Wednesday, 31 August 2016

In Arizona speech, Trump calls for 'ideological certification' of immigrants, mass deportation, and that wall

Trump said immigration would be suspended from countries like Syria and Libya [Carlo Allegri/Reuters]


After a very weird day in Mexico with President Enrique Peña Nieto, then a Twitter shitstorm in which Trump was accused of lying about the content of that meeting, the Republican Presidential candidate gave a long-awaited speech in Arizona that was to put forth his policies on immigration.

(more…)

Trump's claims about Mexico border wall discussion disputed by president Peña Nieto

Donald Trump and Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto arrive for a press conference at the Los Pinos residence in Mexico City. REUTERS/Henry Romero


Donald Trump flew to Mexico just before a highly anticipated immigration speech in Arizona tonight, and met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.


After the meeting, Trump says the two men discussed a wall that the U.S. GOP presidential nominee has promised to build along the US/Mexico border. Trump says they did not discuss his often repeated demand that Mexico will pay for it. The Mexican president responded, and effectively said that Trump's version of events was not true.

(more…)

Colored hex wrenches

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This is a good idea: colored ball-end hex wrenches so you can easily tell them apart. Comes in US and metric sets. Go nuts and buy both sets in one package.

Puke, I am your Phava: code that works both as PHP and Java

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Devin Ryan created a computer program that is valid, and produces identical output, in two completely different languages, PHP and Java. (more…)

Tuesday, 30 August 2016

Donald Trump to travel to Mexico and meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto

Republican nominee Donald Trump arrives to speak in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., August 27, 2016.   REUTERS


Donald Trump says he will fly to Mexico City Wednesday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, hours before the GOP presidential nominee is to deliver a speech in Arizona on immigration.

(more…)

Live video: Guns and drugs retrieved in Chris Brown LAPD standoff

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The live Fox 11 helicopter video of LAPD officers surrounding Chris Brown's home is weird enough, but when you add streaming emoji typed in by viewers, it's super hyper weird.


(more…)

Bizarre perfume ad by Spike Jonze is a must-see

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Wow! Directed by Spike Jonze, this high-energy KENZO World ad, or "short film" as they're calling it, is the best perfume commercial I've ever seen. And the most bizarre.



The brand's new ad, directed by Spike Jonze, shows what may be best described as a perfume rapturing. Actress and dancer Margaret Qualley (star of The Leftovers and Andie MacDowell's daughter) works herself into a full-body perfume frenzy choreographed by Ryan Heffington, the choreographer of Sia's “Chandelier.”
(New York Magazine)



The song, "Mutant Brain," is an original track by Sam Spiegel (Jonze' brother) and Ape Drums. You can download the song from Amazon.

Monday, 29 August 2016

$10k reward to find horrible person gunning down sea otters

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Sea otters. Cute little sea otters. Someone is shooting sea otters along California's central coast.


Via the LA Times:




California wildlife officials are offering a $10,000 reward to find whoever is responsible for fatally shooting three Southern sea otters along the Central Coast over the last month.


The two juvenile males and one adult male otter were killed between late July and early August, and washed up between Santa Cruz Harbor and Seacliff State Beach in Aptos between Aug. 12 and 19, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Monday.


The animals are protected under the Endangered Species Act and state law. Killing a Southern sea otter is punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and jail time, authorities said.





If you have any information, rat that fucker out! Give the $10,000 to the Marine Mammal Center, where I have been known to volunteer.


Also, gun ownership regulation as soon as possible please.


Anyone with information about the killings can call (888) 334-2258.

Recomendo: six cool things to see, hear, read, eat, and do

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Want to get Cool Tools' Recomendo a week early in your inbox? Sign up for the Sunday newsletter here.

Travel Tip:

A Global Entry pass is a true bargain if you do any international travel. You don't need to wait in line for immigration at reentry to the US. But it also serves as validation for the TSA Pre-check short-cut for security screening at most major US airports. Much shorter lines. To get in the program requires an appointment to get fingerprinted and $100 every five years. Well worth it. - Kevin Kelly

Edible:

Before I take a flight, I toss a few Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt Kind bars into my travel bag. The crunchy bars are gluten free and have just 5g of sugar. The perfect snack for plane or hotel room. - Mark Frauenfelder

Destination:

If you're in Northern California and have yet to visit Amador County, I could not recommend it more. The county is steeped in Gold Rush history and offers 40+ wineries, romantic B&Bs and historical small towns, all within a short drive of one another. Side note: I was once the Lifestyles Editor for the county newspaper, which might make me a bit biased, but I also have enjoyed enough time there to know it makes for a magical getaway. - Claudia Lamar

Readable:

The Library of America publishes high-quality hardbound books with multiple novels per volume. I'm reading Ross Macdonald: Three Novels of the Early 1960s, which contains three excellent novels about fictional Los Angeles detective Lew Archer. These tightly-written page-turners have kept me up way past my bedtime. - MF

Enjoyment:

I'm more audio book than podcast listener, but On Being with Krista Tippett is one of my favorite things ever. Her guests vary from artists, scientists and activists, and the conversation is always centered around the intangible aspects of life. It's philosophical without being pushy, and I'm quickly working my way through the archives. - CL

Follow:

The best photographer blog and/or photo magazine for both pros and newbies, and for all photographers in between, is on the web as PetaPixel. Sure, they have the latest nerdy camera gossip, but they also have plenty of features about the million different ways people actually capture and use images. Every day I am amazed and informed. Add it to your RSS feed. - KK

Saturday, 27 August 2016

How to change people's minds on social issues with "deep canvassing"

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Oddly enough, we don't know very much about how to change people's minds on social issues, not scientifically. That's why the work of the a group of LGBT activists in Los Angeles is offering something valuable to psychology and political science – a detailed map of uncharted scientific territory.



Over the last eight years, and through more than 12,000 conversations, The Leadership LAB has developed a new kind of persuasion they call deep canvassing. Volunteer's go door-to-door, talking to strangers, and often change their attitudes about things like same-sex marriage and transgender rights.


Unfortunately, the first scientist to measure the technique's effectiveness also committed scientific fraud by copy/pasting some data from another study and cutting corners in other ways, creating a wave of negative publicity that threatened the reputation of the people who created the technique, even though they were just the subjects of the study and not involved in the wrongdoing.


In the show, you will meet two scientists who uncovered the fraud and got the paper retracted, and then decided to go ahead and start over, do new research themselves, and see if the persuasion technique that the original researcher was supposed to be studying truly worked.


Can you reduce prejudice with a single 20-minute conversation? Can you flip people's opinions in just one encounter? Learn what the latest science has to say about deep canvassing in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast.




DownloadiTunesStitcherRSSSoundcloud


Great Courses PlusThis episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Get unlimited access to a huge library of The Great Courses lecture series on many fascinating subjects. Start FOR FREE with The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries taught by

Neil deGrasse Tyson. Everything we now know about the universe-from the behavior of quarks to the birth of entire galaxies-has stemmed from scientists who've been willing to ponder the unanswerable. Click here for a FREE TRIAL.


This episode is also sponsored Casper Mattressesby Casper Mattresses. Buying a Casper mattress is completely risk free. Casper offers free delivery and free returns with a 100-night home trial. If you don't love it, they'll pick it up and refund you everything. Casper understands the importance of truly sleeping on a mattress before you commit, especially considering you're going to spend a third of your life on it. Get $50 toward any mattress purchase by visiting www.casper.com/sosmart and using offer code “sosmart.” Terms and Conditions Apply.


Mack WeldonThis episode is also brought to you by Mack Weldon who believes in smart design, premium fabrics and simple shopping. All of their products (shirts, socks, sweats, underwear) are naturally antimicrobial (which means they eliminate odor). They want you to be comfortable, so If you don't like your first garment, you can keep it, and they will still refund you. No questions asked. Go to MackWeldon.Com and get 20% off using promo code SOSMART.


PatreonSupport the show directly by becoming a patron! Get episodes one-day-early and ad-free. Head over to the YANSS Patreon Page for more details.



Dave FleischerDave Fleischer has been a professional mind changer for more than 30 years, and has directed the Leadership LAB since 2010. Previously, he created the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and worked as an organizer for the National LGBTQ Task Force.


Josh KallaJoshua Kalla is a PhD student at the University of California Berkley. He studies political science and how voters make and change their minds.

David BrookmanDavid Brookman is an Assistant Professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and studies political science as well as persuasion and perspective taking.


Laura GardinerLaura Gardiner (at the time of this recording) was the national mentoring coordinator for the Leadership LAB and helped manage their experimental persuasion canvassing project. Laura spent eight years with the team before moving on to other pursuits.


Steve DelineSteve Deline is a field organizer at the Leadership LAB. He started as a volunteer in 2009 and helped create the LAB's video documentation project, which, according to their website, “has since captured more than 2,000 conversations between canvassers and voters on film and become integral to the team's ability to develop new approaches to persuasion.”


In every episode, after I read a bit of self delusion news, I taste a cookie baked from a recipe sent in by a listener/reader. That listener/reader wins a signed copy of my new book, “You Are Now Less Dumb,” and I post the recipe on the YANSS Pinterest page. This episode's winner is Deanna Klingbeal who sent in a recipe for chocolate waffle cookies. Send your own recipes to david {at} youarenotsosmart.com.


Links and Sources


DownloadiTunesStitcherRSSSoundcloud


Previous Episodes


Boing Boing Podcasts


Cookie Recipes


The Leadership LAB


David Brookman


Joshua Kalla


Irregularities in LaCour 2014


Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing


Video: Watch a Voter Change Her Mind


Image courtesy of The Leadership LAB, screenshot of video linked above.


Music:


Friday, 26 August 2016

The long and twisted tale of the Nibbler arcade game

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Never heard of Nibbler? You're not alone. Nibbler was one of a handful of arcade games produced in the early 80's by Rock-Ola Manufacturing Company, a company better known for its stylish jukeboxes. Designed by programmers Joe Ulowetz and John Jaugilas, Nibbler is the bastard lovechild of the Pac-Man and the cell phone game Snake, which you may remember playing on your 2001 Nokia handheld. Oft-maligned by classic arcade gamers as less worthy than games like Donkey Kong, Dig Dug or Defender, Nibbler is actually a fun and fairly addictive game which starts out easy and steadily ramps up difficulty as the player advances through levels of mazes. Since only about 1,500 Nibblers rolled off of the assembly line, it was a somewhat rare find in the arcade scene of the day, especially when compared to the hundreds of thousands of Pac-Man cabinets that proliferated, yet interest in Nibbler has endured into the modern era, spearheaded by a coterie of die-hard Nibbler fanatics. You see, what made Nibbler special is that it held a secret, it was the first game of its era that could be played to one billion points and beyond.

The secret was discovered by Tom Asaki, who at the time was an undergraduate at Montana State University studying physics. The founding member of the “Bozeman Think Tank,” Tom had been one of the early arcade pioneers who cracked Ms. Pac-Man (on which he held world records) and he quickly mastered Nibbler. Tom soon noticed that the score counter kept adding places and noticed that the game could hold at least nine digits. This meant that a score of 999,999,999 (or more) would be possible on Nibbler. Tom decided to see how high he could get on the game and realized that reaching the billion point mark on Nibbler would require a nearly two day, non-stop marathon (on a single quarter of course). Tom embarked on a quest to become the first player to score one billion points on a video game and made several grueling attempts at the billion. Unlike today's console games, the arcade games of yore could not be paused, so in order to take a bathroom break he had to build up a large reserve of extra lives and then dash off and return to the controls before his last man died off. Because of the pain in his elbows, Tom was forced to soak his arms in ice buckets to help reduce the swelling and discomfort that came with his billion point attempts.

During one such record attempt, while playing at the famous Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa Iowa, a sixteen-year-old local farm boy named Tim McVey noticed a crowd gathered around Tom and the Nibbler cabinet. Curious as to why Tom was receiving all the attention, he soon learned that Tom was going for a billion points on Nibbler. Though Tom failed that day, Tim decided to stick a quarter in the game that everyone was making a fuss about. Soon, he too was hooked and realized that he had a talent for playing Nibbler. With some tips from Tom and encouragement from arcade owner Walter Day, Tim decided to go for the billion points himself. The prize for such an achievement? Life-long bragging rights and a Nibbler arcade game of his very own….

***

I discovered Nibbler around 2007, it was one of a trove of games housed in a MAME (arcade emulation) cabinet, dubbed “the Ultracade” that I built from scratch and then surreptitiously smuggled onto the lot at Universal Studios where I was editing Battlestar Galactica. Working late into the evenings, doing my part to help a rag tag fleet of humans find a mythical planet known as “Earth,” arcade gaming turned out to be a perfect way to blow off steam for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I soon learned that everybody of certain age has “their game." It could be Asteroids, or Joust, Space Invaders or Pac-Man, Centipede or Dragon's Lair, but everyone has a game they remember and enjoy playing. For me that game was Robotron, an action packed frenzy of a game in which robots rise up to destroy the human race, very fitting for the show I was working on.

During season three, when editor Tim Kinzy joined our team, I found a kindred spirit who, like myself, had a come of age in the 80s and had a nostalgia for retro gaming and 8-bit graphics. We soon started to plumb the depths of the Ultracade, seeking out lost classics and having weekly high score competitions on various games. Then one day, while scrolling through the list of rom titles, we stumbled upon Nibbler. There was something about the 8-bit snake, slithering through a Pac-Man style maze that caught our eye and we soon found ourselves competing for the Nibbler title during lunch breaks.

Our wrists and shoulders ached as we traded high scores, struggling to crest the 100,000 point mark. A few days later, returning to my editing room, I discovered a strange flyer taped to my door. It was a grainy black and white poster of a sullen looking teenager standing next to a Nibbler game with the text “Tim McVey Day” in a large type and below “congratulations for scoring 1,000,000,000 points.” The whole thing looked utterly preposterous, but a quick Google search revealed some startling details. It turned out that in 1984, a Tim McVey of Ottumwa, Iowa had in fact earned over one billion points on the game we were struggling to get one hundred thousand on. Snatching the poster off the door, I walked into our break room, where Tim Kinzy was sweating away, trying to break my Nibbler high score. Tim admitted that, in an act of desperation, he had turned to the internet looking for Nibblergame play tips and had stumbled upon the Tim McVey Day poster.

So there it was, the first-billion point game. It had all hallmarks of a classic coming of age story, of the small town local kid achieving the seemingly impossible and I wanted to know more. What had become of Tim McVey, the stalwart teenager who battled Nibbler for two days in an effort to reach the pantheon of video achievement? With all that drive and determination, what had he gone on to do; who had he become? We decided to see if we could track him down. Surprisingly, a Google search turned up quite a few Timothy McVey's in Iowa and we proceeded to call them all - it felt kind of like the Terminator searching for the right Sarah Connor. Eventually we located Tim, the Nibbler God, and found that he was an ordinary, all-American, humble, blue collar guy, still living in Iowa, just one town over from where he grew up. We hatched a plan to fly out to Iowa and conduct a round of interviews with Tim, arcade owner Walter Day and Tim's childhood friend (and billion-point witness) Mark Hoff, with the intention of gathering material to tell the story of the first-billion point game. We figured, one weekend, a little bit of editing and a 5-10 minute video documenting the first billion-point game for YouTube.

Footage in hand, we returned to Los Angeles and our busy day jobs, filing away the tapes until we had a free moment to edit them. Several months later, Tim called us to let us know that he intended to go for the record again. You see, at some point in the late 80s, a rumor of a higher Nibbler score had surfaced in Italy, though never officially verified, the rumor had cast doubt on Tim's epic achievement and had always troubled him. So now, despite the passing of twenty-five years, an older, less fit Tim McVey was going to embark on a quest to once and for all lay claim to the Nibbler world record title and dispel all doubt. It struck us that there's something universal about the story of man attempting to recapture the glory of his youth and there would be inherent drama in the two days of grueling game play that setting a new record would require. So we decided to grab our cameras and document Tim's quest. Little did we realize that we were about to embark on a multi-year filmmaking odyssey during which we would discover other die-hard Nibbler players, including the long lost Italian and learn more about Nibbler than we ever thought possible. In the end, Tim's journey would take him down a long and twisting road full of ups and downs and surprises and along the way we became what I like to call “accidental documentarians.” I don't want to spoil the film for you, but the end result is a lot of fun and surprisingly inspirational, so if your interested in learning more check out the full-length film, MAN VS SNAKE.

Andrew Seklir is a producer, director and Emmy-nominated editor whose credits include WESTWORLD/HBO, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA/SyFy and ATARI: GAME OVER/Xbox Studios.

Smári McCarthy: a pirate who goes after corporate criminal ships

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As the former editor-in-chief of the technology project magazine MAKE, I've learned that makers don't limit themselves to simply making things. Their urge to be an active participant in the world around them means that they also have a strong desire to make the tools, processes, systems, and organizations that empower other people to do the same. One example is Safecast, a global volunteer-centered project that developed a low cost collaborative monitoring network to measure radiation levels in Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Safecast has not only generated the world's largest open dataset of background radiation measurements, it has also established a standard for collaborative environmental data measurement projects.


Similarly, another program benefiting from maker enthusiasm is the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a non-profit collaborative organization consisting of a large number investigative groups and media from around the world. The chief technologist of OCCRP is an astonishingly prolific activist and maker named Smári McCarthy.


Investigative DashboardA short version of McCarthy's resume includes co-founding Iceland's Pirate Party and the Icelandic Digital Freedom Society, doing pioneering work in the field of digital fabrication, and helping establish Iceland's first Fab Lab. It was at the OCCRP where McCarthy co-developed, along with OCCRP executive director Paul Radu, something called the Investigative Dashboard Project, a web-based tool to help journalists conduct forensic research across millions of documents and scraped databases, including the ones from the Panama Papers, the mind-bogglingly massive leak financial and legal records that revealed the hidden offshore holding companies used by corporations, wealthy individuals, and criminals to hide their money, evade taxes, and conduct illegal business transactions. Like Safecast, OCCRP makes all the data is has collected available to the public at no cost.


Earlier this year, Institute for the Future invited McCarthy to come to its public gallery in Palo Alto and share with a standing-room-only crowd what he's learned about global corruption. There's enough bribery, assassinations, money laundering, treasury embezzlement, mob shoot-outs, and poisonings in his talk to fill the pages of an espionage thriller. The only difference is it's all true, and it's still happening.

Thursday, 25 August 2016

400 years of equator hazings, and how I survived one

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This summer, I spent a month aboard a research vessel in the Indian Ocean. At one point, we crossed the equator, which meant that those of us who had never done that before were treated to a special ceremony. In fact, it was a straight-up hazing, as I describe in a new article at Collectors Weekly.

The minute Pascal tied my hands together, I knew was in trouble. Pascal is a big man with an even bigger laugh, one of two hardworking, and hard-drinking, bosuns aboard a French research vessel called the Marion Dufresne. For his birthday a few days earlier, the crew had given Pascal a ball gag. Pascal thought this was hilarious, and immediately strapped the sex toy over his mouth, contorting his face in exaggerated expressions of mock distress, to the delight of the deckhands and officers assembled in the ship's bar. Somehow, I couldn't get that image out of my head, as Pascal, a mischievous grin now creasing his broad face, secured the knots around my wrists and gave me a wink. No doubt about it, whatever was about to happen next was totally going to suck.

NASA's Juno to Soar Closest to Jupiter This Saturday

This dual view of Jupiter was taken on August 23, when NASA's Juno spacecraft was 2.8 million miles (4.4 million kilometers) from the gas giant planet on the inbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

An update on the Juno mission, from NASA.

(more…)

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Dakota Pipeline decision delayed to Sept. 9, thousands of indigenous activists continue protest

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In Washington today, District Judge James E. Boarsberge said he will not issue a decision on a legal challenge by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Dakota Access, LLC, the private firm behind a nearly $4 billion oil project Native people say will destroy their land and cause unprecedented damage to human, plant, and animal life in the region.

(more…)

Baltimore police respond to report they secretly spied on city with aerial surveillance tech from Iraq War

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A report out this week from Bloomberg says that since January, 2016, people in the city of Baltimore, Maryland have secretly and periodically been spied on by police using cameras in the sky. Authorities today effectively admitted that the report is accurate.


(more…)

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

'Sassy Trump' by Peter Serafinowicz: 'What Do You Have To Lose?' edition

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“Martin Luther Trump stumbles through a teleprompted message of hope for absent black people.” (more…)

Satisfying video of the world's fastest shopping cart smashing into a wall

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Dynamic Test Center, a provider of engineering and safety tests of all kinds, rolled a shopping cart into a wall at 75 miles per hour. Apparently that's a new world record. That clip is preceded by a shopping cart smashing into a car at 11 mph. It's oddly even more satisfying to watch, particularly because it isn't my car.


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Watch a giant domino tower fall after 7 hours of building with 3,242 dominoes

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Epic fail.


What is described as “America's largest domino tower” collapses on camera, after 7 straight hours of building. (more…)

FBI investigating reported Russian hacks that target New York Times journalists and others

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The FBI is investigating what early reports say may be a coordinated series of Russian intelligence online security attacks targeting reporters at The New York Times. A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Times was among various U.S. news organizations targeted. CNN was first to report the story, and the Times has since confirmed some details, though individual NYT journalists on Twitter disputed others. To be hacked isn't the same thing as being targeted, and it's entirely possible that as usual, some of the security and general network technology details may have been lost in early translations.

(more…)

Monday, 22 August 2016

Amusing drunk caught on police bodycam wants footage off the net

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In this footage, Sgt. Eric Kannberg deals calmly with a belligerent drunk, Cory Counts, using de-escalation techniques even after Counts gets physical. After Kannberg gets a push from Counts and it comes time to haul him to the drunk tank, Kannberg decides not to pursue through a crowd, instead stalking him at a distance until a safe opportunity presents itself. Counts earned a misdemeanor charge and the the ignominy of having the footage posted to Spokane P.D.'s Facebook page. (more…)

Spider preparing a fly for dinner

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We found this little fellow in the garage preparing dinner. Despite a sultry summer, we've been free of flies and I figure it's all thanks to Team Cellar Spider.

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Sunday, 21 August 2016

How the New York Public Library made ebooks open, and thus one trillion times better


Leonard Richardson isn't just the author of Constellation Games, one of the best debut novels I ever read and certainly one of the best books I read in 2013; he's also an extremely talented free/open source server-software developer who has been working for the New York Public Library on a software project that liberates every part of the electronic book lending system from any kind of proprietary lock-in, and, in the process, made reading library ebooks one trillion times better.

(more…)

How to make a difference

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A PSA from Donate Life America.


Checking that box on your driver's license renewal, or application, is simple and saves lives.


(Thanks Robert O'Neal!)

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Hugo Award Winners 2016

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY4BwbfHBMA


Tonight in Kansas City, MO, at Midamericon II, the 74th World Science Fiction Convention, the Hugo Awards
were presented to a rapt audience in person and online, with voters weighing on a ballot
that had been partially sabotaged by a small clique of people who objected to
stories about wowen and people who weren't white.
(more…)

Help wanted: Director of Technology Policy for Consumer Reports

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This is a pretty amazing vacancy: "You will lead Consumer Reports in our effort to realize a market where consumer safety is protected through strong encryption; consumers' rights to test, repair, and modify their devices are supported by copyright, security, and consumer protection laws; and consumers are empowered to make informed choices about IoT products while being protected by privacy policies regulating the collection, use, and storage of their data. This is a chance to build something big, meaningful, and new."

Friday, 19 August 2016

Lane splitting now legal in California

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While not previously against the law, lane splitting was left up to officer discretion. Now it is state law that the lane splitting is legal. Officers will use their judgement to determine what is safe behavior and what is not.


Via the LA Times:




Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation by Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) that defines the practice and authorizes the California Highway Patrol to establish rules for motorcyclists on how to do it safely.


Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), a retired state highway patrol sergeant who co-wrote the bill, called the new law a "groundbreaking step."


"This is a huge win for roadway safety,” Lackey said in a statement. "We are now giving riders and motorists clear guidance on when it is safe."


Lane splitting, in which a motorcyclist passes other vehicles by riding between them along the lane line, has long been a controversial issue.


Technically, it has not been legal or illegal, falling in a gray area where it was treated as acceptable by law enforcement agencies. But when the CHP published guidelines on the practice in 2015, a citizen complained that the agency should not be allowed to create public policy. In came AB 51.


Quirk's original bill proposed that lane splitting could occur legally only when a motorcycle was moving no more than 15 mph faster than the traffic around it, and it prohibited the practice at speeds above 50 mph.


Several motorcyclists' groups objected to that, saying the limit was too low. Other groups and individuals, who believe that lane splitting is dangerous regardless of speed, objected to the proposal entirely.


The revised bill, which sailed through the legislative process, provides a basic definition of "lane splitting" and leaves the rest to the CHP. Quirk has said it has many benefits, including reducing traffic congestion and promoting safety.

Two smartphone accessories for snapping pro-quality photos

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When carrying around a bulky DSLR camera isn't ideal, we use these impressive add-ons to help turn our smartphones into quality cameras. 

Flexible Tripod for Smartphones and Cameras

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The Flexible Tripod for Smartphones and Cameras ($8.99) is perfect for capturing a group shot or leveling out your phone on an uneven surface. Its flexible legs can wrap around anything, even a tree branch, so it's great for taking photos while on a hike or while sightseeing. We were impressed with its sturdy construction that can even support a digital camera or oversized phone.

Universal 3-in-1 Lens Kit for Smartphones & Tablets

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If you really want to start taking next level pictures with your phone, we suggest you invest in the Universal 3-in-1 Lens Kit for Smartphones & Tablets ($11.99). These three lenses-fisheye, wide-angle, or macro-clip right onto your smartphone's lens and help you take pictures that'll look like they were taken with a much pricier device. The lenses clip on and off to keep from damaging your phone, and they come in a convenient carrying bag for easy transport.

 

Thursday, 18 August 2016

While eating man's face, Florida 'cannibal killer' wore Trump 'Make America Great Again' hat

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On Monday night, 19 year old Austin Kelly Harrouff of Florida went homicidally berserk for reasons yet unknown. He stabbed to death a random couple twice his age, also attacking a neighbor who tried to intervene. Then Austin began biting the dead man's face off.


Horrible new details are out today. When Austin's frightened mom called 911 to report his erratic, menacing behavior with family, she told the emergency dispatcher that her son was wearing a Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” hat when he wandered off into the night ranting about being a superhero. And in a YouTube video uploaded before the attack, he spoke to the camera about bodybuilding and steroids, and of taking “a lot of shrooms.”






A person familiar with the family gave reporters two snapchats Austin sent out hours before the attack. The snapchats show him making faces for the camera with the words "Trump" and "the horse" captioning the images.

(more…)

DoJ says it will end private federal prisons

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Six weeks after Mother Jones published its explosive undercover expose on the abuses, shortcomings and waste in America's vast private prison system, the Department of Justice has issued a ban on renewal of federal private prison contracts (where they are not able to do this, officials are told to "substantially reduce" the scope of those contracts), with the goal of "reducing -- and ultimately ending -- our use of privately operated prisons."

(more…)

The incredible true story of the Epcot Horizons superfans who ruled the ride

horizons06_lrg_465_309_int

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5wBsv0n5nA


In 1995, after a year-long closure, Disney re-opened Horizons, the GE-sponsored original Epcot ride devoted to showcasing different ideas about the future, a kind of heir to the Futurama at the 1939 New York World's Fair; fearing the ride was likely to be shuttered soon, two Epcot superfans began covertly exploring and documenting the ride, figuring out its ways and means until they learned how to penetrate it and hide from Disney employees while sneaking in their friends and having little celebrations.

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