Exploring the Architecture of Star Wars: In a Galaxy Far Away, Using the Tangible for Futuristic Visualizations 

 Perhaps the most varied Sci-fi movies in terms of architectural visualization is the Star Wars saga. On George Lucas’s fictional desert planet of Tatooine, a location lacking natural resources, the architecture presents itself as unrefined, modest and unornamented. Ghorfa’s were predominantly featured in the film Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, from multiple locations in Southern Tunisia including the Ksar Hadada. Used as rooms to store grain, these simplistic earth forms have been transformed into high-density dwellings. Primitive forms in contrast with the high-tech.

Read more following the source link.

A beginner’s guide

Bonjour! Is there a list of things that a french beginner should learn, is there a specific order to learn topics in french? Also, love your blog, it helps me a lot.

Hello, thanks love you too! Here’s roughly how to proceed:

#1. Genders.

Nouns, adjectives, determiners and past participles in French are either masculine or feminine. There is no neutral.

Those that end with a consonant are likely masculine (Un éléphant), those that end with an -e likely feminine (Une girafe), especially if it follows a couple of the same consonant (Une tasse). A noun or adjective can be ‘gender-neutral’, or épicène (Juge, Drôle). There are obviously exceptions (Nation, Incendie).

It’s a group of items that are either too small or too large to be counted: fruit, sugar, flour, people, etc (ex: Du sable, Des gens).

Let’s practice: Le facteur et la boulangère sont mariés. La ministre est sortie. Un chien aboie dehors. J’ai mangé du pain.

#2. Numbers.

Let’s practice: J’ai deux petits frères qui sont nés (past participle) en 1998. J’ai un chat sur les genoux. Il y a des noix dans mes gâteaux. Mes yeux sont noirs.

#3. Verbs.

The most useful verbs are:

Être: to be, avoir: to have, faire: to do/make, dire: to say, pouvoir: can, aller: to go, voir: to see, savoir: to know, vouloir: want, venir: to come, falloir: to have to, devoir: must, croire: to believe, trouver: to find, donner: to give, prendre: to take, mettre: to put down/place, laisser: to let, to need: avoir besoin de (…)

#4. Tenses.

The most useful tenses are:

Let’s practice: Je ne sais pas. Il dessinait bien. Nous sommes venus. Ils te verront quand ils reviendront. Vous seriez partis tôt.

#5. Function words.

Let’s practice: Je crois qu’elle sera à l’heure mais je peux me tromper. Pourquoi est-ce que tu pars? Nous reviendrons plus tard, quand il fera plus beau. Vous ne devez pas être en retard sans raison. C’est là, celle à droite.

#6. Basic knowledge.

As you’re mastering those, start practising.

They DID that!!!

It took me about 15 seconds in to realize what was happening in this vid, but the second I did, I legit came. This is… I got chills and got so much validation for my theories about tap and pretty much any genre of music here…

Tap is probably one of the dance styles that gets the least amount of credit four how badass it is

Holy hell-

Sorry I don’t get it?

They’re tap dancing, a kind of dancing typically associated with being old-fashioned and kind of silly. Personally, even tap dancing to old music is awesome in my eyes, but this is on a totally new and exciting level

The thing about tap is that it’s so often seen as a fancy, old-fashioned dainty dance that only posh (and generally white) people do in tuxedos but it didn’t used to be the case.

Way back in the early days, it was where black performers in Vaudeville were legendary for it in Jazz and Jive routines. At about 1:37, this is where the Nicholas brothers go off.

It’s such an expressive and joyful kind of dance and matches so well with hip hop beats and rhythm, which is why the modern reworking of it is so awesome.

Im sure a lot of people also watch the op video and they assume that “clap” sound is part of the music just because a LOT of modern music samples that sound and in some music it is just the sound of hands clapping, but no that is a sound being made by all their shoes at once.

^ that’s why I didn’t understand the significance. Omg. This is incredible!!

https://ums.org/2019/06/21/from-margins-to-mainstream-tap-dance-history/

As someone who did tap dancing as a kid: tap shoes are shoes with metal on the soles and heels.

The whole point of tap dancing is to use the metal to “tap” out a rhythm.

Tap dancing is using your feet as percussion.

Here’s what it sounds like with no accompaniment. Every sound you hear while they’re dancing (except the crowd noises) is being made by their feet:

The heydey of tap among the dominant culture was in the first half of the 20th Century. It was a really common style of dance on Vaudeville (performance halls where every kind of act imaginable would play, performers traveling from town to town). It was (and still is) common in musicals. And because, in the dominant culture, it was so heavily associated with musicals, tap dancing fell out of favor when musicals did. Despite the fact that tap dancing can be metal as fuck and really really awesome in rock and rap. In some ways, it’s better suited to rock and modern music than it was to the old jazz-style popular music of its heyday!

It’s a gorgeous artform, and I love it. Here are some awesome tap dances:

This last video is from Broadway Melody of 1940, the only movie Fred Astaire made with Eleanor Powell. She was one of the best, if not the best, dancers in Hollywood at the time, especially if you’re specifically looking at dancers who specialize in tap dance (as Fred himself did). (Also, I’m specifically limiting this to “white people who would be cast in leading roles”.) If you’re wondering “hey, why did the best male and female tap dancers of the era only do one movie together?” the answer is simple. Fred felt threatened by having a partner who could challenge and possibly outshine him.

They DID that!!!

It took me about 15 seconds in to realize what was happening in this vid, but the second I did, I legit came. This is… I got chills and got so much validation for my theories about tap and pretty much any genre of music here…

Tap is probably one of the dance styles that gets the least amount of credit four how badass it is

Holy hell-

Sorry I don’t get it?

They’re tap dancing, a kind of dancing typically associated with being old-fashioned and kind of silly. Personally, even tap dancing to old music is awesome in my eyes, but this is on a totally new and exciting level

The thing about tap is that it’s so often seen as a fancy, old-fashioned dainty dance that only posh (and generally white) people do in tuxedos but it didn’t used to be the case.

Way back in the early days, it was where black performers in Vaudeville were legendary for it in Jazz and Jive routines. At about 1:37, this is where the Nicholas brothers go off.

It’s such an expressive and joyful kind of dance and matches so well with hip hop beats and rhythm, which is why the modern reworking of it is so awesome.

Im sure a lot of people also watch the op video and they assume that “clap” sound is part of the music just because a LOT of modern music samples that sound and in some music it is just the sound of hands clapping, but no that is a sound being made by all their shoes at once.

^ that’s why I didn’t understand the significance. Omg. This is incredible!!

https://ums.org/2019/06/21/from-margins-to-mainstream-tap-dance-history/

As someone who did tap dancing as a kid: tap shoes are shoes with metal on the soles and heels.

The whole point of tap dancing is to use the metal to “tap” out a rhythm.

Tap dancing is using your feet as percussion.

Here’s what it sounds like with no accompaniment. Every sound you hear while they’re dancing (except the crowd noises) is being made by their feet:

The heydey of tap among the dominant culture was in the first half of the 20th Century. It was a really common style of dance on Vaudeville (performance halls where every kind of act imaginable would play, performers traveling from town to town). It was (and still is) common in musicals. And because, in the dominant culture, it was so heavily associated with musicals, tap dancing fell out of favor when musicals did. Despite the fact that tap dancing can be metal as fuck and really really awesome in rock and rap. In some ways, it’s better suited to rock and modern music than it was to the old jazz-style popular music of its heyday!

It’s a gorgeous artform, and I love it. Here are some awesome tap dances:

This last video is from Broadway Melody of 1940, the only movie Fred Astaire made with Eleanor Powell. She was one of the best, if not the best, dancers in Hollywood at the time, especially if you’re specifically looking at dancers who specialize in tap dance (as Fred himself did). (Also, I’m specifically limiting this to “white people who would be cast in leading roles”.) If you’re wondering “hey, why did the best male and female tap dancers of the era only do one movie together?” the answer is simple. Fred felt threatened by having a partner who could challenge and possibly outshine him.

This is unconscionable. 💙🥄

TL;DR for y’all, she has a spinal injury that requires special support. After her chair was damaged beyond repair in the cargo hold, she was left stranded in the airport for five hours without proper support for her injury. She was given a loaner chair by the airlines, who refused to buy her a new chair, claiming hers was repairable. Over the next FOUR MONTHS without an adequate replacement, she developed exacerbation of her spinal injury requiring multiple hospitalizations, and skin ulcers from the chair she was given. The skin ulcers became gangrenous and spread to her pelvis and hip, which had to be surgically removed. Yes. part of her pelvis. had to be removed. However, the infection had already spread and become systemic, leading to her death on Oct 31st, less than four months after her chair was damaged.

also from the article: it is estimated that 29 mobility devices are destroyed or damaged EVERY DAY. and I’m going to assume those are only the ones that are REPORTED.

My mom has worked in the airline industry for three decades; I had no idea it was anywhere near this bad. Please be an advocate for your disabled friends and family, and support their concerns when they say no, actually. this isn’t okay.

The screenshot above says:

"Following the July incident, a United spokesperson said that the company apologized to Figueroa and was working to reach a resolution with the repair company. The Department of Transportation estimates that airlines damage or destroy 29 mobility devices a day."

Ig in alt-txt

Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing

Updated just now with new hand sewing resources (mainly buttonholes) and textbook pdfs on fashion history, fashion illustration, and thinking through designs!

OP I owe you my life

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

HIS TONGUE !!!!!!!!!

https://bookshop.org/

They are making audio and digital books available now too!!

I found a hardback printing of the Voynich Manuscript on here. This place fucking rocks.

Hey I’m so excited to see this on my dash! I work at an independent bookstore in NY and we were hit insanely hard by the pandemic, like so many other indie bookstores across the country. Bookshop has literally been helping us to keep the lights on. You using stores’ affiliate links to bookshop (you can support my store here) or just browsing it on your own directly impacts our ability to remain in business. Overall Bookshop has raised over 10 million dollars for independent bookstores across America. This site really works!

If you want to buy books from the comfort of your own home without supporting Amazon, please please consider using Bookshop! We are all so thankful for your support!

Its such a rip off that flowers don’t taste good

Spoken like a woman who’s never used garlic blossom in a stirfry, had an elderflower fritter or used Calendula and Nasturtium in a salad.

I have not but im going to now

Add pics of the tasty flowers plz

garlic blossoms (allium) balls of tiny flowers, may be white to deep purple. literally just the flowering head of the garlic you use in food. it tastes like garlic. but colorful.

elderflower, the blossom of the elderberry bush. can be battered and fried. excellent with elderberry syrup or honey. tastes fruity with a tiny hint of anise. also good in teas and sweets.

Calendula, also known as pot marigold. (please, verify you’re using pot marigold, not regular marigold. calendula is actually a daisy.) tastes similarish to bell pepper, sans crunch. leaves are also edible. should be grown with broadleaf plantain:

as a poultices of calendula and plantain can be used to rapidly heal small cuts and scrapes, and are also helpful for other dermatitis. don’t use it on deep wounds though, as it can and will cause the surface skin to heal before the underlying tissues. all of broadleaf plantain is also edible. if bitter.

Nasturtium ranges in color from bright yellow to deep red. it’s peppery and very slightly spicy.

Personally I love squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta and fried in a pan. Not ideal if you also want to harvest squash, though.

Elderflowers also make great wine or cordial! I concur with the squash blossoms, can always just use the male ones so the female flowers can still form fruit.

Finally a thread for the REAL folks: those who eat flowers

Borage! Looks like blue stars and tastes a like lightly sweet cucumber. The young leaves tase like cucumber too!

The flowers that come from any brassica (cabbage, radishes, broccoli, kale, etc) are all excellent and taste like the rest of the plant.

Queen Anne’s lace blossoms, (daucus carota, just like our domestic carrots) super common wild plant, and the flowers make a jelly that tastes kind of like pink lemonade?? It’s /delicious./ but make 100% sure you have a correct identification as water hemlock and other toxic species look similar.

Rose!!! Rose flavoured things taste exactly as they smell. So scrumptious!

Same with lavender and lilac, and violets! The list goes on! 🤩✨🌱

Here are some of my local (PNW) favorites:

[X] Big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) blossoms are excellent in fritters.

[X] Dandelion (Taraxacum offinale) is also excellent in fritters, or my favorite is separating the petals and mixing them into pancake batter.

[X] Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) flowers have a delicate, lettuce-like taste.

[X] Oregon grape (Berberis/Mahonia aquafolium) flowers are delightfully sour. I like to pick off a few small flowers from the cluster!

[X] Wood sorrel (Oxalis sp.) also sour (from oxalic acid).

[X] Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is mildly sweet.

When eating wild plants, you should be completely certain in your identification and aware of any lookalikes. Be sure you are allowed to harvest and that the area has not been sprayed by any chemicals. Many of these plants are also medicine, so you should be sure that you can safely ingest them (do your research before putting things in your face pls). This was just intended to get them on your radar!

Resources for plant identification.

you can’t deny the existence of rape culture when our judicial system is ran by these gross ass men who justify it 

REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S FIRST FILM SOLELY PRODUCED BY THEIR STUDIO HAD TWO FEMALE CHARACTERS AS THEIR ANTAGONIST AND PROTAGONIST WHO, BY SOME FORM OF DEVIL MAGIC, HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FACES

REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S SECOND FILM NOT ONLY CONSISTED OF A CAST WITH FOUR CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTERS BUT INCLUDED AN ENTIRE TOWN OF DIVERSE CITIZENS OF VARYING RACE, GENDER, AND AGE. LIKE A NORMAL TOWN HAS.

REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S THIRD FILM FEATURED SAME SEX COUPLES IN THEIR TEASER TRAILER

REMINDER THAT THIS IS ALL STOP-MOTION SO EVERY CHARACTER WAS DESIGNED, MODELED, SCULPTED, RIGGED, AND EVEN HAD TINY CLOTHES SEWED FOR THEM.

also reminder that they make chump change compared to disney who whines and cries that in all their years of experience they can’t handle the prospect of animating a girl with a face different than the rest and that it’s “too hard” because only females can express such a wide range of emotions that it makes them difficult to animate

if a studio with 20-30 years of experience can manage this then SURELY an established studio with NEAR 100 YEARS of experience can maybe, just maybe, include a female that ISN’T a part of their formula

LAIKA !

Also paranormal had a canonically gay guy in it just saying

I feel the 16ft tall skeleton from Kubo certainly deserves a mention

Laika are goddamn ARTISTS and MASTERS OF THEIR CRAFT. Look at the animation on Kubo and tell me it doesn’t feel more like CGI than stop motion sometimes because it’s so smooth.

I love them so much.

Holy SHIT.

THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO SIT THERE SHOULD BE THE ARTIST AND THEN IT SHOULD GO BE IN A MUSEUM.

Hand made crafts should be worshipped for the art they are.

i respect this SOOOOO much more than any iron sword throne chair

This one involves way more stabbing

SHE BOUGHT A PEACOCK

yesterday for April Fool’s my workplace had a short training article on recognizing computer-generated faces from real ones and one of the tricks mentioned was “count the teeth” and I just wanted to say that it’s both ironic and kind of horrifying how society has unwittingly cycled right back to IF YE MEET A MAN ON THE ROAD, COUNT HIS FINGERS LEST YE DEAL UNKNOWING WITH A FAE 

Where’s that image with the self driving car that is trapped in a salt circle made of “do not cross” symbols that its software won’t let it disobey

This one?

This is a map of Asia. North Americans, you may notice this map is not solely comprised of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. People in the UK, you may notice India is not  a continent. That is, if those of you who generalize entire continents can even pinpoint India on a map. Indians are Asian, gasp! And not all brown skinned people are Indian, also, gasp! There are an alarming amount of people, of all ages, from all backgrounds, who seem to be unable to process this.

I’m ethnically Asian. Since Asia is an extremely large continent, I could be from any number of countries. I am neither from India, China, Korea, Japan or Pakistan, yet not so surprisingly, I am still Asian. 

Yes, there are commonalities across regions, through the conflation of cultures, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism and movement of diasporas. Sometimes these are all the same thing. Rickshaws, rice and curry can be found across the continent. But let’s not overgeneralize. You can also find Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus across Asia. Cantonese Speaking Chinese Muslims! English Speaking Indian Jews! 

No, we are not all the same. Orientalism? (Please look up Edward Said for basic concepts) No thank you. 

Geography, people. It’s important. 

This pops up on my dash every so often. I reblog it again, not just because I wrote it, but because nothing has changed since I first posted this.

What’s cool about Iran is that it falls in 3 different regions of Asia so depending on what part of Iran you’re in, you can kind of get culture shocked a bit. The central and western part of the country is West Asia, the north east is Central Asia, and the southeast is in South Asia. 

To the folks wondering about Russia being included, I want to mention that the cultural debates and angst about that has been going on for CENTURIES. While France has been pretty fetishized all the way back from Peter the Great, there is no question that we are not Europe, even with that influence showing really obviously in historical seats of power like St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, the whole country was under control of the Mongols (The Golden Horde) from roughly 1242 to 1480, and that left an enormous Mongolian and Tatar heritage that remains to this day. The ancient Scythians are huge in the cultural imagination as well. And besides… look at the Russians who are outside the standard “Kievan Rus” phenotype (which most folks assume is how all Russians look.) 

Here are three of the 30 distinct ethnic groups in Siberia alone:

Buryat grandfather, photo by Alexander Newby

Evenk children, photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva

Young Yakut couple, photographer unknown

boom

AS SOMEONE WITH NORTHERN IRANIAN (AZERBAIJANI)/RUSSIAN/ HAZARA-PERSIAN/ UYGHUR-CHINESE ANCESTRY THIS IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL POST 

And that’s why sometimes you’ll see a person with curly black hair, pale skin, and hazel-green eyes (my grand-father’s sister) who turn out to be Chinese. Mad recessive genes game at play, I swear. Mongols, they really got around. 

Petition link

Hey yeah this is very important.

Amongst some of the things than could happen are:

• Downloading, and distribution of PDF files would be illegal, as well as photocopying books.

• Downloading files for academic investigations would become illegal.

• English, robotics, and engineering workshops would become illegal.

• Costs in education would increase.

• Amongst the things that would turn illegal too, would be electronic repairing businesses, and only those businesses with authorized licenses could work.

• It would be illegal to add components to electronic devices, such as RAM memories, better processors, amongst others, regardless of the fact that said components were bought legally.

• Maintenance costs would increase as it would be illegal to fix your own electronic devices, even if it’s just a small touch up.

If things weren’t already bad, the way we use the internet would be affected.

• Access to internet would become more expensive, new taxes would be added to platforms as well as media.

• Internet providing services could block the access to downloading images, music, videos, books,  pretty much any content that could be found on the internet, including memes.

And last but not least.

Internet censorship.

“If someone points out any post or publication that violates authors rights, said post or publication must be hidden, eliminated, or disabled without previous notice, proof, or any jurisdictional order coming from the internet provider (…)”

Thus anyone, corporations and organizations, could demand for anything to be deleted and there wouldn’t be any reason to stop them as they would protect themselves with alleged authors right accusations.

Overall, our government looks forward to silencing us, keeping us quiet and not allowing us of freedom of speech.

This can have awfully consequences, as we would be silenced for expressing our political views and content would be manipulated to fit a certain political narrative.

369 votes were given in favor to this law, 0 against it and 1 abstention.

I am asking for everyone out there to please share this. My future and many others would be greatly affected by this law, many people could lose their jobs and fall deeper into the ever growing line of poverty that Mexico has.

We can’t allow for the government to keep us silenced and censored.

The original post comes from @/hiimnotlara on instagram. 

[image: tweet dated 02 July 2020 by sax_chio, transcribed below:]

2 days ago Mexico passed a law that criminalizes internet neutrality. You can even go to jail for fixing your tech devices in your own home!Please even if you r nt from Mexico help us to boost this hashtag we have a until july 31 to do something about it!

#SinCensuraNiCandados

The petition is in Spanish, but it’s still easy for anybody to sign! If you scroll past the statement, the top blank you see for is your full name, the second blank is your email, and the third is for a comment if you want to add one. The fight for freedom doesn’t end with country borders! Come, let us aid our fellow humans!

Father is a acrobat. His daughter inherited all his talent genes. 

(Source)

When there’s a vexing problem to be solved, people sometimes offer metaphorical advice such as “stretching the mind” or engaging in “flexible” thinking, but in confronting a problem facing many biomedical research labs, a team of MIT researchers has engineered a solution that is much more literal. To make imaging cells and molecules in brain and other large tissues easier while also making samples tough enough for years of handling in the lab, they have come up with a chemical process that makes tissue stretchable, compressible, and pretty much indestructible.

“ELAST” technology, described in a new paper in Nature Methods, provides scientists a very fast way to fluorescently label cells, proteins, genetic material, and other molecules within brains, kidneys, lungs, hearts, and other organs. That’s because when such tissues can be stretched out or squished down thin, labeling probes can infuse them far more rapidly. Several demonstrations in the paper show that even after repeated expansions or compressions to speed up labeling, tissues snap back to their original form unaltered except for the new labels.

credit: MIT news