Hasta La Gadget!

ORLANDO, Fla. — A week after its tragedy, Orlando’s LGBT community is just starting the healing process.

So many offered their help to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting and their families. Locals came with trucks of food and water and gave their blood. Donations to a victims’ fund reached more than $5.4 million as of Sunday afternoon. Everywhere you turn in this city, there are signs offering grief counseling, local businesses raising funds and shoulders to lean on.

But it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that the LGBT community here shows strength and grit in the face of adversity. It’s a tight-knit crew that’s always been ready to jump up and offer its support, no matter what the cause.

Prior to the tragedy at Pulse, activists like Loc Robertson — who’s been a bartender at Parliament House resort for 20 years — were working to raise money for cancer survivors. He organized two national drag pageants to raise money for The Barber Fund, an Orlando-based organization that supports cancer patients and their loved ones.

The Barber Fund and groups like it are now shifting their focus to Pulse.

“I’ve been amazed to see how many fundraisers and outreach programs and straight communities have all reached out. It’s incredible,” Robertson said. “But Orlando, we’ve always worked together. Everyone is in the same boat, and we’re all going through this together.”

That feeling of togetherness permeates the entire city. It’s why the Orlando Shakespeare Theater didn’t ask questions when the Westboro Baptist Church showed up over the weekend and instead built angel wings that would block the protesters from the funeral processions:

Meanwhile, the performance community has rallied around Pulse. As the Blacklist Babes Cabaret practiced for an upcoming burlesque show at a home outside of town last week, they were in a state of mourning and remembrance. Several of the group’s members had performed at the nightclub and said the shooting shattered their world.

“It makes us want to go out and perform as big as we can and sing as loud as we can,” said music director Justin Scarlat. “We still get to do every day what those 49 cannot do anymore. We want to tell their stories; we want to make sure that they’re not forgotten because these people are our family … We want to make sure we’re performing for them.”

The nightclub was a cross-section of Orlando’s LGBT community: performers, dancers, party animals and friends.

“That’s what Pulse was — just a huge melting pot of lots of different performers,” said choreographer Marisa Quijano. “A lot of our performer friends were involved in the Pulse community. We hung out there, we performed there … It was so open to everyone.”

Just a day after the shooting, Justin Townes, a 25-year-old Orlando native who was performing at Stonewall, Orlando’s sister bar to Stonewall Inn in New York City, said he was ready to help in any way he could.

He was a bit restricted at the time, however, because he was wearing a merman costume, swimming in a human-sized fish tank at the popular gay bar.

“Need a friend? A hug? A place to stay? We got it for you,” Townes said. “This has been a very hard learning process. It’s an eye-opener … But Orlando has more love than hate right now.”

He said it would be hard to find someone who isn’t grieving for some time — but it’ll also be hard to find someone without a support network in this city.

“Now our community is different,” he said. “On the other hand, this incident is going to show what pride is all about — love and equality … You can’t look at someone because of how they dress or who they love or their religious beliefs. As long as there is respect and love, that’s all that matters.”

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Hey dad.

I know you are not around to see this but I haven’t forgotten about you. Actually, there isn’t a day that has gone by where I have not thought about you. You always were successful in leaving an impression. Those who have met you along your journey remembered who you were. You looked and talked the part of a superstar in a public setting.

At home, all I ever wanted to do was make you proud. Behind closed doors, it was hard to get that point across sometimes because growing up I was scared of you. I wasn’t scared of you all the time, but I knew better than to make you angry. I saw how you could get. So I never spoke that much inside of the apartment. By the time I got to middle school, my voice got deep very quickly. The kids would relentlessly make fun of me for that. So I never spoke that much in school either. That made me a quiet kid even though I knew I had a lot to say about a lot of different things. I had longings to express myself openly and freely without receiving backlash.

I used creative platforms to get myself out there. The only time I ever felt accepted was if I played the part of somebody else. People seemed to be entertained by my antics on the stage, especially you. You were an old school performer who had an appreciation for the theatre community. Getting a compliment from you was the ultimate blessing. I knew if I did a good enough job, you would give me the honest to God truth and that would make me the happiest person on Earth. I was never given the staring roles because I never looked the part. To be recognized by you made me believe I could succeed even if the people in charge never wanted to give me the opportunity in the first place.

That’s why I miss you on a day like this.

It is only in the past few years that I have learned that my voice matters. If only you were around to see how far I have come. I have made it my personal mission in this lifetime to make sure that other people are also heard and to be unafraid of who they are. One thing I admired about you was that you stood up to rude people and never backed down from them. Ever. Today, I take a stand against bullies that want to make other people feel awful about themselves. Nobody should live their lives in fear. I remember that part in my life and do not wish it on anyone else.

I only thing I do wish for was that you had gotten the help that you needed. It was only after that you passed away that I realized you were sick. When you live in the moment, it’s hard to see the bigger picture. Only with time and perspective have I been able to understand you on a deeper level. You had so much to offer this world but you made the choice to leave it. It was ultimately your decision so I don’t hold it against you. I’ve been learning to be a man on my own which is difficult in this day and age. Being the oldest child, I don’t have an older male figure to look up to. It would have been nice getting dating advice from time to time but I’ve been managing okay. I do miss watching classic Bette Davis films like Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte with you or playing a round of Ms. Pacman on the Nintendo 64 though. At the end of the day, I try being the best person I can be for the rest of my small family.

If it were up to me things would have turned out differently for you. However, I am aware that a person cannot live in the past. So I take a step into the future and am excited for the endless possibilities that are out there. I thank you for reminding me to never give up. Not on my friends. Not on my family. Not on this world. As grim as things can look in a certain instance, I remember that a turnaround is always possible. My life has been an example of that.

Thank you dad for making me who I am today. I’ll always love you.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

President Barack Obama has been pushing for more alternative energy initiatives during his time in the White House. He pledged
to spend more on renewable energy research, attempted
to get states to reduce carbon emissions, and even teamed up
with perfect head of hair and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to curb greenhouse gas pollution. Thanks, Obama.

Read more…

Last year NASA announced a plan to design commercial passenger airplanes that use electricity in an attempt to improve the loud, fuel-reliant planes the industry uses today. This week, the agency revealed a research prototype called X-57. Dubbed “Maxwell,” after 19th century scientists James Clerk Maxwell, it’s NASA’s first X-plane in 10 years, and it features 14 all-electric motors. The … Continue reading

It’s not uncommon to see many leaks and rumors ahead of the launch of new iPhones. Apple is going to unveil the iPhone 7 later this year in the fall and we’ve already heard many rumors about this handset. One suggests that Apple is going to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack from its next iPhone. A new rumor claims that the headphone jack won’t be removed and that the iPhone 7 will gain dual-SIM support.

The rumor is based on component leaks out of China. One of those components is said to be the Lightning cable assembly for the iPhone 7. We can see in the image that it has a 3.5mm headphone jack attached to it.

Purported images of the next iPhone’s SIM trays have been posted online as well. They show that the handset will have support for dual-SIM. If that’s true then the iPhone 7 is going to be the first smartphone from Apple to have dual-SIM support. Additional rumored components that have been leaked online include a 256GB memory chip.

It’s also not uncommon for Apple to test multiple prototypes of a new iPhone before settling on what it deems to be the best product it can come up with for the year. Even if there’s some truth to these rumors it can’t be said for sure if all of this will turn out to be true when the iPhone 7 is launched.

As always, Apple has not commented on these rumors and leaks.

iPhone 7 Dual-SIM Support Rumored , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.