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nprfreshair: Ken Tucker reviews the new album from Daft Punk,...

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:57:18 -0400

Ken Tucker reviews the new album from Daft Punk, Random Access Memories:

I freely admit that, until the new Random Access Memories, I wasn’t much of a fan. I could appreciate the craft and imagination that went into creating the French duo’s mixture of electronic genres — techno, house, disco — but the mechanical repetitions and heavily filtered vocals didn’t turn me on in any other way. But now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have come up with an album that exposes the human side of their musical impulses. It’s the equivalent of removing the helmet-masks the pair invariably wears in public performances. Random Access Memories is a collection filled with music that suggests mad romance, heartache and an embrace of the past that’s never merely nostalgic or sentimental.

Image courtesy of Sony Music

Daft Punk is an innovative & talented duo. I always deeply enjoy the listening experience.

instagram: Tokyo Skytree Turns One See more photos of the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:36:32 -0400

instagram.com/p/Y0KxyyFnp-/#deijiidaisy

instagram.com/p/ZVpYlaCx-w/#__ekka__

instagram.com/p/ZN38eyBS63/#rita_color

instagram.com/p/ZNdD8apQXt/#tarodigy

instagram.com/p/ZNguF5H1ja/#alexcarbune

instagram.com/p/ZNMNvZOVij/#nickleeishere

instagram:

Tokyo Skytree Turns One

See more photos of the Skytree by browsing the 東京スカイツリー (Tokyo Skytree) and 東京スカイツリー天望デッキ location pages.

One year ago today, the Tokyo Skytree (東京スカイツリ) officially opened to the public. Standing 634 meters (2,080 feet), the Skytree is the tallest tower and the second largest structure in the world. The Skytree took four years to build and in the last year alone over 6.3 million people visited the tower—many capturing the experience on Instagram.

Cool is cool no matter the subject.

npr: Never mind the big-budget NASA satellites. A team of young...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:02:51 -0400

npr:

Never mind the big-budget NASA satellites. A team of young engineers has tricked out a few off-the-shelf cellphones and sent them to space. The smartphones are already above us, sending images and data back to ham radio operators on Earth.

via Can You Hear Me Now? Cellphone Satellites Phone Home

Photo: NASA Ames Research Center

This is why I love science!

npr: Never mind the big-budget NASA satellites. A team of young...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:02:41 -0400

npr:

Never mind the big-budget NASA satellites. A team of young engineers has tricked out a few off-the-shelf cellphones and sent them to space. The smartphones are already above us, sending images and data back to ham radio operators on Earth.

via Can You Hear Me Now? Cellphone Satellites Phone Home

Photo: NASA Ames Research Center

npr: Stunning Video: 3 Years Of The Sun In 3 Minutes : The...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:58:57 -0400

npr:

Stunning Video: 3 Years Of The Sun In 3 Minutes : The Two-Way

Science is AMAZING!!! Also please support your local NPR.

It’s getting rather nasty outside. Time to put on the big...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 23:19:53 -0500

It’s getting rather nasty outside. Time to put on the big boy boots.

humanrightswatch: Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:40:20 -0500

This is the UK’s Taranis combat aircraft. While the Ministry of Defence has stated that humans will remain in the loop, the Taranis exemplifies the move toward increased autonomy. © 2010 AP Photo

© 2012 Human Rights Watch

The South Korean SGR-1 sentry robot, a precursor to a fully autonomous weapon, can detect people in the Demilitarized Zone and, if a human grants the command, fire its weapons. © 2007 Getty Images

humanrightswatch:

Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too Late

“Losing Humanity” is the first major publication about fully autonomous weapons by a nongovernmental organization and is based on extensive research into the law, technology, and ethics of these proposed weapons. It is jointly published by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic.

Human Rights Watch and the International Human Rights Clinic called for an international treaty that would absolutely prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. They also called on individual nations to pass laws and adopt policies as important measures to prevent development, production, and use of such weapons at the domestic level.

Fully autonomous weapons do not yet exist, and major powers, including the United States, have not made a decision to deploy them. But high-tech militaries are developing or have already deployed precursors that illustrate the push toward greater autonomy for machines on the battlefield. The United States is a leader in this technological development. Several other countries – including China, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom – have also been involved. Many experts predict that full autonomy for weapons could be achieved in 20 to 30 years, and some think even sooner.

Read more after the jump.

I fully agree, we need to slow the coming machine apocalypse. I am in no physical shape to fight, let alone run & hide from T-700s

npr: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech,...

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 21:07:57 -0400

npr:

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, given at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.

~~~~~~~~~~

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

funnywildlife: Sweetie pie!! Oh so cute! I want one of my...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:06:25 -0400

funnywildlife:

Sweetie pie!!

Oh so cute! I want one of my own, imagine walking him/her on a nice evening.

funnywildlife: funnywildlife: I love wolves!! Cute little Wolf...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:00:41 -0400

funnywildlife:

funnywildlife:

I love wolves!!

Cute little Wolf puppies! Bet they’d be awesome guard dogs.

funnywildlife: funnywildlife: Super Cute Babies!! Kittens are...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:57:31 -0400

funnywildlife:

funnywildlife:

Super Cute Babies!!

Kittens are so cute! Even if they grow big enough to rip your face off.

Getting fat is totally awesome. Being fat slightly less awesome.

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 04:14:10 -0400

Getting fat is totally awesome. Being fat slightly less awesome.

Do you know Tyler Durden?

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 13:52:49 -0400

Do you know Tyler Durden?

This made me laugh like a delighted child.

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:05:21 -0400

This made me laugh like a delighted child.

twicr: Because someone looked around and said, “What this place...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:03:03 -0400

twicr:

Because someone looked around and said, “What this place needs is a swarm of robot bats.”

Awesome fracking cool!

Photo

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 22:53:42 -0400

My companion for the all the adventures of life for nearly 30...

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:27:49 -0400

My companion for the all the adventures of life for nearly 30 years. He has been halfway around the world to the middle east and back, seen nearly a dozen foreign countries, and 49 of 50 states. And if I occasionally have conversations with him it’s better than talking to myself.

So funny i peed myself a little.

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:54:15 -0400

So funny i peed myself a little.