manifold: The Cat's Eye Nebula, a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco. (cat's eye nebula)
[personal profile] manifold
Some friends of ours who are out of work are having a hard time paying off the Care Credit from two of their cats who died last year. They're kind, generous, hard-working people, and some of the best kitty parents you'd ever meet.

Pet Debt Help

If you can, please lend them a hand? If you can't, spread the word.
manifold: This is totally going in my blog! (going in my blog)
[personal profile] manifold
A friend recently pointed us towards Armikrog, which, as of this post, has $48,423 to go in 22 hours.

It's worth it just alone for the beautiful concept art by Mike Dietz and Doug TenNapel. And voice-acting by Mike from MSTK3! What's not to like?

Armikrog

Check it out!
manifold: A tarsier looks at you with HUGE EYES OF SHOCK AND TARSIER. (HOMG)
[personal profile] manifold
Not sure how many who read us are Catholics (we are, uh, front-wise at least Culturally Catholic—like a Secular Jew—but we have some practicing Catholic members), but this is news for everyone, I'm sure:

Pope Benedict XVI Says He Will Resign - NYTimes.com

For those of you keeping score, which Cardinal are you hoping to win this time? No need to be a Catholic—the Pope's an international leader, so this is more like weighing on who you hope the next British PM or US President will be. The current favorite by numbers is Peter Turkson. On the plus side, first black pope! On the minus side (for us), conservative as fuck. Same goes for Francis Arinze, unfortunately.

We're hoping for someone much more moderate, which in fantasyland means suddenly a pope who is cool with gay rights and women's ordination… and in reality means crossing our fingers and hoping for Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga.
manifold: A travel poster of a Computer vomiting a rainbow, with the headline: "Bored? Scroll the infinite pages of the INTERNET." (internet vomits rainbows)
[personal profile] manifold
Not sure how many people who follow this blog are Mac OS X users, but the current version of the icon customizing application CandyBar is free.

Panic Blog releases free CandyBar into the wilds

In OS X versions before Mountain Lion, it can customize the dock. It can't customize the icons of programs bought through the Mac App Store (due to the sandboxing), but any programs you installed or downloaded by another means should be fair game, not to mention folders and (for now) system icons.

And, heck, just to make sure this is more than just a link to CandyBar, here are some of our favorite icons. (They're also available for Windows, of course.)

No images, but cut for length. )
manifold: 「堕辰子のなく頃に」。When Datatsushi cries. (•datatsushi)
[personal profile] manifold
Slowly working through the backlog in our "to icon" folder.

Total Icon Count: 12 + 7 alternates

Categories:
Robert Montgomery
Animated
Alternates

Teasers:

Image Image Image

Icons Here! )

Once again, no alt-text due to lack of spoons. But if you want to volunteer alt text for any icon, we will gladly edit it in.
manifold: Rex quondam, rexque futurus. (- Vir Icon 2)
[personal profile] manifold

Total Icon Count: 17 + 5 alts

Teasers:

Image Image Image

Icons Here! )

No alt text on these, sadly, because it's the hardest part of making icons, and it's been months since we made a proper post. But if you want to, you can leave any suggested alt text in the comments and we'll see if we can edit it in.
manifold: A spiraling scribble of white on black. (•████)
[personal profile] manifold
Since we use a CSS killfile, we view all journals in our own journal style. We're never fully satisfied with the default arrangement of anything, of course, so we're always tweaking it for functionality, and lately we've been playing around with putting altered/custom versions of layout functions into theme layers.

One use we've been trying to fudge together is placement of a Private Messaging link in the standard set of Entry Interaction Links, alongside the Comment Reply link and so on. The ability to private message a post's author with one click instead of two—one click to the user profile, a second to the actual private message composition page—would be such a timesaver, with how often we private message people instead of leaving comments.

We were able to get a PM link to work on entry pages with a very slightly changed function in a theme layer:

code in a box under here )

And in a moment of pseudobrilliance—brought about by realizing that $this.poster.username is beautifully adaptable—we realized a similarly adapted function would put a contextually useful PM link into the comments on entry pages.

more code in a box )

So that means we can, while reading a comment thread, also PM a comment author in one click instead of two. Very useful! (There are some obvious bad coding practices, of course—the text for "Private Message" is hardcoded in and can't be customized by an end user without altering the code, because the creation of new properties is limited to S2 Core and layout layers, and this is just a theme layer.)

But we still can't figure out how to implement the morning coffee of useful PM links—a PM link on the entry interaction links of entries on a reading page or recent entries page, which would mean never having to visit entry/comment pages at all. There, sadly, $this.poster.username is an unknown property, and $p.journal.username is useless, because it points the link to ...us. And we don't want to send ourselves a private message, do we?

There has to be a property for the username of an entry's poster on reading pages and recent entries pages. But as much as we comb through the source of S2 Core, we just can't seem to figure out what it is.

The experimental layer we're playing around with is public, of course, for the curious.
manifold: A picture of an alien from the old arcade game Space Invaders. Above it is the text: Please don't be a space invader. (space invader)
[personal profile] manifold
Pe' Sla: Help Save Lakota Sioux Sacred Land has extended their funding deadline to September 8th!

That means if you weren't able to donate because you weren't going to have any funds at the time, or you'll be able to donate a larger amount at the beginning of the month than you would at any other time, here's your chance!

Remember, though, even if you can't give anything at all, you can still help by boosting the signal and making sure other people hear about it. Every bit helps.
manifold: A picture of an alien from the old arcade game Space Invaders. Above it is the text: Please don't be a space invader. (space invader)
[personal profile] manifold
Sorry, Tesla, we already donated what we could afford this month to Save Pe' Sla. The Lakota don't have an Oatmeal-themed famous internet dude backing them up. Also, you're closer to your goal than the Lakota are, and your fundraiser will still be running in September. Theirs won't.

Pe' Sla: Help Save Lakota Sioux Sacred Land! ends in 63 hours.

If you can give anything to the campaign, now's the time. If you can't, spread the word anyway.
manifold: LE FUCK (le fuck)
[personal profile] manifold
Hopefully most of you have already seen this going around, but if you haven't, please sign this change.org petition for Paul Corby to get a heart transplant.

Paul Corby is a 23-year-old man diagnosed with PDDNOS, who also has Left Ventricular Noncompaction—i.e., noncompaction cardiomyopathy. The survival rate for a symptomatic patient without a heart transplant is, to put it bluntly, dire. His father had the same condition, and died from a stroke at 27. Between this and the likelihood of heart failure, Paul is unlikely to live past 30 without a heart transplant.

According to the Stollerderby blog post about it, the transplant physician at PennMedicine denied Paul placement on the national heart transplant list. Here's the quote of her explanation for why:

I have recommended against transplant given his psychiatric issues, autism, the complexity of the process, multiple procedures, and the unknown and unpredictable effect of steroids on behavior.


"Psychiatric issues" refers to the fact that, like the majority of autistic people, Paul has anxiety and depression which stem from the sensory and social aspects of autism—so it is basically saying "given his autism and also his autism" right there.

"The complexity of the process" and "multiple procedures" are basically word filler: a heart transplant is a complex process involving multiple procedures for everyone who undergoes one. No physical reason for why his body would not be able to handle the complex process or multiple procedures is given.

And "the unknown and unpredictable effect of steroids on behavior"—steroids are used for antirejection purposes in the context of transplants. There is pretty much no real comparison between the monitored administration of steroids in a medical context and the ROID RAAAAAGE of steroid misuse/abuse. Plus, even if extreme irritability or aggression were to occur, in Paul's case it is much more likely to be caught early because he is autistic and regularly receiving psychiatric treatment for a mood disorder. His mood is already being monitored—even relatively small changes in it will be noticed right away and dealt with.

But given this doctor already citing "psychiatric issues" which basically are the autism again, it seems very likely that "the unknown and unpredictable effect of steroids on behavior" is a discreet way of saying "autistic people are already scary angry dangerous people and steroids will make him into THE INCREDIBLE AUTISTIC HULK".

(The, uh. Incredible Autistic Hulk with... cardiomyopathy. OH BOY, SO DANGEROUS.)

So, in summary, he was not put on the list for reasons that basically boil down to: autism, autism, clouds are in the sky, the sun is in space, autism.

There isn't even a specific heart in question here, or his position on the list, or any questions of comparison to other patients who need heart transplants. This is an outright refusal to even put him on the waiting list in the first place. Because he's autistic.

That is fucking terrifying.

At the time of writing this, the Change.org petition had 199,086 signatures out of 200,000. It's probably (hopefully) going to go over 200,000. Don't take this to mean it's over. Sign the petition if you can, spread the word whether you can or not. The more attention this receives, the better.
manifold: Rex quondam, rexque futurus. (Default)
[personal profile] manifold
[personal profile] ambersweet has sudden (and expensive) car troubles, so she's offering tarot readings for a time to help raise funds.

We highly recommend her. Seriously. She's damn good.
manifold: A black silhouette of a Dalek with a white iPod, like in the commercials. (iDalek)
[personal profile] manifold
Matthew Perpetua's Fluxblog is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, and right now, he has a survey mix up for music that came out in that first year, 2002. A mix of eight discs worth, because Perpetua does not half-ass anything.

Fluxblog 2002 Survey Mix!

It's worth it alone for the amount of free music, but there's more to it than that. Hawkeye's been following Fluxblog regularly since at least 2005, and it's been the shining source of so much music we never would have heard of otherwise. There have been other mp3 blogs that come and go, but we remember Perpetua reviewing The Sunset Tree, we remember Perpetua posting Sandra Lou's cover of Lio's La Banana Split and getting flack for it in his comments, we remember Perpetua posting Yoko Kanno and apparently blowing the minds of some of his regulars with it.

Fluxblog is eclectic, honest, and simple. It's really just a guy sharing the music he likes with the world—a guy who just also happens to be excellent at capturing the flavor of the music in short reviews when he does it.

Fluxblog: come for the free, stay for the AWESOME.
manifold: Rex quondam, rexque futurus. (flatland)
[personal profile] manifold
[personal profile] dreamwriteremmy's fiancé's cat, Tabby, needs surgery, and they're taking donations on their fiancé's behalf to go towards it. Go see their post about it for details. Donate if you can, and if you can't, you can still pass it on to others!

(Probably it goes without saying, but we signal boost everything to do with cats in need. The cats need it.)
manifold: A spiraling scribble of white on black. (•████)
[personal profile] manifold
OUR THEMES WERE PATCHED IN

we didn't even know until we happened to check someone's journal without "style=mine" on (which our css killfile requires). HUZZAH!

we feel a little foolish that we didn't notice sooner, but more than that, THIS IS AWESOME. thank you, everyone! and special thanks to [personal profile] delladea for doing the hard work of patching them in!

POP QUIZ

Jan. 25th, 2012 08:08 am
manifold: A triangle where the hypotenuse is labeled x. Question: "Find x." "X" is circled with a cheerful note: "Here it is!" (find x : here it is!)
[personal profile] manifold
Poll #9236 Feedback Poll!
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 3

What post would you MOST like to see in this comm next?

Photoshop ♥ GIMP—two image editors, one tutorial
0 (0.0%)

Just a Photoshop tutorial, thanks
0 (0.0%)

y u no write about being plural?
1 (33.3%)

News Posts are awesome
1 (33.3%)

MOAR ICONS
1 (33.3%)

What kind of icons should we focus on making?

DYAC text icons!
1 (33.3%)

24 Hours in Pictures / icons from news photos
1 (33.3%)

ridiculous animated icons
1 (33.3%)

DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
0 (0.0%)

no opinion / no preference
0 (0.0%)

Any suggestions?



Yeah, we only just realized that paid accounts can make polls anywhere. Whoops!

Edit: derp, can't use strike tags inside a poll! sorry about that!
manifold: Look away from the computer screen and breathe. Welcome to the internet. Shit happens. (internet shit happens)
[personal profile] manifold
Megaupload sharing site shut down

Megaupload, one of the internet's largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US.

The site's founder and others have been charged with violating piracy laws.

Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

Investigators denied a link to recent protests against proposed piracy laws, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On Wednesday, thousands of websites took part in a "blackout" to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).


Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 19, 2012

McLEAN, Va. — Federal prosecutors in Virginia say they have shut down one of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

An indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after Web sites shut down in protest of two Congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular Web site in the world.
rise: (literally alien)
[personal profile] rise
We're very behind on the news lately, sorry. Let's have another mishmash post, starting with a tragedy:



This is a very serious matter, the murder of an accomplished astrophysicist is not to be joked about, but we do have to admit that a headline of OXFORD PROFESSOR MURDERED immediately led us to wonder if Lewis and Hathaway were going to investigate.

No disrespect meant to Prof. Rawlings or his wife, Linda. It's just a headline seen far more often in fiction than in reality.

Graphene is still going strong these days:

  • Hydrogen Enhances Graphene Use ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2012) — Physicists at Linköping University have shown that a dose of hydrogen or helium can render the "super material" graphene even more useful.
  • Graphene Quantum Dots: The Next Big Small Thing ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2012) — A Rice University laboratory has found a way to turn common carbon fiber into graphene quantum dots, tiny specks of matter with properties expected to prove useful in electronic, optical and biomedical applications.


And quantum computers are always awesome.

  • Ten-Second Dance of Electrons Is Step Toward Exotic New Computers ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2012) — "Standard computers have come to their limit and cannot do some of the things we want," said Tyryshkin, a research scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering. "We are trying to find a different way of doing computing, using additional degrees of freedom involving quantum computing and things like spins."


Meanwhile, AUTISM:

  • No Link Found Between Prenatal Exposure to Tobacco Smoke and Autism, Swedish Study Finds ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2012) — A large population-based study in Sweden indicates that there is no link between smoking during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children. The study, led by Dr. Brian Lee, an assistant professor at Drexel University and a team of international collaborators, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and was published online in December.


(It's always "MEANWHILE, AUTISM".)

Our favorite "who knows who's at front" icon is in danger:

  • Quantum Uncertainty: Are You Certain, Mr. Heisenberg? ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2012) — Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle is arguably one of the most famous foundations of quantum physics. It says that not all properties of a quantum particle can be measured with unlimited accuracy. Until now, this has often been justified by the notion that every measurement necessarily has to disturb the quantum particle, which distorts the results of any further measurements. This, however, turns out to be an oversimplification, new research suggests.


And in other recent news, Israeli scientists are making cyborg rats, there are terrifying reports of completely antibiotic-resistant strains of TB in India, and the BBC discovers asexuality as an orientation.
manifold: A triangle where the hypotenuse is labeled x. Question: "Find x." "X" is circled with a cheerful note: "Here it is!" (find x : here it is!)
[personal profile] manifold

Graphene's been pretty big in the news the past few days:

  • ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2012) — A University of California, Riverside engineering professor and a team of researchers have made a breakthrough discovery with graphene, a material that could play a major role in keeping laptops and other electronic devices from overheating.

  • ScienceDaily (Jan. 8, 2012) — Can organic matter behave like a fridge magnet? Scientists from The University of Manchester have now shown that it can.

    In a report published in Nature Physics, they used graphene, the world's thinnest and strongest material, and made it magnetic.

Between this and and the tiniest silicon nanowire ever, and a random shout-out to RPI researchers, this should be a good year for nanotech.

Meanwhile, AUTISM:

  • ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2012) — The underlying reason autism is often associated with gastrointestinal problems is an unknown, but new results to be published in the online journal mBio® on January 10 reveal that the guts of autistic children differ from other children in at least one important way: many children with autism harbor a type of bacteria in their guts that non-autistic children do not.

  • ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2012) — These days, we hear a lot about the disorder of autism, but researchers at the University of Utah have created a program that helps kids with autism focus on building their skills and utilizing an aptitude for visual-spatial thinking, computers and other electronic media.

Intestinal flora have really been making the news lately. A good week to be a gut microbe.

And then let's finish this off with a short list of headlines from the BBC:

Regarding the last bit there, oh dear.

manifold: A cockatiel staring into rays of light. (•g3 : cockatiel)
[personal profile] manifold
cut for embedded video )

When you've had a client insist on liquify tool-ing their arms until the wrists look broken, this is pretty hilarious.

Well, maybe it's hilarious anyway. IT'S POSSIBLE.
manifold: Rex quondam, rexque futurus. (flatland)
[personal profile] manifold
As you might have seen in [site community profile] dw_news just now, Community Imports are a go! There's currently a 100,000 limit on comment imports, but since it only received 1,454 comments in four years, that means we can finally import [livejournal.com profile] fratrandas with everything in it!

Once the import's done, we're deleting [personal profile] fratrandas, which only had backups of the posts. (LJ-Sec couldn't do comments.) Also, most of the stuff from years ago was under a lock, and all that will remain members only. Right now, of course, only tags are imported and everything else is waiting in the queue.

See, this is why Dreamwidth is AWESOME.

Profile

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