shubsicle

product & data @ tumblr | sf to nyc

[taylorswift]

I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.  I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.

I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.  Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives.  Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway.

So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! 🗳😃🌈

[tinydeskcontest]

Watch Tank And The Bangas’ Tiny Desk Concert Now!

“Out of over 6,000 entries — more submissions than we’ve ever received — Tank And The Bangas won, unanimously, this year’s Tiny Desk Contest. I fully expected their victory performance here at NPR headquarters in D.C. to be celebratory. I didn’t know we’d all end up in tears.”

– Bob Boilen

Watch the full concert here.

[nprmusic]

There was not a dry eye to be found at NPR HQ when Tank and the Bangas performed at the Tiny Desk. This is one you don’t want to miss. 

[npr]

Tank and the Bangas brought out all the feels here at NPR Headquarters when they made their victory lap around the Tiny Desk. If you haven’t heard them yet, they combine R&B with hip-hop’s poetry and rollercoaster storytelling, with a flair and alchemy that could only come from New Orleans. Their winning song, “Quick,” mixes liquor and revenge — a sort of modern day take on a great folk tale, but peppered with their own idiosyncratic flair and humor. — Meg Kelly

[shubsicle]

Yesss!

[staff]

Today is International Women’s Day.

Today also marks the show of solidarity for women’s rights by way of a strike: A Day Without A Woman. Women around the world are refusing to take part in both paid and unpaid labor in the name of justice for all gender-oppressed people of all ethnicities, religions, and sexualities. In doing so, they join the ranks of women who have led protests, strikes, and movements throughout history.

Let’s celebrate a few of those women:

Dorothy Height (March 24, 1912—April 20, 2010)

Dorothy Height, former President of the National Council of Negro Women, was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington. She stood near Martin Luther King Jr. during his “I Have a Dream” speech, but did not publicly speak that day. In fact, no woman publicly spoke. “Even on the morning of the march there had been appeals to include a woman speaker,” wrote Height in her memoir. “They were happy to include women in the human family, but there was no question as to who headed the household!“ In 1971, she helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus with other notable feminists like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Shirley Chisholm.

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945—July 6, 1992)

Marsha P. Johnson spent her entire adult life fighting for the rights of LGBTQ people. She’s credited for being one of the first to fight back in the Stonewall Riots. She started the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries with her friend Sylvia Rivera. Together they provided food, shelter, and care to young drag queens, trans women, and homeless children in need in the Lower East Side of NYC. She fought for what was right, and knew how to live life with exuberance and humor. When asked by a judge what what the “P” stood for, she replied “Pay It No Mind.”

Alice Paul (January 11, 1885—July 9, 1977)

Alice Paul was one of the leading forces behind the Nineteenth Amendment, which affirmed and enshrined a woman’s right to vote. She rallied 8,000 people to march in the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington—no small task in a world before the internet—with an estimated half million people watching the historic moment from the sidelines.

And some good activist blogs to follow:

Emily’s List (@emilys-list) slogan is “ignite change.” They aim to do so by backing pro-choice candidates for US office in key races across the country.

Women of Color in Solidarity (@wocinsolidarity) focuses on being a hub for the the WOC experience in the US. Original posts, incredibly informative reblogs…this place is wonderful.

[humansofnewyork]

“My husband and I sold everything we had to afford the journey. We worked 15 hours a day in Turkey until we had enough money to leave. The smuggler put 152 of us on a boat. Once we saw the boat, many of us wanted to go back, but he told us that anyone who turned back would not get a refund. We had no choice. Both the lower compartment and the deck were filled with people. Waves began to come into the boat so the captain told everyone to throw their baggage into the sea. In the ocean we hit a rock, but the captain told us not to worry. Water began to come into the boat, but again he told us not to worry. We were in the lower compartment and it began to fill with water. It was too tight to move. Everyone began to scream. We were the last ones to get out alive. My husband pulled me out of the window. In the ocean, he took off his life jacket and gave it to a woman. We swam for as long as possible. After several hours he told me he that he was too tired to swim and that he was going to float on his back and rest. It was so dark we could not see. The waves were high. I could hear him calling me but he got further and further away. Eventually a boat found me. They never found my husband.” (Kos, Greece)

[shubsicle]

My heart is breaking for these humans. 

[shubsicle]

Little p-value

What are you trying to say

Of significance?

— Stephen Ziliak, Roosevelt University economics professor

[nikoniko808]

Thank You

[shubsicle]

“It’s nearly impossible to look at Carrie Fisher without seeing Princess Leia, without knowing that Fisher is someone whom Hollywood tried to chew up and spit out in the same way it does with all of its favorite young women. Carrie Fisher is the girl who was supposed to put on the gold bikini and its accompanying chains, smile pretty, and shut up about everything else — and Carrie Fisher is the woman who refused to do it. She’s the woman who refused to stop talking about her mental illness, her addictions, her age, and all the other unglamorous things that Hollywood likes to pretend never happens to its starlets.” —  Constance Grady

[timeout]

a tilt-shift london christmas.

[starwarsvillains]

[shubsicle]

Darth Vader proving once again why he is the master of chilling, off the cuff punnery. 

[ucberkeley]

“UC Berkeley from the air.” #myucberkeley by @abunyaphoto #ucberkeley #sathertower #campanile (at UC Berkeley)

[riceoak]

Maokong Gondola - Taipei, Taiwan

[shubsicle]

@toastylanguor I can’t wait to revisit Maokong! Can we go hiking (and eating) through Taiwan again sometime soon please?

[lereyo]

Troy and Abed’s Christmas rap

Community; Season 3, Episode 10: Regional Holiday Music

YouTube

[shubsicle]

The most wonderful time of year, when we rewatch the best of Community’s Christmas episodes back to back to back. 

[coolchicksfromhistory]

Minnette de Silva (1918-1998) 

Art by Kitsune Gari (tumblr)

The daughter of a politician and a suffrage activist, Minnette had access to more opportunities than most women in 1920s Sri Lanka.  When she found herself unable to train as an architect in Colombo, her family allowed her to move to Bombay.  She worked as an apprentice at an architectural firm in Bombay before enrolling at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art.  Expelled for participating in an anti-colonialism protest, Minnette completed her studies in 1948 at the Architectural Association in London.  That same year, Minnette was elected the first Asian female member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

After graduation, Minnette returned to Sri Lanka.  Her first commission, Karunaratne House, mixed modernism with traditional Sri Lankan elements and set the tone for the rest of her career.  Minnette most significant building was the Kandy Arts Association, a multi-use space which still stands today.

A pioneer as both a female architect and as a modern regional architect, Minnette died in 1998.

[dngrs]

At Google, we spend a lot of time thinking about how computer systems can read and understand human language in order to process it in intelligent ways. Today, we are excited to share the fruits of our research with the broader community by releasing SyntaxNet, an open-source neural network framework implemented in TensorFlow that provides a foundation for Natural Language Understanding (NLU) systems. Our release includes all the code needed to train new SyntaxNet models on your own data, as well as Parsey McParseface, an English parser that we have trained for you and that you can use to analyze English text.

Parsey McParseface is built on powerful machine learning algorithms that learn to analyze the linguistic structure of language, and that can explain the functional role of each word in a given sentence. Because Parsey McParseface is the most accurate such model in the world, we hope that it will be useful to developers and researchers interested in automatic extraction of information, translation, and other core applications of NLU.

Announcing SyntaxNet: The World’s Most Accurate Parser Goes Open Source

At Google, we spend a lot of time thinking about how computer systems can read and understand human language in order to process it in intelligent ways.

[shubsicle]

Really cool natural language processing. Can’t wait to see all the creative ways this can be used in the future.

But also. Parsey McParseface. 

[loweffortsideblog]

Lupita Nyong’o / Vogue (October 2015)

[shubsicle]

Absolutely stunning. The textures, the colors, the settings, and Lupita as always.

[skunkbear]

Astronaut Scott Kelly has spent more time in space than any other American. He has also played solo ping pong with a ball of water and two hydrophobic paddles. Scott Kelly is an American hero. 

Image Credit: NASA

[npr]

🇺🇸 🚀 -Ariel

[shubsicle]

Looking forward to playing this when when we head to the Mars colonies in 2060!

[obamawhitehouse]

“On behalf of the entire Obama family, I wish you and your loved ones peace and happiness on this Diwali.” —President Obama to all of those celebrating Diwali: http://go.wh.gov/kt8ZSQ

[pitchfork]

Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has died, according to his official Facebook page. He was 82.