I Tell You. You Decide If You Care.

Justin Christopher Justin's Angels of Cosplay (500) 👑  Table of Contents for Justin's Angels of Cosplay Click to Expand, follow the links to the desired chapter. I'll leave a link atop each post within a chapter. I started with "Doctor Who". Is it worth it to do this, if it's helpful to you let me know, comment below! Apologies to Jeremy Jahns. Mixed, Attack on Titan, Death note, random. Star Trek https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/4dPUecfeJZE Xena, Warrior Princess https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/YDgnbNMVhKF Doctor Who https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/YEZGgWJWt4b Star Wars https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/XJbbV7HNfL7 Buffy the Vampire Slayer https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/i78cz9iAs5n Mecha https://plus.google.com/+JustinChristopherTheImageBroker/posts/SePshuMTFtx ...

The Action Network is online organizing tools, like those used by President Obama 's team in 2008 and 2012 (it says so on their site).  The goal is to facilitate grass roots activism by making it easy for activists to find each other, to sponsor or host events, and to just get things done. The Progressive Independents G+ group .  As you'd expect, a lot of people fed up with the DNC, but also just people wanting to organize and figure out how to keep Progressive goals on the political radar against the corporate lobbyists . I'm a little less clear about the Working Families Party, but I have it on good authority that their main goal isn't so much to get their own candidates elected, as to help support and encourage Progressive candidates across the board.  Specifically, they're organizing to pressure President Trump * to help all Americans, and generally do good deeds.** The WFP say: "We need to stick together and defend our allies, fri...

One of the  problems with shopping locally owned businesses, instead of the big chains, is finding the locally owned businesses. Here in Seattle, we have Think Local Seattle  to help find them.

Well, it looks like the American people don't get what we've earned - Johnson and Stein don't seem to be in the second Presidential Debate. Whatever.  Still, here's a chance to upvote on the questions you want to hear Secretary Clinton and Mr Trump respond to in this "townhall format" debate, at the Open Debate Coalition. Looking at the site, it's unclear if they will actually have any impact on the Presidential candidate questions asked, but it's worth a shot.  Whatever their results, they may be able to feed it to the people running the debate, and generate some influence over the actual questions asked, i.e. set the topic and tone, because The People have stated a sense of priorities.

Too damn funny " The Hot Violinist " - uploaded October, 2011.  Went viral, and this young woman is now touring as a professional fiddler, and collaborated on 8 albums.

OMG! Super-easy way to register to vote in Washington state. Go here -  https://weiapplets.sos.wa.gov/MyVote/#/login Login, see your voting history, who your officials are, update your mailing address so you get your vote-by-mail ballot, see where your voting center locations are, etc., etc. Totally awesome website.

Anna J. is a stitch. She has a great sense of humor, and here ideas are actually useful.  She runs a couple of sites, but I think the general idea is dating.  You know, she's a certain age, had a really successful career, got burned out, decided she liked writing, and launched a couple of blogs. Ahem. Anyway. - WingMam ( Blog , Facebook ) (The Facebook link is even funnier when you read the actual URL.)

Windows Server Update Services - the office nerds were bitching about it, and how the maintenance kept failing. Wondering what they were talking about, I looked it up.  Turns out, there's a pretty comprehensive article about how to do maintenance on it, ... that the office nerds had never seen before. So, I figured it might be worth raising the bandwidth a little ;-) The complete guide to Microsoft WSUS and Configuration Manager SUP maintenance

So, every once in a while, I get to play with Visio.  And it comes with a pretty extensive set of stencils. But, every once in a while, they just don't have quite the right one, you know? Enter VisioCafe . - VisioCafe is an independent non-profit web site for the gathering together of IT industry Visio collections. Each collection is copyrighted to its respective owner, and is not the property of VisioCafe. If you would like to host a Visio collection here for free, please contact us at info@VisioCafe.com . Holy crap, they have just about everything and anything you could possibly want (well, if you're a computer nerd, anyway, which happens to be the stencils I'm looking for this week) - and it's all FREE!  And some more Office stencils from Microsoft (over 300, apparently), and some additional tips from Microsoft (of dubious value, since one of the links is broken and redirects to the Visio sales-pitch page, but whatever, it's a place to start). ...

Cosplay is not just a craft, or an artform, it's also performance art! Actually, judging by people like Jessica Nigri or Lex , it is also possible - in extremely rare instances - for it to be profitable. Meanwhile, here is a Top 10 vid to give you an idea of how much work goes into making this a serious profession. And here is an image of Jessica Nigri , just so you know what I mean when I say she takes her cosplay seriously, and is brilliant at it.

only 24 hours left to vote 'Connectibles' now in Tech.Co Startup of the Year Competition. would help us compete in the 50 semifinalists at the Innovate! conference in Silicon Valley. If you find later 10 seconds before the roof collapses :) vote for us here: http://tech.co/vote-startup-west-mountainpacific More info about Connectibles here: https://www.f6s.com/connectibles https://gust.com/companies/connectibles https://angel.co/connectibles/ check out this WSJ article (post acquisition announcement of DSC to Unilever for $1B): http://www.wsj.com/articles/men-its-ok-to-enjoy-shaving-now-1470251643 (Nice validation for Connectibles ) Thank you so much! This came from a friend of mine. I'll clean it up more later, but I wanted to get the word out quick and dirty Come on people, give me more heads up than this, ok?

Fanconi Anemia is a rare genetic disease that causes bone marrow failure and affects the development of healthy blood cells. Harley Marine sought to bring awareness to this rare genetic disorder and to honor those who have fought or are still fighting the disease, by naming the barge Fight Fanconi Anemia . Because, you know, Champer Shipping of Britich Columbia lists an Oil Spill Response page, and people  give their boats all kinds of crazy names, like  Fight Fanconi Anemia. So, there you have it, people at Harley Marine . You have succeeded in raising awareness that this disease exists.  May there some day be a cure for it! Yeah, I totally don't even remember what I was looking for when I found myself on that OSR page, just enjoying seeing what people name their vessels. I mean, there's Fuji Galaxy, Katagalan Wisdom III, Red Cosmos, and World Harmony  among others.  (It begs the question what happened to Katagalan Wisdom I  and II ?) As bes...

Some friends are taking their little princess this weekend to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast at Tacoma's ManeStage Theater.  I love live theater. I love local theater.  I may try to see this ;-)

So, long story short, a doctor gives a friend a prescription for a big bottle of iodine as a topical anti-septic for a chronic wound. I heard blah, blah, blah about iodine and looked it up. Yep, it still kills germs , and no it doesn't hurt you when used in the outside.

I've mentioned before that I'm a gamer girl. I'm also a writer-type person.  That means I create a lot of characters, just for the fun of doing it, to see where different ideas and models might lead. Here are three sites that my gamer and writer friends like to use, as seeds for character background and character name.  Let's face it, coming up with cool names is a bitch, and coming up with interesting backstory is even worse. Random backstory generator - http://www.pbegames.com/lifepath/ . Random name generator - http://www.behindthename.com/random/ . Random job generator - http://writingexercises.co.uk/random-job-generator.php . (Image from boardgamegeek.com )

Okay, who doesn't think exploding cans using nothing but electromagnetism is cool?  Pft, and wait until you see how they explosively compress a quarter using household current and magnets. So, you get Physics Girl and  It's Okay to be Smart . Nerds rule!

So, it turns out there is a term for "phobia about pooping in public bathrooms." Parcopresis – fear of defecating in public places. Paruresis – fear of urinating in public places. Panic attacks/Panic disorder – fear of being unable to use a toilet in a public place. Specific phobia – specific fear of a toilet or toilet related situation. Source Okay, I knew about being uncomfortable, and going away and coming back when no one else is around, but a phobia? When I say "that ain't healthy," turns out I'm not saying something funny. I mean, it really is possible to damage the muscles, screw up natural body signals, and poison ourselves by holding in the poop. ...just because we're afraid someone else will think "Wow, good thing I've never in the thousands of times I've pooped, ever made a sound like that!" (Someone who poops once per day, poops 365 times per year, or 3650 times per decade, or over TEN THOUSAND tim...

If  you waste a lot of time at a computer, then you know how much screen capture utilities totally rock. One of my favorites is Greenshot , as it makes "capture the region I specify" as easy as pressing the Print Screen button. However, this is such an awesome function, that other apps like DropBox and OneDrive will also do this, and that means they overwrite the Greenshot settings in the Registry (or something), thus wiping out Greenshot's ability to respond to these hotkey combinations (like Print Screen). No problem, right?  Yeah, whatever. So, I learned that OneDrive had usurped the hotkeys when Greenshot said "The hotkeys got usurped, I can't help you anymore."  Sure enough, when you look at the Greenshot preferences, the hotkey combos are GONE. So, there's a "reset defaults" button, right?  You'd think.  Whatever. Make OneDrive stop owning the Print Screen hotkey. Make DropBox stop owning the Print Screen hotkey. ...

So, sometimes if I sleep in late, I risk overheating and getting a migraine. I long ago stumbled upon caffeine as a preventative and cure for my migraines. I always thought it was a vasodilator, until I mentioned this to a nurse friend, and she's like "Noooo, it's a vasoconstrictor." Which, of course, made no sense to me, so I finally went and looked it up . Well, turns out that migraines are complicated. I suppose anyone who gets the damn things frequently already knew that. Shows how lucky I am to get them so infrequently. I've also noticed that when I feel one coming on, I can pop a caffeine tablet (200 mg), and go back to sleep, and wake up and never actually suffer the migraine. Go figure. Maybe my pre-migraine condition is caused because when I overheat, the blood vessels in my brain dilate, and thus the caffeine helps me avoid that particular migraine. So, there you go. Coffee (and caffeine) can be good for your brain. (It's also effecti...

"More and more businesses are offering Wi-Fi as a service to customers. Whether it is at a restaurant, shop, or a favorite hangout, free access to Wi-Fi has become an expectation " Duh. "Friendly WiFi – an Initiative introduced by government agencies and managed by the RDI Trade Organization – recognizes public places that offer secure and filtered Wi-Fi with the goal of making public Internet safe for young people around the world." "The Friendly WiFi symbol is available to any venues providing public WiFi, who are committed to supporting the need for safeguarding online content . The Friendly WiFi symbol is displayed by each venue signed up to the Friendly WiFi accreditation and appears either on their landing page as you sign into their public WiFi, or is visible on signage within the venue.  "Wherever this symbol is displayed on site or online, parents and young people can be assured that the venues displaying the symbol have the...

The people at Google are all about data-mining.  The more data, the more gold.  But, they also recognize that people value their privacy. Here is a privacy check  to help you set your Google (especially G+) privacy settings.

If you've never driven on Seattle Alaska Way Viaduct, it's pretty cool. It's like a bridge over the city. On one side is the city, sprawling metropolis that it is, and on the other side is the waterfront and the ocean. There's even parts where the bridges are stacked on top of each other - Southbound traffic on one level, Northbound traffic on the other level. Unfortunately, it's also really, really old. It's been this major source of political in-fighting for years, since it has needed major repairs and overhauls. Oh, and they're building a tunnel beneath it. If you haven't heard about Big Bertha , it's pretty cool, too - it's like this tunneling machine straight out of science fiction ;-)  Anyway, Bertha is digging under the Alaskan Way viaduct this week, so they're shutting it down.  Yeah.  Good luck commuters!  Good luck tourists! Transportation Coordinators: Please forward to your employees as appropriate. Star...

Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" - is probably the most famous of the modern versions.  It's certainly the one I think of whenever I hear the line "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." It's interesting to see that they used a  vocal counter-point borrowed from an earlier anti-war song by Simon. This vid shows the lyrics. The "anti-war" counter-point is almost impossible to hear, even if you know to listen for it.  It makes a beautiful sound, the background lyrics, and perhaps is a subliminal message, too. This version, by the Gothard sisters (who are not triplets), is just for fun.

I had a Mozart "for concentration and study" vid running in the background on YouTube, when an advert for Radiant Tank Top Heaters by Global Industrial came on. Definitely not the kind of thing I normally expect, but I got curious, and once I saw the images of "propane tanks with laser dishes" my mind went running all over the place.  These things seem really dangerous, but also very practical.  I can see every dude-bro's garage workshop with at least one of these, and if I was out in that shop on a freezing-ass cold  day, I'd be parked next to this thing, because I'm tough, but still smart enough to stay warm. My first random thought was the Star Wars laser dish cannons .  I loved Empire Strikes Back , and always thought these things were cool in a totally impractical kind of way. I love that Lucas and his people always seemed to let their imaginations run wild. I mean, just because WE think it might be impractical doesn't mean some ot...