The selfie craze reached a new milestone Monday evening when Oxford Dictionaries announced that the Internet-born noun was its international Word of the Year.
The word selfie, “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website,” beat out other internet words like ‘twerk’, ‘Bitcoin’, and ‘binge-watch’ to earn its 2013 title.
Once an obscure word, the selfie craze has become widely popular in the English language with a 17,000 percent use increase over the past year, according to Oxford Dictionaries editors. “Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research program, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year,” Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said in a statement.
Chelsea resident Robert Samuel has made a business off lazy New Yorkers, hanging tight for those desperate for Cronuts or the latest Apple iPhone but unwilling to wait.
“People want these things like it’s the end of the world,” Samuel, 38, told The Post. “When I show up to their offices with a sleeping bag in one hand and the Cronuts in another, they know they’re getting their money’s worth.”
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Samuel rakes in up to $300 a week by lingering in the outrageous line outside Soho’s Dominique Ansel Bakery. For $60 on weekdays, he picks up two of the croissant-donut hybrids and delivers them to clients. That’s $240 for eight Cronuts — which cost $5 apiece.
He’s usually first in line when he arrives at 5 a.m., and soon has buddies who fall in line. Because there’s a two-pastry-per-person limit, he hires friends to idle in lawn chairs for larger orders.
Samuel launched his company — called SOLD Inc., or Same Ole Line Dudes — last fall after losing his job. A former AT&T salesman, Samuel posted a Craigslist ad offering to wait for the iPhone 5 for $100.
That’s when he realized line-sitting could be a part-time job. Out-of-towners have hired him to wait for “Saturday Night Live” tickets from midnight to 7 a.m. and to hold their places for concerts.
Officer Jeremy Henwood of the San Diego Police Department was also a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve who had just returned from a one year deployment in Afghanistan — he had also served two tours in Iraq. Coming home proved to be more dangerous than his service in war zones.
In August of 2011 he was shot and killed as he sat in his patrol car at a traffic light. The shooter, 23 year-old Dejon Marquee White, pulled up along side his car and shot him in the head with a shotgun. There was no provocation, he simply wanted to die and had decided to commit ‘suicide by cop.’ He got his wish, a short time later police tracked him down and he was killed in a shootout.
What was not known at the time of Officer Henwood’s death was that only minutes before he had stopped at a McDonald’s nearby to get something to eat and while he was there he had performed a random act of kindness for a young boy who he had never met before.
While standing at the counter in that McDonald’s he was approached by 13 year-old Davian Tinsley who asked if he could get a dime to buy some cookies. Officer Henwood took out his wallet and bought the cookies for him, asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Davian says that he told him that he wanted to be an NBA star to which Henwood replied, “Well you’ve got to work hard for that.”
When sunlike stars run out of fuel, they explode in a series of pulses, throwing off much of their mass in the form of a giant shell of gas called a planetary nebula. What remains of the star is a superdense white dwarf star at the center. The star’s planets, if any, are shattered by the blast. This could be the fate of Earth.
The technology in Iron Man is getting a step closer to reality thanks to the United States military. The Army has commissioned a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, which would provide the wearer with superhuman abilities like night vision, enhanced strength, and protection from gunfire.
Each suit would have an on-board computer that would be able to instantly respond to certain situations and provide the user with enhanced situational awareness. According to the press release, the suit may use liquid armor, currently under development at MIT, which has the ability to transform from a “liquid to solid in milliseconds when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied.” The goal is full-body ballistic protection, theoretically allowing the wearer to literally walk through a stream of bullets. A panel that rests against the skin would be able to detect and respond to the body’s core temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, and hydration levels. The suit would also provide basic life support such as heat, air, and oxygen.
The Army isn’t the first to be inspired by the technology in Iron Man. Elon Musk created a lab based on the movie using a Leap Motion controller, an Oculus Rift, and a projector. While he admits that the setup doesn’t yet have much practical value, he believes that we’re on the cusp on major design and manufacturing breakthroughs. If the new Army commando suit comes to fruition, it could be a big step forward for defense technology.
“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand…” ~ Michele Bachmann, praying for Armegeddon
Rep. Michele Bachmann believes that we’re living in the End Times. Truth be told, so do I, but I’m not about to blame the President. She claims to have proof.
On Saturday she spread the “Gospel According to Michele Bachmann” on a Christian radio program called ‘Understanding The Times’. On the show she said,
“President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition. Your listeners, U.S. taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including al Qaeda.”
Honestly, if selling arms to the enemy was a prerequisite to the coming of End Times, America would have been Armageddon Central tens of presidential administrations ago. Weapons making and selling is big business around here Michele.
Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman points out though, that Bachmann — who on several occasions during her presidential campaign, has spoken of the second coming of Christ — may have been stretching the truth just a bit in her accusations against Obama.
“The Minnesota congresswoman referred to a decision by the Obama administration to allow vetted Syrian rebels not affiliated with terrorist organizations to help them resist chemical weapons attacks, which was spurred by the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons on civilians,” Tashman wrote. “While the administration’s move is only related to non-lethal, defensive and protective aid, Bachmann falsely claimed that ‘President Obama waived a ban on selling arms to terrorists.'”
Indeed, it was only a matter of time before Bachmann would come this close to calling the President The Anti-Christ. And no doubt there are many on the Christian far right and left who will believe her. But Bachmann and others have not come to this far gone conclusion all by themselves.
Hollywood assists a great deal in prophesying the End of The World coming just about around the time America’s has a Black man as President:
Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) the calm, authoritative President who orders the use of nuclear weapons to destroy a comet on collision course with Earth in 1998’s Deep Impact.
Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover), tasked with the minor job of saving humanity from annihilation in 2012.
Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood), the newly elected president who finds himself saved from assassination by extra-terrestrial means in the show The Event.
And how about President Lindberg (Tom Lister Jr), the World President in Luc Besson’s 1997 movie The Fifth Element who was working against the clock to solve a riddle that would save earth from total destruction.
Truth be told these Black fictional Presidents fared pretty well in the face of pending “end-of-world” scenarios. If you can believe in the wisdom and prophetic abilities of Hollywood producers, than I’d say to Michele and the rest of the world, “Don’t worry. We’re in pretty good hands after all.
“Keep Calm and Carry On” was a propaganda poster produced by the Ministry of Information for the British government in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War. The intention was to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of a widely predicted mass air attack on major cities. However the poster was never publicized and little was known of it.
The “Keep Calm” poster was the third in a series of three. The other two, “Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might” and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory”, were issued and used across Britain during the first weeks of the war. They were designed and reproduced to be ready and in place within 24 hours of the outbreak.
The posters were designed with an icon of a “Tudor” crown on top (a widely used symbol of government authority) and the slogans were created by civil servants, emphasizing the duty of the individual Brit citizen and doubling as a rallying war-cry.
In 2000, a British shopkeeper, rummaging through a box of used books bought at an auction, uncovered one of the original limited edition posters…
…and the rest, as they say, is history.
Much of the warlike-ness behind the design of the poster has been removed now that modern media has gotten hold of it and you can see many variations on the original idea up and down the online social media ladder ranging from the idiotic to the sublime. There’s even a site where you can create your own “Keep Calm” poster.
Check the serial number on your $1, $5 or whatever bill you have. If the serial number is considered to be a “Fancy Serial Number,” there are people who will pay you thousands for that bill.
At CoolSerialNumbers.com, Nashville musician and currency collector Dave Undis brings together like-minded digit-heads who have little interest in the history of money or even the denomination of a given note. Instead they are after certain patterns and series that fall under the flexible heading of “fancy” serial numbers.
Low serial numbers, from 00000001 to 00000100, are sought after, as well as palindromes (23599532), solids (with a digit that repeats eight times), seven-of-a-kinds (66666665), ladders (45678901) and important dates (12071941). The criteria get even more obscure from there: Undis is seeking a pi note, with the number 31415927. But the more apparently jumbled the digits, the less likely it is that anyone with the bill in their wallet will ever notice.
Which is too bad when you consider how much these fancy numbers can sell for—quite a bit more than the bill’s face value, in some cases. Right now, on Undis’ website, you can buy a $1 bill with the serial number 00000002 for a whopping $2,500. If that sounds like chump change, consider that a $5 bill with the number 33333333 goes for $13,000.
Check out their wanted list. If your dollar has the combinations listed here, then lucky you!
And he swears his trip has nothing to do with requesting the freedom of Kenneth Bae, an imprisoned missionary whose health has deteriorated recently.
The former basketball star Dennis Rodman returned Tuesday to North Korea, where he plans “to see my friend” Kim Jong-un, the dictator whose country until recently was threatening to annihilate the United States with nuclear weapons.
Mr. Rodman said in Beijing that he was planning a five-day visit to the North but played down speculation that he would try to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who has been jailed there since late last year after being detained on North Korean soil.
“I’m not going to North Korea to discuss freeing Kenneth Bae,” Mr. Rodman, a Basketball Hall of Fame member, told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I’m just going there on another basketball diplomacy tour.”
“Sometimes it takes seeing your hometown–especially when its a big bustling metropolis like New York City–in the eyes of someone not from there to show you the wonderful things you take for granted.”
At least, that’s the case with me.
My pal Orlando was visiting me from Indianapolis this past July 4th weekend and as usual with him, he wanted to know and explore everything about NYC; where’s the best place to get a bagel; who’ll be voted in as next mayor; did you get caught in Supestorm Sandy; where do we go for the best pastrami 0n rye sandwich; where’s that place in Harlem where I heard you can buy a dashiki; is the Statue of Liberty easy to get to; what’s the next stop on this train; is that what the girls will be wearing this summer: shorts that look like panties; ever ate at this restaurant before; are we going to see the fireworks tonight? I’d have to goggle most things of course, but I secretly admit to myself that his excitement gets me excited about this old town. My grind is usually wake up at 6am, go to work, come home, eat dinner, turn on the tv for some white noise as I work on my computer, then promptly in bed by 2am (lol!).
I usually oblige my friend of everything but the one area I wasn’t at all comfortable or even wanted to go to was the World Trade Center memorial. Orlando is a middle school history teacher and he wanted to see the new buildings and the September 11 memorial to incorporate in a lesson for his students. All I knew about the memorial was that it had a water feature. That was it. I never really thought to go there either. I know of only two people who were at WTC who survived 9/11, and only one of them personally. I, like many New Yorkers. have let that event slip into my deep subconscious where all the other ugly, frightening memories wind up to be hashed out in my later, more reflective senior years. Or by a psychiatrist.
When I tell you that the moment I walked onto the concrete promenade of the site I was struck by the feeling of it being sacred ground, I kid you not. The feeling stayed with me the whole time I was there. With still plenty of construction going on in gated areas around the park, I still zeroed in on the sound of cascading water in an open area. We walked in the direction of signs that pointed towards the memorial which I was surprised to see was a gargantuan square hole dropped down several feet into the ground with sheets of water falling into it from all four sides.
The water pooled like shimmering glass on the floor of the well, then flowed into a square canyon in the middle. From any angle that you stood around the monument you couldn’t see the bottom of that middle canyon, giving you the impression that it was endless.
Mixed emotions of grief, mourning, endings and new beginnings flooded over me as I stood mesmerized by the simple cyclical process of the water. I thought about the cleansing effect of water, the cool smoothness of the dark granite base as the water rushed over it, the endless cascade of water — like tears — and the bottomless well that would never be filled no matter how much water flowed into it.
I thought about Life and Death as this never-ending cycle and how the two things are what unites everyone and everything on this planet.
And I thought about how little we really know about anything.
The names of the hundreds of victims of 9/11 who died at the WTC are engraved into the surrounding wide metallic railing and people took to sticking small American flags into the crevices. There was also a twin monument yards away on the other end of the promenade as were short backless concrete benches scattered all around. The site was still incomplete, but you can see that it will be beautifully serene when it’s completed. It was good for my soul to see something beautiful emerge from something so horrid. My only regret was that we couldn’t stay to see the monuments lit up at nightfall, but my friend had other parts of my great town that he wanted me to see.
He was always good like that.
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