Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!“
why do all the older apple emojis seem to have that ugly pillow-shading? that shape is great but go easy on the airbrush next time. 2/5 you didn’t try hard enough
oh my god google, what the fresh hell is this??? wrong shape, wrong colors, im so upset by this image, 0/5 what have you done to them
now THIS is an alien! loving the green skin tone and bright, alert eyes. if only they didn’t have those weird cheek-bones. 4/5 don’t reference bendybrundle curdledmilk next time
wow!!! look at those colors!!! good job on keeping a consistent light source, but it still looks a little pillow-shade-y. the navy eyes are a nice touch. 4/5 i just love a good color gradient
OH GOD!!! i didn’t think we could get any worse than google!!! everything about this emoji is a nightmare!!! -3/5 OH GOD NO
ah, here we go! here’s a nice, good-looking alien. i like the rhythmos of the circle that the bottom of the eyes form with the top of the head, but it ends up making it have a less-desirable head shape. 4/5 good job referencing ancient greek artistic principles
oh jeez… this one isn’t as bad as LG, but it’s not very nice to look at… the head shape is nice but something just feels really off about this one… 2/5 makes me uncomfortable
okay, i can appreciate what you were trying to do with the cell shading, and i admit it’s a big step up from smooth shading, but you really didn’t have to make it so uncomfortably detailed. the head is a little lopsided in shape. 3/5 nice concept, poor execution
oh WOW!!! now, this really is a great alien! it does everything apple and the other grey alien emojis tried to do, but better in every conceivable way. good job!!! 5/5 most instantly recognizable iconic alien
oh no… oh you poor dear, just look at how sad those eyes are… the mouth is smiling but the poor thing just looks so depressed inside… the sad, blue-grey hue isn’t helping its cause either. 1/5 relatable but too uncomfortably depressing
this one is pretty good! i like the light shade of green. not sure how i feel about those eyelids, though. the head shape could be improved. 4/5 pretty alright alien
Here’s your dose of ‘What the Fuck is Going On’ News (1/24/2017 edition)
Two more Breitbart staffers have joined the Trump administration, joining Steve Bannon. Julia Hahn specifically covered immigration on the website and is aggressively anti-immigration. Sebastian Gorka was the website’s national security editor and served as a policy consultant on Trump’s campaign. VDare, a white nationalist website who is listed on the SLCP extremist list, has praised Hahn’s anti-immigration work in the past. (source)
A day after reinstating the global gag rule, which removes all US funding from foreign aid groups if they counsel patients on abortion (source), the House of Representatives passed a funding ban on abortion. The bill will ban anyone in the US from receiving federal financial assistance for abortion. This means programs like Medicaid and those who purchased insurance through the Affordable Care Act, meaning that abortions will be even harder to get for lower income women. (source)
Badlands National Park’s official Twitter posted a ton of tweets about climate change. This went against the current social media blackout order that the Trump administration has enforced on the EPA, Department of Interior, and the Department of Agriculture meaning no news releases, blog posts, or social media updates allowed. The tweets have “mysteriously” been deleted, no further information known. (source)
In preparation to “drastically reshape” the Environmental Protection Agency, the Trump administration has put a freeze on all EPA grants to local and state communities. The EPA has received no notice on how long the freeze will last, and this goes beyond the hiring freeze that all federal government (minus new political appointees) is facing. (source)
Trump signed two executive orders to revive the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone Pipeline. Trump also signed an executive order to expedite environmental project reviews, meaning they won’t have to go through the same regulatory process as before. (source)
Trump announced that his Supreme Court Justice pick will be announced next week, the shortlist includes Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman, and William Pryor. Gorsuch is against abortion, opposes the ACA’s birth control mandate and calls it “unconstitutional.” Hardiman does not believe citizens should have the right to tape police wrongdoing. And Pryor has called Roe v. Wade the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.” Pryor also urged the Supreme Court to uphold laws banning sodomy - linking consensual activity between men to bestiality, incest, and pedophilia. (source)
Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, will not have to go through a second hearing. The senate committee will vote on her nomination on January 31st. (source)
Trump is (again) claiming that millions of people voted illegally, and that he would have also won the popular vote if not for this. This is still a baseless claim, and WH press secretary, Sean Spicer told the press today that Trump believes “people voting illegally during the campaign and continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have brought to him.” They still have provided no evidence (and refuse to) and so far no evidence coming from elsewhere supporting this exists. (source)
“Donald Trump is planning to sign executive orders on Wednesday toughening immigration enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border and targeting cities where local leaders refuse to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation, part of a multi-day rollout of his long-promised crackdown on illegal immigration, officials familiar with the decision said Tuesday.
The moves represent Trump’s first effort to deliver on perhaps the signature issue that drove his presidential campaign: his belief that illegal immigration is out of control and threatening the country’s safety and security.
On Wednesday, Trump is planning to speak to a town hall of employees at Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, where he will sign the orders. The effort to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities will resonate with the Republican base, which has long criticized local officials who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Later this week, officials said, the president plans to sign other orders restricting immigration and access to the United States for refugees and some visa holders from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, though the exact timing was being arranged late Tuesday and subject to change. Residents from many of these places are already rarely granted U.S. visas.
Senior Trump advisers such as chief strategist Stephen Bannon and attorney general designate Jeff Sessions were deeply involved in the extended debate over the orders, said several people familiar with the discussions, who emphasized that the week’s actions are intended to start fulfilling Trump’s campaign promises on immigration and bring Republicans behind Trump on the issue, one day before he speaks Thursday at a congressional GOP retreat in Philadelphia. These people spoke of condition of anonymity because the executive orders are still being finalized.”
Her name was Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–
1717), and she was a scientist who spent decades studying the flora and fauna of South America and illustrating them. It was her contributions to the scientific world that helped shape the modern concept of naturalism and disprove the theory of spontaneous generation. Her discoveries revealed the existence of many animals to Europe, including leafcutter ants, army ants, and tarantulas (specifically of the genus Avicularia).
I found many of these
large black spiders on the guava trees. They live in a
round nest like the cocoon of the caterpillar depicted
on the following plate; they do not spin long threads
as some travelers would have us believe.
This image was highly controversial, and many Europeans found the notion that a spider could eat a bird to be impossible. Merian was accused of “willful falsehoods”, and during the Victorian era she was often discredited due to being a woman. She was only vindicated when Henry Walter Bates, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, published a book containing a similar account of an Avicularia (referred to as Mygale) feeding on a finch.
