After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, the stewardess announces over the intercom that “we’re just waiting for the pilots.” The passengers look out the window and see two men, dressed as pilots walking towards the plane. Both men are using guide dogs and appear to be blind. There are murmurs among the passengers, […]

The post What A Scary Flight appeared first on Funny & Jokes.

The post Team Spotlight: Getting to Know Ocean Blue’s James Stamatis appeared first on Ocean Blue Fishing Adventures.

The editors of JCI and JCI Insight are revisiting our editorial processes in light of the strain that the COVID-19 pandemic places on the worldwide scientific community. Here, we discuss adjustments to our decision framework in light of restrictions placed on laboratory working conditions for many of our authors.

Brown and beige adipose tissues contain thermogenic fat cells that can be activated by β3-adrenergic receptor agonists. In rodents, such drugs both diminish obesity and improve glucose homeostasis. In this issue of the JCI, O’Mara et al. and Finlin and Memetimin et al. report that chronic administration of the approved β3 agonist mirabegron to human subjects was without effect on body weight or fat mass, but improved several measures of glucose homeostasis. Though the mechanisms mediating these metabolic effects are uncertain, the data suggest that β3 agonists could have therapeutic utility in disorders of glucose homeostasis.

I’ve been to Forks and La Push, where the Twilight book series takes place, but I’ve never been to the actual filming locations from the movies! That’s because while the director wanted to film in Forks, when he came to scout the town he realized there was just not enough infrastructure to support an entire film crew– there were literally not enough places to house and feed all of the people who would be working on the movie, and there was no other large town within driving distance! (Yeah, Forks is really far out there) Enter Halloweento— I mean, St. Helens, Oregon! St. Helens stands in for most of Forks in the movies, and a few places in nearby Portland, Oregon make up most of the rest. I ended up nearby by complete accident, as it was only when I picked up a brochure at Halloweentown that I learned that Bella’s house was just on the other side of town! LUCKY!!!  So, we took a short break to drive over to the locations that were still standing, and made a special detour to Portland because how could we leave the Cullen house behind?! I WANTED TO GO INSIDE SO BADLY! It is a real house with real people that live there, and although they encouraged taking photos from outside (according both to a brochure from City Hall and a sign in front of the house), the inside was off-limits. Honestly, it’s not Bella that I particularly love. I didn’t care for her portrayal by Kristen Stewart (sorry!), or her melancholy, passive attitude in the book. Actually, I didn’t care for Edward, either. It was the idea of a love so strong that forces of  nature were pulling you together. It’s the idea of fitting together so perfectly that you can’t do anything without the other that I am a complete sucker for! I said it on my old Livejournal years ago, but Twilight is just a big Mary Sue anyway, so I like to imagine myself as Bella, with a gorgeous (female) Edward out there waiting for me. ???? Like I said, it’s the love, not the characters themselves. I’ll fight you on this (just kidding). ???? Here is where Edward rescued Bella from some catcallers, complete with the mural that the movie crew painted (!) on the building. And the theater that they drove past, that you can’t really see well in the movie but hey, it was on the map!! This is Jilly’s, which supplied all of the dresses in the shop when Bella went to pick out something with her friends for prom. Oddly enough, they had this sign outside but no actual merchandise inside. Go figure. ???? This place, which is a private house now, was the bookstore where Bella went to find out more information about the Quileute myths. And then, though we only had a little bit of time, we drove over to Portland and checked out Edward’s house. I have to say…. THIS HOUSE WAS GORGEOUS. Whew! I would LOVE to live there. LOVE LOVE LOVE! I would also have loved a tour, but it is a private residence, and therefore we kept our distance. Mmm, but it sure is gorgeous! Twilight brings back a lot of memories for me, and it’s special because I grew up (mostly) in Washington. It’s also not the only book series to claim that there are werewolves living amongst the local residents. The town that I spent most of my childhood in also has a series revolving around it! I’m planning to take a trip over there to see my old friends and photograph all of the wolfy places of interest, so I’ll post about it then! Love ya, and see ya tomorrow!

Аналитики из JP Morgan in TF Securities в разное время опубликовали прогнозы относительно будущего модельного ряда iPhone, однако их содержание сходится, что добавляет отчетам достоверности. В частнос...

Platform: Flash — The battle was finally lost. You are the only knight who survived - you don't know why and feel deep sadness and maybe guilt. While brooding over misfortune you recall your king's last words: "You must go on! Rescue my... Tagged as: armorgames, browser, flash, fractalsunrise, free, game, mouseonly, platformer, playthis, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g

Senator Bernie Sanders does not think that Hillary Clinton can stand up and fight for the middle class. Continue reading →

Have you ever observed the mating dance of the birds of paradise? The male moves dramatically, and in response, the female inches away, but ultimately the male conquers the female, and achieves the purpose of this ritualistic, instinctive dance. Well, … Continue reading →

December 6, 2015, 10:50 AM|Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, believes there must be an international coalition led by Arab nations in the fight against ISIS. Continue reading →

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein would not continue to expand our military budget and presence in the world but would curtail both, saving American taxpayers trillions of dollars and saving the world millions, if not billions, of lives. Listen to her present a rational, humane foreign policy in this interview on The Young Turks Town Hall meeting held October 21, 2016. Continue reading →

In an interview with Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks TYT show on October, 21, 2016, Jill Stein was asked what would she do to ensure the protection of Estonia from an invasion from Russia. I found her response to … Continue reading →

Вокалистка NIGHTWISH Floor Jansen недавно в интервью A&P Reacts поговорила о том, насколько пандемия коронавируса повлияла на туровые планы коллектива:

«Полагаю, все, кроме ученых, да даже и учёные в действительности ещё не знают, что будет дальше. Мы никогда не сталкивались с пандемией такого масштаба. Мы знаем, что в ближайшем будущем вакцина не появится. И пока её нет, очень трудно прогнозировать возвращение массовых мероприятий — таких, как музыкальные фестивали и крупные концерты. Наши европейские шоу собирают от семи до семнадцати тысяч зрителей. Сейчас коронавирус ежедневно уносит столько жизней, что восстановление концертной индустрии займет месяцы.

Очень хочется желать, чтобы осенью-зимой всё пришло в норму и обычная жизнь вернулась. Не хочу показаться пессимисткой, но вряд ли это возможно. И поскольку мы толком не знаем, что будет дальше, разработка "Плана Б" существенно осложняется, потому что всё сдвигается на более позднее время. Прямо сейчас мы должны были выступать в Китае. Немного погодя нам предстояло сесть в самолет, вылетающий в Мексику для тура по странам Латинской Америки, затем на очереди была бы Россия. Таким образом, гастроли как минимум в трёх частях света уже отложены. Такая же судьба, по-видимому, ожидает и североамериканский тур.

Но, опять же, самое важное — и я хочу это особо подчеркнуть — это наше здоровье. Если нам даровано хорошее здоровье, то жаловаться не на что. Происходящее по-настоящему подтверждает главные ценности в жизни, в данный момент это сохранение здоровья. Если вы здоровы — это просто отлично. Нечего жаловаться на карантин. Это, быть может, неудобно, зато даёт нам время на те дела, для которых ранее времени никогда не находилось. Лучше пересидеть и даже насладиться изоляцией изо всех сил, просто занимаясь обычными вещами, вроде изучения нового языка и очередного просмотра любимого фильма. Это подлинная роскошь в сравнении с переживанием болезни и связанных с нею кошмаров.

Вот поэтому я лучше отсижусь до следующего лета и буду уверена, что всё благополучно закончилось, что мы можем приступить к нормальной жизни в добром здравии и в безопасной обстановке, вместо того чтобы спешить. И если это означает, что нам следует подождать с концертами и шоу, пока мы не получим вакцину, — так тому и быть. Самое разумное, что мы можем сейчас сказать, — это что в настоящий момент не может быть иного "плана Б", кроме того, что мы просто хотим выступать.

Словами не передать расстройство от нахождения взаперти и невозможности играть, но моя личная точка зрения подразумевает, что нужно сосредоточиться на том, что вы реально можете делать. В моём случае — проводить время с мужем и ребёнком, гораздо больше времени, чем у меня обычно получается. И для других домашних занятий появилось время — можно сфокусироваться на чём-то особенном. Пока не поступит новая информация, мы должны всего лишь сидеть и надеяться, что не заболеем ни мы сами, ни наши любимые». #Nightwish #AcousticRock #Acoustic_Rock #PowerMetal #Power_Metal #SymphonicMetal #Symphonic_Metal #Instrumental #_Instrumental

NORTHTALE опубликовали обучающее видео на композицию “Shape Your Reality”, которая взята из альбома "Welcome To Paradise". #NorthTale

NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans will air the first new episodes of 2017 tonight. You can find sneak peeks, tweets and photos...

Criminal Minds has the first new episode of 2017 on the schedule tonight. Here’s a sneak peek from “Profiling 202”, featuring David...

NCIS: Los Angeles will air the first new episode of 2017 tonight. “Kulinda” is scheduled to start at 8:00pm ET/PT. (If anything...

Criminal Minds has a new episode on the schedule tonight. Here’s the first sneak peek from “Seek and Destroy”, featuring Emily Prentiss...

Гонка в Сильверстоуне получилась богатой на события, но в итоге её победителем стал сильнейший пилот Формулы 1 50-х годов Хуан-Мануэль Фанхио, выступавший на Ferrari...

DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL #1 is due out June 16, and we've got early unlettered pages.

The post Scott Snyder and Sgt. Rock team-up for industry pep talk in DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL #1 appeared first on The Beat.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business announced today that it is enhancing its global flight operations solution WSI Fusion, with live flight tracking data from FlightAware. WSI Fusion provides early insight into changing flight, airport and airspace conditions, enabling aviation providers to carefully plan and track flights, optimize operations and reduce the impacts of disruptive events. With the addition of FlightAware’s data, including its private network of over 12,000 Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) ground stations in over 160 countries, WSI Fusion customers will have access to enhanced flight following capabilities worldwide.

IBM today announced that Joanne Wright, Vice President Supply Chain has been selected to speak at the upcoming Supply Chain Summit Conference, which takes place in Chicago on June 14-16.

IBM today announced that Joanne Wright, Vice President Supply Chain has been selected to speak at the upcoming Supply Chain Leaders in Action Business Forum, which takes place in Naples, Florida on June 5-7.

Now it is set up so that any click off of the main menu leads you to a whole spectrum of bodies at a particular height. Check it out! Also, in the middle of the big and tall men, there are two guys standing next to each other who happen to both be wearing kilts.

Stacy and Angela painted the alphabet on the wall of their living room, hung lights, and it looks amazing. I built a web app that lets you compose and deliver a creepy message to a friend!

[Image: The mushroom tunnel of Mittagong, photo by Nicola Twilley, via BLDGBLOG.] “Japanese researchers are closing in on understanding why electrical storms have a positive influence on the growth of some fungi,” Physics World reported last month, with some interesting implications for agriculture. These electrical storms do not have to be nearby, and they do … Continue reading "Fungal Lightning"

IBM today announced new systems highly-tuned and optimised to help clients more quickly draw insights from vast amounts of data to anticipate emerging business trends, capture new opportunities and avoid risks. These new optimised systems support all environments in a data center, enabling clients to handle higher volumes of transactions and analyse data where it resides.

IBM today launched Express Advantage – a portfolio of affordable business solutions designed especially to meet the performance, usability and pricing needs of medium-sized businesses.

Declares Intent to Break the Exaflop Barrier; Develops Exascale Research Collaboratory in Dublin

IBM today announced New Zealand startup Eight Wire as the 2015 winner of IBM SmartCamp Auckland. The data integration specialist was one of five IT startups from around New Zealand invited by IBM to participate in the competition.

Melbourne, Australia - 18 August 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the City of Melbourne today launched a new interactive online experience for this year’s Melbourne Spring Fashion Week (MSFW) to enhance the iconic event and help shoppers hunt down the best retail bargains. The launch of the experience signifies the beginning of a three-year partnership between the City of Melbourne and IBM as the Official Innovation and Technology Partner for MSFW.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has been awarded a $23.6M dollar contract with the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) to design and build Australia’s National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) project.

If you’re a Passport Sunday member then you’ll get to see how today’s photo was made. Every Sunday I come to you with a fresh video and we have a huge archive of other videos that you will also enjoy. Thanks! The Bullfight How-to This was a pretty simple photo to post-process, as you’ll see […]

White marble, dark chocolate, one light source. Problem?

Not at all. Because pretty much everything you can actually see across the top of that box is not really the "correct" tonality of the chocolate. It's all specular highlights.

Controlling the density of specular highlights is what compresses the subject's wide tonal range and unifies everything into one smooth exposure.
__________Read more »

UPDATE: Both workshops filled very quickly. I only do these about once a year; apologies for the imbalance. I have set up a system so people who are potentially interested in future small-class lighting workshops can receive advance notice. More info here.

__________
I'll be teaching two, full-day lighting workshops in the suburban Baltimore/DC area on December 6 and 7.

They are two separate one-day events. These are small-group workshops, with a maximum class size of 12 people each day. These are shooting workshops, and you'll be behind (and/or in front of!) a camera for most of the day.

Assuming you arrive at this class with a basic understanding of f/stops and shutter speeds, you will leave with a strong foundation in the fundamentals of off-camera lighting. You will be comfortable using single and multiple lights both alone and/or balanced with a mix of ambient lighting.

All lighting gear will be provided. We will also provide lunch.

You will need to bring a camera that is adjustable in manual mode and has a hot shoe connection for a flash, a lens that covers normal and/or portrait range, one or two fully charged batteries and an empty storage card. Maybe a notebook and pen if you like.

That's it. Just show up ready to learn and to have fun. Leave the rest to me.


Details

Dates:
December 6 and 7, 2019

Time:
9:30am - 5:30pm

Price:
$259

Location:
Sandy Spring Friends Lyceum
17715 Meeting House Road
Sandy Spring, MD 20860


Note; These are the only small-class lighting workshops I'll be teaching in the US this year. In the past, these have tended to fill very quickly. So if this is something you'd like to do, I'd suggest signing up sooner rather than later.


Sign-Up Links

Friday, December 6 [FRIDAY'S CLASS HAS BEEN FILLED]

Saturday, December 7 [SATURDAY'S CLASS HAS BEEN FILLED]

COVID-19 Update:

Things are kinda crazy right now. And as a result we have temporarily suspended our workshop program until it is safe to resume them. But we'll be back! And if you think you night want to join us, make sure to add your name to the list below.

Thanks,
David

I very much enjoy teaching small-class lighting workshops. But because of time constraints they only happen about once or twice a year.

When workshops do open up, they fill very quickly — often before many people even know they were available. So I have decided to create an interest list to help make notification of an upcoming workshop a much fairer process.


About the Classes

Strobist^® Lighting Workshops are held as both single- an multi-day events. They have small class sizes and feature lots of time behind the camera. In the longstanding tradition of Strobist.com, our goal is to deliver as much value and knowledge as possible while keeping the costs economically accessible.

We work in an environment of rotating small teams, with lots of one-to-one instruction. We have fun, and I can guarantee you'll have a solid understanding of lighting principles before you leave. Or I won't let you leave.



Single day workshops are usually held near my home base in the Baltimore/Washington area, but are occasionally held elsewhere. That is why I am also collecting geo-information, so I can notify people if a one-day workshop would be occurring near their home.

Extended lighting workshops (usually 2-3 days in length) are generally held in an area that is both economically accessible, and very much worth the trip. Because if you are going to travel for something like this, why not go to a cool destination?

The goal for multi-day workshops is a fast-paced/fun/firehose weekend, in a fantastic setting, while working to keep everything to a manageable cost.


Might Be Interested? Let Me Know.

The interest sign-up list approach has proved to be both fair and efficient for our X-Peditions trips. So I am going to use that approach for single- and multi-day small-class lighting workshops as well.

Here's how it works.

1. If you think you even might be interested in a single- or multi-day lighting workshop, please submit your name and email below. This confers no obligation on you whatsoever.

2. I will only use your email for the purpose of giving you advance notice for small-class lighting workshops. I do not sell, rent or otherwise share your email. Because I hate companies who do that.

3. When I have an upcoming workshop, you'll get an email notice well before it is publicly announced. In fact, because of this interest list, future lighting workshops likely won't be publicly announced at all.

4. Make sure to include your city/state/country. If I suddenly find I have 30 people from Pitchfork, Nebraska who are interested, it may well make sense to reach out to those people and work out a nearby location.

That's it!

Thanks,
David

Photos by Sara Lando and David Hobby except where noted.

Just as most of us are either right- or left-handed, it is said that we all have a dominant side of our brain as well. Left-brained people are supposed to be more analytical and methodical, whereas right-brained people are more artistic and creative.

For most photographers, one of these two areas is probably a relative strength; the other a weakness. But ideally, you need the whole package. Which is something we were exploring earlier this month in Porto, Portugal. Read more »

Watching the movie Joker, I felt repeatedly that I was watching a film that Greg Heisler could have lit. The use of color was unique, sophisticated and fearless — almost a character unto itself.

In this outstanding 15-minute short produced by Vanity Fair, Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher dissects his own use of light and color in the movie. Read more »

Sydney, Australia – 29 May 2014: The IBM (NYSE: IBM) 'Heart of the City' installation at this year's Vivid Sydney is using data analytics to map and visualise the real-time movement of festival attendees with WiFi devices walking around the 40-plus installations along the Vivid Light Walk precinct.

IBM Appoints Katrina Troughton as Managing Director of IBM Australia and New Zealand

dollypopinspiration:

nanushka

Open space with natural light in the Lousiana Museum of Modern Art ✨ via

@mariavannguyen

1010ll:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbC7ZP5FEdJ/?

Auror Spook Kitty Fawley thought the difficult part of her return to the UK would be getting Sirius out of prison and recovering Harry from his Muggle relatives. Turns out that was the easiest thing she would do. To help them, Kitty will delve into a mystery deeper than any she faced in the field.

My week has been stressful. They called Thursday and offered me the half-time job. They needed to know that day -- we haven't heard back on the lucrative job James has applied for, so I declined, citing the fact that I'm the only breadwinner and James hasn't heard back about the job he was waiting to hear from (I didn't mention to the HR person that it's a job at my same employer, because it's probably not her fault they're lagging on his job, and I'm not an asshole). She wanted to know when I'd know, and I said, "Well, I was supposed to know two weeks ago, so I mean, soon, I hope, but no guarantees."

She called me back an hour later and offered to give me a week to decide (because they actually don't want the other two people who interviewed, is my surmise), so yeah, rollercoaster day on Thursday.

And then a student's mom called and cussed me out for like half an hour. I don't take that stuff personally, but it does wear on me. My co-workers marvelled over and over about how calm I stayed, and I said (and I meant it), "She was frustrated. That's understandable. And I don't have to attend every fight I'm invited to," which became a theme for the week.

My mom got in a fracas with another member of her senior center, and I shared my week's theme with her. I think she felt a little chastised, but she also seemed to latch onto the theme as a potential sanity saver.

And then today at the donut shop, I accidentally passed up another person who was waiting to pay (because I followed the person who gave me our donuts to the register and didn't notice the other person who was standing away from the registers at the window. She berated me for many minutes about how rude I was, and how I should give a bitch some space, and how in America, we call this White Privilege, and and and... I just apologized, didn't engage beyond that, (felt frankly detached and mildly amused -- not sure what that says about me) and then once she'd left, the cashier apologized to me for the customer.

Me: "Nah, she's not wrong. I didn't see her, but I did cut in front of her."

I mean, I don't like being yelled at, or having people behave in ways that I perceive as rude towards me, but I'm not gonna fault someone for standing up for their space when I've violated it, so long as they're not hitting me or something. Not a fight I need to get into; not a hill I'm gonna die on.

So yeah, stressful week for many reasons, but not something that's gonna ruin my Saturday, which will now be completed by spending many many many hours writing and catching up on webcomics.

And how are YOU, dear ones?

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Darth Sidious’s master plan becomes reality, and the galaxy will never be the same.

Two StarWars.com writers debate Luke’s choice in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.