One day you grow up and accept the fact that you will never get 8 hours of sleep again.

gamwitch:

#GAY VIBEZ

calmgiant:

my sister wrote a paragraph about naruto back when she was in second grade and the teacher called my mom up to the school because my little sister misspelled a word and i memorized the entire thing when she brought it home

Sometimes you need to look a little differently at the world - in this case, erasing the divide between Art and Science to forge a career in scientific illustration. The role of the scientific illustrator is to record and communicate nature and science with pencil or brush - or these days, pixels. You might think a camera would have made these arts redundant, but often a keen eye is needed to pick out detail and omit the irrelevant, making the image convey the essential attributes of the subject. Complex diagrams, cutaways and charts combine art with design, while a scientist’s eye for detail and an artist’s creative flair result in unique and fascinating works.

Read more about Scientific Illustration 
California State University’s Science Illustration website, 
Wonderful bug drawings of Victoria Saxe 
(sometimes slightly gruesome) medical illustration of Philip Wilson 
Scientific American Interview with Carol Abraczinskas 
Natural History Illustrator Lyn Wells 
Society of Botanical Artists 
International Association of Astronomical Artists

It is one thing to see a building in a state of disrepair and imagine what it would have been like when it was occupied and vibrant. It is quite another to overlay a photograph, taken from the precise same spot, bringing into sharp focus the difference a day, week, month, year or decade can make.

DetroitUrbex takes documentation to new depths (and heights) in this series of collages that show historical use and present conditions in abandoned structures through the lens of students and teachers overlaid with the haunting shots of an urban explorer.

The hybrid results span decades, including a combination of more-recent color photographs and archival black-and-white ones, capturing ordinary activities and everyday people and putting them in a strange and haunting context.

(via Then & Now: Hybrid Images of a Deserted School in Detroit)

obsessionfull:

Textbooks are fucking expensive, and if your professor doesn’t require a physical copy (most don’t - they just want you to have the book at hand. Or maybe even not. Some professors literally give no fucks about whether you have the book or not) and you don’t mind having your copy as an electronic copy - this is the post for you!

Most textbook companies put out new editions every year or so even though there isn’t really that much new information. Sometimes they’ll eliminate questions if it’s something like a math or chemistry book or they’ll add in a few sentences about updated legislation (the professor I work for teaches human sexuality, and the newest edition of the book she uses included the 2009 decision to allow same-sex couples have hospital visitation rights). These new editions are pointless and only created to make the textbook company money and to cut down on students selling to each other. You’re going to ignore that. We love older editions. Make sure when you’re searching on the following sites that you don’t include the edition number to give you more search results. If one with your edition comes up - great! If not, you can usually stick to something one to three editions behind without any major changes.

Sites you should be searching:

• FilesTube - FilesTube searches THE ENTIRE INTERNET for files uploaded to file-sharing websites such as MegaUpload, Mediafire, or WuUpload. Sometimes people will upload pdf files of your textbook. This is always an important first search.
• Google Books - You usually won’t find your textbook on Google Books, but it’s always worth a look. Sometimes pages are missing because it’s only a preview of the book, but again - always worth a look.
• Scribd - People upload documents to Scribd and by becoming a member (free!) or connecting through Facebook (if you’re lazy!), you can download whatever files you may find. This sometimes includes textbooks.
• BookBoon - website specifically for finding pdf versions of textbooks
• Curriki - free open source materials
• Flat World Knowledge - free business, humanities, and science textbooks
• California Learning Resource Network
• Open Culture
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources
• TorrentScan - textbooks are also uploaded to torrent sites in some cases - you may as well check.
• If push comes to shove, you can try variations of googling “textbook name torrent” or “textbook name download” or “textbook name download free.” Sometimes things pop up and I never would have known about them.
• LibraryPirate is a torrent search site specifically for textbooks. (Added 10 October 2011)
• AMAZING Reddit post (Added 2 November 2011)
• JenkThat - I haven’t tried this out yet, but I’ve heard good things from others. It’s also a good place to find other ebooks that aren’t textbooks. (Added 29 December 2011)

I’ve found all 8 of my textbooks for this term (19 credit hours, six classes) through one of the methods above. I’m not even going to look at retail prices, but checking BigWords.com (which, if you want to buy your books/can’t find them anywhere with one of the previous methods, will give you the cheapest price on the internet), I saved $497.87 by doing this. It takes time, but it’s definitely worth almost $500 worth of time. If you know of more ways to find free textbooks - please let me know!