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Mr. Gaiman, do you have any advice to spare for a 21 year old who is absolutely terrified of screwing up her twenties so irreversibly that she won't amount to much of anything? I keep reading that your twenties are "the formative period," and that so much of our lives end up defined by the choices we made in that span, and I feel like I'm already royally fucking it up.

That’s why the twenties are formative. You do things, fuck up, deal with the consequences. That’s what forms you. It’s also how you learn and how you grow and how you change. You aren’t meant to go through your twenties (or indeed through any of your life) with it all figured out. Get out there, do stuff, choose the wrong things, fuck up, fix what you can, don’t hurt people if you can avoid it, be kind, and fuck up better and more interestingly next time.

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Let’s always excite the electrons to clean the water.

Sunlight to clean water from plastic waste

Harnessing the sun’s radiation to help rid the oceans of microplastics contamination is one of several technical innovations to be developed by a new EU-funded project. Beginning in November 2017, a system developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden for breaking down microplastics from personal care products will be tested for implementation in homes and wastewater treatment plants.

While exposure to sunlight can degrade plastics into harmless elements, it’s a slow process. In some cases plastics can take several years to decompose. Joydeep Dutta, chair of the Functional Materials department at KTH, said this system will speed up that process by making more efficient use of available visible light and ultraviolet rays from the sun.

The system involves coatings with material of nano-sized semiconductors that initiate and speed up a natural process called photocatalytic oxidation, Dutta said. In a test household, these nano material coated filter systems will be placed at the exit of wastewater from homes. Similarly, in wastewater treatment plants, these devices will be used to initiate microplastics degradation after the classical treatments are completed.

The photocatalytist membranes were created in partnership with the Swedish company, PP Polymer AB.

Photocatalytic oxidation with titanium oxide and zinc oxide semiconductors has been used to convert volatile pollutants, oils and other substances into harmless elements such as water and CO2. Similar in concept to photosynthesis, photocatalysis activates the breakup of compounds by exciting electrons, which then causes water molecules to split into their constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen. The material captures enough solar radiation from a minimum of available light to set off a reaction with the molecules of the plastic. The radicals then exchange electrons with the atoms that comprise plastic molecules, effectively pulling these contaminants apart into harmless compounds of CO2 and water.

‘The semiconductor material is able to excite the molecules and set off this process using the 40 percent of solar radiation that is visible light,’ Dutta said.

Nearly every beach worldwide is reported to be contaminated by microplastics, according to the Norwegian Institute for Water Research. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, marine life ingest these plastics, which also adsorb pollutants such as DDT and PCB.

‘These plastics will start accumulating in the food chain, transferring from species to species, with direct adverse consequences to human population,” Dutta says. “Tackling plastic pollution at its source is the most effective way to reduce marine litter.’

The project, titled Cleaning Litter by Developing and Applying Innovative Methods in European Seas (CLAIM), will also deploy floating booms at river mouths in Europe to collect visible plastic waste; and ferry routes in Denmark, the Gulf of Lyon, Ligurian Sea and Saronikos Gulf will be used to test a plastics measuring system that could be later deployed on shipping vessels.

Source: KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

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My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.   When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.   Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.   It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.   ‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.   ‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.   He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.   He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.   It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?   I asked him what happened on his adventure.   ‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.   ‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.   ‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?   ‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’   ‘And so I did.   ‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.   ‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.   ‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.   ‘'Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.   ‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.   ‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.   ‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’   I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.   What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?   ‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’   My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.   ‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’   But I do. I really believe in it.   And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.

Paul Magrs (via yourfluffiestnightmare)

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I’m not the only one who calls it Canadaland!!!!

anyone wanna hook me up with a link to some place I can watch american gods? ;)) the channel its on apparently doesn’t exist here in canadaland

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New motto.

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Get angry you don’t have the STARZ app. Then do something about it. 

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Reblog for Winnipeg!

Girls running at speed, Winnipeg, Canada, 1945.  

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Let's always reblog Sweeney.

Mad Sweeney’s great for parties until he’s drunk.

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Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878) – The earliest known motion picture.

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I'll need this, one day.

A Christmas Carol

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/12/19/podcast-neil-gaiman-christmas Even huge Charles Dickens fans may not know that A Christmas Carol is organized in five stanza-like sections called “staves.” They might not know the author’s only surviving “prompt” copy of the book, that is, Dickens’s own annotated version used for live readings, is held at the New York Public Library. But it’s without a doubt that Neil Gaiman gives one of the greatest deliveries of the classic holiday tale. Made up to resemble a nineteenth century man by Jeni Ahlfeld, the author was transformed for a performance at the New York Public Library, and his engaging reading captured the liveliness of Dickens’ prose. And so, as is our NYPL holiday tradition, we’re sharing Gaiman’s delightful performance of A Christmas Carol. We hope you enjoy it as part of your family tradition too.

https://soundcloud.com/nypl/neil-gaiman-reads-a-christmas-carol

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Day Ten of the 2016 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar, one of 25 photos (eventually). Io over Jupiter. Jupiter’s moon Io, roughly the size of Earth’s moon, appears to be skimming Jupiter’s cloud tops, but it’s actually 310, 000 miles (500,000 kilometers) away. Io zips around Jupiter in 1.8 days, whereas our moon circles Earth every 28 days. The conspicuous black spot on Jupiter is Io’s shadow and is about the size of the moon itself (2,262 miles or 3,640 kilometers across). This shadow sails across the face of Jupiter at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second). (J. Spencer (Lowell Observatory) and NASA / ESA)

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Not just true for artists. This can apply to many aspects of life.

Neil Gaiman’s thoughts on your job as an artist…

“What you have to give them is what they don’t know they want yet”

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Listening to the eldest monster practice piano.

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Lovely carving...

I never would have known about Anansi, if it wasn't for Neil Gaiman. Thanks.

This is the very first object in our @nmaahc’s collection: a boat seat from Ecuador.

What’s it doing in our newest museum? It’s from a community that fled into the swamps to escape slavery, traveling mainly by canoe, where it was the job of elderly women to carve the boat seats. This one features Anansi the spider.

Anansi is a common character in West African folklore, but these tales spread through the Transatlantic slave trade, bringing Anansi to the U.S. and places like Ecuador.

So this one object tells a much bigger story of the African diaspora, and how the African American experience connects to others around the globe.

This week we’ll be highlighting objects in @nmaahc as we gear up for its opening this Saturday, Sept. 24. Follow along across all our platforms with #APeoplesJourney.

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I want you to watch this, and if you like it or were moved by it, to reblog it. It’s five minutes long. That’s a long time in internet terms, I know.

Please do it anyway. Click and watch. Trust me. It’s important.

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These are beautiful. I wonder: why the magpie?

Hey Euclase just curious have you ever drawn any writers of the shows/stories you love?

I’ve drawn Ben Edlund and Neil Gaiman.

That’s about it, though. :]

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At the 1924 Olympics, Gertrude Ederle won one gold and two bronze medals in swimming. But her greatest athletic accomplishment began at 7:08 a.m. on August 6, 1926. Covered in an array of protective oils, she plunged into the frigid waters of the English Channel, near Calais, and began swimming toward England’s Dover coast, twenty-one miles away. As she progressed, the weather became so bad that her trainers urged her to come out of the water, but she refused to stop. Finally, fourteen hours and thirty-one minutes after starting out, she became the sixth person and first woman to swim the channel, with a crossing time that bested all her predecessors by well over an hour. Ederle proved wrong all those who doubted that a woman could manage the feat, and helped establish the place of women in competitive sports.

Photo: 1925 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

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From The Massive Wildfire Burning in Alberta, one of 23 photos. A massive wildfire, which caused a mandatory evacuation, rages south of Fort McMurray near Anzac, Alberta, Canada, on May 4, 2016. (Chris Schwarz / Government of Alberta / Reuters)