumer electronics such as computers, televisions and cell phones.

According to a stunning new article in Popular Science, Sweden is the only country in the world to recognize EHS as a functional impairment. The article explains the plight of Per Segerbäck, one of the three percent of Swedes with the condition.

[More]

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One Sentence archive - story #3551

Story archives - story #3551

myfairmaybe

When he told his four-year-old daughter that the doctor just needed to look at her eyes to make sure they were okay, she whispered, "Will he put them back in when he's done looking at them?"

http://www.onesentence.org/stories/3551/

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No! We cannot all "just get along"

The very values of Democracy upheld by the left

are preventing them from performing well

on the unlevel playing field of the right.

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Toroid? It is not as bad as all that...

Friday is doughnut day!  Now I am not talking about those sugar coated, fat laden Crispie Creame (purposefully misspelled) "things".  I am talking about all-American, USO-fed-them-to-the-troops (to the Dough boys), old fashioned, substantial, member of the cake food group - yeah, I am talking about real doughnuts.

Aye, now here's the rub, matey.  A very caring and considerate business associate makes a point every Friday to stop by the "bakery" and secure a box of ... er, uh, DoNots.  These are not the afore-alluded to brand name variety - more like KK-wannabes.  And not a real doughnut in the box.

So, if I am to receive any doughnut day fulfillment I must stop at the other bakery in town.  There on the bottom shelf of the glass showcase in a single line are the "Chocolate Iced Cake" doughnuts.  I have never seen more than half a dozen on display at any one time.  So this is to be my fate, my near doughnut experience.  I do take some small solace in the fact that the icing is a legitimate member of an important if secondary food group, Chocolate.  Ah well, such are the sacrifices...

You could say that I am having a toroid love affair with real doughnuts.

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D*mned Goth turtles

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Fate is like...

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.

Lemony Snicket

Borrowed from Day&Age

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Your fingers move...

“ Your fingers move like chicken eating maize."
              - Solgorian watching me type.

Stood in the Maasai Mara

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Free to be...

Thanks Hugh

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Get ready for faux coffee

Coffee Industry Hit Hard by Climate Change | Sustainability | Fast Company

The National Coffee Association of Guatemala estimates that production of coffee in nine Latin American countries will dip 28% in the first three months of this years growing season. Coffee production in Columbia already fell 30% to 35% last year to a 33 year low. At the same time, ICO expects demand for coffee to rise from 132 million bags in 2009 to 134 million 60-kilogram bags in 2010.

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Shared Wisdom. Thanks Tamar!

Gleaned from Tamar's Mining Nuggets...

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients. 

I am so glad I found this little book - small in size, but not in value of content. 

I especially adore many entries in the partial register of what Kopp describes as his eternal truths (Page 223):

1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his [her] own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men [or women].
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yes it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man [or woman] must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
42. What do you know ... for sure ... anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again ...

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Higher IQ Potential

Study Shows Higher IQ Potential

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, poses the theory that the more intelligent people are, the more likely it is for them to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values in response to the challenges of the times.

Kanazawa says that humans are evolutionarily programmed to be conservative - to care mostly about family and friends, to believe in a supernatural power or God because of their paranoia about what they perceive as "unnatural" phenomenon, and, for men, to be polygamous.

"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions," says Kanazawa. "As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles."

H/t to Humorzo

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Sure isn't a hawk....

Bleeding Heart Dove

Rare in these parts... :-(

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Facebook | An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken

Facebook | An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken

Description:

We Demand Immediate Action on This Crucial Issue!
If nothing is done then however many of us are in this group will be very displeased. We may even comment to express our anger, possibly with bad punctuation or spelling to further communicate our individual but quite possibly collective emotion.

Something Must Be Done About This!

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Curling! With a "C"

Thanks Fast Company

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The answer my friend is blowing in the wind...

SmartPlanet reports... (emphasis mine)

In a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Albany, N.Y.-based renewable energy consulting firm AWS Truewind, wind turbines in the continental U.S. could generate 37 PWh (petawatt-hours) per year — far more than the 3,816,000,000 MWh (or about 3.8 PWh) per year currently required to power the nation, as estimated in 2005.

The report also inspected how the 48 contiguous states stack up in wind power potential.

Here are the Top 10:

• Texas: 6,527,850 GWh/yr
• Kansas: 3,646,590
• Montana: 3,228,620
• Nebraska: 3,540,370
• South Dakota: 3,411,690
• North Dakota: 2,983,750
• Iowa: 2,026,340
• Wyoming: 1,944,340
• Oklahoma: 1,788,910
• New Mexico: 1,644,970

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What ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

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Uptime!

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Daily Dozen

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen

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Jellyfish burger

Jellyfish burger image - Contest uses art to bring scientific concepts to life (photos) - CNET News

Read the fine print...

H/t to Marc's Voice too!

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Lettuce Prey

All Creatures [great and small]

neurotical:

Lettuce prey.

(via)

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R Cube U Tube

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Bear Naked

This bear, Dolores, from the Leipzig Zoo has lost her fur, and no one knows why.

Reposted from All Creatures  [great and small]

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I'll just catch the next one...

Source Link: Flickr: Pere Rosales

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Gorilla Valentine

Sudden Love: A Very Improbable Gorilla Valentine : NPR

Barb: Things happen when you, when you spend time in wild places and you tune into the animals. Things ... things happen that you can't explain.

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Who is laughing now?

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Computer Bug

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Millionaire gives away fortune

Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable

Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.

All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans to Latin America and builds development aid strategies to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

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How to Do Everything in Google Buzz (Including Turn It Off)

How to Do Everything in Google Buzz (Including Turn It Off) | Work Smart | Fast Company

How to Do Everything in Google Buzz (Including Turn It Off)

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What is...

What is the first single digit number?

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Translation Party - "I don't dance, I don't do magic"

Translation Party

back into Japanese

私は魔法のダンスはありません

back into English

I do not dance magic

Equilibrium found!
You should move to Japan!

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For every person...

Source link: Infographic: Lack of Health Care

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New Heinz Packet

New Heinz Packet for Nugget Lovers Encourages Dippin' 'n' Drivin'

BY William BostwickSun Feb 7, 2010

A new ketchup packet from Heinz makes it easier to eat--and die--while driving.

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Facebook Nations

How to split up the US - Peter Warden

In a nutshell, Warden’s data analysis showed that Facebook users in the U.S. can be roughly segmented into seven regions, which he named facetiously:

• Stayathomia: This belt’s defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don’t move far.

Dixie: Like Stayathomia, Dixie towns tend to have links mostly to other nearby cities rather than spanning the country.

Greater Texas: Unlike Stayathomia, there’s a definite central city to this cluster, otherwise most towns just connect to their immediate neighbors.

Mormonia: The only region that’s completely surrounded by another cluster, Mormonia mostly consists of Utah towns that are highly connected to each other, with an offshoot in Eastern Idaho.

Nomadic West: The defining feature of this area is how likely even small towns are to be strongly connected to distant cities; it looks like the inhabitants have done a lot of moving around the county.

Socalistan: LA is definitely the center of gravity for this cluster. Almost everywhere in California and Nevada has links to both LA and SF, but LA is usually first.

Pacifica: Tightly connected to each other, it doesn’t look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest of the West, even though a lot of them claim to need a vacation.

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Interesting Twist: You do need a weather vane...

...to know which way the wind blows

2L4O: Too Liberal for Obama

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5th Pillar - Paying for "Pork" in India

5th Pillar

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Attention Bird Watchers...

FriendFeed

Dean Landsman

Attention bird watchers: tomorrow much attention will be paid, something to do with a superb owl. There's even a pre game show.

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OneStonedCrow <- Go and read!

OneStonedCrow

OneStonedCrow Pics
Succulents On The Namibian Coastline

After the good rains in 2006, the usually drab coastal area near Luderitz was transformed by the appearance of these succulents. Unfortunately I arrived about a week too late to catch them at their best. They look like they're made out of plastic hey?

photo album  GGGo

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Vintage Ministry of Food posters

Vintage Ministry of Food posters - Telegraph

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Proper English spoken here.

Stood in the Maasai Mara

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Zoushigaya micro-gardens « Tokyo Green Space

Zoushigaya micro-gardens « Tokyo Green Space

Old Tokyo neighborhoods like Zoushigaya are full of plant lovers who manage to create gardens where there is almost no space. This type of passion for gardening cannot be replicated by large scale developers. What is amazing is the ingenuity and sheer variety of plants grown by residents.

Above there are five or more plants growing vertically along a narrow path that would otherwise be a grim cinder block and metal siding wall between properties. The gardener seems to have used large blue laundry clips to espalier these hardy plants.

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Snake "toying" with its next meal(?)

all creatures [great and small]

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Leap of Faith

All Creatures [great and small]

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Apple's questionable product name.

It is readily evident that Apple didn't do diligence with study groups before it named its latest product.  I know too many insecure macho men who wouldn't touch an iPad if Apple gave them away for free.  I will be interested to see how other segments of the population respond.  

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Cultural Icons

Koko, the sign language specialist with the original "Yes we can" Mister Rogers.

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NUbrella...of course.

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The only thing that overcomes...

Google Reader (29)

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”

- Harry Golden

FitaCola

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Mozilla Explains Why it Doesn't License h264

Mozilla Explains Why it Doesn't License h264

"Even if we were to pay the USD 5000000 annual licensing cost for H.264, and we were to not care about the spectre of license fees for internet distribution of encoded content, or about content and tool creators, downstream projects would be no better off," Shaver explains.

Perhaps it is time to boycott YouTube

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Five things... help keep you mentally well

five things you do that help keep you mentally well

At the suggestion of MindApples

1. Feed the birds - This helps to keep my "abundance" of riches in perspective.
2. Engage my wife and children in conversation - something we all need to practice.
   
3. Let the muse loose - I seldom know where she leads but if I don't follow then I won't get there.
   
4. Aspire to great things - while seldom achieved it gives me license to attempt (and to fail).
   
5. Silence: practicing the fine art of being silent and then trying to listen.

Here’s how it works:

• Write a post telling your readers five things you do that help keep you mentally well.
• Link to the Mindapples site www.mindapples.org
• Invite five blog-friends to do the same (if you want to)

And that’s it.

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Worth retweeting...

Dave Winer

RT @gruber: Republicans now hold 41-59 majority in Senate.

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The fish come out ...

Great site for silly signs... Oddly Specific

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The worst kind of "Journalism" (FAIL)

Report: Google China Hack Might Be Inside Job

3:40 PM - January 19, 2010 by Marcus Yam

Washington sends "diplomatic note" to China asking for an explanation on Google hacking incident.

As the topic of Google and China litter the headlines, we continually wonder whether or not the search giant will continue business in the censorship-filled country. But before Google can go any further, it needs to investigate what happened when it had its networks attacked by hackers.

New wire Reuters today published a story that cites its own sources as saying that the hacking of the networks may have been an inside job.

"The sources, who are familiar with the situation, told Reuters that the attack, which targeted people who have access to specific parts of Google networks, may have been facilitated by people working in Google China's office."

Security analysts also told Reuters that the malicious software used in the hack was a trojan called Hydraq.

This is a prime example of why journalism FAILS!  Starting with a very poor headline which is little more than sensational innuendo.  Followed by an equally misleading "authoritative" third-party "expert" quote.  Finished with the FAIL coup de grace, the driveling assignment of blame, a trojan.

In light of the ethnic and national origins of this story I hesitate to use the term but this is a serious case of ...

Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers. It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists.

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Robert B. Parker is Dead

Robert B. Parker is Dead (UPDATED) - Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Robert B. Parker is Dead (UPDATED)

At the age of 77, "just sitting at his desk" at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to an email sent out by a representative of his U.K. publisher Quercus, Robert B. Parker is dead. The news of Parker's death on Monday was confirmed by Parker's U.S publisher, Putnam; on Twitter, a representative wrote: "R.I.P beloved author Robert B. Parker. You were indeed a Grand Master, your legacy lives on, and you will be missed by us all."

In a statement released late Monday, Parker's longtime editor at Putnam, Christine Pepe, said: “What mattered most to Bob were his family and his writing, and those were the only things that he needed to be happy. He will be deeply missed by all us at Putnam, and by his fans everywhere.”The thriller writer Joseph Finder also confirmed the news directly with Parker's family, said to be "in shock."And the Bookseller quotes Parker's UK editor, Nick Johnston: "He was a great talent who will be mourned by all his many fans."

I'm really not sure how to process this. Not at all. I suppose it's exactly the way the author best known for his Spenser private detective novels, who by the latter portion of his career was up to publishing three novels a year, working at a five to ten page-a-day clip, should die - doing exactly what he was doing, day in, day out.

He is survived by his wife, Joan, and his sons, David, a choreographer, and Daniel, an actor. Several more novels will be published in 2010, including SPLIT IMAGE, the newest Jesse Stone novel (out February 23) and BLUE-EYED DEVIL, an Appaloosa novel (out on May 4). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Community Servings, 18 Marbury Terrace, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. As well, Parker's literary agent, Helen Brann, told the Associated Press that a private ceremony will take place this week to remember the author, and a public memorial, a "celebration of his life and work," is planned for mid-February in Boston.

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Worth repeating ... from every mountain top!

humorzo

“Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but he’s a molder of consensus. And on some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expedience asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’

“But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?”

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Ricardo Villavicencio

Ricardo Villavicencio

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It ain't so simple...

http://black-and-white.tumblr.com/post/342290792/franklieu-what-a-vague-fortune-clarify-what

Black and White

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Life is too short...

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Makin' Bacon... a little squishy

Scientists turn stem cells into pork

The texture of the meat as sort of like scallop, firm but a little squishy

AP In this image of a photomicrograph of muscle, tissue shows muscle fibers are seen diagonally from lower left to upper right. The blue dots are the nuclei of the cells, the yellow color is the result of an overlay (green and red) of two of the most important proteins in skeletal muscle, actin and myosin. View related photos

By Maria Cheng

updated 12:57 p.m. CT, Fri., Jan. 15, 2010

LONDON - Call it pork in a petri dish — a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.

Dutch scientists have been growing pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they admit they haven't gotten the texture quite right or even tasted the engineered meat, they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for our food supply.

"If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need one million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat," said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the In-vitro Meat Consortium, a network of publicly funded Dutch research institutions that is carrying out the experiments.

Story continues

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Beauty inspires...

Beauty inspires greatness.

- Laura Boggess

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Laugh-ability!

FBI admits Photofit of Osama Bin Laden had Spanish features

A MOCKED-UP image of how Osama Bin Laden may look today has been withdrawn by the US State Department after the FBI admitted it was partly based on a photograph of a Spanish MP taken from the internet.

The Photofit image of an older, greying Al-Qaeda leader bore a striking resemblance to the left-wing politician Gaspar Llamazares, a member of Spain’s Communist party and a critic of the US “war on terror”. It turned out Llamazares’s grey hair, jaw line and forehead had been simply cut and pasted from an old campaign photograph by an FBI technician.

The FBI originally claimed it used “cutting edge” technology to come up with new images of terrorist suspects for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website.

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