artistsintheclassroom3:

Apologies.

Sometimes dance class doesn’t go so well…. A lot of teachers have students write apology letters when that’s the case. While I appreciate the gesture, I wonder about forced or obligatory apologies. Do they foster reflection and support ettiquette? Or do they encourage kids to be disingenuous? I guess like everything, it all depends on how the teacher frames it.

I usually receive a handful of these letters a year. Above are some samples.

anonyops:

Distributed denial of service (DDOS) is a favorite tactic of Anonymous. While the media likes to call DDOS a form of ‘hacking’, this is at best a technical misunderstanding. DDOS does no permanent damage and doesn’t involve breaking into servers or stealing data. Rather, it simply overwhelms a…

From Fashionista:

Models–their size, their age, even their gender–are provoking a lot of polarizing discussion lately. And plus-size model advocates (and their “real-woman” counterparts) are adding food for thought–or fuel to the fire, depending on your perspective. In its January issue, Plus Model Magazine just published an editorial lensed by Victoria Janashvili and featuring plus-size model Katya Zharkova. In it, Katya, who is totally naked, is surrounded by various facts and figures about size and models. 

The spread also shows Katya embracing and laying on a much smaller model. We have some of the images below, but you can check out the spread here. The whole effect is pretty provocative, especially when taken in tandem with the following slogans, which are printed on the page with the images:

-Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less.

- Ten years ago plus-size models averaged between size 12 and 18. Today the need for size diversity within the plus-size modeling industry continues to be questioned. The majority of plus-size models on agency boards are between a size 6 and 14, while the customers continue to express their dissatisfaction.

- Most runway models meet the Body Mass Index physical criteria for Anorexia.

- 50% of women wear a size 14 or larger, but most standard clothing outlets cater to sizes 14 or smaller.

Commenters on Plus Model‘s blog ran the gamut–from pointing out that there’s an obesity epidemic to noting that anorexia is a mental health disorder, not just an issue of BMI. Many just wanted decent fashion options for all sizes. No matter what your take on it, the message is still that size matters.

Happy birthday @elspethjane! (Taken with instagram)

eddiemarkets:

YEAR of The DRAGON :D

nprfreshair:

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Dragon’s Breath (by Legohaulic)

YEAR of The DRAGON :D

a luxury version of the suggy: Betabrand Vagisoft blanket - softer than the anus of a silkworm.

i also want Betabrand to make a vagisoft scarf. I will buy a vagisoft in June 2013. 

(via Vagisoft Blanket - Betabrand)

The only excuse that Wired UK has for not making videos embeddable is that they are waiting for Ben’s speech next year where he will tap dance - then EVERYONE will be embedding the shit out of it. 

Dreamwork China (by Cineresie)

A ten piece wardrobe for 365 days from Anita Hawkins of We Are Ultra

I’m so excited that An Xiao Mina introduced me to Anita Hawkins, the designer extraordinaire of We Are Ultra. This video shows off Anita’s Ultra 10 line. I can’t wait to own my own Ultra 10! 

I am also going to take up Anita’s Six Items of Less (SIOL) challenge - wear 6 items in 1 months.  Check out her weekly diary and video of how she managed to accessorize her way through her SiOL challenge.

Since I’m doing fieldwork, creating outfits for myself is always a design challenge. I’m always trying to figure how do I move seamlessly from fieldwork in villages to fieldwork with college students to meetings with clients and to international flights with just 1 backpack? I’m going to document my process and put it up on Ethnography Matters! 

Thanks Anita!

World champion masturbation - from Japan!  (by vprometropolis)

I love that the cat is climbing all over him while he is masturbating. How do you transfer his masturbation skills to something else that requires that same kind of focused attention?

How can we think about giving people tools to understand digital data the same way people are given tools to fix their bike?  - tricia

humanscalecities:

Wow! How many times I needed one of this!

engenderandendear:

yokefellow:

All the tools are still there! Full marks for Brisbane!

Yay, Brisbane! 

Ayman just blogged about a memory that I almost thought was a dream! I met up with Ayman, Roger, James, Lydia, and Lisa in Beijing for amazing 羊肉泡馍. Ayman chronicles our food adventure below. 

shamurai:

For we on 羊肉泡馍 hath fed…

Recently, I was asked if I had any New Year’s resolutions. Without giving it too much thought, I responded, “Not really, I prefer to make rash and whimsical life decisions year round.”  A few days later, after some consideration, I thought about “what would I like to do more or less of in the new year?”  There was one singular outlier example that I knew should happen more often; epic meals with friends.  I’m not talking about those great meals one can have often…I’m talking epic.

The 2011 meal involves a one Tricia Wang (who you might remember from the Great Passover of 2010) and Beijing (where she assembled a small six person crew of people to eat some HuiChinese Muslim food).  I only knew one other person, so I knew 1/2 the group counting myself.  The stage was set.  James, Tricia and I met up in Beijing’s Embassy Row and headed out via subway to the western part of the city.  At the restaurant, we met up with Roger and Lydia (Lisa was going to be late) and sat down.  Tricia began ordering in Chinese at the speed of summer lightning and I, armed with a 10-22 mm lens, began snapping photos.  Now, right about here, Tricia said something to the waiter which caused me to freeze up:

In Chinese she was talking about 羊肉泡馍 vs 牛肉泡馍 (basically lamb vs beef). I stopped taking photos and said, “羊肉!” and my mind was transported back to 2001.  Stumbling around Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter, I found this man selling something from a little street shop.  I was hungry, whatever he was selling under 1 USD, and I knew fell into my dietary restrictions.  What I got was a big steaming delicious bowl of 羊肉泡馍 (or Yáng Ròu Pào Mó), served with some fat looking, kinda hard pita bread.  Instinctually, I tore the bread into my soup and began to eat. In the 4 short days in the dead of winter I was in Xi’an, I ate from this guy 7 times.  So many times that if he saw me at end of the street, he’d have a bowl ready for me by the time I made it to him.

For 10 years, I searched for this dish States side.  Never did anyone have it.  I was told by Chinese people that it doesn’t taste good or that it’s smelly.  Once, in a Milpitas CA restaurant, they told me they had it but what they handed me was so not Yáng Ròu Pào Mó.  I had resolved to believe this meal, this incredible mutton in a clear garlic broth, was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, a distant memory of a dream I once had many years ago…up until Tricia said 羊肉泡馍 to the waiter. 

China being what is is, nobody orders just one dish and remember this is a Hui minority Muslim joint…there ain’t a slab of pork in sight.  What you get is an incredible variant of Chinese food clearly inspired by the arabian silk road.  Many things came out as our appetizers:  Two types of soup dumplings (one beef, one lamb), some pickles cucumbers, some greens, some rice & grain soup.

Then a platter of lamb kabobs landed:

And the wolves in all of us began to eat.

Once we started to slow down, we were brought individually numbered bowls and little pieces of hardend pita looking bread.  We were to break up our own bread into our own bowls for the soup to be poured over.  

Now, you might ask, “why don’t they just do this in the kitchen?”  Simple, to do it right, it’s a pain in the ass and takes forever.  You need to crumble it up into little even pieces—a process that takes some considerable time.  If they do it for you in the back, they have this little machine break and grind it down into a non-uniform glob of bread.  No cook respects that.  As Tricia put it, we can’t let the machines win this one…it has got to be non-cyborg 羊肉泡馍…humans still matter…people matter! Plus when you offer to do it yourself, the cooks will send you your soup with the best cuts of meat in the stew; it shows the kitchen that you know what you’re doing when you order this soup. Respect yo! Things being as they are, and we being who we are, James and I got super competitive to see who could do the better job (I won, Tricia disagrees).

And then we wait.  Thinking I was taking a closeup of Tricia’s nose, Lisa took my camera for a moment to check out the lens for herself:

“I’m moderately impressed” she responded in a very British quip. Then our soup landed and silence engulfed the table as the tide rolls in after a storm.

And we ate and ate and took group photos, and told fun stories:

Sported our serious shades and giggled even more:

The best part, yes even better than the food, was the incredible, smart and amazing diverse company.  Each of us totally unique, friendly, and funny.  I noticed our shoes and pants described the party well:

Oh ya, and we stopped for a Uyghur snack on the way back to Chaoyang, were all smiles on the subway:

And were still giddy and jumping for joy for the rest of the day:

So, for a 2012 New Years resolution…more days like this!

slavin:

(via ROBERT LONGO - Works - MEN IN THE CITIES, 1979 - Men in the Cities - Untitled)

Chinglish t-shirt in mall: Then Murdered by FBI to prevent her bite JFK. A collection of vintage designs vinage cars it’s vintage color…replicas of vintage cars. China (Taken with instagram)