“I got a fan letter from a young lady. It was a suicide note.

So I called her, and I said, “Hey, this is Jimmy Doohan. Scotty, from Star Trek.” I said, “I’m doing a convention in Indianapolis. I wanna see you there.”

I saw her — boy, I’m telling you, I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was definitely suicide. Somebody had to help her, somehow. And obviously she wasn’t going to the right people.

I said to her, “I’m doing a convention two weeks from now in St. Louis.” And two weeks from then, in somewhere else, you know? She also came to New York - she was able to afford to got to these places. That went on for two or three years, maybe eighteen times. And all I did was talk positive things to her.

And then all of the sudden — nothing. I didn’t hear anything. I had no idea what had happened to her because I never really saved her address.

Eight years later, I get a letter saying, “I do want to thank you so much for what you did for me, because I just got my Master’s degree in electronic engineering.”

That’s…to me, the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

(via vintage-visuals)

distractedbyshinyobjects

re: feministing - for women, heart attacks look different

Things I did not know, but should.

(via elfgrove)

This is a post that might save a life. 

(via str8nochaser)

My mom worked for 25 years as an ER nurse and is convinced that a lot of women die simply because folks only know heart attack symptoms that occur in males. 

(via darkjez)

(via upworthy)

(via upworthy)

awesomestuffwomendid:

Golda Meir: Prime Badass

(via upworthy)

sexijexi:

Nelson Mandela

(via upworthy)

upworthy:

A horrible thing happened at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado last night. The news media will be looking to make a breaking story, politicians will be pointing fingers, and people, as they’re known to do, will naturally rush to judgment and form some very strong opinions very quickly. Be extremely cautious in your speculation today and take everything with a grain of salt. The facts will take some time to surface, but the victims of this awful tragedy aren’t going anywhere. 

explore-blog:

The Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, Napoleon wasn’t short, and other historical myths debunked.

(↬ The Dish)

are2:

Clean up on aisle Delta Quadrant

explore-blog:

“Originally, feathers evolved to retain heat; later, they were repurposed for a means of flight. No one ever accuses the descendants of ancient birds of plagiarism for taking heat-retaining feathers and modifying them into wings for flight. In our current system, the original feathers would be copyrighted, and upstart birds would get sued for stealing the feathers for a different use. Almost all famous discoveries (by Edison, Darwin, Einstein, et al.) were not lightning-bolt epiphanies but were built slowly over time and heavily dependent on the intellectual superstructure of what had come before them. The commonplace book was popular among English intellectuals in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. These notebooks were a depository for thoughts and quotes and were usually categorized by topic. Enquire Within Upon Everything was a commercially successful take-off on the commonplace book in London in 1890. There’s no such thing as originality. Invention and innovation grow out of rich networks of people and ideas. All life on earth (and by extension, technology) is built upon appropriation and reuse of the preexisting.”

—

David Shields articulates beautifully what we already know to be true – creativity is combinatorial, everything is a remix, art is theft, and all builds on what came before.

(↬ Austin Kleon)

This is a very cool site I stumbled upon! It is an interactive simulation of the Apollo 11 moon launch and landing created by NASA using original audio and video. This description does not do it justice, you need to see it!