Nothing to See Here

Totally reminds me of Colorado.

lostmidwest — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:28:08 -0400

Totally reminds me of Colorado.

Perhaps the shittiest watercolour of them all!

lostmidwest — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:53:05 -0400

Perhaps the shittiest watercolour of them all!

jtotheizzoe: Genetics of the Beautiful “Glass Gem” Corn Corn...

lostmidwest — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:17:51 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Genetics of the Beautiful “Glass Gem” Corn

Corn gone viral? You’re looking at an ear of a corn variety called “Glass Gem”, grown by Greg Schoen of Seeds Trust. This is real corn! How does it grow this way?

First you have to understand a few things about corn. Each corn kernel is actually a sort of unique plant. A corn plant’s male parts (the “tassels”) sit at the top of the stalk, and drop pollen downward. Unfertilized ears (the female parts) catch the pollen with the sticky ends of their corn silks. Each corn silk (I hate when that gets in my teeth) grabs a pollen grain, shuttles it allllllll the way down inside the ear, eventually creating one kernel for each pollen-silk-ovum combination. It’s one of the more interesting and inefficient breeding schemes I know of.

If you’ve taken genetics, you know that the parents’ genes will combine by chance, leading to certain ratios of inheritance in the offspring. This is the basis of Mendelian genetics (great Khan Academy video here).

With corn, we’ve simply carefully bred all the interestingness out of them. Native Americans were used to multi-colored corn, because corn plants held many varieties of color genes that could combine at random. Now all we are left with are one-color clones.

This “Glass Gem” corn is the other extreme of the spectrum, a combination of corn color hybrid genes and random pollination. It’s almost too pretty to eat!

(via Discover Magazine)

kellysue: I know LICENSE TO ILL isn’t going to get a lot of...

lostmidwest — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:28:10 -0400

kellysue:

I know LICENSE TO ILL isn’t going to get a lot of love today, it’ll be overshadowed by masterworks like PAUL’S BOUTIQUE and HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE. And that cool; that’s great. That’s as it should be. Probably the thing about the Beastie Boys that have most enjoyed has been watching them age, as artists and as men, with real grace. And I guess that’s the loss that I’m feeling right now—the end of the opportunity to continue to be witness to that evolution. That feels like a vacuum. That feels like theft.

So, while we are sifting through our collections trying to fill that void, I’m going to hit LICENSE TO ILL. Yes, it’s a record made by a bunch of asshole kids. At a certain point in my life—when *I* was an asshole teenager, not coincidentally—I could not get enough of it. It’s smells that we most often talk about being tied to memory, but the opening beats of She’s Crafty take me back so specifically to a time and place… the house we rented on Tejas. My job at Video Update. The Robs, the Jeffs. The Andys. All the stupid, stupid shit Amity and I got into that I am, quite frankly, surprised we lived through.

It was a long way from the best time in my life—it was dizzyingly uncomfortable at best—but I still hold those memories dear. Dearer for the distance, but still. I can recall without reliving and find moments, sensations to love.

I listen to LICENSE TO ILL and I remember just what it felt like to get f**ked up and scream like a madwoman at the stars in the Texas big sky. It felt glorious.

For that, and for all the rest, I am grateful. Thank you, MCA.

theatlantic: 53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or...

lostmidwest — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:31:57 -0400

theatlantic:

53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed—How?

More than half of America’s recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in a job that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, the Associated Press reported this weekend. The story would seem to be more evidence that, regardless of your education, the wake of the Great Recession has been a terrible time to be young and hunting for work.

But are we really becoming another Greece or Spain, a wasteland of opportunity for anybody under the age of 25? Not quite. What the new statistics really tell us about is the changing nature, and value, of higher education. […]

As the AP notes, recent graduates are now more likely to work as “waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined.” This is a problem for any number of reasons, but here are two big ones: First, a degree is more expensive than ever, and students are piling on debt to finance their educations. It’s much harder to pay back loans while working for tips at Buffalo Wild Wings than when you have a decent office job. Second, when college graduates take a low-paid, low-skill job, they’re probably displacing a less educated worker, For every underemployed college degree holder, there’s a decent chance someone with just a high school diploma is out of work entirely.

So is a college education simply less valuable than in the past? In some respects, yes. According to the Census, the number of Americans under the age of 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree has grown 38 percent since 2000. Not nearly enough jobs have been created to accommodate them, which has resulted in falling wages for young college graduates in the past decade, as well as the employment problems we’re now seeing.

That said, not all degrees are created equal. The AP reports that students who graduated out of the sciences or other technical fields, such as accounting, were much less likely to be jobless or underemployed than humanities and arts graduates. You know that old saw about how college is just about getting a fancy piece of paper? Not true. For an education to be worth anything these days, it needs to impart skills.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

I’m older than the people referred too in the article, but if I had to do it again, I would have gone for a trade.

illustratingreddit: Kitty 5”x7” prints available on Etsy for...

lostmidwest — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:36:57 -0400

illustratingreddit:

Kitty

5”x7” prints available on Etsy for $7

I want a kitty. Stupid mean landlords.

illustratingreddit: Dog Walking 5”x7” prints are available on...

lostmidwest — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:54:53 -0400

illustratingreddit:

Dog Walking

5”x7” prints are available on Etsy for $7

One of my favorite new novelty accounts on reddit.

Photo

lostmidwest — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:05:01 -0400

conrailbrian: Norfolk Southern 44V at Powell Road by Brandon...

lostmidwest — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:24:11 -0400

conrailbrian:

Norfolk Southern 44V at Powell Road by Brandon Townley - www.brandontproductions.com on Flickr.

Michael "Flathead" Blanchard Obituary: Denver Post

lostmidwest — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:26:16 -0400

Michael "Flathead" Blanchard Obituary: Denver Post:

npr:

Would have loved to meet him. — Tanya

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael “Flathead” Blanchard

A Celebration of the life of Michael “Flathead” Blanchard will be held on April 14th, 3 pm 8160 Rosemary St, Commerce City.

Weary of reading obituaries noting someone’s courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.

Mike was born July 1944 in Colorado to Clyde and Ethel Blanchard. A community activist, he is noted for saving the Dr. Justina Ford house from demolition and defending those who could not defend themselves. He was a Republican delegate, life member of the NRA, founder and President of the Dead Cats MC. He loved music.

Mike was preceded in death by Clyde and Ethel Blanchard, survived by his beloved sons Mike and Chopper, former wife Jane Transue, brother Stephen Blanchard (Susan), Uncle Don and Aunt Cynthia Blanchard(his favorite); Uncle Dill and Aunt Dot, cousins and nephews, Baba Yaga can kiss his butt. So many of his childhood friends that weren’t killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell. As the Celebration will contain Adult material we respectfully ask that no children under 18 attend. Published in the Denver Post on April 12,2012

Sounds about right for a Denverite.

Photo

lostmidwest — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:08:51 -0400

theatlantic: The Most Desolate City on Earth: Gunkanjima, aka...

lostmidwest — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:49:30 -0400

theatlantic:

The Most Desolate City on Earth: Gunkanjima, aka ‘Battleship Island’

Utterly abandoned, this former coal-mining site stands like a rotten tooth jutting from the turbulent waters off Nagasaki. A formidable seawall protects a dense warren of empty factory buildings and crumbling apartments. Roofs have blown off or caved in and walls have sloughed off their skins, leaving the skeletal underpinning of buildings visible. Dark hallways and dangerous, twisting staircases abound in M.C. Escherian complexity, leading to ruined vistas with names like “Block 65” and the “Stairway to Hell.” (Top-left and top-right, respectively.)

See more at The Atlantic Cities. [Images: Wikipedia]

theatlantic: Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than...

lostmidwest — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:59:36 -0400

theatlantic:

Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than Their Parents

Young people are also making more use of transit, bikes, and foot power to get around. In 2009, 16 to 34-year-olds took 24 percent more bike trips than they took in 2001. They walked to their destinations 16 percent more often, while their passenger miles on transit jumped by 40 percent.

Part of the reason for this shift is financial. The report calculates the average cost of owning and operating a car as north of $8,700 dollars a year, and that was before gasoline passed $4.00 per gallon. In the wake of the financial crisis, many underemployed young people have decided that they either can’t afford a car or would rather spend their money on other things. The report cites a Zipcar/KRC Research survey, which found that 80 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds stated that the high cost of gasoline, parking, and maintenance made owning a car difficult.

But money doesn’t explain everything. Sixteen to 34-year-olds in households with incomes of more than $70,000 per year are increasingly choosing not to drive as well, according to the report. They have increased their use of public transit by 100 percent, biking by 122 percent, and walking by 37 percent.

The shift away from the car is part and parcel of a new way of life being embraced by young Americans, which places less emphasis on big cars or big houses as status symbols or life’s essentials.

Read more at The Atlantic Cities. [Image: Shutterstock]

I’m a bit older than the people polled in the studies, but I fully agree. Recently, I made a conscious decision to move to a neighborhood where I can ditch my car as much as possible. It was mostly being based on cycling distance from my job, as I hate driving to work. I’m not getting rid of the car, but hoping to use it as little as possible.

theatlantic: Facebook’s Suprisingly Humble, $1 Billion...

lostmidwest — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:12:29 -0400

theatlantic:

Facebook’s Suprisingly Humble, $1 Billion Acquisition of Instagram

If you’re a Facebook user, you should be ecstatic. One assumes that Instagram’s vaunted photo filters, which make everything look a little cooler, will make their way into Facebook’s photo tools and mobile app.

If you’re an Instagram user, you may be wary. First, Instagram is a relatively closed network that operates very differently from Facebook. Sure, you can link it to Tumblr or Facebook or Twitter to publicly post photos, but you can also keep Instagram photos off the open web. That closedness allows me to post more intimate looks into my life than I might feel comfortable with on other platforms. Second, any time one big company acquires a smaller one, it’s natural to worry that Facebook would absorb the Instagram tools and then shut the actual service down.

But, based on Zuckerberg’s post, I don’t think Instagrammers have to worry. At least not yet. His note about the acquisition is shockingly humble and seems designed to assure users that Facebook is not plotting to close down Instagram. […]

I’m going to float an idea about why Zuckerberg strikes, what seems to me, the perfect tone. I think Facebook and Zuckerberg really do “get social.” I bet he understands that social networks have to develop organically and that the actual software itself is a tiny piece of the overall social network proposition. What really makes Instagram (and Facebook) work is the time that people have invested tuning their connections based on what they do on these services. To ram a social network that users built doing one thing into a different social network built just doesn’t work.

It’s smarter, in other words, to figure out why Instagram’s users built their networks on the service rather than try to dump those users into Facebook.

All that means is that Zuckerberg appears to be coming to the Instagram acquisition not as conqueror, but as student.

Read more. [Image: Alexis Madrigal/Instagram]

As a big fan of Instagram, I’m going to withhold judgement for now.

Ba-dum-tshh

lostmidwest — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:11:07 -0400

Ba-dum-tshh

theatlantic: Don’t ask. Just reblog.

lostmidwest — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:59:34 -0400

theatlantic:

Don’t ask. Just reblog.

Photo

lostmidwest — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:20:46 -0400

The actual best picture on the Internet.

lostmidwest — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:54:00 -0400

The actual best picture on the Internet.

Photo

lostmidwest — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:49:51 -0400

"[O]ne of its first written appearances came in 1883, in the American magazine, which referred to..."

lostmidwest — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:48:22 -0400

“[O]ne of its first written appearances came in 1883, in the American magazine, which referred to “the social ‘dude’ who affects English dress and the English drawl”. The teenage American republic was already a growing power, with the economy booming and the conquest of the West well under way. But Americans in cities often aped the dress and ways of Europe, especially Britain. Hence dude as a dismissive term: a dandy, someone so insecure in his Americanness that he felt the need to act British.”

- The etymology of “dude,” a fine addition to the origins of other famous modern words. (via explore-blog)