Oscars Diversity: 5 Natives Invited.

According to an announcement by Sundance, five of the institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program alumni have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

This is a positive change for Oscars diversity as the Native artists become a part of the nominating and voting body of the Oscars, each within their own branches and on larger voting sections for the awards.

The five artists and program alumni – as well as a few of their production credits – are listed on the Sundance Institute website:

Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur D'alene)

Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur D’alene)

adam-beach-by-thosh-collins

Adam Beach (Saulteaux of Dog Creek First Nation)

cliff_curtis

Cliff Curtis (Te Arawa, Ngāti Hauiti)

heather_rae-001

Heather Rae (Cherokee)

taika_waititi

Taika Waititi (Te Whanau A Apanui)

ICTMN has the full story.

On Following the Sun.

LadySun1P

© C. Ford.

At dawn, whole fields of sunflowers stand at attention, all facing east, and begin their romance with the rising sun. As that special star appears to move across the sky, young flowers follow its light, looking up, then over and westward, catching one final glance as the sun disappears over the horizon.

At night, in its absence, the sunflowers face east again, anticipating the sun’s return.

They do this until they get old, when they stop moving. Then, always facing east, the old flowers await visits from insects that will spread their pollen and make new sunflowers. Those flowers too, will follow the sun.

The wonderful magic of sunflowers, it’s always a grand thing when this is explained to kids, who have their minds blown at the idea of a flower following the sun. It’s a great way to get in a dose of science.

It’s heliotropism, and sunflowers are not the only plants that track the sun. But until now, how sunflowers do it has been a mystery.

In a study published Friday in Science, researchers revealed that the sunflower’s internal clock and ability to detect light work together, turning on genes related to growth at just the right time to allow the stems to bend with the arc of the sun. The research team also showed that when fully grown, as tall as people in some cases, plants that always face east get a head start, warming up early to attract pollinators.

To get to the bottom of sunflowers’ pursuit of the sun, Stacey Harmer and Hagop Atamian, plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues studied sunflowers in fields, pots and growth chambers.

[…]

The fact that sunflowers switch directions at night to face east again, with no apparent cue, suggested an internal clock at work. The researchers put sunflower plants in a room with lights rigged to mimic the sun’s path on different light and dark cycles. The plants behaved as expected on a 24-hour cycle. But during a 30-hour day, they were confused. And when plants that had learned a 24-hour cycle outdoors were placed under a fixed light indoors, they continued to bend from east to west for a few days, as if following the sun. This meant that a 24-hour circadian rhythm was guiding the sunflowers’ movement. But without muscles, how did they move?

The answer was in their stems. Like those of other plants, the stems of young sunflowers grow more at night — but only on their west side, which is what allows their heads to bend eastward. During the day, the stems’ east side grows, and they bend west with the sun. Dr. Atamian collected samples of the opposite sides of stems from sunflowers periodically, and found that different genes, related to light detection and growth, appeared active on opposite sides of the stems.

You can read the rest of this fascinating story here. It’s nice to know how it all works with Sunflowers, and they remain wonderfully majestic and magical. Hat tip to Kengi for this one.

White Nationalists Loving Trump.

2White Nationalists Supremacists haven’t kept their love of Trump a secret, but they are now jubilant over Trump & Co.’s attack on the Khan family.

The Daily Stormer is an anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi hate site that’s endorsed Donald Trump. Editor Andrew Anglin repeatedly smeared the late Capt. Khan and his family as terrorists and called on them to be deported. From his post:

So, an Islamic terrorist from Pakistan infiltrates the US military, with the intent of getting high-quality training to use in his jihad against Whites, and also perhaps for the purpose of sabotage, and accidentally gets his dumbass killed.

And now, the Jews tell us we’re supposed to celebrate him as a hero? Just because he’s dead?

No dice, kikes.

[…]

I am hereby calling for the Khan family to be immediately deported to Pakistan. What’s more, I want their terrorist son’s body dug up and shipped back with them.

This terrorist filth has no more right to rot in our ground than he had to walk on it. [Daily Stormer, 7/31/16]

Daily Stormer writer “Tharru Larbi” praised “God Emperor Trump’s rightful criticism of St. Khizr Khan’s flailing remarks about ‘muh constitution’ and ‘muh muslim patriot son.’” The writer concluded:

If Trump wants to point out the hypocrisy of the Democrats parading a Muslim father of a Muslim soldier while his wife sits quietly, and submissively, by his side — so be it. Of course, the Democrats and Jewish media don’t have an issue with this since what they want for all goyim is quiet submission.

[…]

Yes, goyim! This is what you should strive to be like. Look how patriotic and happy those two Muslims are. They’re so American

No thanks. I’ll take a beautiful Aryan woman any day over these two ugly troglodytes and I’ll happily retweet Iron Ann when she rightly calls out the Democrats.

[…]

It’s too bad a traitor like McCain can continue to cite his military career as a prop for his political career despite the record of his many transgressions. Even the people he served with and was jailed with as a POW hated him.

Sad! [Daily Stormer, 8/1/16]

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls video blogger Paul Ray Ramsey (aka Ramzpaul) a white nationalist who “has emerged as the hottest right-wing video blogger this side of former Klansman David Duke.” The pro-Trump racist pundit made a YouTube video attacking Khan and praising Trump for not apologizing:

RAMZPAUL: I think he responded good. And God bless Donald Trump. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t grovel. He’s kind of like Sidonius, the guy in that story. He’s a man, he stood firm. But like the story of the Roman time and Sidonius, our troops, our army, our empire is now starting to be flooded with mercenaries like this guy from Pakistan. He may be an American citizen, but he’s not of the founding stock. He’s not of the white, European Christian that made this country. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 8/21/13; YouTube, 8/1/16]

Leading Hate Website Leader Don Black: Trump’s Khan Attack “Proves To Me That Trump Is The Real Thing.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Don Black as a “former Klan state leader and long-time white supremacist” who “is best known for creating Stormfront.org, the first major Internet hate site.” During Stormfront’s radio program, Black said Khizr Khan is a “professional Muslim” and praised Trump for his attacks against the Khans. Black said the episode “proves to me that Trump is the real thing. He really is, I think, sincere in what he’s doing even though he’s of course obviously ego-driven.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/2/16, Rense Radio Network, Stormfront, 8/2/16]

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDare.com as “an anti-immigration hate website” with a white nationalist ideology. The website’s Twitter account responded to Republicans defending the Khan family by writing, “And at the very moment when the tide turns, the GOP starts cucking. All these ppl need to do is just shut up.”

https://twitter.com/vdare/status/760155770767839234

[Twitter, 8/1/16; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/2/16]

Eric Hananoki has the full story at MediaMatters. It’s bad enough, the re-normalisation of virulent bigotry enabled by Trump, but the  putrid re-blossoming of these white supremacist groups, after they had been pushed to the fringe, is damn scary. All thinking people should be scared.

Cool Stuff Friday

[Photo: Kirk Morales via Unsplash. Illustrations: NYC MTA/ tovovan via Shutterstock]

[Photo: Kirk Morales via Unsplash. Illustrations: NYC MTA/ tovovan via Shutterstock]

Sick of the Subway? One of those people happy grouching over the Subway? Welcome to Brand New Subway, a game where you get to design a subway.

New Yorkers frustrated by the high fares, cramped commutes, and long walking distances to the nearest stop have long loved indulging in the city-wide pastime of playing armchair design critic to the MTA. But is it possible to design a more efficient New York subway system? Like SimCity for subways, Brand New Subway is a new web game that lets you give it a shot—and it just might give you a newfound appreciation for the efficiency of the MTA.

Based upon an accurate map of New York City, the goal of Brand New Subway is to design your own subway line. You do so by putting icons representing existing MTA lines onto the map, with the computer automatically connecting stations into lines by calculating the optimal path between them. Crossovers can also be manually assigned, so that multiple lines form a citywide network.

Where things get interesting is that when you drop a station on the map, Brand New Subway automatically pulls in local data from a variety of sources, including information about population, jobs, transportation demand, taxes, and so on. It then calculates how successful your subway is based on a couple of metrics: how many people it can move on an average weekday, and the cost of a single-ride MetroCard for the network.

You can read more about the game here. Brand New Subway.

Furenexo wants to make assistive tech.

Would you purchase a basic digital camera connected to a 22″ LCD monitor for $3,000?

How about a GPS unit to announce your location for $800?

Unfortunately, a hugely overlooked segment of the population has no choice but to pay these prices for outdated technology – namely, people with disabilities.

furenexo-graph

We at Furenexo believe it’s time for Makers to become advocates, and recently launched our Kickstarter campaign to develop low-cost, highly accessible assistive technology using open source hardware and software. We see an amazing opportunity to empower Makers to become “enableists”, and make better things — and things better — for our world.

Why Make Assistive Devices?

– Because advances like Arduino, 3D printing, and object/face/voice recognition are making concepts that were only pipe dreams a few years ago possible.
– Because the challenges faced by people with disabilities have been ignored for so long and any progress could have a deep impact.
– Because nobody needs an “Uber for dry-cleaning” or yet another disco light set-up for Burning Man.
– Because engaging with disability at any level could be a personal challenge outside your comfort zone.
– Because around 49 million Americans (3.8 million of whom are veterans) are affected by some physical or sensory impairment. The economic impact of even slightly reducing some of these challenges people with disabilities face could be profound.
– Because just making something to help a neighbor could earn you a smile and thank you to light up your day, and every day.

There’s much more at Make Magazine. Furenexo’s website.

On fuck ups and flexibility.

WorkWorkWork55

Best laid plans and all that. The large section of background I’m currently working on, I had planned doing in light cocoa, and ultra light mocha. In a stroke of brilliant idiocy, I somehow managed to completely forget about the light cocoa thread when I stocked up on the colours needed for this bit of the tree quilt. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, I’d just get to Joann’s and get more, but I am dire broke, and will be that way for two weeks. Yes, I could work on another bit for two weeks, but I am motivated, right now, to get this section done. I have to go with these motivated moments, because if I stop working this section, it will just turn into a massive chore of tedium, and I’ll find reasons to put it off.

So, a change of plan. I had just enough light cocoa to tie it into the bottom section of light cocoa. As I have 7 skeins of medium cocoa, medium it is. It always pays to be flexible in the face of fuck-ups.

NYC: ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill.

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

Hate crime legislation currently only applies to attacks based on race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religious affiliation. But this new legislation would classify cops as a protected class, aligning them with ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

In an interview with the New York Observer, Castorina noted the recent attacks on cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas this past month as a driving force for the bill. He also blamed Black Lives Matter protests for provoking violence against law enforcement.

“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” Castorina said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”

Talk about a bad, knee-jerk reaction. This is completely unnecessary, as punishments for assaulting a cop are much higher than assaulting a non-cop, and everyone knows that cops will already do whatever they need to in order to tack on a resisting arrest charge, so now they’ll be busy finding ways to tack on an assault charge, too. Oh, this won’t lead anywhere bad, no, of course not. :Insert spine popping eyeroll here: Honesty would be welcome. Why not just call this what it is, a brutal enforcement of bowing down to authority? Being a cop is nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other jobs, and the majority of cops are killed in traffic accidents. The stats are quite clear as to there being many more civilians shot and killed by cops, then cops being shot by civilians.

Civilians get killed by police far more often. Law enforcement officers shot and killed some 990 people in 2015 and another 491 in the first half of this year, according to the Washington Post’s award-winning tracking of police shootings.

That’s almost 1,500 police killings in 18 months, compared to 305 law enforcement officers attacked and killed in the line of duty in the six-year span of numbers in the new report. Police officers have shot and killed about 82 people each month nationwide since the start of last year, and have been killed by attackers roughly 4 times per month going back to the start of 2010.

So of course, cops must be made into a protected class, oh my yes! As these bills pass, and they will, we can all look forward to many more people dying unjustly at the hands of cops, and those who don’t die may well end up with extended prison sentences because of cops who will claim assault. Just what our already over-burdened, fucked up penal system needs. Fuck stormtroopers.

Via ThinkProgress.

Echo Hunter: Fossil Whale Species.

Echovenator produces sound that bounces off prey, creating echoes. The whale's inner ear receives the sound waves. Credit: A Gennari 2016.

Echovenator produces sound that bounces off prey, creating echoes. The whale’s inner ear receives the sound waves. Credit: A Gennari 2016.

A newly-named fossil whale species had superior high-frequency hearing ability, helped in part by the unique shape of inner ear features that have given scientists new clues about the evolution of this specialized sense.

In a study published August 4 in Current Biology, researchers from New York Institute of Technology and colleagues from the National Museum of Natural History in France describe a new species of whale, Echovenator sandersi (“Echo Hunter”), an ancient relative of the modern dolphin, and its ability to hear frequencies well above the range of hearing in humans.

The research pushes the origin of high frequency hearing in whales farther back in time—about 10-million years than previous studies have indicated.

“Previous studies have looked at hearing in whales but our study incorporates data from an animal with a very complete skull,” says Morgan Churchill, a postdoctoral fellow at NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine and the paper’s lead author. “The data we gathered enabled us to conclude that it could hear at very high frequencies, and we can also say with a great degree of certainty where it fits in the tree of life for whales.”

“This was a small, toothed whale that probably used its remarkable sense of hearing to find and pursue fish with echoes only,” says Associate Professor Jonathan Geisler, a study co-author. “This would allow it to hunt at night, but more importantly, it could hunt at great depths in darkness, or in very sediment-choked environments.”

[…]

To learn more about Echovenator, Churchill and colleagues studied a 27-million-year-old skull discovered in South Carolina 2001. By analyzing the bony support structures of the inner ear membranes, along with other measurements of the inner ear, the researchers concluded that the whale had ultrasonic hearing capabilities, and could hear frequencies above the range of human hearing.

About 60 million years ago, the semiaquatic ancestor of whales had a limited ability to hear high frequencies. However, Geisler says statistical analyses of fossils in the study allowed researchers to conclude that some degree of high frequency hearing evolved before echolocation and then became even more specialized in modern toothed whales. Baleen whales, which do not echolocate and are specialized to hear low frequency sound, lost some of these initial specializations for hearing high frequency sound.

“Knowing when and how echolocation evolved is a critical step in our project, and we are studying how the evolution of echolocation influenced the evolution of skull shapes in cetaceans,” says Geisler.

As more biological research uses computer models, Geisler says the current study may help scientists distinguish what inner ear features are needed to hear sounds of a given frequency.

Phys.org has the full story.

Ornitographies: Xavi Bou.

4_Xavier_ALFONSO_ornitgrafies_43

Using the 150 year old technique of chronophotography, Spanish photographer Xavi Bou has figured out a way to take pictures of migrating birds while retaining the fluid sense of motion that gives them all their mystery, poetry, and grace.

You can see much more at The Project: Xavi Bou, (horizontal scroll) and read about Ornitographies here. Via Colossal.

A Neuroscientist Tackles Loyalty to Trump.

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

A neuroscientist takes on the remarkable loyalty and obliviousness of those who support and follow Trump. It’s a fairly comprehensive article, starting with the well known Dunning-Kruger effect, and ending with the unfortunate affliction of being entertainment addicted. Just a bit from the end of the article here, click over for the full read.

  1. High Attentional Engagement

According to a recent study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged. While Hillary Clinton could only hold attention for so long, Trump kept both attention and emotional arousal high throughout the viewing session. This pattern of activity was seen even when Trump made remarks that individuals didn’t necessarily agree with. His showmanship and simple messages clearly resonate at a visceral level.

Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction with entertainment and reality TV. To some, it doesn’t matter what Trump actually says because he’s so amusing to watch. With Donald, you are always left wondering what outrageous thing he is going to say or do next. He keeps us on the edge of our seat, and for that reason, some Trump supporters will forgive anything he says. They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.

Of course these explanations do not apply to all Trump supporters. In fact, some are likely intelligent people who know better, but are supporting Trump to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the system. They may have such distaste for the establishment and Hillary Clinton that their vote for Trump is a symbolic middle finger directed at Washington.

Full article here. I found the Hypersensitivity to Threat and Terror Management Theory sections very interesting. Going by that, it’s much easier to see why so many people have flocked to Trump, and manage to defend every horrible, evil thing he says.

Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

donald-trump-claims-accommodating-transgender-people-is-too-expensivex750_0Well, one thing you can say for Trump is that he’s driving a record number of faithful republicans away from the GOP.

A Georgia Republican activist and member of the electoral college said on Wednesday that he will withhold his electoral vote if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the state.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jim Galloway spoke with Baoky Vu, a tech executive and one of 16 electoral college members who will cast their votes should Trump win Georgia in November.

Vu — a longtime GOP activist and organizer — said this morning that he is seriously considering holding back his electoral vote from the real estate mogul and former reality TV star.

“I have the right to vote for a write-in candidate in the electoral college,” he said in a statement. Georgia is one of 21 states that allow its electors to vote independently of the popular vote.

[…]

Baoky Vu’s statement in full:

I’ve been active in the Republican Party for many years precisely because it has championed the aspirational ideals of Lincoln, Reagan and Kemp. Our recent standard-bearers have proudly and honorably defended those ideas on the political battlefield. From Bush 41 to Romney to Jeb and many of the other 2016 primary contestants, there was never a wavering doubt as to their character, integrity and temperament.

Until now.

This is the Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan and Romney and Ryan, not the Party of Donald Trump. As a 2016 Presidential Elector, I am forever grateful to our state Party and our Chairman for bestowing this once-in-a-lifetime honor on me. I take my role seriously and in the face of the difficult choice before us, I will always put America First over party and labels.

Thus, I will not be voting for Donald Trump in the general election. My conscience is clear but my soul is being tested. Born in Saigon, my family knows what it is like to lose a country and my family is forever indebted to America and our allies. I have never questioned the soul, character and goodness of the Nation by who we have chosen as our leader throughout history.

Until now.

Rather than earning the American people’s respect and trust through the duration of the past year, Donald Trump’s antics and asinine behavior has cemented my belief that he lacks the judgment, temperament and gravitas to lead this Nation. Throughout the process, he has hurled insults at our heroes and their families, denigrated the disabled and praised dictators. Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

“In this time of global challenges, we will succeed only if we come together. We’ve done it before, from the courthouse steps of Appomattox to the days after Pearl Harbor. And to my Republican brothers and sisters in arms, politics should be a honorable sport. Rather than fighting to defend the indefensible, let’s live to fight another day.

Via Raw Story.