Passkale - Untitled

WWE Legends @beckylynchwwe and @wwerollins want to remind Global Citizens they are powerful and strong ⁠⁠

( 📸: @mary.kang for Global Citizen)⁠

NASA Spotlight: Christina Hernandez, NASA Mars 2020 Rover Instrument Engineer

“I was in love with the beauty of space. It was my introduction to appreciating the beauty of complex, chaotic things—black holes, giant gas planets, or killer asteroids—that got my imagination riled up.“ -Christina Hernandez

Christina Hernandez, a space enthusiast and self-proclaimed nerd, is an aerospace engineer at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California where she works as an instrument engineer on our newest rover mission – Mars2020. The Mars2020 rover is a robotic scientist that is launching to the Red Planet next year. If you would like to launch to the Red Planet as well, you can Send Your Name to Mars along with millions of other people! Christina’s job is to make sure that the instruments we send to the Martian surface are designed, built, tested and operated correctly so we can retrieve allll the science. When she isn’t building space robots, she loves exploring new hiking trails, reading science fiction and experimenting in the kitchen. Christina took a break from building our next Martian scientist to answer some questions about her life and her career: 

If you could go to Mars, would you? And what are three things you’d bring with you?

Only if I had a round trip ticket! I like the tacos and beach here on Earth too much. If I could go, I would bring a bag of Hot Cheetos, a Metallica album, and the book On the Shoulders of Giants.

If you could name the Mars2020 rover, what would you name it and why?

Pilas, a reference to a phrase my family says a lot, ponte las pilas. It literally means put your batteries on or in other words, get to work, look alive or put some energy into it. Our rover is going to need to have her batteries up and running for all the science she is going to be doing! Luckily, the rover has a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) to help keep the batteries charged!

What’s been your most memorable day at NASA?

It’s been seeing three of the instruments I worked on getting bolted and connected to the flight rover. I’ll never forget seeing the first 1’s and 0’s being exchanged between the rover compute element (RCE), the rover’s on-board brain, and the instruments’ electronics boxes (their brains). I am sure it was a wonderful conversation between the two!

It’s a long journey to get from Earth to Mars. What would be on your ultimate road trip playlist?

Metallica, The Cure, Queen, Echo and the Bunnymen, Frank Sinatra, Ramon Ayala, AC/DC, Selena, Los Angeles Azules, ughhhh – I think I just need a Spotify subscription to Mars.

What is one piece of advice you wish someone would’ve told you?

Take your ego out of the solution space when problem solving.

Do you have any secret skills, talents, or hobbies?

I love reading. Each year I read a minimum of 20 books, with my goal this year being 30 books. It’s funny I increased my goal during what has definitely been my busiest year at work. I recently got into watercolor painting. After spending so much time connected at work, I started looking for more analog hobbies. I am a terrible painter right now, but I painted my first painting the other day. It was of two nebulas! It’s not too bad! I am hoping watercolor can help connect me more to the color complexities of nature…and it’s fun!

What’s a project or problem that you would love the ability to tackle/work on?

I would love to work on designs for planetary human explorers. So far, I have focused on robotic explore, but when you throw a “loveable, warm, squishy thing” into the loop, its creates a different dimension to design – both with respect to operability and risk.

Thanks so much Christina! The Mars2020 rover is planned to launch on July 17, 2020, and touch down in Jezero crater on Mars on February 18, 2021.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Our Community Guidelines are changing

To keep Tumblr the constructive, empowering place it should be

It was a little more than 10 years ago that we introduced the humble reblog, not knowing how much it would change the growing Tumblr community. The ability to take one person’s idea, build on it, and share it as something new transformed Tumblr from a simple blogging site into a social network where people were talking, exploring, learning, and growing through reblog chains.

We’ve been thinking about that a lot recently—the kind of place we want Tumblr to be, and our responsibility to you here and out in the world.

At its core, Tumblr is a place to express yourself and connect with others who share your interests. Over time a knot of diverse, kinetic, passionate communities sprang up. You can jump from things you love into things you didn’t even know existed. And it’s on all of us to create a safe, constructive, and empowering environment where you can continue to do that.

Our Community Guidelines need to reflect the reality of the internet and social media today and acknowledge that the things people post and share online influence the way others think and behave.

The following updates will go into effect on September 10, 2018 and can reviewed here.

We won’t tolerate hate speech

We believe in a free and open internet but we can’t ignore that the internet is being exploited by hate groups to organize, recruit, and radicalize with horrifying efficiency. Updating our Community Guidelines and internal procedures is necessary to address a very real threat to members of the Tumblr community.

When it comes to hate speech, we’re redrawing the line between what’s uncomfortable and what’s unacceptable, and have struck 41 words of gray area from this section in the Community Guidelines. It now reads:  

Hate Speech: Don’t encourage violence or hatred. Don’t post content for the purpose of promoting or inciting the hatred of, or dehumanizing, individuals or groups based on race, ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, disability or disease. If you encounter content that violates our hate speech policies, please report it.

[DELETED: If you encounter negative speech that doesn’t rise to the level of violence or threats of violence, we encourage you to dismantle negative speech through argument rather than censorship. That said, if you encounter anything especially heinous, tell us about it.]

Keep in mind that a post might be mean, tasteless, or offensive without necessarily encouraging violence or hatred. In cases like that, you can always block the person who made the post—or, if you’re up for it, you can express your concerns to them directly, or use Tumblr to speak up, challenge ideas, raise awareness or generate discussion and debate.

While the deleted language was well-intentioned (and we still need your help reporting hate speech) a post shouldn’t have to be “especially heinous” to merit reporting.

We’re also banning the glorification of violence and its perpetrators

Not all violence is motivated by racial or ethnic hatred, but the glorification of mass murders like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland could inspire copycat violence. With that in mind, we’re revising the Community Guidelines on violent content by adding new language to specifically ban the glorification of violent acts or the perpetrators of those acts:

Violent Content and Threats, Gore, Mutilation: Don’t post content that includes violent threats toward individuals or groups—this includes threats of theft, property damage, or financial harm. Don’t post violent content or gore just to be shocking. Don’t showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals (including bestiality), or their remains. Don’t post content that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators.

Lastly, we’re eliminating any ambiguity in our zero-tolerance policy on non-consensual sexual images

We’re adding a very simple statement (in bold below) to our existing policy on harassment to remove any uncertainty:

Harassment. Don’t engage in targeted abuse or harassment. Don’t engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others.

Posting sexually explicit photos of people without their consent was never allowed on Tumblr, but with the invention of deepfakes and the proliferation of non-consensual creepshots, we are updating our Community Guidelines to more clearly address new technologies that can be used to humiliate and threaten other people.

So what can you expect going forward?

The new Community Guidelines will go into effect on September 10, 2018. After that, if we determine a post or blog is promoting hatred, glorifying violence, or is engaging in the unwanted sexualization of another person, it will be taken down. This includes (for example) posting Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or anti-LGBTQ+ content to promote or incite violence or hatred; using symbols of hate movements to intimidate or harass others; and the glorification of mass murderers.

Of course, context is everything. Posts and blogs that generate open, constructive debate are always welcome here. A heated conversation about race or gender identity in media is not hate speech, nor is a factual, educational history of Jim Crow.

An overwhelming amount of care and nuance is needed to evaluate reports fairly and accurately, so we’ve increased the size of our team to review the reports we receive.

What should you do if you see content that violates the CGs?

Report it. We’ve added hate speech reporting to the mobile apps. Just tap the airplane icon on any post to open this menu 👇 — then tap Report (flag button) > Something else > Hate speech.

One last note

We are fierce defenders of free expression. We want Tumblr to be a place where people come to be themselves and engage diverse points of view through constructive dialogue. The lines we’re drawing today around hate speech, violence, and non-consensual sexual content are designed to protect that vision.

We’ll continue to review and revise our Community Guidelines to make sure they remain an accurate reflection of our community and its values. And as part of our commitment to transparency, we’ll always make sure previous versions are available on our public GitHub repo.

You’re going to have opinions on these changes and what more we can do. We encourage you to share your thoughts (especially constructive feedback) in the notes. And if you feel that Tumblr is no longer for you, there’s a whole world of internet out there.

❤️ Be kind to each other, Tumblr.

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder talk with writer Lynell George about the making of their new album, GET ON BOARD: The Songs of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, out April 22 on Nonesuch Records. Video directed by Jeff Coffman.

ED ASNER IN CIA TRAINING FILM, 1956!

NEWLY DISCOVERED: Suspects and Witnesses, NARA ID 653047. By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards shattered TV gender norms. Unapologetically strong, bright, capable, and funny, she was a role model to me and others.

The heart of the show is her often-challenging relationship with grumpy-but-kindhearted boss Lou Grant, played by Ed Asner who died yesterday (whom she called "Mr. Grant" for all 7 seasons).

Asner is well-remembered as an incredible character actor but lesser known as an Army veteran and activist. Searching through our always-interesting holdings, I found this CIA training film of 27 year-old Ed Asner as a brilliantly hostile witness. Recognize these expressions of anger, disgust, and scorn?

See also:

Ed Asner & President Carter, 2/28/1979, NARA ID 183724.

Asked by a reporter about a standout "brush-with-greatness,” Asner recalled this meeting and his longtime regret:

I carry guilt because I didn’t vote for Jimmy Carter in the 2nd election. I voted for John Anderson. I thought it would be a nice break from supporting a Democrat automatically. But I had met Jimmy Carter. I liked what I saw... What he’s done since leaving the office of the presidency has been ideal. He’s acted like a great man. I thought he was a good president. I don’t know why I decided to vote for John Anderson, other than as a way to break my habit. I realized later that the votes Anderson got might have been enough bring Carter on par with Ronald Reagan. I regretted that. That’s why I never went for another 3rd party candidate after that. Ed Asner, Kansas City Star, 2016.

Ed Asner in PSA for HUD, 1978

From Romancing the Vanpool: Energy Conservation on Film, Unwritten Record blog by Heidi Holstrom. NARA ID 38539.

Our Innovation Hub has officially sent over 500,000 pages to the National Archives catalog! The 500,000th page is a form that Antonio Dardell filled out to apply for an increase in his Civil War veteran’s pension.

Antonio Dardell is one of the small number of Chinese American soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.

Dardell had been adopted as a young boy by an American whaling ship captain, and brought to Connecticut. He enlisted in the 27th Connecticut Infantry Regiment at age 19. After the war he worked as a tinsmith, and in 1880 he became a naturalized citizen, showing his honorable discharge certificate in lieu of a Declaration of Intent.

This pension file was scanned as part of a two-week project by two citizen scanners who were interested in digitizing records relating to Asian American history. In addition to Antonio Dardell’s pension, the citizen scanners also worked on his Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR), and the CMSRs and pensions of other Chinese American soldiers.

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time in the Innovation Hub working to scan documents that are now part of our online Catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov). You are making history more accessible! Learn more about the Innovation Hub: https://www.archives.gov/innovation-hub