90 Types of Bitches

(Sorta NSFW, for strong language and sexual content.) Jeff Simmermon says, My friend's cousin found this list on the floor of the third-grade classroom in a DC charter school. The title is "Types of Bitches." It's a taxonomy of 90 different "types of bitches," in hilarious detail. She scanned it and sent it along. I've put it up on a Flickr set here. To me, it reads like a rap song. It's got this *flow* to it. Because there are so many Types of Bitches—yes, just a dime shy of a hundred—this informative chart actually goes on for several pages. You can view all of the Types of Bitches here. Three classifications I found particularly interesting are "uncreative bitches," "Geekin' bitches," and "white bitches that think Black people are poor." (andi

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Reader Questions - Las Vegas!

Hi Kimberly, I love your blog. I read it daily. You have such a great sense of style. The question I have for you is about your trip to Vegas. My hubby and I are going to be in Vegas from the 15-18th (Mon - Thursday) and I wanted to know what to take to Vegas. Since you are there right now can you please share some tips on what I may need. Do I need to take my winter jacket? What kind of shoes to take? etc etc. What did you take? I looked at weather.com and it says 56 degrees. That seems to be the same weather as where I am (Austin, TX). I am thinking I should take clothes to dress the way I am dressing currently here in Austin but since you are there right now, nothing like first hand knowledge:) Also any tips on what is fun to do there since this is our first time there? Thanks a bunch Taz and from Darina . . . Hi Kimberly, Love love love reading your blog and getting all the inspirations :)My husband and I are going to Las Vegas this Saturday and I am so excited!!!! That would be my first time, and I hope the weather is going to be MUCH better than we have in CT... Can you give some recommendations of where to go? I think other readers would love a (detailed) recap of your trip as well :)Thank you! Ladies, I am jealous!! I would go back in a heartbeat for another week! Las Vegas is very casual during the day since you are outside and walking around a ton. You see a lot of leggings with Uggs and jeans with tennis shoes. My personal "uniform" while I was there consisted of: knit top (either a pretty graphic tee, lightly embellished top or striped long sleeve tee) with a knit blazer (comfy yet polished) or a cardigan (occasionally I layered the knit blazer over the cardigan over a shirt in the evening hours), fun scarf, dark washed jeans that fit well, and a pair of comfy flats (my Tory Burch flats were heavenly!). For details on any of the items pictured above, please click here for more info. I found these light layers to be casual yet chic and allow me to adjust my temp as I went from inside (malls and casinos tended to be a bit warm for my liking, then again I'm used to the cold!) to out whether the sun was out or the wind started to pick up. One thing I can't stress enough is to take comfortable shoes!! If your feet hurt you will ruin your trip. All of the malls, hotels and casinos are so huge that even if you can make it back to your hotel you may have a long trip back to your room! I put a pair of memory foam insoles in my Tory Burch Ballet Flats to give a little extra cushion and my feet felt great the whole trip (and we walked A LOT!!). Plus take a couple of pairs of comfy shoes - it's good for your feet to switch it up from day to day. In the evening I still kept things fairly simple for dinner and going out (granted, we weren't going to major clubs were the dress code seems to be "hoochie"). I wore a tunic with beaded trim and jeans, simple top with a statement necklace and satin shorts paired with tights, etc. out to dinner and a show. As for things to do - - there is so much to do and a lot of what you might find fun is dependent on what you enjoy. Here is just a quick list of some of the things I have done on past trips: Outlet Shopping, dinner downtown at Triple George followed by drinks at Don't Tell Mama and people watching on Fremont Street, check out the fantastic architecture and interior design of City Center including the marvelous water features, happy hour at Blondie's/Miracle Mile Shops ($20 for all you can drink from 3-6pm), happy hour at Diablo's at the Monte Carlo (drink special changes every half hour!), CSI Experience at MGM, looking at the gorgeous bontanical gardens, glass flower adorned lobby ceiling and fountains at Bellagio, Bodies: The Exhibition at Luxor, eating a flapjack the size of my car at Hash House A Go Go, shopping at Caesar's Forum Shops (you gotta love a mall that is big enough to support two Coach stores!) topped off with a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3, a view of the strip from the Monorail, yummy 80 calorie sorbet from the stand at The Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian, Fashion Show Mall with the most department stores I've ever seen under one roof, too many wonderful restaurants to even mention, and lots of shows to see, and, oh yeah, a little something called gambling!! Lastly, here is a slideshow of some of the pics I snapped during my recent trip (I'm so bad about remembering to take pictures!) - every thing from the view from and inside the place we stayed, yummy things we ate, my meetup with Kenz, pretties at Bellagio, being silly at the M&M's store and during happy hour, the most fabulous toupee ever and more. Created with flickr slideshow. Enjoy your romantic getaways, ladies, and have a fantastic time!! Also, readers, any other suggestions for these two?

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Photo of the Day: Chevrolet Malibu Headlight

Today’s photo comes from wickedryoki. Be sure to look at all of wickedryoki’s photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your favorite photo with a GM car or truck in it, put it up on Flickr and tag it with “gmfyi.”

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Photo of the Day: 1954 Buick 100 Skylark

Today’s photo comes from Bill Strong. Be sure to look at all of Bill Strong’s photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your favorite photo with a GM car or truck in it, put it up on Flickr and tag it with “gmfyi.”

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Photo of the Day: 1956 Chevrolet Corvette

Today’s photo comes from sjb4photos. Be sure to look at all of sjb4photos’ photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your favorite photo with a GM car or truck in it, put it up on Flickr and tag it with “gmfyi.”

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Stray Cat’s Actions Alert Woman to Breast Cancer

Filed under: Cats, Pets News dixieroadrash, Flickr When a stray cat strutted into her life last summer, Judy Danchura of Canada could not have imagined how the orange and white tomcat she nicknamed Sumo would end up saving her life. Whether it was by accident or by design, we'll leave up to you to decide. But without question, Sumo's actions alerted Danchura to a tumor growing in her breast, enabling her to get an early diagnosis of cancer and begin treatment, reports CBC News. Here's how it happened. Last June, according to CBC News, Danchura noticed the orange-and-white cat moseying around her backyard. She put some food out for him and went about her day. At 3 a.m., the cat came back, meowing so insistently that Danchura let the stray into her house. After making a litter box, Danchura went back to bed. "While she and her husband slept," reports CBC News. "The cat hopped onto the bed and walked across her body. As it stepped on her breast, Danchura was struck by an unusual shot of pain." "I sort of went, 'Oh geez, there's definitely something wrong there,'" Danchura tells CBC News. In fact, there was a lump in her breast. She went to the doctor and learned it was a tumor, and that it was malignant. Because it had been detected early, and she began treatment immediately, Danchura's chance of survival is estimated at 95 percent, reports CBC News. Danchura has come to regard Sumo as her four-footed angel. "I sometimes feel overwhelmed because I feel humbled," she tells CBC News. "I can't understand why this animal turned up for me." Was it a random stroke of luck that Sumo visited her home, insisting to be let in? Or was Sumo meant to tell her something? Tell us what you think Can animals sense illness in their owners? Do you believe that Sumo's actions were just good fortune or something more? Permalink | Email this | Comments

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PyCon 2010 Poster Session Wrap-up

PyCon 2010 had a poster session for the first time ever. Out of 19 original submissions, 17 actually presented posters, covering topics from testing and clouds to Unicode and robotics. The poster session was a plenary session, running from 10:05 to 11:55 am on Sunday morning in the expo hall. Snack service was also in the expo hall at the same time. The cost of doing the poster session was relatively low. We used eleven poster boards at $70 each, so the total outlay was under $800. Overall, it went well. The room was very full and active for most of the time, with things only tailing off the last 15-20 minutes. I chatted with all but one of the presenters, and they all felt it was very successful. Some liked the ability to reach more people than a regular talk might have, and others were happy to have a way to present at PyCon without the public speaking pressure of a regular talk. From my conversations with the attendees, many enjoyed the chance to circulate through a diverse set of topics and chat with the presenters of those they found interesting, in effect a massive hallway track. Thanks Certainly gratitude is due for the backing from Steve, Van, Doug and the organizing committee. That support in the form of time, space, publicity, etc. was huge, as was the organizational help from Ewa. Also, many thanks are due to my friend Rob Ludwick for taking the session photos - he did an outstanding job for very little recognition (although I do still owe him dinner). Issues Poster presenters and viewers did point out a few issues: Space - some felt that things were too cramped and crowded, particularly with snack service, while others felt it was about right. My personal feeling was that it was OK - it was a bit tight in spots, but that closeness fed the feeling of excitement. Certainly we don't want things any tighter and for next year we should tinker with the layout, including placement of coffee/snack service. Timing - more than one presenter wished that the poster session could have been earlier in conference so that they could have used it to set up open space sessions. I certainly sympathize with that, but using the expo space after the commercial exhibitors moved out worked so well, I don't think I would change this. Communication and publicity - it was pointed out that we weren't consistent in conference and publicity materials as to when, where and what the poster session was. I think that was because our plans evolved as we moved towards the conference, giving us some version control problems. I don't see this as being much of an issue going forward. Ratings/feedback - we had no feedback or rating system for posters other than the law of two feet. One presenter wanted some way to get feedback, but my sense was that most didn't care. Financial support - someone suggested providing financial aid to students for the cost of printing the posters, which can run in the $100 range. It looked to me like the majority of the poster presenters had resources to cover the printing. There were a few (including a student) who chose what one called the "arts and crafts" approach, and printed out individual pages and pieces which they pinned on their boards. This sort of low tech solution is not uncommon in other poster sessions, and as far as I could tell it had no adverse impact on the presentation's popularity. In fact, using that approach meant that they could use the full poster board more effectively. As far as financial aid for attending goes, I don't know if any of the poster presenters received financial aid, but I do know that I advised some of them to apply, and I'm certain they did/would have received equitable consideration. Virtual posters - the idea of offering to play 5 minute videos on a monitor as "virtual" posters was a complete non-starter. While that idea may be of some use somewhere, somehow, it doesn't seem worth trying again as part of PyCon. Continuing online record - for some presenters it matters, not just for personal reasons, to have some record of their participation. Printing the poster descriptions in the conference program partly satisfies this need. At the moment, I also have fairly low resolution photos of each presenter and poster on my flickr stream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/35528352@N00/) and I've put links to presentations on the Accepted Posters page (http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/posters/accepted/) as I've received them. We also have higher resolution versions of the photos, which can be used in the future either on the PyCon site or for publicity. Video recording - I didn't push for creating a video of the poster session this year, but some have suggested it for next year. Certainly if we had the staff and equipment available, a wandering videographer might catch some of the feel of session, if not the details of every poster. Positives My favorite review was Anna's tweet, "poster session is full of wins." I would agree. If I had to boil things down, I would say that the poster session gave two big wins to PyCon 2010. One was the social aspect of the event. Having a room that big bubbling over with excited Python conversations for over 90 minutes made it one of PyCon's best social "mixers", even better because no one realized it was mixer. ;) Second, it provided a means for less experienced and/or less skilled speakers to do a formal presentation. There has been periodic discussion over the years of the desirability of having PyCon speakers be experienced and "good", but other than invoking (all too rare) local user groups and conferences, PyCon has not offered an entry point where speakers can gain experience and confidence. I believe the poster session provides such an entry point. As the Python community continues to pursue diversity, the poster session could be a valuable way to foster more participation. Poster Session 2011 Going forward, I'm proposing that we offer a poster session again next year, and I'm volunteering to repeat as co-ordinator. My suggestions would be: double the room size by removing the wall between Regency V and VI. cap the number of posters at 35 (40 MIGHT be possible, 50 would be tight). tweak the poster arrangement and snack placement so as to improve flow through the room. A tough problem, but worth a try. keep the poster session a plenary session on Sunday morning and keep the time roughly the same. I wouldn't bother to list a separate break time before the poster session starts - in practice the break is part of the poster session. Issue the CFP for posters around the same time as for regular talks, and determine acceptances about 2-4 weeks after regular talk acceptances, to allow rejected talks to resubmit as posters. Plan for more ways to capture the session in photos and video. Have a plan for the long term record (conference program, online, etc) of the posters and let people know what it is in the CFP. Provide badge ribbons to identify poster presenters.That's about it. My thanks again to everyone who helped make the poster session a success - let's do it again!

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Shopping for a New Carport

A carport is to a garage like a camping lean-to is to cabin -- better than nothing for parking or sleeping, but not necessarily by a whole lot. But carports are just enough better for many that they continue to keep a small industry in business. Carports are popular in Arizona primarily for keeping the hot sun from beating on cars, and they are popular in Minnesota for keeping snow off. I've known people who've put up carports primarily to cover picnic and play areas in their yards. Carports are worthless for storage, and they add no protection to your car from thieves. But once you understand the limitations of what you are getting, and have concluded that a new garage is not in the cards, you might find yourself quite happy with what a carport could do for you. I discovered today that you can order VersaTube carports (garages, too) through Home Depot's Web site. There are two things that might jump out at you about this option. First, the price is nice. Home Depot currently has a sale price on a 12 ft. by 20 ft. steel carport of just $1,255.50, which includes shipping. The second thing about these carports is that they aren't a particularly difficult DIY project. You can take a look at the installation manual here for part 1 and here for part 2 to decide if the work seems reasonable for you. The one additional component that you will probably want to supply is a concrete slab, although there are other ways to tie the structure to the ground (as the photo confirms). Photo © Alans Factory Outlet, flickr/Creative Commons Shopping for a New Carport originally appeared on About.com Garages & Storage Spaces on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 17:11:36. Permalink | Comment | Email this

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High Throughput Humanities

Along with Riley Crane (of Darpa Challenge and Colbert Report fame), physicist Gourab Ghoshal, and quantitatively minded art historian Max Schich, I'm putting together a workshop on High Throughput Humanities as a satellite meeting at this years European Conference on Complex Systems in Lisbon this September. The general idea is to put together people who ask interesting questions of massive data sets. More specifically - as the title implies - we want to figure out how to use computers to do research in the humanities in a way extends beyond what can currently be accomplished by human beings. Entire libraries are in the process of being scanned and we would like to begin to investigate questions like: Are there patterns in history that are currently 'invisible' due to the fact that humans have limited bandwidth - that we can only read small fraction of all books in a lifetime? We have an exciting program committee so it should be an interesting day! Confirmed Programme Committee Members Albert-László Barabási, CCNR Northeastern University, USA. Guido Caldarelli, INFM-CNR Rome, Italy. Gregory Crane, Tufts University, USA. Lars Kai Hansen, Technical University of Denmark. Bernardo Huberman, HP Laboratories, USA. Martin Kemp, Trinity College, Oxford, UK. Roger Malina, Leonardo/ISAST, France. Franco Moretti, Stanford University, USA. Didier Sornette, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Practical information can be found at the conference website. Oh, and did I mention that Lisbon is beautiful in September! Sign up an join us. The workshop abstract is reprinted below. Abstract The High Throughput Humanities satellite event at ECCS'10 establishes a forum for high throughput approaches in the humanities and social sciences, within the framework of complex systems science. The symposium aims to go beyond massive data aquisition and to present results beyond what can be manually achieved by a single person or a small group. Bringing together scientists, researchers, and practitioners from relevant fields, the event will stimulate and facilitate discussion, spark collaboration, as well as connect approaches, methods, and ideas. The main goal of the event is to present novel results based on analyses of Big Data (see NATURE special issue 2009), focusing on emergent complex properties and dynamics, which allow for new insights, applications, and services. With the advent of the 21st century, increasing amounts of data from the domain of qualitative humanities and social science research have become available for quantitative analysis. Private enterprises (Google Books and Earth, Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, Freebase, IMDb, among others) as well as public and non-profit institutions (Europeana, Wikipedia, DBPedia, Project Gutenberg, WordNet, Perseus, etc) are in the process of collecting, digitizing, and structuring vast amounts of information, and creating technologies, applications, and services (Linked Open Data, Open Calais, Amazon's Mechanical Turk, ReCaptcha, ManyEyes, etc), which are transforming the way we do research. Utilizing a complex systems approach to harness these data, the contributors of this event aim to make headway into the territory of traditional humanities and social sciences, understanding history, arts, literature, and society on a global-, meso- and granular level, using computational methods to go beyond the limitations of the traditional researcher.

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Sharing

So I'm pretty obsessed with sharing. I used to be in the cult of beautiful objects and I would take photographs and go into a color darkroom and make giant c-prints. Then I found flickr and my grandpa gave me his old digital camera and I started taking lots of pictures and sharing them. That was when I joined the legions of sharers. I got a major buzz when people left comments. I was hooked. I discovered Creative Commons and Open Source culture and the EFF became my personal heroes. I shared video too, first it was personal stuff, like video tours around my Seattle apartment. Later I started sharing infrastructure for people to make things and that was really fun. Now at MakerBot we're sharing a machine that you put together that is an object enabler. We share all the plans for it and set up a website called Thingiverse where folks can share their own digital designs for physical objects. It's my favorite thing to look at in the morning and see what new designs have been shared! As a culture, we're figuring out that sharing is great. We're communicating and developing infrastructure like wildfire to find new ways to share our thoughts, ideas, designs, photos, videos, and pretty much anything you can think of. I see sharing as the future of education. It used to be that in order to learn something you had to go to an institution. Now, because people are sharing how they do things and their knowledge on things, learning is often as easy as googling something. As a former schoolteacher, I know just how broken education is and how far away it is from hitting the mark of supporting the development and exploring personal potential for young people. One thing you can do for the next generation of young people is share what you know on the internet. If you lay down the breadcrumbs as you live and you share what you know, it will live on and help others stand on your shoulders and build past what you have done. There are lots of benefits to going to school, but it doesn't have a monopoly on knowledge or hold the only keys to a great job. I see sharing as the future of business too. By sharing our designs with the MakeBot community, we've found a fantastic community of passionate people who are willing to tell us what we're doing right and support us in figuring out how to improve. The examples go on and on. What are you sharing? What frontiers do you see for sharing. Are there things that you're not sharing that you could?

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