Reposted from nerds far more diligent than I am, who say:

I stumbled across this randomly on YouTube today and had to share. The first 3/4 of the video are a chemistry experiment breakdown of what goes into a glow stick and what each of those ingredients is meant to do. But what makes me LOVE it is that, at the end, all of this coalesces into a fine explanation of the difference between light-absorbing dyes and fluorescent dyes. Come for the glow-stick “how to”, stay for the better understanding of how light works and how it influences what you see!

We show how to make glow sticks and go through all the chemicals needed as well as how to make different colors. We also talk about the chemistry and scientifically research a proposed mechanism.

To make the glow stick mix together the following:

10mL Diethyl Phthalate (solvent)
3mg of fluorescent dye (see below)
50mg TCPO (see below)
100mg sodium acetate
3mL 30% hydrogen peroxide (add last to start reaction)

The fluorescent dye can be 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene for green, Rubrene for yellow, 9,10-diphenylanthracene for blue, and rhodamine B for red.

TCPO is expensive to buy but can be made for much cheaper by following the directions in our previous video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViJknvEEEOA

The chemicals, including the ones to make TCPO were purchased from alfa aesar: http://www.alfa.com

The Rhodamine B and Rubrene dyes were instead purchased from sigma Aldrich: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/

The dyes and TCPO are carcinogenic and gloves should be worn when handling them.

The TCPO and sodium acetate amounts can be varied considerably and still obtain good light. Smaller quantities tend to be dimmer and decay faster, while larger quantities last longer.

So there you glow- I mean GO! Homeschoolers knock yourselves out (just not literally).

Up up and Away,
Sunshine Superboy

Occupy my nightstick FTW!
SS

So many opportunities to reflect on the legacies of colonialism, slavery, genocide, and imperialism for those of us in the Western Hemisphere. Good tidings, and may this map of a reclaimed San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system keep good company to you and your people.

Thanks to my buddy Kenji for this cartographic gem!

If you’ve missed other awesome/ imaginative BART maps, you can click here and have your mind ravaged by BARTOR- the Transitator!!!

June Jordan bound train arriving at platform ONE in seven minutes…
Angela Davis International Airport bound Train is now boarding…

Sunshine Superboy

Worker Cooperatives support Occupy Wall Street…
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street
movement, and the Occupy movements around the world. As a national grassroots membership organization of
worker cooperatives—businesses owned and democratically controlled by our worker members — we support
and are honored to join you in this call for an economy organized to meet human needs.
We are heartened to see the beginnings of a genuine discussion and debate about different economic models —
models that value fairness at their core. As many of us come together for the first time to discuss the problems
that face us, and as we begin to collectively reimagine our economy and society, we believe it is critical to
actively make space for all voices to be heard. We urge this new movement to remain open and plural.

…and we invite you to join us in occupying Main Street

Cooperatives are the fastest growing socioeconomic movement in the world, with close to one billion members.
Worker cooperative businesses are in all sorts of industries: engineering, importing coffee,
baking bread, doing web development, cleaning houses, nursing and home health care, running
grocery stores, driving taxis, and more. But worker cooperatives are part of a much larger cooperative
economy that includes credit unions, consumer coops, housing coops, agricultural producer coops, and rural
electric coops — in the US, nearly 30,000 cooperative enterprises own over $3 trillion in shared assets.

Cooperatives are based on values.

Worker cooperatives are businesses that are owned and operated on democratic principles by the people
who work in them. Because they are organized around the will, talents and needs of the human
beings who work in them rather than the imperative of growth and ever-increasing profit margins,
worker cooperatives have the capacity to promote and extend new, humane and imaginative ways of
meeting the material needs of people by producing and distributing goods and services in society.
When dozens, hundreds and thousands of these enterprises pool resources and cooperate with
each other based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and
solidarity, a fundamental transformation of culture and society occurs. This has taken place most notably
and enduringly in Mondragon, Spain, and the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, where worker coops drive
the economy and fund and control social services, health care, retirement and education.

The cooperative movement needs you. And the world needs the cooperative movement.

As the Occupy movements have made clear, and as the UN recognized in declaring 2012 the
International Year of Cooperatives, we need a new way forward to a better world. Cooperatives can be
economic engines and laboratories for democracy — a powerful, practical part of building an economy
and society that works for all its members.

We are the 99.

Sunshine Superboy

would love to see links to other maps of occupations, and perhaps some analysis. I usually like to offer some and I will update this with some thoughts.

Share your links in the comments section below.

We. Are. Mobilizing.
Sunshine Superboy

Slide the maps aside. Take a break and listen to some tunes!

then we can take a gander at the spatial arrangement of our favorite pulp Louisiana VampTown, Bon Temps!

but first! … oh fanfiction. how we love your imaginative airbrushing:

The merry land of True Bloodletting:

(click the map for clarity)

have a bon temps!

Sunshine Supergarçon

Cartographic décor for your everyday life!

Word Cloud Couch Potato:

Coast to Coasters!!

A little isthmus thermos!

a globe of the good stuff, ol chap!

I’m sure you’ve all seen plenty of the world map shower curtains and such, so we’ll leave it at that, and if you have more Martha Stewart Cartophile gems you’d like to share, leave a comment below!

Up up and away,
Sunshine Super Stewart

Every Western European country gets to have its moment of ethnocentrism and false superiority! ¡Qué Bueno! ¡Viva España!

I’m sure I can Brussel up a game or two!

take a quick walking tour of central São Paulo! Andar com a gente!

oh hell, I give up. Just throw them all in there!

(right click to enlarge in another window)

Ooops, whats that you noticed? China, the US, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, and all of Eastern Europe can fit comfortably inside of the African Continent?! OMG, with a lifetime of distorted map projections, who could have guessed?!!

Sorry, we veered away from our non-english languages, subject. Whatevs, at least we learned something… Thats all for today kiddies!

Ciao, Au Revoire, Hasta Luego, Até Logo, Sianara!

Sunshine Superchico-garçom

Today’s Back to Skool Map-fest subject is Art!!
Abstract-ish:

Collage and Embroidery:
THERE IS A PLACE WHERE IT NEVER GETS HOT- head south until you can’t anymore.

earnest emotional art O_o

Mass produced art! Globes for all!

Actually interesting:

A fictional location in Ireland from Marilyn Murphy who says:

“This is somewhat of a self portrait. When my grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland, the term ‘murphies’ was slang for potatoes, a common Irish name as well as a staple in the immigrants diet. If I had ancestors who were artists, I like to imagine that perhaps they worked on the creation of Celtic illuminated manuscripts. In this drawing, I laid out an imaginary neighborhood inspired by images in the Book of Durrow. I have also included my home state of Oklahoma in the upper right hand corner.”

Check out more of Marilyn’s work on her website

Photo-Cartography:

Fernanda created this image by printing a map of São Paulo onto a photo of someone’s back. The map reads as a tattoo on the body addressing the importance of where people position themselves within their environment.

Totally Awesome!

Pier Gustafson describes his work:

A massive pile of overlapping books. The four open atlases display maps describing the four areas – each in a different way. The charming and exotic town names of North Carolina, the tangled highways of the Twin Cities (the key showing roads under construction, snow emergency routes and the ways to drive to ‘the cabin’). The zoomed in map of Oxford College, the zoomed out map of the Hub of the Universe.

Thanks for sharing, thanks for following, nice to have you back around…

Sunshine Superkid

don’t forget, we’re doing a subject/map a day for a full week!

We’ll post at least a map a day for the next week, marching right through some of our least (?) favorite school subjects- further proof that you can use maps in whatever area of study. Hooray again! (Sorry, I get excited about September. Its really a spectacular month, isn’t it?!).

Lets start with Geography:
A hilarious, if at times scary personal US geography tee-shirt design from our buddy pals at Threadless (they’re not a Black Maps sponsor….). We’ll start with another T-shirt model, and skip along to a zoom on the map itself.

Hooray!

Sorry New England… erm, and the “corn” states
If it makes you feel any better, I’m from the Commonwealth of “Blah Blah History”…

A tearful farewell to our last month of t-shirts. Come back for more Back to School Maps!

LoveAlwaysYrPal,
Sunshine Superboy

LOLZ. Can’t help myself…. Classic emo jam. Horrendous homemade video!