As a kid, you probably came up with a lot of terrible ideas your parents wisely stopped you from carrying out; that’s why you’re alive today. But once grownup, you’re free to try anything that pops into your mind, like upgrading a toddler-sized tricycle so that it’s powered by an old chainsaw.
The email said “Marvel Studios – Open House Invitation.” What that meant, I didn’t know. But it’s Marvel, so I went, and I’m glad I did, because I got to see concept art, footage, and/or more from every known movie on their schedule, up through Captain Marvel. Yes, Infinity War, too.
New research from Emory University School of Medicine shows that a chemical in the mucus of South Indian frogs is capable of killing certain strains of the influenza virus. It’ll take a while for scientists to translate this finding into a useful medicine, but the discovery could lead to an entirely new source of…
Snapchat is about to get way more fucking adorable. The company just launched a major update today introducing its highly anticipated “World Lenses” feature, giving people the ability to drop digital 3D objects into real world scenes. Although the feature is undoubtedly augmented reality (AR), Snapchat curiously does…
Recreations of Paleolithic people at the museum usually look like the typical Geico commercial caveman. Famed Otzi the Iceman, for example, has the face of someone who’d be fun to disembowel a moose with, but whose conversation might be just a little gauche. A new facial reconstruction of a Stone Age woman who lived…
While attending WonderCon 2017 in Anaheim, Norman Chan of Tested talked with Mike Senna and Michael McMaster about their custom built Mouse Droids. In case you don’t remember, Mouse Droids are known for roaming the halls of the Death Star and other Imperial buildings, and are pretty adorable as far as speedy little droids go.
These custom built replicas have a mix of handmade and 3D-printed parts, along with motors that make the droids all zippy, and some other parts from remote-controlled vehicles. The end result is a replica that would look right at home in an armored space station.
At the end of the video, the two droids have a little drag race, because why not? They look pretty cool in action.
[via Laughing Squid]
For the last 30 years, I’ve been running – everywhere. I’ve run up and down Syracuse University campus, through muggy Michigan fields and towns, down the lakeshore of Chicago, up steep hilly trails of Marin County, along long New England roads. I’ve jogged across the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge and beside the banks of a misty gray Lake Zürich in Switzerland, at the foot of the Alps.
I’ve squinted and huffed through snow, rain and sleet. I’ve pressed my fists and mind through disapproval, heartbreak, depression, job loss, sexist bosses, through a squishy postpartum body, insomnia, parental stress, an ill child, through crime and betrayal.
“What are you running from?” one trainer once asked me as she rubbed a knot in my hip. “Your body isn’t made for this,” she added. “You shouldn’t have so much pain.”
But my running isn’t about avoiding discomfort. I run to press through hard stuff – to feel bones and muscles, alive against pavement, upright in a big, complicated world. I run to pump and sweat out false messages and expectations that hang on me, blind me and confine me from living the life I’ve been blessed to receive.
Sure, I run to stay fit. But also I run from hopelessness – I run from the myths that moms should be sweet and tidy and happy and smooth and young and beautiful; that bad schools can never change; that hunger and poverty and homelessness will never end; that a mother can’t help her child without giving him medication. I run from racism and stereotypes about women, kids, classes, religions, races and political parties. I run from all the stupid things I’ve said and done and from every thought of mine that has growled, “You can’t do that. You can’t change that.” I run from lack of faith, from broken friendships, from selfishness; from jealousy and pride and self-hate, from guilt and greed.
When I run, I always find a destination. But the trick is, the end place evolves as I move forward. It unveils as I stretch my limbs, warming up with the sky, as I abandon all that holds me back – my destination comes as I live.
I run toward the sound of my breath sucking oxygen inward.
I run toward birds calling, the breeze blowing, toward the voices of people whom I couldn’t hear before.
I run toward light breaking through thousands of lacy branches and snowflakes scattering on hillsides I was too distracted to notice.
I run to the places where I’m needed but I’ve ignored; the child overlooked, the mom who could use a phone call, the stranger alone, the family suffering whom I should ask, “How can I help?”
I run toward the person whom I must forgive, toward the story I’ve got to write, toward the true voice I’ve shoved down inside of me itching to shirk off the burdening concept of popularity and shout, “That’s WRONG to discriminate. That’s wrong to mock, to judge, to lie. That’s wrong to hate.”
“You need to breathe. Calm down. Relax,” someone might say.
But for me, running is relaxing. It’s where I finally acknowledge the truth, where I find God.
“I hate running,” A friend says.
“I can’t run. My knees,” Another says.
“Then don’t run,” I reply.
But seek that thing your body and mind must do to sift out the broken, jagged pieces of our world cutting and dragging you down. Sing or swim, pray or walk, write or paint or do downward dogs. Take a million photos. Dance the hula. Do something until you ache, until you taste your own salty sweat, until you touch your soft soul – free again.
As for me, when I’m sick or injured or when I’m really, really old – I’ll keep running, even if only in my mind. I’ll huff and puff and fight toward the bright, gorgeous hope waiting for me every day – if I run relentlessly toward it.
The First version of this piece was published on the MOPS International Blog
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Whole Foods Market, also known as the place where you can spend your entire life savings on a couple of bags of groceries, is working on cutting its prices ― but that could effect the number products it stocks in its shelves. This is a big shift for the company, which just a couple of years ago admitted to overcharging its costumers.
The change is inspired by a continued drop in sales growth. One of the reasons sales are hurting is because other grocery chains are upping their organic options, cutting into Whole Foods’ market. Another reason is because of the way the chain operates.
Whole Foods Market, unlike some other national grocers, operates regionally. Rather than centralize its products for purchase and distribution in one location, it works out of 11 U.S. regions.
The regional approach makes it easier for Whole Foods to stock its shelves with local organic produce, locally-made food products and lots of options ― one of the major reasons people like Whole Foods. A Whole Foods can carry anywhere between 35,000 to 52,000 products on its shelves.
On the downside, it makes it harder for bigger brands to develop a nationwide strategy. And it also makes products more expensive.
Former Target executive Don Clark is leading the move to centralized purchasing. But what will the change mean for customers, one quarter of whom go to Whole Foods specifically for their unique products?
It could mean a more limited selection of products. This strategy is already evident in Whole Foods 365 stores, which only stock around 7,000 products. Smaller brands also worry that this change in operations could make it even harder than it already is to get on shelves.
Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey assures that the Whole Foods culture will still remain unique, but feels they have to incorporate successful strategies that other groceries use. Mackey told The Wallstreet Journal, “We think there are tremendous savings we can have that we can pass on to our customers with lower prices.” Only time will tell.
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Garlic is one of the building blocks of cooking, prevalent in almost every cuisine and the ingredient that, oh, about 99 percent of the dishes we cook begin with. But for as cheap and ubiquitous as this onion relative is, it can be a little fussy. Wondering if you’re cooking it wrong? Take a look at a dish that you’ve cooked that includes garlic, and then answer these questions:
If you answered “yes” to any of these, we’ve got three easy fixes…
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Photographer and mom of three Julie Blackmon finds creative inspiration in her suburban surroundings.
Over the past 10 years, she’s photographed her family and neighborhood in Springfield, Missouri for a series she calls “Homegrown.” The photos combine the whimsical and mundane, as she gives scenes of everyday life an artful twist.
“I was inspired by the everyday moments of my life, as well as my sisters’ lives,” Blackmon told The Huffington Post. “At the time, several years ago, it just seemed like I needed to document this time of our lives (and our children’s) in some way. But as I got into the work, I became more of a creator than a straight documentarian, and began to take more of fantastical viewpoint.”
The photographer said she wanted to capture something about the culture and time period in which her life existed. “Doing it this way also allowed me to look at the stress, chaos and darker subject matter in our everyday lives in a more lighthearted way,” she added.
As her children have grown up, Blackmon focuses less on home life but she continues to draw inspiration from her suburban Springfield world.
“Living your entire life in the same neighborhood might seem to be a limitation ― finding subject matter in a generic town with a generic name that is smack dab in the middle of the United Sates,” she told HuffPost. “But to me, it’s all about a sense of place and identity … And maybe the conflicting tensions that arise here, whether it’s about parenting, politics or religion are an exaggerated representation of what is happening everywhere.”
Blackmon has displayed sets of her domestic life photos at galleries across the country and abroad and in 2014, published a photography book called Homegrown.
“My favorite moments are at openings when people respond to me after seeing the work for the first time in person,” she recalled. “I remember an older lady coming up to me and saying ‘you know how to look at hard things in life in such a happy way.’ It was that simple but it meant everything.”
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