The 2015 Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany goes into full swing tomorrow, but images have already started rolling in from those in attendance. There are tons of pictures being beamed out via twitter and various websites and I will try to consolidate them into this extremely picture heavy post.
There are plenty of apps for identifying music while you’re listening to it, but you might not know that the same functionality is built into Google Now as well—it’s just one of the many features available inside Google’s digital assistant that aren’t immediately obvious to the casual user. If you hear a tune you would like to identify, here’s how to get Google Now on the case.
The humble Raspberry Pi has been inspiring clever hacks for years, but it’s never too late to pick one up to play around with yourself, especially at these prices.
‘
DJI really, really doesn’t want to see its drones in the news for the wrong reasons. Just a day after the world learned that one of its robotic vehicles crash-landed at the White House, the company is pushing out a “mandatory” firmware update for …
The Outsider Art Fair is coming to New York on January 29, bringing 50 international galleries of folk, self-taught, and outsider art to Center 548 for four glorious days. The fair offers the rare opportunity for artists operating far outside the regulations of the art world — whether marginalized, isolated, incarcerated, institutionalized or psychologically compromised — a space to show the vibrant and singular artworks that don’t just reflect their worlds, but constitute them. In anticipation of one of our favorite art events of the year, we’re spotlighting a different outsider artist every day.
Trolls, 2014 monotype on paper 70 x 80 cm © Polad-Hardouin Gallery
Clouds and shadows have a tendency to shape shift. Watch one for long enough and you’ll begin to hallucinate, or perhaps begin to see features emerge — beady eyes and gnarled teeth and slits for nostrils and tree branches for limbs. Self-taught artist Christine Sefolosha operates in this same realm of murky seeing, where what exists and what is experienced doesn’t always quite line up. Her mixed media works, light in texture and dark in complexion, recreate the illusory feeling of losing track of a memory or scrambling to put together the pieces of a half-remembered dream.
Sefolosha was born in Montreux, Switzerland in 1955. She spent much of her young adulthood in South Africa, serving as an assistant for her first husband, a South African veterinarian. During her travels Sefolosha became immersed in the African music scene amidst black communities, where she met a musician named Sefolosha, who would eventually become her second husband. The new couple would later move back to Christine’s hometown of Montreux, desperate to abscond from apartheid. When they settled back in Switzerland, that’s when Sefolosha began painting stories of her visions abroad.
La clairière, 2014 mixed media on paper 98 x 100 cm © Polad-Hardouin Gallery
Sefolosha’s works, rendered using everything from paint to tar and dirt, occupy the space of the in-between, in those very first moments when legible shapes and details emerge out of the muck. In her watery depictions, creatures dwell in the state between man and beast, in a place somewhere between reality and folklore, making the viewer feel suspended between waking life and a dream state. Spectral queens mingle with prehistoric beasts, mutant birds and anthropomorphized tree stumps, rendering a surreal limbo in a constant state of transformation.
Perhaps because of her work in the veterinary field, Sefalosha incorporates wildlife into her work with a sense of intimacy and enchantment. Gazing upon her works, one feels not as if there is a strict line dividing man and beast, but rather a spectrum as liquid as her filmy artworks. “One of the predominant currents in Sefolosha’s body of work to date is a decidedly animist worldview,” Annie Carlano writes in Raw Vision. “Birds and animals are majestic beings to be respected, revered and emulated. With a sensitivity most often found in members of tribal societies, Sefolosha gives us the essence of her expressionistic creatures — their soul — revealing an uncanny affinity with authentic animal nature.”
Purple Dancer, 2013/2014 mixed media on paper 110 x 160 cm © Polad-Hardouin Gallery
Sefolosha falls under the category of a self-taught artist — one who creates art without training and apart from any artistic institution. Her work draws comparisons to a wide range of images both from inside and outside the predominant art historical narrative, from primitive cave paintings to the surrealist nightmares of Remedios Varo. Unlike many of the other artists on view at the Outsider Art Fair, Sefolosha did not grow up with developmental disabilities or on the extreme outskirts of society, thus her work seems to exist right on the brink of inside and outside. However, like most rigid categories addressed in Sefolosha’s work, the boundary between out and in gets lost in the haze of blues and purples, eyes and claws, memories and dreams.
Sefolosha’s work will be on view courtesy Polad-Hardouin Gallery at the Outsider Art Fair, from January 29 until February 1, at Center 548 in New York.
“Walking Dead” stars have teased that the second half of Season 5 will get “a little darker and a little crazier,” but these new Season 5 photos are changing everything.
In anticipation of “The Walking Dead” mid-season premiere, titled “What Happened and What’s Going On,” HuffPost Entertainment received exclusive portraits of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Tara Chambler (Alanna Masterson). Unlike the dark photos from the first half of the season, these portraits seem almost, dare we say it, hopeful.
AMC’s synopsis of the new episode says a slight detour for the group may be “the solution they’ve been looking for.” With a synopsis like that and these new pics, it’s safe to say we definitely have more than three questions for Rick.
“Walking Dead” returns Sunday, Feb. 8, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.
Hello, hello, hello! The wait is almost over.
RuPaul and Logo have finally announced the premiere date for “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season seven: March 2. And while we’re stoked that we finally have a date for that first Monday we’ll head out to our favorite gay bar and yell at the TV with our fellow queers, there is one huge change this season that we couldn’t help but notice: Ru flipped the judging panel!
While fan favorite and beloved loud mouth Michelle Visage will be returning to Ru’s side for this season of “Drag Race,” it looks like Santino Rice got the boot. Instead, Ru is bringing in two new judges to join the ranks: Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley.
“Yes, Virginia, there is a gay Santa Claus!” said Executive Producer RuPaul in a statement sent to The Huffington Post. “I asked for a new, wickedly funny, smart and experienced judge…and I got two! Ross and Carson are the perfect addition to the ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ family because they’re not just show biz experts, they’re superfans and longtime lovers of the art of drag.”
Matthews is a TV personality best known for his appearances on E!’s “Chelsea Lately” and the channel’s red carpet coverage, while Kressley made a name for himself in the early 2000s on “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.” The guest judges for the 2015 season include Ariana Grande, Jessica Alba, Demi Lovato, John Waters, Kat Dennings, Kathy Griffin, Olivia Newtown-John, Alyssa Milano, Jordin Sparks, Mel B and more.
How will these judging changes affect the framework of the show? Only one way to find out — tune into Logo TV on Monday, March 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Curious about the fourteen queens competing on “Drag Race” season seven? Check out the slideshow below and LogoTV.com.
Apple announced record-shattering Q4 2014 earnings yesterday after the market closed. Highlights of the gigantic quarter include almost $75 billion in revenue, $18+ billion in profits, and a staggering $178 billion in cash on its balance sheet.
Allow me to put that number in perspective: $178 billion exceeds the respective gross domestic products of Kuwait, Vietnam and Morocco. It surpasses the market caps of major corporations like Disney, AT&T and Bank of America. With $178 billion in cash, Apple could buy Ford Motor Company three times, Yahoo! four times, or Snapchat nine times.
Alternatively, they could buy, like, SO MUCH WEED.
How much weed exactly? The exact amount is unfathomable. But it’s, like, a lot.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts on the earnings call, “The volume is hard to comprehend.”
No shit it’s hard to comprehend! Can you imagine — $178 billion worth of weed? It’s totally blowing my mind — and I’m not even high right now.
Oh man this is so crazy that I gotta do the math. For real.
Okay, one time in college, my buddies and I pulled all our cash together to buy weed for spring break. We had like $200, and I think we got about an ounce for it (it was some shitty Mexican dirt weed, but still — it was weed). We piled all that weed up on a Frisbee, and it was more weed than any of us had ever seen in one place in our lives.
That was like 25 years ago, so let’s estimate that the cost of a Frisbee Full of Weed (FFOW, which we’ll use as our standard metric) is somewhere around $400 today assuming 2.8 percent inflation, which might be a little high (but with $178 billion for weed, it should be). So how many FFOW could they buy? Let’s see…
Apple has 66,000 employees in the United States. With $178 billion, Apple could buy each one of its U.S. employees a FFOW every single day for over 18 years! And they would still have money left to buy each employee a Cypress Hill t-shirt.
Really — I did the math (on Excel and shit):
With benefits like that, Apple’s employee retention number would be off the charts.
Granted, the company would constantly have to re-stock the Pop Chips and Vitamin Waters in the break rooms, and no one would come to work whenever Phish came to the Bay Area, but that’s only like once a year, bro!
Compare Apple’s numbers to those of Yahoo!, which also reported earnings yesterday. While Yahoo! has far fewer employees, they also have a only fraction of Apple’s war chest, so they could only buy each of their employees a FFOW everyday for seven and a half years.
Top talent in Silicon Valley can write their own tickets. So if you are a prospective employee considering a job at both Apple and Yahoo!, where are you going to go? Clearly to Apple. Not only does the Total Employee FFOW Years metric indicate Apple’s far superior financial position, who wants to work at a place where the free weed might dry up in eight years?
The net of it is that post-Steve Jobs Apple refuses to slow down. Sales of its core products are still growing (you guessed it) like a weed, and bets on new products like Apple Watch and recently-acquired BEATS headphones will provide additional sources of growth going forward.
And if there’s “one more thing” they could add to the line-up, I’m betting on the rumored iVape (a networked vaporizer with GPS and a “Find a Cheesecake Factory” app).
Whether that comes to fruition or not, look for Apple to have a monster 2015. Because it’s always 4:20 in Cupertino and $178 billion is a lot of green.
SEE ALSO 1: 240 Dollars Worth of Pudding
SEE ALSO 2: How to Make a Bong Out of an Apple
Deflategate is a thing we all really care about right now, but will forget about next month. Which doesn’t make jokes about the New England Patriots’ balls any less funny this week. The latest goof on the scandal comes from “Hot Tub Time Machine 2.” The film’s “big game spot” (aka Super Bowl trailer) provides advice for how to handle the Patriots (and gives Adam Scott’s testicles a moment in the sun). Enjoy!
“Hot Tub Time Machine 2” is out on Feb. 20.
An Interview with Jackson Doliscar, Part II
By Beverly Bell
Jackson Doliscar organizing earthquake-displaced people to claim their right to housing. His work almost cost him his life. Photo: Ed Kashi, American Jewish World Service
Community organizer and rights defender Jackson Doliscar speaks to efforts of the Haitian government to silence advocates of human rights and land and housing rights, (See part I of Doliscar’s interview.) The attacks are part of the government’s strategy to leave opposition movements defenseless.
The cases that Doliscar discusses here are only a few of the many instances of violence and illegal imprisonment that the government of Michel Martelly has perpetrated since taking power in a fraudulent election three years ago. Other cases even include the public assassination of the coordinator of the Coalition of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH by its Creole acronym), Daniel Dorsainvil, and his wife, Girldy Larêche, on February 8, 2014.
The Martelly Administration is becoming increasingly autocratic, including disregarding elections and instead ruling by decree. Nevertheless, the US government continues to provide political and financial support, even including assistance to the lawless police.
Human rights are not respected at all in this country. The weakest members of society are arrested, they’re pushed off their lands and out of their homes. Police beat them, destroy their belongings, and put their lives and the lives of their families in danger.
Then their defenders and allies are bullied and intimidated by the government. We defenders become victims ourselves, suffering death or threats and significant oppression.
Let’s take the case of Jean Mathulnes Lamy, a police officer and son of peasants on Ile-à-Vâche [a small island off Haiti’s northern coast]. When the government decided to take the island for a tourist development project, Lamy understood that it would lead to the eventual displacement of close to 20,000 people. [He became vice-president] of a community organization KOPI [Collective of Ile-à-Vâche Farmers]. He spoke out about what the government was doing and what the eventual effect would be on their lives.
Based on that, the government arrested him in February 2014. He spent ten months in the National Penitentiary without charge or trial.
As for the president of KOPI, Marc Donald Laines, the government made him numerous job offers if he would step down from that post. He refused, saying that he was with the people of Ile-à-Vâche. When they saw that he was intractable, he died under mysterious circumstances that we believe was an assassination [on October 25, 2014]. He was in Les Cayes on a motorcycle when someone deliberately crashed their motorcycle into him. Many witnesses saw the other motorcycle head straight toward his. After he fell, the man who hit him sped off. [Seven months prior to his death, Laines wrote on his Facebook page, “In this country, when you’re doing good work, either they kill you or they put you in prison.”]
I was accosted, too, for my work to help people who were displaced by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. What happened was this: I visit people living under tents to take stock of the situation and the living conditions so that I can do a better job defending their rights. There’s a camp called Kanaran that the government declared to be “at the service of the public.” So displaced people took their little sheets and went there to find a spot to sleep. Two men began visiting the place, telling residents to clear out because the land belonged to them. But by this point, many people were established on this land because they were under the impression that the land was free to settle on. Then armed thugs began arriving and destroying homes.
Last November 8, when the two men and their gangs destroyed a home, I went down to check out the situation. Once I’d taken down all the residents’ complaints to send off to Amnesty International, I was waiting by the side of the road for a car to take me home. I saw a motorcycle coming from the north. One of the two riders got off the bike, walked towards me, took a gun out and pointed it at me. The driver, who stayed on the bike, pulled out a gun, too. And the one with the gun pointed at me said, “I know you’re the guy who works with this community.” I said, “I’m here defending the human rights of these people, who are in a tough situation.” And then he said, “Human rights? Oh, you’ll learn about those.” The driver said, “All right, let him go.” They both put their guns back in their pants and returned the way they came.
It’s not the first time I’ve been accosted. But the threats are getting worse, and I feel compelled to talk about them.
And there are others such as Fenel Clauter, who’s worked a lot on behalf of people whose human rights have been violated. He was arrested June 30 of last year for defending people in the village of Lumane Casimir, where the government had built small housing projects, including for 50 handicapped people. The houses were originally going to be rented for 1,500 gourdes [US$32.27] per month. Then the government turned around and asked for 2,500 gourdes [US$53.77] – money the people don’t have. This would be especially hard for the handicapped people, who typically don’t work since the state doesn’t create jobs for them; they didn’t know how they would manage under such demands. The camp population revolted.
The police beat Fenel, along with the son of a woman with only one foot, Guerdine Joseph, in retaliation for her organizing people to resist the price increase. They arrested her son and kept him in jail from June to November.
In September 2014, they kicked Fenel’s wife out of the village, along with Guerdine Joseph and her whole family.
Fenel was brought to trial for threatening a policeman. Even the judge laughed at that, because the police are armed and Fenel wasn’t. The judge said he didn’t have any reason to hold him. But they won’t release him because his arrest was politically driven from on high, as far up as the prime minister’s office. The magistrate even showed the Amnesty International representative and me a letter sent to the court by the prime minister’s office, saying that Fenel was the troublemaker behind the mobilization in the village.
The government is issuing warrants to arrest human rights lawyers, too. Look at attorney André Michel, who brought a corruption case against Martelly and his family. The government tried to arrest him on October 22, 2014, but they had to release him the next day because the streets filled with demonstrators. [As Port-up-Prince was rocked with protests over Michel’s arrest, the White House released a statement praising Martelly’s “commitment to continue working to further strengthen Haiti’s democratic institutions.”]
Then there’s Patrice Florvilus. He’s a human rights lawyer who defends people who’ve been unjustly imprisoned and held without charges. Some thugs within the Haitian police have regularly threatened Florvilus. They’ve followed him while he walks, they’ve tailed his car in their police car, and they’ve put pressure on him to stop legally defending these people who are society’s weakest.
It’s important that the Haitian state provide protection to all people defending human rights. We aren’t the enemy of the government. We’re working to improve the situation of people in the country.
Translated by Nathan Wendte and Max Blanchet.
Beverly Bell has worked for more than three decades as an advocate, organizer, and writer in collaboration with social movements in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. Her focus areas are just economies, democratic participation, and gender justice. Beverly currently serves as associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and coordinator of Other Worlds. She is author of Walking on Fire: Haitian Women Stories of Survival and Resistance, Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti’s Divide, and Harvesting Justice: Transforming Food, Land, and Agricultural Systems in the Americas.
Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
