Furry little friend
So soft, cuddly and quiet
Wants eucalyptus.
Via Cutest Paw.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Friday Haiku, Koalas
Furry little friend
So soft, cuddly and quiet
Wants eucalyptus.
Via Cutest Paw.
In the grand tradition of, um, this post, the great folks from The Far East are handing us our asses heads on a QTE plate.
Again.
We saw this once before, but not to this degree. Check the detailed hovers c/o RocketNews24. The company that makes these is called Yawahada- their FB is here. RN24 says they only ship inside Japan- but maybe if you contact them and whine a lot, they might change their minds. The FB page says “We are working on enabling international shipping and hope to make a good announcement to you in the near future.”
News Flash: Ducks eat bugs. They don’t only dabble in pond weed ‘n stuffs. We have proof!
Buzzy Bug Birds are go! Watch out, buzzy bugs.
Somebody’s more interested in making ripples.
Meanwhile … Look, Ma! No hands winglets! Glomp! Got one!
“I was taking a walk through the park tonight when I realized that the pond was full of the smallest, cutest, fuzziest baby ducklings. They were all jumping into the air to eat bugs (hence the picture of the little yellow-bellied guy in the air). Cutest thing I have EVER seen. Photos taken by me, Kelsey.”
Penguin.nyothis was the source of the gif!
but this kitty full of rawr and tyranny on two legs makes a rather superb T-Rex. And, watch out behind you Kit-T-Rex,
(earth shakes) Here come the Parakeetasaurs! Ka-boom …boom …boom …boommmm!
“My cat Moisie totally looks like a velociraptor… she’s channeling Jurassic Park, in a softer, fluffier, not-so-dangerous-if-you-blow-a-raspberry-on-my-tummy kind of way.” -Anne F., Small Animal Talk blog writer and veterinarian. Parakeets running in slow motion via YouTube
UPDATE!!! Cuteporter Andrew Y. just alerted us to a BIG OL’ HONKIN’ BATCH of new photos. Voilà!
From now through September 13th, visitors to Keikyu Aburatsubo Marine Park in Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, can actually shake hands paws with Asian small-clawed otters. (English version of the site is here.) Folks dip their finger in Wakasagi Smelt extract, then poke it thru the hole.
Quoting Steve L. of Petslady.com, “The program is open daily from 11:50am on weekdays and from 12:40pm on weekends and holidays. Admission is 500 yen (about $5) and reservations can be made by phoning the Park directly. Due to the popularity of the program, you really ‘otter’ call before visiting.(+81-46-880-0152.)”
~Creditos~
* Updated images 1-10 + video spotted on Rocketnews24.com.
*Remaining images (I think) originally from Kawausosu.com.
The Land Of the Rising Sun consistently kicks our butt outperforms the US when it comes to The QTE. We’re just helpless ovah heah. We just saw the otters shaking hands deal, right? Now this. Cuteporter William D. sends in an email with the subject line “Oh my, the one with the duck on his head.”
That gets my attention.
A duck on someone’s head? (FYI the top row that comes on at about 1:07.) Must check it out. So William goes on to say “Animated cute, but…have you seen this? It’s amazing. Japan wins the cute arms race again.”
Yes. Yes, they do.
What could be better than a tasty cinnamon-sugar pastry? A cinnamon-sugar pastry mixed with cheesecake. According to the recipe creator, "two squares later these babies changed my life!"
Oh, so that's why demons sometimes appear when I'm trying to hail a cab! I should keep Reza Farazmand's handy chart nearby.
Snake-owner here. One reason snakes do this is because they are agitated from getting too hot. Judging by the fact the snake is in the water bowl I would suspect this is the reason. EDIT: Snakes are cold blooded so their metabolic rate is controlled by how they regulate their body temperature, a hot snake has an increased metabolism and would likely feel hungry if it hasn't eaten recently, which could drive this behaviour. Turning off the heat-lamp and spraying them with cool water will cause them to spit themselves out. I hope in this case it was ok :(Another example was posted in 2009. For details about the mythical Ouroboros, see my 2008 post.
The word motley is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as a cognate with medley, although the unrelated mottled has also contributed to the meaning... When used as a noun, it can mean "a varied mixture." As an adjective, it is generally disparaging — a motley collection is an uninspiring pile of stuff, as in the cliche motley crew.
The word originated in England between the 14th and 17th centuries and referred to a woolen fabric of mixed colors. It was the characteristic dress of the professional fool...
[M]otley did not have to be checkered and has been recently thought to be one pattern with different colored threads running through it.
Motley is the only wear.—Shakespeare, As You Like It, ii. 7
"Wings of Life, known as Pollen in France and Hidden Beauty: A Love Story That Feeds the Earth in the United Kingdom, is a 2011 French-American nature documentary..."This is a high-definition, super-slow-motion video of insects and bats pollinating flowers (and of butterflies in flight). If you don't take advantage of the full-screen button for this video, you might as well not have one.
Penguin.nyoAWWW so cute
"My dear MacColl,
I daresay I muddled what I said about Impressionism last night and perhaps this is a clear definition of what I think Monet would mean by the word, "The observation of the colour and value of the image on our retina of those objects or parts of objects of which we are prevented by an excess or deficiency of light from seeing the surface or local colour."
Of course to a very astigmatic or abnormal eyesight the whole field of vision might offer phenomena for the notation of an impressionist, but to the average vision it is only in extreme cases of light and dark, that the eye is conscious of seeing something else than the object, in other words conscious of its own medium—that something else is what the impressionist tries to note exactly. . . .
Yrs. sincerely,
John S. Sargent.
31, Tite Street,
Chelsea, S.W.,
My dear Jameson, March 20th
I have been reading your book with great enjoyment, and feel as if my ideas and my vocabulary had gone through a very satisfactory spring cleaning and I like the opposition of your clear processes of reasoning and analysis as far as that will take one and the ultimate mystery that you lead one up to from the different directions. There is one point only that I should quibble at and that is your use of the word Impressionism and Impressionist,
These words were coined in Paris at a particular moment when Claude Monet opened the eyes of a few people to certain phenomena of optics, and they have a very precise meaning which is not the one that you use them for, so that in the exact sense or to a Frenchman, [George Frederick] Watts' saying "All art is Impressionism" would be a misuse of words. "Impressionism" was the name given to a certain form of observation when Monet not content with using his eyes to see what things were or what they looked like as everybody had done before him, turned his attention to noting what took place on his own retina (as an oculist would test his own vision).
It led to his doing 50 pictures of the same subject under varying degrees of light and the phenomena which he recorded would be more or less apparent when there was excess or deficiency of light and the fact that he is astigmatic accounts for his having an excellent subject for his own discoveries in this line.
A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of "Impressionism" unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark.
If you want to know what an impressionist tries for (by the way Degas said there is only one Impressionist "Claude Monet") go out of doors and look at a landscape with the sun in your eyes and alter the angle of your hat brim and notice the difference of colour in dark objects according to the amount of light you let into your eyes—you can vary it from the local colour of the object (if there is less light) to something entirely different which is an appearance on your own retina when there is too much light.
It takes years to be able to note this accurately enough for painting purposes and it would only seem worth while to people who would wear the same glasses as the painter and then it has the effect of for the first time coming across a picture that looks like nature and gives the sense of living—for these reasons Monet bowled me over—and he counts as having added a new perception to Artists as the man did who invented perspective.
This observation or faculty does not make a man an Artist any more than a knowledge of perspective does—it is merely a refining of one's means towards representing things and one step further away from the hieroglyph by adding to the representation of a thing the conscious Will of the Medium through which one sees it. One of these days some genius will turn it to account and make it part of the necessary equipment of an Artist.
For the present in its exact sense "impressionism" does not come within the scope of your considerations. Of course I agree with what you say, given the rough and tumble and un-Jameson like use of the word.
You can make impression stand for whatever you like but not add-sm or -ist without being challenged by the astigmatic....and the next letter by Sargent:
Yours sincerely,
John S. Sargent
My dear Jameson, April (dated 1911 or 1912).
Thanks for your kind letter. I am glad you take my bit of special pleading good naturedly. I was afraid after having posted my letter that I had not made clear that I was not quarrelling with what you said about Impressionism but only defining the term. Of course your meaning is the general accepted one and the right one in the context as long as the precise meaning is so little known it will be years before the idea itself will have become familiar even to most painters—when it is, there will have to be a foot note in your book.
The habit of breaking up one's colour to make it brilliant dates from further back than Impressionism—Couture advocates it in a little book called "Causeries d'Atelier" written about 1860—it is part of the technique of Impressionism but used for quite a different reason. Couture, Delacroix, Orchardson break up their colour but they are not Impressionists.
Yours sincerely, John S. Sargent.
"Impressionism it is only the immediate sensation. All painters were more or less impressionistic. This is especially a matter of instinct. All this is simpler than Sargent believed. The term Impressionism was invented by the satirical newspaper as ridicule, which angered Manet. I did a lot wrong, because I was a bad example of it. . . I needed to create a cooler sensation. Yes it is the fading and passing tones within a tone. It is a nuance, for example between blue and yellow. It is something that can only be expressed in painting. It is true that the sun decomposes everything.
"I remember for the first time meeting Sargent and [Paul] Helleu at the Rue de la Paix 1876. Sargent was making a fuss over me, saying, “Is that really you, Claude Monet?” Then he invited me to dinner. He wanted to take us to the Cafe de la Paix, and he had many friends with him. I suggested the Cafe du Helder, and requested a private room. Unfortunately there were several of my pictures there, I was embarrassed as we entered, ashamed that Sargent and the others might think it was because of my paintings I had brought us to Cafe Helder."Monet continued that when he saw Sargent in London, Sargent claimed that Sargent himself was not an Impressionist in the sense that he understood the word because he was too much under the influence of his teacher Carolus-Duran. Carolus-Duran drew his inspiration more from the Spanish school of Velazquez, which put its emphasis on correct values.
Taiwan's Next Media Animation -- basically, news-of-the-weird, made weirder with instant machinima-esque videos -- weighs in on the allegation that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was caught on video smoking crack.
Crack smoking Toronto mayor Rob Ford caught on tape!
In an urgent, important blog post, computer scientist and security expert Ed Felten lays out the case against rules requiring manufacturers to put wiretapping backdoors in their communications tools. Since the early 1990s, manufacturers of telephone switching equipment have had to follow a US law called CALEA that says that phone switches have to have a deliberate back-door that cops can use to secretly listen in on phone calls without having to physically attach anything to them. This has already been a huge security problem -- through much of the 1990s, AT&T's CALEA controls went through a Solaris machine that was thoroughly compromised by hackers, meaning that criminals could listen in on any call; during the 2005/6 Olympic bid, spies used the CALEA backdoors on the Greek phone company's switches to listen in on the highest levels of government.
But now, thanks to the widespread adoption of cryptographically secured messaging services, law enforcement is finding that its CALEA backdoors are of declining utility -- it doesn't matter if you can intercept someone else's phone calls or network traffic if the data you're captured is unbreakably scrambled. In response, the FBI has floated the idea of "CALEA II": a mandate to put wiretapping capabilities in computers, phones, and software.
As Felten points out, this is a terrible idea. If your phone is designed to secretly record you or stream video, location data, and messages to an adverse party, and to stop you from discovering that it's doing this, it puts you at huge risk when that facility is hijacked by criminals. It doesn't matter if you trust the government not to abuse this power (though, for the record, I don't -- especially since anything mandated by the US government would also be present in devices used in China, Belarus and Iran) -- deliberately weakening device security makes you vulnerable to everyone, including the worst criminals:
Our report argues that mandating a virtual wiretap port in endpoint systems is harmful. The port makes it easier for attackers to capture the very same data that law enforcement wants. Intruders want to capture everything that happens on a compromised computer. They will be happy to see a built-in tool for capturing and extracting large amounts of audio, video, and text traffic. Better yet (for the intruder), the capability will be stealthy by design, making it difficult for the user to tell that anything is amiss.
Beyond this, the mandate would make it harder for users to understand, monitor, and fix their own systems—which is bad for security. If a system’s design is too simple or its operation too transparent or too easy to monitor, then wiretaps will be evident. So a wiretappability mandate will push providers toward complex, obfuscated designs that are harder to secure and raise the total cost of building and operating the system.
Finally, our report argues that it will not be possible to block non-compliant implementations. Many of today’s communication tools are open source, and there is no way to hide a capability within an open source code base, nor to prevent people from simply removing or disabling an undesired feature. Even closed source systems are routinely modified by users—as with jailbreaking of phones—and users will find ways to disable features they don’t want. Criminals will want to disable these features. Ordinary users will also want to disable them, to mitigate their security risks.
Felten's remarks summarize a report [PDF] signed by 20 distinguished computer scientists criticizing the FBI's proposal. It's an important read -- maybe the most important thing you'll read all month. If you can't trust your devices, you face enormous danger.
CALEA II: Risks of wiretap modifications to endpoints
Penguin.nyoGo! George Takei!
Star Trek star and noted homosexual George Takei responds to bigots who believe in restricting the right to love to straight people only: an image gallery on Imgur. Oh, snap, oh glorious snap.
Here's a video of biologist Brad Josephs's GoPro camera being eaten by a grizzly bear in Alaska; he'd set it out in order to get footage for a BBC documentary. The grizzly went above and beyond the call of duty.
A grizzly Ate My GoPro!!! GoPro HD (Thanks, Hugh)
While most of us hear a wall of white noise, squeaks, and squawks....David Rothenberg hears a symphony. He's trained his ear to listen for the music of animals, and he's always looking for chances to join in, with everything from lonely birds to giant whales to swarming cicadas.
In this podcast, David explains his urge to connect and sing along, and helps break down the mysterious life cycle and mating rituals of the periodical cicadas into something we can all relate to.
Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.
John Singer Sargent, long dismissed by the art establishment as a facile painter of society portraits, has finally in recent years been getting something of his due as a painter.
Beyond the technical mastery and delicious painterly flourish of his formal work in oil, Sargent was one of the great masters of the medium of watercolor; and it was in his watercolors, often painted while vacationing or traveling, that he found his greatest joy as an artist.
The Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have put together an exhibition that draws on the Sargent watercolors in the collection of both museums.
Titled simply John Singer Sargent Watercolors, it consists of ninety-three works in watercolor with mixtures of opaque watercolor, bodycolor, graphite and whatever else Sargent could find to achieve his goals. To these they have added nine of Sargent’s oils — just in case the watercolors aren’t enough to leave you completely dazzled.
I consider this a must-see show if I can possibly make it, and hope to give you a subsequent first-hand report.
In the meanwhile, there is a catalog from the exhibition, John Singer Sargent Watercolors, that James Gurney reviews here.
I can also recommend an older book, The Watercolors of John Singer Singer Sargent by Carl Little, but judging from Gurney’s review, I would go for the new catalog first.
The exhibition will be at the Brooklyn Museum until July 28, 2013. (Incidentally, the Brooklyn Museum, as I write here, is a terrific museum in general, often unfairly overshadowed by its more famous counterparts in Manhattan.)
The exhibition then moves to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it will be on display from October 13, 2013 to January 20, 2014. The last stop will be at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for which dates have not yet been set.
There is a small slideshow on the Brooklyn Museum page for the exhibit, but with a bit of clicking you can search their collections for John Singer Sargent Watercolors and access more works. Use the blue arrow at right of the top section of thumbnails to access more objects (their search interface needs work). On the page for an individual work, click on “Download” and choose a large size for larger images.
The MFA has an easier to navigate search; click on “Zoom” for larger images.
[Via Gurney Journey]
The following is an excerpt from The
Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
by E.B. Hudspeth
Philadelphia, the late 1870s. Doctor Spencer Black, a son of a grave robber and a gifted surgeon, had a revelation: what if mythological creatures like mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs were, in fact, evolutionary ancestors of humankind? The good doctor dedicated his life studying the anatomy of such beasts, until he mysteriously disappeared years later, leaving only a body of work called The Codex Extinct Animalia, detailing the anatomical structures of mythological beasts.
In the first half of the sci-fi/fantasy book The Resurrectionist, author and illustrator E.B. Hudspeth, retold the fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black - beginning from his humble childhood, medical training, travel with the carnivals, and his mysterious disappearance. In the later half, Hudspeth included the meticulous anatomical drawings of mythological creatures.
If you love Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the gorgeous anatomical drawings of Gray's Anatomy, The Resurrectionist is the book for you.
Publisher Quirk Books has graciously supplied a sample of the marvelous illustrations you'll see in book:
Many details regarding the heraldry of the sphinx are still unknown. These creatures varied widely throughout the African continent. In Egypt, there are great statues of this animal - the sphinx sol, the protector and scourge of Ra, the sun god. Sphinxes are shown bearing a ram's head (a criosphinx) or a goat's head. These species are typically depicted without wings; I suspect that, like many flightless birds, the sphinx lost its need for flight because of geographical isolation. This evolution likely occurred before the animal's arrival in Egypt or Africa; however, I cannot determine whence it originated.
The famed sphinx of Thebes appears strikingly similar to the specimen in my record. Though few in number, the species had a developed human mind with an advanced intellect; they were more than likely fierce and successful predators.
Philadelphia. The late 1870s. A city of cobblestone sidewalks and horse-drawn carriages. Home to the famous anatomist and surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a “resurrectionist” (aka grave robber), Dr. Black studied at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs— were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?
The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from his humble beginnings to the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed black-and-white anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.
E. B. HUDSPETH is an artist and author living in New Jersey. This is his first book.
Get it from The Resurrectionist official webpage | E.B. Hudspeth's official website
View more Neatorama Book Excerpts | Authors & Publishers: Get your books reviewed on Neatorama. Contact us for details.
What happens when all hope is lost? You put a video on YouTube and plan the hoomin’s downfall hope for the best.
“You are going to love this! This man has a direct line to the feline mind. Thank you for making my day BETTER on a steady basis.” -Cuteporter Shari E.
Penguin.nyothis is all kinds of amazing
Major League Combat is a sport that combines juggling, rugby, Capture the Flag, and maybe Quidditch? I can't make out how you score, but keeping your juggle from end-to-end seems important.
Weird sport or the weirdest sport? It's definitely up there with chessboxing. (thx, benjamin)
Tags: juggling sports videoThere's precious little info available about Mizirk "Boob Tracker," a computer vision project (based on a Kinekt?) that automatically detects boob-like objects and masks them with user-selectable bitmaps, following them as they move around the field of view. Mizirk's total delight in the performance of this little confection is what makes it.
(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
I’ll have a couple of shots. No, make it seven. And none of that lo-fat stuff, either. High octane, please.
Submitted by Cuteporter Ray R.
Penguin.nyothe swan looks like he has a neck problem doesn't it...
He’s MINE! Mine! Mine! Mine!
All we can say is, thank you, Mel J., for another ResQte story. And we all know how very important that is.
Penguin.nyocall and response kitty!
It’s sing-a-long time! Now playing, the beautiful folk song, Tonkaya Ryabina.
Let the mewsic begin!
If this kitty takes requests, wouldn’t Johan Strauss’ The Blue Danube be purrfect?
Tra la la la laaaa. meep meep, meep meep
Tra la la la laaaa. meep meep, meep meep
Barbara B. found this video, “circuitously, from Wimp, which came from YouTube, via Russia. It has Cute Overload written all over it. P.S. It’s on my bucket list that ONE OF THESE DAYS, something I send to the Qute will get posted.”