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Wired’s How-To Wiki lists some easy tricks for doing math in your head. Because you don’t always have a calculator handy. And it’s good to work your brain once in a while. (via lifehacker)

I love this - it’s like a defiant joy. Such celebration in the face of obstacles is always inspiring. But it also reminds me that obstacles themselves are important in life - because don’t they make the joy all that much sweeter?

Immigrant picnics, like immigrant lives, are enjoyed on the run from ever-more repressive police. In Casa de Campo, Madrid’s biggest park, Ecuadorian families come together every Sunday despite harassment by the authorities.

One moment there are hundreds of people thronging the field, music playing, everyone laughing, plátanos frying in skillets of fat, matrons ripping off generous hunks of roasted pork and piling them onto plates with mote (a sort of hominy), avocados and salad…and then suddenly they’re not there. The skillets have disappeared, the butane stoves have vanished, there is no sign of a whole roast pig anywhere, only a certain concentration of mostly Ecuadorian people looking defiantly nonchalant as they wander away. A few women wheel conspicuously large babies in covered carriages. It’s a weekly magic trick.

Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, when Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata was a part of popular culture, may be tempted to simply dismiss it today as a somewhat hokey piece of a cloudy past. I mean, come on — I even remember it printed on a tea towel. It was everwhere.

But I still come across it from time to time, and when I stop to read it, I find it remains relevant almost a century after it was written. Here are my favorite bits; you can read the full text at onherway.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
[…]
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
[…]
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
[…]
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be
[…]
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

The Bloody Creek structure is one of only three low-angled craters known to exist. It is only the 177th impact crater discovered on Earth.

Here’s a collection of high-quality 3D Halloween printables. Print and build a realistic, lifesize skull, a haunted house, masks, boxes, playsets or board games - even a mechanical bat and a skeleton that seems to follow you with his eyes.