Lower Lake,California Rocky Fire

8 The sun rises over an area smothered with smoke from the Rocky Fire in Lower Lake, California. Over 900 firefighters are battling the fire has burnt over 15,000 acres since it started on Wednesday. The fire is currently five percent contained and has destroyed three homes.
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World's best whisky is being sent to age in space

A Japanese distillery is sending some of its world-renowned whisky into outer space. Tokyo-based Suntory, a brewing and distillery company, announced today that it will send six samples of its whiskies and other alcohols to the International Space Station (ISS) next month, in order to observe the effects of zero-gravity on the aging process.
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Racism on Camera

The recent wave of police violence isn't anything new. It's just been caught on video.
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The Terribly True Tale of the Youngest Girl Ever Executed in America

Today, the crimes of Hannah Ocuish would be readily explained, if not outright forgiven. Her childhood incorporated all the clichés and every demographic of the youthful offender: poverty, neglect, ignorance, discrimination. Taken together, they ensured that Hannah would be a naughty little girl indeed.
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MONSTER Tornado Intercepted in Manitoba, Canada!

**WARNING bad language** NEW video: Dominator 3 intercepting MONSTER wedge tornado in southwest Manitoba!! This violent tornado ripped up pavement on highway just S of Tilston, as we measured a 122 mph wind on the south side in the RFD.
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Scientology Private Schools & Sea Org Recruitment (2015)

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The Week's Best Photojournalism (7/31)

In some of the week's most striking images, a synchronized swimming team performs, clouds float over a Buddhist academy in China, and more...
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Alan Cheuse, Novelist And Longtime NPR Contributor, Dies At 75

The author and critic died Friday of injuries sustained in a car accident. For years, he was the voice of NPR's literature commentary — and, for many, the "guide to a very exciting world."
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The Terribly True Tale of the Youngest Girl Ever Executed in America

Today, the crimes of Hannah Ocuish would be readily explained, if not outright forgiven. Her childhood incorporated all the clichés and every demographic of the youthful offender: poverty, neglect, ignorance, discrimination. Taken together, they ensured that Hannah would be a naughty little girl indeed.
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Privacy Activists Aren't Happy with Windows 10

That’s an awful lot of data you’re requesting, Microsoft.A healthy 14 million devices are now running Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest operating system, which was released on July 29. That shouldn’t be too surprising: it was a free upgrade for users of Windows 7 and Windows 8, and reviews have been largely positive from both mainstream critics and PC enthusiasts. Privacy activists, however, are less impressed.
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Blue Moon At Statue of Liberty

The Blue Moon effect refers to the second full moon in a calendar month.
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​U.S. District Judge rules mobile-phone tracking does require a warrant

It's a tug of war for cell-phone privacy as U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rules mobile-phone tracking does requires a warrant.
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Here is why it makes sense to reopen access to Pell grants for prisoners

President Obama wants to reopen access to Pell grants to prisoners. Studies show when men and women enroll in college programs, they are less likely to return to prison.
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Meet the Male Writers Who Hide Their Gender to Attract Female Readers

Women writers have long disguised their gender hoping to get taken seriously, but a few male authors pretend to be female to hopefully sell more books.
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Vegetable Calligraphy

Showing that you don't need expensive tools to do calligraphy. Actually anything will do!
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San Francisco Earthquake 1906 - no sound

Black and white video of the San Francisco Earthquake
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Roasted Zucchini with Anchoïade

Here’s an easy way to enliven fresh zucchini: First, sprinkle it with olive oil and fresh thyme and roast it in a hot oven. While the zucchini cooks, prepare the potent three-ingredient topping mad...
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Revised AP history standards will push 'American exceptionalism'

Culture conservatives win battle in ‘anti-American’ history debate as board approves plan to include section in advanced placement courses
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Mike Pence's Investigation Into Planned Parenthood Finds Zero Violations

The false and debunked claims that Planned Parenthood is selling aborted fetus body parts just got even more debunked.
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US photographer's quest to solve vintage photo mystery

A US photographer launches an internet hunt to find two women pictured on an old roll of film she discovered in a second-hand store.
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Rosalina by Highway-To-Heck on DeviantArt

so i was playing galaxy a lot lately
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Jalapeño Popper Mac

When I ripped open a package containing Homeroom restaurant's The Mac + Cheese Cookbook, an eager crowd quickly formed around my desk. My desk neighbors couldn't wait to flip through the cookbook to see if their favorite mac and cheese recipe had made the cut.
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College Board Caves To Conservative Pressure, Changes AP U.S. History Curriculum

After complaints from conservatives about a lack of founding fathers, the AP American History standards will change.
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An Introvert’s Guide to Eating and Drinking Out

Most of the time, introverts love an evening out. The true introvert is as comfortable alone in a busy restaurant or bar as they are anywhere else. And, if you are lucky, on any given evening, a polite nameless person will step out the crowd, hand you a menu, and slip away. You will look down at the choices and smile, knowing that this is the beginning of another wonderful time spent in the company of Emily Dickinson, Jonathan Franzen, or Donna Tartt.
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What paying fast food workers a living wage would do to the price of a Big Mac

Would you pay 17 extra cents for a Big Mac if it meant the person who prepared it could earn a living wage? What about an extra 30 cents each time you ate out at any fast food restaurant? These are the small prices we would have to pay on average to ensure that fast food workers around the country earned an hourly-wage of $15, according to a new study by researchers at Purdue University's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
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Oh God! The lord’s my sex guru: Pious perverts, quasi-incestuous misogyny and the twisted world of religious sexual repression

Evangelicals are penning sex manuals. The purity movement oddballs are on the move. It's all deeply disturbing.
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'Death Ray' skyscraper is wreaking havoc on London for a few totally insane reasons

A giant in London is melting cars, frying bike seats, and scorching sidewalks. But it's not Godzilla. It's a "Walkie Talkie" — the nickname for the 38-story skyscraper on Fenchurch Street in central London. The glare reflected from the glass-fronted building was so strong that people changed its name to "death ray" skyscraper.
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Pearl by serpentenial on DeviantArt

did a nice pearl drawing COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN AND NEEDED
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A Renaissance painting reveals how breeding changed watermelons

"It's fun to go to art museums and see the still-life pictures, and see what our vegetables looked like 500 years ago," James Nienhuis told me. In many cases, it's our only chance to peer into the past, since we can't preserve vegetables for hundreds of years.
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What Happens To Your Body 60 Minutes After Drinking A Can Of Coke

You’ve seen Coca-Cola mixed with molten lead, dropped into liquid nitrogen and even consumed by a river of molten lava. But what happens to your body after you’ve drunk the sugar-laden beverage? After reading this, you may reconsider picking up a can.
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The First Humans to Live to the Age of 150 Are Already Alive

Human lifespans are now longer than ever. Currently, the average 65-year-old can expect to live an additional 19.3 years compared to just 1950, when their same-age counterpart would only live approximately 13 more years, according to the National Institute on Aging. And the population of adults 85 and older is projected to increase 351 percent by 2050. Think that’s astonishing? The first humans expected to live to age 150 are already alive, according to experts on aging and longevity.
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California Says Water Use Fell by 27 Percent in June

Water use in California fell by 27 percent in June, passing the conservation target set by Gov. Jerry Brown during the drought, regulators said Thursday. Data released by the State Water Resources Control Board shows 265 out of 411 local agencies hit or nearly reached savings targets. ...
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Art as a Form of Active Prayer and What Writers Really Labor For

“Immerse yourself in the common ground of the universe so that your true voice — not the egoistic voice that clamors vainly for power (for it will ruin you if you listen to it) — your authentic voice … may be heard.” Why do we humans create — why do artists make art, why do writers write? Pablo Neruda gave a beautiful answer in his metaphor of the hand through the fence. For Joan Didion, the impulse is a vital gateway to her own mind.
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McConnell Voted To Legalize The Practice He Now Condemns

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fast-tracked a bill to defund Planned Parenthood on Friday because of an undercover video of a Planned Parenthood doctor discussing the donation of fetal tissue after abortions. But McConnell was one of many Republicans who voted to lift a ban on fetal tissue donations after abortions in 1993 -- the very move that legalized Planned Parenthood's actions.
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After capitalism, what comes next? For a start, ethics

While some find it hard to imagine life after capitalism, the digitally connected people of the world have begun embracing a new set of ethical concerns requiring new types of economies.
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One Two Three, by Michael Loughran

The future is treebound in its iron feathers, lazy, possibly indigenous, mute as a roach and as scampery, so I pick up your sunglasses and put them down, I’m enthusiastic about sunglasses and saying your name in full— the high river in me would take a chainsaw to every tree and that’s the part that belongs to you.
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Painting With Land

Terraced rice fields are seen from above in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam. Rice is one of the country’s key exports. Photograph by Tuan Guitare.
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The Incredible Versatility Of Photographer John Dominis

Over the course of a few decades at Life magazine, Dominis not only worked in just about every photographic genre but also seemed to have mastered them. He died Monday at age 92, leaving behind an archive that's hard to comprehend.
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iTunes Really Is That Bad

It’s not just unreliable. Apple’s signature media software makes bizarre, arbitrary design choices, which are uncharacteristic of the world’s most valuable company.
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The Life and Untimely Death of Technology's Weirdest Logo

In 1988 Timothy Wilkinson, a British designer at frog design in Silicon Valley, was tasked with creating a logo for the biggest peripheral maker in the world: Logitech. The company kept Wilkinson’s logo around for almost 30 years. And while it long seemed weird to me, it’s also completely brilliant.
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A Low Poly Wolf, in watercolors!

I painted this as part of a series of woodland creatures :)
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Which paintings were the most creative of their time? An algorithm may hold the answers

Humans are no longer the only judges of creativity. Computers can perform the same task – and may even be more objective. From Picasso’s The Young Ladies of Avignon to Munch’s The Scream, what was it about these paintings that arrested people’s attention upon viewing them, that cemented them in the canon of art history as iconic works?
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Jerusalem Gay Pride: Six stabbed 'by ultra-Orthodox Jew'

Six people are stabbed at a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem and police arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man they say attacked marchers in 2005.
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Italian Makeup Artist Luca Luce Paints Optical Illusions on His Hands

Italian artist Luca Luce began his creative career as a designer, before eventually settling into the field of makeup art. The profession attracted him for its opportunities to create beauty and give other people a form of security. Now, turning the brush onto himself, Luce uses his creative skills to make optical illusions out of his left hand.
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Do Fish Names Encourage Fishy Business?

Legally, a single fish species can go by many names from sea to plate, and different fish can go by the same name. An environmental group says that hampers efforts to combat illegal fishing and fraud.
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The Golden Age Of Cocktails: When Americans Learned To Love Mixed Drinks

The Manhattan, the daiquiri, the martini. These classic cocktails were all born between the 1860s and Prohibition, an era when American bartending got inventive — and theatrical.
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Work Advice: How to handle a boss who puts religion first at the office

His habits and mannerisms make some workers uncomfortable. But are those habits illegal?
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Photos of Crete in the Rain

Taken with my old lumix
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Can this rogue fact-checker make a difference on Twitter?

Behind the wave of wildly popular science and history social media feeds, such as @DoYouScience, @oldpicsarchive, and @ScienceAllDay, there is a rogue fact-checker calling out the fakes. Paulo Ordoveza tweets at @PicPedant, an account he uses to challenge mislabeled, fraudulent, and PhotoShopped images that go viral.
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The molecular medley that gives bacon its rich flavour

It’s the chemistry of the meat, the chemistry of the smoking and the chemistry of the cooking that combine to make bacon smell and taste irresistible.
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