Paging Agent 007 - Charlie's Diary
History: is it about kings, dates, and battles, or the movement of masses and the invisible hand of macroeconomics? There's something to be said for both…
A Proposal to Start a Responsible, Reliable, Reasonable Conservative News Organization
America needs a new, fact-based, journalistic, and intelligent conservative news outlet to report (and not merely comment upon) the nation and the world from…
Every Default macOS Wallpaper – in Glorious 5K Resolution – 512 Pixels
Every major version of Mac OS X macOS has come with a new default wallpaper. As you can see, I have collected them all here. While great in their day, the early…
The Nintendo Switch Review — Tools and Toys
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Nintendo. During my formative years, my mother informed me the only way she could calm me down while I was an infant…
If Pence really wanted to listen ...
Welcome to Lexington, Vice President Mike Pence. Hope you get to enjoy the descent. That view never gets old. We understand that your touch down for a “…
Wedding Video Blues: 5 Tips for Better Wedding Videos - Steve Stockman
Wait, you’re shooting video at your daughter’s wedding?
First piece of advice: please re-consider.
The Majority Of Republicans Think Colleges Are Bad For The U.S., Poll Shows
Their opinions have shifted dramatically in just two years.
Who Americans spend their time with
DK Dan Kopf , Reporter, Quartz Last updated: 2 weeks ago Data: American Times Use Survey Last updated: 2 weeks ago | Data: American Times Use Survey Chart…
Drinking more coffee leads to a longer life, two studies say
Story highlights Regular consumption of coffee could lead to a longer life, two new studies say One study found that coffee has the same health benefits across…
8 years of suffering under Barack Obama
Photo credit: The Associated Press The sentence I hear most from well-meaning, conservative friends since President Trump’s election is this: “We suffered 8…
What My Camera Saw as My Parents Died of Cancer
There is a whole range of feelings that happen with the delivery of bad news. In my case, like many others, knees lock, the heart speeds up and the hairs on my…
Our Last Year Together: What My Camera Captured As My Parents Died Of Cancer
Dad called these "his and hers chairs." He would sit beside Mom, his partner and wife of 34 years, as they got their weekly chemotherapy treatments. Howie…
Some camera observations from Italy, Spain and France. Sony A7 series bodies were all over the place in Rome. Maybe many as Nikon and Canons. A handful of Fuji X100x and XE2S. And 3 Pentaxes all with crazy bodies.
Compared to the Caribbean cruise 2 years ago in 2015, which had shitloads of GoPros, there were hardly any action cameras in Europe. More than Pentaxes but not by alot.
How the iPhone Was Born: Inside Stories of Missteps and Triumphs
On the iPhone’s 10th birthday, former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell and Greg Christie recount the arduous process of turning Steve Jobs’s vision…
"I shared my toddler's hospital bill on Twitter. First came supporters — then death threats."
Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. It was late on a Friday evening when I collected the day’s letters from the mailbox. One of those…
Help Insurance
This is my daughter Rebecca in 2013. She was 5¼ years old when I took this picture. Less than three days later, she almost died on an ER bed. She’d been…
Letters and Liquor
Letters and Liquor illustrates the history of lettering associated with cocktails. From the 1690s to the 1990s, I’ve selected 52 of the most important drinks in…
Glif review: Tripod adapter should be part of every smartphone photographer’s kit
Credit: Glenn Fleishman Studio Neat's latest tripod adapter, Glif , fits all phones (even non-Apple ones) in an attractive and well-made new design that uses a…
Z-Man Games Releases Details on Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 | Dice Tower News
Z-Man Games Releases Details on Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 News Jun 24, 2017 Z-Man games has begun releasing details of what has happened following the pandemic…
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline
Permanent link to this comic: https://xkcd.com/1732/ Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): http://ift.tt/2cGP3QL
A Sunny, Funny View of Old Age
In If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, a new documentary airing on HBO, acclaimed nonagenarians including Carl Reiner and Betty White challenge…
BUGGER
The recent revelations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden were fascinating. But they - and all the reactions to them - had one enormous assumption at their…
Fuck Yeah Warrior Women, obsidian-sphere: Forgotten today, the Sumuru...
Forgotten today, the Sumuru series was (after starting out as a short lived radio series in 1946) made up of shortnovels by Sax Rohmer, the creator of Fu Manchu...
In these lessons, you'll learn the basics of music making. No prior experience or equipment is required; you'll do everything right here in your browser. Get started making music
He told Brooks to take his stack of prints and divide them in two by any arbitrary means (composition, subject matter, color, etc.). If a pattern emerges you hadn't previous seen, you have a new project (photo essay, book, article). If no pattern emerges, do it again using another arbitrary means of dividing in two. Keep doing this over and over until patterns do emerge. [The Bayles Exercise -- CJ Chilvers]*https://www.cjchilvers.com/blog/the-bayles-exercise(
Portion control via vessel size is a secret to success and happiness. Seth's Blog: A drop in the bucket
Micro.blog Help - What's next
Now that Micro.blog is available to Kickstarter backers, we’re working on many improvements leading up to the public launch. Here are some of the features and…
Perspective | Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies.
Globalization and technology aren't the only factors crushing the heartland.
I have a pre-existing condition. I do things “the right way”.
It made good business sense. That didn’t mean it was right.
What If Climate Scientists Are Guessing Wrong?
Photo: Sushavan Nandy/Barcroft Media via Getty Images Newest New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a conservative refugee from the increasingly Trumpist Wall…
Traveller RPG, Firefly, Dumarest, Vatta's War... are they all "Star Punk"? - Charlie's Diary
^^^ Me again. M Harold Page . The writer with the swords and some books in print, rather than the one with the cats and a metric tonne of books in print (plus…
Day One
A writer writes. Always. Part of the daily ritual (and it must become a ritual) is journaling. Journaling apps are a dime a dozen and most amount to little more…
If you really respect Trump voters, tell them the truth
Struggling communities deserve help, but nostalgia economics won’t work.
The Folly of Jiro
That’s tragic, not inspiring. As noble as you may believe your pursuit of excellence is, it means nothing if you go home at night to people who do not recognize…
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The Flickr Explore page is still really amazing – 15 Minutes in the Morning
Matt Haughey Internet nerd writing about internet nerdery, mostly. Apr 17 The Flickr Explore page is still really amazing Tim Carmody is guest hosting…
