The Annotated Wisdom of Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. talks a lot. It's his job. The guy's been doing stand-up for nearly 30 years now, which means that over the years, he's shared his thoughts on every subject imaginable. That's why we combed through C.K.'s stand-up specials, TV show, interviews, talk show appearances, and Reddit AMAs to compile this list of over 70 of his wisest and funniest quotes, arranged by topic. From capitalism to farts, politics to masturbation, we've got Louis C.K.'s thoughts on a wide range of topics, all at your fingertips. Enjoy!
Advertising
It seems like the better it gets, the more miserable people become. There's never a technological advancement where people think, “Wow, we can finally do this!” … And I think a lot of it has to do with advertising. Americans have it constantly drilled into our heads, every fucking day, that we deserve everything to be perfect all the time. [Vanity Fair, 2009]
Advice
You have to be really tenacious.  You have to keep at it.  There are many roads to get there.  If you can get yourself into Harvard, that’s a good way to go, because every Harvard graduating class, the agencies come trolling around and they’ll look for you.  So if you go to Harvard, you’ll get found there. [Act Four Screenplays, 2010]
Don't smoke pot. Don't bitch. Don't give up. Go on stage ANYWHERE. Try, fail, repeat. [Reddit, 2011]
There’s nothing that beats proving you’re funny by making a funny thing, and right now there are huge outlets for that, with You Tube and all the other stuff online. [Act Four Screenplays, 2010]
The only road to good shows is bad ones. Just go start having a bad time, and if you don't give up, you will get better. [Reddit, 2012]
Awards
It's just not normal to go in front of people and accept an award. What is that??? How does a human do that? It's weird … I am very appreciative though. [Reddit, 2012]
Being Nice
Life's too short to be an asshole, as an employer or as an employee. [Paley Center, 2010]

Body
I am really tired of looking at my hips. I’m seriously really tired of standing naked in the mirror and staring at my hips for hours and hours while muttering, “You hips. You hips need to get it together.” [Vanity Fair, 2013]
Farts are—I just refuse to be snobbish about certain shit with comedy. You know, farts come out of your ass and they make a fucking trumpet sound. That shit smelling gas comes out of your ass and it makes a toot sound. What the fuck is not funny about that? It’s perfect, it’s a perfect joke. It has all the elements. [Time, 2011]
Boston
I grew up in Boston, and in Boston, people just beat the shit out of each other for no reason. They just beat the shit out of each other. But I kinda think you need that to keep quality control 'cause in places where it doesn't have it, they're too free. [Louis C.K.: Shameless, 2007]
Boundaries
There’s nowhere I won’t go. As long as it’s horribly, horribly true and/or wrong. [Time Out London, 2008]
I don’t feel those limits when I’m on stage. For some reason, audiences let me get away with things. Remember, it’s all comedy. Words. Thoughts. All thoughts are safe and worth exploring. [Time Out London, 2008]
Capitalism
I just don't trust any of it. Every time I read something about how there's been another ridiculous climb of the Dow Jones, there's a part of me that goes, “This can't be good.” None of this is real money. You know what I mean? It's not like there's actually more of anything. It's just ideas. When people are getting richer and richer but they're not actually producing anything, it can't end well. [Vanity Fair, 2009]
Even after 9/11, during the darkest moment of our recent history, the President told us, “Go shopping.” That's how we were told to uphold American values; go out and fucking buy more shit. So what were we supposed to do? [Vanity Fair, 2009]
Children
It's really the kids that do you in. We have two kids. That's fucking stupid. Don't do that. [Louis C.K.: Shameless, 2007]
Kids are like buckets of disease that live in your house. [Louis C.K.: Chewed Up, 2008]
When you first get married, you have a relationship that's so important to you, and you're working on it together. But then you have a kid. And you look at your kid and you go, "Holy shit, this is my child. She has my DNA. She has my name. I would die for her." And you look at your spouse and go, "Who the fuck are you? You're a stranger." [Louis C.K.: Shameless, 2007]
I used to like people more, but now I have children and that changes your life in a lot of ways. Like you spend time with people you never would have chosen to spend time with, not in a million years. I spend whole days with people, I'm like, "I never would have hung out with you. I didn't choose you. Our children chose each other based on no criteria by the way. They're the same size. They don't care who they make me hang out with." [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
Comedy
To me the goal of comedy is to just laugh, which is a really high hearted thing, visceral connection and reaction. And any time I take laughs away on the show I have to replace it with something at least that high; it has to be that height. It can’t just be interesting. It has to be holy shit one way or the other; holy shit, that’s funny or holy shit that kind of scared me. I’ve been interested in scaring people too because it’s sort of, it runs by some of the same rules as laughing. Or oh my God, that’s so, I really feel that. Or what the fuck is this? I don’t understand this. These are all heightened responses and I have to be getting one of those. If it’s not funny it has to be super compelling in another way. [Time, 2011]
I can feel how an audience is reacting when I’m on a stage, but when you are on stage, your perception is distorted. That’s something you just have to know. It’s like pilots that fly at high Gs and they lose, sometimes, consciousness and hand/eye coordination and they just have to know that that’s going to happen. They have to be trained to not try to do too much while they are doing that. So when you are on stage, you have to be aware that you are wrong about how it feels a lot of times. [AICN, 2010]
Watching Malcolm X speeches — a guy who’s saying to these people, “Nobody’s saying what you want to hear. I’m saying it ‘cause I’m one of you. And I’m one of the worst of you.” That’s just huge. That’s what it is I think to be a comedian. [AST, 2006]
I think of boxing a lot with standup. I even train with boxing trainers [AICN, 2010]
I find that when people laugh really hard, it's usually because they're connecting and identifying in a way that they hadn't considered. That's my payoff. [Pitchfork, 2010]
Everything that’s difficult you should be able to laugh about. [Vulture, 2010]
It's just a big excuse to say awful things. [Pitchfork, 2010]
Credibility
Credibility lasts about two cycles of bad material, and then you'll probably never get it back. If you let people down, that's really hard to come back from– harder than climbing from nothing to something, even. [Pitchfork, 2010]
Death
Out of the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead. There are way more dead people, and you're all gonna die and then you're gonna be dead for way longer than you're alive. Like that's mostly what you're ever gonna be. You're just dead people that didn't die yet.  [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
Divorce
Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it's true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce … That would be sad. If two people were married and they were really and they just had a great thing and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times. [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
Drugs
Drugs are so fucking good that they'll ruin your life. [Live at the Beacon Theater, 2011]
Education
I did a show in New Jersey in the auditorium of a technical high school … Technical high school, that's where dreams are narrowed down. We tell our children, "You can do anything you want." Their whole lives. "You can do anything!" But this place, we take kids – they're 15, they're young – and we tell them, "You can do eight things. We got it down to eight for you." [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
Family
My uncles were all funny. My dad wasn’t funny, but my uncles were all funny. Now I go back and I like him better than them, they were manipulative funny. [AST, 2006]
I had to be the head of the household really for the first time and say okay, I have to actually make a rule that we’re going to live by here. And I decided what it was is that the family comes over the work always. I mean, with the kids it’s a priority. Because I wanted them to have a feeling like they could count on me like I was really there, I wasn’t just visiting. I didn’t want one of these moments like, “Jeez, honey, I’m sorry I’m not going to see you this week or this month or whatever because I’m going to LA.” I got some offers early that go out to LA and do parts on sitcoms and I said no, because it meant going and being away for a month. [Time, 2011]
'Fuck it.' That's really the attitude that's keeps a family together. It's not 'We love each other!' It's 'Fuck it.' [Louis C.K.: One Night Stand, 2005]
That’s what being a parent is like. It’s like Platoon. [Time, 2011]
Food
The meal is not over when I'm full. The meal is over when I hate myself. [Louis C.K.: Chewed Up, 2008]

Groupies
I think the idea of fucking someone who just watched you perform is… it's just not me. [Reddit, 2011]
Hair
I remember the day I saw my hair was thinning. I don't remember caring much. I don't care. It's just hair. It never bothered me much. I was pretty young, too. And it happened and is happening veeery slowly. I have a feeling dead people get really mad when we complain about losing hair. [Reddit, 2012]
Hate
I've started to kind of hate people, and it's not because I have anything against them. It's just, I enjoy it.  It's recreation.  [Louis C.K.: Shameless, 2007]
History
It’s been a very old thing for people to gather together and laugh at stuff. The first comedian in America really was Abraham Lincoln … He used to go to a pub near where he lived and stand in front of the fire and he packed the place every night and he would just talk and bust everybody in their guts. He was just a hilarious speaker and that’s what he did. [AICN, 2010]
The Greatest Generation gets too much credit. Those World War II guys, if they had all the shit we have today, they'd be assholes too. It's just circumstantial. It's what you're called on to do that makes you great. We haven't been called on to do anything but buy shit and get fat. [Vanity Fair, 2009]
Honesty
Friends should always tell you the truth. But please don’t. [Vanity Fair, 2013]
When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else. [Pitchfork, 2010]
Human Connection
I’m a vulgar, fucked-up degenerate comedian who did drugs. And I’m connecting with Christian mothers and fathers. I love that. That means so much to me. [Dead Frog, 2006]
Influences
[Listing his favorite authors] F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nicolai Gogol, Richard Wright, John Steinbeck. [Vanity Fair, 2013]
I love The Office, it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Richard Pryor are my favorite stand-ups. I also love Derek and Clive and everything Dudley Moore and Peter Cook did together. [Time Out London, 2008]
[Listing his favorite stand-up specials] Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. George Carlin [Back in Town] … Eddie Murphy: Delirious. Bill Cosby: Himself. [Reddit, 2011]
The earliest stand-up comedy I was aware of was Bill Cosby … I watched Saturday Night Live as soon as I was aware of it, and Monty Python used to be on PBS at weird hours, so I used to try to watch that. And I loved George Carlin on SNL, that was the first stand-up I ever really remember seeing on TV. And then Steve Martin. I guess I was in fifth or sixth grade when Steve Martin showed up, and he was instantly my idol. And Richard Pryor around the same time too, I sort of became aware of him, though I don’t remember the first time I saw him. [AST, 2006]
Jobs
The last jobs i had were fixing cars and covering football games for a local access TV station. as in driving the mobile van to the field, setting up 3 cameras, teaching depressed grownups and interns how to use them and directing the game from the van and then wanting to kill myself. [Reddit, 2011]
I'd love to have a shitty job. I couldn't hold any down. Standup was the only thing I could stick with. I'm an idiot that way. [Reddit, 2012]
Likability
Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different … Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.  [Vulture, 2010]
Littering
One time, I threw a candy wrapper on the street … I was with a friend who said to me, "You just littered on the street! Don't you care about the environment?" And I thought about it, and I said, "You know what? This in't the environment. This is New York City … New York City is not the environment. New York City is a giant piece of litter. Next to Mexico City, [it's] the shittiest piece of litter in the world. Just a pussy, runny, smokin', stinkin' piece of litter. [Live at the Beacon Theater, 2011]
Masturbation
I ate too much and masturbated too recently, you know? It's bad to like jerk off and run out the door, 'cause you run into somebody. "Oh, she knows…" You got to take some time alone to process the shame. [Louis C.K.: Chewed Up, 2008]
Money
Bill Gates has 90 billion dollars … If I had 90 billion dollars, I wouldn't have it for long because I would just dream of all the crazy stuff I could do with it. This guy, 90 billion dollars. He could buy every baseball team and make them all wear dresses and still have 88 billion dollars. [Comedy Central Presents: Louis C.K., 2001)
Movies
To me, comedies are usually the least funny movies. Movies that are actually a comedy are usually not all that funny. To me Goodfellas and Raging Bull are two of the funniest movies I ever saw. [Vulture, 2010]
The Jackass movies are honestly some of the best movies I've ever seen. I laugh so hard at them. Those guys are geniuses. If they had grown up with a different group of people, they could've been performance artists at Bard College, and people would be writing papers about them. [Pitchfork, 2010]
Politics
I really love Barack Obama. Sorry if that’s like “Ew. The president. That’s lame.” I love Barack Obama. What a great man. I’m so lucky to have voted for that guy. [Vanity Fair, 2013]
[to Donald Rumsfeld] Are you a lizard person? [The Opie and Anthony Show, 2011]
Religion
God is like a shitty girlfriend. [Louie, 2010]
I'm not an athiest. I think god is there and that he is watching and he made us. I just don't give a shit … I don't "believe in god." I have zero idea how everything got here. I would personally say that, if i had to make a list of possibles, God would be pretty far down. But if I were to make a list of people that know what the fuck they are talking about, I would be REALLY far down. [Reddit, 2011]
"It's in the Ten Commandments to not take the Lord's name in vain. Rape isn't up there, by the way. Rape is not a Ten Commandment. But don't say the dude's name with a shitty attitude." [Louie, 2010]
Single People
Whenever single people complain about anything, I really want them to shut the fuck up. First of all, if you're single, your life has no consequence on the earth. Even if you're helping people aggressively, which you're fucking not, nobody gives a shit what happens to you. You can die, and it actually doesn't matter. It doesn't. Your mother will cry or whatever, but otherwise, nobody gives a shit. [Louis C.K.: Shameless, 2007]

You've got to be optimistic to be single. Stupid. You have to be stupid. That's what optimistic means, you know? It means stupid. An optimist is somebody who goes, "Hey, maybe something nice will happen." Why the fuck would anything nice happen? [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
Stupidity
If you do something and people think you're stupid, just go for crazy. You get more respect that way because nobody likes stupid people. [HBO Comedy Half-Hour, 1996]
Technology
Now we live in an amazing, amazing world and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots. [Conan, 2009]

Twitter and Facebook and MySpace; all that stuff makes you warped. We've all basically given ourselves data entry jobs. I've actually heard people say things like, “Aw shit, I have to update my Twitter.” Really? You have to? That's a big priority for you? [Vanity Fair, 2009]
People say 'my phone sucks.' No it doesn't! The shittiest cellphone in the world is a miracle. Your life sucks. Around the phone." [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]
TV
There’s a huge amount of work that goes into placating a network in regular television. It’s literally 70% or 80% of your workload, is showing them the material, getting their notes and presenting it to them and making sure they weigh in. It’s a huge amount of work. [Act Four Screenplays, 2010]
I remember reading an article about Frasier when it was going off the air – a very sad obituary from a TV writer who said that Frasier was such a smart show, and it was for the Mensa set. And he gave an example, where he quoted some line about a woman that Frasier thinks is very mean and he says, “Her idea of tough love is the Spanish Inquisition.” And they thought that was very smart—just because he mentioned something from history. [Dead Frog, 2006]
There’s a need to perfect things in a writers’ room, and that can take a lot of fun out of a show sometimes.  It’s a struggle.  It depends on your personality.  Some people love working with a writing staff.  I had a great writing staff on Lucky Louie, but it sometimes felt like Congress or something. [Act Four Screenplays, 2010]
Sometimes I just want to tell a story regardless of whether it fits what the show is saying. I’ve been in a lot of writing rooms where somebody says an idea and everyone’s dying, like laughing so they’re delirious. It’s like a black hole in a good way, everything starts to fall into it, you know what I mean.
And then after a few minutes everybody calms down and somebody says yeah, we can’t do it that way, it doesn’t make any sense, because it hurts this thing and this. And then everyone gets a little—has a moment of silence for the idea and moves on, and something amazing was kept away from the public. [Time, 2011]
Writing
I wish I could [keep a journal]. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something. [Reddit, 2012]
I can't sit down and write jokes. I just flows in from some maddeningly elusive place. Believe me, if I had an Alaska in my brain, I would drill baby drill, and I'd cum right on Sarah's back while I was there. [Reddit, 2012]
Words
All these words we use, anybody can be a genius now. It used to be you had to have a thought no one ever had before or you had to invent a number. Now, it's like, "Hey, I've got a cup in case we need another cup." "Dude, you're a genius!" [Louis C.K.: Hilarious, 2011]

source by http://splitsider.com

Earthquakes and Fumaroles as Unrest Hits Peru’s Sabancaya

The strong, persistent fumarolic activity at the summit of Sabancaya in Peru, seen on February 26, 2013. Image: Ingemmet

Over the past few days, the Peruvian Geologic Survey (Ingemmet) has noted a sharp increase in seismicity underneath one of the more active volcanoes in the southern part of the country: Sabancaya. Over 500 earthquakes were recorded under the volcano between February 22-23 and with an accompanying increase in fumarole emissions (steam and volcanic gases) from the summit (see above), Ingemmet chose to raise the alert status at Sabancaya to Orange. The fumarolic activity at the summit is especially notable the new steam/gas plume reached over 100 meters over the volcano (although this can also be mitigated by weather conditions) — and closely followed the onset of the new seismicity.

Interestingly, before this new seismic swarm and fumarolic activity began, I noted on Twitter an interesting sequence of earthquakes near Sabancaya. On February 22, three M4.9-5.3 earthquakes struck within 2 hours of each other ~30-40 km to the northeast of the volcano (see below). All these earthquakes were fairly shallow (10-18 km) — in fact, much shallow than much of the historic seismicity in the area. I noted the earthquakes because of their location between Sabancaya and another large Peruvian volcano, El Misti. Now, this is where we have to worry about chickens and eggs — there is no evidence for a connect between these earthquakes and the new unrest at Sabancaya. [SPECULATION] However, it does leave open the potential that (a) the earthquakes could have triggered this new unrest or (b) the earthquakes are part of the new unrest. Under option (a), these earthquakes might not have been directly related to magmatic activity/movement, but their proximity to Sabancaya disturbed the magmatic or hydrothermal system at the volcano. Under option (b), these earthquakes could be the intrusion of a new batch of magmatic itself — however, their distance from Sabancaya seems a little far for that to be the case. My [wild] hunch here might be that the three earthquakes might have “jostled” the hydrothermal system at Sabancaya, producing an increase in hydrothermal flow leading to more intense fumaroles and resulting in an earthquake swarm as the hydrothermal system re-establishes itself. Now, this is not to say that magma movement under the volcano isn’t a potential cause as well — as Ingemmet collects more data, such as the types/amounts of volcanic gases in the fumaroles and can survey the volcano looking for deformation, their geologists can then make a more definitive statement about the nature of the unrest at Sabancaya. Jersy Mariño Salaza from Ingemmet did, however, mention that this unrest is similar to the unrest prior to the volcano’s eruptions in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

A Google Earth image showing the location of the three M4.9-5.3 earthquakes on February 22, 2013, along with Sabancaya (to the west), El Misti (to the southeast) and the city of Arequipa (to the south). Image: Google Earth/USGS

The last eruption at Sabancaya was back in 2003 — one of the handful of VEI 2 and 3 eruptions that have occurred at the volcano since it began erupting again after almost 200 years of quiet. Sabancaya is the younger half of the Ampato-Sabancaya complex. Much like many Andean volcanoes, the largest threats from Sabancaya is going to be explosive eruptions that produce pyroclastic flows — but lahars and other debris flows moving upwards of 30 km down channels on the volcano into the surroundings are also significant hazards. The 1991 eruption of Sabancaya did produce a number of lahars and landslides that resulted in 20 casualties. Over 15,000 people live in villages surrounding the volcano and 250 families living in Maca might need to be evacuated if the unrest continues as they live only ~13 km / 8 miles from the volcano. The nearest large city in Arequipa (population of nearly 1 million), located 75 km / 46 miles to the southeast.

Erik Klemetti is an assistant professor of Geosciences at Denison University. His passion in geology is volcanoes, and he has studied them all over the world. You can follow Erik on Twitter, where you'll get volcano news and the occasional baseball comment.

Read more by Erik Klemetti

source by wired.com

3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production

Engineer Jim Kor and his design for the Urbee 2. Photo: Sara Payne

Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo.
Urbee’s approach to maximum miles per gallon starts with lightweight construction – something that 3-D printing is particularly well suited for. The designers were able to focus more on the optimal automobile physics, rather than working to install a hyper efficient motor in a heavy steel-body automobile. As the Urbee shows, making a car with this technology has a slew of beneficial side effects.
Jim Kor is the engineering brains behind the Urbee. He’s designed tractors, buses, even commercial swimming pools. Between teaching classes, he heads Kor Ecologic, the firm responsible for the 3-D printed creation.
“We thought long and hard about doing a second one,” he says of the Urbee. “It’s been the right move.”
Kor and his team built the three-wheel, two-passenger vehicle at RedEye, an on-demand 3-D printing facility. The printers he uses create ABS plastic via Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). The printer sprays molten polymer to build the chassis layer by microscopic layer until it arrives at the complete object. The machines are so automated that the building process they perform is known as “lights out” construction, meaning Kor uploads the design for a bumper, walk away, shut off the lights and leaves. A few hundred hours later, he’s got a bumper. The whole car – which is about 10 feet long – takes about 2,500 hours.

Photo: Sara Payne

Besides easy reproduction, making the car body via FDM affords Kor the precise control that would be impossible with sheet metal. When he builds the aforementioned bumper, the printer can add thickness and rigidity to specific sections. When applied to the right spots, this makes for a fender that’s as resilient as the one on your Prius, but much lighter. That translates to less weight to push, and a lighter car means more miles per gallon. And the current model has a curb weight of just 1,200 pounds.
To further remedy the issues caused by modern car-construction techniques, Kor used the design freedom of 3-D printing to combine a typical car’s multitude of parts into simple unibody shapes. For example, when he prints the car’s dashboard, he’ll make it with the ducts already attached without the need for joints and connecting parts. What would be dozens of pieces of plastic and metal end up being one piece of 3-D printed plastic.
“The thesis we’re following is to take small parts from a big car and make them single large pieces,” Kor says. By using one piece instead of many, the car loses weight and gets reduced rolling resistance, and with fewer spaces between parts, the Urbee ends up being exceptionally aerodynamic.” How aerodynamic? The Urbee 2′s teardrop shape gives it just a 0.15 coefficient of drag.
Not all of the Urbee is printed plastic — the engine and base chassis will be metal, naturally. They’re still figuring out exactly who will make the hybrid engine, but the prototype will produce a maximum of 10 horsepower. Most of the driving – from zero to 40 mph – will be done by the 36-volt electric motor. When it gets up to highway speeds, the engine will tap the fuel tank to power a diesel engine.
But how safe is a 50-piece plastic body on a highway?

With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it’s more motorcycle than passenger car.

“We’re calling it race car safety,” Kor says. “We want the car to pass the tech inspection required at Le Mans.”
The design puts a tubular metal cage around the driver, “like a NASCAR roll cage,” Kor claims. And he also mentioned the possibility of printed shock-absorbing parts between the printed exterior and the chassis. Going by Le Mans standards also means turn signals, high-beam headlights, and all the little details that make a production car.
To negotiate the inevitable obstacles presented by a potentially incredulous NHSTA and DOT, the answer is easy. “In many states and many countries, Urbee will be technically registered as a motorcycle,” Kor says. It makes sense. With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it’s more motorcycle than passenger car.
No matter what, the bumpers will be just as strong as their sheet-metal equivalents. “We’re planning on making a matrix that will be stronger than FDM,” says Kor. He admits that yes, “There is a danger in breaking one piece and have to recreate the whole thing.” The safety decisions that’ll determine the car’s construction lie ahead. Kor and his team have been tweaking the safety by using crash simulation software, but the full spectrum of testing will have to wait for an influx of investment cash. “Our goal with the final production Urbee,” Kor says, “is to exceed most, if not all, current automotive safety standards.”
Kor already has 14 orders, mostly from people who worked on the design with him. The original Urbee prototype was estimated to cost around $50,000.
When the funding comes in, the head engineer is planning to take the latest prototype from San Francisco to New York on 10 gallons of gas, preferably pure ethanol. The hope is that the drive will draw even more interest. “We’re trying to prove without dispute that we did this drive with existing traffic,” Kor says. “We’re hoping to make it in Google [Maps'] time, and we want to have the Guinness book of world records involved.”

source by digg.com

Photographer as Witness: A Portrait of Domestic Violence

Sara Naomi Lewkowicz

The following photographs were taken between Sept. 2012 and Dec. 2012.

At 31, Shane had spent much of his life incarcerated. His facial tattoos, along with his criminal record, made finding steady work extremely difficult, and work that paid a living wage nearly impossible. After his last stint in prison, Shane was determined to turn over a new leaf and create a better life for himself. That life, as he saw it, would have to include Maggie, a woman 11 years his junior who was his sister's neighbor.

Domestic violence is often shielded from public view. Usually, we only hear it muffled through walls or see it manifested in the faded yellow and purple bruises of a woman who “walked into a wall” or “fell down the stairs.” Despite a movement to increase awareness of domestic violence, we still treat it as a private crime, as if it is none of our business.
During my time as a freelance photojournalist and as a Master’s candidate at Ohio University, one of the biggest challenges of my career came in November of 2012, while working on a project about the stigma associated with being an ex-convict. Suddenly, an incident of domestic violence unexpectedly became my business.
I had met Shane and Maggie two-and-a-half months before. Southeastern Ohio was still warm that time of year and brimming with small regional festivals. I had gone to the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival to shoot my first assignment for an editorial photography class. Almost immediately, I spotted a man covered in tattoos, including an enormous piece on his neck that read, “Maggie Mae.” He was holding a beautiful little girl with blonde curls. His gentle manner with her belied his intimidating ink, and I approached them to ask if I could take their portrait.
I ended up spending my entire time at the fair with Shane, 31, and his girlfriend Maggie, 19. Maggie’s two children, Kayden, four, and Memphis, nearly two, were not Shane’s, but from her then-estranged husband.
Shane and Maggie had started dating a month prior to meeting me, and Shane told me about his struggles with addiction and that he had spent much of his life in prison. Maggie shared her experience losing her mother to a drug overdose at the age of eight, and having the challenges of raising two small children alone while their father, who was in the Army, was stationed in Afghanistan. Before they drove home, I asked if I could continue to document them, and they agreed.
I intended to paint a portrait of the catch-22 of being a released ex-convict: even though they are physically free, the metaphorical prison of stigma doesn’t allow them to truly escape. That story changed dramatically one night, after a visit to a bar.
In a nearby town where Shane had found temporary work, they stayed with the kids at a friend’s house. That night, at a bar, Maggie had become incensed when another woman had flirted with Shane, and left. Back at the house, Maggie and Shane began fighting. Before long, their yelling escalated into physical violence.
Shane attacked Maggie, throwing her into chairs, pushing her up against the wall and choking her in front of her daughter, Memphis.
After I confirmed one of the housemates had called the police, I then continued to document the abuse — my instincts as a photojournalist began kicking in. If Maggie couldn’t leave, neither could I.
Eventually, the police arrived. I was fortunate that the responding officers were well educated on First Amendment laws and did not try to stop me from taking pictures. At first, Maggie did not want to cooperate with the officers who led Shane away in handcuffs, but soon after, she changed her mind and gave a statement about the incident. Shane pled guilty to a domestic violence felony and is currently in prison in Ohio.
The incident raised a number of ethical questions. I’ve been castigated by a number of anonymous internet commenters who have said that I should have somehow physically intervened between the two. Their criticism counters what actual law enforcement officers have told me — that physically intervening would have likely only made the situation worse, endangering me, and further endangering Maggie.
I have continued to follow Maggie since the abuse, and I’ve also begun working closely with photographer Donna Ferrato, who first began documenting domestic violence 30 years ago.
Since that November night, Maggie has moved to Alaska to be with the father of her two children, who is stationed in Anchorage. In March, I will travel to Alaska to document Maggie as she tries to put the pieces of her family and life back together. My goal is to examine the long-term effects of this incident on her current relationship, her children, and her own sense of self. Devoted to revealing these hidden stories of domestic abuse, Maggie asked me to move forward with this project and to tell her story, because she feels the photographs might be able to help someone else.
“Women need to understand this can happen to them. I never thought it could happen to me, but it could,” she told me. “Shane was like a fast car. When you’re driving it, you think ‘I might get pulled over and get a ticket.’ You never think that you’re going to crash.”
The Violence Against Women Act, which provides funding to help victims of domestic violence, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and is now up for re-authorization. Read more about the law and why it’s currently stuck in Congress.

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Seduced by ‘perfect’ pitch: how Auto-Tune conquered pop music

In January of 2010, Kesha Sebert, known as ‘Ke$ha’ debuted at number one on Billboard with her album, Animal. Her style is electro pop-y dance music: she alternates between rapping and singing, the choruses of her songs are typically melodic party hooks that bore deep into your brain: “Your love, your love, your love, is my drug!” And at times, her voice is so heavily processed that it sounds like a cross between a girl and a synthesizer. Much of her sound is due to the pitch correction software, Auto-Tune.
Sebert, whose label did not respond to a request for an interview, has built a persona as a badass wastoid, who told Rolling Stone that all male visitors to her tour bus had to submit to being photographed with their pants down. Even the bus drivers.
Yet this past November on the Today Show, the 25-year old Sebert looked vulnerable, standing awkwardly in her skimpy purple, gold, and green unitard. She was there to promote her new album, Warrior, which was supposed to reveal the authentic her.

“Was it really important to let your voice to be heard?” asked the host, Savannah Guthrie.
“Absolutely,” Sebert said, gripping the mic nervously in her fingerless black gloves.
“People think they’ve heard the Auto-Tune, they’ve heard the dance hits, but you really have a great voice, too,” said Guthrie, helpfully.
“No, I got, like, bummed out when I heard that,” said Sebert, sadly. “Because I really can sing. It’s one of the few things I can do.”
Warrior starts with a shredding electrical static noise, then comes her voice, sounding like what the Guardian called “a robo squawk devoid of all emotion.”
“That’s pitch correction software for sure,” wrote Drew Waters, Head of Studio Operations at Capitol Records, in an email. “She may be able to sing, but she or the producer chose to put her voice through Auto-Tune or a similar plug-in as an aesthetic choice.”
So much for showing the world the authentic Ke$ha.
Since rising to fame as the weird techno-warble effect in the chorus of Cher’s 1998 song, “Believe,” Auto-Tune has become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing. But the diss isn’t fair, because everybody’s using it.
For every T-Pain — the R&B artist who uses Auto-Tune as an over-the-top aesthetic choice — there are 100 artists who are Auto-Tuned in subtler ways. Fix a little backing harmony here, bump a flat note up to diva-worthy heights there: smooth everything over so that it’s perfect. You can even use Auto-Tune live, so an artist can sing totally out of tune in concert and be corrected before their flaws ever reach the ears of an audience. (On season 7 of the UK X-Factor, it was used so excessively on contestants’ auditions that viewers got wise, and protested.)
Indeed, finding out that all the singers we listen to have been Auto-Tuned does feel like someone’s messing with us. As humans, we crave connection, not perfection. But we’re not the ones pulling the levers. What happens when an entire industry decides it’s safer to bet on the robot? Will we start to hate the sound of our own voices?

They’re all zombies!

Auto-Tune has now become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing

Cher’s late ‘90s comeback and makeover as a gay icon can entirely be attributed to Auto-Tune, though the song's producers claimed for years that it was a Digitech Talker vocoder pedal effect. In 1998, she released the single, “Believe,” which featured a strange, robotic vocal effect on the chorus that felt fresh. It was created with Auto-Tune.
The technology, which debuted in 1997 as a plug-in for Pro Tools (the industry standard recording software), works like this: you select the key the song is in, and then Auto-Tune analyzes the singer’s vocal line, moving “wrong” notes up or down to what it guesses is the intended pitch. You can control the time it takes for the program to move the pitch: slower is more natural, faster makes the jump sudden and inhuman sounding. Cher’s producers chose the fastest possible setting, the so-called “zero” setting, for maximum pop.
“Believe” was a huge hit, but among music nerds, it was polarizing. Indie rock producer Steve Albini, who’s recorded bands like the Pixies and Nirvana, has said he thought the song was mind-numbingly awful, and was aghast to see people he respected seduced by Auto-Tune.
“One by one, I could see that my friends had gone zombie. This horrible piece of music with this ugly soon-to-be cliché was now being discussed as something that was awesome. It made my heart fall,” he told the Onion AV Club in November of 2012.
The Auto-Tune effect spread like a slow burn through the industry, especially within the R&B and dance music communities. T-Pain began Cher-style Auto-Tuning all his vocals, and a decade later, he’s still doing it.
“It’s makin’ me money, so I ain’t about to stop!” T-Pain told DJ Skee in 2008.

“It’s makin’ me money, so I ain’t about to stop!” Kanye West did an album with it. Lady Gaga uses it. Madonna, too. Maroon 5. Even the artistically high-minded Bon Iver has dabbled. A YouTube series where TV news clips were Auto-Tuned, “Auto-Tune the News”, went viral. The glitchy Auto-Tune mode seems destined to be remembered as the “sound” of the 2000s, the way the gated snare (that dense, big, reverb-y drum sound on, say, Phil Collins songs) is now remembered as the sound of the ‘80s.
Auto-Tune certainly isn’t the only robot voice effect to have wormed its way into pop music. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, voice synthesizer effects units became popular with a lot of bands. Most famous is the Vocoder, originally invented in the 1930s to send encoded Allied messages during WWII. Proto-techno groups like New Order and Kraftwerk (ie: “Computer World,”) embraced it. So did American early funk and hip hop groups like the Jonzun Crew.
‘70s rockers gravitated towards another effect, the talk box. Peter Frampton (listen for it on “Do you Feel Like We Do”) and Joe Walsh (used it on “Rocky Mountain Way”) liked its similar-to-a-vocoder sound. The talk box was easier to rig up than the Vocoder — you operate it via a rubber mouth tube when applying it to vocals. But it produces massive amounts of slobber. In Dave Tompkins’ book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach, about the history of synthesized speech machines in the music industry, he writes that Frampton’s roadies sanitized his talk box in Remy Martin Cognac between gigs.
The use of showy effects usually have a backlash. And in the case of the Auto-Tune warble, Jay-Z struck back with the 2009 single, D.O.A., or “Death of Auto-Tune.”
I know we facing a recession
But the music y'all making going make it the great depression
All y'all lack aggression
Put your skirt back down, grow a set man
Nigga this shit violent
This is death of Auto-Tune, moment of silence
That same year, the band Death Cab for Cutie showed up at the Grammys wearing blue ribbons to raise awareness, they told MTV, about “rampant Auto-Tune abuse.”
The protests came too late, though. The lid to Pandora’s box had been lifted. Music producers everywhere were installing the software.

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37 Adorable And Unexpected Easter Egg DIYs

You've been painting your eggs basic pastels for way too long. Time to crack (HA) that less-than-exciting tradition once and for all.

1. Stamped Easter Eggs

Use your favorite stamp set and make all the egg puns you can imagine. Get the instructions here.

Source: lovelyindeed.com

2. Decoupage Easter Eggs

This is a great, small-surface-area way to try decoupage if you've never done it before (and an easy way to impress everyone if you have). Directions here.

Source: bywilma.com

3. Paper Napkin Decoupage Easter Eggs

This is even easier, since all you need are napkins. Directions here.

Source: marthastewart.com

4. Glittery Easter Eggs

Dr. Seuss would be proud. Directions here.

Source: apumpkinandaprincess.com

5. Washi Tape Easter Eggs

Hey cool, yet one more thing you can cover in washi tape. Directions here.

Source: lovelyindeed.com

6. Chalkboard Easter Eggs

Ditto chalkboard paint. Directions here.

Source: oleanderandpalm.com

7. Ombre Easter Eggs

And ombre. Directions here.

Source: elhadadepapel.blogspot.com

8. Silk-Tie-Dyed Easter Eggs

This is a super cool and easy trick; just don't use a tie anybody would actually miss. Directions here.

Source: ourbestbites.com

9. Crochet Easter Egg Holder

All eggs deserve sweaters. Directions here.

Source: lvlyblog.com

10. Pantone Easter Eggs

You don't even have to stick to Emerald 17-5641, Pantone's Color of the Year. Find out how to make your own from How About Orange.

Source: howaboutorange.blogspot.com

11. Onion-Skin-Dyed Easter Eggs

Pay homage to Nature. Full tutorial here.

Source: scissorsandspoons.com

12. Gilded Easter Eggs

Pay homage to whatever fairy tale has that goose that lays golden eggs. Directions here.

Source: studiodiy.com

13. Watercolor Easter Eggs

Directions here.

Source: spoonforkbacon.com

14. Sharpie Doodle Easter Eggs

You totally know how to do this already.

Source: alisaburke.blogspot.com

15. Easter Egg Love Note

Again with the egg puns. (I was going to write "egg-gain" but I didn't because I care about you.) From Marta Writes.

Source: martawrites.com

16. Knitted Easter Eggs

Bonus: even if you drop them all, they won't shatter. Pattern available from The Purl Bee.

Source: purlbee.com

17. Dipped Wooden Easter Eggs

Neither will these. Directions here.

Source: sixandahalfstitches.typepad.com

18. Ink-Stamped Easter Eggs

Tutorial here (in German).

Source: neuerstoff.knobz.de

19. Embroidered Easter Eggs

This project involves a drill and a whole lot of precision, but the results are completely adorable. Directions from Design Sponge.

Source: designsponge.com

20. Gold-Dipped Easter Eggs

Directions here.

Source: fabulouskblog.com

21. Peep Cake Pops

So cute that you won't want to eat them. Alternatively, so cute that you'll derive a twisted sense of pleasure from eating them. Directions here.

Source: iambaker.net

22. Glitter-filled Easter Egg

Makes for ideal glitterbombing. Directions here.

Source: ohhappyday.com

23. Dalek Easter Egg

By Nancy Sims.

Source: pugno_muliebriter

24. Easter Egg Cupcakes

MAGIC. Directions here.

Source: cupcakeproject.com

25. KISS Easter Eggs

These are literally perfect.

Source: jezzbean.wordpress.com

26. Easter Surprise Eggs

FInd out how to make these here.

Source: notmartha.org

27. Temporary Tattoo Easter Eggs

This is seriously the coolest, easiest egg-decorating trick ever. Directions from Country Living.

28. Natural-Plant-Dyed Easter Eggs

Carrots, blueberries, spinach and even red wine can all become dye. Find out how to easily and cheaply make your own here.

Source: ecocrazymom.com

29. Easter Egg Lunch

Pack yours here.

Source: kailochic.blogspot.com

30. Easter Egg Votives

Perfect for when the egg hunt is over, you've changed out of your Sunday best, and you're ready to chow down on some chocolate by candlelight. Directions here.

Source: marthastewart.com

31. Fabric-Wrapped Easter Eggs

It looks just as pretty while you're making it as when it's done. Directions here.

Source: 1dogwoof.com

32. Yarn-Wrapped Easter Eggs

Directions here.

Source: theremsnyders.blogspot.com

33. Silhouette Easter Eggs

Give the Victorians some props. Directions here.

Source: rookno17.com

34. Reverse-Silhouette Easter Eggs

And the reverse-Victorians. Directions here.

Source: lepapierstudio.com

35. Felted Easter Eggs

The only drawback with these cuties is that you won't be able to stop petting them. WEIRD. Directions here.

Source: aswellplacetodwell.com

36. Eggshell Planter

Full tutorial here.

Source: lilliedale.blogspot.com

37. Dip-Dyed Easter Eggs

If you can't bring yourself to give up the pastels, punch them up this way. Directions here.

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